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Denise Hall Publisher/Editor denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com Home Business on a Budget Newsletter is a bi-weekly publication. My mission is to help you succeed in your home business without spending an arm and a leg. Each issue contains useful tips, information and articles. Good luck in your business ventures! Translate this newsletter to another language: http://world.altavista.com/ Do you have a friend who would like this newsletter? By all means, pass it on please. The more, the merrier, as I always say! 
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My 2 Cents Worth - Editor's Chit-Chat
Hi All! Welcome to another Sunday with yours truly and thanks so much for letting me be a small part of your day. :~) If you're new today, a warm welcome to you. I hope you'll enjoy the issue. I hope you had a wonderful week. I took time off yesterday to go and watch my son's band play in another Battle of the Bands at a festival about 45 minutes away from here. It was lots of fun, although frankly, most of the bands didn't play my kind of music. Some of them played that heavy metal stuff - the kind where they scream instead of sing. LOL But all the bands were very talented in their own way, just not my cup of tea. :) The park where the festival was held is gorgeous, and sits right on Lake Michigan, so it was nice sitting there by the water all day. Silly me forgot the sunscreen, though, so I'm sunburned now. LOL Next week our county fair is going on, and Brad's band will be playing in that Battle on Friday night, as well as at open mic night two other nights, so I'm looking forward to those, too. OK, this is a total change of subject, but something creepy happened to me a couple of weeks ago... I looked outside one afternoon just in time to see a rodent running from under my deck into my flower bed. I freaked out! I hate rodents! The next day I saw it again, and the following day, too. That night, I saw another one poking his head out from under the deck in a different spot, and I knew it was a different rodent, because the first one was brown and this one was grey. Eeeewwwwwww! Creepy! I got some glue traps and put them outside, right where I saw the little critters. Don't you know, those awful little creatures totally AVOIDED the traps. They ran right around them! So I called an exterminator to come and put down bait boxes, and they went around those, too! But then one morning I noticed a stray cat coming out from under my deck. I have no idea where she came from, but the poor little thing looked like she was starving. So I fed and watered her, and do you know what that sweet little thing did? He he... yep, she killed the critters. Of course, as cats do, she brought them to me as if they were trophies. LOL Luckily I've been keeping her in the garage, not the house, so that's where she took them. It appears that there were 3 of them, because she brought 1 each day for 3 days straight. It's been a whole week now since she brought one in, so I hope they're all gone. LOL Enough rambling... It's time to let you get on with the rest of the issue. I'll see you here in two weeks. Until then, be profitable! Denise
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Feature Article
How to Go From Being A Consumer Of Internet Marketing Info Products To Being A Producer And A Promoter Of Products, Which Is Where The Action And The Money Is By Marlon Sanders Today's the day, you know. The day the magic bullet ends. I'm not here to sugar coat things. To candy coat this business and sell you sandcastles, dreams and illusions of an easy life that doesn't exist. Here's the truth: The money is in producing and promoting products, NOT in consuming "how to" info products. Having said that, last year I spent $37,500 consuming ebooks, courses, teleseminars and so forth on marketing. In other words, I AM a consumer. But dominantly, I'm a producer and a promoter of products. My job in life is to come up with new products that create value for my customers and to promote them to the best of my ability within the time and money constraints I decide on. "Marlon, I have SPENT a small fortune. I have BEEN in coaching programs. I have BOUGHT the course. How come I'm NOT making any dough?" Answer: You're consuming. But are you PRODUCING and PROMOTING? And are you doing it more than ONCE? Are you out there playing the Game every day? Let me explain... The problem I see a lot of people have is they consume, consume, consume. But NEVER cross the bridge to creating, producing and promoting. Fundamentally, you ARE a creator. It's a law of life. You don't get money from others until you create or possess some sort of value they want and are willing to exchange for. The thing that STOPS a lot of people from becoming a producer and a promoter is FEAR of getting it WRONG! You want it all to be perfect, to be right, to NOT make mistakes. Well, you can throw that out the door right now. No matter how many courses you buy, you WILL make mistakes, you WILL waste time, you WILL waste money. Then why do I buy info products? Because I hate learning curves. I hate figuring things out the hard way. I like doing it the easy way. But people get stuck there also. This program sounds good. Then the next one sounds better or even more perfect. Let me tell you what I've found -- there's often a difference between what is SAID and what is DONE. Meaning, people tell YOU to do one thing while they DO something else. You'll notice most Internet marketing teachers DO things in their promotions they don't teach. That's because they feel they need to 1-up their customers. They need to have audio tricks, podcasts tricks, video tricks that are PROOF they have superior knowledge and skill. When you go, "Wow, that was cool! How did they do that?" When you say that, you can pretty much bet you'll never find out. I have an issue with that. If I pay you to show me then you show me something entirely different, yeah, I have a problem with that. Show it, reveal it, teach it or shut the (#_$ up! I see a LOT of teachers who have huge, massive results. Which is totally awesome. And their products are great theory. But they NEVER reveal their secrets. They never really teach YOU how to do exactly what THEY do. They have the cool pdf's. They have the cool videos. They have the trick blog graphics. Their video streams perfectly. They have hotshot designers. They have awesome video editors. They have great writers. But they never tell you WHO these people are. Or HOW to create the PDF graphics. Or how much they PAY the writers or video editors. Or where and HOW they hired them and HOW specifically they manage them. Personally, I think it's a crock. They teach one thing and DO another. And everybody acts like it's all so great what they're teaching. Don't you WONDER exactly how they get their PDF's distributed by everyone under the sun? Or how much they paid to get that video edited. Or WHO did those killer graphics? Or what the squeeze page really LOOKS like that built that 100,000 list? Or whatever the case may be. I'm just saying I think you deserve more. Anyway, my goal is to "out" many of these methods. At least the ones that have to do with promoting. You know, some of the real tricks about how you do the cool podcasts, videos, pdf's, etc. You know those trick PDF's you see with cool graphics? They're probably done in Adobe In Design. But you can ALSO do them in Power Point or Photoshop Elements if you know how. You know those totally cool video effects? Probably done in Adobe After Effects. Which is not too hard a program to learn, although it isn't for newbies. I think the test of a guru is NOT how tricked out THEIR list, PDF's or whatever is. It's do they empower YOU to go and do thou likewise? Or are they just building their own little kingdom and keep the secrets to themselves? Like HOW do you get trick graphics like that on your blog? Who did them and how much did you pay? Or HOW do you shoot video that looks that good? Or how did you get those cool graphics on there? Where did you buy those sound effects? Now WHAT did that squeeze page look like exactly and HOW exactly did you get those 200,000 emails on your list? Whose empowering whom? Who is performing MAGIC TRICKS and illusions, CHARGING you for the secrets then NOT taking you back stage and teaching you some lame basic sleight of hand trick? This is about YOU. I want to encourage and empower YOU to become a creator, producer and promoter. I want YOU to have cool pdf's, cool videos, cool podcasts, cool web graphics. I want YOU to build that nice cash cow list. Can you TALK? If you can, start doing podcasts as soon as you can, even if no one is listening. At least you can post your podcasts on your blog and send them out to podcast directories. Create and send audio postcards to whatever list you have. Don't have a list? Create AUDIO something or the others that you GIVE away on a squeeze page to GET subscribers. Can you WRITE? Then get busy. Spend 30 minutes or 1 hour a day writing. "But Marlon, I can't type!" I just talked last weekend to a best-selling author with many books who types with TWO fingers! No bull. So if you can write, get your blog up and start doing posts. Write emails and sends them to your list. Don't have a list? Write a free report, promote it and you'll HAVE a list. Now, if you can't write and can't talk, you better get a business partner or get REALLY good bidding out jobs on elance.com! Here's my simple point: You've gotta find ways to COMMUNICATE with your target audience and get it going. You get better by DOING. Become a compulsive DOER. You've got to add DOING to your LEARNING. And the first step to doing that is to get over the fear of NOT doing it right! The way you DO it right is by getting started and DOING. Then, when you get stuck or make mistakes go back to your info products and get help. Or go to a forum and get help. The money in this business is made by creating, producing and promoting. You ARE a creator by design. If you have kids, you're a creator. If you sing or speak or write, you're a creator. Your creations do NOT have to be perfect. Few are. They DO have to be something others want to exchange money for! That's the criteria. Will others PAY for your creations? If not, get better at it or create something else. And get better at the promoting of your creations. The best artist does NOT make the most money. The best promoter makes the most money. Now, a LOT of Internet marketing includes web design. You need PAGES on the web. Those pages have TWO things -- design and COPY. If you can ONLY learn ONE, learn to WRITE COPY! But I'd advise you to get decent at both. It gets really frustrating if you can't do any web design yourself. But it gets really EXPENSIVE if you can't write any copy yourself. I love graphic design. I really enjoy mucking around with Photoshop, even though I'm not that good at it. What I AM good at is writing copy. So if you can ONLY learn one skill, learn to write copy. Or, if you can't write good, learn to sell on TELESEMINARS. Good enough. Lots of people in this business make great livings pitching products via teleseminars. My friend, this is NOT a complicated business in terms of strategy. 1. You target people who are likely to buy and have the money to buy. 2. You offer them something VERY appealing for free to get them to identify themselves as potential buyers. 3. You make an irresistible OFFER to get them as a first time customer and build trust. 4. You SELL them more by sending emails that sends them to podcasts, video, screen video, webinars or teleseminars. Let's be honest... The FUN part of this business is learning. The DOING part gets frustrating. It's a technology business. Servers go down. Autoresponders muck up. Software NEVER integrates like it's supposed to. There's a learning curve anytime you wanna do something new. But THAT is where the money is also. What I do for money pretty much is remove the learning curve. Take the pain out of the learning curve. Anytime there's pain, there's money. But the money is in being a PRODUCER and a PROMOTER. The challenge is to overcome the PAIN of things not working, of NOT knowing which product to produce or hot button to put in the headline or email to write. And you'll NEVER know for sure. Gurus don't know. Don't kid yourself. They ACT all certain because people want to buy CERTAINTY. But they aren't certain. There ARE no definitive answers. NONE! Business and life isn't a connect-the-dots affair. It's not the real world. Real world is you struggle with decisions. Real world is you aren't sure. Real world is 7 things don't work and 3 DO work. And if you never do the 7 the don't work, you'll never find the 3 that do. Most people struggle under the illusion that gurus make all 10 things work. Wrong. Don't care who the person is. The law of life is 7 things don't work and 3 things do. I could cite research done on something like 10,000 projects or experiments that validate this. To sum up: 1. The money is in producing and promoting, not consuming 2. Consuming helps you shortcut learning curves 3. You'll make mistakes and get it wrong. Live with it 4. You'll never be certain 5. When you ARE certain, the rules change 6. You have to try 10 things to find the 3 that work The people who succeed overcome the pain of doing. That's the BIG secret. They execute. Period. End of story. They do 10 things for everyone else's 1 thing. But that's also where the THRILL is. There's a certain THRILL in the doing. A certain adrenalin. A certain excitement. You don't get that sitting on the sidelines. You get THAT playing the game. You gotta get IN the game and PLAY the game to win. You get IN the game the moment you start producing and promoting. And at first, you'll probably do it wrong. You'll get it wrong. You'll choose a bad target market or a dumb product idea. It's just the way the game works. You get BETTER at the game by playing. You can READ chess books all you want. But you'll NEVER be a great chess player till you pick up a board and get your king captured and you kick yourself over making a dumb move. The thrill, the excitement is in the PLAYING. And also the mistakes, the pain, the learning. You don't get one without the other. Now, my new Promo Dashboard takes as much as the learning curve out of the way as I could. It helps you avoid as much of the pain as possible. The purpose of the Dashboards is to HELP you execute. There's still holes or things we overlooked. I try to cover everything. But there's always something you forgot or didn't put in. You'll still screw up or get stuck on this or that. I'm gonna have a 60-day forum on Promo Dashboard to help out some. Yet, this is the process. This is life. It's not all connect-the-dots. It's more like "be uncertain, not know, do anyway, make mistakes, do more, some works, do more of that." That's reality. The thing that gets you buy is passion and a love for what you do. If you don't love it, if you aren't passionate about it, you have a long row to hoe. If you produce and promote like crazy in this business, sooner or later, the tide will turn your way. That is what I believe. Marlon P.S. I meet people on seminars, get a lot of blog posts, etc. from people who say, "Marlon, I loved this or that Dashboard or I loved Amazing Formula or used Push Button Letters." Or, "I saw you at the seminar and boy were you funny!" And I love positive feedback. But if you really wanna put a smile on my face, then this is it: "Marlon, you gave me that push I needed to make the transition from being a consumer to a producer and a promoter. Here's what I'm producing or promoting TODAY!" I didn't say you had to make a zillion or whatever. But that you get it and that you're producing and promoting, THAT is the thing. If you do that, then LEARN and increase your skill, do it and do it and get better at it ..... See, THEN the bux come. THEN, your ship comes in. A lot of people want a magic wand they wave and money comes in the door. They want a magic bullet. The magic system that can't fail. My friend, there isn't one. Stop looking. Seriously. The magic is in YOU taking action, and producing and promoting. THAT is when the good things happen. As soon as you get a system up and running, you can HIRE people to run it for you like I do. That is when the "lifestyle" kicks in. That's when the "lazy" part kicks in. But you gotta get in the Game and get things running first. THEN you hire people and farm out your systems. That's how I've not worked a lot in years. I got a system up and running and then hired virtual assistants and recently a few employees. ----------------------------------------------------------- Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Promo Dashboard." If you want to see it, go to promodashboard.com.
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Grins 'n Giggles
Fun With Telemarketers One of the things that has always bugged me (and I'm sure it has most of you, too) is to sit down to dinner only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating to them as they were to me. The call was from AT&T, and it went something like this: Me: Hello AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T.... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T.... Me: This is AT&T? AT&T: Yes. This is AT&T.... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: YES! This is AT&T. May I speak to Mr. Salem please? Me: May I ask who is calling? AT&T: This is AT&T. Me: OK, hold on. At this point, I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. I ate my salad. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, she was still waiting. Me: Hello? AT&T: Is this Mr. Salem? Me: May I ask who is calling please? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T.... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T.... Me: This is AT&T? AT&T: Yes, is this Mr. Salem? Me: Yes, is this AT&T? AT&T: Yes, sir. Me: The phone company? AT&T: Yes, sir. Me: I thought you said this was AT&T. AT&T: Yes, sir, we are a phone company. Me: I already have a phone. AT&T: We aren't selling phones today, Mr. Salem. Me: Well, whatever it is, I'm really not interested, but thanks for calling. When you are not interested in something, I don't think you can express yourself any plainer than by saying "I'm really not interested", but this lady was persistent. AT&T: Mr. Salem, we would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Now, I am sure she meant she was offering a "rate" of 10 cents a minute, but she at no time used the word "rate". I could clearly see that it was time to whip out the trusty old calculator and do a little ciphering. Me: Now, that's 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day? AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes, sir, that's right! 24 hours a day! Me: 7 days a week? AT&T: That's right. Me: 365 days a year? AT&T: Yes, sir. Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!! That's amazing!! AT&T: We think so! Me: That's quite a sum of money! AT&T: Yes, sir, it's amazing how it adds up. Me: OK, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560? If you send an annual check, can I get a cash advance? AT&T: Excuse me? Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute. AT&T: What are you talking about? Me: You said you'd give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1,008 per week and $52,560 per year. I'm just interested in knowing how you will be making payment. AT&T: Oh no, sir, I didn't mean we'd be paying you. You pay us 10 cents a minute. Me: Wait a minute here! Didn't you say you'd give me 10 cents a minute? Are you sure this is AT&T? AT&T: Well, yes, this is AT&T, sir, but.... Me: But nothing! How do you figure that by saying that you'll give me 10 cents a minute that I'll give you 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of suliminal telemarketing scheme? I've read about things like this in the Enquirer, you know. Don't use your alien brainwashing techniques on me. AT&T: No, sir, we are offering 10 cents a minute for.... Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please?!? AT&T: Sir, I don't think that is necessary. Me: Sure! You say that now! What happens later? AT&T: What? Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor! AT&T: Yes, Mr. Salem. Please hold. So, now AT&T has me on hold, and my supper is getting cold. I begin to eat while I'm waiting for a supervisor. After a wait of a few minutes and while I have a mouth full of food....... Supervisor: Mr. Salem? Me: Yeth? Supervisor: I understand you are not quite understanding our 10 cents a minute program. Me: Id thish Ath Teeth & Teeth? (Is this AT&T) Supervisor: Yes, sir, it sure is. I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to suppress my laughter, and I had to be careful not to produce a snort. Me: No, actually I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan. Supervisor: OK, no problem, I'll transfer you back to the person who was helping you. Me: Thank you. I was on hold once again and managed a few more mouthfuls. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone. AT&T: Hello, Mr. Salem. I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan? Me: Do you have that friends and family thing because you can never have enough friends and I'm an only child and I'd really like to have a little brother......... AT&T: (click) Note From Me: When I get a call from a telemarketer I prefer to give them options. I simply tell them Steve is not here right now but would they prefer to speak to Slob Boy, Gutter Boy, BrainDead Man ..... Click............ Or My Other Favorite... Are you single? Click............
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Editor's Closing Comments
I hope you've enjoyed today's issue of Home Business on a Budget. I always welcome reader's feedback, comments and suggestions. Please feel free to e-mail me if you ever have any questions that I can help you with. I am always willing to help in any way I can. I also accept guest articles for publication. Please send them to the e-mail listed below with "article" in the subject line. Denise Hall Publisher/Editor Contact me: denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com Website: http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com
LEGAL STUFF
I accept no responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability or legality of any published articles or advertisements contained within Home Business on a Budget Newsletter. And, although all of the articles have been selected for their content, the publishing of such articles within this newsletter does not constitute a recommendation of the products or services mentioned or advertised within those articles. Be responsible! Always do your own Due Diligence before responding to any offer. I respect the privacy of my readers. I will never supply or sell your personal information to any Third Party!
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