Time to say goodbye?

This is probably the last post on this blog for quite a while. We'll see how long it (the blog) remains on the WEB.

My visualizing hasn't stopped-you'll have to go back a few posts for THAT! Instead, it's working out. Things I thought were impossible are becoming a reality, but that means I live two lives:
1.) doing the day-to-day things that must be done, and
2.) planning and working toward the future.

That's a 16-18 hour day, 6 1/2 days a week. I'm working on my websites, blogs, and all the SEO and traffic related things that are associated with it. Too much to do to take time to keep this up. People have 'found' this blog -  wish I had more to say.

Hey, the future is coming up fast. Got to be there to meet it. Take care...

Market research and making money.

Humor me! You'll probably be bored by all of this, BUT, I've got to do it. See, I've

1. Got to get into the habit of writing something regularly, and

2. Got to trace the evolution of developing a niche website.

So, I've got to record the steps, not in great detail, but just enough to follow my progress.

The beauty of working in the Internet age is that the information we need is readily available.  There was a time when the research would have to be done by hand.  Now, using the Internet we're not only going to identify markets, we are able to test these markets to see if they are worth spending our time.

Think about this:  long before we worry about product creation we can eliminate the effort in developing that product until we know there is a need for the product or service.

The next item on our list is known as traffic. it is crucial, because we may have the best product in the world, the best service in the world, the best thing ever since sliced bread, but who will know unless they get to see it?

That is why we focus on determining if there is enough traffic to sustain our business in the Internet marketplace.  Remember this, without traffic, no one will purchase anything.  And we need to make sure there is enough of it too.  Because there is nothing more disheartening than doing a lot of work and have nothing to show for it.  Whether it is a retail store, a coffee shop, or an Internet marketplace, without traffic all of our efforts are wasted.

There was a time in the early days of the Internet that if you came up with an idea, and it was really working well, you could be copied very easily and other people could grab your traffic.  Now, building traffic takes time and effort, and the people who want to rip us off are basically lazy.  As a result they are not going to spend the time and effort and energy getting traffic to their websites.  So the difficulty of getting traffic acts as a way of protecting our business and makes our future websites all the more valuable.

The third thing we're going to talk about is known as conversion.  It is a fancy way of asking the question, how many people are taking action when they to come to our Internet  website?

Typically of course, we look at this as, “how many people who come to our page will buy our stuff”?  That is the ultimate conversion, but when you think about it there are many other things they could be doing; you could be getting them to sign up on a mailing list; they can be clicking on an ad; they could be filling in a survey. We have to measure our effectiveness at converting people from passive readers of whatever information we are providing to actively doing the thing we want them to.  And that is how conversion is measured.

Okay, my friends. Next time we'll look at how the 'right words' can get people to your website.

2nd blog in a row!

I know you're going to be bored with this, but "Hey", it's my blog!

This is my second using the blog the automatic dictation program.

Today we are going to talk about niche marketing, and I will try to explain the difference between a market, a niche, and a micro-niche.

A market is anything that a large group of people are interested in.  It could be something as wide as golf or fishing or as narrow as raising roses.  Even a narrow category such as roses can be broken down into much smaller groups.  There are people who are interested in the raising of roses, there are people who are interested in the selling of roses, there are people who want to find genetic differences in roses and there may be those who are looking for a thornless rose.  You can see the infinite number of possibilities.

Each of the above submarkets is what we call a niche.  But each of those is still too large for the kind of Internet marketing we seek to do.  What we are looking for is known as a micro-niche:  that sub category of interest.  For example, a seller of roses might be wanting to open a roadside stand, sell to flower shops or be interested in international marketing.  The key is to break down an Internet niche into smaller and smaller niches (micro-niches), concentrating on our effort on reaching a select group of purchasers.

I know that there are people who have made money on the Internet.  What I want to do is take advantage of the learning opportunities that are available.  What I am going to learn I intend to put down in an organized manner

I have given you a brief overview of marketing and niches, now I want to look at the areas of market research, traffic, conversion and product. What often happens when people start a business: they come up with an idea for a product believing that it is something that the public wants.  And they go off, and invest  an amazing amount of time effort and energy, write the book, make the product, only  to discover that there was never a market for that at all.

It is a tragedy and yet a large percentages of all businesses start out this way and the personal tragedy is that you've invested so much time and effort and emotion, even perhaps a great deal of money.  When there wasn't any need to do that at all. Using the Internet one can eliminate the majority of the risk.  That is why we do market research.

Market research is so important, but usually it is the thing that is glossed over or missed completely.  Hopefully online market research will provide us with the tools and information that we need to eliminate most of the risk. For example:  If I were to open up a coffee shop it would be great to know how many people each day  walked past the shop, how many people would stop in, know exactly what they would want to see on the menu, and know precisely how many of them are going to buy.  If that kind of information were available I would have no worries about whether or not to open a coffee shop. Well, that's enough for today.  You are probably bored already!

Tomorrow we will look at the concepts of traffic, conversion and product.  With hard work I am going to become an Internet marketer.  Who would have guessed?

1st Steps to freeing the mind-and resting the fingers!

What you are about to read is the first document that I have prepared using a dictation system.  I spent a number of hours working with this program, trying to learn its tricks. It has been very frustrating.  One of the things that I’ve discovered is that improper usage of the automatic commands can cause an entire document to disappear.

So, one of the things I’m going to do is dictate the entire document, save it, and then manually make any corrections.  That way I do not risk its entire destruction.  I have had to go to some sort of automatic dictation system because I’m not a fast typist.  The frustration that occurs when I’m trying to think and type and make corrections results in a “mind freeze”.

I believe that I am a creative person. I can go on for hours thinking about the possibilities yet when I try to put those things down on paper I am frozen. My fingers grow tired, the errors grow more frequent, and I give up in disgust.

I guess when you try to deliberately set upon a program that is when you run into your limitations.  Perhaps it is a touch of ADD, maybe I have a master’s degree in disorganization; whatever the cause I have a hard time dealing with the small details of life. I hate cleaning my office – I know where everything is!!

Okay I lied.  I haven’t a clue!!  So the first thing I’m going to do Monday morning is clean my office!

I said when I began this blog that it was a journey. From the outside looking in it may not seem I have come that far. But you would be wrong. It was a little over a year ago that I had come to the conclusion that life could not continue on as it was - that a change was necessary.   But change is slow and change is painful. It is hard work.

That is it for today, perhaps we will talk tomorrow.

A new beginning for the blog

It has been a long time, over 3 months, since I have done any blogging.  There were a couple reasons for this:

First, I recently found that I did not have time, that the various activities of life: work, taking care of a home and trying to build up a business, simply used up all of the moments in a 24-hour day.

The other reason was that I simply had nothing to say.  I had started out with the idea of sharing my experiences as I began positive thinking.  To be honest, I did have some positive results:

a.  My business has doubled over the last five months,

b.  And I have had an increase in confidence and self assurance.

Part of my frustration was that the changes in my life were hard to document.  I have come from a background of doubt - a sense of impending failure, most of which I attribute to my upbringing.  There are times in my life when I know I have deliberately worked to defeat any progress that I was making.  It was as though I could not handle the thought of success; perhaps it was the belief that I was not worthy of success; that even God himself would not allow me to rise above a certain level. 

Part of the problem was that my view of God was that he was not a caring and loving God. I've heard it said that your view of God is a reflection of your view of your own father.  In that case, my view of God was a very poor one. No details are necessary here.  Let us just say that I felt there were limits on the possibilities in my life.  More specifically, I didn't have sense of purpose.  There was no passion.  I was simply on a treadmill doing the daily routine.  It is hard to get excited about that!

And then something happened.  The hours of listening to a number of self-help and ‘visualization’  speakers suddenly opened my mind to a new possibility...  A way of gaining wealth!

Please understand, it is not wealth itself that I desire.  It is the fact that money provides opportunity.  It is money that allows one to live in a comfortable home.  It is money that allows children to get an education.  It is money that allows you to drive a vehicle that doesn't break down all the time.  It is money that allows leisure time for relaxation, travel, further education, the building of relationships.  And so, I now have a focus on my journey in life.  I will credit the use of visualization in helping make this a reality.  There is no magic here, no a quick fix, no silver bullet.  This will be hard work. In further postings I will share with you what I'm going to attempt to do,  and  the way in which I will do it.

A pragmatic view.

How do you tell if you're 'holding your own' or making 'progress' in life?

From a guy's point of view, money (as in more coming in than going out!) is a big factor. We still have that 'gotta leave the cave, kill something, and drag it back to the fire' to prove our manliness, need. It is a need, a real one - that defines our level of success. That's why the under-employed often have high levels of drug or alcohol abuse or increased domestic violence rates. (A little sociology lesson there!) For me, this has been a good summer: my business income has nearly doubled and my net income has gone up by 60% (before taxes, Thank you, Obama!!).

Why is this important. Follow me here: There were 16 million men and women who served in WW2. During that 5 year period birth rates dropped. After the war, these people came home, married and began making up for lost time. They produced an average of 10,000 babies a day for years, creating the baby boomers, of which I was born in the 2nd year of a 20 year population explosion. That's right, there are 50 million 'boomers' coming along demanding their share of increasingly scarce government revenues and natural resources.

Millions of these people are expecting Uncle Sam to provide for them. It isn't going to happen. Our bloated national debt (14 TRILLION) For any Democrats reading this: that's 14,000,000 million dollars! unfunded Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security obligations (99 TRILLION) plus all unfunded state and municipal pension and health funds leaves every American OWING a minimum of $400,000 that must be collected by  Federal, state, and local governments.

The result will be higher taxes, higher interest rates, and a devalued dollar that makes everyday items more expensive. To be honest folks, after 30 years of excessive government spending, the defecation is about to hit the rotary impeller.

I've doubled my income, now I must double it again, and again...... Kinda takes the fun out of it!

Visualization 'Scoreboard' Time!

For anyone who may have followed me (or stumbled over me) in this blog; you may remember my original purpose was to pursue, test, and try to explain the ideas behind what is commonly called positive thinking or using visualization techniques.

One principle is to spend time daily: 7 - 15 or more minutes, 1-3 times per day clearing the mind and getting in 'tune' with the 'universe' to receive ideas or concepts that lead to success in achieving one's goals. To be honest, I haven't done well in setting aside the time to visualize, BUT, I have been thinking along the lines that I WILL be successful in certain endeavors, rather than that I'd like to be successful or that I might be successful.

1.) In my business, this seems to be working: new accounts are being acquired - income will go up!

2.) In my real estate, I have sold one property and am working on a plan to sell the rest -  no longer 'overwhelmed' by all that needs to be done.

3.) In my life plans, confusion reigns...but that's okay for now. I've set a time frame of a little under three years to reach a certain point, a 'fork in the road' so to speak. If I try to force the decision making process, to rush it, maybe I'm not waiting for the 'universe' to sort it out, to 'mark the path'.

Score? 1 and 2 are looking better. 3 is on hold.

Let's see: Close the door to my office, put my feet up, close my eyes, breathe deeply, clear the mind.......