It's been over a month since a made my last blog post and shame on me! I have already broken one of my new year's resolutions, which was to make a blog post at least once a week. Well I am going to make it up to you over the next month or two.
I still have to tell you about Alex Jeffreys workshop that I went to in Las Vegas. I think I will create a page dedicated to that instead of just making a blog post. We'll see. Please take a few minutes to watch the video below. I have some announcements about things to come and what I am going to be doing.
Please don't forget to leave a comment and let me know what topics you would like to have me cover over the next couple months. Also, show a little love and tweet this post or use one of the bookmarking buttons below.
Filed under Building A Business by 
Jeff Johnson is opening up his Underground Training Lab again with a new twist that he calls Operation Quick Start. The gates open up tomorrow, November 25th at 3PM EST, and I have put together an incredible bonus designed to give you all the tools you need to take advantage of Jeff's training. Let me explain that statement a little.
I have been a member of the Underground Training Lab for some time and have only scratched the surface on all of the content that is inside the members area. Operation Quick Start is a brilliant idea that Jeff came up with in response to feed back that people were running into information overload.
I understand why he did this. The training lab is made up of 10 modules. Each module has hours and hours of content consisting of videos, audios, and pdf''s. When I first logged in and skimmed through the modules, I new it was going to take weeks to go through all of this content.
Jeff has taken the KEY points from all the modules and broken them down into 7 Quick Start Guides. The guides are made up of action items that are designed to get you making money as quickly as possible. This will help eliminate people's tendency to put off taking action until they finish the entire course.
Now, as I was looking through the guides, I noticed that some of the tasks may still be beyond a beginners comprehension or simply something they don't feel comfortable with. Even though there is a lot of step by step instruction, it's still not the same as having someone with you looking over your shoulder.
I designed my bonus to address this and other issues. I have put together a kind of "mini" coaching program that will make sure that you are taking the proper steps to create an online business that will make you money now and moving into the future.
You will also learn the basic technical skills that all Internet marketers need to know how to do. I am not saying that you should do these things yourself. You should outsource as much as possible. The problem is that most people who are starting out don't have the budget to outsource.
The truth is that even though you will outsource a lot of the more technical issues, you need to understand how it all works. I will show you how to do what is necessary until you reach a point where you can start outsourcing.
I hope I have peaked your curiosity. I am not going to explain the bonus here because I have already dedicated an entire page to it. I think you will find that I have put together a package of tremendous value and I dare you to find someone offering a better bonus.
Click on the link to check out my Operation Quick Start Bonus.
Filed under Building A Business by
For those of you who don't know, I have been experiencing mega problems with my computer and now my web hosting. The computer is back to normal and I have all my software reinstalled with a minimal loss of a few files but no big deal.
I lost 2 weeks of work and content with the web hosting fiasco and my data bases got all screwed up. The support guy said he was going to try and recover my info off the old hard drive. I guess that means they had a server crash. They never really said what happened.
After 2 days of waiting I assumed all was lost. I have been concentrating on getting my Giveaway directory back up to speed because, as you know, the Giveaways have been popping up right and left and I have been working my butt off keeping my site up to date.
So today I fire up the computer and my blog comes up with my lost posts and the sign up form for my new ebook back in place. Surprise! Surprise! (any Gomer Pyle fans in the house) I checked my safelist and my other blogs and they are back to normal as well.
The funny thing is that now the blog post I made the other day is gone. So, I need to redo that post or at least touch on the main thing that I wanted to say. It was mostly a rant about my screwed up hosting but I am over it now and am just glad things are back to normal.
Mostly, that is. My email is still acting screwy. I can't view my email using Outlook like I usually do. I have checked all the settings and frankly I am getting tired of messing with it. If you want to send me an email make sure you use this new email jt@oventures.net
This is on my first ever hosting account that is with Zoot Hosting. It was part of a deal that I got when I joined as a lifetime member to Adtactics safelist a couple years ago. I have never had a minute of downtime with this hosting. I don't use it much because I am limited to one domain name. But, I only paid a one time fee and I have the account for life. Not a bad deal.
The weekend is here and I have worked a deal out with the wife. She is going to take the kids and vacate the premises as much as possible this weekend so that I can work in peace and try to get caught up. I have made great headway so far and should have every thing back to normal this evening.
Then I can continue setting up some peoples giveaway products for them. (thank you for your patience everyone) Then to get in touch with my partners in crime and launch a JV Giveaway event!
Filed under Building A Business by
I dedicated the better part of yesterday visiting the blogs of everyone in Alex Jeffreys coaching program. Of course I didn't make it to everyone's blog and the sad truth is that only about one half of the 500 students have even put up a blog. My guess is that if they haven't put forth the effort to get their blog online that they aren't going to do it.
There seemed to be 2 main themes that prevailed in all of the New Years posts that I read. New Years is typically a time for reflection but mostly for looking ahead at the upcoming year and making plans and resolutions. In other words, "Setting Goals". This was the most prevalent theme that I ran across. The second was "Encouragement and Motivation".
Alex has been pushing the importance of goal setting and planning ever since module 1. My productivity has increased 2 fold since I started using the Daily Did Sheets and always make tomorrows To do List before I go to bed. Fellow student Garry Parkes had a great idea and posted his goals for 2009 on his blog. Making his goals public is his way to motivate himself to be accountable and stay on track to make sure he achieves those goals.
I think that is a fantastic idea and I posted mine (not a complete list but the majors) in his comments. "Mr. Motivation", Gary Simpson, also went out on a limb and posted his goals for 2009. I would recommend this to everyone. This is not the time to be shy, this is the time to SHINE. Make yourself accountable because no one else is.
From what I have seen so far, you will have the support of your fellow students. All you have to do is ask. The list of students that are actively helping others is too big to list here. If you are making the rounds to the other blogs you can see evidence of this everywhere.
Nobody said this was going to be easy and its going to get harder before it gets easier. The next few modules are going to act like a big filter. We have already lost about half of the students. I am not saying that they have quit, but they are not taking action which dooms them to failure. I can only hope that they will get off their duffs and do something, but I am a realist and fairly good judge of human nature.
The next few weeks are probably going to weed out even more of the students as the realization hits them that this is hard work. I will be surprised if 25% of the students remain at the end of the program. I hope I am wrong and I hope that if you are one of those that might be wavering, you will take this as a challenge and do it, if nothing else, to prove me wrong.
Here is something to think about. When this coaching program is over, Alex is going to start another one. He has already said that he is going to charge at least $2000 a head for 500 positions which will give him a $1,000,000 payday or week, depending on how long it takes to sell the 500 spots.
He is going to let us be his affiliates and make 50% of the sale. We have the potential to get a piece of $500,000. If there are 250 of us left, we could each make $2000 by selling 2 spots each. Are you going to be positioned to sell 2 of those spots? The truth of the matter is that there will probably only be 100 or so of us selling the spots. Also, there will be a handful of students that will sell more than 10 spots and some that don't sell any.
Alex is preparing all of us to be ready to make the most of this opportunity but the affiliate sales will only be icing on the cake. The students that are taking action have already started publishing ebooks, creating partnerships, and just plain kicking ass in general. I am proud to be part of this group and I see big things coming in 2009 for all of my fellow students who take action.
Taking action is the most important step but you want to make sure your focused and have your goals written down. I have mine printed out and tacked to the wall in my office so I see them everyday. I am also going to post them here for the world to see which will help motivate me to accomplish them.
Here are my goals for 2009:
Personal
1. Vacation this year to visit wife’s family in Venezuela.
2. Lose 80lbs. target weight is 250, currently tipping the scales at 330.
Entrepreneurial
1. Create systems for all my tasks and start outsourcing.
2. Find at least 10 serious JV partners.
Business
1. Build a mailing list of 7300 subscribers. (that’s 20 per day)
2. Continue to write for the Profit Pulling Project, re-brand, and distribute.
3. Write my ebook series “The Web 2 Whammy” which I will use to build my list and then monetize with a follow up video series.
4. Spend at least 1 hour a day oil rig hopping. 1/2 hour for students and 1/2 hour with Comment Kahuna.
Income
1. To generate a minimum of $50,000 with my online business this year.
Some of them may seem lofty but you have to aim high. Actually, if I achieve all of my business goals, I think the income goal will be the easiest to make.
So here's a cyber toast to everyone. "To our success in 2009"
Filed under Building A Business by
Last week, when I attended module 3 of Alex Jeffreys coaching program, he announced that he was going to have a contest amongst the students and give away $1000 to the winner. He did not divulge the details until module 4 which took place this past Thursday evening.
I was seriously pumped up and couldn't wait to find out what the contest was all about. I ended up having to wait until late last night. I missed module 4 because I was at a Christmas party with my wife at PGA National resort, where she works. Boy was that a wing ding! (A story for another time)
Friday when I got home from my 8 to 5, the replay wasn't up on Alex's website yet so I checked in at some of my fellow students blogs to see if I could find out what the contest was all about. I gleaned that it was going to be who could drive the most traffic to their blogs over the next 2 weeks. Sounds like *productive fun*. I love the way that Alex motivates us to succeed by taking action.
I didn't want to start until I got all the details. I am taking the entire week of Christmas off so I will have more time then usual to take my shot at the $1000 prize. My wife gives cellulite reduction massages on the side and had several appointments so I took the kids to the park and the library for most of the day. After everyone settled into bed, I sat in my office and listened to the recording of module 4.
I call it my office. It's a large walk-in closet that a desk just barely fits in and I have put up shelves to store all my internet marketing products and ebooks that I have bought and printed out over the last few years. It's quite the collection.
Back to the contest. Like I mentioned before, it's about driving traffic to my blog. The conditions are that you must prove your results with Google analytics and you must post about how you are driving traffic to your blog. Once again, Alex is helping his students help themselves. By posting your methods on your blog, all of the other students will be able to go to the other student' s blogs to see what methods they are using.
Alex has really put a lot of thought and planning into this coaching program. I have been immensely impressed since the beginning and it just keeps getting better. His recommendation for driving traffic is about visiting the other students blogs and leaving comments without *pimping* your blog. If you provide value, the traffic will come.
That is what blogging is all about. Be yourself and be helpful to others. People will respond in kind. Alex is a student of the guru's guru, Rich Schefren. One of his favorite quotes from Rich is "marketing makes selling superfluous". Don't sell, provide value and the money will follow.
I already have Google Analytics installed. That is how I know that since I started this coaching program, the traffic to my blog has increased by 643.55%. I have achieved this simply by taking action on everything that Alex has instructed us to do. Mostly, it has come from me going to my fellow students blogs and offering my help and making constructive comments.
In turn, they come to my blog and leave comments. Alex calls this technique "Oil Rig Hopping". The analogy is that your blog is an oil platform. It is a known fact that offshore oil platforms attract huge amounts of fish and sea life. The reason for this is that algae grows on the structure which attracts clams which attract small fish which attract bigger fish which attract even bigger fish which attract sharks.
Your blog is the oil rig. Your content becomes the algae and the clams which start to attract visitors. The more visitors leave comments and create a "buzz" about your blog, the more fish come to your oil rig. Eventually, your content will attract the notice of bigger fish, ie. successful internet marketers and eventually some of the gurus.
This is the technique that Alex used and enabled him to build some very powerful JV partners over time. With that said. I am going to concentrate on this technique to try and win the traffic contest. I am also going to branch out from our group of students and start commenting on other internet marketing blogs.
I am using a free tool called Comment Kahuna. This software goes out and finds high page rank blogs that have the no-follow feature disabled for their comments. This is very important for SEO when you are building backlinks. Google page rank is heavily weighted on backlinks. You want lots of backlinks from blogs with high page rank. That way some of that page rank is transferred to your blog. Using Comment Kahuna will serve a dual purpose: traffic and back links.
Another techinique that I am using is to submit my RSS feed to all the directories I can find. I am also submitting my blog to every blog directory I can find. I will continue to create more videos and to submit the videos to all of the video sites like YouTube and Viddler. This will get my blog's URL a lot of exposure which will lead to more visitors.
I use a lot of free traffic generating programs. I am going to pause all of my other ads and direct every scrap of traffic that I generate to this blog. There are too many to list here on this already to big blog post but I have a Hub page dedicated to all the ways that I get traffic for free. Take a minute to check it out. Some of the programs require very little effort and will gain you exposure simply by going about your normal business online.
I also have over 50 Hub pages and Squidoo lenses that I am going to put links on that redirect back to my blog. This is part of my Web 2.0 traffic strategy that I am going to reveal more of in the next couple posts. I am putting together something that is going to enable all of my fellow students, and any one else that wants to participate, leverage the power of social marketing. I am going to call it the "Web 2.0 Whammy".
Alex has mentioned this several times but I don't think the majority of my fellow students realize the power that is within our grasp if we work together. I hope to finish Web 2.0 Whammy before Christmas. If everyone implements it, we are going to see the hit counters on our blogs spin out of control and we are going to dominate the search engine results.
That's enough for now. Stay tuned for some videos on how I'm driving traffic and how to get more exposure for your blogs.
Filed under Building A Business, Make Money Online by
