The Smart Passive Income Blog » motivation

How to Find a Mastermind Group

Pat — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:50:12 +0000

A mastermind group is mandatory to achieve online success.

I wholeheartedly believe this statement because I would not be where I’m at today if it weren’t for the mastermind groups that I’ve been a part of since I began doing business online.

Sure, you can make progress without one, but in order to quickly get to that next level in your business, where things can really begin to accelerate, you need to join a mastermind group.

If you’re serious about wanting to achieve high levels of success, you need to join a mastermind group.

What is a Mastermind Group?

For those of you who don’t know, a mastermind group is just a fancy term for a group of people with a common goal that meet (in person, on the phone, via Skype, chatrooms, meeting software, etc.) to share and learn to improve what they do. Think of it as a show and tell (and ask) for highly motivated individuals who want to get things done.

In these meetings, members of the group share their ideas, questions, triumphs and downfalls. Members with questions get immediate feedback from the others, while everyone learns from everyone else’s experience and wisdom.

Most mastermind group meetings are held in a very formal matter (as outlined below) probably because it’s the most effective structure for the sharing and learning process:

Beginning: Each person, one-by-one, talks briefly about their goals from the previous meeting.
Middle: A predetermined person in the “hot seat” shares, in detail, any number of issues, complications, questions and concerns about his or her own situation. The rest of the members then respond and contribute to the discussion by offering suggestions or comments based on their expert knowledge and/or experience.
End: Each person, one-by-one, talks briefly about the goals that they want to accomplish by the next meeting. Also, the next “hot seat” person is determined so he or she can be ready with questions for the group.

Depending on the mastermind group, the structure may be a little different, however the general idea is the same.

What’s really nice about this format is that because it is so formal, everyone gets to participate and learn from everyone else. I’ve been in non-formal business meetings before, and there’s always a few people who never speak up and don’t get anything out of it. I was one of those people.

The One Benefit We Can All Use

The primary benefits from participating in mastermind groups should be obvious:

You can get any questions you have about what you’re doing answered, or at least talk through how to solve any problems you may be encountering.
You can get a lot of new ideas that you may have never thought of to improve what you’re doing.
You get a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) opinion about any decisions you make with your business. While doing business online, we often experience “tunnel vision”, where we think something is good because we’re so involved in it. But, we sometimes fail to step back and see how things really are, or that it should be approached in a different manner. Your mastermind group can help you step back and see what’s best for you.

Besides those three benefits, there is one extremely important benefit that is rarely mentioned about mastermind groups, and that is accountability.

When you talk to others about what you want to do or what your goals are, you are far more likely to achieve them. Just imagine sharing your goals with a group each week and how much more you would want to accomplish because of it. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to let others in the group down. Or, maybe it’s because we don’t want to seem lazy in front of them. It could even be a subconscious thing. Whatever it is, talking to others about what you want to do will help you achieve success.

How to Find a Mastermind Group

Below is a list of several different ways to find a mastermind group:

Start One Of Your Own: Surely you know others with common interests who also love to improve their businesses or blogs too. Why not get a few of them together on a weekly or monthly basis, and start your own mastermind group?
Ask Other People: Many people are a part of, or have been a part of mastermind groups that may be looking for new members. It never hurts to ask someone in your niche if they know of any that you could participate in. You might be surprised.
Meetup.com: Meetup.com is a fantastic site that connect like-minded people with a number of different interests, from scrapbooking to online business and blogging. You can easily search for groups that are already meeting in your area and when the next meeting is scheduled that you can attend. Some of the internet business meetup meetings I’ve been to have been a great learning experience (not to mention great for networking), while other meetings I’ve been to have been just okay.
Craigslist: Craigslist may have a number of people with similar goals as yours that you might be able to easily connect with.
Internet Business Mastery: I have to credit Sterling and Jay from Internet Business Mastery here because in their Academy, they have a section in their forum that is dedicated just for hooking people up locally for the specific goal of starting a mastermind group. I’ve met with people in San Diego from the Academy and have built long lasting business and personal relationships with these people which have directly helped my businesses. Crazy stuff.

All mastermind groups are different, and it make take a few trials in different groups to find the one that works for you. Good luck with your search, and I hope you find them as useful as I have.

If you have ever been a part of a mastermind group, please share your experience and whether or not you feel they are valuable. Also, do you have any tips to help others who may be looking to join a mastermind group find one?

Cheers!

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How to Find a Mastermind Group

Strength in Numbers With Goal Setting

Pat — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:47:26 +0000

What images comes to mind when you hear the phrase “strength in numbers”?

Maybe a school of bait fish trying to play the numbers game and avoid being eaten by a predator? Or how about a battle between two sides, hoping for the advantage over their adversary? A “power play” in hockey?

Generally speaking, when there are two sides involved with something, there is definitely a “strength in numbers”, but I’m going to pull a fast one on you and ask you this:

How does the phrase “strength in numbers” come into play when there’s only one side involved? How can it help you?

“Strength in THE Numbers”

Here’s how it can help you.

Whenever you want to set a goal for yourself, it’s always best to set a quantitative goal – with numbers! It may seem obvious to you, but it surprises me how many people don’t grasp the power behind actually setting quantitative goals.

A number can motivate a person because a number has a defined meaning that cannot be changed or misinterpreted. It is what is it. Also, by defining our goals as much as possible (with numbers), we can determine a clearer path to get there.

A blurred goal can only blur ones path to get “there”.

Here’s an example of a goal that I know a lot of my readers have:

I want to have a successful blog.

That’s a great goal to have, but unfortunately it’s also terrible.

Why?

Because what does “successful” really mean? How will you know when you get there? If you leave it at that, chances are you will never feel like you’ve succeeded, no matter what, which doesn’t bode well for our self-esteem.

Here are some other “terrible” goals:

I want to lose weight.
I want to save more money.
I want to have more clients.
I want a large email list.

Again, please don’t misinterpret my use of the word “terrible” with these goals. I only say they are so because they are not quantified.

Beyond the Numbers

There’s another crucial element to goal setting that we should also never fail to include:

A specific time.

A quantifiable goal is great, but without any set time or date to go along with it, it becomes very easy for us to “put it off” or make excuses that “we’re getting there”, although it may be at an undesired snail’s pace.

Like a number, a date and/or time cannot be messed around with. It is exactly what it is, so it further defines our goals, and therefore our actions towards those goals.

Lastly, try to stay away from a general time frame to complete your goal, i.e. “in a year”, or “in a couple of months.” Your goals should be as specific as possible. That way, you’ll understand not only what needs to be done, but also when.

Just a Number?

Recently, when people ask me, “Pat, what’s your goal for SPI?”, I’ve been responding with, “10,000 RSS Subscribers by the end of the year.”

Usually, I get a follow up question asking, “Why 10,000? It’s just a number.”

And the truth is that it really is just a number. It has no true significance to the blog, which will be no different than when it had 9,999 subscribers.

However, even though it’s just a number, I hope you can understand why it’s important that this number exists. It actually gives me many things that I can use:

It gives me something EXACT to work towards. It’ definitely motivating, especially when I see the subscriber count tick closer and closer to the goal.
I can break it down into smaller goals or “installments” that lead up to 10k. For example, I can say that this leaves me 6 months to earn about 3600 subscribers. That’s 1800 in 3 months, or 600 per month.
After breaking it down into smaller goals, I can actually figure out what actions to take to get there. It’s a lot easier to think about how to get 600 subscribers then it is to get 3600.
If for some reason I’m not “on schedule” based on how I’m progressing on the smaller goals, I can make adjustments as necessary to make sure I stay on track.
After I reach this goal, I can make a new quantifiable goal to ensure the continued growth of the blog.

Not So Terrible Goals

Now, let’s bring back our “terrible” goals from earlier and see how they look now:

I want to lose 20 lbs. by July 15th, 2010.
I want to save $150 a month for 3 years.
I want to have 5 new clients in 30 days.
I want an email list of 15,000 subscribers by March 24, 2011.

Looks good to me!

Now that you’ve read this post, what’s one of your goals? It can be about anything you care to share.

Cheers everyone!

The Realization That Enabled Me to Make a Living Online

Pat — Wed, 05 May 2010 07:05:53 +0000

This is a guest post from Glen Allsopp of ViperChill.com. If you’ve been around on my blog for a while, you may notice that I refer to Glen and his blog quite a bit. Why? Because his content is just that good, and this guest post is no exception.

When I built my first website at 15, I honestly didn’t know too much about what I was doing. I used a free site builder so didn’t have my own domain, used the built in templates so I didn’t have to mess around with HTML and used image generators online so I had no need for Photoshop. When I started looking at how to make money online and everyone I spoke to recommended that I should get my own domain, I felt totally lost.

For the next year I tweaked my MySpace pages as a way to help me learn HTML (and impress my friends. Sad, I know), I purchased domains as people had recommended and used a friends hosting company to get my website online. After struggling with databases and FTP software for a few months, I started to get a hang of what I was doing.

Though I had some initial success when one of my websites was featured in a popular book and I built and sold some websites for a few hundred dollars, I really wasn’t making that much money online. I was even building websites around the things that I loved, but just didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

After much frustration, I went…

In Search of the Magic Bullet

If you’ve been trying to make an income online for a decent amount of time then you’ve probably came across the thousands of guides offering you tips on how to get rich overnight. The “secrets nobody is telling you about” in the form of an instant download or how one man “went from nothing to working from a beach in Thailand in just six weeks”. These are just some examples, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

Lured in by these promises, I spent what little money I had trying to gain knowledge in the area of making money online. I had built my skillset in terms of creating websites and getting them hosted online, but I thought there must be something missing that nobody is telling me if I couldn’t seem to get further than a few hundred dollars per month.

One product turned into the next, and that one led me to another, until I ended up with piles of useless eBooks that had left me in a worse financial situation than I was in before. I was supposed to be learning how to make money, not getting other people rich by buying their products.

If it wasn’t for my successful stint as a freelancer and my sheer determination to “get this down,” I think I would have given up my internet income dreams a long time ago. Product after product and promise after promise left me nowhere.

The magic bullet was nowhere to be found.

Today, I’m making a very healthy living online building websites around things I love and helping thousands of people around the world do the same. I don’t make a living by teaching other people how to make a living online but I do try my best to help.

The last two years have been very instrumental for me, and they also helped me find the magic bullet. That’s right, there is one. And it’s much closer to home than you think.

My Realization

My realization is fairly simple, but once you grasp and internalize it, the results from your internet endeavors are sure to skyrocket. The realization was simply this: You are the magic bullet. Instead of looking for some genius idea or a secret that it seemed everyone was keeping away from me, it finally clicked that maybe, just maybe, it was the actions I took rather than the knowledge I seeked that would allow me to finally make money online.

Instead of buying another product, I bought a domain. Instead of looking for instant results in an eBook, I looked for a niche I could target. Instead of wondering why so many people besides me where making money, I decided to focus on one thing until I was the person making money.

And guess what? Things actually started to happen.

I built one affiliate site and a few months later it started making a great income. I used the same steps in another industry, and did well in that one too. I then went on to build a blog as I love writing and having an audience, and through nothing more than right action and a lot of determination, that also became very successful.

I will now say that it is very, very difficult to get out of the groove of looking for the secrets of the magic pill if you’re already entangled in buying make money online products. I have a friend who is doing exactly that right now, and no matter how much advice I give him, he’s still clicking the ‘add to cart’ buttons on the next “can’t miss” product launch.

For some people, the only way this lesson will click is when they go through the spiral themselves and realize it isn’t taking them anywhere. Fortunately, you do have the opportunity to see that everything you really need to make money online is out there; you just have to start putting that knowledge into action.

What To Do Now

If you’re still looking for some hidden information that you think I might have missed from this post, then you’re still in the mindset that someone else has the knowledge you need to succeed. Sure, there’s great advice out there (especially on Pat’s blog, here) but it isn’t going to take you anywhere unless your main focus is not that of a seeker, but one of a doer.

With whatever web properties you have right now, or the ones you’re planning to build, commit to actually seeing them through until you start to see a return on your time investment. Decide that you wont buy another internet secrets guide until you’ve actually made the money to afford it via your income online.

The process may be slow, and it may be tough, and you might even fail.

But I guarantee you’ll learn far more from the process and your mistakes than anything I, Pat, or any course online can teach you.

You are the magic bullet. You just have to put yourself to good use.

Glen Allsopp is the writer behind ViperChill, a blog on Viral Marketing. If you run a blog, he’s also written an extensive guide to WordPress SEO that you may find useful.

The Order of Operations for Online Business and Blogging

Pat — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:55:42 +0000

“Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.”

Does that phrase sound familiar to you? If it does, that’s because our grade school teachers used it over and over again to help us learn how to do math in the proper order.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally = Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.

This is the order of operations. It’s important because it helps us solve our math problems correctly. If you have an equation such as this…

[(2 + 3)^2] – [(6*5-3) / 9] = X

…using the order of operations makes it relatively simple to find that X = 22. Without any particular order, we would never find the correct answer, and the world would end.

For those of us in the online business and blogging world, there’s a specific order of operations that we must follow too. If we don’t, it will be much more difficult to reach our goals.

The Order of Operations for Online Business and Blogging is something I just came up with, but it sums up (pun intended) everything I’ve done since I started doing business online.

Here’s the mnemonic (you can make up your own, but I like this one for obvious reasons):

“In comes Dr. Flynn.”

Get it? “Incomes”?

Anyways, here is what it stands for:

In Comes Dr. Flynn = Intention, Content, Design & Follow-thru

Intention

Everything you do online must have intent. In fact, it should start with it. There must be a reason and motive behind every action you take - even all the way down to the headline that you write on your next blog post.

Without purpose or goals, there will be no passion, no excitement, and you will see no results.

Why are you doing what you’re doing?

Content

With a purpose and intention in mind, content must come next. Remember, content is King.

Your content is the information that people absorb, it’s the text that search engines find, and it’s exactly the vehicle you’re going to use to achieve your goals.

There are some debates between quality vs. quantity when it comes to your content, but really what it comes down to is how much value you’re providing to your audience. Provide tons of value and you will find success.

Design

Design matters. Whether it’s the look of your site, how people flow through it, what’s on it (or what shouldn’t be on it), it’s all important.

It’s not as important as content, but it’s the next most important thing.

You’ve heard me say this before: design without content is useless, but content without design is dumb.

The thing about design is that it can have a major impact on what you’re trying to do. Take the same content, illustrate it in two different ways, and you’ll have two different results. If that’s not a reason to make sure you optimize every single part of your website (by testing, experimenting, redesigning, etc.), then I don’t know what is.

Follow-thru

Last (but definitely not least), is your follow-thru.

If you’ve ever played golf or basketball, you know what “follow-thru” is all about. Even though it’s being applied physically in these sports, it plays the same role here in business.

For those of you who don’t quite understand, when taking a swing in golf or shooting a basketball with your wrist, it’s the follow-thru motion and action that you make after you swing or shoot that make sure you:

Don’t lose speed and keep accelerating.
Stay on target and maintain accuracy.

We should always be following through, because “just enough” isn’t good enough.

It can be really easy to stop or to give up – but that’s just like taking a golf swing and stopping the club right when you hit the ball. You’ve done a lot of work already, so you’ve got to keep going and make sure you’re doing what it takes to make sure you don’t lose speed, stay on target and maintain accuracy.

And remember, this doesn’t mean you have to work harder – it may just mean you have to work smarter.

For You

1) Do you agree with the Order of Operations for Online Business and Blogging? If not, what’s missing or how would you change it?

2) Do you have a different mnemonic? (This is just for fun).

3) Please retweet or share if you have the opportunity. Thank you! Cheers!

51 Blogging and Online Marketing Tips for the New Year

Pat — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:01:18 +0000

Here are 51 blogging and internet marketing tips that you can use as inspiration for the upcoming year.

Mindset

1. Revisit your goals. Take a moment and rewrite your goals. You may find that they may have changed since the last time you really took a good look at them. If you don’t have any goals, than what are you working towards?

2. Remember where you were. Where was your online business or blog at one year ago? Are you seeing any improvements? If yes, be proud of how far you’ve come along and the fact that you haven’t given up. If you haven’t seen any improvements, why do you think that is?

3. You can always do a little bit more. If you’re up to it, try this 2-step exercise:

Raise your hand as high as you can.
Raise your hand even higher.

If you do this exercise, you’ll notice that you can always stretch your hand a little higher, even though you were told to put it as high as you can at first. When I did this exercise as a teenager, it changed how I thought about everything I did after that moment. It made me realize that I can always do a little bit more. Apply this to what you do online.

4. Take action. As I mentioned in my first law of business and success, every business in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. With that in mind, you can read and get inspired all you want, but nothing will happen unless you take action. Become the external force that is required to get your blog, business and life to exactly where you want it to be.

5. Flaunt your unique. In other words, know what makes you stand out from the crowd, and milk it. In order to succeed, especially online, you can’t blend in and just be another blog or website that talks about X. Your site can still be about X, but you should be one of the only ones that does Y, or Z.

6. No fear. Fear kills progress, and it kills business. When you’re reluctant to take an action or do something new, take a minute and think to yourself, “what’s the worst that can really happen?”. The worst usually isn’t as bad as you might think.

7. Failing is okay. We all want to succeed, but we shouldn’t ever be afraid of failing. Failing is part of the process and teaches us valuable lessons along the way. Learn from your mistakes, and improve on your next attempt.

8. Don’t work more, work smarter. When we think of putting in the extra mile to get things done, we often think that means just putting in more hours of work. Instead, think of ways that you can work smarter, which will accomplish the same (or even more), in a considerably less amount of time. It may take a small investment of time in the beginning to figure out how to work smarter, but you’ll make up for that time (and stress) soon enough.

9. Give back. I truly believe in “online karma”. The more you help others and the more you give back, the more success you will find. If your primary motivation is just to make as much money as you can and do things just for yourself, you’re only going to see a limited amount of success, if any.

10. Just freakin’ enjoy what you’re doing! If you enjoy what you’re doing, it doesn’t become work anymore. You’ll accomplish more, and be happier. If you’re not doing something you enjoy, why not?

Blog Content

11. Be consistent. Write new content on a schedule. Whether it’s once a week, three times a week, or every day – pick a frequency and stick with it. It will not only help your readers know when to expect a new blog post, but it will help you consistently put content out there that Google will crawl to improve your site’s ranking and authority.

12. Be different. In most niches, there are a number of blogs talking about the same thing. Like I mentioned in tip #5, if you do what everyone else is doing, and talk about what everyone else is talking about, you’re just going to blend in. Give people a reason to notice your blog over the rest.

13. Use keywords in your title. It’s cool to have a clever title, but it’s inefficient to leave out important keywords. One of the top things the search engines look at when determining how relevant your site is to certain keywords is the title of your post. This is why so many bloggers who understand search engine optimization rank higher in the search engines for topics that online newspapers and companies write about, because they are so concerned about catchy headlines, with no keywords.

14. Use relevant anchor text for your links. When linking to another website or blog within your posts, don’t link to them in words like “click here for…”, or “which you can read here.” Use the phrases or keywords that are relevant to what you’re writing about. As far as SEO is concerned, it will help you a little, but for the websites you’re linking to, it will help a lot. It’s good practice.

15. Break up your post with different text styles. If you write an entire blog post in the same text the entire way through, it’s going to be difficult to read and hard to scan. Use different sized headers, bullet points, and numbered lists to separate your content and make it easier for your readers to consume.

16. Emphasize parts of your content with different text styles. If there’s a particular word or phrase within your paragraphs that you’d like to emphasize, make it bold or italic so your points are even more pronounced.

17. Use stories. People love stories because they can connect and relate to them. It makes what you’re writing about more real, and it often serves as proof for your points as well. Are you just telling people what to do, or are you illustrating how it worked for you? I believe that my internet success story is part of the reason why I’ve been able to amass a considerable amount of subscribers in such a short period of time.

18. Use data. Other people are more attracted to data and logic, rather than stories. Support your content with raw data, and your arguments will seem that much more believable. I use data all of the time, for example when I talk about my success from writing on eHow.

19. Write for your readers, not yourself. Unless you have a strictly personal blog, one of the biggest mistakes you can make while writing content is writing for yourself. Your audience should be your first priority, and you should do what you can to write about topics they are interested in. In the process, you’ll get more comments, more subscribers, and have more people linking back to you as well. Now who doesn’t want that?

20. Enjoy what you write! Believe me when I say that your readers can tell when you are just trying to finish a blog post versus really enjoying the writing process and having fun with it. I hope you can tell that I’m having fun writing this one

Blog Design

21. Perform the squint test. Go to your blog’s homepage and squint. By doing this, you’ll notice which parts of your design stand out the most. If the things you notice first aren’t the most important pieces of your website (featured content, opt-in/subscriber areas, about, etc.), then you have have to redesign a little. Advertisements are okay, as long as they aren’t the very first thing people notice (in which case, they’ll probably leave).

22. Work on your blog’s “elevator pitch”. Can new visitors to your blog understand exactly what your site is about in the first 10 seconds without clicking on anything? If they can’t, then more than 70-75% of people will leave almost immediately. In your web stats and analytics, check your “bounce rate”, which is the percentage of people who visit your site that leave without taking any action. To improve your bounce rate, work on your tagline and/or include an “about me” area on the homepage.

23. Make it easy for people to subscribe. People are lazy, so the more searching, clicking, and scrolling have to do before they can subscribe, the more chances they have to skedaddle. (I love that word.) Put your RSS feed button (and any other buttons you want them to click on) on the homepage, above the fold, at the top where it can easily be found.

24. Avoid clutter. I know you’re trying to make a buck with all of those advertisements and affiliate links, but seriously – there is a thing as too much clutter. People are becoming smarter and smarter as more and more people go online these days. They aren’t just going to click random ads that blink, turn and twist anymore. Keep your site clean, and people will be more likely to stick around and respond to what you have to say.

25. Show yourself! If you’re hiding behind a logo, or even a caricature, I can’t help but wonder why. Your blog is yours, and you shouldn’t be afraid of showing your face. If your blog took off and you were asked to do an interview for a television station, would you hide your face behind a cardboard cutout of your logo or a caricature during the broadcast? You want your blog to take off, don’t you?

Getting Noticed

26. Comment on more blogs. Find other blogs in your niche and leave useful, insightful comments on posts that interest you. You probably comment on a few already, but look for other “rising star” blogs that seems like it has good content. Many of these blogs will appreciate your comments and begin to notice who you are. Kind of like how I’ve started to notice Howie, Ms. Freeman, and Azad on mine. Thanks guys!

27. Write guest posts for other blogs. This is probably the best technique for getting lots of traffic and subscribers, in the shortest amount of time. Write a killer blog post on other blogs in your niche, and you’ll begin to become a part of the network and community yourself. In addition, you get some nice search engine love from any links back to your own site, which most host blogs of your guest posts will allow.

28. Participate in forums related to your niche. Here’s a quick tip. Type in “forums:keyword” into Google, and you’ll see a number of forums related to your niche, usually listed in the order of most popular at the top. Join them, because part of the community, and be sure to include your link in your signature so people can click over to your site. If you become a knowledgeable authority for a particular topic in the forum, chances are people will head to your blog for answers too.

29. Do interviews. There are tons of people who host shows and podcasts, and some of them are probably related to your niche. Contact the hosts (contact info is usually on their main page, their itunes page, or through a voicemail line in their show), tell them a little bit about yourself, and offer to do an interview if they are in need of content for a show. Now, you will be speaking live to this person and they will be asking you questions, so you may have to step out of your comfort zone for a bit. It’s good practice, and again – what’s the worst that can happen? If you have a website about something, you obviously know a lot about it, so don’t be afraid, and get some exposure!

30. Write about something controversial. One way to get noticed is to go against the norm. Not all websites may be fit to do this, but if you can spark up a heated debate, you can get your readers involved and grab some new ones at the same time.

Networking

31. Join a mastermind group. If you hang out and chat with like-minded people with similar goals, you can’t help but improve what you’re doing online. Every mastermind group I’ve been in has been such a blessing, and I attribute a lot of my success to ideas that came directly from those meetings.

32. Utilize meetup.com. Meetup.com is an awesome site where you can type in any topic and find groups of people in your local area who are interested in the same topic, and when and where they meet next. I’ve been to a few meetup.com meetups for “internet business” here in the San Diego area, and I’ve met some great people, all doing different things online. It’s pretty cool!

33. Go to a convention. For almost any topic, there are conventions where mass amounts of people gather who are interested in that topic. For comics and fantasy stuff, we have Comic-Con. For LEED, there’s GreenBuild. For bloggers, there’s the Blog World Expo. Although there are usually speakers and experts who present new ideas, the biggest benefit from attending these conventions is the networking that takes place between the attendees. You can be sure I’ll do my best to buy my ticket for the Blog World Expo next year.

34. Online Groups. Many of you may not live in an area where you have easy access to groups of people interested in what you’re interested in, so a live mastermind group or a meetup.com meeting is out of the picture. But, there are online groups that you can utilize to get your networking on. You can get connected with people in forums related to your niche (see #28, above), you can find groups on yahoo, Facebook, or even pay to join a like-minded community like I do with the Internet Business Mastery Academy.

35. Utilize Social Networks. Social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, are excellent ways to connect with people in your niche. A lot of deals and joint ventures sprouted from connections from within these social networks. If you aren’t utilizing either Twitter or Facebook for your blog or business (or both), why not?

Twitter

36. Get Targeted Followers. So you’re on twitter, and have 10 followers (2 of them happen to be family members). That’s ok. Here’s the trick for getting targeted followers for your niche, if you didn’t know it already. Find a top player in your niche by doing a twitter search, and follow that person’s followers. That’s it. Some of them will automatically follow you back because they have auto-follow on, but others will visit your profile, and if they like what you’ve tweeted so far, and your bio, they will follow you back too.

37. Twitter Bonus Trick. Using the method above, you can use this bonus Twitter trick of mine (3:36 YouTube video) that I use to increase the amount of people who end up following me back.

38. Use a nice, personal photo for your profile picture. If you’re on Twitter and haven’t changed your profile picture yet, you’re using their little default birdie picture, which just screams “PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW ME OR READ ANYTHING I TWEET!”. If you have a logo, that’s better, but most people will respond to you (and click on the links that you tweet), if you have a nice picture of your face.

39. Use a custom Twitter background. If you visit my Twitter profile, you can see a custom twitter background in action. It’s just a background picture, so you can’t have anything clickable on it, but it’s perfect for quickly showing any new visitor to your profile exactly who you are and what you’re about. Some people put all kinds of text in their background, but personally I like to keep it clean and simple. If you’re a designer out there, my background is simply 259?×?1707, and the right edge of the vertical image matches the twitter background, which you can customize as well. One of my favorites is Darren’s from Problogger.

40. Track your links and test your copy. Use a url shortener such at bit.ly, to not only shorten huge urls that you don’t want to eat up your 140 character limit, but also to track the links you tweet as well. Test different kinds of copy each time you tweet any links to see how your particular group of followers responds to each.

Facebook Pages

41. Setup a Facebook page. If you haven’t explored Facebook as an extension for your blog or business yet, I would definitely do that as soon as you can. I don’t want to make any predictions, but I think Facebook has a lot more in store for us as they begin to cater towards businesses and non-personal type accounts. Although everything you need to know about how to setup a Facebook page is already written on my blog, I will reiterate a few important points below.

42. Utilize a Facebook landing page. If you’re trying to get fans for your page and you don’t have a landing page, you’re wasting your time. A landing page will drastically increase the number of people who become fans. Without it, visitors will end up on your “wall”, which is ugly and doesn’t tell people what they have to do. Trust me.

43. Engage in conversations. Because of the way Facebook works, it’s really easy to engage in multiple conversations, with multiple people at the same time. This is why I like Facebook better than Twitter, and the people who click over to your webpage from Facebook generally tend to have a lower bounce rate and stay on the site longer as well. Ask questions, write compelling thoughts, and your audience will respond. Some of the comment strings on my Facebook page are 30-40 comments deep at times.

44. Encourage others to post links and start conversations too. Another cool thing about the Facebook page is that your fans can post links and start their own conversations as well. This is a nice way to reward those who are your fans who may have something to add from their own sites, or who just have questions they need help with. You have full control of what’s shown and what’s not, so if anyone posts something naughty, you can simply remove it from your wall.

45. Don’t get lost in Facebook. Although I love Facebook, it’s really easy to get lost in it, especially if you have a personal account where you can see that your friend from high school has just gotten engaged. Remember, it’s important to engage with your fans, but your blog or website should be your primary focus. It is where you will be linking to from your Facebook page anyways from time to time.

Take it to the Next Level

46. Expand into other forms of media. So you have a blog. Have you ever thought about expanding your content into other media types, such as video, audio, or even going live? If you really want to take yourself to the next level, you’re going to have to branch out. Even just one episode or video a month is great practice.

47. Create information products. So you have a blog. Have you ever thought about expanding your content into information products that you can either giveaway or sell for an extra income? Now’s the time. You can create eBooks, audio, video, or a membership website, all of which are great information products you can use to expand your brand and increase your reputation and authority in your niche.

48. Hire some help. As one person, we can only do so much. Even if we put in more hours and work more efficiently, we’ll eventually reach some kind of plateau. Hire some people to do some of the mundane work that you don’t really enjoying doing to get to that next level. For example, if you spend a lot of time editing and submitting videos, or social bookmarking your blog posts, you can easily find cheap help from places such as Elance.com or oDesk.com to do those kinds of things for you. Soon, you’ll end up with your own virtual assistant team you can go to for anything when you need it.

49. Work 1 hour extra for yourself a day. Maybe you work a 9 to 5 job, maybe you don’t. Either way, try and devote at least an extra hour a day to you and your online business. Yes, finding an extra hour a day may be close to impossible, but if you really want to “crush it”, you’re going to have to hustle and sacrifice a little. Gary Vaynerchuk suggests working in the late hours of the night if you have to, and I totally agree with him. Do what it takes to get to where you want to go. Even just an hour a day would be huge for the growth of what you do online, especially if you know exactly what to do with it, which I hopefully have given you some ideas for in this post.

50. Be confident with every decision you make. Excuse my language here, but if you go into something half-ass, you’ll see half-ass results. Whenever you make a decision, small or big, go into it knowing that it’s the right decision, because you made it. Even if it ends up being a wrong decision, at least you know that it wasn’t from putting less than all of your effort into it. You can then learn from your mistakes, and put confidence into your next decision. You don’t want to end up with a

And Lastly…

51. Shoot for the stars. Seriously, try to be the best. Wait, let me rephrase that…

BE THE BEST.

Know that you have what it takes to be a top player in your niche, and don’t think anything less of yourself, ever.

Here’s to your success in the upcoming year.

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I Give You Permission to Succeed

Pat — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:54:08 +0000

I Give You Permission to Succeed, By Pat Flynn

You might be wondering to yourself, “Who are you, to give me permission to succeed?”

“Who are you, to tell me when I can do things?”

“Who are you, to grant me any kind of permission to do anything?”

As soon as we begin to comprehend and understand the world around us as little boys and little girls, we’re taught that it’s proper, and polite, to ask for permission. We’re taught to raise our hands before speaking in class. We’re taught to ask our parents before going out. We’re taught to ask, before borrowing something. Ask and ye shall receive.

Often, we’re granted permission without even asking for it, and sometimes we get to a point where we wait for it instead.

Permission is good, because a permission-less environment would be a chaotic place. Parents of children, teachers of students, and kings of countries understand that permission is necessary for control.

When it comes to our hopes, our dreams and our successes in life, permission is still necessary. However, there is only one person in this entire world that can grant you permission to reach your goals…

You.

Are you taking initiative, or are you waiting for others to tell you what to do?

Are you taking action, or just reading about it?

Are you giving yourself permission to succeed, or are you waiting for someone else’s permission?

So who am I to give you permission to do anything? I’m nobody.

It’s all you.

3 Ways to B*tch Slap Fear in the Face and Laugh

Pat — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:52:20 +0000

I’ll admit it. When I started my online adventures one year ago, I was scared. I had just been laid off from my architecture job, and to top it off I was engaged and getting married a few months later. Just to clarify, I wasn’t scared of getting married, I was scared of not being able to provide for my wife and I after we were married. I feared failing, and letting down not only my family, but myself too.

It’s okay to be scared though. Fear is one of the most primitive human emotions that’s built into us so we can survive. You can’t really get rid of something like that, you can only learn how to deal with it by first understanding why it’s there and then saying to it, “Hey Fear, thanks for the heads up. I know you’re trying to protect me, but I’m all good.”

Of course, there may be situations in your life where you should listen to fear, but when it comes to you wanting to achieve something that you really want, you can’t let fear stand in your way. Here are 3 ways that I’ve learned to overcome fear, which can be applied not only to your online adventures, but life in general too.

1. What’s the Worst That Can Happen, Really?

Fear has a funny way of blurring out reality. One thing that has helped me overcome many fears, from starting my online business to speaking in front of large crowds, was to think to myself, “what’s the worst that can happen, really?” You’ll often find that the worst thing that could happen in reality isn’t that bad at all.

So, you’re thinking about writing an eBook and selling it on your blog, for example. What’s the worst that can happen, really?

Well of course, the worst thing that could happen is that you get sued for copying another book word for word, but of course you’re not going to do that. The worst thing that could happen in reality is that you spend a considerable amount of time on your eBook, sell it, and end up with zero sales. Is life over after that? No way. You take what you’ve learned, and apply it to your next project. Failure is not being unsuccessful. Failure is not learning from your mistakes.

Here’s a personal example:

A while back, I had to give a speech in front of nearly 300 people. I was scared, but then I thought, “What’s the worst that can happen, really?”

Well of course the worst thing that could happen is that as I’m speaking my pants fall down, and then I knock over the mic stand, which triggers a spark that ignites the gas that’s been leaking into the room for the last hour and we all explode and die, but of course that’s not going to happen. The worst thing that could happen in reality is that I stumble with a few words, or maybe even pause at awkward moments. Is life over after that? No way. Oh, and after that particular speech, I was elected the Student Director of the University of California Marching Band.

Don’t let fear change reality.

2. Know What to Expect.

Many of us fear the unfamiliar. This is why we’re afraid of the dark, why we don’t like change, and why we’re scared to do business online. One of the best ways to overcome fear is to familiarize yourself with what you’re unfamiliar with.

You can read as many books as you want to try and familiarize yourself with something, but nothing beats fear to the ground more than talking to someone about it who has been there before.

I’ve never skydived, but I’ve definitely thought about it. If I ever seriously consider doing it, you can be sure I’ll be asking all of my friends who have done it before what it was like and what to expect.

When you’re starting out online, know that it’s okay to ask for help, especially from those who you admire and want to emulate. Many of those people will be more than happy to share their experiences and help you know what to expect. That is partly the reason why I created this blog.

Here’s another personal example:

I’m having a baby boy soon. He’s due on January 22nd, 2010. I’ve NEVER held a baby before in my entire life. To familiarize myself with this whole experience, I’m taking a Basic Training for New Dads class here in San Diego before our son is born. It’s held by experienced dads, and there will actually be real babies there to practice holding and changing diapers with. This way, when little Keoni is born, I’ll know exactly what to expect.

Counter fear with knowledge.

3. Just freakin’ do it!

I’m sure you know this already, but the best way to overcome fear is just to do whatever it is you’re scared of. Of course, that’s easier said than done – but it’s true.

You should always take time to do the proper research before you get into any kind of business, but there comes a point where you should just do it and stop wasting time trying to figure everything out. Here’s a quote that I love from Jason Van Orden, co-host of the Internet Business Mastery Podcast and someone who I really admire:

Breaking through to the next level always takes a leap of faith. You calculate ROI as best as you can, then make the jump.

In addition to that, you have to think about the possibilities you’re opening up for yourself by breaking through. Although I was scared, I now have a 6-figure income from my online business and can spend time at home with my family whenever I want. If I was too scared and didn’t make the decision to do business online, I don’t know where I’d be today.

Up next

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I was sort of spreading myself thin with the multitude of projects I have going on at the same time. I’m now focusing my energy on something much bigger while putting aside some of the other things I’ve been working on. I’d like to share with you in my next post exactly what I’m up to. It’s going to be a fun ride.

Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #3

Pat — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:09:12 +0000

In order to understand fundamentally how the world works and how things move and interact with each other, you have to understand Physics. It’s the same thing for business – in order to understand it, you must break it down and try to figure out how each part interacts with each other. Luckily, there are laws for business like there are laws for Physics that can help us understand.

If you’ve been keeping up with my latest posts, I’ve been comparing Newton’s Laws of Motion to some things I’ve learned about doing business online. I’ve had a lot of fun with the first and second laws, and I’m excited to conclude with the third and final law today.

In the first two laws, I changed a word or two from Newton’s laws so they would relate to business, but in the third law I won’t change one word. The third law is one I’m sure you’ve heard before, and it’s something we should be reminded of each and every day while we run our businesses, write our blogs and articles, and in general – live our lives.

Law #3: For Every Action There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Short and sweet: whatever you put in is what your going to get out of it.

This is true in every respect, except when it comes to money. I listened to a quick interview of Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com over at TechCrunch today, and in it he specifically tells us to reassess whether or not we need venture capital to start a business.

For most of us online entrepreneurs, we’re not looking for venture capital (meaning millions of investment dollars) to start our online presence, however a lot of people think it does take a lot of money to get started. The truth is, you don’t need a thousand or even a hundred dollars. You can start your online business for virtually no money at all, and as you probably know, if you put more money you put into your business, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will get more in return. (I started my six-figure blog for about $95.00, which included the domain name and 1 year of hosting on bluehost.)

Money aside, the third law describes a very basic idea that you should always remember, especially when it comes to earning a passive income online. If you plan correctly, work hard and are patient, good things will happen and you will start to earn money. If you don’t take action and just sit and wait for something good to happen, I’m sorry – it won’t.

It’s important to think about this law when it comes to the planning and execution of the various tasks involved with your business, but also the relationships you have with your customers, readers, colleagues & friends online. It’s simple – if you’re nice, honest and respond to every customer or reader, you will gain people’s trust in return, which is worth everything. If you’re an a-hole, dishonest and unresponsive, good luck trying to gain people’s trust and get people to pay you for anything.

Lastly, I’d just like to step back for a moment and talk about something that I feel is more important than anything when it comes to entrepreneurship and how it relates to this law. It’s fear.

Fear is a disease. If you fear, you will be met with hurdles and obstacles that will stop you from reaching your goals. If you put away the fear, whatever it may really be, you will open up possibilities for success and fulfillment in your career and in your life. Remember, this is your life – the only one you’ll ever have. In my opinion, it’s better to say “hey, at least I gave it a shot” instead of just wondering what really could have been.

Thanks everyone for your support! If you’ve enjoyed my “Physics of Business” series and would like to stay updated with the new content I update on my blog, please click here to get the RSS feed!

Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #2

Pat — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:49:36 +0000

In my previous post, I presented my First Law of Business and Success, which again was the following:

“Any business in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.”

Basically, whatever state your business is in, it’s going to stay that way unless something happens. If you don’t have a business or business isn’t going well, nothing good will happen unless you do something about it and take action. If business is going well, your job is to make sure no negative external forces come by and change things for you. If you didn’t make the connection already, I’m using Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, but relating them to businesses (which include blogs, relationships, your job, whatever). A better title for this 3-part series may be: The Physics of Business. A nice book title if you ask me (dibs).

Newton’s second law of motion defines the relationship between Force (F), Mass (m), and Acceleration (a). It states that “The acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body.” I don’t want to get into a physics lesson, but you may recognize this equation below:

I want to highlight acceleration in this post, so let’s rearrange the equation really quick:

This brings me to my Second Law of Business and Success:

Law #2: The acceleration of your success is directly proportional to the amount of force you apply, but inversely proportional to the number of markets you try to reach.

In other words, the more effort and energy you put into something, the faster you’ll see results. Conversely, if you use that same amount of energy but spread it out amongst multiple markets, the slower you’ll see results. This is why they say your niches and keywords should be more narrow, than general (i.e. “Making Money from Home”, instead of just “Money”).

Let’s talk more about markets and why it’s better to reach one specific kind of market, instead of generalizing and trying to reach more people. To use an example from a recent interview I listened to from the Internet Business Mastery Academy’s “Grill the Gurus”, Perry Belcher describes why there are so many dang shoe stores at the mall. (Perry Belcher is an Internet Marketing MASTER. He makes over $30 million a year.)

Anyways, have you noticed that? Shoe stores are everywhere! Well, they are making bank too. Here’s why:

If you notice, most of the shoe stores are highly specialized to cater to a certain market. Athletic shoes (Footlocker), walking shoes (The Walking Company), running shoes (Road Runner Sports), trendy alternative shoes (Journey’s), skateboarding (Airwalk or Vans), and even shoes that apparently help you lose weight (Shape Ups). There’s even a company that sells driving shoes. Yes…driving shoes.

Anyways, Perry’s point is this. These companies specialize in certain kinds of shoes because they know that people are more likely to buy from them for that kind of shoe. If you were shopping for running shoes and there was a General Shoe Store and a Road Runner Sports store right next to each other, which one would you always go to first? Road runner, of course – because they are the running shoe expert, and will most likely have a larger selection for you.

Anyways, to get back to Law #2, if you try and reach more than one market with your business, you’re not going to see great results. Looking at the equation, a = F / m, you can easily see what I mean. If we say your force is “1″, and your market is “1″, than you’re applying 100% of your effort into that one market. Here’s it is in equation form:

Obviously, you can increase the acceleration by adding more force:

Now, let’s take a look at what happens to the acceleration of your business when you try and reach too many markets at once:

More markets means less acceleration. Just think about that. If you’re going to try and reach more markets, you’ll have to put in more effort in order to obtain the same results as you would with just one market and the original amount of force:

As you can see in this last example, “a” equals 1, just like in the first example where we were just trying to reach one market. The best thing you can do for your business is to stick with a smaller, more specialized market, but put as much force into that market as possible. This will get you the best results, and make things happen faster. Remember the shoe stores.

The Exception

What? There’s an exception? Well – sorta. The above examples are specific for small businesses, just like you and me. When we start to talk about large businesses, the same rules apply, and the numbers appear much bigger. Larger businesses have the resources to reach and take over more markets, so you might see an equation like the one below for a company like Zappos.com, which is a billion dollar online retailer that sells not only all kinds of shoes, but also apparel and bags too, for all kinds of people. Please note that these numbers are just an example and don’t represent any true amount of effort or number of markets Zappos.com may try to reach or have reached:

So I think you get my point. Larger companies have the resources to reach more markets, but still have to apply more effort to get to them. More advertising dollars, more manpower, more force. For us small businesses and bloggers, this isn’t possible, so we must stick with one market, long tail keywords, and concentrate on our Force within that market to succeed.

To Conclude

I apologize if this seems confusing. It may seem like way too much effort to try and say something as simple as: just focus on one market and you’ll do better. I think (and I hope) you appreciate looking at online business and marketing from all different angles. Maybe you’re not a math person and this is hard to grasp, but I think I’ve presented it in a way that makes sense. In an effort to stand out and try and be different from the typical Internet Marketer, I hope I’m succeeding in your eyes.

Lastly, writing this post has made me realize that I may be trying to focus my energy (F) into too many things at one time (m). I have my LEED website, which is Passive and automatic and as such doesn’t require much attention. But in trying to find a new profitable project, I have iPhone applications, affiliate marketing, I was looking for a book deal, eHow, and more. I have to step back for a second, take my own advice and know that I will see better results if I apply my effort into one thing and just focus on that. Come to think of it, when I created my 6 figure website, that was the only thing I was focusing on at that time.

Good things are going to happen. Law #3 is coming up next.

Pat’s Three Laws of Business and Success: Law #1

Pat — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:35:15 +0000

I thought this might be a fun way to get you to think about your entrepreneurial journey in another light. I hope you enjoy.

If you ever get stuck and want to give up, or don’t know why what you’re doing isn’t working out like you thought it would, think back to these laws and how they apply to you. Please note that when I say ‘business’, I mean your website, your online or offline store, your blog, your email list, your twitter or subscriber follower count, your love life – ANYTHING. Here is the first Law.

Law #1: Every business in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

Law #1 can be applied to your business in many ways:

First, if you don’t already have a business, you can hope and dream all you want, but you will not see any results unless some kind of action is taken. This should be obvious. In order to find success, some kind of productive action must be taken, some external force by YOU to get your dreams of success out of rest and into motion.

If you have a business, but it’s not going anywhere, you’re not alone. I’ve talked about this before, but how many blogs have you come across where the last post was from over 6 months prior? Many of these people setup their businesses (blogs) but after a while are met with less than satisfactory results. Maybe no one is visiting their blog or they are not selling any products, and they are just flat-lining on the results axis. If you’re business is in a state that you don’t like, apply an external force. A marketing campaign, a redesign, a new product, a joint venture – something that will get you the results you want. Don’t give up just because you’re not seeing results right away. Have you tried applying an external force? If not, you didn’t fail – you’re just not done yet. See unnecessary graph below:

If you have a business and it’s doing really well – awesome. Now, you have two choices:

Keep it that way. This is done by making sure no external forces are negatively changing your results and getting in your way. For example, making sure your product(s) are meeting the needs of changing markets, making sure you’re satisfying your customers, making sure you’re staying on top of your keyword research and SEO, making sure you’re on top of your company’s financials, making sure you’re getting enough sleep and have enough energy to see things through, etc. Or, you can…
Make it even better and take it to the next level. Use external forces to make your results even better. For example, I was selling an eBook Study Guide for $29.95. I was happy making $7-8k a month. Insert audio guide…Booyah! Up to $30k in one month. Again, see graph below:

Lastly, If you have a business and it’s going downhill, figure out what external forces are causing this to happen, and then counter accordingly. You’ve heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason”, right? Well, this applies to the online business and marketing world too. Do what you can to find out what is causing you to lose visitors, decrease sales, have unhappy customers, whatever. An easy way to do this is just to stay involved with your business and the trends in the industry. No, this doesn’t mean reading about it 24 hours a day, but reading emails, listening to customers, and staying focused on what’s happening every once and a while can help you figure out what the deal is. Here’s a personal example:

Between June and July of 2009, my monthly income fell from about $26k to $9k. That’s huge. Luckily, because I knew the exam I wrote a study guide for was expiring, I expected this drastic change. In fact, I was still able to generate $9k by creating a product for the new exam just in time for the change. If i didn’t know the exam was going to expire, it would have been $26k to absolute zero. This is an example of an external force that cannot be changed, but one that I addressed to keep my business running as strong as possible.

Unfortunately, there may be external forces that we just cannot control and may not have an answer for. For example, you may have read that I was recently forced to change my domain name from intheleed.com to GreenExamAcademy.com. Because of this, most of the SEO work done for intheleed.com will have to be redone for the new domain, which will take some time and will definitely have an impact on my income from this source.

What I’ve learned is that you should do everything in your power to create the results you want, but make sure you do the proper research first so you don’t have external forces acting upon you later which may eventually put all of that motion you’ve been working on back to rest. Using a trademark in a domain name, although may not be met by an external force all the time, certainly opens up the possibility.

So, how does Law #1 apply to you? You don’t have to comment (you can if you wish), but at least give it 2 minutes of thought.

Law #2 is next. Can you guess what it is?

How You Can Earn $880 on eHow.com While Doing Nothing for Six Months

Pat — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:39:27 +0000

I started writing on eHow.com in November of 2008, a little over 7 months ago (wow, time flies). I went hardcore for the first month, writing a total of exactly 150 articles, and I just stopped. I planned on writing more as the months went by, but I had a lot of other projects going on, as you already know. So, I just let the articles sit.

I have continued to earn money via my 150 articles each month since November. I’ve even made an effort to include these earnings on my monthly reports, but they seem to get overlooked by the larger earnings from my eBook and Audio Guide. I’d like to highlight just my earnings from eHow from the last 7 months here for you (especially you eHow writers), just to show you what happened. I think it’s pretty interesting data.

Here’s the breakdown:

Total Earned: $879.66

Total Page Views: 130,394

Learned Findings From my eHow Experience

Here are a few things that I will conclude about these numbers. These are just my opinion, and you can choose to agree or disagree as you wish.

1. eHow is a Decent Method to Earn a Passive Income

Obviously, I’ve been earning an income from eHow for the last 6 months by doing absolutely nothing. I did not retouch any of my articles, or go back and add more, nor did I do anything to promote my articles. All I did was nothing (and let Google naturally take care of things for me).

Of course, $140-ish dollars a month isn’t enough to live off of, but if you put in enough work (i.e. write many more articles), you could hypothetically earn enough for something like a mortgage payment. How about an emergency fund?

2. Earnings Will Eventually Plateau

At first, I saw my earnings grow more and more each month, but for the last few months, it’s been up and down and averaging a pretty consistent amount. At first, the earnings will come slowly. Remember this if you’ve just started writing and are not seeing any substantial results yet.

As the search engines crawl through eHow and your eHow articles, if you’ve done the correct keyword research (with the help of Maria’s eBook, for example), your earnings will begin to grow until they’ve reached a point where they cannot earn that much more than they did the previous months. In other words, the amount you earn per article each month will generally plateau.

So, to increase your monthly earnings from eHow, you should simply write more articles.

3. You Can Trust eHow

I know a lot of websites that say they will pay you, but either they don’t pay or are very late with their payments (I think I heard this about Busika.com when it first came about). But with eHow, around the same time each month I receive an email stating my monthly earnings have been deposited into my Paypal account. They are very professional and very on time with everything. Even though I haven’t contributed to eHow for the past 6 months, they continue to pay me what I’ve earned.

Also, I poke my head into the eHow community forum every once and a while. I noticed that if there’s one little bug, or earnings are late to show in the daily reports, everyone goes nuts! “Where’s my earnings!”, “Help, what happened to my earnings report!”, “What the *&%$!”. Patience is very thin in the eHow community.

But, the eHow’s support team seems to be on top of their game and quick to respond to the ebb and flow of it’s users. It’s a sign they are serious about what they do, which means that you shouldn’t have to worry about eHow ever “folding” or losing your income stream from eHow anytime soon.

4. eHow Does Indeed Rank High in the Search Engines

As you may or may not know, I started this blog about a month or two before I started writing on eHow. Even so, I’ve had about 30,000 more views on my eHow articles than on this blog, which is definitely a significant amount of views. It’s kind of crazy to think about because I spend a lot of time and effort promoting this blog, and nothing to really promote my eHow articles.

This shows me that if you were to compare starting a blog to starting to write for eHow, you will more quickly rank higher in the search engines and have more page views on eHow. I believe the blog will eventually catch up, and it sort of depends on what you’re writing about, but if you were to write about the same subject, eHow would win in those categories, at first. Again, at first.

Starting a blog, however, gives us more earnings potential, and of course more freedom to do what you want.

5. It is Possible to Earn Money on eHow!

This kind of goes back to #1, but I want to reiterate that to me, eHow is a winner. I wouldn’t say it’s like winning the lotto, but for all of you haters and doubtful people, including those of you who are writing on eHow and not making anything – it really does work, you just have to put in the time and effort up front.

Quick Tips:

Create a goal for how many articles you’d like to write next month. 150 was a lot, but it was doable. Divide by 30 and make sure you write that many each day.
Don’t just write about anything. At first, I thought it was smarter to write about whatever came to mind without thinking about how many people would find it useful or search for it in a search engine, because I could write more articles. Keyword research is the key to your success, and you will earn more money by writing 10 keyword rich, well-researched articles than 200 articles that were not thought about beforehand.
Lastly, in regards to the bold statement above, if you’re serious about earning $100 or more dollars a month like I do, I’d invest a small amount of money to pick up Maria’s eHow eBook or Janet’s eHow eBook and read every page and copy their process. You will earn your money back within the first month or two.

For all of you eHow writers out there, please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you think. And if you’re new to my blog, please feel free to subscribe, and find me on eHow (TheWriteGuy). Thanks!

A Reader Asks: “Why Can’t I Make Good Money Online?”

Pat — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:50:30 +0000

Yesterday, I received an email in my inbox from an SPI reader asking for some help. He said it was cool if I posted our conversation on the blog for others to read, but he wanted to remain anonymous for some reason. I respect his request, so for this post – let’s just call him Joe.

(I’ve condensed and edited the conversation below to get the point across)

Joe: Pat, I need some help. I’ve been a blogger for a couple of years now. I’m a fantastic writer and I believe I have premium content on my blog, but for some reason I’m only making a few dollars a month from my advertisements. I see that just your Adsense Advertisements alone on your monthly reports pull in upwards of $2000 and more. What am I doing wrong? Why Can’t I Make Good Money Online? Any advice? Please be honest. I want to succeed.

Pat: Joe, thanks for your email. I can tell by the fact that you contacted me that you’re really motivated and are willing to make some changes. A lot of people don’t even get this far, so kudos to you for asking for advice. I’ll do my best to help you out. I’ll go over to your blog and get back to you soon with a quick assessment.

(Reviewing Joe’s blog. By the way, this is starting to look like a screenplay for a really bad movie, lol)

Pat: I took a look at your blog, and I have quite a few things to say, if you don’t mind.

The first thing I noticed was that you’re writing about money. You’re already putting yourself at a huge disadvantage here because there are millions of blogs about money already – and so you have a HUGE mountain to climb if you ever want your blog to get noticed. You have blog posts about personal finance, stocks, mortgages, trends, bank accounts, retirement, cheap airfare, traveling. That’s a LOT of different topics. I do agree with you, however, you’re writing style is beautiful – but I don’t think you’re taking full advantage of your potential.

The reason I say this is because as long as you’re writing about several different topics, you’re not going to have a huge following. Yes, blogs out there do exist that talk about several money topics, a “one-stop shop” if you will, but they are already established and got in the game at the right time. In my opinion, if anyone wants to create a successful blog today, they’ll have to just specialize in one subject and become the “expert” on that. Just think, people search for very specific items on Google, and those are the readers you want.

If you write about one subject, your advertisements will be more specialized and will convert more. Your readers will be of a single mindset and you’ll be able to more easily cater to them and their needs using your expertise. Again, if you write about too many things, you’ll have the occasional reader, but no followers. The person who loved your article about stocks probably won’t be that interested in your article about cheap travel, if that makes sense.

I think with your writing ability and your motivation to succeed, you’re on the right track. Good luck finding that niche and working it.

Joe: Thanks Pat, that makes perfect sense. I’m going to spend a good amount of time thinking and narrowing down my subject matter. Any advice in regards to the design?

Pat: Well, I think once you figure out what you really want to write about, your design should change and cater to that particular audience. Design is important, and it should work hand-in-hand with the subject matter. So for now, I think it would be a waste for me to comment on your current design – except that it should change when you pick your specific niche. Let me know when you’ve figured something out, I’d be interested in seeing your progress.

Joe: Thanks Pat, you’re the man.

(End of Scene 1)

Some important lessons learned here in our conversation with Joe:

The only way to change is to first notice that you need it and then ask for help. Step 1 of the 12 step program: “Hi, my name is Pat, and I’m an alcoholic.” – I’m not, really, but you get the point.
It is not beneficial to write about many different topics, even if they are somewhat related. Narrow your focus and become the expert on that.
Really think about writing for followers, not for the occasional reader.
Design should work hand-in-hand with the subject matter.
And Joe, if you’re reading this, you really missed out on a chance to earn some followers by remaining anonymous. If you ever change your mind or would like to show off your updated blog in the future, please let me know. You can’t be shy online!!!

I realize you were not able to see Joe’s blog, but do you have any further comments for him? Do you agree with my responses?

3 Questions You Should Ask Yourself to Find That Passionate and Profitable Idea

Pat — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:06:36 +0000

Lately, I’ve posted a lot of “personal” stuff on this blog. I think it’s time to get back into business. Don’t worry though, you’ll see more about our new baby later on and how that will affect our goals and what I’m doing online to meet those goals.

A long time ago, I had a poll which asked: What’s the #1 Thing Holding You Back From Making Big Money Online? Again, here are the results:

The most popular answer: an idea (at 37.5%!)

That’s definitely a stopper. Without an idea, you can’t really do much else. My goal with this post is to give you a thought process you can use so YOU can find that idea. The thought process comes with three simple questions that you should ask yourself. Let’s go through them one-by-one.

Question 1: What Do You Do?

A lot of people who look for ideas start with keyword research and look for what other people are looking for. That’s fine, but one of the most important aspects about having a successful business is passion, which comes MUCH easier with stuff you’re already into. Even if you find a niche that will work and will make money for you through keyword research, you’ll find that you’ll quickly lose energy and motivation if it’s something your just not that excited about.

So, ask yourself: “What do you do?” Think about your daily life. What could you spend hours doing because you enjoy it so much? What are some goals you have that you’re working toward each day? What do you do well? Answering these questions will help you determine what you may have the energy for when establishing yourself and your business online. I’m sure there are hundreds of things you do each day that you are totally passionate about or are really good at. It is those things you should write down now, and don’t even think about how you could make money yet.

For me, I was passionate about passing the LEED exam. I really wanted to add that credential to my resume, and it just so happened I had the energy to start a business because of that passion. With this blog, I really had a passion for making passive income online, so it’s really easy for me to write about it and share my experiences with you.

Question 2: What Would Help Make What You Do Easier?

With your list of “things you do”, look at each item and ask yourself, “What would make doing this thing easier or more convenient?”

Think about this question from all angles. For example, if one of your passions is “making soap”, don’t just think about physical items and gadgets that could make your soap making experience easier or better, but also think about what kind of information you would find useful too.

In addition to what would help you now, think about what would have helped you when you were first introduced to this topic – as if you were a beginner who knew absolutely nothing about it. Use your experience and knowledge about the subject to figure out something that you really wish was around when you first started.

Try and think of 3 or 4 things for each item in your list from question 1.

Question 3: Has it been done?

Take what you learned in question 2, and do a Google Search for anything like it.

If you’ve found something like it…

That’s a good thing. That means there’s probably a market for it and people are spending their money on it. At this point, you should ask yourself this question: What can I do better than these guys? What are they missing that I would include? If you can answer these questions, you’ve found a potential idea that can be profitable that you know you’ll have the energy and passion for. Don’t worry about the competition…it’s good that they’re there. It’s good for both the consumer and for you, because when you create a product that’s better than what already exists, you’re going to attract more customers and grab a portion of that existing market.

If you’ve found nothing like it…

Then you’ll have to ask yourself a couple of further questions: Why hasn’t anyone created this item already? Is it something that everyone else figured out would not be profitable, or is it a novel idea that hasn’t been thought of yet?

You’re going to have to do a little more research to see if it is a good idea that would help just you, or other people too. This can be done through keyword research and just asking people in your potential audience.

So By Now…

I don’t expect you to have an idea already, but I hope this post has been able to at least get the gears going in your head and give you some direction as to how to find that passionate and profitable idea.

Good luck everyone!

Mastermind Groups – What Are They and How They Can Help You

Pat — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:50:13 +0000

I have a lunch meeting today. You could call it a business meeting, but I know the guys would much rather call it a Mastermind meeting. Sounds fancy, right?

We’re not plotting to take over the world, and it’s not about mind control – it’s essentially a meeting between internet marketers that we all use to learn from each other to help grow our businesses. I’ve been attending these meetings ever since Sterling (our group leader, I guess you could say), moved to San Diego and started it – 6 months ago.

So, what do you do at a Mastermind meeting?

Well, first we eat and chat about random things – usually non-business related items. There comes a point during the meeting (I guess you could say this is when the meeting actually begins) that we start to talk business. We might stay at the restaurant or move elsewhere. Today, we’re going to play “disc golf” while meeting. Sweet!

One person will talk about the latest going-ons in his or her business, and will normally present something they have learned that they’d like to share with the group. Then, that same person will present a problem or a question they have in regards to their business, and everyone will have a stab at a potential solution or offer a suggestion. Then, the next person will speak. This goes on for a few hours and we usually have to cut things short because there is so much to say.

Just imagine how much GOLD is being passed between people at these meetings! They have seriously earned me more money and success for my business, no doubt.

Our “Leader”

You may recognize the name Sterling from somewhere. He is actually the co-host of the #1 Internet Business Podcast on iTunes, the Internet Business Mastery Podcast. I’ve done my best to pick his brain at every meeting, and it’s definitely paid off.

I’m also a part of the Internet Business Mastery Academy, which is how I found out about this meeting and that Sterling was moving to San Diego. In addition to the 11 courses about how to start an internet business from ground up, it’s also a large, massive online mastermind group where we all share our online success and failure stories and learn from each other. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Are You Part of a Mastermind Group?

If not, you definitely should be. Even if you only meet once a month, it’s REALLY beneficial. Plus, it’s fun to meet new people who have the exact same goals as you – to build a successful and profitable online business. You can probably find one on craigslist, and if not, why not start your own? (Or, you could join the Academy and see me there too!)

Before I go, I just wanted to say thanks for all of the encouraging comments in my last post. Your comments really helped me stay motivated while writing my new material. To give you an idea of how much I’ve written in 2 days – I’m on page 50. Cheers everyone!

So What Projects Are You Working On?

Pat — Sat, 09 May 2009 07:54:17 +0000

Today I made a list. It’s a list of things I’m currently working on and projects that I could potentially work on in the future to earn more money. As you know, I have my LEED exam prep website, my iPhone app company, the Smart Passive Income Blog, and 5 other things that I’ve mapped out and have actually done some research on how much I would have to invest to execute them. I have 8 things on my plate that could potentially help me get to retirement sooner.

It’s tough to think about all 8 “projects” at the same time – I think that’s the problem I’ve had ever since middle school when we were first introduced to attending more than one class per day. I knew I had homework for Math, Science, English and Band, so I had difficultly choosing which one to work on and when. Yes, I would get everything done, but not one at a time. Usually, it was by working little by little on each.

Now that I’m a “grown-up” (I guess…) I understand that in order to succeed while working on your own ventures is to put all of your hard work and effort into one or two things at a time, instead of spreading yourself thin on multiple projects. I still have a problem with this, but I’m getting better at realizing what my priorities are and focusing on just a few things. I have 8 things, yes – but I’m only focusing on a few right now. The others are “back up plans” or “things to do when the other things are on auto-pilot”.

I think about my family, money, savings, time, and personal fulfillment when prioritizing all of these things. It’s different for each person, so you’ll have to take a moment to think about what’s important to you and what potential hardships, experiences and outcomes (good and bad) that may result from each of your projects.

But wait…what if you don’t have any projects?

Then…I guess you’re not giving yourself a chance for something better to happen, better than where you’re at. If you’re happy with where you’re at – then I envy you. I’m on my way.

Like I always say…the harder you work, the luckier you become.

So what projects are you working on?

Know What Makes You Stand Out From the Crowd, and “Milk it”

Pat — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:16:13 +0000

When you’re trying to make an online presence, whether it’s on a blog, with a business, on a social network, whatever – there’s one thing you have to ask yourself about what you’re doing: what do you have to offer that makes you stand out from the crowd. Entrepreneurs that realize this, take advantage and showcase it, is what makes them become successful. In other words, they take what they know how to do and they “milk it”.

You don’t have to come up with a unique product, idea, or blog to be successful – don’t misinterpret what I’m trying to say. All you have to do is make sure there’s a reason why people should visit, read or buy from you. Do this, and you’ll get your followers, and beat your competitors.

Example: Zappos.com – Customer Service

Zappos.com, which you’ve most likely heard of already, is a web-based company that sells shoes…(wait for it)…ONLINE. Shoes online. They entered the market when there were quite a few other shoe selling websites, and honestly the thought of selling (and buying) shoes online is just weird to me. But, even so, Zappos.com is a huge success. Why? Because they figured out how to stand out from the crowd – great customer service. Some even call it “over the top” customer service, and they make sure to let people know this is what they are all about.

There are a bunch of viral stories out there about what some Zappos customer service agents have done for their customers, but I won’t get into that here. You can, however, view an interview with the founder of Zappos.com, Nick Swinmurn at StartUpNation if you’re interested in their marketing strategy.

My Example

I think what makes this blog unique and relatively successful (it’s young, and has a long way to go!) is that I give real life examples and tips about online marketing from my own experience, and I get fairly detailed about what I do. A lot of people have told me they enjoy seeing my exact numbers and reading the details about what I’ve done to increase my earnings online and plan for a successful future.

As I said, I still have a long way to go. I plan to take what I know how to do and “Milk it” even more. For example, I’m in the process of taking my eBook series and turning it into an eBook itself that I will make a part of the Smart Passive Income experience. You’ll see more details about this later – but my point is know what you’re good at, know what you have to bring to the table that others cannot (or don’t do as well), and make it your own marketing tool.

Think About It:

If you have a blog, own a website, sell anything online or are part of a social network, please ask yourself: “What am I doing that makes me stand out from the crowd?” Really ask yourself…right now.

If you know the answer, then you’d better make sure your viewers know that too. If you don’t know the answer, then you’d better figure out what it is that you want people to notice.

I Will Link to Your Blog or Website in My Next Post if…

…you comment below with why you think anyone should visit your website. That’s it! Use the comment field below and I’ll put up a link with your website and your quote in my next post. I expect quite a few comments, so…how will you stand out from the crowd?

Ask the Readers: How to Motivate the Unmotivated

Pat — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:05:50 +0000

It can be hard to stay motivated – not just with Internet Business, but with life in general. At one point in our lives, we’ve all said to ourselves: “I can’t do this”, “it’s not worth it”, and “I feel like giving up.”

Whatever “it” is that we feel like giving up on, whether it’s a project, a goal we’re trying to achieve, or something else – realize that all of those negative feelings are just a test. I view it as the Universe’s way of “weeding out” who can do what – putting these thoughts in our heads and only letting those who can overcome them succeed. You can succeed in whatever you want to do, you just have to find out how you best can overcome those “anti-success” feelings. Find out what motivates you, and let that be your way out.

What motivates is different from person to person. Maybe it’s a quotation. Maybe it’s a person. Maybe it’s just knowing that there are better things to come.

For me, it’s my family. I work hard everyday to make sure I can be with my family and support them not only financially, but physically (being present) and spiritually as well.

Your Help

I’m asking for you to do me one quick favor: please comment below with what motivates you.

There are no wrong answers, and don’t be embarrassed about anything. My goal here is for everyone to share so we can all see that there are many ways to beat those “I give ups” in our heads. I look forward to your responses.

I’m hoping for at least 50 responses, so please let us know what motivates you.

If You’re Searching for Ideas, This is What You Need to Know

Pat — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:32:32 +0000

We’re all in the same boat. We’re all business-minded people who think of ideas and dream that one will be the next million-dollar idea. That’s good…motivation is good key. Like I say, dream big – or don’t dream at all.

If you’re just starting your online venture and you’re in the idea generation phase, here’s what you can do to help yourself find that next big idea:

Building Your Idea List

You may have passed this phase already, but if not, this is definitely for you.

Recording Your Ideas

I’d recommend getting a small notepad to put in your pocket, or something equivalent that you can use to immediately record an idea (on your iphone, perhaps) once it pops into your head. Don’t rely on your memory alone – because you will forget. You don’t want to forget that million-dollar idea! (Although you might not know it’s the million-dollar idea at first).

Record ALL of Your Ideas

The more ideas you come up with, the better the chances are that one of them is a great idea! That’s just a fact. Anything that pops into your head, just go ahead and write it down. Don’t be shy – no one else is going to see your list, and even if you think an idea is terrible at first, who knows – it might be what you choose to spend most of your time and effort on later after some research. It was an idea that you had, so it must mean something.

Don’t Try to Figure Everything Out at First

When you’re first writing down your ideas, write down as much as you can about it, but don’t feel bad if you can’t figure everything out at first – because that’s impossible. There will most likely be things you don’t know how to do, or can’t quite figure out yet – and that’s ok. Don’t let it become a brick wall and ruin your idea.

When I was working on my eBook, I didn’t let the fact that I didn’t know how I was going to charge for my eBook online stop me for pursuing my idea further.

Don’t Let This Happen to You

What’s the first thing we usually do after we come up with an idea? We go directly to Google Search and see if anything like it has been done before. I bet that 99% of us go into that search hoping NOT to find a website or business that is exactly the same. 99% of the time, we do find something similar and then lose the energy behind our idea because someone already “took it”. This, unfortunately, is the death of many good ideas. This is the wrong way to think.

If you perform a search and find similar websites to the one you were thinking of doing – that’s a GOOD thing. Why? Because that means there’s a market out there for it and people are spending money. In one of my first blog posts on SPI titled “5 Reasons Your Next Big Idea Might Fail”, I explain a lot more about this, and other common thoughts that often kill ideas.

In my next post, I’ll go over some details about how you can look at your list and determine which ideas you have are possible gold mines, and which ones are just empty bat caves.

Using Content Sites to Build Residual Income

Pat — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:00:57 +0000

This is the last guest post in queue before I start writing again. I’m happy to say that this is a guest post from Maria, founder of the Residual Income Web Blog. She is also the author of the infamous eHow eBook which I personally used to drastically increase my ehow earnings, and she has a lot more projects underway as well. Here is a wonderful article from Maria about increasing your residual income with content sites.

I began my passive income adventure by writing content articles for a large website that had recently started a user-driven content section. When I started writing these short SEO (search engine optimized) articles, I had no idea what – if anything – they would earn. I certainly didn’t image they would be the start of something big and even lead to a paradigm shift in my freelance writing career.

For many established online writers and Internet marketers, writing content for other sites is something that simply doesn’t occur to them; and for new online writers starting out, going for a sure thing – selling content for a flat rate – is more attractive than the unknowns of writing for residuals.

However, it is my experience that revenue-sharing content sites can be a significant income generator for virtually all online writers and marketers, whether newbies and seasoned professionals. In most cases, the income is truly passive once the articles are written – the page rank and internal linking system on the sites is often all that’s needed to get content indexed by search engines and found by those searching for the information you’ve shared.

Content sites are a great way to explore many different niches at ones, without having to set up a hundred mini niche sites or dilute the topics of your current sites and blogs. I use content sites to get a feel for what I enjoy writing about and what is most profitable for me. This information has been invaluable in starting my own content sites.

They can also be quite lucrative, as I have discovered. Over a dozen individual articles I wrote on eHow have earned over $100 each … a number I have trouble matching on my own sites thus far. For content writers selling their articles for $10 or even $20 or more, experiment with revenue-sharing sites to see if you can earn a better rate writing for yourself.

Choosing Content Sites

Potential earnings are often the main criteria for writers when considering a content site. If earnings potential is not available, for example if the site is new or current writers aren’t broadcasting their earnings, look at the pay structure if published. For example, some sites pay a portion of Adsense or per 1,000 views. There are other factors that should not be overlooked. One of the main things to consider is whether writers retain rights to their content. If so, you can always remove and republish your work if earnings aren’t what you expected. In addition to earnings, look for the site’s Alexa ranking, traffic statistics, age, popularity and number of active users. Spend some time on the site and check out the article input tool. I find the best thing to do is write a few articles on any decent revenue-sharing or user-driven content site you come across and write more – or not – based on your own experiences.

Writing Content Site Articles

Read through each site’s terms of use or user agreement. Some allow only original content, some allow duplicate material as long as you are the author. Some sites are okay with inconspicuous, related affiliate links; others ban them and repeat violators.
Learn basic search engine optimization and do basic keyword research for each article you write. Your main traffic is via search engines, on site and off, and your articles have to be written with this in mind.
Maintain high quality standards. No only is your reputation at stake; your earnings are too. Well written articles perform better overall.
Keep most article between 300 and 700 words. Length is lethal online, but too-short articles may be ignored by the search engines.

Hidden Benefits of Content Sites

With a profile and library of articles on several content sites, you will find that in addition to article earnings, you can:

Gain backlinks to your own sites and blogs through your profile and articles (if the site allows do-follow links).
Drive traffic to your niche sites, information product or affiliate sales pages.
Increase affiliate earnings.
Build an online presence, gain brand/ name recognition.

Do you write for online content sites? Do you do it primarily for the earnings, or traffic and backlinks?

Again, for more from Maria, you can visit her website at the Residual Income Web Blog.

Turning Dreams into Passive Income

Pat — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:00:39 +0000

Again, I’m still in Hawaii on my Honeymoon! Here is a guest post by Craig from The Movie Banter. He is a young man who is a Dreamer – which I believe is one of the most important elements of succeeding online. Dream big, and good things have a chance of happening. Craig is on his way.

When Pat graciously allowed me the opportunity to write a guest post for his blog, I wasn’t sure how I could help out at first. I have learned a lot from him, but am no where at the point of my life where I could really offer useful tips to anyone, whether it be about passive income or in general. I am only 23 and first getting a taste of work experience, haven’t worked on passive income. But then it struck me like Marv being hit by a bunch of blocks from Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 2. If I could choose my dream way of gaining passive income, what would it be?

My dream method would be to write a best seller novel, and then sell it off to Hollywood. This of course is easier said than done, but if I’m dreaming, why not reach for the stars, right? I know writing a book is a goal of a lot of people, but I have thought about my process in detail about getting it from idea to DVD’s. This is my quick adventure to turn passive income into reality.

The book would be called “The Boys Court” a coming of age tail of a group of boys enjoying one last summer adventure together before they head off to college, then tragedy strikes changing one of the boy’s lives forever. I’ve even written the first chapter, but have not had the patience to get any more done. Can’t give away more though, just in case I get on myself to get to it.

Anyways, I have a friend who was signed by an agent from his personal essays he’s written, who could help me sign. Once published, would utilize my own social media marketing skills to help push the book to slowly build viral buzz. Hopefully it grows to best seller point and I sit back and collect fat paychecks every month for doing nothing afterwards. I could stop there, but my passive income dream goes further.

I want a movie deal. My friend also interned years back to an alum of our high school that you may recognize as Judd Apatow. I involve my friend in on the project, he uses pull for a once in a lifetime meeting, and we go down and pitch and close the deal. From there the movie is released, followed by DVD’s. Now collecting book checks as well as income from movie and DVD’s sales. Residual income at its finest, while I sit back and enjoy.

Of course this is all one huge pipe dream, but this would be my dream if I could choose how to make passive income.

I bet a lot of you have thought of unique and exciting ways to sit back and earn passive income. What are some of your dreams?

Please feel free to check out Craig’s website at themoviebanter.com.

The Best Way to Succeed Online is to Fail

Pat — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:46:02 +0000

I’m proud to say that I have failed.

Wait…what?! “But Pat,” you say. “you’re earning upwards of $20,000 a month, you have a leading website in a specialized niche, you work only 10 hours a week max, and you’re making money while you sleep! What do you mean you’ve failed?!”

Let me elaborate. While in school, we’re brainwashed to think that failure is bad. This is why we studied so hard and worried so much about our grades. If you get an “F” in a class, you’ve failed. You don’t get any credit, and you have to retake the class. In order to succeed, failure is NOT an option. As much as I respect the schooling system and everything it has taught me – the one thing I can say about doing business online is that failure is not a bad thing.

Failure Teaches Us

When we fail at something, whatever it is, life is teaching us a lesson. What’s the difference between those who are successful in life and those who are not? The successful ones learn from their failures and follow those lessons, while the losers end up doing the exact same thing, or nothing at all. This can be related to anything that you do in your life.

In the online business world, it’s exactly the same. Those who succeed online will do things using what they’ve learned in all of their past failures. The trick is to try something out, and if it doesn’t work, understand why and then do it again with that information in mind to make it work for you.

The beauty of doing business online is that it’s relatively inexpensive to fail. Therefore, it’s smart to use this to our advantage and be fearless about it. The rewards far outweigh the risks of failure. Heck, I’d fail a bunch of times if it meant that I would eventually end up with a successful online venture – which is exactly what happened.

Projects I’ve Done That Have Failed

I’m proud to show you projects I’ve done in the past that have failed, and explain a little bit about what I learned from each. As you can see, I’ve been involved with many projects, but if it wasn’t for what I learned from each of those failures, I would not be where I am today.

Selling My Stuff on Ebay

When I was in high school, I wanted a job to earn more cash, but my parents told me to focus on school work instead. I decided to sell a bunch of things on Ebay, which included some baseball cards, my Magic the Gathering deck, clothes, and some sports equipment. I think I earned just about $100 which made me sad because I know a lot of the things I sold were worth much more than that. Fail.

What I Learned: I learned how Ebay worked and I liked the system, I just needed something different to sell. Selling my own stuff was fun at first, but I ran out of stuff to auction off. Plus, I sold some things I wish I hadn’t sold. I really want my Magic the Gathering deck back. It was a land destruction deck that no one could beat. Yes, I was am a nerd.

Selling Tickets on Ebay

Instead of selling my own things, I started to research how to sell other things that I would buy first and then resell at a higher price. I looked into buying stuff wholesale, buying items broken for repair, and drop shipping, but nothing seemed feasible at the time. Then, in my first year of college, I ended up paying $250.00 for two $35.00 Coldplay tickets because the concert was sold out. I knew what I could do, so I gave it a shot.

The next week, I ended up buying two tickets from ticketmaster for a Jack Johnson concert that was about a month away. I paid $40 in total for both tickets. The concert sold out, and I ended up selling the pair on Ebay for $150.00 right before the concert date. Cha-ching!

The next week, I bought 10 tickets for various concerts, totaling about $250 bucks. It didn’t go so well this time. Some of the concerts didn’t sell out, so I wasn’t able get more than face value for those. I ended up profiting only $50 for 1 month’s work and 5 trips to the post office. Fail.

What I Learned: Although I was successful at first, another go at it showed me that it was not a great idea because I had to spend a lot of money, and just wait in hopes of a concert selling out. Plus, I was tired of selling things on Ebay and having to go to the post office all of the time. If I was going to sell something online, I wanted to have it all done automatically for me.

My First Attempt at Blogging for Money

While in college, I really enjoyed writing on a personal blog of mine on the Xanga blogging platform. I wrote everyday about what I did, what I ate, who I hung out with, etc. We even had the ability to insert pictures into our “journal entries”, which was an “advanced technique” back in the day when blogging started.

Fast forward to life after college, I was motivated to do something in addition to my 9 to 5 job that could bring in some income. I soon found out that people were making decent money from blogging, not by writing about themselves, but by providing information and also entertaining. So, I gave this a shot too.

My first attempt was a blog that I thought my girlfriend (now fiancee) and I could do together. It would be a blog featuring two blog posts, side by side on the homepage, one by me and one by her. The content would focus on a “topic of the day” and people would get to see both a male and female perspective on different subjects.

I think we prepared a total of two entries, but it was hard to come up with new material without getting into small arguments about things. So, for the sake of our own sanity, we threw the idea out the window before we even published anything. Fail.

(If you’re interested, you can visit the unpublished website at http://www.acoupleofthoughts.com. I’m not going to create a direct link from here, however, as it may compromise the rank and SEO of smartpassiveincome.com) A tip from Pat: direct links to bad websites, like websites that don’t update their content too often, may hurt your rankings in search engines.

What I Learned: Working with someone you are very close to can be difficult – especially if it’s your significant other. People work at different paces and have different ideas, so as far as blogging is concerned, I figured it would be best to blog on our own instead.

My Second Attempt at Blogging for Money

Before I got engaged, I had an idea to create a blog about a guy’s perspective on being engaged, and provide helpful tips and resources. The website was all setup (http://www.engagementhack.com), and I actually wrote maybe a half-dozen blog entries before losing interest and finding it hard to find good material to write about. Fail.

What I Learned: On this blog, I tried to use an alias, J.D., because I wanted to make sure April didn’t find out exactly how and when I was going to ask her to marry me. I learned that trying to be someone you aren’t online won’t get you anywhere. I’m sure you can tell from reading on this blog that I’m not afraid to tell you about who I am and what I do. Another thing I learned was that it’s difficult to write about something you don’t know much about, which led me to my next project…

My Third Attempt as Blogging for Money

My next project was a blog about improving memory and enhancing brain capacity. I had done some keyword research and found that there was some good traffic looking for tips and tricks to improve memory and learn faster. So, I created http://www.how-to-memorize-anything.com. I used the thesis theme because it was much faster for me to set up.

I heard about this guy who had 20 different blogs, but used hired help to write content for each of them. I decided to post a job description on elance.com for someone to write all of the content for me about improving memory and study tricks. I asked for 50 articles, each at 500-1000 words in length. Bids came in between 400 and 2000 dollars. I almost pulled the trigger, but then got scared and just let the project die. Fail.

What I Learned: Here, I learned that I really was trying to make money in a field that I had no passion for. Without the passion and drive, it’s very difficult to maintain a blog. Even if I had gotten someone to write all of the blog posts for me, it wasn’t my content and I would probably lack the motivation to respond to comments and keep the website fresh. Also, by not pulling the trigger, I never gave it a chance to succeed.

In Reflection

Looking back, my failures online were a part of my path towards success. It’s kind of like past relationships and how they teach you about who exactly the right person is for you.

Without all of those failures, I would not be where I am today.

So, if yo’ure thinking about doing something bigger online, what are you afraid of? Failure?

Although we should always strive not to fail, consider it a blessing in disguide when we do.

Live Each Day To The Fullest Because You’ll Never Get It Back

Pat — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:00:27 +0000

I’m going to step away from income, money and internet marketing for this post and tell you something really important that I just realized today. I can tell you exactly when and where I had this revelation. It was 3:30pm today, February 7th at the corner of Scripps Poway Pkwy and Scripps Highland Road. Why was this so important? Because this happened:

I was driving at a normal speed down the road when the light in front of me turned yellow, and the guy in front of me, who could have very well went through the light since he was already at the intersection, decides to stop. Mind you, it was raining in San Diego today, so when I braked, my truck hydroplaned and you can guess what happened next (see picture).

Don’t worry, everyone involved in the accident was okay, but it just showed me that sometimes life pulls you in directions that you never planned for, and you just have to deal. The thing that scared me the most was the thought of someone dying, or even myself dying and the impact that would have on other people in my life, and my life as a whole.

I thought about my fiancee and how she would feel if something happened to me, especially right before our wedding. Then I thought about my family and friends, and then the children that I don’t even have yet. The thoughts going through my head actually brought tears to my eyes.

So I realized that we should live each day to the fullest because you never know, it could be the last. I should never be so upset at an event or anybody that it takes away my ability to enjoy life, whether it’s a car accident and knowing the fact that my premiums are going to skyrocket, or something like a layoff from a job. I will forever be grateful for each day I live and make sure I live each day to the fullest.

All I ask of you today, is to make sure you tell your loved ones at home, or even over the phone, to let them know that you love them. Give your children a hug, kiss your spouses hand – just let them know show them that you’ll always love them no matter what.

And no matter what happens, always keep your head up high.

Be safe everyone. Thanks.

5 Inspirational Websites That Changed Me

Pat — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:00:32 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of feedback lately about how I’ve been an inspiration to a lot of people. Not only to my readers online, but also to my friends and family too. I’m grateful that a lot of you feel this way, and it is my hope that I continue to do things that inspire people because in truth, hearing such feedback inspires me as well. It’s a vicious cycle that I feed off of to improve my business and my life. So, I want to thank you for inspiring me too.

Okay, so all of that sappy stuff aside, I wanted to take a little bit of time to show you the things online that inspire me. I guess you can say I am who I am partly because of who I read and what I watch. Feel free to wander to any of these sites below, and I’d be happy to hear what you think, or if you have come across some of these things as well. Enjoy!

Blogs That Inspire Me

Shoemoney.com: Jeremy Schoemaker is a huge inspiration to me when it comes to making money online. He has a ton of interesting and useful information on his blog, he’s a LOST fan just like myself, and he gives away a free t-shirt to a random commenter each and every day…just like this one:

And no…that’s not a framed picture of my sister next to me…that’s me in the 3rd grade. I don’t know why those cats are there either…

Copyblogger.com: Brian Clark is a copywriting guru, and I read his blog as much as I can. All of his articles are well written and I can’t stress how important the information he provides is for those of us who do any type of writing online.
GetRichSlowly: I actually found this personal finance blog when J.D. had about 1,500 readers, and now it has over 70,000. His content is great, but it’s been a true inspiration to me to see how much his blog has grown so much over a short period of time. He has recently quit his job to start blogging full-time. Awesome…frikin awesome.
PerryBelcher.net: This guy is just plain cool. He’s a marketing guru that has the greatest tips ever. He and Ryan Deiss, another marketing guru, tag team to do a lot of awesome projects together. Perry’s presentation skills are pretty awesome too, especially when it comes to videos and audio. He’s a fast talker, but I like it. Check out his video about his sneaky little email headline trick.
The Internet Business Mastery Podcast: I’ve been listening to Sterling and Jay’s podcast for almost a year now, and every time I would listen to them, I would get so inspired to start my own online venture and design my own lifestyle. They are who I owe most of my success to. Hands down. I joined their online community and learned even more about creating an online business, and without them, I would not be as successful as I am today. I’ll write more about them later, but you may be interested in Episode #55, which you can listen to on their website…why? Because I am in it! Yep! I was interviewed by both of them and you can listen to me talk about my online venture and how I got started. It’s a fairly long episode (1 hour in total), but my segment is near the beginning, and I must warn you…I was a little nervous, but you can listen to it here.

What blogs or websites inspire you?

5 Reasons Why Life is a Sport

Pat — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:09:00 +0000

Life to me, is a sport…not a game – but a sport. Life is a sport because:

In both life and in sport, there are rules, regulations, codes of ethics, appropriate behavior, etc.
In order to do well in both, it takes a lot of hard work, determination, and sometimes a little bit of luck too.
In both life and sport, when we’re ahead we feel good and are having fun, and when we’re behind we sometimes feel lost and bored.
Mentors, coaches, teammates, parents and friends (aka. the people who we associate with) all contribute to the success or the failure of the individual and those who surround that individual in both life and sport.
And lastly, in both life and in sport, there’s one thing that increases our chances of being successful and winning – scoring and achieving goals.

About Goals

Goals are super important. They give us direction and allow us to plan a course of action.

Pretend you’re on a soccer team, and you and your team’s primary goal is to win the championship. You can’t win the championship without first winning enough games to get you to the playoffs…you can’t win games unless you put the ball in the opponent’s net…and you can’t put the ball in the opponent’s net unless you learn the necessary skills to dribble, pass and shoot the ball and have a game plan.

To me, life is exactly the same. First, you need to know what you want, then you need to know what it takes to get there, and finally you must learn the necessary skills in order to do exactly that and have a plan. Without knowing what it is you want, there is no plan…there is no action…and life is boring.

In an earlier post, I has previously said:

“You have to really think about it, deep down inside about how exactly you want your life to be like in the future.”

Many people can’t even get past this part, and that’s ok – it can be difficult, especially if you haven’t thought about it before. But, if you haven’t thought about such things, and you’re just living each day without a goal or a plan, it’s about time to start thinking about it. It just turned 2009, so why not take a few moments to discover yourself once again.

My Goals

I’d like to share some of my goals with you. Observe how my goals are broken down into smaller goals, which become part of the overall plan. My hope is that as I aim towards achieving these goals, I will document exactly how I proceed so you will be able to learn from my accomplishments and from my mistakes. If you just take away one piece of advice from my journey in life, I will consider this blog a success.

25+ Years from Now (The Championship)

Be happily retired with my wife by the age of 50.
Have successfully funded our kids’ education.
Be totally debt free, including mortgage and car payments.
Own at least two rental properties in California.
Teach at the University level.

10-25 Years from Now

Have 529 plans (education funds) in place for all of my children.
Successfully take 3 vacations each year with the entire family.
Be close to my wife and children.
Write a book that I can see on the shelves of book stores.
Earn my PhD.
Own at least one rental property in California.
Earn an annual income of at least $300,000.
Finish a marathon.

1 to 10 Years from Now

Pay off all education loan debts.
Start and sell a company for at least $1,000,000.
Partner with someone for an online venture.
Earn my Masters Degree.
Earn my Architectural License.
Earn enough money so that my wife does not have to work if she does not want to.
Raise 2 beautiful children with my wife.
Stay healthy and fit.
Have a top rated podcast show.
Buy a house in San Diego, with a backyard big enough for a Golden Retriever.

The Year 2009

Earn an annual income of at least $100,000.
Correctly file my taxes.
Get married to my fiancee, have a wonderful wedding and honeymoon, and fully furnish our brand new apartment.
Start a podcast.
Rewrite a new eBook for intheleed.com when the new version of the exam comes out in the summer.
Start a blog similar to my intheleed.com blog in another hopefully profitable niche.
Begin planning the launch of a brand new iPhone application idea I’ve had in my head for months.
Write at least 365 new eHow articles.
Have in place at least 10 profitable PPC affiliate campaigns up and running.
Finish the MudRun at Camp Pendleton (a charity bootcamp-like race my friends and I entered).
Raise/save enough money for a down payment on a home in San Diego.
Successfully purchase, train and raise a puppy with my wife.
Go on a cruise.
Help a couple of my friends start their own online business ventures.
Be cut like Bruce Lee and continue going to the gym and eating healthy.

January of 2009

Find a CPA to help prepare my taxes and discuss the implications of my upcoming marriage in regards to accounts, taxes, etc.
Launch the Audiobook version of my eBook on my blog.
Finish wedding preparation.
Go to the gym at least 4 times a week.
Research Maltese breeders.
Write at least 31 eHow articles.
Begin to monetize this blog.
Finish wedding preparation.
Finish this post.

Of course, I could go into what I’m doing tomorrow, but I think you get the point. This is an exercise that I learned from a financial advisor I met after placing one of my business cards into a fishbowl at a Mexican restaurant. The free lunch was bleh…but the free advice was golden. The advisor asked me what my goals were first, and then developed a financial plan for me by narrowing down the goals as the time became closer to present day.

One Last Note

A lot of blogs put up their New Year’s Resolutions or what they hope to accomplish in 2009. My intention in this post was to do the same, but put a spin or lesson on it. I hope it all makes sense.

I hope that you soon give some good thought into your plans for the future and what your goals may be. Oh, and since I’ve been into the “couples thinking together mood” lately…if you have a family or significant others, they should be a big part of your goals too. You should try and come up with some goals together.

I’m remembering a story from a book I read not too long ago, called Smart Couples Finish Rich: 9 Steps to Creating a Rich Future for You and Your Partner by David Bach.

There was an excerpt about a retired couple, married for 40+ years, who got divorced (correct me if I’m wrong) because they couldn’t agree where they would live together in retirement. Each didn’t know that the other persons idea of retirement was totally different than their own. Anyways, the point is – talk about your goals together with your loved ones.

All the best to you, and have a wonderful day!

How I Lost $10,000 and What to Do To Avoid This

Pat — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:47:48 +0000

I’m sorry I’ve been away from the blog for a few days. With the holidays, wedding planning, finding an apartment, and the launch of my audio book all happening at the same time, you can imagine I’ve been a busy bee. I just finished working on 150 or so wedding invitations, and I’m beat. That being said, writing on this blog is a wonderful break from all of that, where I can discuss with you some things that may inspire and teach you whatever it is you take away from it.

So, you may be drawn to read this post via the title: How I lost $10,000 and what to do to avoid this. A more appropriate title may be: How I missed out on $10,000 and what to do to avoid this. Let me explain…

After keeping track of my online passive income for a few months now, I cannot express how much I wish I could turn back time. Why? Because I made one huge mistake – one ginormous (yes, it’s a word) wrong move that if I had the power, I would go back and change. I would have started earlier.

Sick Math

If I had started doing what I’m doing online just one month earlier, I would be $10k richer today.

Now, you may be thinking: “Pat, it’s not like you started out making $10,000 the first month, how could you be $10k richer by starting just one month earlier.” Well, the math tells me so, that’s why.

So let’s say I started my blog in January of 2008, which is true. I didn’t start monetizing it until about April, when I added Adsense, and was getting paid through ad clicks. I then started selling my eBook in October, as you can see in this rough chart of my income per month (these are not exact numbers, but you get the idea:

Monetizing Begins in April

Now, let’s say I started monetizing in March instead of April – just one month earlier, using the same methods and rates of growth and income each month after starting monetizing:

Monetizing Begins in March

I put $10,000 in December, but in reality it would probably be more based on the growth from the previous months. So you see, at the end of the year, at the same exact point in time, there’s a $10,000 dollar difference from just starting one month earlier.

Going Even Further

There’s even more things here that are pretty sickening to think about. What if I had launched my eBook one month earlier too, or even 2 or 3 months earlier? That is money “I missed out on” as well – because the kicker is, I can’t turn back time like I wish I could. No one can, except for maybe H.G. Wells.

Bottom line, in order to not lose (or miss out) on money that you could be putting into your pocket, you must get started as soon as you can.

The old saying holds true…time is money. A classic and similar example can be explained with retirement funds and compound interest.

If you’re 25 years old, and you make $50,000/year and contribute 10% ($5,000) a year to a 401k plan that earns 9% interest, you’d have $2.3 million in your account by the time you’re 65.

If you just wait 5 years (what’s 5 years going to do, right?), and contribute the same amount each year getting the same returns, you’d only have $1.4 million by the time you’re 65. That’s 1 millions dollars lost, just fron starting 5 years later.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

You can’t beat yourself up thinking about these kinds of things. I’ve already beat myself up about it, and what I’ve learned is that you can’t change the past. Beating yourself up will only consume more time and energy.

The only thing you can and should do, is make the best with what you have presented in front of you.

If you haven’t set up a 401k with your employer yet, that’s okay. Don’t miss out on any more valuable time and do it. If you have a blog and have yet to monetize it, do it. If you are trying to think of something to make more money with, stop thinking – and start doing!

How To Take These Thoughts into 2009

With 2009 less than a day away, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about what you want to accomplish in the New Year. What will you do next year that will help you earn more money online? Write more eHow articles? Write an eBook? Monetize your blog? Create a membership website? Partner with someone? Ask for a raise? It’s all up to you…

Ahh, it feels good to post again. Anyways, I just wanted to finish by wishing you and your family a wonderful and safe New Year. Let’s make 2009 the best year ever! Cheers!

p.s. My December monthly report, as well as my eHow monthly report is up next. Good times. Comments welcome!