I took a cue from Hock at Google Adwords (and more…) and listed my site with BlogTopSites. Hock’s site went from 88 to 8 over the course of the day, and my site went from unranked to 52 since earlier this afternoon.

Let’s see where the site is in the next few weeks.

UPDATE: The site broke into the top 25 in less than 24 hours. Let’s see if the traffic I have built can push me into the top 10 by tomorrow.

Here’s an article from MSNBC titled “If Housing Slumps, how Safe are You?“. It’s the typical line about how the housing market is poised to tumble and how even if you are diversified, you’ll loose everything and the economy will collapse, and blah blah blah.

Once again, the sky is falling. Chicken Little has been saying the sky is falling for years now. If you haven’t noticed, the sky is still in … well … the sky.

This concluding line pissed me off most:

Holding more of your savings in cash may make the most sense if you want to reduce your overall risk.

This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read.

Hold your savings in cash and you will automatically loose 3-5% due to inflation. That’s safe?! If the dire times these morons predict actually come to fruition, then inflation will be worse.

If your portfolio is diversified, then you will be fine even during a real estate market downturn. The one thing you want most in your portfolio is a real estate index fund, especially during times of declining home prices. Why? Because most of these funds are filled with commercial, industrial, and rental property holdings. People have to live somewhere. Rental rates will go through the roof.

If you aren’t earning at least 3% on your money, then you are loosing money. Cash holdings! What the hell are these idiots thinking?

If you haven’t begun building a portfolio, then get started today with
ShareBuilder.com.

If you sell a product that teaches others how to sell another product, then you will run into the following question eventually:

If you can teach me to make money for $197, why don’t you just teach me for free, and then I’ll give you $400 from the profits?

Anyone with intelligence who has never sold a “How to Make Money” product online and doesn’t understand the mentality of 90% of the people who buy these products will ask this. Maybe not out loud, but they will think it.

It’s a question that internet marketers need a ready answer to, because those that ask it have enough common sense and intelligence to actually make money online. So rather than replying “Screw you”, internet marketers should be trying to convert these people into paying customers and successful entrepreneurs. This article addresses this question.

Below is an email I recently received from a potential customer for my Musical Instrument E-Bay Powerseller Course. This email is representative of the 90% club I mention above:

I really got burned buying Walutech’s system which is really of no value. I don’t really have the money to buy something else now. What are your interests outside of music and physics? Perhaps you would be willing to accept something else of value, I don’t know, or even a promise to pay you far more in the future? I live in Carmel, IN just north of Indianapolis and am a college student graduating this December. I am hoping to be able to find a good way to supplement my income coming up to give myself more options. I visited your websites and immediately told a friend of mine: ‘this is a guy who’s going to make alot of money.’ I am sure you are very busy, I am just hoping we may be able to find some mutually beneficial arrangement. Anyway, thanks again for your time.

-Justin

I’m sure Justin is a great guy. In fact, I’d like to buy him a beer. But unfortunately, he is exactly the reason why it is essential that we sell our products for $197, $297, $597 instead of just taking a cut of the profits.

Here was how I replied:

Hello Justin,

I’ve seen Tony’s (Walutech) ebook course (I got a copy free to review for him), and it has quite a bit of good information. I got some time saving automation tips from it, but i wasn’t impressed with a lot of the ebooks. That being said, doing what he tells you to do will result in making some money. Although I’m not a fan of what I call the “underachiever method” — making $0.30 per sale — which is what you end up doing selling $0.99 ebooks on E-Bay.

My point is, you can make money using what Tony teaches but you actually have to do something with the information. You actually have to list a crap-load of ebooks and set-up the automation software. I know, because I’ve done it. Doing this produces a profit of at most a couple of hundred dollars a month, which is not much. But I’ve used the traffic to generate leads for more expensive products, which has resulted in higher ticket item sales.

Musical instruments have about the same profit margin as ebooks. They have a higher price, so they generate more profit per sale, but the profit margin is still about 30%. So there are similarities: you have to list a bunch of instruments to make sales and money.

Here’s the most famous question every “Make Money with My System” hawker has heard: If you can teach me to make money for $150, then why not teach me for free and then I’ll give $300 from the profits?

Here’s the answer: When I sell information like this course for $150 or more, 80% of the people who buy the information do NOTHING with it. They do not list a single instrument. 20% do something and they make money.

If I made the price $9.99 for the course, then I would sell 100 copies a day. But 99% of the people who bought it would not use the information. And I’d waste a lot of time explaining to 99 people that they didn’t make money because they didn’t DO anything. There is no magic button on the front of the manual.

The course is priced as it is to keep those who are looking for a magic money tree at bay. (Plus I have to take into account the cost of marketing and producing the course. I’m not selling an ebook. I’m selling a real, hold-it-in-your hands manual with a data CD).

Chris Moore
http://www.keyliberty.com

I learned a lesson about price from selling guitars on E-Bay. Most E-Bay guitar sellers charge only enough to squeeze out a $2 profit on each sale. They charge $0.99 plus some really high shipping and handling charge. So the customer thinks they are getting a steal for $0.99! That is until they get the bill for the shipping.

These sellers have horrible feedback ratings. Why? They sell a cheap, Chinese made guitar for $0.99. What do the customers expect?

There are two types: Bargain hunters and Stealers.

People who bid on a $0.99 auction at the last minute expect a STEAL. They feel entitled to an item worth well more than what they paid. They expect nothing less than top of the line for their $0.99, especially if they’re paying $30 for shipping and handling.

I do things different. I list guitars starting at $29.95 with reasonable shipping. I make $12-$18 profit off of each sale. My prices are HIGHER, but I still make more sales and more money than the competition. Why?

I don’t care for stealers. They are nothing more than a pain in the ass.

My customers are bargain hunters. They want a serviceable instrument and they want a good price. That is what I provide. They know they aren’t getting the top of the line. They are getting exactly what they are paying for. So they are happy.

Bargain hunters stay aways from $0.99 auctions because they can spot the scam.

The same rules apply to buyers looking for “how to make money online” information. I could sell my Musical Instrument E-Bay Powerseller Course for $9.99. I’d sell 100 a day. But 99% of the customers would do NOTHING with the information. And just like Justin, they would complain about how they got ripped off.

When I sell the same information for $197, I sell less. But a lot of those that buy the course do something with the information because they have more invested. My inbox fills with testimonials instead of empty legal threats.

A higher entrance fee parses out the window shoppers who believe there really is an “Easy Button” like those in the Staples commercials.

So if you’re going to sell anything online, don’t sell to the bottom feeders for $0.99.

If you ever encounter a “system” that claims it can make you wealthy, and the cost is only $27, be very skeptical. Either the hawker on the other end is a pricing moron and doesn’t know a thing about value, or they have NO CLUE how to make money online. Either way, stay away.

Earlier in the month I gave an update of September earnings for my musical instrument sales on E-Bay. Here is a screen capture of my results for the entire month of Spetember:

About $9,000 in sales with a net profit of $3,200 for the month is not bad, but it’s not my best month. Sales really slowed down during the second half of the month. This is fairly common since kids are busy going back to school and adults are busy working after Labor Day. I’ll probably have a fairly slow October as well.

But once November hits, sales will double. By the time December rolls around, sales will triple. I can’t wait.

If you’d like to make an extra $3,000-$5,000 per month over the holidays working about an hour a day, then you have to get your hands on the Musical Instrument E-Bay Powerseller course.

I just stumbled on the most genius marketing method ever!

If you read what I write often, then you know that I am not a huge fan of unwarranted adjulation. So when I say genius, I mean this is absolute genius. I only hope one day I’m this creative.

Harvey Segal (aka Mr. Clickbank) has released a free ebook that explains exactly how you can take ANY product and send sales numbers into orbit by giving away FREE stuff.

It’s so simple. You download a free ebook (you don’t even need to give your email address). Harvey tells you how to profit by giving away free stuff of your own. He then tells you exactly how you can profit giving away HIS free ebook.

Find out more here.

Earlier in the month I wrote about building traffic to your website. In that post, I estimated traffic for this site to have reached 2,000 visitors by the end of the month. Well, I was wrong. I was waaaaay off. Today, the visitor count for the month is 3,643! That’s almost twice the traffic.

So using the techniques I talk about in the article above I doubled my traffic in less than 1 month.

Looking over my stats, here is what did it: On September 8th I wrote an article on Multi Level Marketing. This article was picked up by the much read Webraw Quixtar Blog. This lead to a flood of traffic.

I also wrote an article detailing how I hate Kevin Trudeu. Believe it or not, Kevin gets searched a lot, and that article has led people to the site over 200 times.

Notice how neither of these articles pimps a product. They are just my musings — and controversial ones at that.

I used what Jason Cain calls “The O Factor” (which gets its name from none other than the great marketer Bill O’Rielly). It works.

4,000 visitors a month may not seem like a lot. But for a blog that has been running for less than 2 months, that’s pretty good. Also, the amount of traffic is not what is important. It’s the quality. And since all my traffic comes from search engines, I’m getting visitors who are looking for the information I provide. Quality traffic.

With a conversion rate of 1% a simple $27 ebook would bring in $1,080 per month.

Kidino has a great, short post announcing that he reached his earnings target for the month of September. Read it here.

I have also reached my earnings target for September, although mine was probably lower than Kidino’s. Remember, I’m just replacing a teachers salary right now, so my goal was less than $5,000. But what is important is that I set a goal and I reached it. My mortgage is paid, my electricity is still on, and there is gas in my truck and food in my belly.

It is absolutely essential that you set an earnings goal each and every month. It doesn’t have to be much, especially if you are just starting out. My very first monthly target was $500. I reached it.

Set a goal and then come up with ways to achieve that goal. That’s the path to success online.

My goal for the month of October is higher than this month’s goal. I’m shooting for $5,000 even. I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing throughout the month.

Why the bigger target? If you don’t try to grow every month, then you’ll only fall behind. I have two new products coming out in October and they are going to be big.

Virginia Tech has not been getting the respect they deserve.

The typical line goes as follows: Sure, they destroyed Duke and Ohio 45-0 back-to-back. But it was just Duke and Ohio. That proves nothing. Sure they beat NC State (who, by the way, has one of the best defenses in the nation), but not by very much.

Well, on Saturday Va. Tech layed the smack-down on Georgia Tech to the tune of 51-7.

We’re not talking some has-been, bottom rung team like Duke. They destroyed the 15th ranked team in the country. Va. Tech deserves to be #3. And if they keep playing like they played on Saturday, they’ll be facing USC in the Rose Bowl. Sure USC has a dynamite offense. But they have never seen a defense as good as this Va. Tech team. Go Hokies.

I’ll get back to business next post.

I’ve been selling on E-Bay for about 2 years. For the first year, I was selling as a hobby. I made about $500 extra a month, which was fine. Last year around Christmas I started really diving into my E-Bay business and I more than doubled my monthly net. Six months ago my profits exploded, and I was able to quit my teaching job.

E-Bay replaced my teaching salary and has allowed me to go back to school. (In a year, you’ll be calling me Dr. Chris!)

But E-Bay was bringing in $3500 a month tops. That was fine, but I’ve recently gotten serious about Internet Marketing. And I have to tell you, internet marketing is the business for me.

I’m creative. I love to create. And this business allows those creative juices to ooze from my pores. And internet marketing has been very good to me.

Since beginning I’ve doubled my monthly net! It’s taken a LOT of work. It’s taken a good deal of time. But the benefits are obvious.

I’m working on a new site dedicated to helping newbies just like I used to be. This business is awsome, and I want to make sure that those people who are serious get their hands on good information. Because there is a LOT of garbage out there.

More on the site in the next few days.

BTW: The Musical Instrument E-Bay Powerseller course just went up again in price! Find out more here.

I have been having a blast all weekend playing around with some new hardware and software. I just set up my system so that I can easily create flash movies based off of things I do on my computer screen.

This is just awsome. And I have more ideas for products right now than I will ever have time to complete. So I’m focusing on two: (1) of course, my ilovephysics.com website will be sporting some great interavctive flash tutorials, and (2) I can’t tell you about. It’s more sensitive to theft. So just sit tight until I’m done and I release it.

Here’s what I’ve been using:

Camtasia Studio
Wacom Graphic Tablet

Check out Camtasia’s website, and I guarantee you will have at least one good idea for a product you could create using this awsome software.