Hiring EXPERTS to HELP adds SPEED to your Intentions!

Many of my friends hire others to get all of these technological issues resolved. Many have technical gurus who come to their homes to fix things that aren't working. They hire experts from web designers to graphic designers to software programmers. I decided to try asking for a little help from my technologically savvy friends. I hired one person to set up a theme on my WordPress blog, another web designer to update the theme on my web site, another elance copywriter to re-write the copy for my two sites. Things happened fast!

It was so much fun having those things in progress while I did some other FUN creative things like adding voice to a slide show using my brand new Blue Ball microphone. I also wrote and did some research on membership site software offerings. It gave me more time to incubate new ideas. I got fresh innovative approaches to all that was requested. I appreciate the generous assistance from each contributer and the results of their expertise, time and talents. 

The important part of hiring others to do what you want is to be able to communicate your intentions so that the outcome matches that originally stated intention.

"Think and feel yourself there! To achieve any aim in life, you need to project the end-result. Think of the elation, the satisfaction, the joy! Carrying the ecstatic feeling will bring the desired goal into view." Grace Speare

Note Worthy!

All day today has been spent sorting through folders and copying and pasting information into a master document into an organized sequence from months and months of meetings with two groups that I am part of. We are studying the very challenging trials and tribulations of internet marketing.  So many informative comments and material has been provided in the last year from these very generous people. I now know what it means that to the degree that each person contributes you expotentially progress in your understanding and skills as people bring in all of this new information. Many of the e-books, e-mails, handouts, were given and at the time I did not understand the term or the concept and now three months later, it is clear to me what is now being discussed. Some things have been put in place ( opt in forms, blogs, podcasts, videos, slide shows, ebooks, 1shoppingcart, autoresponders and two sites) Now some of  the information is more foundational than I need. I have actually outgrown my notes.Now that is a good feeling. It is good to know that I could teach others what I have learned. I am beginner enough to remember the first flashes of confusion up to the time of clarity and understanding. I feel so appreciative of those individuals sharing their expertise as well as their notes, skills, and knowledge. I take foracious notes as I study and then learn even more as I type those notes. Then coupling that with when we discuss the same information in either our conference calls or in our meetings, by presenting the knowledge you are gaining even a deeper understanding. It is good to be learning so much and having partners along the path, it simply reinforces the fact that we are not in this alone. You have a collaborative team to fast forward your skills and as a member of the team you can assist others in learning from your experiences. Thank God for my partners who bring new information to the table each time we meet. We will reach our GOALS and with the support of each other as stated in the Alien Song—will SURVIVE and thrive!

(Read the background story of  Blit Wizbok one-eyed star of the Alien Song by visiting  Victor Navone's Site. Blit unexpectantly went VIRAL!)

"There is no challenge more challenging than the challenge to improve yourself."

                                                                                                                                                                     Michael E.  Staley

New Ideas SPRING forth!

It is interesting to read how other more experienced people with a web presence are directing traffic to their sites. My intent continues to be to study and read MORE from these people to know the step by step formula for having those individuals who are interested in what I offer come to my site over and over again. After all, the purpose of our a site is to add value to those people's lives so that they return for repeated visits...and to provide products that give some sort of assistance to those who seek us out. So many ideas and so much enthusiasm to put them into place for the masses.
Today I met with a fulfillment house to have them quote prices for POD (print on demand) books and products. They commented on my over abundance of enthusiasm for what I was offering. I do feel a great deal of passion for my intentions. Met with mastermind group to discuss membership sites, marketing ideas, free software products, affiliate partners, article submissions, video promotions and so much more. Also requested and offered alignment on each of our intentions. Discussed with Sandy all sorts of really good ideas that would add value to people's lives. Overall it's been a thought provoking day and I am grateful for the opportunity to interact with such passionate people with such dynamic actions built into each day of their life. Even a total stranger passed his newspaper over to me with the article," So You Want to Be a Blogging Star? Write What You Know, Don't Try to Be Perfect, Promote Yourself a Bit...and Watch the Page-Views Soar...." Yes I do...I intend to be a Blogging Star.... until then, I am so happy to have been involved in so many little things, ideas, conversations, projects,moments at the book store, shared moments with friends, phone calls with loved ones, a beautiful crisp sunny day, and a text message intending beauty, rebirth,blessed regeneration and joy this day—the spring equinox...
"Nothing will content those who are not content with a little." Greek Proverb
I invite you to be content with the little things in your life each day too. Blessings, Joan

Private Websites

Think about this:

• If you set up a site and charge $29.95 a month and had 200 subscribers, you would earn approx. $6,000 a MONTH! every month. They gave you their credit card to hit each month for the fee.
• If you charged $15 and had those same 200 subscribers you would earn $3,000 a month.

Sounds good to me.

Does anyone know of any topics that might make a good private site?

Does anyone know how to search to see what the hot topics are for people making a lot of money on private sites?

Does anyone even know where we go to search for those sites?

I have a video from Internet Marketing?? or whatever was the name of that seminar that we all met at. And one of the interviews was with a young man who was charging $70 for a private site and all it did was talk about how to win at the Maddon football computer game.

He said he was charging like 35 or so dollar or ???? dollars, went to a marketing lecture and during the break he took the advice of the speaker and went upstairs in to his room in the conference hotel and raised his price to $70 and still kept getting the same number of people signing up for the service. So he said he intended to keep raising the price until his signups starting getting lower.

Maddon Football!!!! Who plays that and can afford $70 a month? Are people addicted to computer games??

This was a lesson in raising prices?

Sandy

We've Come A L-O-N-G Way!

As I was organizing some paperwork, which I spend a lot of time doing as I am purging and ridding myself of unnecessary things. I found the first meeting notes of the IMG now called OMG ( thanks Steve). Look at our long list of topics we discussed;

• a keyword tracker called Wordtracker,
• PPC ( Pay Per Click) campaigns and something called malicious/insincere clicks.
• drop shipping with One Source
• Optimization of sites
• Opt in forms and autoresponders
• Blog farms ( Wordpress, LiveJournal, and Yahoo, and Google's Blogspot)
• Host providers and articles and the need for frequent and new content on sites and blogs
  

As I look over the notes they were written in fragments without any elaboration on each of the terms and concepts. That was September only seven months ago. Now at least some of the terms exist on our sites and other terms are at least understood without the "deer in the headlights" look.
I myself am proud of where we are and where we came from. We have to be patient with ourselves, this is a challenging process we have taken on here. I am equally glad that the journey is one that is shared with such fine people. Thanks OMG, let's keep truckin' as we are closer than we were way back when we were first introduced to these ideas. The fog was thicker then too, it is beginning to lift.
"You are the product of your own brainstorms." Rosemary Konner Steinbaum

Millionaires Made: Are They Serving the World?

 I appreciate that Sandy sent me an email yesterday as she does each day to inform me of how internet marketing people are making money, in fact millions. It happens that it is in the arena of online marketing which by now you have figured out is what this group is most interested in.

The story was told of many people who are teaching others how to do this internet marketing thing and making most of their money by the courses where they are teaching the step by step how to's and the products being sold in the back of the room at seminars with the same intent—learning how to do this your self. It is the good old American Dream thing and more of a "get rich quick" scheme. 

Each of us in this group are more interested in doing some good in the world. Not that we are opposed to seeing financial gain, we deserve it and will get to that point.  I am happy to say we honestly want to offer something of value to others. Personally making other people's lives better by what we offer really goes "clunk" for me. 

So it is fine that these other people are doing what they are doing, I want to reach certain people who need what I have and will be happy to have connected with my sites and their offerings.

Stating intentions would be useful so that we are clear on exactly what each of us is up to.

Myself, my intent is to create a comprehensive set of web sites that provide valuable resources to art educators, art students and home schooled budding artists. These sites will make the teaching lives of the educators more FUN with new innovative ideas and motivational strategies and products that spark the imaginations of themselves and the artists. World wide interests is my goal and service to all art education classes of  brand new teachers to start off with teaching being a lot more FUN while still offering quality instruction. 

" It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are."

Build it and THEY will Come!

It happens in the movies, at least it did in "Field of Dreams." They built the baseball diamond and the crowds and players showed up for the game. It would be nice if that were all you  had to do to get your web sites and blogs out there in everyone's mailboxes and at the top of the search engine lists automatically. It takes a bit more research and work than that. Just recently, I read a well written article discussing ways to have your blog go VIRAL. Here is what I understood.

1. First determine WHY you are blogging. Who is your audience? What are your goals? What interests do your readers have? Answer those questions in a compelling way and your audience will come back again and again.

2.Do basic research. Visit  sites like technorati. Do a search for keywords related to your target audience as well as the topics you intend to focus on. While there answer these questions: Who are the most influential bloggers in your space? Who is being successful in getting in front of the bloggers that you want to get in front of?

Technorati ranks recent posts based on their authority or how many people link to that blog. High ranked blogs are the ones you want to check out. Pay attention to what people write about, note any posts you like, later you can link posts you write to those posts, which may generate return traffic. 

3. Avoid sub domains to set up your BLOG. Install your blog on your own domain as a sub page. The suggested blog is Wordpress.

4. Create a content schedule that is steady of what, when and how you will post, plan ahead and stick to it.This creates structure around your workload. Perhaps plan to post on Tuesdays or Thursdays then stay on that schedule.  Your posting schedule creates expectation on the reader's parts, you drift away—they drift away. Kind of like, "Hey it is Tuesday/Thursday, let's see what she has to say today!" Don't miss a post and disappoint your audience. 

5. Be personal. Add a photo of yourself, write good bios to enhance your credibility to let them know you are a real person. This will engage your audience.

6. Be first. By being the first to post breaking news is an easy way to go VIRAL.

7. Know what other bloggers are saying.If an influencial blogger post a comment and you disagree, state your opinion in a courteous way without insulting anyone. Disagreement creates interaction and builds community. Saying the same thing does not compel readers to your blog.

8. Notice social networking sites to see what people like. An article that goes "popular" on Digg can generate tens of thousands of visitors to your site. The same can happen with StumbleUpon and del.iocio.us. 

9. Control your BLOG, keeping  up with live stats to learn how to add popularity to your postings.

10. Make it easy for your readers with an RSS feed in a prominent place. RSS feeds let users display the content from multiple blogs through one program so they can easily see the latest posts from their favorite blogs.

11. Rinse and repeat. Watch  your blog to see what works. To figure out what works, find out where your traffic comes from and which resources bring the most visitors or comments. 

12. Stand by your opinions, knowing you cannot please everyone.If everyone does not like you, it's OK.

13. Keep the Faith, try not to get discouraged. Building a readership and going viral takes time and experience. It takes effort to find ways to get your particular audience to visit, comment on posts, and recommend you to others—and waiting is well worth it!

Article excerpt from Chris Bennett, President of 97th Floor, specializing in Blog optimization

Hope you enjoyed this summary,if you would like the article in it's entirity, I will be happy to email it to you. Just let me know!

"Every time you stand up for an ideal, you send forth a tiny ripple of hope."

                                                                                                                    Robert Kennedy

  

Online Marketing Group Learning Curve

It was several months ago that I sat in a huge ball room with a hundred or so people. All of the audience had gathered together to learn about the hot topic of internet marketing. The speaker was SLICK, the movement through the material was fast. Words and information was flying. I started taking notes and as the day moved on it became near impossible to "grasp" all of the new information as they were doling it out. And then they offered this and that and you could take books, or cds or dvds or you could be "coached" on this or that. Alas, they were selling more complex versions of all that they had gone through. I did not buy however an idea hit me the first night to find a group of people who like me really had a desire to know how to do this. Find a group of people who have different strengths and by working together we can move through the material eventually bringing our goals to reality.
People signed up, six or eight people were excited. The event ended, and we met with five of us. One person moved, another traveled for business and could never connect. Four of us remained.
We have been meeting once a month now for many months and it pays off in a number of ways. Our group continues to support the intentions of each individual and as individuals learn a new skill or about a new program or book, the others are the benefactors of that knowledge. We intend for our next meeting to be a physical hands on application of what we have discussed so far and will focus on Mini Sites and subdomains. It is exciting as we continue to chip away at the information out there about internet marketing. One of the participants said it best about our inevitable success. Either way, Time, Effort, Planning and Resources (and especially the grace of God) are necessary to make it happen.
I too am a big believer in having groups of like minded people come together for a similar purpose. Even the Bible says" where two or more are gathered together..." I look foward to seeing this play out in the best possible way to the benefit of all in the group and the world.