Don't Sell To People, Let Them Buy From You

Interesting how things turn out.

Today I was reading a few pages from The Starbucks Experience. There is a quote from Howard Schultz, "We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee".

I signed up for the Shopzilla Publisher Program. About 15 minutes after I signed up I was approved and on the phone with a VP of the company.

Talk about "People Business".

In that conversation I felt that Shopzilla cares about me. Not only how I can best promote their service, but about what I am doing and how to do things better. That 15 minute conversation was the best information I got in over a week!

I'm on a tight schedule for today, so I don't have time to modify my advertising. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to replace some of my offers.

Take Care,

Michael

Affiliate Income - A Value Added Offer

As you know from my Project Status, most of the income from this project is Affiliate income. There are 3 Blogs and 1 website in this project.

The key to earning all the money you can is by having an offer that converts and a creative that gets the visitor to the site.

If you find a great offer, then by all means promote it. If you find a good offer that you think your visitors might like, add something as a bonus. Increase the value of what the visitor gets.

Now if the offer is good or great, but the creative is poor then you need a better creative. The first step is to ask your affiliate manager. If they can't get any more creative for you then you need to make your own and have them approved for use.

Obviously it doesn't matter how many conversions you have if the network doesn't pay you. Below I listed 2 affiliate networks that I use and get paid from without any problems. The 3rd network mostly offers email creatives, but they do have some good exclusive offers and a few banner programs.

MaxBounty is probably my first choice for affiliate networks. In November they had an offer so good I made over $1000 for 10 minutes work. This was for one of my other websites.




ShareASale is my second choice for affiliate offers. Their best feature is data feeds. You can build sites from the data feeds, very cool. I like that they have a good selection of physical products. Sometimes it is easier to sell a physical product.



Finally HydraNetwork is my third choice. They mostly have offers you promote from email. But if you keep looking you will find offers that can be promoted in a banner. Their biggest feature is that they have a nice selection of exclusive offers.

Take Care,

Michael

Adding Money To The Project

I updated the Project Chart with my Ebay text link income. This new design is much easier to read. What do you think?

Some of the transactions are ongoing. It isn't a beakdown to the smallest level of found money or non-promoted advertising income. That would make a huge chart. I will list advertising income and commission from offers where I pay to advertise them.

I have plans for the future. Too early to start giving out details, but I have some big plans when I hit $1,000.

Once again I would like to thank ExcellentSeat.com for advertising on this site in March. The new advertiser will have their link online Sunday. This person is considering purchasing an additional link. So if you see 2 links, they are both from the same person. As I said before I will only sell 1 text link in that spot.

Take Care,

Michael

Time To Invest For Profits

Today I spent a little time doing money ideas research. Next step is to pick an idea and dig deeper.

I want to promote a clickbank product using adwords, but I don't think $10 will be enough of an investment for testing. That is more of a $50 or $100 project.

This weekend I need to finish my taxes and start getting ready for my two trips. I have most of my figures entered, I just need to verify them and submit. The local taxes aren't as easy, paper forms to fill out.

I might list the rest of my records on Ebay this weekend.

Take Care,

Michael

Make Money Project Update

Over the weekend I will update the project balance from my link auction.

Thank You to all who posted places to buy stocks online. I did see sharebuilder when I was searching. Right now they are probably going to be my best choice.

Not related to the project, but my Amazon order arrived today. I had to order some books to take on my two trips in April. One trip has a 7 hour filght each way and the other is about 6 hours with a 60 minute layover. Plenty of time to read.

I spent a little time thinking of ways to invest. Since my goal is $100 by summer I need to get moving.

Time to get back to work.

Take Care,

Michael

American Idol Update - Blake is Safe

Blake was the first person on American Idol to be announced safe.

I was sorry to see Chris go. He has a good voice and hopefully will put out a CD of his music.

There is under an hour to go on my Ebay auction. Crazy traffic numbers, too bad I couldn't put a URL in the listing.

I am going to try the 80/20 rule for my next project test. 80% thinking and research and 20% action. I almost jumped at promoting a product, but decided to think about it first.

Don't use thinking to replace action or as a distraction. It must be beneficial to the project.

Michael

Finished Success Mastery

Today I finished Success Mastery by Brian Tracy.

Now I have to work on my goals and a few other things. Fortunatly I am already investing in my education. Every month I get 2 audio books and 1 or 2 hardback business books. I also like to take classes when I can.

On April 1st I am going to push out a website on my Blakeize.com domain. I decided that having a site to sell with the domain will add value. Plus I will be able to get a better idea of the natural traffic.

I am going to use a $2 per month hosting. Just something to get the site started.

My text link auction on ebay got over 1300 visits. So far only 1 bidder. If the auction ends at my opening bid price, this guy is getting a huge bargain.

I am looking for an online stock brokerage website that has a $100 minimum to start. I thought Etrade had a $100 minimum, but I was wrong. If you know of any, please let me know.

Take Care,

Michael

Get Smarter With Audio Books

This is my Audible list. As you can see I listen to a wide range of business books.

Listening to audio books is the fastest way for me to digest information. Then I take notes in my notebook. I also read as many books as I can and have quite a nice collection.

My little notebook of notes is growing and will soon have to expand to two.

Today I listened to Success Mastery by Brian Tracy part 1. Wow, now I know I am on the right track. Tomorrow I will be able to finish part 2.

Most of the audio books on that list I listen to over and over. In April I will be traveling on two trips so I will have lots of time to review them again.

Supper is almost done, don't forget my ebay auction ends in about 24 hours. Just check the previous post or two for the link.

Take Care,

Michael

Design Changes For My Sites

On Mondays I always review the stats from the previous week.

As always my most profitable blog was well above all my other blogs.

I decided to apply some changes to a few of my sites and blogs. Nothing big, just minor changes. In some cases there will even be less advertising.

I just finished a little time with Second Life. I love the beach, so this is the next best thing until we move closer to the beach.

Now it is time to relax and do some thinking.

Take Care,

Michael

Making Money Thinking Time

Yet again I am shocked at how much traffic my Ebay Auction listing is getting. This auction has more traffic than any other I did on Ebay.

Tonight I might have to play some Second Life. So far I have $16 Linden Dollars. I also picked up a bunch of free items. If you like to explore, Second Life is a lot of fun.

Thinking time is very important. I will try to put in some time tonight to think about investing $10 of the project balance. I still have my notes from last time, so all I need is a little quiet.

My March Madness picks did good. I didn't see the tally sheet yet, but I have 3 of the final four and I had 6 of the Elete Eight.

Have Fun,

Michael

Text Link Auction and Blakeize.com Status

Wow, I am shocked at how much traffic my 90 day Text Link auction is getting on Ebay. In addition to all the traffic, there is one bidder and at least 1 watcher, but I won't say the exact amount.

Current price is well below value.

Blakeize.com is getting some attention. I didn't pay much attention to it until I checked my email today. Right now it is a gamble. I think Blake is going to make it to final 3. At that point the domain will be worth almost $1000. So I don't want to kick myself for selling too low, but I really could use $150 for this project right now.

I'm going to go outside and enjoy the warm weather for 30 minutes or so. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon.

Michael

Ebay Auction Listing Traffic

How important are the words you use in your headline?

Very important. My Blakeize.com auction listing had about 160 unique viewers. With 4 and 1/2 days left on my 90 day Text Link auction I have over 250 unique views.

There are other factor besides headline that could cause this. Minimum bid price for Blakeize.com was $150 and my text link auction started at $14.97.

Another factor is the searchers. It could be more people search ebay for text links than for American Idol.

At any rate if your item doesn't sell on ebay, try changing the headline a little. Lower the starting price only if you are willing to sell the item at that price. Use a reserve if needed.

I have 6 of the 8 Great Eight teams and only lost 1 Final Four team. The office pool has over 100 people in it so I don't think these numbers will be good enough, but I am happy to have done this well. Most years I loose at least 2 of my Final Four teams.

Michael

Money Buckets Update

I decided to change the money buckets chart. The other chart grouped all the transactions together.

So now I have Project Chart Image instead. With this image you will be able to see the transactions. I color coded the money buckets.

Ebay listing fees will be included in the investment column, final value and merchant fees come off of the income. If I had room for an expense after income column I would put it there. Some items are currently in inventory. There are 12 records and Blakeize.com that can be sold. This will change those transactions when I sell those items.

Let me know what you think of the new image. I will keep the image updated and there is a link in the Project Status section to the right.

Michael

Ebay Text Link Update

There is now 1 bidder for my 90 text link auction to replace the March link "Buy The Police Concert Tickets".

It depends on what you are selling and how much you make per sale, but I would put the value of this text link at $75. Considering that if the amount goes over $30 I will do a review of your BLOG once for each of the 3 months. Don't forget, this is a solo link. I only sell 1 text link on the whole blog.

As an added bonus for those who read this blog an are interested in purchasing the text link, I will also place your link on my 2 other Penny Project blogs if the final amount goes over $50.

I don't talk much about the other 2 blogs I created for the penny project. That keeps the competition down. Since I give out so much info here I don't want to tell the competition what I am doing or planning. Both blogs produce some of the monthly advertising income. Much like the penny project blog, they don't have a ton of advertising on them.

Last night I spent about 30 minutes thinking of how to spend the rest of the money in this project. A while back I said I wasn't going spend any money until I reached $100. That would have been a stupid rule to stick by.

The best way to make money is to spend money. Granted I did have a transaction that took my balance down a little and I have a domain name that didn't sell on the first listing. You have to take the losses with the gains and hope the gains are bigger.

My goal is to reach $100 by the first day of summer.

Almost forgot. I found a dime near a vending machine today. I stopped "looking" for money, but if I find money I will pick it up for this project.

Take Care,

Michael

Money Surprise In The Mail Toady

I got a nice surprise in the mail today. An affiliate check for a product that I haven't promoted in years.

My guess is that there is a page indexed somewhere or a link I put up somewhere that generated a sale.

I like when this kind of stuff happens, like the free book I got in the mail a couple months ago.

Today I checked my Technorati inbound links. I finally hit 100 inbound links. John Chow has almost 4,000 so I have a long way to go.

Don't forget about my Ebay auction for the April, May & June text link.

Take Care,

Michael

Ebay Auction For April, May and June Text Link

I put out an Ebay auction for a 90 day text linkto replace the concert tickets text link currently in place.

The opening bid is a very low $14.97, currently less then $5 a month. Considering that this BLOG is now ReviewMe approved and charging $60 for reviews the link auction is a steal.

I could promote an affiliate product there, but decided to continue selling text links for that spot. That is prime real estate at a discount price.

Traffic to this blog is on the rise. I will be working on some ideas tonight to increase traffic over the next few months. That will improve my advertising income as well as provide an even greater value to the person who purchases the text link.

Blake did great on American Idol last night. I really feel that he will be one of the final 3. For now I have Blakeize.com pointing to an affiliate product. If he makes the final 3 I will have to do some real work and develop a small site for the domain. Unless I get an offer for the domain over $150 in the next week or two.

Take Care,

Michael

Jemmille.com BLOG Review

Today J Miller did a review of my BLOG. Since his review falls under the rules I mentioned before I will have the pleasure of doing a reivew of his blog.

Jemmille.com is an interesting blog. When I first tried to figure out the theme I realized the theme is whatever J Miller is researching at the moment.

It was like reading his personal journal.

In one post J mentions wanting to go to the Elite Retreat. This is a very limited event. There are only 30 seats at each event.

The Black Hole post had me a little lost, but that is ok. There was plenty of other interesting information to read.

J Miller is also a member of MyBlogLog and you can check out his community here.

I noticed the AuctionAds advertising on the left side. After some issues with a security certificate in some browsers I removed the ads from my sites. Hopefully Jemmille.com has better results then I did.

Michael

Make Money Project Status

Looks like Blakeize.com didn't sell on Ebay today.

I am thinking of taking the lazy way out and do a full re-direct to an affiliate offer. This will be much easier then developing a site to flip. Considering the new owner would probably do a redesign anyway. Making my efforts a waste of time.

If Blake Lewis makes it to the final 3, and I think he will do better then that, I should be able to sell the domain for over $200. In the mean time I might make a few $$ from affiliate commission.

I will wait to invest any more money until the first of April when I get my advertising payment.

March 31st will be the last day for the Buy The Police Concert Tickets link on the upper right of all pages. This guy got a steal at a little over $5. Considering ReviewMe now has my BLOG marked with a $60 review price I will be looking for $20 to place a link in that spot. If you are interested, let me know by posting a comment to this post.

Michael

Ebay Auction Listing - Blakeize - Blake Lewis on American Idol

My auction listing ends tomorrow close to lunch.

After seeing the awesome performance of Blake Lewis I think he will make it to the final 3. Depending on how America votes, he could even be the next American Idol. I enjoy the way that Blake adds the Blakeize touch to the songs he does.

As mentioned yesterday I am planning to develop Blakeize.com into a full website. There were a few offers that I can add to the site.

Earlier today I made a MindMap of the visitors Blakeize.com will target. Now I need to find offers to fit the profiles of all the potential visitors to the site.

Michael

Why I Do Not Submit To Article Directory Sites Anymore

One thing I often hear on forums is "How do I get more traffic to my website or blog". An answer often given involves writing articles and submitting them to an article directory.

I can say that writing an article and uploading it to an article directory may get you some traffic. But is it really worth a few hours of your time to get 100-200 visitors for free?

Not to mention how many sites will publish your article without the link active. Many sites only want your article so that they have content to put advertising around. They don't want their visitors to click on your URL, they want their visitors to click on their ads.

That is why I post my articles here in the BLOG instead of on an article directory. If someone likes what I write they can copy 2 or 3 sentences as a quote from me and link back to the page. The content stays on my site not an article directory. The link requirements are also easier to manage. If I find someone stealing my content without a link to me I can take action against them.

There is a small benefit to writing articles and submitting them, but in my experience it is better to post your articles on your own blog instead.

Tonight I will have an update on my Blakeize.com Ebay auction and website research.

Michael

Help First - Make Money Second

For my American Idol website I could easily just load up a bunch of offers.

But I like to weed out the junk and only put quality offers on my sites. It is easy to find offers, but takes a little work to pick out the good ones.

I also need to consider the network that I will be using. Some pay out twice a month and others monthly. And some of the networks have yet to send me a payment.

So for my American Idol research I will only consider the top 3 networks that I trust. These are also the ones that paid me in the past.

I will focus on promoting good offers even if the payout is lower. I found that it is better to help people first and offer quality instead of focusing on the profit.

Michael

Blakeize.com Website Development Plans

Prep work if Blakeize.com does not sell on Wednesday.

Last night I started sketching out a quick design. I found some sites I like and think I have a mish-mash of a design. Another option would be to use a blog template and put Wordpress on the site.

Today I found a website host that charges $1.95 a month. Since I have a virtual server I am going to use that, but deduct $1.95 a month from the Penny Project until I sell Blakeize.com.

Later tonight I will start looking for offers to put on Blakeize.com after the site is live. Right now on the temporary page I have a "Deal or No Deal" offer. It pays out on page 4. I need to find an easier offer to promote that is more targeted to American Idol and Blake Lewis.

I plan on starting development of the site on Wednesday if the domain does not sell on Wednesday morning.

Michael

Quotes About Making Money

The other day on 1 against 100 there was a quote "Pigs get fat, hogs get eaten". I don't remember the name of the player who said it, but it stuck in my mind.

Instead of risking $150,000+ to make more money with a harder question, she stopped. Pigs get fat, she walked away with a big chunk of cash. Hogs get eaten, she didn't risk what she had to get a bigger chunk of cash.

Tonight is Amazing Race, my favorite show. I wanted Rob and Amber to make it to the final 3, but a slight mistake last week caused them to come in last.

The Apprentice is also on tonight. The previews don't look very interesting, but you never know what you can learn by watching that show.

Take Care,

Michael

P.S. (Post Sponsor) AdWords 180 - Stop loosing money with AdWords?

Blog Reviews And Passive Income Plans For This Week

If you would like me to do a review of your blog you have two options.

First, you can click on the image to the right that says "Get reviewed by this blog for $60". $60 is the current going rate, but that will keep going up. Traffic to this blog is on the rise. ReviewMe sometimes offers signup bonuses, so it will most likely cost you less then $60.

The second option is to do a blog post about this blog. I have a few requirements that must be met in order to get a return review from me.

Your blog ...

theme must somehow be related to making money

must be at least 60 days old

must be listed in technorati

must have at least 3 inbound links on technorati

must not link out to sites that are not family friendly

should have a Google PR of 3 or higher (or be working on achieving a PR 3 rank)

Your post about this blog ...

must use the anchor text "One Penny Project" and link to the main page

must have one link to another post within my blog (anchor text to match post title)

should be between 250-500 words

must remain on your blog (no deleting after I review you)

Please be honest in your review. I will not hold negative comments against anyone. Feel free to link to any internal post as long as you also link to the main page.

To exchange blog reviews, please post a private message to me on MyBlogLog.com. If you are not a member, please join, you will be glad you did.

Passive Income

This week my Blakeize.com listing ends. So far there are no bidders. As I mentioned before the price is as low as I am willing to go. If the domain does not sell I might re-list it?

While I wait to see what happens with the domain I am going to plan a design to turn the blakeize.com domain into a full website. This week I will start doing research on how I can set this up to produce passive income. What I don't want is another site that requires daily attention.

Michael

Matt Huggins - Blog Review

Matt contacted me on my MyBlogLog page to exchange reviews of our blogs.

As you know I now charge $60 for a blog review using the ReviewMe button. But for those that have a high quality blog and want to exchange links, just contact me and we can work something out.

Matt Huggins writes about much of the same stuff I do. Testing various ways to make money online.

First thing I noticed about Matt's blog was that he has 0 Google PR. His blog is only 3 months old, so I gather we will pick up some PR in the next adjustment. The next thing I checked was Technorati to see what his link status is. There are 5 links found in Technorati to Matt's blog. Not a very high number, but that tells me that he is working hard to write good content.

One more point before I go on to the content review. Matt is using some larger graphics that push the right column below the fold (for my screen). Unless this is what he wants to get more Advertising clicks, then he might want to adjust his photos a little.

Now the content. As I mentioned above, Matt writes about hsi make money online tests much like I do. Start from the first post and read cronological to get the full effect. When someone like Matt of myself tell you what we are doing to make money and showing steps, discussing mistakes and giving away secrets, well you better bookmark that site! The best way to learn is from the mistakes of others. :-)

Michael

How To Buy A Website For Profit

A few years ago I wrote an ebook on how to buy a website. Allen and I updated it not long ago and I plan on putting out a new update soon.

Buying a website is lots of fun. It is like buying an old car and fixing it up, but depending on your skills much easier.

My purchase of Blakeize.com falls into this category. It is more of domain speculation, but if the domain doesn't sell then I can build a site out of it and then try to sell it again.

There are 3 main parts to buying a website for profit.

First, know the subject the website is or will be about. You don't need to be an expert, but having some knowledge and enjoyment from the subject goes a long way.

Second, if you are buying an existing website to fix up and sell then you need to know how not to get scammed. This is the reason I wrote my How To Buy A Website ebook. (If you purchase this, let me know you saw the link here so I can give you a special bonus)

Finally, know what website buyers are looking for. In other words, why would I buy your website instead of buying a domain name and developing my own website.

To expand on all of these parts would take too much time. So for this post I will expand on the last part.

When someone is looking to buy a website what are they looking for?

For me the first thing I look for is the subject. Is this website on a subject that I enjoy or would enjoy learning more about.

Then I look at traffic. How much traffic does this site get. Is it going up or down. Is the growth steady or does it have spikes. Where does this traffic come from. If there is paid traffic how much does that cost per month.

Next I look at income. How does this site make income. How much income has this site made over the past few months. Is the income going up or down. Are there ways to make money that this site is not taking advantage of.

Are there customers. Do they have a customer list or newsletter signup list.

Finally I look at the asking price. I won't pay more then 10 times the previous months income amount. Depending on the factors mentioned above or if I think there is some question about the origin of their traffic I will bid a much lower amount.

I hope to sell Blakeize.com so that I can blog about the process of buying, fixing up and selling a website right here. If Blakeize.com doesn't sell then I may have to move that to a $20 money bucket and develop a website for that domain and sell it as a site.

Michael

Blakeize Mentioned on MTV and VH1

I found articles on MTV and VH1 about Blakeize. This word is starting to get more popular. Yesterday I lowered the price a little to entice bidders. This is as low as it will go, if it doesn't sell I will re-list it next week.

On Second Life I picked up some free stuff and now have a cool Harley Jacket. The fun part is visiting all the places and looking around.

How are you doing on your March Madness picks? I have my fingers crossed that Florida can pull it off.

You may have noticed that I am doing more posts per day. Rather then one large post I am trying to make 2 or 3 smaller posts.

Michael

Money .01 - Second Life Addiction

Back when I started this project I had a goal to reach $100 by summer. I figured this was a low enough goal and should be easy to reach.

With a little over 3 months to go I still think I can reach $100 by summer. Depending on the outcome of my Blakeize auction I might have to work a little harder.

Selling on ebay brings in a little profit, so I could just increase the transactions until I reach my goal. But I don't see ebay as a long time part of this project. A little here and a little there, thats all.

If I reach my goal of $100 by summer, then I will make a new goal for the end of the year.

What I need to do is stop playing Second Life and get my butt to work!

Take Care,

Michael

Can John Chow Blakeize The Internet?

Blake Lewis can put that special sound on music. Randy Jackson refers to this as blakeize.

Can John Chow do the same for "Make Money Online"? We all know that John is the "Root of All Evil", but can he also hit page one for make money online?

Most of what John talks about is making money online, just like I do here. He includes a nice selection of pictures and has stuff to give away. I hope to have more stuff to give away soon. :-)

John is kicking my butt over on MyBlogLog. I have 154 members in my community and John has 965. Granted his reader base is much larger and his blog is much older.

But I am crushing him on contacts. He has only 1 and I have over 4,000.

You know what would be funny. John writes about anchor text and when you check out his blog you will see some of the tricks he uses. I think it would be funny if I could get my blog to rank higher then his for John Chow.

Just kidding, I am not evil enough to do that.

Please do go over and visit John's blog and leave a comment that you read about it here. Use the Make Money Online like above. He will like that.

Take Care,

Michael

Second Life, ReviewMe And Blakeize

This BLOG is now approved by ReviewMe.com to do reviews. If you would like me to do a review of your BLOG just click the image below.



Last night I spent some time on the beach playing Second Life. Now I am getting addicted. At lunch today I was watching tutorial videos on how to do stuff so that I can make some money.

I saw some other posts about Blakeize. Since American Idol won't be on until next week I think the traffic to that domain will hold steady or go down. Hopefully Randy uses the term again next week.

Take Care,

Michael

Second Life, American Idol And Stuff

I registered with Second Life yesterday. After an hour of messing around I got back to work. Tonight I went back on Second Life. This time I went to the beach. It was very nice. I can see how people get wrapped up in these things.

I was able to go from the beach to Japan and then to a resort in Miami in under an hour. I'm still working on my avitar. I did chat with a couple people and picked up a free t-shirt in Miami.

After I figure it out more then I will start researching profit models. But I think to make money you have to spend money in Second Life.

American Idol was real short tonight. No mention of Blakeize this time. I think the video is online from last night. My auction is getting a bunch of traffic. No bids yet, but I expected that with my $199 starting price. This is a speculation name, so anything under $500 is fair. Anything less then $199 and I will just keep it with a park page.

Blakeize.com is getting some traffic. It is from the Ebay listing, type in traffic and links out. I don't know the ratio.

Michael

Blakeize Now Listed On Ebay

Today Ebay is running a 20 cent listing day. I decided to take advantage of this deal and listed Blakeize.com on Ebay.

I am hopeful that Randy Jackson uses Blakeize again tonight.

I'm going list the rest of my records as well. Once I have everything listed I will update the project balance and the money buckets graphic.

Take Care,

Michael

Blakeize.com Domain Purchase

I am the proud owner of Blakeize.com

Domain Speculation is one of the $10 Money Bucket ideas on my sheet of paper. I spent almost 2 hours on this past weekend doing research.

But then today it happened. Randy Jackson said the word Blakeize on American Idol. I knew I had to act fast. I logged in to my hosting account and made the purchase.

Next I made a default landing page. To be fair to the project I will say that I am hosting the page on one of my existing accounts. But since I could use a park page or a free blog as the landing page I am not going to count any hosting cost for this purchase.

I have a stats tracker on the page so I can see how much typein traffic it gets. The reason I didn't buy a domain name for speculation over the weekend was flip time. I didn't want to tie my $10 up for a year or more. With this domain I should be able to sell it in a few days.

But it is a gamble. If I sell now and Blake wins American Idol the value of this domain will go way up.

Right now bidding is open. If I get an offer I like, I will sell it right away.

In the next day or two I will update my project balance and the money buckets graphic.

Michael

Making Money From Second Life

Today the March issue of "Baseline" arrived. I get a bunch of computer & marketing magazines free. A perk of the industry.

In the March issue there is a big write-up on Second Life. Until this article I didn't know that Second Life is free. That is unless you want to own land.

Today I am going to register and check out Second Life. There is a scripting language that will allow you to make objects to trade or sell. Guess I will have to learn that if I want to make some money.

It was a beautiful day today. Funny to be outside without a jacket and have piles of snow on the ground.

Take Care,

Michael

Hidden Ebay Secrets - Selling Videos On Ebay

The other day I mentioned about a "Third Ebay Selling Option". One that would involve a unique product but also be general enough to attract more buyers.

Click Here to learn about selling videos on Ebay

Selling videos on Ebay. Homemade videos that you make with your video camera or screen capture videos that you make with your computer.

If you don't have a video camera, just borrow one. My digital camera can record video, so if you don't have a video camera, check your digital camera. I will discuss another option later.

One idea I thought of, is to have my wife make a unique craft. I will video tape her making the craft. Then I can sell the plans along with a DVD copy of the video all in one package on Ebay.

I will buy blank DVDs when they are on sale (check the Sunday paper).

This gives me a unique digital product that I can turn into a physical product whenever someone makes a purchase. The ease of digital products with the preceived value of physical products.

There are plenty of other ideas. "How To" ideas come to mind first, but I also found a seller that does travel videos. Don't limit your thinking, what could you sell that would go along with a video?

Another idea would be to use a free video capture program that records your actions on the computer. I use CamStudio and a free conversion tool called Super to convert my videos into movies for making DVDs.

Ready to start making videos to sell on Ebay - Start Now!

Use Ebay to research niche markets, then develop videos to fill the needs of customers waiting to buy!

While you are at it, plan your backend sales. Using the craft example above. I can make crafts for all seasons. Then I can put stuffers in my sold videos to sell more videos. I might even develop a catalog to mail to my previous customers.

Take Care,

Michael

P.S. Make sure you see [affiliate = beachbumis.OPP] at the bottom of the payment page. I have a special bonus to email everyone who buys from my link.

Sell videos on Ebay - Click Here

Money Making Research

Tonight I realized that I was caught in the common money making trap.

PostponeStartiousMaximus

Before watching Amazing Race I told myself that I should clean up my old research notes. That way I can start with fresh notes after the show.

Well in my old notes I found a site that I forgot about. So I left a link up on the screen for after Amazing Race.

After about 30 minutes doing research on this site I realized that I was just trying to delay putting a plan together.

I enjoy research so much that I hold off on taking action just to do more research.

Tomorrow I plan on starting one of the $10 investments. At this point it could be one of a number of chioces sitting infront of me.

Passive income would be nice, but the easiest investment is longer term and highly speculative. Greater risk, and much greater reward.

Almost time for The Apprentice.

Michael

Another Money Making Idea

Last night I was working through my ebay research and figured up another idea.

This is something that I did before and had a great ROI. But, as always, it will require some research.

If Ebay has a discount listing day on or near St.Pattricks Day then I will list a few more records. If not then I will throw them away the following week.

I am considering adding a $20 money bucket to the project. All the money buckets below $100 will be the low level. Then the $500-$10,000 money buckets will be the middle level. Finally the $20,000+ money buckets will be the upper level and hopefully produce 6 figures ($100,000) or more a year. :-) That is the goal, but anything can happen.

Looking forward to having you follow along on this journey.

Take Care,

Michael

Motorola MotoRazr V3xx - My New Cell Phone - Making Money

Not part of the project, but important none the less. Today I got a new cell phone. I picked up a new Motorola MotoRazr V3xx and changed over the the family plan. Now our minutes will roll over.

This is one sweet phone. Many features that my old phone didn't have.

I looked at the list of new products on ClickBank. There is a free service I use that tells me what products are new.

Of all the new products I looked over 3 to consider promoting. The first one had an email capture form and the other 2 didn't have good sales letters.

The offers in 4 of my CPA networks didn't interest me. I tried to find something seasonal for the next 3 months.

The system is simple, but finding the right offer is not.

Michael

Auction And Thrift Store Results

I spent about 90 minutes at the auction today. There were a few items I wanted, but with 160+ people there bidding was higher then I like it. My focus is on margin.

After the auction I went to the local Thrift Shop. I only went because I know of another person who buys and sells stuff purchased from thrift shops. Finally I went to Sam's Club to pick up some things for Church tomorrow. Nothing there to re-sell, I couldn't find any high margin bargains.

I'm going to do some CPA (Cost Per Action) Network research now.

Take Care,

Michael

The Money Is In The Margin

Tomorrow should be a nice day to visit some auctions.

I am still working on 2 ideas for $10 money buckets. As mentioned before one $10 investment will be to advertise an affiliate product. I think the second will involve selling something on Ebay.

The leftover records are still next to my desk waiting for a discount listing day. I should be able to make a small profit if I can sell 3 more of them.

Website re-design. I own a nice 4 letter domain name. It gets some type-in traffic and search engine traffic, but I don't advertise it. In the past I tested ideas on that site before moving the code to my main site. But I decided to scrub the site and work on a fresh design. This isn't part of the penny project, but something I am working on that I thought you might be interested n hearing about.

I will work on writing up "The Third Ebay Selling Option" over the weekend. Look for it mid next week.

April is going to be a busy month. I will be in Las Vegas for a week of business, then to Luling, LA for a mission trip the following week.

Take Care,

Michael

P.S. Dont forget to check out AuctionAds

Selling Something Unique vs. Selling Something General

This goes back to the Ebay seller I found making $250 a week for about 2 hours work. His competition is making a little less wiht a slightly varied product. It is information, but they deliver it on paper in the mail. My guess is they may be making a slight profit from the shipping as well.

With only 2 people in this niche market, these guys are quietly bringing in the cash. Now I could delveop (or pay someone to develop) a better product and take some, most or all of the sales in that niche. The product they sell is not very unique, but is in a tight niche. But the product they are selling can easily be re-created and made better.

I was reading the story about the new $1 coin and how there are some with the outer edge words missing. There is a limited number of these coins to be found. Even if I wanted to enter this niche I would first have to find a source for the rare coins.

For selling on Ebay you can head out to the yard sales every week and find older unique stuff to sell on Ebay. Some will sell the first listing and others may not be searched as often and take longer to sell. Since the stuff is older and harder to find there will be less competition. Obviously you need to research the various niches to avoid buying junk. A service like I mentioned yesterday would be a good idea.

OR

You could create your own unique info product. Eventually someone would make their own version and sales would plumit. This form of sales is more passive, but also fragile when there is competition.

But what if there was a third option? Steven Covey is one of my favorite authors. I remembered back to a story in one of his books when I c