flip mino hd

flip-mino-hd-360Hours before I left Australia, to attend a series of workshops in England, a Flip Mino HD arrived in the mail, as a gift from Joel Peterson the creator of The Mini Site Formula

In case you’re one of the few people who don’t know, the Flip is a tiny little high definition video camera, that just slips inside your pocket or purse.

Anyway I’ve just been using it for the first time, and once I’d got over the small size of the screen, I totally love it:)

The quality of the videos, when I played them full screen on my laptop, amazed me. Can’t wait to see them on a big HD TV.

dream lifestyle

Just been watching Yaro Starek’s video/slideshow on my laptop where he shows himself living the ‘dream lifestyle’ earning big sums while traveling the world on long vacations.

The Yaro slideshow is just a fun thing really,but watch it for the two unique case studies on people starting on that lifestyle path themselves by doing well with sites on  acne treatments and magic tricks.

I’m doing the dream lifestyle thing myself right now. Instead of sitting in my home office in Australia I’m in Francine’s Cafe in Windermere in the English Lake District, logging on by using a pay-as-you-go wireless USB dongle.

Last week I was updating some sites from a hotel in Bangkok in Thailand, this coming weekend I’ll be online from Rob Puddy’s traffic workshop in Bristol, the week after I’ll be logging on from Frank Garon and Dr Mike’s seminar/workshop in London. The week after who knows where? Paris, Barcelona, or Barnsley :)

Ok, I just did some thinking about outside the box ‘marketing’ for Francine’s Cafe :) I don’t know the people who run it so it was just an experiment on my part.

The cafe is on one of the most tourist packed streets in England, it’s always busy, especially on holiday weekends like this one. But equally there are a huge number of cafes, bars, and restaurants to cater to the large numbers of visitors.

Sitting there facing the window, drinking coffee and eating my chocolate croissant and watching streams of people pour past, I noticed that every few minutes a couple of family stopped to look at the menu by the entrance. But no one came in, and although I’m told that it’s often busy, right then it was almost empty.

What’s going to bring them in I wondered? Is it a poorly written menu putting them off? Are the prices too high? Are people just checking all the cafes before making their minds up where to eat?

Then I thought about how we’d do it online. Testimonials. Happy customers. Social Proof.

So next time someone stopped to look at the menu I stood up and walked outside (I’d already paid my bill) and personally recommended the place as I left.

Guess what? They thanked me and went in :)

Now how to scale that? Could the cafe give a local friendly looking person free coffee to keep walking outside and luring customers in with a testimonial?

Or is that too sneaky?

I’m sure it would work though :)

What’s certain is that when there’s so much choice these cafes shouldn’t just rely on people walking in off the street, they need to ‘lure’ them in. And there are plenty of things they could be doing and plenty of things that we (I mean YOU) as a marketing savvy person could be doing to help them get more business. So if you’re not quite making enough online you could always think local and work out how you can help the businesses in your area get more customers. Then sell yourself and your ideas to them, and help get them more customers. For a fee of course.

xbox live success story

Remember me telling you about my brother Ric entering the online entrepreneurial field by writing and selling a gardening book, High Density Gardening?

Crappy salesletter which I’m going to help him rewrite when we get together in the next couple of weeks, but brilliantly authoritative veggie and herb gardening book, and if you’re at all interested in growing your own food in these recession hit times, you should definitely buy it :)

Just don’t read the salesletter too closely because it’s not converting well, meaning it might stop you buying a good product, so just have a quick glance then scroll down to the buy button (unless you’re a salesletter writing expert in which case you might be able to offer him a few tips via the email link at the bottom of the page)

jigdoku
Well that was a rather rambling intro to saying that product creation must run in the family because Rics teenage son, Andrew, has just released an Xbox Live game that’s immediately making sales.

Within a few hours he’d made 16 sales with zero publicity and the figures just kept climbing. By day two he was up to 29 sales and he’d more than doubled that by day four.

If you’re not an Xbox user you probably haven’t heard of Xbox Live (I hadn’t) it’s where you play games online for a small subscription fee, and people (with the knowledge and skills) can upload their own creations for sale.

Not sure how old Andrew is, about 18 I think, though he looks about 12 ( I just said that to wind him up, the way uncles do :) ) and he’s been a gamer for years, but this is the very first game he’s created after teaching himself how to program.

It’s a simple word game – a version of Sudoko, and he wrote it in just a few days over Easter.

The twist is that the puzzle is already completed, you just have to fit the pieces together! You have 9 different puzzles and three difficulty settings to choose from, so either pass the time with an easy puzzle or challenge yourself with a difficulty one.

He’s called it JigDoku, and get this – there’s already over 900 references to it in Google (most of them referring to his game) in just a week or so.

jigdoku2

Andrew says “I’ve worked out that if I can just get 5 sales a day that will amount to $250 USD a month which sounds good seeing it hardly took anytime to program. And I haven’t done anything to promote it yet so it could make more.”

Been a smart kid he’s done some research of course, and says that most people on the Xbox Live developers forum, are reporting that their games that have been up for a while are getting around 10 downloads a day which only earns them $17. But $17 a day a game in passive income is nothing to complain about for a student.

And one person he knows makes “about 800 a week from a game”

Andrew’s now written another Xbox Live game, which has to go through a review process before being allowed to go on sale.

“This new game isn’t anything brilliant or good for that matter. It was something I threw together in a few hours to see how many trials this sort of game can get. I say game but its not really a game, more like an application.”

Now imagine if he finds that this one makes money too. Providing he can come up with enough new ideas he can get a lot of games up quickly and pay for his education.

I can see this teenager never needing to worry about having to get a job.

Most of us aren’t programmers. I couldn’t even program my cat to beg for food, never mind learn how to set the timer on the hard drive recorder connected to my TV, and you’re probably not a programmer either.

But think about it. You could do JUST the same with product creation. Pump out a series of short reports. Build a ‘buyers’ list. Create a high end product and sell it to that list. And say goodbye to your job.

Related: http://philwiley.com/resources/product-creation/

It’s UK Seminar and Workshop time

On Thursday I’m getting the train to Bristol to Rob Puddy’s get more traffic workshop. Should be fun, and if you’re in
England it’s still not too late to book yourself a ticket and get down there for 3 days of fun and learning. There are only a few seats left and there are some great speakers plus networking opportunities.

The following Thursday or Friday I’m heading for London for Frank Garon and Dr Mike’s listbuilding seminar/workshop

List building is something that’s vitally important for Internet success, and it’s something I constantly neglect. So I’m going their to LEARN not to play.

If you decide to come along (to either or both of these workshops) introduce yourself to me and we’ll have a chat. Maybe I can help you out with a spot of advice or a quick free coaching session over a cup of coffee.

Anyhow, the following Friday I’m on the train back to London again for the famous London Lunch, an informal gathering of 30 or so internet marketers of all skill levels where they/we get together for anything up to 8 or 9 hours of food, drink, talking.

Should be fun. All of it.

And that’s what working online is all about.

Fun, freedom, and more in the bank than you know what to do with :)

my brother the writer

high density gardeningMy younger brother Richard has just written his first book. It’s called High Density Gardening, and it’s all about no-dig, deep-bed backyard vegetable growing. If you’ve ever thought of growing fruit and vegetables in your back yard this is a perfect book. Even if you only have a couple of square feet to spare.

As far as I recall, gardening is a subject I’ve never written about before. That’s because it doesn’t fit in with the general theme of this newsletter, and also because gardening is something I have little interest in.

Perhaps that’s because gardening is so easy here in the sub-tropics. As easy as throwing a half eaten tomato, or just about
anything else with seeds, off the balcony into the garden and then a few months later going down and picking the crop.

Anyway, if you’re a gardener in less hospitable climes than mine, I’d like to recommend it to you. It’s well written, and gardeners are enthusiastic about it.

Well known Internet marketer and gardening enthusiast, Martin Avis, says:

"I sat down to read and was immediately absorbed. Your writing
style is very personable and down to earth, (pardon the pun), and I
was hooked from page one.

I learned a lot from your book – things that I knew but hadn’t really
understood and things that I didn’t already know. I even learned a
whole new way of laying out a vegetable patch that I’d not even
suspected before – but will put into action on my plots right away.
The only problem with your ‘High Density Gardening‘ was that once
I started reading I couldn’t stop – and lost several hour’s gardening
time this afternoon! Still, with what I’ve learned, it will have been time
very well invested."
Martin Avis.


By the way, Ric is looking for affiliates, so if you have a well trafficked gardening site (or you use SpeedPPC :) ) you can get in touch with him at highdensitygardening  AT googlemail DOT com