Second off, if you’re like me, then you have an office in your basement or you just plain have crappy wireless service in your house.

When I moved from Sprint to AT&T to get an iPhone I was less than pleased to discover that my cell service no longer worked very well in the house.

I was even more less pleased to discover that it didn’t work at ALL in my basement.

Since I use that phone for just about everything I found myself constantly running upstairs and out to the garage to just pick up a lil service and be able to use my phone.

I had read about repeaters which you place up in your attic and which act as antennas to increase your wireless range… sounded good, but required running wires from my attic to my basement and of course busting into some walls.

That = not good.

However, I was getting ready to bite the bullet and hire someone to do all this for me so I could just get back to using my celly as usual.

And then — in walks in Line2, an iPhone app that adds a second line to your iPhone and let’s you switch back and forth between VOIP and cell.

Since my house is on a wireless network, with this app I could quickly and easily get back on the celly again, from anywhere in my house, with crystal clear coverage!

If you suffer from crappy in-home cell service and happen to be a fellow iPhone user, then your woes are solved now. Check out the app called Line 2 here:

Next, use your phone and smile as you thank me in your mind;-)

Enjoy!

Hostler

Frankly I was surprised by how typically “Google” this commercial was, but apparently the doods that run the ship over at Google have been running this ad over at YouTube for months now…

And the feedback on the YouTube video was mostly positive, so they thought it would be worth putting on TV.

Google couldn’t be more anti-marketing if they wanted to be. But obviously the shit they do works, so I’m sure they won’t be knocking on my door for consulting anytime soon;)

If you have yet to see the commercial, I embedded it for you here:

Peace,

Hostler

But that was before I stumbled upon the BEST make money product ever…

I mean this program is so good that I actually made money just by looking at it.

Yes, it’s THAT good:)

“How To Make Money In Your Spare Time”, by 673126 is step by step, A-Z, no stone unturned money getting madness.

I am not even certain I can give this program its due here in a short and simple blog post, so you’ll just have to snatch this up for yourself before all the copies are gone.

And we both know that this WILL sellout, right?

CLICK HERE to get all the skinny on, “Make Money In Your Spare Time.”  Enjoy!

But why so long?

Because I am not a blog marketer, blogging marketer, blarketer… or whatever the hell it’s called when you make most of your coin from pimping shit on your blog.

So, while I was spending my time on stuff that makes me money, I was NOT spending my time on my blog.

For some reason I looked at my blog the other day and thought, “damn, that’s a pretty sweet looking site… I look all evil and whatnot… maybe I should do something with it.”

And so I am…

Here is what I AM doing… just droppin’ my thoughts on whatever pops into my head… sometimes it might relate to marketing… sometimes it might be about anything… and I mean ANYTHING.

So, if you read this blog expecting to be taught the “insider secrets” to this or that, you’re in the wrong place.

If you’re bored as shit and have a voyeur quality about you, you might enjoy this peek inside my head.

If you DO want to read some blogs that are generally geared towards making money, getting cash, hustlin’ for online dollars and the like… check the blogroll to the right because they have good info from real peeps making real money.

That’s it for now.

More brain dumps soon.

Peace,

Hostler

Having been marketing online and off for many years now I have seen pretty much every tactic, trick, technique, secret, and everything else imaginable.

So, shit rarely surprises me or grabs my attention.  This did though…

Check out this envelope I got in the mail today… small… handwritten address, no return address, and a regular stamp.

Because it was small and hand addressed I thought it was a personal letter and not Direct Mail, which I can usually spot a mile away.

Don’t get me wrong — I am on a lot of DM lists because I love Direct Mail.  I love to see what people are doing and the kind of copy that goes into their DM sales letters.

When I opened this, I was excited because here is what I saw…

Here’s the flipside of that hundy…

But much to my surprise, this is what I saw when I inspected that $100 bill a little closer…

So, yeah.   This was no dollar bill — instead it was a very realistic looking piece of direct mail that actually got me through the steps it wanted me to take.

And yep… I even checked out the web site.

Now, that didn’t do much for me at all.  But, kudos to the guy running it for getting me to open his direct mail piece and actually driving me to the sales page!

Just to recap why this was effective:

1) Small envelope

2) Hand addressed

3) Regular stamp

4) No return address

These made me think this was a personal letter or something for me.  I did not think this was direct mail.

5) A realistic looking folded $100 bill

How could I not pull that out and at least check it out?

I was definitely surprised when I saw a sales message.  I was also intrigued enough to take a closer look and see who or what these guys were all about.

Again, I’m a pretty tough sale so when something makes me go through even part of the sales process, I take notice, and reflect on it.

I may try this out with something and if I do I’ll come back and report on results.

If you think you might like to give this a run, here’s a site where you can get these kinds of cash cards made…

Till next time,

John Hostler

I’m someone that enjoys being connected (or as my wife would say, “on an electronic leash”) and have my BlackBerry tied to my Exchange server, so I can get my emails anywhere.

The problem is that my BlackBerry (in addition to my inbox) just seems to get stuffed with hundreds of emails with subject lines such as this:

Free veogra pills.!

You are nominated for a Bachelors

Change your entire life with Ultra Allure!

Swiss Branded Watches

I saw Angelina endorse this

And on and on and on and on

Finally, after messing around with the spam settings at the server level, and determining that changing those settings seemed to be filtering out the messages I DID want, I decided to test out spamarrest.

I started on the 30 day free trial, figuring why spend the $29.95 it costs for 8 months (6 + 2 free months), unless I found it to be useful for me.

The results:

I feel liberated and can finally say, “F&*k you spam!” My inbox and BlackBerry are MUCH cleaner and I don’t come back to an inbox littered with hundreds of emails after having spent just an hour with the family.

Have a peek at what spamarrest has done for me over the past 5 days:

F&*k you spam!

Yeah, in just 5 days spamarrest relieved me of over 4000 spam messages that otherwise would have hit my inbox or BlackBerry — driving me absolutely freakin’ NUTS!

Whether you’re getting more spam than me or if you’re getting less… if you’re feeling like there is too much spam in your own inbox these days — I suggest you try this out.

I’ve only put this on 5 of my 20 or so email addy’s and plan to drop $50 to put 10 more of my email addy’s on the account, thus relieving me of even more spam.

Here’s to some peace and quiet;-)

John Hostler

I am only talking about it here today because I am also beginning to grow weary of people blaming the economy for their failing business.

Now, I’m not a heartless prick, and for some, I realize the economy does affect their business negatively.

But, as an online marketer, the economy or an economic downturn should in NO WAY send your sales in the toilet.

Here’s why –being online allows for great maneuverability.  If one niche goes South then move to another that excels in bad economic times.

If we look at the Great Depression as an indicator of what to do today, during tough economic times people like to spend on things that allow them to forget what’s going on in the world around them.

With that mindset, what kinds of products could you promote as an affiliate that people would be interested in using as a way to forget for even just a little while?

Or… given that there is a credit crunch going on, do you think products that help people with their credit might be viable?

Or perhaps debt reduction?  If people are “tightening their belts” then wouldn’t debt reduction programs be salable, especially during “times like this”?

The bottom line is there are ALWAYS opportunities — both in up markets and down markets.  Hell, today you can get GM stock for what it cost back in the 50’s!

It’s just in how you look at it… and frankly where you look.

If you want to look for the bad… that is ALL you’re gonna find… but if you want to look for opportunities, they are out there in droves.  As an online marketer you have the flexibility to change things up at will:-)

Til next time,

John Hostler

In fact, my partner Phil Craig just proved today that it’s still an excellent way to muscle in on keywords you want to rank for by grabbing 3 spots on the first page of Google in one day.

In the screenshot below you can see where Phil grabbed us 3 spots (out of 10) all in one day on Quick Cash Domaining without quotes or brackets:

So, think this is hard? Not really. In fact, it CAN be really easy and done for next to nothin’.

1st) go to PRWeb
2nd) Grab the first or second distribution option for $80 or $140
3rd) Skip all the other extras
4th) Make sure to assign your keywords and Technorati tags
5th) Also be sure to set up the RSS feeds and use the SEO Wizard
6th) Unleash it:-)

The shot above was taken about 5 hours after Phil set up his Press Release. As you can see, this just plain works.

Now you’ve got no reason to not rank for keywords you want in on, especially longer tail keywords and keyphrases.

I know I will not be forgetting to use this method again;-)

Peace,
John Hostler

“Why don’t you crack an egg of knowledge all over me, buddy.”
Charlie : It’s Always Sunny In Philadephia

And here I am now telling you that there may just be some use for the JV strategy in Internet marketing after all. Am I back peddling?

Nah… just doing things a little differently for you to get a different and better result:-)

Here’s a method from which you can profit from JV partners, without many of the hassles that go along with the customary JV method (ie: ask people to mail for you).

You see… so many people neglect to consider the back end opportunities here.

Picture this:

You get 10 people with existing products to place a link to your product in their membership site or their autoresponder series.

Those individuals each generate a sale a day for you on your $47 product. After commissions (assuming 50%), you generate $235 per day, or $7050 per month.

Doable? Hell yeah.

Instead of busting ass and getting disappointed by people that say they will mail and don’t, spend that same time asking people just to get a link to you in their resource pages, their arutoresponders, their membership sites… whatever…

Folks will do this much faster and with far less hesitation because it’s a smaller commitment for them and does not require the use of their list the way a launch blast or promo blast does.

So, stop reading this and go get em.

Peace,

John Hostler

PS - I’ll share some things you can do to ensure that you get your products into other marketer’s back ends in my next post or two…

I keep my mind on my money, my money on my mind

A straight up soldier in the field out here pushin my line

Layzie Bones

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

I thought today I would address a common “traffic” theme for many would be, could be, wanna be Internet Marketers.

Joint Ventures.

This is something that a lot of the big hitters swear by and hell — there’s even products that teach you how to get JV’s for your products.

My take — it’s bullshit and a waste of your time (unless your product is outside of the IM niche).

First, let’s look at the numbers for a second.

Most people think, “Hey, I grabbed so and so guru and he has a whopping 100,000 list.” … “if I can get even a measly 1% conversion rate then on my $47 product I will get 1000 sales at $47, or $47,000.” … “woo freakin hoo I’m rich!”

But… sorry to burst your bubble, it don’t work like that.

You see, assuming that Joe Guru does have 100k list, which is limited to a VERY small number of players, if he mails that list for you, there are other things to account for.

1st… what is his open rate like. It he does really well and gets 20% opens, then that means 20%, or 20,000 of that 100k will even look at the email.

2nd… what is his click through rate like. If he does well again and gets 20% clickthrough, then 20% of that 20,000 will click through to see your sales page.

That’s 2000 clicks (and trust me when I tell you that it’s few and far between to find the guys that can do this with any frequency).

Now, 2000 clicks and your 1% conversion rate from above, means that 20 people buy your product at $47 for a whopping gross of $940 in sales (before you send out commissions).

Not gonna quit the dayjob on that action, are ya?

And this is assuming you are able to nail down the JV partners at all, which is another thing entirely.

See, people are people, whether they have a list or not. So, they do things that people do… things like:

• Ignore your emails
• Promise to mail and never follow up
• Mail to only a portion of their list
• Mail out for their own products instead

And can you blame them really? Shit, it’s THEIR list.

My point here is that if you REALLY want to get some badass JV’s going, it’s gonna take a LOT of time and effort for you to get people to A) Commit and then B) Follow through

Thus my reasoning… it’s bullshit and a waste of your time in the IM niche. There are so many other ways to skin the cat when it comes to traffic.

Ways with much better ROI.

We’ll hit on some of these through the course of this blog, in addition to a slew of other marketing related topics. But, that’s all from me for now.

Till next time.

John Hostler

“There’s no sign of the morning coming
You’ve been left on your own
Like a Rainbow in the Dark”

Ronnie James Dio