Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

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This is the third in a series of case-study podcast interviews with successful Blog Mastermind students, where we look at what they do right in order to achieve above-average results.

First it was Mitch, who’s blog exploded in popularity ramping his traffic quickly beyond 5,000 daily visitors. Leigh’s interview was extremely popular as she explained how she went from making $20 to $4,500 a month with her online business. Today I interview Leslie, who made almost $32,000 in 2008 working part time online (he’s a full time teacher, and we all know how hard teachers have to work!), and has an interesting story to tell because of the unique way he makes money.

How To Make Money Giving Away Freebies

Leslie’s market is freebie offers and rather than explain how it works here, you should listen the podcast. It’s interesting that you can actually make money by offering freebie giveaways that other companies provide, and that’s how Leslie makes the majority of his online income.

Leslie has taken his expertise and transformed into into a thriving blog called The Freebie Guy. His next step is to launch a membership site and in preparation for this, he just released a new free report called - The Freebie Report - which teaches how Leslie does what he does with freebie offers.

In this interview you will learn…

• How exactly freebie trading works and how Leslie made $70 in his first DAY doing it
• How Leslie experimented with different methods to make money online and eventually found something that worked
• Why Leslie decided to start a blog and join Blog Mastermind
• What were the biggest lessons for Leslie as he grew his business
• Why Leslie wants to position himself as an authority in his industry

Leslie is not only a Blog Mastermind student, but he’s taking part in every single coaching program I have on the market as I type this. What I love about this is every week I see more evidence of how much effort Leslie is putting into his business and how much output he creates every day, DESPITE having to work a full time job.

Leslie is proof that, with discipline and enthusiasm, you can juggle your salary job as you need it to pay the bills, while you build up your online income. I expect in Leslie’s case that sometime this year (2009) he may say good bye to his job as his online income grows.

Here’s the download link again for the MP3 -

• Download the MP3 [ 35 Minutes - 16 MB ]

Yaro Starak
Loving Success Stories

Update: Looks like Gideon did the old switcheroo on me without telling me (to be fair I was on a plane from Dubai to Singapore at the time), so the deadline is actually 6PM now, not 4PM. You’ve got two extra hours.

I’ll make this brief since you have probably made your decision already, but I want to make sure you don’t miss the deadline if you still haven’t decided…

Become A Blogger Premium, the video training course presented by Gideon Shalwick and myself, is open for new members at the special introductory rate of $27 a month until 6PM EST US time, Thursday 11th of December 2008, one week since we opened the program. After that the price increases to $47 a month.

You can find out all the details about the course and sign-up here -

www.becomeablogger.com/signup/

Welcome To New Members

I’d like to welcome on board the 600+ members we already have and all the new people who join in the next few days.

For the past few months and in particular during the last two weeks Gideon and I have been focusing our energy preparing this program. As is the case with many information products released online, we spend a lot of time on marketing initially, however now that our opening period is almost over, we’re turning our focus on to the members.

The first group of members are special because they help frame how the program evolves. We have a basic roadmap ready to go (no pun intended), however with feedback from the active membership we will be modifying the program as it progresses. We are also inviting members to request videos on any topic they want covered.

The first run through of the program is definitely the best time to do it because you save money and you get to partially dictate what is taught.

Plus don’t forget, you have 60 days to decide whether this program is right for you thanks to the mandatory Clickbank refund period (our payment processor). Try it for two months and if you don’t get your $27 bucks work, cancel. There’s no risk here.

If you can afford $1 a day and you are ready to build a successful blog by following along with Gideon’s clean and easy to action videos, here’s the link to join -

Become A Blogger Premium

Don’t Forget About The Free Stuff

Although it’s pretty obvious I’ve been promoting a video course on this blog and my newsletter for the past two weeks, you shouldn’t take that as an excuse to stop paying attention even if you never intended to join.

The Roadmap To Become A Blogger report, which is nearing 10,000 downloads, is free and will remain free. It’s full of great content and regardless of whether you join our membership site, there’s a lot to take away and action from the Roadmap - so don’t ignore that resource (in both text and audio downloads).

Gideon has also been releasing a few X-Factor videos, which contain real tips that you can use. Yes they promote our program, but they do so by giving you ideas you can use. This is intended as a content launch that helps everyone - you don’t have to give us money to benefit.

And let’s not forget, watching a launch unfold is interesting in itself from an Internet marketing perspective. I hope you have been monitoring what Gideon and I get up to with your marketing hats on too, if you are nearing the stage where you are ready to release your own product online.

Thanks To Gideon

I’d like to thank Gideon especially as he has been working his butt off for the past month getting everything ready. This is his first major launch and as is often the case, he’s really had to put in the hours to keep things going.

Without Gideon you wouldn’t have all this amazing free content and for those special people who joined the Premium site, you have lots more from Gideon to look forward, and of course from me too!

Both Gideon and I look forward to meeting all the new members in the forums and the live teleconferences, which will begin in earnest starting next week once all the new members settle in.

Don’t Forget The Thursday Deadline

Make sure you mark Thursday at 6PM if you are going to join and want the $27 a month price. The course goes for six months long, and after that you enjoy lifetime access to all the resources and any future upgrades we release at no extra cost (you pay for six months only).

That’s a concrete deadline that we can’t change because it wouldn’t be fair to the members who acted quickly and signed up early. Join now or be prepared to pay more for the videos from Thursday night onwards.

Click here to sign-up

Yaro Starak
Still Blogging 4 Years Later

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the download link and choose save as or save link.

• Download the MP3 [ 30 Minutes - 14 MB ]
• Download Text Transcript [ 15 Pages - PDF ]

After Mitch’s interview hit the airwaves recounting how quickly his blog grew to 3,000 daily readers in his niche of college football, another success story emerged in the Blog Mastermind private members forum.

A Simple Change To Leigh’s Blogging Made A Big Difference

Leigh runs a blog called The Fat Loss Troubleshooter, and also joined Blog Mastermind during July 2008. Since then her blog has enjoyed huge growth, getting as many as 5,000 unique visitors per day AND - here’s the really good news - she’s making about $4,500 a month now.

This is one of the screenshots she posted into the Blog Mastermind members forum showing her biggest income source - her Clickbank account. As you can see she’s doing between $500 and $1,000 a week from Clickbank sales.

When I hear success stories like this from my students I have to find out what they are doing right and learn what techniques are working for them. I asked Leigh to join me on a case study interview call to find out how she is getting such amazing results so quickly with her blog.

In this interview you will learn…

• The change she made to her blogging style that made the big difference
• How she is now able to learn what her audience wants, rather than guessing what she thinks they want, which means more sales for her
• The techniques Leigh implemented to build her audience, in particular how she uses interviews to drive traffic to her blog
• What exactly Leigh sells to make money from her blog
• Her opinion of how a coaching program like Blog Mastermind can change your blogging and present a clear path to success
• Leigh’s plans for world domination

Here’s the download link again for the MP3 -

• Download the MP3 [ 30 Minutes - 14 MB ]

What I found particularly powerful about this interview was the way Leigh explained how her content writing changed.

The formula for a successful blog goes good content = more traffic = more money, so you can see how changes to Leigh’s content style made such a difference to how much money she now makes.

Success Is Not Guaranteed, But People Do Get Results

I’m never going to tell you blogging for money is easy. Every person I speak to who’s ever made good money from blogging talks about how much work they do, especially during the early days, however they also look at the work in a different angle - it’s fun.

When a passion is driving your work and you see results coming in, all you want to do is work some more. Positive reinforcement fuels passion and passion fuels work. It’s possible to get into a wonderfully positive cycle, if you are just willing to take the steps to move past the challenges and the naysayers.

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak
Blog Coach

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the download link and choose save as or save link.

• Download the MP3 [ 30 Minutes - 14 MB ]
• Download Text Transcript [ 15 Pages - PDF ]

Thousands Of Blog Readers Within Two Months

Mitch, who runs a college football blog called CFBPlace.com, joined Blog Mastermind when the program reopened in 2008. At the time we did this recording Mitch had been in the program for about two months and as you will hear, was up to lesson nine, so still very fresh to the course and growing his blog.

The reason I invited Mitch to do this interview is because he showed himself to be a standout performer and achieved above average results in a short period of time. After two months his traffic was already hitting 3,000+ unique visitors per day and I wanted to know how he did it.

Mitch came to my attention because he was clearly an action taker. He asked many questions in the private forums as soon as the program started and is always one of the first to ask a question during the live question and answer sessions teleconferences with me.

In this interview we find out…

• What Mitch does different from most people new to blogging
• How he was able to drive so much traffic so quickly
• How Mitch comes up with content ideas and is never short of something to write about
• Why I’m glad Mitch is not good with technology and how that helps him become a better blogger
• Why he loves the Blog Mastermind program
• A specific example of a technique Mitch used to drive a lot of traffic quickly
• What I consider the key to Mitch’s early success

This interview should serve as serious inspiration for anyone new to blogging. I expect within the next year or two Mitch could very well be a six figure blogger and this interview explains the foundation he’s building to get himself there. Interestingly enough though, Mitch states he never intended to make money from blogging, which is part of why he has been successful so far (passion before profits).

It’s Not Rocket Science

Mitch’s case is certainly not typical but you can see the steps to replicate his success are not complicated. You just need to do enough with your blog to give yourself the chance.

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak
Blog Coach

I’m writing this from Manhattan New York, and it is an AMAZING place. I’ve been once before, but this time I’m in control of my trip (not a tag along for a two-family trip), plus I’m in a slightly better financial situation, so it’s like I’m a kid in a candy store who just got his allowance.

I’ve taken quite a bit of video footage as I wander the streets, which I’m going to edit together and publish on the blog in a series of New York videos (I’ve got an interview with Ed Dale in there too, who I met at the 30 Day Challenge meet-up on the evening of the day I arrived here). I’ll hopefully have a chance to stitch the first one together tomorrow.

Blog Mastermind Affiliate Bonuses

There is a deadline coming up tomorrow that I wanted to quickly let you know about before it passes.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the affiliates who are promoting Blog Mastermind. Many of them have offered fantastic bonuses if you join my coaching program via their affiliate link.

However there’s a catch - most of the bonus offers expire at the end of August 2008 - tomorrow (Sunday USA time) is your last day to claim a bonus.

I’ve listed below some of the bonus offers I could find that are expiring soon, so if you are still fence-sitting about joining Blog Mastermind, you might want to take a look at the bonuses on offer, some of them are too good to miss.

Make sure you clear your cookies before ordering from the links so you give credit to the right person - the person you want to claim the bonus from.

Bonus Offers from Affiliates

ITriedThat.com Bonus - Steve is offering a $25 cash rebate if you buy through his link.

Problogger.net Bonus - Darren is offering private one-on-one coaching to each person who buys through his link.

JohnChow.com Bonus - John is offering a $500 sponsored review on his blog if you order through his link. You also qualify for a prize draw to win a Slingbox Pro.

There are likely some more great offers floating around the net, so look around or pick one from the above.

As even more incentive to join, the Aussie dollar continued to slide further during the last few weeks. As I type this it’s down to $0.86 to the $USD, so you save 14% when you join Blog Mastermind if you are used to paying in US dollars, because I’m still charging in Australian dollars for the coaching program.

It’s time for bed for me. Good night from New York.

Yaro Starak
New Yorker