I wish you all a Happy Prosperous New Year and hope that you can make this year your best year online, and I hope to help you achieve that.

I should have written this post last week but I had my head down finishing a project that I’ve been working on for some time, it’s nearly ready for launching but more on that at a later date

Ok, onto the post:

What would you like to achieve this year?

The majority of my readers are already blogging, but are you achieving the success you desire and deserve?

It does take time to find success online but you can fast track that, in just 12 weeks, if you want to take action and get yourself a mentor. The only recommendation I make is Sally Neill’s Learn With Sally The Replays. Regular readers will know that I have taken the course and am now seeing success from doing so.

The course doesn’t only cover blogging it also covers traffic foundations, Social Media success, 3 types of video creation, email marketing, easy product creation and a whole lot more.

You only have to look around my blog and you’ll see the evidence of what I have learnt from Sally. Check out my videos and see how they’ve improved since taking the course, I still have to pinch myself sometimes

I can’t sing Sally’s praises loud enough, she really is a great mentor that cares about her students and wants us all to succeed. Our success is Sally’s success and that is what she strives for: Our success!!

2011 was my best year online and I have Sally Neill to thank for that.

Maybe you’re on a tight budget and want to try and create something yourself. Which is fine as long as you know what you’re doing and everything that needs doing to complete your projects.

So many of us start something and never quite finish it, which is why I recommend getting yourself a mentor. We can do it as long as we put our minds to it and constantly take action to achieve our goals.

Many of us doubt ourselves when it comes to creating something. The first ebook I wrote took me over 12 months to finish simply because I doubted myself and you know what….. by the time I had finished it eBay changed their rules and my eBook was dead in the water.

Arrggg self doubt, what a dream killer it can be.

We sit at our desks with no one to answer to and skip through what we’re doing without ever really getting anywhere because of a lack of direction and/or self doubt. I did it for years myself and now view those years as a total waste of time. I was playing at being an internet marketer and not working towards being one and that is so silly.

As I said, last year was my best year since coming online and I want this year to be even better. Not only for myself but for my readers as well.

So I ask you again: What would you like to achieve this year?

Would you like to create your own product or products?

Would you like to start creating videos?

Maybe you’re already doing something and want to improve on it…

If you haven’t created a plan for the year and are still unsure of what you’d like to achieve please let me know in the comments below and let’s see what we can do about it.

Experienced Bloggers: Did you ever suffer from self doubt and find yourself held back by it? If so please let us know how you got over it in the comments below.

Please share this post with your friends and followers by using the buttons to the side and lets help as many people as possible achieve their dreams this year.

Until next time, picture your dreams

Sadly last week was the end of the live call webinar’s and the completion of the course. Not that I’ve completed it yet There’s so much to the course that I’ve been busy learning and applying, making notes then learning and applying some more but I still need to go over some areas and to make sure I’m getting it right and that it has all sunk in correctly

Regular visitors to my blog would have seen the transformation in my blog and the way I now apply myself and my new found skills.

My blog has gone from this….

…..to what you see around you now.

As I’ve been going through the course work, learning and applying, I’ve used some of my new found skills in my posts to demonstrate them as well as creating my videos and showing you how the journey has been progressing, and what a journey it has been.

When I first started with Learn With Sally I spoke on the first webinar, for the first time, and when asked what my biggest fear was I came out with a stupid answer “my wife”. Since then I have spoke on nearly every webinar and even went on to co-host one, without any stupid answers

My Traffic foundations are now in place and working very well, with my traffic increasing, my Alexa ranking improving and the number of sites linking to me going up on a regular basis.

I now have a presence on the Social Media Networks, where I automatically send my content via Twitterfeed, which also brings me in free traffic

My video creation skills have improved ten fold and I’m now able to create all 3 types of video, screen capture tutorials, Power Point Presentations and me facing the camera.

I am now able to monitor my email marketing and drill down to see what emails are getting opened and which are not, allowing me improve on the areas that are needed. As well as being able to split test my email broadcasts to see which are working best. This is still an area where I need to improve but I do now have a good understanding of how it works.

I have an Instant Profit Machine in place, Triple Blog Traffic, which is also building my list and offers those that subscribe a free video, MP3 and eBook which will show them how to Triple their blog traffic using free resources.

I now have A Facebook Fan Page in place with my Triple Blog Traffic system. Again I need to apply myself a little more in this area and create further Fan Pages but again I now have an understanding of how these Fan pages work.

I have a product in the making through an interview I’ll be holding with Adrienne Smith. If anyone has any questions you’d like me to ask Adrienne please feel free to leave them in the comments on the post.

I now have a better understanding of how to attract and recruit affiliates to help promote my products. Which has come in really handy as I have a product that will be ready for launch in the coming weeks or maybe in the new year as I want everything to in place correctly.

If anyone is interested in helping me promote my new product please visit the affiliate page of Ease The Squeeze With Auctions and leave your details in the opt-in form and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry about being bombed with emails, this list is just for affiliates and news of my product launches. If you require a review copy of the product let me know once you’ve signed up

As well as seeing my own skills improve I have also had the pleasure of seeing my fellow students improve as well. They really are a great bunch of people that have also come a long way and offer each other encouragement and support in everything we all do.

My fellow students are:

Dawn Kay

Kathy Dobson

Ian Ieba

Nikki Stephens

Jacinta Dean

Jean Shaw

Nigel Yip

Michelle Lyall

Greg Taylor

Terry Conti

Fellow bloggers that joined later:

DeeAnn Rice

Kerry Russell

Igor Griffiths

Mandy Allen

It’s been really good getting to know them all and as I said we offer each other encouragement and support in everything we do and will continue to do so through our Facebook group, which is rocking.

So as you can see I’ve been on one hell of a journey with the Learn With Sally coaching, my skills have increased, I’ve overcome my fears and I know that the future is going to be brilliant. I’ve already been approached by two people asking to interview me, which was strange but I’m accepting both offers

I realise that whilst I’ve been detailing my journey in some of my posts I haven’t been passing many of the techniques on to my readers but I will be putting that right in the near future

I’d like to close this post with special thanks to Sally Neill and my lucky mascot Jade who picked my name out of the Daz box.

“Sally your coaching has been first class and has taught me everything I need to create success online. You’re an excellent teacher, a very inspirational person, you always bring out the best in your students and have helped us all overcome our fears, without swinging your size 3 towards our butts It really has been a pleasure learning from you these past few months and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My future really is in my hands now so sit back and watch it take off Sally, thank you x”.

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please share your thoughts about this post.

If you are suffering from fears holding you back please let me know what they are and lets see if I can help you face them.

Oh and please use the buttons below to help share the content with your friends and followers, thanks a lot.

Until next time, Face your Fears and Form your Future

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Journey To Success Part 7

Focus, Time and Money

Creating a manageable budget for both:

Before we start on the post let me put a little scenario to you:

You have a limited (or no) knowledge of plumbing and you need a new bathroom suite. So you go along to the builders merchants, pick out a new suite that suits your requirements and buy it.

Once it has been delivered do you:

A, Enrol in the local college for an evening course on basic plumbing for six months. Then go and buy all the tools and materials needed to carry out the job and then take the following 2, 3 or 4 weekends trying to install the new bathroom suite. During which time you and your family sit at home with crossed legs and pegs on your noses?

B, Call in a plumber that has the knowledge, skills, tools and materials needed and can get the job done in a day? Allowing you to get on with other things during this time and the 2, 3 or 4 weekends you would’ve spent doing it yourself.

The vast majority of us would obviously go for option B, call in a professional and get the job done in the minimum amount of time with the minimum amount of fuss/stress and end up with a much better result.

When it comes to creating any form of business, be it on or off line, we need to understand that we have these two choices:

We do the work ourselves and use our Time,

We pay someone else and use our Money.

What you need to do is create a manageable budget for both.

In part 2 of the series we created an overall plan where you listed the tasks you had to complete in order to achieve your dream. We also worked out how to manage your time and work your tasks around the time you have available.

Some of these tasks, like the bathroom scenario above, might just be a bit to time consuming and leave you frustrated at having to learn even more new skills or buy even more tools to carry them out.

Well the good news is that you don’t have to learn every skill needed in order to achieve your dream. You can pay others to do the tasks that you find to time consuming or difficult to do yourself.

For example: When I wrote Ease The Squeeze With Auctions I wrote the eBook, the salespage and the affiliates page but I didn’t create the graphics for it. I would have found it far too time consuming to learn all the new skills needed to create them so I outsourced the job to GFX-1, which saved me loads of work and allowed me to get on with other aspects of the package. Not to mention the money for the tools I’d have needed to create the graphics.

You can do the same for your creation

There are literally thousands of people queueing up to complete your tasks for you, all you need to do is delegate and of course pay them

This is when it comes down to the nitty gritty, where you need to work out a few factors.

Time Versus Money

Take a look at the tasks you have to complete and see if you find any to difficult or time consuming. If you do make a note of them and then break them down:

Do you need to buy software to complete the task? If so how often would you use the software thereafter? Never, Once, Twice? = Outsource.

Do you have to learn new skills that could take you months to do so and you’re not really interested in learning them but you know the task needs doing? = Outsource.

Is there a task that you would find to time consuming that would really hold you up when you have other tasks that you want to get on with? If so you could consider outsourcing it so you can get on with those other tasks.

If you think a task is going to take you 10 hours and you price your time at $15 an hour that’s $150, so if you can get the task done for a fraction of that price it may be worth your while outsourcing it.

Maybe you struggle with typing, this is a skill you do need to learn but you could feel more comfortable talking and letting some software do the typing. If so you could try using Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Or you could try a Transcription Service: You record your voice and send the transcription service the audio file and they’ll type it up for you. I know the person that owns this company and she always delivers First Class Transcriptions.

Like I said there are people queueing up to carry out every task you can think of so decide which, if any, you want to outsource and which you’re able to complete yourself.

So where do you find these people to do the tasks for you?

Odesk caters for pretty much every aspect you’ll ever need but be aware that they charge accordingly.

Elance covers all of your writing needs but rather than having a price list you enter a description of the job you need doing and the writers interested in doing the job come back to you with their quotes. You then look into those that offer an affordable price and make your selection.

Write Swap also cover all of your writing needs but here the writers will have set prices for set jobs. You can of course enter a job and ask people to offer a quote for it.

Fiverr offers a collection of people offering to do a wide variety of jobs for $5.00. You need to be a little cautious over at Fiverr and be sure to check the persons feedback before placing an order.

Please Note: I bought an excellent eBook via Kathy Dobson’s blog called Fiverr All Stars @ $4.95 which could save you wasting your money on those “less than professional people” that offer gigs on Fiverr.

Planet Divinity offer Pre-made Websites for eBooks, Affiliates and Software.

GFX-1 offer Personalized Graphics, Mini Websites and pretty much any graphics you need.

Remember that it is important that you learn the skills you’re going to use on a regular basis but for those jobs that just need doing now and again you may be better off letting others do them for you.

After all Henry Ford didn’t build every car himself did he?

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs” Henry Ford

I hope that you have found this post useful and that it helps you keep pushing towards your goal. If so please pass the word to others that you feel may benefit from it and if you use Twitter, Facebook, Google’s +1 or any other Social Networking sites use the buttons below, or to the right, to help pass it on for me please.

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the links below to do so.

As always your comments are very much appreciated so please feel free to add to the post in any way at all. The best comments will be included in the eBook, attributed to the comment author and linked to their blogs

Until next time, divide, conquer and continue

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Journey To Success Part 6

Learn From Your Mistakes, Back Up and Start Again.

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the links below to do so.

Part 1: Passionate Focused Thinking

Part 2: Develop Specific Goals To Attain Your Dreams

Part 3: Taking Action

Part 4: Learning As You Go

Part 5: Never Give Up, Focus and Hard Work

On to part 6: Learning from your mistakes, back up and start again.

We’ve all heard the saying “everyone makes mistakes” and it’s very true. Regardless of who we are and what we do we all make mistakes from time to time, such is life. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and turn them into lessons learnt and stepping stones to success.

Notice that I used the plural for mistakes and lessons? That’s simply because we will make many mistakes along the way and as I’ve said these mistakes need to be turned into lessons.

When we were in school, college or starting our careers we had someone there ready to check our work and point out our mistakes. We would then have to go back and start again making the corrections along the way.

Unfortunately when it comes to working online most of us work alone and when we make a mistake it can be hard to realise that we’ve actually made one. Which is why we need to test everything as we go.

When I first started working online I was selling eBooks on eBay and created a short cut to my eBay store on my desktop. Little did I know that the text displayed on my desktop was not actually the URL as it had changed a forward slash (/) to a hyphen (-). Which meant that for the month or so that I was copying and pasting the wrong link I was actually wasting my time, not only that but I then had go back make all the corrections and waste even more time

But worse still was the fact that the customers who received that broken link must have looked upon me as an amateur. Which of course I was but I didn’t want to look that way.

Now I test every link as I make them. I always have a notepad doc open on my desktop and when I’m putting a link together I do it in notepad and then test it before adding it to any emails, pages or products.

If you find one of your links is broken it is normally a wrong character or one missing, like in my case I had a – in place of a /

Fixing broken links is quite easy but what about the more technical stuff or products?

When it comes to products we should always ask a few people to check them for us, put the products  through their paces and report back to us with their honest views. Then collate all points people make and work through them making corrections as we go. It is far better to be embarrassed with our friends than it is with our customers or clients. Friends will laugh it off, clients will slag you off.

For the technical stuff search YouTube and see if you can find any videos that offer a solution. If you find something close but it doesn’t quite solve your problem ask the video creator by leaving a comment.

If you can’t find the anything and have to work through it yourself always make notes of what you’re doing and the steps you’re taking in trying to find a solution. This can become really frustrating but it has to be done, we always need to correct our mistakes before we move on and it slips our mind.

Once you’ve found the solution you can go through the steps you took and use the print screen button on your keyboard then paste it into the Open Office writer or Word and create your own little ebook from it. Not only do you then have it for future reference but you may find other people also suffer from similar mistakes and the ebook you’ve made could then be offered and another friendship blossoms.

Better still, you could create a video of the steps you took to correct the mistake, again you have it for future reference should you ever need it. There’s free software available from CamStudio that is easy to use and then if needed you just watch your video to refresh your memory. You could purchase a headset with a microphone and talk about each step as you take it. Then upload it to YouTube and others with the same problem have a solution which then offers the chance of them connecting with you.

Above all else remember to learn from your mistakes and turn them into lessons learnt

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.” Richard Bach

I hope that you have found this post useful and that it helps you keep pushing towards your goal. If so please pass the word to others that you feel may benefit from it and if you use Twitter, Facebook, Google’s +1 or any other Social Networking sites use the buttons below to help pass it on for me please.

Please Note: I will be creating an eBook from this series of blog posts so if you can add to the posts in anyway at all please do so in the comments below. The best comments will be included in the eBook, attributed to the comment author and linked to their blogs

Until next time, stay positive and keep learning

Since getting over my blog issues, which I detailed in my last post, I’ve been busy catching up with my Learn With Sally coaching, which had been going really well until the blog issues kicked in Obviously those issues took priority as without a blog there’s not much point in trying to apply more to it

Anyway I’m now getting back on track and have been catching up with the modules. I now had to create a Power Point Presentation so I thought; Ok I’ll create one about the Learn With Sally coaching and my journey so far.

Although I’ve created many videos before I’ve never created one with Power Point and I don’t mind admitting that it caused some frustration.

During the first recording the animations came in really slow and seemed to sit in mid flight for what seemed an age whilst I was talking about the relevant point. I stopped recording after the first slide and went to check my work: Rubbish, delete it and start again!

Second attempt: Close all other programs and try again. Same issues with the same results, animations sitting mid screen whilst I’m talking about them. Delete it and start again!

Third attempt: Take a look through the settings and see how to alter screen speed, ha ha found it Performance: Disable display acceleration during capture. So off I went again creating my first Power Point video, I got to the end of the second slide and stopped to check my work. Sheeesh where’s my voice gone?? Delete it and start again!

Fourth attempt: Check settings for audio, errrr record from CD Player? Ok, select my headset from the list and get recording again. So I then recorded the first 2 slides and checked the results on Camtasia. Animations and voice working together as one, rinky dinky doo lets get on with the rest of the slides.

I then recorded each slide individually and checked it before moving onto the next one. During the process I found that I had to select my headset for the audio unit every time I wanted to record a new slide.

I finally got to the end slide and now just had to put them all together in Camtasia and enter the Transitions from one slide to the next. That was simple enough as Sally had shown us how to do that, so it was now time to save the video.

And now it’s time to show it to the world, so allow me to introduce my very first Power Point presentation: Learn With Sally, The Journey So Far

Oh and don’t forget you can now watch it full screen as it’s shot in HD

To get your hands on the first modules follow the link to Learn With Sally The Replays

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please tell me what you thought of the video and if you have any additional tips for me please feel free to leave them below.

Oh and please use the buttons below to help me spread the word.

Until next time, Push yourself and the boundaries that restrict you

I’ve been pulling my hair our lately and have just gone through the worst ten days of my internet marketing career so thought I’d let you all know what’s been going on.

My issue started a few weeks ago during the video blog challenge when a few online friends got in touch to let me know that my blog was displaying a 500 error message.

For those who don’t know what a 500 error message is; it basically meant that I had hit the limit of my resources on my server and the server then automatically switched my blog off and displayed the 500 error message.

Obviously this isn’t good and needed looking in to straight away. So following the advice of D9 support I started de-activating my plugins and left just a few that I viewed as essential. This didn’t cure the issue but it did ease it a little.

Whilst all this was going on I created a video to show my good friend Ian Ieba how to create a signature that contains an opt-in form to place beneath our blog posts. Once I had created the video I explained to Ian about the issues I was having with hitting my resource limits and advised him to keep an eye on his limits.

All was fine until about ten days ago when Ian informed me was he hitting his limits, so I checked mine and I was also hitting my maximum constantly. So we both had a major issue to try and sort out before we lost our blogs.

We both got onto the D9 support desk and reported the issue and were both told that we needed to de-activate our plugins and introduce them slowly to see which one was causing it.

We took drastic measures and de-activated all but 2 plugins and still we were hitting our limits. Discussing the problem over Skype we thought it may be a widget so we removed our widgets but still hit our maximum usage. Ian had changed themes and saw a slight improvement so I also changed themes but didn’t see any difference. On top of that when I changed themes I noticed a link at the bottom of the new theme that I thought shouldn’t be there.

Now I had two major issues to solve, arrrrgggg It was going from bad to worse. I went to the theme creators website and got in touch asking about the link at the bottom, no reply. Tried again the next day, still no reply.

Ian and I were bouncing ideas back and forth over Facebook messaging, email and Skype as well as asking D9 support for advice and assistance for a week solid. At one point Ian lost his blog altogether and couldn’t access his admin panel either, so fixing this was now our priority.

D9 said that maybe we were now at the point of upgrading our servers to our own, I found this hard to believe as my traffic didn’t warrant that and Ian only has one site with D9 and that had gone down.

So I turned to our Learn With Sally Facebook group and asked for advice there. Jacinta Dean is also with D9 so she kindly checked her resource usage and saw that she was also hitting her limits and pointed out that the issue couldn’t be with Ian or myself but had to be with D9. Jacinta also looked at the link for me and said that she thought I had been hacked….. arrrrggggg I wanted to scream. My issues were now doubled but Jacinta also offered some good advice on blog security and recommended some plugins, which I installed.

We got in touch with D9 again and said that there were a few of us all using D9 that were having the same resource issue. We then got a reply saying that Cloudlinux, who manage the resource limits, had a bug in their system that was reporting false issues. So Ian and I didn’t have a resource issue at all and had just wasted a whole week trying to solve a non-existent problem. Although it wasn’t a total waste as we had learnt loads through the experience.

Phew….. now I only had to deal with the link at the bottom of my new theme, I still hadn’t heard back from the theme support people so I asked D9 whether it could be a hack.

Fairplay to Dan of D9, he instantly changed all my passwords, scanned all of my sites and recommended I carry out a deep scan of my PC for viruses, Trojans, spyware, malware and a deep clean of all files. He even supplied links to a variety of websites that offered software that would do this for me.

D9 found 7 Trojans hiding in some exe ebooks I had on one of my eBook websites so I deleted them all and removed the items from the sale.

He also removed the “alien” link through removing some coding in my footer.php. So I went back to edit my new theme only to find I couldn’t make any changes. I then deleted the theme and started again, with Ian on the end of a Skype call we tried all sorts. I switched over to the default WordPress theme and Ian, checking my blog, told me that my whole blog was just my last post. I was to scared to look myself for fear of what I might find. I had no choice but to re-install the theme to get my blog working again. Ian and I worked on the issue long into the night, talking over Skype and comparing our codes. Taking screen shots, copying codes and emailing them back and forth whilst trying to solve the problem.

With much puffing, panting, moaning and groaning, as Ian’s wife Evette pointed out lifting my spirits, “Thanks Evette you really did pick me up, even if I was extremely embarrassed at the time” We finally got my blog working again but the “alien” link was back. Indicating that if it was a hack it came from the theme and I still hadn’t heard back from them as it was now midnight and we’d been working on it most of the day we decided to call it a day. We’d both been pulling our hair out for long enough…..

Before hitting the pillow I asked D9 to install a back up from as far back as they could, which they did. The following morning I checked my blog to see that the theme was the same as I had left it and the link was still there. No problem, I had learnt what the coding was in the footer.php so I removed it myself and started editing my new theme only to find that some of the plugins wouldn’t work.

Again Ian and I were on Skype trying to solve it and compared our plugin scripts, which were the same. So still thinking I had been hacked Ian suggested that I re-install WordPress as if for the first time and then upload a back up from a clean period.

I then had a thought……. I’ll go to the theme creators again but this time with a cunning plan I asked them: “If I purchase the upgrade will the links at the bottom go away?” It worked as I had a reply within an hour saying “yes, when you buy the upgrade the links will be removed”. So I asked “Is the alien link meant to be there?” “yes it’s all part of the free theme and that link is to one of my websites”. Phew I hadn’t been hacked, the heavy weight just lifted off of my shoulders and I could smile again.

So I re-entered the coding in the footer.php file to allow the link to display and all of the plugins came back to life.

After ten long days for both Ian and myself we both had our blogs back up and running and I think you’ll agree that they look much better.

This last week that Ian and I have had just goes to emphasize the message in our last blog posts Journey To Success: Never Give Up Focus and Hard Work.

I would like to thank Ian Ieba and Jacinta Dean for their help and support in solving this matter.

I would also like to ask you: How safe is your blog from hackers? If you want to stay safe then I suggest you get over to Jacinta’s latest post: Is Your Blog Secure From Hackers?

Now that this issue has been resolved I can get on with my Learn With Sally coaching and catch up. Oh by the way Sally has just released the first four modules of her coaching in The Learn With Sally Replays, be sure to check it out.

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please let me know your thoughts below. Oh and please help me spread the word of the post by using the new buttons below, thanks

Until next time, Be seen but be safe…

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

Journey To Success Part 5

Never Give Up, Focus and Hard Work

Please note: If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the links below and do so. Be sure to read the comments and replies as they can often add a wealth of information to the original post and if you find a comment that you would like to reply to please feel free to do so, just hit the Reply link beneath the comment. The person that left the comment will automatically receive an email containing your reply, allowing them to continue the conversation. Alternatively you can leave a comment of your own

Part 1: Passionate Focused Thinking

Part 2: Develop Specific Goals To Attain Your Dreams

Part 3: Taking Action

Part 4: Learning As You Go

Moving on, part 5: Never Give Up, Focus and Hard Work.

As I’ve said before, you will hit hurdles, road blocks and on occasion brick walls and think to yourself this is to hard, there has to be an easier way….

That’s only natural to think that when you’re up against it but rest assured we’ve all been there. You have to battle on and never give up, it does take focus and hard work to reach our goals, but they are reachable. Let me put it another way “If this was easy we’d all be millionaires” wouldn’t we!?

The worst thing you can do when you hit a wall and think you don’t know what to do next is give up and move onto another project. Again I speak from experience here as I done just that and even now I can go back to my old files and find half done projects….. What a waste of time they were.

I remember reading a story in an eBook a few years ago and it’s stuck with me ever since. I can’t remember the story exactly but I do remember the message it gave me. The author likened our projects to cars and the story went something like this:

The names have been changed to protect the innocent

Barry and Ted both started working on their cars at the same time. They both had a shell, wheels, steering wheel and brakes. So when they were ready they got behind their cars to start pushing. Barry sat there deep in thought while Ted got his shoulder behind the car and started pushing, looking back he shouted “oi Barry, you’ll never get to where you wanna be by sitting still”, “you mug” he muttered under his breath as his car began rolling forward.

Ted was pushing his car with all his strength but after a while it started to get heavy so he lowered his shoulder even more and gave it all he could. He had just started climbing a hill when he had to put the brakes on and catch his breath.

Just as he looked up he saw a new shiny sports car that promised to get him up that hill in lightening speed and it only need a minimum amount of work doing on it. So he ditched his first car, jumped into the sports car and went rip roaring up the hill.

A mile or 2 later, as he took a bend quicker than he could handle, he clipped the kerb and suffered a blow out. So having pulled to the side he thought he’d fix the problem. He checked the manual and thinking it was written in a foreign language he dumped it and checked the boot (trunk) for some tools to try and fix it himself, but none were to be found. I know, he thought, I’ll phone the help desk. So that he did, only to find it was an answer phone and he’d have to wait for a return call.

Back to pushing then, he got behind the sports car and continued up the hill. Boy oh boy this is getting heavy he thought to himself. After another mile he stopped to put the brakes on and have a look at the road ahead. He saw what he thought was the top of hill and got a little excited, ye-ha not much further now. Ted then noticed a pick up truck with a custom paint job that looked fantastic, a bit heavier than he had wanted but there’s only a little way to go to reach the top and this truck would do everything he needed and some…..

Before deciding what to do he tried the help desk again only to find the answer phone again.

Frustrated at having to sit still or push again, he decided to ditch the sports car and go with the truck, after all it had a custom paint job, big flash lights, nudge bars with all the bells and whistles. Again it only needed a tiny amount of work doing and then it’d be able to do everything Ted ever wanted. Having regained some of his strength he got his shoulder behind the truck and got pushing again.

After just a few hundred meters it was getting to much to handle and began getting the better of ol’ Ted, so he turned his back to it and dug his heels in. Trying in desperation to stop the truck rolling back down the hill, he was really up against it now.

Looking up in the distance he saw a familiar car coming out of a side turning, “that mug Barry must have taken a wrong turn, look at him, still pushing the same jalopy” Ted thought to himself as he slipped back down the hill a little further.

As Barry’s “jalopy” got closer, Ted realised that Barry wasn’t pushing it he was actually driving it…… “How the………”

Barry got closer and recognized Ted so pulled over to talk to him. Ted immediately asked “How comes you’ve got that thing driving then Barry?”.

“Simple really Ted” Barry replied, “before I started pushing I thought about what the car needed”. “It needed windows first, so when I get tired I can get in the car and have a good look around for the direction I needed to take.

Whilst having the windows fitted I asked them to fit some mirrors, so I could check behind me in case I missed anything along the way.

Once I had the windows and mirrors fitted I wanted lights so I could see in the dark. Then came the seats so I could get comfortable with the car, then came the gear box”

“The gear box? Why not go straight for the engine?” asked Ted.

“What’s the point of having an engine that’ll rev up but never get you anywhere?” replied Barry “once I had the gear box fitted then I went for the engine. Now I’m driving to the paint shop to get the car sprayed, then I’ll be ready to show it off to everyone”.

“How did you know where to get the work done?” Ted asked.

“That was easy Ted, I used my windows” replied Barry.

The moral of the story is:

When it gets hard, which it does, keep pushing the same car (project) and use your windows to look around for the help you need. Keep visiting the forums and blogs you’ve found and if Tom, Dick or Harry offer you a flash sports car remember your car’s already moving, you just needs to keep pushing it.

We know that life can get in the way some times and after a hard days work you may want to chill out on the sofa and just relax in front of the TV. We could all do that but it isn’t going to get you over the hurdle.

You have to keep pushing yourself to reach your goal. If you get stuck leave that task and pick the one above it on your plan. You will probably have an ah ha moment and find the answer comes to you, then go back and finish that task.

Just think:

“If man could of got off the ship in a storm we’d never have crossed the ocean”

I hope that you have found this post useful and that it helps you keep pushing towards your goal. If so please pass the word to others that you feel may benefit from it and if you use Twitter, Facebook, Google’s +1 or any other Social Networking sites use the tools available to help pass it on for me please.

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you would like to keep up with the series pop your name and email address in the boxes below and I’ll send you an email every time my blog is updated.

Please Note: I will be creating an eBook from series of blog posts so if you can add to the posts in anyway at all please do so in the comments below. The best comments will be included in the eBook, attributed to the comment author and linked to their blogs

Until next time, stay strong and keep pushing

What a busy Bank holiday weekend I’ve had. It’s a shame the calender on my phone doesn’t show Bank Holidays, wedding anniversaries and the day my daughter goes off on her first ever holiday without the parents

I said that I would put the Top Ten Traffic results on my blog today and after a very busy weekend I’ve finally managed it……. ye-ha

You see after receiving the entries for the video challenge I just had to put some of them to use, which meant more learning, applying, correcting, applying, correcting again arggg but I got there and am I pleased, you betcha I’m pleased, so much so you can have another ye-ha

As well as watching the videos from the challenge I’ve also had the pleasure of watching the ones from Learn With Sally. As this weeks module is about creating videos, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and create a video of The Top Ten Traffic Sources for the period of the video challenge.

So without further ado, grab yourself a coffee and pull up a chair. Then watch the new video in HD, which means you can watch it full screen and not lose any quality

Lets see who’s in the square window today

Please take a moment to visit the websites mentioned in the video, you’ll find all the links you need below, and please mention to them that they’re staring in my latest creation

No1 Twitter

No2 Facebook

No3 Ian Ieba

No4 Dawn Kay

No5 Adrienne Smith

No6 Dianna Simon

No7 Nick Lawless

No8 Julie Dunlop

No9 Stuart Turnbull

No10 Google Plus

Again I want to thank everyone for part in the challenge as well as thanking you the reader for coming over and reading my posts, then tweeting, liking +1ing and helping get the word out about my content. It is very much appreciated, “Thank You”.

Your Shout….

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so please share your views.

Do you like the new video format?

Were you surprised by the top ten referring sites?

Oh and please use the new bookmarking plugin, over on the left of the screen, to share my post with your freinds and followers, thank you.

Until next time, Lights..Camera.. Then Take Action

What a buzz I had last night……

I have to tell you the coaching I’m getting from Sally Neills new Learn With Sally coaching program is far better than I could ever of imagined.

Not only has Sally had me facing my fears and pointed out some mistakes I’ve been making with Social Networking. She’s now got me kicking my fears into touch, well one so far but with her teaching style I know that the other fears will follow the same route.

You may recall that only 3 weeks ago I told you about my fear of talking live on a webinar. Well last night that fear was firmly kicked into touch, thanks to Sally

You see, Sally had asked if anyone wanted to help her on the webinar and be a co-organizer. Never one to shy away from trying new things I let Sally know that I was up for it.

So last night I logged into the webinar 30 minutes early and had a good ol’ chat with Sally before my fellow students came online. Sally ran me through the control panel and then we chatted about various other things.

Then it was time to begin the webinar, so I was making my notes during the slides and taking in what Sally was saying. Then it came to the questions and answers session and Sally switched the controls over to me.

I thought the nerves would kick in, my belly would rumble, my bottom might burp and my teeth might chatter…. but that didn’t happen.

Sally and I had already discussed that I would run my fellow students through my last blog post. Which fitted in really well as this weeks module is about creating videos and my last post was the results of my video challenge.

So I introduced myself, which was pointless as Sally had already done so, and started talking about the post and the help it could offer everyone with their video creations. Not only by the lessons being given in the videos but also by the ideas it could generate for creating their own videos.

I think I may have started to waffle slightly towards the end but nothing major. I then handed the controls back to Sally who then dealt with a couple of questions, one of which was about my soon to be famous belly rumble… Thanks Ian, I suppose that’s pay back for the Dark Horse

At the end of the webinar Sally told us who was next to co-organize our next webinar, and boy oh boy are we in for a treat.

The Fabulous Fear Fighter AKA The Purple Princess AKA Nikki Stephens is going to face yet another fear, and this girl is getting them out of the way big style. Congratulations Nikki you deserve a bravery award

Any way I’d better get off as it’s my 22^nd wedding anniversary today, so I’m off to spend some time with the wife

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments so tell me:

Has anything got you buzzing lately?

And if you have any online fears what are they? Maybe I can help you face them

Until next time, Face a fear and make a buzz, it’s a great feeling

Hi all, have I had busy week or what…

After announcing the video creation challenge in my last blog post I’ve been blog hopping, Tweeting and setting up an event on Facebook to help get the word out there, and what a response I’ve had.

I’m really excited about every video that entered. We’ve got lessons and tours from experts, some from 2^nd and 3^rd timers and some from video virgins that have never created videos before.

oh and watch out for the dark horse, he’s stepped out of the stable and will soon be galloping around the net.

I take my hat off to every one of you that created a video (or two or three in some cases) for this challenge and I have listed them all below in the order that they were submitted to me.

Please bookmark this post as you have some fantastic lessons and demonstrations below and I know you’ll want to watch them all throughout the week

Oh and please use the tools available on each post to help spread the word of their video creations.

So without further ado allow me to introduce…….

Barry’s Box-office Bonaza…….

Kathy Dobson: Gives 3 excellent lessons in her video that most bloggers would find extremely helpful. I know I did and these lessons will help me improve my blog. Great work Kathy!

Can I Have Some Space Please

Please note: Kathy is away on vacation this week so replies to comments will be made upon her return.

Adrienne Smith: Discover how to make your links stand out on LinkedIn with this easy tip. You’ll have your links changed in no time at all.

How To Make Your Links Stand Out On LinkedIn

igor Griffiths: Has created a video to show how to start split testing when you don’t know where to start.

How to Start Building the Life You Desire

Jacinta Dean: Gives us all an excellent lesson on how to use a certain website to check our Twitter followers in a number of ways. Every Twitter user needs to watch this one. I was glad I did

To Follow Or Be Followed On Twitter

Craig Sowerby: Shows us one of his methods for building his list. This is an excellent lesson and a new one for me.

One Of My Best List Building Techniques!

Please note: Craig is away on holiday this week so replies to comments will be made upon his return.

Julie Dunlop: Really stepped up to this challenge and created a video showing us how she uses a certain toolbar to help spread content on the web.

I Accepted The Challenge, Here Is The Result

Ian Ieba: “The Dark Horse” Has created an excellent first video and has combined it with a series of posts that he is putting together for using PLR material to turbo charge our product creation efforts.

PLR – Private Label Rights Part 4

John “Ed” Edwards: Ed is an eBay master and knows eBay back to front and inside out. In this video Ed gives us a quick lesson on using eBay Pulse for researching niche stores.

How to Research eBay Niche Stores Using the Pulse Tool

Robert Corrigan: Rob demonstrates how to add items to give away events, for list building, and set up our download pages. He’s also put an idea in my head…… you’ll have to pop over to see what that is……

The Video challenge

Mike Shepherd: Mike suffered a 500 error some time ago and had all sorts of issues fixing it. He’s now found a 5 click solution, which he details in his very first video creation.

The 5 Click Solution To A 500 Error Fix

Stuart Turnbull: “I sell vintage prints on eBay and my video shows an example of how I identify the hot sellers and then where I go to source these items. In this particular example I find prints that I can resell for five times the purchase price!”

My eBay Profit Secrets

Randy Smith: Gives us a tour of a brand new piece of software that will create our Affiliate pages for us. Not only saving us hours of work but ensuring that we get all of the fields filled in correctly.

Video Tour – Fill in the blanks affiliate pages!

Dee Ann Rice: Learn how to upload a video to your WordPress blog post using YouTube and a FTP program.

How to Upload A Video To Your Blog Post

Nick Lawless: In his first ever video gives us an excellent lesson on how he does his keyword research and the keywords he finds are all successful. Nick also shows us some other tricks he uses but you’ll have to visit his post for those details

Gold diggin’ on the net – Check out my first video!

Eamon Diamond: Has created 2 excellent videos giving everyone lessons on understanding Camtasia. As I have recently purchased it I found these a real help and I know that these are going to improve the quality of my videos.

Understanding Camtasia

Mandy Allen:This is a quick video that will walk you through the steps to add an opt in box with a graphic to your WordPress blog sidebar. The video shows you how to create the ‘widget’ using an html editor, then where to paste the code for it to appear on your blog.

My First Video Post

Vance Sova: Has a regular meet up with John Chow and friends where they discuss various topics. In this meet up they discuss the new Android phones, smart phones and even talk about beer.

Internet Marketing Gurus Talk Android iPhone Smart Phones, Beer

Michelle Lyall: Has been off the circuit for a while but has now bounced back and is taking part in Sally Neills new coaching program: Learn With Sally. Michelle has never created a video before and has done a terrific job on this her first ever video.

Face my Fears or Sally Neill

Rick Byrd: Rick explains why we should cloak our affiliate links and shows us 2 ways of doing it, both of which are new to me.

Affiliate Marketing Lesson – Why and How to Cloak Affiliate Links

Late Entries:

Michele Welch: Gives us an excellent lesson on using Hootsuite to schedule our tweets and organize our Twitter accounts. I for one didn’t know Hootsuite could do so much, thanks Michele.

Tour of Hootsuite

Nikki Stephens: AKA The Fabulous Fear Fighter gives us an excellent lesson on setting up our gmail accounts to handle all of our email accounts as well as being able to sort them into folders. I for one needed this lesson, thanks Nikki.

OMG The Posh Girl Speaks

David Taylor: Gives us a tour of Mail Wash, an email application that David uses to filter his emails and catch all the spam and viruses before they land on his computer. He’s also thinking of a competition where he’ll give 2 lucky winners free access to Mail Wash Pro for a year.

An Update, An Apology and a Dilema

Dawn Kay: Has created her first ever video and in it she shows us how to add audio files to our blogs. We all know how handy this is to know and I have to admit that I didn’t know how it was done, but I do now thanks to Dawn,

Not Bad But Needs Work

I want to thank everyone that entered the challenge. I know that time was tight for many of you and I really do take my hat off to you all. I truly appreciate every one of you and the effort you’ve put in, “Thank You”

There are some great entries and I really hope that you’ve learnt loads from them. Please be sure to help the creators and bookmark, like, tweet and stumble every one of them, pretty please with cherries on top

I know that some people are still hoping to add their videos to the challenge. This isn’t a problem as I can add them later. When I have a few to add I will do so as I don’t really want to keep editing the post for single additions.

Please Note: Some of the links above have been removed due to being reported broken and slowing my blog down.

Your shout!

As you know I love to read and reply to your comments.

So what did you think of the challenge?

Would you consider holding one yourself, or would you like me to hold another one with a larger time frame?

Don’t forget next week I’ll show you my Top Ten Traffic Sources, will you be in there?

Until next time… Popcorn!!