Guy Kawasaki's New Book - 'Reality Check'

Hello Readers,

I just purchased Guy Kawasaki's latest book, Reality Check.

Guy has one of the best techniques for writing books about business! He not only makes them readable, he makes reading them fun and informative at the same time. This is something many business book authors fail to accomplish. Many authors are writing to an audience of other authors, and miss the point of the effort.

Unless your audience is made up exclusively of authors, you had better find another calling, because your book will not be read by anyone. Guy captures and narrates succinctly the start-up issues facing new companies. He provides a clear road-map to writing the 'business-plan', obtaining angel or venture capital financing, and most importantly exposes the things that will prevent you from succeeding at any of the above tasks.

He uses real-life examples of business foolishness, that really drives home his points completely. His writing style is brief, focused, and lively. Humor is a major component part of the book, and the 'dual-introductions' are hilarious, one 'final one' from "the fake Steve Jobs".

I met Guy Kawasaki at BlogWorld Expo 2008, after his lunchtime keynote with Steve Rubel. I mentioned that I had a copy of his earlier work, "The Macintosh Way". He paused and said, "oh, that's going back a few years!". Guy was so kind to hang out and answer questions after the keynote. He is accessible and puts his audience at ease. His knowledge of Silicon Valley is key to the depth and expanse of the information found in 'Reality Check'.

When I recently started following Guy's exploit's on www.Twitter.com and at www.alltop.com, I realized how multi-faceted he truly has become. He has a loyal following of former Apple Computer fans, who are now iPhone and Macbook users. Guy has stayed very current with Web 2.0 issues, and still pokes fun at the establishment, exhibiting an altruistic, helpful approach.

A recent photograph of Guy and Sir Richard Branson had Richard polishing Guy's shoes with his coat-jacket! Now that is truly customer service, and explains Richard Bransons considerable success with the Virgin Brand.

Please do go and find this book, buy it, read it and implement the steps Guy has defined. One day American business can return to the ethics, prosperity, and accomplishments that made it great.

I'm going to go and finish reading this book, and will post Part Two of my mini-review, in a few days. I purchased the book at a local Borders in California, and with my Borders discount the book was $25.00 + tax.

I would have been willing to pay twice that amount for the book, and plan on picking up a few more copies to send to ahem, companies that still don't 'get it'.

Please leave me a comment below, let's start a conversation and over on Twitter.com/nachase

Do You Ever Feel Like Quitting?

Hello Readers,

It has been a while since I last posted. Locked in a research phase to determine the direction of my on-line businesses in 2009.

The on-line business world is challenging, competitive, confusing, ever-changing and frustrating. On-line companies are experiencing this phenomenon today.

News of lay-offs, credit markets tightening, government at a loss to cure the short-term effects of this waterfall downward. In a recent post I asked the question, "How will you innovate?"

So how do you react to this negative information? Is everyone losing their job around you? Are you depressed, angry, confused, bitter, feeling alone and not sure how to proceed? Join the club! Many on-line marketers have enough experience to see these changes as an opportunity, not as a liability.

Practicing the 'long view', will help them survive a brief change in their on-line income and prepare for the certain 'economic turn-around' when it arrives. Housing prices are down for one good reason, the 'American Dream' caused many first time homeowners to get in over their heads. Being unsophisticated in financial matters, they trusted their 'professional' mortgage lenders to handle the why and hows.

"Just get me in that house" was all they could say. Now that the adjustable interest rates built into their loans increased, in many cases their monthly payments have 'doubled' without a supporting income to match the new payments.

USA's foreclosures are at a record high level. The resulting 'bad loans' have caused AIG Insurance and Lehman Brothers Stock Brokerages to fail, as they cannot borrow cash to run their companies day-to-day expenses. Further abuses have been reported as lavish business trips to exotic locales has undermined the company's reputations. Huge cash bonuses paid to departing executives, while the rank and file worker is 'left holding the bag' are inexcusable.

The recent arrivals of Automobile executives by private corporate jets to the automakers bailout hearings in Washington, DC demonstrate a poor choice on their part to the consumer.

So, what do you do? You get busy! You read every blog post that has anything to do with on-line marketing, selecting those experts who have a trusted history of profitability and many comments on their blogs. Some recommended authors are below.

I have met all listed below in person, except Seth Godin, but he is always traveling and speaking at Google and other companies, advising them on various marketing issues they are experiencing. I hope to cross paths with Seth one day, 'he gets it'.

Read the blogs, both current and past by thought-leaders like: John Chow, Shoemoney, Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Zac Johnson, Jonathan Volk, and other thought-leaders in their class. Comment on their blogs each time they post a new blog. Subscribe to their RSS feed to get updates when a new post has been created. Google their names to see all of the trade shows and seminars they attend. Go there and meet them, and ask them for help.

Join Twitter.com, not just a 'texting service' for adults, but a solid way to connect with people like Sir Richard Branson and Shaquille O'Neal. In this way, by conversations with the experts, and reading their post's, you will gain nuggets of information that will help you craft your on-line focus.

Feedback from those that have 'been there, done that' will also save you valuable time and money. So get out there and read and comment. Put a link to your blog in your comments. These blogs are read by thousands of people, and may just increase visitors to your blog.

If you liked this post, please leave me a comment below.

Respectfully, Nicholas

How Will You Innovate?

Hello Readers.

I just Tweeted a challenge to leave a comment on my blog regarding how you will 'innovate' your way through this current economic downturn. Is your current 'day-job' at risk of ending? Have you thought of how long it may take you to obtain your next job?

Innovation is something our country has done from it's very beginning in 1776. The people who came here did not have satellite dishes or computers. They did not have banks, stock markets or financial advisors.

They came on ships, with a few belongings and started their lives in the wilderness with virtually nothing.

Contrast with today, we have incredible technologies, robotic surgeons and Blackberry's that connect us to everything, even Twitter.com/nachase. If we can continue to innovate we can survive this downturn and 'LEARN' from it's lessons.

Money is something people perceive as having value, but it's just paper and ink! Your brick and mortar company is of some value, if you have profit to pay the maintenance, salaries, insurance, heating and cooling, and electric bills, along with all of the other expenses, like crushing taxes!

Innovation needs to infect our marketplaces. If a few bad apples, greedy mortgage lenders and stock brokers can initiate a landslide down the hill to failure and bring this great country to it's knees, and spread this blight all the way to China, something fundamental is wrong with our 'perceived value system'.

I do not have any insurance from AIG, yet they have affected me. I had no stock at Lehman Brothers, yet their poor decisions have affected me. My government officials truly do not know what they are voting on, but the senators and congress merely meet in small groups and say "How are you going to vote on this 100 page bailout package?"

Without even truly knowing what's contained in the text, without a clue on it's impact to you and me, they rush something, anything to a vote and say they are 'working hard' for the folks back home. This is a practice that must stop.

Let's simplify the equation. If you are in need of financial assistance to buy a home, let's oversee this process with a simple form:

What are your expenses and income? _________________.

Is there room for a mortgage payment?_______________.

If not, you do not get the loan. Sorry, end of story.

My parents paid their bills and lived within their means. This generation has been so heavily marketed to the point of financial ruin. Personal debt is something that everyone accepted, mailing out credit cards by the bushel-full to eager shoppers, who now face a very different, less happy future.

Do you really need a $400.00 device to innovate? Perhaps....

Do you really need a $45,000.00 car with shiny wheels and a 2,000 watt stereo pushing the window glass away from it's mountings, to be happy?

What say you? Will you innovate or perish? Are you facing a bleak financial future? What suggestions do you have for your representatives in Washington that they will hear and act on now?

We are all in the same boat, and I am bailing out the water in mine like an Olympic athlete, trying to make a dent in this on-line marketing challenge.

What are you going to do? Leave me a comment below, and Twitter.com/nachase.

Lets Innovate!

Respectfully, Nicholas

An Informative 'Guest Post' from Adam Carn

Please read and engage with Adam Carn, who is launching an exciting turn-key program to quickly get a money-producing website up and running. Enjoy!

GUEST POST
Climbing To The Top: Newbie’s Guide To Making Money Online.
By Adam Carn

If you're a newbie to making money online, you're either confused as hell or have information overload and don’t know where to start. I actually don’t blame you cos I was once a newbie too. Although it was a long time ago I do understand how it feels. I have come a long way and now and make a good living purely from the internet. You’re a newbie, I once was a newbie, we’re the same, I’m not some type of super human, I‘m not any better than you. If I could do it, then you definitely can too.

What I want to do is to clear your mind, I want to detangle your thoughts and put you on a straight path. I’m going to tell it how it is. REMEMBER, I’m just going to direct you, I’m not going to walk you through the tiniest step otherwise we’d be here all day!

1) Pick Your Passion.

Pick something you’re either good at or something you’re passionate about. Really think about this one. Don’t pick something like “weight loss diet” just because some expert said it’s a good money maker unless you really are passionate about the topic.

If you absolutely love Formula One Racing, pick that. If you’re good at hair dressing, pick that.

2) Your Online Presence:

How do you do that? Simple. You need a website or a blog.

Don’t panic. It’s not that difficult. If you’re a total newbie then I recommend setting up a http://wordpress.org blog because you can easily update that with new content whenever you want. To do this you will need a domain name and hosting.

You can get a domain name from http://godaddy.com
And for hosting I recommend: http://ezhost123.com

Pick a domain name related to your chosen topic. Pick either a .com .net .org or .co.uk domain name. Try keeping it quite short if you can. Pick a catchy domain name. Make it either professional or fun. Some will tell you that you need a keyword rich domain name, ignore all that, because you need to brand yourself! (more on this later).

You then setup your Wordpress blog onto your new domain name.

3) Two Words… BRAND YOURSELF!

I don’t care if you’re a newbie or a guru. You need to brand yourself. Brand your name, if you don’t want to use your real name use a pen name. Also name your blog. Don’t just name it, BRAND IT! Give it some POW!

Branding yourself or your blog/website is probably THE most important thing you can do. Why? Because this will be your online identity for everyone to see. Branding will give you recognition, with recognition you will gain trust, with trust you will gain power and with power… You will make money!

Here are some examples:

John’s Java Joint - johnsjavajoint.com - Coffee related niche

Kool Kuala Klub - koolkualaklub.com - Kuala related or could be a cool name for any niche you choose!

Passion For Fashion - passionforfashion.com - Fashion related niche

These are just examples (good ones though!).

TIP: When you pick a name for your brand make sure a domain name is also available for it. Your brand name and your domain name must match.

Branding doesn’t end when you have picked a name. Nope, you need a logo baby! A good one too! Not only that, your blog needs have a sharp, clean design.

Don’t know anything about design? Relax I got you covered.

You can design your own logo quickly and easily with this free logo designer: http://www.logoease.com

For your Wordpress Blog, there are hundreds of stunning free themes to choose from. They’re easy to install too. You won’t have any trouble looking good!

Wordpress blog is easy to install onto your domain name, for more info just search on Google.

Looking good is EXTREMELY important. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice or an expert. You need to have a strong presence on the net. Because like in the real world, first impressions count on the internet too. You wouldn’t go to a six figure job interview wearing jeans and t-shirt would you? You wouldn’t stand a chance.

4) Let The World Know Your Opinion:

You have an opinion right? Good, now express it. Don’t be afraid, go nuts. If you’re passionate about something it’s easy to express your opinion. Turn your views into writing and post it on your blog. Simple. Passion is magnetic, it’s not something we see much on the net really so use it to your advantage. People love reading passionate stuff. If you’re good at something people will want to learn from you.

You should develop a style, it can be wacky, it can be aggressive, it can even be slightly rude but you need to develop a style and it should show in the content create. This is all part of branding yourself. You don’t want to sound like the rest, you want to be unique because you are.

5) Getting Recognised:

Ok you got your blog, you branded yourself, you posted your first article on your blog now how do you get people to notice it?

Well first you need people to notice YOU before they notice your blog!

Here are my recommended methods.

-- Sign up for http://twitter.com (free). Twitter is a fast moving social networking platform where you update your friends on what you’re doing throughout the day and they update you as well. The beauty of Twitter is that it becomes so fast moving that you can literally chat with your followers. You can follow your friends friends, they can follow you, you can join in their conversations and build relationships with them, it can get really fun. It’s a fun and easy way to get recognised. Once you get some recognition you can show them your blog, they’d be happy to look at it and tell their friends about it. It’s all very powerful stuff. It’s like a viral effect.

Whenever you make a new post on you blog you can tell everyone on Twitter.

-- Use http://socialmarker.com to bookmark your blog on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Propeller, Delicious, Furl, Technorati and Reddit.

-- If appropriate, submit your post as an article to article directories such as: http://goarticles.com , http://articledashboard.com and http://articlecity.com .

These methods will get you a lot of traffic to your blog.

6) But How Do You Make Money?
Ok the easiest way to make money from your blog is by being an affiliate. An affiliate is someone who sells something on someone elses behalf and is paid commission for it. The best affiliate programs by far are from http://clickbank.com . Sign up with them, it’s free. Browse their marketplace for products related to your blog. Get your affiliate (hoplink) link. And put it at the end of your posts on your blog. Add a little description for it. With Clickbank you get huge commission like up to 75% and $70 per sale!

Other affiliate programs worth considering are http://google.com/adsense and https://affiliate-program.amazon.com

These don’t pay as much as Clickbank but I recommend them very much.

There you have it. If you get stuck on anything, a simple search on Google should be all that’s required. I have given you the plan, it’s time for you to take action.

If you follow these steps it won’t be long before you see money rolling in. And like a snowball effect it will keep growing, so will your reputation, so will your brand and so will you. Your recognition grows, your brand grows, your money grows, you grow and so on. You can really FEEL the snowball effect here can’t you?

Once your established in this, you’ll become a pro. You’ll be recognised as an expert. You will have power.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Adam Carn
http://syteblack.com

---------------------------------------------

You can follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/adamcarn

SyteBlack.com your super sleek money making website. Totally newbie friendly.

Sir Richard Branson - Genius Marketing 101

Richard Branson, yes 'that' Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Books, Virgin Atlantic et al, has launched a unique method for advertising and promoting his latest book, 'Business Stripped Bare'. A link to the video can be found, at the end of this post.

The Strategy
OK, picture this, a group of men and women dressed as businessmen and women, except without pants, just undergarments and knee-socks, strolling the streets of London during commute hour to promote Richard's latest book, 'Business Stripped Bare'.

They were offering the first downloadable chapter of Richard's book using a business card handout scheme, and getting the attention of all! How easy this was to implement, no huge marketing campaign, no public relations and product launch headaches, just people to people, a proven technique for generating sales for hundreds of years!

How I Found Out About This...
Mr. Branson recently started 'following me' on Twitter (www.twitter.com) a free, live messaging / contact service that has received the attention of some major United States corporations. I have of course begun following him.

I read his previous 'tweets' by looking at his 'Profile' page. There was a tweet and the URL within to watch the hilarious video, but also hugely successful marketing efforts.

About Twitter
Twitter limits your messages to 140 characters, and URL's are shortened to permit fitting them into the space allotted. Twitter permits the ability to read other users 'tweets', their individual outbound messages to add to the publicly-viewable stream of messages, or with the option to privately 'direct-message' those you are 'following'.

Start Using Twitter Today!
If you are not using Twitter, I highly recommend you begin at once! I have made some very important contacts, and received inumerable value from using the service.

In a previous post, a contact made on Twitter led to my attending BlogWorld Expo 2008 and meeting Shoemoney, John Chow, Jim Kukral, Robert Scoble, Doc Searles, Laura Fitton and Zac Johnson, the current 'thought-leadership' in Affiliate Marketing.

Here is the link to Mr. Branson's video:
http://entrepreneur.virgin.com/2008/11/12/nearly-naked-business-people-take-over-london-2/

Please leave me a comment if you liked this post, and buy Mr. Branson's book here in America please, we need the economy to turn around quickly! Respectfully, Nicholas

Jim Kukral Launches The Biz Web Coach Today

Hello Readers!

I've been in a deep SEO-study for a bit, trying to see if this will enhance my on-line marketing efforts, or at least get slapped by Google?

Anyway, exciting news today! Jim Kukral @ www.jimkukral.com is launching his re-branded site today here:

http://www.jimkukral.com/

Jim is a very helpful, knowlegable internet marketing consultant and coach.

I met Jim at BlogWorld Expo 2008, where I videotaped approximately 20 sessions in two and one-half days of the Expo.

Jim was the moderator for many of the sessions, and he kept the sessions lively and informative.

Hoping that Jim has massive success with his re-branding launch today!

Respectfully, Nicholas Chase

Off the Radar Screen - Hunkered Down - Success Around The Corner?

Hello Reader! You have probably wondered if I 'fell off the earth', as I have not been posting for a while. Truth is I've been hunkered down in my modest bungalow, trying to figure out my next on-line marketing move. With the current economic turmoil out there you would think I would just give up my dream of a home-based, on-line marketing empire?

The news media would have you believe that the sky is falling. This is mis-information. A few 'criminally-greedy' wall street players, have brought this upon themselves and the world market.

The government, in trying to clean up the mess made by others, is only exacerbating the issues.

Emotions run the stock market. Bad news causes stock to rise, a perverse reaction for sure! Bad news should not cause investors to profit, but it has been this way since the beginning of the stock market. The wealthy people are only going to get richer because of the government 'bail-out'. Are you going to see any of this bail-out money? Not unless you are a large bank like B of A.

The BlogWorld Expo 2008 experience in Las Vegas, really opened my eyes to what is possible in on-line marketing. The presentations I saw there like Gary Vaynerchuk's, www.winelibrarytv.com really drove home the point that hard work, long hours, and dedication to your dream, no matter what or who may try to talk you out of it, is the only strategy that will bring you success.

If you truly have done your homework, are or becoming a recognized authority in your chosen market niche, and have a passion for your chosen products or services offered on your website or landing pages, and you post every day, you will eventually find that web traffic will find you!

Gary stated that he responded to every email or comment made on his website for an entire year. He engaged the customer for his wine products in a meaningful conversation, and others discovered his knowledge and dedication were the real deal. He spent years studying wines and food, so that he was able to answer every question posed to the satisfaction of the requester. He also visited other authorities in the wine business, left comments on their blogs or websites, and started a conversation that helped him to grow his business to a current value of over $60-million dollars!

If you are genuine, people will sense your expertise and want to do business with you. If you treat people poorly, your reputation will be ruined, as news travels faster on the web than any other medium today. Newspapers are printing hours-old news. The tv news is at least 2 hours behind real time to assemble the stories and air them in edited-down video formats.

The web is instantaneous, Twitter, My Space, Facebook and other sites are read by millions of people per day, and this is the new paradigm for Web 3.0. People want the truth, a space that the traditional news media cannot compete with, nor do they have the time or money to fully analyze the data, and provide a resultant meaningful story.

Currently, they report something very irresponsibly, like "extremely high fire danger today!" And the insane person with the highway flares goes out to wreak havoc on an innocent society by startng fires on the day with guess what? "The Highest Fire Danger". How stupid can they be? Why not announce that the fire department will be attending training today, "Gee, I hope there won't be any fires today"? (I got off-subject here, but that 'high-fire-danger news-reporting' issue makes me mad!).

The relevance of the web is so pervasive, that people like Matt Drudge are now followed by Presidential Candidates! Matt has become a hit because he publishes timely stories, that are controversial to traditional news-gathering techniques and institutions, and he is quicker to publish before the mainstream media even can discern that the story is developing. Matt has become an authority in his space.

How will you become an authority in your market niche, and how do you convince your customers that you are the real deal? Most important technique taken from BlogWorld Expo 2008. BE YOURSELF! BE HONEST! Be the kind of marketer people like to talk about in positive terms. Become the best at what you do. Outshine the competition by being as authentic as you possibly can be!

Truly successful marketers put their customers first. Need to exchange a bad product? Fed-Ex it overnight and eat the cost. You will have gained the trust of a customer who was unhappy, and now is very happy with the way you have treated and valued their business. Go out of your way to be helpful and you will beat your competitor's who do not do this or do not even care!

This customer will talk positively about you, and cause others to want the experience of the same level of service 'that they are not receiving elsewhere'.

How many of you are tired of voice-menus? Companies used to answer their telephones. Now it's all buried in voice-menus, hoping you will quit before successfully obtaining the ear of an actual human being! Make sure you place your telephone number on your contact information page, answer you telephone on the third ring maximum, and if necessary call your customers back promptly.

They will be totally shocked and surprised at the level of care this demonstrates to them, and you can usually resolve the issue during this brief telephone exchange. Use this time to ask your customer if the experience could be improved, or if they could pass along their positive experience in a forum comment?

Customer Service has been pushed to the bottom of the priorities of most of the companies I deal with. And yet they tell you in their advertising, how much they value their customers! If you only do this simple act consistently, you will see a tremendous boost to your traffic numbers, serving the people who are making your company grow! Imagine a reader seeing all of the positive feedback from previous customers! Goodwill will be established, and you will be successful.

Social Networking is the current buzzword. I know of one software architect that is releasing his product using Social Media, and 'viral-marketing' as his main marketing focus. In this way he tightly targets his potential customers, who are already savvy web users or successful Pay-per-click, Affiliate Marketers, and his software tool will be much easier to market to this selected group! By the way, the product is called iSpionage at www.ispionage.com

Please leave me a comment below, I will respond! Respectfully, Nicholas

My Dinner with John Chow and Shoemoney!

BlogWorld Expo 2008 in Las Vegas! My dinner with Shoemoney and John Chow!

Nicholas Chase at Market Leverage dinner with John Chow, a very happy fellow!
Photo Courtesy Gary Ng - www.iphoneincanada.ca (c) 2008


Market Leverage dinner winners with from left, Greg Morgan, a winner!, Zac Johnson, Jim Kukral, Nicholas Chase, also a winner!, Darren Rowse 'The Problogger', Ryan Hupfer of Hub Pages.com, John Chow, Shoemoney, Gary Ng, a winner! and Debbie another dinner winner!
Photo Courtesy Zac Johnson c 2008

Hello!

I've had a life changing event this week.

Check out this photo of me at dinner with the 'thought-leaders' of Affiliate Marketing and on-line advertising! The Market Leverage dinner at Envy Steak house, in the Renaissance hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada at BlogWorld Expo 2008!

I started on Wednesday, trying to get a pass to BlogWorld Expo 2008 in Las Vegas. Just missed one from a Twitter person I was following. I'm fairly persistent when I have a goal, so then I found one of the BlogWorld partners on Twitter, and offered my videography sevices to the BlogWorld team. Not only did they accept, but I was given an unlimited-access pass to all of the events.

As a videographer, the challenge was to setup and record each panel or presentation, with minimal time between speeches to move and reset the camera, recorders etc. I lost some pounds schlepping my hand truck with my gear all over the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Everyone at BlogWorld Expo 2008 was kind and helpful!

Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin the BlogWorld management were simply amazing.

Thanks guys, you really helped me, I hope that I have been of assistance to you!

As a blogger and Affiliate Marketer, the information there was as cutting edge as it could be. A partial list of the presenters included, John Chow, Shoemoney, Zac Johnson, Brian Clarke, Jim Kukral, Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit, Patrick O'Keefe, Dave Taylor, Darren Rowse, 'The Problogger', Guy Kawasaki, Steve Rubel, Michael Brito of Intel, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV, Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Timothy Ferriss of the '4-hour Workweek' book, and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park.

Guy Kawasaki and Nicholas Chase after the Keynote Luncheon with Steve Rubel
Photo Courtesy Dave Cynkin c 2008

I visited with Guy after his Keynote Luncheon talk with Steve Rubel, very illuminating, especially how he expressed his feelings towards Steve Jobs and Apple Computer, and how for a mere $$$ five-million-dollar $$$ signing bonus he would come back!

As an added bonus, check out the photos! Yes, I had dinner with the thought leaders at BlogWorld Expo. John Chow, Shoemoney, Zac Johnson and Brian Clarke, Tyler Cruz and my Market Leverage team, including, Debby Phillips, Market Leverage's Digital Media Specialist,
my Affiliate manager Jennifer Fluker, Dina Riccobono, Marketing Manager, and the Market Leverage TV, Production Manager Judson Forman and the Market Leverage CEO!

The Unique Blog Designs team was there as well, Nate and the crew, as John Chow recently utilized their excellent services in redesigning his website at: www.johnchow.com

Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park with Nicholas Chase after Sunday Keynote
Photo Courtesy Dave Cynkin c 2008

Meeting Mike Shinoda of the band Linkin Park was a real highlight on Sunday. He was accessible and candid about how blogging had secured a Warner Brothers record deal for the band. He related how all of the band members were artists, and the band name came about because Lincoln Park, a real park in LA had been registered previously. To get the dot com they changed it to Linkin Park, brilliant!

Mike was adamant in his opinion that emerging bands no longer need a large record company, with the power of the web they can self-distribute digitally, and bypass the management hassles.

Timothy Ferriss, author of The '4-Hour Work Week' was very well received by the packed audience for the Sunday Opening Keynote with Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, and Rohit Bhargava the moderator. Timothy stated that to be self-published these days was practically impossible, as the store shelves are dominated by the book publishers. As a test, Timothy printed some books, and stealthily placed them in a prominent spot next to other hardback books in a bookstore and then watched the shelves for a day to test his theory.

The Market Leverage Dinner

I arrived late after packing my video gear away, and Dina Riccobono introduced me around the room. All of the legendary bloggers and thought-leaders at the two tables were very accessible and nice to me, a newbie Affiliate and blogger. Their words of encouragement and sense of humor were genuine and fun! I was fortunate to meet my Affiliate manager, Jennifer Fluker, and she offered her professional assistance to my on-line efforts.

John Chow came over after the meal, with a huge wad of cash, and asked who wanted to hit the tables! Check out the photo of John and I and that wad of cash! Market Leverage had a cashinator machine set up in the exhibit hall, and you had one minute to 'grab-cash' before time was up. Tyler Cruz wore a coat into the booth, and won the cash, to be donated to another attendee later.

John and I, we had a good laugh about Michael Kwan crashing a Segway, version 2 in Canada at the factory test track! It violated the known laws of physics to see Michael crash the Segway, and break the Flip Mino video camera he was holding when he crashed! I believe NASA Ames and the defense department want to study Michael's brain, to insure none of his synaptic neurons gets into any future space vehicles! We laughed for a long time about poor Michael Kwan.... John kids him on a regular basis on his blog. www.johnchow.com

Zac Johnson had some encouraging words for me, and even offered to help, handing me his personal business card. Thanks Zac! Check out Zac's excellent blog at: www.zacjohnson.com

It was exactly this kind of community and family approach that all of the panelists and Affiliate / Bloggers attending the show exhibited all weekend. How refreshing from the corporate, button down, need-to-know environment of some trade shows.

BlogWorld Expo 2008 was a life-changing event for me, all launched becuase of a simple act of kindness on my part to assist where I could. This is an important recurring theme for all of us working 'on-line' to remember and practice daily.

Jim Kukral was helpful to me all weekend, even though he was busy moderating panels and watching the time for the panelists. He made sure that each panel had sufficient time for interactive Q and A and the attendees asked some very well-formed questions. I hope I wasn't in your way too much Jim, with my sensitive microphones and all that equipment! Check out Jim Kukral at The Flip Daily, www.JimKukral.com

I have started following these smart people on Twitter, an application that permits 140 characters per small instant text messages called 'tweets'. When you send a message you are 'tweeting' someone. They can 'follow' you and you can follow them, sort of a 'what are you doing now kind of tracker scenario.

Today I discovered something strange and wonderful, some of the thought-leaders are now following me! Ok, got to stay on track here, so much is happening so quickly, it's a testement to the 'Power Of The Web', how quickly one can get recognition for a small act of kindness.

When tweeting, "I'm making cheese-balls" does not have the same impact as saying: "I'm having dinner with Shoemoney and John Chow, Jim Kukral, Brian Clark, and Darren Rowse, Zac Johnson and Tyler Cruz at Blogworld Expo 2008!!!"

Shoemoney has the record for largest ever adsense check, over $133,300.00 for one month's profit on Google's adsense advertizing program! He spent some time with me after the panel he was on, and discussed family and how the web community is strong and vigilent in it's desire for self-informing each other, and not depending on traditional news outlets who move too slowly for the web attention span!

Shoemoney gave some time to me, after the SuperPanel to be interviewed, discussing the web community and being a real person to constituent bloggers out there. He said that he would remember me next year, and wanted to hear about my successes online. I'm even more dedicated now to make this online business grow! I'll try to host the video here real soon!

I'm tired but elated to be getting assistance from the best in internet marketing in the world! Oh, and after Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit needed some assistance with his new microphone before his panel presentation, I assisted in temporarily mounting it to his tripod, we talked after the event, and he gave me a unlimited Platinum Pass to Affiliate Summit 2009!

www.affiliatesummit.com

I'm really just touching down after all of the excitement of the past five days. It's Christmas, and New Year's Eve, and my birthday all rolled into one fantastic present!

Keep tuned to these pages for more BlogWorld Expo photos, and how being authentic has certainly helped grow my on-line presence and reach.

Respectfully, Nicholas

IZEAFEST IN ORLANDO WAS AWESOME !!!

Hi,

Just finished watching two full days, of all of the live streaming from IzeaFest in Orlando Florida. Shoemoney gave a very moving Keynote about how he has come to his current level and success, John Chow presented, and sat on panels, a wealth of information for bloggers, site designers, video incorporation and great giveaways for the attendees!

The IzeaFest live streams were all recorded and can be played here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/izeafest-streaming-live-from-izeafest-in-orlando%2C

Came away with some great information about:

Social Media Networking,
blogging,
Wordpress plugins,
video production for blogs,
being a real person on-line,
using Twitter and SocialSpark to connect to your community
Blog design no-no's

The interesting part of the Ustream feed was the interactive, 'live-chat-window'.

Attendees and on-line viewers could pose questions to the presenters live during the Q and A period. During the presentations, the URL links were entered into the chat window by the production staff or attendees to check out these links for value to each individual.

Very cool to see live chat running during presentations, although some attendees forgot that everyone could see their comments! Hope there were no attorney's watching, as some of the comments were a bit questionable for a live stream.

I have a ten page word document capturing all of the links from Saturday and Friday, plus notes on things to avoid when blogging, including concern for 'ACCESSIBILITY' concerns for non-sighted or hearing-impaired web surfers.

I am ready to make the changes to my seven blogs, including moving them off of blogger to Wordpress on my domain. Total control of my blog is then obtainable for design and templates.

Check out www.izea.com and ask for Trevor, he is a really helpful person! And please leave me a comment if you liked this post!

Respectfully, Nicholas

Purpose Inc ThinkTank San Diego Contest!

A Truly Unique Opportunity!

Now we're talking!

Jeremy Shoemaker aka Shoemoney at www.shoemoney.com has an awesome contest running.

He will sponsor one winning blogger to go to the Think Tank in San Diego.

This post serves as my contest entry. The challenge is to describe what "I could offer the other attendees".


Nicholas's Top Ten Things I Would Offer While At The Think Tank

10. I would offer my undivided attention to anyone in attendence.

9. I would be a good listener, and offer a carefully considered response to questions, considering the attendee's are all thought leaders in Affiliate Marketing.

8. I would be willing to help in carrying, setting up, or tearing down, in any way deemed appropriate by the requester.

7. I would be respectful of those in conversation and would never interrupt or try to convince anyone that I was smarter than they are.

6. I would turn off my cell phone, during any speeches, or private conversations.

5. I would focus and concentrate on the information received, and when I have learned and practiced the techniques to financial success, I would at that time be willing to give back to the Affiliate Community as others have done who proceeded me in that regard.

4. I would participate in the Think Tank process with enthusiasm, respect and a genuine interest in the subject matter.

3. I would remember to thank Jeremy, in the future by sponsoring another Affiliate as he has offered.

2. I would renew my commitment to my goal to make Affiliate Marketing, and monetized blogs my sole source of income within one year from July 2008.

1. I would never forget what it felt like, to stand in a room with brilliant individuals who were willing to share what they know, with an absolute beginner in Affiliate Marketing.

Thank you in advance Jeremy, even if I'm not the winner.

Respectfully, Nicholas

PPC-Coach - Join them now!

Based on the post I read at Jonathan Volk's Super Affiliate blog, I have decided to change course on trying to dominate the blog-o-sphere with monetized blogs. All of my efforts have brought some traffic, but zero income. After almost three months of trial and error, I feel like I'm in the Wild West, and the town has no police force, (excepting Marshall Google of course!).

I have been through all of the ebooks, web sites, trade shows for SEO and PPC, read countless forum entries and have come to a conclusion. No one save for Albert Einstein could fathom all of the minute details, and excessive hours spent in front of your computer, trying to make an online income. It just is not going to happen my friends. So, how about using the services of a successful coach, a guru who has been down the road I've just described, and is successful.

How much would you be willing to pay to get all of the free software tools, videos, an awesome forum, and the true support of someone who does not even know you, but feels compelled to share his knowledge?

How does $54.43 USD per month sound? That's cheaper than Junior College, with books alone over $500.00 per year! In addition he will personally review your account and suggest changes that will improve your bottom line. OK, I've already convinced myself and joined, what's stopping you?

Even though I believe that Google has indexed my blog(s) now numbering seven, six of them are hosted by Google themselves on Blogger.com. By pasting the Google Analytics code into my .html template, my blogs are achieving increasing page views.

When I read Jonathan's review of PPC-Coach, and visited the website to watch some of the videos I was convinced. Without a focused, measurable pay-per-click or SEO strategy you are not going to be successful in the current marketplace on the web.

Way too many blogs out there, just check the real-time statistics on www.Weblogs.com, to see what you are up against. So then comes PPC-Coach. Firstly when you join, you are immediately given access to the first two months of his success path for profit. Instead of some lame ebook, he delves right in to how to use all of the rich knowledge that can be found in the member area.

One guy has achieved the $35,000.00 a month club that they claim you can also achieve. I was reading his well over 1000+ forum posts last night, and his story is motivating. PPC-Coach will guide you through the murky waters of setting up your online campaigns, including joining Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Search Engine marketing services, help you in setting up campaigns, and other marketing engagements, in order to insure that you follow the correct steps.

In addition, the Coach will truly be available to support you, answering emails, or IM messages in a timely fashion. Imagine, his email inbox as shown in the introduction video had over 3,000 messages in it, and only one unanswered one. That tells me that this guy is genuine and sincere.

You can visit the PPC-Coach here:

http://www.ppc-coach.com

You will be glad that you did!!

Respectfully, Nicholas

Unique Blog Designs One Year Anniversary Contest and John Chow.com

Hello Successful Affiliates!

John Chow just posted about the First Anniversary of Unique Blog Designs!

http://www.johnchow.com/unique-blog-designs-1-year-anniversary-contest/

and a contest they are running to celebrate!

Unique Blog Designs has some of the most professional looking design templates on the web. Their creativity is legendary after only one year.

The contest giveaway is First Prize: 8GB iPod Touch mp3 player and a free, Unique Blog Designs template. Second and Third prizes are Unique Blog Design Citrus-themes (3-flavors) templates.

Check them out here: www.uniqueblogdesigns.com

Thank you to John Chow for his excellent post. When you visit JohnChow.com you will see a Unique Blog Designs design on his home page. Very Cool!

Check out my new post at the iPod Review Blog: http://theipodreviewblog.blogspot.com/
where I provide a link to a post from Dragon Blogger, about downloading YouTube videos to your iPod!

Respectfully, Nicholas

Search Engine Strategies Conference

The Search Engine Strategies conference was held in San Jose, CA this week. Well over one-hundred vendors had booths set up in the exhibit hall, and the conference cost $2,000.00 to attend all of the speeches and course-ware. Due to budgetary constraints, I had to forgo attending the sessions. The show floor was packed on Tuesday, with the usual collection of marketers and attendees.

Search Engine Optimization is a topic that is widely implemented at major companies with a large web presence, and numerous niche markets on the web. The SEO technique includes using traditional marketing psychology, with targeted keyword research, to focus deep into a small niche market. Large companies do this by starting at the top of the market, and dividing down into smaller and smaller niches, hoping to discover those with the least competition, and the most participants.

Google was there demonstrating their 'Analytics' tools to a large crowd all day. A number of clever websites were using analytics to track their campaign's successes. Google has also started exploring 'social-marketing'. They nearly purchased digg www.digg.com a huge newsgathering and social contact type of site.

Microsoft was showing their new Live Search tool. The Microsoft Search Network has expanded greatly over the past months, with new features and tools for the small business. I plan on joining MSN this week.

There was a drawing for a 'smart-car' at the Omniture booth at the SES conference today, but I had to get back to my office and update my blogs, now numbering six! Trying to get enough daily traffic in each marketing niche, to begin trimming my blog count downwards. Learned a few ways to get web directories to find my site, so will report on the success of these tests in a future post.

Jeremy Shoemaker aka 'Shoemoney' was there, wearing an 'SEO Sucks' t-shirt. The reaction was either laughter or a blank stare from the show floor.

Here is a photo, courtesy of www.shoemoney.com, with David Naylor and Todd Friesen, legendary SEO marketers:


I was able to meet face to face with some of my Affiliate Marketing managers from companies like PepperJam Network and Affiliate.com. They were more than willing to spend time with me and explain all of the Search Engine marketing techniques that have evolved.

Most of my initial focus has been withing the 'Pay-per-click' space with Google Adsense and direct-linking, and some 'social-networking to get my name out there and discover the trends in thsi niche.

For someone like me just getting my feet wet in the web marketing space, software tools can be very beneficial in taking some of the guesswork out of campaigns. Smaller companies, like mine, start at the bottom, and try to discover markets too small to interest the large companies, but still containing enough participants to make a profit.

The amount of preparation required to enter these markets can be assisted by using tracking software such as Tracking202, you can check it out at: www.tracking202.com

Wes Mahler has provided a free sign-up and free trial so that you can see the benefits of the data from your clicks, who is clicking, where are they navigating within your site, which pages are most popular etc. Very professional tracking software, I am using it, and can recommend it personally!

So, go out there and make your mark, I am trying many techniques to get my daily readership and drive traffic to my various web properties. I do believe that I will have to pay someone to design my landing page at www.Chase-Marketing-Domain.com. Right now it's the Wealth Dr. of Beverly Hills, and his offers that a first-time visitor would see.

I understand that now that I have a domain, I can create sub-domains and host pages and other offers within these sub-domains. Respectfully, Nicholas

John Chow Cash Drawing

Hello! John Chow sent out a post that he will give the cash he collected in the Market Leverage 'cashinator' at Affiliate Summit East in Boston. You can watch the video here:

http://www.johnchow.com/affiliate-summit-east-win-cash-money/


By writing a post about the contest, and sending a track-back link to John Chow, I am entered in the drawing on Sunday August 17, 2008. John Chow is a very generous person, who started out by blogging about restaurants he frequents around Vancouver, Canada. Now he has several web properties he promotes from www.JohnChow.com

There are already a few entrants, so I hope the additional five entries I receive from posting about the contest helps!

Respectfully, Nicholas

Monday August 11, 2008

Hello! I took three days off to attend our local swim meet, a gathering of all of the swim teams in our city for one, big, three day long event. It was pleasant weather, there was good food and coffee, and our team placed higher in the rankings than in the past.

So I have installed FeedJit, on four of my five blogs. FeedJit is a tool that displays a map of the world, and puts little flags next to the country and city of the visitor's origin. So far, all of my blogs have shown increased visits, many in the USA, some from as far away as the Phillipines and Malaysia.

I have also created a podcast on PodBean, to record some samples of the 1951 Martin Acoustic Guitar profiled on The Guitar Blog: http://nachase.wordpress.com.

I have added Shopping Ads to three of my blogs. The ads are cycled in selected intervals, to afford the visitor an opportunity to click and buy the item immediately. Very cool feature, and I expect to see some revenue soon!

More plans to strategize with my Ad Network Affiliate Managers this week. Also plan on beginning rolling out my own web page on my own domain, and creating some sub-domains there for each marketing campaign I start.

More results will be posted, as I begin to see revenue from my five current income-producing web pages. I am sure enjoying the commute to work!

If you liked this post please leave a comment below, and thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Respectfully, Nicholas

Tuesday Status Report

I am beginning to make myself known around the web. Publishing an article on one site with 42,000 daily readers, has provided an opportunity to network with some very experienced bloggers, affiliate marketers, and search engine marketing experts, and discovered a great way to earn residual income indefinetly.

My lijit searches ( www.lijit.com ) have come back with web search results, that Google www.google.com is beginning to index some of my blogs.

I just added a podcast at http://nachase.podbean.com/

A comment from www.guitarbench.com has already been received, from the United Kingdom.
I have recorded some clips of my 1951 Martin 000-18 acoustic guitar, one solo and one with drums and bass. Check out the article on The Guitar Blog: http://wwwnachase.wordpress.com

Found a great interview with Jeremy Shoemaker and John Reese www.shoemoney.com where he compares the results of placing adsense ads on your blog, to blog ads via 'monetized blogs', and selling adspace to advertisers on your blog.

Also he touched upon 'bumping-up' your payouts, by requesting this from your Affiliate Manager at the ad networks you use. He stated that you do not need a ton of traffic, just informing them that you will work very hard to promote their offers, and increase their ad's visibility on your site.

I continue to add friends to Social Spark, and approving selected EntreCard ads to run on my blogs. Not so much to market to these friends initially, but to get the pulse of what are the emerging trends, so that I can select the appropriate niche to begin my Yahoo Search Marketing efforts, and Google Adsense campaigns as I become more profitable.

It has been quite an education so far. I will be attending Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this month, that should provide additional contacts and education required for SEO techniques being used by the 'guru's'. For now I will continue to join ad networks, and expand my reach and web-presense using the methods above. To your continued success! Respectfully, Nicholas

Progress with Social Networking

I have completed my initial goal of creating five blogs, four of which are slowly being monetized with various offerings based on the blog's purpose and audience. A fifth blog, has been created for the sole purpose of learning Wordpress, the language used to create web page layouts quickly.

Here is a list of the blogs I have created:

The Dieting and Weight Loss Blog - My personal story of weight loss and cholesterol lowering (Some exciting news here today with my weight loss results!)

View Blog

The Way To Success - The Future Super Affiliate Marketers Blog - (the blog you are reading)

View Blog

The iPod Review Blog - where I review my family's iPods, accessories and iTunes

View Blog

The Debt Blog - where I assist a friend in extracting his family from excessive debt

View Blog

The Guitar Hub Page - a new site that inserts Adsense and Kontera ads for me.
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Guitar-Hub


And the no-ads blog:

The Guitar Blog - where I review some of the guitars from my collection, and accessories
http://nachase.wordpress.com/

By creating these blogs, I hope to have Google 'index' them. In this way people can find me through 'organic-search', the non ad supported results in Google. Also SocialSpark lets you place a code in your .html to validate and add your blogs to your profile page on SocialSpark.

I have already achieved some success through EntreCard, and the contacts you make through their service. I have had one article posted on a website with 42,000 readers daily. Another article will be published in a soon to be released book! The receipient gifted me over 7,000 EntreCard credits, which you can spend in their shop for web design, advertising on other blogs, buying products and more.

I have joined SocialSpark, digg, FaceBook, LiJit, and a few more Ad Networks to compare offers for ads to place on my blogs. Now I am linking to other bloggers and marketers out in cyberspace. We'll track the results that other marketers are having using Social Networking.

I have continued the daily practice of commenting on the top bloggers blogs, and linking comments that I make on my blog back to them. One day I hope to be a guest blogger on one of these sites. I have an appointment to strategize with one of my Affiliate Managers in New York next week.

This will start my adsense portion of my on-line marketing efforts. Here is where the big money is spent, on 'clicks', and made, on 'click-throughs' to buy.

Thank you for reading my blog, and please do leave a comment! Respectfully, Nicholas

Monday at The Way To Success

Greetings! Hoping your weekend was as excellent as mine was.

I was invited to an informal networking and strategy-sharing meeting of successful Affiliate Marketers on Saturday afternoon. What a great experience this turned out to be...

The group numbered fifteen in total, with four newbies, and the rest very experienced SEO and PPC marketers. The place we met had outstanding coffee, to fuel my listening skills for the following two hours of great tips, stories of success and failure, and overall expressions of hope for the economic future on-line.

There was discussion about legendary marketers and bloggers, such as Jonathan Volk, http://www.jonathanvolk.com , John Chow, www.johnchow.com , ( currently reporting $32,000.00 monthly, approaching $40,000.00 soon!) Jeremy Shoemaker, aka Shoemoney, http://www.shoemoney.com (received a $132,994.97 check from Google, for one month, of adsense income in 2005! He reported his income at $10,000.00 per month).

Some of the alternative campaign techniques were discussed, and how some marketers have been caught using techniques that Google considers outside the bounds of 'fair-play'. Google's mantra is a 'relevant search result experience', for the users of Google. Practitioners of these 'gaming-the-system', techniques are often found, and punished, through a process called the 'Google-Slap'.

'De-indexing your site', and stopping your revenue should get the marketer's attention quickly!

The use of these techniques comes at a considerable risk to your on-line reputation. However, some may want that image of themselves discussed and debated. I prefer to take the long view, and the higher ground even if it means less initial profit for me. I cannot compromise these values that have served me well for many years.

My reputation, both on-line and offline, must be a lasting and positive one. Others may choose to implement these techniques as they choose. I cannot imagine there is a 'long-term' benefit in these strategies.

Some brand-new marketers were asking the same questions I did when I started my on-line marketing business. It was fun answering their questions! I started out reading everything I could find on the web about SEO and Pay-Per-Click strategies.

Questions ranged from 'How to start a blog and monetize it?' - to 'How do I avoid spending all of my money 'hosting-adsense' ads on Google, before I see a profit?'

The exchange was free and open, and I was amazed how quickly the time passed. After two hours they were still going strong. Another engagement took me away, or I would have stayed until they closed.

For this week's update, I have created more ads on my blogs, excepting the Guitar Blog which is hosted on WordPress.com. They do not permit ads there, but I may do some reviews of products carried by one or more of my Ad Network's, with a link to the landing page for that specific product. I started this blog for fun and to learn WordPress, the prefered application for page layout on the web.

When you create a link on your blog, as provided from your ad network, the link includes your affiliate number, so the ad network can track your impressions and click-through's and credit your account. Did I say $$$? That is the basis by which Affiliate marketers receive payment.

On this blog, barely one week old, I have 33 'impressions' for one ad, and eight on another. So that tells me that the visitors are finding content relevant to their search. 'Impressions' are merely another name for 'curiousity-clicks'. The visitor is curious about what the offer might be, but may not be ready to buy. So they click around gaining knowledge about the product or service they are researching, before committing to buy or 'click-through'.

'Click-through's' are the goal, when the visitor actually buys the product or service they land upon, after that first click. I just added another ad that could potentially be huge, for an expensive seminar with a high commission. I'm hoping to get a lot of click-through's on that one!

As you build your on-line business, remember to be respectfull to all of those you deal with. They will remember you if you are kind and patient. I have had several mentors tell me the only reason they responded to my comments on their blog, was because I placed link's in my blog's body text here: www.johnchow.com, and linked-back to their blog post on my blog through my Blog List on the right side.

I am getting ready for a large influx of visitors, once all of my blogs get indexed by the major search engines, Google, MSN, and Microsoft.

The next post will include further data on the success I am experiencing.

Please do leave a comment! Respectfully, Nicholas

Friday Status Report

I have started three new blogs this week.

The Diet and Weight Loss Blog, which chronicles my personal diet and weight loss lifestyle modification project. You can read all about this here:

http://dietingandweightlossblog.blogspot.com/

I have also started The Debt Blog, about one family's debt and solutions to resolve their debt issues. You can read all about this here:

http://wwwthedebtblog.blogspot.com/

I'm also teaching myself how to use Word Press at my third new blog called the The Guitar Blog.

www.nachase.wordpress.com

My purpose in creating these blogs is to populate them with rich content, and begin adding advertisements gradually. Struggling a bit with blogger, and creating a six-box advertisement button area near the top right of my blog, emulating some of the top Super Affiliate bloggers like John Chow, Jonathan Volk, and Zac Johnson's blogs.

Word Press does not allow advertising on their site's blogs, so this will be a training ground for learning the features and tools in Word Press to eventually roll-out world class web pages elsewhere in my Internet Marketing Empire...

I have earned over 600 EntreCard credits, throughout three of my four blogs, by posting new blog post's, and writing one article for a book project soon to be published.

EntreCard has been covered in a previous post, but the strategy is to have people click on your EntreCard button on your web page, and you can visit their web p[ages and 'Drop' one credit, once per day. EntreCard credits can be used in their 'Shop' or to buy advertising on other EntreCard buttons. Your ad is in rotation with others, and costs EntreCard Credits, deducted from your account by EntreCard.

If the site hosting your ad is popular, the 'Credits' deducted can be quite large!

Ok, back to blogging, emailing and promoting my four blogs with ads.

Eventually as my web pages get indexed by the major search engines, I may see a trickle of revenue from my Affiliate Network offers.

Late Breaking News: An opportunity to earn 5,000 EntreCard credits has just been received! I only need to write an article over 1,000 words on the subject. Here we go...

To your online success! Respectfully, Nicholas

All is well at Comission Junction now..

My last post detailed some issues in getting my first link activated at Commission Junction. I am happy to report that all is well now!

The vendor was aware of the small glitch when modifications to the standard payout are made. The 'Performance Incentives' to the payout amount needed to be selected, then "accepted" by the marketer (that would be me...), in order for the link to become live.

I was so very happy, after a 12-hour wait and lots of emails, the issue was resolved. The vendor even offered to contact CJ Support to highlight this issue for them to resolve.

Now I have a highly popular service offered with a larger than standard payout which runs until the end of 2008! Excellent... Now the challenge is getting my site indexed by the major 'Search Engines', and creating a buzz around my offer through other marketing strategies.

This is all a challenge for even someone who has a bit of proficiency with computers, it's still a lot of work to:

1. Create a web site with Google-required elements, Rich content, Privacy statements, Contact Information, No Spam Policies, Not Sharing your personal data with anyone etc, etc.
2. Find the Affiliate Network with the highest payouts
3. Join that network and set up payment options, PayPal, Check etc
3. Select a banner, button or link to place on your website
4. Copy the linking code either java or .html to your website
5. Choose the location for the ad to run
6. Drive traffic to that location from indexing, submitting your site to directories, (carefully!)
7. Tweaking your ads to raise more search engine page results for your ads
8. Work with your Affiliate manager to find more opportunities to advertise
9. Repeat...Repeat...Repeat the above until you see results.

I am enjoying the assistance from people who have the attitude that now that they are successful, they are willing to share what they know with others.

John Chow (www.johnchow.com), Jeremy Palmer (Quit Your Day Job), Jonathan Volk (Super Affiliate), Jeremy Shoemaker(Shoemoney.com) and Zac Johnson are a few of the Top Affiliate Marketers who are willing to share what they have learned with others.

As I continue to grow my online business, I will be consulting with all of these fine gentleman as the need arises. They are highly successful yet humble at the same time. A very fine quality to find in a business that sometimes reveals the dark-side of some people who are ruthless in all aspects of their lives.

My next post will reveal the success or failure of my first attempts to make a living online.

Respectfully, Nicholas
Zac Johnson has an excellent comparison of different Affiliate Network payouts here: http://zacjohnson.com/my-affiliate-program-pays-more-than-yours/

Ad Networks and Support Issues

I joined Commission Junction and was approved, using JohnChow.com's, increased commissions in the form of 'Performance Incentive' signup promotion. On Commission Junction's - 'Get Links' page for the offer I wanted, it stated that there was a 'Performance Incentive' associated with the vendor, and the vendor confirmed the offer of higher payout in a subsequent email. However Commission Junction had placed a STATUS: 'Delined Application' in this field on the search results page.

I contacted the vendor again, and he stated that he wanted me to get the links,and that this had happened before with CJ. I have received two CJ-Customer Support emails, with a long list of reasons why an Application may be 'Declined', none of this was relevant to my particular issue, so I replied to CJ Support again, and the vendor, stating that the vendor wants me to have the link!

We'll see how long this process takes, meanwhile I cannot promote the offer which has a high payout and extends until the end of 2008. It's causing concern for me that my first contact with CJ Support was not well handled, and Zak Johnson has a current post on his blog today about this very issue:

http://zacjohnson.com/five-reasons-why-your-affiliate-network-sucks/

As a new Affiliate Marketer I am trying to take the high ground, and be as professional as possible. I am discovering that just like any other industry, Affiliate Marketing has it's professionals and amateurs, all trying to play in the same sandbox.

Please comment on my post, and let's all try to pull together and insist on better performance out of all of our Ad Networks! Respectfully, Nicholas

Monday Update and Goals

It's Monday, and as we all begin our work week, exchanging our time for dollars, I thought I would continue the dialogue on all things Affiliate Marketing.

Monday Status update.

So I have been accepted at Commission Junction www.commissionjunction.com

Tried to create my first ad campaign, but I just faxed my W9 today, so I assume that my payment account will not be live until tomorrow.

My first campaign is with eDiets.com, and the new blog is located at:

http://dietingandweightlossblog.blogspot.com/

My current strategy is to create a blog for a need, such as weight loss or dieting. Write some rich content that is really relevant to this market for the search engines to crawl and index. Have the blog indexed by Google, by using the Google Webmaster tools.

Write more rich content, and place one or two ads on the page. Wait and write more content, maybe add some video or some audio to the page. Wait, and Wait, and Wait.

Create traffic to my site by commenting on other blogs and leaving my link in the comments. Visit a few diet and weight loss sites and leave comments there. Start linking to the sites or ask for a link from my site to be placed on their site.

Duplicate the above scenario 25 more times, for 25 blog pages, with relevant content and a few ads.

I will report my success on this strategy as time passes.

Respectfully, Nicholas

Friday Fun - Status of my Affiliate Marketing Progress

It's Friday, as Craig Ferguson says on his Late Late tv show, "It's a great day for America!".

So far this week I have joined the following Ad Networks or Ad companies.

PepperJam Network, Market Leverage, Kontera, ContentLink, ClickBank, EntreCard with SezWHo comments area ratings interface, FreeSiteSignup with John Chow.com, and looking into RocketProfit that Shoemoney recommends.

PepperJam Network seems like a great company. They have a ton of offers, and some of the comissions are huge. I will post some of my results from PepperJam.

I joined Market Leverage on the advice of Jonathan Volk at Volk Marketing, a Super Affiliate. Market Leverage has recently appeared on the network scene, and is making great strides towards success. I will blog about my experiences with Market Leverage as we go forward.

So far the Affiliate Manager I am working with has responded quickly to my questions! This is a good sign for future customer service already.

Kontera is a pretty cool deal. They serve both Advertisers and Publishers, and you can sign up as either or both. The approval process was painless, and I will blog about my results with Kontera as they are achieved.

I learned about ContentLink.com, from John Chow at JohnChow.com.
Contentlink is pretty cool and unobtrusive. They populate your blog text in selected words changing the word to a double-underlined, blue colored word.

When you hover over these blue words you discover a relvant, pop-up information button clearly labeled "Advertisement" on the top, and permitting a click on the More Info button will take you to that site.

ClickBank is a well known company, so I will only say that I need to do some research with how to best begin using their services. More to come on ClickBank.....

Entrecard creates a lot of buzz because you can earn 'credits' that you can spend on advertising or in the 'Shop'. I already have received over 100 EntreCard credits by commenting and linking-back to blog sites that have the EntreCard Widget running. They provide a database of EntreCard members to search to gain more credits. Interesting paradigm at work here.

More to come on EntreCard.....By the way, the SezWho comments section rating partnership was announced. Basically you can see a rating of your comments on sites that install the SezWho comments tool.

FreeSiteSignup.com - I signed up based on John Chow's recommendation due to the fact that other than this blog, I did not have a website for my Affiliate Marketing business, Chase Marketing. Sign up was easy, paid the yearly hosting fee to Midphase.com, and the next day my website was set-up. I received some video training on how to set up my cPanel and configure my website.

I now have a web page pre-built with offers and some free stuff to encourage visitors to browse and buy! Of course, I have access to sub-domains on the web host, so I am looking forward to creating additional 'Folders' to run these other sub-domains from. More on my web site build-out as time advances....

My hope is to eventually have at least 25 seperate 'niche' web sites with rich content and all of the other things Google likes. I will be experimenting with direct-links to see if this will provide some revenue.

This internet marketing game is complex, but I hope to be able to report that it is also possible to make a decent living while helping others achieve success.

Once we have enough income to live on, we want to pursue philanthropic giving, including benefiting schools, orphans, and sponsoring some children's education and household needs in India and Africa.

Content Link

I have joined Content Link today. www.contentlink.com.

The small blue-colored text with underlines you see within my blog post's are relevant links based upon the words I have used in my blog.

When you hover over these words they pop up relevant information in the form of advertisements, which if you then click on the link within, it will take you to that site based on your desire to navigate there.

It's a very non-intrusive way to provide some additional relevant search capability, within my blog text. I wanted to test this facility for the next 30 days to see if you believe it is a good feature for my blog or not.

Please do comment back and let me know if it's a thumbs-up or thumbs-down? I will tally the results from all who comment regarding the above, and we'll see if this should be continued or not...

Zac Johnsons Post about work habits!

Check out this post from Zac Johnson:

http://zacjohnson.com/stay-motivated-and-get-out-of-that-slump

In it he details how to stay motivated in running your online business, and treating yourself as he did to a brand new Mac in order to provide incentive to working!

Excellent post Zac, you have my attention!

ZakShow.com a cool website!

So I was trolling the web looking for Entrecard credits, heh heh, and came across this site.

http://www.zakshow.com/2008/04/04/get-50-entrecard-credits-instantly/

Zak has created an amazing site with all kinds of interesting content, including the Top 5 Myspace morons post which had me in stitches.

Check out his site for some really deep content, and a lot of interesting posts!

Thank you Zak for the Entrecard credits too!

"Entrecard flips the switch for Blog Comments! Fantastic!"

I have joined SezWho, http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=444%20.

They are currently running a contest to award 5,000 credits to anyone who follows the rules on the Entrecard blog site listed above.

This is a comments-based service that applies Entrecard credits by commenting on other blogs about SezWho. I still do not understand how I use credits, but I imagine with enough I can host ads, or purchase goods?

I still need to read the EntreCard User Guide to suss all of this out.

I will let you know about my progress... It sounds interesting and will certainly get the conversation going!

Affiliate Progress

So I have joined the PepperJam Network on the recommendations of one of it's most successful Super Affiliates, Jonathan Volk. If you are an Affiliate Marketer, and want to join the PepperJam Network, just click on the animated PepperJam button on the upper right side, and you are usually approved within twenty-four hours.

I received the approval today, so now the process begins to research the ads offered on the PepperJam Network (there are hundreds of them...) and set them up to run. Not sure how the whole revenue stream works, but I assume it is PayPal as a default.

It will be interesting to also set up a free website offered by one of the Ad Networks that John Chow (www.johnchow.com) uses, called ShoppingAds (http://shoppingads.com).

They offer to set up your website for free, provide a custom web page design, and begin making money immediately! I am signing up today, and my progress will be reported here.

One other project I have been participating in is; The Black Ink Project by Jeremy Palmer of www.QuitYourDayJob.com. Jeremy has created numerous lessons delivered in the form of live WebEx presentations, and you can download all of the Black Ink videos and support files, including wireframe examples and excel-based spreadsheets to aid in setting up your campaigns, in various formats for WIN and MAC at his website, (www.blackink.com) and Quit You Day Job site has a link as well.

He has started BlackInk2, and if you register at his site, you can download even more in depth training on how to start-up, and run a successful online business, having guest consultants on everything from setting up your company, selecting your niche, designing your web pages, and optimizing your site, with a special software application for tracking your campaigns. Jeremy is an awesome guy, not asking for any renumeration at all!

All in all I am excited about making money online, and hope to report success in the very near future.

Trust and Active Listening

Trust
This is a very important concept, and one that bears repeating. Trust... is something that once lost is difficult to redeem. I lost trust in someone once, and they lost trust in me, on a mutual misunderstanding about some alleged behaviour occuring at a social gathering that was considered inappropriate.

The behaviour in question never occurred, however the perception was that it had.
For about a year there were no words spoken between each of the offended parties, until one day, another individual who was trusted spoke about the incident in conversation. Once it was revealed to this participant, that the behaviour had in fact never occurred as believed, the long lost trust was restored immediately.

This was a totally avoidable scenario, if only the trust had been established securely between the two individuals.

Perhaps you have experienced a situation where trust was broken or compromised, even though that was not the intent of the behaviour.

Sharing Information
My reasons for blogging are to offer information, receive commentary on it's value, and continue to improve the communication going forward. You no doubt could offer up additional insight and information to the conversation, adding to it's value, and providing a necessary balance to the dialogue. In addition, after consulting with a top performing affiliate marketer, I have made the decision to monetize this blog.

Progress will be reported as ads are placed and revenue figures will be provided as an example of Internet Marketing success.

Active Listening
I attended a class for engineers, while working for Sony Electronics. The class was titled "Active Listening". The facilitator of the class revealed the fundamentals in developing a technique to actively listen to whoever was delivering their particular message.

After a period of careful consideration, we were encouraged to respond to the speaker. It was absolutely essential that we all do this when we are conversing! After a while, breaking out of our old habit of beginning our responses, before the speaker had completed their thought, was very refreshing. It did take some time to fully embrace these 'new listening techniques', and gradually reject the 'active speaking' techniques we had previously exhibited.

In all of the conversations I have had throughout my life, I was able to learn so much more by actively listening to the other person. After careful consideration for the context and intent of the speakers statements, I would formulate a well-tempered response, always with the intention to aquire more information. This method has proven to be extremely beneficial in my career, especially when my manager was the speaker!

Value Gained
The value of active listening is threefold:

One, you clearly understand the focus and intent of the speaker's information.

Two, you can avoid any misunderstanding by concentrating specifically on the words that were spoken.

Three, you establish that you are are genuinely interested in what they have to say and will actually value it. Even if the thought is something you may disagree with, at least each speaker can respect the other as a basis for achieving the essential mutual trust.

In turn, if they also practice the same thoughtful listening techniques, we now have a situation where misunderstandings can be reduced to a rare occurence if at all!

Your Turn
Now it's your turn. My thoughts have been offered, I am truly ready to listen. Your responses will be valued and respected. Thanks!

A New Direction Monetizing my Blog

So, I have turned over a new leaf.

After consulting with currently one of the most successful Internet Marketers who just happens to be a personal friend, he has encouraged me to engage in some advertising in order to monetize my blog.

He advised joining some ad networks such as Azoogle Ads and PepperJam Network in order to extend my reach and improve my Internet Marketing skills.

Starting out, I am going to create my first ad campaign on Yahoo Search Marketing, then try MSN Ads, and finally, after I select and hone my niche selections, and do some competitive analysis and create a business plan, I will launch some Google Adsense campaigns.

In all of these endeavors I will strictly avoid any "Black-Hat" techniques, as I do not want to try to game the system, but work with the excellent tools provided to make legitimate websites that offer quality products or services. Google frowns and even 'slaps' those who would try to 'game' the system, and I have no interest in doing anything deceitful or dishonest.

In other words, I want to be in this for the long-haul, and try to realize some of the successes my friend has experienced.
I hope to use this blog as a kind of journal of my progress, and will state some of my income results as they occur, not to impress but to inform that it is indeed possible to create a stream of income using the internet, and advertising as the basis for the growth.

Thank you for your comments, as they will fuel my interest in posting the results as often as possible.

To your success as well! Nicholas Chase - (future Super Affiliate).

Why Is Money So Difficult To Obtain?

Getting Rich

For my third post, I decided to open the discussion regarding money. I have had a very successful career to date, with a few employment peaks and valleys ie., see my first post for a brief bio.

Income
I have at one time or another achieved a higher than average income, trading my time for dollars in the process. These jobs were challenging, and in the balance fun and interesting. Now that I am older and somewhat more seasoned, I am trying to re-purpose myself into new entreprenurial endeavors. As an employee, by the time the check was deposited, the monthly budget had absorbed that same amount. It has been stated that in order to break through the glass ceiling of employment, one would need to become self-employed or start a business.

Expenses
Mortgage, two car payments, two school age kids to feed, clothe and additional expenses for sports and social events, and vet bills for the dog, left very little supplemental income for miscelleanous expenses or even a dinner out. Investing was out of the question, even a small amount could not be saved.

Trying Self Employment
In studying the current marketplace, and trying to springboard into a parallel course with respect to my engineering skillset, the multifaceted issues of income, profit and loss, risk, travel, consulting, obtaining clients, keeping clients, taxes and governmental regulations have been studied out.

At this time it would appear next to impossible to find a marketplace that would support our needs. The success rate for new businesses continues to hover below 50% after one year of operations. The failure of a business can be attributed to not having enough living expenses in the bank to provide for the first one to two years before achieving profitability.

Analyzing The Potential
Taking all of this into consideration, including the current price for a gallon of gas, and all of the associated risks versus rewards, makes me just want to seek another day job, and settle for the consequences.

Opportunities
The current marketplace is competitive, with employers wanting ever more technical skills, but not providing the salary and benefits required for the minimum lifestyle. The geographical area we live in, the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of the most expensive in the State of California.

The freeways and public transportation are full of people working at jobs that are barely providing a sustainable income, and the independent truckers must be losing their shirts trying to justify $5.50 per gallon diesel fuel!

Solutions
A friend has suggested a parallel shift into a related engineering space, given that I have expertise which appears transferable, I have sent my resume forward into the unknown.

For me, the nagging question still remains, "Why is money so hard to obtain?". I welcome your responses to this question.