21st Century Affiliate Marketing

I hope the subject of this post didn’t mislead you. If it did, I apologize right now.

I just didn’t have room to ask the real question I’m pondering this morning…

How much do you have to earn from something in order for it to be worth the effort?

That’s closer to what I’m thinking about.

My goal for my online marketing has always been to clear $100 per day for my efforts.

Since I don’t use pay per click advertising, and I no longer have upgraded memberships in the traffic exchanges (or even use them anymore), and I don’t use paid classifieds any longer, my only overhead is hosting, domain names, and a few services that are ancillary to what I’m doing.

So, it would seem that being able to clear $100 per day would not be too difficult. All I’d have to earn is about $110 per day and the goal would be met.

Still, it just isn’t working out that way.

I used to think the plan to follow would be to have 100 sites each earning a dollar a day. It sounds simple, but it never worked. Some of those sites were lucky to earn a dollar a month.

As much as I like the concept of having many little revenue streams that add up to one large revenue river, the reality has never lived up to the idea.

A couple of years ago, I thought I was well on the way, but things took a detour, as you already know, and I’m trending downward.

There are some reasons for that, I know.

1. I was earning profits by recommending the traffic exchanges and a couple of MLM programs. However, over time, I realized that this was just a treadmill and I was getting nowhere fast.

2. I was making a profit by recommending books and other products through Amazon.com, but they dropped me when the NC legislature passed the tax law this summer.

3. I was making a profit by recommending some ebooks that I used to think were valuable, but no longer think so, so I stopped recommending them.

4. I was earning money from Squidoo from publishing lenses, but that has been declining and I just earned the lowest amount I’ve ever earned from them for a month - just over $2.00.

5. I was earning nice checks from Cafepress.com for the designs I’ve uploaded, but that has declined since they started setting the prices they’d charge in the marketplace. Now, most of my sales are through the marketplace and, instead of earning $7 or $8 per sale, I’m earning closer to $2.50. I’m making more sales, but earning less money.

6. One thing that is really holding up for me, even though it’s still down from what I saw the last couple of years, is earnings from recommending Site Build It. The residuals for annual renewals are doing very well, but the new sales have declined quite a bit. Lately, I’ve been doing more work on planning what I’m going to do on my SBI-powered sites than I have been in promoting the service. But, I believe that it is a long-term strategy that will lead to increased profits in the long-run.

7. Google Adsense income has continued to do pretty well, even though it, too, is down from what I used to earn. Part of the reason is that I’ve removed it from some of my popular sites. I’m starting to reconsider that move and I may be adding Adsense ads back to some of my sites where I previously removed them.

So, those are some of the things I’ve been thinking about.

Then, over my first cup of coffee, I asked myself, “How much do I have to earn from something in order for it to be worth the effort?”

Now, I’m asking you that question, too.

If you promote something and it earns only a few dollars per month, or per year, is it better to just let it ride, because something is better than nothing?

If you think that is true, would you do the same thing in real life?

In other words, would you take a job that just pays $10 per month, rather than one that pays that much - or more - per hour?

If you would not, why would you settle for earning that much from a program online?

Let’s say that you’re earning $100 per month from a program, but you work 20 hours or more, per month, to keep it going. Is that worth it?

What if it only took a couple of hours to earn that $100? Would that be worth it?

Now, this is where you’d probably expect me to recommend something and pitch you on why you should buy it to help you earn more.

I’m not going to do that.

I’m seriously interested in your opinions and hope you’ll comment with your expectations, observations, and evaluations of what you’re doing and how well it’s going.

If I were still depending upon earning a living from affiliate marketing this year, I’d be nothing but skin and bones and living in a culvert or under a bridge somewhere.

I’m still earning a living from my online marketing efforts, but it’s mostly from helping local business owners in Murphy, NC promote their brick and mortar businesses online. I’m not earning what I want to earn, but at least it seems to be growing a little.

So, what’s your opinion?

How much do you have to earn from something for it to be worth your effort?

Act on your dream!

JD

I was reading several blogs and forums where people were talking about how much money they earned (or didn’t earn) from affiliate marketing in October.

The more I read, the more I realized that I’m not doing as badly as I have been feeling.

After all, I earned a living from this for quite a few years, and, even if my income has dropped quite a bit over the last year, I’m still earning more than many people are.

Now, I know that sounds selfish and I hope each of you has greater success with your affiliate marketing efforts in 2010 than you’ve had in 2009.

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been reading about many people who are working hard to earn something and still haven’t made any money at all. I can remember how frustrating that is. When you’re doing everything you know how to do and it isn’t producing any results, it can be a very difficult and disheartening experience.

I remember how happy I was to get that first commission check from Amazon.com quite a few years ago. Over the years, I’ve received checks from a number of companies and I still get a thrill when I endorse and deposit them.

Although they aren’t coming nearly as frequently as they used to, a few are still arriving and I’m thankful for each of them.

I’m wondering now if I’ve lost my way with affiliate marketing. At one time, I worked hard to send people to Amazon.com and looked forward to commissions from them. It was fun finding products and telling my readers about them.

Those were products that real people were interested in.

When I say “real people,” I’m talking about folks who aren’t interested in affiliate marketing. They were people who saw a link to something that interested them and they purchased it. Sometimes they purchased several things totally unrelated to what I was writing about and I earned a commission on each of those sales.

Now that Amazon.com dropped me after NC passed the new tax law this summer, I’m wondering if there is another company that would be a good substitute. I still love recommending books and some other consumer products, but don’t know of a good company with which I can work.

Do you have any suggestions?

As those of us in the United States get closer to our annual Thanksgiving Day holiday, I’ve been looking at things from a different perspective.

I think I’m over being stressed out about all the things that have gone wrong in the last year or so and I’m starting to focus more on what can go right over the coming year. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to hang on this year and now I’m setting my sites once again on prosperity instead of mere survival.

A year from now, I expect to be in much better financial shape than I am today, and to get there I’m going to have to create a new plan and work hard to achieve it.

One of the things I’ve identified is that this blog is not an income producer. Lots of people read it, but few purchase anything. Most of my sales come from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with making money online.

Years ago, I was advised by someone who knows a lot about online marketing and he said then, and it is even more true now, that the world doesn’t need any more websites and blogs about making money online, especially when the people building those sites are not very successful themselves.

I’ve talked about being interested in too many things for my own good, and not being specifically interested in a few things I could build a site around.

My brother, before he became disabled, loved drag racing. It was a life-long love and a few years ago I started building Georgia Drag Racing for him. He was working to write a book about the golden years of drag racing in the Atlanta area and was making great progress before he got to the point where it hurt too much to sit at a computer for very long.

So, that site has seen its best days and will be declining over time as less content is created. Still, surprisingly, it remains one of my best-earning websites, even though it has many links to Amazon.com that aren’t earning me anything and which I haven’t had the time or energy to remove.

It’s not at all about earning money online and I think that’s the key to its success. It attracts people who enjoy drag racing and they’re willing to spend money on their hobby.

I’ve watched as others have done the same thing. I know of people who have built successful, money-earning websites based on such diverse topics as dealing with insurance problems, telling Halloween and ghost stories, juggling, repairing computers, kitchen counter tops, organic gardening, hydroponic gardening, modeling advice, and dozens of other niche subjects that interested them and which they built into sites that produce a substantial annual income.

I have been trying to find a niche for myself in which I could do the same thing, but so far I haven’t found it.

At least, now, I know all the things I will need to do to build and publicize such a site if I can ever identify a topic that I can love and be willing to write about every day.

I’ve come close to such a niche, but it is not really what I’m talking about.

I love living in the mountains of Murphy, NC and I love the people, scenery, and pace of life here. I’ve been promoting the area and a few businesses off and on over the years and this year I’ve been concentrating on building Murphy Connections, a social networking site, and Murphy Gold, a site for promoting a few locally-owned, small businesses that are located in the Murphy NC 28906 ZIP code.

I’m starting to have some success with those sites and look forward to spending a lot of time working on, and improving, them over the coming months.

Another site that I enjoy, but whose earnings have dropped dramatically since I removed all the Amazon links is my Act On Your Dream! site.

Basically, I lost focus on that site, but I’ve been brainstorming a lot of ideas and now have a plan for updating that site on a regular basis. Now that Sitesell has made Content 2.0 free for all SBI sites, I’ll be adding more interactive features to it over time. In fact, I think that I’ll be blogging less as a result.

In fact, I’m going to be taking some of what I’ve written in my blogs and repurposing it on that site to see how it works.

Even though I’ve just gone through the worst 12 months of my life, I still believe that we can achieve what we want if we identify our goals, make good plans to accomplish them, and then put in the required work to make it happen. In as little as a year from now, we can make big changes in our lives.

I’m going to be acting on that belief.

What about you?

What do you think?

Is affiliate marketing working well for you?

Have you identified niches that are good income earners?

What company do you recommend as a substitute for Amazon.com?

I welcome your comments and look forward to discussing them.

Act on your dream!

JD

Even though I have had little to say on this blog for the last month or so, I’ve been here reading the comments that have been submitted, and I’m sad to say that the great majority of them have been deleted. Some have been submitted to Askimet as spam.

I don’t like doing that.

I deliberately set up this blog to follow comment links and I think that’s fair if you’re going to take the time to contribute to our discussions.

However, the word “contribute” is the key word in that sentence.

A one sentence response telling me I’m doing a good job just isn’t contributing to the conversation, and I delete those. I’ve deleted several dozen of these non-helpful comments over the last month.

Trying to spam this blog with off-topic comments, especially when they link to sites I’d never link to, is a good way to get sent to the spam page where your comments will be deleted and reported to Askimet.

If you want me to approve your comment and welcome you, then there are several things you should do.

Tell me who you are.

Either use your name as the link back to your blog or sign the comment with your name. Preferably first and last name.

A marginal comment with a name in the link and the comment will generally be approved.

However, if you use keywords or the name of your site in your link, that’s one strike against you.

If you don’t use your name in the link and don’t sign your comment, that’s a second strike against you.

If your comment is marginal and you have two strikes against you, I’ll delete it. This isn’t baseball, so I don’t have to wait for three strikes.

On the other hand, even if you have two strikes against you and your comment is relevant, useful, and adds to the conversation, I will usually approve it.

I like talking to real people, not keywords and not site names.

I’m going to be even more strict about this in the future.

As much as I enjoy discussing these topics, I hate not knowing to whom I am talking.

There are other reasons I would delete a comment, but I don’t feel a need to go into all of them here.

Once I get back on track to where I feel like I can add information related to affiliate marketing, I’ll resume posting here.

I’ll be looking forward to your comments and discussions, as long as you are a real person who treats me like a real person, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

For the last few weeks, I admit that I’ve been feeling sorry for myself because I’ve had to face so many obstacles and make so many changes in my marketing business.

All of that comes to an end right now.

No more.

It’s time to face the obstacles, set new goals, evaluate new products, and start promoting again.

I got to thinking about that when I read the address that President Obama will give to students tomorrow. I wrote about it on my John Dilbeck and Friends blog: President Obama’s Speech to Students.

Even though I’m still confronting a lot of conflicting feelings and thoughts about affiliate marketing — and marketing in general — it’s time to look for the positive aspects and not concentrate so much on things I don’t like about it.

I’ve resolved not to do the things I don’t like, so now it’s time to resolve to do the things I do like and enjoy.

So, you can look forward to me talking much more about affiliate marketing programs and products I like and much, much less about the struggles to overcome obstacles.

I really do love affiliate marketing and look forward to getting back into it with a much more positive attitude.

Act on your dream!

JD

For years, I’ve loved affiliate marketing, but lately it has felt more like a chore than a passion and I regret that.

It seems that I find more that I don’t like about it than I love about it, at least lately.

I have been recommending products and services for several years and always felt that I was suggesting something of real value to my readers. Now, I’m not so sure.

Over the last few months, I’ve stopped everything related to “recruitment marketing.” I don’t know if there is a better name for this, but that’s how I’ve come to think about it.

For several years, I was a real fan of SFI Marketing Group and Cognigen Systems. Since both of them are MLM companies, part of the job is to recruit other affiliates and help them. One of my favorite ways to recruit new affiliates was by using the various traffic exchanges and downline builder programs.

Now, after years of this, I no longer do it. I still feel like I was giving my best recommendations and advice based on what I knew at the time, but I’ve learned a lot since then and my interests and circumstances have changed, too.

While I no longer recommend traffic exchanges, I remain a member at several, mainly because I’ve gotten to know the owners over time and I like them. I think they are genuinely doing their best to help their members, but I think that the traffic exchanges themselves are not a good way to introduce yourself and your services to people who really want to work to build their own marketing business.

After having recruited thousands of affiliates, I cannot say that I can name a single success out of the bunch. That doesn’t mean that some of them have not branched out into their own niche and become successful. I don’t know if they have or not, but I know that it was a colossal waste of time for myself and well over 90% of the people who signed up from one of my links.

Instead of trying to help others who are mostly non-responsive, I’m turning my attention to promoting a few services and products that I know are truly helpful for people who are ready to make use of them, and that they are the best of brand in their respective niches.

I’m very happy to continue to recommend Site Build It and Aweber to anyone who is serious about building an online marketing business. I’m a happy customer of both services and expect to be for years to come.

However, I’ve come to realize that both of these services are only going to appeal to a small minority of people who are seriously ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Both take a lot of time and work to understand, and even more to put to their best use.

Work and dedication seem to be anathema to most people who dream of having a home business. Instead, they want something automatic that floods their inboxes with money. I have yet to find such a system and I don’t think one exists, yet there are plenty of people who are willing to lie to you and sell you one, anyway.

Yes, both Site Build It and Aweber are systems, but they are tools and training that you have to put to work, not some kind of “push button success machine.” You have to invest the time in learning how to use what they offer and then follow their systems and adapt them to your own personal interests.

This takes work, money, and time.

Since being dropped by Amazon.com and several others this summer (just because I live in North Carolina), I’ve spent a lot of effort undoing years of work. While doing that, I also stopped promoting a lot of other things I promoted in the past.

I wrote about this here: Making progress by going backwards

Now, I find that I am less motivated to do all the things I used to love about affiliate marketing, such as finding and researching new products and services, reviewing them to see if I thought they had real value, and then building websites and blogs to promote them. These days, I find it increasingly difficult to even write about something I really think is a good value for some people, such as the current Site Build It Back to Work special.

I don’t know if I’ve learned some important lessons or if I’ve become disenchanted with affiliate marketing — something I never expected to happen.

I’m also wondering if I can ever recover my former affiliate marketing income just by promoting two services I really believe in. I don’t think that’s possible, and I think that I’ll lose you as a reader if all you ever hear me talk about is Site Build It and Aweber.

Those are not the only tools I use in my business. I have sites hosted by HostGator and I’m one of their affiliates, but I just don’t want to promote them. They offer a great service and I’m happy with their quality. In fact, this blog is hosted on one of their servers. Still, I just don’t want to promote them, when I compare them to Site Build It, which offers a much different set of tools, but has a system that I believe offers my readers a much higher chance of success than what they can get from traditional hosting services.

The same goes for Aweber. I’m an affiliate for several of their competitors, but after testing all of them, the only one I would use for myself is Aweber and I don’t see any reason to promote anything that isn’t the best.

So, I’m wondering if I still have a future in affiliate marketing, or if this is just some kind of phase I have to work through.

There are some excellent ebooks out there that I can recommend, but now I consider most of them to be overpriced and increasingly out of date. What they taught may have worked several years ago, but I don’t think it will now. So, I don’t promote them.

I’m hoping that I’m just going through a reassessment phase and that I’ll rediscover the love I once had for affiliate marketing. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not.

What about you?

How do you feel about affiliate marketing these days?

What are your favorite affiliate marketing programs and merchants, and why?

I’m looking forward to reading your comments.

Act on your dream!

JD

I want to take a moment and thank my friend, Mitch, for the very kind words about me on his Blog Day 2009 post.

I also want to thank him for introducing me to the Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. I have a feeling that reading what Marelisa has to say will become one of my favorite early morning activities. It’s nice to find someone who thinks about a lot of the same things I do, but expresses her thoughts much better. She’s not even afraid of writing a long post!

Thanks, Mitch. You’ve been kind and expanded my world at the same time. I appreciate it.

Act on your dream!

JD

I was going through several hundred emails this morning and the more I looked at the subjects, the more I got annoyed by some of them.

Now, this has taken years to start bothering me, but today, I think I reached my limit.

I posted a tweet on Twitter that said, “I no longer open email with subjects that include words like sneaky, exclusive, tricks, secrets, hurry, and so on.”

Others quickly agreed, aj1996 said, “Wish people would do the same with Lens titles & NOT inc words like “secrets” !!!!!!”

I agree with that, too. The same goes for books, ebooks, reports, and everything else.

Brian D. Hawkins said, “Hi John, many email clients spam emails with words like that automatically.”

That’s where I got confused.

I know that some of the emails I receive with those words are spam, but some come from real people.

I’ve read all sorts of books about copywriting and writing headlines, and most of them suggest using “power words” and words that create urgency and excitement.

I think that’s fine and good for headlines in print ads and in real snail mail letters, but it’s overkill when you see dozens of emails in one morning that use those same words.

Folks, there are no secrets to marketing success. It’s a matter of finding the best products and services and promoting them honestly.

Now and then, someone will come up with a new idea that will be popular and soon everyone else (the people I call “me, too” marketers) will run it into the ground and ruin the effectiveness.

For example, a year or two ago, someone started using “The Death of…” to sell an ebook. (My memory is hazy on this, since I wasn’t interested in the product.)

Before you could turn around a couple of times, I started getting emails about the death of this and the death of that and it became pitiful in a week or two.

Today, I really became annoyed when I saw all those email subject lines. I looked at the subject and then at who was sending the email to me. I opened not a single one of them — poof, right into the trash.

So, what do you think about this?

Act on your dream!

JD

For the last several days, I have been diligently working to update and rebuild all of my Act On Your Dream! website.

This is one of my favorite sites and I was dismayed to see how much I’ve neglected updating and adding new information to the site. That’s something I plan to remedy in the coming weeks.

This morning, I was editing the Delicious Tag Cloud page and noticed that there were tags for things I’m no longer interested in and others that I no longer promote.

It’s been awhile since I’ve really worked with Delicious.com (used to be del.icio.us) and I realized that I had several dozen bookmarks that I needed to delete and others that needed to be edited to remove tags that were no longer appropriate.

It was a fairly easy process and I was reminded why I like Delicious.com more than the other bookmarking sites.

Do you use bookmarking sites to share your bookmarks with others? When is the last time you took a look to see if you’re showing what you want to share, now?

It took maybe an hour to update over 200 bookmarks and to winnow them down to less than 200. They make it easy.

Act on your dream!

JD

The last six weeks have seen a very interesting change in my affiliate marketing strategy — well, interesting to me and possibly to you.

Part of this was not part of my ongoing plan — getting canceled by Amazon.com, for instance.

Part of it was finally having time to update some websites that had been neglected for most of the last two years as more and more of my time was devoted to caring for Mom and then working on settling her estate.

Part of it was reevaluating products and services that I’ve recommended over the last few years and deleting links to many of them. While I still feel that almost all of them were good products and worth what they cost, I’m no longer comfortable recommending them.

And, if I’m no longer comfortable doing it, why should I continue?

So, I spent a lot of time this morning removing and redirecting affiliate links for a variety of products.

I’ve been working day and night undoing what I spent years doing — finding and linking to affiliated products on a variety of websites, blogs, Squidoo lenses, and other places on the web. I don’t know how long it will take to find and delete all of them, or if that’s even possible, but I’m working on it diligently.

So far, I’ve deleted nearly a thousand pages on my various sites and at least that part is done.

Progress is not a continuous upwards curve

No matter how much we would like to have continuous, unbroken progress in our businesses, it just doesn’t happen that way.

There are always downturns, obstacles that must be overcome, and changes that must be dealt with.

Yes, it feels like that takes us away from getting our work done, but the truth is that it IS our work.

So, even though I’ve been undoing a lot lately, I feel like I’m finally making some progress by clearing out the old chaff so I can concentrate on growing new wheat.

(No, I’m not a farmer. That’s a metaphor.)

It’s a strange idea, possibly, but I really feel like I’m making progress even though most of what I’ve been doing has been going backwards.

On the positive side, my new website for promoting select locally-owned brick and mortar businesses in Murphy, NC is doing well and I’ll be devoting more and more time to building and promoting Murphy Gold over the coming months.

What part will affiliate marketing play in my future?

More and more, I’m asking myself that question, and I’m unsure of the answer.

As I get pickier about what I recommend to you and have to deal with unexpected things like changes in the NC tax code that got me dropped from several affiliate programs, I find it harder and harder to recommend products and services to you.

Of course, I’ll continue to recommend Site Build It! and I’ll continue using it for my new static sites. At this time, I don’t have any plans to create any new sites and may still decide to delete a few more, but the new sites I build will be powered by SBI.

What do you think?

Those are some of my thoughts about online marketing on a hot summer afternoon.

What do you think? How’s your affiliate marketing business progressing — or not?

Act on your dream!

JD

I am not one of those people who is obsessed with privacy. In fact, my life is pretty much an open book since I started building websites and blogging.

Still, I was annoyed when I discovered some time back that Google was tracking my browsing on any site that had Adsense ads. That’s one reason I removed those ads from this blog, although not from all of my sites.

We talked about it here: I will not participate in Google’s interest-based advertising.

At the time, I didn’t want to be part of the problem. Later, I learned that Google Adsense ads would still leave cookies and maybe web beacons from any of their ads, whether or not I opted out of interest-based advertising.

Today, I read an interesting article on the New York Times…

Google Is Top Tracker of Surfers in Study

It seems that my decision to opt out of interest-based advertising on Adsense ads is more like tilting at windmills. It makes almost no difference in the grand scheme.

Sigh.

Act on your dream!

JD

I want to wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends around the world, even if you live in a country that doesn’t celebrate today as a holiday.

Today, I’m thankful for a loving family, great friends, and hot chocolate on a cold morning.

I’m also thankful for all the friends I’ve met online who live on widely separated continents. Most of you, I’ll never meet in person, but some of you have become very good friends.

Yesterday, I spent a very enjoyable day with my family and friends. Today, I’ll spend more time with family. I made sure to hug everyone, some more than once.

I’ll get back to business next week. Today is a day to celebrate being grateful for all the things I’ve received, the great friends I’ve met, and the joy of a loving family.

I hope you have a wonderful day, too.

All the best,

JD

Today, instead of affiliate marketing, I’m going to talk about Mattie Lee Dilbeck, my Mom.

In memory of Mattie Lee Dilbeck

Mom died on Friday evening, November 21, 2008, and it was a difficult day for several reasons.

Before I talk about her death, I want to talk about her life.

I am one generation from the farm. Mom and Dad both grew up on farms and worked very hard when they were young, and that’s something that probably made them stronger when they were old.

I don’t know how many stories I’ve heard about plowing fields behind horses and mules under the hot summer sun or picking crops when their fingers were so cold they could hardly move early in the fall mornings.

My Mom was the oldest in her family and Dad was the youngest in his.

Mom and her younger brother, Floyd, used to work together to plow the fields when they were young because it took both of them to manage a plow. Mom collected arrowheads they found in the fields and I still have a few of them, now.

Mom was born on November 6, 1920, and was a child of the Great Depression. As a result, she recycled and reused everything. She was a master at getting full use out of something and discarded it only when it was completely used up.

She was a master at getting the full value of coupons and spent years clipping and passing them around to her friends and relatives, easily saving several hundred dollars per month in foods and household goods, which was a useful skill when money is tight, and it has always been tight in our family.

Mom had to drop out of school before finishing high school to help on the farm. It was only when she was in her mid-20s that she learned of the Berry school in Rome, Georgia. Even though she was about ten years older than her schoolmates, she went back to high school at Berry Academy.

For the next few years, she worked her way through the school and one of the things she loved was baking for her fellow students.

While there, she saw Henry Ford when he visited the school and - if memory serves - she made a short speech for him and his friends.

When she graduated, she was Valedictorian of her class and this was a great accomplishment for her and is something she valued her whole life.

After Berry, she moved to Chattanooga and started studying nursing at Erlanger Hospital.

In those days, nursing students could not be married (for whatever strange reason) and she was less than a year from graduating when she met Bill Dilbeck. Mom’s sister Geneva told me that it was a love that could not be denied.

Mom was an honest person her entire life. She told the truth, even when it was inconvenient. Some of her classmates told her to get married and just lie about it. That was what a few of them had already done. Mom would not do that. She quit nursing school and was married in December 1950.

Mom and Dad moved to the Atlanta area. My grandmother, Cornelia Godfrey, was sick and I think Mom helped care for her. My memory is vague about some of this.

Cornelia died shortly before I was born, so I never knew her. I’ve been told that I missed a very good person.

I was born in 1952 and my brother, David, in 1957.

While going through Mom’s papers yesterday, I found a two page receipt for the hospital stay and services when I was born at Georgia Baptist Hospital. For delivery, doctor’s fees, anesthesiologist, surgical, miscellaneous, and a room for three days, the grand total for my birth was $74.20, paid in cash on July 4, 1952, when they brought me home.

Dad wanted to call me Firecracker, but Mom put a stop to that. It’s a shame, because I like being called Firecracker.

I won’t go into a lot of detail. The highpoints…

David was born in December 1957. I don’t know what he cost.

We moved to Vero Beach, Florida in 1960, because of Dad’s arthritis. He worked hard managing several thousand acres of citrus crops during the early 60s.

We were close enough to Cape Canaveral that we could watch the rockets of the space program launch on TV and then rush outside to see them streak upwards into the sky. When the first Saturn V launched, we were amazed to be able to read “USA” on the rocket from about 70 miles away without even using binoculars.

After going through a hurricane in 1965, Dad decided that was going to be his first, and last, experience with those storms and we moved back to the Atlanta, Georgia, area.

Dad was hired back at his old job at Mullins Brothers Paving Contractors in East Point when we happened to run into his old boss in a restaurant while looking for a place to live. Dad never even had to look for a job. How’s that for a sign?

They bought a house in southern Fulton County and Dad worked at Mullins Brothers until he retired in the early 1970s. Mom worked as a power machine operator at several factories and worked even harder raising a couple of cantankerous sons.

Dad had been raised in eastern Tennessee and Mom in north Georgia. When he retired, they split the difference and bought a house - the one I’m in this morning - in Murphy, NC. That way, they’d be able to visit both branches of the family fairly easily.

Dad was about seven years older than Mom, so she had to work when they got here. She worked as a power machine operator for several years and then was hired on the Older Americans project by the USDA, where she worked in a tree orchard for several years.

By this time, I had moved to Murphy to help them out because Dad’s health had started to decline. Even so, he could outwork me any time he wanted. I taught computer programming at the local community college.

When Mom retired, she signed up for college, because it had always bothered her that she never was able to finish college and dropping out of nursing school had been one of the big disappointments of her life. A couple of years later, Mom graduated with an Associates degree in Business Administration, and then she retired.

Life went pretty well for both of them for the next few years.

In the summer of 1991, just a few days after going to watch the Independence Day fireworks, Dad died in his favorite chair of a massive heart attack. One minute, he was getting ready to go work in the garden and the next minute he was gone.

For the next 17 years, Mom continued to live here. She was an active gardener and loved flowers and herbs. She could tell you more than I ever wanted to know about any flower or plant in her garden and around the property.

Mom spent over 30 years studying our family history and easily knew more about the Godfreys and Dilbecks (our direct branches, at least) than anyone else on the planet. Much of this research was done before the Internet, and it required writing many letters and visiting many places to find the information she needed. I’ve put a small portion of what she learned on my Genealogy page or Genealogy Overview page.

I have boxes of records - mostly hand-written - that Mom collected during her genealogy research and we’re lucky that she compiled a good bit of it into a couple of books that she had printed for our family. Several of us have copies of those books.

We lost a great family historian when Mom declined to the point she could no longer do the genealogy research she loved so much.

Mom was always learning something. She has dozens of books about birds (she loved hummingbirds), flowers, gardening, cooking, and many topics related to her religion.

Mom was friendly and could talk to anyone.

She was a loving parent, loyal friend, devout Christian, and would do anything she could to help someone in need.

Mom was always scrupulously honest, even when it was not convenient for her.

She taught me how to read several years before I entered first grade and encouraged my education throughout my life.

In 2001, on Halloween, she started bleeding and couldn’t get it to stop. I took her to the emergency room. A few days later, on her birthday, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Weeks of radiation and chemo preceded surgery in Asheville, NC. What was expected to be a stay of a few days turned into over six weeks in two hospitals. The cancer surgery was successful, but she suffered nerve damage that left her in constant pain, and unable to walk or care for herself.

They wanted to put her in a nursing home in Asheville, but after talking it over with Mom, I said, “No.”

My daughter and I brought Mom home and I cared for her - where she wanted to be - until August 2008. It was a lot of work, but I would make the same choice today. She helped me when I needed it, and I have been happy to return the favor when she needed my help.

In August, her health suddenly declined and she had to be hospitalized. A week later she was moved to the nursing home attached to the hospital. Her health continued to decline and she found it harder to communicate as the weeks went by.

The last couple of weeks were frustrating. She was losing weight and strength. After her birthday, it was difficult to communicate with her. It seemed that she understood what she was hearing, but could not complete a sentence.

On Thursday, November 20, 2008, I started running a fever and throwing up. All the yucky side-effects of getting sick. I was planning to visit her Friday afternoon, but was sick enough I had to call the nursing home and ask them to tell her I would not be able to make it.

Late Friday afternoon, Mom’s doctor called and told me that Mom’s systems were failing and he didn’t think she’d live longer than a day, if that.

I called my brother, daughter, and ex-wife and told them. David would not be able to get there before Saturday morning, but Dena (my daughter) and Kathy (my ex-wife) went to the nursing home to be with her. Of course, I was too sick and they would not have let me in, anyway.

Dena called later Friday evening and said Mom was asking about me. She held the phone to Mom’s ear and I was able to tell her I love her and told her that everything would be alright.

Later I learned that David and my cousin Jacque also had a chance to talk to her.

Unfortunately, we could not understand what Mom was trying to say, but Dena said she smiled when listening to us, and we can only hope she understood what we told her.

I fell back asleep.

Sometime Friday evening, November 21, 2008, I’m still not exactly sure what time, Kathy called and told me that Mom had died.

It has been a very sad weekend and I’m sure today and tomorrow will be sad, too. Mom’s funeral will be this evening, and we’ll go down to Coal Mountain, Georgia, tomorrow to bury her with Dad and her family.

She’s better off than she was. She has always been an active, friendly, and talkative person, but it was very difficult to understand what she was trying to say the last 10 days, or so. Most visits consisted of talking to her, helping her sip some Sprite or juice, and holding her hand. Now and then, I could understand what she was trying to say, but it was getting more difficult.

I posted some photos of Mom on my Facebook account yesterday so Dena could try to make a CD that we can show at the viewing. We don’t have many photos of Mom, and I lost many when a harddisk crashed a couple of years ago. But we do have a few.

This should be the link to the public gallery, if you are interested:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck Photo Album

One of my favorite photos of Mom should be visible at:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck - this is the same photo that is shown at the top of this post.

There is much more that could be said about Mom, but I’m going to stop here. I’m still feeling bad and I think I’m going back to sleep for awhile.

Some of the details here may not be entirely accurate. My memory is not completely reliable on some of these details, and I’m still really foggy about what has happened over the last weekend. At least I’ll be well enough to attend her funeral and burial.

I’ll be getting back to work later this week, but the next few days will be family time.

Townson-Rose Funeral Home created a memorial page for Mattie Lee Dilbeck, should you wish to visit it.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, try to help someone or a family who is hungry this holiday season.

All the best,

JD

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about tip jars since I wrote What do you think about tip jars on websites? back in September.

As I wrote in my last comment on that thread, I leave tips on some very useful sites, such as thefluffanutta’s SquidUtils.com. He provides an outstanding service for Squidoo lensmasters and I’m happy to leave him a tip when I think about it.

I’m going to leave the PayPal donate button in the right column of this blog, whether or not it gets used.

On the other hand, I removed the TopSpots list yesterday.

After two months, with thousands of visitors and no nibbles, I simply deleted it. *Poof!*

I’ll still use that service to advertise this blog on other blogs I like, but won’t be offering it here.

In general, I don’t like to have paid links on my sites, and this was the only one where I was doing anything like that. So, even though I was playing by all the rules I know, it never felt comfortable for me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with TopSpots, but it just doesn’t feel like a good fit here.

Act on your dream!

JD

For a few moments, I’m going to turn my attention away from affiliate marketing and towards something I find just as interesting and certainly more important.

The people who know me the best know that two of the things I appreciate most in this world are boobies. There, I said it.

I want to encourage you to do what you can to help save the boobies.

On a more serious note, most people know someone who’s life was tragically impacted by breast cancer. This is your chance to help promote the 7th Annual Blogger Boobie-Thon to raise funds for breast cancer research and to show your appreciation for boobies everywhere.

This fundraising drive ends at midnight on October 7, 2008, and they have a goal of raising $10,000. With one day left, they need to raise about $2,000 more to reach their goal.

Please do what you can to help.

In general, I like to maintain a positive outlook on life and I rarely write posts that contain negative comments about companies and people I don’t know and with whom I have no personal experience.

However, in this case, I’m going to make an exception.

Again, none of this is based on personal experience or knowledge, and I’m sure there are at least two sides to every story.

This morning, I wasn’t feeling very well and I was moving slowly. I watched Meet The Press (still miss Tim!) and then Face The Nation.

I’d printed out the latest Five Pillar Affiliate Report, more on that in a later post, and had left the TV on as background noise while I read.

Then something caught my attention and I started watching the TV show - an informercial about Russ Dalbey’s “Winning in the Cash Flow Business” training materials.

From somewhere, I don’t remember where, I already knew a little bit about cash flow notes and, from my experience long ago, knew that making money by brokering sales of these cash flow notes based on the time value of money isn’t as easy as the show made it out to be. For one thing, a lot of people who have a cash flow note (from lottery winnings, settlements, lawsuit judgements, and so forth) prefer to get a monthly or annual check and don’t care about getting a lump sum, especially when that lump sum is a lot less than the total value of the note.

Have you tried to explain amortization to someone? That’s a lot easier than explaining the time value of money, especially when they have absolutely no interest in talking to you.

I’m not saying that money can’t be made this way, but it surely isn’t as easy as the infomercial leads us to believe.

But, what it did really well was to build excitement about getting lots of money easily. Then, there was the deadline designed to make you reach for your credit card. I don’t remember the actual price of the course, but if you bought it before the show was over (18 more minutes, nine more minutes, one more minute) there were bonuses, free shipping, and a discounted price that was purported to be about a quarter of the regular price.

Now, I understand how this works. The course is obviously a loss-leader and is designed to get you on their list. I suspected that it would be followed up with back-end upgrades and additional offers, so - even though I was tempted - I didn’t reach for the phone or a card.

Later, after reading the 5 Pillar newsletter and taking a nap, I got online and Googled “Winning in the Cash Flow Business.”

I was shocked by what I read on a couple of sites where people had posted their reviews. They were overwhelmingly negative with only a very few positive reviews.

Now, that may not mean as much as it does if you take it only at face value.

If I’m satisfied with a purchase and I learn something that works for me, I’m not going to be looking for a place to review it, unless it is really spectacular.

On the other hand, if I am dissatisfied with something, I’ll express my opinion.

The stories I read about this business were scary. Buy a course for $20 or $40 (it varies) and then someone calls you on the phone and pressures you to spend thousands of dollars. That’s unconscionable, if the stories the reviewers related are true.

There are people out there who must feel as if it is morally wrong to leave a sucker with any money in their pocket or any credit on their credit cards. I’m not saying this company fits that characterization, I don’t know, but there are others who are expressing that sentiment.

(You may want to read what Ken Evoy wrote about Success Stories And Mooch Marketing. Before you reach for your credit card, stop, think, and and perform your due diligence. Learn from the mistakes of others and don’t get suckered in by the glitz, glamor, and promises of easy profits.)

One of the things that caught my attention was that several people related that they had been scammed again (my emphasis).

What does it take to learn?

How hard is it these days to do some research online before handing over your hard earned money or easily spent credit?

Now, I don’t know if most of the stories the people told are true and accurate representations of what they experienced with this company. I don’t know if any of them are true.

But, I don’t have to burn my hand when someone tells me the stove is hot.

When you do a general search for something and the majority of the results on the first page warn of scams, pressure pitches, mistreatment, and not following through with what is promised, why on earth would you send them your money or associate with them in any way.

So, that was my mindset when I found the company’s official website.

As is my habit, I scrolled to the bottom to see if they have an affiliate program, and they do. I clicked on the link and read about it.

It looked great. Super Easy. Fast Payment. Big Commissions. Why Is This The Best Affiliate Program Online?

Yes, it was tempting.

In fact, I’m sure I could make money promoting this.

But I’m not going to.

As I’ve said before, “if it’s not good enough for me, it’s not good enough for you.”

I won’t buy it, so I won’t promote it. It’s just that easy. I sleep easier at night knowing that I wasn’t a part of someone being bilked for thousands of dollars.

Now, I don’t think I’m your parent or guardian. You’re free to make up your own mind and buy the product or join the affiliate program and promote it. It’s totally up to you.

Again, I don’t know if the stories I read are true or not. I don’t know if the company is reliable or not. I don’t plan to do any more checking.

Two aphorisms come to mind in a situation like this…

• If there’s smoke, there’s fire
• If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Maybe this stove is hot and maybe it’s not, but I’m not going to put my hand on it to find out. There are too many other ways to make money online that I know are legitimate and ethical.

I know that I won’t promote it and that’s the end of my story.

Act on your dream!

JD