Destiny Dawn Marie

Good morning night owls, it is 3:43 AM and I feel pretty good after a long night of work and will soon be off to spend a few minute playing bejeweled before heading to bed before the sun comes up.

Lots of changes this time of year for every one, I know for us we have been facing some serious financial problems out here on the farm which is never a good thing as you head into the winter months.  The farm has never looked more neglected since I have lived here than it does right now.  The lawn tractor needs tires, the water system at the old house is still not functional, and we still have many small trees downed from the windstorm that have not been dealt with.

As we move into the colder season, online sales will rise.  This time of year is always on the upswing for sales on Amazon.com, eBay.com, and other e-commerce mediums. Books and other indoor or related hobby items become more in demand as people find themselves stuck in the house with less sunshine and lower temperatures.

I am still working on my book storage areas, it has turned into a more complex project then expected.  But doesn’t everything?  For some reason this stuff will not move itself around without me physically getting away from the computer and doing it.  I have read many books about the applications of the “Law of attraction”, about how we as humans control our reality through our thought processes, and I believed the saying “mind over matter”.  But no matter how much I sit here and think about ways to get this project done, it’s still going to take a little muscle and a whole lot of action to get it in gear.

As far as my marketing efforts, this year has been spent testing, researching, and trying different social media marketing methods.  I’ve come to a huge realization that like many other areas of life — the best processes start with GIVING.  By giving others comments, feedback, and recognition of their content you can effectively produce some energy inside of your own profiles.  Otherwise you just end up with a bunch of profiles on the web of yourself telling others more about yourself, while most generally nobody cares about you because they are too busy working on their own profiles.  So make sure that you spend some time checking everybody else out if you want to be checked out to.

Although the temperatures have been awesome this week with highs in the 70s (for November in Ohio!), I have still managed to get more done in the last week online than I have most of the summer.  It is a combination of farm living, physical health, and the struggle to survive 16 miles from civilization with gas prices over four dollars a gallon.

As the cold weather approaches I know that I must get my book selling business back in operation.  I am going to try to boost sales this winter with a little social media marketing. I am not sure what all I will come up with, I guess you’ll just have to watch and find out!

More and more people are looking for ways to earn extra income today; as living expenses rise and budgets are stretched thin.  Many choose self-employment and home business ventures as alternatives to the corporate grind. Some enjoy newfound freedoms and control that a successful home-based business delivers while others try and fail.  A worse fate still is the many great small business ideas that are dreamed of yet never explored.

Several years ago, I realized I was in financial trouble and going downhill quickly.  I was over my head in debt and unable to afford moving out of the severely depressed economic area where I lived.  As a young, single mother, I soon realized it was costing me around $12 a day, after travel expenses and babysitting fees, to work the minimum wage jobs in the local area.  I was headed deeper in debt doing what everyone had always told me was the “right” thing to do: get a job and work hard every day for someone else!

I sat at my kitchen table with my weekly paycheck, calculator and notebook and saw the numbers before me in black and white. The “right” thing wasn’t working; slaving at the local burger joint waiting for a better job to open up was not going to fix the problem.  I decided to learn more about self-employment.  It was a turning point that brought me down the path to where I am today.

I gave you a little about my background to demonstrate I know where many of you are coming from. Many others are experiencing the same financial dilemma of dead-end jobs and growing debt today that I experienced then.

Today, I’m a marketing consultant for a new online home-based business operating on a shoestring budget. I researched many online businesses before settling in on this one.

With all of that said, I encourage you to allow yourself to explore your home-based business dreams. I would, however, offer you some key elements to consider that I learned the hard way.

1. Don’t try to learn everything you need to know before you decide to begin.  While research and knowledge are important to success, too much will overwhelm you and paralyze you with information overload.

2. Don’t think there is a magic program for sale out there that produces overnight wealth without putting in some serious effort.

3. Don’t think that you can figure it all out and manage it all on your own! BIG no no. A mentor and team are necessary for your learning process and long term business survival.

Number three is key.  Had I understood that one and found a mentor early on, it would have saved me from learning the first two lessons the hard way.  The hard way is almost always painful and expensive!

Finding a good mentor and a support team you trust is very challenging and time-consuming.  Many with the “work at home” bug avoid dependence of a support system and struggle blindly through the dark days of their small business startups.  This is an ego problem that must be overcome.  It is okay to need a little help learning the ropes.

Another lesson I learned that doesn’t conform to what we are taught is that the best mentors are not friends and family, no matter how successful they may be.  Nor will great mentors be free.  A good mentor is not there to make you feel good about yourself, be your buddy or do the job for you.  A true mentor assumes a great responsibility of delivering honesty and guidance through their own expertise.  Friends, family and free mentoring are often misguided by emotion and personal motives.

When considering self-employment, factor in the costs of a good coach who will take a personal approach to understanding your resources and business development goals. This is the secret weapon of the most highly successful home-based business entrepreneurs. Follow this advice and you are one step closer to your own success.

About the Author: Dawn Wentworth AKA DestinyDawn  has been actively engaged in the internet marketing community since 1996 and is currently helping internet marketing business owners establish teams and mentors at http://www.BigWealthBuilder.com

It’s official - eBay stores are not the place to try and sell rare books. I am closing my ebay store.

I will be looking for a new avenue to sell some of my rare, advanced copy, and signed books over the summer. So if you know of anything - let me know!

I wrote this post for another blog I publish, but wanted to share the information here as well. Why? Because Article Marketing is simply an awesome resource for marketers of any type online right now. It is a great starting point to test, try, and deliver information to your target market. I also wanted to brag about my newest marketing connection.

While most methods of traffic generation have their spot light of time and fizzle away to new trends and technology, article marketing and press releases have retained their fame as a high quality traffic generator.

I want to post a few motivations to incorporate article marketing into your marketing mix.

1. Articles will quickly position you as an expert in your field.
2. Articles can become little 24/7 salespeople.
3. Just one article can be used in many ways.
4. Articles spread the word about your business and your services.
5. Marketing articles is simple, easy and inexpensive, especially when compared to other ways of marketing online.
6. Articles can help you build a mailing list that you can market to over and over again.
7. Articles allow you to stay in touch with customers/clients and sell more products.
8. Search Engines LOVE them.
9. Website and Newsletter owners always need them.
10. They generate Life Long residual Traffic.
11. Great way to get One-Way HIGH PR links.
12. They’re VIRAL.
13. You can syndicate them via RSS.
14. Bloggers with BLOGS need “Information” to.
15. Info-Product developers need it to.
16. Post them to related Forums and Newsgroups.
17. They create highly targeted traffic quickly.
18. Articles can be listed, archived, and send traffic for years to come.

Before I went to college I started an affiliate marketing campaign. In just a few days I set up a website, created a free downloadable report and wrote an article on the same topic and promoted my free report in the bio box.

3 days - one article = $8,500 in total income. This one campaign paid half of my college tuition the first year! Now you see why I get excited talking about the power of marketing with articles. This income didn’t come all in one day .. but in the form of residual income - a few hundred a month, each month for a little over two years.

The biggest reason my article was successful was because I sought out and used a human powered article submitting company. Having a real human help edit, advise and submit my article for me was a stress free success factor that I never imagined on my first published article.

Years later the service has only gotten better so I hope you are willing to take a look and compare them to your current distribution system. They made my first campaign a huge success and I would love to see everyone struggling with their internet marketing progress to have a success story such as mine ( or better ) to share!

I have to admit, I am an affiliate of the service - and recently begun doing work in the marketing department of this wonderful company. So maybe I am a bit bias - but you can give the free trial a shot and see for yourself how nice it is to work with a human powered company. And as an added bonus - if you like the free offer and decide to stay with us - I can get you special pricing for being a valued reader of my blog posts! - Just ask me for the deal of a lifetime! Click on the button below and try the 100% free no strings attached free trial offer.

I would love to hear more about YOUR article marketing products, services, trials, errors and success stories!

If you know me, then you know I have been making money on the Internet for over a decade.  If you do not know me personally, then let me tell you …I’ve spent a lot of money and time learning, trying and testing many different business concepts over the years.  Changes in technology and in the marketplace put an end to many things that worked five years ago, but open up a world of new opportunities for those who are willing to look for them. It’s an ever changing market and can become a non-stop roller coaster ride that can be quite expensive when out of control.

What I see happen most is —> good people try TO HARD, lose to much money to quickly and give up before they have had a chance to regain the money invested. Most money is lost to info-products and get rich quick how to guides.

I do not believe that there is ONE guide or manual out there that can tell YOU how to make money online.  The key word in that sentence is YOU.  That is because what works for Joe may not work for Bill.  And what works for Bill will not work for Susie etc. This is a great thing — it means that there are literally hundreds of ways to make money online.  But it also means that you have to put a good deal of effort into finding a way that works for you.  You cannot buy into the latest “hot” info product that is ready to guarantee your great success and expect to follow some secret recipe and achieve the promised results.  Yes, it does happen.  Most often it happens when the consumer buying the how-to guide has mentally conditioned themselves to become the success story and all they needed was a self-confidence and appoint the right direction to get them started.

But I think this means for the rest of the Internet income opportunity seekers is that you must quickly step away from the PayPal buy it now button.  If you have purchased more than three information products online, chances are the next one will not be your ticket to fame either. There are some wonderful paid products out there, but by understanding your needs, attitude, skills, and where you should fit in,  you can save hundreds of dollars and hours down the road.

Understanding your self and the how you can best earn an income utilizing the global information highway is not an easy process if you are just starting out.  But there are certain ways of earning income online that are much easier than others and I hope to share several of these concepts with others as time permits. 

For now I am going to create a new page on this website called Online Income.  Although this page will be far from complete when considering all the businesses that are out there that do work, this page will be home to some of the easier more successful products or services I have worked with and endorse.

Thank you for reading my post, I will talk in depth about each of the services that get listed on that page soon.  I am also looking for 2 or 3 volunteers that would like to try any of the services listed with my personal mentorship.  I will personally hold your hand and help you get started earning income at no extra costs. I need the training experience and good reference you can give me after you start making money!

Until next time … let destiny be your guide.

I see many people stating how they would love to be self employed and decided to tell it like I see it. I have been self employed since 1996 and this is what I have learned.

Self employment / working at home is HARD.

1. There is no “off” time, you are always on duty.
2. You will get no respect from ANYONE unless you earn more then they do.
3. You will get the “eyebrow” every time you fill out income statements.
4. You will not be able to get credit as easily as a W2 earner.
5. You will get taxed heavier then anyone else in your income bracket.
6. You won’t have all the extra time you thought you would have - I promise.
7. You will do 10 times more paperwork then you ever imagined.
8. Your friends and family will not think of your work .. as work.
9. Your friends and family will innocently expect you to give them free services.
10. Everyone will assume your schedule is flexible and expect you to bend to theirs.
11. Everyone will expect you to do all domestic chores because your home all day.
12. You will soon realize clients are much more demanding then your ex boss was.
13. You will pass out when you see how hard it is to keep up with employees and insurances and the paperwork involved with both.
14. Your potential to run into legal problems will quadruple overnight.
15. You will live with your work and take it to bed with you nightly.
16. You home life and work life become entangled, balance becomes a battle.
17. You begin eating at your desk and get outside less and less.
18. You put on weight from being on your computer more.
19. You begin to loose energy from the weight gained.
20. You must become a little bit of everything to manage all aspects of your business.
21. You live with constant stress of trying to calculate the “next” payday.
22. Clients don’t always pay on time.
23. Progress is often slow, setbacks are often major.
24. Your family feels neglected, your friends get board and your left with more work.
25. and my biggest gripe about being self employed - YOU CAN’T FIRE YOURSELF!

I’m sure I am forgetting many of my gripes. Can it be rewarding .. yes it can. But it is NOT easy, you end up working twice as hard for half the pay and twice the taxes. Sure you can work in your underwear, sure you can sleep until noon, sure you can tell your boss to shove it … but when you weigh both sides of the equation you better have a business plan, and a backup plan and a backup plan for the backup plan.

Can you do it? I did. If I can - anyone can!
Should you do it? Depends on you, your lifestyle and your expectations.

Be sure to look for small business classes in your local community and do your homework. Put one foot in front of the other and you will make it if that is your chosen path. Don’t take my gripe list as a reason not to try .. but as a warning on what to watch for so that it doesn’t slow you down.

What do I recommend? Affiliate marketing. No product, no inventory, no shipping, no office, no customer service, no employees … it’s all good. It is a great opportunity to earn some side income while you step inside the realm of self employment.

How did I learn? AffiliateClassroom. I invite you to come check it out for $1.