After that post, one of the companies I listed came back to my blog and posted a whole post about them.

That company is Glamping Hub and they're back on the blog today! If you don't know much about them, think of them like an AirB&B for glamping locations. Here, check out the previous post: Glamping Hub an Insider’s Look at the New Way to Find Outdoor Adventures.

I like them because some of their locations look awesome and because you can make money if you have a property that could be used for camping, or erm, rather, glamping.

But I really like them because they seem to really want to help the property hosts succeed, they're constantly improving and listening to feedback and just recently they revamped their whole dashboard.

If you’re looking to explore the great outdoors and cross glamping off your 2019 bucket list, Glamping Hub is the place for you. With over 34,000 unique accommodations in over 120 countries, Glamping Hub offers a portal of glamping sites across the globe, from which travelers can tailor their nature experience.

Whether you’re looking to get lost in the branches of California’s redwoods from the comfort of a tree house or spend your days horseback riding through Yellowstone National Park while staying in a safari tent, there are thousands of experiences available for each and every type of glamper.

Glamping Hub has begun 2019 with one of its most exciting developments yet—a brand new version of our Host Dashboard.

The new dashboard to be released soon, is where all Glamping Hub hosts can interact with the support team; update their listings’ features, fees, text, and photos.

The dashboard is where hosts can also manage their bookings, calendars, and rates; it provides opportunities to manage their properties unlike ever before.

Listing maintenance for hosts is also much easier and quicker in the new dashboard, thanks to the usability of its new fresh design.

Here is a breakdown of all the new features and improvements:

1 Smart Calendar

Glamping Hub’s host calendar system has been updated to be more user-friendly and allows hosts to easily update their availability. The display has also been modified and simplified to work for both the desktop and mobile phone versions.

2 New Inbox

The creation of a new general inbox will allow guest messages to be received in an organized fashion and make new inquiries appearance more clear.

3 Notifications

All host notification emails have been completely redesigned. This new feature will give hosts clear and easy to receive details about their booking requests, confirmations, upcoming bookings, cancellations, and any important messages from Glamping Hub and guests.

4 Help Center

This new space will allow hosts to quickly search for answers regarding their new dashboard. For any questions hosts need immediate answers to, they can simply search in the Help Center or contact the direct support line within their dashboard.

5 Intuitive Design

The new dashboard has been designed to be much more intuitive in order to make it easier and more clear for hosts to navigate and use.

For more information on how to list with Glamping Hub and plan your next one-of-a-kind glamping getaway, please visit Glamping Hub.

The post Improved Ways to Make Money with Your Glamping Hub Listing appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

During the cruise, we had a great time learning about all the points of interest around the bay. We also got to see some of the NAVY ships stationed there alongside with some from our partner countries.

Really interesting stuff. I highly recommend you take a tour with them. The narration is informative and funny too.

We took the 2-hour bay cruise and it was great.

Although it was a gift for us, For the price, it's worth it. The two-hour cruise ends up being about 2 hours and 15 or 20 minutes because they go back after the 1st hour to drop off some passengers that are on the 1-hour tour and pick up new passengers to go for another 1-hour tour.

That was the only turnoff, but I guess it's necessary since the 2-hour cruise may not be for everyone so they split it into two 1-hour cruises, one that goes "north" and one goes "south."

The ship we went on has 3 levels, I think it's called the Spirit of San Diego. I think the top level provides the most scenic experience but there is no cover from the weather if it's sunny, windy or rainy.

It was sunny and windy when I went so we stayed on the 2nd level. They have a lot of tables so you should be able to find a place to sit with your party. But you can explore the ship throughout the cruise.

They have a pay as you go bar where you'll find some wine and beer as well as simple snacks.

Nothing to write home about, but the pricing is right. I wish they served something a little more elaborate but can't really complain and you can bring your own food if you want (I'm pretty sure).

After we got settled in, we left the docks and headed for the tour. All was great and the captain and crew narrate, pointing out all the various points of interest as you cruise along the bay.

It's fun and was worth it, especially with all the historical tidbits exploring the deep and complex culture of the area.

Here's the video, it's short and just the highlights of the cruise. I recommend it if you've never been. I hear they have evening dinner cruises as well, so I might try that another time.

Photos from the day aboard Flagship Cruises' Spirit of San Diego.

Flagship Cruises 2-hour San Diego Bay Cruise

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The post Cruising Around the San Diego Bay appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

In case you're not familiar with San Diego, it is basically the biggest and south-westernmost city in the US, and it's really close to the Mexican border.

It's a beautiful city, also coincidentally it's home to some of the biggest Internet marketers and some great marketing conferences and events like Social Media Marketing World (SMMW19) and Traffic & Conversion Summit (T&C). I'm hoping that 10x Secrets comes to San Diego soon too, but that may just be wishful thinking.

While in San Diego, I enjoyed time with my wife quite a bit while the kids spent time with their aunt so we didn't have to worry about the kids for a whole weekend. Believe me, for parents this is a great relief!

We did some hiking and sightseeing, so I thought I'd share some of that with you.

On the first day, we headed to the Cabrillo National Park and followed up with a hike on the Bayside trail which I highly recommend if you're visiting San Diego. The area is really nice, it has amazing views of the bay, the city and it's in a historical area.

Here's the short video of the Bayside Trail hike:

Here are a few pictures from the Cabrillo National Monument & the Bayside hike we did.

Cabrillo National Monument and Bayside Hike

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The post Visiting the Cabrillo National Park and Bayside Hiking Trail appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I was a bit apprehensive about eating a pig's head at first, but after watching a recent video about The Recess Room from Food Insider, I thought it would be a good dish to try so four of us got together for an evening of indulgence.

I'll start the review as simply as I can and tell you that the whole experience was amazing, every dish we tried was fantastic and the star of the show, the pig's head was out of this world.

The Recess Room

The Recess Room self-describes their offerings as modern American tapas with homegrown ingredients from the onsite garden alongside 24 craft beers on tap with a strong emphasis on local breweries, a wine selection highlighting the California Coast, premium whiskeys, and handcrafted cocktails.

That's pretty accurate but, also humble. The Recess Room is located on Brookhurst, in an unlikely location more suitable for a fast food joint, or the neighborhood's dry cleaners.

No amount of description will express the feeling when get when you're in the place. When you first walk into the restaurant, it's similar to any hip spot in the Orange County area, but once you enter the main seating area near the bar, it all changes.

There is an inviting, soft glow pouring from the lighted bar and soft light fixtures alongside high tables. Beyond you'll find tables more suitable for a romantic dinner.

You imagine it should be in a fancy mall like Fashion Island or South Coast Plaza, but it is just in a small strip mall and actually a very underrated area. Close to the freeways and the beach, this location is easy to get to so you better make your way out there soon.

In simple words, it's a cool place. It has the comfort elements that a local neighborhood bar where you can hang out with your friends for a beer after work, but it also offers the sophistication needed to bring a date for dinner.

The food is on par with the decor and ambiance and it didn't disappoint. If I haven't made it clear yet, you have to go try The Recess Room.

Now, let's get into the food.

To start, we ordered Tom yum fries and popcorn shrimp, which I believe are only available during happy hour. The popcorn shrimp was sweet and scrumptious and as good as any that I've tried before.

The fries, on the other hand, were UH-MAzing.

I can't overstate this, these are probably the best non-traditional fries I've ever had, maybe the best fries ever. They're fries, you think, just fries, right? And they may be just fries, but they give the pig's head a run for its money and they were the best dish we tried besides the pig's head.

I hope they keep these on the menu forever. I would go back there just for the fries.

Talking to Victor Nguyen

I happen to know one of the owners so he came by to visit for a bit and brought along a slew of other appetizers that were just as good as the fries and popcorn. He also gave us a short interview, so you can see that in the video.

Victor also talked about the inspiration for the restaurant. It had been a long time dream of his and his childhood friends so they finally got together recently and opened up shop a couple years back.

They wanted the place to be a fun, inviting with a sprinkle of nostalgia back to the "good old days" of recess during school time.

This is reflected in the decor, the ceiling, for example, resembles a basketball court floor because they grew up playing ball, the food has traces of the comfort food they ate growing up and there are tons of board games up front that bring back childhood memories.

But back to the food

The smoked mushroom dish was unique, a medley of maitake, bunashimeji and oyster mushrooms mixed with lardo (a bit like pork salami/bacon) topped with crunchy almonds. A must for mushroom lovers.

We followed that with cheesy corn and a longaniza empanada, both of which were quite the elevated bar food.

And as a bit of a prologue to the pig's head, we also got the fried chicken skins which were out of the ordinary. Crunchy and flavorful, they are served with homemade ranch and powdered with a flavor that seemed so familiar but we couldn't quite put our finger on it.

Turns out when we talked to Victor Nguyen, he said that they basically reversed engineered the flavoring that comes with Maruchan noodles, yeah those cup-o-noodles that are part of every college kid's coming of age. Another little touch to make this a heaven for nostalgic comfort food.

The Kurobuta Pig's Head

After a number of beers and a round of whiskey shots with Victor, the start of the show arrived. The Pig's Head. By the way, the videos show you our whole adventure so if this the review is TL;DR for you, hit play in the next video.

Priced at $58, The pig's head is not the most extravagant item on the menu, they also serve a $110 Tomahawk steak, but the pig's head is huge.

I know it seems obvious but the pictures and videos available don't really convey how large the butcher block and the half head really are.

As soon as it arrived, the whole surrounding area became filled with a rich and delicious aroma reminiscent of freshly cooked bacon, carnitas, and chicharron. I was lucky to have the first bite and it was for lack of a better word, amazing.

The head is prepared much like carnitas, confit style. I didn't really know what that meant until I started writing this review.

I just thought that was a fancy way of saying "deep-fried," but confit, in fact, means "cooked in its own fat" so basically the pig's head is cooked slow, deep-fried in pig's fat.

The cooking method yields a super crispy skin, while the inside is soft and tender. Once it's a little bit cool to the touch, you can just cut a piece off, or rather just kind of tear a piece off, then you can eat it by making a lettuce wrap of sorts, topped with pickled daikon and carrots and cilantro, then drizzle some of the tofu-kimchi aioli or sweet-and-spicy sauce served alongside.

I think that's technically ssam style, or at least inspired from bossam. The other way you can eat it is by using wrapping the pork in the roti bread that is served with it.

Of course, you can also just take a chunk and eat it straight up. No matter which way you decide to dig in, you'll love it. We all did.

If you want to have a try at this dish, make sure you call ahead. They suggest 48-hour notice so they don't run out. You'll see a few reviews on Yelp mentioning how they ran out of it during busy nights.

When you order the dish, after it's presented you have the option of diving in hands first like we did, or they can take it to the back and separate all the meat for you and bring it back ready to eat. You decide. Obviously, the first option is the most fun, but it can be messy.

We wrapped up the night with the Fluffernutter, another decadent dish that just buttoned up the night in perfect harmony. Needless to say, this is no a place where you come concerned about your caloric intake. You come here to enjoy great drinks and amazing food inspired from what can only be described as Southern California culture.

In Conclusion

I do have to say that this wouldn't be for the squeamish. If you aren't used to seeing the less used parts of the animal served or prepared, this is probably not for you. But if you have had lechon, whether Spanish, Hawaiian, Philipino or another style, and you liked it... then this will be right up your alley.

The whole experience was unique and even though you haven't seen The Recess Room written about too much in foodie blogs, or magazines, you will soon. I'm sure of it. It's only about two years old and it is most likely only going to grow in popularity over the next few years.

If the Pig's Head doesn't attract you, the large selection of whiskeys might, along with some really creative cocktails and craft beers on tap.

All in all, I give this place a five out of five.

I only had my phone with me and like I mentioned, the place is lit softly so it was dark. My photos aren't that great, so I borrowed some of the photos from my friend John, and you can see some of the dishes they serve after our photos, directly from their Instagram.

The Recess Room Photos

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https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc86xVXlpM5/?taken-by=therecessroom

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcDNZDalVES/?taken-by=therecessroom

The post Foodie Review: The Pig’s Head at The Recess Room appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I think this is an interesting topic to discuss because many people look down on the consumption of animals.

So what does this have to do with Online marketing? Well, the pig's head is a brilliant piece of marketing. I'll explain in a minute.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm going back to the roots of this blog a little bit by sharing more personal updates and food updates like I used to. This is also part of me, and this is my blog, about me, about my life but also, I can easily connect it to the Internet marketing experience.

The pig's head attracted the attention of Food Insider and they recently did a feature on location. You can see it in my other blog post, linked below.

If you look at their Instagram, everything looks appetizing and inviting and when you come across a picture of the pig's head, whether you love it or hate it, you stop to look at it.

The Pig's Head Viral Marketing

It is worth mentioning that the pig's head at The Recess Room is a brilliant dish for viral marketing. It's not the only restaurant that offers such a unique item, but it's one of the few in the area.

I found another place in Manhattan beach that may offer it, although it's not on the menu on their website, and I think there's another place in San Diego that offers their own version.

But back to the Recess Room.

If you go to eat there, you'll want to eat the pig's head. Because it's such a big item, you'll need a couple of friends to go with you. And you'll probably end up ordering a lot more than just the pig's head.

Then you'll be taking pictures and posting them on Instagram and Facebook. We all did. I even wrote a full review, and my friend John made a great video about the experience.

You can see everything we ordered in this other blog post, a review of the pig's head at The Recess Room.

Driving With Oscar Vlog

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

We also had people come by just to look at the dish and ask us how it was. You can't pay for that kind of marketing. Not even with "influencer marketing."

Apparently, there were also some protestors outside the restaurant just a few weeks before we went there.

They have the right to protest, and their cause is noble, but their anger is misdirected. But as far as marketing goes, and as the adage goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The post Vegetarians Vegans & Meat Eaters: Vlog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I kept finding more and more to add to the list, so it grew to what it is now.

Almost seven hours, 52 revisions and just over 5400 words later, I wrapped up this post.

It is by far, the longest blog post I've written for my blog. I hope you enjoy it and find some useful tips that will help you make money online.

Before I get into it, I have to remind you that making money online is real, anybody can do it. And with the "gig" economy or "sharing economy," the notion of a regular job is eroding even more.

You just have to get started.

The options and possibilities are endless, and once you get started the limit of how much you can make depends on your efforts, the niche you pick, and a few other things, but it's mostly up to you.

The biggest limit will be your own mindset and belief.

You have to believe you can do this, you have to. If you're cynical about it, you may never crack the nut. If you're negative, you will see negative results.

And without further ado, here's the list of 37 ways to make extra money online and offline. There is technically a little bit over 40, but you'll see why I didn't count them all. Enjoy, please share if you find it useful and you think others will benefit from it.

Oh yeah, and I'd love to hear any feedback you have, whether it is about the post itself or any of the methods I described.

Ok, enjoy these ways to make money online & offline.

1 - Found money

The reason this post was inspired is that a family member reminded me of the "unpaid money" you can find from the government. I know this sounds fishy right off the bat, and it may not really count,  but bear with me. This could jumpstart your whole making money online adventure!

Someone had told me about this years ago, but I totally forgot about it. Then just recently another family member reminded me to check again and sure enough. I had some money waiting for me.

Apparently, when certain financial events happen with companies, they may have to pay or give some money to the state to "hold" for you until you claim it.

I checked the unclaimed property for California website and I had a little over $90 waiting to be claimed. I claimed them and about a month later they sent me 5 separate checks authorized by the Controller of California, Unclaimed Property Division.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Right!?

Well, it's just $97.29 and that isn't a lot, but it could easily pay for a domain and hosting for an entire year and maybe even the first couple months or more of email service! Think of the possibilities. You could start a business with that!

You could literally start a business on a website that could bring you anything from some extra spending money for the weekend to a full replacement of your income.

Instead of giving you a link for each state, here's the official website, a good location to start your search depending on where you live. There are other types of searches you can make as well so look around on this page: Unclaimed Money from the U.S. Government

2 - Start a blog!

I put this at the top of the list because I cover this all the time with videos and blog posts and tweets, it's how I make most of my money online. This blog, the one you're reading, makes me money.

Still today and for the foreseeable future, blogging will be around. And I consider it one of the best ways to increase your income.

At the very least, you should have a blog to brand yourself, document special events, news, and opinions. That could be a personal blog.

At best, financially speaking, a blog could make you a millionaire. It's a small step to go from a personal blog to a money making blog. But both can make you good money.

But isn't blogging dead?

Don't listen to the naysayers, they've been saying "blogging is dead" since 2005. Sure, blogging has evolved, and it will continue to evolve for the next decade and beyond.

We see a lot more integration with video and audio, and surely trends in culture an technology affect how blogs get produced. Blog creation, distribution, and consumption will simply adopt new technologies and fit the current trends, but the process of sharing thoughts, news, and other types of information will be around for a while.

If you think of a blog as a way to share any type of information, with people interested in the topic, whether the information is free or behind a payment system, that's a blog.

Currently, the most popular platform for a blog is WordPress and requires pretty much the same stuff it has used for the past 15-20 years. A web host, a domain and the blog engine (WordPress). Next year it may require something else and we may produce and consume the content differently, but it will be an evolution so it's never too early and never too late, today is just right to start a blog!

So How Do You Make Money With The Blog?

The blog can make money in a few different ways. In fact is one of the most popular ways to make money online.

For example, the easiest is by selling advertising space on the blog. You can sell ad space directly by using a plugin like OIO Publisher, or Adsanity,  or through a network like Adsense or Media.net. With OIO Publisher you can place your own ads, sell ads directly or place network ads easily.

With a list too! Every blog and website must have an email list. This is one of the key components to a blog monetization strategy.

I debated whether to add having an email list as a separate way to make money online because you can actually make a paid newsletter, that's becoming trendy in some spaces and especially with some real niche content.

I will probably talk about this on its own blog post, but whether you use an email list for your blog or for a stand-alone newsletter, Aweber is the place to go to get that started.

Native content is a hot topic right now also. A blog can make money by accepting long-form blog posts as "sponsored posts," aka "native content," or "influencer promotions." Depending on the niche and traffic or influence of the blog, a blog post may be worth $50 to $10,000 to the right company. The better you develop your blog, grow your active audience and prove that you can compel the audience to take action, the more you can charge per post.

The last method I'll mention to help you make money with a blog is to use affiliate marketing like Notagrouch.com blog does.

Almost any time you see links on my blog they may be affiliate links. This means that I could get paid a commission if you purchase something through one of my links. You'll often see a disclaimer like the one in the introduction of this post.

Ok, one more method to make money with your blog... I can think of at least six more right now as I write this, but I'll cover this one more before moving onto the next big section.

The last method I'll mention is by creating a private membership blog or website where you charge access for content using a membership system likeMemberpress orWishlist Member. You can charge per month, per quarter, per year, or any way you want.

Some websites charge per article. You can also separate membership levels into as few or as many as you want or need. This way you can also offer different pricing and value models.

Both of the plugins I mentioned help you manage access, record keeping and payments so the logistics making money from access to your content is fairly easy.

Ok, onto the next section. If you want more ideas for blogging for profit, let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Making Videos

There is a huge trend favoring videos overwritten and other visual content. People love watching videos so this could be a way to make some money. There are a few options that don't involve a lot of production costs, just your expertise, a little bit of elbow grease and actually doing the work.

3 - Youtube monetization

Youtube started as a video sharing platform and now it has become ingrained in our lives. People go to Youtube to learn, explore and be entertained. But you can also produce videos to make money. Years ago, Youtube started their ad-revenue program where you can get a portion of the proceeds generated from advertising on your videos.

You could make anywhere from a few dollars to several thousand dollars each month; some people make over five figures from their Youtube channel. The key is to make videos that are advertising friendly.

To start, get a Youtube channel, plan out what you're going to make videos about and start making them. You could start with your phone's camera and a basic video editor that comes with your computer, Youtube even has its own video editor and a huge collection of music you can use for free.

After you meet the threshold for your channel to become monetizable, you can apply to the program and once approved you'll start making money from each ad that shows in your videos.

You can also make money by hosting live videos and allowing people to use the superchat feature to donate to your channel.

Learn more: Youtube partnership program

4 - Patreon

Patreon is a site that lets you share your videos to a select group of people that have paid to have access. It works in a way that people can pay a membership fee to access the content.

In exchange for the membership payment, people expect content to be unique or special in comparison to regular content you may be posting on Youtube. You can also offer rewards based on each level you create, like special access to Q&A sessions, or one on one calls, or other member perks.

One of the benefits of Patreon is that the memberships tend to be recurring, so whether you charge $1 or $100 per month, as long as you continue producing good content and your audience likes it, you get those payments every month.

Learn more: Patreon

The Sharing Economy

One of the newer phenomenon in recent years is that type of business where an owner, presumably you, has "downtime" on a property and thus this property may be listed on a website or app where it will be cataloged as available for rent, lease or hire. This essentially gives the owner an opportunity to monetize their unused or little-used property.

So if you have a vehicle that is just sitting there while you watch TV, you could make money with it by renting it or driving it.

If you have a piece of land doing nothing, you could make money with it. Same goes for just about anything nowadays so the following section is dedicated to that type of business.

While the marketing materials, commercials and most of the buzz you hear about these companies is geared towards and from a consumer point of view, consider the other perspective.

You may be one of the owners and thus, you can make money by listing your room, boat, RV, or another type of property and in some cases you may be able to make upwards of 6 figures just with stuff you already have!

I broke down the next section into 4 sections, driving someone, delivering food, delivering something or renting something.

Driving Someone

This is sometimes regulated and controversial in some places so check the different apps to see if it's available in your area.

This could be fun and profitable. It seems that "everyone is doing it", but new companies and niches keep coming up.

Take a look at all of the options I found:

5 - Uber

The kind of money you can make with Uber varies from location to location. I know a few friends that can make $300 to $1000 per week, but it all depends on the time and other factors. Buzzfeed has a very interesting article about how much Uber drivers really make right here.

Uber pays referral and performance bonuses too so that could bump your pay quite a bit if you make it a goal to get those bonuses. This is also dependent in your area, if you live in a rural area, service calls may be sparse. Use my Uber link and you'll get $5.00 or a driver bonus.

Learn more: Uber

6 - Lyft

This is the closest competitor to Uber and in some cases, it is better for you as a driver. It is all about economics, right? Well, with Lyft, things may be a little more than just financial. It seems that people like Lyft a lot more than Uber because of Uber's controversial history with some of its leadership and business practices.

You definitely will want to try both Uber and Lyft if you're going to try the driving for hire game. Some people report earning a lot more with one or the other then they focus on that for the most part.

Learn more: Lyft

7 - Wingz

While it has a limited reach, it is growing and growing fast. Wingz is like a normal ride-sharing service but more specialized and ideal for pre-scheduled trips. As a consumer, you can establish an ongoing relationship with your favorite driver. This seems a bit more like a limousine service but a little bit more relaxed. You get to pick which rides you want to accept.

The opportunity to make money here is to offer special features and a friendly service so that frequent travels select you as their driver. Their website seems to indicate that they are focusing on specific niches so check them out if your vehicle is special in any way.

Learn more: Wingz

8 - iCarpool

This is very unique and it's good if you have regular commutes and have empty seats in your car. That's their slogan, in fact: turn your empty seats into cash.

The way it works is that you stop by one of the stop spots and people can join your "carpool" and then you go about your business to your destination. You'll stop at another designated area and you're ready to go. No detours, no short rides, no long rides, just the rides you want to provide. The website doesn't explain how much you can make or how much each rider pays but if could be profitable in some areas and certain time zones.

Learn more: iCarpool

9 - HopSkipDrive

This is another niche service and limited to certain areas, but if it fits, it could be a great way to make extra cash. The site talks about how some drivers can make about $30.0 per hour. The focus is on driving kids.

The service is available in San Francisco and the Los Angeles areas, but I believe they'll be expanding to other metro areas soon. This is a highly sought after service by many parents I've talked to.

Learn more: HopSkipDrive

Delivering Food & Beverages

10 - Ubereats

The food version of Uber. Restaurants need food delivered to lazy busy people, you come in and save the day. If you're a restaurant, you can enhance your profit by offering delivery in your restaurant, or you can become a delivery partner and deliver food in exchange for that sweet sweet money.

You'll be paid a pickup fee, a drop off fee, and for mileage from the pickup to the customer. Some people will give you tips as well. Drivers report making between $8.00 and $12.00 per hour.

Learn more: Ubereats

11 - GrubHub

If you are within their service area, GrubHub claims more orders than any other delivery service; they are partners with Seamless. Other benefits include keeping 100% of the tips and making up your own hours. I couldn't find any reliable figures to quote for drivers, but GrubHub claims it's competitive, so I'm guessing that it would be between $8 to $16 per hour or more.

Learn more: GrubHub

12 - Doordash

If you want to make money with Doordash, you'll be a "Dasher" and from the research I've done, you will make anywhere from $10 to over $18 per hour. But this really depends on a lot of factors. One interesting feature available in some areas is a minimum payment. In some locales, you are guaranteed a minimum hourly rate, while other places guarantee a minimum per-delivery payment.

Learn more: Doordash

13 - Postmates

Postmates is another food delivery service that lets you drive for them. Very similar to other services and available in certain locations, drivers report earning between $8 up to $13 per hour. Your mileage may vary (literally and figuratively)

Learn more: Postmates.

14 - Saucey

This is what many party people have been waiting for. Saucey specializes in delivering beer, wine, spirits and the snacks that go with that. Ideal for people that want to have alcoholic beverages delivered to their doorstep. As a driver, this can make you a good amount of money, but reports are mixed. It seems that you could make at least $10 per hour and maybe more, depending on tips and the popularity of the app in your area.

Learn more: Saucey

15 - OrderUp by Groupon

OrderUp was acquired by Groupon about three years ago. Specifically focused on food, OrderUp strives to create a vibrant community of passionate drivers to deliver food to hungry folks. Also known as Groupon to Go, they're quickly expanding and currently serve just over 55 different areas. It wasn't very obvious how much drivers can make by delivering for OrderUp.

Learn more: OrderUp

16 - Caviar

Caviar prides itself in having the other restaurants in their offerings. The ones that usually can't be found on Postmates or GrubHub, the high end restaurants. This is a little bit different in that you can make about $25.00 per hour, and you get paid instantly after each delivery is completed via the Cash app. Areas of service are still limited so you may not have this available, but it is still worth checking.

Learn more: Caviar

Delivering Stuff

17 - Amazon Flex

Amazon Flex is where you can join to deliver packages for Amazon customers. Amazon advertises an hourly rate of $18.00 to $25.00 per hour. Seems pretty straightforward and you can sign up now.

Learn more: Amazon Flex.

18 - Roadie

Roadie is really cool, lets everyone play a legal version of The Transporter. As a driver, you get to chose which gig you want to accept. The gigs are one-way deliveries of random items.

For the consumer, this is ideal when you want to send something across town or across the country. For you as a driver, you can offer your empty space if you have long commutes or plan on taking trips where you have additional cargo space. Some of the more common items you may be transporting include art, construction equipment, furniture, bikes, that sort of stuff.

They have a pretty good app indicating how it works and what's allowed. They report that local gigs pay up to $60 and long-haul gigs pay up to $650. Ideal if you have a truck for example and make regular trips between California and Arizona, or Nevada and same for any other state group of states.

Learn more: Roadie

19 - Deliv

This is a delivery service for businesses. You designate when you're available and you'll be making deliveries for customer orders from places like Best Buy, Macy's, Walmart, and other big retailers as well as other stores. One benefit is that you don't have to deal with people, or food orders, you don't have to run errands either. Just spend your time delivering boxes. Deliv claims you can make up to $22/hour.

Learn more: Deliv

20 - Burro

Burro lets you use your truck to complete deliveries. You help people haul and move stuff and can make a minimum of $40 per delivery while some people making up to $1600 per week. If you don't own a truck, you can sign up as a helper too.

When I checked out the app, it seemed a bit overcomplicated to sign up. You first have to get a "driver token" and you do that by emailing them. Seems like a big obstacle to sign up or use the app, but if you're in an area where it gets popular, you could make a good amount of money.

Learn more: Burro

21 - CitizenShipper

Similar to Roadie, this service lets people post a job and allow various drivers to bid for the job. When I was browsing around I found most of the shipments are across several states and the bids can range from several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. It seems like a great way to make money if you already drive a lot across states and want to make some extra money by taking small detours.

The jobs appear to be scheduled a few days up to a few weeks in advance so you have time to bid for jobs and maybe negotiate the deal. A lot of people seem to use this service to send their pets across the country when they're moving. Your pay may vary from gig to gig, depending on the distance and the type of cargo.

Learn more: CitizenShipper

22 - Instacart

One of the more popular grocery shopping apps. You can join and shop and deliver groceries for people that need help with that. You get paid weekly and normally make from $10 to over $20 per hour depending on times and the area where you live.

Learn more: Instacart

23 - Favor

Limited to various areas and cities in Texas, this service matches you with people that need errands run basically. Pick up groceries, pick up dry cleaning, much like the other delivery services but almost anything goes. It would be killer if it were available outside of Texas too.

Learn more: Favor

24 - Shipt

Shipt is a grocery delivery service. They partner up with big name brands like Target, Meijer, Western Market and H-E-B. You can become a delivery person for them and earn around $22 per hour. While they're in limited areas at the moment, they are expanding every week so they may have a service area close to you soon if they don't already.

Learn more: Shipt

25 - GO Share

This is the solution for people that need quick hauls the same day. Think about that time you bought something at IKEA but couldn't take it home and the IKEA delivery service would take 4 or 5 days to schedule your delivery. GO Share can get your stuff delivered within one hour, or so they claim. As a driver you can make between $47 to $71 per hour plus tips. The service is available in 12 major cities in the US so check it out and see if you can make some extra money with them.

Learn more: GO Share

26 - Burpy

Groceries ordered and delivered in as little time as one hour. You can join Burpy to become a shopper for select stores, mostly in Texas. You'll be delivering from stores like H-E-B, Wholefoods, Costco, Kroger and more. The reach of this app seems to be limited to Texas and I can't find any indication that they're working on expanding but you never know. For the time being, if you're in the great big state then check it out and make some extra money!

Learn more: Burpy

Sharing economy

This is the section where you have something others are willing to rent or lease from you. This provides you as the owner with a new form of income and provides the marketplace with a unique experience or something that wasn't available for consumers at all.

If I think about the longevity of this newer economic model, in human years, I think that the "sharing economy" or "gig economy" as it's often referred to is but a few days old. Great time to get started!

27 - Wrapify

This one is interesting. The way Wrapify works is that you sign up and activate the app and allow it to track your driving behavior for about 50 miles. After that, your app will alert you if there are any advertising gigs for you. Then you go to a location to get your vehicle "wrapped" with the advertising campaign and you'll get paid for driving with your car wrapped up in an ad.

It's a clever way of using your car to promote a product or service and I suppose that the more you drive on busy highways and during rush hour, the more you can make. They estimate on their website that you can make between $262 to $452 per month.

This is really good if you combine it with another driving service so that you can make double the money, you could get paid while you deliver someone AND by advertising at the same time. You can see some examples here.

Learn more: Wrapify

28 - Carvertise

Similar in process to Wrapify, this pays between $100 to $200 per month for wrapping your car and between $300 to $1200 per campaign. You need to drive at least 30 miles each day and have a vehicle newer than 2008.

You can make additional money by parking your vehicle in strategic locations; this pays up to $30 per hour.

Learn more: Carvertise

29 - Hipcamp

Hipcamp is the only app in this list for which I've written a dedicated post. Hipcamp allows landowners to let people camp out in their property. As a property owner, you get to keep 90% of your bookings. It's up to you how you want to offer your land.

This is their commercial, I love it.

Maybe you want to let people rough it in your undeveloped land and pitch a tent, or you could develop it with amenities to attract the people that are into glamping. You could for example, turn a working farm into an attraction with a camping site, other types of outdoor locations could offer different opportunities to visitors.

The website reports that some property owners are making over six figures each year from renting their spaces out to travelers.

Learn more: Hipcamp

30 - GlampingHub

This is similar to Hipcamp but it includes international locations and the locations fetch much higher prices on average. They boast over 34,000 locations and include some places in Asia, New Zealand, Africa, South America in addition to locations in the USA.

It appears that they're a little more selective but if you have a good location that would attract tourists looking for an experience closer to nature than a hotel can offer, this may be the way to monetize your property.

Learn more: Glamping Hub

31 - BabyQuip

Previously known as Babierge, this is a great service for parents and a good way to make extra money with your unused kids' equipment. They focus on toys, strollers, high-chairs, and other types of kids items that traveling parents would want to use but don't want to necessarily pack and bring along in their trip.

The way you can make money with this is by making your unused children equipment available for travelers.

Items rent out in the range of $8 to $40 or more per day. Their website shows that you get to keep 80% of the fees and 100% of the delivery fees.

Learn more: Babyquip

32 - Turo

Turo is a peer to peer rental car system. You can make money by listing your car as a rental. Turo, in their own words: Skip the rental counter and book unforgettable cars from friendly locals.

For consumers, it sounds like a great offering to eliminate the boring options you get with traditional car rental agencies. As a car owner, you are paid on a percentage basis when your car gets rented out.

For example, if your car is worth $12,000 and you're willing to rent it out for 10 days out of the month, you could make around $3200 per year. You're not going to spend a week in the Bahamas with that money, but it could pay for all your vehicle expenses for the year and leave you a little bit of pocket change. If you increase the car value to say, $35,000 then you could make around $6300 per year.

This seems to be one of the most passive options if you don't use your car frequently or have a second or third car mostly just sitting around.

Learn more: Turo

33 - GetAround

Similar to Turo, but it aims to let you rent a more "regular" car. GetAround claims you can earn upwards of $800 per month which isn't bad if you have your car sitting around a lot of the time.

Worth checking out. It appears that they are rolling out the service in select areas. GetAround is currently available in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Portland, Chicago, Washington DC, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston! But they promise to have more locations soon.

Learn More: GetAround

34 - Outdoorsy

Outdoorsy is like Hipcamp but for RVs. If you ever wanted to go camping in an RV, this is the place where you would look for one.

But as an RV owner, you can make in the range of $900 to $1800 in average, each time your RV is rented out. That's really cool since you wouldn't be using your RV most of the time anyway.

Learn more: Outdoorsy

35 - RVshare

Similar to other services listed here, this lets you rent your RV out to people. They provide RV insurance, roadside assistance, and all the payment processing.

Their website shows that you can make in the range of $5000 to $30,000 per year with your RV. Another way you can make money with RVshare is by promoting them on your website using their affiliate program.

Learn more: RVshare

36 - Rover

Rover is for dog lovers. You can make money by becoming a sitter. You can walk dogs, or dogsit them for the day or several days. It's up to you. There are other services you can provide, like house sitting or drop-in visits.

Although Rover recommends the rates for you, you can modify them to whatever you want and you keep 80% of the bookings. Not a bad deal, especially if you make this a full-time gig or part of an established pet caring service.

Learn more: Rover

Honorable mentions:

EatStreet.

A delivery service that is expanding quickly, but it wasn't listed because the only way to work for them at this time is to become a regular employee. This blog isn't about that regular job thing so it didn't make the cut, but you're free to check it out if you want a regular job: https://eatstreet.com/

PeerShip.

Seems like a promising idea. You deliver packages "on your way" no need for pickups and deliveries, no need for shopping and dealing with people. This one didn't make the list because their literature is out of date and seems to have no activity in their social streams since 2016. I'm guessing it was a good idea, poorly implemented. https://drivers.peership.io/

Landapart

Landapart is for hardcore outdoor enthusiasts as it focuses on "primitive camping" guests are expected to leave no trace so it's akin to camping in total wilderness. The reason it didn't make the main list is that their system is rudimentary, they don't offer insurance or anything like the other services listed do. I'm not entirely sure what they are other than a directory and messaging system, their listings are limited and their copyright notice hasn't been updated since 2016 so I'm not sure if they're even active. https://www.landapart.com/

Doorman

Another deliver-anything service where you pick your hours and you deliver packages. One feature for customers was that you could use Doorman addresses as delivery addresses and then have a delivery person bring the package to you wherever you were.

However, it seems that this service is no longer active, browsing around their site you'll notice the application forms don't work. There's also this article by TechCrunch from almost 2 years ago.

Learn more: Doorman (appears to be defunct).

In Conclusion

This is a very long list, and while it may seem that many of the methods listed are the same thing, just for different types of products, each one has its own unique features and income possibilities.

I hope that it was useful, if so, please share this out on Facebook, Twitter, even Pinterest or Reddit if you're active there. I would appreciate it tremendously.

I still favor the ways to make money online vs offline. These require no physical presence from you. Not only can I work from any location with Internet access, but I don't even have to dress up or anything like that. I can work any time I want, and making money is limited by my own efforts instead of an arbitrary salary set by my boss. The True Dot Com Lifestyle!

Investment in an online business can be very low and the profits can be huge. Web Hosting can be under $70 for the year, your email list can be started for free, and you can work as hard as you want.

But I know that breaking away from your regular 9-5 job can be difficult and unnerving so a lot of the "gig" jobs listed here can help you make that transition or simply just add another income stream to your bottom line. The possibilities are endless!

The post 36 Ways to Make Money Online and Offline appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We were there for a wedding, a really fancy wedding, my sister's really fancy wedding, so we stayed at an all-inclusive resort called Azul Fives.

It was terrific, while we had some issues with the resort itself, at the end, it was an amazing experience and it really relaxed me. It reignited my desire to travel and see more, and do more, not only personally but in my business too!

It was a reinvigorating experience, and I can't wait to share some videos and photos with you, but first I had to get this out to you.

As soon as we came back home, I started checking out our next adventure. We've been meaning to go camping for a while now but we never seem to actually get it together to do it so now we're changing that.

We're planning a small camping trip late October, and we're starting to plan another more exotic trip for next year. Which leads me to the next thing I want to tell you.

During my research, I ran into Hipcamp. Wow! this is basically Airbnb for camping sites. Hipcamp started back in 2013 and it has grown quite a bit since then.

Hipcamp wasn't the first to do this, but it appears that it may be the top choice for finding unique and interesting outdoor experiences, mostly camping.

Check it out, this video got me hooked!

Hipcamp works just like Airbnb.

If you have a property where people might like to camp out, you can rent it out. Or if you're a traveler like me, or want to take a few days to do some camping in a unique location you can use Hipcamp to find just the right location.

That picture above is from "Desert Oasis Camping," just search for it on the site, click here to check it out, the picture below is from "Private Beach Farm." You'll find it on that link as well. Both of these locations are within a few hours drive from me.

I'm sure you'll find spots close to you as well.

Hipcamp has really great search features and filters and you can find camping sites varying from a fully staffed glamping location with fully stocked kitchen and indoor plumbing to places you have to hike for a few miles where you'll be roughing it in pure wilderness; no showers, no running water, in other words, the real way to camp.

After finding Hipcamp I spent a couple hours browsing through lots of locations and just imagining how cool it would be to go there with the family for a weekend or a long weekend.

I suppose we'll go soon, but for now, you can get started on your own, check out Hipcamp here, and imagine yourself under the stars after a desert sunset, or in a sleeping bag by the beach dozing off to the sound of waves lapping the shoreline.

But if you're a landowner, you can use Hipcamp to make money! If you have a location you think you can use to lease out, then go to this link to check it out.

You could start hosting people in your land, Hipcamp covers liability insurance, customer support, billing and you keep 90% of the bookings. Not a bad deal if you have land that's just sitting there.

I have seen some places where it looks like people just have extra land so they set up an outdoor kitchen or fire ring, clear some of the brush under the trees and make it into a campsite.

In other cases, you'll find fully working farms with a camping site so the campers get a full experience, not just a regular camping site. The sites vary in complexity, so you may find really simple places or really sophisticated experiences.

So even if you don't think people would like your location, check it out to see if you could be making some extra money from your unused land. This is from their own page: "Our most successful hosts make over $100,000 per year hosting campers, while some hosts make a few thousand per year. On average, Hipcamp hosts make $8,000 – $15,000 per year."

In conclusion

Find that inner spark in you to discover and travel more, sometimes it takes a small, but special trip to find that spark. Do it, get out more, see more, do more. Oh yeah and why not make money while you're at it too, right?

The post Hipcamp, for Campers and Outdoors Enthusiasts appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you don't know what the 90 day video challenge is all about, here's the scoop.

For 90 days, you will be required to create, upload and publish a video to Youtube. The goal is to get you started with video content creation or to help you get to the next level.

Today, video is really important for any business, and while Youtube has been around for a little over 10 years now, independent video creators are just starting to flourish and they're starting to become mainstream.

Whether you have a brick and mortar business, an online business, a blog, or all of the above, video can help you grow and besides your time and a small investment in equipment, it's virtually free marketing!

The focus of the challenge will be to increase brand awareness, to generate more traffic and ultimately generate more sales for your business.

If you don't have a Youtube channel, this is the best opportunity to start. If you haven't done much with your existing Youtube channel, then this is your chance to step up your game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLmNrWO0Hpw

The 90 day video challenge starts in two weeks!

The challenge begins on January 29, so you have a couple weeks to prepare! If you're interested in learning more, then join the updates here and I'll send you links to the Facebook group and all the details.

I'll be posting a few updates about the challenge here on the blog and on my Youtube channel. We're finalizing the rules, the prizes and all that sort of stuff so it will be good if you get into the Facebook group so you can see what's going on.

Unlike the previous challenge, this one will have more structure and we'll have tips, tricks, strategies and weekly guidance to help you succeed. Don't hesitate!

The post The 90 Day Video Challenge is Back. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The Hat has been around for 65 years and there's a reason for it. Their food is fresh, it's delicious and it will not break the bank.

On my way back from Affiliate Summit, I decided to stop with my friend just before heading home. I hadn't been there for a while but I'm glad I went.

My friend ordered the pastrami dip, and I ordered the pastrami cheeseburger and we got a small order of fries. One order of fries, even small is good enough for two people, so order with caution!

They have other stuff, like onion rings, chili burgers, hot dogs and other grilled goodness but I came for the pastrami burger.

The Pastrami dip is a whole bunch of their amazing beef pastrami stuffed into a french roll and before they serve it to you, they dip the top half in au jus.

Normally when you hear French dip or roast beef dip, you get the sandwich and you dip it yourself as you eat it. But not with the pastrami dip, by far the most popular item on the menu. You can, of course, get au jus on the side and do the traditional dip and bite routine. But just know that the pastrami dip comes pre-dipped.

Now, the burger is something else. Other places have pastrami burgers, I think even one of the big fast food chains introduced their own pastrami burger a few years ago. That one isn't bad, but it certainly can't compare to the one that The Hat makes.

All the food is made to order so it will take a few minutes to cook a burger, don't expect fast food speed, but it's still made fast enough to serve it quickly and satisfy your cravings.

I went to the Lake Forest location, but there are 11 locations total. You can check out their website for all the details.

The pastrami cheeseburger comes with one all-beef patty, cheese and a motherload of pastrami all sitting on lettuce and tomato and dressed in thousand island dressing wrapped up in a classic sesame seed burger bun. It's truly a mouthwatering combination.

I was too busy salivating for my food as I waited and then I basically devoured my burger and totally forgot to record a video, and I was tired. My buddy John did make a vlog, you can watch it below.

Hopefully, the vlog and images inspire you to try this fantastic burger joint, an iconic restaurant in Orange County. Hands down, this is the best pastrami burger in Orange County.

The post The Burger Review: The Hat, World Famous Pastrami Burger appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I headed out to Eisenhower Park in Orange with a group of friends to do a 5K walk. It's a shame that I used to run 5K just as a warm up when I was a teenager, but I guess our priorities change as we age.

I should walk more often and maybe I'll even get back into running. For now, let this be a reminder and a motivator to get in shape and do better today than we did yesterday!

The post 5k Walk to Kick off the New Year 2018. Vlog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'd venture to guess that he was like the average 20-year-old kid. Enjoying life, coming to terms with the realities of becoming an adult and just trying to figure out life. One day as he was enjoying spring break in Florida he received a message.

The message was an invitation to make a radical change in his life. This invitation went out to thousands of people, I'm pretty sure it was actually tens of thousands of people. It was a radical proposition. At the time I saw the invitation as well and I felt like I should have responded. But having two kids and a wife and a mortgage made me doubt the ability to follow through with that response.

I thought I would sleep on it for a couple days and talk it over with my wife.

Empty Pockets photo cover credit by Richie Diesterheft licensed under CC.

But in just a couple days, a second announcement came out saying that the invitation was now closed as they had received enough interest and they were certain that one of the applicants would fit the job.

I chucked it off to bad timing and moved on. But I kept an eye on the development of this opportunity.

A few months later, that's when I heard about Steve for the first time. Steve was the person that responded to the opportunity and was granted the chance to take it. His commitment, or his quick response or the fact that he didn't have a lot of commitments helped him win over hundreds of applicants.

Steve literally dropped everything to take a chance. With a few bucks to his name, Steve left school, he left so fast, he left laundry in the washing machine and took a flight on a one-way ticket to South East Asia. His future was uncertain, but he held onto the idea that this would work.

He went to work on his business, learning everything he could and soon began to make money. And yes, I get it, it's easy for a student to drop everything and travel half way around the world. He didn't have a care in the world, right? No mortgage, like you or me. No kids. No real commitments.

And so he continued working and working and then he began teaching others how to make several thousand dollars per day. This is when things got real.

But is it really as easy as it sounds? I don't think so. The part that matters is that he made it work, he followed directions, he learned, he applied his lessons and started making money. I remember him posting just earlier this year about how he was going to break the $200,000 mark in just one month.

The craziest part is that he went from poor student to millionaire in just about two years. I can write another 2 thousand words telling you how he did it, but it comes down to this: commitment, faith, and a following a system.

He had the commitment to succeed and he knew what he was doing at the time wasn't going to get him the financial freedom he desired. Faith because he had to trust the opportunity and he showed his belief by dropping everything and taking a chance. And finally, the system is what helped him achieve such success in a short amount of time.

I could tell you about the things he did to achieve a million dollars, I can explain how it all works. In fact, I've been telling you about this for years now, here on the blog, and in my emails. But I rather you hear it directly from him, if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a video must be worth a million.

There is no secret, it's affiliate marketing.

This is high-level, hight-ticket affiliate marketing and it's purposeful, driven and highly profitable. Unlike the average affiliate or blogger, this system provides you with the marketing, the products and the fulfillment that you need to make high-level commissions. If you're a beginner, or you're looking to start making money online then you should check out Steve's story right here.

Steve put together a guide that will help rookies start making money. Watch his video and take a chance, who knows where you could be in 6, or 12 months from now. Steve started without knowing anything about affiliate marketing, internet marketing and by his own admission he wasn't really tech savvy even though he's a young guy.

Here's a short excerpt in his own words:

In the first 210 days of 2017, I made over $1,000,000.

That breaks down to about $4,761 per day, $198 per hour (every hour, even while I sleep), $3.30 per minute…
27 months ago when I first started this journey I could have never imagined it taking off this fast. It feels like I started yesterday…

At first, I did this as a matter of necessity. I needed the money – to pay student loans, to help my family, to escape my credit card debt. I was in a deep deep hole and I needed to climb back out.

I used to make $198 in 4 DAYS! ($7 minimum wage x 8 hours = $56 a shift working a regular job). Now as each hour passes, my bank account grows by that amount regardless of what I’m doing.

It’s honestly mind blowing.

Once I made my first $1k, $10k, $20k it became less out of necessity and more of a game for me.

“How can I make more money this week? This month?”

And

“How can I help others do the same?”

Continue the story here...

The post Struggling to Make a Profit as a Beginner appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'm going to come out and say it directly; you should not start a blog with WordPress.com, Blogger.com, Medium.com, or other free blogging platforms. Specifically today I want to mention why you shouldn't go with WordPress.com if you want to start a blog for profit.

What's wrong with WordPress.com? Nothing is technically wrong with the service. It's reliable, it's fast and it's easy to use. However, if you want to start a blog for profit or a blog that will help your business generate income, then you should use the free, self-hosted counterpart to WordPress.com known as WordPress.org. I know it seems confusing, but if you read the points I make below and watch the video, hopefully, I will be able to clear things up for you.

WordPress.com will show ads to your visitors without your control. Also you don't get paid for those ads! The free version of WordPress.com doesn't let you use your own domain. When you set up your free blog with them, you'll need to use a non-branded address. For

For example, is not branded for you, but it's branded for WordPress.com. What you want is something like this: http://yourname.com

If you want to have your domain on WordPress.com, then you have to pay and it's no longer free. If you want to remove ads, then you have to pay more. If you want to monetize your blog you have to pay more! On top of that, you can't install custom 3rd party plugins, even if you pay at their highest plan. I explain more in the video below.

But basically, WordPress.com is free to start and what you get for free isn't what you need, even if you pay for the top level service they offer, you still won't get what you need.

WordPress.com is great if you're just tinkering with the idea of blogging. But if you want to be a little more serious about your business, or you want to make a blog that will make you money, you should go with WordPress.org.

Can't you transfer from WordPress.com to WordPress.org later on? Yes, you can but it's not easy, and you may lose followers, traffic and in some cases, you could lose content. Why risk that?

I invite you to get your blog started professionally by using my service. I explain it all in the video, so please watch it before you make a decision. If you decide you want to take advantage of my free blog setup, then make sure you use one of these web hosts:

• Inmotion Hosting - 47% off, business-centric. Great support.
• GreenGeeks Hosting - Low priced, environmentally friendly. Great support.

More details are in the video so you should watch it:

In this video, I mentioned two ways to get started with making money online. One is to apply for the 21 step online training course, click here to start. If you are accepted into the training, you'll get access to the same program that I use to make thousands of dollars, and you'll get a one-on-one coach to help you navigate through everything you need so you can also start making money.

The second one is to start a blog. I've just made the best offer I have ever made for my email subscribers that want to start a blog. If you're interested in taking advantage of that, make sure you're subscribed to my email list and I'll send you all the details. Go ahead and get a hosting account with either GreenGeeks, or Inmotion hosting, send me your information, and I'll take care of the rest.

The post The Truth about Free WordPress appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

On this day (May 20) pretend to be a millionaire or start working on your plans that you think will make you a millionaire.

Word on the street is that everybody would like to be a millionaire. That means you, right? And in jest, timeanddate.com suggests you should pretend to be a millionaire today, or start working on your plans to become one.

Let's not pretend

I want to talk about the second part of that. Being a millionaire can give you security. But it's difficult to make a million dollars, or so it seems. Here are some ideas:

Some people will tell you that all you have to do is visualize it, think about it, project it and it will become so. That's a bunch of baloney if you ask me.

Other people will tell you to invest in the stock market, or in options or commodities. I'd say that you have a chance of making a million dollars or more with that, but you have an equal or greater chance of going broke as well if you don't know what you're doing.

Maybe you want to find a new hot startup and invest some money into it, wait and hope that they become the next Uber, or Snapchat or Blue Apron; well, maybe not Uber right now, but you get the idea.

Instead of talking hypotheticals, I'm going to give you two practical ways of getting closer to being a millionaire, starting today.

Spend less than you make

Here's the first method to help you become a millionaire. It's not always about how much you make, but how much you get to keep so be thrifty and wise with your money. Will Rogers, the highest paid Hollywood actor of his time said this:

And it's true. The best way to accumulate wealth is to not spend your money. So next time you go out, next time you go shopping, next time you are browsing Amazon, remember this: spend less than you make.

If you're going to use credit cards, make sure you can pay the full amount all the time, so that if you're using a credit card, you're using it to accumulate rewards, get a better deal, or get some consumer protection. Do NOT use a credit card because you don't have cash in the bank.

From first-hand experience, I can tell you that using credit cards to purchase things for which you don't have the funds in the bank, is a recipe for disaster and financial enslavement.

Add multiple streams of income

The second way I'll suggest to becoming wealthy is to add another revenue stream. Most people make money from a single source; their job. You are probably in this group, and you may even have a good job that pays you well. You feel secure, don't you?

But the bottom line is that your job is the only source of income, if you become disabled, or if you get laid off, or if your employer goes out of business, you're shit out of luck. There goes your security!

Even with a job, you should have other streams of income. Not only will this help you generate money faster, but it will also give you real security and freedom. You'll feel less stressed, and you'll be happier overall.

Sell something online, start a blog, become a consultant, become a reseller, learn to invest, work on ways to get more money for the same amount of time and effort you spend every day!

Living proof

What I describe above is exactly how I work and live, my blog generates part of my income, I also consult and coach people on how to start businesses and how to improve their businesses.

The results are great because they allow me to spend time with my kids and wife and friends and still my blog makes money. I earn money while I'm at the park with my kids, out with my wife or having dinner with friends.

Sometimes one of my sources of income may dry up, as I talked about with Coco Jack, but I don't need to worry about it because I still make money with all the sources of income I have working for me.

You can see in the screenshot below, that I get paid various amounts from different sources, I also receive physical checks from a few companies, and as of the writing of this post, I am waiting for 3 checks adding another $1500 or so.

There are also about half a dozen other companies that owe me between 230 to 1000 for this month.

The post Be a Millionaire Day appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Recently at Affiliate Summit West, during the Millionaire blogger panel, at least three of the four panelists talked about having a group of peers that hold each other accountable.

I decided to invite some of my close business friends to start a mastermind group. The benefits of the group are a mix of accountability, camaraderie, and mastermind objectives shared with like-minded individuals that are committed to their own success but also want to each other.

I'm taking tips and guidance from other people about how to run the group. I've been reading a lot of Pat Flynn's blog posts about his own masterminds, I've taken lessons from my friend Bob Watson and his super successful social media mastermind (SMMOC), I've also ran the Dot Com Lifestyle group and the Free Lunch Friday events.

I think the biggest challenge will be fine tuning this and finding out just how much I don't know yet about this. You would think that having so much experience teaching, running groups and attending groups I would know exactly how to do this but I'm smart enough to know that there's a whole lot that I don't know.

At first, I thought it would be good to make it a fully democratic endeavor and ask everybody for input before making decisions. That didn't work.

Everybody has an idea of how it should work and the input was so varied that I couldn't come up with a clear majority on anything, from topics to discuss, to schedule or even what type of medium we should use to meet and discuss things.

For any given issue I asked the members I had as many different responses as the number of members in the group.

I had to just step back for a little bit and take the reins. I hope that works out in the long term. The main goal is to help our businesses grow and to help each other with online marketing.

All the members are already good at what they do, some have physical businesses, some are in the service industry, some of us are bloggers, but our biggest common goal is growing our business.

I launched the group with a handful of friends and we meet using Slack to discuss issues, ask questions, and give each other tips and advice throughout the week. Once a week, we meet "face to face" using a Google Hangout.

I'm interested in sharing my experience about this mastermind group here in the blog, and perhaps invite you to join us. This has been something that I wanted to do for a couple years now, my friend Emily and I have talked about starting it as well, but the timing didn't feel right before.

I think that the right time is now, so without any more hesitation, I started it. I've had experiences with other masterminds and I can vouch for the positive outcome and the value I've derived from those groups.

I hope that I can replicate some of that in this mastermind and I want to provide value, support, and encouragement to all members while learning from them as well.

If you feel like you could be a part of this, let me know.

Also, I've just added my blog to Bloglovin' - Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The post Masterminds and Mentorship appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Be it golf, cocktail hour, dinner parties or simply lunch. This is why we meet for lunch every week. To bring people together so that we can talk and see what we're all up to.

So this time the Dot Com Lunch meeting took place at Urban Seoul. Urban Seoul, like many of the places we frequent, is located in the Diamond Jamboree Plaza in Irvine; one of the newest outdoor shopping malls in the city.

It is a small place tucked away in plain sight. This is one of the reasons we never noticed it before. It is very easy to miss if you don't know where it is. But with that aside, once you find the place then you are in for a treat.

The reason we went there is because I've been on a Korean Taco craving mood lately. Las Fajitas near Pho Ba Co had Korean tacos for a few weeks but then they stopped serving them.

I also had some great tasting Korean tacos at Mochilato, but they took forever to come out and weren't worth the price.

The tacos you can make at home like you can see in this video are really the best because you can put whatever toppings and seasoning you want. If you know how to cook and want to spend the time doing it.

But back to Urban Seoul. Let me show you some pictures first.

[envira-gallery id="49017"]

The manager on duty was really friendly and quickly explained the menu. I had an idea about what to expect but it was nice to get a proper explanation.

If you have never had fusion cuisine, then you're missing out. This combination is Korean/Hispanic.

The pork belly is used in a lot of the dishes here and with good reason. It is unbelievable. I probably haven't had pork belly this good before, ever. And I've paid some fancy prices for pork belly. Here? It's just part of their everyday fare.

Here is why I came to Urban Seoul. Their Korean tacos. I went with the pork belly order of three. They have other choices and I really wanted to try one of each but you have to order them in sets of three unless you come in on Taco Tuesday.

They were damn good, the perfect blend of flavors with a spicy flare. Squeeze a little bit of lime and this is as close to heaven as you'll get during lunch on a Monday.

If I had to describe Urban Seoul in one word, it would be: Amazing. You gotta go try it, and now they have a second location, Urban Seoul 2.0 at the Irvine Spectrum.

The post Orange County Food Review: Urban Seoul appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

While this may seem like a lot of money to you, many people are happy to pay this and even more to get the right advice.

Why would someone pay so much just to talk to me, to go over ideas and to get some feedback on those ideas? Value, when you're looking to succeed, you need to change your mindset form price-driven, to value-driven.

Value, as I mention in that video is in the eye of the beholder. Once you understand that, you will be able to make certain breakthroughs in your online business because you will stop selling yourself short.

The post The 400 Dollar per Hour Rant appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We're reading: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, by Gary Vaynerchuk.

We selected this book during the last meetup for The Power of Habit. By all accounts, The Power of Habit was a fantastic first choice. I expect that our next choice will be as enlightening.

I have read Crush It! and The Thank You Economy, also by Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary is on his 4th book now: #AskGaryVee, but we're starting with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, his 3rd book because it is very relevant to our business. Most of the people involved in the Dot Com Lifestyle group have or want to have an online business.

We seek the kind of business that frees up our time and resources so we can do whatever we want. Social media has risen to be a very disruptive force in today's world. We've seen complete industries turned upside down because of Facebook, and Twitter. Instagram and Flickr changed the photography landscape forever.

We've seen regimes collapse under the pressure created by social media users. We have seen businesses explode because of a good Youtube commercial. This is why we want to read this book. How can we as entrepreneurs tap into the power of social media?

The title is descriptive of the philosophy that Gary preaches. Jab, Jab, Jab means to deliver the small but solid hits that pave the way for a knockout --the Right Hook-- punch in a fight. My buddy John Chow pointed out that it's a strange analogy to use when you're trying to build a business and generate sales.

Like do you want to "punch" your customer? He asked during our first meeting last week. And I can see that the principle could have been better illustrated with a more friendly analogy. But at the same time, in business we often say " go knock them out!" when talking about delivering a presentation, or business proposal.

Either way I'm really looking forward to reading this book. The questions that come to mind as of the writing of this book are:

• What exactly does Gary mean by Jab, Jab, Jab?
• When and how do you deliver the Right Hook?
• How do we translate our business goals, intentions and sincerity into social media activities?

The book Breakdown is as follows:

• Week 1 - Start the book. You should have read up to the "Kit Kat: Timed Out" section (page 75) before meeting for week #2.
• Week 2 -  Read up to Comedy Central: Bringing Community Together (page - 148), before meeting for week #3.
• Week 3 - Read from 149 to finish. before meeting for week #4
• Week 4 - Let's wrap up the book, commentary, lessons learned, questions pending and selecting the next book.

The post Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Below are the books that are on the current to-read list. If you want to change it or add your own, then you can vote below.

We'll put various books up for a vote each month so that we can all get a chance to learn more and grow. We will meet at least twice a month on Wednesdays or Thursdays to discuss and have lunch. We'll also have a virtual discussion so we can talk about the books at anytime.

The purpose of the book club is to read the book, and discuss the topics and how we can apply what we have read towards improving our business.

If you aren't part of our meetup group, I suggest you become a member. It's free, you just have to join. Go to the Dot Com Lifestyle Meetup here.

The List of Books

Here are the books we have up for voting, you can read a brief description about them, or click on the title to read more and purchase the book. Unless otherwise specified, we'll be reading the latest printed paperback edition. From the picture listed, we have taken Suze Orman's book out of the list for now because it is 15 years old and it talks a lot about IRAs, tax regulations and other topics that might have been outdated by now.

The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuck (hardback only).

The Thank You Economy is about something big, something greater than any single revolutionary platform. It isn't some abstract concept or wacky business strategy—it's real, and every one of us is doing business in it every day, whether we choose to recognize it or not. It's the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline. The Internet, where The Thank You Economy was born, has given consumers back their voice, and the tremendous power of their opinions via social media means that companies and brands have to compete on a whole different level than they used to. (read more here)

The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

The mainstream financial gurus have sold you blindly down the river to a great financial gamble: You've been hoodwinked to believe that wealth can be created by recklessly trusting in the uncontrollable and unpredictable markets: the housing market, the stock market, and the job market. This impotent financial gamble dubiously promises wealth in a wheelchair -- sacrifice your adult life for a financial plan that reaps dividends in the twilight of life. Accept the Slowlane as your blueprint for wealth and your financial future will blow carelessly asunder on a sailboat of HOPE: HOPE you can find a job and keep it, HOPE the stock market doesn't tank, HOPE the economy rebounds, HOPE, HOPE, and HOPE. Do you really want HOPE to be the centerpiece for your family's financial plan? (read more here)

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots. (read more here)

The Shoemoney Story by Jeremy Schoemaker

Transparent and shockingly honesty, you can't help but like and identify with the brazen narrator and finish his story with a renewed sense of your own self-confidence and hope. In the end, Schoemaker--the man behind the alias--leaves us with a final understanding that anything's possible if you celebrate yourself and embrace your natural talents because--as he's learned--that's the stuff that never changes. (read more here)

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives. (read more here)

Voting

There are three questions presented below. Which book you want to vote for, which book you want to eliminate from the list, and a place for you to suggest another book be added to the list for next time.

(survey closed)

The post Book Club Kick-off Meetup appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But recently in my trip to Las Vegas, we used two Uber rides and the driver in one of them was very friendly. He told us he makes great money and quit his other job to do Uber full time. Says he works about 9 hours each day. I don't think we asked him his age, but the driver was young, probably early twenties or late teens so he's happy doing the hustle.

He says there is a high demand in Las Vegas all day long, 24 7 he says. He often gets rides that are worth more because the demand for drivers is so high at that point, they call that a multiplier.

But let's be a little more realistic, you will not find crowds gathering outside a river of luxury hotels like you do in Las Vegas in many other places.

Maybe a couple of cities in the country can offer that consistent number of crowds to provide work for a large pool of Uber drivers. So I have always wondered, can you really make money with Uber? Well, the mystery has been cracked. Once you find the average hourly rate that a Uber driver makes you won't look at Uber again.

How do you find the average hourly wage for an Uber driver? You watch this video of course!

Why Uber is Terrible - Explained

I haven't tried it myself, and if I did it would only be for fun, to try the experience because I can think of a dozen things I can do with internet marketing that pay way more than Uber, and don't require risking your life or safety.

The post Can you Really Make Money From Uber? or Why Uber is Terrible appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

You've heard it before and you'll hear it until you die or until you accomplish it. There are many variations of it but it goes a little something like this:

Find something you love to do and find a way to make a living out of it.

OR

If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

Maybe you've heard this quote:

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

often attributed to Confucius.

But, how do you find the work that you love? The holy grail of earning a living. It's a tough thing for most people. It's hard to even know where to start.

It's so tough to find, that I would recommend you don't even try. MJ DeMarco calls it guru nonsense.

But here's Scott Dinsmore with a really good video to show you how to find and do work you love. Hope you enjoy it.

The post Everybody Tells You To Do This One Thing and You Will Succeed appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Fast forward to today and you'll see gourmet burger joints popping up all over the place. McDonalds, Burger King and other icons of burgerdom are vanishing in exhange for higher quality and even hipster spots. Unfortunately, like most fads and trends, most of these new places are just fancy names dressed with fancy ideas but poor execution.

But when you find a good burger joint, it's like finding gold.

Such is the case with Peter's Gourmade in Tustin. I went to it a couple years back for the first time because someone told me I should try their greek fries and burgers. They were good and the burger was good too but for whatever reason I never reviewed them. So this is my turn to review this up and coming spot.

I went back recently before my trip to Hawaii to have lunch with my buddy Loren from Diesel Brew, Loren's a local guy but when he told me he had never tried this place, we stopped debating where we should eat,  this was it. I asked him after lunch if he had liked it and he said it was a great burger.

Peter's Gourmade has expanded, but something that remains true is their menu and quality. I was pleasantly reminded of how good their burgers are. I have to admit that I prefer my burger a little more seasoned but I'm picky to a fault. In a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate their burger at a high 7.

I ordered The Hermanator ($7.50)which is described in their menu as follows: All-Beef angus patty served on a toasted potato bun with bacon, pepper jack cheese, chipotle mayo, jalapeños, and lettuce. I went with this because I wanted their spiciest option. Unfortunately, this is not spicy enough for me. It was well made, and had a bit of a kick, and the flavor is great but if you're expecting something that will kick you hard, they will have to kick it up a notch.

I added a fried egg on top ($1.00) and it ended up looking like the picture below. Forgive the lackluster picture but I got so carried away chatting with my buddy that I started eating this before I took a picture so I had to re-wrap it and put it back for a shot that didn't show a big piece of the burger missing.

And it looks like this:

The hermanator name comes from the head chef and as I've been told, his name is Herman so it makes perfect sense. The price tip toes on the high end for a burger like this, but the quality of the meat and the made-to-order service would fetch closer to $10 at most other locations in Orange County so it's perfectly reasonable. Adding fries, the egg and a drink put our lunch at a little over $24 for two people. Not bad!

I'm not a huge fan of the shredded lettuce approach, but it works fine in this case, I also wish the yolk on the egg hadn't been throughly cooked; you always want a little runny yolk if you get an egg on your burger. I must admit that Red Robbin's Royal Burger turned me onto the whole egg on top thing and they always do it perfectly, but I can't judge this burger based on this minor flaw because it doesn't normally come with the egg.

I love their new redecorated and expanded location. It feels fresh and well kept and comfortable. The location isn't new, they just took over the shop next door but now they almost doubled their seating capacity so even when you come for lunch at rush hour, you'll have a good chance of getting a seat. We arrived just before the lunch rush and by the time we were finished with our food, the line was out the door and around the corner. All these people can't be wrong so if you want a good burger for a great value then go check them out.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

You'll find Peter's Gourmade easily off the 55 freeway at the McFadden exit. Don't let the surrounding area discourage you, this is a gem you find in a rough spot.  I am almost sarcastic when I say rough spot; I mean, it is south Tustin which is not bad at all if you compare it to a rough spot in South LA. I recommend you beat the rush so you can find a parking spot. When it comes to the location, this is their weakness, there is only a small parking lot that is shared with another half-dozen businesses so it can be tough to find a spot.

Rumor has it that they are looking to expand and if my wishes came true they'd open up a location in Irvine or Irvine/Costa Mesa border because that's where I want to go when I eat so I can meet up with my friends and colleagues. And we all love a good burger.

The post Checking out the Hermanator Burger at Peter’s Gourmade appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Ha! but we made it, and that's what matters.

We unloaded our stuff and headed down to Tropics. One of the beach front restaurants at our hotel. I don't usually expect much from hotel resaurants, even at the Hilton. But this was pretty good.

I started with a Mai Tai. I should tell you that this is my first Mai Tai ever. As far as I can recall, I have never ordered one before. I'm more of a gin & tonic kind of guy, But I'm in Hawaii so I figured, why not!

The Mai Tai was awesome. This is my new favorite beach cocktail. Gotta find out how to make one...

The food was good but it all depends on the price. For $19.00... the burger  I ordered was just okay. If It were $14.00, it would have been amazing. If I judged it only on price and taste, it was okay. But this burger comes as a whole experience. The flavor was good and although the patty was overpressed and slightly overcooked beyond the medium level that I requested.

It is a 1/3 lb beef patty served on a super soft and sweet bun topped with sweet pulled pork. They finish off the burger with tomato, pickle and some lettuce

For Claire we ordered the fish and chips which came with a small bowl of cut fruit. The fish and chips was neither here nor there. It was just fish and chips. Helen in the other hand ordered the spicy kalua chicken sandwich which was good too. Served on a ciabatta type of bread, it also could have been much better but it came up short with a thin piece of chicken that was overcooked. I liked it enough, but probably wouldn't order it for myself.

But you don't come to Tropics to eat amazing inexpensive food, you eat there to enjoy an amazing view of the beach and the ocean while enjoying your vacation with a Mai Tai, and your loved ones. So if you're thinking about it, go check it out, just make sure you get a beach front seat. The experience is worth the $60.00 lunch.

Today we are off to go snorkeling and exploring some of the other wonders of Waikiki. We can't wait and I can't wait to show you more pictures and tell you some more stories. Wifi is outrageously expensive at $20/day so I will be showing you what I can as I sneak away late at night or early morning to do some blogging from the lobby. Aloha!

The post I’m in Hawaii Eating 10 Dollar Burgers for Double the Price appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The Irvine farmer's market has been around for a long time now and if you want to meet some of the region's best food producers, farmers then you should visit this.

avocado-oil-seller avocado-oil grapes terranium lemmon-irvine

The vendors as much as I know...

• Spring Hill - delicious cheese. I tried them all! - http://www.springhillcheese.com/
• Awesome Terrariums $15 to $50 - No website found, but they are pretty cool!
• Arnett Farms - http://www.arnettfarms.com/
• Papidaddy. (me) http://papidaddy.com/
• Anita Lau (Mad Hungry Woman) http://madhungrywoman.com/. I ran into my friend Anita, foodie extraordinaire.
• Avocado Oil. Amazing! starts at $15.00 for 1/2 liter. You can use Avocado oil like olive oil or any other cooking oil. It's healthy and stands really hot temperatures before it burns.
• Baba Food. Awesome we bought three things. Khalid will take you on an amazing hummus tasting tour.

You can find the new location here:

The post Irvine Farmer’s Market moved from UCI to Mariner’s Church appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is a pretty good movie. I enjoyed watching it. The preview will give you an idea of what to expect and I highly recommend it. Totally worth it, watch the preview below, then you can watch it if you want instant download. It's how I watched it because I hast to miss the red carpet event! @#^($)#*. After that then I give you a little more expanded review and with some spoilers. Beware.

Living Dot Com Trailer (Official - HD)

Now, one cool little tidbit I can share with you is that I was there while they filmed John's part. John invited me over to watch and hang out, it was pretty cool actually. I'll dig up some pictures and maybe behind the scenes video. It was fun. But also a little revealing, after watching the movie, I know they had to cut out so much for the final product. Just from John's part along, they cut out at least a couple hours of footage. I can't imagine how much we missed from the other featured entrepreneurs.

Featured in the movie are:
Zac Johnson, John Chow, Jeni Larson, Peter Nguyen, Andrew Warner, Chad French, Dr Edward Leamer (UCLA). All of them experts in their fields and extremely successful and besides making millions of dollars online, not much different than you and me. Yes, I'm talking multi-million dollar successful. Some even in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, seriously. All the money comes from online marketing of sone form or another. Crazy.

Watch the movie here or download it for later. And here are some screenshots from the movie itself:

living-dot-com-001 living-dot-com-002 living-dot-com-003 living-dot-com-004 living-dot-com-005

The post Living Dot Com appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

When you start your empire online, there are very few technical skills that you will need, but when you hear "no tech skills needed" or no "skills required" there is always still some skill level that you need to start with. No tech skills needed really means it is very simple and easy to do.

If that wasn't clear enough, let me be more forward. Let’s be clear and honest with each other, you need at least some basic skills.

If you have ever sent an email out, or if you have ever filled out a form online, that’s about all the skills you’ll need to be able to start with an online business.

The rest you’ll learn as you go. Don’t get me wrong! By the time you start making some money, you’ll have some really good tech skills under your belt. These newfound skills are not needed to start, but you’ll develop them as you go, that’s for sure.

And once you learn a few tricks, you will be able to continually learn more and improve. This will happen naturally, but as I discuss on the Hype vs. Facts section, you should have a desire to also continue and improve.

Always push yourself to find the next thing to improve, or work on after you overcome a challenge.

But that’s not enough, Oscar! You say!.

You’ve heard this before, you’ve heard “no tech skills needed” and it wasn’t true. It turned out to be really complicated and I quit!, you're going to tell me.

The truth is that you will need some technical skills but they’re very simple to attain and very simple to use on a regular basis so you learn them forever.

If you can write an email, search for something in Google and fill out a form like you do when you want to buy something, or answer a questionnaire online, you have all the basic skills you need to start a business online.

I know people that make great money online but started knowing less less about computers and the internet than my elderly neighbor. She’s 66, but they simply follow instructions and formulas and make several thousand dollars each month online.

Some people I know that make tons of money online can’t even touch-type! Really, hunting and pecking two-finger method is good enough to start.

If you say that you are not technical or techie-type, or any other excuse about having technical skills, after having read this post, then you are simply afraid and don’t want to be free, or maybe you're a duckliner.

If you still think you can't start a business online because of lack of tech skills, then  the desire isn’t there. Or the desire isn't strong enough to drive you through this silly misconception.

I know many people that are afraid of failing when they use WordPress, what if they chose the wrong theme? Give me a break, don't worry about it. Everything can be changed and fixed in WordPress. Just make sure you always have backups handy.

Or email marketing, what if you forget to include your signature? or email, or you're afraid of sending the wrong link on Aweber. You know what? all of the big marketers I follow have sent me a mistake at least once.

If the big guys are allowed to make mistakes and still run a successful business, then so are you, and this includes technical mistakes!

Really, it's not a huge deal. Do try to minimize these mistakes and learn from them when you make a mistake so it doesn't happen again, but it's not the end of the world by any means.

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of it. Deal with it. Move on and forward!

I once met this great lady named Peggy at an event in Long Beach. I have an interview I did with her and I love her spirit and enthusiasm, you should watch the interview, I'll give you a video link to watch in a moment. The thing I really like about Peggy is that she wasn't involved with anything online before she started.

She didn't know much about anything online really, she came from the healthcare field and didn't have any computer skills or even knew where to start. So she asked a few people what she should know, what she should learn, and where to start.

Can you guess where she went to learn most of the stuff she knows now?

By the way, considering that I teach technology for a living, I would say that Peggy is an advanced computer user at this point and she did it all on her own. And she learned most of it for free! She has even attended some of the free video training I provide.

Can you guess where she learned everything she knows?

Youtube.

Well, maybe not everything she knows, but like she says on the interview, she needed to know excel so she went to Youtube, when she wanted to learn word, she went on Youtube and she gave me many more examples even off-camera.

Update: I found her video and posted it on Youtube, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mje_Gcpcd0M

And it's true. I have created some tutorial videos out on Youtube and i know they help a lot of people. If you need help with something, a great place to look first is Youtube.

Simply use some of these special starting phrases and just add the topic you're interested in:

• how to + topic
• lessons + topic
• "for beginners" + topic
• tutorial + topic
• "video series" + topic

Like this: "how to" record a podcast. For more detailed examples and a full search guide and cheat sheet, don't forget to download the free workbook (Sorry my loyal readers at notagrouch.com the workbook is in progress as well, but if you stay tuned, you'll be the first to know when it's available for download).

The reason I like using "for beginners" and "video series" is because the results from these phrases tend to have more than one video to give you more information you may not even know you needed. This is when you start learning about how much you don't know you don't know. This is a great thing!

I bet you know more about the internet and how to use it than you realize. And I'm being literal there, you don't realize how much you already know.

The stuff you need to research will lead you to some technology based decisions. I bet you're not afraid of doing something like that. Or when you pick up a new hobby or take on new roles at work. You are often faced with technology based questions this thing we're talking about here, it's no different.

Don't be afraid of starting a business online because you think you don't know anything about computers or the internet. That's just plain nonsense.

The post No Tech Skills Needed to Start a Business Online appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The word system is really just a way to describe a whole process; A to Z that helps you get something done. In this case, the purpose of the system is to make you money.

The reason most businesses fail in the first year or two after they open is because they don't have a system. They don't have a way to repeat success and they're usually shooting blind hoping to hit their target.

That's just the harsh reality. The idea behind your business may be great, but it's hard to duplicate and scale. The product may be the best out there but only one person knows how to make it so the business stalls. The customer service component is not there so customers don't return. Maybe the product and service is great, but there is nobody marketing and calling up or following up to close sales.

As entrepreneurs, the options are nearly endless. We can start a business, we can buy a business, we can buy a franchise, or we can license a business. You can do all these offline or online. I prefer running my business online. Less overhead, better hours, more profitability potential.

You could start a business and have every component of the business planned out and have staff to help you get it all done. You'll need accounting, human resources, production, quality assurance, fulfillment, returns or complains, and much more.

Using the traditional business model, you'll need capital and you'll need quite a bit of it. You'll likely make money after 18 to 24 months. You'll be in a good spot if you can pay your bills and have a little spending cash, but profits could take a while.

That is if you survive that long. This is more or less the traditional path of most small businesses.

If you have money or a big loan, you can buy an existing business. You'll need to do research, find an owner willing to sell for a good price. Then if you get all that done, you'll need to figure out how to run the business so it doesn't go broke.

This is another option that is quite expensive and not necessarily lucrative. Maybe you'll make money in a year or two, maybe in five years. But you can at least see if the business is good on paper, if it strikes an emotional cord with you to the point where you know you can keep it profitable and grow it.

Ask  yourself, what am I going to bring to the table to earn more money with this business?

There is also the idea of a franchise. Franchises are really good systems sometimes. At least the good ones are, but the good franchises come at a price. Many times, a franchise is worse than a job in terms of financial burden, time commitment and quality of life for the owner, in other words, not very good.

But the best thing you can do for your business is to create a system. Start developing documentation, eliminate roadblocks to getting things done, and start creating a step by step guide on how to run your business.

This is the first step towards creating a system. The process of creating a system varies on every instance, but it is something similar to this:

Analysis > Documentation > Process Improvement > Testing > Design > Training > Deployment > Profit

Follow that short little chart above. Analyze the business to understand all the components that generate revenue and also those that produce losses. Document this information and create guides to explain how each component works with each other. Based on this initial analysis and documentation, try to eliminate those things that can't be automated or delegated and do a round of process flow improvement.

At this time you can test the changes you've made and correct any incongruencies along the way. Once you have a process, tested and documented, you can train others to do the work for you and thus allowing you to add new products or continue fine-tuning the margins on the current products. Training is necessary if you want to delegate your tasks.

Ideally you're doing many of these steps in a sequence but you are doing this on a staging or training environment. This way you're getting live feedback from live data and experience, but only in a small test environment that won't affect regular operations mode.

If you're changing a cash register system for example, don't just change it in all your stores all at once. Do a pilot test with a small group of cashiers and  to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out. Keep Testing and improving and designing.

This way, when people are ready to deploy the changes, everyone involved is familiar with the changes and how to handle them.

Finally, you put things into action when you deploy this and hopefully you will make a profit. You may need to loop through the entire process several times or loop through a few steps over and over until they're smooth and efficient.

The post The Dot Com Lifestyle Meetup – Systems appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We talked about email marketing and how Aweber helps you achieve great results. There are three main tips I covered as well as some insights from John Chow. We also took a little bit of time to do Q&A and really enjoyed the time hanging out and learning from each other.

At the very last minute before starting, we decided to fire up a Google Hangout on Air so the recording of that video is shown below. Paradise Perks, the coffee shop where we hosted this didn't have the best internet connection to stream this live so the video is a little fuzzy. But you can listen to the whole conversation in the form of a podcast.

[powerpress]

We also briefly talked about a few apps that integrate with Aweber beautifully:

• Gravity Forms - Integrate sophisticated and beautiful forms with Aweber and WordPress
• Optinmonster - Dramatically (up to 600%) increase your opt-in rates on your WordPress Website.
• Leadpages - Easily create beautiful landing pages that integrate seamlessly with Aweber.

Aweber Tips, and discussion Hangouts On Air

The post Aweber Tips and List Building Techniques – Dot Com Coffee appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WhQkKVoGkY

And no, you don't have to already be making money online to start living the Dot Com Lifestyle, all it takes is determination, a plan and execution. Oh yeah and good guidance. So stick around, subscribe or leave comments here to join me in living the Dot Com Lifestyle. Work anywhere, work anytime and do whatever you want with your time & money.

A good way to get started is by downloading the eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model, available free here.

The post The Dot Com Lifestyle Personified with Terry Lamb appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The post Home Business Summit with Marie and Neary appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I think I mentioned before that I was going to be featured on inmotion Hosting's newsletter to the affiliates. That means, the affiliate newsletter that the other professionals receive. It's also nice to be featured in a great newsletter by one of my sponsors.

Inmotion Hosting is one of my biggest sponsors. So I send them a good share of my business. Something must be working, don't you think? Although I can always improve on things, and I continue to do so weekly based on feedback I receive.

So Jason Hong, inmotion Hosting's Affiliate Manager asked if I would write a column for their newsletter. I decided to write about the way I am doing business in RealFreeWebsite.com. By offering a lot of value. Always, as much as possible. And in return, your affiliate commissions will increase and become more regular.

Normally this newsletter goes out to the active affiliates for the company, but they also post it online. You can read it here.

I think some of the points I'd like to drive home just by telling you about them here are these:

The easiest way is to offer a bundle of products tailored to a specific group of people. I create a bundle, and I create a promotional campaign around it. The goal is to get the target audience in my email list, and then offer them unparalleled value.

In the newsletter, I explain that by bundling stuff together and adding a service or setup component to the products then you can add a ton of value around your offers. This sets you apart from all the other affiliates promoting the same products. This is especially useful and beneficial when you're a new affiliate. If you weren't aware of it, this is the exact thing that is covered on the Affiliate Bonus Domination course.

This was back in October, but this post has been waiting on my queue for a while, I think it was time to share it with you. Since then, Jason Hong has been featured on my blog already in a video giving you a couple of monetization tips for your blog & website.

[woocommerce_shop_messages]

The post Featured on inMotion’s Affiliate Newsletter appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

It is safe to do this because I do it when everyone else is at work, so there is virtually no traffic or anything to bother us while we ride the streets in Irvine. Hope you see one more benefit of running an online business where you get to have time, location and money freedom. Until next time, cheers!

The post The Dot Com Lifestyle appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

In our DNA

There are a few moments in life --people say-- that you'll remember forever and as few moments in life that will change your life forever. Having met John Chow was one of those moments for me. I know... this sounds like a bromance story, but believe me it isn't.

You see, as I've said before, I've always been an entrepreneur. My family has a large number of entrepreneurs in it and in our history. It's as Gary Vaynerchuck would say in our DNA. So ever since I was a little kid I tried doing stuff for profit. It never quite worked out in a way that I was satisfied, I have had several businesses and many of them turned a really nice profit and lasted quite a while but I got bored with them. Many failed miserably.

Combine an opportunistic mind with shiny object syndrome and you have me. Aware of many opportunities that are available and going after the one that attracts me the most, until I'm bored with it. But the one thing that I've always liked doing is making money. I'm not the best at saving money, but I can be pretty damn creative at making it.

As a kid I washed cars for the neighbors for cash, in middle school I arm wrestled for my lunch money or would have slingshot "shoot outs" of cans and bottles for money.

Pop corn at the beach

Once I tried selling pop-corn with a friend at the beach, but he was much older and was just playing with me. He set me up as a prank and never showed. As insignificant as that may sound that event changed my life tremendously.

This kid was my friend and we had this whole thing planned, but the morning of our "big day" he wasn't there.  I had spent the better part of the previous afternoon and night preparing everything. We had agreed that I'd come over there and use a code to wake him up so we could get going. He didn't show, he didn't open the door when I went to get him at 7 am.

Later on the day he made fun of me of how I was using the "clap and whistle" code we had come up with earlier to get each other outside without alerting our parents. He thought it was hilarious how I had fallen for it. I didn't think it was funny. I was around 10 or 11 years old.

I lost trust in people a lot that day. I don't think I was really hurt, but I wondered if people were like that in general and at the age of 10 or 11, that's a tough realization to come to. Probably much deeper than I could comprehend at the time.

Life went on, we moved many times and I continued to figure out little ways to make money.  But it wasn't until I was 17-18 that I started really thinking about running a business or making serious money.

Detailing cars

I started a mobile detailing business, way before doing so was popular. But again, I didn't take it too seriously because I was taught all my teenage years in school and through people that I needed to go to school and get a job. So I was always studying and looking for a "regular job" but even when I got a regular corporate job I didn't stop my auto detailing.

It was great to get a paycheck from a technology startup and then go out and make 400 - 600 bucks each weekend detailing cars. It was fun but I was spending all my cash on toys and fun, and never really thought much more about the business. No long term plan, no growth strategy. I was just having fun. I didn't plan.

One day my garage and all the supplies burned down, my home garage. All my equipment and chemicals went up in flames. I was also taking on 20 - 30 hours of overtime at week at work so I didn't rebuild my detailing business after that. I thought that was a sign that I should focus on my "job" and career instead. So I did.

It was both a blessing and a curse. I think if I had bought everything back up and continued my detailing gig, I'd be pretty rich by now. I was good  at it. And over $400/day isn't something to sneeze at. But the blessing came in that I was more focused at work and I got to learn a lot more from many different people a lot faster. I moved up in the company, from operations, to IT,  to IT management. Then the itch came back. I had to "do my own thing"

The search for more

I wanted to do more, I was getting bored at work, I tend to master a topic or task fairly quickly and then get bored of it so I have to continue to improve and make changes otherwise monotony will kill me. So I went online to see how I could make more money online. As you can see in one of my 100 things you didn't know about me list, one of them is that I wanted to make 1 million by the time I was 30. I have made a lot of money but not quite 1 million yet, probably over 1/2 but I've spent it all. I certainly don't have a lot to show for.

So I went online to look for something, and nothing seemed interesting, but blogging did. I had been blogging on and off since before it was called "blogging" I started on a platform called open diary, then I had my own html website (rakxzo.com) and then I tried a php based blog, and eventually in 2004 I tried WordPress. I loved it and I was blogging from time to time, and then I found that you could make money online with a blog. Or so this guy claimed. This guy was John Chow.

Enter John Chow

So I tried out what this guy John Chow would say, but I only would do part of it because I thought I knew better. This guy didn't even spell check his stuff! So I would make a little bit of money and then quit, I wasn't happy about it. I tried other things, I tried following other people but it always came back to John.

As I continued in my corporate rat race, I decided I would start taking on side clients because the people at work would often refer me to their family and friends for computer or network or website help. Eventually this led to "website" help and I officially became an all around friendly neighborhood computer guy.

Do as I say not as I do

Funny enough, I would read and learn all these things from John and other bloggers that supported his claims, but I would never implement them for myself. I'd just think about them as if that was enough to make them work. The funny thing is that I would advise my website clients to do the same things John was telling us on his blog... and they would do these things and it would work for them. One of the reasons I didn't fully follow John's stuff was because at times, he would come across as an arrogant money hungry person.

And dummy me, I kept thinking that it was just beginners luck that my clients were making money by following John's advice.  I thought maybe I could just keep making money by helping them make money online while charging them a fee. I never really tried the techniques completely. I would read them and agree that they made perfect sense and that, "well of course that works! duh!" but then I'd go back to the water cooler chats at work, drinking my coffee or chatting about the latest episode of Lost.

Social Media shenanigans

Then Social Media became all the rage and along with website services, I began offering social media advice and consulting, strategy and design. So I was now a full service technology solutions one man show. IT, networks, support, desktop and mobile and also websites and marketing support.

Everything I know I learned from the experts and forums and practice at work. Dave Taylor and Chris Pirillo as well as support from countless forums helped me sharpen my technical edge with desktop, server and network support and tech support. Authors like Sobell gave me the insights into Unix, Linux and Networking, at the same time, slowly but surely, the online marketing experts were leaving their footprint in my mind as well.

Combine that vast knowledge resource pool and add the luck to work with two of the best sysadmins (Steve and Steve) and network admins (David) in the planet and by the time I was 29 I thought I knew it all and totally quit my corporate career. I left a company of 5 years in pursuit of one more IT leadership position. This was not exactly what I wanted but I was offered a position of Director of IT, the title was nice, the pay was good so I took it. Shortly after that, the gig ended and I was left out to pick a path. Go back to a job, or do my own thing.

Flat on my face I fall

I decided to take the few side clients I had, my knowledge and expertise and go out on my own instead of looking for a new job. I started thinking I knew it all but I fell flat on my face. I thought I knew how to sell, and how to provision and deliver. But I was wrong. I knew how to do the work but the business side of things was new to me. When you're in a corporation generally, someone else does the sales, someone else does the marketing, someone else does billing. You just do your work.

I managed to get clients and to this day, my business is flourishing, but I also started paying more attention to online marketing, and selling online and making money from the internet instead of having to seek out customers in the traditional ways. I also became a strong social networker. Now, people know me in Orange County and that's a cool thing. It's strange that sometimes people know me more by my Twitter name Notagrouch than by my name, but it's still fun.

Reinventing myself

So as I became a networker, I tried to attend as many events and meetups as possible to connect with people.. One of these meetups I found was SMMOC or Social Media Mastermind Orange County. I became a regular there and loved it. SMMOC takes place on Saturday mornings and it is where you go talk about social media in Orange County. Every other group I've been to pales in comparison. So I became a regular member and made lots of friends and connections.

One day I arrived late, and I had to sit on the couch in the back. But next to me my friend Denise was busy noting things down and paying attention. As I settled down I noticed a new person in the group. He looked strangely familiar but couldn't quite figure out why. After a little while, I turned to Denise and asked her "Is that John Chow?" And she just shrugged quietly.

I thought, it can't be, he lives in Vancouver, what he be doing here in Costa Mesa and at SMMOC out of all places. I had to look up his picture just to make sure I was wrong. But turns out it was him. Then I jumped on the conversation the group was having, probably about klout or something, and answered the topic at hand but also asked the group if they knew who this was. Nobody knew! I was blown away. -- That's topic for another blogpost, but let's just suffice it to say that if you're in a niche, you should know who the players are. So I introduced him to the group.

New friendship

We became friends after that. Turns out that John is actually quite a nice guy despite what many people think about him. Many people make negative assumptions about him. Probably because he portrays the success they've not been able to achieve; part of it could be jealousy or just a way to reinforce their belief that they can't or shouldn't do what he does. But not only did we become friends, good friends, but he's been kind of my mentor ever since.

John hanging out at Claire's babyshower.

I've changed a huge portion of my business to follow his advice and guidance. I feel that after "knowing" him for all these years, I simply couldn't ignore this chance. It was almost like a sign that what I want to do is the right thing and that I should be doing it. Out of all the places in the world, John decides to move to Irvine? That's was the opportunity of a lifetime and  I would be a fool if I let it go.

He's taken me under his wing to learn online marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing and all the while we've had a great time. We've been to events together like Affiliate Summit, Passion to Profit, the VIP meetup, and tons of other events going on around here. We even started the Dot Com Lifestyle meetup together. He's introduced me to big people that also have helped me grow and develop my business tremendously.

So this is how I met John. And trust me when I say it, he's an alright guy.

The post How I met John Chow or how I became an online marketer appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Take a look at the chart below, and I'll explain it after (click to enlarge).

First things first

In the diagram, each of the purple boxes represents a landing page. Each one is titled differently, but they're all technically landing pages. Some may be sales letters, thank you letters, long-form sales letters, or squeeze pages.

Creating these pages is fairly simple if you use a service or outsource them. I would recommend you take a look at Leadpages as the best service to create these pages for you. They create mobile-friendly, responsive, Facebook-friendly, WordPress compatible, easy, painless, and compatible with Aweber.

First, we will start with the landing page. We are assuming you have traffic going to the landing page. The traffic could be sourced from any type of advertising campaign, social media campaign, word of mouth, or any other method you can muster. We'll cover traffic in another blog post.

Once the visitor gets to a landing page, and the visitor enters the required information, a confirmation page is presented. This page will explain to the visitor to check their email address and click on the confirmation link. This is pretty standard stuff and it relates to that double opt-in process I talked about on my previous post about the email system.

First major step

The visitor now has two options, to confirm the link or to ignore it. For now, let's assume that yes, they click on the confirmation link. This will take the visitor to the Thank you page. The thank-you page may contain the sales letter and offer and most marketers I think would suggest this option.

In the flowchart, I chose to put the sales page as an additional step to illustrate it clearly. Both options are valid, but keep in mind that every time you present an option to click or not to click to continue you risk a percentage of the visitors to not continue. Also note that the Thank you page is presented from the previous email. At this time, another email is also sent. This email tends to mirror the thank you page and sales offer. We'll come back to the email part in a couple of paragraphs.

The sales page needs to present the offer. The offer must be clear and simple to complete; don't overcomplicate the options the visitor has. Present the offer, make it irresistible and make the next step loud and clear. That step is to buy.

To buy or not to buy

We are now at another decision, the customer will decide if they buy or if they save their hard-earned dollars for another day. Let's assume and continue with the positive response flow and assume they purchased your product. Success! this is awesome and you're on your way to earning a living online. At this point, you use another landing page to present them with another offer, another product, perhaps an upgrade to what they purchased. The cycle starts over at that time.

Now let's go back to the thank you email/sales link. At this point, you present the sales offer via email as well as on a website. The email, like the website, provides information about the product. The email serves as a reminder about why they need to buy your product now. They can save the message, reply to you and ask questions, re-read it, forward it, this is why you do both a webpage and an email.

After the first email, you present the follow-up sequence. Opinions differ on what is the right amount of emails in a follow-up sequence, but facts show that constant reminders and relationship-building emails work best as opposed to infrequent ones. Most successful internet marketers will advise you to email your customer every day they haven't purchased your product.

Tie in the email messages to the sales pages

Each email you send gives you an opportunity to expand on the benefits of the product. You can showcase success stories or testimonials. You can present new offers, OTOs (one-time offers), or LTOs (Limited time offers) to encourage them to buy. Then the cycle continues. If you want to be more sophisticated, each email message in your follow-up sequence can send the customer to a customized landing page specific to that offer instead of the same sales page you've used in previous instances.

Now, let's go back to the first choice where the customer didn't confirm the link. For most internet marketers, this step is unorthodox. I add it to my own sales process because I think it is important and we need to account for a few possible scenarios.

The follow up is key

It is important to follow up manually because it gives you a chance to connect with your potential customer. There is also the chance that maybe something went wrong with the email subscription, maybe they didn't get the email, maybe it went to spam. The way to follow up, if you are using aweber, it is easy. Go to your list and look for the unconfirmed email message and manually send the person an email from your email. Introduce yourself, tell them why you're emailing them and help them get through whatever obstacle may be in the way of confirming their request for information via email.

So that's it

There are many ways to follow this model and variations can be endless. The only real way to find out what is the best way is to test each step yourself and see how your product or service performs. You can use a link shortener to easily do A/B testing for example. You can also create several landing pages in just a few minutes in order to test a short sales page vs. a long sales page. It's also easy to move a subscriber or potential customer from one list to another when you're using Leadpages and Aweber; they work together flawlessly.

This process can be applied to almost any type of promotion online. Doesn't matter if you're trying to sell a product, service or just increase the readership of your blog. It even works for a church if you want to increase your congregation. You just have to think out of the box and understand that a product is anything you want someone else to use, and a sale is made anytime you persuade your target customer to buy. Get it?

The post The internet marketing basic sales flowchart appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I got a chance to meet some great new people, had great conversations and we really enjoyed each other's company over some wine and hors d'oeuvres.

I hope you can make the next event. We're planning the next 2 months and we will be announcing them all at our meetup page so join and stay tunned.

The post The Dot Com Lifestyle Meetup Follow up. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

A little background.

I believe that John actually coined the term several years back, and it refers to the concept of having the financial freedom, to do anything you want with your time and do it from anywhere in the world. Entire books have been written about this idea. One example, the 4 hour workweek by Tim Ferris. This is Location, Time and Money freedom! So when I started running meetups, I started with Smart and Social, but Smart and Social was too broad. I was going to teach you all about technology and blogging, websites, email and social media. But I found that we didn't really have a clear focus. The answer to WHY? wasn't clear.

Our focus is clear.

So we're redefining it. The Dot Com Lifestyle will teach you technology, that is the main topic. But the focus is to learn all this stuff with the goal of quitting the 9 - 5 grind and making more than enough money from anywhere in the world. We will teach you how to run this lifestyle from your laptop, or ipad or even just an internet browser. You'll learn how to blog, how to do email, social media, google analytics, and all the other stuff you keep hearing about so you can actually make passive income and take control of your life. We invite you to join. Now, just watch this video and join us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSynRqYyrF4

The post Announcing the Dot Com Lifestyle Meetup with John Chow appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The Habit is nice. Even though prices are comparable to fast food places... or even less expensive, the decor and ambiance is more upscale than your average fast food joint. They even use those buzzers like regular sit down restaurants to call you when your order is ready. That was a nice touch.

Staff was friendly and despite being in a long line I was in and out of there in about 10 minutes.

I ordered their double cheeseburger. With fries. Someone had mentioned that the patties were thin so it would be better if I got a double burger. Turns out, I thought the patties were thin like the patties for In n Out. I was really hungry so I ordered an additional patty. Making this a triple cheeseburger... Except they didn't put cheese on the third patty.

Side dishes at The Habit in #Irvine

A photo posted by Oscar Gonzalez (@notagrouch) on Apr 9, 2013 at 11:05am PDT

Just a few minutes later I was out the door with my order and an order for a friend, the original char burger with fries. My order was to go ao I headed back home to chow down.

The fact is that this is one of the best burgers I have had in a while. For this price and basically a fast food burger, The Habit's double char cheeseburger is hard to beat. I know I had an extra patty, and that just put my burger over the top. The patties are substantially bigger than In and Out's, and I really did not need to order a third patty, but it was good.

Maybe I am being a little bit unfair to my other beloved burger joints like In and Out because the flavor was totally different, but it just tasted really good. It reminded me of a really good home made burger.
The burgers normally come with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo. It was pretty perfect, but knowing me I had to get some of the sliced jalapeños and chilies they have as condiments. #Delish.

I will definitely be back soon. It was totally a great experience, tasty and at a terrific price. (I am blogging this from my phone so forgive my typos, but enjoy the pictures.)

The post The Habit Burger in Irvine appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.