Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

I’ve been running my own home business for almost seven years now. In that time, I have seen it all. But I have to tell you, I am sick and tired of the BS that I see filling my email box on a daily basis. The latest one is the reason for this article/rant, or whatever you want to call it. If you can’t handle some cold, hard truth, you probably don’t want to read what’s coming next.

Today, I got an email with the following subject, “You Plug And Play Money Making System.” Inside the email it talks about how you can make $1,000 a week without a website, product of your own or anything for that matter. Just plug it in and watch the money come pouring from the sky. Reminds me of when I first started buying lottery tickets back in the 70s because I thought I was going to hit the pick 6 and win millions of dollars. I’m still waiting.

Okay, let me set the record on this plug and play, do nothing stuff. It’s a lot of hog wash. It’s nothing but hype and doesn’t work. There is nothing, and I mean nothing online where you can just sit back and watch the money fall from the skies. If you believe that there is, I have some land to sell you dirt cheap. I’ll even throw in a lawn mower so you can cut the grass. The truth is, earning a living online takes work…lots of it.

For starters, you better have a product…and a darn good one. People don’t buy pet rocks anymore. If you want to make significant sales, you have to have something that people want. And these days, with the miserable economy, it better be something that they want desperately. Folks who are drowning in credit card debt are prime candidates for a product that will get them out of debt, especially one that REALLY works. Forget about selling your little ebook on how to grow radishes. In the grand scheme of things, nobody cares.

After you have that product, you better have a darn professional site to send them to. People are sick and tired of those crappy looking sites that look like somebody out of grade school designed them. You need something that looks good. Go to a site like WebMD. THAT’S professional.

But it doesn’t end there. Just because you have a fancy looking site online doesn’t mean people are going to flock to it. There are millions of sites out there for each niche. Your site is just one out of those millions. If you want people to make it to your site, you have to get them there. There are only two ways to do this. You either pay for the traffic through something like Adwords or even media buys, or you generate it the slow way through search engine optimization and content, such as writing and distributing articles. The first way is fast but expensive. The second way is cheap, but slow as molasses. Choose your poison.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You better have a great product delivery system and excellent customer support. What, you think people are just going to buy your product and you’ll never hear from them again? People will have questions…lots of questions. I get customer support emails daily. And when you do get them, you better reply in a timely fashion. People don’t like to be kept waiting.

There’s more…lots more. But I don’t want to turn this article into a novel. Point is, plug and play is a myth. If you think you’re going to start and run a home business that requires NO work, do yourself a favor.

Go get a job at a McDonalds.

I hear you can get free food if you’re an employee.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of all the home business hype? Want one that will really deliver on its promises? Read my totally unbiased review of Carbon Copy PRO at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-carbon-copy-pro.html and get yourself a home business that is all substance.

There is an old saying that goes like this. “What’s old is new again.” It’s a bit cliche, but it’s often true, especially in pop culture. Have you seen some of the shoe styles that have come out recently? Reminds me of the good old 70s. Okay, so you’re probably wondering what this has to do with Internet marketing. Well, keep on reading and you’ll find out.

Do you remember the old days of Internet marketing? I do. I remember things like pixel ads and banners. Well, pixel ads may be dead (and I doubt they’ll come back) but take a good look at banner advertising. It isn’t what it used to be. People have developed a sort of banner blindness. Well, did you ever think that part of the reason is that we’ve stopped using our imaginations when it comes to creating banners? I mean let’s face it, we don’t think banners really work that well anymore so why bother?

So here’s a proposal I’m going to make. Why not get a hold of a really top notch graphic designer and think up a cool banner campaign. I’m not going to try to come up with ideas here because, for starters, I have no idea what you’re selling. But let’s say, for example, you’re selling some kind of an acne cure. How about coming up with a banner where some guy is shooting acne medicine out of a dart gun at some kid’s face, exploding into particles of acne curing medicine. Okay, it’s a little corny, but it will certainly attract attention.

And banner advertising is just one thing that’s sort of come and gone. There are many forms of advertising that have taken a backseat to the more “hip” forms like Adwords and article marketing. However, by injecting some new life into these other forms, and maybe coming up with some fresh ideas, they can be made new again. Lots of people say squeeze pages are dead. Well, maybe it’s because they all look the same. How about going back to that old style squeeze page of years ago? For that matter, why not try one that actually looks like a regular snail mail letter? I know one marketer who has actually done this. Looked pretty cool if you ask me.

Point is, just because something is old doesn’t mean that it’s useless. With a little sprucing up, you can turn that old advertising tactic into a sure fire sale busting campaign.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

I’ll tell you, anytime ClickBank updates their terms of service and makes affiliates read them, it brings out all the paranoia. The latest seems to be ClickBank’s clarification, or lack thereof, on offering incentives when promoting an affiliate product. Suddenly, you have all these affiliates screaming that they can’t offer bonuses anymore. Okay folks, that is NOT what ClickBank is saying. So let me clear this up right here and now.

ClickBank specifically says, in its TOS, that an affiliate may not offer any incentives such as rebates, coupons or cash incentives when promoting a product as an affiliate. It says nothing about offering an eBook as a bonus for purchasing through your affiliate link. And the ironic part is, this section is not even a new part of their TOS. It has been in their since the beginning of time. You’ve never been able to offer rebates, coupons or cash incentives when promoting their products. But intangible goods, such as eBooks or even a membership to your site, are perfectly acceptable.

So for example, let’s say you’re promoting a ClickBank product that shows the customer how to play blackjack at the casinos. You want to get a jump on all the other affiliates, so you offer, as a bonus, your own book on how to play roulette and slots. Since these are other games that many gamblers play, in addition to blackjack, there is a very good chance that they will buy the ClickBank product from you in order to get those bonuses. This is perfectly legit. If you have any doubts, call up ClickBank and ask. You can get it straight from the horse’s mouth.

I’m not going to try to even speculate as to why ClickBank doesn’t allow rebates, coupons or cash incentives, even if the money is coming from your own pocket. The point is, that’s what it says in their TOS and that’s the end of it. Don’t do it. However, there is nothing wrong with offering that eBook you have, as long as you have the right to offer it, as an incentive. I do this with many of the products that I promote.

In fact, what you might want to do in order to really seal the deal is to write up a review of the product first, so that the prospect can get a decent idea of what they’ll be getting and THEN, at the end of the review, offer your eBook as a bonus if they purchase from you. This is a perfectly ethical bribe and one that many of the top affiliate marketers use. Okay, got it? You CAN offer eBooks as bonuses when promoting a ClickBank product.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

Do you drink while you work? I know this sounds like an odd question, but after you read this article, you will understand why I’m asking it. I’m not suggesting that you take up drinking. No, not at all. But if you did drink, there would be nothing wrong with having a little nip while on the job. Okay, I guess it’s about time I explained to you where I’m going with all this.

Let’s face it, working at our home business can be a real drag, especially in the early stages when we’re not making much money, if any at all. I don’t care how much you enjoy something. When you’re not getting anywhere, it’s not a lot of fun. Believe me, I know. When I first started almost seven years ago, it took me five months just to make my first $28. If I wasn’t drinking then I was certainly considering opening up a bottle and drowning my sorrows in it. But I don’t drink and don’t plan on starting.

However, there are things you can substitute for that bottle that might just make the grind of running your own home business a lot more tolerable. And no, I’m not talking about ingesting other intoxicating substances that may or may not be legal. I’m talking about things like popping in a CD while you’re working and listening to some music. Me? I’ll go to Pandora Radio and pick a group to start. From there, they fill in the rest of the playlist. And let me tell you…it goes on for a LONG time.

Another great option for me is YouTube. There are many playlists on YouTube that you can choose from including making your own from your own favorites. As a matter of fact, if you’ve saved a number of videos like I have (all music) you can simply go to your favorites control panel and choose “Play All” and the whole bunch will play, one after another. When you’ve got hundreds saved like I do, that playlist can last you throughout the day with NO problem.

Maybe you’re not into music. Still, there are other things that you can have going on in the background that can keep you entertained while you’re doing your work. Maybe you’re into standup comedy. YouTube has plenty of channels of standup comedians that you can listen to all day if you like.

My point is this. If you’re doing something while you’re working, something that you REALLY enjoy, it will make the work day go a lot faster and also make it a lot more enjoyable. Now that I’m making a living doing this, I actually enjoy my work. Still, I’ll pop in a CD from time to time just to brighten up the workday a little. Try it sometime. You just might find that it makes YOUR workday go a lot faster too.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of all the home business scams? Want one that will really deliver on its promises? Read my totally unbiased review of Carbon Copy PRO at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-carbon-copy-pro.html and get yourself a home business that is all substance.

Somebody started a thread at the Warrior Forum today asking if the economy really was bad. It got me thinking of all the self fulfilling prophecies in the world. When it comes to Internet marketing failure, many times, we are our own worst enemies. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about and why I am totally convinced that IM failure can be avoided, no matter how bad the economy is, keep reading. I think you will find this to be one fascinating article.

First of all, let me explain why I truly believe that the bad economy is a self fulfilling prophecy. In a nutshell, somebody in the government declares that we are heading for a recession. We’re not sure why. But they say we are and that’s good enough for us. So we change our spending habits. We don’t buy as much. Then companies have to start laying off people because sales are down. And the downward spiral continues. Yes, it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Okay, so how do we avoid this as Internet marketers? After all, if the economy does start going down the toilet thanks to our fears, how do we keep people buying our products? There is only one way, and it’s something I’ve been trying to get across to marketers from day one. You have to have something to sell that people are going to want no matter how bad things get. I’m not just talking about the necessities like food and shelter. I’m talking about the things that, if we didn’t have them, our lives wouldn’t be as pleasant. You know, the little luxuries that we can’t live without.

For example, could you give up your cable TV subscription even if things were really bad? Of course not. Heck, I see families on welfare at the supermarket with their coupons but wouldn’t you know it, they’re talking to the checkout girl telling her how they have to get home to watch the latest episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO. Okay, as a cable subscriber, I know how much this stuff costs monthly. And then these same people hop into their brand new Toyota and make their way towards their $150,000 home.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Point is, no matter how bad things get, people will keep spending money on the things that really mean the most to them. So, are you selling ebooks on how to have nice gardens? Forget it. In times of crisis, these things are NOT going to sell. They’re just not important enough. BUT…if you have an ebook on how to get out of debt quickly and easily, these same people who are just about able to pay for food are going to be jumping at the chance to pick up your product. They, more than anyone, need it…desperately.

So, if you want to beat the self fulfilling prophecy of economic chaos, offer something that is going to sell no matter how bad things get.

You’ll find that the lousy economy doesn’t set one foot in your front door.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to make money TODAY without spending a DIME? Check out my site at http://www.hottrendsdaily.com/ and find out how.

I was chatting with a business associate the other day and we started talking about a promotional idea. I thought it sounded pretty good and felt that my list would like to know about it. He suggested that I send them an email warning them that another email would be coming in a few days and to look out for it. This got me thinking about the pros and cons of pre warnings when it comes to email marketing. I think you will find this interesting reading. Ultimately, you will need to test to see what works best for you.

Let’s begin with the pros because these are fairly obvious. One thing you need to understand is that the people on your list have busy lives. Not everything they do revolves around waiting for your emails, as much as we’d like to think that’s true. So, it is quite possible that when sending out a promotion, on that particular day, they just might not get around to opening it. Maybe they’re out of town. Maybe they just didn’t turn on their computer that day. Thus, by warning them in advance that an email is coming on a certain day, they can mark that day on the calendar and get themselves ready for it. This could very well increase your open rate on that day.

Okay, the pros of pre warnings seem quite obvious. In fact, it would seem that there are no cons to sending these pre warnings. But there are. See, with many lists, especially those in the “make money online” niche, people can be very skeptical and jaded. Another Internet marketer, when receiving that email about this great opportunity that you’re going to tell them about on Wednesday (it’s now Sunday) is going to immediately think, “Why can’t you just tell me about it now? Why the big buildup?” Ultimately, their hype meter is going to go off and they’re going to feel like they’re being sold a bill of goods. The chances of them buying this product, let alone opening the email, are slim to none. You’ve already lost them.

How many of each type are you going to get? There is really no way of knowing until you test it out. Send one email without a pre warning about a certain product. Then, send another promotion with the pre warning. See which one gets a higher open rate. For me personally, the pre warning works very well, but that’s got a lot to do with the people on my list. They, for whatever reason, trust me and respect me. If your people feel the same way about you, then you should also get decent results.

But the only way you’re going to find out is to test it.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly.

How much misinformation does it take to ruin your Internet marketing career? No, this isn’t the question to some stupid riddle, though I could probably think of plenty of clever and witty answers. This is actually very serious stuff and an issue that needs to be dealt with because misinformation is literally destroying millions of IM careers. Yours may even be one of them. This article is going to dive into this issue and come up with some answers, including the answer to the question put forth.

Okay, so how much misinformation DOES it take to ruin your IM career? Well, it depends on the nature of the misinformation. For example, let’s take something that is very serious. For example, let’s say the misinformation that you get from whatever source it is, is that spamming is legal. Now imagine you go through all the trouble that spammers go through to get proxy IP addresses and all that other fancy stuff and then proceed to send out 1 million emails. Suddenly, your caught and sent to jail. Yes, it’s happened. In this case, that one piece of misinformation not only ruined your IM career, but your whole life.

What about the little piece of misinformation about there being a duplicate content penalty. In case you’ve missed it, Google has completely debunked this whole theory. There is no such thing as duplicate content and there is certainly no penalty for it. However, if you were to buy into this piece of misinformation, you might spend countless hours rewriting your content in order to “appease” the search engines. While this certainly won’t “ruin” your IM career in itself, by spending time doing something that SHOULD have been spent doing something more productive, you’re reducing the income that you could have made. Over the long haul, depending on your debt and other factors, this could actually play a significant role in hurting your business.

Usually, one piece of misinformation in itself won’t ruin a career, unless of course it’s something like the spam example I gave above. The problem is, there is so much misinformation floating around the Internet that the chances of any one person falling for only one piece of it is very unlikely. I myself, when I first started out about 7 years ago, fell for at least three or four pieces of misinformation. This seriously stagnated my income for months. It wasn’t until I was set straight on those things that I started to see some real results.

The problem is…how do we KNOW what’s misinformation and what’s not? The honest answer to that is we don’t. We don’t until we test it out and find out for ourselves. However, there are things we can do to help avoid making critical mistakes. One of them, and my favorite, is just to go to the Warrior Forum and ask the real experts. Tell them what you’re thinking of doing and ask their opinion. The ones who know (you will recognize their names if you’ve been around a while) will tell you under no uncertain terms if what you’re thinking of doing is going to help your business or send it down the trash heap.

When in doubt, ask. Somebody brand new might truly believe that spamming is okay if one person tells them that it is. Before you do something that your gut tells you is wrong, get a few more opinions.

It just might save more than just your IM career.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

One of the toughest things about being a work at home mom or dad is working around the needs of your children. Naturally, depending on how old they are, these needs can be quite time consuming. It can literally be next to impossible to get any work done. Well, being a former work at home dad with small child, this advice is coming from years of experience. I think you will find it helpful.

Let’s start with the child who’s still in the crib or playpen, or both for that matter. These small toddlers or infants do a lot of sleeping. And they also do a lot of crying and need a lot of attention when they’re awake. There is just no way around this fact. So what you need to do is plan your work day accordingly. When the kids are up, you take care of them…plain and simple. When the kids are asleep, or sufficiently taken care of, you get to work. My advice is not to waste a moment of that time. This requires a lot of discipline. If you can get a feel for when your child is sleeping, make a schedule around it. That way you’ll know when you can get your work done each day. Once you get into a routine, you will find that you get a lot more done.

What if your children are older and essentially able to take care of themselves, but for whatever reason, seem to need you for something or another. You know how kids can be. It seems like every minute of the day there’s a crisis. This is especially true with kids who have homework from school. Seems that they can’t get it done unless they have you hovering over them to give them the answers. In this case, you need to make it perfectly clear to your child that during these hours of he day (you set the hours) you are working. They are to pretend that you are out of the house and in an office. When you “get home” you will help them with their homework or whatever problem they are having.

One way to make sure that kids don’t become a distraction, especially the older ones, is to set your office up downstairs in the basement or in a room that they wouldn’t normally go into. This way, you’re not distracted by the usual things like the TV or stereo blasting. And if it’s so loud that you can hear it from where you are, then it’s time to lay down the law and have the darn thing turned down. Remember, YOU are the boss of the house.

Finally, and this is the most important thing, especially with the older children, because THEY will get it. Explain to them under no uncertain terms that if you DON’T get your work done, you don’t make money and thus, won’t be able to pay the bills and keep a roof over their head and food in their stomach. That will certainly strike a chord with them, especially if you tell them that it also means no more cable TV or video games. Watch and see how quickly they leave you alone when they realize their own quality of life is going to be severely affected.

Try the above with your kids and see how it works. If it doesn’t, you can always consider moving to Siberia.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of all the home business scams? Want one that will really deliver on its promises? Read my totally unbiased review of Carbon Copy PRO at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/internet-marketing/review-of-carbon-copy-pro.html and get yourself a home business that is all substance.

It amazes me how many marketers tell me that the reason they haven’t taken action yet is because they’re afraid to fail. Actually, I’m amazed that they’d even admit this publicly. Most people will just make up some other excuse. Well, if you’re one of those folks who is paralyzed with fear, this article is going to share some advice that just might get you over your fears. This is coming from somebody who, at one time, was afraid of just about everything.

Naturally, everybody is going to have a different situation, but for most marketers, it’s that fear of finding their first affiliate product and going about promoting it. What kind of advertising do you use? Do you build a squeeze page? Do you build a list? Do you do CPA? Do you use pay per click? What affiliate product do you even choose? The questions go on and on. And yes, the options can become overwhelming and, for some people, paralyzing simply because there are so many variables that it makes the possibility for failure that much greater.

Trust me, I know. More things can go wrong with a promotional campaign than can go right…at least at the start. So how do you overcome this fear? It’s really very simple. Make a list of all the variables and turn it into a game. Make a goal to achieve at least 50% of those variables executed correctly. You’re not shooting for total success right off the bat. For example, concentrate on building a squeeze page that actually gets opt ins first. Don’t worry about whether the product converts or not. You can always promote a different product to your list if the first one bombs out. But get that list building process down right to begin with.

As you continue the process, step by step, you will begin to see that all the pieces start to fit together and work well. And the best part is, you didn’t have to get it all right the first time through. See, too many people look at success and failure as an all or nothing thing. It’s not. There are varying degrees of success. And there is nothing wrong with taking it one degree at a time. Look at it this way. If you’re going for 100% success and you even manage just 10% per month, within 10 months, you have a successful business. The key is NOT to make it an all or nothing proposition.

One last thing, and this should really be the deal breaker. What’s the worst that can happen? We’re not talking about life and death here. You’re not fighting cancer. You’re trying to make money online. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that important, not really. If you keep it in perspective, you will begin to see that what you’re really afraid of is not failure but success.

But that’s another article for another time.

Now get off the pot and do something…TODAY!

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

From hanging out at the Warrior Forum, I hear a lot of complaining about ClickBank. The complaints range from how easy it is to get refunds to hop links not working. Marketers are claiming they’re losing money and fear that if they dump ClickBank there is no other way for them to make a living online. Well, I have news flash for you. ClickBank is NOT the only game in town. Keep reading if you want to find alternatives to your ClickBank nightmare.

Let me start off by saying that my ClickBank income this year is less than 50% of what it was last year. Why? Because I simply don’t use them that much anymore. There are other ways. One of those ways, if you’re a product creator, is to create your own in house affiliate program. Oh yeah, I know what you’re going to say. What about the ClickBank marketplace that gets you SO many affiliates? Here’s another news flash. It doesn’t…not by itself. You have to actively promote your affiliate program to get any decent gravity from ClickBank. It’s NOT a slam dunk.

With your own private affiliate program, you can CHOOSE the affiliates you want to promote your product. That way, you can keep out the spammers and other folks who just might make a mess out of your name and your brand. All it takes is one person to spam or write a less than honest review of your product to cause problems. And let’s face it, a lot of people who use ClickBank will go to ANY lengths to sell. Those are NOT the kind of people that YOU need.

Okay, but what about if you’re an affiliate marketer? Doesn’t ClickBank have the largest affiliate marketplace? Don’t they have the MOST products? Well, they have a lot of products. Did you ever look to see how many of them actually sell WELL? It’s a very small percentage. Truth is, there are way too many affiliates selling way too few products. This makes competition a nightmare unless you happen to latch onto one that nobody knows about yet. And trust me, that doesn’t last long.

There are many alternatives to affiliate marketing through ClickBank such as PayDotCom, Commission Junction, Shareasale, CPA programs (where you don’t even have to make a sale to get paid) and even AdSense. Put up a decent blog with some relevant content in an area where you’re not competing with millions of sites and you’d be surprised how much AdSense revenue you can make in one day. Or how about this? How about heading offline and helping some small business owners develop an online presence? You can make more money from one client than you can make in a year of ClickBank sales.

Point is, there is life after ClickBank. They are NOT the only game in town. Your livelihood does NOT depend on them. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of spinning your wheels trying to make a buck online? Visit the products page of my blog at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/products and get a 6 figure education for pennies.