Internet Business Blog by Jack Keifer

Like a true nomadic free spirit, James Brausch has picked up and moved his blog once again. He is now located at http://www.diegonorte.com. So what’s up with all this moving around? Perhaps he’s so fed up with our current fascist regime that he’s decided to disassociate himself from us gringos here in the U.S. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read some of his recent posts. He’s hit upon some very good points.

Or perhaps there’s another reason behind it. Diegonorte can be branded without necessarily having to be associated with James Brausch. This makes the business very sellable without the personal name in the domain. I’ve been lurking around diegonorte.com for the past few days and I’ve noticed that the picture in the upper right corner of the blog has changed a few times. Hmmmm, another possible clue that this could be the case?

Maybe for a nominal fee, the Brausch team will be selling ready made internet businesses based on his own proven model to his clients. An online version of a franchise. Instead of seeing the big McDonalds “M” in every city, you’ll be seeing the big “B” everywhere. Maybe an internet franchise called Blogger King, heh-heh.

Ok, maybe I’m stretching my imagination a bit, and obviously I’m referring to the business model itself that would be “franchised”, but James has always been an innovator. I wouldn’t rule out anything, whether it seems too far fetched, or too obvious. I smell some big changes ahead in the Brausch empire. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Firstly, I must apologize for not being more clear in my last post. I clearly gave the impression that I wanted to offer Xingla Pro as part of the James Brausch intern package. This was not only James’ impression, but also the same gained from my readers. Here’s a quote from a very well phrased comment made by Trevor Neuman in the last post:

Both Trevor and James are correct of course. But… the intention of my offer was to make my product available at discount to any intern member as a benefit or perk for being enrolled in the James Brausch intern program. This isn’t intended to be integrated into the program itself.

Blog carnival submissions are one of the intern tasks in the program, so I was merely trying to establish relevancy to the product and it’s application to intern members who may wish to incorporate blog carnival submissions into their own procedure.

The sticky point that I didn’t consider thoroughly enough before making the offer however, was how I would validate who was an intern member and who wasn’t. This would be impossible without James’ help and would require an arrangement via email with one of his staff members. -bad idea.

The purpose of the offer was two fold:

1. The obvious one - it would increase revenue & exposure for Xingla Pro

2. It would add an extra incentive for some to enroll into the James Brausch Intern Program

It seemed like a cool idea at first, but lesson learned… consider all angles first before tossing an offer out on the table. And be careful how you phrase things when creating an offer.

Taken in the context that the intern program would be changed with a paid product would certainly be breaking a promise to his members as James eloquently put it in his response. He’s right of course, if that were the case. The last thing James would ever do is break a promise to those who put their trust in him.

After reading back through my previous post, I can now see why people got this impression. James, I appreciate you taking the time to respond! Now it’s time to put my tail between my legs, skirt away, and get on with the business of internet business!

I was surfing around some of my favorite blogs today & I came across two different posts relating to some cool WordPress plugins that I never paid attention to in the past. The first one I discovered was noted in Mohamed Bhimji’s Blog called alinks. This awesome plugin will automatically create a link from any keywords that you choose. As you noticed above - Mohamed Bhimji and alinks were both auto-generated by alinks. Somehow, I missed Mohamed’s post on the 16th and I’m glad I found it. I immediately installed this plugin and started creating my keywords.

This is especially valuable for creating some back links to your other products and web sites. Alinks will automatically update your entire blog to show the proper back links from your chosen keywords. For example, I have a number of posts that references AmazingCloaker, my url link cloaking product. In one instance, every reference to AmazingCloaker has been automatically updated to link to my product website.

You may have also noticed that the keywords such as “AmazingCloaker” only auto links once within a post. Another smart feature to prevent inadvertent anchor stuffing, which would have a reverse effect on your SEO. You can even opt to not display keywords past a certain date. Oh, did I mention that it’s FREE? This is a definite “must have plugin!

Then I was off to Kenton Newby’s blog. As usual Kenton always has great posts to read, and today, coincidentally, he had posted an article about a couple great plugins that he’s added to his arsenal as well.

The first one is called KeywordLuv. This cool little plugin allows your commenters to insert keywords into the Name field without being flagged as spammers. For example, in the “Name” field, you would insert your name, then an “@” symbol followed by your keyword phrase. For example, if you wanted to use the keywords “Internet Business Blog” as your back link anchor text, and your name was Joe, simply type in (without the quotes) “Joe @ Internet Business Blog“. Everything after the “@” symbol is stripped out into anchor text for your back link, which corresponds to your website info that you then enter into the URL field.

In order for this to work, you need to become “dofollow” friendly. By default, WordPress uses the “nofollow” tags which doesn’t give responders the full benefit of the back link from their comments. I downloaded a “dofollow” plugin called Lucia’s Linky Love Plugin which seems like an excellent “dofollow” plugin. It has many features such as minimum response requirements and other things to discourage link spammers.

The other plugin that Kenton mentioned was WP Ajax Edit Comments. This allows you to edit your comment within a certain time after you have posted to the blog. I can think of many times when I’ve responded to a blog post, submitted, and went back to read it only to find spelling errors, or something phrased wrong, but it was too late to change it. WP Ajax Edit Comments will solve that problem for your readers.

Normally, I try not to bog down my blog with too many plugins. You’ll find people out there that have nearly every widget and plugin under the sun running in their blog. I’m always wary of what consequences that this could cause in regards to search engine indexing or just bogging down the mySQL server. However, the above plugins seem to be very friendly not only to me, the blog host, but more importantly, to you the reader as well.

If you have a blog, do yourself a favor and check them out!

Tick…tick…tick… That’s the sound of the clock in the background as I’m sitting here in the hospital delivery room with my wife Tingting. The big day has arrived! Tingting seemed to be showing signs of labor yesterday (April 19th) and I took her to the hospital maternity ward to have her checked out. They suspected early labor, but since we are only 5 minutes away from the hospital, they let us go back home to see how things go.

Tingting got pretty much zero sleep last night so it was back to the hospital at 8:40am this morning. Our doctor told us that today is the real deal. The plan – induce and manage the labor and have the baby today. He induced labor at 12:15pm today (April 20th).

Her labor pains were getting pretty excruciating around 4:30, so we had an epidural for her. Now she’s resting comfortably, and she’s a much happier girl. It is now 9:26pm and she is dilated to only 3cm. Will he be an April 20th baby, or a 21st baby? Hmmm, time will tell.

Needless to say, Xingla Pro’s is on hold for the moment while we eagerly await our new arrival. If Kevin arrives tonight, then I will be uploading to Kunaki tomorrow (April 21st).

I’m writing this as Tingting and her mother are napping in the background. She’s waking up now, so I’ll be back to add to this post later if Kevin doesn’t make his grand entrance before then.

Well, back to my wife’s side. Wish us luck!

Trashing a perfectly good internet business is not always an easy thing to do. It takes effort. This is something that comes easy to only 98% of the population. For the other 2% it can be quite the challenge. Do you think you’re up to being a 98%er? Perhaps you could make it into the top 98%. The black belt 98%ers can even trash their business before it gets started. Sure you could simply wear a button that says “I’m a 98%er!” and make people think that you’re in this group, OR… you can take action today and become a true honest to goodness 98%er. Here are a few tips to help you get there.

1. Educate, educate, educate!
The first step to master on the road to the top 98% is to find every hyped up product that you can find which shows you how to make $10,000 a month without a website, and no work. If you happen to start feeling the urge to take action on any useful information that you happen to stumble upon, close the ebook immediately, store it in a safe place, and buy something else. Rinse & repeat.

2. Maximize Your Time
In order to feel a real sense of accomplishment, you need to find something to make you busy. If you feel yourself being sucked into the 2% group by doing something crazy like creating a blog, building a webpage or a new product, simply navigate to the nearest forum and find salvation in the latest debate on Google’s newest update.

3. Prioritize The TV
No serious non business could ever survive without the TV. TV is an absolute must if you want to stay plugged into the land of the lost and comfortable.

4. Be Your Own Boss
For those who have somehow stumbled into self employment, you need to be a hero. Don’t let self employment slip into becoming a real business. After all, a business runs itself. You can’t allow that to happen in order to be self-employed. Be sure to do everything yourself so that you remain in a self imposed J.O.B. rather than creating a real business.

5. Do What The Other Hucksters Do
So you parted with your cash for an ebook just to discover that you bought a pile of rehashed B.S. that you can find in any forum for free. Heck they got your money, why not do the same? Change a few words and stick it back out on the net. You’ll build a real “reputation” for yourself.

6. Avoid the Procedures
Having procedures in place would only create a real business. The best thing to do is to grab your business by the seat of the pants and wing it. After all, you’re doing everything yourself anyway. Who the heck needs procedures?

7. Don’t Let ‘em Push You Around
Customers can be a real pain. They always want stuff. They not only want your products, but they occasionally have questions or need help. Can you believe the nerve of some of these people? They give you their money and now they have to gall to expect some value in return. So how do you get rid of these pesky people called customers? The answer is really quite simple. All you have to do is ignore them. Ignore your customers long enough and they will eventually disappear. This technique works every time, guaranteed!

Well, there you have it. You now have all the knowledge necessary to secure a life in the 98% club. Do you have what it takes to be a 98%er, or are you going to wuss out and defect to a life of freedom, abundance and joy? The choice is yours.

Exactly as he promised, James Brausch delivered his testing newsletter right away after posting my interest in receiving a complimentary copy of his Testing newsletter. My first reaction? Yikes! This is some serious stuff. James has picked apart so many variations of his sales page that its easy to see why his pages are super converters! I think most people who average 1 to 5% are typical. James is in the 18+ percentile! I say again… YIKES!

James covers every detail of his variable versions. For example. Testing 3 blank lines at the top of the “paper” versus no lines. Variations on color size and even length of the headlines. Testing content against nothingness. The information contained within the newsletter gave me some great ideas to test out on my own web site.

I think that the people who would benefit most are MuVar customers. The newsletter is a perfect compliment to getting the most out of MuVar. Non MuVar users would certainly benefit as well, because you can simply apply what works in the newsletter to your own site. The hitch is that different products attract different visitors and what works for one site may not be so great for others.

One thing that really hit home with me though was the features that I noticed about MuVar. Before I discovered James, I rashly invested in another multivariate software. This set me back over 500 bucks. It’s great software and serves me well. However, it seems that MuVar allows you to use many versions of each testing variable! Mine is limited to 2 to 6 depending on how many variables you choose. Thus I have to choose my variables carefully and figure out which variables that I want more than 3 versions of. Also, it appears that MuVar calculates visitor value for your web site! That is awesome! Not to mention keeping a running total of sale value & conversion ratio. My boss (wife) would shoot me if I switched (totaling $800… Rats!).

Do you remember the movie Wayne’s World? Remember in the music store when Wayne would kneel down on one knee in front of the Fender Strat that was locked inside the custom display case? Picture a MuVar CD in its place with a touch of angelic music as an aura glows around it. - “Someday MuVar will be mine… oh yes!”

I have to say that the testing newsletter was definitely worth the read. These are heavy duty stats, but they are presented in a way that makes for a nice read, plus they make sense. It’s not just a paper full of numbers & graphs, this is real usable stuff. Information that you can use today. If you’re a serious internet business person looking for the maximum return on your websites, this is some incredible information that is being shared. For only 25 bucks for a newsletter that is packed to the max with nothing but solid meat & potatoes without the fat, this is simply a no brainer to subscribe to.

I’ve been following Mohamed Bhimji’s internet business blog for a few months now and I felt he was overdue for a cool blog alert. I first referenced Mohamed’s blog back in my January 24th post “Do You Firefox?” At the time he was located at online-internet-business-opportunity.com. He since has shortened the name to oibo.org. That’s pretty cool. Short and has a nice ring to it.

Mohamed responded to my last post “A Parallel Reality?” and I was in the middle of replying to his response when I realized that I wanted to share his words and my thoughts on them on a wider scale. Here is part of his response:

For months, I was thinking to myself “wouldn’t it be nice…” but in all honesty eventhough I was working towards it, I didn’t really believe it.

However about two weeks ago I started to believe in my goals, I started to realize the urgency that is required in order for me to get to where I want to be. My beliefs were embodied in me — my heart and mind are now working as one to achieve them.

Take a look at Mohamed’s blog and it will become obvious that thought combined with simple actions can change the course of your life. Desire is the catalyst that propels thought into action and action into reality. One reason that this works is because your desired future is already there for the taking. All you have to do is decide that you really want to go there. Believe, think and do. Your spirit will take you by the hand and lead you there.

Mohamed has made a conscious decision to become one of the 2% that take charge of their lives and he’s going all out to make it a reality. At this momentum, I have no doubt that he’ll achieve his dreams.

How about you? Are you ready to make that leap of faith? It’s really not that broad of a jump once you commit yourself into the air. You’ll land before you know it. It may not be a perfect landing at first, but the important thing is that you jumped! Now keep going. Think that I’m just blowing a lot of fluff around? Check out Mohamed’s blog for yourself. If you haven’t started on your dreams yet, realize that this could be you in a few short months. Where will Mohamed Bhimji be in a few more months? I’ll be sticking around to find out.

I just read an interesting article by James Brausch that got me fired up enough to drop what I was doing and write this post.  I normally don't post until the evenings, but here we go.  According to Jame's posting, he had apparently given a gift, an instructional DVD on creating your own blog or product, I think, to a "friend" / acquaintance.  When this person came to see James, he apparently gave James a hard time about how he wasn't succeeding, and laying out excuses about why he didn't and wouldn't do the key points in the DVD.  The details can be read in James' Post.  what I want to touch upon, is what makes this type of individual tick.

I was floored to read that still another person, Robert, had taken the initiative to come all the way out to Costa Rica for a day with James, get treated to dinner, plus a day to all the attractions, receive a free valuable gift from him, and not even find it in his heart to return at the very least, a little appreciation!  In the beginning, and on the surface, you initially see the qualities of an up & coming 2%er.  He took action, he met with James and listened.  Then later, he created a product from his conversations.  Apparently, he even has a blog somewhere that he has promoted his new product through.  Ooops! It looks like he then started re-selling or including pirated copies of one of James' own products too!  Wow!  Now granted, I'm hearing just one side of the story, but James Brausch has a solid reputation for integrity, honesty and pulling no punches.  Personally, I like those qualities.  

Success seeking individuals usually fall into one of two categories.  Those who are looking to build a solid foundation of honesty, integrity and service to their customers, and those who are looking for the quick buck.  The opportunity chasers.  Those in the first category will enjoy long lasting success and accomplish great things as they cross off them off their bucket list one by one.

Those in the second category are simply the "pseudo successful".  They have the appearance of one who is on the road to success.  They talk a good game, and may even rake in a lot of income.  For a while, that is.  The problem is that their business is built on a foundation of sand,  as the story goes in the Bible.  Sooner or later, it comes crashing down as the next opportunity is pursued.  A 98%er will likely never recognize the difference between the truly successful and the pseudo successful from outward appearances.   These pseudo doers are almost impossible to detect by anyone at the beginning.  When they are detected, the response is usually very defensive.  They will bully you and then accuse you of being the bully to cover up their own personality flaws.

One way to detect a pseudo 2%er acquaintance, (if you were even remotely interested, that is) is to go visit them and see how they're faring.  When you spot them inside their trailer propped up in front of the TV with a beer, sitting in their favorite chair right under the velvet "dogs playing poker" painting, you'll have a clue!  Watch out for that killer chihuahua!

But seriously, this leads to my final rambling.  It all goes back to that one character flaw that was likely produced back in the world of TV-J.O.B.-Life of the 98% world brainwashing program.   Everybody owes you something.   The losers will always believe that anyone who is "better off" than they are owes them.  They owe you their money.  They owe you their gifts.  They owe you to hold their hand and make your business and money for them.  This "everyone owes me something" mindset is exactly why you have opportunity chasers.  Why does one jump from opportunity to opportunity?  Because they're looking for something that will do everything for them of course!  Lack of focus & lofty goals.  Perhaps in their mind, you, the creator of the info product also owe them a lifetime of hand holding and personal attention until their entire business can be built for them. Then you will have to run it for them as well to keep it going, naturally.

One of the best things that you can do for yourself and for your business is to stay focused on real pursuits, be honest, and be appreciative of what others may offer along the way.  Remember them as you grow and return the favor when you can.  It's not too much to ask, just common decency. 

I've made my share of mistakes along the way and I haven't yet reached the "James Brausch level" in my internet business.  I'm still climbing my way up the ranks, so to speak, but I  consider myself a rising force, who has the desire to help as many as I can along the way by providing useful information and products.  Always be willing to listen and learn from those who have trodden down the proven path.  Ego trips are for losers.  Now as for the fakes - when the wrapping finally comes off, and it always does, the pseudo 2%er will always be exposed in the end. 

Note to James Brausch - I recently purchased a pre-release copy of James Brausch's internet business book, vol. 2.   James, if you happen to read this, I will be sending the grammer & spelling corrections this weekend.

A couple years ago a movie/documentary came out that was quite popular called "The Secret".  It was quite popular and controversial at the same time.  Some thought it was life transforming while others thought was a complete crock.  The Secret dealt with the law of attraction and how you can use it to achieve anything you wish in life.  I'm referring to "The Secret" in this post because there are many people who equate (either negatively or positively) the law of attraction with what they picked up in the movie.  This was an introduction to the concept for many.  I first studied this waaaaayyyy back in the 1980's!  Ok, now I'm dating myself.  

In fact, so many have been introduced to the law of attraction via "The Secret", its the very reason that I'm writing this post.  I would like to address one important thing about the movie.  In my opinion, unless I missed something along the way, the movie seemed to cover everything except the actual secret itself!  You couldn't help but to walk away feeling inspired and having a sense that anything was now possible, but that's about all.

Visualizing your desires, programming your mindset to "live" in the reality that you want to create is only half of the picture.  Taking action is a most essential ingredient and was barely touched upon, if at all, in the movie.  I can just imagine thousands of people getting inspired and then beginning a routine of visualizing new beginnings in their lives, then, after nothing much happening for results, going back to the same old thing.  Action is what gets results! 

 Here's the Key:

The visualization and reality shifting side of it is what gets the energies in motion.  Everything is created in a non-physical form BEFORE it ever reaches the physical realm (including us, but that's another story).  This is where the visualization and reality shifting comes into play.  Once you create this in the non physical realm, then various signs, opportunities, etc., will begin to manifest themselves.  This is the point where you must recognize these things and seize the opportunity, or pursue the new friend who has stumbled into your life.  Whatever the manifestation, this is the result of what you created and it is trying to materialize into physical reality.  Now, by taking action, you are pulling your creation into your physical reality.  If you ignore it, some other signs will appear for awhile until you either act, or continue to ignore it.  If you simply ignore these things which are now coming your way in everyday life, then eventually your creation will dissipate and stay in the non-physical until you bring it back to life again and act.

If you follow these steps, you can't fail.  Really huge shifts sometimes take multiple actions to pull every component into reality.  This is most easily done by goal setting.  For example, if you're living in your car (like I did back in 1986) and you want to become a millionaire, then most likely its going to take multiple steps to make your reality.  Build smaller components into your reality that lead up to your ultimate goal, which is always visualized, even while visualizing your "stepping stones".   Each component should build upon the other.  Pull them into reality one by one and you will arrive.  Its the law of the universe and it is just as real as the invisible electricity that you feel when you stick your finger in the light socket (P.S. - Don't stick your finger in the light socket!).   Sure, you can visualize winning the lottery, but is it in your best interest to develop your spirit?  Probably not.  Life is about growing through challenge and experience.  A winning lotto ticket, although not impossible, probably won't cut it.  

Now that you have the keys, take it out for a spin and see where it takes you!

Brendan Brewster has posted his top ten Internet Business blog list.  I made the list based on the top Google rankings for the term "Internet Business Blog" (without the quotes).  

I find this quite interesting, because jackkeifer.com is almost a year old (probably keeping me out of the Google sandbox), but my blog was only just recently relocated here.  I currently reside on page four.  I have been using James Brausch's Rasof to help in my webpage optimization for the search engines.  After just a couple of weeks, it seems that I've already propelled into the top few pages of Google for this term.  Hmmmmm, that's gotta say something for Rasof!  Currently, the term "internet business" itself is still in the stratosphere for me, but the night is very young, in organic search engine terms.

Brendan Brewster has an interesting blog and I've been following it for the past few weeks and like what I see.  It has a nice layout and interesting articles.  Just like me, Brendan has also recently moved his blog.  Brendan is one of the few who really take action on their desires and has been quite active on his blog and product promotions.  At the moment, Brendan's business is related to affiliate marketing, but his blog covers much more than that.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him release his own product at some point soon.  I think that Brendan has the 2% mindset required to make the sky the limit.  

Of all those who participated in my "testimonial" special for the AmazingCloaker last year, Brendan was the only one who held up his end and actually followed through.  That just goes to support that 98% will never do anything, while the 2% will be the true successes in 2008.

Keep up the great work Brendan!