Last month, two of my team members had an opportunity to go to Monrovia, Liberia to work on a project intended to save lives of those in the malnourished and HIV-stricken country. Chris Harper, my Video Producer, and Sarah Jane Griesemer, VP of Project Management, accepted the call to go to Liberia and meet the needs of people through a project called The Peanut Butter House. What they experienced during their week-long trip was undoubtedly... Continue Reading

If you've been following my blog for the past few months, you'll know that I am being extremely selective when it comes to endorsing products that are not my own. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and promote a product just because everyone else is. So you can be sure that when I DO endorse a third-party product or service, it is of great value. Continue Reading

Many people discover me for the first time through any number of products or services. For some it is my iPhone applications. For others it is my book on making money with Google, The AdSense Code. Then there are those who know me from my sites that focus on affiliate marketing. Still others first found me through my social media presence or books (eg: Twitter Power). Whenever I speak from the stage, people are always... Continue Reading

I can't believe it has been over five years since the release of my first ebook on how to make money with Google AdSense. Originally titled "What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense", the ebook came out in January 2005 with just 66 pages. Today it is in its fourth edition and comes in at over 230 pages. I still bring in around $500/day with AdSense. But Google is just ONE way... Continue Reading

Do you have your cell phone handy? Stop what you are doing and go get it because I want to show you something very cool. I am going to give you a look into the future... the very NEAR future. In fact once you begin to understand the possibilities of what I am going to demonstrate, you are going to be excited! And it is going to keep you awake tonight. But it's going to... Continue Reading

WARNING: Today's post is going to rattle cages and put a spotlight on a potentially dark side of Internet marketing. Yeah, I'm probably going to tick some people off. That's life. I'm more concerned with speaking the truth. This is #2 in a series called The Truth About Internet Marketing. Part one was called "The Long Form Sales Letter. For some time it has been suspected that there is a "secret cabal" of Internet marketers... Continue Reading

WARNING: This series of posts may be hazardous to your preconceived notions of how to make money online. Reading it may save you thousands of dollars in pipe dreams and cause you to focus on the single most important aspect of running an Internet business. If you suffer from A.D.S. (Acute Denial Syndrome) or insist on believing that buying another product or service is the magic bullet that will cure all your financial ills, these... Continue Reading

Branding is more than just getting your logo right and coming up with a catchy slogan for your company. While these things are obviously very important, branding can also include things like the outward appearance of you or your employees, and how you comport yourself in all the various details of business dealings. The following story is something that actually happened to me, and proves the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. In retrospect... Continue Reading

I grew up in northern suburbs of Chicago. You know all the John Hughes' films like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science? They were either filmed or supposed to have taken place in the region where I was raised. In fact, there is a scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off that was filmed outside my old high school, Glenbrook North. Ferris' sister is outside the school and a bunch of kids are running... Continue Reading

I've now been on Twitter since May 2007. When I wrote Twitter power, I had about 5000 followers. Fast forward to late 2009. I hit 83,000 followers, but that's nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers that some members have acquired. It's been an interesting ride, but a number of things have happened that have caused me to reevaluate my Twitter strategy. Continue Reading

Last week the FTC dropped a bomb on the marketing world. They released new guidelines for the use of testimonials and endorsements in marketing. I immediately contacted my attorney, Kevin Houchin, to get his take on the latest guidelines. With Kevin's permission, I am republishing the entire text of his interpretation. It is essential that all marketers, online and offline, pay attention to this content. And understand that if you have ANY questions, you should... Continue Reading

A few months back, Twitter announced their Verified accounts program. Essentially, they would put a "Verified" badge on accounts that were deemed to be genuine. This is especially important for people with a high profile, where there are bound to be imposters. For the past two years, I have had at LEAST seventy (70) or so imposters. Usually, they sign up with a derivative of my name, post my photo on the profile, and proceed... Continue Reading

Affiliate products make up a large part of my income. They're one of the revenue streams that I use on my websites and I often recommend selected products to the people on my mailing list. I use them for all sorts of reasons - and money is only one of them. Sure, an affiliate commission will always be worth more than an ad click but that's only the start of it. I also like the... Continue Reading

One of the most exciting developments that has occurred on Twitter in the months since I put together Twitter Power has been the release of all sorts of statistics about the site. We've learned, for example, that many of the site's users are middle-aged, high earning business types rather than the kids that create pages on MySpace. We've found that only a small proportion of Twitter's users are writing most of the tweets while the... Continue Reading