I spent the weekend in Atlanta at the
Niche Affiliate Marketing Workshop
hosted by David Perdew. This is the 4th time I’ve attended and taught at “NAMS”, and I’ll be doing it again in January 2011.

I was unsure if I would be teaching again at NAMS-5, but I left yesterday knowing without a doubt that I would not miss the January event…

(If you’re at all interested in attending, you should click here and grab your ticket now – there’s an incredible special offer that is still live, until David catches it!)

If you’re a regular reader here then you know I struggled with major lifestyle changes this summer, which had a dramatic impact on my routine and my motivation. I say motivation, but I see it now more as my energy level. I just didn’t have the energy to put as much into my business, or anything really, for awhile.

Going to this live event totally re-energized me.

I wasn’t alone, either. This weekend was the dose of inspiration and motivation for a lot of us that attended. I saw lightbulbs going off, a-ha moments, relief, excitement, and even tears of gratitude across the crowd. There were about 200 of us together for the weekend, and it was an incredible experience.

The NAMS events are limited to ~200 every time, and the 5th workshop in January will be no exception. That’s because it is a hands-on workshop, where you can get a lot more personal instruction and personal attention than the typical conference or seminar.

I taught 3 workshop sessions at the event, and also lead a private (unrecorded) mastermind session alongside Nicole Dean with the Advanced group.

As you can see in the photo at the top left, the workshops are offered to smaller groups – broken down by both levels and topics. In that particular session with the Intermediate group there were only 30-40 people in the room.

This opens up the opportunity to do in-depth Q&A with the instructors, and also to brainstorm as a group. It’s a unique set-up for a live event, and an incredibly productive format.

I taught affiliate site models, the various opportunities for affiliate marketers, affiliate marketing basics, and how you can position yourself in the marketplace.

In my last session with the Beginner group, Bob “the teacher” Jenkins and I did detailed site reviews of niche affiliate sites together. This proved incredibly helpful for those who were still trying to get a handle on how things are put together, and what affiliate sites look like.

I actually sat in on a few sessions myself when I wasn’t teaching or helping. I took a class in one of the Beginners rooms (ha!), where Bob taught mind mapping.

I downloaded iThoughtsHD on my iPad right there in the session, and created my very first mind map. ever. I’ve never been into mind maps so much, but it’s actually pretty cool on a touch screen.

That wasn’t the only thing I learned at NAMS 4 either. I left there anxious to get home and get straight to work on my own affiliate sites, implementing some things I picked up. I’m glad to be back, and especially glad to be back at a place where I feel so inspired and motivated…

Join Us For The Next Niche Affiliate Marketing Workshop!

Best,

p.s. NAMS always sells out months in advance due to the limited number of tickets, so you’ll want to grab a ticket now if you want to join us in January!

I had a fabulous time at the Niche Affiliate Marketing workshop in Atlanta this past weekend, and wanted to share a few pictures with you to give you a good idea just how fun & productive the weekend truly was.

Above is a shot of me with Nicole Dean and Willie Crawford right before we presented in the Advanced session on Hiring & Working With Affiliate Managers.

Nicole & Willie are two of the best Affiliate Managers I know. I’ve had a chance to work with them both personally as an Affiliate. They have tons of experience managing affiliate programs and working with affiliate managers & JV partners.

We discussed the pros & cons in great detail, and I really took a lot away from that session! The biggest point being about outsourcing: Know who you need to hire, and why, as it relates specifically to your business model.

I had the opportunity to work alongside Jeff Herring on Day One of the 3-day workshop, following my presentation on Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing. Jeff and I taught together on market research, niche selection & creating content.

I put together a password-protected post with PDF Tutorials for attendees to download, to help them work on their sites after the event. The password is “nams3″. I just didn’t want Google indexing the PDF files.

My daughter Annie attended the NAMS Workshop with me this time, which was great fun! She really enjoyed getting to meet everyone in person that she see’s cross my computer screens every day here in the home office.

She got very involved, and came home to get straight to work on her affiliate site – and is even tweeting now! You’ll find her on Twitter as @anniemgarrett

Our own Magic Myke was kind enough to design her a custom blog header while we were at the event. When they weren’t playing Scrabble on the iPhone at least

It means a lot to me to have my children so involved in my business after all these years. I have been working from home for 13+ years now, and the fact that they both took an interest has made this last year truly amazing. My son, Zack 18yo, is the developer behind a new site I am releasing in beta: http://www.GeekTrax.com

Annie actually spent most of her time with her new surrogate parents (lol) Aileen Bennett and Kevin Riley. Three peas in a pod, no doubt! LOL

I had a fabulous lunch (and much-needed break) with the gals on Sunday. Left to right is Tishia Lee, Danielle Johnson, Angie Newton, my daughter and then me. Lots of laughs at this table – I’m shocked we didn’t get kicked out, or at least get a round of applause from the whole restaurant when we finally left!

This picture just cracks me up -LOL. That’s me, with Bob “the Teacher” Jenkins. He was a huge hit at the workshop with his presentation on Using Social Media to Drive Traffic – everyone loved it!!

Traci Knoppe and I on my HP Netbook (I love that thing!!) checking out the tweets & photos that were being posted live at the event. Traci runs Your Web Tech Team and is the developer behind the Beginner to Blogger training program.

On Day 2 of the NAMS event, I had the pleasure of presenting alongside Sid Hale and Kevin Riley. Sid is the developer behind RAP (Rapid Action Profits) and Kevin is a total whiz at info-product development. In the photo above, I had just informed them both that there was only one microphone.

I really enjoyed Sid’s presentation just before that, where he discussed the power of creating and working with a team of affiliates in your online business. He made some awesome points about leverage and scalability.

After his presentation, the three of us lead a workshop on creating info-products and recruiting affiliates. Definitely a highlight for me over the weekend!

Michael Schultz took this photo – I got busted sitting in the back of the room texting & tweeting. Ha! Also in the photo is Chris Cobb, Maritza Parrah, Kathleen Gage and Jeff Herring. All working away from the back of the room!

Me with Kimmoy (left) and Andrea (right) – both Elite Members of SSWT.

There were over 70 Elite Members at the NAMS event, so I held a private reception for our group on Saturday night. We had a nice food spread and a great time. In the photo above, my daughter and Aileen Bennett were doing the drawing for the book giveaways – and cracking everyone up! LOL They’re a mess

During the Elite Reception, Deb Gallardo sang an Internet Marketing parody for us – great entertainment and lots of laughs!

I also finally unboxed my Macbook Pro live at the Elite Reception. In the photo above you can see I’m having serious second thoughts. Kidding!

This is Mark Mason, who was kind enough to video the Macbook Pro Unboxing.

Left to right is “Toronto Carol”, Angie Newton, me and Julie Anna Schultz (mom to the whiz kid, Magic Myke). All fabulous ladies that I consider great friends!

Scott aka @FatLossQuickie kept the whole crowd in stitches throughout the weekend with his “quickie talk”. You’ll remember that Scott recently did a guest series here on ClickNewz with some fabulous posts on “a healthy approach to internet marketing”. If you missed those, they’re well worth a read!

Another shot with Nicole Dean and Willie Crawford. Two of the most real, down to earth, friendly – and brilliant! – online marketers that I know.

And last but not least, Kurt Scholle – the man responsible for all the great photos. He did a fabulous job catching some of the best moments of the NAMS event. You can find the rest of his pictures on his Flickr account. Thank you, Kurt!

I wish I could share every single moment, conversation and aha! that I had over the weekend but there’s just no way to capture it all – except to be there. I do hope you’ll consider joining us at a future event!

The next NAMS will be held in August 2010. I’ll let you know as soon as I have sign-up information, or you can keep an eye on the website here:

http://www.nicheaffiliatemarketingsystems.com

Best,

This morning I grabbed a copy of Chris Garrett’s new guide on Guest Blogging from http://guestposting.info.

It’s a 20-page detailed PDF for only $10, which gets you a membership with even more helpful guest blogging tools & guides to come.

Guest blogging is actually one of my favorite marketing methods. It’s one of the best ways to gain exposure, build a list, grow a readership, and get high quality one-way inbound links for traffic and search engine rankings.

You don’t even need a blog of your own to put this strategy to work for you. It’s a great way to get exposure to any website or offer online. And offline businesses would do well to work with local community bloggers…

This video explains exactly what you can expect for your ten bucks:

I decided to grab this great resource in addition to Nicole Dean’s guest blogging guide, as I like to learn from a variety of resources. Put together you’re spending less than 30 bucks for something that can dramatically increase your traffic, readership, search engine rankings – and ultimately your online sales.

Chris Garrett is the co-author of Problogger the book alongside Darren Rowse. Darren also has an amazing special going on, which actually ends later tonight. The last I checked there was about 15 hours left to go…

http://www.probloggerworkbook.com

If you order now, you’ll get 3 new exclusive bonuses:

1. a report: 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year
2. a 55 minute podcast with successful blogger Leo Babauta
3. a 45 minute podcast with successful blogger Neil Patel

All in all the extra content is a bit under 2 hours of audio and an extra 9 days of teaching and exercises – it is a content rich bonus offer on top of the existing 1 hour Question and Answer podcast that he’s already been offering.

See http://www.probloggerworkbook.com for the details on each bonus. The price is still under 20 bucks!

3 great blogging resources to make 2010 a huge success

Best,

I just found this new video by Nicole Dean. A great follow-up to the recent discussion on using PLR in your Email Marketing Plan. If you’ve had personal concerns about using content with Private Label Rights, or hiring writers for your website or blog, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Check out the video – Nicole makes some great points

Best,

Hello again. I’m Lynn’s friend and fellow Internet Marketer Scott Tousignant. This week I am enjoying my role as guest blogger here at Clicknewz and introducing you to the positive impact that home office fitness will have on your business.

I sure enjoyed all your comments on yesterday’s blog post where I shared some simple desk exercises with you. Remember, I’m randomly selecting a winner from all the comments on my blog posts this week.

Yesterday I mentioned that corporations have been adopting workplace fitness as a means of increasing productivity with their employees. Today we are going to explore the topic of productivity in more detail and help you get more of it during your workday…

I know that this is a question which has come up at Clicknewz in the past, but it’s worth asking again. How many hours do you spend working on your online business? Next question… How many of those hours are spent being productive?

It’s important to work hard and pay your dues in order to get your online business turning a profit. But spending 12-16 hours sitting in front of your computer may not be the most useful way to spend your time. You may be busy, but you are not being completely productive.

Have you ever found yourself staring at the computer screen for an hour trying to write a blog post, free report, or sales copy and not get anything done at all? Read the rest of this entry

With all this talk I’ve been doing about guest blogging & blog interviews, and one way link opportunities…
I completely forgot that my dear friend (and brilliant marketer) – Nicole Dean – recently published a complete guide on that very topic!

It’s called the Blog World Tour Planner and it comes with a 38 page detailed guide, an idea generator, research worksheet, sample email for contacting bloggers, and a “blog tour” planning spreadsheet.

The price? Only $17!

Not mentioning this earlier was a major oversight on my part. I’ve been a bit out of the loop lately after that spell of my daughter being ill, and in a mad catch-up phase ever since. At any rate – my apologies. This is definitely something you’ll want to hear about, so I sat down last night to give it a proper Lynn-style review…

Nicole Dean’s Summer Blog Tour

You may recall that Nicole was a guest blogger here at ClickNewz for an entire week over the summer. My blog was just one of her many stops in what she called her Blog World Tour where she made appearances as a guest blogger across popular blogs all over the web, week after week.

It was a huge success in many respects – from high-quality inbound links to tons of exposure & traffic, and even setting up long-term passive streams of income.

Nicole is brilliant like that, coming up with creative new ideas and documenting every detail. Not only do I like and respect her as a friend, but as a marketer – I pick her brain every chance I get!

The Blog World Tour Guide for Guest Blogging

As I mentioned, this package comes with a detailed guide and a number of super-helpful bonuses to help you take immediate action and get started with your own guest blogging venture.

Sure you can go it alone, and figure everything out as you go – or you can take all the guesswork out of it and just get started for only 17 bucks. That’s kind of a no-brainer, if you ask me.

The guide starts out giving you some insight into how people think, and how Nicole’s idea was born. If you’re smart, you’ll read those couple of pages carefully and consider other ways you can apply that to your business. It’s a simple but brilliant thought process – just one of the things I love about Nicole.

Even though I was part of her summer blog tour, I never knew exactly what all went into it – or that she ultimately wrote 75 blog posts across 15 different blogs (not including her own). Wow!

Obviously you don’t have to go to that extreme – or you could set out to out-blog Nicole Dean if you like – but either way just ONE of those blog posts is worth way more than 17 dollars. Consider that just one post on one blog equals a permanent high quality one-way inbound link.

Or let’s say you have a product of your own that you sell, and your guest post ranks high for a specific keyword phrase. That one blog post could result in ongoing product sales for months – or even years…

Nicole discusses the benefits of guest blogging, or doing a “blog tour” as she calls it, and she also discusses the benefits to the bloggers – why they would agree to let you guest blog, and how to make the offer even more enticing to them.

Having been involved in her blog tour personally, I can tell you that what she did was a HUGE benefit to me. I’d let her come back and guest blog here anytime! And my personal experience from that side of her guide gets me even more excited about using her methods myself…

By the way – she details out tips for you in the guide that make blog owners LOVE having you as a guest, and BEG you to come back and write for them again. Obviously those tips worked on me, so I paid special attention there!

The guide is laid out in steps, starting with choosing your commitment and your objective. You might need inbound links, or you might use this as part of a pre-launch buzz campaign for your product, or you may be recruiting affiliates.

There are a number of reasons to consider guest blogging, and a variety of ways to use it for major leverage and advantage.

Nicole goes through the process of finding the right blogs in great detail, as well as which blogs to avoid (and why). She also gives you a spreadsheet to keep track of each blog and their details, with screenshots of how she used it herself.

Organization & scheduling is covered as well – such as creating an editorial calendar you can share with an assistant, if you choose to outsource some of the groundwork. Even if you’re doing this on a small scale and managing the details yourself, this part is very helpful. Nothing like dropping the ball on a promise made…

By the way, Page 18 shares 3 resources I had NO idea even existed. Be sure to check those out

The Bonus Planning Tools

The guide itself is incredibly rich in ideas and step-by-step instructions, but the tools included is where this product really overdelivers. The “idea generator” that I mentioned earlier is a brainstorming resource for coming up with topics to blog about. Very helpful for those that struggle with writing but really want to make this work for them.

Also included is a guest blogging planner – particularly helpful if you’re going to be doing a full-on blog tour like Nicole, but also a very handy spreadsheet to use as an editorial planner for your own blog plus your guest blogging opps.

To recap the bonus tools included, you get the 38-page guide plus:

• Content Idea Generator
• Blog Research Spreadsheet
• Same Email To Bloggers
• Editorial Calendar Spreadsheet

All that, for only $17. Click here to get started!

Best,

p.s. I was hanging out with Nicole over the summer, during her vacation here in TN and at an event where we roomed together in early August. She was right in the middle of her now famous Blog Tour both of those times, so I got to see her in action firsthand.

That’s in addition to seeing how it all worked when she made her stop here at my blog – and experiencing the sales & traffic that she brought to ClickNewz. Nothing short of amazing. But what was most amazing about it was that, while Nicole IS brilliant in her creative marketing ideas, she simply rolled up her sleeves and did it.

And that my friends is what sets Nicole Dean, and other successful online marketers, apart from the rest- apart from the hopefuls and wannabe’s.

You can sit around and need inbound links, want to sell more product, or wish you could recruit more affiliates- or you can download these tools and take action.

I’m off to quit talking about it, and get started setting up these awesome tools…

<- That’s David Perdew, and this is one of my favorite pictures ever. It was taken at the first NAMS Workshop in January of this year, when David crowned me “The Queen of Affiliate Marketing”. I wear that crown around my office every day, of course.

David is the host of the workshop, and he has put together something really great with NAMS. It’s a low-cost, hands-on workshop where you learn & earn on the spot.

NAMS is short for Niche Affiliate Marketing System, and it’s one of the only events where I actually speak/present. It takes place in Atlanta, GA twice a year, and it sells out early every single time…

Bob “the teacher” Jenkins of IMSuccessLibrary interviewed David Perdew recently about the upcoming NAMS workshop. You can listen in to that interview here:

Speaker Line-up for January 2010:

Lynn Terry
Jimmy D. Brown
Jeff Herring
Willie Crawford
Kevin Riley
Kathleen Gage
Aileen Bennett
Ellen Britt
Mary Wilhite
Nicole Dean
Maritza Parra
David Preston
Dr. Ron Capps
Denise Wakeman
Bob The Teacher
Sid Hale
Joey Smith
Scott Tousignant
Tawnya Sutherland

January 2010 may seem like a long way off at the moment, but the
next NAMS Workshop happens in less than 90 days…

Are you registered?

I hope to see you there! This is one of the most productive, fun, hands-on, low-cost, laid-back events you could attend. Ask anyone who has been to a NAMS workshop and they’ll tell you it’s well worth it.

Best,

p.s. Comment below and let us know if you’re attending!

Photos, Videos & Posts about NAMS:
Photos from the NAMS Event February 2009
Video Update from NAMS, February 2009
Are you attending the NAMS workshop?
NAMS Workshop in Atlanta, August 2009
NAMS Recap August 2009 (video/text)

I read a great blog post by Jason Parker at proIMer.com on advanced affiliate marketing strategies that I wanted to share with you, and expand on.

A few weeks ago Nicole Dean shared some great email marketing tips with us here during her guest blog tour. Nicole’s methods work great for anyone, whether you’re promoting your own products or offers, or promoting products as an affiliate.

I wanted to share Jason’s post, and his strategy, with you as a follow-up to Nicole’s series on email marketing…

Awhile back I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of the squeeze page method. I went on to clarify that I do build lists on my niche affiliate sites, but for further clarification I should say that I’m not a big fan of squeeze pages that add zero value to the process. You know the types of pages I’m talking about: the offer is so lame, or even non-existent, to the point that they are forced to BUY clicks just to get anyone to look at it.

Not all squeeze pages are bad, and the strategy is actually sound if you use it as a means to add value to the buying process – and to serve your market.

That’s exactly what Nicole shared with us in her series, and Jason Parker went into some advanced detail in his post about how to build a list – and why you would want to do that as an affiliate marketer.

The Way Of The Advanced Affiliate – Automated Email List Building

He also offers a free recording on Ultimate List-Building Secrets right there in the sidebar, which I hope to listen to as soon as I get some free time.

My point is that none of this is rocket science, and if you look around you have everything laid out for you. Both in blueprints and tutorials, and in live examples. All you have to do is take action.

I’ve been doing that more myself lately, and like I said in a previous post – it’s really paying off. And not just in upfront or immediate sales/income, but in long-term passive revenue as well.

Think about it: you put in the work upfront to create a product – maybe an audio or a short report, or use PLR or Resell Rights – and you set up an opt-in page and an autoresponder series. Like I said, not rocket science, just work. And not even hard work. Just a matter of putting the elements together in order. Period.

Once you do that, it will continue to work for you on auto-pilot month after month, year after year.

If you don’t yet have a list-building strategy in place with your online business model, now is the time to do that. Look over Nicole’s series. Look over Jason’s post. And of course if you have any questions, leave them in the comments section below.

Best,

p.s. If you are just starting your first mailing list or autoresponder, you’ll need an account with Aweber. You can use this link to get a free trial to start. Aweber is the industry leader, and is hands-down the best mailing list manager out there. If you think you might start out somewhere else and then move to Aweber later… don’t. A lot of us made that mistake, and you’ll end up losing ~90% of your list in the process. If you’re going to build a list, make it count!

I just returned from yet another weekend with the crazy but brilliant Nicole Dean. I have had the pleasure of her company 3 times now this summer, in addition to communicating online.

It didn’t take me long at all to realize how brilliant she truly is, and to start picking up on some of her smart marketing strategies. It’s not just the things she says, but the examples you see through everything that she does online.

I’m going to tell you about the report you see over to the right in a second (no worries – it’s free), but first I want to set this up so you get where I’m going with all of this. You’ve probably figured out by now that Nicole Dean is my friend, but there’s more to it than that.

After getting to know Nicole a bit, a few lightbulbs started going off. I noticed that her strength is in her strategy, and specifically in the details from start to finish in any of her projects.

Small details. Things most of us should know, but usually overlook. Or details we are just too lazy to implement (guilty!). Or things we put off when we’re in a rush because we’re too focused on the release or launch…

I’m talking about details that take all of 5 minutes – and then pay you for a lifetime.

You already know I’m a huge fan of Passive Income. Of working once to get paid over and over again. I have been steadily growing my passive income streams over the last 5 years, and absolutely love the freedom I have achieved as a result.

But even though I have succeeded at that, and have more than 12 years of marketing experience under my belt, I am still constantly learning and analyzing – and looking for new ways to increase my income or streamline my business.

And lately I’ve been learning some new tricks from Nicole Dean.

At first I was just reading some of her stuff – blog posts, reports, tweets. Or just picking up tips & resources here and there over conversation while we were hanging out. But something she did or said got my attention (I wish I could remember what!) and I started looking more closely, reading between the lines if you will, and paying attention to how she was doing things.

There’s a lot to be learned from working examples. Sometimes even more so than the marketer or merchant will freely share. Not the case with Nicole though – if you’ve ever had opportunity to talk to her, you know that she is very free with her knowledge.

Anyway, it’s one thing to read a blog post or a report and agree with it – thinking yup I knew that, great tip, etc in the back of your mind. It’s quite another to stop where you are, and take action on it.

That’s exactly what I did.

I read along, nodding my head, and then I had that A-HA! moment and I stopped and implemented something she’d suggested. And you know what? It resulted in more than $1,400 additional profit in just over a week.

It was just a couple of those simple little details. Nothing new. Nothing you haven’t heard before, if not a hundred times before. I just stopped thinking “wow, that was smart” and actually got smart myself – and took action on it.

Action.

What is it Jeff Herring always says? GUTS: Go Use This Stuff!!

Nicole and I are actually very much alike in how we market, how we run our online business, and how we earn our income. It’s no wonder we became fast friends. The cool thing though, is that our strengths lie in different areas. There’s nothing mind-blowing or exceptionally brilliant about anything that we do – other than the fact that we actually do it.

So that’s my tip for today. Pick something brilliantly simple – and do it.

Figure out ONE thing you can implement today that will pay you for months, and even years to come.

- The Cool Freebie -

I promised to tell you about the free report. One of the hot topics between Nicole and I is re-purposing. We got on a roll talking about different ways we use PLR (content with private label rights) one night while we were hanging out in Atlanta, and she mentioned that she had a free report on the topic.

She sent me a copy of that report so that I could share it with you. You can download it from this link: PLR Secrets

I encourage you to pick ONE thing out of the report, and implement it today. You don’t even have to read the whole report in one sitting – I usually stop and implement, and then go back to finish a report. ACTION is where the profit is.

Best,

p.s. Nicole Dean has a PLR site called EasyPLR. If you use that link, which is my referral link, then you’ll be able to use this coupon code to save $5 on any PLR order of $25 or more: “LYNNROCKS” is the coupon code. (Heh – I like that one!)

You won’t just find great articles there, you’ll also find reports & e-courses

If you do download Nicole’s PLR, and you like what you see, you can also sign up for her referral program to recommend it yourself.

But first, read the report!

On Monday morning I posted this photo to Twitter from my mobile, with the caption: This is what affiliates do on Mondays. Cynthia LaLuna replied to that tweet saying: Stellar proof that a picture is worth a thousand blog posts!

Nicole Dean took that photo in Atlanta, the morning following the StomperNet Live 8 event at the Hyatt. We both stayed over, slept in, enjoyed a late breakfast and then had a coffee out on the patio.

It’s amazing how alike Nicole and I are, particularly in goals and values. Many of our conversations over the weekend were about our families, our futures and our goals.

She’s been to my home, we’ve met each others children, and I’ve been lucky to count her as a close friend after we met online through our blogs.

One of the things we really have in common is a deep appreciation for our lifestyle, and the quality time that we each have with our children.

We both make a very good living online, really enjoy the work that we do, and focus on creating passive streams of income. We are living the dream.

Is it Ferrari’s and mansions and hot babes on the beach? No. It’s hanging out with our kids by the pool on a weekday, an afternoon hike to Burgess Falls with a friend, traveling, making friends all over the world, and basically living a life we could only dream of back when we held 9-to-5 jobs.

All that without worrying about how we’re going to pay the bills. Instead, our creative brain power goes into the next cool idea to make more money online.

My personal goals are simple: I am on a continuing mission to simplify my life, and grow my business. I’ve made incredible progress on that over the last couple of years, and I am loving the results.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. More often than not growing your business only makes your life more complex. Or simplifying could easily mean scaling back your business. For me it’s all about striking that perfect balance.

While I’m sure that everyone dreams about winning the lottery or striking it rich, I would guess that most people would be truly happy to live a meaningful and rewarding life – with more time, more money… and less stress.

That’s exactly what Nicole and I have both achieved. And we’re not the only ones – there are thousands of people out there who have made a dramatic lifestyle change, and thousands more who are steadily working towards that goal.

We did it, so can you.

Nicole had some boring bank job before she started working online. I was a grossly underpaid Unix Sys Admin in a small town. I’m a single mother, and her husband went through several lay offs. We are two very normal women, with very normal lives, who each worked very hard to make it happen.

I wish I could find pictures of “my past life” to share with you for comparison in this post… but just imagine a totally stressed out, over-worked, under-paid, completely broke and exhausted woman. That was me. I never had enough time for my children, much less myself. It’s a sharp contrast to the life I am living now…

I know a lot of people think I must be just plain “lucky”, or that I’m the exception to the rule when it comes to success with online business. The truth is that I worked hard to claim more than a dozen years of successfully working from home, and creating my 6-figure income from a home office.

Even though I know firsthand that it was no easy ticket for me personally, and that there are plenty of others out there doing the same… there is something powerful about meeting one of those people face to face and getting that confirmation.

I really liked Cynthia’s tweet that “a picture is worth a thousand blog posts”. For years now I have shared tips and resources, and hopefully some inspiration, to help you find your passion and create a profitable home business. But Cynthia is right – the photos really do say it all.

I’ve always said if I can do this, so can you. Now you have double inspiration. I did it. Nicole did it. There’s nothing stopping you from having a successful online business too.

How we do it…

It’s not all patios and waterfalls, of course. I’m sure you’ve discovered by now that working at home is still work. The main difference is that you can set up passive income streams, and you can earn much more money for your time by setting up systems that continue to work even while you’re out enjoying your life.

And that’s exactly what we do.

Nicole did a guest series here a couple of weeks ago where she shared some of those systems in detail. If you haven’t had opportunity to read that series, you’ll find it below – or if you did, you may want to go back over it one more time.

We both use these methods – repurposing content, using PLR (private label rights), setting up email autoresponder series, creating short reports – just as an example of some of the things that make up our passive income. Things that increase traffic and sales whether we are sitting at our computers… or hiking through Cumberland Caverns with our kids.

Here are the links to Nicole’s 5-part series:

• Email Marketing: E-courses Make it Easier
• Promoting Your E-courses
• Re-purposing Content & Creating Buzz
• Planning One Project Ahead
• Two Secret Strategies…

No matter what level you are on, it pays to get aligned with people who have similar goals, and to continue learning and growing. Nicole is brilliant, and she is one of those people that truly inspire me. I wanted to share that with you here too, the best I can with text & pictures, and really encourage you to go for your dreams!

It’s definitely worth it.

Best,

p.s. You’ll find Nicole Dean online at http://nicoleonthenet.com and @NicoleDean on Twitter. Be sure to follow her there as she continues to share her tips & methods.

If you have questions, or need help with anything along the way, sign up as a free member at my Internet Marketing Forum. I check in there daily and I’d be happy to help you start or grow your online business.