Spending Your Money Wisely

Good morning subscribers. Over the past two weeks I have
received a few emails form subscribers about how they can
rebuild their retirement or offset their lost income as a
result of job loss.

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart because
the current economic situation affects all of us. I don't
know anyone who is not in trouble except for the very
wealthy. That leaves the rest of us in the same boat.

The challenge here is desperation. We're all fearful that
the economy is going to take a long, long time to resolve
itself, so what are we supposed to do between now and then?
We watch our monthly finances dwindle.

So desperation makes you make stupid decisions. The emotion
moves you instead of logic, and it's easy to make the wrong
choice -- a choice that wastes money you can ill afford to
throw away.

I know people that hop from MLM to MLM hoping that the
next one will make them millions. I know some very lucky
people who have made millions this way, but for the general
public it doesn't usually work that way.

My advice to you is to study your options carefully. There
are essentially two different types of MLMs: ones focused
on selling products to consumers and those focused on
selling services to businesses. In either case, you have to
ask yourself two very critical questions: "Am I a great
salesman?" and "Would I buy this product?"

If you have no sales experience or you stink at it, then
MLM is not the way to go. To be successful in MLM you need
to be an animal who lives for the hunt, never gets
depressed when prospects show disinterest, and focus on
building your funnel of leads and converting them to sales.
If this isn't you, then keep exploring alternatives.

The problem with most MLM's is that they encourage you to
sell products to your friends and family. This gets old
real fast. Most of us have only so many friends. And in
many cases, the products don't work as advertised, and when
your friends find out, you risk losing them forever.

Many MLMs try to make it easy for you by providing you a
replicated web site for a fee -- usually a steep fee. I've
seen some sell for a few hundred and others for a few
thousand. Their strategy is to get you to send traffic to
your site and encourage people to purchase their own sites
so they can do the same. They promise great wealth. They
feed off your desperation and dreams.

So what other options do you have? I've begun focusing on
LocalAdLink because for me it makes perfects sense. This is
not something I have put all of my eggs in one basket type
of thing. It is merely a side business, but it compliments
my online consulting.

LocalAdLink was started by a serial entrepreneur who once
owned Shopping.com and sold it for 9 figures. In searching
for the next business venture he decided to create a way to
give local businesses prominence in the sponsored listings
on Google and over 9000 other highly trafficked web sites.

For a fixed monthly budget, a local business can select a
few keywords and a few zip codes and laser target promotion.

Since I create web site for clients, this is a natural
up-sell for me. And because of the low monthly subscription
price, this service is affordable for any local business.

And the service works. There is no cap on the number of
times their ad may be displayed. It works for businesses
who have a web site and for those who don't because
LocalAdLink creates a landing page with everything you need
to know about the business including a map, directions,
pictures, videos, reviews, business description and
reviews.

Every local business suffers from the same challenge:
getting found online. LocalAdLink solves this problem. Do
you see how this is different from selling vitamins or
Southern Living or replicated sites to your friends and
family?

Now if you have no sales experience, and if you don't
normally sell to local businesses, then LocalAdLink is not
a path you should follow. But if you do have sales
experience, and if you know many local businesses in your own
backyard, then you might be able to make some cash to
offset your losses. This is one viral marketing opportunity
that I personally stand behind.

Best of all, there's no money involved. If you want to act as
an Account Executive and simply place orders for businesses
and receive a monthly recurring commission for as long as
your clients subscribe to the service, then you can sign up
at no cost -- no hidden charges or fees or gotchas -- it
works like an affiliate program.

But if you want the ability to market this service with
others and enjoy a wider and deeper commission structure,
then you can sign up as a Brand Builder for a very minimal
investment -- but only go down this path once you discuss
it with trusted friends who might share an interest in
selling this service in your area. If you can't generate
interest, then it's not worth doing, right?

You can learn more here:

http://spidy.localadlink.net/home.asp

OK, I wanted to continue our discussion about the mistakes
businesses make with their online presence. Last time I
touched this subject we spoke about bad type treatment.
Today I want to touch upon poor color treatment.

Nothing says "amateur" more than a site that uses too many
clashing colors. Often this problem is in lock-step with
too many fonts. The designer uses words in different fonts
and colors in an effort to highlight the importance of
certain works or paragraphs. The result is a crossword of
colors and fonts, rendering the text impossible to read.

Frequently amateur designers will use white type on a dark
background. This may look chic in some places, but online
and in print it can be very hard to read a lot of reversed
text. The longer the white text, the harder the read.

Lastly, some sites just seem to feel the need to fill up
every square inch of the page with type and colors --
there's no clear white space. Again, the attempt to cram
too much into a single page creates a page that is
impossible to read.

Take a look at your sites. Check your use of colors. Show
some restraint. Pick two or three colors that work well
together and then strip your site down to just those
colors. Need ideas for which colors work together? Walk
down the aisles of your local book store and look at book
covers.

Take care. Watch how you spend your money. Beware of scams.
Watch your use of color.

Until next time,

Steven

P.S.: Alex is about 25% of her goal in raising money for her
trip to Washington, D.C. this summer for the Leadership
Conference. Buy a ClayPal. Every little bit helps her in
her fund-raising goal. Visit her here:

http://www.schneiderman.net/alex