Remember to stay tuned because tomorrow I’ll post some pictures from this night and share with you my goals for 2009.

Hope you are all enjoying this night! A great new year and God bless you all.

ShareThis

The truth is I lost interest in my blog when I saw that I can make more money with my business. That being told, after two weeks of wakening up at 4am and going to sleep at 11pm I realize that no matter how much money I make this is not the life I wanna live. Making money online means so much more than just making money. Means you have the freedom to be were ever you wanna be, mean you don’t have to spend have of your day in your car driving from point A to point B (if you are self-employed, this being my case), means you can be your own boss…

Some updates

Well, first of all, my blog is now a year and a day old. So happy birthday to my blog! I got a lot of cool plans with it, but I will discuss this in another post. Second off all, I own some people apologies. I have to reward the Top Commentators of October and November with a review and I will do that by the end of this year.

The plan to make money online - the short version

Well, since I don’t expect to make a full income just from this blog I will take some freelance writing jobs and start investing more in PPC marketing. I will soon make a more in-depth post about that also.

All the above being told, expect a lot more great articles because I’m back online and I’m here to stay for good. ( don’t forget to follow me on twitter, I just got pass 100 followers).

ShareThis

What do I do now?

Well, with my good friend/business partner (you can see pictures with him here) we are managing a group of 40 people in order to help resolve the traffic problem we have here in Bucharest. Our role in the whole project is to have 2 people counting cars in different key-point intersections (using clickers) and 8 drivers with gps trackers doing 4 defined routes (one from the point A to point B, the other one from point B to point A). Basically we must keep in touch with all the drivers, make sure all the people come to work in the morning and in the evening(we have 2 shifts), we distribute a clipboard with the locations for the persons counting the cars and a clipboard with the route they have to make for the drivers. Just to make things clear, WE are not working for anybody, we are our own bosses. We offer a service as a company to another company.

About making money

Well, as we all know, the old-fashioned way to make money is to work for somebody and sell your time for money. I’ve done that. I’ve worked for an ISP and for one of the big banks in Europe (BRD-part of Societe General - it’s in french and I don’t know where to put the commas) and to be honest it wasn’t for me. I mean it was interesting, I’ve learned a lot, but I don’t like the idea of making money for somebody else when you can make money for yourself by running your own business. All you have to do is follow a few steps. Remember this applies to on-line businesses also.

1. Have a business plan - Why? Because it will help you a lot on a short/long term. The business plan in more or less like the story of your company. What do you do? Do you offer a product or a service? Who are your costumers? How much money will you need to start? How much money will you need on a monthly basis to keep your business running? How are you going to get that money (by selling X products or by offering X services) and still make a profit? Where can you optimize the cost? etc. You will find a lot of business plans on the web, all you have to do it’s adapt it to your business. Or if you’d like to take large amounts of money from a bank, it’s better to hire a professional to do the planning for you.

2. Stick to your goals - Set your goals right. Not to high, because if you don’t get there in the time frame you’ve put you will be disappointed, but not to low either because if you reach your goal to soon/fast/easy you will not be motivated enough (this works for me at least).

3. Optimize - Always look for a way to cut costs. But in an optimum way. For example: When I first started I bought a mobile phone with a 2 year contract with Orange. I had 480minutes with other networks and 500 within the network and payed USD $62. I discovered that I could cut this cost in half using a different network and still have the same privileges. The example I gave you can apply for suppliers, distributors, fix costs and a lot more.

4. Don’t give up - If something goes wrong, don’t give up. If you did something wrong, don’t give up. Just keep on going, learn from your mistakes and try to better yourself.

5. Network - It’s very important WHO you know in any business. Try to go to every main event in your niche, every expo and try to network with new suppliers, new distributors or new business partners.

This are just a few tips and just a few thoughts I would like to share with you. I would like you to comment about what would you like to read more or simply your opinion about this.

ShareThis

Some of you might consider the decision I made (not to post for a few days) a bad one. I simply call it opportunity cost. What that means? It means that I decided what is the best thing to do in a limited time frame and what I have to sacrifice to accomplish that (the second best thing). More explicit, what this means is that I’ve preferred my offline business over my blog because that produced me more money in a shorter period of time. And if you are an entrepreneur (online or offline one) I’m sure you will understand my point of view.And by producing  more money, I’m happy to say that I’ve signed quite a few good deals at the end of this week.

“There is always an opportunity cost in a decision that is made either in economics or everyday life.”, Wikipedia.

There comes a time when we all have to make this kind of decisions. I’m not gonna lie to you. My monthly bills and gas are not paid by money I make online (at least 80% of it). I wish I could make a living exclusively from making money online, but currently, I’m still in the learning process, and make most of my money by managing my own company. I have to choose what is best for me if I wanna succeed (and I think that all my readers have a desire to succeed) in life.

This is just a short post to free my mind. I would like to know your opinion about the opportunity cost. What was the opportunity cost for you to start your own business/site/blog/product (what could you’ve done with that money)? And do you regret the decisions you’ve made?

ShareThis

ShareThis

So instead, I wanna talk about something else. I wanna talk about staying truth to yourself and everybody else. I must admit that when I bought the domain(yeah, yeah, if you do a who.is you will find out that the domain is on Julie’s name-didn’t have a cc on me and I thought the name was hot), I thought about creating a site, a forum more exactly where every online or offline entrepreneur could share tips/advices/ideas maybe create partnerships and stuff like that. But, this thought kinda go away. Then John Chow with the help of Bluefur offered one-year blog account for just $10. So I said “wtf” and decided to join.

I’ve then decided to make this a make money online blog (even though at that time I haven’t made any real money online). Staying true to the game, I presented people ways to make a few cents by digging, commenting, etc (the ways I knew to make money online). Then I’ve talked about affiliate marketing. The funny thing is I did tried affiliate marketing, had some success with it, but never blogged about it. I thought about writing an ebook -I was using a method that anybody could easy replicate and the ROI was %500 - will I myself and you if you knew the method wouldn’t consider it BlackHat because you did nothing wrong, the guys at Rocketprofit decided to close that offer on me after sending the second payment.

Well, after that my offline business prospered, but INSTED of talking about entrepreneur-like things I was to lazy to post something (you can see that starting from March). And know as you all know I decided to take it to the next level. I’ve decided to talk about thinks I do offline and online, but most important I decided to write from the heart (hope this is the correct version of the expresion in english )

So, that beeing said, the ideea is that if you write about something you like or enjoy, it will be benefic both for you and your readers. Would like to know your opinion about this, so feel free to share your thoughts with me(the top commentators get’s a $15 worth review).

ShareThis

Right, back to the contest. So, my man Mattaw, from Moneybites decided to hold a real prizes contest and this is my blog post to earn a few entries. What do I mean by real prizes? Check out for yourself:

Copeac – A $100 Amex Cash Card ($100 Value)

Motive Interactive – A Flip Mino Camera and gear ($200 Value)

MaxBounty – A pair of Bose in ear headphones ($100 Value)

OIOPublisher – 3 free copies of OIO Publisher 2.0 ($141 Value)

Entrecard – 10,000 free Entrecredits ($60 Value)

Super Press Themes – 1 copy of the soon to be released SuperPress Wordpress Theme ($139 Value)

Misc – 1 Under Armor long sleeve shirt branded with the CPAEmpire logo ($35 Value)

All prizes valued at $675. That’s really nice. Especially that Flip Mino Camera. I really want TO WIN a Flip and I hope I will win this time.

What you can do to gain more entries? (except blog about it)

Well, subscribe to his RSS by email, insert up to 3 of the sponsors in the blogroll and of course comment on the blog. There will be secret entries also, so don’t forget to stay in touch.

Well, as a final note. I will tell you what I like about the contest. I like that is a real prizes contest and by real prizes I mean valuable prizes and it shows that Mattaw took time to talk to sponsors or took time to pick the best sponsors for this contest. All I can say is he did a good job and that I hope I win something!

ShareThis

Well, after the 30 day Challenge (you can still join that here and have access to all the videos and tools) I really start searching for this type of contest. I mean, let’s face it, it is in our human nature to compete with other and we give our best when we wanna show the world that we are better then the other guy. I’ve read on Twitter a twitt from @succespayswell about him joining $100 Million Dollar Challenge and I thought to give it a go.

As you can see for yourself the home page seems like one of those get-rich-quick schemes. At least that is my first impression. In the video you find out that this site is rune by Russell Brunson (you can do a google on him to find out more) and how he is helping you to earn money on the internet. From what I understand, the goal is to collectively make $100 Million Dollars, not just one guy to make this amount. After you join (by the way, joining is for free) Russel will try to sell you some of his e-book at special prices, hopefully you know the drill. Don’t get me wrong, Russel can sell, I mean after I watched an interview with Amit from Super Affiliates Mindset, a 40 minutes interview and then watched Russel trying to sell those products and talking about what will you find on his site. Oh man! No offense Amit but you talk like a person with mental disabilities. I wouldn’t pay a cent to hear you/see you talk and I honestly don’t see how someone like you made $2.4 millions in a year using PPC.

Anyways, let’s get back to the site. So, after you signed up, you are taken to the dashboard where you have unlocked Step 1. To unlock the other steps you have to watch 4 videos, take 4 quizzes and finish 4 tasks. Every quiz and task you finish will give you a keyword that you have to type in order to unlock the next step.

And in every step you compete with the others for a grand prize. At the first step, the best video telling why he/she should win the Corvette wins a 42″ TV. A Corvette I said? Yes, the winner of this contest will win a Corvette (and the money he/she makes during this challenge and of course: knowledge).

Oh, one important think. Another goal of this challenge is to help Russel donate $50,000 to charity; you can chip in with as little as you got. And one last thing. For every person you refer, you get $1, and for every other person they refer you get 5 cents. So don’t forget to sign up and come back here and share your experience or opinion about the site and the challenge.

ShareThis

I’ve decided that every Sunday I will post a more “simple” article. As the 18 people that were following me on Twitter knew (I just love Twitter, you should definitely join), I was at a friend’s birthday party. You can see a few photos in the Gallery section of the site.)

This is a response  to Danny Cooper’s post about What’s on your RSS Reader.

Well, first of all, what is rss?I will let the video explain that to you.

To read my rss feeds I use Google Reader, but you can choose the one you prefer.

I first decided to subscribe to RSS when Shoemoney and John Chow had a contest one against other on who will get the most subscribers. Since I like both I decided to subscribe to Shoe’s and John’s blogs.

Anyways, beside A list bloggers who Danny mentioned, I’m subscribed to following blogs, just to name a few:

Famous Entrepreneur in the making

A site about blogging tips and making money flipping niche websites

BlackHatWay.Com

Recently sold. Has a new owner. As the site’s domain says - it’s a blog about making money using black hat methods.

Blog for beginners

A very useful site. Has a very nice theme also

Bryn Youngblut :: Entrepreneur and Affiliate Marketer

This guy is an entrepreneur just like me

Direct Sales Web Marketing

I like the way that Dennis makes you comment on his blog.

IM with Joe

I love his video posts, especially the “this video is sponsored by…” part.

Inspired affiliate

Paul really knows his stuff. A great place for beginner affiliate marketers. I first heard about Paul, on Tyler blog.

Joe Tech

I heard about Joe on Tyler’s blog and thought about check his site out. I ended up subscribing.

Moneybites

Love the contest and the content also.

Site Flipping University

A must have in your list if you wanna make some money online by flipping web sites.

Smarter Wealth

Because I saw Ryan commenting like crazy. Decided that I should check his blog out.

And of course last but not least, the initiator of this type of post - Linkers Blog.

Well, this are just a few of the blogs that I read. Off course, I read news sites, market news about promotional gifts from clients or suppliers (my offline business).

Well, hope you will subscribe to my RSS also to make sure you don’t miss the 3rd post of my “How to promote your articles” series. (Check out Marketing is queen and Content is King) Would love to know your opinion about RSS or what is your primary criteria in deciding if you subscribe or not to a site’s RSS feed.

ShareThis

Using social media to promote your blog

Well, as soon as I push the publish button (well, sometimes it make take like a half an hour) the new article appears on my Twitter page, letting all my followers know I’ve posted something new on my site.  You do that by simply going to Twitterfeed and link your Twitter profile to your blog/blogs. Don’t worry, it’s an easy task. All you have to do is insert your twitter user name and password and then your RSS feed link. Then you have a few more options (update frequency, post up to “x” new updates each time to name just a few), custmize them and press update. That’s all.

I guess a lot of you use MyBlogLog. It’s another social media tool that I simply love. MyBlogLog allows you to add a lot of social media services on your profile, so that you can keep your friends updated, wether you uploaded new pictures on Flickr, shared something on Google Reader, twitter, youtube, stumbleupon, etc. Well, the idea with MyBlogLog is that after you have a community (don’t forget to join my growing community) you can send messages to all your members about anything related to you or your sites.

I’m sure that a lot of you didn’t heard about Stumbleudon (this is an invitation to join, if this does not work please leave a comment and I will send you a new one). It’s a site, very you can get free stumbles. What that means? Well, when you sign up you will get 5 credits. You can gain 2 credits if you discover someone’s else site and you gain one credit for every person you refeer. If you manage to have 10 credits (by doing to things mentioned early) you can have your site discover by someone else in the network and receive 10 stumbles. With the right timing and if you have a good story, Stumbleudon is a really great tool. All you need is a StumbleUpon account.

Piqqus, is the big brother of Stumbleudon. Here you stumble other peoples story and gain credits that you can use to promoto your own sites. The good news is that Piqqus works with Digg and Propel also.

Well, this are the “immediately after the post” methods I use to promote my articles. I would like to know what you use or what do you thing of them? Make sure to follow me on twitter to stay updated or say your opinion regarding this post and don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed.

ShareThis