Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

This has been a very strange week for me. I don’t even know how to describe it other than wow. So instead of trying to somehow prepare you for what you’re about to read, I’m just going to get right to it. I think you will find this article very interesting to say the least.

About three years ago, when I was just starting to make a name for myself, a very big name marketer contacted me for a JV. To be honest, I was completely surprised. I mean this person was a very big name. Well, the offer was simple. I create the product and his team would promote it. Simple enough.

Well, three months after initial contact, and after I had put a ton of work into the project, this big name marketer emails me and tells me that he has decided to back out of our agreement because he had been burned by another JV and thus wasn’t going to do JVs anymore. Three months of my work shot down the drain because of some other irresponsible person.

I was angry at first, but eventually forgot about it. I’ve since made a pretty good name for myself so, in the grand scheme of things, the whole incident was just no big deal. And that would have been the end of it.

But then today happened.

This same person who had approached me three years ago, this same person who had me work my tail off for months putting together a product, this same person who backed out of our deal and left me holding the bag, contacted me for yet another JV of a sort.

You can imagine the surprise on my face when I saw this email. Obviously, this person didn’t remember what he had done to me three years ago. Maybe he didn’t even realize who he was writing to since there was no greeting in the email other than “Hi.”

Well, I wrote back to this very successful, pompous windbag and reminded him of what he had done to me three years earlier and if he wanted to do some kind of a JV that it would have to benefit ME and that there would have to be a signed contract so that I could bring it to a lawyer should he decide to back out again.

Naturally, I don’t expect this person to respond to my email. And while maybe he doesn’t need me anymore than I need him, he lost an opportunity to add a little to his bottom line.

Now, imagine if he did this to a considerable number of people. Then we’re talking about maybe a significant amount of income lost.

If you haven’t gotten the lesson in this article, let me spell it out clearly.

When you burn bridges, there is no going back…because people DON’T forget.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

I really have to wonder either how stupid some Internet marketers are or how gullible they think the buying public is…especially if that buying public consists of OTHER Internet marketers. I mean, we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday. We DO have some brains in our heads. Well, some of us do anyway. If you’re wondering what the hell I’m going on about, keep reading this article because this has to be one of the stupidest cons I have yet to see in over seven years online.

If you are familiar with the ClickBank marketplace (and who isn’t?) then you know that each product in the marketplace has a gravity assigned to it. This gravity indicates approximately how many affiliates have made at least one sale of that product in a 90 day period. Simple enough, right? Well, currently, the top product at the Clickbank marketplace in the make money category has a gravity of about 1200. That means 1200 affiliates have made at least one sale in the last 90 days. That means that this product has sold at least 1200 units.

Well, if you take a good look at the sales page, it says that only 234 of these will be sold.

Huh?

Does anybody besides me see the problem here? If this was outside of the make money niche I could understand then thinking that customers would figure out that this was false scarcity. But when you’re marketing to your own kind, you HAVE to know that they’re going to read right through this. No, the lesson here isn’t that if you’re going to lie make sure you do it to people too stupid to know it, though, at the very least, that should be at the top of your “don’t do these moronic things” list. The lesson here is that eventually, and I don’t care how long it takes, these cons are going to catch up to you.

And if your punishment doesn’t come on this planet, it will certainly come in the afterlife. In other words, you’re going to hell missy.

I know a lot of people are going to laugh this article off as some sort of attempt at humor. But make no mistake about it, if stuff like this continues, eventually this profession is going to get such a bad rap that it’s going to literally self destruct. And then we’re ALL going to be looking for 9 to 5 jobs again.

Think about it before you put up some stupid sales page that is obviously a big bold lie.

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.

If you’re as old as me, or older, you probably remember the Star Trek series from the 60s and then all the ones that came after it. Even if you’re not as old as me, you’d have to have lived under a rock not to have heard of one of the most popular franchises of all time. And you’re probably wondering what you could possibly learn from Star Trek. What does this show have to do with Internet marketing? Directly, nothing. But there is a HUGE Internet marketing lesson here for those insightful enough to see it. If you’re still scratching your head wondering what it is, keep reading…you’ll find out.

The original Star Trek series, commonly referred to as TOS (not to be confused with Terms of Service) was not a big hit. It lasted all of three seasons. Ratings were down as the show progressed and the network finally decided it was time to pull the plug, in spite of the many protests and letters from the few loyal fans that they had. Star Trek was dead after just three years on the air.

But then something strange happened. Some stations, particularly WPIX in New York, saw the appeal in the show and started to syndicate it. Interest in the old series started up again. The creators saw this and decided to make a feature movie. While the first Trek film wasn’t all that great, it did well at the box office and another film, “The Wrath Of Khan” followed. This film, arguably was what put Star Trek back on the map. Suddenly, this old cult favorite was a smash hit.

So the creators decided to come up with another Star Trek series, The Next Generation, which lasted for many seasons. It was a huge success. Other Star Trek series followed including Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise, which was actual a prequel to the original series. Other films were made, including the most recent by the creator of Lost. Suddenly, you looked up and the Star Trek franchise was a monster success, spawning toys, games, cards and a whole list of products.

All this from a show that was pronounced dead over 40 years ago.

Okay, you’re probably wondering what the lesson is. Well here it is. If you have a good product, which the original Star Trek series was, it doesn’t matter how good it is if it’s not marketed properly. The networks dropped the ball on the original series because they didn’t market it well enough. It was a show ahead of its time so they figured there was just not enough demand for it. How wrong they were.

Sure, you’re going to have your failures…products that nobody REALLY wants. But before you throw in the towel on your child, give it a fair chance to survive. Promote it with all you’ve got. Don’t go down without a fight.

Because you’ll never know when you’ve got a Star Trek on your hands just waiting to make you a fortune.

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.

This article is going to do something that a lot of people don’t like doing…think. But every once in a while, I think it’s good to think. Well, here’s what I want you to think about today. Does what you do as an Internet marketer mean a hill of beans? Does it REALLY matter? Not sure? Well, if you’re not, you might want to read what’s about to follow. If nothing else, it WILL get you thinking…even if it’s something that you don’t like doing.

Let me start off by saying this much so that it doesn’t sound like I’m trying to make anybody feel guilty about being an Internet marketer, though sometimes we’re lumped into the same category with lawyers and used car salesmen. Truth is, whether we like it or not, self preservation is probably our greatest driving force. Most people, unless they’re in a lot of pain or horribly depressed, don’t want to die and, if push came to shove, would do just about anything to survive. Well, part of surviving is making enough money to at least put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. Okay, so there is nothing wrong with earning a living. We all have to do it.

Ah…but at what cost? How far are we willing to go? More importantly, how far do we HAVE to go? Can’t we, as Internet marketers, actually sell a product or service that actually helps our customers? We should. But do we? And that’s what I want to get you thinking about today. Take a look at your business model. Take a look at the products and/or services you sell. Do they REALLY make a difference in somebody’s life? Can you look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Somebody who buys my product is going to be better off today than they were yesterday?”

For that matter, do you even know? Have you ever REALLY sat down to think about the products and/or services you sell? Or are they just things to you…a means to an end? If that’s all we’re doing, just picking any old thing that’s going to put that much needed food on the table, then why don’t we at least sell something BIG. I mean what the heck…if it’s just a sale for money’s sake, go for the big stuff. If you’re in the “make money” niche, the heck with those cheap ebooks. Sell a $1,997 home study course. If you’re just out to make money, make MONEY.

Sounds kind of mercenary doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Most of the products I sell are in the $27 to $47 range. Why? Because they’re good products and I believe in them. I’ve never sold one of those inflated $1,997 courses because I just don’t believe in them. I think most of the really good stuff is actually pretty cheap. But that’s just my opinion.

By no means am I here to be your conscience. You have to do what YOU have to do. Like I said, self preservation is right up there at the top of the list. But if you feel like it, sit down and ask yourself this question…

“Does what I do mean a hill of beans?”

If the answer is yes, it just might make you feel pretty darn good.

To YOUR Success

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people who run a home business is that there is too much information out there and that they’re suffering from information overload. Well, they’ll get no argument from me on this one. There IS a lot of information out there and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. However, you don’t have to suffer from info overload. This article will help you get through it.

There are a number of steps you can take that will make the assimilation of information easier on the brain. Of course if these don’t work, there’s always aspirin. The first step is to take a look at your business and see what it is that you feel you need to learn. Maybe you want to build a web site but don’t know anything about HTML. Maybe you want to learn how to write a sales letter. Put all the things that you feel you need to learn on a list and number it from one to whatever.

After you’ve done that, take the item that you feel is the most important to learn and start working on it. Pretend that there isn’t anything else but that one thing to learn. As you are working on this one item, you want to further break IT down into sections because you don’t want to learn it all at once. Your brain can only contain so much at a time. So take a little piece each day and get as much as you can out of that ONE piece as possible. With web design, it may be something as simple as figuring out how to use your HTML editor.

When you have completely learned that first item, master it. Make sure that you can actually do what it is you set out to learn. Reading through a book means nothing if you can’t apply the principles in it. So, for example, if you’ve just learned PPC, set up a small PPC campaign and see if you can get it to be somewhat profitable. It doesn’t have to make you a fortune. Even if it makes you just a little money, that’s fine. At least you’ve gotten to see that the principles you’ve learned you’ve actually LEARNED and know how to apply. Book smarts mean nothing.

After you’ve convinced yourself that the item on your list has been sufficiently learned, cross it off and move on to the next item. Continue to do this until all the items on your list are crossed off. Now obviously, as time goes on, you will add new items to the list. That’s fine. Just continue to do what you’re doing. The key is, don’t move onto the NEXT item until you’ve finished the one before it.

If you follow this simple plan, you should never have to suffer from information overload again.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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You hear all this talk about all the many different ways to make money online. You’d think that you had an infinite number of options available to you. The truth is, there are only five distinct ways to make money online. Everything else is just a variation of those ways in some form or another. This article is going to briefly cover those five ways and then you can pick out the one that you feel best suits you.

At the top of the list for most people is selling a product or a service. This product can be anything from an ebook to an actual physical product. The service can be anything from providing autoresponder functionality, such as a company like Aweber or Get Response to auto submitting articles for Internet marketers. Sites like Isnare are huge in that market. The advantages of selling a product or service are numerous. Probably the most obvious one is that you only have to create it one time and can then sell it for as long as there is a demand for it.

Another way to make money online is by working an actual job such as a transcriptionist, computer programmer and so on. By working a job, you are guaranteed a pay check every single week whereas with selling a product or service, there is no guarantee that you will ever make any money at all. On the flip side of this equation, finding a job online is not easy. And even if you DO find one, unless you’re given a raise, that’s all you’re going to make no matter how hard you work.

Then of course there is freelancing. This is where you contract out your skills such as if you’re a copywriter, article writer, graphic designer and so on. There big difference between freelancing and working a job is that as a freelancer, you choose how much to charge and you take on the jobs you want and pass on the jobs you don’t want. But in both cases, you are essentially working a job. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So freelancing does have its downside.

Number four on my hit parade is the Adsense, CPA model. Essentially, this is where you drive traffic to your site and hope people click on your offers for which you get paid regardless of whether the person buys anything or not. That is the big advantage with this model. You can earn money even if you don’t sell anything. On the downside, this model doesn’t pay a lot per lead. You have to get quite a few of these clicks in order to make anything substantial.

Finally there is what I call the “junk” methods. These involve things like taking online surveys, trying out offers, for which you get paid, and so on. The advantage of these methods is that they are numerous to say the least. You can always find something along these lines to make a few bucks off of. The downside is that they don’t pay much at all and many of these offers aren’t even legit. Finding the good ones is sometimes very hard.

There you have it. Those are essentially the five ways to make money on the Internet. Anything else is just a variation on these themes. Pick out the one that you think is best for you. Or you can do more than one. I do and between the various income models, I make a nice living. It’s just a matter of managing your time well.

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.

Today’s tip is kind of an odd one but it is one that I’ve given a lot of thought to after seeing what’s been going on the last few years online. I don’t make these decisions lightly either. But it’s become painfully obvious to me that the best tip I could give you right now is this.

Let’s kill all the Internet marketers.

Okay, seriously (no, we’re not going to kill anybody. I’d never survive in jail) let’s take a look at the problem and why something really needs to be done before this whole industry gets such a black eye, internally and externally, that there will be no recovering from it.

Let’s take externally first because it is the most obvious problem. Too many Internet marketers are for nothing more than the almighty dollar and they’ll do anything to get it. To that end, they’ll put up grossly exaggerated sales pages, create products that have no value, trick people into continuity programs and do a host of other shady things that I wouldn’t pull on my worst enemy, let alone a customer.

This one area alone is enough to sink the whole profession. If you think we don’t have a bad reputation, why is it that the FTC finally stepped in and said “ENOUGH” to the tune of clamping down on affiliates and merchants alike? This action didn’t just come out of thin air. We screwed the pooch big time and now SOMEBODY has got to clean up the mess.

But the problem doesn’t just end with how we treat customers. How we treat each other is just as bad. Think I’m kidding? And no, I’m not talking about healthy competition. There is nothing wrong with that. If John Doe has a better product than you at a better price, he deserves to sell it and you deserve to go out of business. But this business of cookie stuffing (you know what I’m talking about) where honest affiliates are getting cheated out of commissions has got to stop. Will it? Not likely.

That’s why I say, in jest, that we need to kill all the Internet marketers. They’re giving IM a very bad name. Eventually, nobody will trust us and we won’t trust each other. As far as a real solution to the problem (no, we’re not killing anybody…I’ve already been over that) I don’t have one other than this…How about just acting like a responsible person and doing the right thing?

Neh…never happen.

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.

If you’re wondering what brought on this article today, don’t worry…I’m going to tell you. It was quite an eye opening experience having come in contact with some of the worst trash I’ve seen in seven plus years on the Internet. If you’re a product creator and want to know if your product sucks, but more importantly want to know how you can tell, you might want to read this article. That’s if you have the stomach for the truth.

Today, I got a PM from somebody at the Warrior Forum. They wanted me to look over their report and offer a testimonial. I agree to look at the report but told them that I would only provide a testimonial if the report met with my very high standards. Well, I read the report…all nine pages of it. Now granted, report length means very little. But when I read the report, it made no difference as to the length. The report was so basic that a first year marketer would have probably refunded it. Things that SHOULD have been in it were left out and what WAS in it was so worthless without the needed info that was omitted that the report itself was worthless.

I don’t think the person who wrote the report and sent it to me for review appreciated my comments. I’ve yet to hear back from them as of this writing.

Okay, so the report was crap. Great. But how can you tell if you’re the writer and what can you do to fix the problem? There is only one way. What you need to do is get a hold of a similar product, one that has gotten some glowing reviews, and see what’s in it. Does yours stack up? Is it as in depth? Is it as well written? Is the price that you’re charging for it comparable? Even if your report is good, if you’re charging 10 times what the competition is charging, you’re not going to make many sales.

Product creation requires researching the competition, plain and simple. You can’t create things in a vacuum. For one thing, how can you possibly have any idea of how good your product is if you have NO idea what the rest of the world is producing in YOUR niche? Just because YOU think something is great (all our children are great, right?) doesn’t mean that the rest of the world is going to agree. You have to learn to be objective about your work.

I hope the person who sent me their report to look at learned something from my rather blunt comments. I’d rather hurt somebody’s feelings than have them make a fool of themselves in the marketplace.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Know what I haven’t seen as much of as I used to? The giveaway. I mean I used to get pounded with those things almost on a weekly basis. Somebody had gotten together a dozen or so of his friends and they were giving everything away but the kitchen sink. Really makes you wonder what they had left to sell. So a lot of people are probably asking if giveaways are dead. Well, read this article for the not so simple answer to this simple question. It just may surprise you.

Okay, are you ready? Yes, giveaways as we know them are pretty much dead. Pull the sheet over its head and bury it with a chorus or two of “Danny Boy.” All kidding aside, the world we live in has undergone a lot of changes. People are more discriminating and skeptical than ever. Blame it on the scammers, the dot com bust or anything you want. Point is, folks just don’t buy into things as easily as they used to. At least not the “make money online” niche.

But it’s not the giveaway itself that’s dead. It’s giving away stuff that has no real value. You can’t just slap a 7 page report together on some obscure topic and call it a giveaway. Well, you could. But it’s really more of a throwaway as that’s all it’s really good for. Sure, people may opt in to your list to get it. But do you really think that after they read that piece of crap that they’re ever going to buy anything from you? I know I wouldn’t.

So what we need is a mindset shift. Instead of giving junk away in the hopes that we get somebody to buy our worthwhile product, why not give away the worthwhile product and get people to buy a more expensive worthwhile product? What, you only have one worthwhile product in you? Then maybe you’re in the wrong niche. I can think of dozens of products I could create for a multitude of niches. All you need to do is sit down and think about all the different problems in that niche. Trust me, you’ll come up with something.

There is no question that it is getting harder to reach your target market as far as offering them a freebie in the hopes that they’ll become a subscriber to your list. That doesn’t mean that the giveaway is dead by any stretch of the imagination.

It means YOU have to change the way you think about doing them.

That’s the ONLY way to bring them back to life.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Everybody talks about the 4 hour work week. The truth is, it doesn’t exist. Not really. I know, you’re going to show me examples of people who work even less than 4 hours a week. I’m sure there are plenty. I work less than 4 hours a week now, but I still don’t have a 4 hour work week. If you’re confused, don’t worry. By the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll understand where I am going with this.

The world loves to wrap everything up in a nice, neat, little package. That way, they can make order out of all the chaos. So, we get up at 7, have breakfast at 7:30, start work at 8, work our one hour, and then spend the rest of the day at the arcades, or wherever. We do this 4 days a week and take Friday through Sunday off. It’s all nice and neat and orderly.

Problem is, we don’t live in a nice, neat and orderly world. We live in a world of chaos where stuff happens. Do you really think that your sites are going to be up 24/7 and will never go down? Do you really think that you’re not going to have a day where you’re on the phone with your hosting company for two hours just to try to straighten out the mess? What about the email you have to write to your subscribers to let them know why they can’t access the member’s area? And what about all your JV partners who were hoping to send out a promotion to their list today? Better let them know what’s going on too.

Point I’m trying to make is simple. Stuff happens. You will have days where there is nothing to do and then you will have days where all hell breaks lose and you’ve put in a full 8 hour day. At the very least, you’ve killed 2 or 3 hours of your 4 hour work week. What are you going to do…ask the world to stop living for the next 3 days so you can have your nice, neat, orderly existence back? Good luck with that.

When you reach the point where you don’t have to work 8 hours a day everyday, you will still find that there are days when things just have to get done and they can’t get done in your one hour allotment. Yes, you may actually have to work 2 or 3 hours that day. And maybe even work 8 hours for the whole week. I work about 6 hours for 2 weeks each month. Sometimes a little longer, but not much. It all depends on what has to get done.

So do yourself a favor. If you’re striving for that 4 hour work week, please understand that it isn’t going to be as neat and tidy as you would like it to be.

Because the world just doesn’t work that way.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to have your own 4 hour work week? Let me personally show you how at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.