Merry Christmas 2012 -- Special Holiday Offer

Greetings. It's been some time since I last wrote to you, and I wanted to catch up before the holidays. For the past three months, I have been traveling around the Central Southwest region visiting towns like Lawrence, Kansas and Springfield, Missouri -- the heartland of America. It's very green. There's a lot of blue sky. And when I'm driving place to place -- that's when I do some of my best thinking.

Over the past weeks, as the holidays have drawn near, I've become aware of this undefinable oppression thwarting my desire to be joyous and in the spirit. In the past week, my garage motor broke, my car's oil leak got worse, and I'm bleeding money faster than I can earn it.

But those are relatively unimportant things that are easy to solve. Other friends have lost loved ones or have received bad news about terminal illness. Those are far bigger problems to deal with, especially around the holidays.

Maybe I'm just more aware of all the bad things ... or just maybe there's something "out there" that wants to keep my mind on the bad things so I can't enjoy the true reason for the upcoming Christmas season. When all you do is hear bad news, it's easy to focus on the bad stuff too tightly and ignore the other good things that can be seen using your peripheral vision.

If you or your loved ones are stuck in a rut this holiday season, try your best to see past your immediate challenges, and have hope that soon you will get past them. Brighter days do lie ahead. Pray. Don't let the bad guy win.

---------------

Cool Tools ...

Over the past few months, I have purchased some incredible new marketing tools that are making my life easier, and I wanted to share them with you.

Killer Visual Headlines
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Killer-Visual-Headlines.html

If you want to capture the attention of visitors to your web site, you have to grab them by the throat and shout your "unique selling proposition" in as a few words as possible but just enough to gain their interest and send them down your sales page to learn more. This tool enables you to create headline graphics that positively leap off the page.

3D Web Display Maker 2
http://www.cooltoolawards.com/3D-Web-Display-Maker-V2.html

Now you can make cool visual displays of your products using the same types of graphics Apple uses. If like the cover flow effect that your iPod uses then you are sure to like this product. Click on the link to see exciting examples and to learn more about how you can add this eye-catching display to your web site right now.

---------------

Special Holiday Offer ...

If you are launching a new product or service OR you are wanting to relaunch an existing product or service, and you need help with E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G then I have a special limited offer you will never, ever see again.

For the first 4, and only four, people who respond to this offer, I will design your ebook cover or software box, I will design the matching mini site, and I will write a short-form sales letter. Normally the ebook cover would cost $49.95, the mini site would cost $199.00, and the sales letter would cost $1000.00 -- that's a total of about $1250.00 in creative services -- but I am going to do it all for only $500.00 payable in advance via PayPal.

But to make this extra special, I will also throw in a press release valued at $150.00. That's almost $1500.00 in creative services for only $500.00. First come, first served. Payable in advance to info@schneiderman.net. This offer ends midnight December 31, 2012.
If you don't know how to use PayPal, it means I accept credit cards as well as cash, and if it is easier, I will split it into two payments of $250.00 at the beginning and end of the project. If you need me to send an invoice via PayPal to get the ball rolling and secure your spot, please send me an email to info@schneiderman.net IMMEDIATELY!

Thanks for remaining a subscriber to my newsletter all these years. I appreciate your long distance friendship. Here's hoping you and your family have a blessed holiday season and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

All my best,

Steven

Cookie Dough & Cool Tools

Good afternoon, friends. Hope you are enjoying some good weather
wherever you are. Tulsa broke all heat records this summer with
most days well over 100 degrees. Finally, last night a storm blew
in and we are now enjoying a sunny cool day in the 70's. God is good.

A quick thanks to everyone who expressed interest in helping my
daughter with her fund raiser goals for her school vocal team.
She did manage to raise enough funds for her assigned goal and
she couldn't do it without your kindness and generosity. I regret
the online store did not sell cookie dough as advertised. I was
only able to provide cookie dough to local Tulsa folks. We
ordered some, too. Looks like good stuff!

Today, when I woke up, I was dreading paying the bills. I just
knew there wasn't going to be enough to make a dent in the
growing stack of envelopes on my office desk. I hate paying
bills. Back in the 1990s when money grew on trees, I always paid
early and spent freely. But over the past ten years, I've
struggled daily to hold onto what I have and to keep it working.
It seems even with my return to corporate, money is still tight.

Anyway, as I looked down at the bills this morning I prayed a
special prayer and asked God to divide my money like Jesus
divided the loaves and the fishes to feed the 5000 on the mount.
After an hour of work, I did it. The stack was gone, and
everybody I owed money to either got paid in full or received a
modest payment towards balances due. It was nothing short of
a miracle. Did I say God is good?

This month I wast to share some product reviews of a few cool
tools that have passed my desk. A few weeks ago, the Corel
Corporation asked me to review a bunch of their software
products. One of them is Paint It!. This has the feel of a mobile
app. You simply load a digital photo, choose a type of painting
filter to apply like impressionistic, and then click a button.
The results are very neat. You can see an example of how I
transformed a photo of my daughter into a really cool painting
here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Corel-Paint-It!.html

For those of you who dabble in graphic design and want to update
your logo, you really need to try Logo Creator from Laughing Bird
Software. I've known the creator, Marc Sylvester, for more than a
decade and all of his graphic design tools are fun and easy to
use. Check it out here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/The-Logo-Creator.html

If you are looking for a very cool way to make your
logos, brochures, presentations and web pages take on a really
cool personality of their own, then you need to check out Mascot
Creator Toolkit. You can use PhotoShop or GIMP to create your own
male and female mascots. I think this is one of the cheapest,
coolest graphic tools to cross my desk in a long, long time. I'm
playing with it non-stop to create "people" to use in all my
creative projects. Check out the samples here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/Mascot-Creator-Toolkit.html

I know many of you like to create your own book covers. You
obviously have two directions to go in - either software or
PhotoShop actions. If you like easy software, try eCover Software
Pro. You can add your own art work and churn out all sorts of
different product shots.

http://www.ebookcovercreator.com/Ecover-Software-Pro.html

If you own either PhotoShop or GIMP (free tool you can download
that mimics PhotoShop pretty well), you should really consider a
membership to Cover Actions Premium. This club adds new PhotoShop
actions every few days, so your annual membership gives you
access to hundreds of unique layout and designs for everything
from books to DVD to jars to banners and much, much more. Check
out the examples on their site and you'll join in a NY minute.

http://www.ebookcovercreator.com/Cover-Actions-Premium.html

Well, that's it from me for now. I've got to catch up on other
things around the house. Again, thanks to those who supported my
daughter, and I hope to be shouting out to you again next
weekend.

Take care,

Steven

P.S.: Please help me grow my subscriber list by forwarding this
email to a friend by clicking the link below:

https://app.getresponse.com/forward.html?x=a62b&m=kj2I&s=BMdBv&y=j&

Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 1811 S. Baltimore, Suite 203, Tulsa, OK 74119, United States You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

Importance of Email Marketing

Good afternoon and I hope things are going well for you on your
side of the screen. Life is busy here in Tulsa. The kids are back
to school and life has once again become more hectic and chaotic.
I know once they are grown and on their own I will miss them
terribly, but constantly running from Varsity Pom to Band to
Choir to Tennis and then work 12 hours/day -- help me, Lord! My
wife and I are always exhausted.

This week I want to touch upon the importance of staying in touch
with folks. Folks could be your friends, your subscribers, your
vendors, your prospects, or your customers -- or any combination
of these groups. The key is to touch them and keep touching them
to continuously work at building and strengthening your
relationships with them ... to help cross that invisible border
between acquaintance and friend, from stranger to trusted
authority.

Do you know I have been publishing my newsletters since 1995? I
started on the Internet back before it was commercial. I started
collecting names and email addresses to visitors of my early
sites, and I began to segment them based upon their interests.
And then I started sending out emails weekly. At one point I was
sending out about a half dozen newsletters to over 10,000 people
world-wide.

Why do that, you ask? Simple. I recognized the importance of
communication a long time ago -- back in the 1980s when I first
started my career. I learned that people were more apt to trust
me and buy from me when I provided quality information to them
that they may not get elsewhere. That information demonstrated my
subject matter expertise, and the constant communication built my
relationships.

I actually still maintain friendships with people I grew up with
40-50 years ago. And they are always amazed that I think about
them and make the effort. Effort counts a lot with folks. Are you
making the effort to stay in touch and build relationships?

You have several different ways to do this, but the two most
reliable ways are direct mail and email. Direct mail can be
costly, and if not highly targeted, can be a waste of time and
money. Email, however, is low cost, it is immediate, and your
emails can be personalized.

Email marketing can be managed either through an online Internet
service or through desktop software. I've used both. I first
started out using Infacta's Groupmail. This software is very
powerful and resides on your desktop computer. You can work
offline and manage your email lists and create and write your
campaigns quickly and easily. Then you merely click a button and
your messages can be sent to your lists. You can even schedule
the email blasts for the future. At one time I managed over
10,000 subscribers and 6 different newsletters using this
software. I never had any issues with it and I recommend it
highly. An older review can be found here:

http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com/Group-Mail.html

Of course, many people prefer online email solutions and there
are many to choose from. The three most popular are aWeber,
GetResponse and Constant Contact. I have had accounts with all
three and used them for many of my own newsletters as well as to
manage email campaigns for my customers.

They all share many similar features and interfaces, and the
costs also tend to be fairly similar. Almost all of them offer
the ability to compose messages in plain text or HTML, some form
of template library, the ability to test your email and measure
its spam score, double opt-in, email list importing, social media
links, the ability to embed audio or video, and scheduling of
newsletter publications. Here are links to reviews for the top three:

aWeber:
http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com/aWeber.html

GetResponse:
http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com/Get-Response.html

Constant Contact:
http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com/Constant-Contact.html

I have been a strong proponent of GetResponse. I personally find
their system the easiest to navigate and use, and I like their
support. Your mileage may vary. Every system has its fan base.

Now equally important to choosing an email platform is to
integrate an email capture form to the home page of your web
site. Failure to do this will cost you dearly. I had a client
once who spent $50K on Google AdWords to get 250,000 unique users
to their web site. However, she failed to take my advice to add
an email capture form to the home page of her site, and she was
never able to reach those people again ... without spending
another $50K. Lesson learned?

Most of these email management systems offer you the ability to
copy and paste some code to add a small email form to your web
site. Do it.

How do you encourage people to actually subscribe to your
newsletter when people's email boxes are already exploding with
more crap then they can actually read? The best thing to do is to
offer a free report or discount coupon for your products or
services. Offer value.

You also must make your newsletter appear to be tangible like a
printed newsletter. You need to make it look professional and
worth reading. Product shots of reports and ebooks can really
help ... and you know I offer this service:

Ebook Cover Artist:
http://www.ebookcoverartist.com

Software Box Designer:
http://www.softwareboxdesigner.com

Some people prefer to send messages off the cuff each month while
others prefer to write a series of messages for a full year,
load them into their email systems, and put the entire process
on auto-pilot. I can help you with this, too. I write email
series for $500 for 12 messages.

You can learn more about email marketing by visiting my site:

http://www.emailmarketingassistance.com

Commit to staying in touch with your prospects, friends and
customers. Commit to touching them once a month minimally. Commit
to choosing a platform and adding an email capture form to your
web site. Commit to showing them how you can add value and be
trusted.

Do these things, and your life will be enriched by the
relationships you build, and your bank account will be enriched
by the dollars in time.

All my best,


Steven

PS: Feel free to forward this to a friend or republish elsewhere
so long as you leave the links intact and credit me
appropriately. Click the link below to forward this message now:

https://app.getresponse.com/forward.html?x=a62b&m=kKpD&s=t5IKb&y=T&

Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 3504 E 99 Street, Tulsa, OK 74137, United States You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.

Importance of Local Search and LinkedIn

Greetings and good morning, my loyal subscribers. I hope this
weekend gives you a chance to be refreshed and renewed. Lord
knows, I need it. I'm trying to make a little time each Saturday
morning to write a little and get reconnected with all my
subscribers around the world. In a few weeks, as the high school
football season starts, my wife and I will be working concessions
to help pay my daughter's Varsity Pom bill. If only I could work
concessions somewhere else to start saving for her auto insurance
which will kick in around December when she turns 16.

Life in the fast lane is, um, fast. It's hard to believe I have
been at my new job for 6 months. Loving it but working 11 hour
days plus evenings and weekends is getting to be a bit much.
Hopefully things will settle down a bit in a month or so. We're
in a busy period, and it's times like this that I tend to hurry
through everything that I forget to stay connected. So my
apologies to those of you who have been with me for over a decade
or more.

Last week I went through my lecture on the importance of search
engine optimization (SEO) and (SEM). This week I want to touch on
local search. When you search for a company on Google, you will
notice a local map that usually appears near the top of the
search results. This map has little red flags signifying local
businesses that match your search criteria.

This used to be controlled through Google Places and is now part
of Google+. If you are not showing up in Google's local search
results, then you need to create a Google+ account and fill out
your profile and business information. Use plenty of keywords and
phrases to make your listing more friendly to Google and to
insure you show up more frequently in the local search results.
You can improve your results by making sure folks review your
services. If you want more info on Google+, check out this
inexpensive product:

http://www.resellerproducts.com/Google-Plus-Exposed.html

Yahoo and Bing also offer their version of local listings. One of
the best ways to insure you are taking advantage of free local
listings here and elsewhere is to use a free service called
GetListed.org. If you visit this site, you can type in your
business name and zip code and the service will show you where you
are already listed and where you are failing to take advantage of
your listings. Clicking the respective links on that site will
take you to the various place you need to go to register your
business with the various local listings that are available to
you including my company's directory, YP.com.

I strongly advise you to take advantage of all of the local
listing services to help give you more visibility in the search
results, but keep in mind these listings do not and should not
ever take the place of a formal SEO strategy. Local listings are
VERY dynamic and change all the time, so here today and gone
tomorrow. For instance, if you search for "magicians tulsa ok"
you will see I am listed at #2 but tomorrow I could be off the
page! That's why it pays to make sure you have a handle on common
SEO strategies to help you get to page one search results and
stay there. I've written a few ebooks on these types of
strategies, and while simple, they can be very effective:

http://www.push-pull-marketing.com/

http://www.rocketsciencerevealed.com/

If you don't know the basics or want to develop a greater
understanding of how I have accomplished good rankings
repeatedly, then you should pick up one or both of these ebooks.
No fluff. All practical advice.

Another area I think more and more folks should be tapping into
is LinkedIn. If you are in business this should be the go to
place for making good connections to expand your business. When
time allows before I visit a new client, I always search for them
on LinkedIn and then look to see if we are connected by any
common friends or acquaintances. This helps build a relationship
faster and helps to establish trust and credibility. There are
several ebooks and courses available on this subject which are
definitely worth exploring. Most people simply ignore LinkedIn or
setup their basic profile once and then forget about it. Learn
more here:

http://2c2e49le3ix8072m39s-4ghl0s.hop.clickbank.net/

So get started using LinkedIn as a strategic marketing tool and
feel free to invite me to get connected with you. With LinkedIn,
my friends are YOUR friends and visa versa!

Until next time,


Steven

Schneiderman Marketing, LLC, 3504 E 99 Street, Tulsa, OK 74137, United States

Life
====

Well, Happy Independence Day to everyone in the U.S. I hope your holiday was fun and safe. I spent two hours in the sun sanding down and refinishing our kitchen table. I forgot what bad sunburn was like. Ow. Then we had some family and friends over, grilled and went down the block to watch the fireworks display along the Arkansas River. Very pretty.

When I was at church Tuesday night, I was reminded that while July 4th is the day to celebrate our independence, it is also a time to celebrate our dependence upon God. I think many of us, including myself, forget that sometimes. I know I am so grateful for everything I have: my family, my job, my home, etc. but certainly I'd have none of it without God.

Many people look down on being dependent on others. Many have a strong belief that you need to be fiercely independent. I used to live my life that way, but it got real difficult assuming responsibility for everything and everyone. In fact, I failed miserably at it. The harder I tried to be in control of everything, the worse things got. It wasn't until I admitted I couldn't do it alone and was dependent on God for everything that my life actually got simpler. I still face many of the same challenges, but they are easier to face knowing that God's got my back.

As you may remember from a few months ago, my daughter had a bad bike accident, and suffered a concussion and skull fracture. She finally got a clean bill of health from the neurosurgeon and is preparing for an aggressive year of Varsity Pom. Today she started driver's education. Yeesh! I don't even want to know how much my car insurance is going to go up when she turns 16 in December. Phil (my insurance agent), if you are reading this newsletter -- help!

My newly turned 13 year old son was just diagnosed with a possible allergy to -- of all things -- wheat. So we have placed him on a wheat and gluten free diet. This is very expensive. Food tends to cost two to three times as much as normal food. Luckily, we have a new Fresh Market that opened up and they stock a lot of healthy organic foods. He's lost eight pounds, and I am praying for some rapid weight gain. He acts fine and is full of energy, so we're hopeful he'll get used to the dietary change quickly and fatten up.

My wife is preparing for tennis nationals. She is a seriously aggressive tennis player, and has been playing 4-5 times a week for years. She is off to Kansas City in a few weeks and we're all very proud of her. Bring home the gold, honey.

And me, well, I've been working at YP (formerly AT&T Advertising Solutions) for over 4 months now. I love my job and the people I work with everyday. I've re-acclimated myself to the Corporate world for the most part. Sometimes easy things are still more difficult than they should be, but I believe our branch is headed for a banner year. It's exciting to be part of something big again, and with all out medical issues, I am grateful for health benefits again. In fact, I'm getting an endoscopy and colonoscopy tomorrow. I'm prepping today and it ain't fun.

Even though I am selling services similar to what I previously sold in my own consulting company, I am learning a lot and maturing as a consultant and salesman. No wasted time here. I find myself being more effective than I thought, and my productivity is high. Life is good.

Business
========

So much is going in the small and medium sized marketplace. Some people are still struggling, but many are flourishing and growing. Occasionally, I run into companies who insist on cutting their advertising expenses. This is such a stupid thing to do when the economy is still somewhat shaky. These business owners fail to understand that when you stop advertising, your business becomes invisible. You pull your print advertising from the Yellow Pages, you stop paying for search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and you begin to focus all of your attention on social media.

If I have said it once, I have said it many times before ... unless your business appeals to the social media crowd, unless you are positive that your customers and prospects live on Facebook and want to be more intimate with you, then social media is probably not going to take off for you. Hiring an outside consultant to manage your social media presence is probably not going to generate a ton of leads or sales for you either.

For instance, if you have a coffee shop or pizzeria or a fun book store, then social media can be a very effective way to **augment** -- not replace -- your other advertising. By itself, it is not necessarily going to catapult your business to success without a significant effort.

I have met many business owners of manufacturing businesses who have added social media icons to their web sites and links to their various social media accounts. They are proud of the fact that they are doing this, too. They will tell me this is an essential part of their advertising strategy. But if you click through to their Facebook page, you will find they only have garnered a few likes or friends over the course of a year and no meaningful leads or sales activity. They will have tweeted once a month and have a few dozen followers and these tend to be either close friends or employees. They are wasting their time, and time is money.

It's a lot like building a web site, and never taking the time to update it or drive traffic to it. If you don't update it and don't promote it, no one even knows the web site is there. It's more than invisible. It's non-existent. Advertising is not a set it and forget it act. It is a process.

And for those who have stopped advertising all together and focused all their time and effort into social media, they fail to see they have become invisible to their prospects. Someone looks in the phone book for a product or service, and guess what, companies who are no longer listed have become invisible. Someone searches online on Google, and guess what, companies who used to be listed there are now invisible. All because they pulled their advertising budget. Bad move.

Invisibility has a very real and concrete cost. If you can't be found in print and online, then you're not receiving potential calls or inquiries from new prospects. And guess what? Your competitors who are still listed in print and online are laughing all the way to the bank and praying that you remain invisible a while longer. Why? Because the longer you stay invisible, the better the chances are that you will go out of business faster. Mua-ha-ha-ha.

So I don't know where you are at with your company's advertising, but if you've been seriously considering pulling in your ad dollars, take a minute to look at yourself in the mirror. If you can still see yourself, then there is hope. But if you've pulled your ad dollars recently, then take a good look at your reflection in the mirror because it could begin fading at any minute, and once you're invisible, it's too late.

July 4th Promotions
===================

These special promotions are for my existing subscribers only:

1. BUY AN EBOOK COVER AND GET A FREE COPY OF DESIGNING EBOOK COVERS: $49.95 gets you a cover design and a copy of my ebook normally price at $27.00 in PDF format. Go to http://www.EbookCoverArtist.com and make your purchase through PayPal, and I'll send your free copy of Designing Ebook Covers to read while I am designing your cover.

2. BUY ONE PRODUCT FOR $27 AND GET TWO PRODUCTS OF EQUAL VALUE FOR FREE: Go to http://www.resellerproducts.com and buy any graphic, web template, software, ebook or video product normally priced at $27.00 or higher, and then send me an email to info@schneiderman.net telling me which two comparably priced products you want for free. Some third party products may not be available, but I will work with you!

3. BUY A SALES LETTER AND GET A FREE PRESS RELEASE: Send $300.00 to info@schneiderman.net via PayPal, and I will not only write a sales letter valued at $500.00 for your web site, but also throw in a free press release valued at $150.00.

4. BUY ONE EBOOK AND GET ONE FREE: If you purchase any of my ebooks in PDF format, then you can pick a second ebook for free by notifying me by email at info@schneiderman.net. Here are your choices:

http://www.DesigningEbookCovers.com
http://www.MakeYourEbookSell.com
http://www.ShootingYourselfintheFoot.com
http://www.Push-Pull-Marketing.com

These offers are good until Sunday, July 8th, at midnight. If you have any questions, drop me an email. Stay thirsty, my friends. (Sorry, I always wanted to say that!).

Until next time,


Steven

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