My Summer Vacation

About eight months ago my wife and myself started on the road to financial independence in the wonderful world of Internet marketing, we were going to be overnight successes with million dollar bank accounts in no time at all, and only working 2 hours a week. Well needless to say our eyes a little wider open than when we started.

It has been an interesting journey, and I have learned so much, and will continue to learn as time goes on, and we are not going to give up. We have met online many helpful people, and to them, Thank You very much. And hope the support will continue.

The last couple of months have been the hardest though. My real job, the one that pays the bills and allows me the freedom to pursue my other business has taken way more of my time than is normal, which opens up another topic that is completely unrelated the subject of home business, but does require some discussion at a future date. back on subject, I have not had the time to keep up on my work on the business. Which in retrospect has been a good thing because we had become so overwhelmed with the size of what we were trying to do that we kind of lost site of what it was we were trying to do. My head is clearer now, still not much time but that will change in a month or so and we can get back at it hot and heavy.

As for the summer vacation, the grand kids from Alaska were here for 2 weeks and we all got together and had a wonderful time doing all sorts of grandparent things. Now its back to work

Here Are 2 Common Internet Scams and How To Avoid Them

As the internet continues to grow and offer new and exciting opportunities to make money there is an ever increasing presence of internet scams popping up all over the place. Let's take a look at 2 common ways you can be scammed both online and offline.

As the internet continues to grow and offer new and exciting opportunities to make money there is an ever increasing presence of internet scams popping up all over the place. These scams prey on good people who many times are desperately in need of money and are willing to believe almost anything.

The reason for this is they want to believe in something that will make their lives better. Another comon method of internet scammers is to email you and try and get personal information from you. Let's take a look at 2 common ways you can be scammed both online and offline.

1. MLM scams. This is an industry that has been and continues to be full of scammers. That does not mean the whole industry is nothing but a bunch of scammers, but you need to be careful about what you join and how much you pay to get started with your own mlm business. Just because your best friend or Uncle Joe says this is going to be great does not mean it really is.

Before joining a mlm company you want to do your due diligence. This means doing a thorough background check on them. How long have they been in business. Call your local Better Business Bureau. Talk to people who work for them. Even better go to the local yellow pages of several cities and find the phone numbers of distributors in that city. Call them and ask for the good, the bad and the ugly of this company.

The longer a mlm company has been in business the more stable they are. On the internet anyone can build a website in 1 day and be in business. Be cautious about joining anything new especially if they want a lot of your money up front.

2. The most common internet scam today is a new version of the IRS Audit Scam. It works like this.

You receive an official-looking email, that lead you to believe it is from the IRS. The email states that the IRS is auditing you and that you must complete and return the attached questionnaire. If you do not respond within 48 hours, the message says, you will face penalties and interest. It asks for personal information including your social security number and bank accounts.

Another version of the IRS audit scam send you an email with a link in it. This link leads to a fake IRS website where you are asked to enter your personal information.

If you get an email with the words "IRS-Audit" you may as well delete it. Because people see the word audit they get scared and lose their sensibility. This is true for many internet scams. Trust your judgement before giving out any personal information or before joining any money making program that asks for money from you up front.

If you think you are being scammed one website that offer information and tips on many different types of scam is: scambusters.org
ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com
About the author
David Rankins uses the Plug-In Profit Site to earn multiple streams of income from home on the Internet...Get Yours Here! http://www.workathomeopportunities.org/pips.html
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Don't Become A Slave To Your Home Business

Close the door to your office or otherwise remove yourself from your designated "work area" and go into your "home" area to live your personal life. If your business involves the use of the telephone and you find it difficult to ignore a ringing phone in the office, simply turn the ringer off and turn the volume on the answering machine way down. If your business is internet based, just turn off your computer Here are four ways to create a less stressful home business environment:

Although the expressed reasons for wanting to work from home are many and varied, most home based business owners cite the ability to set their own hours as a major factor in their decision to work at home. However, many people that have work at home businesses often fall into a trap that flies directly in the face of their stated desire for time flexibility
The strong growth in home based business activity continues and, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, fifty-two percent of ALL small businesses are home-based. Some home based business owners have been known to become "workaholics" because their office is so accessible. Don't become a slave to your business...get out of your home office regularly to renew and revitalize yourself.

Close the door to your office or otherwise remove yourself from your designated "work area" and go into your "home" area to live your personal life. If your business involves the use of the telephone and you find it difficult to ignore a ringing phone in the office, simply turn the ringer off and turn the volume on the answering machine way down. If your business is internet based, just turn off your computer (or at least get away from the monitor and keyboard).
As a work at home business entrepreneur, you certainly aren't required to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week just because your business is located in your home. After all, your office or workspace is just an area in your home...it’s not your home itself!

Working and living under the same roof has a host of advantages, but it can present some challenges (in addition to the workaholic syndrome mentioned, above) and stress factors.
Here are four ways to create a less stressful home business environment:

-Remember why you wanted to become involved with a home-based business (i.e. more time for family, work schedule flexibility, etc.)

-Have discussions with your family members and get their input about the working arrangements and the amount of time they want with you.

-Use good time management techniques. Keep a list of tasks by order of importance. There are many low cost and effective "day planners" or "organizers" readily available today.
-ALWAYS take a little time to "smell the roses".

While not experiencing the negatives common to a corporate office working environment, the home-based business owner may occasionally experience stresses and frustrations that are unique to working at home.

Networking with other home-based and small business owners provides an opportunity to connect with others who may be experiencing the same stresses/frustrations that you are. Sharing stressful and/or frustrating issues with someone else in the same situation can relieve your stress and may bring you good advice from a different point of view.

As a final note, remember to observe Home-Based Business Week each year (it is always the week of October that includes the second Tuesday).
ArticleSource:
ArticlesAlley.com

How to Run A Sucessful Home Based Business

The expression how to run a successful work at home based business deals about methodology. The adopted methodology to starting to a business online is important, or exactly vital to have unequivocal success in the new enterprise. The theoreticians previously say that the trees hinder us to see the forest. This can happen when the concentrated focus is the work methodology and not it reality where the recent business will go to gradually develop itself. An Internet marketing business basically requires hard work of constantly learning new how to make money online knowledge. And the newbie target should be to leave of being parasite of the other. It means to be educated to make with always do not need the assistance of others. Generally, the newbie is not lead to make its planning of study, plan of goals. And without a plan of goals the apprentice leads its life without an appropriate direction. Anyway, when the newbie starts a working at home based business he runs a powerful self instruction. The view of self instruction is critical for the Internet marketing education. It means by the interaction with a machine. It is different of conventional education, where the interactions between teachers and students, and the students and them selves promote the permanently motivation. In the self instruction the success of the newbie depends over all, on the newbie motivation and its conditions of work. The biggest challenge is to personally undertake a plan of learning for the proper hands. What it is in game is the designs for self instruction. And here the methodology is very important. How to implement a plan of study and learning of a new business? What to study? What to read? That is essentials questions. When newbie is starting a work at home institute must come across with a pedagogical plan. I suggest pay attention on some strategies. First of all, you need a web site and to host it some where. If you cannot do it by yourself, hide someone to do it to you. To run your profit site successfully, you better visit forums, where you will see the home Internet business overall ideas and contact a lot of productive members. When you participate in Internet forums you have added a selling link to your signature. It means you must write a short description not of your personal life, but of your skills, pointing all your readers to your web site reference. The more important part of your profile online is to normally ensure other people should identify you, your products. Write articles about the area of your site and add them to free article directories. When different people find it they will link to your site from the informative article. Add your site in web directories. There are many directories that expect to exchange linking with you. It is simple to do: you put a link from an Internet business on your site and so you have your link inside another site. Select a few niche keywords and SEO your pages. It is very important to search for strategic keywords to put it in your site and to have back link to your sales page. You create an amount of reference where your selective readers could click and get relevant information to buy through your web site. I hope it will help you to understand and run a successful work at home based business.

One Cent Sale

What wonderful way to start the spring season than with the gift of your favorite wine and now you can save on your shipping. But hurry this won't last forever.

More Wine Geeky Stuff

It is almost time to start cruising the wineries here in Oregon, and I can hardly wait to get started. What I love about the wines of the Northwest and Oregon in particular is that the wine makers do it for the sake of the wine. This may offend some of the bigger wineries but it is true. Bur Oregon wines are not created on the premise of will this sell, but will this taste good.

Collectively, Oregon wines are a exception to the rule of marketing mediocrity. Most Oregon wines are made with integrity. They come in better and worse versions-which is inevitable but their collective integrity can never be questioned. Partly this is due to the small scale artisan wineries of Oregon. Most Oregon wineries produce less than 5000 cases a year

Oregon seems to attract the willful wine maker who is more interested in making tha wine his, or her way, than they about a guaranteed, focus-group assured payday. And Oregon's pre-eminent "willful winemaker" is David Lett, the founder of The Eyrie Vineyards. Arriving in Oregon in 1965, it was Lett who literally brought pinot noir and pint gris to the state, despite the advise of his wine making professors in California who asserted that northern Oregon was "too cool." The rest is pretty much history.

Eyrie wines are now made By Lett's son Jason, who has no problem with his fathers asthetic convictions. Eyrie wines have always been of the finest quality. The Letts, father and son, have remained true to their school. And the latest expression of that high-minded conviction is the stunning 2005 estate-grown pinot noir. It is everything that and Oregon pinot noir should be and , oddly enough everything that they shouldn't be. This is probably the finest pinot noir I have tasted in my short time that I have actually been TASTING wines. So my advise is to try it for yourself and see if I'm not correct.



Morrell & Company's Premier Selection of Collectible Wines

Wine Geek

When we started our Home Based Business, everyone told us that you need to find something that you are passionate about, know something about or have a good product to sell that alot of people want. Well we have been at this for about 4 months now and it has been a real challenge because everthing that I am passionate about or good at or know anything about is either boring or won't make us any money. And that is not why we are doing this. Or at least we were told that we couldn't do it.

Well I don't like to be told that I can't do something, it just make me want to do it that much more. So I have started to do my research and maybe I have found away to do just that.

I have a almost geek like interest in wine, just about everything wine, especially Northwest wines, but most of all Oregon Wines. And We have found and affiliate marketer through Commission Junction. Now I can have my wine and drink it to. We will start by passing along information about our local wines and what ever I find that might be of interest to you other wine enthusiasts out there. And from time to time bring to you some good deals on wine and all the stuff that goes along with it.

Making Money Online

There are many ways to make money online with your own home based business, and they will all depend on how much effort you are willing to put into them. You can start out by selling items in the free classifieds, like freeadsusa.com or one of many others. This is a pretty inexpensive, but somewhat time consuming process. And can be quite profitable.

If you don't have a product to sell you cansell someone else's. Clickbank.com or PayDotCom.com have thousands of e-books to sell, all you have to do is signup as an affiliate and you can start making as much as 75% commissions on the books that you sell in your free ads or on you website or even in your blog, for little or no money
tyo start out. Just write some catchy ad copy, or you can find some that has already been written for you, just cut and paste. And be amking money in no time at all.

All of this can be done in just a couple hours in the evening, or what ever time that you find convient, with out spending any money at all. So what is holding you back.

Click Here!

Spring Break

Whoa, I can't believe that this week went by so fast. It's Friday, well almost, the grandkids have gone back home and the mother-in-law is heading back to her little place on the coast. It was nice to be able play with the kids, but they sure use up a lot of energy and time. Which just drives me even more to get this business up and running. We have so little time to enjoy the things that we love, and being able to work from home just seems so right, now we just have to find the right product or service.

Everything that I have read or seen or heard for that matter says pick something that you are passionate about ot that you are good at, then start writing about it, and everthing will start to fall into place. Well I love Golf but I'm not very good at it, and the wife and I hve started touring wineries and going on wine tasting tours, and they have been alot of fun and very interesting. As a matter of fact we went just last weekend to the Evergreen Air Museum for a wine tasting and had a good time, we got to sample some Oregon Pinot Noir that were pretty good

E-books and Affiliate Programs

Some E-books combine very well with an affiliate program. When the affiliate receives some extra benefit from promoting the viral message, like being able to brand your E-book with his affiliate links, the affiliate makes a sale when a reader buys through a branded link. You benefit from increased traffic on your website because the affiliate is willing to promote the E-books for you.
Be absolutely certain that your message includes a clear call to action. There shouldn’t be any doubt whatsoever about what you intend recipients to do. Make sure that the instructions are perfectly clear so that recipients know HOW to act. The action that you require should be simple and obvious as well. Don’t make things complicated or it will confuse the reader, such as by adding numerous links.
Remember the K.I.S.S. principle Keep It Simple Stupid! The incentive should be clear to those you want to take an action. Readers will look at your offering for about seven seconds before they move on. If it takes longer than that for them to figure out what it is you want them to do, they will move on. Don’t make your message vague or difficult to comprehend. If you do, chances are you will lose them. You must respect your readers enough to express your message clearly.
Once you are sure you have an E-book that will be of value to an affiliate program, approach them with your idea and be able to show that it will be mutually beneficial.
Viral Marketing using E-books is one of many techniques that all together have a cumulative effect in attracting customers and subscribers to your business and in attracting targeted visitors to your website. You will very soon find out that this is an excellent way of increasing sales, subscribers and referrals.
Dominate These Niche Markets In Google

Mailing List for Affiliate Marketers

If you are an affiliate marketer who wants to make a comfortable living from referring your prospects to other people’s product or service for decent commissions, then you must consider building your own mailing list.
Building your mailing list of hungry prospects can be one of the best investments you will ever make, as it is time and effort worth spending on. When you strike on a Joint Venture and have a new product or service to endorse, you can look no further than your own mailing list.
Granted, that most affiliates, as in more than 90 percent of them, are not making money from affiliate programs, but this often results from the same amount of effort focused on least effective methods.
While having your own mailing list is, by a long mile, not the only effective affiliate marketing method, you can make affiliate sales very quickly even in the next few hours after sending a sales message, provided that your mailing list is huge and responsive.
This is often true, because owning your own mailing list for you to endorse products and services to is one of the fastest-producing results, beating other affiliate marketing methods imaginable.
In a nutshell, the affiliate marketer who gets ahead of the pack is the one who owns a huge and responsive mailing list of prospects.

The Ultimate Autoresponder E-mail Marketing Tool

Humor Turns E-Mail Viral

A study by Sharpe Partners, an interactive marketing agency, revealed that 89% of adult Internet users in America share content with others via e-mail. This is excellent news for those companies who use self-propelling word-of-mouse” e-mail techniques to sell their products.
The study generated some interesting results regarding the type of content that is most often forwarded, as well. The most popular content is humorous material.
The second most popular category is news, followed by healthcare and medical information, religious and spiritual material, games, business and personal finance information and sports/hobbies… in that order. So it is easy to see that humor is the best content for your viral e-mail campaign.
Cartoons, jokes and funny video clips are among the things that can be added to an e-mail to insure that it will go viral. People will want to pass along something that makes them laugh.
They are a lot more likely to hit the forward button and send your email to their friends and relatives if it is an “advertainment” rather than an advertisement.
Not along ago, about 35 million people got an e-mail containing a picture taken in Disneyland. It took a minute to see it but there was Donald Duck lying prone in front of the famous Cinderella Castle. The title of the picture was “Bird Flu has hit Disneyland”. It was a viral e-mail advertising Disneyland and used the edgy strategy of making light of what’s serious… and it works.
I’d guess that most people who own a computer have seen that picture… and thus the advertisement for Disneyland. The bird flu epidemic is newsworthy and has the potential to attract an enormous amount of attention to any brand that might, for whatever reason, associate itself with it.
Remember that people are much more likely to share a joke or a funny picture than anything else so you would be well advised to include humor in your e-mail campaign.

One of the Best Home Businesses

I have been searching for information about home businesses and came across SBI, and at first I was just a little skeptical about all of their claims, but I can't find anything wrong with the program. They will do just about everything for you. That's not to say that you won't have to work, far from it, but they sure do make it allot easier for you.
No matter what your situation, SBI has a program that will work for you. So what have you got to lose. If a home business is what you are looking for why not give SBI a try

Six Reasons I Started My Own Home Business

It's no coincidence that thousands of people are starting their own home based business every day. There are certain advantages to working in the comfort of your own home that can be found no place else. Here are just 6 of the reasons that I found for starting my own home business. 1. Just about all of us can handle a job without having to deal with an overbearing boss or a business owner. If you have a home business, you are your own boss. You have the ability to set you own schedule, create your own deadlines, even criticize your own work, and to never ever get into trouble for arriving to work late again. Being your own boss does require some disicipline on your part, to assure yourself that you stay on task, but it definitely a relief to not have to work for someone else. 2 While not everything assosciated with a home based business is run thru a computer, a large amount of the business will involve working on the computer. If you have a laptop, you are able to pick it up and go where ever you would like, even on vacation and get stuff done. 3. On that same note, being able to work anywhere, you can plan vacation schedules around the rest of the family members schedules. The worst part of a vacation is coming home. As long a eveyone else's schedules permit, having a home business allows you extend your vacation because you are the on that writes the schedule. 4. Another benifit to making you own schedule is being able to spend more time with your family. You can make it your daughters soccer game, or your son's baseball game, and best of all, you aren't to tired to treat your spouse the way that he or she likes to be treated. It is still vital that you create an environment that allows you to be productive and work hard, but now you have options that you didn't have before. 5. Because the internet continues to grow ever so quickly, the oppurtunity for success is there. There are a myriad of choices as to how you can make money and millions of people that surf the internet everyday. Therefore, if you develop a quality website with a compelling ad campaign, the sky is the limit. 6. The last reason, and probably the most important reason for my starting a home business is the satifaction derived from creating something from just a simple idea and watching it grow. And you should be proud to tell you family and friends about your business. Having a home based business provides benefits that no other business in the world can offer. You can work for youself, set you schedule, and make all of the decisions yourself. Oh and by the way, you can do this at the expense of you own home.

Is Internet Marketing Right For You

Is the internet a right fit for you, there are three abilities that you will need if you are going to make a go of it, no matter what form your home business takes.

First you are going to need to have some organizational skills, time management will probably be your biggest challenge at first, especially if you just starting out and are unfamiliar with the internet. Getting time to work at your business, take care of the kids, cook dinner and so many other daily chores can be a challenge, but it can be done and is by many people.

Second, focus. This has been my biggest challenge and the hardest to over come. You will need to do research and staying focused will keep you on track. I myself have a tendency to wander thru the internet, sometimes loosing my place.
The phone, the kids, the television are all going to be distractions. You are going have to learn to ignore then.

Third, and the most important is money management. The more you have when ou start the easier it is going to be, but not necessry for success. There a lot of aides on the internet that cost little or nothing to help you with your business, so don't pay for anything that you can get for free.

No matter what you have read on the internet or seen on the television, you are not going to get rich over night. And it is going to take some work on your part. How fast you succeed will depend on you. So you might as well roll up your sleeves and go for it, what have you got to loose.

So Many Affiliate Programs! Which One Do I Choose?

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on.

Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

When do they issue the commission checks? Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.

What is the hit per sale ratio? This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions besides the commissions on sales? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

Who is the online retailer? Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.

Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? 5% - 20% is the commission paid by most programs. .01% - .05% is the amount paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.

These are just some of the questions that needed answering first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you select the right program for you site from among the many available.

Getting started

We are just getting started with our Internet business, and it has been a real eye opening experience. I have learned so many new things. It has been very exciting, and I am truly amazed at the potential for making money and you only seem to be limited by your own desire and ambition.
The wife and I are still developing our web site and hope to have it up and running by the end of the month. That has been the hardest part so far.