Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - Volume 1 Issue 6
Colin Evans, Editor (mailto:
)
In this issue
1. From the Editor
2. Did It Work For Me?
3. Featured Articles:
--- Nitty-Gritty Reasons - By Jim Rohn
--- The Secret of Her Success - By Jim Edwards
4. Motivational Quotes
5. Take A Break: Elementary, My Dear Watson...
6. Tell Me what You Think
From the Editor - Colin Evans
Hi Everyone 
Welcome to this edition of Cols-A-To-Z.
Ask me how I am and right now I'll answer "Great, but I'm getting
better".
Life's good - my car's back on the road, my computer's fixed, I
don't have to take those rushed trips to the "throne room"
anymore, I have received my first US$ check and...
I asked another industry expert for some help and advice and he
answered in minutes.
I couldn't believe it - nearly fell off my chair.
So who is this amazing fellow?
Andy Williams of http://www.ez-search-engine-optimization.com
You see I'd decided that I wanted to learn how to get good
rankings in the search engines for my web pages. So I did a bit
of research and chanced upon his website and contact details and
fired off my usual "will you help me?" e-mail and got a reply
from Andy within minutes.
You want to know the best part?
I found Andy's website quite by chance. I wasn't looking for it
at all, I got sidetracked into it, an interesting detour.
Was this meant to be or what?
Did It Work For Me? by Colin Evans
I have found a useful little tool for controlling the spam you
receive into your e-mail account. It allows you to check your
mail and delete all the unwanted spam and e-mails with viruses
directly from your mail account.
You only download the e-mails that you want to receive.
The resource is Mail Washer from:
http://www.cols-a-to-z.com/mailwasher.html
How does it work?
MailWasher works directly with your email server, exactly like
your email program does. But there is one important difference:
you can tell MailWasher to delete a message at the server,
without downloading it.
You can also bounce an email back to the sender so that it looks
as though your address is not valid. The bounced message looks
exactly like a returned mail message you would receive if you
sent an email to a wrong address. There is no way a spammer can
tell it is not genuine.
Basically, you check your account with MailWasher first, you
then delete or bounce the emails you do not want. Now, when you
use your email program, it downloads only the remaining emails,
those that you want to receive.
You can also use filters which will pre-mark spam like e-mails.
When you click on the "Process Mail" button all these e-mails
are processed according to the way you have set up MailWasher.
Does it work?
I find MailWasher to be very effective, but then I'm biased...
I like to see what e-mails are going to be deleted and so I
don't like spam filtering programs that automatically delete
e-mails based on a set of rules.
With MailWasher you get to see what e-mails have been marked for
deletion or bouncing. You then have the opportunity to check and
amend as necessary before processing your e-mail.
As I pay for my internet connection by the minute, I find that
using MailWasher reduces the amount of time I'm connected when
processing and downloading my e-mail.
But perhaps the best feature of MailWasher is the ability to
bounce e-mails back to the spammer.
Prior to using MailWasher, the amount of spam I was receiving
increased on a weekly basis - to the point I was getting
pretty worried (and angry).
In the three months that I have used MailWasher I have managed
to stop the weekly increase in spam and although the amount of
spam remains fairly constant, it seems to be coming from
different sources.
I know my e-mail address is on a spam/bulk e-mail list and so
I should be getting more and more spam e-mails every week as
this list is distributed to more and more spammers.
I put this down to the fact that spammers are not stupid, they
are incredibly resourceful and so to keep their server traffic
manageable, they use software to automatically remove e-mail
addresses that result in bounced mail.
MailWasher is definitely an effective way of controlling spam.
Featured Article: Nitty-Gritty Reasons - By Jim Rohn
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be motivated to achievement by such a
lofty goal as benevolence? I must confess, however, that in the
early years of my struggle to succeed, my motivation was a lot
more down-to-earth. My reason for succeeding was more basic. In
fact, it fell into the category of what I like to call "nitty-
gritty reasons." A nitty-gritty reason is the kind that any one
of us can have -- at any time, on any day -- and it can cause our
lives to change. Let me tell you what happened to me...
Shortly before I met Mr. Schoaff, I was lounging at home one day
when I heard a knock at the door. It was a timid, hesitant knock.
When I opened the door I looked down to see a pair of big brown
eyes staring up at me. There stood a frail little girl of about
ten. She told me, with all the courage and determination her
little heart could muster, that she was selling Girl Scout
cookies. It was a masterful presentation -- several flavors, a
special deal, and only two dollars per box. How could anyone
refuse? Finally, with a big smile and ever-so politely, she
asked me to buy. And I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to!
Except for one thing. I didn't have two dollars! Boy, was I
embarrassed! Here I was -- a father, had been to college, was
gainfully employed -- and yet I didn't have two dollars to my
name.
Naturally I couldn't tell this to the little girl with the big
brown eyes. So I did the next best thing. I lied to her. I said,
"Thanks, but I've already bought Girl Scout cookies this year.
And I've still got plenty stacked in the house."
Now that simply wasn't true. But it was the only thing I could
think of to get me off the hook. And it did. The little girl
said, "That's okay, sir. Thank you very much." And with that
she turned around and went on her way.
I stared after her for what seemed like a very long time.
Finally, I closed the door behind me and, leaning my back to it,
cried out, "I don't want to live like this anymore. I've had it
with being broke, and I've had it with lying. I'll never be
embarrassed again by not having any money in my pocket." That
day I promised myself to earn enough to always have several
hundred dollars in my pocket at all times.
This is what I mean by a nitty-gritty reason. It may not win me
any prize for greatness, but it was enough to have a permanent
effect on the rest of my life.
My Girl-Scout-cookie story does have a happy ending. Several
years later, as I was walking out of my bank where I had just
made a hefty deposit and was crossing the street to get into
my car, I saw two little girls who were selling candy for some
girls' organization. One of them approached me, saying, "Mister,
would you like to buy some candy?"
"I probably would," I said playfully. "What kind of candy do you
have?" "It's almond roca." "Almond roca. That's my favorite. How
much is it?" "It's only two dollars." Two dollars. It couldn't
be! I was excited. "How many boxes of candy have you got?" "I've
got five."
Looking at her friend, I said, "And how many boxes do you have
left?"
"I've got four." "That's nine. Okay, I'll take them all."
At this, both girls' mouths fell open as they exclaimed in
unison, "Really?"
"Sure," I said. "I've got some friends that I'll pass some
around to."
Excitedly, they scurried to stack all the boxes together. I
reached into my pocket and gave them eighteen dollars. As I was
about to leave, the boxes tucked under my arm, one of the girls
looked up and said, "Mister, you're really something!" How about
that! Can you imagine spending only eighteen dollars and having
someone look you in the face and say, "You're really something!"
Now you know why I always carry a few hundred dollars on me.
I'm not about to miss chances like that ever again.
And to think it all resulted from my own embarrassment, that
when properly channeled, acted as a powerful motivator to help
me achieve.
How about you? What nitty-gritty reasons do you have waiting to
challenging and provoke you into change for the better? Look
for them, they are there. Sometimes it can be as simple as a
brown-eyed girl selling Girl Scott cookies.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
This article was submitted by Jim Rohn, America's Foremost Business Philosopher. To subscribe to the Free Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine go to
http://www.jimrohn.com
Copyright © 2000 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved worldwide.
Featured Article: The Secret of Her Success - By Jim Edwards
Despite all the "dot-com" busts a few years ago, the Internet
still represents the ultimate opportunity for some people to turn
their initiative, a good idea, and a few bucks into a legitimate,
profitable business.
One such person, Rosalind Gardner, took her interest in online
dating services and turned it into a business that generated
almost half a million dollars in revenue last year and should
do even better this year.
The fact that she created this business without spending one
dime on product development makes her story even more amazing.
Rosalind Gardner used to make her living as an air traffic
controller, a job most people consider quite stressful.
After getting tired of swing-shift work, and though she had no
product of her own to sell and needed to make money relatively
quickly, Gardner decided to try her hand at selling on the
Internet.
What she did next might seem simple, but it started an online
venture that would make every dot-com refugee from 1999 drool
with envy.
Gardner logged on to OneAndOnly.com, an online dating service,
and signed up as an associate or "affiliate". She said they were
paying "healthy" commissions to any webmaster who wanted to refer
paying customers to them.
Commonly called "affiliate programs," this setup enables
entrepreneurs to create a business promoting other people's
businesses and bypass the entire product development and product
testing phases.
In short, by selling through other people's affiliate programs,
virtually anyone can set up a business online promoting almost
any type of product or service.
Gardner created a website (101date.com), her storefront on the
Internet.
Though she created her own website pages, she suggests that an
effective way to get started even faster is to go to
dollartemplates.com or 4templates.com, buy a website template
for between $10-$30, and modify it to meet your needs.
"Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on website
design," Gardner advises, "purchase an inexpensive website
template for much less than the cost of dinner and a movie!"
Gardner also kept the content for her website simple, direct and
effective. Though she wanted to appeal to the widest possible
audience, she kept focused on her narrow "niche" of online
dating.
She wrote a review of the dating service so her visitors could
quickly understand the main benefits, pitfalls, special features,
and other information to see if the service met their needs. If
it did, and they clicked through her affiliate link to sign up,
Gardner made a commission.
To drive traffic to her site, Gardner buys targeted, keyword-
specific ads from google.com and overture.com which get displayed
on the Web's most popular sites, including Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN.
This type of advertising means she only spends money when
interested people actively searching for dating information go
to her website.
Gardner also offers a newsletter from her dating website in order
to update her visitors when new dating services and products come
available.
The side benefits of publishing the newsletter are many, including
the fact that she can build trust with her subscribers by sending
them valuable articles and information on a regular basis.
Instead of just referring them over to the merchant's site and
losing them forever, Gardner captures them and makes them her
customer first... and then hands them off to the merchant.
So what's the secret of her success?
Gardner's system works because:
- She keeps it simple.
- She doesn't get slowed down by creating the product
herself.
- She adds her own unique value to the process with her
reviews and newsletter.
- She only invests in performance-based advertising.
Further, her added step of going the extra mile to offer free
updates, articles and tips to her growing list helps her
business grow MUCH faster than affiliates who just hand-off
to the merchant website.
By building her list, she can bring visitors back to her site
or send them to other sites through her affiliate link without
having to pay for them again.
So if the system is so simple, why don't more people do it this
way?
My only guess is that maybe it's too simple! Often people want
something complicated in order to feel like a "system" will work,
but often the opposite proves true.
Simple = Powerful = It keeps working!
For more information about Gardner and the step-by-step process
detailed in her new ebook, "The Super Affiliate Handbook - How I
Made $436,797 Last Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online" log
on to http://www.Affiliate-Handbook.com
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links?
"Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising!
Click Here => http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
Motivational Quotes
One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by
doing whatever appears on your mental "I should" list.
- Jim Rohn
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you
get.
- Hayden
Take A Break: Elementary, My Dear Watson...
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their
tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes his faithful
friend.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
Watson replies, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?"
Watson ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells
me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions
of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo.
Timewise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three.
Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are
small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have
a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"
Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks. "Watson, you idiot,
someone has stolen our tent."
Tell Me What You Think
I would love to hear what you think of this issue of the "Cols-A-To-Z" Newsletter.
And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to
share with me, please send those, too!
Just e-mail me at:
To subscribe to my "Cols-A-To-Z" Newsletter, go to the following URL:
http://www.cols-a-to-z.com/join.html
Written by Colin Evans
President, Cols-A-To-Z.com
© copyright 2003 Cols-A-To-Z.com
