Found this news clip interesting from Yahoo

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Intelligence has nothing to do with wealth, according to a US study published Tuesday which found that people with below average smarts were just as wealthy as those with higher IQ scores.

“People don’t become rich because they are smart,” said Jay Zagorsky, research scientist at Ohio State University whose study appears in the Journal Intelligence.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics survey included 7,403 Americans who have been interviewed repeatedly since 1979. Based on 2004 answers, people who are now in their mid-40s showed no link between brain- and earning-power.

“Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth. And being very smart does not protect you from getting into financial difficulty,” Zagorsky said.

The study confirmed previous research which has shown that smarter people tend to earn more money, but pointed out there is a difference between high pay and overall wealth.

“The average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top two percent of society (130) is currently between 6,000 and 18,500 dollars per year,” it said.

“But when it came to total wealth and the likelihood of financial difficulties, people of below average and average intelligence did just fine when compared to the super-intelligent.”

An irregular pattern of total wealth as well as financial distress levels — such as maxed out credit cards, bankruptcy and missing bill payments — emerged among the various degrees of intelligence, the study said.

The study measured intelligence based on scores from the US Armed Services Qualification Test, a general aptitude test used by the

Department of Defense.

One Less Excuse, would you say?

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There is nothing wrong with being an affiliate and selling other peoples products, I’ve made a good living since 1998 from others work. I’ve seen success story after success story, affiliates making some great money. Frankly though, I’ve grown tired of making others more wealthy and here are a few reasons why. Some reasons why you should consider selling your own products or services.

1. Saturation -  Being an affiliate, your not going to be the only one to sell any given product. With a big launch or a product produced by one of the big name guru’s, there could be thousands of marketers selling the exact same thing. There is a good chance your traffic has already seen or heard about it. Being on a number of lists I see the same pitch many times over, I am only going to buy from one person, every one else loses the sale.
2. Affiliate Sales - How much do you think you could make if you have thousands of marketers selling your products? Instead of working your tail off getting your offers out there, you have many others selling for you at no cost, they only get paid if they make a sale, which means a profit for you.
3. Backend - If your selling an affiliate product, who gets the back end sales? It’s a fact the backend is where the big money is  made.

These are just a few points, but important aspects to think about, depending on your finacial goals or dreams.

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If there is one thing I could stress to any one selling products or services is that they make customer service a priority, if not the top priority.

I recently tried to purchase a report from a Internet marketer, don.’t even remember what it was and would’nt say anyways. For some reason I could not purchase the item with my paypal account, I can’t remember the reason. I have used that account many times to buy products from others with no problem. I even recognized the scripts he was using to sell the product, again, I’ve bought through the same script on other sites without a hitch.

I could have done what most any other person would have, just moved on and that would be the end of it. Being a nice guy I submitted a support ticket on support desk to alert him of the problem.

Do you want to guess how long it too him to get back to me?

Try 13 days. Yep, almost two weeks to answer my ticket.

Now it did appreciate the fact that I let him know of the problem, but that was pretty much it. He had no idea why it did not work, which can be understandable. Course he also did not make an effort to find out why or even talk about looking in to it. It did’nt work, sorry, and that was that. Not even a thought to how I could give him my money. Guess he’s got enough money, he does’nt need mine. Guess he does’nt my lifetime value either.

Will I even be one of his customers? Nope.

Not because he’s a bad guy or hurt my feelings. It is the fact that it took 13 days to respond. What if I had purchased a product and had a problem? Guess I would have had to wait 13 days to get help. My first thought, if I did buy something, what if I did need support? Think I know the answer.

I understand people get busy, I lost count how many hours I have spent on this computer, but customer support should the last thing to let slide.

Many people wonder how they can compete on the Internet with so many others trying to sell their wares. Does’nt seem like there is enough room. From the example above, just one of many, if you run your business right, you’ll be 90% ahead of the competition.

Want to be rich? Do a better job than the rest. Thats it. It really can be that simple.

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The other day I received an email from a marketer, on who’s list I am a current subscriber. What surprised me was the fact that the one sales link in the mail, did not work, it took me to a 404 page. Of course things happen, I make mistakes every day, no one is perfect. I know I am a terrible speller, thats why I double check my writing and use spell check before publishing.

I see many mails with grammer and spelling mistakes, more often than I would have guessed.

Still others place their “ads” far below the content, what if the reader does’nt scroll down?

Another marketer sends me emails where the links in the copy are not active, how are readers going to click? How many will go to the trouble of copy and paste?

Do you have a procedure for creating your mailings? Maybe a procedure like the following:

1).  Re-read

2).  Spell-check

3). Verify Links

Just a general procedure list, sure you can create one for your own system or how you work. Maybe write it or print it up and post it where you can see it all the time.

Or you could take the chance of sending out mails that don’t produce?

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A big push of late seems to be making money with PLR products. If your unfamiliar, PLR stands for Private Label Rights. The general idea is that you are given or purchase a report or e-book with PLR rights which you can then sell and keep all the profits. What could be better, you have a product ready to go without having to type a word. It can be a quick easy way to make some cash.

You might ask, why would some one give me a ebook to sell and I let me keep all the profits? Two situations come to mind. First the end customer buying the product must give up their name and email address to the PLR product creator to recieve access to the product. Second would be that all the links in the product benefit the creator, be it affiliate links or links to other products they sell. It’s a great deal for the creator of the product with so many people getting their “stuff” out there, in the hands of many people. What does it cost them? Usually, not a penny, you’ve done all the work for them.

Dn’t get me wrong, it can be a great way to start and get some money going into your paypal account. But who is getting the best deal of the transaction? Who gets the up-sells? The cross sells? More importantly, who is getting the precious back-end sales? who stand to make the most money?

I’ve been carving out a income on the net since 1999, pushing affiliate programs. It took me far too long to realize, exactly who I was making rich. Granted I’ve made a good income for many years, but I came to understand, I was making others rich. I’ve spent many years working my butt off to produce traffic to push to some one else’s back-end. Sure I received a commission, but what did I lose on the lifetime of the customer?

What’s the solution? Of course create your own products. Don’t tell me you can not produce your own ebooks, every one can, they just need to start, it works for me.

If your stuck on how to make your own, check out Information Product Creation , the best you’ll find.

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When your mail your list, how many end up in the spam or trash folder of your readers email in-box? Do you even have a clue? If you have no idea, your only doing half the job. To make the most profit from your list, you know you need as many eyeballs checking out your copy as possible. Only make sense. How many will never see your prized piece of writing if it ends up in the spam folder?

Here’s an easy solution, test. How? If you don’t already have, create email accounts at the major email services such as Yahoo, Google or Hotmail. Create a test list on your auto responder with the the email accounts from above. Before blasting your mails to your list, send them to the test accounts and find out if they end up tagged as spam or trash. Often it can be just a a word that gets you nailed. Other marketers have found just their url in the emails set off the filters, you may need to use a url forwarder or link mask script.

Another good reason to test your emails, I’ve mentioned before but in case you did’nt read it, is to  check the links in your mailings. One list I “use to” be on sent me emails where the links where not active. Did I go through the trouble of copy and paste? Nope.

You can have the best copy and product in the world but if your list does’nt see the mail, how much are you losing?

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I joined a giveaway recently, you know the events where you have access to all kinds of freebies such as just for the price of your first name and e-mail address. Later I regretted it as I sure don’t need to be on any more lists, I know I am on far too many as it is. One of my time wasters I’m going to take care of, but that is another story and post in itself.

Back to the subject.

One thing I noticed was the number of marketers who are giving away quite a few freebies just for my email. I believe one person was giving away six ebooks for my information.

This gets me to thinking. For one, this person “seems” desperate to me. Feeling the need to give away so much to grab some of the gold. I am also thinking, what kind of subscriber is this person attracting? We all know there are freeloaders out there, people who only want the free stuff and never intend to buy anything. Naturally it’s part of the business, but why attract them in the first place?

I know marketers that use no giveaways to get an email address. These same marketers don’t even offer “bribes” to help sell their products.

What if your product was good enough to stand on it’s own?

What if you did’nt have to give away the farm to get the sale?

What if you did’nt have to bribe some one to buy from you?

What if…

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It’s pretty much a rule, if you want traffic and more important, if you want search engine traffic, you need link backs from other websites. I have yet to see, a website that brings in a fair amount of search engine traffic that does not have linkbacks. I said see, because I’m sure you know better than to believe everything every one says, so I don’t believe anything totally without seeing proof myself.

By far the best type of linkback you can get is a one way linkback. That is a link to your site from another site, without your site linking back to the first site. Did that make sense? It’s one way because it’s comign to your site, but not going out.

It makes sense that search engines love these links. It’s like some one is saying they like your website or found your website to be of value, hence they posted a link. It’s like a vote for your website. Now if you link back, it is probably going to be seen as a exchange. You are linking to them because they linked to you, often called a reciprocal link trade. The intention is not seen as a vote for a site, but as a trade to help gain in the search engines. It still works but not as well as it use to.

The job of a search engine is of course to provide relevant search results to the surfer. If you were a search engine what would you believe to be a better website? One that gets a vote because it’s good (can be perception), or one that just trades links?

How does one go about getting one way links? Most people don’t realize how many ways there are to go about getting links. If you have a blog, just pinging aggeregators like Technorati give you links from their site. Writing articles with a resource box that links back to your site. Posting on forums with a signature that links back to site. You could create accounts with many social networking and bookmarking sites and list your own page(s). It’s free to create a MySpace account were you can post a link to your site. The list is endless.

Of course not everyone way linkback is the same, some are more powerful than others, but I think you get my point.

Just in case your wondering, posting on blogs won’t help you, as most all use a nofollow tag in their comment that stop the search engines from seeing the link to your site, same for trackbacks. Thank the spammers for that one. You might find an old blog that does’nt use the nofollow tag, but I have’nt seen one of those for quite some time.

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One of my favorite motivational speakers is Steve Chandler. Although the first time I heard his voice I had to laugh a little. He has a somewhat mono tone, almost depressing voice , but after learning what he had to say, I was’nt laughing for long. He has some incredible thoughts, thoughts that make sense.

I believe I’ve mentioned him before.

My mp3 player is loaded with motivational, business and self-help content, but I made my way back to 101 ways to motive yourself, by of course Steve Chandler.

For me, some times I need to heard something more than once before it really “clicks”. Something clicked today, hence this post.

Today I listened to Steve talking about, as he said it, “Focus on Today”. It made so much sense.

He explained that when we focus on the past we bring on guilt. Does’nt it make sense? We think about the past and all the things we did’nt do, what we wished we had done, things we wished we had never done, the list goes on. Bet I’m not the only one to fall into that trap. Right?

Steve also talked about when we think about the future it’s not much better than thinking about the past. What happens when we think about the future? Most likely more worries. Worry about making enough money, will you be a success, will your business last, and on and on. Since we can’t tell the future, though some people would have us believe otherwise, the future can be scary just because it is unknown.

The solution? I’m sure you already figured it out.

Focus on Today. The past is just that, the past. Every day is a brand new day, a clean slate.

The future will take care of it’s self it you Focus on Today.

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I happen across a forum post that I see far to often.

First off I applaud any one for taking the big step of deciding to work for themselves. Few people ever get even that far.

The question this person was asking, if they build a list without an auto responder. Well, the real question was could they run a business for free without spending any money. Not that this was such a terrible question, but it’s echo’ed so often.

Maybe I am more curious. Do most people believe they can make money on the internet without spending anything? Maybe they are ill-informed or have misconceptions?

Don’t get me wrong, the internet can be an incredible opportunity. It is very possible to make a steady and comfortable income on a limited budget, but thats the clue, limited budget.

Free services on the internet are great and all, but they come with a price. Free auto responder services put their ads in every e-mail “you” blast out. Free web hosting services put ads on every one of “your” web-pages. Free e-mail services put their ads in all “your” e-mails.

Free web hosting is perfect for my wife to post pictures of our animals. Not so perfect for making money.

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