Overall, a pretty crummy day today. But you know what, we all have our bad days. And it’s just best to put them behind us and move forward. Bad days can actually be seen as positives if we learn how to use them.

For example, today I was quite surprised by some negative comments. You should never completely ignore these comments, but you shouldn’t let them get to you either. Using these comments, I actually realized a couple of things I need to do:

2 – Be Careful of What I Say

These negative comments were brought upon by what I said/did. Namely, people seem to have a negative reaction to my posting up my website video and offering a free eBook. I’m still not sure why this is the case.

But I certainly have realized one thing: I started promoting the eBook and website too early. I should have waited a few more months to make sure my sales were steady, then launched the eBook.

I let my excitement get the better of me. Well, I learned from it, and whatever I do in the future will be better thought out. And by the way, the online service was also extremely pre-mature. You see, I really want to get into the whole online consulting thing.

I think I’d be great at it! But first, I need to reach my goals first, before I try and help others. I should not try to market myself as an expert.

3 – Put in More Hours

Internet marketing is one of those things that even if you work harder and longer, you may not achieve greater success. However, working longer means that you get more work done overall. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of the tasks that I need to perform, I need to focus on those things that are working – and do them more. I will be doing this simply by waking up an hour earlier, and sleeping an hour later.

This will give me 2 extra hours in the day to write some more articles, request more interviews, and review my landing pages.

Overall, I just need to be more resilient. As long as I’m being honest with myself, what other people say about me makes no difference.

With that said, one of my biggest goals right now is for me to move out of my house. This is absolutely crucial if I want to pursue screen writing and online consulting. But in order to do that, I need to hit a target of earning $5000 on a monthly basis.

I just constantly need to be reminded of how all my goals play out. One thing at a time. I’ve been focusing on to many things lately. One thing at a time.

So, didn’t break $100 this week. Not a good start for the month, but it’s all good. One thing that I said I was going to do yesterday that I have not yet done is write a review for the Holy Grail eBook.

I’m getting lots of traffic for that keyword, and the time is perfect to build up a mailing list for the ebook, so that when the program is re-launched, I can make some real dough.

The plan is to write a review, collect emails at the end, then link back all the previous holy grail articles back to the review.I also need to modify the burn the fat review page so that it no longer tells people they’ll get the free bonus.

Next on the list is…you know how I keep talking about developing relationships with new vendors? Well, ok I never said it on the blog, but its in my new free ebook.

Well, I’ve been talking to this guy who has a great vertical jump product coming out. It’s his first product, but it looks really good and I’m super excited to promote it.

However, it’s not just the affiliate marketing I’m excited about. I’m excite because he’s planning on launching 1-2 more products this year. And I just threw it out there about wanting to be an affiliate manager.

You know where I’m going with this…I might just end up going from a regular affiliate marketer to an actual affiliate manager. That’s awesome!

I just sent an affiliate manager a question about what his responsibilities were. Thats another thing I’ve learned – don’t be afraid to send out emails – even to people who are super busy.

The worst thing they can do is not respond.

I still have to finish up the audio stuff with that other vendor interview. And I’m not sure how this DVD launch is going to turn out later this month.

I’ve only been able to capture 2 emails – well, technically these people did not confirm their subscription yet, so I don’t know. The PPC isn’t working, and my ezinearticles account has been suspended.

But, for some reason, I’m extremely optimistic. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my personality.

My Clickbank eBook is now available: http://livingchill.com/the-2-grand-per-month-clickbank-formula/

Sales have been pretty slow lately:

Tomorrow’s the last day for this week. My weeks start each Wednesday. Anyways, I guess it’s just part of the process.

There’s a new product that’s about to launch that I actually already got credit for. The vendor was testing it out with his list, but a customer that purchased something through my site 5 days before purchased his new product, and I got credit for it.

This is a $197 product, with a split payment plan. So I’ll get $67 now, and $67 next month. This can be extremely lucrative for me. My goal is to get 50 sales during the promo/launch.

However, I need a new list. And in my attempt to build up a list, I blew $54 in adwords. Now, I know I’m not good at adwords, but $54 still seems a lot to me.

I’m going to keep at it, because the skills I learn today, the mistakes I make, will help me get better at this in the future. I’m going to drop the daily budget to $35 so that I don’t worry as much.

I was only able to capture one little measly email through all my troubles. But hey, every subscriber is valuable! (until he isn’t!).

Anyways, my other strategies to capture email include article marketing and blogging. That one email I captured was actually through a blog post.

I want to see how the articles perform once they’re approved (proly by tomorrow afternoon). I’m really not sure what else I could do. My main idea for this was that I could sent traffic to a squeeze page with blogging, article marketing and PPC and be able to capture 500 emails before the product launch.

1/100 conversion would give me around 50 sales. That would help me tremendously for two months. I already know of a good product launch coming in April, so I’m not too worried about April.

But I am worried about March. This first day with my new campaign was horrendous. I’ll think about this more later tonight, and see if my strategy needs changing by tomorrow morning. “Ill sleep on it”

Another product launch that I’m looking forward to is the Holy Grail eBook which was given away as a free bonus last week. The vendor will be relaunching this as a stand-alone eBook in about 2-3 months.

I’m guessing that means May/June. Hopefully in May, since then I’ll have another launch after the one in April to work on. However, I did not sell a single copy during the 3-day promo last week, so I’ll certainly have to build up another list for that particular product.

Good news is that I was able to get a copy of the eBook. So I can write a review and put it out on cyber space. I’m still getting a decent amount of search traffic for the Holy Grail keyword everyday.

I certainly need to take advantage of that.

Next on the list is my first phone interview I conducted with a vendor. She says her product is in a “Soft launch.” I have not made any sales with the product yet.

The thing with the interview is that I did not like the way I sounded over the phone. So I’m using another software to re-record my voice, and make the whole interview sound more genuine.

Seriously, I sounded HORRIBLE. I’m about 60% done with the audio, but it’s just one of those things that aren’t top priority now.

Anyways, there’s a TON to think about and do. I figured these were the top three news bits. More tomorrow!

Update! Had another sale after I went to sleep so I actually made $126.40: This one was from an optin form I had for a Kettlebell product.

So yesterday I set a goal of earning $81. Let see today’s earnings:

Not a bad start! What’s interesting is where the sales came from. Both the sales were from the same individual. This person purchased a product from my affiliate link on February 26.

Now, the vendor had announced that he was coming out with a set of DVD’s. He was going to test them out with his mailing list, then make it available for his affiliates to promote.

So one of the products I got sales for isn’t even available for affiliates! But since the individual purchased something from me a few days ago, cookies are still saved on his computer, and hence…I got credit!

The individual purchased two separate products, so I’m pretty confident that he/she is a trainer of some sort. Otherwise why would anyone purchase so many workouts in such a short time frame?

I’ve had two individuals before that purchased more than one product from me within a short period of time. One of these individuals purchase 8 separate products I was promoting.

Either this individual is a compulsive credit card user, or a personal trainer. One of the products that this individual (the one I got credit for today) was a bootcamp program for trainers.

So, yes these people are trainers and I should do a better job of trying to market fitness products to trainers. It can turn very lucrative if I do it right!

I’ll just add this to the list of strategies I need to try.

By the way – I JUST had this thought. I tend to be able to think of things to do with my site to make sales left and right. In fact, I get so many ideas throughout the day, that I have to actually force myself to STOP implementing everything at once.

I’ve made a list of ideas, and I just keep the list moving and do things one by one. That’s what screwed me over in the beginning – I was trying to do too much at once.

Anyways, another piece of advice for newbies – use your brain. There is no one way to make a sale. Use your creativity. Keep things fun, and make sure Internet Marketing is a passion for you and not just a way you think is going to help you pay your bills (or get your rich).

Let me just stop myself right here before I start a rant.

Tomorrow’s Goal: $80

So, February 2010 is officially over, and I’ve made $1997.52. That’s just $2.48 away from my goal of $2000. My sister says I should just declare it a success.

After all, I did make more money in these two months than I did all of last year through affiliate marketing. That’s gotta count for something!

So, yes. I’m going to move forward and start cracking on March 2010’s goals. First, lets see some screenshots:

So, today I did not make a sale. But that’s all good.

In getting ready for March, I decided to take a look at the comparison in sales between January and February 2010.  Here are some interesting things I discovered:

• I only had 1 sale of Bodyweight Exercise Revolution at $31 in January. In February, I had 3 sales, and two of them were within the past week. I had just modified my review page to make it more detailed. I think it worked. I’m going to be working on it a bit further to see if I can get some more conversions.
• I sold 1 copy of the Workout Without Weights Combo package and 2 copies of the Gladiator Body Workout Combo Package in January. 0 copies of each in February. Even though these are great programs, I have chosen to abandon them simply because I have other products that convert better, and pay more. Also, Coach Lomax seems MIA. He doesn’t seem to be promoting his own products anymore. Where is he?
• In January, I sold 1 copy of the Deluxe version of Kettlebell Revolution, plus 2 copies of the basic version. That gives me approximately $142. In February, I sold 0 copies of the Deluxe version, and 3 copies of the basic version. That vies me approximately $114. Getting people to shell out $97 is harder than getting them to shell out $57. If I try to sell 4 copies of TTKbell this month, I can get $152. Or, I can offer more bonuses for people who grab the higher end product. 3 copies would give me $198.
• I also saw a boost in the number of individual Turbulence Training workouts people are purchasing. In January, people only purchase 2 individual, $10 workouts. In February, I had 6 sales of these workouts. Everything adds up. I will go back and take a look at all 8 workouts that people purchased and showcase them in separate posts.
• However, the main Turbulence Training package suffered tremendously. I think it’s Craig Ballantyne’s fault. He has been trying to get more people to join his Members section, and in turn he modified his main page and offerred his product for half the price, plus a free membership to his members section for one month. I did not get any conversions. His landing page has returned to normal. so I’ll probably see 2-3 sales this month. Not much to do there.

I have a lot of work to do for this month. On top of that I still have to write reviews for 8 brand new products I’m adding to my site, plus conduct about 6 interviews!

PLUS write 10 bonuses to give away with those products. It’s going to be quite an insane month. But I’m looking forward to it!

Lets establish the goals for March 2010 -

• $2500 for the month, net (minus returns)
  • This means, I’d have to make $81 average per day.

Let’s see how the month begins!

Disappointment is the gap that exists between expectation and reality.

So yesterday I had one small sale. But the interesting thing is that the sale occurred AFTER I went to sleep.

Usually I see sales after I’ve played playstation with my sister, or after I wake up in the morning or from and afternoon nap.

This is because affiliate marketing is a method of PASSIVE income. Most people screw themselves up thinking that if they work X hours, they’ll earn X amount of money.

That couldn’t be far from the truth. There is no guarantee of money with Clickbank. However, the potential for money is incredible.

If you work harder and smarter and long enough, you will be able to see 1-3 sales per week.

Some days you’re earn $100, and other days you’ll earn $0. But what matters is how much you earn at the end of the month.

And what also matters is your overall improvement from month to month.

“Dreams come a size too big so that we can grow into them.” Josie Bisset

When I was little, I used to wear oversized clothing because I thought that I’d look thinner.

The problem was that I’d get fatter and would need even bigger clothing. For weight loss, buying oversized clothing is not the solution.

But for life, dreaming oversized dreams is the perfect solution. A big dream motivates you to rise to the occassion.

This past month I’ve worked just as hard as any other month – maybe slightly harder. But the thing is that I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.

I’ve realized something about my business, and it’s helped me completely reconfigure my strategy.

It seems to be working quite well. After that big launch, I broke $300. I’ve never done $300 before.

I’m quite sure I can hit the $2000 mark for this month. Will I be able to do that next month?

Not sure, but I will try.

To help others get up to the $2000 mark, I’ve started working on an eBook titled “The 2 Grand Per Month Clickbank Formula.”

Just finished writing the first chapter – “How to Get Free Review Copies of Products.” I’m going to be talking about a lot of things I have not seen in other eBooks.

Here are all the topics I will cover:

1 – How to Get Free Review Copies of Products – And NO, I’m not talking about an illegal method.

2 – How to Make Money off of Product Launches

3 – How to Make Money off of Email Marketing

4 – How to Write a Better Landing Page

5 – How to Make Money off of Vendor Interviews

6 – One Single SEO trick to Propel your Blog Traffic

7 – Why I’m not a fan of Social Media and RSS Feeds

8 – How to Use Bonuses to Get Repeat Business

9 – How to Outsource your Article Marketing

If there are any other topics you’d like to cover, let me know.

P.S – I will not be covering PPC. I want to focus mostly on blogging, article marketing, and email marketing

P.S.S – There’s something I need to say to newbie affiliates – dream big, and keep working. But don’t just work harder, work smarter. Do your research, and test test test!

So, post launch I’m actually doing pretty good. Here’s the sales for the past three days:

So I been making one sale per day. But these sales are of high-end products, so it ads up. With one refund this week, I’ve done around 188.

Overall, I’m on my way to breaking past $2,000 for this month. There’s 7 days left, so lets see what happens. Yesterday I didn’t do any work becuase I was at my fathers store.

But when I called my sister to check my sales, I was pretty excited to see a sale from the TacFit program. But with a $66 commission, I wondered if they dropped the price down.

Well, what actually happened was that they sent out an email offering the discount one last time to their list. That make sense. Why would they drop the price permanently?

Even though they should.

I’m going to try to ask them if I could use the link for the lower product as a discount I offer only to people that purchase from my site. Other affiliates may be doing this.

There doesn’t seem to be that many affiliate promoting this product, but I should definetely ask Adam if I could do that. Of course, I would have to link directly to the order page.

In other news, I’ve emailed 4 vendors. 3 of which just came out with a brand new product. All four of them have sent me review copies of the products.

It seems as though it’s very easy to grab review copies, especially if you have a website like mine. I might just keep my work very minimum and not write as many articles as I am.

I think I screwed myself over by asking for 4 vendors at once. But we’ll see if the volume approach works. Eventually, it would be great if I didn’t write any articles at all (maybe 1-2 per week) and just focused on 1) reviewing new products and 2) interviewing new vendors.

Lets see how this approach works out.

I also recieved 15 articles from my article writer from Elance. It was about 2 weeks late, but I don’t care. I’m only paying him $1.50 for each article. Realize that in India, $1.50 is 75 rupees, which is a lot of dough.

When I went to India, we had a big lunch for 3-4 people. Total cost was around $4 or $200 rupees. I also remember my cousin working hard for 2000 rupees a month, or around $40.

These guys are getting paid $75 for 50 articles, or around 3750 rupees. Now, I’m not their only client. If they can provide, cheap, fast, and high quality service, then they probably have a few dozen clients.

So, for third-world countries, being a virtual assistant is pretty lucrative business. For me, it saves me a lot of time.

Anyways, lets see how the rest of the week turns out.