“Financial Abundance” Section Overview
We truly live in an amazing age in terms of the ability to generate income from our home. Through the “magic” of the Internet, you can create anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands. In spite of what you may have seen, however, making money from the Internet takes work and time, but if you do what it takes, you can have the income that will help you to live the life you desire. In this section, I reveal my suggestions based on my more than 20 years of Internet marketing experience, and tell you how you can get started on your path to having financial abundance.
Based on my experience, the truest wealth of all is happiness. There are number of factors that contribute to one’s happiness which would include peace of mind, health, freedom of time and the ability to do what one wishes to do. It would, of course, include things such as love, friendship, etc.
My experience has been that when someone has sufficient financial resources, they have a number of these things such as freedom of time and the ability to do what they wish to do. Money by itself, however, does not assure happiness.
Although working yourself to death to become the richest man in the cemetery obviously doesn’t make sense, it does make sense to be able to have enough money so that you can at least have a pleasant place to live, a decent car to drive, and enough money to take care of your needs.
But since this course is about how to have a great life in your middle age and beyond, we want to look at ways to make enough money so that you can enjoy life to the fullest, and not “just get by”. Besides having a nice home and car, as well as savings, living an abundant life may include taking vacations, traveling, and other things that bring happiness to you.
While we’re looking at the positives of financial abundance, let’s not forget the negatives of not having enough money, with worries such as “How will I pay my mortgage/rent this month?; How will I find the money to fix my car?; I don’t have enough money for food” etc.
In this section of my course, I will tell you about how you can make money on the Internet, which will allow you to create additional income in your life while you are doing something you enjoy, and which brings benefits to people. You will learn how you can make extra money to allow you to live a good life now and especially after you retire. In addition, you can run an Internet business from anywhere that has good Internet connectivity, so you could run your business from in the country, out of the U.S. or even on the road in your RV!
For some of you, to make an extra $500 or $1,000 a month would make a difference, maybe a huge one. Others may be more ambitious and may wish to make $5,000 or more a month above their existing income.
One other benefit is that middle-aged women can make a great living, the same as middle-aged men. No glass ceiling here. In fact, because these days, because people on the Internet are looking for honest communication, women can have an edge in this area, as they tend to be more open with their feelings. This makes it easier for them to connect with people, especially other women.
In June, 2015, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a detailed report on, among other things, the current financial status of households between the ages of 55 and 64. The main goal was to measure the retirement savings for this group. The median household approaching retirement has a nest egg of between $10,000 and $20,000. This number is drawn down significantly because 41% of these households have no retirement savings whatsoever.
“People with no savings will rely on Social Security to live; 47 percent of single seniors say that 90 percent of their income comes from Social Security. Living on Social Security, with its average payment of $1,335 a month, can hardly be described as ‘doing fine.’ People say this when they don’t want you to worry about them. Maybe somebody should be worrying. Pride can be a dangerous thing. Seniors have been known to cut their medications in half to make them stretch longer or not turn on the heat to save money.”
I would love it if you and everyone else had a great job with a 6-figure income, and a 7-figure retirement fund. But the numbers don’t bear that out.
The good news is that we live in an era that is unprecedented in history. With the Internet available to so many people, anyone who is willing to put in the time and effort, and invest a small amount of money can make income from the comfort of their home.
As you can tell, I am very excited about Internet income. It’s just so amazing that you can sit at home and make money for yourself. How would you make money otherwise? Think about it.
Get a part-time job on top of your full-time one, and burn yourself out to make a few extra dollars? Borrow money on your house (if you can) and start a brick-and-mortar business when even huge old-line retailers like Sears, etc. are struggling and may go out of business?
This course is for middle-aged men and women, and I obviously can’t know your age. But if you are middle-aged, that is between 45-65, this is a great time for you to start building an Internet business and your retirement income and savings. You likely already have some income, so you won’t be under the pressure to have to make money right away. You will also probably have some funds that you can use to work on your business until you find your niche and get it optimized.
Let me tell you a story I read not long ago. It was about a retired East-Coast couple who really wanted to get out of the winter cold and take a nice vacation in Florida every year. The problem was, they were barely making enough to cover their living expenses. They decided that they would create a Website which was for people who are interested in poetry.
Now, poetry is not what I would call a “hot market”. But poetry was what they loved. So they set up their Website, and charged people $4.95 a month membership. Although it took them several years to build up their member list, they eventually had 20,000 members. This means that they were generating $100,000 a month! Needless to say, instead of just vacationing in Florida, they bought a home in Florida and moved there.
Another story I read was of a lady who loved quilting. She set up a quilting Website which sold quilting supplies, books, instructional videos, etc. It took her a lot of time and work to get her Website to a place where was generating good income, but the last I read, she was making more than $40,000 a month.
Now I’ll have to tell you that the above results are way over the top for most people making money on the Internet. Yes, a very-few people make a 7-figure monthly income, but many people who try to make money on the Internet do not do well. There are a lot of dabblers who don’t really try, and they probably make less than $100 a month. Then there are people who are putting in some effort, but are just not doing following a plan. Maybe they have a blog and some FaceBook followers, sell a few things now and again, and may be making$300-$600 a month.
Then, there are people who have studied Internet Marketing (IM), follow a plan, stay up with what’s happening, and market intelligently. By “marketing intelligently” I mean they are doing things like using software to see where they are getting traffic from, where visitors are leaving their Website, what squeeze pages work best, etc. They are using 2018 marketing techniques. These are the people who are making from $1,200-$2,500 a month and up.
You can be one of them. Read on. I will show you how.
One of the problems I have seen over the years is that Internet marketing “guru’s” sell training and systems that are based on one-shot sales, or that only work for people who already have a big network of people interested in their product.
My philosophy is different, as it is based upon providing a valuable service to a group of people who then continue to purchase products and services from you. Many Internet marketers just want to shove their latest product down your throat, collect your money, and move on to the next victim.
An example may be seen in this metaphor I have created for you. For many Internet marketers, Internet business is like planting tomatoes in a garden. You plant and water them, get some tomatoes, and a while later, they die.
I believe in planting an apple orchard. It takes time to plant, water, fertilize and spray the trees while they grow, but after a bit, you have a steady crop that you can harvest for years and years.
Which one do you want to put your time and effort into?
The thing I really like about creating an Internet business is that you can work from home or from anywhere you wish that has Internet, and you can create a Website that is about something you really like.
Are you an avid golfer? Motorcyclist? Are you a collector of vintage clocks or radios? Whatever it is that you’re interested in, you can create a Website about and over time you can develop a group of people that will buy from you on a regular basis. If you don’t have any such interest, you can either search to discover one, or else just find a niche that you believe in.
Another nice thing about creating an Internet business is that when you retire you will have something to do that is both fun and productive. If you’ve been working in any kind of business before you retired, you will be able to take some of the skills you’ve learned and apply them to your Internet business.
A report published by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs found that retirement increased the chances of suffering from depression by 40%, while it increased the probability of having at least one diagnosed physical ailment by about 60%. That impact was assessed after controlling for the usual age-related conditions.
I have read other reports where people tend to get sick and die not long after they retire. My point is, that if you have an online business that you’ve created, which you enjoy and look forward to working on, it will be beneficial to your health and not just your finances.
So, no matter where you’re at age-wise, now is the time to get started. If you haven’t yet retired, get started now and build up your income so that when you do retire you’ll be more-comfortable. And if you already retired, unless you’re really well-off, it’s a time to get started creating extra income, and having something rewarding to do.
I started creating income-producing Websites in 1996. My first membership Website was profitable from day one. A few years down the road, I was earning a six-figure income with a membership Website for a major network marketing product. The flaw was that at the time I wasn’t practicing the “dig your own well” principle, which I write about farther down this page. I only had one big client, and they eventually decided to create their own Website, so within less than a year after they did, I was out of business. But in the meantime, I’d had 7 years of great income.
For many years after that, I did Internet-based work for others, but not for myself. I was determined not to promote anything that I didn’t believe in 100%, and I could never find that one thing. There were always questions in my mind for every product or service I ran across. In addition, although I was a sharp businessman, I really didn’t understand the whole Internet marketing picture, and thus I didn’t feel confident to move forward.
In 2013, I decided it was time to create my own Internet business again, and I began studying Internet marketing. Over the next few years, I took a number of Internet-marketing courses. They all contained some good information, but they all were lacking the whole picture that would allow me to start from square one and create Internet income.
Finally, in July of 2015, I found an online course that covered all aspects of Internet marketing. It cost me $500 (some other people paid $1,000 for it), but it was well worth it. I finally had all of the pieces I needed to create the Internet income that I have wanted for years. I was then inspired to create a Website to help people who were middle-aged. Because it was my creation, I could be assured that I could be 100% honest with people and only promote what I believed in all the way.
Unfortunately, the Internet marketing course I took is no longer available. The guy who created it got greedy, and now sells just sections of the course, such as Facebook marketing, for $200 – $1,000…a year! Each! I could make a bunch of money selling them to you, but that’s not how I do things. I am asking you to trust me, and I therefore need to do my best to deliver a good Internet marketing course at a fair price.
So I started my research to find a solid course that would provide you with complete training in Internet marketing. I searched for and read online reviews. I checked out Websites and evaluated what was offered.
I found some training sites that were highly recommended for getting certificates and credentials, but they were mainly for people who had 9-5 jobs and wanted to advance their positions with their employer. These were not for you. I don’t want some guy from some junior college or “learning institute” to lead you down the path to financial success. I want someone who’s in the game every day, actually doing it, not some “egghead”.
After a lot of looking, reading and watching videos, I finally came down to 2 Internet marketing sites that were the highest-rated ones. Then I had to try to choose one for you. In order to get the “inside info” I signed up for one course, and checked out their info, features and even watched some videos. For the other course, a friend let me take a look at the materials, as he had signed up for it.
After a lot of examining, I still wasn’t sure. I remember one night when I stayed up until 10pm doing my research, and then went to bed and had my thoughts running through my head for another 3 hours. And that was when everything settled out, and I made my decision on what to do.
Let me tell you what I found.
Both of these courses emphasize affiliate marketing, although you can apply the principles to Internet marketing in general. In case you’re not familiar with the term, “affiliate marketing” simply means you sell someone else’s product, and you make a commission. In the end, I decided that one of the courses was really the very-best way for you to learn about Internet marketing, and for the best price too.
Here’s more info about the winner.
It includes:
● More than 100 video lessons, downloadable videos and notes for each lesson, so you can refer back to them later.
● A virtual “lesson book” to keep track of the lessons you have covered, keeping you on track, as well as homework for each step, so you always know what to do next.
● Access to member forums, one of the largest affiliate forums on the internet.
● Access to videos and webinars, where they speak with some of the biggest names in Internet marketing.
It looks pretty-solid.
What is amazing about this course is the vast amount of FREE materials you get before you sign up and purchase their main course! Can you tell I’m excited!?
I just discovered what they have available in the free training, and it’s epic! I went to the trouble to go through the section and copy everything so you can see what you get! For free!
With the free signup, you get free and unlimited access to over 100 video tutorials with PDF lesson notes. Build your own Website with the site building lessons, promote it using SEO and monetize it with affiliate marketing and PPC. Get exclusive interviews with internet gurus as they share their success stories on how they have earned millions online. All for free!
Here are the topics covered in the free course.
Introduction to Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Identifying Affiliate Sites
How Do They Make Money?
Finding Affiliate Programs
Market Research for Affiliate Marketers
4 Steps to Finding Profitable Affiliate Niches
SEO Competition Analysis
What does your market want?
10 Alternatives to ClickBank
How to do Keyword Research: 7 Techniques & Tools
Content Creation
Easy Ways to Get Content
PLR Articles
Duplicate Content
Writing Product Reviews
Headlines for Affiliate Sites
Site Building
Building a Basic Page
Using FTP with FileZilla
Linking Domains and Hosting
Looking for Hosting Providers
Website Building Software
Marketing Ideas
Introduction to Blogging
Setting up a Word Press Blog
How to Write a Blog Post
5 ways to monetize your blog
Make Your Blog Look Amazing!
Search Engine Optimization
Sitemaps
Moving Pages with Redirects
To www or not to www?
Controlling the Search Spiders
Introduction to Affiliate Marketing SEO
Pay Per Click
Introduction to Affiliate Marketing PPC
What is PPC?
How to do Keyword Research: 7 Techniques & Tools
Networks Used by the Gurus
Avoiding the Google Slap
Affiliate Outsourcing
Introduction to Outsourcing
Our Top Tips for Hiring
Keeping Workers Productive
Guruviews
Finding a Profitable Niche
How to run a successful webinar
Advanced SEO Secrets
Autopilot Website Riches
Revolutionary CPA Strategies
I also see a button at the top left of the tutorials that you mark when you’re done with it, and then on the right, there’s an indicator as to what % of the section you’ve completed. This is pretty-amazing for a free course. They could easily sell this for $197 or more.
Here are a few testimonials about this course.
“I have not come across any other “how to build an online business” Website that even comes close to offering the information and support that this course does. ”
“It is from using what I learned from this course that I’ve managed to earn a full-time income and live life on my own terms instead of simply hoping that the economy improves some day.”
“What I really love about this course is the support — if you’re stuck on something or you need a critique of some of your work, they are there to help you out. I was really surprised to find somebody that genuinely cared about my success, and all that extra help has definitely translated into results. Just a few weeks after joining, I got home from work one night, checked my accounts and realized that that week I’d made more money online than I did at my regular job. Now I’m no genius marketer, so if I can do it, anyone can.” (My note: This is very unusual, and this guy likely had experience already. Nonetheless, what he learned evidently helped to boost him to the next level.)
They also have a “Premium” level that includes:
● Internet marketing tools that pull data from MOZ, SEM Rush, Twitter, Facebook, Google Analytics, Bing, ClickBank, Enom and Namecheap.
● A backlink checker that uncovers the backlinks from a website.
● A high-PR link finding tool to uncover new linking partners.
● A Website health checker, monitoring on-page SEO errors, page speed, pages indexed and page errors.
● A keyword research tool to find new PPC keywords previously missed.
● A domain research tool to find related available domains.
● A social media tool letting you monitor and update Facebook and Twitter from one place.
● A search engine ranking monitor for Google and Bing (including regional variations).
● New, updated training each month that keeps you updated with the owner’s latest tips, tricks and methods.
● A ‘blog bootcamp’ video series. In 4 over-the-shoulder videos, it shows the owner creating a video from scratch, and then shows the results he achieved.
● Website hosting for up to 15 websites for a year.
Again, this course is free to join, and you have seen how much you get for free. $197 is the one-time fee to access all of the advanced training materials. It has a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you really can’t lose. Spend some time and check it out. See if you like the lessons and utilize the support they offer; is it good? If you don’t like it, get a refund. My belief is that if you go through the free course, and really put in the effort, then the advanced course will take you up to the next level.
To get to the site and learn more, please Click Here. This is an affiliate offer that I am promoting and I will make a commission if you sign up for the paid course. (Welcome to affiliate marketing…you’ll learn more soon)
I do want to mention that affiliate marketing is not the only way to make money on the Internet. You can create a great Website or blog, and then get paid to run ads on your site. You can also sell physical goods such as fitness equipment or gardening supplies. Others have made a lot of money buying items at estate and even garage sales and then reselling them on eBay. Here are a few Websites with ideas for you.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/money/24-easy-ways-make-money-the-internet.html
http://www.dumblittleman.com/2006/10/40-ways-to-make-money-on-internet.html
All that aside, I like affiliate marketing. No products to pack & ship, no dealing with questions, with warranties and with returns. Just be sure you get a solid company to work with. That should all be covered in the course I suggest.
So, what does Internet marketing have to do with gardening? If you decide to plant a tomato plant, and after a month or so, it dies, are you going to just dig up the garden and plant grass? How about if your whole strawberry crop fails? The answer is hopefully “No, I won’t give up”.
You’ll try to find out why things went wrong and then remedy the problem. Maybe you needed to fertilize. Maybe there were bugs you didn’t look for, and which you could eliminate with a soapy-water spray. Maybe you planted your plants in the shade and they need sun.
So, like gardening, I want to encourage you to remember to stick with your Internet business. Of course, if you’re trying out going to garage sales and selling stuff on eBay, and you’re not making any money, then by all means change. But if you’re promoting a solid affiliate offer, and you’re not making money, don’t give up.
Try using different squeeze pages, for example. Try different offers on your squeeze pages. Try using different designs. If you’ve signed up for the course above, ask for help.
Remember your goal and how important it is. You’re building a source of income that you control and that you can rely on for years to come. It may make the difference between just scraping by and doing great. So do your homework. Study the lessons. Make notes. Ask questions. Do online research.
And don’t expect that you’ll make money right away. Would you plant your baby apple trees, wait a month, and then start looking for apples, being discouraged when they didn’t show up? When I was researching Internet marketing courses, I saw a post on a user forum.
The lady was saying that she was at the second module, hadn’t made any money, and was wondering if she was doing something wrong. Sometimes guys selling Internet Marketing courses promise way too much, and mislead people into thinking they’ll be making money tomorrow.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it is possible to make some money quickly, but rarely do you make a lot right away. Sell some stuff on eBay or Amazon? Maybe. Make a ton of money your first month? Not likely.
So, I’m not trying to discourage you. In fact, I’m doing the opposite. I’m trying to encourage you to not be discouraged. :o) I’m trying to get you to take an approach of getting a solid base and building a good business. If it took you a year to be making $600 a month, and another year to be making $1,200 a month, but your income kept growing for the next 20 years, and made your retirement a joy, not a struggle, would it be worthwhile?
Besides, if you choose something you like as the core of your business, then it is much more enjoyable than just promoting something for the money. There’s an old saying “Find something you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life”. So if you love golfing or camping, consider creating a business around that. If you don’t have something you like that’s marketable, then choose something that you at least believe in.
So, look around, get an idea of what’s possible and what you’re interested in promoting, and then get started. Follow the lessons in the course. Understand that (for most of you), this is something new, and it takes time to learn it. You can’t just go out and buy some Tiger Woods clubs, watch a couple of golf videos on YouTube, and then crush it on the links. Right?
You may do great in Internet marketing right away, but likely you’ll have some of your earlier (and later, too) campaigns “fail”. But if you limit your expenditures and test the market, you’ll be fine. Consider it your “tuition” in the school of Internet marketing. Look at the people who open a brick and mortar store and spend $100,000+ and months of 12-hour days trying to start a business. And according to Bloomberg, 80% of all new businesses fail within the first 18 months.
Testing the market is part of Internet marketing, and that includes some campaigns working great and some not. That’s OK. Drop the losers and run with the winners.
The good news for many of you is that you probably already have some income, and you would not be relying on this for food or rent. So, take it easy. Look at it as a great adventure. For myself, even after more than 20 years in Internet marketing, I still get excited when I read about new ways to promote my Internet business. I love the challenge and reward of mastering yet another way to create income. And yes, some just aren’t that great, but when I hit a winner, it’s such a rush!
And while I’m on the topic of “mastering yet another way to create income”, I want to both encourage and warn you. I want to encourage you to continue to learn more about Internet marketing methods, and also to stay on top of changes and new methods. Big players like Google, YouTube and FaceBook often have changes to their services, and you need to be aware of them so that you can utilize them to your benefit.
Yet, here’s the warning. Many people who get into Internet marketing fall prey to “AP”. Yep: “Analysis Paralysis”. They buy one new course, then another new course, what is referred to in the industry as “the next shiny object”. They are looking for the “magic bullet” that will make them rich overnight, and, of course, it doesn’t exist.
But there’s a deeper, psychological aspect to this. It’s “fear of failure”. You see, many marketers don’t embrace small “failures” as just part of learning what works. And so, if they avoid playing the game, they avoid losing. So, they just put off really getting into the Internet marketing game, by exploring and looking for the “next shiny object”.
Don’t fall for this trap. Yes, keep learning. But get into the game and play. Create your marketing campaigns. Run your FaceBook ads. Refine your squeeze pages. Keep going, keep playing, and you’ll start to win!
I believe the best way to learn Internet marketing is to
1) Take a course that will give you a good overview of Internet marketing (such as the one I suggest above).
2) Then educate yourself about aspects of Internet marketing that you feel you want to work with or which are hot.
(Tip: right now – 2018 – video marketing is HOT!)
Here are the basics of successful Internet marketing, as I see them:
1) Find a niche that you like, and one that you can monetize, that is one that you can make money from. You will need to be able to sell a related physical product or a virtual product, such as ebooks, videos, etc. You can also do coaching. You can also sell someone else’s product (affiliate sale) and make some money that way.
2) Make sure you know a lot about it, either through your own experience, or else by reading about and exploring it.
3) Create a Website that tells about this niche, what it is, how to do it better and how to enjoy it more.
4) Create a “squeeze page”, in which you offer the viewer something of value related to your niche, which you will email to them. It could be a report, a list of tips, etc. You will then collect their email addresses and send them regular emails (see “6” below)
5) Send people to your squeeze page (traffic). In my opinion, the best and easiest way to do that is to buy advertising. This could be placing ads on FaceBook, on Google AdWords, on Yahoo Bing, or other places. You can also use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to get your Website to show up when people search for your niche, but to me, this is chancy and uncertain, and can take a long time.
6) Send out emails to people on your list on a regular basis, maybe once a week, with good solid info. In some of them, put in a plug for some product or service that you sell, but don’t overdo it. Offer your Website visitors products and services that can help them in their niche. They can include either your own products, other people’s products (sold through Amazon, for example), or affiliate offers, where you refer buyers and make a commission.
I created the above basics list so that you could see that the concept is not that difficult. Some parts, such as finding a niche and learning about it, are pretty simple, and hopefully enjoyable.
Other parts are more complex, but not difficult to understand. The great news about Internet marketing is that it is cheap and easy to test and adjust. Here’s an example: You create 3 squeeze pages, and then you create an ad for them. The ad might be something like “Learn the 3 mistakes that cost golfers the most swings”, and you show a golfer all frustrated after missing a shot. Then, there’s a place for the viewer to enter their email address.
You run the ads on Facebook, and you have a budget of, say, $50. The last time I ran Facebook ads, I paid 25¢ a click, so you could get around 200 clicks for your $50. Once you’ve spent your $50 (or less), you check and see what kind of click-through rate you got for each squeeze page. The “click-through” rate is what percentage of people who saw your squeeze page actually entered their email address. In this way, you can determine which squeeze page pulls the best.
Next, you do the same thing for the ads. Create 3 ads, run them, sending people to your best squeeze page, and then see how they do.
The beauty of this is that even after paying to have the squeeze pages created, and running the ads, you will have only spent about $200 or less. Think about this: if you wanted to start a new business in the brick and mortar world, how much would you need to spend? $50,000? $100,000? It would take a huge amount of work, and you could fail!
There are lot of other ways to do Internet marketing. You could just find an affiliate offer (where you refer buyers and make a commission on every sale), and then just buy traffic (run ads to get people to visit the affiliate salespage) and hope you’ll make enough profit. If you can create a really-great ad, you might be able to make some money, but it will be a one-shot deal, and you will not be building a business.
Just like a tomato plant, you get some fruit for a short while, and then the plant dies. Trust me, don’t go there. Plant your orchard, do the work, pick apples for years.
A major advantage to Internet marketing is that it is very fluid and flexible. So, if you’re selling hoverboards on Amazon (along with 10,000 other people), and then the market dries up (after the hoverboards start catching on fire, which happened), you can start selling cellphone cases or whatever you want. In literally ten days or less, you could be marketing a new product. Once you learn the basics of how to create and test ads and squeeze pages, how to create Websites, how to setup and manage autoresponders, etc., then you can apply those skills to any product or service.
Think about the businesses that have been part of America for a long time, in some cases more than a century, and which are now in dire straits. Sears departments stores, started in 1886, in trouble. May Co., founded in 1877, gone in 2005. J.C Penney, founded in 1902, wobbling. Or how about Blockbuster video stores? Remember them? At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster consisted of nearly 60,000 employees and over 9,000 stores. Now they’re gone.
Or let’s talk about jobs. How about postal service mail sorters? 57,000 jobs lost between 2004 and 2009. Or Office and Administrative Support Workers. About 300,000 administrative jobs disappeared between 2004 and 2009.
Fast-food workers? Hey, there will always be people eating, right? But Carl’s Junior already has announced a plan to install
self-service kiosks in every one of its 6,000 restaurant locations by the end of 2018. McDonald’s is rolling out “Create Your Taste” touchscreen kiosks that will allow diners to custom-build their own burgers and order anything else on the menu. And about half of Panera Bread’s company-owned stores already have kiosks in place. The Panera kiosks have iPad-style tablets with a full list of food items. Customers simply swipe their credit card, place their order and grab a seat. When their order is ready it will be brought to their table.
My point is that income security is, to some degree, an illusion. Even if you have a job that will be around for a long time, there’s always downsizing, outsourcing, mergers, or just getting laid off or plain “fired”.
Worse yet, what if you’re retired, and your pension goes broke? According to a recent report on CNN, one of the biggest private pension funds in the country is almost out of money, and fresh out of options. “The Central States Pension Fund has no new plan to avoid insolvency”, fund director Thomas Nyhan said. He went on to say that “Without government funding, the fund will run out of money in 10 years. At that time, pension benefits for about 407,000 people could be reduced to virtually nothing” he told workers and retirees in a letter he sent.
Or one final “disaster” story. A lady who used to be my typesetter was in her mid-60’s and about to retire. She and her husband had saved up over a million dollars over the years, and they were set for the rest of their lives. Then her daughter started a career in investing, and convinced her parents to invest it all in the ill-fated company Enron. Enron was an energy sector leader that started to dabble in e-commerce and exotic investment areas, such as weather futures. In 2001, Enron, once valued at $90 billion and the 7th largest company in the United States, went bankrupt, and my typesetter and her husband lost everything.
Of course, I wish you abundance, and hope you are well-off forever. But life holds surprises for many of us. My point is that it makes sense to create your own income source that is not reliant on anyone else. The greedy guy whose Internet marketing course I took did have some great info, and one of the best things he had to say was to “dig your own well”. Don’t rely on anyone else for your income or livelihood.
Even the Internet marketing course that I think is great suggests that you create affiliate income from promoting their course. While that may be a good idea, on the other hand, if you build your business around them, and their compensation plan changes for the worse, then you’re in a bad spot.
That’s kind of what happened to me, as I had planned on promoting the Internet marketing course I took for $500, which had commissions up to 80%, but then he discontinued selling that course. Luckily, my marketing plan was fluid enough that I could change to other courses, although they don’t pay anywhere as well as his. So, dig your own well.
Now that you’re happy & healthy, and about to be rich ;o), it’s time to tune up your relationships, the next section of this course..
