Jonathan's Journal - Life of an Entrepreneur

Looking For Writers!

2006-02-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! I'm looking for writers! I've got a number of blogs/content sites/etc, that are all starting to pick up traffic (or haven't even been built yet!) and in all cases, I no longer have the time to do the writing. I'm looking for smart, talented, individuals, willing to work with me and provide or manage content for the websites I've built (and am building!) in a bunch of different niches. If you've had experience in writing or even NO experience but a willingness to put your very best into a project, I'd love to work with you! My projects range from small single site blogs to multiple site networks. As for compensation, I'm open to working a number of things out! I'm willing to pay for content on a 'per article' 'per post', basis, etc.. or share a percentage of the site revenues, or a number of other things! I love to make deals : ). Interested? Send me off an email to sirjonathan(at)gmail(dot)com! If you've got any samples of your writing, send them on over. Give me as much information as you can, keep it to the point and let me know that you're serious. If you've got a particular topic you know a lot about or would just like to write about, let me know! I may already have a site in that niche or may just build one! : ) Be warned that not all the topics I have are 'fun' to write about ; ). It'll be a challenge! And that's just about that. Serious inquiries only ; ). Send your emails on over and I look forward to hearing from each of you! -Jonathan Wold

Niche Marketing Traffic Strategies - Part Two

2006-02-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

And now, wrapping up where Part One left off, we've got 7 more traffic strategies to go over this this morning! You guys ready? Awesome! Let's get rolling :).

Press Releases - There's nothing like getting attention from the media ;). Press releases are one way of baiting the hook. They can generate traffic on their own, bringing in the little fish, and every now and then, they'll hook a big fish, a news reporter will contact you, a big site will send you some one-way link love, and you can sit back and watch the traffic roll in. As with anything that powerful, there are challenges. Not all press releases are equal, some are free, some aren't. There's also a good bit to know about writing an effective 'news worthy' press release. More on press releases later on ;). Meanwhile, some great press release sites, courtesy of Naked Business: (Awesome blog on press releases!) www.openPR.com
www.lxer.com
www.prleap.com
www.i-newswire.com
Email Signatures - This one's been around since email began! ; ) How many emails do you send out a day without having a web address of yours tagged below it? Email traffic is highly targetted. If someone is reading an email from you and corresponding with you, odds are they're going to be interested in learning more about what you have to offer. Want to take it up a notch? Encourage others to put links to your website in their signature. That's right :). Remember hotmail? That's one of the ways they hit it big. They tagged 'their' signature to the bottom of all their customer's emails and hotmail grew like wildfire! As a niche marketer, remember that people do things when they feel that something's in it for them. Create something viral, something personable, and encourage people (make it VERY easy!) to add a link to their email signature!
Directory Listings - Ahh, directories. People love 'em and hate 'em at the same time. One of the most prominent (and also one of the hardest to get into!) directories out there is good old DMOZ. Add links to your website on in, wait 6 months, and you may get included! ;) - In addition to DMOZ, there are entire directories of directories out there. On caution to keep in mind is that adding your link to just any old directory could actually hurt you. Look for directories of high quality and be hesitant to add to a directory that 'makes you pay' unless it's got a name like Yahoo attached to it ;). Have a blog? Adding your blog and its feed to a blog directory can be a REALLY hot way to get traffic. My good friend Bo Bang has a list of blog directories on over at his site. Check it out!
Image Awards - Awards? What's this? I decided this was unique enough to get a category all to it's own ;). Want a powerful strategy for getting one way links? Well here's one! Pick a niche, whatever niche you're in, and create an 'award' for 'site of the week', 'site of the month', 'most creative', whatever you come up with. Build a site around it and start handing out awards to the places you'd like to get links from! Send them off an email letting them know that they've won an award and encourage them to share the award by posting up a graphic and a link back to your site, verifying that they are indeed the winner. Give them the HTML, make it really easy and make it look really good. Be professional about it. Be friendly and helpful. This is hot ; ).
Offline Advertising - Without spending a lot of time breaking this one down, let me just say that this is something that most niche marketers seriously overlook. They get so caught up the internet this, and the internet that, they wind up forgetting that there was a time when there was no internet and marketing was still a big thing ;). Running classifieds in the right newspapers or magazines can be a powerful way to get targetted, buying traffic to a niche site of yours. Spend some time thinking about it, perhaps we'll go over it more in the future ;).
Publicity - We talked a bit about this already in 'press releases'. The idea is to get people talking about you. Remember our good friend Alex at milliondollarhomepage.com? He harnessed the power of publicity ;). How do you get publicity? Well, you can do something new, something wild and creative or you could 'ride the wave'. Figure out what's hot right now. What's everyone talking about? What are people looking for a 'scoop' on? News reporters are a great example of this. They decide something's 'hot' and they start looking all over for their exclusive. Give it to them! Look over the news stories, see what's big. Figure out a way to ride that wave and then start contacting the media. This can be really really big : ).
Content Distribution - Give stuff away! Whether paid or free, content distribution as a traffic strategy is all about getting your stuff out there to as many people as possible, encouraging them all to pass it around, and making sure that the stuff being passed around has your links on it. How about some examples?
- Screensavers/Wallpaper - People are always looking for ways to 'soup up' their computer. Give them cool stuff to customize their desktops and print your links on it! Make it small, they'll notice. Tag something as simple as your web address or a small message "Want more? Go to: ".
- Games - Whether online games or downloadable, people always love to play. Distribute games and make sure you have links back to your website embedded within. Be creative with it! ;).. Maybe even make it a part of the game. This is a great place to use the old "Want more?" tag line. How about sharing secret codes on your site? The possibilities are endless. Simple and fun work wonders. How about some new spins on the classics? A new pong, or a pacman, set to a current hot trend in the news. Go for it!
- Music/Sounds - This can be a tad trickier since it's a bit hard to show a web address within a song ; ). How about distributing some funny viral stuff with a tiny audio tag at the beginning announcing your site. An announcer reading really fast "Get more at ".
- Software/Scripts - Wordpress is an awesome example of content distribution in action. Every copy of wordpress that goes out comes with built in links back to wordpress and to the personal sites of the developers. That's hot ; ). Hundreds of thousands of links pouring in automatically. Offer free software with your links embedded or, better yet, offer a script your visitors can use on their website with a built in link back to your site.
- Physical Products - Tshirts, mousepads, pens, blenders, playing cards, boxes, you name it! Put your links on everyday items and start passing them out. Picking items that people use all the time is an easy way of making sure that they actually get used and your link noticed ; ). It helps to make things attractive, give people a reason to want to use your items.

And that, my friends, is a wrap! There you've got 7 more powerful traffic strategies to keep you busy for awhile. Get rolling on it! Get more? Feel free to add them on in and share with the world! Be sure to include a link back to your site if you've got something good to share ; ). Off to another hard day's work! You guys are awesome! Talk to ya soon! : ) -Jonathan Wold

Healthy Food Tips

2006-02-06T07:53:00.000-08:00

Nothing like taking a quick work break to launch a site ; ). This little baby took about 20 minutes to finish up. My secret? Instead of building it myself, I worked with someone else! In this case, this particular site is the handiwork of Jeff Usher. I'll be sharing more about that as I get the chance. Meanwhile, enjoy the goodness! I'll take another break later on in the month and add more content on in to it. Here's an excerpt from the site:

The question of what foods are healthy can often be quite a difficult one to answer. The research often seems to be in conflict, the studies that say a particular food is great for you one day often turn around and warn against that very food the next day. Sorting through all this clutter to find the real deal on nutrition and what foods are healthy can be difficult. Dietary fads seem to come and go on an alarmingly regular basis as well. The low fiber high fat diets of yesterday give way to low fat low protein diets, and the wheel just keeps rolling, with too little thought given to what foods are healthy.

Check it out in all its glory and pick up some healthy food tips over at healthyfoodtips.org Off to keep working on a big day! -Jonathan Wold

My Niche Marketing Memberships

2006-02-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Just a few months ago I was introduced to the wonderful world of niche marketing membership sites. I was introduced, I got hooked, and I haven't looked back since. I'm currently an active member of 9 different membership programs and always on the look for more ;). So this morning, before I get started on my crazy day, let's talk about some membership programs! First off, if I'm willing to be shelling out a few hundred each and every month, they've got to be worth it! As a serious niche marketer, the programs that I retain my memberships to have made a huge difference. Whether an article program, a website-a-month program, or even just an information program, each of my memberships have contributed towards my success as a niche marketer, especially over these past few months. Today I'll be sharing overviews of some of my favorites and then.. it's back to work! :) Ready? Let's roll! Ready Made Content - This article membership program belongs to my good friend Joel Osborne, and was the first membership program I joined! This one started it all : ). As a member of Joel's program, I get 150 original articles, each month, for less than 20 cents a piece. I've bought hundreds of articles over the past few months, both in packs and individually written, and let me tell you.. 20 cents a piece is tough to beat ; ). Each month Joel takes suggestions from the members, has articles written in a number of excellent topics, and delivers them! You can't ask for much more and at that price, even if you only used 5 of the articles, you're getting more than your money's worth! InfoGoRound - These guys wound up being the second membership site I joined! What makes them unique is that in addition to having articles each month, they deliver complete information product packages each month! That means that each and every month you're delivered an information product that you can take, brand as your own, and resell! I don't know if you've looked at the costs of product development lately and whether you have or not, I'll guarantee that you can't get a high quality good sized information product fully developed for less than 30 dollars, which is what they charge : ). In addition to that, they have a comprehensive database of articles and the option to submit your own articles and earn a free membership! Each month you submit an article that gets approved, your membership fee is waived. How cool is that? Nicherama - These are probably one of the least well-known of my favorite memberships. Kevin Birch and Lou Roggio run Nicherama and for the absurdly low price of just $17 a month, you get a complete website-in-a-box. I've bought a few of these 'types' of memberships and Kevin and Lou's is not only the one I'm happiest with and the one I've had the most success with, but also the cheapest! Each month they give you a complete website. Just a few minutes of quick changes, an upload, a couple links in, and its good to go! Just one of my websites through Nicherama has generated over $100 in the few short months I've had it up. Kevin and Lou are also extremely good with support which means a lot, especially to someone just getting started. Alright! And that's that! I am a member of a few other programs but one of them is sold out and the others.. well.. I need to look at them a bit more thoroughly before deciding whether or not to make any recommendations. These 3 are memberships that have made a big difference to me and my niche marketing experience over the past few months and are sites that I can recommend without any hesitations. Have any memberships you recommend? Completely new to this whole memberships idea? I look forward to hearing from you! Drop me a comment or send me off an email : ). If you have a membership program to recommend, be sure to send me your affiliate link and.. a good explanation of why you recommend it. Drop me an email to jonathan(at)woldboys(dot)com. Alright, off to a big day! All the best to you guys! -Jonathan

Free Glucose Meters

2006-02-02T04:47:00.000-08:00

I've been working extra hard over the past few days and I'm proud to announce that a brand new website of mine is now live. Looking for information on glucose meters or, even better, information on how to get a free glucose meter? Check out myglucosemeters.com. We've got articles, information, visitor submitted tips, and, yup, information on how you can get a glucose meter absolutely free! I'm particularly proud of this site :). It represents a new breed of niche website for me.. one that takes considerly more work but in the long run I believe will continue growing and become more and more valuable, both as a resource, and as a stream of income, as time goes on. Look forward to more! I've been staying busy! ;) -Jonathan

Niche Marketing Traffic Strategies - Part One

2006-01-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

Traffic is the lifeblood of the internet. Without it, your webpages don't do a whole lot but sit around and look pretty and if you've taken a look at the majority of websites out there, they rarely even do that ; ). To be a successful niche marketer, you need traffic, and lots of it. Quality over quantity anyday and preferably quality in quantity. So, with that, we've got some incredible stuff to go over! The following 'traffic strategies' are a culmination of my personal experiences and the experiences of the amazing people I've worked with over the past few years. I've got 14 main strategies to share with you guys as well as a few sub-strategies here and there and explanations. Ready? Let's get to it! 14 Traffic Strategies 1. One-Way Links - These are the heart and soul of traffic. The more quality one-way links, the better. Best of all are one-way links from sites that are 'relevant' to what you have to offer. If you have a website about dogs, getting links from a popular dog magazine's website is going to be a big deal. Getting a one-way link from a siamese cat website is good, just not as good ; ). Here are some quick strategies for getting one-ways:

Ask for them - The magic words! There's nothing like sending someone a nice little email and watching the one-way links pop up. Yes, there is a lot more than just 'asking' yet sometimes that's really all it takes. Remember, nothing happens if you don't take action. The worse they can say is no and you can always ask why, ask what might change their mind, if anything. Learn from it and ask again : ).
Write Hot Content - Write the stuff that people will want to link too. Articles are a good start, tutorials are even better. How about a few really good blog posts? (Be sure to write good comments on others and get some new readers!). Controversy works, just make sure that you think it through.. the internet has a very long memory ; ).
Post Offsite Content - This includes blogs, forums, guest books, you name it. Look for places where you can contribute and.. contribute! On forums, be sure to have a signature with a one-way link back to your own website. On blog posts, add your URL under your name. Look for places to contribute and add something your mother would be proud of.
Buy Them - Yes, when all else fails you can always buy links. Though generally frowned upon by search engine purists, link buying is a strategy that can work well. Invest in quality links, focusing on building relationships with people you buy from within your various niches.

2. PPC (Paid Traffic) - While buying links may be frowned upon by search engines, buying traffic from them definitey isn't ; ). One of the fastest ways to get traffic to a brand new site is to buy it! AdWords is the big player in the PPC game right now as well as Yahoo's Overture.com. Look forward to more on PPC in the future ; ). 3. Link Exchanges - For a good while, link exchanges were the way to score big on the search engines. These days, they still work but not quite like they used too. Focus on link exchanges within your niche when you do go for them. Also, consider giving ABC linking a shot ; ). Get together with 2 friends, link to friend one from your site, have friend one link to friend two, and friend two link back to you. One-way links through a link exchange and you've got 3 winners! That's tough to beat ; ). 4. Content 'By Lines' - This is really just an advanced 'one way' link strategy, but it was big enough to warrant its own category. Tagging an author's blurb at the end of your content can be a powerful way to drive highly targetted traffic to your niche websites. Here are a few tagging strategies:

Write and Submit Articles - Write articles (or have them written) and submit them to article directories. Head over to places like goarticles and ezinearticles.com or just start searching. The cool thing about this is that other webmasters will often pick your articles up and 'republish' them, along with your author blurb.
Write and 'Submit' Tutorials - This is a bit trickier than articles and, at the same time, often much more rewarding. Find a good subject and write a tutorial (or, again, have one written) and look for relevant places to submit them. If it's a photoshop tutorial, you're in luck (and competition!), head over to some of the big photoshop tutorial sites and just start submitting. Not a big market for your tutorial? That's ok! Look for relevant websites and offer to share your tutorial with them.
Write and Submit News Stories or "Hot Scoops" - One of the ultimate examples of this is to get 'slashdotted' ;). Submit news stories and offer your name and a link to your site for credit.

5. Friend Sending - This is what we call viral marketing or what my good friend Paulie Sabol would call, 'fractal' marketing. It's the concept of creating something that people absolutely want to send off to the people they know. One way or another, they have an incentive to send, whether it's sentamental value, a financial reward, or the knowledge that they've just scared the heck out of their buddy, people send things on for a reason. Here are a few ways you can encourage 'friend sending':

Scare-A-Friend - There's nothing like watching an apparently innocent little move clip, suddenly leaping a few feet back out of your chair as you get the noodles scared outta you, and then immediately sending the clip on to your friends. Create a site with something scary and have easy ways to send it on, perhaps even ways to personalize the scare!
Quiz Show-Off - People love taking quizzes and when the results are good (or even bad!) they love showing them off! Share quizzes through your website and once they've got their results, include ways for them to post and share their results with others, including a link for their friends to take the same quiz! This stuff spreads fast.. really fast :). Make the quiz good!
Tell-A-Friend - Ever seen those little scripts? Believe it or not, people actually use them ; ). Put tell-a-friend scripts up on your websites and encourage people to use them! It helps to have something that people want to tell others about ; ).

6. Contest Traffic - Similiar to friend sending, contest traffic is traffic stemming from an often much more incentivized individual. An obvious application of this is a contest focused on.. yup.. sending traffic ; ). Less obvious ways are contests that encourage people to share their results with others. Perhaps a contest that requires 'voting', which sends contestants off in search of as many voters as they can get. Be creative, the traffic will flow : ). 7. Organic Search Engine Traffic - Ahh, the holy grail of traffic, being ranked in the top 10 for a popular search term.. there's not a much like it ; ). There is a LOT you can do to help improve your rankings and sometimes, it just happens. The most important thing is that in the long run (sometimes it seems like the very long run) good content wins out. Focus on providing quality and keeping it up. Keep those links coming in, keep adding in the fresh stuff. Keep your site clean and focused.. the organic goodness will follow : ). Here's a quick tip:

Submit Your Sitemap - Generate an XML sitemap and submit it! Google has a great little submission process which I've had some extraordinary success with in my brief experimentations. Check out Google Sitemaps for more!

Wow! And that's only 7! It's getting late and I've got a few more projects to work on, so the next 7 will have to wait a bit ; ). Look forward to them and I look forward to hearing from each of you! Have any of your own strategies to share? I'm always up for making the next post more than 7 ; ). Send 'em on over! I look forward to hearing from you! -Jonathan Wold

Snowstorms, Niche Marketing, and Expensive Chinese Food!

2006-01-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

My good friend Matt Geri is putting me to shame with his blog post frequency right now ; ). You compeletely redesign your site and suddenly you feel like blogging every day! That's ok.. He has a few months of zero activity to make up for ; ). Check him out!.. err.. well you can finish reading and then check him out! ; ) So we've all been working hard over here in Indiana! This past Sunday, we had two guests over to our humble home, a brother and sister from Ohio, Eric and Michelle. We spent some of Saturday evening and then a bunch of time on Sunday going over niche marketing. We covered the websites themselves, ways to get traffic, and ways to make money. It was a lot of fun! Eric's off to a strong start and I'll be looking forward to seeing how he does over the next few weeks! Go get 'em Eric : ). I saved the notes of our traffic brainstorming and.. you can hold me to this.. I'm planning to share my notes and additional ideas in a big 'ole 'traffic' post. I've got some GOOD stuff in there so I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you guys. For many of us, there are strategies that we know about, but just don't apply them. We'll see if we can take care of that ; ). .. We've got snow! It's kinda whimpy stuff and it's more 'rainy' than anything, but it's definitely snow and it's been coming down fast! This is nothing like up in Lake Tahoe, but snow is snow and snow is awesome ; ). Scott, Matt, and I decided to go ahead and brave the elements and do some shopping today. We made our way from the bank over to Wal-mart, picked up some stuff (dish towels, towel paper, soap, bathroom rug.. the essentials ; ).. and then decided that we were hungry! We took a vote and headed over to a local Chinese Buffet. ..It was good ; ).. I've.. had better. The important thing was that it was food and we were ALL hungry. We finished up eating and the waitress brought the bill over. I looked at it. I looked again.. "$78 dollars?!".. I stared at it, added it up, and stared again, then just started laughing. "No way!".. We all sat around the table for a few minutes. Matt suggested we stick around till breakfast with a price like that. Buffet's aren't supposed to be that expensive, no matter what time of day! I finally made my way over to the counter and asked about the price. The boy told me that it was 28, and not 78.. you just couldn't read the handwriting ; ). Moral of the story? Write so people can read, unless you're wanting to get 3 hungry teenagers to think twice about their eating habits. It was a lot of fun ; ). In other news, our 3-way niche marketing challenge is going good!.. Sorta ; ). Matt and Scott are in a STRONG lead right now.. we'll see how things go over the next few days ; ). Look forward to some new stuff from me! Alright guys, I'm off to bed! Have an AWESOME rest of the week! Talk with ya soon : ) -Jonathan Wold

Back In Indiana And.. Cooking For Five!

2006-01-24T22:24:00.000-08:00

Well now there's a headline! ; ).. I should soo be in bed right now as I'm working hard to kick my 'late to bed' habit, but, oh well. It's time to update you guys! :) Matt and I arrived back in Indiana on Sunday and we've been getting settled back in. Today was our shopping day and WHAT a day.. Ok, it was 'my' shopping day. After taking Matt and Scott over to Subway and us all grabbing some subway style goodness for lunch, I headed off to Paulie's to pick him up and do some grocery shopping. Plans changed fast though when Paulie wound up getting locked out of the house and needed to stick around for the locksmith. 30 minutes later found me in one of my favorite stores in the whole wide world.. Costco! ;) 2 and a half hours later found me home and.. Just look at all that food! That's insane and awesome! Today I focused on breakfast mostly and we're all taken care of for about 2 weeks. We've got lunches to make it through a week and then, next week, I'll be focusing on lunches, getting the supplies I need to start.. cooking! That's right ;). I'm going to start cooking! Not just me, mind you, as much as they're willing, Matt and Scott will be cooking too! ..Alright, for those of you who don't yet know who Matt and Scott are, I'll fill you in ;). Over the next few months, I, along with Matt Geri and Scott Byers, are living out here in Indiana as interns for my good friend and mentor, Paulie Sabol. We're working hard on a bunch of internet marketing projects and we've got some exCITING stuff planned out for the next few weeks! Over the next few months, the three of us are going to be working together on Paulie's projects and on our own projects. I've got a LOT of stuff planned in niche marketing ; ). Matt and I are working hard on a new project of ours which we'll be sharing information on before long! To give you a smalll hint.. we're getting ready to create our first membership site together ; ). Many of you guys know that Matt and I launched our first product together just about a week and a half ago! Yeah, we were on vacation and yeahh.. we weren't supposed to be working.. but heck with that! We couldn't help ourselves ;). It's gone VERY well so far and we've both REALLY appreciated ALL your feedback! You guys have been absolutely awesome! For those of you who haven't had a chance to read the offer or buy a copy yet, check out our offer over on the warrior forum by clicking here. We've only got a few copies left! :) And speaking of offers.. I'm going to be launching my second personal product very very soon. I'm really excited about it :). I've been working with some really talented people to put together a TOP notch product that I'm already very proud of. Look forward to it! And that's just about that.. Tomorrow we'll all be up bright and early for breakfast, another good day's work, and then I think it's about time to start working on jonathanwold.com ; ). Matt's been busy over on mattgeri.com with a COMPLETE new redesign! Check it OUT! Time for me to get working on mine ; ). Alright guys, I'm off to bed! Goodnight World and talk to ya soon! -Jonathan Wold

One More Day in Lake Tahoe!

2006-01-19T19:38:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Just checking in on a BEAUTIFUL Thursday evening up in Lake Tahoe, California! After a crazy winter storm earlier in the week, things have cleared up and today it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Matt and I hit the slopes bright and early and stayed out till 30 minutes before the main lifts back to the base closed. Today was AWESOME! Check out the picture! Yeah, it's amazing ; ). Matt and I did really well today, carving through the trees, nailing a few baby jumps, and eating up the powder! I got a nice kiss from the snow after a faceplant from a crazy jump.. couldn't feel my face for a few minutes ;). Matt had a good laugh and, of course, sliced through the jump jusst fine. There's always tomorrow! And tomorrow will be our last day in Tahoe! My good friend Jessi is, weather permitting, heading up bright and early tomorrow for a run with Matt and I on Heavenly. Looking forward to it! After that we'll be heading down to Sacramento to visit my good friends Sterling and Will, and then back off to Indiana on Sunday! There were a LOT of awesome people I didn't get a chance to meet up with.. sorry guys :(. I'll plan on spending more time in California next time! And that's just about that.. tonight is the last night of our 'one week of niche goodness'. Matt and I have been putting together, selling, and delivering some AWESOME niche reports! It's been a lot of fun! We're writing the last report this evening and sending it out to our customers. We've got just a couple of copies left! If you're interested in niche marketing, these are for you! :) - Head on over to my post on the Warrior Forum and check it out! Click here! :) Alrighty! Off to finish the report and then get some food.. then.. sleep! Tomorrow's gonna be awesome! Have a great evening! -Jonathan Wold

Week Two In Tahoe

2006-01-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! Just checking in from BEAUTIFUL Lake Tahoe, California! I'm up here with my awesome friend, Matt Geri, and we've been having a GREAT time! We did a bunch of snowboarding this week and next week, our last week in Tahoe, we're gonna be doing sumore ;). It's been awesome! Oh yes, and being the entrepreneurs that we are, we just couldn't resist putting together a product ;). On our scheduled second day of snowboarding, Matt and I were too sore and recovering from colds to go out, so we decided to spend the day developing a product. It worked out really well and we're very proud of it! You can check it out at: http://warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=67445 I'll be writing more about it later.. this offer brought up a bunch of new challenges for both Matt and I. Challenges are good, just.. challenging ;). Completely worth it though! We're proud of how it's been turning out. Hope you guys are having a great new year and have an AWESOME weekend! Talk with you soon! -Jonathan

On The Road Again - Snowboarding In Tahoe!

2006-01-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

Woww what a day! Happy New Year! I blinked and it's already 3 days into 2006.. Time just keeps on flying by :). Just two nights ago found me back home from a 5 day trip down to Tennessee for the Seventh-Day Adventist General Youth Conference in Chattanooga. WOW what an awesome event! I met a lot of awesome people, learned a lot of awesome things and was all and all, extremely blessed. On Sabbath I sang in the men's choir! That was awesome! I didn't know what I was doing at first but after being around a bunch of guys who knew it like it was nothing, I caught on! It was great! :) And now.. It's time to hit the road again! I'll be heading out at 3:50 AM this morning to catch the 4:20 bus to Chicago where I'll be hopping on a plane for California! My good friend Sterling is going to be picking me up and I'll be spending a few short days in Sacramento before picking up Matt Geri who'll be arriving a few days later. From there, we'll be heading up too.. Lake Tahoe! Matt and I are going to be staying just a block away from the Heavenly Ski Resort! *grins*.. 2 Weeks of Snowboarding! Well, snowboarding and building empires.. we're going to be working on some new products of ours, working out the details, and preparing for the rest of 2006. Yeah, I know.. it IS a vacation.. and, the first week especially, it's all about relaxing and having fun! *smiles*.. The whole internet entrepreneur stuff isss fun for us though.. ;). We'll be gone from the 6th to around the 22nd. When we get back.. *smiles again*.. they'll be some exciting new things to share with you guys ;). And with that.. I'm off to get a little bit of sleep! Hope you all had an AWESOME Holiday Season and are ready for an exciting new year :). 2006 is gonna be a big one my friends! Take care, God bless, and talk with you soon! -Jonathan

200th Post - Wrapping Up 2005

2005-12-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Wow has it ever been a year :). This 200th post seems special for some reason. Special enough that I've put it off and worked on 2 different drafts over the past few days, something which I never do. This will be last serious chance I have to write this year and there's a lot of things to say. And so without further ado, let's take a look back over 2005 and share in a few of my experiences. Lights. Camera.. January 12, 2005. I stepped off the curb at L.A. International Airport. I loaded all my luggage into the SUV. 5 Minutes later found me on the road with Amae Allen headed to my new home in Venice, California. This was our first meeting. Amae and I met through a mutual friend who knew her through her father, Robert Allen (he's written a few awesome books, check 'em out). Amae was looking for someone to help her out with some web design work and I was looking for a place to stay. A perfect match! To top that off, not only is Amae a vegetarian like me, but she's an incredible vegan chef. I spent just around 2 months there. I learned how to design webpages in CSS, learned a LOT about web hosting (hostingfrog), learned a lot about how to make delicious and healthy meals (now to apply that knowledge ;), and, I even learned a lot about myself. Amae took great care of me while I was there. I had my own little room, only a few blocks away from Venice Beach and the boardwalk. I had plenty of awesome food and a lot of time to work on web design and brush up on my photoshop skills. You can read back in January of 2005 to get an idea of some of the things I was up too back then ;). I wrapped up things in Venice and then it was on the road again. March 15, 2005. I got on the bus in Manila, Philippines. It was humid! After meeting up with my girlfriend and a few new friends of mine in LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), we boarded the plane and were off to the philippines on a 10 day mission project! THAT was an experience. We all worked very VERY hard and it was worth every minute of our time and more. Of the 130+ young people that went, we divided our efforts towards building projects, medical projects, and ministry projects through things like 'vacation bible school' for the kids. The medical team alone serviced over 6000 people while we were there. It was incredible! I worked with the kids for most of the time. My awesome new friends and I (we called ourselves the 'specials'!) put together some great programs and had a LOT of fun. On our last day, we brought all the kids together and had over 1000 kids in one HUGE area! More than half the kids on the trip were Canadian ;).. *smiles*.. Those guys were so much fun. One of my best memories is the final program we put on for the kids. Towards the end of that program we all went through and sang our national anthems. The philippine kids did theirs first. Wow. 1000+ kids singing in harmony. Beautiful. The Canadians went next. A good friend of mine, Donny, wore my American Flag leather jacket, his back with the embroidered flag facing the audience.. *grins*.. And THEN.. it was the American's turn. Yeah. It was bad. The Canadians had to help us with OUR anthem. Ok, so many of them were in a choir and they had a lot of practice, but still. It was so much fun :). It was tough leaving. I really really miss those kids. One of the Philippino boys, JT, sticks out most in my memory. He was an awesome kid, hope he's still doing well :). You've got a bright future ahead of you JT, all the very best to you :). March 30th, 2005. Welcome To Portland Oregon. The airport in Portland is beautiful. As you make your way to the baggage claim, you go by a bunch of beautiful artwork, spread all throughout the airport. It's all very well designed and makes you want to smile, reflective of a city that has a charm about it which can't quite be described. Portland really is beautiful. Look back through my blog entries and you'll find some pictures. The waterfalls, the trees, the grass, the sky, the architecture, and even the people. Ted and I described the people as having more of a 'rustic' beauty.. *smiles*.. but it's still a beauty ;). Ted Schneck. He's someone I won't ever be forgetting. Ted's right up there as one of the most influential people in the past 3 years of my life. It was during my short month-and-a-halfish stay up in Oregon that my life as an entrepreneur started to take a serious turn for the better. I began making money.. passively. There's a difference between making money, and making it passively. I had turned down high paying jobs up in the past because I knew there was something better. Ted helped me take all the things I'd been learning, all my experiences, all the foundations that had been prepared and built up by the many other wonderful people in my past, Ted helped me take all that and move things up a notch. I opened up a Google AdSense account, put it up on a few new websites of mine, and, taking the new concepts that Ted taught me, I began making money. Life picked up its pace. June 9th, 2005. 19 Years Old. I'd just helped my dear girlfriend and her family finish up a move from Arizona out to the beautiful state of Oklahoma. Today was my birthday. Joslyn woke me up, gave me a good morning hug, and that was the start of an awesome day. We had breakfast and a really awesome birthday dinner. I had a great time :). There's nothing like being around people you love and who you know love you. That was the first time I'd been away from my family for my birthday. That part of it was tough. I missed seeing my mom. I missed being around my brothers. Things work out though. Things worked out and I'm growing up, even though it feels like it happens so slowly sometimes. Joslyn has really made a huge difference in my life. Getting the chance to spend some time with her around my birthday and help out her family was awesome.. I love you so much Joslyn :). September 15, 2005. The Internet Marketing Main Event. Phoenix, Arizona. The weather was beautiful. My dear friends and mentors, Donna Fox and Paulie Sabol, were hosting two events simultaneously! Donna was running the 'Credit Millionaire Mastery' event and Paulie was running the 'Internet Marketing Main Event'. Both events were INCREDIBLE and I was honored to be a part of them. I learned a LOT and met some incredible people at the event. On stage, Paulie introduced me as a young man earning $4000+ a month with AdSense. Yeah. I'd gone a long ways since Ted's :). I'd broken personal record after personal record and there was still no sign of stopping. Things calmed down since then. A few of my sites stopped doing so well and a bunch of other priorities caught up my time. That didn't matter though. I now had the knowledge, the knowing that I could make money and do it again, over and over, and that knowledge was priceless. December 2, 2005. $1000 in 24 Hours. I took the knowledge I'd been gaining and put it into action! December 2nd is a day I won't be forgetting anytime soon :). That $1000 was made through the sales of my very first product! All the things I'd been learning and taking action finally lead me up to a point where it was time to take it up to the next level. I did it! I created my first product and it was an incredible success. I owe that success to my friends, to the people who supported me. I would NOT have been have able to do it without you guys! It's the incredible people I've been meeting, the relationships I've been building, that all came together and gave me the support I needed to step out and take action. Wow, what an experience that was :). Today, December 27th, that product finished its short life cycle, selling out the last of my limited 35 copies. December 27, 2005. Today. And that brings me to this very moment. The weather outside is beautiful. I've been living in Northwest Indiana since the middle of June, 2005. Just a few days ago, I moved into a new apartment, which I'll be sharing with my dear friend Matt Geri when we get back from Tahoe towards the end of January. I've spent the past few days getting things moved in and organized. It's gone well :). I had an awesome Christmas! In just a few minutes I'll be picking up my car from the body shop, had to get the heat fixed ;). The pastor from my local Adventist Church is gonna be taking me over to pick it up and then we're going to talk about some plans for the youth group in this next year. I'm looking forward to that! Pastor Shepherd's an awesome guy. Yesterday, I wrapped up a few of my niche website projects. As many of you guys know, I'm really strong into niche marketing right now :). I look for needs in the market and build websites, products, communities, etc, to meet those needs. Yesterday, I added in a bunch of new content to my cash advance website. I also did a bunch of updating on my debt blogging site. And finally, I did some work on moldblogger.com. There's a rather 'humorous' post by a new writer of mine.. he uhm.. well ;). Read the 'mold jokes' post for yourself and see. It's been an emotional year for me Anytime that you have a lot of growth, you have to have just as many if not more challenges. I've definitely had those and more times than I'd like, they've gotten the best of me. 2005 came with a LOT of growth and just as much pain. Those challenges, though, are what help you grow. You can't grow without them! I had some rough experiences. I had projects that didn't work out anything like I wanted them too, I had things that I dealt with within my family, and the biggest challenges of all were within my personal life. They can reallly really get you. It's the times when I'm feeling the most down, though, that I really just have to stop and think about things and put them in perspective. I don't have anything to complain about. I've been given SO much opportunity. I've been blessed to meet so many incredible people. I've been able to learn, absorb and take action. I've been absolutely blessed and I can't complain. I'm excited about next year! There are a few key things I'm setting out to accomplish next year. The rest is stuff that I'm sure I couldn't even begin to imagine yet :). First, I'm taking my very first 'vacation' as an independent adult. (Wow, what a phrase!) Matt Geri and I are taking a 2 week vacation up to Lake Tahoe, California, to go snowboarding at the Heavenly Ski Resort. I'm REALLY looking forward to that. We're going to have a lot of fun and do a lot of planning :). 2006 is going to be a huge year for both of us. I'm creating more products next year. In January I'll be launching my second product, which I'll be sharing more about as I get the chance. January is a huge month for information products and I'm excited to be kicking it off with an offering of my own. Look forward to that :)! I may be speaking at a seminar! My good friend and mentor, Paulie Sabol, is working with another seminar next June, and he's invited me to be a speaker at that event. We haven't worked out the details yet and I haven't decided if I'm going to go for it yet, but the opportunity is there. It's incredible opportunity and however it works out, I'm excited about it :). And finally, in 2006, I've set a financial goal for myself. My goal is to earn $250,000 in net income by the end of 2006. I want to be able to give away more money in 2006 through tithe and other things I come up with than I've made in my entirely life, put together. That'll have me giving away close to $50,000 over the course of 2006. I'm REALLY excited about that goal and excited about making it happen. 2006 is going to be an incredible new year and I'm grateful for the opportunity to take it on :). I'm also excited about sharing the next year with YOU guys! In 2005 I met so many incredible people. I look forward to sharing my experiences and spending time with each of you, many of whom I know well, some I don't, and some I haven't even had a chance to meet yet. It's the people we meet in life that make all the difference, that shape us, that make us who we are. I've been honoured and priviledged to get to know each and every one of you. I look forward eagerly to sharing in YOUR experiences and in watching your growth througout the next year. And with that, I'm off. I'll be checking back on around the 3rd or so of January, 2006. I'm off to Tennessee for a few days and then California! 2006 will be what we make it, so let's make 2006 the very BEST year of our lives :). Looking forward to it! Cya next year! -Jonathan Wold

Late Credit Card Bill - Yikes!

2005-12-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

I've got 5 credit cards right now. I take good care of them and I make it a point to always be early on my bill payments. I've been building up credit on the cards, never carrying more than 60% of the card's capacity, paying the bills 2 weeks in advance, and paying at least 3 times the minimum payment. It'd been going great. This morning, I logged into my American Express account. I accessed my 'Blue' card, which has been taking the majority of my recent expenses. Bang. 'Payment Due Wednesday, December 21st'. Today is the 23rd. My stomach sank. Out of my $4000 limit, I had an available credit of $56 dollars. Not good. I was quite a bit distressed.. being late on a payment is NOT a good thing. I thought back to early in the month, I had a DISTINCT memory of sending in a payment for $600. I checked the payment history. Nothing there. Then I had the sinking feeling. Maybe I hadn't 'confirmed' it. I was late. 15 minutes later and I was on the phone with American Express. I explained the situation and the lady asked if I'd like to pay by phone. I agreed and she took care of it. I breathed a sigh of relief. I asked her about dropping the late fee and notice of late payment. She said I'd have to call back a week later once it cleared. I agreed, marked the date on my calendar, and that was done. Wow.. I never thought Iii would be late on a credit card payment. I sorta deserve it though.. I'd put off systemizing the process. Credit cards are something you just can't play around with. I knew from the beginning I needed to carefully track my cards, their due dates, and their balances. Yet I put it off, and put it off, letting other projects take priority, until finally I had to learn the hard way. Keep Track Of Everything Credit cards can be a powerful tool. Some people will take a credit card and portray it as 'the enemy'. That's not at all the case. Like anything else, a credit card can be used to help you and it can be used to harm you. As an internet entrepreneur, credits cards have played a HUGE part in giving me the freedom and flexibility to spend and invest my money on the internet. I'd have a ROUGH time without them. What I failed to do, though, was to keep track of my cards. It's a simple process. As soon as I finish up those post, I'm going to create a 'Credit Cards' spreadsheet. There'll be an area for each card. I'll keep track of my balances, how much credit I have available on each card, extra notes I have, and, most importantly for me, the billing cycles and due dates for each card. Each week I'll review the spreadsheet and update it as necessary, keeping close and careful track of my spending on each card. And that's that! I'm off to create the spreadsheet and then off to take on the rest of the day :). I expect to have more updates this afternoon/evening. Take care and have an AWESOME holiday season! -Jonathan Wold

Three Huge Days In One! - Matt, James, and Joslyn!

2005-12-20T15:11:00.000-08:00

I've had a LOT of stuff going on over in my life right now, one of the big things being that I'm in the process of finishing my move! I'm moving into a bigger apartment! I've taken a bunch of pictures and I'll be putting those up soon, as well as updating you guys on what else has been going on in my life :). Meanwhile though.. there are some brilliant young people I know that deserve some attention! First, we've got one of my closest friends, Matt Geri. Today he launched his FIRST product! He's been working hard on it and boy does it show. I had the privilege of watching him put together his offer and develop his product and he did an incredible job. A huge congrats to you Matt! This first offer of his went live over on the warrior forum and he's already sold 10 copies within just a few hours, check it out and grab your own copy: http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64664 Next up we've got my awesome friend James Coombs. Just yesterday he opened the doors to his own gaming center! This is the real deal.. He's been planning it out for months and its finally all fallen into place! Today marked his first set of customers! A HUGE congrats to you James! Check out James and his progress over on the Nitronworks Blog! IF you're near him in the UK, be sure to stop on by and say hi! And last, but definitely not least, we have a young lady who holds a very special place in my heart, my dear girlfriend Joslyn. She's been working extremely hard over the past 3 weeks, raising money for trip to Korea in January, where she'll be volunteering her time to teach English. She's put a bunch of time and effort over the past few weeks into writing a package of private label articles on Winter Gardens. Private label, for those not in the know just yet, means that once you buy one of the limited copies, you have full rights to republish the articles on your website, blog, offline publication, etc, and put your own name to them. I had the privilege to help out through the process and watch the hard work she put into each piece of writing. I'm very very proud of her and I encourage you guys to check out her offer and take up the chance to share in some of her high quality work. Check it out at: http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64692 It's so awesome to see other young people out there taking action! Keep up the great work guys :). Alright, I'm off to vacuum and finish unpacking! Have an awesome evening! -Jonathan

Cash Advance Goodness and Niche Marketing

2005-12-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

And today I'm proud to launch another mini-site of mine, mycashinfo.com. She's still in her baby stages so look forward to watching her grow ;). For those of you visiting through the search engines and looking for information on Cash Advances, here are a few of the article topics and brief snippets.

When To Use A Cash Advance - The best time to apply for a cash advance is when you are seriously short of cash and have no other alternative way to get it. Regardless of your financial situation, though, you must also make sure you are able to follow the repayment plan the cash advance company sets up for you.

The Hidden Fee in Cash Advances - Believe it or not, cash advances aren’t just simple loans that have a small bit of interest added onto them. If you handle a cash advance loan without care, then you will end up regretting it for a long time.

How to Get a Payday Cash Advance - A cash advance that isn’t used properly will usually lead to a lot of trouble for you, and if you were using this cash advance to pay a bill then you will also end up in a lot of trouble from the billing company.

I put the whole site together this morning and I'm quite happy with it! The design's going to get some extra work and I'm going to be adding in several levels of new contact over the next few weeks as I build up traffic for the site. Building content sites can be really exciting guys :). As I launch the new jonathanwold.com in these last few weeks in 2005, I'd like to really focus on sharing some of the powerful things I've learned about niche marketing. It's a lot of fun and there's just not a whole lot that can beat waking up early in the morning, checking your earnings, and seeing that your websites have been working hard all night long. Niche Marketing is awesome ;). New reader of mine and interested in learning more? Check out my good friend Bo's niche marketing blog and start reading his posts. He share's some really powerful information. Also, be SURE to join the new niche marketing community over at marketingsyndrome.com/mastermind. And that's it for this afternoon! More soon! ;) -Jonathan Wold

You Know You're Living in 2005 When..

2005-12-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend sent this to me and I had a great laugh this morning. Decided that I just had to pass it along :). 2005 is just about over so how about some thoughts for the year! You know you're living in 2005 when: 1.) You accidentally enter your password on a microwave. 2.) You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years 3.) The reason you don't stay in touch with your friends is that they don't have an instant messaging, blog, or myspace account. 4.) You'd rather look all over the house for the remote instead of just pushing the button on the TV. 6.) Your boss doesn't even have the ability to do your job. 7.) You read this list, & keep nodding and smiling. 8.) As you read this list, you think about sending it to all your friends. 9.) And you were too busy to notice number 5. 10.) You actually scrolled back up to check that there was a number 5. 11.) And now you're laughing that you fell for it. 12.) Have an awesome end of the year. We won't tell anyone :). -Jonathan

$1000 in 24 Hours with Niche Marketing

2005-12-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

Just a little over a week ago, on Friday, December 2nd, 2005, I sold my first product. With that sale I was given a first taste of what it's like to create and sell your own products and.. I'm hooked. So in these few minutes as I start my day and prepare for the rest of the week, I'd like to share a bit of my experience with you guys and focus on some of the things I've learned. It took 2 Weeks of Spending Less than a month ago, after the recommendations of several good friends, I joined a community of internet entrepreneurs over at the Warrior Forum. On November 19, 2005, I made my first purchase through the forum, buying my own copy of a member's WSO (warrior special offer) and thus beginning my buying addiction. I've bought 13 other products since then, have spent hundreds of dollars, and will spend thousands more, and.. it's all been worth it :). With each new product I've purchased it's given me a chance to learn new things, impliment new strategies, bring in new ideas, build onto existing ideas, and, most importantly, a chance to build relationships. Those are the most important. The success you achieve is greatly influenced and impacted by the people you associate with. One product in particular sparked an idea. The offer was a chance to buy one of 50 exclusive copies of '5 gold niches'. For $47 you'd be given a list of 5 niches that the product had made money in. You'd also be getting a list of the keywords he used, as well as some bonuses. It was a new idea and it intrigued me. I bought it. On Wednesday, the 31st of November, as I went to bed and slowly began falling asleep, my head started spinning with ideas. I thought about the offer. I thought about the action I'd taken. After recieving access and deciding to build a site around one of the niches, I created a text file and kept track of my expenses. $47 for the product, $14.19 for the domain, time spent building the website, and a list of my notes. My goal was to measure whether or not it had been a good investment. All these thoughts were making there way through my head when the idea hit me.. Why not create my own product? I sat up in bed, reached over, grabbed the index card and pen I always keep handy, and took down a note. The next morning, after starting my day and going through some emails, I stopped for a few moments to figure out what to do next. Then I saw the index card with my note on it. I thought over it for a few moments and decided.. 'Why not?'.. Matt and I had each budgeted $1000 in expenses for our upcoming snowboarding trip and this would be a great way to cover that. I was convinced and I got busy ;). Several hours and a lot of work later, I'd finished writing up my offer and posted it up in 'special offers' section of the Warrior Forum. I learned and implimented some powerful little tricks as I wrote my offer and I'll share those with you guys just a bit later. I submitted the offer for approval.. and waited. It was painful. 8 hours passed by and it was just about bedtime. My offer was in 'moderation' and had to be approved before going live. I recieved an email from one of the moderators letting me know that I had to make a quick change before it was approved. I submitted the change and then it was time for bed. In the few hours leading up till bedtime I'd begun work on fulfillment. My offer, for those of you who haven't had a chance to read it yet, was to provide '7 Hot Niches and Bonuses That Would Melt Snow'.. *grins*.. I had a lot of fun putting it together and that made a difference. In the downtime while I waited for it to be approved, I worked with a good friend of mine to build a high quality keyword list for each of the 7 niches. Early Friday Morning, December 2nd, 2005.. Still unapproved. I whined about it to my good friend Matt who encouraged me and reminded me to be patient. I cleaned up around my house, talked with my girlfriend, who also encouraged me to be patient, and kept checking back on the forum to see if it'd been approved it. I wasted a lot of time. It was something I had to go through though :). At almost exactly 8 AM, the offer was approved. Less than 15 minutes later, I had 3 sales at $57 a piece. I went crazy! Suddenly I was laughing, grinning, and jumping around all at the same time. I called up my girlfriend and she couldn't help but laugh and smile too. Another sale! I called my mom and told her and the rest of my family the good news. ANOTHER sale! 30 minutes later as I got out of the shower and checked back I'd just recieved 3 more sales! I was happy, really happy :). Then it was time to start working Now that my product was a hit, it was time to deliver! I'd given myself a 24 hour time slot in my offer, which was more than enough to make sure I was able to fulfill. I worked hard all morning and afternoon long. Each bonus was looked over and tested several times. The product page was created with a lot of thought going into the presentation. I reviewed my list of 'deliverables' and went through each one, making sure that I fulfilled exactly what I promised. And then.. I overdelivered. I threw in bonuses that I didn't even list in the offer. Around 2 PM, just before heading out to lunch, I began delivery. It was a success! I got some really positive feedback and a lot of encouragement. My customers were happy and I was happy. I'm hooked. I've made some good money in the past, but never that fast and never for selling information. It was an awesome experience :). And as we know, with every great experience there are lessons to learn. This was no exception and I picked up a LOT of lessons. I'll start by sharing some of the lessons I learned through this experience and then wrap up with some tips.

Look For And Fill An Existing Demand - That's really what niche marketing is. Looking for a need in a particular market and meeting that need. Internet Marketers are always looking for new niches to get into and with SO many out there you really want to focus on your efforts on the ones that you KNOW can work. Once you find one that works, you're very reluctant to share it! That's the appeal of 'revealing' the niches that you've made money in. One of the niches I revealed had several $100+ days in AdSense earnings, ALL the niches I revealed were niches I've made money in. Finding a great niche takes a lot of time and when someone is willing to test them out, prove them, and then share them to others through a clear offer, it'll sell. The other thing that made a difference is that I provided 'bonuses' that were syncronized with my offering. I provided a blogging template, a guide to making money with blogs, a basic niche website template, and more. Everything was added in to support and build up my offer.
Have A Clear Plan Of Action and Prepare - As I created my offer, I kept a clear focus on exactly what I was going to be delivering. As I kept that focus, I moved it on into a solid plan for 'What happens next'. As soon as my product was completed, I began delivery, following a clear system I'd set in place. Each person who purchased my product was added to my 'customers' spreadsheet with their name, email, and a column marked 'yes!' or 'no' for whether their copy of the product had been delivered. I wrote an email 'template' which contained their access information for the 'thankyou' page and space for any personal notes. I would then use that template to individually email each customer, adding in extra notes and thankyou's where I wanted them. Having everything planned for and prepared in advance eliminated a LOT of stress and gave me peace of mind, knowing that my customers were well taken care of.
Work With Others! - One of the things that made a HUGE difference for me was working with others! I sent copies of the offer and the thankyou page to several of my trusted friends and they gave me EXTREMELY helpful feedback. From proof reading to new ideas, the product wouldn't have been nearly as good and well thought out if not for the brilliant minds that were involved along the way. Working with the people you trust is VERY important. They sharpen you, help keep you focused, encourage you, and support you. Thanks guys, couldn't have done it without you :).

And finally.. some tips!

Keep A List of Deliverables - As you put together your offer, keep a list of all the things that you're promising to deliver. This will help you stay focused and ensure that you don't miss anything.
Sell It and Then Deliver - Write up your offer before you make the product. The KEY thing here, though, is to make SURE that you absolutely can deliver. You'll gain a reputation for what you do and don't do. Write up your offer and see if there is a demand for it and have a CLEAR plan of action to fulfill that demand once you find it. Writing up your offer in advance and then reviewing it can put the whole project in a clear perspective. It'll show you where the challenges are and help you be prepared.
Overdeliver - Go above and beyond what you promised and take the extra step. Throw in the extras, send out that extra email, overfulfill. Your customers will take notice and appreciate you. It may not always show on the surface, but it's there. Create a reputation for yourself and let people know that when you deliver a product, they'll be getting more than their money's worth.
Keep Track of Everything - Every challenge that comes up, every successful delivery, every happy customer, track it all. Document your process cleanly and clearly. Save records of all that you do and keep it organized for easy access. This will save you a TON of trouble if any challenges come up and will give you peace of mind knowing that things are taken care of.
Create a Memorable Experience - As I put together the finished product and after I had the solid content good and ready to go, I focused a lot on the presentation. How you present your product is important. I put together a good looking page designed to be clear, inviting, and focused. Things were cleanly organized and spread out. Presentation is very important once you've got a solid product finished up.

And that's that! Within 24 hours of my first sale I'd profited over $1000. I only made 35 copies of my product availible and as of this writing, just over a week later, there are only 9 left. It's been a tremendous success and I look forward to creating more products and taking it up a level! I also look forward to hearing about YOUR first products! Most people will get great ideas and never take action on them.. the ones that make a difference are the ones that DO. Take action. -Jonathan Wold

Header Graphics and More

2005-12-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

And as we wrap up the evening, we've got another Website Review! Delia Smith, of EssentialMarketingTools.com has put together a page devoted to helping people with their web graphic needs. An excerpt from her site shares: Are You Tired Of Paying The Pro's?

Within just 5 minutes you can create your own professional header graphics so you will never have to pay a professional again and it is so easy that anybody who can type can do it. This means that you will...

Never pay to much for 1 graphic ever again,
Never have to wait 3 days for 1 graphic ever again,
Never have to send 20 emails before it looks like you want it to look.

Check out her site for information on header graphics, header templates, and more! Keep up the great work Delia! -Jonathan

Wow.. Wrapping Up The Year

2005-12-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it? 2005 is just about gone! Its the 9th of December now and wow.. Its hard for me to believe that the year's just about gone! Yesterday, after finally catching up with Matt after his return from a one week vacation, I verified our plans and then purchased our season passes for the Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe. Less than a month left before we start cruising the slopes! Next I'll be buying our gear, which will include everything but the board, boots, and bindings, which we're gonna go ahead and just rent this year around. It's gonna be a lot of fun! This will be one of my first real vacations.. *smiles*.. Matt and I have worked really hard the past year and we've earned it. I'm looking forward to a lot of fun and then, as we wrap things up in Tahoe, some serious planning and preparation to take on 2006. And on that note, its time to take off for the weekend! Paulie's off to Orlando Florida for the Internet Marketing and Joint Venture Super Conference, where we'll be speaking. Go get 'em Paulie! On our way to the airport last night, Paulie and I got a strong taste of Chicago weather, pulling in between 8-10 inches of snow and leaving us stuck in traffic for over 3 hours. Yikes. Enjoy the Florida weather :). Alright guys! Have yourselves an awesome weekend! Looking forward to next week :). -Jonathan Wold

Fighting Off A Cold!

2005-12-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

Yes I'm fighting off sickness and I'm doing well! Lots of water, airborne, and cayenne, works wonders! Through that I've been working more on JonathanWold.com and, today, put a LOT of work and FINISHED up my 'lightning guide to making money with blogs'. The first copy is available exclusively to the purchases of my first information product (7 Hot Niches). I don't plan to release it publically to early next year. As of this writing I've got 10 copies of my product left! A huge thanks to all the awesome customers who picked up their copy. Thanks for all the feedback guys! Tomorrow afternoon (or today since its past midnight if you wanna be technical!) I have my interview with Mark Victor Hansen, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. He'll be interviewing me, along with one of my dear friends and mentors, Paulie Sabol, on the subject of ways that college students can build up streams of passive income alongside their studies. I'm looking forward to it! I'll let you guys know how it goes :). And with that, this tired boy is off to get sumore much needed rest! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

One Year Anniversary

2005-12-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Today, exactly one year ago, JonathanWold.com, as it is now, was launched. I put a lot of work into that baby and its served me well. Now its time for a remodel ;). I got started early this afternoon and have been working on it throughout the day. I'm liking it! Its a lot different designing something for myself and not for someone else. Its halfway inbetween being a 'fun' project and a real challenge, 'cuz I'm implimenting new things I've learned and some I haven't yet. The entire webpage is being built from the ground up with CSS, XHTML, and PHP.. Right now I'm finishing up the layout, then its time to code it together, and then add in all the content goodness. That's gonna take awhile ;). And with that, I'm working really hard to kick a nasty cold that's not being very nice! I'm off to get some rest and let my body do its cold fighting thing. Goodnight World! -Jonathan

Fighting Spyware and Spyware Removal

2005-12-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

Today on Website Reviews we have ikillspyware.com, a site run by a fellow internet entrepreneur. Fighting spyware and dealing with spyware removal can be such a challenge. Its always good to have resources out there to back us up and, just as importantly, to know that we're not alone. i kill spyware has put together a great list of articles and resources to help in dealing with the challenges spyware brings to digital lives. Some of the hot topics include: Spyware attacks! Windows Safe Mode is no Longer Safe. Spyware and virii are getting craftier. New methods allow them to boot up even when the user attempts to use safe mode; making them extremely hard to remove. Many of us have run into an annoying and time-consuming error. With your machine running goofey you decide to run a scan for trojans and spyware. Following the scan, which usually takes... Is your Computer Infected with Spyware? Is your computer running slower than it should be? Do you find that de-fragmentation and extra memory doesn't help? Do you think it could be a virus? What do you do in situations like these? I suppose you'd run your antivirus software. But what happens when the problem still remains even after you've run your antivirus software? Check out their site and the great resources they've put together to learn how you can fight spyware, remove spyware, and for those of you feeling especially unloving of your digital invaders, you can even learn how to kill spyware. Have an awesome day! -Jonathan

Wordpress Tips: Queueing Up Content

2005-12-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

If you run a niche blog, or any blog for that matter, queueing content (time delayed posting) in advance can really save you a lot of time and headache. Whether you're posting private label content, your own writing, or another blogger's content written for your blog, having it all prepared up in advance and scheduled to post automatically can be a huge time saver, especially when you have a bunch of blogs scattered all over the place like me ;). So here's how! 1. Login to your wordpress Admin and 'Write' a new post. 2. Before you click publish, hit 'Advanced Editing' 3. Scroll down and 'Edit Time' - Using the 24 hour format, schedule how many hours, days, weeks, etc, in advance, you'd like your post to show. 4. Hit publish! - Voila! Your post will appear on the blog when its time ;). Get out there and start posting! -Jonathan

Wrapping up the week!

2005-12-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

Wow.. what a day! Around 10 AM this morning my first information product went live on the warrior forum! As of 4:30 this evening 14 of the 35 copies have been sold :). You can check the offer out yourself by clicking here. I learned a lot from that! First of all, the biggest lesson I've had affirmed once again is that nothing happens when you don't take action! You can't make money off your product unless you have one. Just 2 nights ago I decided that I'd put together a product and see if people were interested. It was a LOT more work than I thought! Once I was finished with the offer I got working really hard on delivering.. and over delivering. A lot of time and energy went into writing, creating, and pulling all the pieces together before the product was delivered this afternoon. I'm VERY happy with how it turned out and am fully convinced that its well worth the money. Now I just have to wait to hear from my customers to see if they echo those sentiments ;). Wow.. what an experience! Over the next few days and weeks I'll be doing some writeups for a bonus in my offer, giving full reviews of 5 different websites as the reward for the first 5 people who bought and emailed me. Look forward to those, they should be a lot of fun! And with that ladies and gentlemen, I'm off for the evening :). I'm going to be working extra hard on my next product, I've got something exciting in the works which I plan to release sometime in early January. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

My first offer

2005-12-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

Its been QUITE a long day. Late last night as I was falling asleep, I got the idea of putting together an information product and offering it up on the warrior forum, which is a forum for internet marketers. So this morning I decided that it was time to take some action and make it happen. So.. I did! It took a bit longer than I expected in proof reading, editing, and going over the offer till I was happy with it. Just a bit before noon though, it was all done and I posted it! Its 10:30 and the offer still hasn't been approved yet ;). It being my first offer I had a couple of things in it that the moderator pointed out to me in an email about a half hour ago. I've fixed them up, resubmitted my offer, and now we'll see how it goes! This offer is my first information product.. ever. There are a couple of non-information bonuses, but they're just that, bonuses. The core of this product is high valued information. I'm excited :). I took a break after submitting the offer and headed off to eat and take care of my laundry. That was MUCH needed and my dresser and closet is very greatful for the fresh supply of clean clothes.. and well.. I guess I am too ;). Once I got home I got back to work on my offer, working on fulfillment. I'm really really happy with how it turned out and I feel very confident about the value. The 'thankyou' page is looking really snazzy and I'm very proud of the bonuses :). And that's jusst about that.. Wanna check it out? Below is the link which will be live as soon as the offer is approved. Jonathan's first information product And with that.. I am exhausted beyond words this evening. I'm off to bed 'fer now. Goodnight World! :) -Jonathan

Young Entrepreneurs Working Hard

2005-11-30T18:33:00.000-08:00

I've been checking out what some of the members of Youthcove.com have been up too this evening. Youthcove, for those of you who haven't checked it out yet, is a community of young entrepreneurs from all around the world. One of the members of Youthcove and a good friend of mine is James Coombs of Nitronworks.com. He's doing some incredible stuff over in the UK. James is getting ready to launch his own computer gaming center! He's been in the planning stage for a few months now and now he's taking some serious action on it. I checked out his blog and he's got pictures of the work he's doing and wow! James is still a teenager and he's already taking entrepreneurialsm very seriously. Check out the nitronworks blog to learn more about his project, code named 'Sleepy Ninja'. Go get 'em James! Another YC member and a good friend of mine is Mandy Fintel. She's just launched a new internet marketing knowledge library over on her site and on top of that, Mandy is on her way to dominating the Tweety Bird niche :). Another brilliant young YC member, Joslyn Rose, launched a garden blog and she's already working hard on putting together some brilliant content as she gets that site going. That's on top of her already existing recipe blog that went live a few weeks ago. And then there's my good friend Brentos who's launched his ebook covers service just a few weeks ago. He's another young entrepreneur who's taking it serious. Brentos isn't even 18 yet and he's already kicking it up a few notches! Dave Getchel, another Islander in the Youthcove Community, has also been working hard. He's getting ready to launch a new blog about 'switching to apple' and has just gone live with a site covering foreign DVD reviews. Keep an eye on him, he's gonna be doing some great stuff :). Finally this evening, and only for now, 'cuz there are a ton of other young entrepreneurs who deserve some serious recognition, there's one of my closest friends, business partners and also a fellow YC member, Matt Geri. He's been working really hard on dominating the dog lovers niche over at mypetdog.net. That's on top of his great work in the ringtones niche with fancyfone.com. And that's a mid evening round up of some of the brilliant young entrepreneurs I've been priviledged to know :). Always on the look out to meet more! Are you a young entrepreneur that I haven't had the priviledge of meeting yet? Or maybe even someone who doesn't even consider themself an entrepreneur but would like to learn more? Drop me a comment, I'd love to hear from you :). Also.. be sure to check out the youthcove community, which is a community built by and for young entrepreneurs. Have a great evening! -Jonathan

To Blog or Not to Blog

2005-11-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight's one of those night's I don't really 'feel' like blogging but that's only a minor setback and with so many things to say those feelings will just have to deal with it ;). Its getting really cold out here in Northwest Indiana. I went out to a late lunch around 4:00 PM and was greeted with a flurry of non-sticking snow flakes. Today was one of those rather dismal looking days where the sun seems to have become bored with this side of the country as a whole and is content with hiding from view, leaving the air especially unwarmed. I finished formatting and uploading the OREOs product (mentioned in my previous post) a few hours ago after a number of technical frustrations that threatened to pop a few gray hairs in my head. I decided that'd be ok though.. you wouldn't be able to see a few strands through all the rest of the hair on my head ;). Just a few days back I had the pleasure of chatting with Yaro Starak of http://www.entrepreneur-journey.com. He's a very bright young man, easy to talk too, and has a nice australian accent ;). Check out his site and look at his picture.. You'd guess that we share hair styling tips and techniques.. *grins*.. Yaro and I talked about doing a podcast interview together on one of my favorite little topics.. Niche Marketing! My audio connection wasn't much to speak of so a few clicks over to Amazon, a few minutes shopping, 2 days later, and I've got a brand new head set at my door just itching to be tried out. I'll update you guys on how that works out :). Today feels like it could have easily been 2 days.. In addition to finishing up the bulk of the OREOs product today, I put together an order for 100 articles to be written to provide content for a few of my site networks. I've been extremely impressed with the quality of the writers I've been working with and if it continues to go well I'll be ordering a lot more :). And that's just about that! Tomorrow is my sump pumps day, if all goes well, and also a day to start working on the remake of Jonathanwold.com! I'm looking forward to that ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Alive And Well - Calm Before the Storm

2005-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, just a quick late afternoon post before I finish up for the evening :). There's been a LOT going on in my life lately. This past week, I've been working hard on the digital product launch of "Sweet Profits with Bank OREOs", a real estate product developed by my good friends and mentors, Donna Fox and Paulie Sabol. I've been converting and formatting their product into an online version that's entirely digital. It's going live on sale this Wednesday so I've been working hard to make sure everything's ready for it. In addition to that, I'm getting ready to release some new content in my sump pumps niche! Got some really exciting things to update and then share with you guys afterwards. I've learned a lot over the last few days ;). I'm putting a lot of time into developing a system to eliminate the technical challenges of building niche content sites and allow me and my teams to focus on the content itself, which is the most important. I'll keep you guys up-to-date on that. As its developed and proven sea worthy, I'm going to be putting some serious thought into releasing it publically. The focus of this system is NOT automation but instead, and so much importantly, systemization. Whether you end up doing the work of content writing yourself or someone on your team, your focus should be on creating content to meet your market's needs and in building relationships within your market, not worrying about the technical side of things and experiencing technical bottlenecks. So I'm excited about that, really excited :). Its a system I've been developing to meet my own needs and as it does that, its something that I look forward to being able to share with others. And on that.. time to get back to work and wrap the evening up! -Jonathan Wold

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

I have so much to be thankful for :). Just got back from packing up the car for my extended weekend trip to spend Thanksgiving with some really good friends/adopted family of mine! It is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL November day outside.. and uh wow.. ITS COLD! Really really cold! Just a few days ago we had a nice blanket of snow and it was warmer then than it is NOW. My poor little car doesn't have any heat in it right now either.. my poor car? My poor hands! Its my fault though.. I should have had it fixed already! Ah well.. I'm thankful that I have a means of transportation.. it would be a LOT worse if I had to walk in that weather ;). And so just taking a moment here to wish all of you guys an awesome Thanksgiving! Thanks for putting up with me over the years, for sticking around and sharing in my adventures. Thanks for getting to know me better and for giving me the chance to know you.. You guys have made a huge difference in my life :). May you all be warm and cheerful! I look forward to talking with you guys when I get back! Have an awesome day :). -Jonathan Wold

Future of JonathanWold.com

2005-11-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

In just about 2 weeks we'll sneak up on the 5th of December, which will mark the 1 year anniversary of the remake of Jonathanwold.com. Well, its just about that time of year again and its definitely time for another remake. I've been planning it for awhile and things have finally fallen into place. This time around, I'll be building jonathanwold.com entirely in CSS with valid XHTML markup, a fun challenge! Along with that makeover I'll be finally making the switch of my blog over to the Wordpress blogging engine. ..Scary stuff ;). Potentially scary, but mostly very exciting. Once the structure of the site is finished it'll be a matter of going over all my old content, republishing the bulk of it and rewriting the rest, as well as adding in new stuff. Its going to be a monster of a project, but I'm looking forward to it! Along with the restructure and the new look, I'll be looking at ways of sharpening my focus and providing more value through my blog. It is first and foremost an account of my life and my experiences, and beyond that, I want it to be a way for me to share the things I've learned and help others in every way that I can. That's one of the things I really really enjoy, being able to share the things I've learned and innovated and then be able watch what I share make a difference in someone ele's life. So, with the new release of my blog, you can expect to see more of the general updates on what's going on in my life, and then a stronger focus on sharing and teaching the things that I'm learning and innovating. More lessons on things entrepreneurial, more articles on niche marketing, community building, and other passions of mine, and more surprises :). I love surprises and just as much as I love them, I love sharing them.. Look forward to surprises ;). And that's just about that! The next few days are gonna be crazy. I didn't realize how fast Thanksgiving's coming! I'll spend a little bit of time on the site and the rest will be spread between Youthcove and a project that I'm working with Paulie on. Have a beautiful evening and I look forward to hearing from you guys! -Jonathan Wold

Switching to Wordpress, Niche Marketing, and Snow!

2005-11-17T00:03:00.000-08:00

Well well well, here we are again and its 2 AM! To blog or to sleep.. Well, definitely sleep, but first, how about a blog update? ;) After going through a bunch of hesitations about switching from Blogger to Wordpress, I'm just about solid on the decision and, even more importantly, just about ready to make it happen. Having more control over my publishing platform (wow, that sounded.. important) is worth the pain and potential grief that 'switching' may cause. There'd likely be an inevitable mess of search engine ranking as popular pages were suddenly 'moved', but with some forethought and with time, it'll be sorted out. So I'm going to be making the switch! When? Well, it'll be a little bit after the Youthcove Blog is launched, which gives me an extra bit of motivation ;). One big blog project at a time now! - Props goes to Andy Skelton for putting together a great guide! You're a life saver bro! :) I'll also be going live with a few other projects of mine, incluuuding a potential remake of jonathanwold.com. That's a big one.. Don't know if I'm quite ready for all that's involved in that, but its important and needs attention :). And in other news? I'm going strong in niche marketing! I've picked up subscriptions to a few new membership sites over the past week and been disappointed and very pleased at the same time. Some of them have been great, some.. well.. not-so-great :). I'm considering putting together a review of all the membership sites I've joined, along with some general strategies for making the most of membership sites.. For those of you who're interested, just send me an email or drop a quick comment. It's always good to know if anyone's interested before you get started on something ;). Things are going well and, for the most part, I've been dealing well with our good friend 'overload'. Yeah, things are going well :). My good friend and mentor Paulie Sabol just returned from a trip to Panama yesterday! We visited this evening and spent some time playing DDR ;). That was a lot of fun and great excersise! And finally.. guess what.. It started SNOWING today! Wow.. and boy is it ever cold outside! That's awesome though! I love the snow! I'm getting the sense that winter is coming ;). Have an awesome evening! -Jonathan Wold

What is an Atlatl?

2005-11-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

Well there's a new word for the day ;). After a few minutes doing research, I learned that an atlatl is a neat little device used to gain leverage for throwing a spear or arrow long distances with great force. It was used back in history as a hunting weapon. Another brief description I dug up on the Wikipedia goes:

The atlatl, or "spear thrower", is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in spear-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to temporarily store elastic energy during the throw. It consists of a shaft with a hook, in which the butt of the spear rests. It is held near the end farthest from the cup, and the spear is thrown by the action of the upper arm and wrist. A well-made atlatl can readily achieve ranges of greater than 100 meters.

Yeah.. what they said ;). Recently, with the hunting season going strong over here in the US, there's been a fascination with going back to the 'good old times' and using 'old school' hunting techniques. The only trouble I'd see with that is becoming so fascinated with it that you forget to have a backup plan and the next thing you know, you're out in the mountains hunting down 'Monster' the grizzly bear and all you have is a little spear. You'd better have brought along a good pair of running shoes ;). Interested in more? There's an association of atlatl fans.. Check out their site at http://www.worldatlatl.org/ Interested in even more? Perhaps looking to get your own atlatl? I'm thinking of putting together a mini-site over the next couple of weeks with more information, including ways to make your own atlatl and places you can go the 'lazy man' route and just buy one ;). Drop me a comment if you're interested and be sure to let me know how you found my site! For my regular readers, this is just another way of doing market research. If there is interest, I will put my time and energy into building a high quality site. If not, I'll be focusing my time and energy elsewhere :). -Jonathan Wold

Happy Anniversary!

2005-11-14T20:37:00.000-08:00

Just a few minutes before I head off to bed, I wanted to do a tiny bit of writing :). Today is, ready for it? The 29th month anniversary of my dear girlfriend and I. We've been together for 29 months! She's meant soo much to me over the years and helped me through so many things. Its been an honor getting to know her, growing close to her, and the both of us growing up together, even if it seems slowly at times ;). I love you so very much my dear! :).. And with that, the day's wrapped up! I wound up settling on cleaning and doing some work on the Youthcove Membership Application.. We'll see how that works out over the next few days. If there are any experts in PHP out there who'd be up for helping me out with it, I'd greatly appreciate it! Tomorrow's a new day! We shall see what it brings! :) -Jonathan Wold

I feel like blogging!

2005-11-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

Yes I do! It's just past 5 PM and today is winding down slowly. I haven't decided how I'm going to finish off the night yet.. but there's still time ;). I'm going between doing some cleaning, working on building a new template for a series of niche sites I'm launching, or spending time on Youthcove. There's an application system that needs some serious attention, and the new YC Blog has some work that needs to get done this week. While I figure that out.. I've gotta share a little bit about yesterday. Yesterday was a monster of a day, and not in a particularly good way! It all started getting serious right around noon, just as the Youthcove Team Meeting was underway. 15 minutes into it and suddenly my internet went down. No comments. No clue as to what was wrong. Just down. A few minutes went by and I wasn't able to get it workly. I gave my good friend Dave, one of the members at the meeting, a quick call and let him know what was up. Then, laptop to save the day! I fired it up and after a few minutes of being ornery, I was back online. I went to check on my desktop and.. the oddest thing happened.. I was back online, but suddenly several keys on my keyboard weren't working! Without any real reason, the h, o, q, l, 2, and 9, just stopped working! I rebooted a couple of times and tried a bunch of different things, but nothing! Just gone! Well, things weren't shaping up all that well ;). The team pressed on and continued the meeting without me. With about 8 minutes left, I gave up on the desktop and joined on in with the laptop. We finished up the meeting and started doing our afterwards talking. One minute into that and boom.. internet went down again, not to return till about an hour later. And then.. My server went down! Again, pretty much no reason, just suddenly it was down. Boom. Half of the websites I have and a bunch of my clients and friends sites were suddenly offline. Not cool! Took about 5 hours for that one to get taken care of. Talk about a serious dent in your revenue for the day! I wound up ending the evening by dropping close to $200 into a brand new server, which my good friend Joshua Mitchener is going to be helping me set up over the next few days. I've kinda had it with the old one, its been good to me, but just far too many problems over the past few months. Time to get 'em taken care of :). So it was quite a day yesterday! I think the biggest thing for me was just making it through. Things happen.. You just do your best with them :). I got a pretty stressed out and if it weren't for the support of some of the awesome people in my life, I'd have been a mess ;). Its times like that when its so important to appreciate those around you. To appreciate the people who've got your back and who support you when life throws nasty stuff your way. Thanks to all of you :). And so here we are back in today.. I just got back from a late lunch with a good friend of mine, Casey! We spent time together talking about what he's been up too and what I've been up too. Casey is a serious real estate guy right now, which is some pretty hot stuff for only being 24 years old! He's starting to do really well! My good friend and mentor Paulie Sabol checked in from Panama this morning. He's down there attending a business event and just generally enjoying the weather ;). Paulie shared a really exciting opportunity with me for early next month, which if it goes through, I'll be updating you guys on! And that's just about that for now ;). I'm off for a bit and we'll see how the evening goes! -Jonathan

Wrapping up the week!

2005-11-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Wow has it been a week! My younger brother Josiah has been visiting since last Wednesday and we've had an awesome time together! I've been teaching him niche marketing and he's been helping me build content sites. Today we worked together on the launch of the latest niche site.. which you can read about in the previous post ;). Josiah helped write 2 pages of the site content and we worked together on doing the research. It was fun! Now we wait to see how the site does :). Man.. time really flies.. I am so worn out! The weekend is a very welcome thing :). We'll see how things go next week! I'll be doing sumore work on content sites and also working on getting my finances all in order.. and then, I'll be planning my trip with my awesome friend Matt Geri, to Tahoe! We're going to be spending 2 weeks together in the snow, building our virtual empires and snowboarding! I can't wait :). Have an awesome weekend! -Jonathan

Sump Pumps Information

2005-11-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

Looking for information on sump pumps? Check out sump pump info.com! A lot of hard work has gone into putting together a sump pump resource site! Not sure what a sump pump is? Check out our guide and learn the answer to the inevitable question, what is a sump pump? Looking for ways to install a sump pump? Check out our sump pump installation guide! All this and more, including information on repairing your sump pump and replacing your sump pump, awaits you at sumppumpinfo.com! ..And for those of you who aren't looking for sump pumps, be sure to check out the site anyway ;). Its the latest in my network of content sites and I've got some serious plans for it. I don't know a lot about sump pumps myself, so I'm on the look for experts interested in helping me put together content for the site. Check it out, let me know what you think, and check back in a few weeks to get some results on how the site's been doing! Have an awesome day! -Jonathan Wold

Burning the Midnight Oil

2005-11-09T23:47:00.000-08:00

I suppose its actually a good deal PAST midnight now.. oh well, time flies! ;) Wow.. am I ever tired! Today's been a lonnng day.. and a good one! I'm going through some interesting challenges right now.. the year is rapidly winding to an end and I'm starting to finally put some real thought into 'what's next'. There's a load of opportunities opening up for me, opportunities in all sorts of directions. I've been living and working out here in Indiana as an 'intern' of sorts for the past few months and its been an incredible experience. Wouldn't trade it for anything :). Time's moving on though and I'm starting to think more about my future. I've never had my own place. I can't even tell you what its like to truly 'live on my own'.. Granted, leaving home at 18 was a very strong step in that direction. Yet even with that step, I still haven't really experienced being 'on my own'. For almost a year and a half now, I've been traveling the country, living, and working with amazing people from all over the United States and around the world. These are times and experiences I wouldn't trade for anything :)!.. I've learned so much.. and I've grown! And so.. its time for me to start thinking about.. 'what's next?'.. As a part of that, I've realized that I've been putting off taking care of my finances!.. Shame Jonathan!.. I haven't caught up on my accounting and record keeping for a little over a month and a half now, and that's not very good. Having my own place, and all the costs associated with that, is some serious stuff to think about. Up till now, I've known how to make money, I've been making money, I've been teaching others how to make money, and through all that, I haven't had a really strong reason to make money and support myself. It just hasn't been there. Well.. its time for that to start changing. I'm an internet marketer and even more than that, I'm a full time entrepreneur. I have the resources and where I lack the knowledge, I quickly learn where to find it. Everything's in place for me, all I've been missing is the motivation. Well.. I've got it now :). I want to have my own place next year and to make that happen, I've got a lot of work to do between now and then. ..Wow.. quite a few strong thoughts for someone so tired! *smiles*.. My good friend Bo over at Marketing Syndrome.com did an awesome thing today! He put together a complete niche market analysis and has made it available for free through his blog! Every member of his mailing list gets free access to his very well thought out market research and.. they get to watch the results! After leaving the research up for a week to give readers the chance to get started, Bo is gonna try his own hand at niche domination :). I'm participating in this round and I'm excited! Wanna find out which niche? ;).. Well.. you'll just have to head over and join his list to see! Tell him I said hi! :) Also, thanks to my good friend Mandy Fintel for directing me to a great post on the Warrior Forum (of which I am a proud new member). I submitted 10 new article requests to the 'Article Alliance' to test out their article writing service. Looking forward to seeing how those turn out :). And on thaat.. I think I'm just about ready for bed! Tomorrow's a big day, as always ;). I've got some work to catch up on, some finances to go over, and some niches to begin dominating! ;).. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Monsterous Day - Testing Time Management

2005-11-07T19:36:00.000-08:00

Today was monsterous.. I got a LOT done. Its 9:45 and I am feeling soo worn out. I tested a new time management system today to meet a challenge I've been having. I've been struggling with good 'ole MSN Messenger.. That struggle being that I really like talking to people! I enjoy spending time with people, helping out where I can, and just talking. Challenge is that a lot of my projects really start missing my attention! So today I gave a new system a shot.. I use the 'boss protection' shortcut, which is available on MSN Plus and 'hide' MSN Messenger for 45 minutes at a top. At the beginning of each hour I go into 'hide' mode.. work like crazy.. get a LOT done.. and then I open it back up. MSN stays logged on, so any messages I've picked up accumulate and are waiting for me on my return. Then, after 15 minutes, I go right back to it! The result of this system is that 5 hours of my day absolutely FLEW by. I'd almost forgotten what it was like for me to be working uninterupted and entirely focused. I launched 3 new sites today.. yeah.. 3! Debtblogging.com went live.. I developed an RSS integration system, which is a way for me to manage news and updates across my entire network of sites from a central location (I'll be writing a tutorial on how I did it).. and a few 'behind-the-scenes' sites went live today. They are still a bit ugly, so no public release on those yet ;). I've been working hard on a 'system' for niche marketing. Over the past few days I've been focused on template development, with the goal of creating a system that eliminates the 'work' on the technical side and allows all the focus on a niche website to be on providing high quality content. Things have been going along really really well today.. I'm going to be working with my good friend Joshua Mitchener to develop some CSS templates for the system, which will take ALL the design elements and have them managed from a central location, allowing even more of the focus for each site to be on creating original content. Its good stuff ;). Moldblogger.com is doing really well! In less than 2 weeks its already well indexed and getting a growing stream of traffic each day. Site earnings are low right now, but they're there! The project has been going really well. The next step for the 'mold blog' is creating a plan for content writing. That'll be an interesting challenge :). Blogging isn't as easy as it looks ya know! And on that.. its time for bedd! Tomorrow's going to be a wild new day! I got a LOT done today and brought back an old practice of mine. Each time I 'accomplish' something, I pull up my notepad (or leave it on the second monitor) and take a quick note, writing out what I did. It makes a big difference at the end of the day to look back over what you accomplished. I got about 3 pages of text today :). Good stuff! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Going Into Debt

2005-11-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

The niche.. that is ;). Today I've put a bunch of hard work into launching the newest site in my digital empire, a blog about debt. Check it out at debtblogging.com! A couple of things to note about this niche is that its VERY very competitive. I didn't really even realize how competitive it was until after I launched the site :). I'm not worried about it, its competitive for a reason. Debt is a very serious topic that impacts a LARGE portion of American Citizens (and people around the world). I'm launching the debt blog with a series of exclusive articles for content and over the next few weeks I'll be putting together content myself as I look for someone to work with to run the blog in the future. A few extra debt sites will be going live over the next few days.. nothing spectacular just yet, just a few more sites in the debt niche to push the borders of my digital empire :). Check out the debt blog! -Jonathan

Another Day in Internet Marketing - InfoGoRound

2005-11-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

And what a day! :).. My younger brother, Josiah, came up yesterday afternoon to spend a couple of days here with me. Today we took him over to the dentist and they did some great work on his teeth! He's a happy camper! ;) Josiah and I have been hard at work building niche websites today! I've been teaching him the basics, he's been taking that, and we've been doing some really good work! Josiah has a great attention to detail and it shows in the sites he's put together. I'll link you guys up to some of our latest work in a few days as we finish it up! :) Yikes! Tomorrow is one of my last days to work on the new Youthcove.com blog! It's only needing a few more hours of my attention to meet my commitment for this week, yet its still a few hours that are threatening to sneak away from me! I'll just have to take care of that! I joined another continuity program this morning, this time, a program over at InfoGoRound.com. (That's my affiliate link :). I set aside ome time this morning to look over what they had to offer and after just a few minutes, I was impressed. I'll spend sumore time next week going through the articles and products they have available to get a clearer sense of the value, and overall, I expect to continue to be very happy with my purchase! Josiah went and wrote his first article this evening and contributed it to InfoGoRound. He wrote a great little article on changing the oil in your vehicle.. I'm very proud of him! Way to go bro! And on that note.. this very tired internet entrepreneur is heading off to bed! Tomorrow's another big day as we wrap up the week :). I'm looking forward to it!.. ..Wow.. is it just me or are days just going by REALLY fast?! It's the 4th of November! Next thing ya know, its gonna be December! *smiles*.. Wow.. In just 2 more months I'll be able to say, "I'm going to be 21 next year!".. That's always fun :). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Tweety

2005-11-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Or Tweety Bird, as some prefer! My good friend Mandy Fintel has been working on an awesome site for those who love and want to know more about that cute little yellow bird, Tweety! You can learn about the history of Tweety and find all sorts of fun stuff hidden around the site! And if you're feeling especially Tweetyish, you can take a quiz to find out what type of Tweety you are! I took the quiz and according to Tweety Friends:

You Are An Adult Tweety. You, as an adult, enjoy adults and people of your own age. You enjoy the comforts, securities and love at home. You are not afraid to go to others outside your home when seeking advice. You enjoy the comfort of those close to your hear to protect you. What kind of tweety are you?

There ya go! ;).. I didn't know there was so much to learn about Tweety! Be sure to check the site out and send her some love! She's put a lot of working into building an awesome little site! -Jonathan Wold

Continuity Programs and Membership Websites!

2005-11-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

Well now there's a mouthful! ;).. Continuity Programs and Membership Sites revolve around the same idea, you pay a certain amount on a consistent basis (usually monthly) and in exchange, you get access to a service. I've become fascinated with them lately! Starting with recommendations from my new friend Bo Bang's site, I've signed up for one subscription service already. The first site I joined is called ReadyMadeContent (That's my affiliate link :). For $15 a month each member is given access to between 100-150 new, completely original, content articles on a WIDE range of topics and.. as if that wasn't enough, you can even suggest your own! I was sold and I've been very very happy thus far! Not only am I getting high quality content for my niche websites, I'm getting an extra little motivation to keep busy! When you start paying out money each month, it keeps you thinking about where that money is going and when you're thinking about it.. those thoughts can lead to action. And that's one of the great strengths of paid continuity programs. When each member is paying up every month to be a part of it, they have incentive to apply the things they're being given access to and make the most of them! I'm really enjoying this thus far and learning a lot! If anyone has any recommendations for some good programs to check out, especially on the topic of 'niche marketing', let me know! Be sure to share your affiliate link ;). And on that.. its been a really good day! I'm heading off to bed now. Goodnight World! Sleep Well! -Jonathan Wold

Niche Marketing Overload!

2005-10-31T17:16:00.000-08:00

Wow.. what an overload ;). I've been in 'Niche Marketing' for months now and I've been doing very well. A few of my websites have worked together and pulled in close to $200 dollar days, which is a great starting point! But tonight I had a bit of a revelation.. My new advancements into building up virtual empires have been growing strong, my focus is on taking a niche, a topic, and building entire networks of ultra high quality content, from a wide spectrum of angles. So far its been going really well.. Within a month or so I'll have a better idea of what the financial return is like. I'll keep you guys updated on that! But the revelation.. The revelation is that I'm building niche websites! Its something that, for whatever odd reason, didn't really click until this evening. I've been overwhelmed with information and its all good! I started off the night by reading a new blog I've found, marketingsyndrome.com, written by Bo Bang. He has some awesome stuff over there that really got me thinking! I purchased a subscription to an article writing service, which I'll be sharing more about once I've had a chance to check it out. I had the pleasure of chatting with Bo over MSN this evening and had a great time! We talked a bit about niche marketing and I told him a little of what I've been up too. Bo's a really great guy.. be sure to give his blog a look over and send some nice comments his way! Bo recommended that I join the Warrior Forum community so.. I did! Yeah, and it was right about that time that overload started hitting me ;). My girlfriend, always supporting me in my craziness, reminded me to just take a step back and soak it in. If you hit the gas too hard you'll spin out.. and if you don't hit it at all.. well.. you won't go anywhere ;). So I'm taking a small step back to soak it in. My goal over the next few months is to build up strong virtual empires in a wide range of niches, starting with ones I've had experience in and know to be profitable. I'm going to go at them from all angles, building a bunch of different sites to meet different needs, all the while focusing on providing the highest level of content possible. One of my measures is imagining my mom going through my sites looking for information on whatever topic I'm presenting. Would she be able to find the answers? Would she see it as useful? Its a tough measure, but for me it works ;). And on that, its going to be a crazzzyy weeekk! Lots of stuff is moving forward! I'm working hard on the latest Youthcove project.. the Youthcove Blog! My good friend Joshua Mitchener and I are going to be developing the blog in Wordpress and our goal and commitment is to have it released on the mainpage of Youthcove.com by next Sunday! Yowzers! Alriight.. I think I'm gonna head off for the night ;). I've got a handful of projects to follow up on and then its time for some sleep! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Wrapping Up The Week! - The Mold Blog

2005-10-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

And WOW has it been an incredible week! Boy I'm worn out, but its a really good feeling! As soon as I'm done posting, I'm gonna head off, clean up my house a bit, and then its time to do some relaxing! Its been a really really good week :). I got more than half of my major goals accomplished and wound up meeting a few I hadn't even thought of! I began work on my first 'for profit' blog this morning, starting with the purchase of the domain name. Guess what niche it is? ;) Yup! Mold! You can check out my handiwork in the VERY early stages of progress by visiting the mold blog at moldblogger.com. A huge thanks to my good friend Cary of ipod-church.com for the help and encouragement! Woulda been in a big mess without him! :) Right now, all you'll see are some quick news story excerpts I pulled together Over the next few weeks I'm going to be putting together a mold content writing plan and working with a couple of brilliant writers to put out some high quality useful content. ..Wow.. never thought I'd be building a virtual empire of mold.. Hey.. whatever works ;). Thanks again go out to my dear mom for suggesting the topic! She's been wanting to learn more about mold so I shall provide a resource! If anyone out there has a site about mold or is interested in working in the 'mold' market, drop me a line, I'm always interested in meeting new people and working together! Alright, enough organics for the evening.. Let's talk about food ;). I headed over to one of my favorite local food stops for lunch this afternoon, Subway! I decided to get creative and try something different. Wow.. what a sandwhich :). Today I had: A foot long Veggie with Italian herb and cheese bread. I had it toasted with extra provalone (spelling?) cheese and a nice fresh veggie patty. A bunch of tomatoes and a good helping of onions, topped off with two handfuls of spinach, mayonaise (and lots of it!), southwest sauce and oregano! Mmm mmm MMM it was good! ..In writing that's called a rough transition.. and if its not, I'm gonna call it that anyway. Its not everyday you see someone jump from talking about mold to their favorite meal. Hmm.. yeah, I'm glad the week is over. Its been a good one :). Alright, I'm off for the weekend! Ya'll have an awesome evening and take care of yourselves! Make sure to set aside some time and do something fun! :) Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Dealing With Discouragment - Taking Action Steps

2005-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it can be so easy to just look at the past few hours of a day and feel discouraged, like you haven't accomplished anything. You feel discouraged and you forget to look back at the rest of the day. You forget to look back at the week! I fall into that more often than I'd like. Today was a great example of that. Its nearly the end of the week and just a few hours ago, I had to stop and look at myself. I was surprised. Here I was feeling discouraged, like I wasn't getting everything done. That I just wasn't doing enough. Well, that kind of attitude wasn't going to get me anywhere, so it required a bit of stepping back. First, I looked at the projects I had planned for the day. I had a set of 25 websites I was putting together for a client as part of product fulfillment for a project I'm involved with. I also had the smaller yet argueably more involved project of putting together a marketing plan for a single website in the 'home entertainment installations' market. (There's a mouthful). Both of these projects were scheduled to get my attention today and.. well.. it wasn't happening. I bit the bullet and made two phone calls.. and they went well. I've done what I can in both cases and I have moved things forward, perhaps not to the degree at which I'd have liked at the time, but enough to satisfy both individuals in either case. So I cleared things out of the way.. Then I looked back. Its Thursday, there's still a day left in the week and I have done a LOT, even by my own standards. I launched a new website, I finished the creation of a product, I finished up the bulk of my personal accounting, I had help from my good friend Joshua and worked to transfer over 300 websites onto a new server, I put together the details on several new projects of mine, I was able to help work out the details on a few projects of good friends of mine, I set aside time to read nearly everyday, and the list goes on.. and on.. It was time for me to be a bit more satisfied :). And so I am. Its a little before 8 and after this post I'll be heading off for the night. Tomorrow's going to be a big day as I round off the week and I'll end up getting even more done. Just before I stop working tomorrow, I'm going to set aside a half hour or so to look back on the week and review my accomplishments and do some planning for next week. I didn't meet everything I set out to do yet, and as I summarized at the end of my 30 day challenge, that's ok. The most important thing about setting goals is that you DO something. That you move forward. That you take those all important action steps, no matter HOW small they may seem. The very fact that you've taken them is enough to move you forward, even if only a small step at a time. As a writer, you learn that one of the most effective ways to deal with 'writers block' is to simply.. write. Doesn't matter what you write, doesn't matter if it makes any sense, doesn't matter if it flows, has perfect spelling, or any sense of proper grammar. All that matters is that you write and keep writing. You'll pull out of it.. You'll get an idea and you'll run with it. Sometimes it takes longer than others but it works.. every time. Sometimes one of the most effective ways of dealing with an overwhelming sense of 'discouragement' is to first step away from everything. Take a break. Take a few moments for yourself, relax, get your head back together. Then go for it. Do your best to set aside and put on hold any distractions and just go for it. Get the work done and move your projects forward. And on that note, it's 'bout time for me to head off for the evening! I wanna do some cool stuff next week.. *grins*.. I have a new article/report I'm working on but haven't decided completely what I'm going to do with it yet. The topic is one very near and dear to me, "community building". I look forward to sharing it with you guys and getting some feedback! Alright.. Ya'll have a wonderful evening and a powerful new day tomorrow! Goodnight World! :) -Jonathan Wold P.S. Be sure to check out my good friend Matt Geri's new site! He's in the process of rebuilding his blog and its looking goood! Drop him a nice comment and say hi! :)

Pumpkin Carving - How to Carve a Pumpkin

2005-10-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine any reason someone would be interested in doing something so silly as to carve a pumpkin this time of yearr.. but for those of you who are, I just thought I'd share an awesome little guide to pumpkin carving goodness, courtesy of our friends at ehow.com. Ready for it? *grins*..

1. Select a fresh pumpkin in a shape that pleases you. Some folks prefer their pumpkins low and round, while others like them tall and oval-shaped. 2. Draw a circle or hexagon on top of the pumpkin in preparation for making an opening large enough for your hand to reach through. 3. Cut through the stem end of the pumpkin along your outline with a sharp knife or pumpkin-carving tool. Use a back-and-forth slicing motion to cut through the thick, tough skin. 4. Remove the stem end, which will act as a cap, making sure you scrape off any seeds or pulp. 5. Use a large spoon to scoop out the seeds and pulp from inside the pumpkin. Hold the spoon by its bowl to get extra leverage while scooping. 6. Draw a pattern for the face on the clean pumpkin with a felt-tip pen, or scribe the lines into the skin using a pencil. Be sure to make the eyes, nose and mouth large enough; you'll have a hard time cutting out tiny features when you're using a big knife blade to saw through tough skin. 7. Follow your pattern as you cut all the way through the pumpkin. 8. Push the cut-out features gently from the inside of the pumpkin and discard the pieces. 9. Place a votive candle inside the pumpkin to create an eerie (yet possibly cheerful!) glow.

And that's that.. your guide to pumpkin carving! Oh and ouchh.. found a joke that's almost too painful to share, but I'm gonna share it anyway, courtesy of the Prarie Home Companion website (they get the blame!). What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter? Pumpkin pi. .. Hehehe.. Happy Pumpkin Carving! Come up with any really good designs this year? Share 'em! Have an awesome rest of the day! -Jonathan Wold

Get Rid of Mold

2005-10-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well there's an interesting topic.. nothing like starting out the morning by writing about mold ;). Well, I like mold! I like mold because mold has become a strong source of income for me over the past couple of months. Its definitely not a niche for everyone, and that's ok. As mold itself goes, I really can't stand the stuff. It gets in the air, it gets people sick, and in some cases, it can be fatal. My mom suggested I make a website about mold a little over 5 months ago. I took her up on that. I did some research, spent a few hours throwing a site together and, within just a few weeks, it was making a small but steady stream of income. I moved on since then, working on other projects, building new websites, developing existing sites, and just learning tons of new stuff. My little mold site is still alive and kicking, consistently bringing in those few dollars every single day. I learned a valuable lesson in my experience with mold. One of the first few things that crossed my mind when mom suggested it was.. "That wouldn't work!".. Well, after sitting down and just getting myself to build the site, waiting a couple of weeks, and then seeing the results, I've learned something.. When you've found a market, you have NO right to 'decide' whether or not they'd be interested in what you have to offer. "Nobody would care about my little mold site.." - Well, 5 months and a significant amount of money later, that's wrong. People do care. I won't know until I give them the chance to care. I learned that its much better to go for something and see little to no results than NOT go for it and just 'decide' it wouldn't work. That decision is usually just a very thinly veiled excuse. So! I'm getting to work this morning, building a new site about mold, which I'll be releasing soon! If anyone else is interested in getting involved in the 'mold' niche, let me know :). I'm always looking for good content writers or product creators.. *smiles*.. Have an awesome new day! -Jonathan

Pictures from the Red River Gorge!

2005-10-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

And now! Pictures from my trip to Kentucky! Enjoy! :) .. Yup.. that's me! *grins*.. Click on the pictures to see 'em a tad bit bigger! Alright.. Off for now I go! -Jonathan Wold

New Week and the Legend of 1900

2005-10-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

Todays' YC Team Meeting went really well :). We got a lot done in an hour! A handful of us YC members have been meeting each Sunday at noon for the past month and its really been paying off. We've been seeing a lot of positive growth in the community, which has been really encouraging. I'm looking forward to what we accomplish during this week! This next week is gonna be a pretty big deal ;). I've got a handful of big projects to wrap up this week and another handful that require some strong movement forward. And through that all, I'm really putting a strong focus on balance.. I want to make sure that I set aside time for myself and for my loved ones this week. I want to make sure I set aside time to give back and share with others. I also want to make sure that through moving all these projects forward, I also give attention to my personal projects. It's gonna be a challenging week.. and I'm excited :). Speaking of challenges.. We've got an interesting YC Challenge this week! This week's challenge is to: Hand write a letter to someone you know (or maybe don't know?) and mail it out this week. I haven't figured out who I'm getting write to just yet ;). It'll be good though! And so, as I get ready for bed this evening, I've got a whole new week ahead of me.. and a big one! Who knows what I'll be able to accomplish.. Who knows what challenges I'll face. Who knows about the wonderful people I'll be blessed to meet. I can't wait :). Oh yeah! While I was doing my accounting this evening, I made use of the lovely dual screen setup and watched "Legend of 1900".. It was referred to me as a movie with a really good story and, since it had a realllly good piano player in it (and a Piano duel!) I was interested! Well, I watched it this evening and it was good.. I was disappointed by the excessive swearing which detracted from the experience for me. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it, especially the piano scenes! The end credits had an awesome song by Roger Waters called, "Lost Boys Calling". Check it out when you get the chance! And on that 'note'.. *grins*.. I'm off for the evening! Oh wait! Just before I go.. There's something you've gotta check out ;). Think back to the old days of console gaming, remember your favorites.. and check out this video! You don't hear something like that every day ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Lessons from the Nursing Home

2005-10-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

It can be so easy to just take things for granted. Our friends, our family, our opportunities, our experience, our health. Yesterday I spent several hours at a local nursing home, along with a group of friends from church. We showed up, walked around for a few minutes, met a bunch of the residents, and then settled into the lounge area by a wall piano to do some singing. A couple of hoarse voices, a roomful of smiling older folks, and an hour and a half or so later, we were done. We then walked around the room, greeting each of the residents. I made sure I shook everyone's hand and while doing so, picked up a couple of compliments from the older ladies about my hair.. *grins*.. Many of the people there looked worn out. They've been through so much and now, their pace of life has changed. They just don't have much to look forward to. Their families rarely visit, their opportunities are limited, and in many cases, their health is starting to fail. But then there are the exceptions.. A few of the people there were just amazing. One older woman, sitting up near the front in her wheel chair, would clap happily for us after every song, and even sing along when she could. She would clap and clap, and then chide the others for not clapping with her. She'd do all that and if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't notice for the smile on her face and the enthuisastic clapping that she only had a stump on her left arm where her hand was once attached. She didn't let that stop her :). After leaving the lounge, we made our way down the halls to a little room near the back to visit an older woman named Peggy. Peggy's always been full of energy. One of the ladies in our visiting group knew Peggy from back when she was a little girl. She and her friends would go over to Peggy's house and Peggy would gather them in the kitchen and bake cookies for them. If you hadn't been there to see, you'd never know, that Peggy had lost the use of both her legs to Polio when she was pregnant with her first son. If you weren't watching you wouldn't have seen the determined look on her face as she'd prop her elbows up on the counter and lift herself up above her wheel chair so that she could bake. When we talked in the room yesterday, Peggy was smiling brightly and sitting up as best as she could as we crowded around her bed. She was amazing to watch.. She's hooked up to breathing devices and she's been laying in bed there for over 14 years since her husband passed away, and yet.. she's still happy! She has this great big smile on her face and this wide-awake look in her clear blue eyes. We greeted her and began sanging. By now, our throats were killing us, but it didn't matter, the happy smile on her face made it all worth it. To be able to go through all that, to have your freedom taken away and to be stuck in a small room for 14 years, yet to still be bright, cheerful, and smiling, is an amazing thing. It really makes me think about my attitude towards life. I have nothing to complain about. I'm young, I have the freedom to travel, I have soo many opportunities and I've met so many wonderful people who I'm able to stay in touch with. We all have so much. Many of us take the simple things for granted. The very fact that you're reading this entry means you have something that many people do not; access to the internet. Let's not take the simple things for granted. Let's be thankful for what we have and make the very best of it. Have an awesome day! -Jonathan Wold

Real Estate Closings, French Cafes, and the Backstreet Boys

2005-10-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

Oh yeahh.. there's a title ;). I'm just wrapping up a lonnng day and its time to do some writing! So much to write about and I can already hear my bed calling! Tonight that time has been determined by necessity. I'll be on the road at 6, driving out to meet Paulie from where we'll carpool into Chicago, eat breakfast, and a little before noon, I'll be dropping him off at the airport. From there, he and Donna will be taking off for a couple of weeks on a cruise and then off to an event called the 'Big Seminar'. Paulie Sabol and Donna Fox are two very wonderful mentors of mine who've played a huge part in my life over the past year. I got my 'start', if you will, working with them last summer as an intern. Together with Matt Geri, who was also an intern last summer and has since become one of my closest friends, we learned a ton from Paulie and Donna. Matt and I spent about 2-3 months with Paulie and Donna last summer, before each taking off on our seperate ways. I went on to finish up 3 more internships, for a psychiatrist, a musician, and an internet marketer, while Matt moved back to Ireland and his family. We stayed in contact and kept working hard and, a year later in June of 2005, we were invited back to work with Paulie and Donna again on some new projects of theirs. And so we did! Four months later, Matt is out in South Africa, teaching at a school (check out his blog for more!) and I'm here in Northwest Indiana. I'm planning to stick around till about the middle of December, at which point I'll be hitting the road again, traveling around the country for a bit before meeting up with Matt again in January to spend 2 weeks up in Tahoe, California together. I'm looking forward to it! So yes ;). Paulie and Donna are two wonderful entrepreneurs who've accomplished a LOT over the years. I'll be sharing more about them and about some of their accomplishments over the next few weeks.. look forward to it! Today was my first experience with Real Estate Closings! I got to sit in as Paulie and Donna finished up a real estate deal of theirs.. Wow! Talk about a lot of paperwork! After some introductions, meeting the buyer, the closing agent, and the loan officer, I sat down to watch the action. Swish.. that was the sound of another document flying across the table saying "Sign me!". Well, he got signed, as well as 20 or so others and after the really cool closing agent had taken care of it all, we were off! It was quite an experience.. Before we left, Donna took some time to go over some of the paperwork with me and explain the numbers. There are a lot of complexities involved! It makes me all the more happy that I'm an internet marketer and, at the same time, all the more eager to continue building up my virtual empire. Ah yes! And if you'd checked up on me just a few hours earlier, you'd have found me sitting around a table in a delightful little french cafe called Bon Femme.. or something like that ;). It was an awesome little place, with no two tables being the same. The food was excellent! I had a vegan lentil soup, and then had it again, really really yummy, especially to a hungry growing boy! And last but not least for the evening.. we've got.. the backstreet boys! Ok well, not exactly.. ;). I was doing some surfing and found this really uhmm.. well.. you've just have to check it out for yourself!.. Backstreet fan or not, its a must see ;).. Check out the Backstreet Boys! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Side Effects of Staying Up Late

2005-10-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

3 minutes till 2 AM.. wow.. just a couple minutes more and I can start singing like Anna Nalick! Ok.. maybe not quite like her, she can hit a few notes I just can't touch, yet I could try! *smiles*.. Yeah, its quite late.. and I've been quite busy! I'm very proud of myself! I built up a biig list of things last night that all needed to be finished today and it was QUITE a list. Well.. They're all done! Every last one of them! Yes, I'm very tired and my left eye is doing funny things like trying to close on me, but all's well! I've been doing a lot of work on my blog lately and for those of you who usually visit to read about 'entrepreneurial' stuff, my last few posts probably seem a bit.. different. We could just ascribe it to the fact that I've been known to be very different, as my girlfriend so lovingly points out.. Or there could just be more ;). A big part of it is habit building. Through my blog I've met a bunch of really incredible people and I've connected with many of them through different posts that I've written on different topics. A few days back I wrote about pies made of blackberries and I've already had 2 comments sharing great pie recipes! If I hadn't wrote that, what are the odds that someone would have thought to send some blackberry goodness my way? Not all that high ;). So, its about expanding.. getting yourself out there.. My blog is about the "Life of an Entrepreneur' and while the keyword is definitely 'entrepreneur', we've also got a lot of life going on and around it. Perhaps someone with almost no interest in entreprenerialism will find their way onto my blog, take interest and then take action.. that would make it all worth it :). So here's to blogging and getting yourself out there! The internet's a big place and you don't get all that far if you stay huddled up in a digital corner. And.. here's to a good night's rest! Looking forward to tomorrow! Goodnight World! -Jonathan

Distressed Jeans

2005-10-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

Kids these days.. *chuckles*.. I remember not too long ago, when I was a crazy 9 year old (wow, 10 years ago, yikes!) wearing myy distressed jeans. And yup.. I made them myself. Only, if someone had asked me what my "secret" was, I woulda looked confused. "I play outside a lot?".. Yeah, frays, cuts, bleach marks, grass stains and all, I had some really original jean art and I didn't even know it. I shoulda hung onto those, but alas.. they've long retired to who knows wear and probably still smell a bit much like the outdoors. Logging onto my Google start page this morning, I was greeted by the 'How To' of the day, which promised to teach me how to make distressed jeans. Well, I just can't pass that up.. Perhaps they've learned something new since I was a kid and all we had were rocks, trees, fields, and lots of grass to work with. The thought also occured to me that the jeans could perhaps be emotionally or psychologically distressed.. Not likely ;). So, I checked it out, and well.. Here, according to wikiHow.com is How to Make Distressed Jeans:

Place a block of wood (or some other solid surface that you don't mind possibly damaging) within the pant leg or denim region you want to distress.
Rub a steak knife vertically or horizontally against area of denim that you would like to distress. Rub gently for mild distress; rub longer and more vigorously to create more visible distress (such as holes and tears).
Fray jeans by rubbing sandpaper around pockets, knees, hemlines, or any other area of denim that you would like to have a soft, worn appearance.
Dampen a sponge with bleach and rub it around the outer edges of holes for a faded look.
Wash your jeans.
Wear your newly stylish distressed jeans.

Feel thou enlightened! If you want some advanced tips on distressing your jeans, you'll have to check it out on eHow yourself. And if you haven't checked out eHow yet, we'll.. you owe yourself that anyway :). Go and see by checking out: wikiHow.com - The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit Well that was fun.. *grins*.. No, I haven't tried it yet, but I'd love to hear about anyone who has! Drop me a comment and show off your distressed jeans.. Extra points for grass stains ;). -Jonathan Wold

Good Work at Camp Barnabus!

2005-10-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm not a big TV fan and after reading about one of the latest episodes from Extreme Makerover: Home Edition, I half wish I was. It all started a little over 10 years ago, in 1995, when the Tea family, Paul, Cyndy, Kayman, and Trace, purchased a rundown old campground. A little at a time, they built the place up, leaving their jobs and pouring all their life savings into it. Their dream? Well.. I found a description on the Camp Barnabas website that says it well:

"Camp Barnabas exists to offer childhood experiences to kids who have been robbed of them by disease or disability. These kids need to shift their focus away from sterile medical environments and the language of their illness to focus anew on activities that build their courage and expand their belief in themselves. Many of the children with special needs endure unthinkable pain and isolating treatment for illnesses such as cancer, hemophilia, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, cerebal palsy and AIDS. Their need for acceptance is overwhelming!"

And then.. The knock. The Teas answered the door and met the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team! The Tea family had put so much work into building the camp that they'd neglected to work on their own home. Extreme Makeover came in and in only 7 days, with the help of over 2000 volunteers, they tore down (literally burned it!) and completely rebuilt the teas home, as well as adding 2 new buildings and a bunch of other awesome features to the camp ground. Cheers for Camp Barnabas! Check out their website at campbarnabas.org for more information and send them some love! -Jonathan Wold

Northwest Indiana Dentist

2005-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Had another great visit to the dentist office this past Friday, Dr. Thomas R. Peters and his staff are awesome! We spent some time checking out their new website at PortageDentist.com. Relaxed Dentistry, a Northwest Indiana Dentist office, has been in business for longer than I've been alive! That's saying something ;). We spent some time checking out their new website, the brilliant handiwork of Web Design Artist Dave Allen, and came up with a locations blurb to add to the front: Dr. Thomas R. Peters, D.D.S. Relaxed Dentistry is proud to be serving Northwest Indiana and surrounding Chicagoland Areas, Lake County and Porter County, Portage, Chesterton, and Valparaiso. They've been finishing up some really nice renovations of their office, so it was cool to be able to see that going on behind the scenes. Its amazing how much thought, time, energy, and effort goes into putting together a dental office! They put some some sweet pictures of their Northwest Indiana Dental Office over in the photo gallery. Check them out! After I'd finished up at Dr. Peters' office, I hopped in my car to drive back home. I turned the key.. Nothing. Ah man! I'd left the lights on! Fortunetely, it was a manual transmission.. I worked to start it up and after several unsuccessful attempts, walked sheepishly back into the office. I asked if there was anyone there who knew how to pop a clutch. Dr. Peters knew how and very kindly offered to help. We walked out, he put the car in nuetral, I pushed it along the driveway for a short distance, he started the car, and just a few moments later, I was on my way! Gotta keep an eye on those lights! ;) And that's just about that for now! My teeth have been all taken care of and I am a very happy camper! Keep up the awesome work Dr. Peters! -Jonathan Wold

Blackberry Pie Recipes

2005-10-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

Mmmm.. blackberry pie! There's nothing much that beats gathering around the dining room table with your loved ones and smiling brightly as a delicious hot blackberry pie is brought out and set down before you. Wow.. makes me hungry! And ya know what's rough about that? I've never even HAD a blackberry pie! So, beginning with this post, I'm going to begin my quest for a big helping of delicious blackberry pie. I figured I'd begin my quest by looking for a recipe, 'cuz even if I can't make it, I have an awesome girlfriend who's becoming an awesome cook and if I'm realllly nice and ask her verry nicely, there's a good chance she'd make one for me! After a little bit of searching, its harder than it looks! I shan't give up though, blackberry pie shall soon be mine! And on that thought.. It looks like I'm probably gonna need help. Do any of you know of any reallly good blackberry pie recipes? Know of any good resources to find one? Your comments would be greatly appreciated! Either way, my search has begun. I can't wait! -Jonathan Wold P.S. If anyone has some really cool blackberry pie pictures you'd be willing to share, let me know! I'll post it up and use it to serve as inspiration!

Preparing to Overhaul the Castle

2005-10-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

When you're busy expanding your virtual empire, every now and then you've gotta look home and see how the wife and kids are doing ;). And, since I don't have any wife and kids, I have to at least check and see how the house is doing. In this case, jonathanwold.com is virtual house, my castle. It's done well over the past year or so since I first opened its doors. So, its time to do some reconstruction.. The first thing to go will be my blog, making the switch from Blogger to Wordpress. The details remain to be worked out and I'm still VERY open to suggestions, but the overall feel I'm getting is that its time to move. The flexability I have through running my own CMS (Content Management System) is well worth the pain of transition. One of the challenges i'm facing is my concern that switching will disrupt my search engine rankings. A strong majority of my traffic comes through good 'ole Google and I'm just not sure how much they're gonna like me swapping away from Blogger ;). Either way, its something I'd much rather deal with now, when I'm only getting a few hundred unique visitors a day, than later. And my gosh.. for a few hundred visitors, you guys sure can be quiet! Ok, so a few of you may be showing up looking for 'girls gone wold' and being so deeply disappointed that it's only me that you haven't the heart to leave a comment.. but the rest of you? What's your excuse? *smiles*.. I did a little bit of blog reading today, and happened onto a really clever little idea for a 'homepage'.. Check out how Marco van Hylckama Vlieg does it over at i-marco.nl. I love the idea of a mini-portal.. I'd have a link to my site 'proper', with the pictures, articles, essays, etc.. a link to my blog.. a link to the Youthcove community and the Blog when its released, my recommendations site, and links to my various other projects. Its a nice clean way to do things and to gain interest for your projects. Yeah.. I'll think about it.. I could even put a news snip up there, linking back to my blog.. *ideas churn*.. And that will bring me to a complete remodel of the main site at jonathanwold.com.. I'll be building it from the ground up using XHTML, CSS, and PHP.. I've thought about having it built 'for' me.. but naw.. that's my baby, my little castle, and though I may get help if I get all advanced and tricky, but its still something I want to invest my own time in. Hehehe.. that'll be fun :). And after that? Its back to expansion! I've got a number of little side projects just itching for my attention and if I end up not doing them, I at least owe them the courtesy of sharing the ideas with others. So we'll see what I decide to do.. I haven't earned the time to go off onto side projects yet, I've still got a lot of big ones to wrap up ;). And on that.. I think its just about time to head off to bed.. Youthcove is my big project for the week, as well as finishing up development of a software tool I'm having made. After losing 2 hours of work creating web hosting accounts for a huge list of domains for future minisites, I decided enough was enough and found a programmer to help me develop a tool to automate the process. Drop in your list of domains, choose the settings, and boom! All your accounts made immediately.. yes.. I'm liking it :). And on a final note, I have one of my own challenges to meet this week! I challenged the Youthcove community to: Take 15 minutes out of your week to do something that you have NEVER done before. I haven't decided what I'm gonna do yet and the good news is that I've got a week to figure it out.. *grins*.. Alright, off to bed I go! Goodnight World! -Jonathan

And Another Week Bites The Dust

2005-10-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. sounds like a good song title. Yeah.. I could make that work ;). Let's not though, the work week is over! It's been a great week.. I cleared over 30 projects off my 'finished' board tonight.. what an awesome feeling! I am soo ready for the weekend. Time to rest, enjoy the great outdoors, do some reading, and get my strength back so we can do it all over again next week! I'm looking forward to the next YC Brainstorm session, got lots to go over :). Hope you guys have had an awesome week yourselves! And with that.. I shall call it an evening! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold P.S. Quietly now.. very quietly.. a sneak peak at one of my new projects. Keep it quiet.. ;).. Jonathan's been busy! Check out iPod Profits at ipodprofits.com

Expanding My Virtual Empire

2005-10-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Way back in April of 2005 I wrote an article on Building Your Virtual Empire. I've moved ahead strong with that concept over the past few months and so has my 'empire'. Ya know the cool thing about that? We all have a virtual empire, no matter how small it may be. If you've contributed to anything at all on the internet, you've begun laying down the foundation of your empire. That's a powerful concept. In the beginning, its all about those small steps. You post on a few blogs here, you contribute to a few forums there, you write an article or to and submit them to an articles site, you send a couple of emails and get to know website owners and they mention you on their site. Its those small steps.. That's laying down your foundation. That's the beginning of building your empire. From there, you begin to expand. You build your own site, you begin spending more time on communities, you become more active in the blogging world by commenting and getting to know the writers better. You launch your own blog and keep it updated. You build a readership of your own. And then, the challenges. Suddenly you're spending TOO much time. Sure, you're meeting lots of people and learning a ton, but you're suffering overload! And to top that all off, you've got bills to pay. For some, its no big deal, you have a job and the internet is just a side project, for now. For the rest, the internet is a full time project. Your virtual empire is all you have and it needs to be producing results I've faced those challenges. For me, its required a balance. I can spend my ENTIRE day reading blogs, posting on forums, sending emails, and talking with people. My network of relationships expands, I learn more about people and they learn more about me. This IS a very important part of building an empire, but its not the only part. I've learned to balance my attention. Each day I invest time in expanding the economic side of my empire. Expanding and developing the projects and ideas that make money and, consequently, give me the freedom to expand the rest of my empire. You've got to maintain a balance. Some of you have mastered that balance, some of you are just now becoming aware of the need to balance, some of you are in a real struggle with that balance. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better, but as you stick to it and actively strive to maintain a balance, things WILL get better. I spent over $400 on domains today ;). Godaddy.com is my registrar of choice and after 3 customer support calls that went very well and a nice 10% discount, I'm a very happy client. I had all my domains 'consilodated' to renew on June 9th of each year, my birthday. It's kind of funny. On my 20th birthday next year I'll be shelling out over $1000 in domain renewals.. Yeah, I know, its small, but its a start :). I'm expanding my empire. In another news, a friend of mine, Cary Miller, recently made a nice expansion of his virtual empire with the addition of a reallly nice ipod blog. Check it out at ipod-church.com. Give Cary and his wife some love and leave a few nice comments :). Alright, and that's that from me! I'm off to bed to get some sleep so I can take on tomorrow! Goodnight World! You guys are awesome :). -Jonathan Wold

Wrapping Up The Evening

2005-10-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

And first off on the evening agenda, we've gottt.. Pixel Madness! My good friend Benjamin Fitts recently wrote a post about Pixel Ad Space, giving some of his thoughts on the phenomenon and even some predictions. He mentioned one of my experiences and you can read more about that by checking out my comment on his post ;). I bought advertising space on the Million Penny Homepage. See if you can spot me in the mass of colors and text ;). So far it's been well worth the money I spent and, of course, it was just plain fun. I also bought up some advertising space for Youthcove.com while I was at it. We've had several new members as a result of that, so it was definitely worth it! I did a TON of cleaning today! My humble abode is looking quite nice and I feel much happier about it! I updated my project board and, well, its a bit overwhelming at first glance, to say the least. I've got 25 projects sitting in my 'inbox' right now and only 15 in the outbox.. I've got a lot of work to do! Today was the start of a new excersise routine for me and my good friend James Coombs. No details yet.. all I know is that I'm still a tad sore from the rock climbing last weekend. And finallly, to wrap up the night, I wanted to give you guys a heads up that I'm going to be giving away an awesome animated bible or history video over the next week, compliments of my mom! Check out her website for Animated Bible and History Videos. I'll be writing more about it later :). I grew up on those videos and they were awesome, I learned a TON about history and I enjoyed every minute of it. Off to bed I go! Goodnight World :). -Jonathan Wold

Into the Mind of a 19 Year Old

2005-10-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of various frustrations, scattered throughout with a good helping of mid-size accomplishments. Not my choice of day, but I'll take it :). I started off by waking up early, rising up on 6 hours of sleep so I'd be tired enough to make it to bed early tonight. So far, its working ;). Once I'm done blogging and I've picked tomorrow's projects, it'll be off to bed for me! My frustrations involved several hours of lost work which really didn't have to be lost to begin with.. You can read more about that by heading over to James Coombs' blog and seeing his take on the story ;). Poor James had to put up with me as I experienced my frustrations. The end result of that experience was that I contacted a PHP programmer to have a script built for me which would automate the task I spent a few hours on. That'll be a VERY handy thing to have and well worth the time it'll save in the future. Its a bit sad it took me losing so much time to decide to have it built, but I'm glad it worked out! I'll let you guys know how it goes :). I finished off one of my old web design clients today, and began work on a project to help out my Uncle. A good friend of his is a professional home entertainment setup and installation guy and is working to get his business off the ground. I'm going to be talking with them about handling the internet side of things and creating a lead generation page for the business. Should be a fun and mostly pain free experience if it pans out. It'll give me a chance to put my marketing abilities into practice and achieve some real world results. That's always fun :). I found a new favorite line of clothes! Check out prAna. They've got some cool stuff going on over there! I've decided to curb back on my spending habits for a couple of weeks and focus on rewarding myself when milestones are achieved. Having the money to spend doesn't mean I should spend it, especially on things that I just 'want' :). This was a lesson I learned at a much younger age, what made it easier then was that I didn't have a whole lot of extra money TO spend ;). So I've decided to turn my spending habits for things I 'want' into something positive and use it as a way of rewarding myself when I meet certain goals. OH yeah.. I love Amazon Prime! I'm beginning to spend a heck of a lot more time on Amazon now that I dropped the $79 bucks and made the switch! Its great stuff! I'm going to be studying a lot more of what they do over their on Amazon and learning from it. If you haven't checked out Amazon prime yet, you should give it a go ;). It can become addictive! And that's just about that.. I'm off to bed and a powerful new day tomorrow! Youthcove is going to be getting some serious attention from me this week.. We've got things to launch! Goodnight World! -Jonathan

Camping in Kentucky - I've returned!

2005-10-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Just got back from an AWESOME weekend in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky! My traveling companions were Krystle Brubaker and her boyfriend, Brian Reeves, Walter Rogers (Mr. Rogers), who is an SDA Youth Pastor from Canada, and yours truly, myself! They showed up at my place late Friday afternoon and after going over the maps and talking about whether or not the impending rain was to be a factor, we hit the road and headed for Kentucky! Over 10 hours, 11 wrong turns, a handful of pit stops, 3 drivers, and several sets of strange directions delivered in local dialects later, the clock struck 2 AM and we arrived at our campsite in the heart of Lago Linda's Hideaway. It was raining. Smiles on our face, we were glad that it wasn't raining hard and after quickly unpacking and checking out the facilities, we fell fast asleep, divided out between 2 tents and a college-converted family car. Lago Linda is an awesome little spot. The next day we were up bright and early around noon local time and after having fun with our cooking equipment and whipping together some warm oatmeal servings (Go Instant Oatmeal!) , we headed off to explore! Just a short walk from our campsite we wandered up to the edge of a beautiful lake. There, sitting quietly on shore, as if just waiting for us, were 2 boats. After some deliberation and Walter very inspirationally offering that "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission", we took the paddle boat out onto the lake. It was beautiful. Once in the middle, we spent some time together and had 'Wildnerness Church' on the water. An hour or so later found the paddle boat back on shore and the aluminum canoe out, cruising over the water as we explored the lake shoreline. What a peaceful scene.. It really was amazing. Everyone would go quiet and we'd just listen, if even for a moment. Birds, water, insects, all quiet and peaceful. We spent the rest of the afternoon skipping rocks over the lake and just spending time together. Later that evening found us cruising the back roads of the Red River Gorge, enjoying the scenery and getting a feel for the place. It was awesome :). We got lost. Seriously lost. Near midnight found us back at the campsite, tired, but happy. It's awesome getting lost, when you're with friends. We had picked up a local rock climber's guidebook earlier and had planned out our routes for the next day. We were ready :). Yesterday was the big day! We did get up quite when we'd hoped, but things worked out just fine :). After another hearty oatmeal and muffin (Costco baby!) breakfast, we headed off to 'Rebels' Camp' in Muir Valley. It was a bit of a hike back there, but wow.. I'm not gonna share too many more details 'cuz we took some REALLY good pictures and I'd rather let them speak for themselves :). Yesterday was my first day Rock Climbing! It was AWESOME! Brian and Walter were the 'experts', both avid rock climbers with quite a few years of experience under their climbing shoes, while Krystle and I were the 'rookies'. We watched as they setup the ropes and then we got harnessed up in our gear. Man, it was awesome :). Krystle went up a 5.7 (difficulty ratings, a beginner route) and did awesome! I followed up after her and made it to the top really fast.. it was great. On Walter's encouragement, I went back down and tried a going up a few different ways to add to the challenge. Man.. it really forced me to challenge my slight fear of heights. There's just something about climbing happily all the way to the top of a route and then realizing, as you look down, that wow, you're up there. You've just gotta trust the ropes. They aren't coming out for anything! So after leaning back and realizing that I was just fine.. I eased up and had a great time :). A few hours later, I was already feeling the burn.. Time had passed and we'd setup a new route. This time it was a 5.10b, a much more challenging route. Brian and Walter went up, then it was my turn.. *grins*.. The firsst part, I did really well on. I made it about 3/4ths of the way up and then.. well.. You'll have to see the pictures ;). After climbing up to the wall I reached a place where I had to climb OUT.. the rock went out and over me a bit, so the only way to get around was to reach out backwards and then pull yourself up. My arms just didn't have it in them anymore.. I tried though ;). I gave it a final effort and then fell down, smacking into a nice little sharp pine tree limb and cutting my lip open. Little stinker.. shoulda broken it off :P. I'll be back for that climb! ;) And then it was evening.. *grins*.. We did a few other cool things that evening, all of which I blame entirely on Walter, yet wound up being, without a doubt, a definite highlight of the trip ;). Apparently he, being Canadian, didn't know that the park rangers aren't a huge fan of doing things that involve sliding down ropes off of great heights over certain formations in the dark.. Yeah, all his fault ;). And finally, we rounded off the night with an AWESOME pizza at Miguel's Pizza! Definitely the place to check out while you're in the area :). I picked up a sweet little Black Diamond headlamp while we were there, which I'm really happy with! All in all, an AWESOME trip, a great chance for me to kick back and enjoy time with friends. Now.. I'm back! Time to get back into the entrepreneurial gear of things :). Got lots to do this week! Hope you all had an AWESOME weekend yourself! If you're ever interested in doing some climbing, let me know! I think there's a good chance I'm hooked ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Off to Kentucky!

2005-10-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

And he's on the road again! This time, the Bluegrass state has struck up its siren tune and beckons me South for the weekend. 3 good friends and I are heading down to Red River Gorge to do some camping and rock climbing over the weekend! I've done some free climbing and bouldering in the past, but that's 'bout it.. I'm really looking forward to the experience :). We'll be heading out tomorrow afternoon and getting back sometime on Tuesday! Project Management: When you've got a ton of projects pulling you all difference directions, its really important to have a way of staying on top of things and being able to effectively focus your energy. I was taught a system not long ago that's been working really well for me over the past few months and I expect will continue to do so. I've taken a big white piece of paper and stuck it to the wall with some 'fun tack'. Down the center of the paper is a long black line and two labels at the top, labeled, creatively enough, 'Inbox' and 'Outbox'. And here's the secret.. Sticky Notes! I've got about 10 or so different colors and sizes of sticky notes, and each of these represent project categories. I've got 'personal education' as a category, I've got 'youthcove' as a category, and I have multiple categories labeled to represent various entrepreneurial persuits that currently divide my attention. Wow that was wordy.. *grins*.. I gotz colors for stuff I do. On each note I've written the project category, project title, and a list of the 'tasks' to complete. Each one gets crossed off as its completed and when they've all been crossed off, the project is evaluated and, if finished, moved to the 'Outbox'. At the end of each week, the outbox gets cleared of completed projects and things move forward! Its a great way of staying on top of multiple things at the same time and making sure that a project doesn't slip through the cracks. So far its worked out very well for me! Take a look at this week's project board. Isn't it pretty? *grins*.. Yes, the side with smaller amount is definitely my 'outbox' ;). A quick tip for those who give this system a go.. be SPECIFIC! Don't ever write "Finish Website" as a 'task'. Be specific. Break it down into the details so that you have a CLEAR sense of when something is or isn't accomplished. And with that.. I'm off to sleep and pack for tomorrow! Have an AWESOME weekend! -Jonathan Wold

A diamond in the rough

2005-10-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

Ever have that feeling? You see something or someone in your life.. You look past what's on the outside and there, beneath the surface, you see a diamond. Not just any diamond, but one shining bright and beautiful, full of life and energy. You see it there, but then you remember, its still in the rough. Its not shining all the way through yet. Many people seem to take that diamond and only see the rough.. and give up. Not me. I won't give up. After all, i'm still in the rough and if it weren't for those who've seen that faint glimmer of a diamond within me and have encouraged me throughout my life, I might have believed that a plain rock is all I'd ever be. Hehe.. I felt like talking 'bout diamonds :). I've been working really really hard these past few days.. On Sunday we had the YC Team Meeting and that went very very well. We spent time brainstorming with each other, sharing things we've learned throughout the week, obstacles we've overcome, and just having fun :). Then, we focused our energies on the community and brainstormed about some of the challenges we've been working on. That went really well! It's amazing what happens when you're able to surround yourself with a bunch of really bright people.. creavity and challenge solving knows no end! Today I've been working on my latest project.. creating over 100 new mini sites! The domain purchase was definitely a record for me :P. I've been trying to decide exactly what I want to do with them.. What's the long term goal of the project? I've been in contact with people at Google and doing a ton of research. I also just dropped $149 bucks today and joined Webmaster World with a one year subscription.. that was quite a purchase ;). I'll be focusing small bits and pieces of my time over there, meeting new people and helping out where I can. Had a really good time at lunch today! Paulie and Casey and I met at the Olive Garden and talked about a ton of stuff. I went through at least 5 peach ice teas and maann are they good! I spent several hours today finishing up work on a web design project.. It feels good to get that one out of the way, especially since I know the client is very happy with the work :). That's always a good feeling to have. Actually, its a great feeling to have! :D And so is having a girlfriend who wants you to hurry up and finishing posting so you can spend more time with her ;). At least, its a great feeling mossstt of the time.. *grins*.. I mean, I can't ever imagine anyyy situation where I wouldn't wannt to hurry up and spend time with you dear :|. Its not like you ever ever everr get in a grumpy mood or anything remotely like that.. hehehee. Ok, I'd better run I really doo get in trouble :P. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

I really am doing a lot!

2005-09-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

It's a little past 1 AM and I realized that I hadn't blogged.. in awhile. It puzzled me.. And as I finished brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, I loaded up my blog and realized that it's been over 5 days since I've written! Now, I'm not about to apologize for not writing.. I'm not like that and I don't believe that any writer should be. I'm not even going to make an excuse, 'cuz I don't need too.. I just realized how extraordinarily buzy I've been staying! We won't get into the whole thing about whether or not my time is being spent on the 20% that makes 80% of the difference or vice versa (whoops.. did we just get into it?.. *grins*..).. the fact remains that I've been very very busy. It's been a lot of good stuff too! We had a Youthcove team meeting this Sunday which went well! I've had a lot of stress in my life over this past week.. projects that have been hitting their due dates and needing my attention, challenges in my own personal relationships, and then just the general ups and downs that come with being a 19 year old entrepreneur :). Today was a really good day. I recieved my American Express Blue credit card in the mail today and that was very exciting! I put together a few deals that are going to move forward a bunch of my personal web projects, which was very exciting. Ok, that was vague.. I decided that I wanted to build 50 minisites in a bunch of different niches and since I don't have the time to do it myself, I'm going to invest in having my awesome younger brother build them for me. I can help him make some money up front by paying him for each site he builds, I can save myself a bunch of time which allows me to focus my energy elsewhere, and I can get the sites built! That was exciting :). Next, I'll be buying another 100 domains.. *whistles*.. ..Ya know, being a vegetarian can really bring about some interesting situations.. I was eating lunch at Ruby Tuesday's this afternoon and, over the course of conversation with those at the table, our orders were placed. Mine was somehow missed and a half hour later, when everyone else had their food and I didn't, it was brought to our waitresses attention and she promptly took my order for a "Maranara Burger." Well.. 10 minutes later, there it was and boy was I hungry. I took a bite, swallowed, subconsciously observed that the burger looked a little funny, was somewhat amazed at how they had gotten the red sauce 'inside' the burger, and then swallowed. Two more bites later, I asked.. "Is this meat?". And so I had my first taste of beef. Bleh :P. People find it amazing that I've 'never had meat'. Its not a big deal to me. Well, guess I can't say 'never' anymore ;). And with that, its 1:30. I think its time for this kid to get some rest.. I think I need to take some pictures soon! I feel that since the majority of income from my blog is made through hair related product sales (try a search for it ;), I should probably post some hair related pictures! My hair is really quite wild now ;). Yeah, I'll work on that. Alright.. off to bed I go! Got some cool stuff planned for the rest of the week and sleep has deemed itself a necessity prior to said coolness taking place. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Back from Phoenix!

2005-09-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yup I'm back! I made it! I'm alliive! My legs were killing me for awhile there, which is a good indicator that I've spent WAY too much time on the computer and is a good hint that I need to start spending more time outside.. which I've begun doing ;). I got back from 'The Internet Marketing Main Event' (.com) on Tuesday, just 2 days ago. It was QUITE an adventure! I learned a lot and met a ton of people! Over the next few days I'll be summarizing and posting up my review/lessons/action steps from each of the speakers. I'll put some of it up here and the rest over in the Youthcove Community. One of my best friends and business partners, Matt Geri, left Ireland for South Africa today! He's going down there to spend 'bout 2 weeks with his family on vacation! Just before he left, he kicked off with the re-launch of fancyfone.com. He's put a LOT of work into that site and it shows! Awesome stuff Matt! Keep it up! And with that.. I concede not defeat, but the eminent and ever powerful tide of the evening doeth beckon! It calls, unrelentless and unforgiven, it calls me to sleep, off to the seemingly endless depths of slumber and solitude, lost deep within the confines of time and space eternal. Yes, all but the inevitable has happened, and as I write down these last few words of the evening, I look out my window, to the darkness, to the thousands of acorns scattered across my street, and back to my lonely computer screen. ..So this is what it's like to be hungry ;).. Goodnight World! Perhaps tomorrow shall bring even more sanity! -Jonathan

The Rich Jerk - $20 Off

2005-09-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

"Congratulations! Apparently you do have a brain!" ..And so the $97 dollar eBook begins ;). I first read 'The Rich Jerk' a little over 3 weeks ago. Since then, I've been putting off writing a review 'cuz of traveling and a bunch of other projects I've been working on. No longer! This rather obnoxious, but still useful book has finally won a little bit of my attention ;). The title was the first thing that had me curious, how about you? We'll start out with my summary.. The Rich Jerk is a no holds, no bars, fast and furious guide to making money online. Being a jerk, he doesn't spend a whole lot of time doing any hand holding and instead whirls through the overstuffed 40 pages, cramming in chapter after chapter of strategy. He starts off by spending a few pages on affiliate programs, before jumping straight into the fine art of PPC (pay per click) traffic. After some trash talking and showing off some examples of stuff that's worked well for him, he moves on to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and then product creation. After throwing in a few old ideas and a couple of new ones, he races on to buying and selling wholesale goods online. Then, a wrap up with websites that can 'make money instantly' and the final cram with chapter 7, which covers other online ventures you can consider. Whew! And all that in 40 pages! What I found most interesting was the section on PPC where he gives some rather clever and, in true Rich Jerk style, abnoxious yet affective tricks for writing good ads. I've played with a few of the ideas myself and, though a bit more 'tame' in my own practice, the ideas are very effective, nonetheless. Is this book really any good? The Rich Jerk is definitely not a 'how-to'. It's more of a springboard for launching your own ideas, using strategies that 'the jerk' has tested and proven to work. I've had a lot of first hand experience in internet marketing, so while many of these concepts were not new to me, the way he'd spin it, cutting straight to the vegetables and skipping all the fluff, helped me bring the ideas into focus. The Rich Jerk is a great book for people with a lot of experience in internet marketing to get a few new ideas and bring to memory ideas they've forgotten. It's also good for people just getting started, however.. a word of caution.. Do not expect The Rich Jerk to teach you everything! Remember, its 40 pages and with 7 content chapters and a bonus resource chapter at the end, there's no time for tutorials or walk throughs. He has a few mini 'how-to's scattered within but only a few. Once you've found an idea that you're ready to work on, you're gonna have to learn what you need to know to make it work! Or.. you can follow some of his advice and just pay someone else to do it for you ;). Like to get your own copy? Well, I figure that even though $97 isn't bad and you can easily make that back if you actually take some of his ideas and DO them, there have to be SOME advantages to being a reader of mine ;).. How does $20 off sound? Yup yup, just for you guys I'll get you your own copy of The Rich Jerk at $20.00 off! Sound good? Well, before you do that, go ahead and read his sales pitch by clicking the link.. The Rich Jerk. If you decide that you're interested, buy it through any of the links here on this page and then email me.. (jonathan at woldboys dot com).. Write "I bought the Rich Jerk!" in your subject link and give me your Paypal email address. The Rich Jerk, in all his kindness, will send me an email letting me know that you bought the program and I'll sneak on over to paypal and send you $20 bucks! Have an awesome day and I look forward to hearing from you! If you have any questions or have your OWN opinions of The Rich Jerk.. just let me know ;). I'm waiting for someone to write 'The Nice Guy'.. hehehe.. -Jonathan Wold P.S. What you just read here was a review, followed by an affiliate promotion. Mr. Rich Jerk covers some of the basic, yet very clever, ins and outs of selling affiliate products. You can get some powerful ideas on how to do this and a whole bunch of other stuff by snagging your copy of The Rich Jerk today!

Getting Ready To Leave

2005-09-12T17:06:00.000-07:00

In just 2 days I'll be heading off for the Internet Marketing Main Event in Phoenix, AZ! I'm looking forward to that :). This weekend has been QUITE a weekend! We had a Youthcove Team Meeting on Sunday and, thanks to all the awesome people who showed up, it went very well. I saw firsthand, once again, how important and powerful it is to be a part of a team. When it comes to communities, and really, just about anything, trying to run it as a one-man show, no matter how good your intentions, just won't work. You have to have a team, focused and dedicated! So the meeting went very well and I'm looking forward to the next on the 25th of September! Youthcove.com was moved to a new server last night and the forum was upgraded to vBulletin 3.5 this morning! Along with that, I was able to go through and completely revamp the membership application system. It should be working very smoothly now! Thanks to all those who helped me test it! And with that.. I've got a lot to do over the next few days.. I'm finishing up a website for a 'client' of sorts. I'll show you guys once its done ;). If I don't get a chance to blog again, I'll be blogging when I get back and letting you guys know how the event goes! Take care and have an AWESOME evening! -Jonathan Wold

Subway, Adagio in G Minor, CSS, and Entities!

2005-09-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I really outdo myself with those titles sometimes! ;). Well guys, today was really an incredible day. It was well rounded and balanced. I learned a lot, got quite a lot done, had fun, spent time with friends, and made some powerful decisions! First off, we'll jump to right about lunch time. I'd been a good day so far, I got up a bit late around 7:30, showered, had worship, ate breakfast, the works. Around 9 or so my girlfriend got online for a few minutes and we were able to talk.. That was really cool! I miss her a lot! There's a strong chance we may be able to do some traveling together towards the end of the year and I'm reallly looking forward to that! I love you beautiful! :) And then it was lunchtime. Over the past few days I've been breaking my pizza habbit and working on something healthier.. Subway! There's a very nice Subway shop in a great location just a mile or so from my place. I go in, order my foot long veggie with all the works, and then sit down in the back. After lunch, I go into my brainstorming session! That's been REALLY powerful for me. Each day I spend about 30 minutes or so just solidly brainstorming new ideas or refocusing old ones. It's been a very rewarding practice and I intend to keep it up. I dunno, something about the positive atmosphere (food does that to you!) sitting in a window feeling the warm sun, open notebook in front of you and ideas just flowing from your pen. Its the coffee shop equivalent for a non-coffee drinker ;). And then, my mind full of fresh ideas and my stomach full of food, I drove home, happy and satisfied. They were playing a rather odd song on the country music station.. *chuckles*.. So I switched around for a few moments.. and then.. I heard it.. I recognized that piece! I wound up on a local classical station and as I parked the car in the driveway, I sat, and just listened. It was an absolutely beautiful piece, and I didn't know the name! I waited till the end, hoping to hear it.. but no! It's never that easy.. I ran inside and grabbed the phone. The piece still fresh in mind, I rang my good friend Brian back in California and proceeded to hum it for him. Uhm.. nothing. I did get some rather fighting wordish comments about my 'beautiful voice'.. but he didn't know the piece. He recommended I look up the station online and proceeded to dig it up for me himself. A moment or so later I was typing away, searching on Google for the local stations. What station was it?! I ran out to the car.. 90.7! Ah ha! Should be simple now! I thanked Brian and, after looking up "90.7 Indiana" on Google and heading to the first result, I hung up on him to call, satisfied that my search was over. "Hello, WPSR." I smiled, "Yes, hello there!" I proceeded to explain my situation in great detail. 30 seconds or so later, disappointment and I was off the phone. ..Wrong station. They play oldies.. but not THAT old. No problem! I called up the local NPR (National Public Radio) Affiliate in Chicago. They ALSO have a 90.7 station. 2 minutes later and a nice conversation with the older lady I was off the phone again. Wrong station. They're a repeater for the newscast. I went back out to the car, looking for a clue. There it was! The song was playing AGAIN! I raced inside, turned on the house radio and waited. Yeah, the guy came on and announced the piece. Uhm.. I had NO clue what he said. If you've ever heard a classical music announcer, you'll know what I mean. They have the pronunciation down.. so well infact that you have no clue what they've just said. Something old, though. Well, I wasn't giving up now. I did a bit more research and I FINALLY found it! I called up the guy and after a few moments of amusement at my expense as I explained the situation, he looked over the playlist and yup, sure enough, they'd played it twice! It'd just been performed by different orchestrations. Alright, ready for the piece? Oh yeah ;). Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ, composed by Tomaso Albinoni Yeah. I was happy :). Alright, moving along. I had a really good talk with my friend Joshua yesterday and we spent the evening working on servers and table layouts, while discussing CSS and other fun stuff. We were up till about 12, and then I went to bed. I challenged him to rebuild a site we'd been working on and to rebuild it entirely in CSS and XHTML within a month. See, he'd just been working on learning both of them and had started strong on CSS only last night. This afternoon he sent me a link. I visit it and Lo and Behold! Joshua had rebuilt the entire thing in CSS and XHTML! I was very impressed.. and very surprised! He did a great job with it. Not long after that Joshua came up with an idea that turned into something really powerful.. I've asked him to present it at the Youthcove Team Meeting this Sunday.. I look forward to it :). And finally.. I've come up with my next web project. It's actually something I'd been working on for awhile, but didn't really consider to be a full scale project. My next web project is going to be a website about entities. Thanks to Mari from Youthcove for putting it fresh on my mind! I'd been putting it off for awhile ;). I'm creating a website with guides and tutorials on choosing the right entities and setting one up for yourself, or choosing the right service to do it for you. I'll be looking forward to working on that! Thanks to my mom for inspiring me the first time around! Love you mom! :) And that's that! I'm off for the weekend! We're having Church at the beach tomorrow and I'm really excited about that! I wish you guys an awesome weekend! -Jonathan Wold

Joint Venture Brokering - Part 3

2005-09-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

In Part 1 we learned the basics of Joint Venturing, including what a Joint Venture is and the 4 Winners we must have in a successful and sustainable joint venture. We also got a bit hungry for strawberries ;). In Part 2 we learned about the two paths a successful JV Broker must follow and we spent time focusing in on the first path, which is locating a source of traffic. And now as we kick off part 3 we're going to dive straight into the second path! Path Two: Source of Conversion

Step One - Find a Great Converter - As with finding a great source of traffic, its very important for us to first know what a "converter" is. In the evangelical world, a 'converter' is someone who.. well.. converts people ;). A conversion is anything that leads to an action. In the internet world, we want conversions that eventually lead to a buying action. That could be anything from the sale of an eBook to a drop-shipped physical product, a subscription service to a private consultation. The first step is to find a converter and once you have, you can move on..
Step Two - Learn The Program - Take the time to learn exactly what it is that they're offering. If they have an eBook, its usually a good idea to buy it. If they have a membership site, its usually a good idea to become a member. This is a great way of beginning your relationship with them and getting them to see that you're serious. Don't just ask for a free sample, show that you respect them and that you value what they have to offer.
Step Three - Will they play well with others? - Find out if your potential source of conversion is willing to joint venture. If you're able to find a match for them, are they willing to work with someone else to sell their product? This may seem like a straight-forward yes, but ya never can tell. Its important to ask and once you've found their willingness, move on!
Step Four - Educate! - Just like with our source of traffic now is the time when we get to know our source of conversion and educate them on the JV process. Invest your time in them, answering their questions and providing information. Explain what happens once you've found a match and let them know what to look forward to. It's also very important at this point to find out if they're willing to provide product samples to a potential JV partner. Be polite and tactful on this one :). If they say no, politely ask them why. If it's a physical product, you can offer to pay shipping. If they don't go for that, you can try offering to pay cost. If they don't go for either of these, be sure to spend time and, if you can, find out why. If they aren't willing to provide samples you can definitely go ahead and buy them on your own, just be cautious, odds are if they didn't want to be flexible on the samples they aren't going to be flexible on much in the future either.
Step Five - Discover Their Ideal Match - As any JV Broker knows, one of the secrets to making a successful match is knowing what each of your sources are looking for! Spend time with your source and find out who they'd want to work with. Find out who they wouldn't want to work with, and why! If they have a digital product, find out what kind of website they'd like their product offered on. If they have a subscription service, find out what kind of audience they'd like to reach. You get the idea ;).
Step Six - What are the Conditions? - Ah yes, the conditions. Since it is, afterall, their product, discover the conditions under which they're willing to sell. Are they willing to offer a discount to get more sales? Are they willing to offer a product of theirs as a free bonus to help get opt-in subscribers to a list for future up-sells? (there's a mouthful ;). Above all, the idea is to find out if they're willing to be flexible.
Step Seven - Find a Match! - Just before we can join our paths together, we have to know which paths to join! If you haven't found a source of traffic yet, now's the time to begin following that path, while maintaining your relationship with your source of conversion. Based on all the things you've learned, get out their and find their ideal match!

And that's the second path : ). Once you've reached the end of both paths, we move on to our final path in the JV Brokering Process and we..

Bring Them Together!

This is where you really get to show your stuff as you bring the deal together and make the match! We're going to fly through this one together and then wrap up. Once you've established a match, here's how it goes:

Contact the Traffic Source - Ask them for permission to send them some product samples. Once you have that, its time to make things look pretty! :)
Send the Package! - Here's a short yet powerful summary of what to mail:
- Fedex Box - Send your package in a nice looking FedEx box. If you send it priority you get a free box and even if you don't, things arriving in a box are just more impressive :).
- Product - Include samples of the product. If its an eBook, be sure to print it off and have a copy bound up for them to read.
- Lift Note - Include instructions for them if they decide that they're not interested. Let them know where they can return the product too.
- Cover Letter - Include a cover letter with all your contact information and a list of the things included.
- Sample Salesletter - If the product has a salesletter, include it for them to read over.
- Your Story/Experience - On top of the relationship you've already been building with them, this is can be a great opportunity to add more. Share your story with them, give them a reason to care. If you've had experience with the product, share that with them as well. Give them your testimonial!
- Product Stats - If you can obtain permission from the product owner, include product stats. Let them know how well the product has converted in the past. Include the little details that can make all the difference.
Follow-up! - Once the package has been sent, give them a few days to receive it and open it, then follow-up with them. Find out if their interested and if they are..
Get a Commitment - Show that you're serious and get their commitment to work with the source of conversion and make things happen.
Ask for referrals - Yup! At this point, ask if they know of anyone ELSE who'd be interested in the product or even in joint venturing in general.
Launch! - Help in anyway that you can for the big day and once everything is in place, launch the product! :)

And that's a wrap! Whew! We learned a LOT! I look forward to your questions or comments and above all I look forward to hearing all about your success as a JV Broker! Thankyou for spending your time with me and I look forward to doing it again! -Jonathan Wold

Joint Venture Brokering - Part 2

2005-09-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

In Part 1 of our series on JV (Joint Venture) Brokering we were reminded that there are only two things you can ever do to make money online and we learned that WE didn't have to do either! We learned what a joint venture is and then talked about the 4 Winners you MUST have in a successful and sustainable joint venture. Today we're going to dive in a little deeper and focus together on the 3rd winner in a successful and sustainable joint venture, the JV Broker. As we've learned, there are MANY different types of joint ventures and they can be found all around us. For the purpose of our time together, we're going to focus on internet joint ventures. The lessons that we'll share and learn together will be lessons that we can apply anywhere but will have a specific practical application to the internet :). Lets get rolling and have some fun! Imagine with me.. You, my reader, are a very successful JV Broker. You've agreed to spend some of your very valuable time with me and during that time, you're going to share some of what you've learned along the way towards your success! As a very successful JV Broker, you know that there are two paths that you must take to form a successful, and yes, a sustainable, joint venture. What are those paths? You smile and explain. A joint venture is the act of bringing together a source of traffic with a source of conversion. In order for that to be successful, you must have those sources TO bring together. The two paths you must follow are the ways you go about finding those sources. Those paths, when followed to the end, join together and become one path, which is your joint venture. Lets start with Path 1 and follow the steps you take towards finding a good source of traffic. Path One - Traffic Source

Step 1 - Find the Source - To help us as we find a source of traffic, its very important for us to know what a source is. A source of traffic is anything that, well.. generates traffic :). Using our internet focus it could be a website, a forum, an email list, a by line on an article, a credit on a virally distributed video, etc.. it could be anything. Your job as a JV Broker is to locate a source of traffic.
Step 2 - See if they are willing to Joint Venture - Once you've found a source, ask if they're willing to joint venture! You may find an awesome source, but if they're not willing to work with you it's gonna be challenging :). As you find a source, contact them. Find out if they're open to joint venturing opportunities. If they say no, be thoughtful and polite, and ask why. Learn all you can from each opportunity you pursue. If they say yes.. move on to step 3!
Step 3 - Educate them on the Process - As you find someone who's interested, spend time with them and educate them on the process of joint venturing. If it's their first time, encourage them to ask a lot of questions and really focus on building your relationship together as you invest your time and answer each of their questions. Let them know that you are looking out for opportunities to bring to them. Explain to them what will happen once you've found a match (We'll talk more about that in Part 3!). And while you're doing this, let it flow smoothly into the final step in our path..
Step 4 - Find and Learn Their Limitations - Get to know them. Get to know what they provide. Learn how things work. Learn what they are able to do. Learn what they are willing to do. There may be things that they may want to do but can't yet. Your job as a successful JV Broker is to really know those you are bringing together. Discover their strengths, know their weaknesses. These will all play a very important part towards the success of each joint venture as you work towards creating a win/win for all.

And those are the steps! Here are a few quick tips as we wrap up for Part 3:

Become a Friendly Stalker - You heard me ;). Learn everything that you possibly can about your potential source of traffic and create a profile! Save everything and keep it neat and organized. Learn the things that they like, the things they don't like. Be sure that if they share anything remotely confidential you always get their permission before sharing it with anyone else. Gaining and keeping their trust is vital. Keep records of all the things you do and be sure to always follow-up. And that leads us too..

Be Consistent! - Become someone that they know that they can count on, no matter what! If you promise to do something make SURE that you do it!

Be Helpful! - Search for every opportunity to help them and go for it! If they have a website, you could look for ways that their site could be improved and offer, in a polite and cheerful way, to share them. Go above and beyond your responsibilities and become a support to them. You'd be surprised how much of a difference helping out with even the smallest things can make. Show them that you care and that you have their best interests in mind.

Maintain your relationships - As you get to know your sources, be sure to maintain the relationship. Email or call them at least once a month and check up on them! Use these opportunities to learn more about them and to look for ways that you can help.

And that's that for now. In Part 3 we're going to learn about the Second Path and then finish up by bringing the two paths together! I look forward to each of your questions and comments :)! Have an awesome evening! -Jonathan Wold

Matt Geri

2005-08-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

Now there's an interesting blog title.. That title was sparked by a conversation between myself and my good friend and business partner, Matt Geri. You see, when you search for Matt Geri on Google.com, you find that his website is, as of this writing, number one for the term. Snugly wrapped into second place is my own little site, jonathanwold.com! Well, Matt (Matt Geri) and I have been talking a lot about internet marketing and search engines lately and I decided to do a little test. Tonight will be testing to see if my website, rated a 5 in Google's own Page Rank system, with an optimized title, will pass up Matt Geri's website, which is rated a 4 but is entirely optimized for the term Matt Geri. We'll find out in a few days ; ). Why just a few days? Well, that right there is one of the key advantage of having a site that's constantly updated, like a blog. When you update a lot, the search engines visit a lot : ). They're constantly checking for new content and once your website has proven its "credability" by having other websites from all around the world linking to you, your content becomes valuable. And just what's so good about being considered "valuable" ? Well.. That value is what decides whether your website gets positioned above another in the search engine and how fast it gets there. For a case in point, read my blog post a few days back about a certain dentist visit.. it even has the keyword dentist in it : ). Now, go do a search on google for the phrase and, unless things have changed, you'll find that my website is number 1 for it and that took only a few days! That's the power of having a website the searches engines decide is valuable and yet another reason why its worth your time to build one. If you can't think of a way to monetize that.. well.. you needa stick around more and maybe some ideas will rub off on you ; ). Alright guys.. Rough long day AND night yet I have no regrets.. Got to spend time talking with my awesome girlfriend and that's something that always means a lot to me : ). Goodnight World! -Jonathan

Joint Venture Brokering - Part 1

2005-08-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

As you know, there are two and ONLY two things that can ever be done to make money on the internet. You can drive traffic and you can convert traffic. That's it. Everything else you could possibly do on the internet to make money must fall into those two categories. But who said YOU had to do either of them? Today we're going to spend some time together and learn about a little something called Joint Venture Brokering. What is JV (Joint Venture) Brokering? Well first, what's a joint venture? We already know that a broker is someone who "puts things together", so the trick here is understanding exactly WHAT they are putting together. Have you ever seen a joint venture in action? Well, let's think about it. When was the last time you went to your local grocery store? As you walked through the isles, did you ever wonder where those fresh yummy strawberries came from? For some grocery stores, the answer is their own backyard, they did all the work themselves :). For the rest of 'em, they partnered up with a farmer who grew the strawberries and then sold them to the grocery store who then turned around and sells them to the end buyer. That's called a joint venture! That grocery store is a way of driving traffic. Those strawberries are a way of converting that traffic into a sale! Without all the food, the grocery store wouldn't have much to sell and all its traffic would be next to useless. Without the grocery store, the farmers would have a tough time selling their food! Now.. in order for these partnerships to work out, someone has to put them together! Who do you suppose that is? Yup! You guessed it.. The individual who puts joint ventures together is called a joint venture broker! They act as the intermediary. They find the traffic and hook them up with a product, service, idea, or anything else, that leads to conversion! So now that we know what a JV (Joint Venture) Broker is, we're going to move ahead together and learn about the paths a JV Broker take towards creating a successful and sustainable joint venture. And keep in mind that "sustainable" is very important, a joint venture could make a ton of money selling a product and then end up lasting only a few days. In part 2 of this article, we'll be talking about the two paths in detail and sharing some of the secrets within ;). As we wrap up, there's something important to know about JV Brokers. The goal of a successful JV Broker is to create 4 winners out of each joint venture and in order for that joint venture to be successful AND sustainable, those winners MUST be in the following order:

End Buyer - This is the person who, in our example, buys the strawberries. They win because they get fresh, farm-grown strawberries availible to them in the convenience of the nearby grocery store. They may also win because its a good price and value for their money. On top of that it could be their favorite brand of strawberries.. The list goes on and on! The end buyer must always be the big winner or they won't buy and the joint venture won't be sustained.
Product Owner - In our rather mouth-watering example of our delicious, fresh, juicy, ripe strawberries, the 2nd place winner is the farmer! He put the time and energy into growing and caring for his crop so that they would be of an exceptional quality when it came time to sell. The product owner must be the next big winner after the end buyer because if they're not, why would they keep providing the product? If they aren't getting a good return for all their hard work, why should they continue delivering an exceptional product?
Promoter (JV Broker) - The JV Broker is the one who, in our example, finds the farmer and connects them with the grocery store, or vice versa! This is the person who does all the research and relationship building. They do their very best to meet the needs of all those involved in their joint venture in order to make it successful and sustainable. They're a winner in this because they make their money and build business connections without having to provide the product OR the source of traffic! JV Brokers often make their money through 2nd tier affiliate commissions. They join themselves as the 1st tier to the product's affiliate program and then sign up the traffic provider as the 2nd tier under them, thus collecting a commission on each sale.
Traffic Provider - And finally, the source of traffic must be a winner. The grocery store has to make money on those strawberries or they probably wouldn't sell them. If they were the first place winner they might make a lot of money in the beginning, but eventually buyers would wisen up and shop elsewhere. If they were the second place winner, the buyers might be happy, but eventually the product owner would catch on and take their product elshewhere to get a better deal. If they were the third place winner, where's the incentive for the JV Broker to set the joint venture in motion and maintain it in the first place? They fit very snugly into fourth and all they ever have to focus on is increasing traffic.

And that's that! Those are the 4 winners in a joint venture :). In Part 2, we're going to focus very strongly on the 3rd place winner and learn the paths we can take AS a JV Broker in order to put together a successful joint venture. Thanks for reading! I welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions! I look forward to next time! :) -Jonathan Wold

Portage Dentists

2005-08-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the BIG day :). I went in for my dreaded root canal and came away with some amazing experiences! First off, a few sentences of background. About 2 weeks before my first dentist visit in portage, my teeth started bugging me. It'd been over a year and a half since I'd been to a dentist and as I looked back in my mouth there was a lovely little cavity on my number 14.. (Near the back on my top left ;).. After some calling around, I wound up in a rather spacious dental office in Portage, Indiana. I filled out some medical forms and was in to see the good doctor. After taking an x-ray, he walked back in.. "Well, you have two choices.. Either we take the tooth out or you can get a root canal.." As you can imagine, my jaw dropped. I was in for a cavity! He prescribed some morphine and 10 minutes after being seen in, I was sent out, a $65 dollar charge to my credit card and a looming bill of over $2000 when all would be said and done. ..Then.. almost 2 weeks later.. My tooth was bugging me again and I knew I couldn't keep putting it off. I fired up my favorite search engine and ran a search for portage dentist through Google Local. I called the 3rd number down and spoke with the receptionist at Dr. Thomas R Peter's office who then put me on the phone with the financial planner, Eilain (If I spelt it wrong, I get points for trying ;).. She was very helpful and not only told me what it'd cost but told me that I could apply for credit to spread the payments for a root canal out over 12 months with no interest AND walked me through the steps it'd take. So, I went ahead and did that.. and then scheduled an appointment. They had an opening for the next DAY.. which was today :). Alright, all the rest is going to be nothing but good stuff ladies and gentlemen, 'cuz that was, without a doubt, one of the BEST experiences I've ever had at a dentist's office, not only in Portage Indiana, but just about anywhere else. First off, the office itself is converted from a beautiful old house, built back in 1958! The financial planner's office has a fireplace in it! The whole office is just very well decorated, from and back, inside and outside. The staff are all very friendly from the moment you walk in and heck, even the medical history forms looked friendly! I was then introduced to Kristy, who took me back and set me up in the chair.. Now get this guys.. It was not only a very comfortable dentist chair but a dentist chair that massages you! Kristy showed me how it worked and asked if I'd like to try it out.. Like I'd say no? ;) She told me what'd happen next and then Jodi walked in. She was Dr. Peter's assistant. She set me up with the bib and got everything ready for the doctor. Then he showed up, introduced himself, and took a look at my xray. Alright.. so you've already got the idea that it was a good experience, right? Well, I'll tell you.. I was a bit hesitant about going to them.. After doing the math, the price I was quote at Dr. Peter's office for the root canal was a bit MORE than the other places I'd checked.. However, guess what happened? After Dr. Peters had thoroughly examined my tooth and done a bit of work on it he told me that I didn't NEED a root canal! The cavity was pretty bad, so it was kinda close, yet there was still PLENTY of healthy tooth! So instead, I'm getting something called an onlay, I'm going to go ahead and have all my teeth cleaned, and I'm still going to save over $1000! ..Yeah, it was worth it :). So, what was really cool about this was that I got to see first hand how powerful it can be when you really go all out and treat your clients and customers the very best that you can! Sure, they may do all the exact same stuff for everyone, but so what? It made a difference for me! They made me feel that I was important, that they cared, they even saved me money! And look at me now, writing an entire blog post about portage dentists ;). Keep up the awesome work Dr. Peters, Eilain, Jodi, Kristy, and everyone else whom I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting :). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Joint Venture Brokering and Root Canals

2005-08-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Yup ;). Today I watched, listened, and learned, as Paulie Sabol explained Joint Venture Brokering to a young man named Casey, in one of our favorite Chinese Buffets. As you know, I've said that there are only TWO ways to make money online, driving traffic and converting traffic. Well.. now the advanced stuff.. There is a third way to make money online. Its called Joint Venture Brokering. In my upcoming article I'll be explaining what that's all about. In the meantime, the idea is this.. As a JV Broker, you act as the middle man, you CONNECT those who are driving traffic, to those who are converting traffic. There's a lot more involved and I'm looking forward to sharing it :). And in the meanntiime.. I'm getting a root canal tomorrow! :( I'm really bummed about it.. With all my traveling I wound up avoiding the dentist for OVER a year and when I finally noticed that I had a cavity on one my back teeth, I went in to a dentist and got hit with two options.. "Either we can take the tooth out.. or we can do a root canal"... Whaa?!.. I just wanted the cavity gone! Well.. after doing some dentist searching this morning, I found and scheduled an appointment for.. tomorrow. Wish me luck and.. make SURE that you don't put off getting your teeth taken care of! 19 with a root canal is NO fun at all! Have an awesome evening! : ) -Jonathan

These are a few of my favorite things

2005-08-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! I'm getting ready to head off to spend the first half of the weekend at my good friend's house and as I'm all packed up and just waiting to be picked up, I wanted to take a minute and try something a bit different. So here I go! A few of my favorite things

Being outside during a storm- There's a good one, right off the bat. I realllly really enjoy being in the middle of a storm. One of my favorite places in all of nature is being on a mountain top along the California coast line just as a huge thunderstorm begins to roll in. There's just something about it.. I just can't help but smile and feel my heart beat faster, my energy rise, and everything in my world just seem a little bit brighter.
Eating a good meal - Yeah, I like eating ;). I tend to go on and off from "healthy" to "not-so-healthy", though I'd really like to stick to the former all the way through ;). I enjoy ALL types of food.. There are no fruits or vegetables that I've yet had that I haven't liked.. and I've had a lot. There are almost no food types that I don't enjoy.. I even like Indian food, though I can't take the heat ;). I've never tasted meat, though I imagine I'd like that as well.
A full glass of cool water on a hot summer day - Ahhh.. refreshing :). Yeah, that's definitely one of my favorite things. Its that satisfying feeling you get as you take a drink right after a long basketball game with a good friend. That feeling you get just after a hard afternoon's work mowing lawns in the unforgiving sun as you take that drink of fresh water you've been longing for.. That same feeling you get on a beautiful day at the beach as you're sitting back with some good friends, relaxing, and just soaking up the sun, a glass (or bottle) of water in your hand.. mmm :)
Being with people I care about and laughing till we cry - Hehee.. those are some of my fondest memories.. Being with my loved ones, my family, my girlfriend, and my friends, and just laughing. Laughing till we're rolling on the ground, till our stomachs hurt, till we're crying, and then suddenly being sober.. and then laughing all over again. Yeah.. good stuff ;). You don't really know someone till you've laughed your eyes out with them.
W..

Whoops! My friends are here! Have an AWESOME weekend guys! I'll finish this up later ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Back from.. Wisconsin!

2005-08-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! I've returned! After a long car ride and two bus trips, I've made it back safely to Indiana! I had an AWESOME time with my family in the Wisconsin Dells! We met up with my grandpa in Chicago, spent the night there, and then off we went! I didn't really have any idea of where we were going or what it'd be like.. until we got there ;). Yeah, its pretty.. very pretty :). We spent 3 days in the dells and as anyone who's been there knows, nature isn't the only thing they've got around here.. hehee.. I went to my first waterpark! We spent the entire afternoon at "Noah's Ark - America's Largest Waterpark".. We had a GREAT time and I got a serious tan, it was awesome! My mom, step-dad, and youngest brother, Daniel, stayed behind while Grandpa and my two other brothers, Joshua, and Josiah, took to the parks :). We had an awesome time and my grandpa went on alll the rides with us, except "The Point of No Return". Its a slide over 150 feet off the ground where you clock anywhere from 40-80 miles per hour as you fly down feet first.. I tried to find a picture of it but wasn't able to just yet ;). We also went on a land/water tour called the "Wisconsin Ducks". Check out a picture of the vehicle I found online ;). All in all, I had an awesome time, just hanging out with my family and having fun in the sun :). I'll show you guys sumore pictures as I get them! In other news, it's gonna take me a few days to get "back into the game".. I've got a lot of thoughts on my mind and even more work to get done. An awesome young man named Patrick is heading up tomorrow to spend a few days here with Paulie and I in Indiana, working with us and learning the ropes of internet marketing. I'm looking forward to that :). I'm also a bit challenged by the trouble I've been having with my server.. its being ornery ;). I think its about time to buy another one.. If anyone has some personal suggestions for server providers they've been particular happy with, I'd really appreciate you letting me know :). Either way, I'll be starting my search after the weekend for a secondary server provider. Alright guys, I'm off for a much needed night's rest and I'm looking forward towards another update ;). Take care and have an awesome evening! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Off I go with the family!

2005-08-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Alright everyone! I'm heading off for a couple of days to spend some time with my family! We're gonna go visit my grandpa in Chicago and hang out with him for a bit! Mandy headed home to Nebraska today and Matt is heading off to Ireland and then South Africa, leaving us tomorrow! It's gonna be weird coming back to an empty "quiet" place. I've got some upgrades on Youthcove to take care of when I get back. We've had trouble with our membership application system and with my internet acting up, I haven't really been able to do much about fixing it. Hopefully that'll have resolved itself by the time I get back :). Yesterday was really cool.. We had a HUGE rainstorm and, 'bout 4-5 in the afternoon, I went for a walk in the pouring rain. It was AWESOME.. I love the rain! I walked about half a mile and was completely drenched.. It's a greaty way to just spend some time out enjoying nature :). Also when I get back, I'm gonna have a bunch of work to do on my projects. My goal is to bring my passive income up to just over $200 in profit a day, as a starting point, with one of my internet business projects. It's really not hard once you've developed a system.. It's that first dollar that is ALWAYS the hardest, once you've made that happen.. you know how to do it again :). Looking forward to getting back and working hard! And in the meantime, I'm looking forward to spending time with my family :). I'm gonna miss ya Matt, a LOT. Looking forward to seeing you again on your return! Gonna miss you too Mandy.. Looking forward to seeing you at the Internet Marketing Main Event :). Have an awesome new week! -Jonathan Wold

Sunless Yet Sunny Day At The Beach

2005-08-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

My good friend Matt Geri is heading home to spend time with his family in Ireland this Monday. He's gonna be gone for just over a month and a half and I'm definitely gonna miss him. Today we spent some time together hitting the electronics stores and buying absolutely nothing, which seems to be a past time of ours ;). After grabbing a pizza and a box of blueberry, poppyseed, and chocolate muffins at Costco, Matt and I headed back to the apartment, dropped off the food, grabbed some towels and flip flops, hopped back into the car, and headed off in the blinding rain too... The Beach! 20 minutes later, one or two missed exits, a beautiful drive down a tree covered back road, and a few jokes about going to the waterpark found us finally on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, just inside the Indiana Dunes State Park. We hopped outta the car, grabbed a frisbee and a bouncy ball, and headed off for 3 hours on the beach! We had a lot of fun :). We played Frisbee, skipped stones, half drowned each other during frantic scrambles for the floating bouncy ball, and all around just had a great time. We also spent some time talking about our plans for the future.. We've both gone a long ways, yet we've still got such a long ways to go. It was a great day at the beach! Tomorrow we're going to be working our butts off, signing up for hundreds of affiliate programs for the huge network of sites we've been working on over the summer.. THAT will be quite an experience ;). Not really looking forward to it but I am looking forward to seeing the results. Speaking of results.. I sold my first product through my blog today! If you read back a bit through my posts you find stuff about Jonathan H a i r p r o d u c t s. I still get about 50-100 hits a day to my site for that and 2 days ago after putting up a link to Amazon's listing of his products, I made a sale! That was awesome ;). Alright, off to bed I go! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Brainstorming And Goodbyes

2005-08-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the day! After several weeks of planning and a few days of preparation, it all came down to the big event at high noon. I invited all the members into a chat room and the Youthcove Brainstorm session was underway. First off I have to send a huge thanks out to my good friends Matt Geri, Mandy Fintel, Paulie Sabol, and James Coombs for helping me out with the planning, organization, and execution of the meeting. The Brainstorm session went almost nothing like I planned it and for it to have still succeeded really required my friends pitching in and doing their best.. I could NOT have done it without you guys, thank you so much : ). The topic of the Brainstorm was Internet Marketing: Traffic Generation. We started off by sharing the Agenda, followed up with a quick introduction session, and then I went straight into the rather challenging task of explaining what Brainstorming is. For those of you who've attended the Youthcove Brainstorm sessions in the past, you might have gone into this one with an idea of what it would be like, based on your past experience. Many people showed up late which I feel was a function of remembering that the first 30 minutes of the old brainstorms were usually spent in welcoming, chatting, and catching up on how each other's weeks had been, all very important, just not relevant to the actual brainstorm. This time we got straight to it.. After a few short minutes of introductions, I gave an explaination of brainstorming. It was as follows:

What is Brainstorming? What do you need to have a successful brainstorm? 1. Define a challenge or a need – Traffic! 2. What is the desired outcome of the brainstorm? – Ways to generate traffic! 3. Identify things you can do to reach your desired outcome. 4. What must happen next to make #3 work?

And with that, there are some RULES to brainstorming! I first explained the objective, and then shared the rules. They are as follows:

Objective: Gather up and capture all ideas drawn from the “collective genius” (that’s us!) without ANY critical voices.

And then the 7 rules..

1. NO Ideacide – There are no bad ideas. 2. Let your mind play – Let it wander all over, consider everything! Don’t hold back ; ).Think of CRAZY things. 3. Have fun! – 4. Don’t worry or focus on specific how-to’s – You may decide that creating a game that spreads like wildfire is a great way to drive traffic.. Don’t get caught up or discouraged by HOW to do it. 5. Time Limits – We have an hour of Brainstorm time, we’re gonna keep things rolling as fast as possible and its important to stay focused. 6. Capture it all! – We’re going to be going over some activities and as I instruct you, we’re going to be adding things to the brainstorm sessions forum. 7. Support, encourage, and build up – You guys have already been a huge support through the forums so I know this won’t be a challenge, when someone shares an idea and you recognize its value, let them know it, build each other up : ).

And that was that.. The Brainstorm Session actually went very well :). A lot of the activities I had planned and wanted to do did NOT work out, and at the last minute I had to change things around, but that's really what it's all about, especially as this was very much a first time experience for me, NOTHING like the previous brainstorms. So with that, I learned a lot of stuff..

I learnt that no matter how much you prepare, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong - Right off the bat, my good friend and fellow brainstorm coordinator James Coombs, was kicked offline from the Brainstorm session and in order to keep things going and avoid that happening again, we sent everyone into a chat room on Paulie's website, http://www.realestatelink.net. That worked out well but was definitely NOT my brainstormming format of choice. James and I are going to be setting a chat room on the Youthcove server for future sessions ;).
I saw, again, how absolutely important it is to have a team - I really could NOT have done it without the help of my friends and fellow teammates. The support and encourgament was priceless and made all the difference for me. Your friends and fellow teammates are the ones who cover when you're slipping, who provide the missing piece of the puzzle, who fill in the gaps when there's a technical difficulty, who set the examples for you and help you lead. You absolutely MUST have a team.
Don't let anything sidetrack you - When you've got 15+ people all together for a reason, there will ALWAYS always ALWAYS be things coming up to try and sidetrack you. It could be a technical difficulty, it could be a logistics challenge, it could be a beginner question, it could be a lack of understanding, it could be an outside influence, such as a phone ringing or a purple elephant charging across your front lawn, ya just never know ;).

And with that, I'm off for now! Matt and Mandy are wrapping up there stay, Mandy will be going back home to Nebraska and Matt will be taking off to Ireland! Gonna miss you guys :|. More stuff later :). Have an AWESOME evening! -Jonathan Wold

3 Communication Killers

2005-08-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago, over lunch, I was reminded of a lesson I had learned, and forgotten almost a year ago. I'm always seeking to improve how I communicate with others and it was during one of my "learning experiences" that this old lesson was brought back to me. There are 3 killers of communication: • Almost nobody wants to hear what you've got to say • Almost nobody will listen to or read all that you've said • Almost everybody will misunderstand some part or all of your message My good friend and mentor Paulie Sabol wrote an article that explains how to deal with these 3 communication killers. Check it out here! In other news, the Youthcove Newsletter went out yesterday! Its the biggest newsletter mailing I've EVER sent, so I was very proud of that. A lot of hard work went into getting that one ready and it was really a new phase in writing for me, so I really hope you guys enjoyed it! I'm working hard on preparing for the upcoming Brainstorm this Wednesday, and I'm really getting excited about it. There's going to be a LOT of work involved and it's going to be very challenging, yet I really think it's going to be far more than worth the effort. Alright, and I'll admit I'm even a little bit nervous about it 'cuz I really want it to go well.. I'll just give it my very best :). And I thiiink that's just about it.. I've got some major stuff going on in my life right now, but I'm not quiiite ready to share it ;). Soon though! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Entrepreneurs and Surf Boards

2005-08-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

While listening in on a call announcing an internet marketing event I'm attending in September of this year, I heard an awesome little analogy I just had to share with you guys. Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a lot like surfing. First, you're out there in the water. You're lying on your board, floating out in the waves, bobbing up and down. The day crawls on and there you are, just bobbing away, up and down with each wave. Hour after hour, wave after wave, there you are, just bobbing away. What's going on? Aren't you supposed to be surfing? So, what do you have to do? Well, if you're going to surf, the first thing that you must do is point yourself in the right direction. You have to get your hands in the water and turn your board. You have to prepare yourself for that wave. And then what? Another wave comes and there you are, still just bobbing up and down. What's going on? AHH yes, that's right.. we have to paddle! You work those arms and start paddling! As the wave begins to take off you throw your energy into it and go! Yeah, its a lot of hard work and your arms may get tired, but as you crawl up on the board, stand up, and fly down that wave, its worth it. You made it. And as you glide into shore, the wind in your face and the wave of success beneath your feet, you know it was worth it. Being an entrepreneur is a lot like that.. Each wave that comes along is an opportunity. Each wave is another chance to take our business or personal life to the next level. Wave after wave goes past us, and all to often, for whatever reason, we're satisfied to just bob up and down in the water, waiting for a wave to take us on its own. AH, but now we know better. First, we have to point ourselves towards our goal, we have to point ourselves towards that shoreline. And then? We have get our hands in the water and start working! You don't ride the wave until you've put the work into getting up on it. Another important lesson to point out is that of momentum. The act of paddling is the act of creating momentum. You have to do something to get it going, but once you've done that, it begins to build, until you are riding on the momentum of a giant wave, all the way to your success. You must do something to start that momentum, it won't just pick you up and take you with it unless you're pointing in the right direction and actively paddling towards it. And that's all for now.. I'm off to finish my paddling for the night and ride the wave :). Next time.. Snowboarding! Goodnight World :) -Jonathan Wold

And he shall be called.. Daniel!

2005-08-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

Yup! Its official! My new baby brother's name is.. Daniel! My mom and stepdad haven't decided on a middle name yet, but they're working on it. Its up in the air with either Jeremiah or Joseph right now. It was REALLY cool seeing my family, and especially my new baby brother :). I had a really good time! I ALSO had time to work on the upcoming newsletter annnd for something else I'm really excited about. I haven't announced it officially yet, but we're going to be having a new brainstorm coming up pretty soon.. The topic, though not completely concrete yet, is going to be along the lines of "Internet Marketing: Driving Traffic".. I'm really excited about it, the brainstorm isn't going to be like anything else we've done before :). And with that, I'm off to bed early to get up early! I'm excited about tomorrow, we've got a LOT of work to do with the summer project, a lot happened in my absense. Matt, Mandy, Paulie, and the rest of the team went fishing while I was gone and made a lot of progress with the business. Looking forward to catching up with that :). Alright guys, have an AWESOME rest of the week! Looking forward to updating you! -Jonathan Wold P.S. Check out my little brother's website! Josiah Wold at josiahwold.com. He's done a BUNCH of good work :). Send him a message hello!

Off To See My Family!

2005-07-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Alrighty! I'm off to see my family and the new baby! I'll be gone till Wednesday and launching the Youthcove One Year Anniversary Newsletter when I get back! Have an awesome week you guys! Be good! -Jonathan Wold

New Baby Brother!

2005-07-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

Its a boy! This morning, between 4 and 5 AM, my mom gave birth to an 8 pound 8 ounce baby boy! My mom and stepdad haven't decided on a name for him yet.. I'll let you guys know when I know ;). I'm heading down to visit my family this Sunday.. can't wait! Wohoo!! Have an awesome weekend everyone! -Jonathan

Matt Geri and I: Our Futures And Internet Business

2005-07-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

My business partner, good friend, and fast becoming expert in internet business, Matt Geri, and I have been doing a lot of talking and thinking over the past few days. We've been working together, along with Paulie Sabol, Donna Fox, Mandy Fintel, and several others this summer, building up a very large scale internet business. Throughout that, Matt and I have been working on our own projects and lately.. We've been trying to figure out what we're going to work on together. Up till now, we've sorta just "included" each other in everything we've done. I've done well in several unique niches with websites I've created, one of them breaking $100-a-day just yesterday. Matt's done very well in a few of his own niches, building minisites and content networks that are already beginning to have some serious power in the search engines. (Check out MattGeri.com for info on one of his latest projects ;). As we've built our miniature web empires up, we've sorta just "assumed" that we'd be involved in everything the other did. You see, on top of being business partners, Matt and I really are good friends. A lot of people could mistake us for brothers if it weren't for his accent ;). To give some of you a bit of background, Matt and I first met just over a year ago, working as interns. Matt lived in Ireland and I lived in California. We flew out to Northwest Indiana, USA and spent the summer of 2004 watching our lives change right before our eyes. Its an experience that'll stick with us for the rest of our lives. So, as an affect of our friendship, we do a lot of things together. We've built websites together, brainstormed togethered, planned together, and helped each other on all sorts of projects, big and small. Now we're beginning to move into the "big time". Each of us are finally getting closer and closer to achieving financial freedom. It's at this point that we have to decide.. What happens next? Matt and I have a serious challenge to overcome.. We have a hard time finishing the things we start. We've both come up with brilliant ideas, we've worked them out, figured out the details, done our research, and we've known that they were solid ideas.. then, nothing happened! Something or another would come up in our lives and pull us away. Its been frustrating for both of us, to say the least. We know its our own responsibilities as well.. We've lacked a lot of the self discipline vital to becoming successful entrepreneurs. We're getting there, that's without a question, the road along the way has just sure been a long one ;). So, here's where we're at.. Matt and I are finally recognizing how different we are from each other and realizing that those very differences are some of our greatest strengths! Those differences are a very strong part of what has made working together so fun and powerful for us in the past. One of the challenges through our differences has been recognizing and respecting each other's needs. This is a VERY important part of building a successful partnership.. When you're working with someone who's different, who understands things different, acts on things differently, and sees things differently, you have to learn to embrace those differences and make the most of them! One of the things I really struggled with was having Matt's approval on things. I'd bust out a 5 page article on something and send it his way.. If he didn't care for the "concept", I'd get discouraged and trash it! I had lost site of how different we were and instead of realizing that we could both be right, I felt that only one of us could. Matt's struggled with the same thing. We both really are quite sensitive ;). So, we've finally recognized that.. We're learning not to let people's approval or disapproval ultimately affect the things we do. We will NEVER be able to make everyone happy and it'll burn us out if we try. As to our future together.. Matt and I are going to focus on building up our own niches and markets and.. as projects come along, work on big projects together. There are just way to many advantages to having a partner and its something we both really value and enjoy.. I mean, when it comes down to it, its really about having someone to play basketball with when it's time for a break ;). That's all I've got for now! -Jonathan Wold P.S. Stumbled across a cool blog today, check out Chris Pian. He's getting ready to "go pro" with internet business and looks like it'll be a fun experience to keep track of.

Karate Kid and Basketball

2005-07-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today we finished a set of movie "assignments", winding up with The Karate Kid after finishing off Finding Forrester, and Pay it Forward. Matt, Mandy, and I were asked to compare and contrast the mentor/mentee relationships in each of the films. They were all really good films.. Finding Forrester was probably my favorite of the 3, partly because of all the basketball!.. Hehee.. One of the main things that I noticed in each of the films was the way the relationship between the mentor and the student was established. The mentor would always begin by helping out in some way. In The Karate Kid Mr. Myagi began the relationship by fixing the boy's bike. In Finding Forrester, Mr. Forrester began the relationship by helping the young boy with his writing. After that, each of the students had to prove that they were willing to be taught and that they were willing to put the required effort in. "Wax on. Wax off. Up. Down".. If you haven't seen The Karate Kid, you've gotta see it ;). AND then I had a lot of fun playing Basketball! Matt had a good time whipping my butt in round two ;). It was a lot of fun! Alright.. everyone else is sleeping.. I had a very powerful point to make about mentors, but it's gonna have to wait.. *smiles*.. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold P.S. Tomorrow we're heading up to Chicago to meet Ben Fitts, I'm looking forward to it!

Late At Night

2005-07-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

'Twas a very blessed Sabbath afternoon for me :). Things are going well! Its very late at night and tomorrow is a big day, yet 'cuz I can, I'm posting anyway ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

One Year Anniversary

2005-07-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

Its been exactly one year to the day since I had a haircut! I told mom over the phone this evening and she sorta went quiet.. *smiles*.. Poor mom. Getting ready to have a baby and now she has to think about how badly her son needs a haircut.. hehe. I'm still not sure what to do.. I really like the idea of growing it out and donating my hair to "Locks of Love" or something similiar, yet I don't know if I could hold out long enough for my hair to be useable. I also don't even really LIKE short hair.. what to do.. what to do ;). Well, you guys have an incredibly blessed weekend! Take care and talk to ya soon! -Jonathan Wold

Rough Day

2005-07-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those? Things just don't seem to work out for you? I know how ya feel ;). I've had a lot of those.. *smiles*.. I can't complain though. I have awesome friends and family.. I have a girlfriend who supports me through everything and puts up with me, even when I'm a real pain ;). Me? A pain? Yup.. only on special occasions though ;). Otherwise things have been going well. Had a brief phone conversation with my good friend Josiah Mackenzie this afternoon.. He had a domain name for sale which I found and called him about.. He'd never heard my phone before though, so it took him a bit by surprise ;). He's a really nice young man.. Get to know him as you have the chance, he's gonna be one really successful entrepreneur as time goes by. And that's JUST about that! I ran a post on Youthcove about a bunch of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. Check it out here: http://www.youthcove.com/community/showthread.php?t=2280 Its an excerp from my "Basics of Niche Marketing" article :). Alright guys, have an awesome night! -Jonathan Wold P.S. My good friend Mandy Fintel started up a blog recently. Its a great read, to the point and powerful. Go check it out and make SURE you say hi!

Perseverence, Self-Discipline, And Bamboo

2005-07-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

There's an amazing bamboo plant called the Moso that grows in China and the far east. After the Moso is planted, no visible growth occurs for up to five years - even under ideal conditions! Then, as if by magic, this little guys rocks out of the ground at the rate of nearly two and a half feet per day, reaching a full height of ninety feet within six weeks! But there is no magic. The Moso's rapid growth is due to the miles of roots it develops during those first five years, five years of getting ready for six weeks of success. Ya know, there's a heck of a lot we can learn from that little plant. Imagine it, years go by and this scrawny seedling watches as all the other plants sprout and grow towards the sky. Years go by and on the surface, nothing seems to be happening. Yet its there, growing patiently and slowly, planning, preparing, and persevering. Thankfully, we don't have to hang out in the ground for five years before we can start taking off for the sky. Yet, like that plant, there is a lot of behind the scenes work involved before we can truly soar. We have to develop ourselves, we have to build a strong sense of self-discipline, and we have to keep going on through all the challenges around us, no matter what. Bamboo is awesome ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Shopping, Haircuts, Sore Backs, and Internet Marketing

2005-07-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

Now that's a title my friends. And today was certainly a day. Not to say that yesterday wasn't a day as well, but today was DEFINITELY a day. It could have been because I only had one hour of sleep last night. Paulie headed off to Las Vegas to attend a seminar and I went with him to the bus stop around 4:30 in the morning so that I could take the car (ford explorer, to be exact) back to the house. Trick was I didn't get to bed till 3 ;). Ah well, no regrets! *smiles*.. So I get back and decide to go ahead and stay up. Finally, Matt wakes up.. We decide to go running! And so there we are, just around 7 AM, two boys in pretty sad shape, huffing and puffing their way over the paved obstacle course which makes the mile loop around our neighborhood. Yup, we survived. My legs were burning. Our friend Joey came on by in the afternoon. We gathered around the family table and busted out a 4-way game of TienLen (13) and then Joey taught us how to play Spades. It was a lot of fun.. I schooled 'em all at 13 and then Matt and Mandy pulled a nice 2 in a row win over Joey and I at spades. It was quite fun! And then it was off to town to run some errands :). Not too much exciting stuff there.. I bought a new shirt and some shampoo! Matt bought.. ahh yess.. Matt bought some clippers ;). And not just ANY clippers, he bought some electric clippers. So, we come home.. and its haircut time! Go check out the results over on Matt Geri's blog ;). Then we went outside to play some basketball.. We've both gotten QUITE good! I'm proud of ourselves! 20 minutes later found us inside.. slashing at each other with wet shirts :P.. ... ouch.. Another 10 minutes and a bunch of bright red marks later, we decided to call a truce. No one ever really wins those.. ah well ;). OH yes.. and, of course.. who can forget internet marketing! I finally decided to call it a night on my article, I've finished up the first 4 pages and I'm quite happy with how its going :). Yeah, I'm working on an article.. the working title so far is - "The Secrets of Niche Marketing: How to Find Your Own Market".. Not impressed with it yet, we'll see what I can do ;). Looking forward to putting that out tomorrow! I've got a bunch of stuff to wrap up in the morning, including work for the summer project, then we're going to head to town and pick up some movies to complete an "assignment" Paulie has given us, and THEN we're off to.. The Beach!! We'll get some pictures if possible ;). Alright World, Off I go! Have an incredible evening! -Jonathan Wold

The Young Man And The Butterfly

2005-07-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

A young man is out walking in the woods. A movement nearby catches his attention. He looks over and, unsure of what he sees, moves closer. There he finds the cacoon of a butterfly. At the tip of the cacoon is a small opening. He watches as the transformed caterpillar inside struggles to crawl free. Several hours pass as the young man continues watching. The caterpillar inside seems to have given up. The small opening at the end of its cacoon remains the same size, keeping him trapped within. The young man, though fascinated by the caterpillar's effort, begins to grow tired of waiting. He fears that the small bug has lost its strength and given up. He decides to help him out. Carefully, he takes his pocket knife and ever so gently cuts off a small piece of the cacoon, enlarging the opening at its end. A few moments pass. The caterpillar doesn't seem to recognize the chance for freedom. Then, just as it had stopped, it began its struggle once again, this time making its way out with ease. It crawls its way out onto the cacoon and the young man watches, excited and waiting for the new butterfly to take flight. But something's wrong. He looks in horror at the creature before him. Its body is swollen. The wings, designed to carry him off into the sky, lay limp and lifeless and its side, underdeveloped and useless. He looks on, shocked, as the realization slowly hits him. The helpless butterfly will never fly. Butterfly's have an amazing characteristic in their design. You see, what the young boy didn't know is that the struggle he witnessed is part of the process each caterpillar must go there. When they begin to emerge, they are fat, undeveloped, and unfit to fly. The struggle between them and breaking free is what forms them, what shapes them. Without that struggle, they would forever be earthbound. We are a lot like those butterflies. The struggles in life are what shape us. The struggles in life are what prepare us for what's ahead. The struggles are what give us strength, they're what teach us to overcome all that life may throw our way. They are what teach us to pick ourselves up from the ground and fly. With each struggle, we must remember too, like that butterfly, never give up. And, lets also keep in mind that, as tempting as it may be to get in and "help" someone, sometimes what we think might help could actually end up hurting. We want to make sure we are never responsible for robbing someone of their wings. Goodnight World :) -Jonathan Wold

Brainstorm Into The Night

2005-07-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

It all started out innocently enough. We woke up casually around 10.. Or rather I woke up and my doing so forced the rest of the poor sleepers into an "early" existance. Matt rolled over in bed, gave me a somewhat strange stare that could have been interpreted as not-so-very-friendly, and then attempted to go back to sleep. Didn't work ;). Mandy emerged from her room not long after, looking a bit sleepy and mentioning something about my classical music selections for the morning. Actually she looked quite sleepy.. I found out not long ago that she needs about 9-10 hours to function sanely. Well.. She's only had that once or twice if at all during her stay here these past 2 weeks.. soo.. by that you can concluuudee.. *innocent smile*.. just kidding ;). Alright, so its noon now.. and we're hungry. We hit the road heading towards Paulie and the prize of the dayyy.. The Chinese Buffet! Once there, our stomachs finally stop singing out of tune and the four of us, Paulie having joined us for lunch, sit down at our spot in front of the restaraunt. Then, it was time for a lesson! One of the cool things that Paulie does is use meal times to teach lessons and concepts.. all sorts of stuff. Paulie busted out a few hundred pennies and used them to illustrate two types of systems. Using a dice, we started with a stack of pennies at one end of the table that had to make its way through 6 processes (steps) to reach its goal. We had about a hundred pennies to move and each roll of the die represented the movement of a corresponding number of pennies through each of the processes in our assembly line. Given that its almost 3 in the morning, I'm going to shortcut and skip straight to the result. Paulie used his illustration to show the advantage of parallel processing versus straigth up "one at a time".. And he also illustrated the affect of bottlenecks on a process, including ways to clear them up. A particularly strong example is our project here this summer. We're creating over 400 websites.. If we were to create each one one at a time, that would take an insane amount of time and creates all SORTS of issues and bottlenecks. So instead, we parallel processed. First, we had research done for all the sites. Then, we had templates and banners made for each one.. Finally, we had them assembled and optimized. Any bottlenecks that we had were simply moved to the front of the assembly and we would work around it. This lets us not only work efficiently, but sanely. We were able to isolate many small steps and, in a lot of cases, eliminate them from the final process. So yeah, it was really cool :). Paulie's really good at using real life examples and, of course, providing illustrations. He's got skillz ;). Next, we headed over to Paulie's to meet with another partner in the project. We all, with the exception of Matt who's saving his voice for a solo performance (hehehe), sang Karaoke for a few hours while Paulie was on the phone. Afterwards, we got together for a brainstorm session which lasted 5-7 hours or so till 'bout 1 in the morning. It actually went VERY well and we all have a much clearer understanding of the project as a whole. Alright.. with that said.. Tomorrow is a big day and I'm QUITE ready for bed. I'm way behind in the things that I really need to "get done", but it'll just have to wait. Tomorrow we are going fishing to celebrate a milestone in the project. I've only gone fishing twice in my life so this should be interesting ;). Alright guys.. I'm off! Have an awesome day! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Jonathan's Hair Products

2005-07-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

Click Here To Browse Jonathan Product Looking for Jonathan Hair Product? Click the link above to find out more and get your own! Search engines are really something else.. I just checked my stats and I found that I've had 16 people visit my site looking for.. of all things.. "Jonathan Hair Products". Last I checked I didn't have any.. I DO have a lot of hair though ;). Among the other top referrers are.. "Anna Nalick".. "Jonathan Beverly Hills".. "Flame Text".. and.. last but definitely not least, "Girls Gone Wold". Other interesting draws of traffic are: miss wold 2005 - Hmm.. this is one of those ones where they must be obviously disappointed to find me. One look at my picture and they are clearly on the wrong site ;). steps to becoming an entrepreneur - Ahh.. now ya know? That's more like it. Not sure if they found what they were looking for but maybe that's because I haven't figured out all the steps myself yet ;). economic strategy game villager - Ok.. this one lost me. The first two words, I could sorta relate too.. The last two? Naw, not working with me.. Anyone else figure this out? taking things seriously - Hmm.. Well that's something I've definitely done and said before. I wonder what they were looking for.. the story of the starfish - That's one of my more recent posts ;). It was an awesome story I heard not long ago and just had to retell it. jonathan hair blog - Hmm.. I really didn't think this blog was about my hair. That'd be pretty sad ;). Perhaps they were looking for a guy with the last NAME of "hair".. Wow, that'd be rough. becoming an awesome girlfriend - Alright now.. last I checked I wasn't an expert on becoming an awesome girlfriend. Certainly no one has ever told me that I'm an awesome girlfriend.. I sure hope nobody does :P. vegeterianism - I wrote an essay on Vegetarianism once :). I am a vegetarian, incase you guys hadn't guessed ;). weird guy singing - Hey now.. come on. Just because I enjoy singing.. effects of sleeping long hours - Ok, this is one I'm definitely not familiar with. I do understand the effects of NOT sleeping long hours quite well though.. Perhaps Matt knows about this one ;).. And finally, I get hits for good friends of mine, including: josiah mackenzie matt geri adam gaynor donna fox And I do believe that's that! The rest is just really weird ;). How did you find my site? Yeah.. you ;). Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Visit from my brothers :)

2005-07-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

And so suddenly out of nowhere.. my little brothers show up! They live about 3 hours south of here and needed to return something to Costco. With mom just about pregnant and my stepdad staying with her, they needed an "adult" to go to Costco with them so they could get in. We got together, spent a bit of time shopping, stopped at another store to meet a friend of mine, and then wound our way back to the apartment. We've been having a LOT of fun, playing TienLen (13) into the night.. its awesome ;). Tomorrow is going to be a rather serious work day to make up for all the fun we've been having.. hehe.. I've decided to devote an hour of every week day to Youthcove, starting with my hour this afternoon. Its something that is very important to me and deserves my attention.. Youthcove has so many incredible young people with so much potential, the very least I can do is spend time with them.. I get so much from the community, I get inspiration, motivation, ideas, and best of all, friends. Its something I wouldn't trade for anything and something that deserves my time. So, off I go to finish the night off with my friends and family, and then off to a big work day tomorrow! Goodnight World! -Jonathan

Back from Chicago!

2005-07-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

(Had some posting trouble so this wound up not showing till the next morning).. Been out and about like crazy for the past few days, starting with an event Matt, myself, and the gang attended on Thursday all the way to a trip to Navy Pier this afternoon. I've been learning a lot and had a LOT of fun! Matt and I met a number of really cool people at the event on Thursday/Friday. We went to the "Wealth Retreat" hosted by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen. It was awesome.. I learnt a LOT about sales just by watching them in action. Alright.. I'm being warned that it's way past bedtime.. 'dern it! I've got lots of stuff to say though!.. Alright, alright.. Well tomorrow better be goood then.. ..Yeah.. being up at 1 does crazy stuff to you :). I'm quite ready to get my "sane" sleep schedule back now. Indeed.. quite ready.. Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold Highlight of my day: Visiting our good friends Elmie and Patrick in Chicago, along with Donna and Joey. It was awesome! :)

Quick Update and Happy Late 4th!

2005-07-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Super quick update before I head off to bed! Things are going VERY well over here. Mandy, the newest intern, arrived yesterday and things are off to a fast start. She's really cool and adds a very interesting element to the whole mix. Its kinda weird having a girl around.. it means Matt and I have to be a bit nicer :P.. She's a very bright young lady and its going to be cool having all of us working together as a team. Matt and I are working on a piece together about finding niches. I've had a lot of people ask me over the past few days about how to find a niche for internet marketing. Of course there is a wide variety of internet marketing, yet through that there are still some solid things that you can learn and master that will REALLY make a difference. So we're working on that and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you guys as we wrap it up over the next few days. And of course I'll be wanting a LOT of feedback ;). Alright, off to bed I go! Goodnight World! -Jonathan Wold

Story of the Starfish

2005-07-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

I heard a wonderful story earlier today and it went something like this: An older gentlemen woke early, as he often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day. As he moved through the misty along the shorline, his eyes caught a motion off in the distance. As he drew closer, he saw a small boy, running back and forth along the beach, flailing his arms and dancing. As he came even closer, he realized that the small was not dancing, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. He asked the boy the purpose of the effort. "The tide washed the starfish onto the beach and they can't get back to the water by themselves!" the boy replied. "When the sun rises, they'll die, unless I can get them back to the sea." The older man surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond his sight, he saw starfish littered alonge the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the small boy’s plan seemed clear to him and he countered, "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference." He paused a moment to consider the older man's words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as he could out into the ocean. Turning back to the older man he smiled briefly and said, "I made a difference to that one." The older man left the small boy and went home, deep in thought of what he had said. Before long, he returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea. Goodnight World! :) -Jonathan Wold

I'm.. so.. tired..

2005-07-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

Actually.. I'm dog tired.. I can barely think :P. Matt and I have been working our butts off and WOW has it been a long week. Its been long, yet it seems to have only lasted a few days. We've got a LOT of stuff done. So.. I'm off for the weekend. Mom still hasn't had the baby so I'm holding off from going down till I'm sure the baby's coming ;). So I'm going to head over to my friends house and off to church tomorrow. Then back to the ground running I go. Matt and I have a LOT to do. Its been an awesome week! I'm getting ready to buy a brand new duffel bag.. I'm excited about it! I'll be showing you guys as soon as its ordered ;). Alright.. off I go. Have an awesome weekend! -Jonathan Wold