So its been a while since I last posted as I have suffered a minor setback in my Internet venture, which has namely been a relocation move with my existing job. In the meantime I trust everyone had a Merry Christmas and hopefully is not still on a Turkey diet!

In a nutshell I have moved to Birmingham (from London) for a placement for approximately 18months. The benefits being that I will have a lot more time to spend on leisure and more importantly my Internet venture as I have moved away from a crowded commute on the tube to a short walk to work (which is bliss!).

The downside is that I never knew how difficult it would be, and what a lengthy process, to get the internet set up!! After getting messed around and made to wait by 2 seperate providers, which I will decline to name at this stage, I have finally gone back to BT and got the internet sorted after about 2 months!! Who would have thought it would be so difficult to connect a few wires and provide a service…..

The effect of this has meant that with relying on a desktop and without a laptop, something I have now rectified, and the work Internet bars I have been able to do very little on my internet business. However much of a setback this is it has given me the time to get properly settled and also to take stock of where I am, how far I have come and also to actually read and digest some of the numerous products that I have previously bought so I can combine the teachings with what Alex has taught me. So I will be fighting fit and raring to go for 2010….

First though I thought I would briefly recap on what I achieved in 2009:

• Several holidays and trips – Dublin, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Europe
• New Job (for now!)
• House move
• New Business (Internet Venture)
• New Mentor – Alex Jeffreys
• Started a mailing list – 600 names and counting
• Launched 8 websites including this blog
• Earnt my first $’s online

Its only when I actually wrote it down that I have realised that all in all quite a bit has happened in my life including some significant events in this last year!!

So what does 2010 have in store……

At this stage I am drawing together my revised plans; business, entrepreneur and personal which I talked about in my early post Failing to Plan is Planning To Fail which I will publish on here in due course.

Safe to say stepping up my Internet venture will be critical for me next year as I look to replace my job income with one earned online so I can take the next step and give up working for someone else!

I hope that you will continue with me as I share my experiences both good & bad on this journey to online success and financial independence……

All that remains to say is thank you for your support and I wish you all a Happy New Year and the Best of Success for 2010!!

Tom

I have just spent the weekend at the O2 Arena at Andrew Reynolds Entrepreneurs Bootcamp 2009, which was an interesting event with some great speakers and authorities on topics such as Internet Marketing, Copywriting, Google Adwords, Direct Response Marketing, Ebay and Motivation.

The speakers over the 2 days were Andrew Reynolds himself plus Pat Mesiti, Adam Ginsberg, Armand Morin, Brett McFall, Kirt Christensen, Andy Harrington, Simon Coulson, Chris Howard, Tom Hua & Joel Comm. What a line up, safe to say that I learnt loads of useful tips and techniques, which I will share with you….

Day One

Pat Mesiti – Pat is a motivational speaker often referred to as “Mr Motivation”. As an income acceleration coach he harnesses people’s potential with his passion to equip and empower individuals and businesses to experience growth and prosperity to its fullest.

His key message was about shifting your mindset to build bigger results.
It’s an important message which often isn’t acted upon. If you are all that you want to be now then Congratulations! But for the rest of us who strive for something more then part of the reason that you haven’t got it yet is because your mindset is probably not where it needs to be and therefore you need to shift it.

“Where your focus is today your future is tomorrow”

Adam Ginsberg – An Ebay authority, regarded as the “No.1 Ebay Trainer in the World”, Adam helps get people started on Ebay and takes their business to the next level.

He offered insights into Ebay trends and statistics, perhaps the most significant of which was the growth of ‘Buy-It-Now’, which is now used by 50% of Ebay buyers, demonstrating that people on the internet want goods and services now. This just goes to show that Ebay can be a useful marketplace for information products (subject to meeting Ebay’s rules & regulations of course!) as people want things quickly.

Armand Morin – Armand was a particular highlight that I was looking forward to as he is one of the World’s best known Internet Marketers having been online for 13 years generating over $76M in that time! Certainly someone who would be able to teach me some useful techniques…

Armand’s main point was around the importance of long term relationships and recurring income.
He presented a simple 3 step system for success:
1) Find a ‘hungry’ mass market
2) Give away a free product or newsletter
3) Sell them a membership site

Evidently he talked around the importance of delivering good content and value as without this you are dead in the water, but based on Alex Jeffreys teaching and ethics and my approach this should be a given in any case.

Stripped down to its bare bones the system is simple yet so effective and will repay you over and over again.

I was fortunate enough to catch Armand for a chat in between one of the sessions and you can see a picture of me meeting him below. He offered further advice which I will cover in a separate post at a later date.

Brett McFall – Brett is a Copywriting Guru, widely acclaimed as Australia’s best direct response advertising writer. He is also co-founder of the World Internet Summit (with Tom Hua), the World’s largest IM seminar.

Brett divulged a useful 7 step formula for making money online GUARANTEED.
1) Find a hot niche market (the rest is easy!)
2) Create a product which gives your market what they want
3) Create a powerful, compelling sales message
4) Design a simple website that converts prospects into buyers
5) Bring Traffic to your site using the Internets’ best search engines (free & paid traffic)
6) Use e-mail to turn even more people into customers
7) Have an army of affiliates to sell your product

Again another simple system, yet useful as it lays out the steps in an easy manner and you can map your progress through them and into profit!

Kirt Christensen – Kirt is an Adwords Guru, with over a decades worth of experience as an Adwords Qualified Individual he talked extensively on how to achieve a high Adwords ROI.

He outlined a 5 step system to Adwords success:
1) Sell what people are buying
2) Do Adwords Right! (deliver quickly and obviously what people want)
3) Track, Track, Track
4) Testing
5) Funnelise and monetize

I know that a number of people have mixed feelings about PPC, and it’s a technique that I don’t currently employ, however its one that remains a key strategy for the future as PPC has virtually no feedback delay which means you can be in business in about 10 minutes starting to see results.

Hopefully this has proved an interesting summary of the first day of the event, let me know your thoughts on the information thus far as it is just scratching the surface of my notes. I will post about Day Two later this week.

So I am back from yet another holiday, travelling round Europe where I took in Oktoberfest (at least what I can remember of it!!) and its time to pick up the reigns where I left off and continue my education and journey online.

One interesting piece of breaking news that looks to be very pertinent in the online world and will affect a number of us, particularly those who are active in PPC, was highlighted by Ryan Deiss over at drivingtraffic.com:

It’s official!

Microsoft have today announced that they have struck a deal to power Yahoo’s search, while at the same time Yahoo will be powering paid ads on Bing.com (Microsoft’s new search platform…formerly known as MSN).

Full details here:

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx

…and here:

http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx

So why is this good news for us marketers?

It’s simple. With Yahoo and Microsoft now a team, Google finally has some competition in the search market. This means:

1. Ad costs may go down, and…
2. Google may stop being such enormous jerks to their advertisers (which could mean less “Google Slaps”)

Obviously this is just my speculation, and the deal doesn’t go final until 2010 so don’t expect anything to change overnight, but competition is (almost) always a good thing for consumers, so for now, at least, I’m cheering this deal.

Comment below and let me know what you think…

-Ryan

———————————————————————————————–

You can read Ryan Deiss’s original article here: 
http://drivingtraffic.com/microsoft-and-yahoo-challenge-google/

Thanks to Ryan for the scoop and simplifying what it actually means.

I for one am yet to delve into paid traffic (PPC) just yet, mainly as I am still establishing my foundations and leveraging free techniques, whilst I must admit that I have been put off by some horror stories of increasingly expensive clicks and ‘Google Slaps’, however with this new news it certainly is something on the agenda to visit in the future, which I’m sure I will blog about in due course…..

I would be interested to hear of your experinces or views on the merger or PPC so please feel free to leave your comments below.

Hello again everyone, its been a while as I have been away on holiday, which has given me plenty of time to reflect back on what I have learned thus far and to refine my plans and strategies for online success.

Whilst I am still relatively new to online business, I have been learning diligently with some of the best guys out there, particularly Alex Jeffreys as detailed in my earlier post Failing to plan is planning to fail.

So far it hasn’t been often that I am asked to review products online, usually I just get offers to promote the “next big thing” as an affiliate, but today this post is very unique.

I have been asked by one of my mentors, Ray Johnson, to review his brand new course, entitled “Adswap Masterclass”, which has been quite timely as I continue my development and quest to grow my list.

Adswap Masterclass by is a complete step-by-step video training course that teaches you how to set up a mammoth sized and more importantly profitable subscriber list in record time. (To the tune of 10,000 subscribers in under 10 weeks!)

===> http://www.tom-harvey.com/recommends/Adswap

Basically, in the era of immediate information, the course is web based and is made up of 10 training modules plus an array of extra good FREE stuff, like a 36 page FREE eBook in which, most of the teaching is done by Ray himself. The teaching is really easy! Like you were back in school, which I could actually relate to and enjoy.

Soon afterwards, Ray, follows up what he teaches you with step by step screen capture videos so you can look over his shoulder and learn how to actually apply what you’ve learned from the eBook.

The modules cover everything from the very basics of:

What an Adswap is…
How an Adswap works…
How to approach marketers for an Adswap…
How to build an Adswap database to CATAPULT the size and profits from your list…
Adswap instroductions to build your “network”
…and pretty much everything you need to know in order to have a EXTREMELY profitable
list built on FREE Adwaps…

Once you’ve grasped the basics in the eBook, the video series moves on to help you implement all the processes step by step, and is very detailed! There’s far too much to mention here.

I was pleased to find that this wasn’t just another out-dated course where the links don’t even work anymore. This is really cutting edge stuff, and Ray makes it possible for anyone to build a massive list fast, while making money money than you can handle.

It is an ideal complement to the free listbuilding report that you can grab from this blog (enter your details on the top right to get it sent straight over to you). But aside from all the fresh stuff, I think my favorite part is just knowing that I now have another string to my bow to help me succeeed now.

All I have to do is follow Ray’s easy advice.

The title ”Adswap Masterclass” is rather apt because it really is a masterclass in growing a huge list, whilst profiting fast:

===> Without spending a dime
===> Without travelling ther globe to seminars
===> Without getting frustrated from JV rejection

In all honesty, “Adswap Masterclass” gets a massive plus from me and I hope it’s still free when you read this so you can run over and snatch up a copy for yourself, you’d seriously be mad to miss it.

CLICK BELOW TO CHECK IT OUT NOW

===> http://www.tom-harvey.com/recommends/Adswap

 P.S. If you have experience of the course, please feel free to leave your comments.

I’m not going to be talking about the great ebook Newbies Nightmare by my mentor Alex Jeffreys, but more so 2 of the major problems that we face when starting out online.

 Technical Skills

Many people starting out online will be computer literate but not experienced webmasters, programmers or IT gurus. I fit into this category.

Therefore we may need to outsource tasks in order to avoid them taking far longer than necessary and to call on others expertise. Whilst I will talk in more detail about outsourcing at a later date as I develop more experience with the process and get some tangible evidence, I can assure you that it is not actually as expensive as it may seem!

Through being on Alex’s MWA2.0 Mentoring Program, I have made some useful contacts and had the benefit of  a bit of help through the forum and its at this point that I must pay thanks to a couple of fellow students….

Adam Spiel and his team over at Pro Host Management who have been extremely helpful in setting up both this blog site and my List Building with Alex PPP site. Granted I do pay for the service but they have been nothing but efficient and helpful and I would highly recommend their services.

Also Gene Ilten for his useful video on how to make a Blog Header for free. I have finally managed to create and upload one, even if it does only turn out to be temporary if I decide to opt for something different. Probably about 3 weeks overdue but at least we are now getting there!!

Now I’m not usually one to make fun of other people’s misfortune but please spare a thought (and have a laugh) for the following unfortunate soul, who evidently uploaded an Adwords campaign without pausing and checking it before it went live, something of a technical error I think!

Time

Now I’m sure that I won’t be the only person who struggles with time and time management, namely that there simply are not enough hours in the day!!

I work full time and enjoy going to the gym and socialising and in addition I am starting an internet business which I am building from scratch. 24 hours a day is not enough at this moment and that doesn’t even allow for the 5 hour MWA2.0 Webinars or even any sleep!

So what is the answer? Well through my research and previous purchasing I had come across a program called Wake Up Productive from renowned Guru Eben Pagan (of Altitude & Guru Mastermind fame).

The program claims to be able to double your productivity whilst taking more time off. Whilst I don’t want to necessarily buy into all the hype, there are some good free time management videos available here which I would recommend that you check out if you also face similar issues –  http://www.wakeupproductiveblog.com/2009/08/time-mgmt.php

The program is due to re-open shortly and I will be taking a look, anything that can help me organise my time and increase my efficiency is always good in my book. Especially as I can use it to complement my plans and move towards achieving my goals.

So I have decided to take the plunge and commence my journey to online success. I have bought many programs and products over the past 18 months and have not seen much progress, mainly due to ‘information overload’ and a lack of focus, so it is time to make a change and really go for it. So where do I start? what do I do? what do I need?

1. A Mentor

Enter Alex Jeffreys, my online mentor. I first came across Alex through some of the products that I had bought online and the mailing lists that I was subscribed to, and over a period of months saw and heard his name mentioned increasingly as somewhat of a rising star.

This guy seemed to have all the right connections, from training and mentoring under Rich Shefren and Mike Filsaime, to cruising and swapping ideas with Multi-Millionaires including Andrew Fox. I started to realise that this was an individual that could help me and someone that I would like to align myself with.

It was then that I received a message from Ray Johnson offering the opportunity to join Alex Jeffrey’s 2.0 Coaching Program, which I snapped up and am now taking the first steps with Alex and the other students to online business success.

2. A Plan

The first module of the coaching program was a scheduled 2 hour Webinar which ended up going on at least twice that length of time, and was packed full of great content and information. After that I knew I had made the right decision and was fired up!

The module talked about the importance of planning and how “An idiot with a plan is more likely to succeed than a genius without” (which I believe is a quote from T. Boone Pickens). Alex talked about having 3 seperate plans, your business plan, your entrepreneur plan and your personal plan. I have formulated these and will be posting them on my ‘About‘ page shortly.

3. Organisation – To-Do Lists (& Did Sheets)

With the over-riding plans in place, Alex stressed the importance of being organised and breaking the plans down into manageable chunks. These may be Quarterly, 90-day, Monthly, Weekly or Daily.

The key then would be to make to-do lists around these timescales which would formulate the stepping stones to reach the goals and the plan objectives.

He also recommended having ‘did’ sheets so you can monitor what you actually do on a daily basis and identify where any procrastination creeps in or any areas for improvement (eg. constant web browsing in a non-business essential manner, or frequent checking of e-mail).

4. A Pledge

The final part of the expansion of the mindset and to draw focus on what you are trying to achieve was to create a pledge to yourself, so that you can begin to be held accountable. My simple initial pledge is to spend a minimum of half an hour per day on personal development. This will be with a business focus and will consist of reading or learning around topics which I can use in my business.

With these core components in hand, I have a solid foundation for developing my business and I continue onwards in my quest for success and financial freedom….

Its taken a little while to get going but finally I have managed my first Blog post, this signals the beginning of my journey to online success!

I realised some time ago that you aren’t go to be successful and make enough money to achieve financial freedom working for someone else. After all, that is why they call it a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke)!

However lacking that one brilliant idea, or even a strating point for some of my ideas, I turned to the internet for inspiration. Over the past 18 months I have researched Internet businesses and opportunities and having spent many ‘000’s of $’s on products promising rapid success, have still not got very far.

However one thing has become clear, that I am not the only person in this situation, and that by enlisting the help of a mentor I can work towards overcoming these setbacks and the obstacles on the way to make a success of myself and my business and to help others do the same.

My name is Tom Harvey, I am 28 years of age, and I am a relative Internet newbie. I am embarking on an exciting new chapter and I look forward to charting my progress and sharing the journey with you!

To our success…..

Tom