Rafael Garrett

We are almost halfway through 2013, and a new and different economic reality is settling upon us. The era when you could graduate from school with a guarantee of finding long-term, meaningful employment seems to be coming to an end rather painfully.

In its place, we are being enveloped by an economy that is based on more Darwinian terms, where extreme turn-over and near-impossible hiring standards are the order of the day. More and more companies are refusing to hire people who have been unemployed for more than six months, or people whose credit histories have been negatively impacted by the recent economic downturn, and those people number in the millions. Consequently, basing your economic future on the prospect of getting a J-O-B seems to be no longer advisable or even feasible.

This new economic environment may seem negative and depressing, but it really isn’t, because it is setting up more and more possibilities for those of us who have chosen to be self-employed. The combination of the recent shifts in the economic landscape and the new possibilities offered by technology makes the home-based business industry a new niche, from which millions will gather the strength and resources that will enable them to get back on their feet.

This is the right moment in time to start the process of ditching your J-O-B and firing your boss, before they are compelled by the new economic reality to do the same thing to you. This is a perfect time to start scouting for the right business opportunity and for the marketing resources that will allow you to break the chains of economic mediocrity once and for all.

This website is replete with such opportunities and resources. I use them to make a living from home, and they have empowered me to be in full control of my time and my destiny. You can do the exact same thing if you are willing to invest some effort consistently, and to absorb new information and learn a new way of doing things.

You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to take control of your economic future, and I will be glad to help you every step of the way if and when you decide to commit to improving your situation and invest time and effort on a consistent manner. All you have to do is review this website and contact me with any questions you may have…Then we will start the process that will take you to the next level!

Most prospective online entrepreneurs are faced with the following scenario when they decide to dive into Web Marketing,  (and this happens with all kinds of marketing, to be honest): The first thing they are told to do is write a list of their “circle of influence”.

This so-called “circle of influence” list is really a list of all the people the new marketer knows. When this list is completed, the new marketer is told to go and present his/her offer to all these people at the earliest possible opportunity and repeatedly, regardless of whether these people are interested or not. I call this “Lame Marketing 101″.

This is a big part of the “training” that a vast majority of newbies in the marketing industry get, (if it can be qualified as such). When I entered the automotive sales industry, for example, the first thing I was told to do was to go and hound my friends and family relentlessly with new car pamphlets and ads about the latest sale at the dealership. Needless to say, a lot of friends and relatives still cringe when they see me coming their way today, and I can’t say I blame them.

At some point along the path I realized that this is EXACTLY the wrong way to go about marketing anything. Then I came to the Internet marketing industry, and I learned a whole new way of marketing that consists SIMPLY on finding your target audience, (the people interested in your product or service), and presenting them with your offer. Sounds very basic, but you’d be surprised at how difficult it is to get people to understand this very simple proposition sometimes.

I don’t do “Lame Marketing” now, haven’t done it in years, and will never advise anyone to do it, because it is counter-productive, time-wasting, irritating, stressful, and frankly, JUST PLAIN STUPID. Do you want to alienate a prospective customer in a hurry? Start trying to sell him or her on something that they haven’t expressed the slightest bit of interest in!

Today’s web technology enables us to find the people who are interested in what we have to offer through a variety of means, such as Pay-Per-Click and Search Engine Optimization to name a couple. This is the beauty of the Internet!

However, smart marketing can be practiced offline as well through the use of print ads published in the right publications and postcards sent to a reputable, appropriately targeted mailing list. The Internet has simplified marketing and made it more sophisticated at the same time, but it is by no means the only way to go.

So stay away from “Lame Marketing” if you want to be successful as a marketer on and off the Web. Stick with me and I’ll be happy to show you the do’s and don’ts, and share with you the knowledge that I have acquired from experience!

About 750,000 people currently make a great living from home selling products on eBay, Amazon.com, eBid.com, Ubid.com, and other similar online auction websites, and you can do that too with dropship products.

Dropship products are those which you can sell without having to stock or even physically handle inventory. The buyer sees an item he or she likes in your website, pays you for it, you deduct your commission and turn around and pay the supplier, and the supplier ships the item straight to the buyer…No hassles!

You can get your dropshipping website from the good folks at DropShipDesign.com, without having to enter into a contract with them or having to make a huge investment right out of the gate. You can get a basic website that only gives you access to the products, or you can go with the fully-loaded turnkey auction management website, which comes fully automated with the eBay Wizard auction management option, and ready to process credit card and PayPal payments without you needing to get a merchant account.

This online income system features no monthly fees, (unless you decide to go with the turnkey solution), and comes with daily updates as new products get added. It also issues monthly reports on your sales. And it offers you the opportunity to add one more stream of income to your marketing efforts through their free two-tier affiliate reseller program!

You can get more information about this opportunity and join HERE.

Joining SBI and going through their program is much like getting an MBA in Online Marketing, because it teaches you how to build a successful e-business, except that, while you’re learning, you are actually building the business!

Site Build It is a business-building system with all the software and tools you will need, plus a comprehensive Action Guide, (both in writing and on video), with step-by-step instructions on exactly what to do and when. It also has a success-focused community in the “help-and-be-helped” SBI Forums.

It features top-notch support, and the SBI team constantly updates the tools and information, so you only have to worry about keeping up to date with your business, and not with the intricacies of Internet marketing.

The main tool that attracted me to the SBI system is their “Seed Generator”, which basically helps you find keywords and concepts that are not too broad and competitive, or too narrow and not competitive enough. In other words, this tool steers you away from topics and keywords that have low business potential, virtually guaranteeing that your website will be successful once work on it is finished and it goes live.

Other tools include Brainstorming & Research, Domain Registration & Hosting, Look & Feel templates, Site-Building (Search Engine Optimized), Traffic Stats, Search Engine Listing & Ranking Reports, Sequential Autoresponders, Site-Blogging, Community-Building & Social Media…The list goes on and on…80+ tools and counting!

And SBI features a 90-day money-back guarantee…Take advantage of their risk-free trial offer HERE.

This is a pretty nifty, self-sufficient marketing system I was introduced to by one of my mentors a couple of days ago, and I had to add it to my list of marketing resources right away once I realized its power.

The Viral Cycler is a list builder, a business promoter, and a commission producer all rolled up into one easy-to-use, convenient little package that you need if you want to multiply your marketing efforts exponentially. It will promote your existing business and sell itself to your prospects and visitors at the same time, producing $47 commissions for you!

It works by capturing leads and using its built-in autoresponder to follow up with them and close them. It pays a decent commission while building your list of subscribers for you, and promotes your main business effectively, all hands-free…WHAT ELSE COULD ANY SERIOUS ONLINE MARKETER ASK FOR??

You’ve probably heard this before, and it could not be more true. Success in marketing does indeed depend on the number of prospects you can reach with your marketing message.

The commonly referred-to rule of thumb in the marketing industry says that for every 100 prospects that see your marketing message, only 2 will buy your product or join your program. This is especially true in the realm of online marketing.

This is why your main task as a home-business operator using the Internet as your main platform has to be marketing intelligently online. The advantage of online marketing is that it can be achieved virtually without the advertising expenses that a regular brick-and-mortar business is confronted with.

Many people get excited about this industry and decide to jump into it, but become very disillusioned and dejected when their first marketing effort doesn’t render gigantic results, and that is just the tendency we all have to underestimate the difficulty of life.

Success never comes without effort and perseverance, and this industry is based on those two concepts to a very, VERY large extent. You have to make every effort to learn the right ways to go about marketing your product or program online, and once you’ve learned them, you need to put that knowledge into practice and persevere until you achieve success.

One of my favorite quotes about success comes from Sir Winston Churchill, who said: “Success is nothing but the ability to go from one failure to the next without losing enthusiasm”. He didn’t know it then, but he was describing exactly what it is like to operate within the online marketing industry!

This is a mindset that you must adopt and master as a home-business operator. If you do, it will allow you to succeed and achieve your goals not only in this industry, but in life!

Ever since blogging became the preferred method to generate website traffic, PLR (Private Label Rights) articles have become very popular among Internet marketers, but I think they do more harm than good, and I’ll tell you why.

A PLR article starts life as a piece written by someone looking to sell it along with a license known as “private label rights”. This license actually gives the buyer the right to do things like give the article away, re-sell it, use it as content for blogs or Ebooks, and even to rebrand it and claim authorship of it.

The basic idea involved is for bloggers to get a bunch of these articles, upload them to their blog, and watch the traffic skyrocket as Google indexes their content and links/backlinks are created. Pretty nifty, right?

BUT, here’s the problem: Most of the PLR articles that are available for purchase all over the web have been sold and resold thousands of times, and this has resulted in hundreds, (if not thousands), of blogs and websites featuring the same exact content.

Google HATES this!

As we all know, Google is the big kid on the block when it comes to indexing the Internet, and it is the most used search engine in the world. Google has been altering its indexing algorithm lately, and going through phases they have assigned cute little names to, like Panda and Penguin.

The result of these alterations to Google’s algorithm is that now the only sites that will get indexed in such a way as to achieve high page rankings are the sites that feature original content. When the last algorithm alteration took place earlier this year we saw thousands of websites crash and burn because of this new circumstance!

Now, I’ve got to point out that PLR articles can still be used, but they have become impractical. This is because you have to re-write them and change them drastically before posting them to your blog, so you won’t run the risk of Google recognizing them as old content and dinging you for it with a low ranking.

In view of that situation, I’ve reached a personal conclusion: If I am going to have to spend time re-writing badly written (and sometimes expensive) PLR articles that come with poor syntax and bad grammar, I might as well spend that time writing my own content properly.

This way I won’t have to spend a dime, and Google will like me and my website much better for it!

If you’ve been following this blog at all, you’re probably tired of hearing me say that the most important thing you can ever do for your business is list building!

That is why you have to be willing to consider every conceivable method of lead-generation out there. However, at the same time, you have to be judicious and realistic when it comes to the costs you are willing to bear.

What does that have to do with postcard marketing, you ask?

I want to share a story with you: Once upon a time, (and not that long ago), I used to be one of those happy souls who thought that a single mailing of postcards to a good mailing list would bring me sales every time, and needless to say, I was wrong.

I was wrong, because I have realized that postcard marketing is, for the most part, really just one more way to generate leads (so you can build your list). A VERY expensive way to generate leads. Yes, you can make the occasional sale using postcards, but the overhead is just way too high.

Let me give you an example of what happened to me, in order to illustrate my point:  I would purchase an opportunity buyer list with 1,000 names from a reputable broker for about $100. Then I would purchase 1,000 first class postage stamps for postcards, (postcards need 0.32 cents each, so my total for that would be $320), and the design and printing of my cards would set me back by about $75. So my total cost for reaching 1,000 targeted prospects with non-junk mail postcards would be $495.

My reputable mailing list would yield a typical 2.5% response, which amounts to 25 people going to my website to look at my offer. Invariably, out of those 25 I would get maybe one or two sales, (if I got very lucky), and to be honest with you, most of the time all I got was 25 subscribers to my autoresponder list.

Therefore, my cost for each one of these leads came out to be $19.80. That is criminal, and I stopped doing it a long time ago!

There are very effective lead-generation methods out there that will allow me to generate up to 4,000 targeted leads per month virtually for FREE. In view of that, I am sure you can understand how crazy and insane it is to spend almost $20 for each lead you generate!

Postcard marketing works great for those who have sizable marketing budgets that allow for significant volume, and for those who are willing to pay for the bulk rate instead of first class. However, they still have to deal with the tendency people have to throw bulk mail away, (better known as junk mail), without even looking at it.

So my recommendation to you is to stay away from postcard marketing in the beginning, and to start attempting it little by little as your marketing skills and your budget increase in size. For effective and very inexpensive  methods of lead generation, stay tuned to this blog.

In closing, as always, I have to stress that the MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do, (which you need to start doing RIGHT NOW), is building a list of subscribers and followers who trust you. Do that and the money will follow!

(And please, PLEASE, don’t use any methods that will cause you to pay $20 for a single lead!!!)

You are what you say you are, and your idea of what you are is determined by the bounds of your intent and determination to truly become that which you want to be.

Do you want to become an entrepreneur enough to say to others that that’s what you are? Or are you just another tire-kicker with big daydreams and no true gumption to go for what you really want?

I’d say that a very high percentage of the people who stumble unto the home-based industry are tire-kickers. I say that because a vast majority of those who consider the idea of becoming home-based entrepreneurs don’t realize that becoming self-employed is a hard endeavor that requires time, preparation, study, effort, and at least a little bit of money to get started.

Many come into this believing that they can start raking in the dough from one day to the next, just by joining a promising web business venture or network marketing company, putting up a nice website, and telling all their friends and family about it. NOTHING could be further from the truth, and sadly, a lot of people find this out the hard way.

They allow their discouragement to get the best of them, and end up giving up their dream, just so they can go back to a dead end J-O-B that continually threatens to cease to exist. HAS THIS HAPPENED TO YOU? If it has don’t feel bad, because it has certainly happened to me, and more than once.

We are what we say we are! I have learned enough about being self-employed in the home-business industry to know that the last thing I would ever want to go around saying to people is that I am stuck in a low-paying, dead end J-O-B that sucks the joy and motivation out of my daily existence.

How would you like to be able to say to people that you are someone who successfully supports him/herself running a successful business from home? The knowledge and the tools needed to achieve such a station in this life do exist. They are VERY REAL and they are at your disposal, but you have to want to improve your life and that of your loved ones enough to invest the time and effort needed to unlock these tools and put them to work for you. It’s all in the choice you make about what your life is going to be like.

So, what’s your choice? Are you truly willing to become who you say you want to be?

So, we’re in the middle of this hotly contested general election, and the candidates are using the fragile state of our economy to beat each other upside the head.

The latest economic numbers were released this past Friday, and while we’re not doing horrible, we’re not doing as well as we should be doing on the jobs front.

It was reported that part of the reason why there was a slight decrease in the rate of unemployment is that some people have actually given up in the search for a job, and stopped looking altogether. A sad state of affairs indeed!

However, this situation proves why this is precisely the right moment to consider starting a home-based business! The fourth quarter of the year is traditionally a very, very good time for the home-based business industry, maybe the best out of the entire year.

If you are one of those folks who have been downsized out of a J-O-B, or a victim of outsourcing, or your employer went out of business, this is the perfect opportunity for you to do a reset, and start focusing your efforts into taking advantage of this moment to start building something for yourself and your loved ones. Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants to make us realize that there’s a better path!

To me there is nothing more depressing than having someone else controlling my time and my income, and being stuck in a routine that enriches others but leaves me depleted of enthusiasm and motivation. That is exactly what a J-O-B is, and if this economic upheaval has forced you out of that sad situation, you ought to be glad!

I can show you the options, programs, techniques, and knowledge that can take you from being disgruntled and unemployed to being happy and secure in the knowledge that your efforts are going into building a better situation for your family, and not your old boss’s family.

Stick with me in this blog, so I can share the knowledge of the home-based business industry I’ve been accumulating since 1993. It’s been almost 20 years, and throughout that time I have learned that I can rely entirely on myself and my efforts for economic independence, and you can learn how to do that too!