I’m working on a new project now (details to come soon; it’s based on Pawel Reszka’s Definite Income Plan and I’ll be posting detailed reviews on it). I’ve already found the need to start a spreadsheet to keep track of stuff, plus I started a couple of text documents that contain other needed notes for the project.

Not really knowing where to put the various files, I created an “Action Folder” inside the product download folder. It’s a simple thing, of course, but I think that keeping an Action Folder inside each purchase will help me keep better track of my notes, plus it will allow me to document the progress I make on each product.

I’ve also started keeping something that I call a “Master Station Log” (MSL). It’s really nothing more than a journal of my progress (I call it my MSL because that’s what we called a similar journal at a job I once worked at). It’s just a Notepad document with “.LOG” written on the first line (without the quotes). Putting .LOG on the first line forces Windows to put a date/time stamp at the end of the document every time I open it, which makes it easy to remember when I typed stuff (you can also do this by hitting F5 while in Notepad).

So I can keep notes for each project and product with the actual downloaded files, and my MSL — which sits on my desktop (at least the current month’s MSL) — will help me keep track of what I was working on and when.

One last note: If you’re not doing it now, each product you purchase and each project you start should have its own folder on your computer. I save downloaded files, a copy of the sales letter (plus any “terms” on the website, such as privacy and terms of service), copies of receipts, support info, forum threads, emails, etc. This can really help if you need support or have questions long after you made your purchase. While you don’t have to copy my system to the letter, developing some type of file and purchase / download system that you can live and work with can save you a lot of time and frustration.

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Copywriters, here’s a question for you: Suppose a product owner came up to you and asked you to write sales copy for a product you personally would not use because you thought it did more harm than good. And let’s take it a step further: Suppose they wanted you to write that copy so that mothers and fathers would give that product to their babies?

Let’s drill down a bit further and get a bit more specific, shall we?

Suppose a soft drink consortium asked you to write ad copy that would encourage parents to purchase soda / cola / pop for their babies and give it to them while they are still infants? Would you take the job?

Well, guess what? Somebody did — a long time ago! Check out their finished product here (hosted on NaturalNews.com).

I’m guessing that this ad was created and published back in the 1950s. And while I’d like to think that something like this wouldn’t be created today, there are plenty of ads, sales letters, and other promotional pieces being created for products just as dangerous by copywriters whose only concern is the check they’ll receive once the copy is done.

Suppose YOU had created this ad. How would you feel nowadays about it? Would you be able to call over your grandchildren and proudly show them your work? I’m guessing that you probably wouldn’t be too terribly proud of promoting cola for babies — and if that’s the case, then why are you creating sales copy for products you’d never personally use — and in some cases may actually oppose?

Please, copywriters: Use your common sense and say “no” to jobs that go against your personal beliefs and ethics. We copywriters hold the power to push a lot of bad products out of the marketplace if we simply say “no” to junk that doesn’t work, harms consumers, or is so overpriced that most consumers can’t afford it, even if our persuasive copy is capable of pulling the money out of their wallet.

We copywriters possess tremendous powers. We can persuade with our words and get people to buy stuff that they’d never think about buying otherwise. That’s not always bad because the products we promote can enhance life, eliminate (or at least alleviate) problems, and make people more profitable (or at least keep some of their money in their bank account). But please: Use those powers wisely. Say “no” to jobs that promote harmful items or stuff that’s way overpriced. There is plenty of legitimate work out there; let’s do our bit to push garbage out of the marketplace by simply not accepting jobs for those products.

I sincerely hope that you choose to become one of those copywriters that never sells cola to babies.

NOTE: NaturalNews.com is a pretty good site for alternative news, especially for news on health-related issues. I read stuff on the site regularly, I don’t always agree with Mike Adams (the owner of the site) — but do respect his opinions (at least he thinks… ), and while I linked to the ad on that site, please don’t misconstrue this to be a 100% blanket endorsement of that site. And thanks, Mike, for posting the ad; it gave me the idea for this blog post. Wouldn’t it be great if copywriters actually stopped writing ad copy for garbage products?

I’ve lately been amused by a certain Clickbank product that allegedly teaches you how to improve your email marketing. The funny thing about it is that the only way I heard about it was via unsolicited commercial email, which is sometimes referred to as “spam”. Perhaps those people should purchase the product themselves and learn how to market legally and ethically?

At any rate, I wanted to look at the product (to see if it really does teach email marketing. It does, but it’s nothing new) but didn’t want to give a “click credit” or — GASP! — an affiliate commission to a spammer. So I used one of my favorite tools (which I’ll tell you about in a minute) to get the direct link to the sales letter.

Before I tell you how to do it (and you can use this method to research any link, be it a redirect or just a link to a site that looks a bit suspicious), I do want to say that I was tempted to put this post on one of my security blogs, such as The Business Protector or Simple Security Tips. In the end, though, I decided that the practical business applications outweigh the security benefits (although it’s a good way to check out a site without having to worry about infecting your computer — IF you know how to read raw HTML. All will be explained shortly…).

From a business perspective, the most important thing to remember is that a determined individual will figure out a way to bypass ANY redirect system. What I’m about to share with you is no big secret; by putting it out here in “broad daylight”, so to speak, I hope to show you that obscurity is never a true way to protect yourself and your business (OK, maybe I *SHOULD* have put this on The Business Protector… It’s always in my nature to think “protection”, so I hope you’ll forgive me for putting it here on this blog…).

OK, let’s get down to business. First, here’s a nice ClickBank link for what looks to be a nice product about how to restore a broken relationship (no promises; I didn’t buy it, and in case you can’t figure it out, that’s an affiliate link. If you click and buy, I make money). It’s an ugly thing, one of those new Clickbank links that makes it a lot more difficult to strip out the affiliate link.

Unless you know about Rex Swain’s HTTP viewer. All you need to do is click on that link, enter the URL you want to investigate in the box, and click on the “Submit” button. What happens after that is that Mr. Swain’s handy little tool goes and gets the HTML code for your website. If it redirects to a different site, it follows the trail, giving you the HTML for each site along the way.

In this case (and I encourage you to copy the link and try it yourself), if you enter the link in the page, you’ll discover that http://a62365×819hpaw5hh7uckmss6o.hop.clickbank.net redirects to http://a62365×819hpaw5hh7uckmss6o.hop.clickbank.net/hop/?CBRehoppp2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.magicofmakingup.com%3Fhop%3Deverad20&hstr=1267554697117%7Ceverad20%7C%7Cbe7smc2myg%7Cmakingup&code=%7B0%7D&key=006B79BC&parms= (an ugly looking thing), which in turn redirects to http://www.magicofmakingup.com/?hop=everad20 .

Kind of makes it easy to strip off the affiliate ID and just visit the main website, doesn’t it?

This thing cuts through obscurity and redirects like a hot knife through soft butter. Give it a try some time if you don’t trust a redirect. But please: Keep in mind that most affiliates depend on their commission to pay the bills and that they spent time and money to put that link in front of you. Sure, don’t reward spammers — but if a legit affiliate worked to put the link in front of you, just click on the thing. We’ll all thank you for it — and it won’t cost you anything extra. Thanks.

OK, so there’s this somewhat unorthodox Mac loving tree hugger (aren’t ALL Mac lovers “tree huggers”?) down in Australia (he’s really a nice guy. He bought me dinner once, in London, back in 2006, but that’s not the only reason I like him) who says that the only thing that separates the mega successful from the rest of us / “you” (hee-hee!) is their willingness to sit down and write from 30 minutes to 2 hours every day.

And do other productive stuff.

Buying and reading ebooks about doing stuff isn’t doing productive stuff.

So I guess I’m on track for success. Yippee!

You can read more about this unorthodox but totally nice guy and what he has to say about being broke and doing something productive by clicking here. There might be some other stuff there, like a totally free 30 day course on getting your first profitable web site up and running, if you’re up to the Challenge…

And I wish I had the patience to park myself in a cattle coach chair and fly down there for the seminar, Ed — but I don’t, at least not right now. I’m too busy writing. Heck, I won’t even make time to watch your 30 minute video about your mentoring program… Could you just send me a link?

We’ve all seen them: People create some type of digital product and then let people sell it for 100% commission. Why in the world would they do this?

In most cases, marketers are simply trying to get a list of buyers and are willing to forfeit their commission on the first sale, knowing that they will more than make up for it on future sales. Two things come into play here:

• It is easier to get a sale from somebody who has already purchased something from you than it is to find a new first-time buyer.
• Each paying customer has a life time value. Good marketers know this value and are willing to give up a small bit of that value, if necessary, to capture the rest.

There is another marketer who has taken this to another level. No names, but the guy is one of the “good guys”, but as soon as people catch on to this tactic… Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it sure does seem like this technique could certainly widen the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

Let’s take a look at how it works by working our way backwards. What do I mean by that? The ultimate goal is to get people to use a great service that bills monthly (I’ve signed up for the service myself, it does exactly what it is supposed to do, and I’m confident that it will soon start making me money). So let’s get started:

• The ultimate goal is to get people to use a high value, honest, and high quality service. For each person signed up, Mr. Nice Marketer will get a monthly commission.
• To get people to use this service, Mr. Nice Marketer sells an ebook — a very nice ebook, by the way (I should know; I purchased a copy) — that “sells” people on the RESULTS that the service provides. In fact, it even shows ways to get more out of the service by using other tools. By the end of the book (which sells for about $20), people who are ready for such a service see the “genius” in it and sign up for it.
• Mr. Nice Marketer then creates a viral, rebrandable ebook and allows his affiliates to brand it with their affiliate link. The goal of the free rebrandable is to get people to purchase the $20 ebook.

In summary, here’s what would happen if I were to give away the ebook (I won’t; I’d rather just promote the monthly service on my own and capture THOSE commissions! But this is a great lesson):

• I grab Mr. Nice Marketer’s ebook, brand it with my affiliate link, and start giving it away.
• People click on the link and buy Mr. Nice Marketer’s $20 ebook. I get $20.
• People read Mr. Nice Marketer’s ebook, sign up for the service, and Mr. Nice Marketer gets about $30 a month for a long time from that person (the service is good and it can continue to make you money if you know what you are doing).

It’s a great system, created by a great guy — and it’s quite ingenious. I’m glad that I purchased the $20 ebook and got to see how the whole system works. I just might try it myself some day… But I’d rather do a bit more work and be the person giving away 100% commissions on a $20 ebook than “lose” those $30 a month commissions.

Please note that I’m not suggesting that you use this method to promote some membership site that’s a load of garbage; to be honest, this won’t work because people won’t stay subscribed to it and you’d be better off chasing those $20 commissions. You need a great, high quality continuity program to make this work. I also recommend that you find a service that is run by someone who isn’t going to “cut and run” any time soon. Find somebody who is in business for the long haul. But if you do your homework and choose the right offer, I think this system would work — and work quite nicely.

In conclusion, marketers have traditionally offered 100% commissions to affiliates on products in order to create a list of buyers. This has been going on for some time now; nothing new there. But I think that we’re seeing the start of a new trend where skilled Internet marketers are going to start offering 100% commissions on products so that they can capture recurring commissions on high quality monthly membership sites.

Which leads to the question: Do you want to be one of the marketers scrambling for those one-time $20 commissions — or do you want to be the one capturing the recurring commissions on membership sites and services that deliver on their promises and make money for those using it?

OK, two things I want to clarify right from the start:

1. Most of my affiliate review type posts are relatively unbiased. This one is not. You’ll find out why later.

2. Yes, this involves affiliate links. If you click and order (which you should do), I’ll make money.

How about two more?

3. I received complimentary access to this site. Normally I don’t accept such “comps” but this time I’d be silly to actually pay for it because…

4. I’ll tell you how you can get free access by purchasing access to another membership site (that costs, as I write this, $12.95 more per month and is, in my opinion, worth a lot more).

OK, time to get down to business and try to make sense out of the nonsense I’ve written so far!

The site: Dennis Becker’s "Learn One Thing A Day".

What is it? It’s a site that gives you one new thing to learn every day if you are working on building your online business.

Dennis built this site to replace DailySeminar.com. As he mentions in the sales letter, DailySeminar.com contained a limited number of lessons that were “fed” to members over time. Doing the lessons in order would vastly increase your knowledge in many areas that are vital to your online business.

Dennis is a pretty sharp guy and had already built a pretty successful business (he also works his tail off, and hard work is essential to building a business. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it now; if you aren’t willing to work long, hard hours to create a successful business, go check your spam folder for “instant riches”. It’s full of offers, none of them work, and you’ll only lose money if you continue to try to chase them. Long, hard work is the only way to build a truly successful long-term business. The gurus won’t tell you that because they want you to keep on giving them your money in hopes that the “next product” will be the “magic bullet”. It’s called cognitive dissonance… but I digress). He learned a lot by going through the materials for Daily Seminar and realized that it could be expanded.

Ever since he started his Earn 1K A Day membership site, he’s been accumulating all kinds of good materials that can help people learn. And he decided to “fill in the gaps”, so to speak, and combine his vast library of materials with Daily Seminar to make a new site: The aforementioned Learn One Thing A Day.

The old Daily Seminar only delivered new content three days a week and the content was created by two extremely hard working individuals. However, I believe that you can learn something from almost anybody, and by adding the stuff that Dennis has collected over the years, the program has become much more valuable. And as the site title says, you’ll get new content “dripped” to you every single day (you do have to log in to the site daily to get the new content).

If you can take some time every day to go over the new content that’s dripped into your personal members’ area daily, you can learn a lot. If Dennis can learn, I’m pretty confident that you can, too.

The neat thing is that regardless of when you start, you get the first day’s lesson right away, and another lesson will be added approximately every 24 hours. I signed up on January 8, 2010; If you sign up on January 8, 2011, you’ll get Lesson 1 on that day while I’ll get Lesson 365 (if my math is correct and if Dennis delivers lessons on weekends; I’m not sure if he does or not).

I like Dennis, I like the stuff I’ve purchased from him in the past, and even though my personal Lesson count is on “1″, I’m confident that the stuff he’ll be delivering is top-notch. I was also a member of Daily Seminar and know some of the things that await you, but even if I didn’t, I’d still recommend Dennis’ stuff “sight unseen” because I know and trust Dennis.

And now, about the “comp” access I got… As a member at Earn 1K A Day, I got free access. If you join Earn 1K A Day, you, too, can get free access to Learn One Thing A Day for as long as your membership to Earn 1K A Day is in good standing (in other words, you keep up with your payments and don’t try to antagonize other members).

So you have two options:

1. Join Learn One Thing A Day for $27 a month and get all of the lessons for as long as you choose to remain a member.

2. Join Earn 1K A Day for $39.95 a month (the current price; I am confident that it will go up soon since Learn one Thing A Day is now free for Earn 1K A Day members — but once you join, your price remains the same, even if Dennis later raises the price. I’ve been a member of Earn 1K A Day for some time now and the monthly price I pay is much less than $39.95 a month — and it always will be as long as I don’t cancel my membership, which would not be a good thing…). Along with all of the benefits of Earn 1K A Day, access to Learn One Thing A Day is included.

One of the “negatives” of Earn 1K A Day, as Dennis readily admits on the sales page, is that it really isn’t for newbies to Internet information marketing (although many hard-charging newcomers have joined and flourished). With the addition of Learn One Thing A Day, I think that this “deficiency” is no longer going to apply. Join Earn 1K A Day, faithfully do the Learn One Thing A Day lessons every day, and you’ll soon be ahead of most other marketers (again, this is just my opinion, and if all you do is learn, learn, learn and never put what you learn into action, you won’t make money. Also remember that there’s no guarantee of making money even if you do take action, but a lot of people are enjoying increased success and income due to putting what they have learned into action).

So what do you get with Earn 1K A Day (in addition to access to Learn One Thing A Day)? Here are just a few things:

• Access to the Earn 1K A Day members’ forum. If this were all that were included, I think it would be worth the price of admission. It’s one of my favorite Internet information marketing forums, and since you have to pay to participate, it keeps out almost all of the “forum trolls” that spoil many of the free forums. It really is a great forum.
• Learn 12 core business models. There are specific forums in the members’ area dedicated to this, and each forum is moderated by somebody with experience in that area. And we’re pretty rough when it comes to defining “experience”; if somebody isn’t successful in that area, we don’t call ‘em an “expert”…
• Access to seven other membership sites (there are only six listed on the sales page; Dennis hasn’t added Learn One Thing A Day just yet).

And all of these “extras” will only cost you $12.95 above what you’d pay for Learn One Thing A Day by itself (NOTE: prices change; PLEASE click on the links and check out the current prices on the sales page to get the current price).

So make your choice: Will it be:

1. Dennis Becker’s "Learn One Thing A Day" membership site for $27 a month; or

2. Dennis Becker’s "Earn 1K A Day" membership site for $39.95 a month, which includes access to Learn One Thing A Day, plus the 1KAD membership forum, 12 business models, six other membership sites, plus much more?

And I do my best to answer general computer security questions inside the forum… No extra charge!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer it.

REMINDER: All links in this post are affiliate links. I pay for access to Earn 1K A Day (but I joined when the rate was lower; I don’t pay the current rate) and my Earn 1K A Day membership gives me free access to Learn One Thing A Day. Becoming a member will give you access to training, encouragement, and motivation; it’s up to you to do something with it if you want to actually make some money from it.