Make Sure to Enjoy Some of Your Profits

I'm Finally Making Money What Should I Do?

In a previous Post "Keeping Your Online Biz Financially Afloat" I wrote about the proper use of budgeting your income vs. expenses to make sure your business survives and grows.  If you have not yet experienced a profit in your business where your income is exceeding your expenses, make sure to keep that article handy and refer to it so you stay on track.

Once you are "in profit" and your income is more than your expenses consistently each month, it's time to enjoy a little bit of your success.  After all, we are in business to make money for a reason right?  Each of us has a different reason, so I won't even try to guess what they all might be. No matter what that reason might be, I recommend taking a portion of your profits and rewarding yourself.

One method that you may want to consider is dividing your profits into percentages.  So for example, you may take a percentage each month as a reward, a percentage to use for your needs or goals, a percentage for savings and the remainder for reinvesting in your business.

Please make no mistake that I am not suggesting you take all of the profits out of your business.  You need to keep money in your business to keep it going strong and headed in the right direction.  Only you can know what these percentages might be.  Having a good mentor to help you "run the numbers" would be extremely beneficial.  Or, feel free to start a discussion on this blog post.  I'd love to hear from you.

To Your Success,

Bob Swetz
Rjs@Home

A Great Place to List Your Home Biz for Free

Spotlight on US Biz Find

In my opinion, Affiliate Marketing is not always about sharing a link to grab the next commission, which is why I am starting a new series on free, quality ad sites that I work with.

My first spotlight is on US Biz Find.  They offer free and paid listings on their website so all of us affiliate marketers out there can gain exposure for our sites and home businesses.  After all, that is what it is all about, gaining exposure for what we offer.  I have found these folks are quality people with a quality product.  Again, there are no commissions here, no affiliate links, just a great place to list and advertise your business.

Here is what they have to offer:

Memberships:
Premium Membership : $60/year all features enabled (top of category, home page, featured flag)

Promo membership
Free : users have to renew every 30 days, enhancements are free.  Users must have US Biz Find banner/badge on site for length of time their ad is under this listing type.  Users can create a free account then notate while creating account they are interested in the promo membership.  Users must also give reason why they want the promo membership upon registration.  We'll send them the materials needed and once their listing is active, we'll enable enhancements free of charge.

Listings:
Free : Users have to renew every 30 days.  enhancements are extra $5/month for Home page, $1 for Featured flag, and $1 for top of category.

Click the banner below to list your business today!

Anyone who would like to be considered for a spotlight blog article, please email me at rjscommerce@gmail.com with your information.  You must be offering a free service (paid options are ok, but there must be quality free options as well.) Also, free does not mean a free book that leads to a joining a paid program.

Happy Easter to all.

To your success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

Always Check Out Your Member's Area Carefully

Hey, There's Promo Codes In Here!

Nearly every ad site or program you join has a Members Area. Many even have a home page or a page that says something like Start Here!

It is very important to check out your member's area carefully.  This may take you a little time, but guess what?  There is valuable information in there.

Carefully studying the member's area is important for a few reasons:

• You will learn about the site or program and how it works
• You will learn how to make money (very important)
• You will pick up all your affiliate tools here
• Links
• Banners
• Sample ads
• etc.
• You may find bonuses and promo codes or special offers!

As I was reading through my member's area at ConversionSurf I found a page called "OTO Bonuses." On this page I found promo codes for somewhere around 10,000 credits for sites I was already a member of.  These credits are worth a lot of money! Had I not taken the time to look around, I would have never found them.

Hope this helps you get off to a great start this week!

To your success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

A Great Ad Site Starts With a Great Admin

How Do You Choose A Great Ad Site?

Look For a Great Admin!

There are many things that make a great ad site, whether it be a Traffic Exchange, Mailer, or some other type of advertising program.  One of the most important characteristics to look for in my opinion is a great site owner or Admin.

Marty Petrizza of Referral Frenzy is one of those site owners that stands out above many of the rest. First of all, she doesn't even know I am writing this, so I hope it doesn't get me into trouble. Anyway, I first learned about Marty when I joined Referral Frenzy and was totally impressed by how she put that site together.  One of the main things that stood out to me was the value she offered in return for my monthly investment.

Here are some of the things I like about Marty and how she runs her sites.  These are things I would look for in any site admin or owner...

• She offers a significant level of value at each site for free members including the ability to earn commissions (at most)
• Most of her sites have multiple ways to gain exposure to your programs
• She is always coming up with new and innovative ways to drive traffic to your programs
• Each of her sites offers something new and different
• She is in close touch with the membership, which makes for an increased response to your advertisements
• I typically get a much higher rate and quality of response to my ads from Marty's sites
• She is very responsive to support tickets, I don't have to wait long to get an answer to a question
• She is always coming up with new promotions to make upgrades affordable for more members at more sites

With that being said, if you come across a site owned by Marty, joining is highly recommended and upgrading is most likely a wise investment.  Here are a few of her sites I belong to that I really love:

(FYI Referral Frenzy is a Pro Only Site Just for Sending Mail)

I hope you find this information useful.  And have a wonderful weekend.

To Your Success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

Good Goals Will Help You Make a Good Plan

Once Your Goals Are Set You Can Make a Plan

Yesterday we talked about setting goals.  I just wanted to do a quick follow up on that topic.

When it comes to setting goals it's a good idea to start at the end.  What I mean by that is to start by setting your long term goals.  When you do this, you can then begin to formulate your action plan as to what steps need to be taken in the short term to reach those goals.

Your action plans then become your short and medium term goals.

Let's just go over a quick example.

If you set as a long term goal to make $1,000 per month by then end of your first year, you begin to formulate your short and mid term plans or goals that will help you to reach your long term objective.

• Long term goal = Income $1,000 per month in 1 year

• Thought process = What steps need to be taken in the short and mid term to reach this goal?

• Advertising = Membership in 60 Safelist Mailers within 6 months, upgrade in 12
• Advertising = Membership in 12 Traffic Exchanges within 6 months, upgrade in 6

• Programs = Membership in 3 core income earning programs in 6 month

• Financial = Upgrade cost of Mailers and TEs $150 per month
• Financial = Upgrade cost of Income programs = $90 per month

• Time = Mailing and Surfing start at 2 hours per day, increase to 4 per day by month 6

Ok, this is a pretty simple layout of a plan that is formulated based on your income goal of $1,000 per month and admittedly I have not spent a ton of time mapping this one out.  It is just for illustration. But hopefully you get the idea.

Spending an adequate amount of time planning 

is always time well spent!

One important point I also want to make is that if your long term income goal was to make $100 per month in 1 year, the remainder of your plan would be very much different.

Hope this gives you something to think about.

To your success,

Bob Swetz
Rjs@Home

Setting Goals and Weight Training

If You Don't Know Where You are Going

How Will You Get There?

Setting goals is an extremely important part of running a home business.  I learned this lesson at a very unlikely point in my life.

When I attended college at Penn State University I took an elective physical education class, Weight Training! I took this class mostly because I wanted to get into shape.  The very first day, the instructor asked us what our goals were for the class.  Most of the students said things like...

• I want to get stronger
• I want to look better
• I want to lose weight
• Etc.

The instructor corrected all of us quickly stating that in any activity you MUST have a specific goal. If you do not have a specific goal, you will never know if you get there. So, the goals above would be more appropriately stated as follows...

• I want to be able to press 200 pounds
• I want my chest to be 40 inches
• I want to lose 35 pounds

In internet marketing, we need to set goals for many things such as how much money we want to make, how quickly we want to make it.  Also, we should set goals for our daily activities. Each of us would have our own unique goals of course.  Some examples of goals may be as follows...

• I will post 50 ads per day
• I will join 2 new ad sites per day
• I will post on Facebook each day
• I will spend $50 per month on advertising
• I want to make $250 per month in 3 months
• I want to make $500 per month in 6 months

These are just a few ideas.  I suggest you take a good look at your business and set some goals this this week.  It will help you immensely.

To your success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

Make Sure Your Free Gift Offers Value

I Have a Gift For You

I common technique in internet marketing is to offer a free gift to entice prospects to join or sign up for our programs.  The concept is generally works in one of 3 ways...

1. Get a free gift (usually a PDF download) to join my list
2. Get a free gift (usually a PDF download) that contains branded links, when clicked will join the reader into my program
3. Combination of 1 and 2

This concept can be a valuable tool in building your internet business.

Make sure this gift offers value to your prospects!

This is very important as it goes a long way towards building Your Brand and your credibility with your prospects.

The example I like to use is my TripleA Plan which give frequently as a free gift. To be quite up front, this book is packed with links to many of my programs.  If you click on any of them, you will be taken to a sign up page to join that program as part of my downline.

However, if you never join any of my programs from this book, it is packed full of a wealth of information that will help any internet marketer tremendously in building their online business. Honestly, that leaves me with a pretty good feeling knowing I am able to put that in as many hands as possible, whether or not they join any of my programs.

Hope this helps keep you on the right track.

To your success.

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

A Unique Traffic Generating Machine

I Just Can't Say Enough About Leads Leap 2.0

I joined this site about a month ago as a free member and liked it so much that I upgraded after about 2 hours.  The value to an internet marketer is really incredible.  Now I am not suggesting that everyone has to upgrade because I know all too well about tight budgets, so you can judge for yourself whether or not an upgrade is worth it.  You can join for free, and there are a lot of benefits to free members.  Heck, you can even earn revenue sharing there as a free member.  They have a nice "Membership Comparison" that will help you make an informed decision.

Here are some of the features Leads Leap 2.0 has to offer:

• The Real Tracker This is a link tracker and rotator, which I have spoken about before.  The difference here is that it will track what they call "real" visits, which are visits of more than 5 seconds to your links.  They try to weed out the robots and those that are not really viewing your ads.
• Traffic Exchange Ads These are text ads you can post for free (if you have credits) or Pro if you are a paid member.  The really cool thing about these ads is that there is no ad timer in the TE.  Folks just view your ads and when they are ready, they move on.  Also, they rate them. This is so helpful in determining which ads work and which do not!
• Blogging Tools There are several of these
• The Pop-up Expert Allows you to put a pop up ad on your blog
• The Leads Leap Widget Puts a widget with ads on your blog so you can earn points and traffic
• The Rebranded Giveaway Is a free gift you can offer to get new leads

Well, I may be missing something, but hopefully you get the picture that Leads Leap 2.0 is really a Must Have for the active Internet Marketer. 

Click the banner below to have a look for yourself.

To your success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

Don't Go At This Business Alone

What Are You Doing Honey?

How many times have we heard that question from our spouse or friend or significant other?

When I first started this business I'm not sure why I felt the need to "keep it a secret."

Maybe it was because I felt it was difficult to explain to my wife, best friend and son what it was all about and what I was actually doing on my laptop all the time.  That turned out to be a  mistake.

Why?  Well, there was no one to talk to.  No one to share my successes and failures with.  No one to bounce ideas off of.

Once I made the decision to take the time to explain to them what I was actually doing that helped me in 2 ways:

1. It really helped to clarify in my own mind what I was doing with this business and why.
2. It gave me a real live support system that I could rely on in times that I needed it most.

So the moral of this story is...

Don't go it alone.  This "thing" that we are all trying to do online called "Internet Marketing" or whatever name you want to give it is a very important endeavor.  No less important than any job we wake up for and hop in the car to drive to every morning.  So be proud of it!

To your success,

Bob Swetz

Rjs@Home

Spotlight on a Fellow Marketer VivBounty

Spotlight on VivBounty 

I would like to welcome my first guest blogger Vivienne Edwards.  Enjoy...

Hello there, VivBounty here to begin this post with most humble gratitude to my friend, Bob Swetz, for his invitation to feature me on his blog.

I post in the forum each time I get paid ~ F5M-MC Forum I then share that Forum link on Facebook to all the groups I associate with on a regular basis. Meaning to say, groups which are actually made up of people who are in programs with me or like minded who will actually respect the business I'm in as I respect their business.

A wise man, Rick Mathews, now Malik, taught me that if a person is peddling something to you and won't even take a look at your program, not bothered to spend even the $5 one-time fee for life that it costs to get into our least expensive program, F5M-Millionaires Club, do you really want to be in business with he or she? There are places where advertising is like, as he says, "Everyone is throwing stuff at the wall hoping something sticks". I don't want to be there, to be honest.

So a list of my groups includes, always, Plugin Homebiz Site, DailyNetPay, Advertise With DailyNetPay, DNP Team Success, F5M-Millionaires Club Forum and a few others. I also buy advertising as you will have seen by my forum post, with DailyNetPay in addition to using Plugin Homebiz Site to create a very effective marketing funnel which puts paid members into my team in 2 income earning programs already listed above.

Recently, one of my online associates posed a question on my "got paid" post asking what he/she might be doing wrong? It is not that anyone necessarily does anything wrong in trying to earn money online. It is a difficult business and the market is saturated. According to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, there are an estimated 3 billion Internet users worldwide! Tenacity certainly helps. You need to keep working at your business. Be disciplined, committed, follow instructions, really know the program you are promoting and if you believe in it, never, never give up on your dream.

A good foundation to working in any industry is education. I began my online marketing journey with Lead Generating Tools (LGT) ~ http://lgtmarketing.com/lgt/vivbounty/rs/ back in 2008. I started with a free membership which led me to the training room in webinar format. LGT owner, Steve Swetman was frequently found in there training personally, and manning the room as head trainer was always Debra Chism. Along with Debra, several trainers who each have their area of expertise have taught me different things. I am now a Gold member of LGT and do my entire Internet business using Lead Generating Tools services and products.

I feel so blessed to have found LGT because every time I go to do something online, I think, "I learned to do this in the LGT training room". Here are just a few of those skills,  Starting a free blog on Google's Blogger platform, creating a Web site using basic HTML or WordPress platform, using an autoresponder, with that responder creating a list building campaign, cloaking affiliate links so that your sales are protected, using free File Transfer Protocol (FTP) with free resources like FileZila to get my sites and brand online, open source programs that can make PDF's or edit them like OpenOffice, and pulling it all together from start to finish, hosting your Web site, all the tools you will ever need for your Internet Marketing Dashboard and tons and tons of products you can use to brand yourself and make real money online. I even did a short stint as a trainer in the LGT training room. That is where VivBounty, my online brand name was born of a desire to inspire others to create their own bounty, whatever that is for them, whether it is money, or a better lifestyle, or a deeper spiritual connection, start a blog to show crafts, photos, a garden, or just expand into whatever their divine plan may be, that it would be bountiful.

Network marketing, affiliate marketing, or just any marketing is always about relationships. Business is about relationships. I am a people person and I wear my heart on my sleeve. Integrity is very important to me. If I join a program and my sponsor or the admin don't respond when I reach out or don't seem to care about my success, I cannot remain there. I don't treat people that way and thus would not tolerate being treated that way.

Of course, in business like in life, there are tedious, mundane things that need to be done to keep things going like advertising, checking email, keeping up with your social media connections - again these are relationships, not blasting or SPAM ads. I see these, as one person in a Web conference said, like doing your dishes daily or keeping your lawn mowed, they are maintenance chores which allow you to be organized and run your life or business in an efficient way. If your daily routine is chaotic in life or in business, your flow will always be interrupted, then you don't finish a task, which leads to two tasks and eventually you become overwhelmed and give up. Never give up!

Someone once taught me, I think it might have been Mike Hall, TSD - Thing, Step, Day. Do a thing, that finishes a step, each series of steps completes each day.

Thank you again, Bob for your friendship, generosity and integrity in this melee of Internet marketing we share. May you be blessed a thousand fold for all you do for others.

Prosperous Blessings,
VivBounty
A.K.A. Vivienne Edwards
http://vivbounty.biz