Smart Passive Income #222 & #223 - Virtual Assistants & Income Report

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Today's (about end of April 2010) guest post features Chris Ducker. Chris describes in great detail why we should consider hiring a virtual assistant, and of course he provides a service to find them ;)

... we have reached May 2010, Pat's income for April 2010 increased to about 11.500,- USD ...

Smart Passive Income #221 - Call to Action

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Embedded in a personal story, Pat explains how to create a working "Call to Action".

If you place an advertisement or just have a homepage where you want the visitors to become customers, you need to tell them! Most essential seem to be the words your are choosing, and providing a reason why your visitors should click on your link ...

Here is a list of phrases Pat finds especially helpful - but of course - you need to choose which ones will suit your case best, and always test your choice:

• get ...
• download ...
• click here to ...
• press ...
  
• enter ...
• buy now
• use ...
• order now
  
• select ...
• choose ...
• enroll ...
• attend ...
• register ...
• donate ...
• subscribe ...
• take a tour ...
• sign up now ...
• check out ...
• share ...

To make your visitor click provide incentives like:

• order now to get your free gift
• sign up now because this offer will expire soon
• reserve your copy before it’s too late!

Smart Passive Income #220 - You are Responsible for Everything

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Pat revisits the topic "working from home". Where are the problems and challenges to overcome?

• You are responsible for all decisions ... if you have a problem, look for people who know more than you in that particular subject and ask them ...
• You are responsible for your schedule ... therefore, you have to create one, and separate your workspace (and computer) from your non-work-related life ...
• You are responsible for getting work done ... get dressed (no pajamas!), schedule important meetings early in the morning, and don't forget to exercise in between ...
• You are sooooo alone ... luckily there are Facebook and Twitter where all our friends live and thrive ... but don't forget to work in between ...
• You are responsible for all the rest ... there is no employer who thinks for you, and no one who provides benefits out of their golden hearts ... (I wonder why employers provide benefits, they are our benefactors!) ... like before do it yourself ... get an health insurance and a retirement plan, plan your vacations ... stay healthy ...

Smart Passive Income #219 - Punkt vor Strich

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Pat is a master taking a concept from a completely unrelated subject and finding a way using it for passive income or marketing respectively ...

This time he uses the mathematical concept "Punkt-vor-Strich" (sorry I could not find the English expression, but it does not really matter anyway ... if you know, let me know).

The Result

There are four key elements you should consider for all of your online activities (in this very order):

1. Intention ... know what you are doing and why ...
2. Content ... value is king ...
3. Design ... design matters, you do not want to scare your visitors away ...
4. Follow through ... (a golf metaphor?) well, just keep going ...

Smart Passive Income #217 & #218 - Facebook & Benefits vs Features

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Pat praises Facebook ... nothing more to say there ...

Daniel Scocco explains why benefits sell and features don't ... because people do not care about the features of your product, they care about how your product helps them solve their problems ...

Smart Passive Income #215 & #216 - Video & Little Known Ways to Boost your Blog

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... a video about smart passive income that I am boycotting out of pure principle ... come on Pat, you don't post those because they are the best way of communicating your ideas, but because it helps your SEO ...

... and Kim Roach shares "little known ways" to boost your blog ...

She starts ... and we know that one already ... by sharing personal information: She just finished her Starbucks Doubleshot ... I wonder why there is no affiliate link to Starbucks ... just you know, I just finished my regular coffee. I guess I am not that fancy ...

Kim's tips:

• Convert individual posts of your blog into ebooks and post them on free ebook sites ... well, don't know about that ...
• Build a social community ... good one ... 
• Create content for other people membership sites or products ... referring back to your own blog ... which Kim calls that content integration marketing ... sneaky one ...
• Focus on newsletter subscribers instead of RSS feed subscribers ... and swap adds with other bloggers ... 
• Produce value content ... a really new one ...

Kim's blog is still alive and active ... the links of her guest post aren't ... could be the described concepts are not that valid any more ... after four years ...

Smart Passive Income #214 - 5 Secrets About Having your Own iPhone App

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Pat shares five secrets about having iPhone apps of your own:

• You don't have to program them yourself, you can hire somebody ...
• Any type of app can be successful ("there is some luck involved" ... and some other ingredients, which Pat will keep for himself ... at the moment)
• Your app will need marketing to get noticed ...
• It takes time, be patient ...
• Free apps can be profitable, too ...

... and guess what ... there is an affiliate link hidden in Pat's blog post ;)

Smart Passive Income #213 - Smart Active Income

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Maren Kate introduces in her guest post a new concept to Pat's blog:

Smart Active Income

Remember passive income is creating a product once, automating it's monetization process, and making money without further intervention (hence passive).

The general problem with active income is that there is only a limited amount of time where you can produce actively income ... In her concept, Maren overcomes that limitation by delegation. Once you reached your limit, delegate, outsource, and rise to success ...


Unfortunately Maren's blog seems dead ... Her last blog post was in September 2012 ... The front page shows error messages ... Individual articles are not accessible ...

Hopefully the reason is that Maren became so incredibly successful that just abandoned her blog for greater glory!

Smart Passive Income #212 - Policy Changes

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At the beginning of his passive-income adventure Pat ran his eHow experiment, writing a couple of articles a day for a whole month ... he stopped after a couple of days, but had a steady income of about one to two hundred bugs a month since then ...

NOW (April 2010) eHow has changed it's policy ... what exactly and how Pat is influenced does not really matter, I guess they changed it again in the last four years, you can read up in detail at Pat's blog ...

What's important to notice, is that programs like eHow can change at any time. Sure you "sign" a contract which should theoretically protect you as well as the company providing the program. But if you read them closely you will find clauses which allow them to change everything on a whim ...

Of course there are other programs like e.g. hubpages, .... you could switch, are don't but all eggs into one basket ...

But don't forget these companies providing this services, which includes Google, Facebook, Twitter, ... are not NGOs. Their goal is to make money. If they do not make money, they will change their strategy ... You would/should do the same ...

Smart Passive Income #211 - Recap & Income Report

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It's April 2010 in Pat's-blog time, time to recapitulate what's this all about.

Pat is a former architect and now an internet entrepreneur. When he studied for an architectural exam he created a blog covering his study efforts. Shortly after, he got fired. He turned his study material into an ebook and discovered the power of passive income ...

What's passive income?

You create a product once and setup an automated process to earn from this product without further intervention ...

... Pat's blog "smart passive income" addresses the how, why, where, who and what ... and this blog is an attempt to follow Pat's blog from the beginning to the presence ...

At the beginning of every month Pat posts his income of the previous month, which dropped for March 2010 a couple of hundred bugs to about 9.500,- USD ...

Smart Passive Income #210 - Why Pat likes PodCasts

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Funny note, up to know (which would be about April 2010) Pat didn't like podcasts related to blogging. Now he loves them, or at least one of them: BlogCastFM ... which seems to have changed it's name and is now called the Unmistakable Creative PodCast ... and at least, their home page is really creative ... if the podcast is too, I don't know, yet ;)

What did change his mind?

Could the reason be, that they did an interview with him? According to Pat, the interview was professional, high quality, useful, just fantastic and great ... We will never know, the link Pat provided is dead and it is not available any more via iTunes ... stop that, we will know, because their archive has a fantastic search function which shows even more (five up to now) interviews with Pat.

And Pat would not be Pat, if there wouldn't be an affiliate link hidden in his post ... however, it does not work any more :(


... and even if this post might sound a little bit sarcastic ... I have just subscribed to both podcasts he mentioned ...

... update ... I unsubscribed ... they could not fulfill what Pat promised ... I guess to much hype can spoil the experience :(

Smart Passive Income #209 - Why my Blog Sucks

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Pat reaches through time and space and lets me personally know why my blog sucks:

• no professional looking domain name: m2mtech.blogspot.com
• no favicon: ... well I could check if it is even possible to use one of my own on blogger ...
• no permalink structure: ... HA, blogger provides this for free ;) ...
• unnecessary plugins and widgets: ... again HA, ... actually I haven't looked at what the design looks like for quite some time, could be there is really something unnecessary ...
• an RSS counter: ... I don't think a have one?
• no video: ... true, I don't really like them, and you really wouldn't like to watch me ;)
• no format, pictures, ...: Could you please tell me why to add a picture which has nothing to do with the content?

So, come on, give it to me, let me know why this blog sucks! Pat really took the effort to reach through time (about four years in the past) and space (around half the globe), go on, you can do it ;)

Smart Passive Income #208 - Content Matters, Design Matters More

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Pat always preaches how content is king, now he is leaking that design does matter even more?

If your visitors/customers/readers come to your page, do not like it how it looks like and leave (within the first couple of seconds), they have no chance of finding out how great your content is ...

Same for bad audio quality of podcasts, audio books, ...
... bad covers of books, ebooks, ...
...
...
...


So, the design of this blog (which is a standard theme of blogger) sucks, and therefore nobody is reading it :( ... I am really glad it's not the content ;) ...

The first one leaving a comment on this blog gets a free gift (see I learned from Pat) ... my gratitude (ok, I suppose Pat had something else in mind) ....

Smart Passive Income #207 - Good vs Evil

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Pat uses another example from the book Switch (of course using a nice affiliate link to amazon, who wouldn't?).

With his example (using report cards) he describes how we are wired to see bad things first. Therefore we want to fix what's wrong ... So far so good ...

Now the strange part (at least confusing to me). He says we should instead focus on what's working when trying to improve our blogs/businesses, etc ...

I understand that it's not healthy to worry all the time about what's not working, ... but I guess, our visitors/readers/customers are wired the very same way. Thus when they arrive at our blogs/businesses they will first notice the bad things ... shouldn't we try to remove them as fast as possible?

Smart Passive Income #206 - Newsletters ... continued

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Pat's enthusiasm for newsletters continues, mine still has not been awaken ...

He claims (again)

The money is in the list ...

... and therefore you need to encourage your future readers to subscribe, e.g. by providing exclusive content which cannot be found anywhere else (e.g. on your blog) ...

... and because the money is in the list ;) ... Pat does not want everybody in his list, only quality people, who he wants to help e.g. by providing his exclusive content (and of course affiliate links)

... your newsletter needs to be soooooo impressive, that your readers cannot wait for the next one ;)

... involve your readers asking questions ...

... I am really considering subscribing to Pat's newsletter ... up to now I am resisting ... even if it is futile ...

Did you already subscribe to Pat's newsletter? 

Smart Passive Income #205 - Newsletters

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Pat's post about newsletters is long, really long ... Personally, I don't like them, and have never met anybody who likes them either ... So first today's call for action:

Do you like newsletters? Do you subscribe to newsletters? Do you read them?

In essence a newsletter is nothing else than a blog, delivered directly to your inbox ... So everything said for blogs, applies to newsletters:

• provide useful information
• be consistent (post regularly & don't change the subject)
• ...

... the rest of the post is about how to setup an actual newsletter (ok, the title of the blog entry says "beginner's guide to start a newsletter") using a proprietary system, to which Pat graciously provides an affiliate link ;) ...

... nevertheless the post is about four years old, I suppose the system has changed, the information might not be up to date ... today, I am too lazy to read any further ...

BUT, don't forget to tell me/us if you read newsletters ;)

Smart Passive Income #204 - Links ...

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... and from time to time, Pat provides links to his current (remember we are currently in March 2010) favorite reading material:

• traffic building tips,
• a guide to wordpress SEO,
• tips to run a part time business,
• a comparison of horizontal vs vertical business models,
• a philosophical tweet? on anxiety,
• tips on optimizing posts for SEO,
• ways to find advertisers,
• and a link to the book Switch (mentioned already earlier) ...

Smart Passive Income #203 - Quantity vs Quality

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Pat ponders about what's better

Write lots blog posts (quantity) vs. write less, but better blog posts (quality).

When asked his readers voted for quality, where as search engines seem to prefer quantity when it comes to ranking ... Although Google constantly changes it's algorithms to favor quality, I guess quantity still comes first ...

... and now the call for action: What do you think? ;)

Smart Passive Income #202 - Breaking It Down

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Pat got a signed copy of one of his favorite books Made To Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, ... which he got at a presentation where the author Chip Heath presented his new book Switch - How to Change Things. And because Pat would not miss the opportunity to place an affiliate link ... he didn't ... and because he is my hero ... I used them, too ;)

Using an example from Made To Stick where one person has to clap the rhythm of a song and another one has to guess that song, Pat explains how difficult it can be when you know what you are doing to understand that somebody else has problems following your explanations. In the clapping example the person who is clapping thinks that it should be easy to guess the song ... but the listerer ... not knowing the song ... has actually no chance ...

The same way explaining your products, might be difficult from a perspective where you know everything about the product, to communicate it's usefulness and greatness to somebody not familiar with the product. Thus it is essential to break your explanation down to a point where everybody is able to understand ...

Smart Passive Income #201 - Article Marketing

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Yet another guest post ... This time from Henri Junttila addressing article marketing.

For Henri article marketing means writing a short (300 to 400 words) article and submitting it to an article directory. He especially mentions a directory called EzineArticles, which according to Henri is "loved" by Google due to its "high" quality ... and (if you follow the link above) according to wikipedia is not that "loved" by Google ... Following the comments on Pat's blog - which contain quite a high a mount of spam, article marketing seems dead ... To me it rather sounds like another name for keyword or affiliate marketing???

Smart Passive Income #200 - Work Schedule

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Pat really likes superlatives. So it comes he had his most important conversation ever ... It was about the question:

Why should you have a forced work schedule, when you have the freedom to work whenever you want?

Without a fixed work schedule

• it is hard to know when you are "busy" working and when not ...
• work is never done for the day, and open ended ...
• when you do actually work is completely random ...

Which might not only be a problem for you (if it is one), but also for those around you (family, ...).

The solution, create a schedule and separate work from non-work stuff ... which is easier said than done. Pat "solved" the problem by settings fixed working hours dedicated to special work topics. He also separated work from non-work by using separate computers e.g. his work computer does not have access to his private eMails and vice versa ...

Smart Passive Income #199 - Infomercials

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Pat likes, sorry loves, infomercials. In his opinion, the main point you can learn from infomercials is testing and optimizing. Before running an nationwide infomercial, they are tested locally on a smaller scale. You can do the same running small Adwords campaigns.

He recommends to watch infomercials actively and especially look out for:

• demonstrations - how "easily" the products are used
• calls to action - how the customers is told (not asked) to do something
• pricing - how the price is mentioned quite late in the infomercial, how it is compared to similar products, and how the are massively price reduced

 Use those strategies for your products and leave a comment here (notice, that's an actual call to action).

Smart Passive Income #198 - Guest post on Consistancy

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Another guest post, this time from the actor Michael-John Wolfe who became a blogger. He writes how acting is a kind of passive income, as you get payed in "residuals and royalties". That's also what is blog is called ... his guest entry contains a lot of personal information ... and stresses how important it is to be consistent as blogger. It seems he followed a similar approach Pat did. Posting monthly income reports ... which do not reach Pat's levels ... and he seemed to have stopped in 2010 ... so hopefully he is well ...

Smart Passive Income #195 to #197 - Moving & Income Report & Virtual Assitants

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Pat finished moving and has his own idea room ...

We have finally reached March 2010 (only four years of blog left), Pat's income for February 2010 is stable at 10.000,- USD ...

... and as we know Pat likes delegating his work to virtual assistants. However, he does not have a full-time one. In his opinion it takes to much time to teach and oversee a full-time assistant, compared to hiring assistants on project basis. Well, isn't the point of having a "single" full time assistant to not have to train new ones every time you have a new task? Do YOU have a virtual assistant?

Smart Passive Income #193 & # 194 - Guest Post & Tips

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... a guest post from Jackie Beck, on what can go wrong, and what to do instead ...


... and Pat has another ten tips on how to improve your blog/site/business:

• Re-Evaluate your goals
• Check your homepage like you would visit it for the first time.
• Check for crawl errors in your logs or with Google's Webmaster Tools.
• Grade your website (using a tool which does not exist any more ;) )
• Ask questions.
• Shoot a video.
• Thank your customers/subscribers/readers.
• Test, test, test, ...
• Turn off distractions.
• Follow up with your audience (duplicate?)

Smart Passive Income #191 & #192 - Why to start a Company

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Pat's reasoning on why to start your on company (or to found a company as legal entity different from yourself):

• freedom (here he reasons why to be self employed, less about why to start a company ...)
• professionalism (company vs individual person)
• protection to limit personal liability
• tax advantages (vs employing an accountant ;) )

His reasons for not starting a company are actually completly limited to reasons why not to be self employed:

• you are responsible for everything
• you have to schedule your own time
• nobody provides benefits for you, you have to watch out for yourself

... and he lists the different kinds of business structures and their benefits ... but as they are limited to the US and are most likely out of date ... please, please, please ... ask your local legal council ...

Smart Passive Income #188 to #190 - Affiliate Link & Spam & Domain Names

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Following the same scheme as before, Pat places a little bit of personal information (he is still moving and cannot see another can of paint ...), and "by the way" places another affiliate link ... with an additional goody - a free ebook ...

... he is complaining about spam mails ... well yes, there are spam filters to cope with that, instead of whining ...

... he advises on choosing the perfect domain name:

• use your own server space, instead of free sites (well, that's not actually about domain names?) ... could it be to just place a little affiliate link again ;)
• use sensible keywords
• don't use numbers
• don't use confusing or easily misspelled words
• don't use trademarks, you don't own

Smart Passive Income #187 - Perfect Online Course

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You want to create an online course and don't know how? Guess what, Pat has advise. He has not actually followed his own advise, yet - at least in blog time where we have currently February 2010, could be he did in real time where we have currently January 2014 ... time will tell.

He has not only advise how to create any online course, but the perfect online course ...

In short, gather a number of people to pay you for coaching them ... record everything you do (audio/video/notes) ... at the the end you should have enough material for your online course ... 'just' paste everything together ...

... nice idea ... when you have people lining up to be coached ... and willing to be recorded ... and your material is suitable to be pasted together ...

... I really can't wait to catch up with real time to see how Pat succeeded ;)

Smart Passive Income #186 - Guerilla Marketing by Story

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Following his last post - that you need a story - Pat posts a quite elaborate story to place an affiliate link for an online mind mapping tool.

He starts with a personal information ... he is moving, that's why he is keeping the post short, because he has to hurry to repaint his old apartment ... he is going to have a house of his own, with a new, larger office space, .......

... more personal information ... he watched Teen Cribs on MTV ... and seems embarrassed about it? ... there was this huge house, owned by a rich online marketeer (which by the way provides the credibility for this story), including a single room - the "idea room" - containing only white marker boards ...

... now the segue: While online mind mapping tools (notice the nonchalant link) are great, real white boards are, too ;)

It's really genius! Just putting up a link saying, there is this great online mind mapping tool, is crude. Instead spinning a whole story - even if it has nothing to do with the product per se - pulls in the reader ... and makes him buy?

Smart Passive Income #180 to #185 - Blog Posts & Post Types & Why & How & Income & Story

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Pat has advise on how to get more comments on your blog ... but only shares it via YouTube :( ... His tips seem to work, because he has more than 110 comments for this blog entry, even when quite a lot of them do not have anything to do with his blog post ;)

In the following post, Pat addresses different types of blog posts:

• How-To & Instructional posts which help solve a problem ...
• Reports & Case Studies are used to validate ... well ... the above?
• Analytical & Rational posts ... do not seem to different to the reports?
• Psychological & Theoretical posts spread speculative theories?
• News & Updates ... could also be part of the reports above?
• Ask-the-Reader posts are used to gather information/knowledge/ideas ...
• Linkage posts pull together a number of "usefull" links
• Personal posts are intended to engage the reader ...

... and Pat asks the readers to think about what and why they are doing it ... and is fishing for more comments by bribing them with gifts ;)


... and he advises to break the routine by taking bold actions ...

... his income for January 2010 is stable at 10.000,- USD ...

... and to really succeed ... you need a story ... A story engages your customers, the can - or at least think they can - relate, and will not only buy your product because of it's value but because you are their friend ...

Smart Passive Income #175 to # 179 - Affiliate Marketing & Traffic Stats & Screenshots & New Car & Blog

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Pat's eight principles of effective affiliate marketing:

• It starts with the first impression ...
• Promote only products you are familiar with ...
• Describe the product ...
• Focus on the content not the links ...
• Share your experience using the product ...
• Don't promote to many similar products ...
• Prefer high value (in sense of affiliate revenue) ...
• Collect your links on a resources/tool page ...

Pat likes to study his traffic stats (however he does not tell what to do with the result ...) ...

... your screenshot should "pop out" of the page ...

... he seems really want a new car ...

... if you want to make money with a blog Pat suggests to skip advertising and instead go for an ebook (developed from your blog), a real book, membership sites, courses, or other "real" products ...