June Campbell : Writing from Vancouver

This posting is about the Law of Abundance, so all you who pooh pooh this sort of thing can either stick and around to have a laugh at my expense, or click away now. 

Today I created a visualization to help manifest financial abundance. This visualization appeared spontaneously, courtesy of a little imp/elf/spirit who lives in my head. I call her Little June. She is the brains of the operation and she comes up with some interesting things from time to time. 

So to give some background — I have two giant tomato plants growing from a pot on my balcony. These plants are huge. They have made a great many small green tomatoes but these tomatoes did not ripen or grow very big this summer. Vancouver had too little heat for tomatoes this year, they say.

Anyway, Little June determined that these are actually Tomato Plant Money Trees. When I was taking a relaxation break from my work at the computer, I suddenly saw the tomato plants in my head. The tomatoes grew big and red and juicy. There were huge tomatoes. The plants were so laden down with tomatoes that they were stooped over.

Some of the tomatoes turned into gold and rubies and diamonds. Other tomatoes grew huge and split open, spilling seeds all over the place. New tomato plants grew from the seeds. Soon the balcony was too small for all the tomatoes and I found a huge field. The tomato plants spread out in this field and reached to all of infinity — all producing more tomatoes. Some turned to gold and rubies — others spilled still more  seeds around. The tomato supply was limitless.

At this point,  I laughed aloud because it was so silly … and laughing made the whole thing seem like fun.

I think this is a cool way to invite the Law of Abundance into my finances.

Does anyone else have a special visualization they use? Leave a comment and let me know.

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So call me cranky, but I’m fed up with liars. I’m especially fed up with Internet marketers who blatantly lie on their sales pages. And I’m particularly, especially fed up with Internet marketers who blatantly lie on their sales pages and brag about it in Internet marketing forums.

Today over at the Warrior Forum a guy makes a post saying he wants to sell a web site because he has an “unforeseen circumstance” that requires cash. When you look at the sales page, our Mr. Honorable says that whatever it is he’s selling makes a million dollars a year. When asked why he needs to raise money fast if he has an income of one MIL a year, the guy says, and I quote, “So I’m like the 95% of the new Internet marketers who lie on their sales page. Shoot me.”

Tempting as that last offer is, I’ll just say that this is the sort of thing that gives us all a bad name. I hope to hell that 95% of new marketers don’t lie like this guy does — but we sure know there are plenty who do.

Could you get away with this in the off-line world?  I suppose it depends upon the laws in your country, but jeesh!

Rant over. I’m now looking at this from a different perspective. When I read the responses to this dude’s post, I note that almost everyone has expressed a negative reaction to the lies. Since I believe in the Law of Attraction, I think it better to focus on the positive side… and the positive side is that a lot of people posted to protect unethical marketing and indicated that they personally use good ethical practices.

Perhaps the sky isn’t falling after all.

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Would you work for chicken feed? Internet marketers are debating that one hotly over at the Warrior Forum. Seems that a 14 year old boy made $45 in affiliate sales and decided it was too little. He ripped his ads down and told his shocked mother that his time and intelligence were worth more than $45.

Oh my. What an ingrate!  Doesn’t he know the value of money? How long would he have to serve up McHappies to make $45?  Doesn’t he know that $45 is better than $0? What’s wrong with kids today? They don’t know they have to work hard. They expect things to just fall in their lap.

Great wailing and gnashing of teeth as adult Internet marketers jumped in to address pearls of wisdom to the recalcitrant 14 year old. Who, by the way, was not a member of the site. His mother was the recipient of all this good advice, which she was invited to pass along to Sonny Boy.

So I gotta admit it. My initial, knee-jerk reaction was to agree with the other marketers.  The kid was in for a big shock. He’s find out that life is tough and money is hard to come by. He’d learn his lesson  ….. etc. etc. etc.

Then I got a second wind, so to speak. I took another look at this situation and I heard another voice in my head struggling to make itself heard. Yes, I hear voices in my head.  Sometimes they tell me to eat chocolate cake and to hell with the diet.  On the other hand, sometimes they struggle to get me to see other ways of looking at things.

This time, the voice said,”Hey, wait a minute here.”  What’s wrong with this kid putting a high value on his efforts? Isn’t over valuing yourself better than under valuing?  Don’t we tend to get what we expect in this world?

Even if you don’t believe in the Law of Attraction, you have to but look around you and see how this works. People who expect to barely scrape by from payday to payday usually have too much month left at the end of their money.  People who expect to do well usually do. People who expect life to be difficult usually find that it is.

So perhaps when we look at it this way, the Greedy Teen is on to something. My suggestion is that the little sod challenge himself and figure out how to make the money he thinks he ‘s worth. Maybe he’ll be in for a big disappointment. Maybe  he’ll succeed and we’ll be eating crow. Either way, he’s going to learn a valuable life lesson.

And what’s wrong with that?

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Who else but The Donald would come up with a book title like that?  And I’m not even going to take a shot at his hair. When you’ve attracted as much power and wealth as Donald Trump, you can wear your hair any way you damned well please.

The  Donald co-authored Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life with Bill Zanker the president and founder of the Learning Annex.  And, with his typical modesty, Trump call it “the best thing I have ever written.”

In true Donald fashion, he handed out one hundred dollar bills to the first one hundred customers to show up at the book signing at a Barnes & Noble New York bookstore last week.  Several hundred people showed up, forming a line that extended down the street and around a corner. When the store opened, the bills were gone within minutes. At least one person camped out overnight to be sure he was first in line.  One wonders if they were fans of The Donald, or were more interested in getting their hands on the cash. Some apparently walked out after getting the money without even buying the book. As one person commented on the New York Times web site, “He wasn’t thinking big. He was thinking small.” 

I have to agree.  Unless one is in dire financial straights, lining up to get a hundred dollars and then leaving without purchasing the book is truly a poverty mentality. I don’t know about you, but I cannot in my wildest imagination visuzlize that person ever becoming wealthy and successful. That kind of thing just doesn’t fit itself with a wealth mindset.

When the dust settled, it appeared that the Learning Annex actually donated the cash, although The Donald seems to get the credit for it. Bill Zonker said he gave the money away in hopes it would inspire people.

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Can the blind lead the blind? Can you teach something if you can’t do it yourself?

Must the teacher be better than the student?

Interesting question. On the surface, you’d think yes, of course. The teacher/mentor/coach has to be an expert at what he or she teaches.

But do they really?

This issue came up at my Internet forum.  A man who coaches other in Internet marketing experienced financial difficulties and was almost brought to his knees by a business failure.  The question was raised.  Is it ethical for him to coach others in internet marketing when his own business almost went south?

To my own surprise, I’m taking the position that yes, it is ethical. Consider this. Does Tiger Woods’ coach play a better golf game than Tiger?  Not likely. Did Wayne Gretsky, The Great One, have a coach who played better hockey than he does? Do Britney Spears handlers know more about ….. okay bad example. Let’s pass that one by!

The truth is that a teacher/coach/mentor must understand the concepts and be able to explain them to the student and motivate the student to perform at his or her optimal best.  I can’t play golf worth a darn, but I’ve taught two people to swing the darned club better in an hour than I can after many years of trying.

I’m not greatly artistic, but I have a web site that shows artistic people a number of techniques to use in creating an  altered book. I know the site is helpful because I receive tons of email messages thanking me for making it available. And the works of art these folks create using the techniques are way more outstanding than anything I could create.

So sure, a man whose business has almost failed can certainly teach others the concept of Internet marketing and motivate them to succeed.

There is a lot of unethical stuff happening in the Internet marketing field, but this guy isn’t part of it.

How about the people that urge us to buy at the special price because the price is only staying at that number for a few hours or days? When you go back to the sales page months later, its the same price as ever and the same message. That’s the subject for another post, however.

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• Posted a recipe for chocolate chip cookies from a Vancouver restaurant. http://tinyurl.com/2gk2oh #
• Published a recipe for Steamed Boston Brown Bread http://tinyurl.com/ypf53x #

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Hey, aging Baby Boomer!  Internet marketers want to know if you’re too old to be sold to?

Yep, that’s a recent discussion going on at some of the Internet marketing forums. Are seniors a viable demographic to market to, is how they put it, ungramatically.  And by seniors, I’m afraid they were talking about the older Baby Boomers.

Were there any product’s and services we’d buy on the Internet?

The forum members scratched their collective heads and eventually came up with a few insights. “We’re interested in our health,” they decided. Yes, definitely health. 

“We’re interested in bringing in some extra cash when we retire,” thought one. Yes, definitely ways to make money would appeal to us.

Was there anything else?  Nothing really came to mind. A few “seniors” on the list posted derisive posts but didn’t contribute much. They were probably too busy snickering and rolling their eyes.

I mean geesh, Young Marketers. Give your heads a good shake. Look around you. What do you see us doing?

We’re traveling. Come up with some good travel deals and opportunities and market them to us.

We’re pursuing fitness like never before. We’re buying exercise equipment. We’re taking exercise classes. We’re pursuing sports. Perhaps most of us are not too involved in sky diving or bungee jumping, but try us with golf, sailing, kayaking, skiing, hiking and more.

We’re interested in good food. We pursue hobbies. We read. We attend concerts and theatre and movies when we can find one that doesn’t feature space alien invasions, bloody serial killers or young males making gross and disgusting body noises.

We’re changing our lifestyles. We’re getting ready to sell off the family home. Some of us will go for something smaller and easier to look after. Some will go bigger and demand luxury all the way now we finally have our privacy and the kids have left home. We’d welcome information about real estate opportunities and related tax implications of various related activities. And oh yeah, one thing more. We’re getting rid of a lifetime of “stuff.” We no longer need the clutter and we’re looking for a way to get rid of that closetfull of old games and unused sporting equipment. We’re looking in our china cabinets and wondering what to do with the knicknacks and “dustable” items that no longer fill a need. Some of us, God forbid, are trying to decide what to do with our own parent’s closet fulls of “stuff.” Come up with something to help us deal with this kind of thing and we’ll be your best customer.

Oh and going back a bit, I said we were moving out of the big family home. Well, not quite all of us. Not those of us dealing with a kid’s “failure to launch.”  How about that, Young Marketers?  Come up with a product that tells us how to get the adult kids working and living in a home in which they pay the rent?

 And as for those of you wondering whether we have sufficient technological skills to download a digital product…. I have two words for you. GET REAL Come  up  with one that we might actually want to read and we’ll figure out how to download it pretty darned fast.

Many of us have grandchildren. We’re interested in all things grandchild related. We invest in our grandchildrens’ future by buying bonds and stocks and mutual funds in their names. We buy toys. We prefer educational toys that have lasting value. We remember all too well the trashy junk that our own children demanded and then abandoned within minutes. We buy clothes and games. We take pictures. We use our digital cameras. We even manage to download ebooks on digital photography like Beginners Guide to Digital Phogoraphy.

We’re interested in the enviroment and in figuring out how to help our troubled planet. We’re interested in alternative health care products. We’re interested in clothes and skin care And believe it or not, Young Internet Marketers, we’re even interested in having a good sex life.

So there you go. Take these ideas and come up with a decent and worthwhile product that addresses one of these issues. We’ll buy it.

Oh, and you might want to tone down the hype and exaggerated claims on the sales page. We’ve been around too long to fall for that kind of approach.

No charge for the free advice.

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That’s the topic du jour over at the Warrior Forum. Can you make money without spending any money?  Let’s see. You could always win a lottery. Oops, nope. Won’t work. You have to buy a ticket first. You could rob a bank. But there is that investment in the ski mask and the real or pretend weapon you use to scare the teller out of her wits. I’m assuming you steal the getaway car, of course.

Okay, seriously, can you make money online without spending any? Yes, provided you have an Internet enabled computer. You can.

However, you will have to spend your time, if not your money. I can’t see any way to make money without spending one or the other. If anyone figures that out, please let me know ASAP.

 So, assuming you are prepared to spend time, this is what you do.

1. Go to Clickbank. Sign up for a free account. Find an affiliate product or two to promote. It should be in a niche that interests you or that you know something about. In case this is new to you, an affiliate product is somebody else’s product that you can promote and receive a commission when somebody clicks through your special link and buys the item.

2. Sign up at one of the many free blogging sites that allow you to make a blog and use affiliate links. Write good content about your subject. Include your affiliate products and your affiliate links.

3. Write articles and Squidoo Lenses about your subject. Submit these articles to directories like EzineArticles.com. Make a resource box at the bottom of your article. Link this resource box back to your main blog.

4. Submit your blog to the social networking or bookmarking sites like stumbledon or Digg, to name only two.

5. Use other free traffic generation strategies like those found at 30 Ways to Generate Traffic Without Spending a Dime

Generate enough traffic and you will make money.

When you have accumulated some cash, invest it in your Internet marketing. Buy a domain name, get your own blog or web site and start some serious selling. I suggest downloading the Joe Mack 22 Step Plan to Making Money Online. It’s free.

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Today’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Be thankful you’re not a turkey, as one wit said.

 Gratitude’s a wonderful thing. But who knew the mad scientists were analyzing it under a stethoscope and figuring out what being grateful really meant to us?  Yep. Gratitude is the new black, apparently.  “Gimme, gimme, gimme” is out and gratitude is in.

 Want to know why you should be grateful?  Here’s what science suggests you should be doing, as reported by the Vancouver Sun.

•  Keep a gratitude journal. You’ll exercise more, have fewer physical symptoms. You’ll be more likely to reach your goals and you’ll have better thoughts about your life as a whole. Better as compared to people who don’t keep a gratitude journal, that is.
•  Perform daily gratitude exercises. You’ll be more alert, enthusiastic, determined, attentive energetic, connected to others, sleep better and be more optimistic that those who don’t do this.
• Attend Church or engage in spiritual activities. You’ll be more grateful, more interconnected to all life and feel more responsibility to others than those who do not.
• Work at feeling more gratitude. You’ll be less likely to judge success on material wealth and more on other, deeper accomplishments.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Wow!  My cup runneth over!  I have a new hero in the Internet Marketing world.

 The publishers of an excellent free software utility have produced a licensing agreement stipulating that their product is not available to anyone who flies more than four times in a twelve month period or who drives a SUV!

Kudos, kudos, kudos!

I love to see people taking creative approaches to protecting our environment and our planet. Sure, I know its the honor system and that people can lie about their lifestyle choices to get the freebie. I know many will lie and won’t feel a moment’s shame.

 I also know that this is a very tiny step towards addressing global warming.

But the point is, these people are not sitting on their asses doing nothing. They’re not saying, “I feel so helpless. What can a little guy/gal like me do?”

They’ve taken a stand. And yes, they’ll probably antagonize a few prospective customers, because they also sell a pro version of their product. Apparently, they are willing to make this sacrifice for the sake of taking a stand on this important issue.

 It’s a small step, but a good one. It might have more impact than they could possibly realize. After all, every person who reads their agreement has their consciousness raised just a little more.  And the more we see  people taking proactive steps, the more we feel inclined to find some little thing to do ourselves.

The free product is called WordWeb. It’s a desktop dictionary that looks up any word from any software program that we happen to be using.  It provides not only the definition and spelling of the word but a list of synonyms as well, so its also a thesaurus. It works beautifully and quickly. This is an excellent boon to anyone who does article marketing or a lot of writing for any purpose. Download it for free (if you’re green enough to qualify) at WorldWeb.info

And if you want some tips for making your small office or home office environmentally friendly, check out the tips at Making Your Office e-Green

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