Online Money Making Secrets

Here's the information that you have been waiting for. I ran across this on YouTube. I tried it out and guess what. I made $1000 in less than 4 hours. There are some tweaks that you can do that will allow you to get the money in faster but 4 hours was OK for me.



Seriously, give it a shot, else do you have to loose. Share the love!

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 12

Here we are with another Monday and yet another edition of "what I found in my email" Monday. Why? Because you keep sending them. You send 'em and I put 'em up. That's how it works.

Being an outdoorsman, I have been a part of a lot of some really awesome hunting, camping and fishing expeditions. I have also seen a lot of amazing hunting and fishing pictures but the pictures shown below fall into the "holy freakin' crap" category.

Here's the story that came along with the email:

"This is the new record in Canada. He caught it on Rainy Lake. Check this thing out.. The last picture is unbelievable! This guy (in the photos below), was fishing and caught a 36" Pike.
As he was reeling it in, a 56" Pike tried to eat it!!!!! He brought them both in on the same net.
Awesome catch on a river in Canada - 55lbs - 56 inches."

Without further adieu - I give you "The Beast."







I don't even know what to say. My only comment is that I don't know how to tell the difference between a Northern and an Muskie. Can anyone confirm that this is indeed a Northern Pike?

Have a great week everyone!

 

Marketing and Taxes

Q: What does one have to do with the other?
A: As a business, you have to spend the money on both.

Every year April 15th seems to come earlier and earlier and if you are smart about how you handle your withholdings you will get a very small refund or you have to pay in a little bit. Your marketing efforts can be managed in a parallel fashion. If you have the right message, the right delivery method and the right design, you will earn the business back many times your initial investment.

BUT, you have to do it right. More often than not, a business owner knows just about everything about their product or service but they are not a marketing expert. This same type of knowledge/skill-set division is why so many medical billing companies exist today. Medical professionals simply want to practice medicine. They don't want to run a business and are happy to turn those duties over to the experts.

Many times, business owners are persuaded to spend their advertising and marketing budgets on single source vendors. For example, a local radio rep walks into a retail electronics store and convinces the owner or manager that he has the best station in the market to attract customers. The business owner unwittingly spends his monthly budget on the ONE station that the sales rep is selling.

Now, this may or may not be the right move, but in order to truly evaluate the options in the market, you need to have a non-biased marketing consultant that will look at the big picture. A marketing consultant can evaluate the local/regional radio stations, determine which ones will be the best for the businesses demographic and make recommendation on the most effective placement

In a similar fashion, a marketing consultant can look at your entire marketing campaign and make recommendations on how to improve your image, brand awareness and your marketing budget efficiency.

I ran across a great article about marketing and post cards. It talks about "doing it right" and is really applicable to what I am talking about here. Check it out, it's definitely worth the read.

Taxes and marketing are both necessary expenditures if you are a business owner, just make sure you are using your marketing dollars wisely. When you need law advice, you seek a lawyer right? Why wouldn't you seek the help of someone who specializes in marketing? Take a look at hiring a marketing consultant, they know marketing just like you know your business.

 

Twitter?

I went ahead and set up a Twitter account just for the heck of it. I was seeing "follow me on Twitter" on a couple of blogs and I read some posts about it so I decided to sign up. I figured you can't do enough marketing right?

I AM a little confused about it though. I guess I don't get it. Am I missing something?

This is the function of Twitter as I see it. Periodically you write up to 140 characters of whatever in this little box. People can opt to follow you on Twitter and you can follow them. When you reply to their short posts and that shows up on your "main page." You also have the ability to do a little customizing to your page. The way I look at it, it's basically like a mini-blog. People can subscribe to you (follow you), leave comments (reply to you), and read your posts.

So is there something that I am not seeing? I have never claimed to be the smartest person on the planet...just the 5th smartest.

 

Why Businesses Fail

As I was going through some old papers here in my orifice, I ran across a document called "Why Businesses Fail." I knew there was a reason I hung onto it. It was if I ever decided to start a blog and write about business stuff. Yeah, right. Actually I remember hanging on to it because it had a really simple yet profound list of things that contribute to business failure.

Businesses fail because of:

Lack of Planning
Undercapitalization
Poor Management
Lack of Discipline
Lack of Effort
Poor Execution
Lack of Focus

Some fundamental advice - If you are going to start a business seek the council of people that are more experienced than you.

I can't tell you how many business plans I've read that forget something major like estimates for marketing. They have the competitive analysis done, the mission, projections, the costs associated with rent, equipment, furnishings, etc., but they forgot to include dollar figures for marketing and advertising.

This simple oversight immediately puts the potential business owner in an undercapitalized position. How much does it take for a new retail establishment to advertise for the first 2 years of business. It depends on the market of course, but one thing is sure, this is a very critical time to market your new business. You are probably going to spend more in the first 2 years than you typically would over subsequent 2 year periods.

Take a look again at the list above, make sure you have all you ducks in a row, including your marketing dollars.

This has been a public service announcement from The Big Bald Blog!

 

The Meaning of Life

I was going to title this post "Britney Spears Doesn't Know What I Know" because I wanted to see if Britney still has the drawing power that she once did when I wrote the Britney Spears article a while back. That one was good for a nice little traffic spike. Obviously, I decided against the linkbait.

Anyway back to the actual meat of this post. I really don't know what the meaning of life is (in a philosophical sense), I haven't got it figured out yet. However, there are a few things that I have learned along the way that I don't mind sharing. They may not be profound or enlightening, but I think they are worth conveying. So here they are in no particular order.

1. Time always moves the slowest when you are sitting in church.
2. Time always move the fastest when you are with the love of your life (or when you are playing video games).
3. NEVER take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time.
4. Trust is earned
5. The only one you can count on to do the right thing is you.
6. Give 10, save 10 and live on the rest.
7. Do stuff with friends. Memories are built through adventure. No one ever reminisces about the time you were sitting in the recliner with the remote (unless of course you soiled yourself in the process).
8. Pick your battles.
9. Develop a passion for something.
10. Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.

There you have it. I think I may be able to come up with another 10 but I will save those for another post.

So what have you discovered in life? Don't be shy, share with Big Pops.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 11

We're back and we're bigger and better than ever. Welcome to the latest edition of "what I found in my email" Mondays.

In this exciting episode we find a Missouri commuter getting the surprise of his life.

The story: A guy in St. Louis was driving to work on Hwy 144 when he heard a 'pop'! He thought it sounded like a flat tire, though his ride wasn't affected. After pulling over, checking the tires and finding them intact , he opened the hood to look at the motor. Before the hood was even all the way open he jumped back in shock and knocked his head on the partially opened hood, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing!











This has to be right up there at the top of the list of unusual but verified 'Reasons why I was late for work'!

You always seem to find the strangest things under your car's hood. Have a great week everyone!

 

Gas Prices?

Here in my area gas is costing about $3.10 a gallon. My truck gets about 20 MPG if I am nice to it. Yes, I know I am not being the most ecologically sound individual but I really do need a truck. I haul a ton of stuff and the 4WD is almost a necessity here in Iowa, especially this year with all the snow we had.

So, here's what I want to know - What do you drive and how much is gas where you live?

And yes, I do want to hear from all you Europeans who lambasted me and the U.S. about our energy consumption in this post showcasing a luxury RV.

 

The Good Web Design Enigma - Craigslist

I've done it, you have probably done it and other people do it to the tune of 24 million unique visitors per month. I am talking about visiting/using Craigslist. According to Alexa, it is one of the top 100 sites on the internet (66 as of today)

Everything that modern web design accepts as best practices can now be thrown out the window. OK, not really but you have to admit there are some talking points here.

If you have ever been to Craigslist, you know what I am referring to. Plain with simple blue text on white space. No design, no borders, no gradients, no graphics, NOTHING. It looks kind of like a word document. BUT wait a second there Captain, it works and it works good!

Why does it work? Content. Although it isn't pretty, it gets the job done, just like my rusty old lawnmower. The content is real, the site is relatively easy to use, and it gets results. What more can you ask for right? Well maybe SOME design.

I am more if a aesthetics person when it comes to web design and I think it does make a difference to the consuming public. That is why so many "consumers" love 100% Flash websites. They look great and they are fun to play around on. BUT in the end, developers know that they are not the best for SEO. Did you ever wonder why all the sites that sell flash templates, build their sites in html, asp, php or xhtml? Probably the same reason that most of the listings on a SERP for the search term "flash developers" are built in the same way.

One of the coolest websites that I have seen is the 2AdvancedStudios website. The current version and the past 2 or 3 versions have been simply AWESOME. These guys are definitely the masters of Flash but I was unable to find their site if I was searching for flash designers or flash developers. Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing here! The people at 2Advanced do unbelievable work. They just have to market their site differently.

Here is an excerpt from a design critique written by Kate Bronstad: "When Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, was asked why the site was 'visually boring', he explained that "we all consume too much media, and we just want to get to the point sometimes" (Weidaw). In addition to valuing clarity, Newmark and his colleagues probably want to impress upon their users that Craigslist isn't some untrustworthy corporation, and, in fact, Craigslist is a community. Based on the site's success, this impression might be getting across to a lot of people. If Craigslist is so popular, should it be messed with? Maybe not -but there could be a way to retain the values of the Craig and company (user loyalty, minimal design, content heavy) while making the Craigslist experience a little more pleasant for its legions of users, some of whom might not have grown to love the dizzying blue and purple bricks of text."

I think I tend to agree with this assessment. There can be a happy medium between minimalism and an over the top visual orgasm. But who am I? Since I don't have a site that's getting 24 million unique visitors per month, you really don't have to listen to me. :) However, I do have over 80,000 uniques so far this month, thanks to my stumbling friends. <--shameless self plug so you will buy an ad.>

So what's the point here? It's all about the content and functionality. You can have the best looking website in the world but if users don't find it useful or it serves no purpose, they won't be coming back. Design your site so people will want to come back. The ultimate compliment for any website is a RSS subscription or an add to the user's favorites. For this very reason I am going to take another opportunity to thank the readers of The Big Bald Blog, after all it's all about you, and without you I wouldn't be doing this. Thanks!

Let me know what you like to see in a website. Oh, and if I had a typo you would tell me wouldn't you?

 

$100 Contest Winner!

Yep, I am a little late on the draw here. WE do have a winner. Gorilla says the announcement delay was caused by a malfunctioning tube sock sensor on the dilithium capacitor, I think that it was something else. But what do I know, I don't know a lot about electronics so I guess he could be right.

Each and every entry was given a number, the total of which was 1831. Each of us then went to random.org and generated a random number. We then calculated the average of those numbers and came up with 875. The owner of this number is Rina, the author of AzrinaAznan.com and so she is our winner. She wrote a blog post about the contest, landing her 25 easy contest entries (entries 852-876).

The February and March contests are sponsored by...

• JoeTech.com
• Link Bait
• Gorilla Sushi
• CK Marketing
• The Big Bald Blog
• How 2 Blogger
• Jason Boom

Make sure you get entered in the most recent contest that is running right now. Thanks for playing and good luck this month.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 10

Happy Monday everyone. Just got back from the wonderful state of Wisconsin. I know, I know, I didn't post anything for 3 days straight. But I'm back and in full swing.

So, without further delay here is the next edition of "what I found in my email" Mondays.

I actually got this last Monday and decided to hang on to it, so technically it counts as a Monday find. I am glad I did, because no one sent me anything interesting today.



As it turns out this is a real bike and is owned by Smoky McGill. This info is a little dated coming from a 2004 article, BUT the Anaconda has it's own website. Evidently the front motor is just for show, the back motor is the one that is doing all the work. The most impressive thing to me is the engineering. There's not a lot of width there to support that long of a span. 10 people can get pretty heavy, even if they aren't Big Pappa type peeps.

So if you and 9 of your friends want to go for a motorcycle limo ride, this is exactly what you need.

Have a great week everyone!

 

Is Iowa Courting The Big Boys?

Over at, Iowa Senator, Jeff Angelo's blog, he is talking about the Iowa package that allows some significant tax breaks for, "web search portal business."

Well, by taking a look at the lobbyist declaration there is some kind of indication as to who the Tall Corn State is trying to attract.

Google is already coming to Iowa and now it looks like Microsoft may be too.

Senator Angelo says, "The good news: this bill does apply to similiar businesses. These high-tech businesses are looking for inexpensive, plentiful power--and smart kids. We have both. Iowa wins when we can keep young people from leaving the state by partnering with our education institutions and employers to place them in high-wage jobs immediately upon graduation."

Graduates leaving the state for better paying jobs and "greener pastures" has been a concern for Iowans for quite some time. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Much better than giving huge tax breaks to packing plants that constantly get raided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Maybe that's why I have to press 2 for English.

Silicorn Valley here we come!

 

I Love Traffic Presents

Traffic present? Yes, a traffic present is when you get up in the morning, check your stats and you have over 9000 unique visitors for the day. Normally I have about 800 uniques on average per day but yesterday, 9000!

Evidently the good folks that are a part of the Stumbleupon community just love my "What I found in my email" series. I have been writing about marketing, advertising, internet industry news, web design, graphic design and other topics related to my industry for quite a while now. It wasn't until I started putting up fun little posts like these that I started getting some SERIOUS traffic. Go figure.

This is the third time that I have been "stumbled" and have received a big spike in traffic. The funny thing is, every post that has went big, I did not initiate the stumble, someone else did. All the ones that I "discovered" myself, have died a quiet death.

So here's a shout to all the stumblers out there. Thanks for your kind words and participation.

 

What Is Happening Here?

I just read about a journalist that is getting a court mandated fine for not revealing a source used to expose some information about the Federal investigation into the anthrax attacks back in 2001.

Yesterday, March 10th, The Wall Street Journal reported, "A former USA Today reporter tomorrow will have to start paying hundreds, then thousands of dollars in fines, out of her own pocket, for refusing to reveal sources...Starting at midnight tomorrow, Toni Locy will have to pay $500 a day for a week, followed by $1,000 a day in the second week and $5,000 a day after that until she reveals the names of nearly a dozen sources she used in her stories, according to a contempt order filed by Federal Court Judge Reggie B. Walton." She did get some sources to release her from her confidentiality agreement but evidently there are still a few not willing to do that.

Based on that financial penalty, the court appears to be out to ruin this reporter and drive her to bankruptcy. I guess I can see why they are wanting to know since, the story evidently brought forth some pretty sensitive data and named some names. However, if this type of journalistic persecution is allowed to become common place, what's next? I think the need for journalists to keep their sources anonymous is critical to a free press. After all, isn't this to keep the government in line as intended by the founding of this country.

But here's the other side of the coin. If a reporter doesn't want to reveal their sources, what's to prove that they aren't just make up the information. Should they strive to verify the information from an anonymous source with one that is not? What if their protected and anonymously obtained information hurts someone's reputation that was actually innocent? What are the civil options available to the injured party?

This case may be a stretch as an example, BUT - just like anything else, if you chip a little away at a time, in this case it's the freedom of the press, it doesn't get noticed. When you take away large chunks of liberty, then there is an outcry. So is this a case of diminished liberty?

I have written several posts about censorship in China. This isn't as extreme but, this doesn't seem so removed and could be seen as a stepping stone.

Blogging is being seen as the new journalism, do we have to watch out what we write about?

I do have to admire the reporter for not caving under pressure. At least she has some integrity and is willing honor her agreements to the sources at great personal and financial loss.

Let me hear what YOU have to say.

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 9

Welcome back from the weekend and welcome to the next edition of "what I found in my email" Monday!

In an email entitled, "I want to be trailer trash", I was surprised to find the following images.


























And here is the happy trailer trash family!



Wow, if this is what "trailer trash" living is all about, I want some too.

Have a great week everyone!

 

Using Non Domain Based Emails For Business

Here's my opinion. You want to hear it because I know everything, right? Not really, but I do have some strong feelings on this subject. Very similar to my feelings on printing your own business cards on the perforated Avery stock and using an ink jet printer.

IF you have a business, AND you have a website and your own domain, you should NOT be using a Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or other free email service. I don't care if you have had your email address, mycoolcamaro49@hotmail.com for 15 years, DON'T use it when corresponding professionally with clients. This chips away at your legitimacy. Take an extra 10 minutes and set up an email address through your control panel or have your hosting company do it for you if you don't know how.

All I know is that if you send me an email from sirpimpsalot@aol.com and expect me to buy something from your company, you have already lost my business. (unless of course you are selling pimp hats.)

So tell me what do YOU think on the subject.

 

It's Time To Give Away Another $100

The winner for last month's $100 will be announced soon. But until then, here's your chance at another $100.

What do you have to do for some cold, hard cash? It's simple.

- Make a comment of value (not just “i agree”, etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)
- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)
- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries

Where is all of this money coming from you ask? The following rag-tag band of bloggers are the ones that are putting up the kitty.

- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- How 2 Blogger
- Jason Boom
- Mr Javo

BUT, I need your help. When you comment with your entry make sure you: Give me the link where you posted about the contest AND leave me your email so I can verify it. If you don't want to leave your email in the comment drop me a line at The Big Bald Blog at Impact MT dot com.

Thanks again to everyone one who has been playing and good luck this month.

 

Hotlink Protection Engaged

You don't know what I am talking about? OK, here is a little background. Bandwidth theft or "hotlinking" is direct linking to a web site's files (images, video, etc.) so it will appear on your own site, eBay auction listing, weblog, forum message post, etc. as if it were your own.

Instead of having src="theimageonmysite.jpg" you have it like this: src="http://www.thisisnotmysite.com/theimage.jpg". This is not good.

There are several reasons that you shouldn't do this.
#1 - Hotlinking uses someone else's bandwidth to serve up the image on your page. This is bad form.
#2 - If all of your images on your site are from other websites it will take longer for your site to load. This too is bad form
#3 - The person you are hot linking to can take down the image or switch it with another image that is named the same thing. For example. This is the image that has been getting leeched on.



I COULD take this image called "sad-puppy-762578.JPG" and replace it with a file that is named the same but is a really naughty image or something that's really disgusting. AND, given the amount of people linking to this, it would take quite a while for everyone using it to realize what happened. However, since I am a nice guy and this would be bad form on MY part, I opted for a different route.

Yesterday I had to turn on my "hotlink protection." This prevents the aforementioned bandwidth theft. It's sad that I had to resort to this. The users over at Jappy.de ruined it for everyone by leeching my bandwidth. I was playing nice until, literally, 100's of people from Jappy.de started hotlinking to images on my blog. I had more hits from Jappy.de/whatevertheprofilewas than I could count.

If you had a link to an image or video hosted on my site and you are a "friend" let me know and I will allow you as a friendly site. I like to play nice, I really do. Do you still love me?

 

"What I Found In My Email" Mondays. Vol.2 - Issue 8

Sometimes woman simply asks why? A man's response; "I don't know" or "just because." Either way it's a problem with genetics. I can categorically guarantee that that a woman would NEVER put chrome wheels on a lawn tractor, attempt to determine the distance that WD-40 will shoot while on fire or perpetrate the sort of caper enacted by the brain trust gathered in the following picture.

I don't know how to caption this picture. All I know is that this is THE most ridiculous thing that I have seen in a long time. But hey, we are men and we know stuff about tanks. Our actions need no explanation.



The circuit breaker on the power strip should protect them right?

The following pictures were NOT found in my email. They are some of my favorites from around the web and I am sure you have seen them before but I thought that they were applicable to the topic at hand.

The first 3 pictures deal with the proper use of ladders.








Don't have a ladder? Lift a forklift with another forklift. I think the guy in the brown shirt is an OSHA consultant.




This is my favorite one.


Welcome to the week!