Still Learning

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” — Albert Einstein

Too many hours at my regular jobs these last 2 weeks.  The hours are needed as I have bills to pay and bills that will still need to be paid. The story of everyone’s life….always bills to pay.  Why do we have to do something when we don’t want to do it?

Rush hour sucks, although where I live now the traffic isn’t bad. I still hate dealing with STUPID drivers in the snow-covered frozen tundra of South Dakota in December.  Anyone ever get this gut wrenching feeling in their stomach when you think about what lies ahead for your next shift?  I do and despise it like the plague!  Ok, I’m done venting for now.

What was accomplished over the last 2 weeks since my last entry?  We spent some time with our Twitter accounts and created a couple new accounts.  The new accounts are specific for the traffic we want to generate based on the blogs we are writing.  We now have four blogs between three of us.  Kim and I started with a couple.  My first one is the one you are reading now and Kim has his Living with Congestive Heart Failure blog.  On Sunday (December 19th), we added Crystal to the team. She is writing a blog about her battle with weight loss.  We also have a blog that all three of us are writing together.  The blog we are writing together is very personal and adult-oriented.  This blog discusses, in detail, our past relationships and experiences within them.  Our Twitter accounts are going to be tied in so as well as our other social network accounts.

We spent some time on going over components of the business that we need to look at and split up the duties between the three of us. Kim and I are working with Crystal to try to bring her up to speed where Kim and I are at in the learning curve of the business. Having a third person in the business will help ease the work load and having a woman’s perspective on the business will be a great asset. We all agreed to work on our assigned tasks during the upcoming weeks, will be hard to meet in a business setting with the holidays going on.

Moving on to creating and setting up other social networks.  Kim and I set up a Facebook account and are in the process of setting up our business profile.  We have procrastinated on getting this up and going and using it to its utmost potential.  Another reason for waiting, we want to make sure that we have a clear idea of what we are doing in the internet marketing world.  Social networking is very important and I know I have expressed this before.  Educating ourselves more in this business has further confirmed the importance of social networking.  Social network sites that we have joined, or in the process of joining, or will join: Delicious, Squidoo, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Stumble Upon, Digg, Reddit.  ….to be continued…..

Week 4 begins..

Sunday

My day was pretty lazy and uneventful on Sunday. The business is put on hold for another day. I lacked ambition and didn’t sleep as much as I would have liked to the night before. Some light research on monitoring of our blogs was the extent of my work day.

Monday

I read over Kim’s blogs, he sent me a ‘part II’ to his previous blog entry. Finally, I was able to get them edited and sent to Kim for final review and submission. He had to work all day and cribbage league that evening. Kim did manage to get ‘part I’ of his blog submitted and I later added an affiliate link to it. We will wait and see how many hits and/or sales this creates. My concentration has been more on his blog pertaining to affiliate linking as his blog is getting the most hits. In my opinion, I find it imperative to start getting the affiliate links on his blog-site as we want to monetize it as much as possible. Together, we have over 600 hits between our blogs in about a week’s time. We are curiously trying to figure out why Kim’s is getting more of the hits and tracking these hits is going to be my main focus now.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a busy day for me. A short shift at the hamburger shop and an evening shift at the liquor store occupied most of my day. In between shifts, I submitted Kim’s ‘part II’ blog entry with an affilaite link onto his blog-site while he was at work. I have been submitting our blog-sites through free website submissions twice a day and really don’t know to what extent that is helping us generate traffic. We are still getting hits and my main focus is still on figuring out where they are coming from. My blog entry is done for the day as I now am going to explore tracking our websites for a bit. Work will come early tomorrow morning or should I say this morning as it is already 1:17am.

Approaching 4th Week

“Have a bias for YES and a bias for NOW”

12-11-10 Saturday

Eight in the morning came far too early Saturday as I had to work at the liquor store for the day. People asking me questions about different wines, beers and drinks to make while stocking shelves for ten hours is not exciting to me. I spend a good portion of my day texting my business associate, Kim, sharing ideas while I’m working……(don’t tell anyone please!). While exchanging texts, Kim figured out how to get his blog-site onto some major search engines which is something I will do later after I finish my shift at 6:00pm . Crystal came over almost immediately after I was done working at the liquor store. She and I talked about internet marketing as a whole and the infinite ways to branch off from one concept to the next. This blog is one concept and she has been reading it daily. After discussing the internet marketing venture Kim and I started, Crystal and I dove right into my idea of writing a ‘dual’ blog. She evidently loves to write as she brought over some poetry for me to read. I drank some wine and read a tablet full of her poetry. Her writing skills and intimacy in her poetry is very fascinating and engrossing. We talked about writing this “dual” blog and what we would ultimately write about specifically. Crystal and I decided to start a blog about our personal relationships dating back to childhood. We will blog about intimate relations in great detail. Kim, Crystal, and I will be discussing this on Sunday when we have a meeting.

Later that night

Kim sent me his next blog entry about CHF to proofread and edit later Saturday evening. I am by no means an expert editor or proof-reader, but having two sets of eyes is better than one. Editing his blog would come later as the night was getting late. I have had too much wine, very little sleep, and was very hungry as I had not eaten the whole day. Food, then sleep was in order!

Day 20 Continues…..

12-10-10 Friday

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is going to be my sole focus for the evening, but my focus changed suddenly when I decided to help Kim set up his Twitter account. Twitter accounts are very basic and very easy to set up, and I wanted Kim’s Twitter account to represent his blog about living with CHF (Congestive Heart Failure). Kim is now set up with a Twitter account as this is going to be very important in the near future. Kim also did link his blog to a few other social networks. This is something I will be doing as well in the future for my own blog. We are in the process of setting up a couple of joint social networking accounts which will be discussed in an upcoming blog.

Later Friday

The idea of writing a blog with someone else came to me earlier this week. I brought this up to Crystal, a very good friend of mine, on Friday night and she instantly became very interested. Crystal and I set up a meeting for Saturday night to go over the exact details. The blog idea is going to be about a very personal part of our lives and I think it is going to be very intriguing. Around 7:00pm on Friday night, I decided to stop what I was doing every five hours and write about what I had done during those five hours. My alarm clock is now set for every five hours while I am at home working and researching the internet marketing business just to make sure I stay on top of everything.

Twitter account is now set up for Kim and a meeting is scheduled for Saturday night with Crystal.

SEO Made Simple: Strategies For Dominating The World’s Largest Search Engine

Web Marketing All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies

20th Day

12-10-10 Friday

Kim and I went over some tools on WordPress on Wednesday night after I posted my last entry. We experimented and played around quite a bit just to gain some knowledge on how it all works. Linking affiliates was a big part of our night. We are figuring out which affiliate programs to use, how often to use links and how we want to link them. The biggest concern, and most frustrating, is how to get traffic to our blogs. We have done a fair amount of research on this, but not getting too much accomplished in this area. I do know we will figure this out and at this point I am just spinning my wheels and not branching out to other resources because I am being too stubborn.

Kim bought a book on Thursday called “WordPress for Dummies” and he tells me it is a very informational book. He started reading it and knows that it is a very good investment so I am excited to read it for myself. We will be getting together on Sunday to discuss our business and then I will be able to get caught up with Kim on the WordPress book he bought and what he has learned so far. I had to work two different shifts on Thursday at one of my jobs and was too tired to invest much time in our internet marketing venture.

Friday is here. I slept all night Thursday night and most of the day Friday.  I am more than anxious to dive into my business and get some things figured out. I am hoping after being well rested I can concentrate better and get a lot of research accomplished. We still continue to fine tune our blog sites and add content periodically. My main focus for the evening is to learn as much as possible about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I am going to forget about everything else for the night as this has been most frustrating to me.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition

Still plugging away on day 18.

12-8-10 Wednesday

My concentration over the last few days has been weak.  I have been working many hours and sleeping very little, this has been my life for the last few days. I shouldn’t complain because I only have two jobs now and have been called in three times this week already at one of them.  Although I need these jobs to keep me on my feet, I despise going to work now more than ever. Working for someone else is just plain and simple not for me. People that enjoy working for other people, my hat is off to you. Some might say that I’m looking for a lazy way to make a living. This quite simply is not true, I want self fulfillment and satisfaction. Researching affiliate marketing and other internet marketing business ideas is not lazy. I would not say it is overly difficult, but it takes time and energy. One point I wanted to bring up in several of my blogs is my usage of ‘me’, ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘us’, etc…. This is my blog, but this business is our business and I use those words interchangeably. Kim and I both work very hard at this and sometimes I leave him out when I’m writing because I am blogging alone and get involved deeply by myself. I then have Kim edit my blogs and return them to me for final submission. My writing skills are not professional by any means and I am well aware of that and in time they will improve and/or I will have my writing edited in more detail. Right or wrong or somewhere in between, my thoughts about working for someone else are just how I feel and I swear that someday I will work for myself. I absolutely LOVE the idea of working in network and affiliate marketing. I also may confuse some people when I blog about internet marketing. Network marketing is more closely associated with MLM (Multi-Level Marketing). Affiliate marketing is based on setting up links and referring people to an online store and getting a commission for items they purchase. Now that is just a simple and quick way to explain the difference and I apologize if I ever use the incorrect terminology. Internet marketing is what I will use most often when talking about the business as it is more general. Affiliate and network marketing go much deeper then what I explained and through the course of my business venture with Kim you will understand this better if you don’t already understand it for yourself.

Internet marketing is my main focus and ultimately will be my only focus from a business standpoint. Sleep is of no real importance to me, it probably should be due to my lack of concentration. I spend almost every waking hour on this business when I’m not at one of my jobs. I also spend many hours that I should not be awake. Currently, I am in the process of fine tuning my blog site for appearance and adding affiliate links. SEO (Search Engine Optimization), keywords, traffic, website submission and web hosting are some other terms associated with this business that I am learning more about and trying to utilize to its utmost potential. Another aspect of this business is creating my own website which is something I am starting to do when I am not working on my blog. The site I’m creating is early in development and the specific direction I am going to go with it has yet to be determined.

My last blog entry was on Monday. I spent quite a bit of Monday night tweaking my blog and struggling with linking affiliates. Affiliate linking really isn’t that tough, I am making it more difficult than needed. I signed up for commission Junction and Linkshare to get the ball rolling. These are two programs that work with affiliate companies and it is kind of one stop for all when looking for affiliate programs. Many affiliate programs are not linked to these two companies. My search for affiliate programs will continue and some of the best affiliate programs are directly through the company one finds appealing. Monday was also a night I looked through my Twitter account and read some other people’s profiles that are involved in this industry of marketing. Social networking is huge and very important, an ABSOLUTE MUST!  Twitter is really the only one I am using right now and will be looking into how to get the most out of Facebook soon. Having enough knowledge and content is important and I wanted enough of both before setting up social networking. I am excited to be able to dive into this now. This is about all for Monday night other than I was involved in watching the football game that night and my partner was getting skunked once again at Cribbage.

Tuesday was a long day as I worked two jobs and did not get much accomplished in our business. I did figure a few neat little things out on WordPress so I am pretty excited about that. They are just a few editing ideas and making the appearance better. Anyway, Tuesday was pretty uneventful and I tried to go to sleep early. I couldn’t sleep very well as this business is always on my mind and then.  I finally did fall asleep for a few short hours and had to wake up to banging noises early this morning that my landlord’s wife was making. I’m still not sure what the banging was about although I do know she was supposed to make lefsa and if that noise is for making lefsa, she has made TOO MUCH over the last few weeks. After that I was called into work, which was good because I need the money and now I’m home finishing up the entry. Now it is time to show Kim a few things on WordPress and get him caught up a little bit on where I’m at and also see where he is at on his blog.

16 days into it…..

12-6-10 Monday

I went to work Friday morning to find out I had been ‘let go’ from one of my jobs.  I never really got a clear answer as to why and I guess I really don’t care other then I will suffer financially for now.  I am hoping it will be a blessing in disguise as this now allows me to put more time and energy into the business.  I went home and thought about what I was going to do.  My email inbox was full so I decided to start looking through my email and reading anything and everything related to internet marketing.  While I was reading through my emails I decided to check my phone and see if I had missed any calls or texts.  I noticed a number that was unfamiliar so I decided to call it back.  Hector answered the phone and he explained to me that he is an associate of Jonathan Budd. Jonathan Budd is all over the internet and Hector was calling to follow-up with me about a subscription to their program.  They have many Video Webinars and eBooks and seem to be an infinite amount of web tools and resources available online.  While talking to Hector on the phone he gave me some advice that I already had followed, but is was very encouraging to me to hear it from someone who is successful in Internet Marketing.  He told me to gain all the knowledge in the world about marketing on the internet before making substantial financial investments to programs, services and/or products, etc….That was a refreshing call for me as I was a little frustrated with how the day went.

Friday was an important day for me and my business partner and we both are now writing blogs and one of the blogs will be online by Sunday at the latest.  I did watch and listen to a recorded phone conference call, converted into a video as well, that was all about Attraction Marketing.  Attraction Marketing is getting prospects to come to you and I found this to be self-explanatory,  but the video went into much greater detail.  I found this very useful and now understand the concept much more than I did before and will be utilizing this education in internet marketing.  Kim and I are also going to get a subscription to Inc. magazine as they really seem to have very solid information.

Saturday was a long day at the liquor store, one of my two remaining jobs.  Kim got to play bingo at his employee Christmas party and he didn’t win a thing(I find this amusing).  When I got off work I dove right into researching the internet about hosting a blog site for free.  Affiliate programs would also be a part of my main focus as well for the evening.  I decided that WordPress was the way to go for my blog for now anyway.  I will always continue to find other resources available for hosting, keywords, website names, and so on.  Wordpress seems pretty straight forward and simple to use.  I discussed this with my business partner and he too became very interested.  We were just going to put my blog on WordPress to start, but he decided he was too anxious to get his going as well.  Saturday evening I received a response from a letter I had written.  The letter was about asking for advice from other Network Marketers and Affiliate Marketers.  Paul Wakefield, an internet marketer I follow on Twitter, replied to my letter, I emailed him, with some pretty good information.  Paul gave me a little advice on how to start out and a couple of tips on what to avoid.  He also did mention in the letter that if I expect to get free information in greater detail from an Internet Marketing Expert that he would be surprised.  Paul asked me to give him the names and numbers of these experts if they do give me substantial information.  I might give him the names and numbers when I come across this free information from experts, but more importantly I’m driven to just flat-out prove him wrong that this can be done.

Finally the day has come, the day we decided to get our blog on the internet-Sunday, December 5th 2010.  Kim and I reached an internal business goal and that was a deadline for getting our blog up and going online by no later than today…SWEET!!!!  We worked individually on our own blog sites.  We found our theme layout, some widgets to have on our site and other optional content to have alongside our blogs.  We both consulted with each other and reviewed each other’s blogs and now they are online.  We figured out how to use WordPress from a basic standpoint and found out how to add affiliate links to our content which was my major concern.  We were able to create nice looking sites that have our blogs on them.  Now we just have to keep it up to date and refine it as we go.  The idea for the future will be adding more blogs and linking them back and forth that will ultimately give us multiple income streams.  I will keep you up to date where my venture is heading with my partner regarding our blog(s).  I am going to get working some more on my blog and research their site tools so I can become a PRO at blogging.  Stock photos also seem to play a significant part in blogs so we subscribed to a stock exchange program and will give my two cents on this later when I discover more about it.  I am also hoping the Jets beat the Patriots tonight on Monday Night Football….Jets 0 Patriots 3 midway through the 1st quarter……..

KEEP GAINING KNOWLEDGE!!!!!!!!

12th Day in Progress

“Goals are a milestone, not a destination“

12-2-10 Thursday

I am getting less and less interested in my “jobs” as my business partner and I dive into the world of network and affiliate marketing. Kim, my business partner, also seems to be losing some interest in his job at times, but he has been going to some classes sponsored through his work that he actually enjoys. My main focus is writing my blog although it is the least time consuming. I have been researching other Network and Affiliate Marketers quite a bit lately and am finding some very useful information. I opened a Twitter account and will be opening up some other social network accounts as well as this seems, and I agree, imperative. I listened to a conference call on Wednesday night from Sparkplugging, a site dedicated to network and affiliate marketing ,and took a few notes. I believe more in blogging after that call then I did prior and found the call to be informative as to where and how to get your blog going on the internet. I have subscribed to many newsletters pertaining to this business my partner and I are venturing into. I read them daily and find a lot of very good information and a lot of B.S. information. I also started reading another eBook on where to find content, how to use content, how to edit content and how to get free and/or inexpensive content that can be used in a multitude of ways. I bought another magazine about home-based businesses. I buy these magazines not because I feel, at this time anyway, they actually help out a whole bunch. I buy them because I like something easy and simple to read so I’m not on the computer all the time and it still pertains to the business in which Kim and I are getting involved. My partner has been working on a business plan and sent me a rough draft tonight. This business plan goes over our business name, vision, mission, objective, strategies and our action plan. I refined the business plan a little bit and sent it back to Kim and am awaiting his response. I do feel like the business plan that WE ultimately finish will help us become a better team overall. Kim and I also discussed blogging and website creation and I’m hoping we will dive into this in more detail soon. We have put on hold our first idea of a City America website as we have both decided that will take more time and effort. We are looking to start something less involved that generates an income stream that will be our source of funds down the road for City America. I am going to bring up to my partner my thoughts on starting a business savings/checking account and a better defined budget. Admittedly, some of this is a bit frustrating because I want to get going more deeply in this business, and it seems like money is the biggest setback at this time. I also know that this might indirectly help us because it gives us more time to do our research and build a better foundation. I believe knowledge and continuing to gain that knowledge will be the best thing we can do to make this a prosperous business. I also know we will, and am coming to terms with it, never know everything, but trying to know everything is what we NEED to do and what we WILL do.

Day 10 is here

“No one can start over and make a new beginning, but can start today to make a new ending“

11-30-10 Tuesday

Monday was a very good day for business research. I worked at one of my three brainless jobs on Monday and did some brainstorming as I usually do. I started thinking about different ways to find information and how to get that information I need in order to start a successful business. I came up with an idea to write a letter explaining what my business partner and I are wanting/planning to do. I wanted the letter to show how sincere we are and how much time and effort we have already put into this business, but also asking for advice, ideas and suggestions. I let my business partner know about it and he seemed pretty excited about the idea as well. I wrote the letter, while Kim was playing Cribbage, and then had him read it to refine/edit. The plan with this letter is to send it to as many people that have significance in internet marketing businesses. We are in the process of tweaking the letter and will be sending it out soon. Also, on Monday, I read a little bit more of an eBook and did some light researching on some internet entrepreneurs.

Today was a good step for us. My business partner, Kim, had written a letter to his friend that has many years experience in the corporate world on Sunday night. She emailed him back with some very good information regarding business plans, templates, a website with a step-by-step approach and some other useful information. We are reviewing that information as I blog and she also plans to send us more information as well. She seems to be pretty excited and we hope she will be a very valuable resource for further information down the road. Kim is editing my letter, the letter I wrote to be sent to other internet marketers, as I finish up this blog. I am going to preview and get involved more deeply in the information sent to us by Kim’s friend as well as finish reading an eBook I started yesterday. The eBook I’m reading is very professional, simple, and gets to the point sharply. I also still believe that finding topics to blog about and getting them on the internet is a potentially huge way to bring in some serious cash…..more on this as the days come and go.

….and continuing on to Day 7

11-28-10 Sunday

I worked all day Friday and most of Saturday.  I was exhausted by the time Saturday night came and did very little researching for our business.  My partner, Kim,  has also been busy as he spent time with friends and family on turkey day and relaxing by himself on Friday.  My partner did spend quite a bit of time on Saturday reading some eBooks and realizing the potential in blogging.  He has decided to start a blog on Congestive Heart Failure(CHD) which is a condition he is living with.