Yes, Internet marketing/direct response marketing gets a bad rap. The whole few bad apples, spoiling the lot syndrome. But I’ve just been to the big leagues!

I just bought a house and good Lordy, do the cockroaches of the marketing world come out in full force!

During the closing, the escrow officer warned us that companies drill the public records for home buyers to inundate with spam— err, junk mail.

Although I received a lot of junk mail when I sold my house earlier this year, it’s nothing to the pile of junk mail I’ve been getting in just the second week after closing. And their just to be more shoddy marketers on the buyers side. I’m not talking about the harmless stuff, which although annoying, I don’t mind, mailings from just about every moving company out there, storage places, phone services, cable, dish, local banks, handyman services, and on and on.

What I’m talking about are these mailers I’m receiving pretending it’s official business from the purchase of the home (escrow officer warned about these).

The mailers try to trick you into their home warranty plans, life insurance, and more crap by sending very official-looking mail, like it’s part of the mortgage process. But it’s not at all, they’re just soliciting, using the info they get from the public records. It’s all there, name, loan amount, purchase price, address.

Reminds me of that shoddy company that send mail to your WHOIS address to try and tick you into transferring your domain to them at very high prices vs. the cost to re-register it with GoDaddy. Their mailings look very official and like you’re going to lose your domain name.

Same thing here. One mailer makes it sound like my loan is in danger so to contact them right away. I already closed! Anyway, I can see how people get duped. It’s no wonder marketers get such bad raps. I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t for the junk mailers, the USPS would have already gone belly-up vs. just teetering on bankruptcy now.

To quote the Grateful Dead, “What a long strange trip it’s been”. Long time readers know that I moved from Minneapolis, Minnesota to San Francisco, California six some months ago. We’ve been renting a single family house since we moved out since we wanted to get a feel for living in San Francisco vs. heading out to the Peninsula burbs. All utilities and services like cable and Internet was included in our rent. Then in March we received notice that the owner of this house foreclosed and Citibank took back the house. This has sent us as tenants onto a very strange trip the last couple months.

The bank of course is a horrible landlord. The new property management company they hired to manage this property is doing so from Texas (yep my property manager is in Austin, Texas not local). Three weeks ago my Internet connection was disconnected without notice and I’ve been in limbo with the bank as they dragged their feet and actually consulted with attorney’s as they decided if they would or would not re-activate the Internet connection. Even though I kept telling them as a home based business not having an Internet connection was a bit of a problem.

I waited for weeks as they “looked into it”, big mistake on my part. You see when the owner foreclosed the lease went bah-bye as well. All to be re-negotiated.  I then called up Comcast to see if I could get my own Internet connection but since I’m not the actual account holder for this address it through them on a loop. Everything for Comcast is tied to the account telephone so when I would call they would detect my cell phone’s area code which is 651 for Minnesota and they would route my call to Minnesota where they couldn’t help me since I needed to talk to California people. Finally the Minnesota customer service rep told to just use the 415 area code with my cell phone number so just give a fake number so my call would at least be routed to the right region.

I finally said enough is enough. I found the closet Comcast office near me so I headed out there and what a difference talking to someone face to face. In 25 minutes he had me squared away. I basically got my own account, own equipment. I even got HBO for free which is sweet because the new season of True Blood starts next Sunday. I took Muni over there so I just loaded up my backpack with the cable box, modem, remote control, and cables.

I disconnected all the other equipment and set up my own account and finally after three weeks I’m back baby! Going to the Comcast store also saved money since they would have charged me $65 to send someone over with the equipment, sure they would have installed it for me but it’s not that hard to hook it up. And the guy in person was able to find a good deal that was $55 cheaper per month then what they were quoting me over the phone.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been crazy to have an online home-based business without an Internet connection and yes it slowed me down but didn’t completely stop me. I spent a lot of time in coffee shops and at the public library with my laptop. And on a positive note I got a lot of writing done on my first fiction book that I’ve been working on the last few months.

And finally during this time the property manager finally confirmed that the bank would not provide Internet service. The new rent is still being negotiated but they might even decide to just sell the property so they would just give us 30 day notice so our days here are more than likely numbered. But it took Citibank 3 weeks to make a simple decision. No wonder our economy and Real Estate market took such a big hit with these dopes at the bank running the show. This property officially foreclosed in April and the bank still has no clue what they’re going to do with it. Continue renting it or selling it.

As for us, we do like living in San Francisco city limits even with some of the weirdness of this city so we’re looking to buy now. Renting has left a bad taste in my month ever since the bank got involved. I have no idea about the owner of this property. I never met her since we just went through a property management company but it’s such a lovely home in a beautiful section of San Francisco. It’s a shame she lost it to the bank but a lot of people have been going through these type of problems.

So my take away on this…

• Banks are evil… ok just incompetent.
• You can’t let something like not having an Internet connection get in your way. Sure I’m way behind now but I was still able to do critical stuff for my business on my smart phone, at coffee shops, and the public library.
• Social media, online chat, telephone, blah, blah, blah, if you need to get stuff done and you can do it by talking to a real person face to face, do it. There just is no substitute. It’s kind of sad we’re becoming a more detached society and that’s coming from a guy who makes his living online. Shhh.

It’s been just about a month since my last post. Last month was crazy.

As I’ve mentioned, I moved to San Francisco in November. Selling our house in Minnesota was tough! Our timing stunk. Even during the this great recession, Minnesota seemed to weather it better than other states but this winter was the worst Real Estate market ever in the state. Throw in the worst winter in over 20 years and we were left wondering if would sell our house.

We had to get aggressive and drop the sale price but we finally sold it! It was actually bitter sweet since loved that house! Thankfully, the closing was super quick which is a good thing since we’re already living in San Francisco. So in March, we accepted the offer, had to fix a few things that came up in the inspection (new water heater and well tank), had the movers come in and pack our stuff to move it out west, and close. We did all that in about 2 weeks. I spent about 10 days in Minneapolis running around. Since I had already disconnected my Internet connection when I moved out west I could only get online by visiting Starbucks. It’s cool that even without an Internet connection to speak of I was still selling e-books on auto pilot. I just love that.

Anyway I’m glad that’s all over now. And the closing went smoothly so I can now start getting settled in again out here in Northern California!

My "office" in the lobby of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN

It’s a beautiful thing. I’m here in Rochester, Minnesota helping my Mom with her medical appointments. She had cataract surgery on her eye. Now, that’s not the beautiful thing but the surgery went great. But as I wait in the lobby of the Mayo Clinic I’ve gotten a ton done for my online business.

It still amazes me how all we need is WIFI and an outlet (I’ve been here for a few hours so my battery can’t take it) and we can work on our business from anywhere.

I love to travel and I was just thinking, in the past few years I’ve worked from France, Thailand, Canada, Costa Rica, Panama, and a few different states here in the good ole USA.

Now that on it’s own isn’t that big of a deal. Most folks working now days have the option of doing this but working on my own business while I’m here, help out my Mom, and not even miss a beat is a beautiful thing.

I love not only being able to work remotely but work remotely on my own business! The only drawback is the muzak playing through the speakers thank goodness for headphones and iTunes.

Hey, I even have time to stop and write up this blog post.

I’m going to start 2010 with a bang with my brand new 27″ iMac computer! That’s my Christmas gift to myself. Ha-ha.

I recorded a quick video of my Christmas tree and brand-spanking new-still-in-the-box iMac.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have a wonderful Merry Christmas! If you don’t celebrate Christmas have a wonderful holiday!

I’m still home in Costa Rica for the Christmas holiday so things have been quiet here but I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas!

I shot a video of my favorite morning routine which is taking my two dogs on a walk. After watching the video I debated whether I should post it since it’s pretty personal. You can even see my house and my neigborhood. But I figured it might be good for motivation since I do talk about the Internet marketing lifestyle during my walk. No I don’t own a Ferrari or anything like that but this video shows one of the reasons I keep pushing at this business. Freedom.

When I worked for coporate America I would have to be to work by 9:00 AM and I had a 30-60 minute commute depending on traffic. I’m not a morning person so I wouldn’t take my dog on morining walks. And I was usually lifeless by the time I got home at night to do anything. Now I walk my new dogs twice a day. That’s what I talk about in the video. It’s the little things like these walks that keep me pushing. Even when I have bad days and I feel like saying forget this. Working a corporate job is a lot easier than this financially. Plus it doesn’t carry the stigma that Internet marketing carries. You know–friends and family think your nuts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m back from my vacation. I was in France for 12 days. I had a great time visiting Paris and the French Provence area. We were only in Paris one days to check out the sites. The bulk of the time was in Provence. Near the village of Lacoste. I’ll post some pics when in a bit.

The only Internet connection was at an Internet cafe with a great WIFI but a few miles from the villa we were staying at so I was pretty disconnected from the online world.

And my websites kept making money while I was away. I think that is so cool. That I could be 100% hands off and I still made several sales. How cool it that!

While I was gone I did complete Lee McIntyre’s Super List Building System DVD course and as I expected…the course is phenomenal! I’ll have a full review plus a case study coming up for you (the case study will be down the road but my review will be ready this week).

I’m not going to mince words with everyone. The Super List Building System DVD box set is fantastic and I do recommend it 110%. Go get it now–you won’t regret it. But if you’re still unsure, my review and case study will have more detailed information then this post.

Introducing my new assistant,

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I’m back and back to work.

I spent about a week visiting beautiful Scotland, UK! I’ll post some pictures in the next few days. I only went online once-briefly but no emails. No web surfing. No working. Nada!

I thought I would be going into withdrawals but I didn’t. I had a great time but am now playing catch up.