Last week I was visiting my Mom back in my home country
of Costa Rica. I now have a new level of respect for folks
who are successfully marketing from countries outside
of the “main stream”.

I sent out an email to you all (my email list subscribers)
and I received a 0.12% spam complaints according to Aweber.

Meaning a few folks hit the spam button vs. just hitting
the unsubscribe button.

That happens from time to time but never that high. So I
was thinking why and here is what I came up with and what
I’m doing to avoid it.

1. Costa Rica IP Address – This was a pain when I was trying
to access my accounts, get an affiliate link, etc.

Yes, making money online can be tough but if you’re in a
country other than the USA, UK, Canada, etc., it’s even
tougher! I have IM friends in Singapore, Pakistan, and India
and my hats go off to them.

If you’re in a country like the USA, you do have an advantage
so get to it.

If someone can make it in Pakistan where
they can’t even sign up for PayPal, your roadblocks in the
USA or Canada are nothing compared to the hoops they have
to go through.

2. iPad follies. I love my iPad. Maybe a little too much.
I was too lazy to whip out my laptop so I composed my email
using my iPad… well the Aweber HTML editor thingy didn’t
work very well generating a butt-ugly, spammy-looking email.

I did test it and I decided, well, it’s not too bad. It was.
It looked horrible.

It looked spammy so people hit the spam button. I should have either just used my laptop vs. iPad or just used the text only version inside of Aweber
when using the iPad.

3. URL shortners. Ah, when will I learn? Practice what you
preach should also apply here.

I didn’t heed my own advice AGAINST using URL shortners, you know, like Tiny URL.

They are conversion killers. And worse, a lot of them now
put up warning signs that you might be a spammer or a
scammer (seriously).

I was in a rush and I wanted to get my email out and let
my subscribers know about Rosalind Gardner’s special offer for
the Super Affiliate Handbook (a classic).

So I just used Google’s URL shortner service: http://goo.gl/

I do use it for Twitter but big mistake using it for
shortening long affiliate links.

Once my email went out and people clicked on it, not only
did they see a warning page, worse, Google told them the
link looked dangerous, scammy, so they disabled it!

Ouch. I suspect it was the Costa Rica IP address and the fact
the affiliate link was to an eBook sold on ClickBank that
was the double whammy for them to not just disable it
but to warn folks that I might be a scammer.

Here is a screenshot of the”warning” they got:

Ouch, again.

Avoid using URL shortners like the plague! Only on Twitter
and still be careful.

So there you have it. My little adventure trying to do
send a promotional email from Costa Rica.

I’m off to lick my wounds and recover.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday season and
a Happy New Years!

We’re five days into 2012 and the new year got me thinking about New Years Resolutions and how it’s just nuts! People put all this added pressure on themselves and for what?

This silliness is on full display right now at my local gym. The first week of the new year brings in a ton of new people with new year’s resolution to lose weight or work out more this year and the gym is
crammed full.

Then the countdown to feeling like crap for breaking your new year’s resolution starts…

By the second week, there are less people, until the last week of January, when things start going back to normal. It’s amazing by February it’s just the regular folks at the gym, as we’ve done all year long.

I feel bad for the New Years Resolutionists who put all this added pressure on themselves to drop a few pounds or go to the gym regularly only to end up feeling like crap for breaking their silly resolution.

So just say no to New Years Resolutions.

I don’t mean that you should set goals and push yourself to achieving them—goals and planning are very important, but don’t put the added burden of a New Years Resolution. Just approach it like goal setting, not a crazy pledge.

This is important because a lot folks set New Year’s resolutions to succeed with their online business. But don’t make resolutions, what you need are goals, a plan, focus, and willpower not a New Years Resolution which will be all but forgotten by February.

Focus on tapping into your willpower not making resolutions. I’m reading a great book right now on Willpower called “The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It“. Written by a health psychologist, who after years of watching her students struggling with their choices, realized that much of what people believe about willpower is actually sabotaging their success. She shares what the scientific community already knew about self-control, and she even created a course called The Science of Willpower” for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program. It’s a great book.

Throw out the baby with the bathwater… Wikipedia definition of the expression….

Throw out the baby with the bath water is an idiomatic expression
used to suggest an avoidable error in which something good is
eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad, or in other
words, rejecting the essential along with the inessential.

Fits perfectly for what I want to blog about today

You really like the Warrior Forum?

The Warrior Forum sucks! I get that a lot.

I’ve been an active member of the Warrior Forum for several years. I joined the forum in 2006 and it’s been instrumental to my Internet marketing success.

If you’re not familiar with the Warrior Forum, it’s the leading Internet Marketing forum online.

The forum has it’s detractors and of course there are problems with members that are shoddy, shady,
and some flat-out fraudsters.

I’ve also heard from folks who are taken aback and intimated  by it since it can get rough going in the forums at times (lots of egos clashing from the comfort of their computer monitors).

I’ve been given the stink eye by some folks at meetups and live events because I stand by it as a great place to learn Internet Marketing.

A lot of folks get turned off by some of the shenanigans and BS that goes around but you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater by writing off the entire forum as being full of scammers, fraudsters, and hype-mongers.

Just like any part of life, there are good people and there are bad people.

When I was a Corporate drone, there were back-stabbers, folks who kissed the bosses butt and then kicked down to those under them. Folks who bluntly stole ideas. Lied to clients and customers. There was an accounts payable rep embezzled over a million dollars. And on and on. And this was just in companies I worked for before striking it out on my own. But most of my co-workers were great people.

The Warrior Forum is the same way. You’ll find a lot great people who are willing to help as well as some shady characters.

The WSO Transformation

If you’ve been to the Warrior Forum’s famed WSO (Warrior Special Offer) section you’ve noticed that it has gone a tremendous transformation in 2011.

Yes, there is a lot of hype and junk there but there are also some great offers at ridiculously cheap prices.

The WSO section is becoming it’s own little powerhouse. Even big name Internet marketers are now promoting WSO’s and creating their own WSO’s.

It’s funny, many people who dissed the Warrior Forum as being full of whiners, etc. are now flocking to it. I guess the smell of money can change their attitudes.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard for me to accept the recent changes of the WSO section. It used not just be a place to go make money from but to test your products before releasing to the general people. To test and learn your marketing chops. And also to just give back to the community by offering a special discount for just Warriors. But the changes are here and it’s only going to get bigger in 2012. Far too large to ignore.

But that’s a good thing for you, as a consumer. Bottom line, you will find some awesome products as WSO’s, usually priced for way less than $20. Don’t focus on the “make a million dollars in your pajamas without having to work” crap. Not just in the WSO forum but anywhere, ClickBank, et al. But if you look closely and pay attention you will find gold nuggets there that will help you make money online.

So don’t discount the Warrior Forum or the WSO’s… don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

What do you think? Love it? Hate it?

Please leave a comment below….

Niche research is so important but it’s also time consuming and tedious work so I was ALL over Massive Niche List!

Take a look inside look Massive Niche List…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to check it out!

We’ve all received those “oops” emails and if you’ve been in this business long enough to be a little (or a lot) jaded, you probably thought BS. They’re just doing that to sneak a second email by me. That does happen. It is a known strategy. I’ve never done it nor would I lie to my list like that so when it happens to me, I struggle with should I send the “oops” follow up email or not.

This just happened to me this week. I sent out an email promoting Marlon Sander’s “Marketing Dashboard” and I messed up the affiliate link. Yea, of all the things to screw up.

I received two email from subscribers about it, which is cool. But one was snarky, the tone being “how dare you be so lazy that you didn’t even bother to hyperlink the link – do you expect ME to copy and paste the link onto my browser”. Relax dude, I just messed up.

Anyway, I fixed the links and re-sent the email. But then I almost made a second mistake!

My mistake was simple but sales killer so I figured I would share it with you.

One simple but invisible space character caused this:

When I copied and pasted my affiliate link, I over shot my cursor by one space, creating a blank space. Aweber’s editor doesn’t like blank spaces and most HTML editors do this as well, so they added a special character to fill in the space. In this case it was “%20“. And that’s all it took to kill my link.

The end result was a dead link that took my subscriber here:

Therefore Aweber’s HTML editor added a character for the blank space changing the link from this:

http://www.getyoursales.com?p=alanp&w=3997

To this:

http://www.getyoursales.com?p=alanp&w=3997%20

That little blank space can be a little bugger if you’re not careful!

I always test my promotional emails out before queuing them up but that little space I missed. Luckly I clicked on the links to arrive at the 404-Error page and realized I must have messed up again. That’s when I discovered the trailing space mistake.

It avoided me sending an “oops” email with another “oops” email.

Always make sure you test your emails going out to your list. I’ve been doing this along time and I messed up so you can’t get in autopilot mode. Subscribers have little patience for these type of mistakes. Even if they don’t unsubscribe they won’t go further if you send them a dead link or a messed up link sending them to a 404-error page so you probably lost the sale opportunity for that campaign.

Nothing like killing a sale due an blank space character. Email formatting mistakes will cost you money so be triple careful and check, check, check before sending out that email.

Alexander Graham Bell, the credited inventor of the telephone would later on in life, come to view his famous invention as an intrusion on his real work as a scientist. In order to avoid being distracted and interrupted by his own invention, he refused to have a telephone in his office! I find that fascinating/ironic. But it also struck a chord. How many times have I sat down to work on my Internet business only to be distracted by, well, the Internet.

I thought about this as I went to do a search for a writing project I’m working on, only to see the “Google Doodle” homage to Art Cloakey (the creater of Gumby).  Next thing I knew, I had clicked on the doodle abandoning my work to read about Art Cloakly and his stop-motion cartoon character Gumby. Then I went to You Tube and watched a video about Gumby.

I spent about 20 minutes that I had carved to work on Gumby. And I wasn’t even a huge Gumby fan when I was a kid! What the hell just happened?

The Internet just intruded on my Internet marketing business. How ironic is that?

I’m happy to report that I got back on track and finished what I set out to do but it really made me think how the very thing that makes my online business possible can also be a serious time suck. Unlike Mr. Bell and his invention, the telephone – I can’t not have an Internet connection in my office. So it’s important to have the discipline to work from home. Sure they’ll be Gumby-like intrusions but the key is to keep those at a minimum to make sure that you recognize when you’re slipping so you can snap out of it.

Time management is crucial so here are some things you can do to keep the Gumby intrusions down…

Creating a regular schedule – You don’t have to be extremely strict about when you start and stop working, but it does help once you get going to give yourself a carved out amount of time for you to continue before taking a break.

Plan Your Day In Advance – Set aside time each day to plan for tomorrow. You’ll notice your productivity increase when you plan your day the night before.

Track your time – When you’re tracking your time you can snap out of non-productive shenanigans. There are techie ways to do this like using Rescue Time (a real eye-opener) or just go old school with a two-column spreadsheet, one side time blocs and the other side activities. Break down your time blocks by how you work best. I prefer to in 30 minutes blocks so my time block rows would by 8:00 AM, 8:30 AM, 9:00 AM, and so on.

There are countless strategies about working in time blocks. Unfortunately you will simply have to try a few to find which works best for you. One highly effective strategy is to work for 45 minutes and then allow yourself a 10-15 minute break. This doesn’t mean go watch some TV or surf the web! Get up, walk around, play with your dogs or take them on a 10-15 minute walk, get a snack. Once your 10-15 minute break is over tackle the next time block.

Avoiding Talkers And Visitors – when you’re working, don’t answer the telephone (Mr. Bell would be proud of you). Don’t have buddies come over just because your work from home.

Get that mindset right and you’ll be able to survive Gumby-like intrusions.

It’s a sad day today with the death of Steve Jobs. A true genius and innovator that changed the world. The tech and business forums, Twitter, Facebook, news sites, and blogs (like this one) have lit up the online world with there thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs but I really like what his company, Apple did. Just like Steve Jobs like things to be simple, minimalistic, and clutter free they simply have his picture on a white background with his name, year of birth and date. Very nice tribute. Steve Jobs must be smiling from his iCloud…

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

If you’ve been trying to learn Internet marketing for more than a nano-second, you already know there is a lot of “advice” from a lot of info marketers on how to make it. The foundation might be solid but folks get wrapped up into following the messenger vs. paying attention to the message. Thus folks suffer from what’s known as “shiny object syndrome”. Jumping one system/blueprint/product to the next.

Reminds me of that funny scene from Life of Brian…

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you find you’re constantly jumping from one thing to the next and you’re wondering why you’re failing… there is your answer. For example, don’t try to master all the gazillion ways there is to drive traffic to your web properties. Pick 2 or 3 and get really good at those. And whatever you do being yourself and putting your own spin on things will lead to better things in your business than just trying to copy the guru or person whose course or e-book you just purchased.

The popularity of social media has really put an emphasis of being yourself than trying to copy someone else. So, repeat after me: “we’re all individuals”.

Note: if you repeated it, don’t pass go, don’t collect $200.

 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.

I’m a big fan of the “for pay” WOO Themes, since I’ve recommending them I figured I should blog about an urgent security update that you should do right away. Don’t worry, the WOO guys make it easy as clicking a few buttons. You can read the low-down right from theme here: Timthumb (thumb.php) Security Flaw Patch.

Since I just went through the process, I took screenshots. It will only take a few button clicks and a minute or two, told you it was easy!

Step 1: From your WordPress admin dashboard go to your “Woo Themes” settings tab and click on “Update Framework”:

Step 2: Click on the “Update Framework” button:

Step 3: Once your framework is updated you’ll see two messages… one letting you know the framework has been an updated and a second message warning you that you have an old version of “Timthumb” that needs to be updated:

Step 4: Click on the “Click Here to Update” link in the warning message:

Step 5: Click on the “Update Thumb” button:

And that’s it… the security flaw will be all patched up!

If you’re not using Woo! Themes, you can watch my video review of the Woo Themes here.