Tag: online passive income

Categories
Plan Review

2012 Goals – Introduction

Ugly photo! December 2011 - though they did send me a medium when I asked for an XL!

As I mentioned in passing in my last post 2011 – wasn’t the most exciting year of my life. 

Personal Goals 

Gonna hit big 50 this year, which is cool because it means we can dance in the next age grade in Dancesport ie instead of competing against 35 year olds, we are the youngest couple again (well I am, partner’s 10 years older!).  HOWEVER, we want to compete in Latin again, so I need to look good wearing this: 

Dancing Latin, Australian Nationals, 2005

Let’s face it, I probably won’t be going back to looking like this: 

Jan 1988, when I was 25, and on a diet!

 – but it’s got to better than this!: 

Ugly photo! December 2011 - though they did send me a medium when I asked for an XL!

As of today I’m 108kg, in the 1988 photo I was probably about 70kg (and yes over-weight according to the  wisdom of the day – trying to get to 65kg from memory). Now apparently 75kg is OK weight for my height (180cm) – you see why I have a problem with the weight loss industry!

Frankly if I got down to 90kg that would be a) record-breaking low for the last 20 odd years for me, and b) still “obese” by the stupid “one size fits all charts” , and frankly – I’d look pretty hot in my latin dress (skinny girls got nothing to shake!).  

So goal is to get fit and trimmer by the time we hit the big 50 – April 2012. Oh and to be able to dance 5 dances @ 1.5 minutes/dance without dying. The 90kg  goal would probably take all year. 

Income Goals

I have had a consistent goal of US$5000/month for years, I just sometimes wonder why every time I take one step forward, two go backwards! 

Luckily though I do keep consistent income records – I know how dire doing a tax return is otherwise! I wrote about my simple spreadsheet approach back in January – and its remarkably flexible – as I add or delete new income streams I add, or hid rows as I need to.  

My income hasn’t been so consistent – in January I hit over US$4200, including $2600 in advertising income (the stuff I laughably call passive). That figure was the record for the year, though in November I did at least, finally best the advertising income, coming in at $2700. 

What happened? Panda? No, not really, I still haven’t had a single website Pandalized, most of income issues stream from three issues: 

  • Dropping a client who started having onerous requirements, in response to Panda;
  • Hubpages – reaction to Panda; 
  • Keyword Academy’s slow decline with long-term members. 

The client had already squeezed the price so I’d gone from clearing $1500 a month to $1000, for more work. Their new set of requirements would have seen at least a doubling of my time required. It wasn’t worth it, so I fired them in August.

Hubpages: I’ve written previously about the HubPages trainwreck – that was July, by November they’d announced that as of 1 January we wouldn’t be able to use your own Amazon ID on HubPages and my secondary, mainly Amazon account, had been pandalized (finally in October). Could I have got it back – probably? Did I try, no.  Now  the ONLY program I have the option of direct payment with is Adsense: eBay and Amazon are both via their obscure “HPAds” program. Why is this a bad idea? 

  • they get access to all my sales data; 
  • they pay by Paypal which has a very bad exchange rate, and has its own issues; 
  • I drop at least a tier of my Amazon sales percentage because of the loss of the HubPage’s Amazon sales.  

Do I have a plan? Hell yes – but I can’t write about it here – sign up for the newsletter below – if you haven’t already – all will be revealed. 

The Keyword Academy: From an affiliate point of view its not been good – my best month was March, but my commissions have been is slow decline since then. Why? Because people who have been members for years have quit, and although I still get new sign-ups they haven’t compensated for the losses. Why? I think two reasons:

  1. Panda has worked very well for Google’s actual intention – which was to scare the crap out of would-be Internet Marketers.  There has been massive change, and there have been casualties. 
  2. TKA has moved away from the “recipe approach” of do this, do this, wait this long, this will happen, to a much more robust method of actually training people how to build a business online. That’s scary for many people, and although TKA was never a quick fix – its now an even more scary proposition of work and effort, and engagement, which send some people running for the hills.   

Income Goals 2012. 

Well having just read The 10X Rule I had to cross out my $5000/month income goal- and ended up with a $50,000/month income goal!  OK let’s revise that a bit – what I am able to make (on a good month) is $2500/month – so lets aim for $25,000/month! 

Gulp! – I guess that’s what’s called massive action!? And that in essence is what I need to do. After watching other people succeed at making more money than I do. I’ve figured it out.  My problem isn’t the writing, or the keyword research, hell I seem even to be able to sell the odd item. 

My issue is that I’m a dilettante – I’m an amateur, I’m doing the right thing, but not enough, I still keep on chasing after shiny stuff. I’m over it. I feel great when I focus and actually achieve something. So that’s what I’m going to be doing! 

2012 is gonna rock! 

And its all gonna start here – because I have finally decided that if I’m getting serious about this business, this girl needs a business plan!  So keep an eye out – because if any of you are struggling with the same stuff as I am – you probably need one too (and you can steal mine for free!) . 


Categories
Plan Review

2011 Review Looking Back

looking back
East Harbour Regional Park, near Wellington, New Zealand

Hmm, looks like although I’ve used Chris Guillebeau’s approach to planning before, I’ve not actually blogged about it!  I don’t have a lot of time for most “self improvement” blogs, and I first noted Chris’s site because he has, what I still think is, a stupid idea of visiting every country in the world. Really, I love to travel, but there are number of countries that I’ve never wanted to visit, so why spend money going there?  Anyway I like his writing and his goal setting is quite unusual. This is part 1 – looking back, check back in a few days for when I’ve actually figured out my New Year’s goals! 

Anyway – this is the easy part of the process: looking back:  Pretty much I’m looking at health, travel, business,  in that order, because that’s probably what matters. 

looking back
East Harbour Regional Park, near Wellington, New Zealand

 

 What Went Well in 2011 

  1. Frankly I was kinda worried about reaching that “certain age” that women get to.  I had heard so many bad things about menopause. Well I’ve reached it, and what happened? For the first time since I was 20 I’m not popping a daily pill, had the odd weird dream, woke up hot a couple of times. End of story. Really.  Sorry guys, but the girls need to know, it doesn’t have to be bad! 
  2. We started off the year enjoying the snow in Europe, and coming back via KL for a few days of heat.  Later, we had a great three week break in Phuket and Koh Samui, Thailand in August. The low-cost airline war has finally hotted up big time for New Zealand with heavy airfare discounting  to South-East Asia. 
  3. I bought a Kindle and discovered Indie Non Fiction.
  4. I published my first book: Vacation Packing List: Save Your Back, Time and Money. 
  5. I became a Z-List Blogger, complete with a Manifesto and decided to lose my insecurities and to  start chasing my winners as far as making money is concerned. 

What Did Not Go Well in 2011 

  1. My partner had on-going knee issues for the most of the year, which meant, for the first, time we had to pull out 1/2 way through a competition we’d entered in September.  The net result was predictable: my weight went up – by how much I don’t really want to know. I don’t have any other exercise that I really enjoy – so when we are not dancing the weight goes on! 
  2. I have seen more of South America than I have of New Zealand. We decided to go to Northland before Christmas, I’d never been there, and my partner taught there a long, long time ago. It started off OK, but then the rain set in. If it rains in most parts of the world, there are alternatives. With due regard to the NZ tourism industry- you don’t go to Northland for the museuems! We came home early. And about it being the tropical north ? No, its not, if you can’t swim without a wetsuit in December, its not tropical, its a marketing lie! 
  3. Hubpages – I think I’ve said enough on that topic! 
  4. Partly because of HubPages and partly because I lack focus and am the Queen of Procrastination, my advertising income has basically flat-lined this year.  As I fired my last freelance client in August – that means that I am currently sat looking at my lowest bank account balance for years! 

Overall its been a frustrating year – financially I’m looking at a hole in April unless I can up my income quickly to pay my taxes.  I have some hope with that as several of my Adsense niches are strongly seasonal, I think, as this is the first year I get to see the pattern! 

Looking forward? Well that’s my next post!  Haven’t figured out the details yet – but I’m reading, or re-reading these books which I’m finding helpful: 

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Rants

Online Income – The Secret to Success Is …

New Plymouth Gardens
New Plymouth Gardens - the road less travelled

Online income is something many people profess to want – but few actually achieve it. Why? Isn’t terribly technically difficult – nope, is there really a secret – yes but not what you think. Online income, passive income whatever is a business – and a business is all about YOU.

I read a couple contrasting attitudes today – which I thought were relevant. Chris posted on The Keyword Academy forums:

To anyone whose article got returned on http://www.brightfluid.com,  I apologize, it definitely isn’t my style. With the craziness going on with the Iraqi government formation and the troop withdrawal, our base is taking a lot of mortars and rockets, and one just happened to nail our internet satellite.

They just installed a new satellite, and I worked through the 119 articles pending, but I know some got returned, and I’m sorry. For the next 24 hours I’m doing hourly submissions to make up for it (besides sleeping of course), so hit me with your best shot.

Just to explain – Chris owns a article directory on TKA’s postrunner system,  and if you don’t approve articles submitted within 7 days they are automatically returned to sender- something some people whinge about a bit on the forums.

Chris obviously has a full-time job – in a war zone – and he’s concerned that he’s let others down … It would be really cool if some of you could add an anchored link to his site … (and yeah I disagree with the US involvement in other people’s countries too – but this ain’t about politics ). Something tells me that Chris is going to succeed in this game.

Also this morning I got a PM through the same forum asking:

I need help and don’t know where to look or ask. I’m half lost in all of this. This is all new to me and I am trying to learn it by myself. I know I am missing several things, but don’t necessarily know what.

Note this was from within TKA – this person is already a member of the site that I push everyone to who tells me they want to make money online.  A site that provides a set of step-by-step videos telling you what to do. I tell people in emails – that they will teach you everything you need to know. If you follow the program you will succeed. But I think I left out a step. So I’m gonna rectify that.

Before you write that email and ask for help (and this isn’t just the above one – I get an email via the contact form at least once a week asking for similar things). And don’t get me wrong I would like to help – but before I spend 1/2 hour of my time giving you free specific advice (something BTW I’ve never asked anyone else to do for me) – I’d like you to spend the time to answer these questions:

  1. Do you really want this? Do you really, really want to walk the road less trodden – ’cause this is what it is. If this is just a fill-in before you get a job, go to College, the kids go to school, – then frankly I doubt that you will be committed enough to make it happen.
  2. Can you deal with being  faced with  blank incomprehension every time you are asked what you do for a living? Do you have an ego wrapped up with what you do for a living – then this is most definitely not for you!  Most people will think I am a web designer!  Can you  handle not being taken seriously: my own partner thought I was “playing online” until he saw the money, I got asked last week “when was I going to get a job”, again, the same person then turned to my partner and said “I guess you have no choice but to have a job!” . For some people even if your business is a success and you pay the bills (mine does) – that will never be good enough. Some of those people will be related to you and you will care that they don’t get it.
  3. Do you want to own your own business. Can you handle the uncertainty of it – the fact that your income will go up or down, and its always gonna be like that ? Can you handle being the ultimate decision maker – for everything.
  4. Do you like your own company? If you intend to do this full-time are you happy about sitting alone in a room, just you and the computer for day after day – believe very, very occasionally I miss the idiots I used to work with…
  5. Are you prepared to take responsibility. Responsibility for your success as well as your failues.  For a long time  I thought I was scared of failure – but I was also scared of success – in the end I was just bloody scared!
  6. If you are doing this full time do you have saving for 9-12 months of living expenses? If you are doing this part-time are you prepared to do this with no financial reward for 12 months plus?
  7. Do you understand that Internet marketing changes all the time?  Do you consider that a challenge or a threat?
  8. Do you realise that you can’t just blindly follow a formula – that at some point you will have to step up and do your own testing and experimenting?

Frankly most make money online blogs won’t tell you this – but the vast majority of people can’t make money in this game.  My first serious mentor told me that – and he was right. I’m border line – I nearly didn’t make it – I had no actual experience or natural ability in this game. Oh I understand the tech, the websites, enough html and css. That’s not the issue – the issue is self-belief and having a business plan. Anyone with a background in commission selling or successful MLM – will  do way much more with this business much faster than I did.

To the rest of you – you have a chance – but only if you really, really are prepared to throw all your preconceived notions out, forget about the sensible and logical thing your years of experience in education or being a good employee has taught you. If you’re not then – cut your losses – get out  – get a job – or take up a hobby –  that’s not so bad – its what most people do. Isn’t it?

New Plymouth Gardens
New Plymouth Gardens - the road less travelled

Hey you’re still reading – must be stubborn…

Over 16 months ago, I wrote about the turn-around point in my business, not the moment  that I understood keywords, or understood  how to optimize WordPress, or how to find backlinks – but after I started believing in my dream.

In the next 3 months I doubled my online income. That wasn’t because I some how magically wanted it enough or any other “The Secret” bullshite – I stopped worrying about whether this could work and did the bloody work to make it happen!

I’ve said it before : I’m writing it down here so I can refer to the post the next time I’m asked :

If you have no money and no clue about earning online income:

  • answer the above questions;
  • still here? Enrol in TKA (handy affiliate link at bottom of post in blue box) and actually study the core videos
  • find some keywords – build hubpages – they are quicker and easier to rank and make money from than anything else I know

If you have money, no time and no clue (aka a J.O.B or a partner with a J.O.B):

  • answer the above questions;
  • still here? Enrol in TKA (handy affiliate link at bottom of post in blue box) and actually study the core videos
  • buy some domains and hosting and  install websites
  • learn the basics of the business and then invest in learning to outsource, preferably everything, but starting with the writing.

If you have money, time and no clue:

Pretty much the same as above but you should be seeing results way quicker because you can afford to both reinvest in your business and learn it all at the same time.

The secret to success with online income – there is no secret – its just a lot of hard work.  But you do “meet” some cool people along the way.

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income Passive Income Australia/NZ

Passive Income Ideas

Snorkeling, Turquoise Bay, Exmouth, Western Australia
Snorkeling, Turquoise Bay, Exmouth, Western Australia

I’ve been playing with the new “Niche Refinery” tool inside of The Keyword Academy and found some new keywords for this blog – I shouldn’t have to tell you which one I am targeting today. Its not worth a million dollars or anything – but the current top ranking posts for “passive income ideas” – all leave a whole lot to be desired. As usual  content really doesn’t matter that much – its all about using the keywords in the right place and domain authority in the Case of the current top ranker’s – so I figure with a bit content – and some backlinks I too may get to page #1 and provide some useful information.

What is Passive Income ?

Passive income is income you receive which is not related to how you spent you day – well that’s my definition of it anyway! I might have spent the last week doing this (I wish!)

Snorkeling, Turquoise Bay, Exmouth, Western Australia
Snorkeling, Turquoise Bay, Exmouth, Western Australia

but meanwhile I made over  NZ$2000 – passive income. That income happened with no discernable activity on my part – I don’t think I made any decisions to with last week – but the invoices paying me showed up today – being the first of the month and all.

Passive Income Ideas – Its the Business Model That Matters

Many people will ask how  did I make that passive income last week – the answer is  property investment. Now not all property investors have themselves a passive income business – we do – we hire professional property managers and have never met any of our current tenants – none of whom know that we spent the last 3 years out of the country. Now it doesn’t make us a fortune – there are a few mortgages involved – but we have  had a good capital gain – more than can be said for the stuff in the share market!

The point is -you will find endless arguments of whether an asset class is a passive income or not – the  question should be – do you want it to be? Neither my partner nor I enjoy fixing plumbing or dealing with tenants – so our residential  property is set up so we don’t have to, we chose to do it that way. Alternatively I know people who have created themselves a full-time job looking after their tenants and their property – neither approach is wrong just different.

Top 5 Passive Income Ideas – If You Do It Right

  1. Property investment – its been my top earner to date so I have to put it #1. In New Zealand its tax efficient and low risk. The downside of course is that its only low risk if you have 50% or more equity. Its only passive if you pay someone to manage and maintain properties for you.
  2. Bank Deposits. Yeah really – I can earn over 6% on New Zealand bank deposits and over 5% on call in Australia. I pay no advisor fees, I do pay tax – its the best cash rates in the world  (well anywhere in the world that you have good chance of getting your money back)- anyone around here who pays advisers to put them into a money market “product” is nuts. Overseas investors should think about it – obviously you will carry an exchange risk (which is far from trivial) – but banks in this part of the world  do not fail.
  3. Stocks/Shares/Managed Funds/ whatever you call them.  Primarily I use these for capital gain rather than passive income – but I know this works differently overseas. Again if you chose to be a day trader this will be far from passive income – if  you chose the right advisor long term stock picks- should work for you.
  4. Develop a business which doesn’t require you to work all the hours of the day to make you money. Tim Ferris’s Four Work Week is the ultimate guide to this approach. Most entrepreneurs desperately need to work IN their businesses – Tim points out how you can arrange the business so it pays you without you doing much work at all. You still need to set the business up – but potentially it can cost a lot less than using the first 3 approaches to passive income
  5. Marry a rich partner – well there is some work up front but … – unfortunately no personal experience on this one! Fundamentally if you have enough capital you should never have to work for an income again – money doesn’t fix your life – but it does give you choices.

Those are pretty much the only ways of generating passive income – but as I said above you can still get it wrong – and end up working full-time on a so-called passive income stream .Which brings me to  irony of this post – I write about developing passive income online here – I am trying to develop niche sites which will pay me passive income on a regular basis. Its definitely possible – but I haven’t got it to the scale that I relax yet. Passive income is about timing sometimes -working hard for  a few years so you can take the rest of your life off…. And please no one tell me that freelance writing is a great way to make passive income – tips like that are worth what you paid for them!

Categories
Making Money Online Passive Income

Passive Income Online: Best Posts of 2009

An Online Business in 2009

Well this seems to be the tradition at this time of the year to look back at your “best of” posts of the previous year. In fact its not a bad idea because internal linking is really a good idea – and hey some of your visitors may even find some benefit.

An Online Business in 2009
An Passive Income Online Business in 2009

To (mis)-quote Dickens it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

My optimistic 2009 goals are a fairly embarassing example of now NOT to goal set – they are too vague, not tied to abig picture aim really – but at least I had some. I did at least realise that yes, you can make $1000/month with Adsense

This post was pretty much when I hit rock bottom with my hopes for making passive income online – I figured out that all the options were worse than bad – and oddly enough once I understood that  if I didn’t believe in my business no one else would things really turned a corner – mainly because of one my worst written posts ever!

May was the month of the infamous 100 hubs challenge and although I boosted my hubpage earnings significanty. They have since dropped quite a lot – not without first making me quite a few thousand dollars though! I intend to revive some of my formerly successful hubs – possibly as mini-sites or on Infobarrel

As the year progress I slowly realised that I had to more and more treat this online adventure as an online business (one of my better posts I think). I’d even worked out that I could build a legitimate online business  and sell stuff online without feeling like I needed a shower!

By the end of September I actually had some online income which needed management! By October I had written my first e-book on buying and selling websites

At the end of the day –  Ican’t imagine a better lifestyle than the one I have now – it is definitly worth trying to make an income online.

Good ideas I still use

Keyword Academy – I still use their prinicpals for keyword research – in general – I am not totally convinced on their backlink startegy but if that program had been available a year earlier it would have saved me a year of heartache and made me a lot more than the cost of membership!

An Alternative to WordPress – anyone who has more than 2 or 3 blogs will no that WordPress needs constant updating – not the content the bloody software – Mystarterblog is ideal for easy to maintain, niche blogs

If you can’t be bothered reading all of Grizz’s blog  (allow a week) – then Janet has summarised his methods in her Nomad’s Guide to Make Money Online

Online Backup – this really does work seamlessly – after the initial setup – any file I add or modify is backed up the next time I’m online – for free!

Not such good ideas from 2009

Entrecard destroys your search traffic

Today Blog Scam

So have you done a year summary for your blog? If so feel free to leave a link in the comments below!

Categories
Affiliate Marketing Paid Tools Tools

Online Income Tips: Managing Affiliates

How do you manage your affiliates? My management has evolved, primarily by accident I admit, but a recent post over at Passive Family Income got me thinking. PFI manages his affiliate links manually – I don’t and here’s why.

Whats the Problem with Affiliate Links?

In short an affiliate link is what pays me online income, it includes the code that says “pay Lis” to the vendor. There is a problem with affiliate links too, in fact two problems:

  • first they are ugly – would you really want to click on a link that looks like : http://47b252e70zsw9sdoja39pbvq2r.hop.clickbank.net/ Many people don’t.
  • often you don’t know if anyone is clicking – clickbank comes to mind they don’t provide any stats on home many clicks you get – just how many people buy.

Here’s the kill though: what if the affiliate changes the code? Yes it happens – and it just happened to me with one of my more successful affiliate earners. You have to change the code, everywhere you used it? Maybe you can remember every place you used an affiliate code – good on you – I can’t!

I use a product called PHP Link Cloak. What a Link Cloaker does (and no its not shady though the name is a little unfortunate IMHO) – is change the link I quoted above to something more user friendly in this case https://lissowerbutts.com/recommends/PHPLinkCloaker If the affiliate changes the code on me – I have to change it in one place – it took me longer to login than it did to actually change the code!

Its more useful than that – it tells me how many clicks I have had on that particular link.  As I can have as many links as I like for the same program I can track how many people click on links on my blog compared to my HubPages, for example.

Its simple to install – you do have to install it on a host that has the following available:

PHP 4 or PHP 5
MYSQL 4.x Database

Hostgator works just fine, apparently GoDaddy does not.

Once you have uploaded the software onto your hosting account you can use the links anywhere you like: email, blogger blogs, on Web 2.0 sites like Infobarrel and HubPages – so for many people will only need to set it up once. However as far as I can tell you can install it as many times as you want if you do want to keep websites separate – for example I wouldn’t use a lissowerbutts.com/recommends …. link on a site which is run by one of my other personas.

And I should probably point out that there are other products out there that do the same job, maybe even for free, but this one was recommended to me by a friend and it worked so I didn’t see any point on wasting any more time on what to me is an online income admin funcition.  The instructions worked just fine and there is a free demo site where you can try before you buy and the standard 60 days money back guarantee from ClickBank. And it costs less than $20.

How do you manage your affiliates? Do you ever forget which products you are promoting? Seriously if you are not using anything and are starting to make some passive income from affiliates check out PHP Link Cloaker Its much easier to put these systems in sooner rather than later!

Categories
Guest Posts Paid Tools

Site Build It Scam Review Redux!

Today’s post is a little different – because I didn’t write it – a reader did so this is my first ever guest post on Passive Income.

The Thinking Man - Rodin's Original
The Thinking Man - Rodin's Original

I don’t know Ray but he wrote to me asking to put this post up because although it was originally published on his SBI! site – it was about to be lost to cyberspace because he’d been unable to liberate it from the clutchs of the evil one (well he didn’t actually say that because if you continue reading you will realise he is much better at the English language than I am, but you get the general idea!).

The post deserves much better than that so enjoy –

My One Year With Site Build It!

by Ray Harvey

This post is not a phony review with a sales pitch at the end, and I am not writing this so that you’ll buy SBI! through an affiliate link.

In fact, I’ve never been an SBI! affiliate, nor would I ever be an SBI! affiliate, because I think SBI! is a very mediocre product. I now speak from one year of actual experience. Definitely, “for what you get,” as the SBI! folks like to express it, it’s not in my estimation worth the extravagant price tag, which is $300.00.

The $300.00 to renew is a complete joke.

I will tell you also, right here in the beginning, that making money was not my primary motive in building my SBI! website, though I was certainly open to that possibility. My site, the-thinking-man dot com, was written entirely by me, and it cost me a great deal of work. Counting the blog, it contained over 200 pages of real content, covering all the four major branches of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics) as well as the two main sub-branches (economics and aesthetics), with numerous articles that elaborate upon each of these subjects.

After one year with SBI!, I can confirm that my initial impression was correct:

There is unquestionably a cultic aspect to the program.

SBI! is not, in my estimation, an outright cult. It’s cultic in that self-help, motivational-speaker, twelve-step sort of way — as opposed to, for example, the more in-your-face type of cults, like Heavens Gate.

And yet as Eric Hoffer taught us in his excellent book True Believer, cults are never the same in terms of specifics but are almost always united in principle. There is, in my opinion, something decidedly Amway-like about SBI!

My second biggest regret is that I missed the deadline for a full refund. I say that in all seriousness, because as soon as I was able to begin building this website in earnest, it was approximately six weeks after I’d made the purchase; I realized immediately then (reading the so-called Action Guide, the SBI! Forums, and especially a long and unpersuasive article by Ken Evoy himself which attempts to pigeonhole anyone who doesn’t like SBI!) that SBI! was a $300.00 mistake. That conviction has only deepened as the months have passed.

Until four days ago, however, I had not planned to write anything about any of this and had even resolved to forget all about it. And then I saw Ken Evoy’s comment on a blog I’d never read before, a blog someone forwarded me the link to because, as coincidence would have it, I’d asked this fellow if he could help me transfer all my work to a new location, since SBI! offers no Import/Export function (among a litany of other things, like a decent blog or the capacity to attach a forum). I was simultaneously stupefied and sickened by Ken Evoy’s threat to sue for “defamation and slander” — not (Evoy hastens) that he’s a litigious person by nature. Yes, of course. He was just so incensed by this obscure blogger (I, at any rate, had never heard of her) daring to speak poorly of him that he almost got litigious, even though he’s not that way by nature. It’s all perfectly logical. That lady, after all, wields a great deal of influence and holds so much sway over so many people that Evoy is justified to sue her for defamation and slander — not, of course, that he’s litigious enough to actually do it. Just saying …

I wonder: Does Evoy realize the magnitude of his miscalculation? Does he know what a fool of himself he’s made? I honestly do not know.

Does he know how appalled I and so many others were to see his comments and the subsequent comments of his sycophants? Does he know how thoroughly he beclowned himself, despite the fact that the majority of points this blogger made against him were incontrovertibly incorrect? I do not know.

The fact that Evoy even bothered to reply to this post at all — at the SBI! forums or her blog — tells us everything we need to know. It tells the entire story and then some. The ensuing comments — beginning with Evoy’s — changed everything.

To the reader who does not know SBI! but is curious about it, there are a number of specific examples I could give from my personal experience after one year with SBI! to illustrate precisely why, in my opinion, it is cultic in the ultimate purport (and I’m not just referring here to those well-documented cult signs such as, for instance, exclusive jargon and neologisms, like as “Action Guide,” “BAM,” “Brainstormit,” and so on); and yet only one example is I think required. It happens to be the one that first tipped me off, about 40 days after I’d purchased SBI!, and candidly my heart sank when I saw it.

It turns out that Ken Evoy is an explicit admirer of a New-Age pseudo-self-development quack, a half-militant vegan and fanatical raw-foodist named Steve Pavlina. Steve Pavlina, incidentally, has also toyed with some very extreme quackery like breatharianism and inedia.

Pavlina, like many cult leaders, has in addition to everything else found a number of tortuous ways to rationalize his embarrassingly public decision to cheat on his wife.

All this, as you know, is standard procedure for cults of all flavors and varieties, and there is absolutely nothing original here. Indeed, it affronts us with its banality.

The jaw-dropping part is that anyone, let alone a medical doctor like the owner of SBI!, Mr. Ken Evoy, could be duped by such an obvious fraud. And yet duped he was — and is, apparently, at least to judge from his comments on the previously mentioned blog, which set Evoy off half-cocked in the first place and precipitated his very misbegotten comment.

I was familiar with Steve Pavlina long before I’d purchased SBI!, and I greatly deplore the fact that I didn’t realize beforehand that Steve Pavlina and Ken Evoy were as cozy as lice. Had I known, it would have saved me a year of folly.

To give you a few other relevant facts about Steve Pavlina, whom Ken Evoy admires so much, he has also admitted on his blog that he has no good understanding of economics or politics, both of which, however, are significant components to the science of philosophy — a fact I mention only because self-development (like everything else) is deeply rooted in philosophy.

Pavlina’s metaphysics are a sloppy admixture of New-Age neo-mysticism and astrology. He admits openly that his metaphysics cannot be proven or verified by any ultimate test, and he is correct: it’s all arbitrary assertions without hard data. That fact alone should make you run in the other direction.

Accordingly, his epistemology places “intuition” above reason, and he often speaks of such things as “psychic pings” and other like nonsense, all of it bunked a billion times.

Pavlina is also fond of such fashionable quackery as numerology, which is why he displays 11:11 at the bottom of his web pages.

Steve Pavlina tells his readers how to find their purpose in life thus:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).

2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”

3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.

4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

This is the sort of pablum that appeals to charlatans and sheep, but it is hardly sound doctrine. The writer of that pablum, Mr. Steve Pavlina, is the fellow whose sentences Ken Evoy was finishing, as he never tires of telling us, the first time the two ever talked, and vice-versa. Touching, isn’t it?

Yet it may not be what you want from the owner of your business-in-a-box.

Site Build It! is not a scam, in my opinion, and it’s not, strictly speaking, multi-level marketing, but it has elements of both. It is, in any case, not, as far as I’m concerned, worth a fraction of your time and money.

Please visit me now at my brand new website, which cost approximately $220.00 less per year than this mediocre SBI! site. And don’t forget to buy my new book, published by Pearl Button Press.

Categories
Making Money Online Online Business Passive Income Rants

Passive Income: My Dream! I Do Believe!

I have a dream: to do what  I want when I want – and I am very, very lucky to be living it! Passive income isn’t a terribly easy goal – but  I am getting there – and I think I just turned a big corner, let me explain. Not income wise, but in the psychological, mumbo-jumbo department!

confusion

When I did my last update I had had a pretty bad month. I lost my part-time job in late January – and it had stuffed up my productivity! How so? Even with only 2 days a week work it gave my week structure. Now it was gone and I appeared to be going nowhere. I admitted my frustration in a private forum I am a member of (sorry closed to new members at the moment – I’ll let you know if it re-opens) – and got jumped on pretty hard. I thought my problem was keyword research – but it wasn’t – the problem was I hadn’t down enough work!

That is not to say I wasn’t spending all day at the beach, nope worse than that, I was distracted by forums, commenting for fun, twitter and a whole lot of other unproductive stuff! In fact an on-line friend asked me what sites I wanted to promote in a mutual-help group he was starting – and I didn’t have any I could be bothered with anymore!

I wasn’t being lazy – not logging on lazy – but I was unfocused I hadn’t figured out what I had to do to succeed – even though I did know – and have known for nearly a year – build more sites! For goodness sakes the original name of this blogs was “Journey of 100 sites!” Had I developed 100 sites – nope!

I got mad – first at my colleagues in the forum – and then at myself!  Someone called me stubborn –  I laughed out loud – its odd how someone who has never met you can pick out some major personality trait like that!

My main issue was:  people say you can’t achieve unless you believe that you will achieve – but I don’ t believe in anything I can’t touch: the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and God being my main examples.

I’m not much into the pop psychology, “law of attraction” crap. I did however, somewhat in desperation, do a bit of a google – and came up with the concept of visualisation.   Sorry I don’t know where I got the check list from  – I wrote it on a bit of paper – and it was very useful- leave me a comment if you recognise the source! Having decided on what your goal is: in my case passive recurring income from niche sites – you need to go through the following steps:

  1. Is the result possible. Do other people do this?
  2. Is the result possible by me – do I have the skills?
  3. Do  I really want this result?
  4. Do I deserve the result?
  5. Does the goal contradict my other beliefs?
  6. Create a plan to achieve the goal
  7. Do the steps in the plan contradict my beliefs?
  8. Do you can do the steps in the plan?
  9. Do you believe you will do the steps in the plan?
  10. Believe that you will achieve the goal.

OK nothing better to do at midnight when I couldn’t sleep so I worked thru the steps.

  1. Yes I know other people who make  over $10k /month with this model.
  2. I believe I have the skills – the technical stuff is pretty easy, the writing is fine, I can outsource what I can’t do myself
  3. Oh yes!  I felt like trapped in corporate IT. Even if there wasn’t a financial crises  I wouldn’t want to go back! Its waaay too good havin control of your life.
  4. Why the fuck not? No one will get hurt in the process and I certainly own my partner over a year of him working and me not producing any income.
  5. This was infact my initial issue with Internet Marketing – but I found out a while ago that its perfectly possible to sell on-line without ripping anyone off.
  6. Plan – its in my head – its not that hard:
    1. find long-tail keyword to target
    2. find a way to monetize
    3. build site
    4. promote site to top of SERPs
    5. rinse and repeate
  7. No
  8. Yes
  9. Yes
  10. Well bugger me  I think I might believe in my goal now!

Sorry for the ramble – now I have to go and build some more sites!

EDIT – this post moved me to tears writing it – and this video totally expresses what I not have the skill to say in words:

http://youtu.be/RxPZh4AnWyk

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