Internet Marketing 101

June 13th, 2003

Hey Y'all;

I hope everyone is doing well today.

Happy Friday 13th!!

I fighting off a cold or flu bug that seems to have set in yesterday afternoon.

Geeesh I have no idea where I got it from since I don't get out a lot. Yeah I'm one of those geeky types that likes to stay locked in a room full of computers...grin..

So today may be more of a ramble than a structured type article or newsletter. Might be due to being in a semi-comma from the cold medicine. It may also be a little shorter issue today. Hmmm, most of mine are rambles anyway I guess.
:-)

Been visiting a lot of the forums this week and man there are a lot of good posts and info to be picked up in the forums this week. A newer forum that is really gaining steam is Michael Green's HowToCorp Forum. It's located at:
http://www.howtocorp.com/forum/

It's an excellent forum for interacting and getting ideas for new products from, plus advice from many experienced people. A very helpful forum.

If you are not visiting any forums you should be. Yeah I know:
"Geeesh Gary, I'm suppose to write articles, visit forums, call people on the phone, build my list, answer all my emails within 3 minutes (just kiddding), and all this other stuff."

Yeah I know, ain't it the pitts, trying to squeeze all that in one day?
Same here, actually it can be downright overwhelming if you let it be.

My wife is a Neat freak. Very organized, structured and efficient. I mean no disrespect by the term "Neat Freak" just a general term I'm using.

Me, I'm not organized if I don't have at least a few stacks of papers on my desk and twenty post-it notes on my computer monitor.

In fact I hate it when she decides to "clean" up my work area because then everything is in the wrong stack...grin...

Can any of you relate to that??

I'm sure there are those of you on both sides of the fence out there reading this. Neat freaks and those that lean towards "cluttered" organization. I guess we are "UnNeat Freaks"...grin...

I would love to hear comments from both sides of the fence, plus any unique tips you use for getting more done and I'll post them in next weeks issue.

Ok, so here are a few general tips:

Tips:

Write them (to do things) down.

Don't think you have to get it all done in one day. That's what makes it seem overwhelming.

Break it down into smaller tasks. Take one at a time.

Assign priorities to your tasks. Do the highest priority first.

Mark it off your list as each task is finished, this will encourage you as you see progress is being made.

Hey if you don't get them all done don't fret over it. Move those unfinished tasks up that are still on your list and start on them the next day.


Ok, so let's move on.

When starting a new business online or even off, it helps to have the ability to accept charge cards.

When I first started I tied in with a company and had to sign a four year lease for some of the services. Yep, a four year lease. Geesh, I wasn't even sure I would be online for four years. As it turned I have been, plus I completed the lease.

Needless to say, I had some concerns about signing the four year lease. I'm sure some of you have faced similar situations. Especially when the company could take a hard-nosed approach and try to force you to pay out the lease regardless of if you make it in business or not.

That's daunting enough to discourage some new beginners to throw up their hands and quit before they get started.

During these past several years though, more and more services are now availiabe than when I first started. Today there many alternative choices for selling products and accepting payments for those products.

However, even now there are times it's nice or even essential to have some type of card processing services available along with Paypal.com or ClickBank.com, (which most of you are probably familiar with).

This is especially true if you ship physical type products such as tapes, books or CDs.

My gosh, there are so many things to know about when setting up a merchant account. Rates, fees, gateway charges and so much more. To get into all the details would take more room than just a newsletter.

So let me get to the point. My close friend Willie Crawford is holding a teleseminar on June 14th, hey tomorrow as a matter of fact, at 2:00 central time.

It's called "Merchant Accounts Exposed" and will be a very informative event. He has an expert who is in the merchant account business joining him to explain the things you should know BEFORE setting up an acount. The cost of the teleseminar even includes a toll free call for US and Canada residents.

You can read more about it here:
http://www.autopilotriches.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=84577

I assure you Willie puts on a first class and informative teleseminar. If you have been considering getting a merchant account then check this out first, plus they will be discussing other alternatives as well for third-party processors (for those who can't qualify for merchant accounts.)


Ok, onward we go.

Nice Free Utility:
Do you need to sometimes send email to several people at once. In other words setup your own small mailing list? You can do this with many email clients by pasting all of the email addresses in the CC or BCC part of the email program, but it can still be a pain.

The below email utility is great for sending email to groups of friends, etc. and easy to setup. It also DOES NOT expose their email address like using the CC feature in other email programs.

Check out Group Mail at:
http://www.infacta.com/download.asp

I found this great utility in one of the forums and the resource was posted by Merle of:
http://EzineAdAuction.com


Well I hope y'all have a very blessed and happy weekend. Oh yeah don't forget:

Happy Fathers Day to all of you Dads out there.
:-)

Send me your comments and/or marketing questions please:
comments@InternetMarketing-101.net


Thanks for joining me and my rambling!



PS: Send your comments and/or marketing questions to:
comments@InternetMarketing-101.net

Let me know if it's ok to use your comments or questions in my newsletter.

If you would like a copy in article form to run in your newsletter just let me know...grin...

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