And How Will This Affect All Affiliate Marketers or Programs?

Usually I love Mondays, but this week did not start off well for me. I found a letter in my inbox from Amazon telling me that my affiliate account had been closed as of today, March 8th 2010, and that I will no longer be paid advertising fees for customers I refer to Amazon.com after that date.

Amazon state their reason:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

My thoughts are,  … If a giant like Amazon won’t comply with this new Colorado law … who’s going to be next?

What other companies are going to follow suit? ebay?  Google Adsense? Online Affiliate Programs?

Will other states follow suit and pass similar legislation in hopes of reducing their deficits?

How long will it be before other affiliate marketers nationwide are affected?

Let me know what you think. Thank you in advance for your feedback.
By the way … anyone got a spare bedroom? Just considering my options =)

Time Out!

Sometimes I feel I write this blog just as much for myself as for you, my visitors. I have been extremely busy lately. Learning new things, figuring out new WordPress plugins, and gadgets and widgets. I’m almost at the point of burnout.

You can only burn the candle at two ends for so long.

Last night, while laying in bed, unable to sleep because my mind was still going a thousand miles an hour, I remembered this story below. I love motivational and inspirational stories. Lately I’ve been putting them into custom greeting cards and sending them to my customers, team mates, friends and family.

So here’s the story …

The Mayonnaise Jar and Coffee

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar… and the coffee…

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.  He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.  He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the jar was full.  They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.  Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full.  The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, ” I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.  The golf balls are the important things – your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.  The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car.  The sand is everything else – the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.  The same goes for life.  If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.  Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.  Play with your children.  Take time to get medical checkups.  Take your partner out to dinner.  Play another 18.  There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.  Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter.  Set your priorities.  The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.  “I’m glad you asked.  It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

That really puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

Common Sense Rules To Protect You From Tarnishing Your Reputation

A couple of days ago I added a comment to a post on Jason Better’s blog that left me with egg on my face. Or so I thought. (By the way, if you haven’t visited and bookmarked his blog yet, I would suggest you do so immediately. You will find great information there as well as a community of very experienced online marketers.)

But anyway, back to my story…

I posted a comment and thought I made a mistake and gave credit to the wrong person. (You always want to make sure you give credit where credit is deserved when you leave a comment.)

As it turned out, I had been correct in the first place and had given credit to the right person. But I didn’t know that for about two hours. I was totally miserable. I was so embarrassed.

In a way, I am glad now that this happened because it gave me a topic for this post and it reminded me how public a place the internet really is. Once you hit that “submit” button, whatever you say is out there for the whole world to see. There’s no taking it back.

What happened to me was just an honest mistake, a little blunder. But nonetheless, it’s ‘out there.’ And it taught me a great lesson. I will be much more careful next time before I hit “submit.”

Just remember these ground rules…

Always be polite.

Always be honest.

Always be kind.

If you made a mistake, fess up and try to correct it immediately.

Don’t say anything you could regret later. Because, whatever it is, it WILL come back to haunt you.

Be like “Thumper” … “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

Especially as a professional, marketing and growing your business on the internet the last thing you want to do is tarnish your reputation.

Oh, and if you ever had “egg on your face” I’d love for you to share your story in the comments below … IF you dare =)

“What is a good home based business?”

This question was asked in one of the social networks I am a member of. A great question. Especially for someone new to the industry.

As you can imagine, dozens of replies came in from other members offering information on the home based business they are promoting. Of course everyone thinks their opportunity is the best. That’s only natural. But, what is a good fit or me might not be a good fit for you.

When you are looking for a good home based business … for YOU … your first question should be, …“What am I passionate about?”

What do you like to do for fun? What hobbies or interests do you have? What makes you tick? If money were no object, what would you do with the rest of your life?

That’s the answer I gave …. and I have been saying that over and over lately …

“Find your passion and then find a way to make money with it.”

If you are truly passionate about what you do, you’ll be having so much fun that it won’t seem like work. And … the money WILL follow eventually.

For example, if you are into health and fitness choose a home business to match that interest. Or, if you are the creative type, find something that matches up with that. And so on. Never join a home based business only because a friend or family member wants you to join up with them. You’ll be miseable and you won’t do anyone a favor when you quit a couple of months into it.

Interesting what a recent Yahoo survey revealed about what kind of work U.S adults would prefer to do late in life. Read Kim Klaver’s post about it here.

Let me know what you are passionate about in your comments below. Is your business connected to your passion and vise versa?

Lately it has almost become like a contest between my husband and me. Who can find the coolest tools and gadgets on the internet to help us in building our businesses. I have to admit, so far he is winning. He comes up with the neatest things.

His latest find, the Google Wonder Wheel. Until a couple of days ago I had no idea that it even existed. Since then I have had a lot of fun with it, just for the heck of it.

What is the Google Wonder Wheel? Its a little search engine tool that lets you drill down your search terms.

You find it in the left-hand menu of the Google search engine after you click “Show options.”

And this is how it works. Let’s say you are searching for “home business”, which is a very broad keyword. It then shows you a wheel with related search terms or keywords and key phrases. Like home business ideas, internet home business, starting a home business, work from home and so on. You can click on any of them to drill further down. It also shows you the results of your search on the right.

Let’s see what happens if we click on “work from home”. . . Cool isn’t it?!

You can just keep on drilling down from there and refine your search until you find what you are looking for.

Pretty awesome tool, huh?

Now, I am really curious. Did you know about the Google Wonder Wheel before I did?
Let me know your comments below.

It just might be, if Senator McCain’s new proposed bill becomes law. If you are a distributor with and MLM company marketing liquid nutritionals (or any nutritional supplements for that matter) then you better read this article.

Senator John McCain is attacking the MLM nutritional industry with a stupid bill.  The “Dietary Supplement Safety Act” threatens to dramatically change this industry.

If this bill becomes law it will require you to register your nutritional supplement business. Yes, you read that right, you as a distributor of liquid dietary supplements will have to register as well, not just the company you work with.

Read more here.

Wow!  What will they think of next to make life difficult for us network marketers?

See what your website or blog visitors focus their attention on or where they are zooming in at when they come to your home page or landing page.

Now that you’ve put so much time and emphasis into creating the perfect website or blog for your home business, wouldn’t it be interesting to know what exactly your visitors focus on when they get there? What do they look at first? What second? Do they even pay attention to the things you want them to pay attention too? Wouldn’t it be great to find out? My husband recently shared this very valuable business building tool with me, that lets me find out exactly what the visitors to my blog look at first, second, third, ect.

Attention Wizard is a visual attention prediction tool. A business tool, that points out the hot spots on your page. Pretty cool! It’s kind of a simulator of how the human brain works. Don’t you think it would be kind of cool to get right inside your visitors brain and guide them to the most important info on your marketing blog or business website?

I took a screenshot of my blog and ran a heatmap. It was quick and easy to do and within minutes I found out exactly what my website visitors look at first, second, third and so on.

Although I am pretty happy with the results, I wish I could zoom in their focus a bit more. But, since I am using a WordPress template that won’t be as easy to do as if I would have designed my blog from scratch. However, if you have a squeeze page or a landing page you can definitely zoom in your visitors attention right to the call of action.

I hope this free business building tool will help grow your home based or network marketing business.

Try it out and share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Jason Better wrote a post the other day about the ‘Invasion of the Face Snatchers’. You see them all over the social media world.  Take a stroll through Plaxo, Twitter or Myspace and you see them, the ‘faceless’ people. Even on Facebook. Uhm, it’s called FACEbook. So put your face out there. Especially if you are networking for business.

Most social networking sites (if not all of them) let you upload a profile picture. Usually that is very easy and in the event you should get stuck there should be a help menu that will guide you through how to do it. Or just ask one of your friends on the site how they did it.

But not only on social media sites you find them, even the blogosphere has its share of people without a face. I used to be one of them. Not because I didn’t want my picture out there on the comments I left, but because I had no clue how to do it. Well, if you don’t know how to do something … just ask. So I did ask Jason just shortly before he posted about the ‘Invasion of the Face Snatchers.’ He told me about a little site called  Gravatar.com

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a techie to set it up. It’s really easy and they even have a little video that shows you how. In just a few minutes you can ‘have a face.’

Put your face out there. Especially on your profiles. People are much more likely to connect with you and accept your friends requests when they see your smiley face.

Just think about this scenario…

You go into a store and there behind the counter stands a clerk with a ski mask asking how he could help you. You’d be out the door in a split second.  Wouldn’t you? I get shivers down my spine just thinking about that. Pretty creepy!

Remember, people do business with people they know, like and trust.

Looking forward to see your smile.

Oh, and by the way, moosey on over to Jason Better’s Blog you will find some great information and meet some cool people there.

Gosh, don’t you just love her? She is such a kind-hearted, wise woman with such a witty sense of humor. I don’t remember who sent the article below to me, but I just felt I had to share it with you.

Don’t break the elastic!

In April, Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70+ birthday.. Oprah asked her what she thought of growing older. And, there on television, she said it was ‘exciting…’

Regarding body changes, she said there were many, occurring every day…..like her breasts. They seem to be in a race to see which will reach her waist, first.

The audience laughed so hard they cried. She is such a simple and honest woman, with so much wisdom in her words!

Maya Angelou said this:

‘I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.’

‘I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.’

‘I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.’

‘I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life.’

‘I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.’

‘I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back…..’

‘I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.’

‘I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one…’

‘I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.’

‘I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn..’

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

We all have certain people we admire and look up to. I invite you to share some of yours in the comment box below.

Bad apples  are what gives network marketing or mlm a bad name. These phony companies are trying to ruin it for the rest of us. However, just like there are more good people in this world than bad people, there are also more good mlm companies out there than bad. Just think of Avon, Mary Kay or Tupperware to name just a few.

The mlm or network marketing industry had been fighting for acceptance for over 50 years. And now, that it finally gets the recognition it deserves as the most brilliant business model, companies like YTB come along and try to ruin it again all just because they can’t get enough. They just don’t get it. For them it’s just all about the money.

Can you tell I’m upset?

It is just so sad.

When I was first introduced to network marketing in the early 90ies, my husband and I came across some of those shady companies. I was under the impression that network marketing was just that…shady business. At one point I told him, “If you ever join any of those ‘things’ again, I am going to leave you.” I was dead serious. I did want no part of that. I was ignorant, I had not taken the time to find out more about this industry. It was years later when I finally “got it” thanks to such great people like Tim Sales and Kim Klaver. Today I am a very passionate network marketer and I get upset at companies like YTB who tarnish our industry.

Please read the article in MLM Watchdog and then please come back and leave me your comments in the comment box below. I am interested in your thoughts.