Monday December 3rd, 2007: Issue #866
There are only nine Kickstart days left before Christmas.
I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by and how so much has happened and changed during 2007. It has been a year of extremes for our family - lots of good things to remember and, sadly, an awful lot of tears.
As we laughed and joked over Christmas dinner almost a year ago, we had no idea of what fate would throw at us. That’s life - you get what you’re given. It isn’t what happens to you that matters though - to a large extent, as we’ve found this year, there is little you can do to affect that - it is how you react and respond that really counts.
We may not control events, but we sure can control the way we deal with them.
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Zip files are everywhere. People who sell or give away things online almost always compress their offerings into zip files. Not only are zip files faster to download, but they also make the entire download process much easier. Instead of having to individually download sometimes dozens of individual files, they can all be zipped up into one compressed folder. Easy.
The problem is that unzipping the files once you’ve got them on your own computer is sometimes a slow and messy process.
All Windows computers (certainly XP or later) have a built in decompression system. It works, but at times it can be infuriatingly slow. I’ve literally waited four hours or more to unzip a folder containing lots of files. Maddening.
The people who you download all those zipped files from often give you a handy link to a program called WinZip. WinZip is the leading decompression program on the market and works very well - and very fast. The problem is that after your 30-day trial is up, you can’t use it any more until you pay to register.
I think the price is $29.95, but can’t be sure because the site insists on wanting to charge me in Euros.
Either way, I really don’t want to pay for it. There are alternatives that cost nothing. They may not have all the bells and whistles (that I’d never need or use) but they do the one thing I want from a decompression program - they unzip zipped files quickly and easily.
I have tried quite a few free decompression programs, but the one I now use all the time is an open source program called 7-zip. You can download a copy from http://www.7-zip.org/ and I think you’ll agree that it does its job really well.
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Delia and the girls are going to see Take That at the O2 Arena in London this evening. I’d have quite liked to go myself - not particularly to see Take That, but to see how they’ve turned the white elephant that was the Millennium Dome into one of the hottest concert arenas in the world. But sadly, after we had booked our tickets way back at the beginning of the year, we got an email from the organizers taking two of them back.
So I’m just going along as the driver to drop them all off.
Oh well, I can’t complain. At least I got to see Elton John in Las Vegas. They haven’t quite forgiven me for that one yet!
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There has been a lot of ezine chatter in the last week or so about a major new product launch called Membership Millions. I haven’t seen what is on offer and haven’t even been able to plough through the huge sales page. It just seemed to be shouting too loudly for my taste.
I did scroll down to the price and almost laughed out loud when I read this line:
“…just 5 easy payments of $897 or 1 payment of $3,999!”
$897 is an EASY payment?
Once, perhaps, but surely not 5 months in a row! Are they Internet marketers or used car salesmen?
I’m sure that several things are already happening:
1. They’ll attract a lot of affiliates.
2. They’ll sell a lot of product.
3. The affiliates and the product owners will have a bumper payday.
4. Some people who’ll buy will make money. They may even make a profit.
5. Most of the people who buy will lose money.
That last point is no reflection on the product. I don’t even know what the product is - other than some kind of turnkey membership site system - and so can’t comment on its value or efficacy. I’m talking about human nature. There will be a good number of people who are so impressed and blinded by the huge price tag that they’ll buy it on a Pavlovian response and will then never do thing one to start making it work for them.
Sad but true. And it happens with virtually every product that is ever launched in this marketplace.
One thing I will say though - membership sites can be very profitable - if you know how to run them right.
My own plans to launch a membership site are progressing well. Delays have happened because I want to be sure that I can provide great value for money on a long-term consistent basis. Until I’m sure that I can deliver, I don’t want to take anyone’s money.
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Has PayDotCom shot itself in the foot?
Several products that I promote (including one of my own books) are sold through Mike Filsaime’s PayDotCom.
PayDotCom is billed as the alternative to ClickBank and a lot of people use it.
The way it has always worked up to now is that any fees accrued on sales during the month have to be paid to PayDotCom by PayPal - or risk having your account paused or terminated. Fair enough.
I sometimes think that the fees they charge me are higher than I’d expected, but I have no problem sending them the money to keep my sales flowing.
Today I logged in to my account to be met with a new screen saying that they will no longer allow fee payments to be made by PayPal. Instead I have to give them my credit card details and authorize them to take what they want on a weekly or monthly basis.
How silly.
As I run a limited company and don’t have a company credit card, their new policy is awkward for me. Not impossible, but undesirably complex.
In fact, I will not play ball.
As soon as I’m able I will move my own book away from PayDotCom to ClickBank.
I will also write to every product publisher who I promote and explain that I can no longer promote anything that is sold through PayDotCom if the new system is set in stone.
I will also write to Mike Filsaime and explain the same thing to him.
PayDotCom has been difficult to use and a bit clunky since it first launched but I’ve always been prepared to accept the problems for the sake of having an alternative to ClickBank (which also had its problems a year or two ago).
ClickBank is now a lot better and its management have instigated some excellent new changes. PayDotCom has just got harder to use and in my opinion, has, for me, now thrown the race.
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An Inspirational Thought
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I saw one of those inspirational posters in a shop window. It was close-up of two runner’s hands passing a baton between them.
The caption read: “Communication is the secret to success … pass it on.”
Consider it done.
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Who do you know who would love Kickstart Today?
Don’t keep it to yourself - send them to
http://www.kickstartdaily.com today!
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The Quote of the Day
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Harry Kemp said,
“The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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Brian Tracy said,
“Your biggest opportunity probably lies under your own feet in your current job, industry, education, experience or interests.”
Let’s look a bit closer at that quote from Brian Tracy.
How many of us have the strange belief that to be successful, we have to be doing something different?
We seem to feel that a complete change is the only way that we can make things go well for us.
What is that all about?
If we can’t make a success of what we are doing now, why do we think that doing something completely different will make us change our behavior?
The key is in the two words ‘different’ and ‘differently’.
Doing something different doesn’t imply that we will change our way of working. Just that we will apply the same old behaviors to a new project.
Doing something differently, however, implies that we take a fresh look at our own interactions with our tasks.
When Brian Tracy says, “Your biggest opportunity probably lies under your own feet in your current job, industry, education, experience or interests,” he is putting his finger right on the button.
The things that you feel you are failing at right now, are things that you probably know a great deal about. Too much, perhaps, if you have stopped seeing them with fresh eyes.
Your experience is getting in the way of your success.
Rather than going off looking for greener grass, which will still need cutting and watering, take a moment to think WHY the grass you are standing on right now is turning brown.
Think about what you are doing, the way you are doing it, why you are doing it, how you are doing it - even where you’re doing it and with whom. Look at ALL the influences and see what you can change to do it differently.
They say that a change is a good as a rest, but even more powerfully, a change is often the spark that can explode completely unexpected success.
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Fascinating Facts
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One of the most famous artists of the twentieth century is known simply by his last name.
Which is a good job because his full name was Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.