Net Profit News

I just finished reading Your Internet Cash Machine: The Insiders Guide to Making Big Money, Fast! by Joe Vitale and Jillian Coleman Wheeler. This book covers most of the methods anyone can use to create income via the Internet. It contains a great wealth of information, which is especially valuable for the beginner or experienced Internet Business Entrepreneur. I think this book is probably more valuable for a beginner or moderately experienced person; however it covers such a wide range of topics that there is certainly something of value in it for everyone. If you're not familiar with Joe Vitale then you need to read his other books that I've listed in the left-hand column of this blog. Joe Vitale is President of Hypnotic Marketing, Inc., a marketing consulting firm. His professional clients include the Red Cross, PBS, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, and many other small and large businesses. His other books include There's a Customer Born Every Minute, The Attractor Factor, and Zero Limits, all from Wiley. Joe is also a featured contributor to the hit movie and bestselling book, The Secret. Learn more at www.mrfire.com. Jillian Coleman Wheeler is a grants and business consultant. She is the author of The Other Secrets, Going Beyond the Law of Attraction, and The New American Land Rush. Her essays have also been featured in Joe Vitale's Life's Missing Instruction Manual and Meet and Grow Rich. For more information, visit www.grantmerich.com. Personally, I thought the first chapter in the book offers the most valuable insight to achieving success. Maybe that's because I'm familiar with the concepts presented in the other chapters, or maybe it's because I recognize the truth when it is standing in front of me. Note: this has NOT always been the case! Here are some passages from the first chapter that I really like: The authors cover how to make money online using the following:

• Auctions
• Affiliate Sales
• Social Networking Sites
• Information Products

Section two takes you through setting up your web site, getting the word out so that people know it exists, and making your writing Hypnotic. Section three talks about growing your business using the following:

• Quality
• Support Networks
• Laws you need to know
• Business Plans

This book really lays the groundwork for starting a business online. It's a valuable addition to your library and a great reference to have on your bookshelf. Until next time, Fred

Internet Business

Usually you think you should look to the big successful stores and businesses for ideas on how to be successful. Not always. In fact, not usually. Here's an example from Sears that you should NEVER follow. We have a 3 ¾ year old son (the youngest of four children). My mother saved an advertisement from Sears and asked me if I thought she should get this for him. It's an advertisement for "The Laptop Computer Just For Kids", you can see the front of the small, folder ad flyer below. The photo makes it look like a small laptop computer running Microsoft Windows. My first impression was sure, looks like something he would like. He already uses our computers to play games for kids his age. Then I opened the flyer and saw the price of $29.99 and said to myself "What? How can they do that?". So I started reading the ad copy and the small print. You can see the inside of the flyer below The ad copy refers to the product as a "toy laptop computer", and says it's preloaded with over 20 easy-to-learn activities. But then it says "Interactive LCD screen is located in the middle of the list-top with bold computer graphics on either side". What??? The small print at the bottom (in photo below) says the LCD screen is 1 15/16" x 1 5/8". So basically the flip-top part of the laptop, where it looks like a normal color laptop screen is just printed graphics with a non-color, small, LCD screen in the middle: they even printed in the green Windows "Start" button. In other words, it's a rip-off. Well, maybe not a rip-off for $29.99, but definitely misleading. Very misleading. Most people would not catch the fact that the display is not a full color, normal laptop display and would expect that they've ordered a normal laptop computer type device. It's not. Now maybe it's just fine for learning, but the ad does not give a suggested age range that it's applicable for either. It's also only available "by Mail Only". Wonder why? Because if you saw it in the store you'd laugh in disgust and not buy it. Companies doing business like this is why there's an issue establishing credibility and trust in mail-order and Internet based businesses. This entire ad is designed in tricking someone like my mother, a grandmother, into order something thinking they're buying their child or grandchild a useful laptop computer for a child. You would think Sears would know better. They built their original mail-order business on trust. I guess that's been lost in the modernization. We've had some products around the house that had similar functions and a similar small display. They were used for a little while and then tossed aside. Were they worth $29.99? Probably. But they were not disguised as a laptop computer and advertised as such. Always remember ads like this and never create one.

• You can destroy the trust you've built in your customer base, or guarantee a new customer will never order another product from you, by taking advantage of them off like this.
• Always deliver what you promise, allude to, or infer. In fact, deliver more.
• Don't try to "trick" people into buying; no good can or will ever come from it.
• Your customer base is the most valuable thing you have, treat them with respect and honesty and you can successfully build a profitable business.

Until next time, Fred

Internet Business, Internet Marketing

I just read a news article about a remote, poor, mountain village (Himachal Pradesh) in India where the brothers in a family traditionally marry one woman. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a hard life and instead of splitting up their inherited plots of land, the brothers in a family marry one wife and live together. They setup arrangements for marital relations, basically take turns, and the parentage of individual children is not known or worried about. To us, it may seem strange, even perverse or disgusting. To them, it's normal and seems to work well. There are a few things that jumped into my mind when I read this article as it related to Internet business. Ok, for those of you still snickering, there were a few more things that jumped into my mind, but we won't go into those! Conserving Resources One of the draws of starting an Internet business is that it does not take a huge investment when compared to starting a traditional "brick and mortar" business. This allows you to conserve and preserve your resources, which is why the mountain people in the article resorted to this arrangement: instead of splitting up their plot of land as it passes from one generation to the next, they preserve their resources. If they didn't do this, they would end up with a plot of land that is too small to live on and live off: livable and farmable land is limited because of the ruggedness of the mountainous area. Multiplying Effort One of the ways successful Internet business entrepreneurs get more accomplished than they can do alone is to sub-contract out the work. They do this by paying either individuals or companies to perform the work, or, some use intern programs where the interns do some work in exchange for learning how to build a business. The remote mountain people in the article practice polyandry, and while it seems strange to us, it builds a team that gets more done and accomplished than they would get accomplished if the brothers had each married a different wife and lived separately. Perception is Reality Here's the biggie. This is why I like this example. How many of us can really imagine sharing our wife with our brothers? Tonight I sleep with her, tomorrow brother number 2 sleeps with her, and the next night brother number 3 sleeps with her. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. Pretty foreign to the normal mode of operation for most of us. But again, to them, it's normal and their life, it's their reality. What's your reality? You may want to be successful, and have bushel baskets full of cash laying around your house, but if you're not and you don't, then success is just as foreign to you as sharing your wife with your brothers (or being married to several brothers if you're a woman). If you truly want to change your reality, or your situation in life, it takes a huge effort. Not necessarily a huge physical effort, but a huge shift in mental perspective. If you're not successful, then there are reasons you're not successful. Internal reasons, not necessarily external reasons. Sure, there may be external influences, but successful people rise above external influences everyday. If you're stuck it's because you're stuck in your reality. You have to move beyond it. To be successful you have to think differently than unsuccessful people and do things differently than unsuccessful people. One of the biggest differences is that you have to take action, you have to do something, and most of the time, you have to try over and over and over and stick with it until you shift your reality from where you are to where you want to be. And remember this example of the remote mountain people. While you may think you understand the reality of being successful, if you're not successful, it's as foreign to you as being married to the same wife as your brother. You have to change your thinking first, then, and only then, will your reality will change. Until next time, Fred

Internet Business, Truth and Freedom