Tales of a cyber-hippy running an online business from home
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I met up with some old friends a few nights ago – they were playing a gig at a local music festival.
I used to play in various bands with them, but on the whole hadn’t met up with them properly (ie beer was involved) for between 5 and 20 years.
Most of us are now fat, grey or bald – the more unfortunate ones are all three (not me I’m glad to say) but that was funny rather than traumatic, and we enjoyed comparing scars, medical problems, and general life mishaps.
The worst part of the entire evening (which wasthoroughly enjoyable and due to be repeated soon) was explaining what I do for a living.
I know I’ve blogged about this subject before but while with strangers it’s fun to be a bit flippant or sarcastic, with friends I wanted to explain how my business works clearly but without making it sound weird or ‘dodgy’. It wasn’t easy.
And I realised how liberating it is not to pigeonhole yourself. I wasn’t an ‘electrical engineer’ or ‘a photographer’, I was ‘Tony who has online businesses’ and that opened up a whole new conversation both with old friends and people I’d only just met.
But the weirdest thing of all was that out of ALL my old friends, we’re all self-employed. We all work for ourselves.
And when we got to chatting about old times it became pretty obvious that from the outset we’d decided that the important part of the work/life balance was the ‘LIFE’ part – and not the work.
And it seems to me that making the decision was the hard part. Deciding to be unemployable was probably one of the most important decisions I ever made, because once decided, I (in fact none of us) would settle for anything less.
I’m still thinking about all this, but I wanted to share my thoughts.
Maybe stop what you’re doing and make the decision that you’re going to be unemployable – you’re going to work for yourself. I think once that decision is made, your subconscious makes sure you end up on the right track.
…..but despite the best efforts of the deeper realms of my mind, I still can’t drink as much beer as I used to at 20.
Most internet marketing experts suggest writing a blog in language that an 11 year old can understand just in case their readers (.ie. you lot) don’t have the mental capacity to understand what I’m on about.
Speaking as someone who just had to Google the word ‘persuade’ in order to spell it correctly, I’ll take my chances.
Drag your knuckles this way, and see what you think to this post:
‘Deferred Gratification’ is what sociologists call it.
I can’t remember from my University days which sociologist conducted the study, but it was about ‘deferred gratification’
His hypothesis was that it’s one of several indicators that help sociologists to determine what kind of background (I suppose I mean ‘class’) a person comes from.
Working class parents (used to be called lower class but we got really angry about it) alledgedly influence their children toward ‘instant gratification’ – they leave school without further education to get a job to have wages to spend NOW rather than remain poor for a few more years at university which would supposedly bring qualifications and a better paid job.
They put off the ‘later’ for gratification NOW.
Middle class parents it seems do the opposite. The persuade their chidren to endure a little more hardship in the present in order to reap the rewards in later life – deferred gratification.
You follow?
Basically sensible people put off rewards in the present for greater rewards in the future.
Well I want to know what idiot came up with this idea.
As someone who is genetically prevented from leaving half a bar of chocolate or half a bottle of wine ‘to enjoy tomorrow’ I’m declaring war on whatever government department has been pushing this down our throats for the last 100 years.
Take the retirement myth for example.
In the UK there was a pensions crisis a few years back.
People who had paid into company pension schemes for thirty years or more were robbed – ROBBED – of THEIR money by at best incompetants and at worst criminals who couldn’t manage to pee in a straight line let alone run a pension fund.
One week after this I heard a financial advisor on the nation news giving advice to new graduates that one of the main things they should do is to start a pension.
Absolute insanity.
So the way it goes in the West is that we work hard, get as good a job as possible, earn as much money as possible (work like a dog if the overtime is available), start a pension scheme if possible then after 45 years retire to ‘enjoy’ high blood pressure, prostate problems and the fact that you’re never EVER going to have an affair with an underwear model.
Eventually one of the above or depression caused by one of the above finishes us off and that’s it.
If you’re lucky you retire at 65 and get 15 years of being able to enjoy life before you end up hovering above your body and waiting for the tunnel of light to appear.
15 years isn’t that great when we live to an average of 80 years.
If this system wasn’t already here and someone tried to introduce it we’d laugh.
So I have a radical theory.
Enjoy yourself NOW!
There definitely IS a present because we’re all IN it.
But a future?
Who knows -I might explode or something this evening. War, famine pestilence, a car, a heart attack, a dodgy meat pie or even a strong bout of laughter (remember that?) could finish any one of us off in the next 5 seconds.
Then what you gonna do with your pension plan? If of course it hasn’t been devalued or stolen by the time you need it.
So why NOT enjoy yourself now?
A small internet business could cover 2 days wages for you.
If it does can you go part-time at work?
Yes your husband/wife will have a fit, but after realising that you could maybe go out more (or stay in 🙂 )together they’ll soon come round to your way of thinking.
If not could you get away with saying ‘no chance’ when you’re asked (and in many workplaces this means ‘forced’) to do some overtime this weekend?
It’s your LIFE we’re talking about now – does it matter if you piss your boss off a bit? He won’t be thinking about it when he gets home (which will probably be considerably earlier than you)
The key to it of course is to bring in a little more money and the internet is the best way to do that.
Would you rather have an extra $75 or work one day less a week? After tax you possibly only come out with $50 anyway.
I know we all have bills to pay and children to feed – I really do, but you’d be surprised how little you need to survive on.
Now I’m not talking living like a monk – if you want that new Wiiiiii console then buy it. But wouldn’t it be great if your business paid for it?
Just a few dollars from an online business can be such a huge boost to your ego and confidence too. I’ve seen it so many times – once people make their first $100 online, their first $1000 is so much eaiser because they KNOW they can do it.
And once you start earning online you never go back. How many people have you heard say
‘Yes the money was good, I was my own boss, had lots of free time because I only worked 3 days a week but I wanted to go back to the security of a full time job’
People will get angry if you talk to them about this – you might even be getting angry reading this yourself. It’s because of fear. When something is suggested that makes you question why you do something, and that there might be an alternative it’s easy to get scared and angry.
I do know – I’ve been there and I know that if you can free up a little, tiny bit of YOU time, and dedicate it to your online business your chances of success will go up 500%
Don’t wash the car or do the shopping, if you manage to reduce your workload by just one day consider not telling anyone because they’ll only want a piece of you to cut the lawn or walk the dog.
People think in terms of work days and non work days.
We should be thinking in terms of ‘life’
And if you don’t agree then that’s cool. You’ll be able to retire happily, with your pension fund (if it’s still there) and live out the rest of your life (however long that might be) relaxing.
Here’s a great quote from Billy Connelly who says something like:
‘They say we’re all living twenty years longer than we were a century ago. That’s all well and good but why does it have to go on the END of your life?
I want it NOW while I’m laughing and shagging like a rhino rather than when I’m semi conscious, peeing into my shoes and dribbling into my cornflakes’
Me too mate.
Me too.
I’m taking my children for a ride on a steam train next monday morning.
What are you doing?
I’m no cleverer than you. Not a single percent.
Please work on your business. If you need monthly motivation, techniques and guidance CLICK HERE to get the lot for around $7 a month. Warning: I WILL bug you to keep moving!
Feel free to leave your comments below
MonthlyPLRniche.com sold out a few days ago. You can get on the waiting list by going to the site and signing up there. If our experience of MonthlyPLR (which has also sold out) is anything to go by, there’ll be a couple of places that will become vacant each month. If you want one, you’ll need to get on the waiting list., and we’ll let you know.
If subscriber emails are anything to go by this is possibly the most requested site we’ve ever put together.
Check out full details at the site, but if you’re into Internet Marketing you’re seriously not going to get anything this good for this price. Only 100 places are available. Please do yourself a favour and jump in while it’s still open. http://www.monthlyplrniche.com
I remember being about 17 years old, standing in front of the bathroom mirror with an ice cube pressed to my earlobe and a cork and long sharp needle in my hand.
I’d been out with some mates for a few beers and thought it would be a good idea to pierce my own ear.
I can still remember the pain involved in trying to numb my earlobe (depsite pints of guiness that possibly ran into double figures) with an ice cube that kept skidding across the floor, and the resulting cold sweat that overcame me on hearing the little ‘crack’ that echoed round the bathroom as the needle finally made a hole through my poor, red painful ear.
After three weeks of infection, pain and humiliation I managed to keep an earring in the ear AND sleep on it at night without waking up with the pain.
Six months later I had another ring put in the same ear. This time I went to a professional and the whole thing was done without pain or fuss in under two minutes.
Last week I wrestled to configure a new piece of software. I knew how it was supposed to work in principle and I’ve installed scripts before with varying degrees of success. This particular installation was an utter b*stard though. Nothing went right.
After two days I had flashes back to my cork, needle and ice days and thought ‘this is NOT worth the pain’ so I emailed a techy who I work with from time to time and the whole installation was up ands working in a matter of hours. Cost me $100.
How much did pratting trying to install the script myself cost?
Thousands probably. I could have been writing or planning a new project, putting a niche site together or whatever. Instead I decided to do the least profitable thing I possibly could.
Sometimes you really just have to know when it’s not worth doing ot yourself, when you can pay someone else to do it while you do what’s important.
There is a point to this.
If you’re finding your marketing business is struggling because you have very little time to spend on the important things because you spend too much time trying to put your own products together then I think we have the solution for you.
I’m not saying too much because you probably got an email telling you about the launch on Sunday 13th July at 12noon EST, 5pm UK time.
If you’re serious about your IM business, sit in front of your computer checking your inbox at the time above, because we have an opportunity that could change 100 businesses.
100 no more I’m afraid – it’s strictly limited. And it’ll sell out quicker than you can say ‘Oh crap my ear’s gone green’
Watch for that email and we’ll see you Sunday
I’ve had a glass of wine, it’s been a balmy summer day, the doors onto the garden are open and with the kids in bed, myself and my wife are watching a thunderstorm as it works it’s way across the hills towrds us.
I’m also writing my blog.
So I thought I’d share a marketing technique with you that I’d never really thought was a ‘secret’ but when I’m mentioned it in the past to a couple of people it seems that it might not be as obvious as it appeared to me when it bailed me out of trouble a few times in the early days.
Also surprising is the number of successful marketers who’ve admitted (maybe that’s the wrong word) to using this technique – some on an industrial scale!
OK – here we go. This won’t take long because the idea is simple, but like all good ideas devastatingly effective!
It also has it’s risks.
But then again so does forgetting an anniversary or trimming your beard when drunk.
I’ll just say up front that this does take some balls – ladies included – so it will appeal to some of you and not others.
It’s simply this – you act as a middleman for all services connected to internet marketing.
I used to offer a website design service. although I didn’t know any more than the basics of web page design. I’d get details of the commission, put in my price and then go to elance.com or rentacoder.com or similar and post the job description.
I’d get the job done cheaper and faster than I’d promised my original client, deliver the finished website to my client and pocket the difference. Money for old rope really.
I never had a problem with the ethics of it (still don’t) and know of some highly reputable freelancers who don’t do any work themselves, they’re just professional middlemen.
That’s the basis of it. However there is a downside. From personal experience I’d say that one in five jobs goes wrong. Delays, untrustworthy freelancers, poor work standard and non-payers are just a few of the problems I’ve encountered.
Very few are un-solveable though, and if you’ve decided to take the plungle into full time internet marketing then acting as a middleman can provide a much needed safety net
And sorry guys but that’s all there is to it. You can find your work by looking through freelance sites or posting on forums, and find the freelancers you’re going to subcontract in the same way. This is one of those ‘business ideas’ that you’re never going to be convinced about unless you try it yourself. It’s like someone saying ‘then run an adwords ad to drive traffic to your new site’ – it’s easy to say, and to be honest it’s quite easy to do but for some reason it takes…….balls………..and that’s probably why not many people do it.
And that’s it.
Look into it – see if it clicks with you.
Anyway – a couple of days ago we released a VERY limited 30 licenses to the PLR of ’24 hour article guru’
Now this little gem takes the reader through the whole process of exactly how to write and submit articles to article distribution sites. It’s the ultimate bum marketing guide – a complete step by step guide to article marketing.
We’ve even had emails from seasoned marketers saying they picked up a tip or two from this 40 page ebook, even though they’ve been article marketing for years.
Better than that though is the huge potential for reselling this ebook (with your own name on and links in of course) to newbies to internet marketing. Read the posts in just about any IM forum and one of the most frequent questions asked by any newcomer (apart from ‘How do I make $20k by next wednesday?’) is about how to ‘do’ bum or article marketing.
Anyway I really don’t need to say any more about this PLR package because 27 out of the 30 licenses have been sold – four to big ‘gurus’ who snap up every bit of PLR we produce at Laycock Publishing. I’d love to tell you who they are but my name would be trashed if I even thought about it.
There are 3 left, at the really daft price of $29. Limited licenses like this often go for ten times as much. We’re really going to have to put our prices up soon .
Here the link if you’d like one of the three that are left:
http://www.anthony-shepherd.com/articlegurulimited/
OK for a start I can’t prove the statement above so I’m lying.
And I’m not 100% sure of the meaning of the word ‘hedonism’ but I’ve always taken it to mean someone who lives life solely for the pursuit of pleasure, so for the purposes of this blog post, we’ll take that as the real meaning, OK?
I’d always thought that the pleasurable things in life were more attractive than the alternative. Despite having parents who come from Yorkshire, where people are brought up to think if something makes you suffer, cry or explode it’s good for you, I’ve always gone for a more pleasure-based approach to my activites.
Likewise most of the things that the various religious texts don’t want you to do seem to be a whole lot of fun, if you do them with the right people (or vegetable in some cases), and I’ve always been partial to good food, good sex, good wine and good company. There are things of course that I try NOT to experience too much of – work, debt and pain being at the forefront of these.
Now the people I know who share my love of pleasure also seem to be among the most intelligent of my friends, relatives and aquaintances and I always thought that it was BECAUSE they were intelligent that they sought out the finer things in life.
Not so it appears.
It would seem that recent science has proved (and no I can’t find the source – Google it yourself) that the endorphins released when we experience a pleasurable sensation are actually neuro transmitters, and these in turn form more connections in your brain and so actually makes you more intelligent!
So – which of these do you think releases more endorphins?
1. An 8 hour shift in a steel smelting factory?
2. A cream cake massage from a Swedish model?
Working, it would seem, doesn’t improve your intelligence as much as taking the day off to have sex with your partner.
What more can I say?
have fun!
Times are a changing.
Used to be that anyone who used a gmail address (googlemail in the UK) or a Yahoo or Hotmail email address had something to hide. These days even top marketers use webmail addresses such as these because they can be accessed from any PC or location and because they’re extremely convenient. We pull all our emails together at Laycock Publishing using a couple of Googlemail addy’s because it’s extremely convenient given that we can be working from home, office, different countries or even occassionally from a yacht.
Likewise some of the best and richest internet marketers work from a room at home, and have only one or two (if any) employees. Bill Gates looks like he shops at a jumble sale and many of the designer-clothed, flash car driving poseurs I see on a day to day basis don’t have (as my Gran used to say) ‘a pot to piss in’
The UK, US and Europe are no longer the only places to base a reputable business. Now you’re just as likely to see a stunningly profitable yet small business spring up in Hong Kong, India or China.
You can’t judge a book by it’s cover anymore.
Which is great for me, being a scruffy git. You can’t see me sitting here with wine stains down my shirt, scratching like a gibbon and losing my concentration as something out of the window catches my eye but that’s exactly what I’m doing. Let’s face it – I could be naked or dressed as a nun for all you know.
Likewise you don’t see the awkward moments I have in shops when the sales girl assumes I’ve stolen my Amex because I look like I can’t afford a decent coat, let alone buy sushi. This is also the reason why the barman always whispers to me ‘It’s sixty pounds a bottle’ whenever we have a modest family celebration with an even more modestly priced bottle of bubbly.
Because people ASSUME things about us because of how we dress, act and behave.
But this causes a problem online too.
Because online we can’t hide behind a thousand dollar suit. (I once wore a £1,000 suit and I make it look like it came from Asda (WalMart).
Despite what people think about internet marketing, if you want a long term business you can’t BS people online.
Online we can’t hide behind a facade of fancy clothes, big cars and flashy offices. All we have to offer, and the thing that people (customers) judge us on, is HOW WE TREAT THEM.
I got a slightly arsey email earlier today from someone who wanted some help with how to make $20,000 by next wednesday (I kid you not). I emailed back to say it was pretty impossible starting from nothing so he got angry and called me a con man.
My instinct was to fire off an email telling him where to shove his $20k but I didn’t. I wrote him a longer email explaining why it would be extremely difficult to achieve this goal and what the alternatives were. I took time to explain some alternatives and possibilites. I felt pretty good about myself afterwards.
When the reply came, I opened it, and waited to bask in the warm glow of his appreciation. I’d really gone out of my way to help this guy, which to be fair, isn’t always possible because I get a lot of emails. Sometimes my replies are shorter than I’d like them to be, but I have to earn a living too and don’t want to get to the point where I employ a ‘minion’ to answer emails for me.
Anyway – I opened the email and found myself reading a barrage of abuse and expletives. The guy simply didn’t want to hear ANYTHING that wasn’t going to get him $20k by next week.
But I did my part. I was professional and as helpful as I possibly could be. I did my bit and I won’t lose any sleep over it. Because as I said earlier, we’re judged, as internet marketers, SOLELY on how we treat people.
I always remember another marketer who’s been around for years said that she once lost her temper and fired off an abusive email to someone who’d done the same to her. Next thing she knew it was all over the internet and her rep was shot. I also know someone rather closer to home who’s had experience with the same thing.
So walk away from your PC for half an hour when you’re angry or frustrated with a customer or enquiry. You can’t afford to be anything less than perfect with your online business – because just as blind people compensate with a better sense of hearing or smell, your customers have nothing to judge you from except the tiny bit of direct communication they get from you in an email or blog.
Scary thought eh?
Oh – and if you want to make $20,000 by wednesday…………well, I’m still working on it – you could maybe get a sponsorship deal and call your next child Sony or Imac?
Suggestions always welcome.
