Introducing: The Reluctant Blogger “Aww.. Ma, do I have to?”
This will be my first "blog" and to be perfectly honest, I’m not thrilled about it. I’ve been hearing for months about how I should really start blogging and the mere mention of the word "blog" is beginning to make my stomach turn a little I’ve been making a great living online for the past 5 years without ever having to start blogging or trying to “create a name for myself” or anything like that, and quite frankly, I preferred it that way. I never in a million years wanted to be famous for selling stuff or even well known and I certainly never wanted my name used in a website domain. All I ever wanted from this online business thing is to never ever have to be locked in as someone’s employee ever again… to make enough money to stay at home and have the freedom to work where and when I please. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to that.
I’m happy to be able to say that I’ve been successful in that regard for just over a handful of years now. Working from home, I’ve been blessed with the extra time I wanted to raise my step-son from age 10 on up, he’s now 15, to be the fine young man he has become. (I’ve apparently done so well that my wife has decided it’s time to have another and we’re starting all over again sometime this coming August when she’s due! That’s fantastic news and we’re thrilled.
But, it also means that it’s time for me to grow up a little and stop lurking behind the scenes making a moderately good income when I could be out here helping people AND building something larger than just my own marketing endeavors.
You’ve probably never heard of me before now. And, that’s good. It’s mostly because I liked it better that way until recently, but also probably because I’ve never claimed to have a bestseller hit and I’ve never been touted as a “super affiliate”, whatever that is, although making hundreds of sales a day, sending thousands of visitors a day, to my favorite merchant as an affiliate probably would qualify.
Ah, those were the good ol’ days. Up until just about a year ago, if you had any knack at all for writing short catchy phrases, PPC (pay per click) was easy money and a mostly passive income too. Getting checks every two weeks for thousands of dollars from Clickbank is pretty fun, especially when the work was done months previous and you haven’t done a darn thing but have a good time all summer. Unfortunately, these days PPC usually also involves a lot more work, like creating websites and landing pages, and that also amounts to extra steps for the consumer and so usually less sales for you. The easy days of writing a great AD and sending targeted traffic directly to a merchant seem to have become a thing of the past. These days everyone seems to be all about building email lists and keeping those customers for yourself, instead of just passing them on to some merchant. So, now that means that the days of easy passive Internet income are over and the whole thing involves a lot more work and time and creativity.
However, being an affiliate can still be fun and it’s a good way to learn the ropes of online marketing and business because it allows a person to focus on marketing and learning the technical aspects of the work while collecting a nice fat check for your efforts and letting all the merchants’ worry about all the headaches of running the actual business.
I will be adding a few articles on how to be a successful affiliate, however the bulk of this site will be focused on research, product creation, Internet marketing and generally how to start your own online business and get your own affiliates.
But, whether you start out as an affiliate or you jump right into online business with some sort of mall or shopping cart site, eventually you’ll have ideas and you’ll want to create your own products too, like me over the past year or so. When that bug bites, you enter a whole new world of mine fields to navigate, just to learn the basics, with countless experts vying for your attention, clogging up your inbox. Cutting through the clutter is a real challenge. Knowing who to listen to is another. I’ve been around the block enough times to know usually who’s telling the truth and who’s full of nonsense, or just full of themselves, and I’m pretty hard on most of these “gurus”. I certainly won’t be recommending anything just because I have a deal with someone or I’m getting a commission.
No, the only tools, websites, software or information products that will be recommended here are either things that I myself use or have used successfully in one way or another. I’m even working on releasing, very soon now, some software of my own that I’ve been building and using that will completely automate the whole process that I personally use to sell digital products through my favorite payment processor at the moment, Clickbank.
So, to sum it all up, my reasons for finally giving in to my family’s and friends’ repeated requests to start this blog, even though I don’t care about seeing my “name in lights”, are many. Even though I really don’t relish the thought of writing articles every day, or even every week, I do feel the need to give back and to help people who are starting out like I was years ago. Also, I feel the need to give back to the community something that I never found while “cutting my teeth” in online business; an honest behind the scenes look at some of the more practical “nuts and bolts” aspects of the actual work required. Plus, it will be nice to have a simple URL to give to the people I meet almost daily that ask me to explain how I make money online.
The pitfalls when just starting out in online business are many, and they’re pretty much impossible to explain in just one sitting, even though I often try.
The first one is that unless you are starting out with lots of disposable money that you don’t mind burning while you learn how to outsource everything, you’re going to have to get the job done yourself somehow. Usually, get anything done yourself you’ll most likely have to learn at least the basics of writing ads and articles, plus many technical skills, along with codes like HTML, CSS and PHP, unless you already know all that. And, even if you already have lots of money and are planning to outsource everything from the start, having at least some knowledge of the technical side is important and can help you avoid getting taken advantage of.
So, future articles on how to create and do certain things with your websites will be a high priority.
Another thing I will be addressing is the reality of working from home and what you can do to protect yourself from the predators out there and how to keep your sanity amid the enormous steaming piles of hooey out there.
Believe it or not, there seem to even be people out there who have a vested interest in creating the illusion that it’s all so easy that anyone can do it, or that it takes so little time that you can do it on the side. While this is possible through automation it usually doesn’t come until after you’ve done all the tedious work to actually start your business and the way most of those online business or “work from home” products are presented is an outright lie.
When I think of this, the recent wave of bad television commercials for shady online business products leaps to mind. One even has some cartoon fox telling you to be “Crazy like a Fox”. You’d be crazy to buy that junk. In my experience, the truth about online business and working form home is that… sure the opportunities are there, but the whole thing just isn’t suitable for most people and very few people really do have the patience and determination and self motivation and enormous amounts of free time, (or if you have none of those… the money) that is required to start a home business on the Internet.
But, these “gurus” and “experts” out there want as many people as possible to believe that just anyone can do it… with their instructions of course. They want as many people as possible to believe their lies… at least long enough for them to buy themselves a case of information overload. I imagine that if they only sold their products to the people that could actually use them they probably wouldn’t be so filthy rich.
Whether it’s intentional or not, most online business and “work from home” products are usually overflowing with every sort of vague and useless overview-type information they can throw in, often managing to never provide a single bit of practical specific detailed information on any one thing. This “information overload” often seems to be designed to keep your head spinning at least long enough for the refund period to expire.
Then they’ll turn around and tell you your problem is that you have “information overload” (I think some Internet marketing guru probably coined that phrase), and then they’ll proceed to sell you another of their products that’s supposed to fix this new problem they themselves have created!
You’re left with folders full of junk products that just sit there, useless… collecting digital dust. And, if you’re like I used to be, you’re probably immediately off buying the next new information product that claims to have all the answers. You may even be starting to think that maybe these guys are misleading you, or intentionally spreading misinformation for their own profit, or just not telling anyone the whole truth. And, in many ways I think you’d be right.
You’ll probably be shocked to learn that even most of those websites out there in this field that advertise, “Don’t get scammed”, or similar things are some of the biggest scams out there! To top that, I won’t name names today, but even most of the sites that claim to be for “work at home Moms” are full of scams! It’s outrageous. Who can you trust when that sort of nonsense is tolerated?
So, the main mission of this blog will be to help people avoid getting taken advantage of by the sharks that so frequently swim in the muddy waters of online business and Internet marketing.
If you’re one of those little sharks out looking for unwitting sucker to promote your stuff, or you’re a new student of online business that’s just looking for some kind of fake product recommendations thing full of rosy images or overly positive descriptions, you should leave now. This is not the site for you. This blog is for people who can handle the truth without having their whole day ruined just because I’m not “being positive” or some such hooey.
I’ll instead most likely be doing the opposite, using my unavoidably hilarious and sometimes sarcastic wit to cut through as much bull as possible to bring you practical, timely information on how to really start generating your income from the Internet.
