Fortunately and Unfortunately I need your help. The last few days my blog had some server issues and now that I am able to post, my baby decided to sleep 8 hours in a row last night (yah!), leaving me on the verge of a breast infection today (blah!). I am in pain, and waiting for the tylenol to do what it can. The added bonus - my car has no a/c and I live in the Middle East and I was out all day in 100F, so I am just barely alive. Can you help me finish my thoughts today (or buy me a new car :)!)?
 
Over dinner a few nights ago, there was a conversation between myself and Others who DONT get ‘the whole web thing’.
 
They agreed that when starting any new business venture, online or offline, solid good advice is to look around at others in your field, either in your ‘niche’ or just generally successful, and imitate them.
 
This is not to suggest common practice where I live - that you open a ‘felafel store’ next door to another ‘felafel store’ since they appear to be raking it in.
 
However, if you visualize the internet as it is.. the biggest strip mall EVER.. (you know what I mean by strip right?? I am out of the USA so long I just want to make sure this is the proper term! ).. that means we may all be opening up stores right ‘next to each other’ but the ENTIRE WORLD is our potential customer. That leaves plenty to go around, and room for very healthy competition!
 
The conversation continued…
 
Fine!! Agreed. Free Market Economy. Enough to go around. Snoop on your competitors, interview their friends and friends of their friends and milk them for details, do what you have to, but…
 
Why link to someone who is your competitor??
 
(Disclaimer - I cant shine the shoes of those ’supposed competitors’ but a healthy self esteem cant hurt, eh?)
 
Reebok and Nike / Pepsi and Coke / Walmart and K-Mart - competitors for generations. Can you picture them helping the other out? That may have saved them a lot of Advertising money!
 
Naturally a Blog, with nothing to sell, except the persona behind it, cannot exist in a vacuum.
 

 
To be perfectly honest, I could be completely off here. As cathartic and enjoyable as I find blogging, it was (is?) intended to be another piece in the puzzle towards helping me reach my online goal$$. I am currently not in a position, with a young family, to be writing only for pleasure (of course it helps that it offers me pleasure). Are you?
 
How do YOU explain this unique online relationship?
 
P.S - as I was searching for my last link love…. check out this post (will open new window). How ironic to stumble across Garry’s post as I was writing mine..and frankly a little LOT terrifying.
 
~~andrea

 
First an apology to my huge list of readers . I mentioned a part II to my previous post, and it just is NOT happening … YET. It is summer, people are everywhere, it’s hot, and my brain is a little fried.
 

 
I want to write about something very important. I have split it into 2 parts.
 
One is practical and one is philisophical.
 
In order to not have one part get lost due to too much information, I am going to write the 2nd part in my next post.
 
First the practical:
 
In a post a few days ago, that was way too long, I mentioned the following attitude I developed after becoming aware of Internet Marketing, making money online, anything and everything to do with my newfound relationship between myself, my computer, and the impact it potentially had on my financial future:
 

 
 
~~andrea
 

 

Moving on to What I WILL win
 
Rich Schefren is one cool guy. You get the feeling that the guy could take your business, strip it down to its bare bones, and build it up to what it is meant to be.
 
He is all about creating a business that is SO together, happening, and hitting it’s mark that people want to work with you For FREE.
 
Rich has managed to stay out the guru bashing mire to the extent that his name can take something potentially questionable in it’s integrity and purpose and make it smell clean.. I wish I had more time to read blogs, but here is ONE AWESOME blogger who auditioned to N-I-M just because Mr. Schefren was attached to the project. I have no idea how John didnt make it even to the top 50.. John is a gorgeous smart preppy collegiate boy!
 
Rich has also found his way over here to comment on my blog.. I DOUBLE DARE YOU TO COMMENT AGAIN..
 
Rich’s latest product - the Attention Doctrine is offering a prize to strategize with some of the big time respected Marketers or win $1000… If you are considering entering, forget about it - The contest entry ENDED July 8th!
 
But enough about RICH!! Now ABOUT ME!! This is from the lovely Dwain at StrategicProfits.com
 
“Hi Andrea,
We all really enjoyed your Attention video and you’re in the running.
  
Email me when you get a chance.. as I’d like to learn more about what you are trying to do in your web business.”

 
Oh Dwain.. I love it.. TRYING.. was it THAT obvious???
 
So Me.. and Web Business..
 
In the year 2000, I was hired to work for a website company. Having just completed an 18 hour HTML course, it did not take me long to realize that my education was not enough to make me a skilled web designer, and I certainly wasnt a graphic artist, unless stick figures are your thing,.. so with some trepidation I accepted this position. My boss had a few websites and I was hired to monetize them and do other client work.
 
Affiliate Marketing?? What the heck was an affiliate and affiliate marketing??
 
To his credit, he was pretty laid back with expectations, and to my credit - I BLEW HIM AWAY.. Now, I didnt put in the amount of hours I should have, and I didnt rush to do client work, (turns out knowing HTML is fantastic, but I dont like web design), but within just a few months of working, I asked:
 
“why are you paying per click (1 cent at the time) to get people to come to your site in the hopes of making an affiliate purchase. Why dont you cut out the middle man and send them directly to an affiliate program.”
 
It took him 3 months to actually ‘listen’ to what I was saying - I was so NEW - why pay attention to me? We proceeded to spend a couple of pennies to earn a $1 pay per lead commission.. For those in the know, you will realize that before Google was even born I was sitting on ‘Google Cash’ and the rest is history…
 
but of course it gets even better (or worse). 6 months later… I asked my boss..
 
“If you can add sponsored links to your site, and all we want is to get visitors to our site to click on those links, why not create an all sponsored links site and not give them any choices.”
 
Yes, my friends… your first LINK FARM site, AKA Niche Adsense Website… again - this is before GOOGLE Adsense (even Google) existed, so you can imagine when we added Google to these sites, we were poised to.. make a killing . Did I say we?? Since HE certainly had no complaints for several years…
 
However, we were not ‘Internet Marketers’, and it was only in about the year 2003-4 that I realized the concept of ebooks and the business of teaching others how to make money on the web. Then it started to slowly dawn on me WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN and what COULD HAVE BEEN…
 
Since then I became IM obsessed, snapping up every product, expecting that at any moment all the pieces of the puzzle would come together and I would hit the jackpot. I would walk around very smug, looking at the regular rat-race crowd with pity at that they were not clued into what I had discovered - like a hidden treasure….

 
*ERIC and JOEL and other NIM contestants - read the disclaimer JUST BELOW the video*
 
*Next Disclaimer - every video I have done to date is on a very inexpensive Digital Camera - nothing fancy going on.. as should be obvious. I usually have up to 9 minutes of video time, before I have to download, erase and start over :).
 
For all those predicting and expecting to see me in, you were in good company.. If you have a problem with me tooting my own horn - 1st of all, these are quotes from others, and 2nd of all “I am the most fabulous person EVER” - thats a direct quote from yours truly It wont take but a glance through this blog to hear me express my limitations, so I shouldnt have to run from the opposite.
 
For those who go by the stats - as previously mentioned, I was the top ranking female of the final tally and the only woman in the top 7!
 
Other than being listed in 75% of the visitor predicted totals on the forum, Here is a SAMPLING of direct quotes from other forum readers and mostly other contestants (names to be added later upon their approval, unless they already have, or available publicly).
 
“I have to honestly say - - that the surprise of your video that it turned out you were conversing with yourself was a genuine “wow” moment. Then, when you said “Hey, are you going to eat that?” I literally laughed out loud. It was the only laugh of the entire contest. So you’re smart, pretty, accomplished and funny. What the heck was missing? Plus - duh! - everyone loved you and voted for you.”
 
“I was convinced it would be you all the way through. You shine.” - Carly Taylor
 
“it would be impossible if they dont choose you since you are dope. You are awesome… like drug addicting” - Jason Henderson
 
From Jason’s Blog - “Andrea is an extremely talented wife and mother of four who can bring a lot to the table of the Next Internet Millionaire reality show.”
 

 
I grew up Andrea Lowenstein.
 
Yes this may sound arrogant, but I use to love how my name sounded …

Andrea Michelle Lowenstein. I grew up in a pretty well connected family in my hometown, and even a boy I dated in high school told me he felt great pleasure in just knowing that ‘Andrea Lowenstein’ liked him :).. Now I am the geek, but back then I was attracted to them!
 
The Yager addition came with marriage but I am still legally Lowenstein.. I just love that name.
 
My favorite author is Pat Conroy. He wrote the ‘Lords of Discipline’, ‘The Great Santini’, and ‘The Prince of Tides’.
 
Imagine reading a book by your favorite author and the main character shares your last name… and is the last 2 written words of the Movie / BOOK??
 

 
How AWESOME is that?? Ok, so it could be someone other than Nick Nolte, but he was once the sexiest man alive according to People magazine, so thats good enough for me ;).
 
What does this have to do with Internet Marketing?
 
You could say affiliate marketing, had I been resourceful enough to place the links to the movie, so I could make a commission should someone choose to buy - although I didnt do that.
 
You could say ‘Branding’ - the importance of name selection and using it properly. To have the emotional build up of a novel and movie resort to a single word being the last 2 words read/spoken is pretty heavy duty and is expected to resonate.. I was definitely branded as a ‘Lowenstein’ when growing up - for better or worse (oh it was Better!)
 
You could say that I am using keywords to direct traffic to my page.. for when all my old friends and classmates do a search on me.. they will find me on this page. Hey Guys! (they are all wondering.. was it me she went out with?? maybe!)
 
You could say that this has nothing to do with Internet Marketing, but when a post takes as long to complete as the last few have, sometimes you need to lighten it up!
 
Lowenstein, Lowenstein
 
~~andrea

 
First of all… Arent their names just the coolest??
 
I am relatively new to this blogging thing.. only started posting in earnest since February 07 and probably found my ‘voice’ and established my online personality the last 2 months (& still evolving)..
 
I understand a main feature to blogging success comes from relationships with other bloggers, and to this I owe a big thanks to George, for mentioning me on his blog numerous times, and exhibiting to me firsthand how to become blogging ‘friends’. He has been a huge catalyst, possibly unbeknownst to him, to my shift in ‘blogging’ gears, and providing me with the self esteem needed to realize that I can someday hope to be part of this elite group of bloggers, where he himself resides..
 
Why Dawud and Ponn??
 
After spending a little of my very very limited time surfing around other blogs, mostly within my niche, it does not take long before you land on either of these blogs. In fact, I sometimes feel like a ping pong reading one blog post talking about another blogger, checking out that blogger who sends me to another blogger. I am certain I could repeat this post with numerous names in the title.. but I wasnt on a hunt for the lowest alexa ranking and most readers..
 
Dawud and Ponn are both representing my online goals..
 
I want to be recognized as a WAHM blogger who is managing her busy hectic life schedule and able to effectively, and affordably consult small businesses on how to succeed online. Basically a Ponn and Dawud sandwhich..
 
This is small sampling of what I want to learn from Ponn (who I have noticed appears to be under the weather - here is a shout out to your good HEALTH!! - everybody say AMEN):
 
How do you:
 
Nourish your children 3x a day
Nourish your childrens minds
Take care of their other needs
and
 
how do you MAKE money?? Is it just from your Blog or what?? How did you get started?
 
Did your blog take you places you didn’t know it would, or did YOU take your blog to those places??
 
———————————————————————————————–
 
Here is just a taste of what I want to know from Dawud:
 
How do you:
 
Create blog posts with so many outgoing links? Do you have a tool that helps with that, or you have to find each site and copy and paste??
Do as you advise and turn your action steps into a realized finished product/experience?
Find your clients?
Have time for your clients, your family, your sanity, your blog, and to still read all those other blogs??
 
oh and Make money???
 
I realize I am just a small time fish in an ocean of big time bloggers, but it cant hurt to ask those who you admire how they got to be where they are.. and maybe skip a few stones in the meantime and perhaps.. avoid some glaciers.. I have certainly seen enough of my ventures sink…. so lets get off this deserted island and find the buried treasure.. hahaha ok, taking this analogy way too far
 
In case you are wondering: I WOULD win the busy contest - I have 4 children, youngest is 7 mos old who nurses all the time and loves to be held ONLY by his Momma! I own a small business, work for someone else, blog, try to make money online yada yada. I dont own a TV, so I am not asking these questions and spending my night watching reality shows (I just try out for them ;)).
 
In fact this Post, like my others, took me so long to write due to my many distractions, that according to Rich Schefrens’ new report, .. it cant be as good as it COULD be.
 
oh well.
 
Who do you admire out in the blogosphere?
 
~~ andrea

I cant remember the day I caught on to the concept of ‘Internet Marketing’ and ‘making money online’, but I am certain it did not come too long after signing up (in order to receive something free) to one mailing list or another.
 
Now skip to a few years and about 30-40 lists later.
 
Every now and then someone will regurgitate an email they sent months before, or be so vague in their pitch to send me somewhere (with such a cloaked link that you cant even guess where you may be heading), and I get annoyed. Now I am one of THE MOST EMOTIONALLY STABLE PEOPLE I KNOW.. It takes A lot to ruffle my feathers..

 
HOWEVER, some of these email guru guys are really beginning to PISS ME OFF.
 
When I replied to one of them to make a comment, this was my response:
 
“I’m protecting myself from receiving junk mail.

 
My question to you may not be what you expect:
 
Are NEWBIES SO Prevalent that these people are still sucking them in and making a killing off their lists??
 
or
 
Have these mailing list owners gone mad, and are selling their souls in order to get as many conversions as possible, regardless of unsubs and all the guru bashing that goes on behind their backs??
 

If it is the former, then PEOPLE please sign up as you trickle in, since I want to make a LOT Of money.
 
~~ andrea

 
I seem to always be missing these blog contests of the top x lists for such and such and what have you.. After all, I am still pretty new to this blogging thing.
 

~~ andrea

 

I was sitting down with company this weekend, and was asked, as I am often asked…