Make Money Online

 

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Underground Scholarship, Internet Marketing Discussion and Forced Continuity

Hi Everyone


I have three IMPORTANT updates that I wanted to let every one know about today.


1) Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship to Yanik Silvers Underground Seminar


Are you a Young Entrepreneur aged 13 – 23 or do you know a Young Entrepreneur aged 13 – 21?


I am very pleased to announce that my RetireAt21.com website has partnered with Yanik Silver to offer: Scholarship Attendance To The 2010 Underground Online Seminar for selected Young Entrepreneurs aged 13 – 23


A Scholarship includes Free admission to Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar® 6 to be held at a top-secret location in Washington, DC on March 12-14, 2010. ($3,495 value) plus a host of other benefits – check out link below for more details


You can find full details of the Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship here


Yanik offered scholarship’s last year for the first time and at least 5 of the scholarship attendees were readers of mine. I would love to meet even more readers at this years event.


Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship
2009 Scholarship Winners Alex, David, Marshall and Albert Enjoying Some Downtime With Michael Dunlop (center) At Underground 5!

2) Internet Marketing Discussion


I was very pleased to see some very interesting and considered comments following my “Are You Frustrated By Internet Marketing” post last week.


It appears I struck a bit of a nerve. Of course getting comments is not unusual, but what impressed me was the quality of comments and indeed the ‘discussion’. I had not mentioned it before, but one of my goals for IncomeDiary.com in 2010 is to have more DISCUSSION and interaction between readers.


Andrew mentioned THE HYPE you find with Internet Marketing and there was much agreement about that point – especially with regards to just how much (or little) effort is required.


I was also thinking that a lot of my readers are aware of my own personal lifestyle choices with regards to Internet Marketing and traveling etc. I am now fortunate enough to be able to do a fair amount of travel, doing fun stuff etc while at the same time earning a very decent living. But what is perhaps not so clear is just now ‘hard’ or diligently I do actually work whenever I am in actually at work. Indeed I would go so far as to say that even when I am relaxing I am always thinking of what I see or experience in terms of Blog Posts, Business observations etc


A long post on one of my blogs (e.g. A Top List) can actually take several days to research and put together.


So How Much Work Is Required Per Week To Realistically Earn A Full Time Living As A Blogger?


Well, I think it actually depends on NICHES’s but I would say that most ‘full-time’ bloggers like me work at least 25 – 35 hrs per week. OK, there will be times when I work less than 10 hrs per week, but that is only because I have invested time and effort into future posts in previous weeks. There will also be weeks when I put in 50 hrs plus, usually before I go of on a trip somewhere.


In my own spirit of Removing The HYPE, I will be spending more time in future posts discussing the work element.


My good friend Bernadette Doyle is an Internet Marketer that I really look up to and she runs a 7 Figure Business while working just 3 days per week. In Bernadette’s case this is because of necessity – she is mother to two Young Children (and even Nannies need days off). If I have it correct in addition to her 3 work days I believe Bernadette schedules two days at weekend to be with her Children Full Time (Bernadette works from home, so she sees her Children every day, but the weekend is dedicated Children time) Additionally she has one day a week dedicated to “Me Time” – when she goes to Spa, Dancing etc. The remaining day is a floating day I believe that allows her flexibility to catch up on things etc.


Actually Bernadette’s example is one that I am trying to emulate.


Overall, I think it would be better that Marketeers made this WORK thing much clearer to people, where more realistic about what kind of effort is required. Afterall:


There is no such thing as a Free Lunch


One other comment in that post that got my attention was from Felix


Felix makes the case for delivering value first – and then attempting to sell a product. Something I agree 100% with.


Felix also made the point that ……….



If you are not willing to put in the work, your fairy tale bubbles will burst as soon as you stop hustling



Thank you Felix – that is exactly the point I was trying to make above ;-)


Additionally Felix says:


If a lot of value is being delivered for free, how much more will you receive if you buy.


Felix does say to take his comment with a pinch of salt so I am not 100% sure what point Felix was making here. If the point is that paying for something will no necessarily improve the return then I personally cannot agree.


Firstly, if you pay for something then in ‘theory’ you are being more serious about your business and more likely to take the required action to succeed long term.


But even more importantly in my opinion, I have not ever met any successful marketer or business person who does not invest in themselves on a regular basis – in terms of training etc.


I find a lot of wannabee Internet Marketers suffer from Poverty Consciousness – never buying a product (but often ‘borrowing’ someone elses product or looking for “freebies’ generally)


Of course, I am not for one second suggesting Felix is one of these people – far from it. What I am saying is that if you ever really hope to make it BIG online then you will have to invest in yourself in terms of buying courses, attending workshops, seminars etc.


I remember one particular very successful online marketer once explaining to me that he would invest $2000 in a Home Study Course that would provide him with just one good idea and be happy about it.


Of course, the important point here is to decide wisely on what products, courses, seminars to invest in — and in the coming weeks as mentioned previously that will be one of my focuses


3) Forced Continuity


My good buddy Ryan Lee made an interesting post on forced continuity over at his blog recently. As always, Ryan (himself the Continuity King) gives us lots to think about – but what I found most interesting was the actual wealth of comments the post got.


Do you know what Forced Continuity is?


Well, definitions do vary – but to me Forced Continuity is when a marketer often offers something free or low cost on a Trial Basis (Capturing your credit card details as they do it) that then continues to bill you each month thereafter at the higher cost and the reason it is FORCED is that the Marketer does not make this clear in their marketing, or if they do, then it is such small print as to be almost unnoticeable. What is more the process of canceling this ‘subscription’ can be a nightmare afterwards. (Difficult to locate cancellation pages etc)


Now let me be clear – I am a great fan of Continuity – it is an excellent business model and one that has been used long before the Internet existed (I don’t remember, but my Father was just telling me about the Book Clubs that used to automatically send you a new book every month after an introductory offer). What I am not a fan of is deceit and scamming people.


Ryan is a great example of someone who does Continuity correctly. People will want to cancel subscriptions – but don’t make unhappy customers out of them by making it difficult to cancel etc.


I am already noticing a lot clearer offers when in comes to Continuity Recently – and this can only be a good thing


A word of personal advice – do not join any subscription service without first also being clear on how you going about canceling the subscription later if you wish.


I hope you enjoyed this post – I normally try to make my posts specific to one topic (and actually I usually recommend that) – Today is the exception with multiple topics.


I look forward to your comments as always


To Our Success


Michael


PS: You can find full details of the Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship here

1 comments:

  1. WE ARE LOOKING FOR HOT WEBCAM MODELS!
    EARN OVER $10,000 PER WEEK.
    SIGN-UP AS A BONGA MODELS WEBCAM MODEL TODAY!

    ReplyDelete