The show must go on! :-)

Hi again MaaMaw! I was giving the doggies each a bath and haircut, so I was away from the computer for a bit. :-)

I don't think I've ever missed any important messages due to the way my email is setup (deep-6 thingy). The reason being, is because all "valid" email addresses are represented by an actual POP mailbox, alias or fowarder. Every other email address (that gets dumped) would just be the ones the spammers (or their automated programs) make up.

> Can you IMAGINE how many sales that has probably cost me? And how much
> credibility??

In your case, letting it go that long, no -- I can't imagine! OUCH!

> That's mistake #1, IMHO: The problem with letting anyone but you dump your
> email is that something important could slip through the cracks (yeah,
> like nothing important slipped through my cracks in two years,
> BWAHAHAHAHA!).

That's the thing... I might not be explaining it right, but it is actually me dumping them. My web hosting account has a default email address setting, which I currently have set to ":blackhole:" which is a UNIX feature I believe.

> That meant I got maybe 32 copies of a single spam, and it was killing me.

Yes, I used to get that too, but 31 of them were usually sent to email addresses that *technically* didn't exist since my hosting service provides a "catch all" feature. Since I turned on the "blackhole" setting, I only get one of each, but they come to my valid email address(es).

> address (and this being a good thing, one has to ask, "How low have
> we sunk?")

The ruthless spammers have forced us to have pretty low standards, haven't they?

Actually, the latest version of Outlook (2003) does a pretty good job with the built in SPAM filter. However, no matter what spam filter I use, I still feel like I have to spend time going through the junk mail folder to make sure nothing legit got sifted.

> You sure put on a good show :-)

> SUCH A PROBLEM!! I have the same one, and it's why I've been talking about
> turning this into a living for years and years and YEARS but have never
> gotten close.

Thanks, but I'm not sure if I would call it a show... For my first 2 years online, I was putting blood, sweat and tears into my FINL (Financial Independence Network Limited) business and online presence. Then, like most network marketing gigs usually do, the whole thing changed; prices increased, new rules were implemented, people got restless, and *poof* -- everyone jumped ship. I guess that is one of the things that originally resulted in me finding your site, and I've been here on and off ever since.

After that devastating experience, I was really careful about putting my trust in any one company (supplier, vendor, whatever) but was still convinced I could somehow make it online. For the several years since then, I've bounced from one thing to the next, and despite everything I read and learned from your website, I mostly lost money at everything I tried. Human nature (stupidity?) is a tough thing to overcome!

My website went through as many changes as I did, and it should have come as no surprise that it has become harder and harder to develop a following. Heck, I wouldn't want to follow someone who changes their mind every few weeks and starts promoting something new at the drop of a hat!

Anyway, to make a long story short, the ONLY thing I've found that really makes money for me, and that I can pretty much control, is selling on eBay and promoting affiliate products via Google AdWords. Those are both a lot of fun for me, and if I ramped up my efforts in a BIG way, I think I could eventually earn a full time income.

I'm almost ashamed of the fact that I was recently promoting several of the money doubler programs on my website. Sure, I made money or at least got my seed money back from most of them, but it was all a timing game. If you didn't get in at the "pre launch" of each one, you were bound to lose money as the whole matrix came to a screeching halt. How stupid could I be to promote something that I just KNEW wouldn't work long term?!? Again, more stupidity, greed, hope...???

> Well now the transcribing is gone -- and so is our house and our dinner if
> I don't turn this around NOW. I've talked about "need" and
> "panic" before, but there was always the typing so the panic may
> have been real, but the need wasn't.

> It's very real now.

> Sure, it's still out there -- I could go to work for another transcription
> company tomorrow if I wanted to -- but I DO NOT WANT TO. That's why I'm
> taking one to two months completely away from transcribing and risking the
> farm to try to make a go of the internet businesses.

> I have no savings -- only two months' mortgage money because I was never
> paid on time for my typing, which suddenly seems like a good thing, yuk
> yuk yuk.

> If I fail, I am in serious, SERIOUS trouble from which we might never
> recover.

That IS a pretty scary place to be! Where does the majority of your online $$$ come from now? Is it from sales of Corey Rudl's course and the web hosting service? I'm guessing it probably is, and that is a great example of how you have stuck with something for many years and didn't give up on it. Me, I would have promoted those things for a few weeks and if I wasn't rich by then, I'd dump it and move on to something else. :-(

> What I do have are WAY too many ideas and WAY too many directions to go.
> The internet is overwhelming. I think the difference between us and the
> "successful" people is that they know how to channel all this
> information and we don't.

Amen sista, I think you nailed it! The successful people have figured out what gets them up early and keeps them up late, and they FOCUS on that - NO MATTER WHAT. All the rest of the B.S., I think they have devised a way to take ONLY what they need, and let the rest slide right on by.

> Out of necessity, my days of drifting are over. I'm making a plan and
> sticking to it. I'm writing the usual huge, multi-volume plan/list (I have
> to do it, the list calms me down) -- but once it's written, I'm putting it
> away. I'm taking ONE STEP AT A TIME -- that's ALL that goes on my list --
> and when it's done, I'll go back to where I hid the rest of the list and
> fetch the next ONE thing. It's the only way I can do it.

> Why don't you try that, Dave Mauder??

Sounds like a WONDERFUL idea! And it's a much better idea than making traditional New Years resolutions.

> Let's do it together!!

> Let's show 'em we can FINALLY get it right, okay???

> I desperately need some accountability. (I knew that about losing weight
> so I'm planning a blog on FFAT -- but it never occurred to me that it
> might help me build my internet income too.)

You might be onto something here...

> I think I'm going to start a blog on this site to record my steps (and
> confess my transgressions, like the 2-1/2 hours I wasted last night when
> my daughter, enthralled with her new goldfish in the little aquarium she
> got for Christmas, said, "Mommy, do fish pee?" and I said,
> "I'll look it up" and the rest is history).

> Do you want to blog with me?

> We can do it here. We can keep each other on track -- and if it's
> interesting enough for anyone else to read, our Board Buddies can keep
> both of us on track. If nobody else reads it, just the two of us can keep
> each other on track.

> ????????

Right now, I feel like I'm back in that "what do I want to be when I grow up?" mode, which is why I wanted to step away from the whole online thing for a while and get my goals clear in my head. However, if I focus on eBay and Google AdWords as ways to make money, and vow to never get involved with another network marketing, MLM, matrix or other evil empire again, I think we may have something!

Let's keep in touch on this over the next week or so and see how we might develop the idea. Hey, I might be able to contribute to your FFAT blog too because I'm going to lose 30lbs by my next birthday in June - NO MATTER WHAT!

> P.S. I think you're doing a swell thing trying to help the wave victims.

Thanks!

All the best...