How many times have you shopped at a store or eaten at a restaurant and been invited to take a customer service survey. Usually these survey opportunities are presented by the clerk or waiter who points out a web site at the bottom of your receipt. I have never paid attention to these in the past and often find them to be a nuisance. Sure, Target claims to give away $5000 gift cards. But who... Continue Reading

I recently wrote a few articles that created quite a bit of response from my readers. Where is the Integrity in Internet Marketing? challenged many of the all-too-common tactics used by unscrupulous marketers. I invited my readers to share their thoughts and experiences related to these issues, and the comments that followed were both insightful and instructional. Let's face it. When it comes to selling a product or service, marketing approaches are all over the... Continue Reading

"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven." - Ecclesiastes 3:1 Nothing lasts forever. Change is inevitable. Over the past fifteen or so years I have created dozens of websites, products, services and applications that run the gamut of new media. Content sites, information products, member sites, web-based software, iPhone applications, mobile marketing platforms, entertainment sites and more. During that time I have had some tremendous successes and some... Continue Reading

It doesn't seem that long ago that forty-eight people made the journey to Denver for our exclusive 3-day live seminar, Elevate. For those three days, our guests had the privilege of learning how to build a successful online business from me and my team. It was a top-notch event packed with first-rate content. We've received nothing but high praise for providing people with the keys for creating a legitimate online business. From defining your perfect... Continue Reading

You've hopefully heard that the point of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook isn't just to amass followers. You could have totally healthy numbers and still not see much of a return in terms of sales or clicks or engaged readers. So if the goal isn't just numbers, what is it? Some of the signposts that you are doing things right: People retweet your tweets. People comment on your blog posts and on other... Continue Reading

While I have been doing business online since 1995, I entered the Internet marketing arena in 2005. When I began selling an ebook detailing my strategies for making money with websites using Google AdSense, I found myself at the forefront of the marketplace. In the years that followed, I was sucked into a swirling vortex of product launches, live events and teleseminars. I met many other Internet marketers and developed relationships with some. Over the... Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Joel Ownby) Accepting payment online for your products and services sounds like a pretty simple endeavor, and at a low level it is. Understanding what is happening behind the scenes is an entirely different proposition. Understanding the nuts and bolts of payment processing will grant you the ability to provide better customer service, generate more accurate cash flow and projection data, help you to better understand technical issues involving payment processing... Continue Reading

Someone recently sent me a link to an information product suggesting I look at their sales letter. It was a typical "make money online" pitch with a well-dressed guy sharing his story of how he went from zero to hero using strategies and methods that he would share with us at the designated price. There was the big house, the pretty girlfriend and the sports car. Ooh. I'm impressed. (Note the touch of sarcasm, please... Continue Reading

Are you a freelancer? Do you have a skill that is in demand that you could use to turn yourself into one? Lots of people when they look to start an online business focus on learning the ropes in terms of various streams of passive online income such as AdSense, affiliate products, ClickBank, and so on, and while there is nothing wrong with that, many of those people could be making more money in a... Continue Reading

Providing your audience, customers, and potential customers with free, valuable information is a cornerstone of running an online business. If you give enough stuff away for free, and make sure that that stuff is high-quality and indicative of your high standards, then enough people are going to want to pay you to get to the rest of what you know that you will be able to make a nice living from your online income. One... Continue Reading

I'm trying to blog regularly for a number of reasons. First, it keeps me sharp. Blogging on a regular basis makes me think about things that are important to me. Second, it allows me to share with others. Whether or not you agree with what I say, think, feel or believe, my articles are an extension of my self. Third, it keeps my blog healthy with the search engines. Google and the other engines like... Continue Reading

Recently I went to one of my favorite restaurants for a quick lunch. I called in an order of Chicken Tortilla soup to-go and went to pick it up. While I was there I observed that the restaurant was not busy. It SHOULD have been busy, being lunchtime. But it wasn't. It was then I asked to see if the owner was there. I wanted to speak with him for his benefit. He came out... Continue Reading

It's easy to become married to the work of building your online business, and in one sense, this is as it should be. Building anything from the ground up takes work and dedication, especially if like many fledgling entrepreneurs you are trying to budget your money wisely and do many things yourself. But the impulse can become detrimental. Many times you are so busy working in the trenches that you can't see or don't have... Continue Reading

If you have been following this blog for any time, you probably know that it is not like other blogs. I don't have a template or formula for this blog. It is mine and I use it however I want. When I started blogging in 2003, my first entries were about my dog, my family and my travels. I blogged about my political views, current events and films I had recently seen. Then it happened... Continue Reading