Life, The Universe & Passive Income

Happy Saturday, dear friends. Been awhile since I've written and
so much has transpired since my last newsletter. The new job is
coming along just fine. I do a bit of traveling, but the family
and I are managing. Working for a large corporation is so much
different than working for yourself, but there are pros and cons.
Of course, it is great to be collecting a paycheck every two
weeks and have affordable healthcare. The flip side are the days
are longer and the miles traveled feel longer, too.

Simple things always seem to be much harder in a larger company,
and difficult things seem easier. Need office supplies? Oh, that
requires a form, ten signatures and weeks to fulfill. Need to
travel or rent a car? No problem. All that said, it's good to be
back at work in a large company, and I'm having fun doing what I
do best -- talk about the benefits of technology and visit with
folks from all walks of life.

Being on the road a lot, I have a lot of quiet time which gives
me time to spend with God and be contemplative about my day. More
than ever before, I make sure I start the day with an attitude of
gratitude for the day past, and express my thoughts and concerns
for what lies ahead. It's funny, but I think I can always find
something or someone to be grateful for, even when I am in the
worst of moods.

----------

My 15 year old daughter and I spent some time talking about her
getting a part time job this summer. While I want her to work her
way up from the bottom, kids today have incredible earning
potential that I never had growing up. I started working early
and by the time I was in college, I had three part-time jobs. I
had to find a way to balance my academic, work and play time. It
was a huge challenge.

My daughter starting earning money when she was in 4th grade. She
is very artistic and started her own line of clay miniatures. We
knew she had something when she sold out at her 4th grade craft
fair. The kid pocketed $200.00 in an hour! We designed a web site
and promoted it, and she generated a few hundred dollars more,
sending her little clay creations all over the world.

Now her interests have changed to all things Japanese. It seems
Japanese pop culture has infiltrated our schools, through
fashion, anime, manga and cosplay. She loves to watch Japanese
cartoons and animated movies and dress up as their characters. She
has also started voice acting by making friends with animators
through social media, and soon her voice and singing will be
appearing in a bunch of YouTube videos. And she's only 15 and
using only a tenth of her natural talent and brain power. Now she
needs to learn how to monetize this stuff, and that's where Daddy
comes in.

The way I look at she has about 7-10 years of high school and
college ahead of her. If she can create a few focused web sites,
update and promote them regularly, and monetize them through
affiliate products and creative services, the kid should be
making a full-time living by the time she graduates. She could
put herself through school and live comfortably, too. And a lot
of it, if done correctly, could be passive income.

My son loves zombies and war gaming on his Xbox 360. He also loves
Legos and AirSoft guns. He, too, at age 12, has a huge
opportunity to transform his passions into cash, if he starts
soon and lays down a simple foundation of web sites, affiliate
programs, and perhaps even creates some of his own unique niche
products. If he plays his cards right, he could make even more
money than his sister because time is on his side.

What are you doing to increase your passive income. With the
retirement age always changing, and the job market always in a state
of flux, you need to do SOMETHING before you are left with
NOTHING. If you are like a lot of Net Savvy folks, you have
probably purchased your fair share of reseller products or
products with private license rights. You can make money with
these if you know what you are doing. The problem is most people
never resell what they purchased.

Whether it is because they don't know how to launch a web site,
find a web host, buy a domain, FTP files, add PayPal buttons, set
up a download page, or promote their offering ... they let STUFF
get in the way of their success. Look, it is not hard. It
requires time or money. Time is cheap if you are willing to
invest it. A few hours here and there can translate into sales.
If you have money, then you can afford to pay someone to do these
simple tasks for you. So no excuses. Make a plan. Implement the
plan. Tweak the plan. Reap the benefits.

If you have a ton of digital products with either reseller or
private license rights, have a Special Offer or Fire Sale.
Create a site to sell everything in one huge discounted bundle.
It's a great way to make a bunch of money quickly. Here's a
product that can help you do this quickly and easily:

http://www.resellerproducts.com/SpecialOfferTemplatesV2/

This will save you time and money and help you to launch a super
looking, viral site with social media hooks, and much more, and
all fully customizable for your own Fire Sale. Check it out.

----------

Last Monday I had the good fortune to be a speaker at a local
entrepreneurial program offered through Tulsa Community College.
It's been up and running for a few years now, has helped shepherd
many people through the start-up process, and created wealth and
new jobs to stimulate the local economy. I met several new folks
and saw many old faces, too.

One of the participants has been struggling with the design and
launch of a video membership site to help distribute her product.
This is a no-brainier with products like Easy Member Pro. With
this simple but powerful membership software, you can install a
new membership site on your web host in less than 10 minutes. You
can change the look and feel, add custom graphics, and start
uploading products or videos, integrate it with PayPal and start
promoting in no time at all.

As an example, I created BartendingMagic.com as part of a new
membership site I am developing to help bartenders get more tips
by showing patrons simple magic tricks. If you visit the domain
you will see the framework for the membership site. All I did was
upload the script to my web host, click the install link, add
some custom graphics and sales copy and I was done with the
customer facing side in a few minutes. As I prepare the videos
for the site, I can add them to the back end quite easily. PayPal
is already integrated for monthly subscriptions, so managing all
that stuff is hands off. And products can be dripped at any
frequency I choose.

The best thing about this software is that it can be used on as
many sites as you want. Buy it once; use it a million times.
Support is excellent, too. Answers to your questions are only a
few clicks away. Learn more here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Easy-Member-Pro.html

Well, that's enough for now. I'll speak to you again soon.

All my best,

Steven

Greener Pastures

Greener pastures. That's where I'm heading. After six years on my
own as a consultant, I have decided to return to the corporate
world. It was a difficult decision. I've enjoyed some very good
years but also experienced some very challenging years. I've
enjoyed the constant variety of projects. It's kept me on my toes
and forced me to develop new skills. I've enjoyed the new
relationships I have developed through consulting; I've made some
very dear friends.

I left Corporate America back in December 2005 when my position
at TV Guide had been moved for the third time to Los Angeles.
While I was always given opportunities to relocate, I chose to
stay in Tulsa to raise my family because the quality of life is
good here, and you don't have to be rich to live well. There's a
church on every corner, and people -- total strangers -- stop to chat
in the street all the time. It's a friendly, safe place to live
and raise a family.

I wanted to travel less and be more accessible to my family,
especially my young children. At least that was the goal. But
like most goals, not always achievable. As my consulting practice
grew, I found myself traveling even more and being away from home
every other week. Eventually, something had to give, and I walked
away from some very large retainer relationships in favor of
staying home more.

Eventually, I transitioned from a home office to a shared office
space a friend offered to me. This exposed me to new
relationships and opportunities. But then the economy starting
taking a turn for the worst, and life grew more complex.

While I managed to keep things going for a long time, it became
harder and harder to maintain the quality of life I wanted my
family to have. And so, I threw my hat in the ring for a job
opportunity that crossed my email box a few weeks ago, and
starting on March 5, I go to work for AT&T, as an Area Sales
Manager over Internet Advertising Solutions for Tulsa and
Springfield. I'm very excited and consider myself very blessed to
join their team.

I've shut down all of my consulting sites. If you visit them,
you'll see I've posted a photo of greener pastures. Just my way
of saying I've moved on.

I'm actively transitioning design projects like ebook covers and
such to my daughter. She is a very talented illustrator
considering she is still in high school. Rather than encourage
her to find a part-time job waiting tables, I'm encouraging her
to explore her entrepreneurial side and assume the helm for
EbookCoverArtist.com. I'll be mentoring here from the sidelines,
but it's her baby, now.

I'm hoping my son will start running my other passive web sites,
keeping them updated and responding to questions. He's still a
little young, but he is a techno-wiz, and exhibiting an interest
in all things Internet. I'm blessed to have such great and
capable kids.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the past few weeks, I've received some emails from new
subscribers asking me "what the heck is this newsletter about?"
Most folks claim they love my newsletter and have been
subscribers for over 15 years! There's over 2000 of you guys out
there. Even I'm amazed by this number. 2000 pen pals!

This newsletter has taken many twists and turns. When I first
started newsletter publishing back in the late 1990s, I had
cultivated several different email lists based upon different web
sites focused on different subject matter areas where I had some
level of expertise. Eventually, trying to publish a dozen
different newsletters got to be too much for even me, so I
decided to roll them all into one, and try to touch as many
different subjects as possible. At one point, there were as many
as 10,000 total subscribers, but since my consolidation, 2000
have stayed loyal and continue to receive, read and respond to my
ramblings.

So what's this newsletter about? It's about me and my family --
real people -- trying to lead a good life -- financially and
spiritually. It's about the things that excite me: marketing,
writing, designing, inventing, the Internet, performing magic, my
family, and my God. Part slice of life and part business.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my favorite sites is CoolToolAwards.com. I've been running
this site since 1997, reviewing and recommending products I buy
and use everyday. I've recently added two product reviews which
some of you will find worthy of your time to read and learn more
about.

The first product review is for AutoWebLaw. This product was
first introduced several years ago to help anyone with a web site
to protect themselves from unwanted legal action against them. It
was a forms-based software package that included specially
written legal documents for the web site owner. You entered your
personal information, clicked a button, and the software quickly
created a custom set of documents you could copy and paste into
your site.

Given the constantly changing Internet/Legal landscape, it's more
important than ever before to make sure you are adequately
protected with the right types of legal documentation. Hiring a
lawyer to do this for you could cost thousands of dollars, but
AutoWebLaw can save you both time and money. Learn more here:


http://www.cooltoolawards.com/AutoWebLaw.html

The second product review is for Roku. Now if you already own an
Internet-ready TV, then you won't need this device, but if your
TV is not Internet-ready and you would like to watch Netflix or
other subscription-based video streaming services on your TV,
then you might like to learn about the Roku.

When my family decided to lower our cable TV expenses by
eliminating movie channels, we decided to go with Netflix. For
under $10/month we had instant access to over 17,000 movies and
TV shows, and we could watch them anywhere we had Internet
access. The only problem was the TV in our master bedroom was not
Internet-ready.

The Roku box is a low-cost product that plugs into the A/V in the
back of your TV. It's wireless and enables you to quickly connect
to Netflix and many other services. Click this link to learn more
how you can save $5.00 on the purchase of a Roku box. Highly
recommended.

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Roku.html

The honorable mention for product of the month still goes to
XSitePro. If you want to design web sites for yourself or clients
faster, better, cheaper, I can think of no better way to do it.
This product is so full-featured, it's not funny. It's so easy to
use, even a techno-phobe could design and publish a good looking
web site in a few minutes. Learn more here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/XSite-Pro.html

Well, I need to clear out my office today and start getting
myself focused on the new job. I'll still remain in contact with
you guys at least once a month. After 15 years of cultivating our
relationship, I'm not about to say goodbye just yet!

All my best,

Steven

Happy Ugh New Year!

Dear Steven,

Well, I must apologize for being out of contact for the past few
weeks. The New Year did not start off well for my family.
Between the four of us, my wife had surgery, my daughter sprained
her knee at pom, and my son and I were rear-ended in a collision
a few weeks ago. Net result is lots of aches and pains all
around. Hopefully, healing is around the corner for all of us.

Business has been brisk and encouraged me to actually do some
additional marketing of my services. I am trying to extend my
strategic partnerships. First, I am approaching ebook artists and
encouraging them to offer my copy-writing services to their
customers. Next, I am contacting all local web design firms who
do not presently provide sales copy or content to work with me to
better serve their clients. And lastly, I am contacting all major
catering facilities to offer strolling magic to their corporate
clients. So far, I am beginning to get some positive responses,
so I am excited.

There's a lot to be said for establishing strategic partnerships.
Of course, both sides need to win in these types of
relationships, and this is why they so often fail. Usually,
business leads flow only one way. You need to pick your partners
carefully and grow the relationships over time. By giving my
competitors ways to add value to their existing services and
create additional revenue, we both win. By giving catering
facilities the ability to add value beyond their facilities by
offering entertainment during cocktail hours, they, too, win. If
you haven't explored strategic relationships, now may be the time
to do so.

The Cool Tool Awards web site has been updated with some new
product and service reviews which may be of interest to those of
you seeking to know more about online publishing options through
Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The latest reviews may always be
found here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Latest-Reviews.html

I have recently done a bunch of new client ebook designs and
sales letters. For some reason, I seem to attract those clients
in the health and exercise niche. I've lost count with how many
of these types of clients I have worked with over the past few
years. If you have a health product and need help, drop me a
line. I've written about diets, exercises and supplements among
other products and services.

I've come across a number of interesting new services lately. One
of them is SurveyMonkey.com. If you have a need to survey
clients, this has a free membership with some limitations of
features, but in most cases I bet you can work with the free
version. It is easy to use and has been very helpful to me and my
clients. Another one I like is SlideRocket.com. This is a service
for making slide presentations and it also has a free membership
with limited features. Here, too, you should be able to work fine
as is, but the paid features are very cool. With this service you
can create PowerPoint presentations online, share them, and
gather analytics on how long people spend on each slide or even
interact with them with embedded forms and surveys. It's easy to
use and packs a marketing punch. Highly recommended.

Well, I just wanted to let you all know I am alive and breathing,
and the family and I are doing better with each passing day
thanks to the support of friends like you. As always, should you
or someone you know need assistance with their marketing, please
do drop me a line at info@schneiderman.net.

All my best,

Steven

P.S. Please click the link below to share this email with a few
friends.

http://app.getresponse.com/forward.html?x=a62b&m=PYR9&s=BMdBv&y=k&

New Year's Action Plan

I hope the New Year is looking up for you. 2012 is going to be a
year full of new opportunities and hopes and dreams and changes.
The key to your success and happiness will be based upon your
ability to maintain your focus, remain vigilant, trust that good
things will come your way because you deserve them ... and to
maintain your faith because it's very hard to accomplish anything
entirely on your own.

For me, I am trying hard to balance my focus on being practical,
yet also leave room for being creative. As I look back on last
year and the mistakes I made, I remain confident that I will do
better this year. I still expect to make mistakes, but hopefully
not the same ones over and over again.

So how is my business approach going to change? First, I'm going
to focus more upon what I can do on my own versus outsourcing
portions of work to others. While I have been blessed to work
with many brilliant and talented people in the past, it is very
difficult to provide quality service to my clients when I don't
control everything. So I'll be doing more of the design and
development on my own.

Second, I am going to be more selective of the projects and
clients I will accept. In the past, I tended to try to help
everyone who crossed my path, even if they could not pay me a
dime. I'll still make myself available for "Commando Consulting"
when I know I can drop into someone's business, rescue them, and
then get out quickly. But gone are the days when I will invest
endless hours helping people and companies that really can't help
themselves.

Third, I am going to branch out into new areas, developing new
services, and targeting new audiences. One new area I am already
beginning to focus on is coaching. Let me explain.

Back in 1989, I went through the Dale Carnegie Course in Human
Relations based upon the recommendation of a fellow magician and
friend. That single course changed the direction of my life, and
as a result of the mentoring and encouragement I received through
DCC, I went on to become a Graduate Assistant and co-teach the
course several times in NYC and Tulsa. I watched many lives get
changed. People grew and matured and their lives were
transformed.

Over the past few years, I have had involvement in two programs
in Tulsa which put me in the position of coaching entrepreneurs.
Here, too, I've seen tremendous growth in both individuals and
their new businesses.

Recently, in working with a new group of clients, I've noticed
how much value they placed on their private phone time with me.
Many said it was the first time they felt they could
confidentially air their concerns about their personal and
professional lives. So, this is an area I hope to grow and
develop in 2012. If you are interested, please note the fee is
$150/hour, with two hours a month required. You can start on a
month-to-month basis, but I will lower the price to $100/hour
with a year long commitment. Call me at 918-810-5233 if you are
interested. Space in my schedule is and will remain limited so
I can provide quality mentoring to you.

Lastly, another area I am working on is to more closely examine,
utilize and leverage my gifts. I think many of us take our gifts
for granted. Some just ignore them entirely. I have a friend who
is an incredible artist -- a painter -- and he blows off his gift
as if anyone could do what he does. Gifts are meant to be used.

One gift I have is remaining in contact with people. Take this
newsletter, for instance. I've been publishing it since 1997 and
have almost 2000 long-term subscribers. I like to remain in
contact with people, and many of my long-term relationships, both
personal and business, have evolved as a direct result of my
utilization of this gift. I plan to utilize this more in 2012.

Do you have a gift that you take for granted that you could use
more aggressively this year? Think about it.

OK, time for the commercial ...

CoolToolAwards.com has been updated. I'm so happy. I totally
redesigned this site I started in 1997, and with the help of
XSite Pro was able to port over hundreds of pages of content to
the new design quickly and easily. Here's some of the new
reviews:

Premium Banners Pack
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Premium-Banners-Pack.html

If you sell anything online, you need to promote your stuff with
quality banner ads. This product makes it so easy. It's great.
Nuff said.

Premium Pricing Graphics, Version 2
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Premium-Pricing-Graphics-V2.html

Selling stuff online is all about grabbing your visitor's
attention. I've seen web pages where the price was so well hidden and they wondered why they had zero sales. This package makes your price jump from the page and get clicked!

XSite Pro
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/XSite-Pro.html

I include this link because if you have not purchased this web
design product yet, then you are probably paying someone else to
do it for you. Stop throwing your money away. Web design doesn't
have to be difficult. This product makes it easy. And it does so
much for you. Read the review.

Well, that's it for now. If there's anything I can help you with
-- if you need a little "Commando Consulting" then please give me
a call at 918-810-5233.

All my best,


Steven

The Future of Electronic Publishing?

As most of you know, between 1997 and 2011, I operated an ebook
publishing company called Ebookomatic.com. In October 2011 I
closed the doors because the industry had changed in so many
ways. Chief among these changes has been the move away from the
industry standard Adobe PDF ebook format in favor of other
wireless platforms like the Kindle from Amazon.com.

While Amazon and the Kindle have changed the face of book
publishing and distribution, I'm not so certain all of those
changes have been for the best. They have made it relatively easy
for anyone with an idea to publish an ebook and make it available
for wireless download to their device. The publishing service
itself is free to use, and the author can determine how much they
will charge, where the ebook will be sold, and how much of a
royalty they want to earn.

The problem, as I see it, is that now you have a lot of garbage
for sale -- stuff that normally would never get published is now
masquerading as a book. In other words, there is a lot of poorly
written stuff out there -- in fact, probably the majority of it
is quite bad. And as a result, all of this bad work adds noise to
the channel by giving you endless options for ebooks. You can
search on just about any topic and come up with hundreds of
titles you never heard of and probably don't want to read.

But there are other issues, too. While authors have control over
price, they really don't because the public doesn't believe they
should pay for quality information, fiction or entertainment. As
a result, ebooks for the Kindle and elsewhere routinely sell for
$2.99 and lower. And the lower the price, the less the author
earns. It's like iTunes apps or iPad games.

Sure, I know. It' a volume deal. Lower the price and millions
will purchase what you sell. That doesn't always work. If it
worked all the time, we'd all be able to sell our shopping list
for a dime and be millionaires.

So as an experiment, I decided to publish the four ebooks I
completed this year on Amazon's Kindle Publishing Direct. I
wanted to see what the experience was like compared to
EbookoMatic.com. My system enabled you to upload a Microsoft Word
file and it converted it into a password-protected Adobe PDF
file. You set the price, genre, added a bio, a cover and a
summary and your ebook was available for sale within 5 minutes or
less.

I created my free Amazon KDP account within a few minutes, and
then started the learning process of using their system. What I
discovered is that the process of uploading your manuscript, your
cover image, and your ebook's "meta" information is quick and
easy. But there are a few issues ...

First, you really can not upload a Microsoft Word DOC file and
expect your ebook to look the same in Word or Adobe PDF as it
will on a Kindle. In fact, if you are like me and don't own a
Kindle, you need to download a Kindle emulation program and
separate conversion program to generate the ebook file before you
can upload it to Amazon KDP.

This is an iterative process. You'll convert the file on your PC,
view it on the Kindle emulator, make notes for layout changes,
and then start the process all over again. Some conversion tools
work better than others, and it takes a while to understand how
the choices you make in your settings of these tools control what
the final product will look like. I spent hours experimenting
until I got something that looked OK.

Second, once you upload your ebooks to their system, they do not
become available for sale for at least 12 hours or more. So much
for instant publishing. Apparently they are put through some
quality control process where humans actually get involved. One
of the ebooks I submitted was rejected on the grounds that it
duplicated an ebook already for sale in their system.

How could this be? I searched Amazon and found my ebook for sale
under someone else's account name. I informed Amazon they were
wrong, but they insisted I was wrong. I had to show them domain
ownership, manuscript info, a web site, and still they argued
with me. And because contact info was unavailable for the other
person reselling my original work, I had no alternative but to
threaten Amazon with a lawsuit for facilitating theft of
intellectual property and copyright infringement.

Eventually, Amazon saw the error of their ways and withdrew the
other person's work from their ebook catalog, and made my
original ebook live. They were very apologetic for their handling
of the situation.

Frankly, I think there is a huge class action lawsuit just
begging for an intellectual property attorney to attack. Could be
millions of dollars at stake here because I am certain I am not
the only author to have his work ripped off by Amazon's system.

In fact, anyone who has created and sold an ebook with reseller
rights, could find their work for sale by others on Amazon unless
they deliberately stated their work can not be converted or sold
in other formats or on other publishing platforms. In other
words, if you publish a PDF ebook, make sure you state it can only be
resold as a PDF file.

So if you want to see the ebooks available on Amazon for the
Kindle, go here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=steven+schneiderman&x=13&y=21

You'll notice there are authors with similar names listed along
with me. The titles are presently selling for 66% off normal
retail prices, for only $9.99 each, so buy yourself a present and
download one of my ebooks today at a bargain price!

Until next time,


Steven

P.S.: If you are an author and are looking for assistance with
publishing and promoting your ebook online, I can create a killer
web site, sales letter, ebook cover and much more for you. Drop
me a line to discuss your needs at info@schneiderman.net.


Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 S. Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States

Almost Free Software for the Holidays

Howdy. Hope your day is going great. Over the next few weeks I will be sending you some free gifts and some links to some really inexpensive tools and ebooks that are absolute bargains.

Today I want to point you in the direction of Serif Software. This is a British software company that has developed a great reputation for creating powerful, easy-to-use and very inexpensive software for personal and business use.

In the old days, when I needed to design some type of marketing collateral like a brochure, I would use PageMaker. That was an investment of several hundred dollars, took lots of time to learn, and frequently was more trouble than it was worth.

A few years ago, I purchased Serif PagePlus which is an incredible clone of PageMaker, only it's a fraction of the price, much easier to use, comes with incredible bonuses, and is well supported. I spent about $100 for the my copy, and now they are up to PagePlus Version 5.

Well, here's the deal ... they discovered excess inventory of Version 4 of their entire suite of products and for a limited time for this holiday season, you can purchase any of their titles for only $19.99. Yeah, that's a no-brainer decision, for sure!

WebPlus helps you create great looking web sites. DrawPlus helps you create killer graphics. MoviePlus helps you edit and create dynamic videos. All of these products are usually $99 but you can get all of them for only $19.99 each. Is this a great deal or what? The links below are long and may not work in your email client, so be sure to copy and paste the entire link into your browser.

WebPlus X4 for $19.99
https://www.cleverbridge.com/812/cookie?affiliate=2296&redirectto=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleverbridge.com%2F812%2Fcatalog%2Fcategory.16846%2F%3Fcoupon%3DBLOWOUT

PagePlus X4 for $19.99
https://www.cleverbridge.com/812/cookie?affiliate=2296&redirectto=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleverbridge.com%2F812%2Fcatalog%2Fcategory.16902%2Fproduct.91915%2F%3Fcoupon%3DBLOWOUT

DrawPlus X4 for $19.99
https://www.cleverbridge.com/812/cookie?affiliate=2296&redirectto=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleverbridge.com%2F812%2Fcatalog%2Fcategory.16908%2Fproduct.92517%2F%3Fcoupon%3DBLOWOUT

MoviePlus X3 for $19.99
https://www.cleverbridge.com/812/cookie?affiliate=2296&redirectto=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleverbridge.com%2F812%2Fcatalog%2Fcategory.16905%2Fproduct.92518%2F%3Fcoupon%3DBLOWOUT

Talk to you soon,

Steven

P.S.: Feel free to share this with your friends or tweet or post it via social media. These are really good deals for the holidays!

2011 Reflections

As the winter weather begins to rear its ugly head here in Tulsa, it seems like a good time to kick back, pull the covers back up over my head, and stay in bed. It's Saturday, I don't have anything too pressing to do, I dropped my daughter at pom practice, my wife's preparing to venture to the OSU/OU Bedlam football game in Stillwater, and my son is still sleeping. There is a 60% chance of significant snow Monday, and I'm not ready for winter. What about you?

It's been a few weeks since my last newsletter. Since that time I have begun to sew up my major projects for the year, and to reflect on what's worked and what hasn't. This is always a time of learning and readjusting for the coming year.

2011 was a choppy year for me. Revenues are down about 50%, but through God's good graces, we made it through. Lots of anxiety and worries along the way, but the mere fact that we made it gives me reassurance that He will always provide for me and my
family. And to think of all the years I used to worry about things like that. A lot of wasted energy over things I can not control.

2011 was also a year of simplification. For over a decade I managed multiple online businesses in addition to over 100 web site domains. Trying to keep all of those sites current was a bear, and as my consulting took up more and more time, it became virtually impossible to keep up with it all. Finally, this year I decided to close up shop on my electronic publishing business, Ebookomatic, and shut down dozens of web sites. I've kept less than a dozen and focused my energies on improving their design
and content.

One of the many projects still in limbo is Very Cool Tools. I wanted to create my own membership site for reseller products. I've grown so weary with the poor quality of most reseller membership sites, and wanted to do something good for people.

What I learned along the way about setting up membership sites was worth its weight in gold. There's money to be made there for sure, but developing new products every month is time consuming. Coming up with the product idea is easy; bringing that idea to fruition is difficult.

This year I wrote four new ebooks and created one new software product. Our goal was to launch the membership site with the first 12 month's of products in place, so we would be one year ahead. What I didn't count on was the economy affecting my development team in Pakistan. My counterpart there has moved to Dubai to escape the political unrest, and he has started a new company. So while he still is available to me and wants to continue our 6 years of collaboration, he has different priorities and responsibilities to deal with. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.

I also shut down my own web server which I have run for more than a decade. I moved all my remaining web sites to a hosted server at Host Gator. While it was technically easy to do so, I am still learning about the fine differences between managing a Windows and Linux server. Chief difference that impacted my business until recently was that Linux links are case sensitive. Thus almost all of my links between pages and sites and download pages were broken.

I didn't realize how big a problem this was for over a month until I saw my sales and revenue plummet to zero. Once I realized what the issue was I quickly started to correct all broken links, and now sales are beginning to trickle in again. I probably lost $2K in revenue over those broken links. Ugh. Hard lesson to learn.

>From a consulting perspective, this year I began to change my sales and marketing approach. For instance, I used to provide a free web site analysis with a free 10 page review in order to prove my value to a new prospect. They loved my analysis and
frequently implemented my fixes on their own or with the help of someone less expensive. So now I charge for my time up front, and I deduct the cost of the analysis if the prospect awards me the project.

I'm also getting more serious about offering coaching services. After a recent introductory engagement with 13 new companies in the same industry, it became very clear that company owners and founders really appreciate my broad background and my ability to speak to them about just about anything. They appreciated my honesty, my
empathy, my faith, and my positive attitude. So I've added a coaching page to my web site and we'll see what happens.

I see much greater opportunity in serving clusters of companies in associations rather than individual clients, and will be looking for more of these opportunities in the future. If you or someone you know belongs to either a professional association or
an informal collection of companies, and you want to do some projects together, contact me to learn how I can assist you. Having a project manager or administrator to assist you with project planning and implementation is essential to long term
success.

This year has also been a year of growth for me on the performance side. Most of my subscribers know I have a fun side to my life which involves my second profession as a magician. This year I stopped performing at one public venue and started doing more private shows. This December I have seven shows and will be busy right up to the holidays. I am excited and very grateful and excited to be performing again. I love doing magic for people because it brings smiles to their faces, and it also generates additional income. It's great. I love it.

And so now it is time to plan for 2012 and to prayerfully implement a new business strategy which will hopefully bring me back into more fruitful territories. I hope the economy hasn't impacted you too badly, but if it has, I urge you to remain strong in your faith, and to begin to analyze the past year. Look for ways to change your strategy, drop what isn't working or drains your time, and to focus on the core things you do best and that brings you the most joy. Where there is a will, there is a way.

Until next time,


Steven