Are sites like this the future of outsourcing?

Following from the amazing response to my last post I thought I would show you an Free/Cheap alternative to outsourcing some repetitive tasks.

There are 2 tools that I have been testing for the past few weeks that are providing me with great initial results. The thing I really like about them is that they both allow you to start with a free account and “work your passage” what I mean by that is that in return for you providing them with resources the allow you to use the system. One distributes your articles to hundreds of quality article directories which have lots of back links pointing at them. The other distributes your bookmarks to 17 bookmarking sites without you lifting a finger.

Let me explain more.

The first tool is EzArticleLink.

EzArticleLink is a unique article distribution service. There are 2 parts to it , firstly you add an article directory to the back end of some of your sites, for this I use old sites that are of little use to me. EAL will post articles from other members to these sites (you can monetize these). In return for doing this you can then submit articles for your main sites which are then posted to other peoples directories.

Additionally for every article you post you get 100 additional anchor text links if you are a paid member.

You need to add spun articles but the service has it’s own in-house article spinners who do an excellent job.

Free members get 100-200 distributions per article and paid members (currently $29) get 200-300.

One side effect I’ve noticed is that the sites I’ve added the directories to are starting to perform slightly better. Most probably due to the back link that EzArticleLinks provide to ensure that Google indexes the directories regularly. I’ve added 20 directories which gives me unlimited article distribution for my other sites so If I can earn $1 a month from each of these directories I will have covered my monthly fee

In summary:

Read More about EzArticleLink…

The next tool I like is SocialAdr.

SocialAdr also has a free and paid business model. The service provides back links to your site from social bookmarking sites. Free members earn credits by setting up accounts (Takes about 1 hour) and then logging in everyday and pressing a button which adds bookmarks to the sites for free members. It takes less than 5 minutes per day to do this.

If you are like me and are basically lazy and don’t want to press any buttons then the paid service is for you. You just need to set up the bookmarks you want distributed and then sit back and all the work is done for you. The sum total of your work is opening the email that tells you what has been distributed.

Read more about SocialAdr

To have outsourcers do this work for you would cost a lot more than these services charge. The results I am starting to see means that these are no brainers. You can use them for free until they pay for themselves then upgrade to paid status.

When I sat down to write this post I had a number of topics I was thinking of covering.

Murphys Law:- Why You have a network error that takes your sites down 5 minutes after sending an email to 7000 people… it only took 26 hours to fix!

Marketing Morons:- The people who have come up with a “loophole that guarantees you a 10 google position”… hmmm ok that “loophole” been one of the keystones of the system we teach in The WordPress Goldmine forum for 2 years. On top of that it’s not a loophole just commonsense. But then I don’t suppose you can sell anything based on commonsense.

However I decided to stick with something positive and touch on what I talked about in a recent email that I sent out the difference between dreams and goals.

Do you have a dream that drives you? I think most people do, a nice home, a fast car and great lifestyle etc . The problem with dreams is that they tend to always stay just that a fantasy, unless you do something about it. The something you have to do is to take your dream and turn it into a set of goals.

Goals are achievealbe and dreams are just a notion you have of something you want. Once you convert your Dream to a goal you can then work out the method to achieve the goal.

You will be very suprised at just how easy those dreams are to attain once you convert them to goals. It might take a while to actually get your dream but it will happen.

Here are some examples:

Dream : I want a BMW x6

Goal : I will generate an extra $600 a month to pay for the leasing costs on an X6

Daily Target: $20

Method: Write 2 articles a day and generate an extra 1 clickbank sale each day

Dream: I want a Villa overlooking the sea.

Goal: I want to generate $6000 per month to pay for a $1,000,000 mortgage (or you could rent)

Target $200 per day ($8.33 per hour)

Method: I will build a network of 50 adsense sites averaging $4 a day

The next step is the hardest for most people…actually doing it.

The key to this is to surround yourself with positive people who are actually working towards their goals and sharing the sucesses and most importantly not dwelling on setbacks. If you go into forums where there are loads of people being negative then leave, don’t let their negativity and neurosis hold you back.

If you can honestly answer yes to these 3 questions then you are just a few steps away from success.

1. Do you really want to succeed?

2. Are you really prepared to work

3. Will you really Focus on Your goals and not give up?

If you answered yes to those 3 questions you are welcome to download my Report called “I can”. There nothing to subscribe to , no hoops to jump through. It was originally released in 2008 but I gave it a quick update recently. http://mjthompson.net/ICan/

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I wrote the following post for a project I was working on. However earlier today I read a comment by a marketer and thought it was a good time to publish it. He said:

So with my friend watching I took a few minutes to write up a promotion and sent it to one of my lists. Within THIRTY MINUTES I had enough money to buy my friend a $2,000 set of golf clubs.

Now it’s not the fact that he generated the income, I actually respect his ability to do it , but the fact that  he uses his subscribers like a cash machine and boasts about it. It just makes me mad that some marketers have absolutely no respect for their subscribers. I can imagine him boasting at the bar about the suckers who paid for the golf clubs…suckers like you and me!

Now don’t get me wrong not all marketers are like this I personally know 2 or 3 who really care about their subscribers and would never send out a promotion just to show off. On the other hand one of the reasons why you rarely see anyone promoting my stuff is that I never do reciprocal promotions. (i.e. You promote me and I’ll promote you)

I’ve spent a long time over the past month or two looking closely at various Internet Marketers and their business models in microscopic detail and I find they generally fall in to one of 3 styles.

The Long Term Strategy

The Short Term Strategy

The Misguided Short Term Strategy. (The only none rude term I could think of!)

Marketers with a long term strategy are guys who rarely promote any product that isn’t their own. They are in this for the long term and see the big picture, they build lists  by providing good quality information. This is the hardest method to follow especially when you see all the short termers displaying their income for all to see like a cheap $5 hooker on payday.

The people with this strategy are generally the ones who are making the seriously big bucks and whose income is constantly growing. It takes a lot of time and effort to get to this position but the rewards are generally worth it if you stick with it.

Marketers with a short term strategy generally promote everything that comes along, I call it the IM circle Jerk. You promote mine and I’ll promote yours. These guys just want a regular cash injection and this is how they do it. You’ll see them releasing new products every 6 months or so and doing a promotion of someone else’s product every month. They very rarely provide value on a long term basis. I know one marketer in this group who is on his 3rd product this year.

It is possible to make consistent money using this model but you never build a real relationship with your subscribers. Several of the Superstar internet marketers started off this way but later changed their business model. Some never get past it

From looking around at who is promoting what at the moment it’s obvious that this is the chosen strategy for the majority of marketers, it doesn’t mean that it’s the best method although it is obviously effective in the short run.

The Misguided Short Term Marketers are almost the same as the Short Term Marketers. The one big difference is that they are not above using non ethical methods to promote their generally low quality products.

A classic ploy that is often used is to have your product promoted by a whole host of marketers, you do this by charging a high amount and give the JV partners a very high commission.

The next step is to release a second product which reveals how you made $10,000 a day with 5 minutes work. Completely failing to mention that the real method you used was to offer high commission to JV partners. And most of that $10,000 went out in either commission payments, refunds or PPC costs.

The more screen shots you can use showing the first launch the better! I really doesn’t matter if the figures are not related to the product you are now selling.

The Misguided Short Term Marketers don’t think anyone will notice what they are doing luckily they tend to be around for a few short years then disappear, as they quickly lose respect and email subscribers. A good indicator of this type of marketer is that they are usually seen with Ferrari’s and Yachts in their promo videos and sales letters and love to brag.

Sorry for being such a grouch !!  Be careful out there there are sharks in the water.

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I’ve just finished uploading a new podcast to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wordpress-goldmine

This was recorded a couple of hours ago and it features Paul Forcey and myself talking about why Mindset is so important, we cover 5 basic points

Belief

Why do you want to be an Internet Marketer?

Short term Goals Vs Long Term Goals

Why Failure is Not BAD!

Working at what you want to work at.

You can listen online or download it , we also hope to have it in iTunes in a week or two.

The next call will probably talk about setting up simple processes and how to work smarter and we will soon hope to have a live interactive show

Tell us what you would like to hear…and tell us what you think of this latest show by leaving a comment below.

Finally as this show is about mindset you really should check out Mark Lyfords Millionaire Challenge blog Mark is an example someone who has the right mindset and is working every hour he can to build a business.  I find his work ethic inspirational and I am quite surprised that a TV channel hasn’t picked up on his story and created a reality TV show around it!