How easy is it for you to work at home? Well for me it’s really quite easy at least most of the time. I can usually avoid most of the obvious distractions. What I am very poor at though is planning at home. This is where distractions really take their toll and hinder progress.

So what’s the answer? Well it depends on how you work, mine way is simple I head for one of the many offices scatted around the neighbourhood, I think some people can these public houses? I have several local ones that I can visit; it just depends on what I am doing or what the weather is like.

Last Saturday I went to one of my favourite outdoor offices near Silverdale in the southern part of the English Lake District, one of my favourite places on earth. You can get an idea of the solitude by looking at the pictures.

On a Bad Day You Can See Blackpool!!

The Lovely Town of Silverdale

The Pepperpot a Victorian Monument Nothin to Do with Monty Python

My desk and Office: No Computer!!

Here pen in hand I sat and wrote like some poor mans Wordsworth. I planned a huge chunk of my e-course 12 Roads to Success here last year. I was able to plan so much, that the writing came to me very easily. So in this very spot last Saturday I planned some additional content for Internet Coaching Monthly. In just over two hours I wrote over 12 pages of notes. What really helped was that it was a beautiful day and I hardly saw a soul all day.

So can I recommend a change of scenery when you need to get something done?  Rob…

Insane, no not really… The great thing about Information Marketing is that you can do it from almost anywhere; you don’t even need a broadband connection. You see here in the UK it has been warm and the sun has been shining. So why waste the sunshine.

Instead of working at home I have relocated to my local public house pad and pen in one hand and pint of Guinness in the other. That’s where this blog post was written in the sunshine from during a break from working on Internet Coaching Monthly my new venture with Steve King.

Internet Coaching Monthly (ICM) is a membership site its aim is to provide excellent content at an amazingly low price. Steve has been very busy building the site using WordPress whilst I have been creating some of the content for it. If you look at the website you will be seriously under whelmed as nearly of the content is yet to be published.

I am creating 2 modules at the moment one on product creation and marketing and another on eBay trading of course. The product creation will be approx 20 videos some PowerPoint’s and PDF’s. I am hoping to shoot the videos in the next week or so this will take the number of videos on the site to over 100, yes we have been very busy!

I am also working on a little project with my lovely partner building a Kindle empire for her fiction (which is outselling my own stuff at the moment). 2011 is already my most productive year so far I have already completed and have on sale 3 products since January.

Madness or Magic

Your eBay Information Business

eBay Revealed: A Powerseller Interviewed

Steve and I are hoping to launch at the end of May we want this to be really special. Oh my glass appears to be empty, time for another Guinness… This office move really suits me!  Rob

Why did I do this? Why did I hand over my hard earned money to enrol on a coaching program? What was there to learn that I have not already been doing? Well there is a simple reason. I had the opportunity to be mentored by Alex Jeffreys.

The name Alex Jeffreys is a well known one on the Internet, just Google his name and see how many matches are returned, it’s impressive. So how come Alex has got his name so well known?

You see Alex is a marketing superstar (I suspect that he might be embarrassed by that) and coach. He will certainly tell you that he is no Guru. In fact he upset quite a few gurus with his report The Gurus Nightmare last year get a copy by clicking HERE.

When Alex opened his coaching program Marketing with Alex 4 (MWA4) at the end of 2010 I signed up immediately you see I wanted to grow and add value to my business and in so doing provide even greater value to my subscribers and customers.

The first module is called forward to basics and is well over 2 hours long; Alex presents the outline of how he runs his daily business and the routine that he has developed to maintain his focus. The presentation is followed up with a recording of a live webinar where fellow student get the opportunity to further question him about the points he has made in the presentation.

The importance of having a mentor is that they can explain how to avoid all the pitfalls in the road ahead as they have treaded this path before. Even mentors have mentors and these mentors have their own mentors.

So here’s a bit of mentoring directly from Alex it an excellent presentation call ‘The Easy Cash Webinar’ this is massive on content showing you how to build your online business and the best part? This is FREE just click the banner.

Enjoy Rob……

Blogging is big business, successful blogs have lots of visitors and can make money just by promoting other peoples products.

A blog is a very inexpensive way of establishing an online presence, the value of this approach is that you own the blog and the domain name and customise it to be completely individual to your business.

However you can do this even more cheaply by using one of the many available free blogs such as Blogger from Google. The idea is to use the blog to review a product and then drive traffic to the blog to sell the product via your affiliate link.

Blogger is easy to set up and customise and easy to use here is an example of one of my own review blogs.

Decide what type of product you want to promote and look for a suitable product on Clickbank, PayDot Com or a similar site and promote the product via your affiliate link which means that if a visitor to your review blog makes a purchase through your link you get paid.

You will need to write a series of review articles about the product or the problem that you can post on the blog and then write a series of article to post on article sites to drive traffic back to your review blog. The way it works is that you write an article about the problem the product you are promoting solves; look at other articles on the same or similar subjects on the article websites to get an idea of the style of writing and the content.

The traffic is driven by a clickable link in the resource box of the article that links to your review blog or the product via your affiliate link. Here is an example of one of my articles look in particular at the resource box and follow the links to see what I mean.

The more traffic you can generate the more sales you will make. The disadvantage of this system is that results are not instant and it takes a while for the blog to be indexed by the search engine spiders. You will also have to provide new content  on the website on a regular basis about twice a week. This is a lot of writing but if you use PLR (Private Label Rights) articles as the skeleton of your articles or blog posts it will cut down the writing time to a fraction of the time to write from scratch.

You can pick up PLR article very easily; probably the best way to does this is to do an Internet search or sign up to a free giveaway event and look for PLR articles or products. I will post a list of giveaways below here in the meantime have a look and see if you can find some PLR content for a free review blog. More soon Rob….

What do you intend to do in 2011? Have you thought of some New Year resolutions? Made some promises to yourself? I have made my own promises and made a list of what I want to accomplish in 2011. Most of these are just personal goals but one of them is to give even more value to my subscribers this year and to help as many of you as possible to start your own profitable business for as little as possible.

If you are serious about starting your own business then what I have for you this year will certainly help! Let’s start by what may be holding you back. One of the problems may be not knowing how or where to start. The first thing that most of us would do is to search online for information I have just googled Make Money and there was 424,000,000 results returned, overwhelming to say the least.

Amongst the sort of things you will find will be:

Buy this and retire in 20 Mins. Not fast enough for me!

New loophole in Google make millions!! Really.

15 year old Myra Binglebatt shows you how to buy your own car, house and island working only 3 minutes a day only 14 spots left. I hope I’m not too late.

Ok I exaggerate (only slightly) but not by much but the common thread through all this is you stump up your hard earned cash in the hope of emulating young Myra. Maybe buy a bigger island, a faster car and a more expensive mansion. If you can do all this in just 2 minutes a day all the better.

We have all been stung by this type of hype, even me. I once bought a “Millionaire” system complete with product, website and everything you need to get it up and running online. So easy a child could do it.

Well I couldn’t, the licence gave the minimum price the product could be sold at and I thought it represented very poor value at that price. It came with ad copy intended for direct mailing that did not relate directly to the product it mentioned items that were not part of the product for sale. Some of the bonus disks were unreadable no information on how to upload or edit the website and worst of all no reply to my support e-mails until this guy wanted to sell me something else!!

Oh and by the way this cost me $850 of my hard earned. This is exactly what gets Internet selling a bad name and tars everyone with the same brush.

Believe it or not there are some businesses that you can start on a shoestring and this year I am going to help as many people as possible by providing as many free or inexpensive ways as possible to get you started as soon as possible.

Here are just 3 ideas to get you up and running today, yes today.

Start an eBay business, if you already have an eBay account why not sell the unwanted presents you have received and grab yourself some capital you can reinvest to make more. Want to know more about eBay first then grab my free eBay guide HERE.

Use Amazon to sell, most people will only ever think of eBay but Amazon Market place is a vibrant selling platform and has the advantage that there is no bidding, you set the price and Amazon set the postage costs. You will often find that some items will command a much higher price on Amazon.

Sell you books on Amazon, simply insert the ISBN number to see the possible resale value of your books. Now your Dan Brown will only be worth a few cents each but academic, instructional and technical books have a much higher resale value and will be worth far more. De-clutter your home and see what else you can find to sell. Want more information on how to do this? Then download my Amazon video series for FREE HERE.

Finally something to think about, can you find poorly listed books on eBay that you can resell on Amazon? Bet you can, or grab some new stock for just a few dollars at garage sales or charity shops. None of this will make you a fortune but there are sizable businesses that can be built from these modest beginnings. More soon Rob….

Why do people want to start their own business? I suppose that the answer is as individual as the person, but the basic reasons are usually.

• I have always wanted to be my own boss
• I hate the idea of being a wage slave
• To give me a sense of achievement
• To do something I am really interested in
• To make lots of money
• To give me the life style I have always wanted
• I want to work from home
• I want to work around my family
• I want to sack the boss!

For me it’s all about life style, I like to work when I want to and the idea of not answering to anyone is the real appeal. I have run many different types of home business from selling computers to Information Marketing. The great advantage of the ones I run now is that they run on almost complete auto pilot. So much so that I have taken few days off to visit the Costa Del Sol Spain last week and the only thing I did in that time was answer one e-mail.

Me at Benamadena Marina with my New Toy (not!)

On the Prom

Mijas Village One of the many “White Villages” in Spain

I love the laid back life style and the sun but the best bit is that due to the Internet I can run my complete business from anywhere in the world where I can access the Internet. That to me is a powerful motivator.

How many people go on to start their own businesses and how many people are put off by thinking that starting their own business means a huge amount of cost and that there are a lot of different skills that need to be mastered. Well it rather depends on the type of business you choose to start, some of the best and most profitable businesses have grown from very modest beginnings.  Rob….

Auto Article Profits is a short report written by John Thornhill that shows you how you can become a success with article marketing.

 The product claims it can show you how you can earn anything between $10 and $500 per month from a single article. I must say I was quite sceptical at these bold claims so decided to purchase the report to investigate further. As the report only cost $10 and had a 60 day refund policy I knew I wasn’t taking a big risk.

 The report itself is only a few thousand words long but let me assure you it was full of golden nuggets, no fluff here and the fact it only took me 20 minutes or so to read it was not a problem as the information is straight to the point.

 As with most stuff written by John the content is solid and your head will be spinning with the ideas the report generates. Let me tell you most of what you think you know about article marketing will be dispelled once you read this report.

 What I also love about Auto Article Profits is the fact it covers a technique that involves no capital outlay. You could read this report and be putting the information it contains to good use within a matter of hours at no cost. How many products can claim that.

 Is the information contained in Auto Article Profits life changing? perhaps not but for a $10 investment you really can’t go wrong. I have seen courses that charge 50 times more than the cost of this report contain less information.

 Auto Article Profits receives my highest recommendation and I urge you to check it out.

 

CHECK IT OUT HERE

Short of things to right about? Then download some of my PLR packages from my Freebie friday events and start making money.

“Ok Rob what is Freebie Friday?”

 “Well it’s very simple, when people search online for ways to grow their online business, or are just looking for great advice on how to get started, the major problem is information overload.”

 If you are like me your e-mail inbox gets filled everyday with dubious offers to buy this, that or the next best thing that will allow you to start your business or catapult your business into the stratosphere. A lot of the information being offered is already available free on the internet. The major problem is where do you start looking for quality information that will allow you to make the informed decisions that you need to make.

 Well you won’t need to do all these hours of searching online, getting distracted by one thing and then another because I have done it all for you. You see after doing this for some years it has become easy for me to separate the online wheat from the online chaff.

 Basically with Freebie Friday I will be giving you access to all the quality information you will need to start and grow your own successful business.

 “Ok Rob that sounds great, but what do you class as quality information?”

 “Right this is simple, it’s information that I have used, applied and found useful in building my own business, just pure quality information, no fluff no rubbish.”

 “So what types of information will be available on Freebie Friday?”

 “The very first offering will is a complete video course showing you how you can start to profit from trading on Amazon starting today for only a few dollars and I do mean a few dollars. This is a complete business plan for starting and growing your Amazon business, I could easily charge $67 for this product but to launch Freebie Friday it’s FREE of course, plus some great information products that you can download and start profiting from.”

“Hey that sounds cool, what else will you be offering?”

 “I will have available some top products for the some of the very best marketers such as Lee McIntyre, Ray Johnson, Stephen Pierce, John Thornhill and many many others (including me!).”

 “Stick around it will be one hell of a ride!”

 Put this date in your diary, Freebie Friday launches Friday 26^th Feb. look for my e-mail.

 Rob

Did you meet Napoleon? I hope you did, Napoleon Hill was one of the most inspirational and seminal writers of the 20^th century his book “Think and Grow Rich” is one of the most widely read books on personal development ever written.  If you have not already downloaded your free copy you can get it by clicking HERE.

 

Hill in his 20 year study identified the common attributes to success, achivement and riches as a set of 13 steps, starting with Desire the starting point of all achievement.

 

I was watching John Thornhill’s video on Warrior Forum on Monday evening where he warned us to beware of the negative influences on the forum. The know alls who never see the good in anything, you get them in the pub “It will never work because…….” The amazing thing is that so many people listen to, or even value the opinion of these people. Now there is nothing wrong with constructive criticism because that is how we learn and improve.

 

However I was reminded of this negativity last Saturday afternoon.

Are we sitting comfortably?

Let us begin; I had set aside Friday evening to work on my affiliate’s page. I started this a few weeks ago so when I returned to it Friday I was shocked to find that it was less than half completed, it was missing e-mails, a product review a blog post and some signatures. No good moaning just got to get on with it so I worked late into the evening.

 

I continued during Saturday morning and into the afternoon, late in the afternoon I got a phone call.

 

“What are you doing?”

“Working on my affiliate resources for my product.”

“What, are you still working on that rubbish…? You will never make anything.”

 

It is so easy to let the seeds of doubt enter your mind and to become disheartened, this criticism becomes more than criticism it becomes a body blow as it works on a subconscious level . When I was wanting to start off on eBay, I was told it was impossible for the individual to make any real money at this and that I was wasting my time and my money. I listened to this advice  longer than I should have done, this wisdom came from someone who had been using eBay for some years so to me he was a guru (a small one, but then I thought that anyone who knew more than me was a guru).

 

I just assumed that I was being given good advice, my friend knew loads about eBay and I knew nearly nothing. This “advice” stopped me trading on eBay for over 2 years. This sage wisdom was repeated every time I suggested “we” find a way of making money on eBay. We because I did not have the experience.

 

Eventually I thought what the hell and I just went for it, at first I met with limited success, but by perseverance (one of the other steps to success and riches) my sales started to take off and 8 months later I attained Powerseller status. I still get weekly enquiries as to how my eBay business is doing, and how much time I waste doing it (7 hours a week max). The moral of the story, read Napoleon’s book and avoid the know all’s the self appointed experts and the Jeremiahs.

 

See you soon

Rob

 

p.s. still working on my product, it’s the value of a definite purpose!

No I don’t mean the little French dude, but Napoleon Hill. I first read about Napoleon Hill in a book by Paul McKenna. Napoleon Hill was born in 1833 in Virginia USA and died in 1970 following a long and successful career as a consultant to business leaders, lecturer and author. Napoleon Hill’s story is remarkable in itself. Hill was a reporter who was sent to interview Andrew Carnegie the Scottish steel magnate who had made his fortune after emmigrating to the United States. Carnegie saw in Hill some of the qualities that had made him successful in business. He challenged Napoleon Hill to interview the top 500 most successful business men and women in the United States and to write a book on his findings, and find out the “secrets” behind their success. This took hill over 20 years to complete.

 

He published his findings in the most inspirational book I have ever read “Think and Grow Rich” published in 1937. The people interviewed are a roll call of American business at that time and include 3 presidents. “Think and Grow Rich” has been re-published many times since 1937. The current updated edition was first published 2003 and includes more modern examples of the Carnegie secret in action. However for me it is the 1937 version that is the definitive version and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. You can download a free copy of “Think and Grow Rich” by clicking HERE. Enjoy the video of some of Hills quotes.

 

See you soon

Rob