"When you are through changing, you are through." - Bruce Barton Change is inevitable. Apart from death and taxes, change is the only thing in this life that we can count on. This past year has found me in the midst of much change. After a number of years as an author, speaker and entrepreneur, I have spent the last year quietly reassessing my life. Taking some time away from work, I've been tending to... Continue Reading

Over the past couple years, information marketers have come under greater scrutiny by the United States Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has taken several companies and individuals to task for deceptive Internet marketing practices. As the largest seller of information products online, Clickbank.com is now issuing clearer guidelines for the types of products and/or marketing practices that will be more closely scrutinized going forward. In other words, they are going to be working harder to... Continue Reading

When was the last time you read a press release? Let's face it. The majority of press releases issued by companies are totally boring and uninteresting. Why is that? Certainly Company X is excited about their new product and they can't wait to tell the world about it. But why should a blogger or media outlet care about Company X's new product or service? Unless your company's name is Apple, odds are you will have... Continue Reading

Have you ever gotten your car stuck in a ditch? Your rear tires desperately try to find traction only to spin deeper and deeper into the mud. The more you step on the gas, the worse your situation becomes. And now you are spraying mud everywhere. It can even end up on other people and their vehicles. You can keep trying to get out of the ditch. Or you can realize that what you are... Continue Reading

Failure. The word is laced with negative connotations. That's why I think failure gets a bum rap. Failing at something is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means you are trying. And it means you have found a way to not succeed. Thomas Edison went through thousands of experiments before his first lightbulb was illuminated. Ben Franklin is quoted as stating, "I didn't fail the test, I just found one hundred ways to do... Continue Reading

Whether or not your online business plans include you writing anything, there is a lot to be said for developing a consistent journaling habit. Many, many people (especially those who have to be creative on a daily basis) attest to the fact that doing a morning "brain dump" of all of your worries, ideas, plans, etc. by writing them down helps to clear you out to do your best work later in the day. This... Continue Reading

I've been using email for a very long time. I think my first email address was an AOL.com address from version 1.0 of their software. Since that time I have had multiple email addresses. I no longer use the AOL.com address, but it is still active! I have two primary email accounts that I use today. One of them is my corporate account and the other is my personal account. Both addresses have become inundated... Continue Reading

Whether you have already started your online business or are still just thinking about it, ignoring reality can be an effective strategy for getting to where you want to be. Successful businesspeople are visionaries - they see themselves and their businesses a certain (successful) way, long before they have actually achieved any kind of success. You've heard the saying "Fake it 'til you make it"? That's what we're talking about here. Here are some ways... Continue Reading

What makes the difference between a person who succeeds and one who doesn't? What makes the difference between a person who accomplishes great things and another who never does anything? What makes the difference between a person who gets what they want and one that is left empty-handed? Certainly, life can throw all kinds of curveballs at us. We don't get to choose our parents. We don't get to choose where we are born. We... Continue Reading

Starting your own online business is a lot like a long journey. You will need perseverance, stamina, and some faith, and you will reach your goals. But lots of people burn up all of their energy right out of the starting gate. Have you ever gotten really excited about a business idea or an online mentor, thrown a lot of money at it, and then never done anything or really learned anything from it? There... Continue Reading

Experts say that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. I believe they are probably correct, but I have a really hard time adjusting my eating habits that much. I'm more likely to skip breakfast altogether, eat a decent lunch and pig out for dinner. I'm also likely to have a mid-afternoon snack to satisfy my sweet tooth. That has all changed. For the past six... 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

While the modern world we live in tends to be civilized, there are still peoples in third world nations that are not plugged in to our technology-laden society. As recent as fifty years ago, the Waodani people of the Ecuadorian Amazon basin lived very primitively. Cut off from the rest of the world, the tribe was in a constant war with other tribes. By seeking revenge after revenge, the number in the Waodani tribe was... 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