Hey guys, what a busy year it’s been but it’s been a good one. Just a little over a year ago, I had decided to go back to school. I was pretty excited. Work had slowed down to where we were working 40-45 hour work weeks, which had , so I thought, freed up some time in my life. Well, the week that I started school, we bumped back up to 55 hours and I had already committed to being a full time student with 3 classes. Ouch!

I was working 55-65 hours a week and putting in another 30-35 hours a week went towards school not leaving much time for anything else. I was getting about 4 hours of sleep on the average. By the third week I found myself constantly asking why am I doing this and I was on the verge of quitting school. I worked through it and got through the first semester to receive a perfect 4.0 award from the Dean and made the Dean’s list.

After 11 weeks of my new crazier than ever lifestyle, I was ready for the two week break. I bought a boat to get some much needed rest and relaxation. Too bad the damn thing only went backwards. And who knew that boat motors were so expensive? By the time I was able to buy a different engine, it was time to go back to school for the summer. The summer and fall semesters went pretty much like the first and at the end of each, I was ready for the break.

The winter semester was a little different. I had 2 classes that were more geared toward the marketing side of my degree. I was excited to start learning more about something that was of interest. Work was also slower with most of my work weeks only being 40 hours and sometimes less. I managed to squeeze quite a bit of ice fishing in even though I still had a lot on my plate. I was able to take the girls out fishing several times which also provided some much needed family time.

Last year at this time, I was going to get a degree in Web Design. I ended up switching to Business Management/Internet Marketing. I like internet marketing, but I’m not as big of fan of all the other Business Management type classes. I’m in somewhat of a management position at work and I don’t like it. If it’s running my own business, I can pick and choose who I work with, if anyone. When working for a different company, I don’t get much of a choice who I have to work with.

After the last year and feeling like I’m going the wrong direction, I’ve decided to got back in the Web Design direction. The good news is, most of the classes that I already took will transfer over and it will probably only add one more semester to getting my degree. I feel comfortable with this decision and I think I will get a lot more out of school.

I’m currently in the middle of my two week break and had my knee scoped a week and a half ago. School starts up again on April 3rd and I think I will be going back to work by the end of the week. I enjoyed the time off and got plenty of R & R. I was also able to do a little fishing and will hopefully be able to get on the water on weekends. It sounds like things are picking up at work, so life is about to get pretty busy again. Hopefully I’ll talk to you again soon.

Troy

Well, it’s been a month now that I have been involved with Zeek Rewards. How am I doing? I would say that I’m doing alright considering the amount of effort that I have invested in this opportunity. I started out with 100 VIP bids. My daily earnings weren’t huge, but I was still earning something every day. On Day 18 I added another $100. By day 31, which was yesterday, my account was up to $286.60. In one month, for posting one ad per day, I had earned over $85. Not bad really. If it takes me 3 minutes to place an ad, that’s an hour and a half of work. That’s over $60/hr. I like that.

The part that’s fascinating to me is that I have an excel spread sheet that that projects my earnings at 1.5% daily. According to the spread sheet, I should have $286.06. I did just a little better than that for my first month. For month 2, I bought another $500 worth of VIP bids. This will bring my account up to $786.60. I expect to have $20 days very soon. To some people, this may not seem like much. I think those people only see the small picture. Who wants to waste time to earn a couple bucks a day?

2 weeks from now, I will be adding another $3000-$4000. With $4000 in my account, earning daily profit sharing bonuses will start to look a lot nicer than what I was earning at $100. According to my spread sheet, My account will grow to around $20,000. At this point I expect to be pulling $100 per day out of my Zeek Rewards account. I will delegate the other 80% of my profits back towards my account all the while growing and earning more profit sharing bonuses.

This opportunity has me super excited about my future. Yeah, I wanted to buy some things with my taxes, and I did get some of what I want, but what I really wanted was to put some money towards my future. By buying VIP bids with a good portion of my tax return now may just have me sleeping in every morning. By the end of the year, I’m looking forward to throwing one hell of a retirement party. I hope you can make it.

To start planning your retirement party, CLICK HERE

Well, I’ve been away from the online world for awhile and I had started to get the itch again a couple months ago. A couple of my trusted old business partners approached me with a few different opportunities and because I trusted them, I got involved. Shortly after getting involved, I found that I really didn’t have the time. I was used to working my business full time and now I was forced to try and fit in what I could when I could.

I work full time, most times 60+ hours a week and I’m still going to school full time as well. Then there needs to be family time, me time and where the hell am I going to find time to run a fricken business. Maybe you’re going through the same thing, I don’t know, but I’m sick of it. About a month ago, I got involved in Empower Network, started by a couple Dave’s. It’s a very well thought out program and there is a ton of money to be made. But I don’t have time.

The day after I got involved with Empower Network, I ran into another past partner. She let me in on what she was doing for the past year that has passively become a five figure a month business for her. Passive, did she say passive. Yep, I needed to know more. She explained how the system worked and I started playing with the numbers, I fell in love with the numbers, I played with the numbers for several days and then I came up with my plan.

10 days ago, I joined a company that does penny auctions. If you don’t already know, penny auction sites huge money makers. They sell bids for either $.65 or $1. When a person bids, the auction goes up one penny. Essentially, they are turning a penny into a buck or even $.65. If you look at the auction site, you can do the math by how many bids are placed to see how much was actually made by the company on bids. Some of the items are astronomical.

Now where the fun comes in, is when you become a member, you buy VIP bids. The VIP bids are $1. For each VIP bid that you purchase, you will get a share in the revenue pool. So, I started out small, smaller than I wanted to, but I started, with $100. So far, in 10 days, I’ve made a little over $14. Now imagine joining and buying 10,000 VIP bids. I would have made closer to $1400.

Well, get to the point, right? Well, what has me so excited is that I got some of my W-2′s in the mail today and started doing my taxes. I have a rough estimate of what I’m getting back. I’m taking a portion of my tax returns and you know it, I’m buying VIP bids. It’s been fun making a buck or 2 every day, but I’m ready to start getting paid. I’ve laid out a plan that will put my daily earnings over $300 by July. ! years from now, I will be a 6 figure earner. What do I need to do to earn every day? I need to put an ad in an online classified site and then post the link in my back office to verify that I’m doing my job. Every day, my percentage of earnings varies, but during the week, but I have had steady earnings.

If you read this far, thanks. If you want in on my new tax time cash cow or just want a little more info, check out my site. Here

Make it a GREAT day,

Troy

It’s fifteen minutes before my second annual 39th birthday and I can’t help to think that I’m 40 years old. It’s amazing how many things a person stores in their head in 40 year on this earth. The experiences that we go through. The people that come and go in our lives. The vehicles that we have owned. The places we lived. The opportunities that we took, or didn’t take. What if you had made just one decision in your life differently. How much could that have really changed your life?

I always used to think that everything happens for a reason was because that was how it was intended to happen. When you buy into that way of thinking, you are setting yourself up for failure. You are saying that if something bad happens, that it was meant to be because. You have no control of your life or anything thuat happens in it.

I still buy into the idea that everything happens for a reason, but the reason things happen to me is because of the decisions that I have made, making, or yet to I just thought that I had bad luck. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all. Bull Shit! I made the decision, I put myself in that situation.

I’m happy to say that I have made some good decisions in my life and I have taken an active role in making my life better. Today on December 15th, 40 years after I cried for the first time, I’m happy to say that life is headed in the right direction and it’s because I took an active role in my life. I stopped complaining and bitching about everything that happened to me. Why me?

If this is you, stop and think. What would happen if you took an active role. What if you started to make things happen for you in a positive way. Get off your ass and make your life better, stop blaming other people, places and things for your life being the way it it. If you don’t like it, change it. You are the only person that’s going to.

It’s been a little over a month since my last video. Since then, I’ve decided to change my major from web design to Business Management, emphasis on Internet Marketing. I’m in week 4 now and man, it’s more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Check out the video below and please leave me your feedback.

Too many small business owners look at their marketing budgets as just conglomerations of expenses. Marketing is not an expense for a small business. Not really, it is an investment because your small business will fail unless you get the word out to your customers. However, you want to do that in the most cost-effective way as possible.

You do not want to use a shotgun approach and hope something hits the target. Small businesses often do this and spend a lot of money on marketing with very little return. Instead, you want to target your marketing, utilize smart marketing campaigns and strategies that are low or no cost, stretch every marketing dollar as far as possible.

Use free publicity wherever possible to save money and there are a lot of sites where you can do that. Publicity costs nothing and it builds awareness of your business. If you use publicity correctly, it can also build points for you within your community. Sponsor a community activity that is somehow tied in with your business.

When something new crops up within your business such as the release of a new product or service or a different use for an existing one, issue a press release. Your local newspaper will likely be glad to run it. Include it on your website. Sponsor a customer appreciation day. Do a customer survey. Newspapers love surveys and will likely publish your results.

Thanks Todd Falcone for sending me Buzzy Boxer’s latest post. What a riot. Check out some highlights on this video below.

Check out the whole video on Todd Falcone’s Blog ToddFalcone.com

Think of face-to-face networking this way, and if this scenario does not apply to you personally then think of a similar pair of events. Have you ever gone out shopping for groceries without a list and on an empty stomach? Think about how it felt and what you achieved. Then compare that experience with a time when you had a list and were not hungry?

If you are like me when I was in college and you went shopping without the list and hungry you probably had a bunch of stuff that you normally would not buy and forgot half the stuff you actually needed and kicked yourself when you got home and remembered what it was. Then when you went prepared, you came back with everything you needed and did not go too hard on the frivolous and impulse buys.

The bad part about the former scenario is that there are always opportunities to go back to the store. The same cannot always be said when you are networking contacts, a missed opportunity may not be there the next time if the bridge is burned or not there at all. Another way to visualize the importance of this is to see your contacts as a finite resource that should not to be squandered.

One of the simplest ways to find new business contacts is to regularly engage in face-to-face networking activities and they do not always have to take place in a work like environment.

The people you choose to involve could include friends, people at the gym, work colleagues, or former work colleagues if you are not “nine to fiving it” anymore, or coffee shop acquaintances to name a few places to look at. And for those of you with a more shy type of personality and not the social butterfly type, this networking exercise can be daunting at first so you will want to keep to familiar and smaller events. Then as you become more adept and comfortable doing it you can then start to branch out a bit more into the less familiar settings and places. If you are the life of the party type tact is paramount when sliding your business agenda out there especially in social situations where it is more relaxation time rather than board meeting remember that when you do this with the goal of getting bigger and better contacts.

I will go into this in more detail a little later on so that you can build a detailed point-by-point plan that you can follow. The aim is to providing you with a more solidly defined plan of action and focused picture of what your desired outcome needs to look like in order to get the most out of this exercise. Taking the time to flesh out the idea is a large piece of the pie when you are trying to accomplish anything worthwhile.