In this blog post, I’m going to share my answer to the following question:

“If you were to start from scratch with NO list, NO JV partners in your niche, and all you have is $100 capital, what would you do to start making sales for your niche membership site within just 15 days?”

Before I answer this question, let me state my assumption.

I’m assuming that you already have a niche membership site and you can make some modifications to your website to accommodate the marketing plan that I’m going to tell you.

Ready? Here we go……

If I have a niche membership site, with no list, no JV partner and only a hundred bucks……

1) I’ll go to Clickbank and see what kind of ebooks people are buying in my niche.

2) I’ll think of a topic that complements (not competes with) the popular niche ebooks sold in Clickbank.

What I’m going to do is to turn that topic into a special report that people are willing to buy.

It is important that you don’t write something that compete with the popular ebooks sold in Clickbank. You will see why later.

3) Since I only have $100, I’ll have no enough budget to outsource but to write the report myself. So I’ll spend 2 solid days to write a report on the topic that I’ve researched.

I am planning to sell the report for just $7.

4) On day 3, I’ll spend 1 day writing a powerful sales letter to sell my new report.

In the sales letter, I’ll include my niche membership site as a free bonus, i.e. those who purchase the report will get 1 month free membership to my niche site.

5) Day 4 is a technical day. I’ll have to spend the whole day to integrate the sale of the report and the one month membership trial together. (If you are not a technical person, you can outsource this job to a freelancer at GetAFreelancer.com for $60. This was what I used to pay before I figured out how to do it myself.)

6) Day 5 onwards is all about marketing.

First, I will go to Clickbank and find all the best selling authors in my niche. I will then contact them with my JV offer.

My JV offer is that I will give them 100% commission for the $7 report that they sell. I will also give them 50% commission on all the future sales generated from my membership site if their leads stay on my membership site after the one month trial.

Since my report actually complement the ebooks they are selling, there is a high chance that they will be interested to promote the report to their customers and lists.

Next, I’ll go to the top bloggers in my niche and contact them with the same JV offer.

With 100% upfront commission and 50% recurring commission in the future, I’m pretty sure that a handful of the bloggers in my niche will take up the offer.

7) Finally, my job is to overdeliver to my members so that they will stay on my membership site for as long as they can.

The entire plan actually costs me $0. But if you have $100, you can spend it on outsourcing certain tasks such as system integration.

Creating a passive income online is something that you probably have heard of. Many business opportunities use the idea of “creating a passive income online” to sell you their systems. It works because I’m using this trick too. But does passive income really exists?

In this article, my goal is to share with you some essential truth about creating a passive income online. I know most of you are more keen to learn how to create a passive income online. I’ll talk about it in future. But before I do that, it is important for me to cover some grounds and get your mindset right.

Passive Income Doesn’t Exist!

First of all, I need to get this straight - passive income doesn’t exists, at least not according to what most newbies define as passive income.

Most people define passive income as “making money without having to do anything”. If you are one of them, you will be very disappointed when you realize that this is not true.

Do you realize that whenever you get into an opportunity that ‘claims’ to give you a passive income, you end up being overwhelmed with lots of sh*t and often have to work like a dog? That’s when most people give up.

Truth is, there is no such thing as making money without having to do anything. If such opportunity exists, it’s most likely a scam (unless you’re talking about putting your money in the fixed deposit).

So what is a passive income then?

Here is my definition of a passive income - “A passive income is an income system that does not trade time for money.”

If you go with my definition, you are less likely to be disappointed and more likely to succeed because you’re prepared to work hard to create such a system.

Once you get the definition right, all you have to do is spend most of your time creating different streams of passive income and spend less time making money.

“Huh, what are you talking about, Kenneth?”

If you understand what I am talking about, good for you. If you don’t, let me explain.

Most people spend time to make money. One obvious example is working for a monthly salary. Some other less obvious examples include the following activities:

- Staring at the computer screen to trade the stock market or forex.

- Selling products in Ebay (unless you have plans to turn it into a system).

- Posting ads to sell Clickbank products (unless you have plans to turn it into a system).

- Providing freelance services such as graphic design, article writing etc (I hope my freelancers are not reading this!)

If you are pressured for money, yes, go find a job and do some part-time freelance jobs. But if you want to be rich, spend most of your time creating different streams of passive income.

You need to understand that making money and creating a passive income are two different things.

Creating a passive income may not make you money, although the ultimate goal is to make lots of money passively. When creating a passive income, you are creating a system that does not trade time for money and in the process of creating this system, you may spend more than you earn.

Many people can’t get pass the idea of losing money before making money. That’s why most people fail to create their first passive income online. On the contrary, those who are ‘lucky’ enough to create their first stream of passive income online will continue to create the second stream and third stream because they’re used to the idea of losing some money before getting it all back, multiplied. Another reason is because with their first passive income established, their risk appetite is higher and they are more willing to lose. The last reason is because they are more experienced now.

If you’ve just started out, go find a job to make money. But don’t spent too much time on it. Take 3-5% of your monthly income and most of your spare time to create a passive income online. Online opportunities cost much lesser than offline opportunities and 3-5% should be enough for you to learn the ropes. How soon you’ll see your first passive income established depends on how fast you learn and how hard you work.

Get your definition of passive income right and spend most of your time creating a passive income online. Once you’ve created your first passive income, go on to create the second, the third and more streams of passive income. This is possible since you don’t trade time for money with these systems. This is the sure way to make a fortune rather than just making a living.

Today I’m going to share with you how I get one of my old websites back to top 10 in Google, spending very little time and money.

But before I tell you what I did, let me give you a brief background about this particular website.

I have a niche website that I created back in 2004 and it has been in the top 10 in Google for a competitive keyword for years.

To give you some idea, that ’single word’ keyword gives 6,900,000 results in Google, i.e. more than 6 million websites are fighting for that keyword.

A few months back, I realized that the sales from the website dropped. I suspected that my ranking in Google had probably dropped. Indeed, it dropped out of the first page into the second page. The exact ranking was 12th position. Just missed the top 10 by 2 positions.

To regain my top position, I needed to get lots of backlinks fast.

Thus, about 2 months back, I engaged a freelancer to submit the website to 1000 link directories for less than $30. That’s all I did.

A few days ago, I realized that sales from the website increased. I went to Google and checked. Indeed, I’m back to the top 10. I’m now in the 7th position.

From this experience, I once again prove that directory submission is still a viable promotion method.

Some Advice In Website Creation

When I first started creating niche websites to profit from Adsense and affiliate sales, I followed the advice of the ‘experts’ - follow your interest.

I wrote very good articles and each website took me one month of intensive effort!

Soon, very soon in fact, I ran out of interested topics and I had nothing to write. It took me a while before I decided to create websites using Private Label Articles.

I’m glad that I made that decision.

The traffic and earnings from some of the websites created using Private Label Articles outperform those ’sweat and toil’ websites I’ve created.

For example, one of the websites I’ve created using Private Label Articles is now consistently generating more than $500 a month from Adsense. The highest record was $700 in one month. It took me only a few hours to create the website and a few hours to promote it.

I’ve tried at least 4 different Private Label Article services in the market and there is only 1 that worth my time and investment. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), that website will be closed on 30th June 2008, i.e. it will stop accepting new members after 30th June 2008 (but existing members will still continue to receive new articles). When it reopens, probably after 3-4 months time, the same service will cost you double.

If you are just starting out but are committed to build some passive income online, I suggest you grab this PLR service that I use before it’s closed to the public and ‘naively’ follow the instructions laid out by them, especially their 90-day challenge as well as my step by step guide. If you can just do that, you will thank me one year from now.

Do you know what’s the #1 reason why most people fail to make money online?

The #1 reason is indecision!

They can’t decide if internet marketing is for them. They are getting mixed messages from everywhere, messages like:

“You can make a million trading the stock market.”

“You can achieve financial freedom with MLM.”

“No, I think I should be a REAL brick and mortar businessman. Internet marketing is not a career!”

One of the secrets of success is that when you make a decision, everything else will fall into places. It’s one of the secrets of the universe, as important as the law of attraction.

The tough part is to make a decision.

If you haven’t made up your mind that you’re going to create a full time income from internet marketing, I hope this article can help you to make a decision today.

Ok, let’s compare Internet Marketing with Stock Trading, MLM and a Brick And Mortar Business.

I’ve been through all the 3 other options and I believe I’m qualified to share with you my experience.

Internet Marketing vs. Stock Trading

I see stock trading as a form of wealth management. You should learn how to park your extra money in the stock market to get better ROI (return on investment) than putting money in fixed deposit.

But trading the stock market full time is a bad idea, unless you package it into a business, especially an online business. If so, you’re back to the idea of internet marketing.

The truth is most stock trading experts make money teaching people how to trade stocks! They create courses, software and books to teach people and make huge profit from there.

In stock trading, there is no sure-win. If you get a return of 50% consistently, you are considered an expert.

But do you know that you can get 1000% ROI in internet marketing? For example, I can invest $200 to get freelancers to rewrite articles, create a website and build links. In the years to come, this website will easily earn me more than $2000. That’s a return of more than 1000%!!!

My risk? The worse case is I break even. These days, I hardly have a website that lose money. It’s just a matter of time before I break even.

My advice is, trade stock if you are interested, but spend more time building your online empire because you can get better ROI at lower risk.

Internet Marketing vs. MLM

The dream of MLM (Multi-level marketing or network marketing) is that you can achieve time and financial freedom. This is the idea that most MLMers will try to sell you.

To me, the true value in MLM is mindset training. Success is all about mindset. Good MLM companies have good training that can instill the millionaire’s mindset into you. This is something internet marketing can hardly achieve.

Other than that, I really can’t see any advantage over internet marketing.

If you talk about financial freedom, internet marketing can definitely give you financial freedom. Online income is definitely more passive than MLM income. In fact, you can have multiple streams of online passive income, which makes it more stable than just 1 source of passive income.

If you talk about time freedom, MLM can give you time freedom ONLY after you are successful. During the process of team building, it’s hell!! Your working hours are nighttimes, Sundays and public holidays. These are times when your family members are free but you are not!

Internet marketing, on the other hand, gives you time freedom EVEN before you are successful. You still have to work hard, but you chose when you want to work. You can work when everyone is sleeping. Or you can work an hour and play with your kids for the next hour. It’s all up to you.

Moreover, if you truly believe in the power of MLM, you should explore online MLM instead of the old-school brick and mortar MLM. The old-school MLM is really a time waster.

Internet Marketing vs. Brick And Mortar Business

Ever since I tasted the goodness of online marketing, I’ve never thought of doing brick and mortar business again!

I started out running traditional business and it was a relief when I converted my entire business to online. When I ran my offline business, my mind was all about how to pay my rental, my staff’s salary, how to bring in customers etc. I hardly have time to think of business strategies and expansion.

But online business is almost stress-free. When you are small, you work alone. There is no worry of office rental and staff cost. You spend most of your time thinking of business strategies and how to expand your business, which is definitely more important than working hard to pay bills!

Another important difference is in offline business, you can hardly find people who are willing to show you how to make money. But in online business, many people (too many in fact) wanting to show you how they make money. Some of them may charge you, but you are talking about $47 or $97. That’s cheap!

Final Remark……

I hope I’ve been impartial in my comparison. I’ve been on both sides of the equation and I just hope that my experience can help you make a better decision.

Remember, regardless of which decision you make, once you make the decision, everything else will fall into places for you!

Many people can come out with innovative ideas. But coming out with innovative ideas that sell requires some skills. Today, I’m going to show you how to do it.

There are only 3 steps to follow:

1) Find a hot market with lots of buyers

2) Identify the limitation of existing products in the market

3) Think of an innovative solution to overcome that limitation (Tips: the innovative solution is usually a combination of two existing solutions!)

That’s it. If you follow these 3 steps, you will be able to come out with innovative ideas that can easily make you money.

Let me show you how others, including myself, use these 3 steps to come out with profitable ideas.

In the 90s, someone came out with a viral lead building system known as a Safelist system. In this system, everyone in the system is able to send emails to each other, and hence the name “Safe List”, i.e. a list that is safe to send emails to. When it first started, everyone was excited because suddenly, they can reach out to thousands of people for free. However, what they didn’t realize was at the same time, they were receiving thousands of other emails from other members too!

Soon, people realized that their emails were flooded and they started to think of alternatives. A simple solution was to redirect those emails to free accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail accounts.

Guess what, the trick soon spread throughout the industry and everyone started doing the same thing.

The end result was, everyone was trying to email to everyone but no one was reading any email!

As you can see, lead generation is a hot market. But the existing ‘Safelist’ solution has a big problem. People do not want to flood their emails.

Here comes the idea maker who thought of a solution to this problem……

In 2000, a renowned internet marketing guru, John Reese, came out with an ingenious system. He combined the idea of safelist and network system. In his novel system, members can send emails to their 10 levels of members. Let me explain……

For example, A1 recruits B1 and B2 who become A1’s level 1. B1 and B2 then recruit C1, C2, C3, C4 who become A1’s level 2 and so on. It’s something like your referral structure at EmailCashPro. To A1, he will be able to send emails to all the Bs, Cs, Ds, Es, Fs…. all the way to the 10th level.

This is a powerful system because in this system, the maximum number of emails each member can receive is limited to 10, since only the immediate 10 uplines can send emails to the member. But the member can email to thousands of people in his 10 levels of network. If you don’t get what I mean, take out a piece of paper and work out the maths. It’s not hard to figure out.

John’s ingenious system has shaped the lead generation industry. Today, many other lead generation programs use a similar system to build leads.

What John did was he took the safelist idea, which is an existing system but with a limitation, and combined it with network building system, which is another existing system. I hope you can see that nothing truly innovative is created here. He merely combined two systems into one in order to overcome the limitation of the safelist system.

John’s system solved the problem of members’ emails being flooded with thousands of emails. However, members in the system still have to receive emails from their 10 uplines in the system, which is still obtrusive and annoying. In reality, many people in such system still divert their emails to junk accounts.

There you have it. Another limitation that is waiting for someone to overcome.

This time, I grabbed this opportunity to create a system that allows members to build leads without having to receive any email from any member in the system. You may have guessed it by now. Yes, the system is called LeadsLeap.

Basically, I took John’s system, which is already an improved version of the safelist system, and combined it with contextual advertising system. For those who don’t know what is contextual advertising, go to Google.com and do a search for “birthday gift”. Look at the advertisements on the right hand side. Those are contextual ads.

In a nutshell, members of LeadsLeap.com will not have to receive emails from any other members in the system. They will only receive info-packed newsletters (now info-packed blog) from me.

The twist in the system is that I allow members to post their contextual ads in my newsletter. To a member, besides reading high quality newsletters, he will also see the contextual ads posted by his 10 uplines. He can click on the contextual ads in the newsletter if he is interested in the ad. If not, he can just read my newsletter and learn more about making money online.

Again, nothing truly innovative has been created. I simply combine two existing systems into one in order to overcome the limitation of John’s system.

That’s it. 3 simple steps you can use to come out with innovative ideas that sell!

Make use of these 3 steps. The next winning innovative idea can be from you!

Last week, I wrote an article called How To Find Your Own Niche In Internet Marketing.

One reader feedback to me with the following comment:

“This article addressed on finding a unique strength and then making it into IM. But it does not address on the issue on what if the niche market is too small, and there are not enough customers to feed this niche business. Customers are a reason why businesses are successful; too small a target size of customers, and the profits will sink, together with a sinking business.”

To give you a better picture, I decide to discuss this topic again.

In my last article, I said that you should understand your personal talent, leverage on that talent and convert it into your own niche in internet marketing.

So, what if your talent or strength is in a niche market that is too small and is unprofitable?

My answer is simple; just use your talent in a niche market that is big and profitable!

In internet marketing, the term niche has been commonly used to refer to a particular “niche market” and that’s why when I wrote convert your talent into a niche, some of you may think that I’m talking about converting your interest into a business.

That’s not what I mean.

Let’s look at the actual definition of a niche. A niche is a position particularly well suited to the person who occupies it.

That’s what I mean.

Regardless of which “niche market” you are in, you can always make full use of your talent and carve a niche for yourself in the “niche market”.

I hope you see my point now.

I feel that the best is to give you some real-life examples:

Internet marketing expert, Derrick VanDyke, started as a programmer, helping some of the big names to do programming work. Today, he leverages on his programming talent and creates a system to help his members to build lists and make money. My observation tells me that Derrick’s strength is probably not in marketing. Neither is he a seminar person who likes to speak in front of the crowd. (No offence, Derrick.) But that doesn’t stop him from becoming one of the most successful and respectable marketers out there.

Todd Gross is a national on-air television meteorologist. Speaking in front of the video cam is like his second nature. Todd applies his talent to internet marketing and created PreSaleVideos.com, a powerful presale tool that converts sales like crazy.

Both of them manage to carve a niche for themselves by focusing on doing what they are good at.

So, my 3 simple steps to start your online career remain unchanged:

1) Study how the internet marketing works (This would mean joining other people’s lists, spying on how other marketers make money online, reading ebooks, watching video tutorials, spending some money and possibly losing some money. This is a stage of confusion and most people give up at this stage.)

2) While studying, see how you can fit yourself into the game. In other words, you got to find out where you can best use your talent in.

3) Convert your talent into your own niche in the internet marketing game and deploy all the best practices of traffic generation to build traffic to your online business. (Spend most of your time, money and resources to generate traffic. Nothing can happen until you start having traffic to your website.)

Knowing how to find your own niche in internet marketing is probably the most important first step in making money online.

Why do I say that?

Because everyone of us has our unique talent. It’s only when we make use of our unique talent can we excel in what we do.

Internet marketing is no different.

If you try to copy the way other people make money online, yet the method does not resonate with your natural self, you will not be able to excel in that area.

For example, some marketers make big bucks conducting seminars. My question to you is, do you like to do public speaking? If you don’t and you force yourself to do that, chances are you will not do well in it.

For me, I enjoy working with technical people, coming out with innovative systems and programs that can help people. I don’t mind spending hours with my programmer, trying to resolve some technical issues. (I know these are non-income generating activities and I should avoid them, but I enjoy the problem-solving process.) That’s me. But you may be different.

Another example. You know who Ewen Chia is right? Do you know what he enjoyed doing most before becoming a successful internet marketer? He liked to compose songs!! He could be spending nights composing songs. Now instead of composing songs, he put his talent into ‘composing’ sales letters! He likes to try out different kinds of sales letters and see which one converts better, something that I don’t enjoy doing! But if you talk PHP or HTML with him, he’ll frown.

Internet marketing is a huge industry and there’re a lot of ways through which you can use your talent.

If you are good in graphic, you can leverage on your strength and provide graphic services online. You can also upgrade your skills by learning HTML and create website templates. You can sell these templates, use them to build leads or simply create websites that make money.

If you enjoy writing, you can start a blog, create content websites and make money from Adsense or by selling affiliate products.

If you have a flair in selling, you can get freelancers to create products for you to sell. Your main focus would be to write powerful sales letters that convert!

“Kenneth, what if I’m good in nothing but I just want to make money online?”

Seriously, this is impossible. Everyone is born with a unique talent. If you haven’t found your talent, that’s because you’re too lazy to find it! No one can help you if you are lazy.

Here’s my 3 simple steps for you to start your online career:

1) Study how the internet marketing works (This would mean joining other people’s lists, spying on how other marketers make money online, reading ebooks, watching video tutorials, spending some money and possibly losing some money. This is a stage of confusion and most people give up at this stage.)

2) While studying, see how you can fit yourself into the game. In other words, you got to find out where you can best use your talent in.

3) Convert your talent into your own niche in the internet marketing game and deploy all the best practices of traffic generation to build traffic to your online business. (Spend most of your time, money and resources to generate traffic. Nothing can happen until you start having traffic to your website.)

Remember, there is no “best way” to make money online. As long as you enjoy the process, it would be the best way for you.

What if I tell you there is a surefire way to get things right in making money online, even if it is your first time in internet marketing?

I guess I’ve got your attention by now, but let me tell you the truth. Such way doesn’t exists. But something else does……

There is no surefire way to get things right in internet marketing, but there is a surefire way to succeed in internet marketing. The way is to “Stop Trying To Get Things Right And Start To Get Things Going!”

Let me give you an example:

2 years ago when I decided to build Adsense websites using articles from plrpro, I was not sure if I was doing the right things when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. As you know, Search Engine Optimization is very important in such model. Without traffic from the search engine, you aren’t going to make money.

The first 6 months was the toughest months because I wasn’t making much money and I was doubting if I was doing the right things. But one thing I did right was I “Kept Going”.

Today, my Adsense income is nearing 3k a month and there is no sign that this income will stop increasing!

Did I get it right the first time? I didn’t. But I succeeded, in a small way, because I kept learning and kept building more Adsense websites.

What is the best way to make money online?

If you have not started making money, DON’T ASK THIS QUESTION!

Do you know that most internet marketing newbies fail because they haven’t even started?

They are looking for the ‘prefect’ way to make money online and they are forever looking!

Is Adsense the perfect way to make money online? I doubt so, but I don’t care as long as it’s making me money.

I tried to teach other people to make money from Adsense but those who gave up said that it’s too tedious. Some went into affiliate marketing, thinking that they can easily make money by posting some PPC ads but ended up losing more money.

There are always better ways to make money online. I do agree that you should always be on a look out for better ways to make money online.

But if you have not even earned a cent, you should just take an opportunity that is within your capability and make that opportunity work for you before trying other ways.

Remember, you don’t have to get it right the first time. You just have to get it going by keeping on learning and doing.

Success is doing the ‘boring’ things again and again

I may be stretching this topic a little too far but I need you to understand this principle in order for you to have the complete picture.

Do you know that even if you found the right way to make money online, you are still not likely to succeed online?

Any ‘right way’ to make money online will still require you to do one or more of the followings:

Build websites
Write articles
Post advertisements
Write sales letters
Deliver products
Find suppliers

If you look into any of these activities, only one word can describe them - “boring”!

That’s why I said success is doing the ‘boring’ things again and again. If you are not determined to keep doing the boring things again and again, you are not likely to succeed.

Can you now see why it is not so important to get things right? If you are determined to just get things going and going, regardless of how tedious and how boring they are, success will be evitable for you!

If you have read everything about online marketing but you still feel stuck, one possible reason is because of improper time management.Frankly, I think the title of this article is lame because most people don’t see the importance of time management in making money. If you are thinking of skipping this issue of newsletter, it shows that I’m right. But you will regret!

Trust me. Spend some time reading this article. If you put what I’ve written here into practice, it will help you to make more money online.

Decide to trust me? Ok, let’s jump straight into the right way to manage your time as an online marketer.

Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix

The best and simplest time management system I’ve learnt is Time Management Matrix from Stephen Covey. His matrix looks like this:

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	I. (Manage) crisis, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects, last-minute preparations for scheduled activities	II. (Focus) preparation, planning, prevention, values clarification, exercise, relationship-building
Not Important	III. (Avoid) interruptions, some calls, some emails, some meetings, responding to some enquiries	IV. (Avoid) trivia work, junk emails, time wasters, escape activities, viewing mindless TV shows

Apparently if you spend all your time doing things in Quadrant III and IV, you will realize that you are not progressing anywhere.Most people, good employees especially, focus on things in Quadrant I. In the eyes of their boss, they may be a good worker. If you are like most people, you probably spend most of your time doing things in this Quadrant. The problem is there is a limit to what you can achieve.According to Stephen Covey, highly effective and successful people spend most of their time in Quadrant II.Many of you probably have seen this matrix. Ok, let’s twist this matrix a little and apply it to internet marketing.
.Time Management Matrix For Online Marketers

This is the matrix I’m using to manage my work and time (I save it in MS Word so that I can add, edit and delete the activities anytime):

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Money Making	I. (Do it fast!) - website improvement that has direct impact on your sales. - sales order fulfillment that can make more money. - writing blogs or newsletters. - liaising with freelancers on existing projects. - building new money making websites.	II. (Consistency) - thinking of more ways to monetise your existing websites. - thinking of new money making website ideas. - learning more ways other people make money online. - any activity that can bring in more traffic. - networking with other marketers.
Not Money Making	III. (Do it fast!) - website improvement for better support but not for making money. - sales order fulfillment that will not make more money. - most customer support issues. - banking activities. - accounting issues.	IV. (Avoid) - website improvement only for aesthetic reason. - some support issues. - aimlessly surfing the web. - checking emails every now and then, in between your work. - most messenger activities - clearing junk mails.

The difference in my matrix is I’ve changed Important / Not Important to Money Making / Not Money Making.Let me tell you why I come out with this matrix to manage my time……I have been following Stephen Covey’s Matrix but after some time, I realized that I was efficient but my income wasn’t increasing.I found out that the reason was because I had been working hard doing things that were important but not money-making. For example, customer support is important and urgent. But in many cases, they are not money-making. With this matrix, I can now classify my work according to its urgency and profitability. All I have to do now is to make sure that I spend most of my time doing things in Quadrant I and II.
.How I Handle The Tasks In Different Quadrant

Another difference in my matrix is the way I handle the tasks.

Quadrant I and III are urgent matters. For such tasks, I’ll make sure that I get them done within the shortest possible time. The way to achieve this is by focusing. Let’s say you have to build a simple website. Just dedicate 2 or 3 hours and put in your 100% concentration to complete it asap. Don’t answer phone calls, check emails or do anything else.

Quadrant IV are things that you should avoid. Either you get someone else to do them, or you just dedicate the most unproductive hours to complete them asap. For example, I clear my junk emails 3 times a day, one early morning when I turn on my computer while other programs are still loading, one in the afternoon when I come back from lunch and one in the evening just after I wrap up my work and getting ready to pack for home.

Quadrant II contains the hardest things to do. Why do I say that? Because those things are not urgent and you always have urgent matters in Quadrant I and III that you are very tempted to complete. However, things in Quadrant II are the most important activities that will make you the most money!

For me, I just make sure that I consistently work on the activities in Quadrant II. For example, whenever I have time, I’ll write an extra article for directory submission. Almost everyday when I drive, I’ll be strategizing in my mind. If you consistently work on the activities in Quadrant II, your income will inevitably increase in long run.

Give my revised Time Management Matrix a try. Plot this matrix into your MS Word and insert all your outstanding tasks accordingly. Once you plugin your tasks, it will be clear to you how you should spend your next few hours and next few days!

Most successful internet marketers started from scratch with little resources and were hardly known in the market until they become famous. If you are a beginner, it will be good for you to learn how some of these internet marketers started from scratch and how they had their lucky breaks in their online careers.

Today I’m going to show you how a renowned internet marketing guru started from scratch and how he had his breakthrough moment that changed everything and made him the world’s No 1 super affiliate, as what we all know today.

You probably have guessed it. This guru is none other than Ewen Chia, an online millionaire from Singapore.

What would you ask if you have a chance to meet up with an online millionaire?

Most people would ask him how he made his million dollar online. I didn’t ask this question. Why? Because it won’t help you by knowing what he is doing now. He has a lot of resources that you don’t. Even if you know what he’s doing now, you may not be able to copy.

Make sense?

Instead, my question to him was, when did he have his lucky break and what did he do to have the lucky break.

Can you see how this question can help you better? Here’s the full story……

He started exploring internet marketing back in 1997. But he only got his lucky break in 2004 (not too long, just 4 years ago!). That means it took him 6 years to get his first lucky break and another 4 years to become the world’s number 1 super affiliate. So if this is your 5th year exploring internet marketing and you are already thinking of giving up, shame on you!

So what exactly did he do to earn that lucky break?

Basically, he interviewed 19 experts in resale rights and compiled the interview into an ebook called “Resale Rights Secrets”.

Here’s the smart thing he did to this ebook:

1. He gave the 19 experts the FULL RIGHTS to sell the ebook and keep 100% of the profit!
2. He gave the 19 experts the FULL RIGHTS to sell the Resale Rights of the ebook and keep 100% of the profit!

Can you imagine what was happening? The 19 experts happily promoted the ebook to their HUGE lists and make 100% of the profit. PLUS many of the customers upgraded the package to Resale Rights and they in turn sold the product to more people!

According to Ewen, in just 3 days, the whole internet was talking about this ebook. That’s how viral this campaign was.

If you are fast enough, you would have realized that Ewen made $0 from the sale of the ebook!

Here’s another smart thing he did:

He created a One-Time Offer at the download page of the ebook. So when people downloaded the ebook, they will see the One-Time Offer.

Guess what, in just 3 days after the launch of his product, he made more than 10,000 USD from the One-Time-Offer!!!

But that was just the beginning.

Look at what he had achieved from his little venture:

1. He made USD10,000. Nothing impressive because it’s just a one time earning.
2. He managed to build a substantial list of buyers. These are people who have paid for a product and they are very likely to buy again and again. That’s invaluable!
3. He had built for himself a group of JV partners who would be glad to sell his future products again. That’s another invaluable resource!

So with Resource #2 and #3, his online business exploded and like what many people like to say, the rest is history.

For those of you who are savvy internet marketers, you may think that these strategies are widely used in the market nowadays. But back in 2004, no one was doing such things!

I was utterly surprised when Ewen told me that he is the one who ‘invented’ these strategies! He started teaching these strategies to the world and that’s why right now, you see these strategies everywhere. There are many other marketing strategies and sales letter tricks that he has come out with and become very popular nowadays.

Can you imagine talking to someone and then realize that the person actually invented say light bulb? That’s how I felt when he told me all the little tricks that he had come out with because I see these tricks everywhere today. I didn’t know it was him who came out with these ideas!

Ok, enough about his creativity. Let me ask you a serious question.

Is it really that tough to do what he did for his lucky break?

If your answer is yes, I have nothing to say. (I just feel sorry for you.)

If your answer is no, then what are you waiting for? If you do what he did, you too can have your lucky break!

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