Internet Marketing Center Releases eBusiness Handbook

The folks over at the Internet Marketing Center have just released a new Internet Business Start-Up Handbook. It contains step-by-step instructions on starting an Internet Business from ground zero. So if you've ever wanted to set up a website and join us in this crazy and lucrative world of Internet Marketing, this handbook is an excellent place to start. I'm sure even seasoned Internet Marketers will find some useful gems in this handy start-up manual.

Since the days of Corey Rudl and Derek Gehl the Internet Marketing Center has steadfastly held it's ground as a premier training resource. They have managed to condense their methods and philosophy of eBusiness selection and start-up into a fantastically inexpensive quick-start guide so anyone can be off and running with a new website and Internet Marketing eBusiness with minimal effort.

You can discover hard won lessons like:

• The number 1 reason new web businesses fail.
  
  
• How to select the right market before you spend your hard earned money.
  
  
• How to avoid being trounced by the "Big Dog" Internet Marketers.
  
  
• How to use "real world" examples to pattern your business.

I've been an affiliate of the Internet Marketing Center for over 7 years and still find them to be one of the most reliable, no-nonsense companies in the industry. It's no surprise that they have become a $100,000,000 company.

If you are just starting out and sorting through the stacks of email hype and the useless "Free" website offers, I highly recommend that you spring for this incredibly valuable $37 dollar handbook.

But just in case you can't find enough reason to pull out your credit card and jump on this fantastic deal. I'll sweeten the pot a little if you purchase through my affiliate link in this post. Just enter the same name and email address you use to purchase the eBusiness Start-Up Handbook on page linked to below and I'll match it with my records and send you instructions on how to download Brad Callen's 85 page quick start manual for Google Adwords, Google Adwords Made Easy absolutely FREE!

This is a $47 dollar eBook with priceless return value in Google profits.

To get the eBusiness Start-Up Handbook AND Google Adwords Made Easy, Just click this link!

The Ultimate PLR Article Collection

I stumbled on a really interesting software item the other day. It's called The Ultimate PLR Article Collection. It's really a database collection of nearly 30,000 Public Label Rights Articles from various niches.

The cool part is that the creators have built a software interface to the database that allows you to search and retrieve articles in specific categories and subject areas. You can look in categories and subcategories or do keyword searches based on words or phrases you are interested in.

Once you have retrieved the articles of you can quickly create a project such as an ebook. The software allows you to edit the articles in your project with a built-in WYSIWYG editor. The editor can organize the articles into chapters, create a table of contents, and add images. It will even create a final PDF file for you. The software also includes an article "spinner" that allows you to quickly reword the content you are editing so that it remains unique.

The software was created by James Jones' Micro Niche Finder company and it is just out of the beta test stage. I see a lot of possibilities for this offering and expect that it will become very popular. You can get into this now for an amazing low price, but that will change very soon.

If you would like to see a video demo of the product it's available here

Mind Movie Sale And Haiti Relief Effort Ends Midnight Jan 22

My friends over at Mind Movies in Australia have been offering a dynamite sale on their top selling Mind Movie Creation Kit. The kit and over $1000 FREE bonus items are on sale for just $20 until Midnight Pacific Time Friday. They have also graciously decided to donate 10% of their sales revenue to the Haiti Relief Fund.

If you are wondering what this is all about, you probably need to refresh your memory on what Napoleon Hill said about setting goals and visualizing your success in his famous book Think and Grow Rich. Almost all experts agree that the key component to reaching your goals is being able to vividly visualize your success as if you were already there. When Napoleon Hill wrote his book around 1939 there was only basic motion picture technology. Today, with the power of the Internet, the ability to create an elaborate vision of your future as a personal movie is in the hands of general population.

Ryan Higgins, now Founder of Mind Movies, stumbled on the Mind Movie process while trying to improve his own ability to visualize and realize his own goals. He found that this technique was so powerful that he formed the Mind Movie company and began producing products to simplify the process of creating a personal vision movie.

I've worked with the Mind Movie team Ryan, Glen and Natilie on several projects last year and they are good people. I highly recommend their products. This sale is an excellent opportunity to try your hand at enhancing your own success creation this year for less than you'll spend for meal for two in a restaurant. Plus you can donate a little to help with the Haiti situation at the same time.

Don't forget the Sale end at Midnight PST January 22, 2010. You can access the sale page here.

Tellman Fund The Run Teleseminar - Update

Tellman Knudson is holding his massive Fund The Run teleseminar and Charity Sale Monday January 11, 2010 at 8:00 PM EST. This is stacking up to be one of the greatest teleseminar events in Internet Marketing history and perhaps one of the greatest teleseminars of all time.

Tellman already holds a record for having one of the most lucrative Internet Marketing teleseminars ever when he and Shawn Casey pulled in over $1,000,000 in less than 90 minutes last year. This call is not only appealing to Internet Marketers, but also to anyone who wants to help the plight of homeless youth because the proceeds of this event are being targeted toward Tellman's Run Tellman Run charity effort.

I'm reminded of some of the great Jerry Lewis' Kids telethons of the early days. Tellman has the ability and the passion to pull this off. Every tool Tellman ever created is going on the block for this event and the prices are down to a few cents on the dollar for the value offered.

I urge everyone in the Internet Marketing arena to make an attempt to be on this call Monday. There's more that 16,000 people registered right now and that number will climb at an exponential rate as we close in on the event.

You can register for the call here.

Fund The Run With Tellman's Internet Marketing Fire Sale

I wanted to get a quick post out to let everybody know about a fantastic opportunity to get a ton on Internet Marketing training at rock bottom "Fire Sale Pricing".

Tellman Knudson is an Internet Marketer from Vermont who I place among my top 10 most prolific and respected marketers. Although you may find him a bit eccentric, he produces fantastic results that have catapulted him to high rankings and made him millions of dollars in the space of just a few years.

Last September he set out on an ambitious project to raise $100,000,000 for homeless youth in America. He's in the midst of a barefoot marathon run across the United States. To help raise money for his project he's holding a Teleseminar in few days where he is going to release his secret techniques for using Teleseminars to sell products. Believe me, this is worth registering for because he currently holds a record for earning $1,000,000 in less than 90 minutes using these methods. I can also vouch for the fact that this really happened because I was on that call.

But there's even more to this story. Tellman is also practically giving away nearly every Internet Marketing product he 's ever created in a huge sale that started Monday. The prices are starting so low that I have to say I've never seen a better value in over 10 years of following Internet Marketing News.

There is one catch however. You have to hurry and register for the free seminar as soon as possible because the prices of the products are going up every 24 hours. You can't go wrong with this. The teleseminar is free and you can knock down some killer deals on your Internet Marketing training for the New Year AND help some homeless youth at the same time. Hows that for WIN, WIN, WIN!

Register for the call before it's full here.

Clickbank Falls In Line Behind The FTC

If you logged in to your Clickbank account in the last week or so you probably saw the dreaded "You must agree to the new Terms of Service" message. I might have just hit the "agree" button and forgotten about it except that I had just spent a few days analyzing the impact of new Federal Trade Commission guidelines on affiliate marketing. That caused me to actually read the new TOS in some detail.

It appears that aside from Clickbank adjusting its terms to accommodate the intricacies of selling physical products, the other major change was the clarification of Clickbank's position on the disclosure of compensatory relationships between it's affiliates and vendors. The terms essentially parroted the FTC guidelines that state that, unless it's obvious the affiliate is being paid for the link they place, they need to disclose the relationship in a way to make it obvious.

This is a clear departure from previous Clickbank positions which have traditionally treated the owners of the hop links as unseen middlemen in a "don't ask, don't tell" transaction. In fact, most of the Clickbank hop link technology was conceived to mask the presence of the affiliate link during the click through process. I will wager there are still people buying merchandise or services on the Internet today who have no idea when they are buying through a Clickbank hop link and paying a percentage of their purchase to an affiliate.

It was clear in the new FTC guidelines that the FTC frowns on nameless endorsement even if there is no change in position from that of the vendor. However, the real motivator for Clickbank was the clarification by the FTC that BOTH the vendor AND the affiliate are responsible for false or deceptive statements in an advertisement. Additionally, the vendor is responsible for adequately informing or training it's affiliates in an affiliate program on proper advertising practice. This leaves Clickbank, who functions primarily in the role of a contract affiliate program manager, in the sticky position of having to deal with controlling the behavior of millions of nameless affiliates.

Will we see the day when Clickbank will flash a disclosure screen when a hop link is clicked? It's a possibility. I've even considered doing that for my Twitter links and other affiliate links where it's difficult to work a clumsy disclosure statement into the ad copy. It simply might be easier to stop a client in midstream and make them sign off on a disclosure.

I have theorized this may be a better place to do a full disclosure in an affiliate transaction. Most Internet users are used to being presented with long legal agreements for software licensing etc. If a customer already has the momentum to click through the affiliate link, then I theorize that they will not be deterred by a mild affiliate disclosure. However, a disclosure placed in sales copy may be more repulsive because the emotional decision to act on a buy impulse has not fully developed until the link is clicked.

I hope to do some split tests on this idea soon. I have not seen anyone do this yet and I would be interested to hear from any affiliates who have tried it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I put together a video summarizing the new FTC guidelines. You can view it here.

Internet Marketing Braces For Implementation Of New FTC Guidelines

I suppose I heard something about the new FTC Guidelines for advertisers during the agencies public review process. Also, like most of us, in Internet Marketing I spend more time focusing on marketing than I do worrying about government regulation. After all, marketers market and regulators regulate.

It wasn't until I started to see some of the people I respect as my mentors begin to change their advertising copy in preparation for the implementation of the new FTC guidelines December 1 that I began realize that there may be more to this than a casual change. When I went through the guidelines it became clear the they could definitely impact the way most people advertise their products on the Internet.

One of the things that is most surprising to me is the FTC's decision to consider affiliate marketers to be in the same class as paid endorsers and its attempt to extend the regulation into social media. It now appears that the FTC considers it the responsibility of Blog owners to check the validity of any advertising claims placed on or linked to in their blogs or blog comments. Additionally, in order for those posts to be considered compliant they must be periodically checked to be sure that the claims made are still valid as time passes. This becomes even more bizarre when you consider the need to place prominent disclaimers on claims that are considered to be atypical.

I am still puzzling over how the FTC expects an affiliate marketer to place a disclaimer in a Twitter tweet or similar social media. As you can see, the implications are staggering. The FTC attempts to address some of these details in their guidance examples but a reading still leaves you feeling uncertain as to the best practice.

I can offer you some insight into the minds of regulators because I worked many years in the medical field having the responsibilities of an institutional compliance expert. While the regulating agencies are different their mindset is the same. Here is by best advice on this issue:

1. Avoid over reacting and spending too much of your precious business resources on trying to perfect compliance. Changes in guidelines of this nature are almost always targeted at a specific problem the agency is addressing. If you are in the problem group, you probably already know it and have received information that the FTC is reviewing your methods.
   
   
2. The fact that the problem is being addressed as a revised guideline as opposed to new law means that the guidelines will not likely be uniformly applied. That is to say that the FTC can and will look the other way in certain cases while vigorously pursuing other cases.
   
   
3. Philosophies of regulators often change focus as they attempt to keep up with rapidly changing technology and society. However, because the regulatory process is lengthy, they often propose to enforce regulation that is either antiquated, impractical or unworkable. Your best position as a user of such technology is to provide sound ideas for a more workable solution to the regulators. Understanding the philosophy of, or the reason for the regulation can help you to provide an alternative workable solution. Understanding the philosophical position and developing action plans and business procedures in accord with the position is more important than strictly following regulation
   
   
4. The idea of the FTC policing social media is almost as ludicrous as them being able to control SPAM email. The fact is the media companies could simply place their servers in countries such China or Russia where regulation and control are minimal. If the FTC then intends to track down any Twitter user that Tweets an affiliate link without admitting to it, they will certainly have a huge job on their hands with limited government resources.
   
   
5. The positive (and likely intended) outcome of implementing these guidelines is that reputable advertisers will review their methods to be sure they avoid deceptive practices. And if the FTC can shut down a few disreputable spam blogs or CPA advertisers then none of us will be any worse off.