Working From Home Getting A Tan!
This week, Londoners have enjoyed basking in brilliant sunshine and, as if overnight, my garden has become a jungle, requiring a skilfully wielded machèté to traverse it to the far end!
In the time it takes to blink, the lawn (using the term in its broadest sense) is knee-high, and new foliage is sprouting all around. Blossoms are readying themselves to burst, and I’m especially thrilled that my Magnolia is smothered in buds, as it didn’t flower last Summer.
A smattering of bluebells sprung up this year, but they’re now shrugging off their bright petals to reveal seed pods, which will soon drop, ensuring a more abundant display next Spring.
New life is profoundly inspiring, and a comforting reminder that every living entity renews itself, and that everything has its time.
Yesterday afternoon, I enjoyed a thorough physical workout, attempting to tame the backyard jungle, and today my arms, shoulders, back and legs all attest to how much I am in need of ‘away from the computer’ activities!
I’d just started to cut the grass, when it occurred to me to take a photo - my apologies for the quality.
[Click image to view enlargement.]
Below is a shot of the garden last Summer, after I’d started to knock it into shape.
[Click image to view enlargement.]
There was a spell yesterday when I took a break from hacking down the grass and pulling up weeds, and I sat in the dappled sunlight, listening to the melodic birdsong, and contemplating whatever came into my mind.
Then I realised how privileged I was to be seated in the sun, smelling the fresh cut grass and glimpsing the tiny frogs leaping about their newly-disturbed world.
I’m privileged to be working from home building my own online business. Internet marketing offers many options for making money online, however, my recent experience with blogging has taught me that many people start a blog thinking that they’ll be making money (a full-time living) by blogging alone — this is rare. Making money online with one blog alone is very rare.
Diversify. Your blog can be used as an internet marketing tool to help grow a mailing list, by offering a subscription to a newsletter, updates, or special offers. But don’t immediately start promoting products to your list, first you must gain people’s trust and respect — you have to convince your readers that they can rely on your opinion and recommendation.
They say that an internet marketer, actively promoting to his or her list, earns a minimum of $1 per month for each name on it. That’s why the internet marketing gurus with multiple lists of 50,000 plus are millionaires!
When you have established a reputation, you can email the occasional promotion — your own product, or as an affiliate marketer you could promote other people’s. But be careful. This is an area that’s been highly abused, and I don’t hold with daily mailings, promoting each and every ‘latest and greatest’.
Internet marketers practising this type of email vomit-a-thon in my Inbox don’t retain my name on their list for long. A surprising number do send too many mailings, which makes me wonder if they are making good sales, because people succumb to the pressure. I’d prefer not be making an income by annoying the contacts on my list, and I’d rather retain some dignity, too.
Recommend products that you have purchased, and genuinely consider to be quality and worth the bucks. Once again, I soon unsubscribe when I’m frequently sent recommendations for products from the marketer’s ‘good friend’ who has just launched some new something that he thinks I shouldn’t be without. Phoney, baloney.
Diversify. Develop your own product to promote or, as an affiliate marketer, you can save yourself a whole heap of effort, and earn generous commission, promoting other people’s products.
So many internet marketing strategies can be managed via auto-responders and, once set up, they require the minimum of maintenance. You could be making more money online by doing the same amount of work!
Step back from your blog, view the bigger picture, and apply leverage.
Reward Rebel
Reward Rebel posts new content every few days - stay informed about new posts by subscribing to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Filed under Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, How To, Internet Marketing, List Building, Making money online, Online business, Working from home |
Lucky you! It’s pretty sunny in Ottawa too although we have drastic temperatures swing, but it’s definitely getting harder to keep my students in the classroom.
I’m still trying to understand marketing… I suck at it. I just don,t get it. The list building thing for example… why? Sorry, it’s just that marketing isn’t my strengh and I don’t get things that seem to be obvious to some.
Anyway, I finally added you to my blogroll, it was long overdue. You can see your blog in my “the world” section in the navbar.
Zhu’s last blog post..Another World
[Reply]
Hey Zhu,
Finding it difficult to keep your students in the classroom? Well, you wanted a revolution!
The marketing thing in a nutshell: you post new content to your blog anyway, so why not apply leverage and ask your visitors to submit their name and email address, so they can receive more of the stuff that they’ve expressed an interest in?
Once a week, say, send your subscribers a little newsletter, it doesn’t have to be massive — some additional info that’s not on your website.
Intermittently, send info about new (digital) products within their sphere of interest that will also earn you some more dosh! Clickbank.com list digital products covering many topics, and of which you can become an affiliate.
Hope this helps a bit!
[Reply]
Reward Rebal,
Nice to visit you again, It is good to see how wonder the nature, grass, trees, insects, etc. Listening bird song with relaxing mind is really. We should not stick to the computer for one whole day.
I enjoy your post and wish you have a successful life, have a nice day.
coolingstar9 from singapore
coolingstar9’s last blog post..Mother day
[Reply]
Hi Coolingstar9,
Being able to relax in the garden when the weather is beautiful has reminded why I started working online in the first place. I don’t want to lose sight of the fact the freedom I now have is a privilege. Thanks for the kind wishes.
Happy blogging.
[Reply]
That’s hilarious (the pic) - our back lawn looked much the same last week, I was for fear the mower would catch fire all the while!
Today I plan for the family (who never seems to get out) to plant the garden, and it’s upkeep and maintenance throughout the summer will undoubledly force me off the laptop!
JTPratt’s Blogging Mistakes’s last blog post..Is Your Web Business “Expanding” Before Your Eyes?
[Reply]
Hey John,
I love working in the garden, getting my hands dirty and feeling like I’ve ‘laboured’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not work-mad, but I’m not sporty and find exercising per se sooooo boring.
The garden presents a perfect opportunity to shape up the ol’ bod with a thorough workout, and at the same time accomplish something else, and you do it all in a beautiful environment!
Last night I watched ‘Goodfellas’ on the box (again) - oh, what a movie, what a soundtrack - and today my arms and shoulders feel like they’ve had a good going over by the boys. Ah well, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, eh?
It’s another beautiful day here, and I’m interspersing working in the garden with working at the PC, but it’s time to get back out there now!
[Reply]
Does make sense, thanks for the explanation. I guess because I’m not in the niche, I had never paid attention to that before…
[Reply]
You’re welcome Zhu.
[Reply]
Sunny in London? The end must be near.
In regards to using a blog for lead-generation, I’ve found it is much easier to make it a supplement to a business, not THE business.
[Reply]
Hi Bryan,
Cheeky! But your remark could be uncomfortably close to the truth! Scarey.
But, hey, back to biz. If the objective is to generate a full-time income from one’s online activities, having a blog or blogs as part of the overall business is excellent for many reasons, one of which is building a mailing list. But that wouldn’t represent the entire business model. So I think we’re in agreement.
Of course, if all a person wants to do is enjoy publishing a blog, and earning some additional cash, they’re free to do what the hell they want with it!
[Reply]
Excellent post. Promote what you know or even who you know (actually know) and not just everything under the sun.
Also a blatant reminder that I need to get out from the confines of my screen and into the air!
Perhaps tomorrow, but probably not
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..Promotion = Only 32 Posts, with 239 Comments, Having 50 Subscribers, and a PR 3…Never Say Die!
[Reply]
Hey Dennis,
If you’re anything like me and tend to spend inordinate amounts of time nailed to the seat in front of your PC or laptop, yes, you DO need to get out in the fresh air!
It’s taken a few days of grafting in the garden for my joints to loosen up and stop hurting like hell!
[Reply]