This is just a quick shout out for a good friend of mine. His name is Colin McDougall and he’s just launched an exclusive members only club for aspiring and existing internet marketers who want to turn the Internet upside down and shake all that spare cash out of its pockets. Is there still money to be made online? Some folk will snigger and say “Buddy those days have come and gone”. Yet others will sell you some hokey excuse for an online business that will go out of fashion in 6 months and probably never make you a dime. There are plenty of conmen out there waiting to part you from your hard earned dollars.

How is Colin different? Well he talks the talk, walks the walk and makes a crazy amount of money online doing so. Here’s the other thing you need to know about this guy – he’s just an ordinary Joe. He’s just a guy who had an idea to create an online business and did it. He’s just like YOU. No different.

Wouldn’t you love to know more about how this guy makes some seriously sick money online? Well now for the first time ever you can have access to this guys successful mind in a way that was never possible before. You can learn how to avoid all the mistakes he’s made in learning how to run a truly successful online business.

If you’ve ever, ever been interested in having your own affiliate marketing business then I can’t recommend Colins club highly enough. Why? Because using his methods I have a website that ranks #2 out of 400,000,000 (400 million) other websites in Google – that didn’t happen by accident and is proving to be very profitable for me.

If you’re tired of all the scams and half promises then sign up with Colins club and learn how to build a profitable online business starting today. He takes you step-by-step through each part of the process and is there to help you along personally.

Click here to sign up for The Fly On The Wall Club.

Every so often a book comes along that makes you review your entire life in a positive and eye opening way. A few years ago a friend of mine in Canada (Calgary to be exact) recommended that I read a book called the Celestine Prophecy (there’s a trilogy). I hummed and hawwed over this for ages but never got around to reading them. Finally she gave in and bought them for me (thanks Alia!!)

The Celestine Prophecy is more than just a novel. It’s a story about our lives now, in the past and in the future. If you’ve ever felt that you had a “life itch” that you just couldn’t scratch then you need to read this book and let it settle with you. Do you find yourself surrounded by coincidences and just can’t explain them? Yes? Well then you REALLY need to read this book.

What’s it all about? Well it discusses 9 Insights that will be revealed to mankind that will change how we see and treat ourselves and the world around us.

Some of you will struggle with the concepts presented in this book but it’s part of the growing process as described in the book itself. Highly recommended.

I learned this the hard way. I spent 2 months delivering a customer service training program that was delivered online by video presentations. I’ve successfully trained thousands of people in customer service all over the world so I thought I was in an ideal position to develop this exact product for this exact market.

The problem? They didn’t want it. Companies tend to prefer having this type of training delivered by a living, breathing human being. So even though my product gives the exact same dept and quality of training it simply didn’t sell. At all.

What lessons did I learn from this?

1. Test your market first with a survey. See if they need or want your product. Ask your potential customers if this is something they’re interested in.

2. If they don’t want the exact product you had in mind then surveying them might suggest another product worth developing instead.

3. Don’t give up. Your current product might not suit their needs but a reworked version of it might suit them perfectly.

While this is a fantastic line for a Kevin Costner to spout (or hear in a field for that matter) in Field of Dreams it’s not exactly true in life. As a matter of fact this is one of the main reasons a lot of small businesses fail.

Here’s the way it usually goes. You wake up one morning with the most brilliant idea for a business or product/service/book/magazine/whatever in the whole wide world. It’s just amazing nobody every thought of it before. Without a minute to lose you go about the first steps in creating this new masterpiece that you’re sure the world needs.

After weeks or months of hard work you release your new masterpiece to the world and then wait for the sales/orders/inquiries to come flooding in. Then something really strange happens. Nothing. Nothing happens. No sales, the phone doesn’t ring and your inbox is empty.

What went wrong? Why did your product not sell like hotcakes? Where are all the customers?

The simple answer is your developed something that you thought the market wanted but you never checked to see if there was a demand.

If the idea is so brilliant then why somebody hasn’t done it already? Either you’re struck gold or somebody else looked at the idea, did some market research and realized it wasn’t worth pursuing.

There’s also the issue of sometimes finding an established market but developing a product that they don’t need or want. Just because people are searching for budgies online doesn’t mean that you can sell them mail order budgies – an extreme example but valid. People are far more likely to simply buy their pet budgie locally instead.

to be continued

I’ve never mentioned this before but I’m currently studying towards a degree in psychology and counselling. Wait don’t I run a business from home? Yup. Sure do. I also recognize the value of this knowledge in the following ways:

1. Not putting all my eggs in one basket. I’ve seen people go from earning $12,000 a month to under $1,000 per month in their business – just from relying on one single source of income. Scary.

2. Having a better understanding of how people think and operate surely offers me an advantage in business? I think so.

3. I’m looking to retire from working full time as soon as possible. Counsellors never work more than 20 hours per week – normally it’s 15 hours.
My long term plan is to work part-time from home as a counsellor and also to run my web development business as part of that. Big picture I’m wanting to “retire” from full time work by the time I’m 36. I’m 34 now and I know this is achieveable. Who wouldn’t want to reduce their working week from 40 – 15 hours and earn more doing that? Nevermind the pleasure of helping others with their problems. It’s a win-win.

Anyways just said I’d mention this right now as I’ve just finished by foundation year on the course and it’s a bit of a landmark for me on many levels.

What am I trying to say here? Look at your future and ask what plans have you put in place? If not then why not? Are you happy in your current job? If not then why are you sitting there? The future arrives very quickly folks. Plan for it today because the future is always only ever 24 hours away.