Thursday, July 07, 2005

Search Engines Are Doomed to Fail

A very provocative title, isn’t it? Based on the latest news it is not far from the truth. Over the years the search engines were the target number one on the hunt for visitors and traffic to millions of web sites. In an attempt to keep the search results accurate and still delivering what the user is actually looking for, search engines cracked down on spammers and other sneaky web masters who wanted to beat the system with some very innovative tricks.

Not only did these tricky web masters skew the search results, they also forced the search engines into some drastic measures that were not very effective and many innocent bystanders found themselves as a victim of this. From one day to the other many web masters watched their 200+ pages web site completely vanished from the index. Not a trace left of a once high ranked web site. How could this happen?

Like no other media, search engines are pressed to deliver the most accurate and recent information available at any point in time. This means that their robots have to crawl more web pages in a shorter period of time. To fight spammers they introduced some smart code that will detect fraudulent web masters and ban their web sites from their index. This saves time, because they don’t have to revisit this site ever. However, there’s a huge catch. Web pages that look perfectly normal to the human eye will be wrongfully flagged as an attempt to trick the robots.

We all know how successful computers are to mimic the human brain. This might be possible in the future, but for now this is wishful thinking. Until then more and more innocent web masters will fall victim of a questionable practice, which by the way didn’t improve the quality of the search results.

This whole game was created by web masters who wanted to achieve top rankings in record time and search engines who didn’t like this at all. They declared war on these web masters and that’s why we are facing a major problem with search engines today. To make matters worst. This is not the only problem every web master has to be aware of this days.

Did you notice that the search results page of every major search engine looks more and more like a billboard ad? Ever since they realized that web masters are willing to pay for top listings, they increased the space of their sponsored ads. Google places them on the top and right, Yahoo on the top, right and bottom side of their results page. Sooner or later the majority of the search results will be paid inclusions, which completely contradicts the original intent of the search engines, accurate results.

Don’t get me wrong, search engines will always be a part of the internet and they will play a vital role in accessing the information. However I don’t think that they will remain the gatekeeper of the global information transfer. Both Google and Yahoo build their success on this assumption.
Meanwhile I will continue to build my own network that will provide a constant flow of traffic, with or without the search engines. And that my friend is the only way to go.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
© 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn the magic words that will make consumers spend like crazy at http://www.the22secrethotbuttons.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

6 Basic Principals Every Online Business Owner Should Know

The fact that you’re reading this article shows your interest in starting your very own internet business. Maybe you’re already an online business owner in search of some answers why your online business stalled. Even if you’re just interested in what others have to say about online business startup guidelines, I think these are the 6 fundamental principals that will make or break your online success.

They are not in any particular order. From my experience you need to implement all 6 principals to lay a solid foundation for your online business. If customers ask me why they don’t have any success with their online business, most of the time I will find at least one violation of these 6 principals. It doesn’t mean that implementing a missing principal will guarantee instant success. However you will dramatically increase the odds to become a successful online business owner.

I don’t expect that you believe a single word I’m saying. Just put your own online business to the test and see if these basic principals apply to your situation.

1. Don’t Buy Into The Hype.

The Internet can be a confusing place. If you’re getting serious with your business you will come across a lot of empty promises. 99% percent turn out to be exactly that, empty promises.

Stick with what works and choose your suppliers based on service and on how long they are in business. The Internet is a fast place and being in business for a couple of years means that you can expect world-class service and quality.

2. Don’t Spend Too Much Time Online.

Don’t forget your family and your friends. You will get drawn into this vicious cycle of wanting to do more and more. Remember success doesn’t come overnight and time away from the computer benefits you and your family. Stay healthy while doing this or you won’t be able to enjoy your success.

3. Take Your Time.

Success with a home based Internet business doesn’t come overnight, despite the promises from all these emails and websites you come across while pitching your own business. The latest announcement, that Google is aging its index lists puts a new spin on quick success. Apparently Google now weights the age a website to determine its relevance and therefore its ranking. This means no matter how hard you try and how many tweaks you make to your website, it doesn’t matter to Google. So, take your time and be patient.

From my experience it takes at least 4-5 months before you see some sort of returns. With Google’s latest announcements maybe a little bit longer. This means that you must keep track of your expenses or you will go broke before you can cash in.

4. Lock Up Your Credit Cards.

Here’s a very important tip. You are highly endangered to go broke if you make hasty buying decisions after late night online session. Before you enter your credit card number, bookmark the site, wait 24 hours, go back to this site and if you still think that you need this product buy it. You will save a lot of money by avoiding unnecessary or worthless purchases.

5. Be Persistent.

Simply don’t quit. I know it can get frustrating having no sales or no hits for weeks. That’s the nature of the business. I had months where the sales happened almost hourly and there’s times when I didn’t see any action at all.

Just keep pounding the rock. All successful people in the world have one thing in common. They are persistent in what their doing.

6. Be Unique.

Nothing will kill you online success quicker that being a pure copycat.

Keep this in mind. You will probably sell the same stuff as hundreds or thousand of other businesses. So why should somebody buy from you and from you only? Be yourself! Put your personal touch on it. Sometimes it’s a good thing to point out the negative of a certain product as well. Your potential customers will appreciate your honest opinion and trust you in future product announcements.

Remember it’s your reputation and your ability to move emotions of your customers that sells.


As I said, you don’t have to agree with me. I found these principals the key factor in my online business success.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
© 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

5 Rock-Solid Real Estate Investment Strategies

Investing in real estate is more complex than simply buying and selling homes. To help new real estate investors to decide which strategy might work for them I put together 5 rock-solid strategies. It is up to you which strategy you feel more comfortable with.

1. Buy and Hold

This real estate investment strategy is commonly known as rental properties. Becoming a landlord is easier than you think. You buy a property, you advertise it as “for rent” and you sign a contract with your new tenant. That’s where the love story ends. You need to know a lot about your duties and your rights as a landlord or you will find yourself in trouble.

Screening your prospect tenants is your first line of defense. Protecting your property from damage is your first duty. I might paint a little bit dark picture of being a landlord. But dealing with tenants can be the most frustrating job you ever had. Do yourself a favor and visit a bookstore or library and get as many books on landlording as you can get. Armed with this knowledge you will be able to create a positive cash flow and a long term relationship with your tenants every time you put the “For Rent” sign in the yard.

With the buy and hold strategy you basically have 3 income streams going at once.
Amortization; while paying your mortgage you also lower the amount you owe.
Appreciation; while owning the property it increases in value.
Tax incentive; as a landlord you will be able to deduct your investment cost over several years. (See you tax advisor for professional advice).

Based on this information you can easily see that even if the rent doesn’t cover 100 % of your mortgage payment you will still be able to create a positive cash flow.

2. Flipping

This is the art of “buying” and “selling” real estate investment without actually taking ownership. In a flip situation real estate contracts get assigned and the person who assigns the contract to someone else typically gets a commission for their services. That’s how you can make money with real estate without credit checks or no money down. Because you never take possession of the property, you don’t need to apply for a mortgage.

You only need 2 things to be able to flip a home. First, you need to find an attractive property that will sell very quickly. Second, you need to find a buyer within a very short period of time. Typically 2-3 weeks. Then you simply flip the contract to the new buyer and you will collect your commission at a so called “double closing”.

This sounds complicated at first, but with a little bit practice you will be able to create a nice income from this. By the way, this is the preferred concept of most real estate “gurus” who appear in late night infomercials.

3. Rehabs

Rehabs are the most risky form of real estate investments. You hunt for a cheap, run-down property and you hope that your preliminary remodel cost estimates will leave enough room for a nice profit. Well that’s the theory. Most real estate investors are failing with this type of strategy.

You either didn’t get the property cheap enough to make a profit or the damages are more extensive than estimated which will offset the cheap purchase price. To make matters worst. If during the rehab phase of typically 3-4 months the market is going south all bets are off. Trust me, I made my share of experiences with this and I told myself, never again.

4. Commercial Real Estate Investment

What comes to your mind first when you think of commercial real estate investment? Big factory complexes, shopping malls or maybe huge office buildings. Well, my answer is much simpler. Anything bigger than a 4 unit apartment building, some call it fourplex, is considered commercial. The great thing with commercial real estate is that the value of the property is determined by the rent income it generates and not by how crazy people are going with bidding on residential real estate.

Theoretically there’s no such thing as sellers or buyers market for commercial real estate. I wrote a complete article about the pros and cons of commercial real estate. So I keep this brief. Personally I love commercial real estate. Of course, commercial real estate is more or less off limits for beginners, because commercial real estate lenders want to see some form of prior experience in real estate investments. However, if you got some experience, go for it. As an added benefit; the competition is far less.

5. New Construction

This is the most affordable and easiest way of real estate investment. Getting into the earliest phase possible of a new development is a sure thing to make money. Keep an eye on the market and you will be able to sell your new home before construction is finished. The construction companies don’t like this, so they limit the number of homes an individual can buy. Even so, keep one or two homes constantly under construction and you will make some nice profits. Of course this works only in a sellers market. Stay away from this strategy in a buyers market or when you see big changes in the local real estate market.


Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
(c) 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about real estate investments at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com or send a blank email to mailto:suncoastrenttoown@getresponse.com

Relationships - 9 Never-Changing Rules

In a relationship, your ability to understand and respond to the other person's needs and desires are fundamental. Understanding the nature of relationships themselves may be as important to your success in love as understanding the person with whom you're having the relationship.

The key to a working relationship is twofold. First you need to work on a relationship day in and day out. Second you need the right information to pinpoint where the relationship needs work. Without this information you’re simply assuming and assumptions are the enemy to any healthy relationship.

From puppy love to winter romances, the following is true of all relationships

1. Relationships Don't Just Happen

Relationships aren't accidents that come out of nowhere; you create them and you have to make an effort to maintain them. Remember that the time you invest in others will always pay off.

2. Relationships are Need-based.

Everyone has their own personal needs and desires; your job is to figure out those needs since some may be unexpressed verbally. Not an easy task, therefore you have to focus on your partner. Ask how you can respond to a desire that she or he has.

3. Relationships Don't Hold a Grudge

Despite the use of terms like "perfect match," and "perfect couple," the idea of a perfect relationship is perfectly ridiculous. We all make mistakes dealing with other people, so it's important to be overlooked and/or forgive imperfections in others in order to build strong relationships.

4. Relationships That Endure Take Time

Relationships are formed with long-term goals in mind. This means that deep relationships will evolve slowly because the stakes -- a life partner -- are so great. In this instance, "haste makes waste" and divorce…or at least an ugly break-up.

5. Relationships are As Unique as the Folks That Are In 'Em.

No two people are the same and so no two relationships are the same. Your relationships will deepen and strengthen, if you can accept the uniqueness of others as a precious gift.

6. Relationships Build You Up.

"My partner brings out the best in me," is the way most people define the partner that they love. Relationships are built on encouragement, so always try to make your partner feel good, even if you're urging them beyond their comfort zone to a new level of intimacy.

7. Relationships Are Essential.

It may be a dog eat dog world out there, but man is still a "pack animal," looking for positive healthy relationships. Once you understand that nothing is more important than people, you'll communicate that supportive message in everything you do.

8. Relationships Are For Two.

There is no such thing as a one-person relationship. For a relationship to thrive it requires cooperation from both parties, otherwise it's unrequited love (at best) and stalking (at worst). You can't have a relationship with someone who isn't interested in having one with you.

9. Relationships are Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts.

In good relationships there is energy -- your energy and your partners. This energy pushes each of you to strive to make the relationship work as individuals, and it also drives you to a shared excellence.


Armed with these rules you should be able to create and maintain a healthy relationship. Some caution on this topic. Just because you live and breathe these rules doesn’t mean that your relationship will be better or a broken relationship will be fixed. Every situation is unique and requires different approaches. Use these rules as a guide and as a guide only.

Unfortunately a small article can’t do justice on the wide spectrum of creating and maintaining a working relationship. You will get the complete picture and step by step explanations in Race Kale’s new book “The Power of Charisma”.


Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and a successful home business entrepreneur. Learn how to create and maitain a better relationship in this new book. http://www.powerofcharismabook.com

5 Common Mistakes Every Online Business Owner Should Avoid

Starting an online business is probably one of the simplest things to do. You make the decision that you want to make some money on the internet. You join a few free affiliate programs, maybe a couple of free mlm programs and if you’re really into it, you get your own domain name and web site.

So far your business expenses are peanuts and you can close shop anytime without any regrets. You don’t have a vested interest in your business due to the lack of a financial commitment. That’s how about 80% of the so called “online business owners” operate. No concept, no plan and no future.

Then there’s another group of “online business owners” who are all fired up about their new Endeavour and nothing can stop them. They do everything they’ve been told by whom ever they listen to and they also spend a considerably amount of money to get their business going. There’s really nothing wrong with this other than that they are too eager and too motivated to get their business off the ground. Unfortunately most of them will quite after a few months. Unfortunately this is mostly due to avoidable mistakes.

The third and smallest group are the folks who actually made it. Well, let me define “made it” for a moment. I call a business a success if you can make a profit after you paid all the expenses and I mean all the expenses. Now you can argue if it is worthwhile to put in so much work for not much in return. This is a call that every one of you has to make on your own.

I purposely left out the group with the guys who are making more money a day than most of us make in a year. First, it is completely unrealistic to assume that you actually will achieve the same results as the “big ones” with the limited resources you have. Second, these guys may have started as a one man show, but today they are a corporation with many employees like every other company doing big business on the internet.

Back to the 3 groups I mentioned before. Group #1, the no concept, no plan, no future group, is not even worth mentioning. They are just a waste of time. Group #3, the guys who ‘made it’, is out o reach at the moment. The fact that you’re reading this article puts you into the group #2 category. You’re eager to build your business and you’re determined to make it happen. I hope by pointing out the pitfalls you will actually avoid the mistakes I made and it will bring you a step closer to your ultimate goal. Be your own boss.

Here’s a list of common mistakes every startup online business should avoid.

1. Not Having a Plan

Set yourself a goal on where you want to be in 12 months after starting your online business. Without a plan, even the simplest plan, your ambitions are poised to fail.

2. Not Having Your Own Web Site

Get your own domain name and web site. There are many marketers who want you to believe that you can make lots of money without having your own web site. Make a professional staement and get your own domain name and web site.

3. Too Many Activities to Manage

Pick your affiliate and mlm programs wisely. Most newcomers fail due to the lack of focus. Too many programs will not increase your chances of hitting the jackpot. Focus on the most effective programs and stick with it. You will be rewarded in the long run.

4. Spending Too Much Money Too Quickly

Spending your hard earned money on advertising can quickly turn into an addiction. Meaning that you fall for the myth that the more you spend on advertising the more money you make. Wrong. You could spend all the money in the world on the wrong marketing strategy and still not making a profit. This will happen to you with all the pay-per-click search engines. There’s a reason why Google is skyrocketing at the stock market. There are too many advertisers spending too much money on pay-per-click and are not realizing that the only winner is Google themselves. The only thing that will stop this behavior is you either run out of money or your credit card is maxed out. My advice, pay-per-click is the last part of a well planned marketing strategy. There are much more effective advertising vehicles available than pay-per-click.

5. Don’t SPAM

This is single most reason why startup online businesses get in trouble and actually have to close and start all over again. If you have a newsletter or some other information you want to distribute via email. Only use verified email addresses, typically double opt-in email addresses that you collected. Stay away from any brokers who want to sell you huge lists of emails for pennies. This is the surefire way to get into trouble and out o business. My advice, slowly grow your email list with verified addresses only. These people actually want to hear from you and are more likely to buy from you.


Unfortunately I didn’t have this information when I started my online business and I paid for making these mistakes. Don’t do what I did, do what I’m telling you to do. Sounds familiar? Well in this case it is just a recap of my experiences and hopefully you get some use out of this.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
© 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Tap into multiple streams of income at http://www.mypluginhomebiz.com Learn more about the power of viral marketing; send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

10 Tips to Improve Your Self Esteem

Striving to improve our self esteem is on everybody’s mind. It doesn’t matter if you actively pursue this goal or you subconsciously working on improving your self esteem. The problem with this is that you really don’t know exactly what you want to improve. You’re acting intuitively on external signals.

Do you know how to improve your self esteem? Probably not. To make it a little bit easier for you and to achieve your goals quicker I put together 10 tips that you can utilize right away.

1. Build up your self-esteem. You must take an inventory. What do you want to improve or change about the way you interact with others? Try to make only one change at a time. Always check you progress before making another change.

2. Celebrate your journey, not your destination. Learn to always feel good about where you are now, and to exude self-confidence about anywhere you might find yourself tomorrow.

3. Set clear goals for yourself before every interaction. Know what you want. Think about how the people you will be meeting can help you reach those goals. Then decide how to approach each person accordingly. Apply this regularly and you will notice a difference.

4. Be proactive. Take the initiative. Be decisive. Let the other person know exactly how he or she can help you. Proactive people tent to be more successful in their career.

5. Treat each person you meet as if she or he is truly important. (You'll be amazed how this works.)

6. Give a firm handshake; look the other person straight in the eye. Practice both of these. Your handshake should be just right. Not too firm and not too loose. Train yourself to notice something you like or find attractive in the person.

7. Listen! Listen! Listen! Teach yourself to develop good listening skills. Learn a way to remember the other person's name. If in doubt simply ask for the name again 2 or 3 sentences into the conversation.

8. Visibly respond to the other person. Smile, nod agreement, and address him or her by name. Apply all you listening skills to visibly respond. The body language is the most important part of a conversation. Practice, practice, practice…

9. Pay more attention to the other person than to yourself. Are you responding to what may be going on in his or her life? Don't filter out bad news. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. Be caring.

10. Stay "in the moment." Don't mentally cut off the other person. Don't reload while he or she is speaking. What this means is that you need to focus on the other person 100% during a conversation. Anything less is considered rude.


Next time you meet somebody new look out for these behaviors. Put a mental checkmark on the each of the 10 tips and see how well this person scored. Chances are that the person scored very high if you tent to like her/him. On the contraire the person probably scored low if you don’t seem to connect.

The more you practice the more likely you will create a positive aura which is commonly known as charisma. To step up to become a charismatic personality it takes more than just these 10 tips.

Creating a positive aura will benefit you in every thing you do. You will create a warmer ambience with your family. You will be more successful in your career. Even while trying to meet a partner of the opposite sex you will notice a difference on how people perceive you.
Unfortunately a small article can’t do justice on the wide spectrum of creating a positive aura and developing a charismatic personality. You will get the complete picture and step by step explanations in Race Kale’s new book “The Power of Charisma”.


Peter Dobler is an active real estate investor and a successful home business entrepreneur. Learn how to become a charismatic personality in this new book. http://www.powerofcharismabook.com

Internet Business – How to Make Real Money

We all are in search of the silver bullet that will put our business on autopilot and the only thing we have to do is to cash the checks. Aren’t you looking for this as well? Isn’t this the reason why you’re actually reading all these articles, including this one? You’re hoping to find the one tool, the surefire method, the hidden trick or the magic system that will make your dreams come true.

Once again I have to disappoint you. There is no such thing as a silver bullet that will magically run your business while you sit back and relax. If there would be one, why is everybody trying to sell you the next big thing or the breakthrough that will make you rich and you won’t need to chase the magic system anymore?

Are you as confused as I am? You bet. Without clear definition of exactly what you are trying to do, there will be no answers. What does rich mean to you? What exactly will the next big thing solve for you? It sure means something different to you than it does to me. The only thing we all have in common is that we all strive to achieve our personal financial freedom.

Sorry for getting off topic here. You still want to know how to make real money with an Internet business, don’t you? Instead of repeating marketing material over and over again I will tell you how I make real money with my Internet business.

First, you need a product and a website to sell your product. I’m a member of several clubs that offer new tools and books with master resale rights every month. This means that I can sell these products and keep 100% of the profit. I also have full control over the sales letter. This is very important. You set the price and you can add any bonus material you want to. You also need somebody to process the credit card payments. My choices are PayPal and 2Checkout.

Ok, now you have a killer sales web site and you’re ready for business. Unfortunately nobody knows that you’re open for business and the spider nets are starting to grow on your front door. What you need is traffic. Lot’s of it. After experimenting with all kind of traffic exchange programs I can honestly say, they don’t work. You need something more powerful.

This is exactly what I do every time I create a new web site for e new product I’m promoting. I put an ad on the major pay-per-click engines like Google, Overture, 7search and FindWhat. This gives my business a jump start.

Next I create doorway pages for the new web site and promote them to the search engines through a blog. Search engines will index your pages much faster when you have a link to them from a blog. Never submit your sales web site directly to any search engines. You will get much higher rankings if they find you.

I also make sure that I place an unblockable popup window on every doorway page to sign up for my newsletter. This way I capture at least the email addresses of my visitors. Also several Google AdSense windows will give me a little kick back.

To make it even more profitable, on the thank you page for the newsletter subscription I give away free stuff with lots of references to other web sites of mine and I make the subscriber aware that the real good stuff to download is hidden in an email. If they gave me a fake email just to download the free software it won’t work. But at least they download the free promo material. My stats showing me that this is working. I always make sure that the free stuff I’m giving away has viral marketing built in. It needs to reproduce itself without any intervention from my part.

This doesn’t look like a lot, but after setting up over 10 sales web sites the system is gaining momentum. After a while I will drop the pay-per-click advertising and the system supports itself with enough visitors to make a profit.

Ok, you’re absolutely right. This is a lot of work. However, do the math. Let’s say you create a new sales web site every month. After 6 months you break even with the initial setup cost and the startup pay-per-click costs. After that you’re making net profits. Let’s also say you’re making $200 a month in profits. Not much, but realistic. After just one year you have 12 sales web sites up and running and they produce $2400 a month in profits. Would you walk away from a business like this? Hell no.

Bottom line if you want to get rich quick you need to go to Vegas. If you want to start a serious Internet business you might want to follow my strategy. This works for me, chances are that it will work for you too. If you really want to push this system to the limits simply create an affiliate program on top of it and your profits will go through the roof.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
© 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

The Power of Viral Marketing

When I first heard of the term Viral Marketing I thought immediately of a virus. No, not the flu, a computer virus. I avoided viral marketing like the plaque. I’m sure many of you are doing the same thing. Every email labeled viral marketing got trashed and I immediately run an anti virus check on my computer.

It actually took me long time and the convincing words of a dear friend of mine to change my attitude towards viral marketing. Call it ignorance, but I just didn’t have the confidence in something that sounds like it wants to harm me.

Today my whole world changed and now I’m an active advocate to promote viral marketing. The concept is not new and it was created by the brightest minds in the business.

Viral marketing capitalizes in the sharing habits of the human beings. It’s quite extraordinary. We all tent to share with friends and family the bargains or freebies we were able to get. If we can copy the freebie we will do it and give it to our friends and family. Take the music industry as an example.

Ok, we established that viral marketing is giving out free stuff and that this free stuff will be passed around. So how do you capitalize on something everybody expects to get for free? You don’t. You just use the freebie as an advertising vehicle.

See, once you started giving out software or a book for free, it will snowball from there. Granted that the software is any good and the book provides some value. There is no telling on how many copies of your software or book will float through the internet. The only thing you now for sure, it takes some time to gain momentum.

Take Hotmail as an example. Hotmail build its empire solely on viral marketing. Every email you send had a little line at the end advertising free email from Hotmail. That’s it. No expensive marketing strategy, no TV ads, nothing but a little advertising line at the end of every email. It took years of building momentum, but today Hotmail is a giant pulling in billions of dollars every year.

I’m not expecting to repeat Hotmail’s success with my little viral marketing project, but I’m convinced that sooner or later the profits will come. It is simply a matter of time. All you need is a good product that you control and be able to give out for free. Make sure that you will be able to place your advertising on the front page of the product.

You can advertise your newsletter, your web site, products you’re selling, anything you will make a profit if somebody clicks through the advertising on the freebie. I spare you with the details why the same ad advertised through viral marketing is so much more effective than regular advertising.

Just one thought. Would you click on a single ad embedded in a software or book send to you by a friend you trust? Of course you would. There is nothing suspicious about this. It’s your friend who recommended this in the first place. On the other hand nobody actually clicks on advertising popping up on strange web sites you never heard of before.

Now you see why I like viral marketing so much. Quite frankly I believe in the future it is the only marketing that works. SPAM filters and popup blockers already make it almost impossible to get through to our prospects and it will not get any better.

Prepare your self for the future and implement viral marketing today. You will be glad you did.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
Copyright © 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

Free Email Accounts – Pros and Cons

Free email accounts are great if you want to hide your identity. They are great to sign up for free stuff. They are also very popular for SPAM emails and due to this they also filter too many non-spam emails as well. Ever wondered why you haven't heard from a friend lately. All a sudden no more emails, not even the forwarded jokes. Your friend just disappeared and you scratching your head what you have done to tick him/her off.

Your friend didn't disappear, only his/her emails are disappearing. No notice, no error message, nothing, the email simply disappeared. The bad news is, there's not much you can do about it. On the other hand you can still enjoy the free emails if you switch to a lesser know email provider. Besides the big 3 Hotmail, Yahoo and Google, here's a list of smaller providers of free email services.

Email Accounts For Business Purpose

Did you know that with every web hosting service you will also get enough email accounts to last forever? Not only will an email address that ends in @yourdomain.com show your professional approach to your online business it also gives you great control over what messages you want to receive and which ones you want to filter.

I set up my emails into multiple accounts for business purposes. These accounts have a very tight SPAM filter. I also have a couple of accounts for newsletter sign up purposes where I don't filter at all. Yes I get a lot of SPAM there as well, but these accounts are set up to receive everything. The nice side effect of having many email addresses when you running an online business is that you can test your email campaign beforehand.

Instead of guessing if your response rate to an email campaign is due to the SPAM filters or your headline simply sucks. You have piece of mind that your emails will make it to your prospects, but apparently your headline is more or less a turn off.

One important factor of advertising your business is the name recognition. Even people don't remember your web site address they probably remember your name. Unfortunately the chances to get your name as a domain name in the .com name space are slim to none. Most of the other name spaces are filling quickly. The good news is that there's a new name space just released, .ws, but you need to hurry up. Although it is fairly new, domain names are going fast and the longer you wait the less are your chances to get your personal domain name.
For more information please visit my web sites or send me an email.

Copyright © 2005 - Peter Dobler


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

Writing An eBook - The How To Guide

Whenever you're listening to one of the big names in internet marketing you hear the same speech over and over again when it comes to viral marketing. The number one advice is, write an eBook and give it away for free.

You might ask "What is viral marketing and why should I give something away for free after I spend weeks to create it?". On another note you probably don't even know how to write an eBook and what to talk about.

First things first. Viral marketing is exactly what the name implies. You create a marketing effort that spreads like a virus. No, not the kind of virus you fear on your computer. Here's an example.

You are running a home business and you're getting pretty good in attracting new customers, but you're working more and more hours to generate this traffic to your business. Well, there are only 24 hours in a day and there's only so much you can do.

No you have 2 options. Option 1: Hire an employee to help you with your workload or motivate somebody else to promote your product. I don't know about you, but the thought alone having employees gives me the creeps. If you ever had to deal with employees you know what I'm talking about.

That leaves us with option 2; motivate somebody else to do the work for us. How do you do this? Easy, the number one question you have to address is "What's in it for me?". If you can give this person something in return for their work you’re off to a good start.

Now here's when the eBook thing comes into the picture. eBooks and/or software are the perfect products to sell or give away from a automated web site. No packing and shipping involved and the system takes care of the transaction without you doing anything. Don't you love this? I sure do!

What's in it for them? By giving away your eBook you break the barrier for somebody else to actually look at your product. Second, you give this person the right to distribute and reprint your eBook. This means that you give the person the right to give it to another person for consumption and the right to reprint as well. This will repeat itself over and over again. That's viral marketing in a nutshell.

Now there's the problem to create an eBook to begin with. This seems harder than it is. First you need a topic. What are your hobbies? Are you married for a very long time? How did you do this? Are you good with home improvements? Did you successful deal with the government? And so forth...

Now you take one topic and think about what you did to make it successful or just something you enjoyed. This is the key. People want to feel better about themselves. You give them the roadmap on how to do something that they will enjoy at then end or something they can be proud of.

Once you have a topic to write about, it's downhill from there. Focus on your topic, outline the eBook first. Start very high level.

• What's the problem
• What are the obstacles to overcome
• What are the goals you want to achieve with this
• How did you do it
• What are the lessons learned
• What are you doing next

You see having these high level outlines in place will help you to drill down in each one of them. It might be a little bit strange in the beginning, but after a while you get used to it and the words just flow out of your hands.

Armed with this knowledge you should be on your way to write your first eBook. In my forum I created a folder for first time writers to advertise their eBooks.

Copyright © 2005 - Peter Dobler


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about the concept of residual income at http://www.fl-home-biz.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

The Power of Membership Programs

Membership programs are the best way to create residual income. You know the kind of income that is coming in month after month for years to come or at least as long as the referral remains a member of the service you sold.

There is no difference in how you advertise for this programs compared to how you advertise for one time sales like ebooks or software. There are membership programs available for almost every thing you can imagine. It would take weeks for you to sort through all the possibilities.
In my opinion membership programs are the best products to advertise for. Even if you only sell one membership per month. Doesn't sound much, doesn't it? But it's probably more realistic than the high flying promises of the membership program owners. Focus for just a minute and follow my math.

1 membership sale per month. Let's say your commission is $5, this is a realistic amount not a fantasy commission nobody ever gets. After selling this program for 1 year you have 12 paid memberships, which now totals $60 per month. Plus the commission from all the other members as well. You will earn $390 in your first year. Hmm, not quite enough to quit my job.
Let's continue. The second year you already start with 12 members and $60. By the end of the second year you have 24 members and $120 residual income per month, which is $1110 per year. If you continue this for the period of 5 years your monthly residual income will be $300.
Ok, still not exited. I don't blame you. Here's what you can do. Run free classified ads and slightly increase your sales rate to let's say 1 membership sales per week. You just shortened to length of time to get $300 a month from 5 years to 1 year. Now let's further assume that you promote more than 1 program. Promoting 5 membership programs at the same time is no big deal to do and it will increase your monthly income from $300 to $1,500.

Of course these are all just numbers and speculations. To make my point. Selling on the internet is a numbers game. To make the numbers work you need to sell a lot and often. Membership programs are a perfect product to get the most out of your advertising efforts. Remember: The income potential is too low to run massive paid advertising. Stick to free classified ads and use the method "set and forget". The less attention you pay the more effective your campaign will be.

This is my list of membership programs that are free to join as an affiliate. They never will cost you any money to promote their membership program. Remember, the subscribers are making you money not the program.
  • Search Engine Blaster - Search engine submission service for a monthly fee.
  • The Secret To Their Success - Corey Rudl's membership program for power affiliates.
  • Guru Mailer - This is the premium email list builder. Solid performance and quality leads.
  • Convert More Traffic - This is the premium membership site that offers proven tactics and strategies to improve your traffic conversion rates. You can have all the traffic in the world as long as you can't get any profit out of it it's useless.

If you like to learn more about the power of membership sites visit my web sites or send me an email.

Copyright © 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn the magic words that will make consumers spend like crazy at http://www.the22secrethotbuttons.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

Free Advertising the Smart Way

Your biggest asset when becoming an internet marketer is to know how to get free targeted traffic to your web sites. It doesn't matter how many web sites you're promoting. Your primary goal should be to keep the cost down. It feels great to have monthly sales well into the thousands, but it also can ruin your day when you realize that most of this money goes right back into your advertising costs.

Yes, there's a rule that you need to reinvest 75% of your profit into advertising and marketing. I like this rule, but it also needs to be timely constraint. I think this rule is good for your first 3-6 months of business. After this you should be able to pull back the cost for advertising without impacting your income streams.

My philosophy in internet marketing is that if you have to spend a lot of money to keep a positive cash flow, the competition is probably too intense for this market segment. You will be better of to research a new niche market.

On the topic of free advertising, there are many free classified ad providers, but only a few sites offer truly free advertising. They all want something in return, there's no webmaster out there who promotes your stuff for free just because he/she feels like it today. One way to get free advertising is to tap into a startup company. There are hundreds of web sites that want to be the next Google. To attract new customers they give away free pay per click credits. Sometimes up to $100 worth of clicks.

Another way to receive free quality advertising is to give these webmasters what they want. In most cases it's a link from your website to their website. This can be a problem, especially if you want to keep your home page clean from too many flashy banners.

In this case try to figure out of the link back is required to be on your home page or any page from your website. If there's no requirement to have the link on your homepage, create a collection web page that is not necessarily part of your whole web site and put link back from this site. To keep the flow put a tiny link from your home page to this page and you're done.
Don't even think about to put the link on your web page and a few days later you will remove it. These days the link back verification is done automatically and they will check from time to time if you keep your promise or not. Your free ride will suddenly stop and you will gain a reputation as cheater.

For more information about free advertising visit my web sites.

Copyright © 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Collect more free software and bonus content for your own web site at http://www.online-business-idea.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

How to Calculate Real Estate Rehab Profits

If you are investing in real estate you will face a variety of challenges. First you have to find the right property. Finding the right property is a combination of personal preferences and opportunities involved in a real estate deal. My most important real estate investment principle is; “You make money with real estate when you buy the property not when you sell it”. This means that I wouldn’t touch a rehab property where the purchase price is not below 65%-70% of the market value.

Why do you need such a low price to make it work? This is quite simple. A common guideline among investors is that you must make at least $10,000 to make it worthwhile. Remember you’re an investor and not a handyman. Rehab projects last typically 4-6 months, sometimes even longer. You don’t want to end up making minimum wage as a handyman after the project is done. Quite frankly this is not uncommon for first time investors.

Real estate investment is all about numbers. If the numbers are right you must make every mistake in the book to turn your project into a financial disaster. That’s why you must buy the property as cheap as possible. Selling the property is your least problem. First you have to put together a budget. Here’s a little example.

Property A is located in a decent neighborhood with average home resale values of $150,000. That’s what our property will appraise after the repairs are done. We also take out a hard money loan with 4 points and 12% (interest only) for 100% of the purchase price. We calculate that the property will sell for $150,000 in 6 months. There are about $10,000 in repairs you have to take care of.

Property A

Purchase Price $100,000
Purchase Closing Cost $8,000 (fees + 4 points)
Holding Cost $6,000 (6 months of interest)
Repair Cost $10,000
Insurance, Utilities $2,000 (you need a vacant property insurance which is more expensive)
Selling Closing Cost $13,000 (6% realtor fee of $150,000 + closing cost)
Total $139,000
Selling Price $150,000
Expenses -$139,000
Total Profit $11,000

This is just a very simple example, but I hope you get the picture. Keeping track of the numbers is essential in real estate investment. In the example above just imagine what happens if you spend more money for the repairs or you have to sell the property for less money. Even worst if you can’t sell the property within 6 months and after 9 months you sell it for less money. Not only did you loose on the selling price you had 3 months of interest piling up as well.

When you’re investing in rehab properties you have to have an exit strategy. My exit strategy is, to rent the house and refinance the hard money loan if I can’t sell the property after 6 months for the price I’m asking for. This will cover my monthly expenses and I have more time to sell the property when the market is better. Actually converting a rehab property into a rental can be a very profitable choice of real estate investment. Friends of mine are doing quite well with this strategy.

Bottom-line; crunch the numbers, make a budget, keep track of your expenses and have an exit strategy. Having this in place you’re good to go.


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about real estate investments at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com or send a blank email to mailto:suncoastrenttoown@getresponse.com

Why Do 9 Out of 10 People Never Live Their Dreams?

When we were kids we all had dreams. There were no boundaries to our imagination and anything was possible. Do you remember your dreams? What happened to your dreams? Did life get into its way? Are we all to busy to use our imagination?

Well, our whole life we’ve been told that being a dreamer is equal to being a loser. Only losers dream and who wants to be a loser. You know what I mean. “Get Real”, “Welcome to Reality” you heard these phrases over and over. Let me tell you something, to be successful you need to learn to combine your imagination with reality. You need to deal with reality and you need imagination for direction. Only if you know where you’re going you will be successful. Being your own boss is the only way to achieve financial freedom and a lifestyle where you actually live your dreams.

Why do 9 out of 10 people never live their dreams? 9 out of 10 people don’t even remember their dreams. They only know the facts and the facts are that escaping the 9-5 treadmill is on everybody's mind, but only a few are actually taking action. Why is this? Do a few of these statements sound familiar to you?

These are 7 most popular excuses to NOT take action:

1. I don't know how

In my free eBook "The Truth About Starting An Internet business" I will walk you through the process of starting your own internet business step by step.

2. I don't have spare time in my busy lifestyle

You don't need to spend hours and hours to run your own internet business. The secret is a technique called "set and forget". Step away from the TV for a while and you will have more than enough time at hand to do this.

3. I am not patient enough

That's a tough one. Patience is the name of the game. A, there is no get rich method. B, there will be times when the money is just pouring in and there are times when nothing happens at all.

4. I don't want to fail (Fear of failure)

I can't give you a 100% guarantee that your online business idea will be a success and that you will achieve financial freedom. That's just the nature of owning a business. You also know that there's no such thing as job security. To change your current situation you need to take some risk. It's as simple as this.

5. I don't want to be rejected (Fear of Rejection)

Rejection is hardest thing to deal with. If you're doing business on the internet you will experience rejection. Some people are jealous, they are mean, they have issues, and you name it. The only advice I can give is, you need to learn how to deal with it. Luckily this is the exception. For the most part I met very pleasant people on the internet.

6. I don't have any money

The only difference between having money to start an internet business and having no money is that you need a lot more time without money. Money will expose you to more visitors in a shorter period of time. Your business success depends on what you have to offer and not on how fast you offer it. Content sells, not speed.

7. I don't want to be in sales

Technically you're already in sales. You're selling your valuable time for money. You can continue trading hours for money, which in fact will never bring you any wealth. Or you can start learning how to sell products other than your own time.

These are just a few excuses why most people don't take action in their life. Never make any improvements to their lives and pretty much waste their time. Some of us are perfectly fine with this, but if you are like me you want more and while you keep reading you will discover the power of bringing your online business idea to life.

If you're ready to take action, of being in charge of your life, provide a better life to your family and simply have more fun, browse my web site and start realizing your online business idea today.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
(c) 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Get the software and content every webmaster needs to have to build a high traffic web site visit http://www.sell1on1.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

What Is Wrong With Email Marketing?

If you are active on the web promoting your products, affiliate programs or services, you probably sense where I’m going with the title of my article. We all put a lot of effort into our internet business. We all have the same hopes and dreams about where our internet business will go. Unfortunately we are all depended on too many variables that have to be just right at the right time.

What is he talking about you might ask. Let’s take a simple example. Listening to self declared gurus of internet marketing they all tell you the same thing. “You have to build your list”, by that they mean your email list.

After following this advice and spending hundreds of dollars in opt-in email leads and maintaining a list of over 5000 subscribers I was pretty convinced that success is just around the corner.

This is as far away from the truth as human possible. I’m running a newsletter delivered daily and I send additional sales letters to pitch some of my affiliate products. I track every email with ad tracking and click through analysis.

Guess what? Nothing! Sending daily emails and sometimes an additional sales letter would trigger something, at least a wave of cancellations, don’t you agree? Well, my conclusion of this mess is that over 90% of the emails never passed the SPAM filters.

This is devastating. As you know most people sing up for newsletters through their free email accounts. The few who use their regular email address unsubscribe within a few days.
Don’t get me wrong, newsletters are great and if done right they can help you to promote your business. I believe the key is that your newsletter needs to be unique and very narrow focused on a niche target.

Going back to the email leads issue. Buying email leads from email harvesters it is a waste of money. Even if they are double or triple opt-in leads. Promoting a copied newsletter is a waste of money. Why bother to promote something that is already promoted hundreds of times?
If you are targeting the people who are looking to make money online, your target audience is pretty narrow and they probably have already subscriptions to one or another form of marketing newsletter.

I’m actually shifting my focus completely and put a newsletter together to help people to get started with real estate investments, especially Florida real estate. As you can see this is a very narrow target audience. If I get a couple of hundred subscribers I will be happy. If you’re interested send an email to mailto:pdobler@suncoastrenttoown.com I will let you know when the newsletter will be available.

The bottom line of my story is, don’t advertise to the advertiser. You just waste your time and money. That’s the main reason why people getting frustrated with their internet business and simply quit. This is like car dealers advertise solely to other car dealers. What do you think will happen?

I know what you are thinking. What happened to him? Didn't he tell us in his article "Where's the Traffic?" that email lists are the cure to non-visited websites? Yes, that's true. I still believe that autoresponders are good business practice to communicate with your customers. I just didn't see the value of buying email leads. Yes, I changed my opinion, which is plain human nature and happens to all of us.

I hope this made you think a little bit and if you can turn your business into the profitable margins based on my little advice please let me know. I’m eager to hear if somebody actually is listening to what I have to say.


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about the concept of residual income at http://www.fl-home-biz.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

Beat the Crowd when Investing in Real Estate

We all are thinking about it and some of us are actually taking action and getting their hands on real estate investment properties. The longer the NY Stock Exchanges doesn’t produce desirable returns the more people are starting with real estate investments.

For most of us the obvious choice of properties are single family homes. Although you can invest in real estate without owning a home, most people follow the experience they made while purchasing their own home. This is familiar ground and the learning curve for doing a real estate deal of this type is pretty slim.

Of course there’s a drawback with this approach. The competition is fierce and there are markets where investors are artificially driving up the cost of the properties while completely discouraging first time home buyers. If this is the case, the burst of the real estate bubble is just a matter of time.

How do you avoid these situations and still successfully invest in real estate? How do you get ahead of the competition and be prepared for bad times in real estate investments as well? The only answer I have is commercial real estate.

Why commercial real estate you might ask? Commercial real estate is a solid investment in good and bad times of the local real estate market. The commercial real estate I’m referring to are multi unit apartment buildings.

Yes you will become a landlord and No you don’t have to do the work by yourself. You are the owner and not the manager of the apartment building. The cost of owning and managing the building is part of your expenses and will be covered by the rent income.

Apartment buildings are considered commercial real estate if there are 5 or more units. To make the numbers work you should consider to either own multiple small apartment buildings or you should opt for bigger buildings. This will keep the expense to income ratio at a positive cash flow. Owning rental properties is all about positive cash flow.

With investing in single family homes it is easy to achieve positive cash flow. Even if your rent income doesn’t cover your expenses 100%, the appreciation of the house will contribute to the positive cash flow. With commercial real estate the rules are different.

While single family homes are appraised by the value of recent sales of similar homes in your neighborhood, commercial real estate doesn’t care about the value appreciation of other buildings. The value of the property is solely based on the rent income. To increase the value of a commercial real estate you need to find a way to increase the rent income. The formula on how this is calculated would be too much for this short article. I listed a few very helpful books where you can find all the details.

What’s another advantage to invest in commercial real estate? Commercial real estate financing is completely different than financing a single family home. While financing a single family home you are at the mercy of lenders who want to make sure that you are in the position to pay for the house with your personal income. Commercial real estate financing is based in the properties ability to produce positive cash flow and to cover the financing cost.

After reading all these information about commercial real estate you want to go out there and dive into the deals. Not so fast. First, you need to learn as much about real estate as possible. In commercial real estate you’re dealing with professionals. If you come across too much as a newbie you will waste these guys’s time and your commercial real estate career ended before it actually started. Second, no commercial real estate lender will lend you any money if you can’t show at least a little bit of real estate investment experience.

What’s the solution to this? Go out there and do one or two single family home deals yourself. It doesn’t matter if you make huge profits to start off with. Most newbie investors are loosing money on their first deal anyway. If you can manage to show positive cash flow with your single family home deals you are ahead of the pack.

My advice, buy a small single family home in a decent neighborhood and rent it immediately. This will keep your out of the pocket expenses at a minimum and you will have rent income to cover for your monthly expenses. Bonus, you gain experience as an investor and as a landlord.
Here’s another observation I made during my real estate investment career. Most people like to analyze, learn, discuss and analyze some more. They never actually got to do a real estate deal. They love to talk about real estate investments, but never did it themselves.

My approach to real estate investment was simple.
  • I bought some books about real estate investment.
  • I read every single one of them.
  • I put together a simple plan on how I want to get started.
  • I started looking for properties.
  • I bought my first investment property 30 days after I started reading my first book.
  • I made positive cash flow with all of my properties so far.

What is my point? You have to go out there and practice what you’ve learned. The only valid credential in the real estate business is practical experience. Having a couple of deals under your belt, you can go out there and start looking at commercial real estate and even impress seasoned investors with your knowledge. Because you made this experience by yourself and you know what you’re talking about.

Book reference for commercial real estate investments:
  • Gary W. Eldred, PhD: “Make Money with Small Income Properties”
  • Jack Cummings: “Real Estate Financing and Investment Manual”

You will find these books and many more on my real estate investment website at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com/author_directory.htm


Sincerely,
Peter Dobler


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about real estate investments at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com or send a blank email to mailto:suncoastrenttoown@getresponse.com

Should I Invest in Real Estate While Running an Internet Business?

Of course you should. I practice this for quite a while and I never looked back. I think this is the perfect combination. You get the best of both worlds. Did you know that 90% of all millionaires made their fortune with real estate and 10% with the internet or the stock market? Well, this doesn’t leave any room for the paycheck workers, doesn’t it?

I once read a small phrase that totally changed my life “Trading hours for money doesn’t bring you any wealth”. This powerful phrase stuck with me ever since. Take a moment and think about this. We all do it by being employed by an employer we trade hours for money. How many hours per week can you trade without completely giving up your life? 60, 70 hours max. This doesn’t leave much room for a family life or having some fun, doesn’t it?

Well, enough of this depressing stuff. Let’s talk about something fun. Did you know you can actually make money while you’re sleeping? It is called residual income.

With your internet business you want to achieve residual income through selling membership subscriptions to any form of service that charges monthly dues. Typically you will receive your share of this as monthly installments. You do the work once and you get paid over and over again.

With real estate you achieve the same effect with rental properties. Although your involvement in the process is a little bit bigger, but it is still manageable. You have to collect the rent and making sure it is paid on time. On the other hand you have to pay all the bills like mortgage payments, insurance, taxes and sometimes utility bills. Depending on the type of lease agreement you have with the tenants.

This takes care of the residual income part. As a rule of thumb if your residual income covers your living expenses you’re on your way to be successful. Now you can start doing the fun part with real estate. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a landlord. I personally don’t like this part of investing in real estate.

The fun part for me is to work deals with real estate. It could be buying an old property way below market, fix it up and sell it with a profit. Another method in dealing with real estate is called flipping. In this case I simply control the property through a contract and then assign the contract to another buyer. Of course I will collect a fee for my services. I prefer the second method because the least amount of money and work is involved. Fixing up properties can turn into a time and money consuming project.

The point I want to make is that you need to establish some sort of residual income to cover your basic living expenses in order to expand your business.

Of course you can do all of the things mentioned and still working full time. That’s what most people are doing. However you have to decide if the extra income is worth the effort. You will need a lot of time to do both investing in real estate and running an internet business.
Visit my home business website and my real estate website to learn about effective systems to leverage both business models without completely giving up your life.


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about real estate investments at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com or send a blank email to mailto:suncoastrenttoown@getresponse.com

Why Does Nobody Visit My Web Site?

After endless hours of writing, designing and programming your brand new web site is ready for prime time. You tested your shopping cart software and you made sure that all your external affiliate links have your affiliate id. You’re making sure that you will get the commissions you deserve. This is a very exiting moment. You will expose your writing skills and your ability to design an attractive web site to the whole world. All of you who have a website know what I’m talking about.

Your web site is online and you’re open for business. Ready to take as many orders as you can possibly handle. A day goes by and there are no orders. Another day goes by and there are still no orders. You give it a week. People need to warm up to your new business. Still nothing, not even a single visitor. Well, you are about to experience what thousands of webmasters experienced before. Nobody even knows that you are in business or what you’re selling.
What is your first reaction to this? Submit the website to as many search engines as possible.

We all did this before. It takes weeks, even months, before you appear on the major search engines and your ranking stinks. There are ways to achieve great success with search engine optimization. This is a very complex topic and I will devote another article series to this topic.
Ok, search engines are not the solution you’re looking for. The only effective way to instantly create traffic to a brand new web site is through email subscriptions. Of course this is not a free ride, but there are many opt-in email lead providers who offer great service at a great price. My favorites are listed at the end of this article.

You’re anxiously waiting for the first list of email leads, delivered by your leads provider. Also you made sure, that you are not spamming. The good news is that all the people on the list want to hear what you have to offer. You could manually send an email to every one of them. This works for a couple of emails, but you probably will get hundreds of email leads. The solution for this problem is called autoresponders. Autoresponders are email robots automatically sending out emails to a pre-defined list of recipients on your behalf. They’re taking care of the initial welcome letter and send follow-up emails. My favorite autoresponders are listed at the end of this article.

Now you’re on your way to unbelievable traffic to your web site, right? Wrong! What are all these people subscribing to? You are in desperate need of something you can offer to your subscribers. You might have a killer welcome letter, but nothing else. Most of your emails will never be opened, because they never passed the spam filters. The words you’re using are not convincing enough to attract readers to your web site.

Worst off all, your headline is so lame that nobody even opens your email. Keep in mind, that most people are using free email accounts for their subscriptions. That’s right! The same rules you apply for your own email habits apply to your prospective subscribers. Would you subscribe to newsletters or online offers with you primary email address? Of course not, you guard your primary email address like your bank account. Most free email accounts don’t offer preview panels like you’re probably used to with your Outlook Express email program. So the headline is your most important asset.

There are many reasons why you still not getting the results you’re looking for. This is frustrating, but the name of the game is persistence. Learn as much as you can about effective marketing strategies. Apply proven strategies to your business. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Stick to what’s working for others to achieve the results you’re looking for.

The topic on writing effective marketing emails is very complex and is definitely out of scope for this little article.

As mentioned before here’s my list of great email services to supercharge your business.

Autoresponders:
- Getresponse, a free autoresponder with great service.

Email Leads:
- ListOpt, pay per lead generator. Seamlessly integrates with Getresponse’s autoresponder.
- ListBuilder, another pay per lead generator. Very high quality email leads. They even offer triple opt-in (three confirmation emails before address is send to you and you’re billed for it, now that’s quality!).

Armed with this knowledge and a killer newsletter for your product, you’re on your way to enormous business success.


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about the concept of residual income at http://www.fl-home-biz.com or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com

How to Create Multiple Streams of Income, Part 2

A while back I wrote a little article called “My Vision of Multiple Streams of Income”. After receiving several emails asking for a sequel and sharing more real life experience I decided to give an update on my journey with SFI and Stone Evans’ PIPS system.

As I mentioned in my last article I went off a good start with this system and I honestly can attest it really works. The only negative thing is, if you want to call it this way, that I put a lot of effort into this project. The system is designed to run on autopilot, that’s great. But until you’ve reached a certain level of visibility, you need run your promotions around the clock. I’m almost there.

As an example: I run several Google AdWords campaigns to promote my website and SFI. The reason for this is simple. This is a highly competitive market and achieving high rankings with the major search engines takes a long time and due to the rough competition you won’t be able to reach the top without a few backdoor tricks.

So I took the route of actually spending some advertising money and in return I have a wide spread exposure. Remember the baseball movie with Kevin Kostner “Field of Dreams” with the famous remark “If you build it they will come”? Unfortunately this is no longer true for the internet.

Back to the topic of controlling the advertising cost with Google AdWords. I closely track my expenses and I keep a lit on it if it gets too high.

The tricky part is to decide when it is too high. I don’t have an answer for this. For me it means whatever I’m comfortable with. Because you’re building residual income and you’re not aiming for a single sale. This is hard to gauge. Conversion rates are useless, although my conversion rate so far is over 20%. That is pretty good from what I read about this topic. What this number means in subsequent income has to be determined.

I also tapped into the extensive library of SFI’s partner IAHBE. At first I just joined this organization because it guarantees my position in the SFI network. But after researching their services and utilizing their benefits like free mail leads, I have to say that this is a great institution. It’s worth every penny of your monthly fees.

Speaking about value-added services and benefits. The one thing I’m truly impressed with is the quality and consistency of the marketing material offered by SFI. The wealth of online and offline marketing material can be overwhelming, but if you use it appropriate it is a very effective tool. Of course SFI also offers quality products and services, which makes it easy to sell.

By using Stone Evans’ PIPS (Plugin Profit Site) system I could maximize these efforts. I’m selling all sorts of products and I already received several commission checks through my affiliate program with Clickbank. This is a huge affiliate provider for electronic books and software. My job is to attract customers to the products and then the manufacturer or author of the product does all the selling and credit card processing. As soon as the credit card is processed I receive a commission, which varies between products.

After about 3 months of running this business I would say that I’m still a little bit negative with my finances, but this is due to my extensive Google AdWords campaigns. By not counting this, I’m actually making some money. Nothing to brag about, but maybe in another 3 months my tune might change.

Please send me an email if you like to hear an update more often.


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Get your own personal 24/7 money maker at http://www.mypluginhomebiz.com (Free setup in 24 hrs) or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com to learn more about viral marketing.

How to Create Multiple Streams of Income, Part 1

You've must have read the phrase "multiple streams of income" numerous times on your journey searching for wisdom on the Internet. Regarding to Robert G. Allen, multiple streams of income are the stock market, real estate and the Internet. I prefer to add paycheck to this list as well. Most of us don't feel comfortable to give up the security of a steady income, at least not in the beginning.

During the next few months I will publish new articles about my very own experiences with building multiple streams of income. Although I just recently started, I have a lot to share and I hope I will inspire someone to avoid the mistakes I made, and still will make.

Please join me on my journey to financial freedom through my home-based business on the Internet. I will cover my experiences and mistakes with the stock market and in the real estate business in separate articles. For now I'm focusing on the Internet business.

I wasted hours and hours searching for the almighty golden key to financial freedom. I spent a lot of money for worthless e-books and signed up to almost every newsletter there is. Until I had to switch email addresses. My inbox couldn't keep up with the massive stream of useless emails.

What did I learn so far? Somebody else got a little bit closer to financial freedom, certainly not me! I was in desperate need of either giving up or dramatically changing my strategy. I'm not a quitter and whatever strategy I used, if so, it must change or I will find myself in financial hell.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking to make money out of thin air. I actually don't believe in the get rich with no money schemes. The only person getting rich is the author of the book! Some of these strategies may work in theory, but I've never seen substantial results in the long run. I might be wrong on this one, if so, please send me your opinion and experience with this business strategy.

Here's another advice; it takes time, lots of it. Don't rush yourself into hasty decisions just because you think it is a hot deal. Do your homework and research the deal as good as possible. If this is the true "hot" deal, it will be around for a while. Otherwise it's just another rip off scheme and someone else is making the big bucks. If you come across these 30 days to success guides, give yourself at least 60 days to achieve your success. Remember, patience is one of the key factors to success. Read the guide in its entirety and slowly start implementing these suggestions into action. Always keep track on what you did and double check after a few days or weeks, if it's working. Make changes as necessary.

I really don't remember how I got started with the idea of building my own home business on the Internet. I believe that I was searching for ways to increase web traffic to my real estate site. During my research I came across all these websites promising thousands of visitors to your site. Most of them are free, but you spend hours after hours to generate enough credits for your own site to be shown. And when the site is shown, guess who's looking at it? Another sleepless soul, who is looking to increase traffic to their site. This is not exactly the type of customer you're looking for.

After a while I thought, hmm, if I add a banner from a banner link exchange, then I will be able to trigger more targeted hits to my website. So I continued clicking night after night through these exchange services with little or no success. I wasted countless hours in front of the computer. My advice; stay away from these exchange services. Most of them are pure pyramid marketing schemes anyway. There are no real products or useful services offered by these sites.
At this point I started to discover the power of affiliate programs. And this, my friends, is the real deal! I'm not saying this just to get your attention; I'm speaking from experience. Affiliate programs come in any shape and form. Some are pure product reselling machines, others offer incentives for recruiting new affiliates and many are offering a combination of both. The real value behind this concept is; you get endless training material to sharpen your marketing skills. There are real products to sell and there is real money to make.

The mother of all affiliate programs is SFI. I joined them as soon as I learned the details and the benefits of their program. Later on I read about Stone Evans and his incredible services he offers. In fact, Stone is to blame that I'm writing this article.

So far I got off a good start with SFI and Stone Evans. I will keep you posted, if you like, in my next article.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
(c) 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Get your own personal 24/7 money maker at http://www.mypluginhomebiz.com (Free setup in 24 hrs) or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com to learn more about viral marketing.

How to Create Multiple Streams of Income, Part 1

You've must have read the phrase "multiple streams of income" numerous times on your journey searching for wisdom on the Internet. Regarding to Robert G. Allen, multiple streams of income are the stock market, real estate and the Internet. I prefer to add paycheck to this list as well. Most of us don't feel comfortable to give up the security of a steady income, at least not in the beginning.

During the next few months I will publish new articles about my very own experiences with building multiple streams of income. Although I just recently started, I have a lot to share and I hope I will inspire someone to avoid the mistakes I made, and still will make.

Please join me on my journey to financial freedom through my home-based business on the Internet. I will cover my experiences and mistakes with the stock market and in the real estate business in separate articles. For now I'm focusing on the Internet business.

I wasted hours and hours searching for the almighty golden key to financial freedom. I spent a lot of money for worthless e-books and signed up to almost every newsletter there is. Until I had to switch email addresses. My inbox couldn't keep up with the massive stream of useless emails.

What did I learn so far? Somebody else got a little bit closer to financial freedom, certainly not me! I was in desperate need of either giving up or dramatically changing my strategy. I'm not a quitter and whatever strategy I used, if so, it must change or I will find myself in financial hell.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking to make money out of thin air. I actually don't believe in the get rich with no money schemes. The only person getting rich is the author of the book! Some of these strategies may work in theory, but I've never seen substantial results in the long run. I might be wrong on this one, if so, please send me your opinion and experience with this business strategy.

Here's another advice; it takes time, lots of it. Don't rush yourself into hasty decisions just because you think it is a hot deal. Do your homework and research the deal as good as possible. If this is the true "hot" deal, it will be around for a while. Otherwise it's just another rip off scheme and someone else is making the big bucks. If you come across these 30 days to success guides, give yourself at least 60 days to achieve your success. Remember, patience is one of the key factors to success. Read the guide in its entirety and slowly start implementing these suggestions into action. Always keep track on what you did and double check after a few days or weeks, if it's working. Make changes as necessary.

I really don't remember how I got started with the idea of building my own home business on the Internet. I believe that I was searching for ways to increase web traffic to my real estate site. During my research I came across all these websites promising thousands of visitors to your site. Most of them are free, but you spend hours after hours to generate enough credits for your own site to be shown. And when the site is shown, guess who's looking at it? Another sleepless soul, who is looking to increase traffic to their site. This is not exactly the type of customer you're looking for.

After a while I thought, hmm, if I add a banner from a banner link exchange, then I will be able to trigger more targeted hits to my website. So I continued clicking night after night through these exchange services with little or no success. I wasted countless hours in front of the computer. My advice; stay away from these exchange services. Most of them are pure pyramid marketing schemes anyway. There are no real products or useful services offered by these sites.
At this point I started to discover the power of affiliate programs. And this, my friends, is the real deal! I'm not saying this just to get your attention; I'm speaking from experience. Affiliate programs come in any shape and form. Some are pure product reselling machines, others offer incentives for recruiting new affiliates and many are offering a combination of both. The real value behind this concept is; you get endless training material to sharpen your marketing skills. There are real products to sell and there is real money to make.

The mother of all affiliate programs is SFI. I joined them as soon as I learned the details and the benefits of their program. Later on I read about Stone Evans and his incredible services he offers. In fact, Stone is to blame that I'm writing this article.

So far I got off a good start with SFI and Stone Evans. I will keep you posted, if you like, in my next article.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
(c) 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Get your own personal 24/7 money maker at http://www.mypluginhomebiz.com (Free setup in 24 hrs) or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com to learn more about viral marketing.

How to Create Multiple Streams of Income, Part 1

You've must have read the phrase "multiple streams of income" numerous times on your journey searching for wisdom on the Internet. Regarding to Robert G. Allen, multiple streams of income are the stock market, real estate and the Internet. I prefer to add paycheck to this list as well. Most of us don't feel comfortable to give up the security of a steady income, at least not in the beginning.

During the next few months I will publish new articles about my very own experiences with building multiple streams of income. Although I just recently started, I have a lot to share and I hope I will inspire someone to avoid the mistakes I made, and still will make.

Please join me on my journey to financial freedom through my home-based business on the Internet. I will cover my experiences and mistakes with the stock market and in the real estate business in separate articles. For now I'm focusing on the Internet business.

I wasted hours and hours searching for the almighty golden key to financial freedom. I spent a lot of money for worthless e-books and signed up to almost every newsletter there is. Until I had to switch email addresses. My inbox couldn't keep up with the massive stream of useless emails.

What did I learn so far? Somebody else got a little bit closer to financial freedom, certainly not me! I was in desperate need of either giving up or dramatically changing my strategy. I'm not a quitter and whatever strategy I used, if so, it must change or I will find myself in financial hell.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking to make money out of thin air. I actually don't believe in the get rich with no money schemes. The only person getting rich is the author of the book! Some of these strategies may work in theory, but I've never seen substantial results in the long run. I might be wrong on this one, if so, please send me your opinion and experience with this business strategy.

Here's another advice; it takes time, lots of it. Don't rush yourself into hasty decisions just because you think it is a hot deal. Do your homework and research the deal as good as possible. If this is the true "hot" deal, it will be around for a while. Otherwise it's just another rip off scheme and someone else is making the big bucks. If you come across these 30 days to success guides, give yourself at least 60 days to achieve your success. Remember, patience is one of the key factors to success. Read the guide in its entirety and slowly start implementing these suggestions into action. Always keep track on what you did and double check after a few days or weeks, if it's working. Make changes as necessary.

I really don't remember how I got started with the idea of building my own home business on the Internet. I believe that I was searching for ways to increase web traffic to my real estate site. During my research I came across all these websites promising thousands of visitors to your site. Most of them are free, but you spend hours after hours to generate enough credits for your own site to be shown. And when the site is shown, guess who's looking at it? Another sleepless soul, who is looking to increase traffic to their site. This is not exactly the type of customer you're looking for.

After a while I thought, hmm, if I add a banner from a banner link exchange, then I will be able to trigger more targeted hits to my website. So I continued clicking night after night through these exchange services with little or no success. I wasted countless hours in front of the computer. My advice; stay away from these exchange services. Most of them are pure pyramid marketing schemes anyway. There are no real products or useful services offered by these sites.
At this point I started to discover the power of affiliate programs. And this, my friends, is the real deal! I'm not saying this just to get your attention; I'm speaking from experience. Affiliate programs come in any shape and form. Some are pure product reselling machines, others offer incentives for recruiting new affiliates and many are offering a combination of both. The real value behind this concept is; you get endless training material to sharpen your marketing skills. There are real products to sell and there is real money to make.

The mother of all affiliate programs is SFI. I joined them as soon as I learned the details and the benefits of their program. Later on I read about Stone Evans and his incredible services he offers. In fact, Stone is to blame that I'm writing this article.

So far I got off a good start with SFI and Stone Evans. I will keep you posted, if you like, in my next article.

Sincerely,
Peter Dobler
(c) 2005


Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner.
Get your own personal 24/7 money maker at http://www.mypluginhomebiz.com (Free setup in 24 hrs) or send a blank email to mailto:pdobler@getresponse.com to learn more about viral marketing.