Our blog is moving!

Our blog is moving! I officially decided it would take less time to move to WordPress than it would to keep explaining why I liked Blogger. I do like Blogger actually but apparently that is a losing argument and I know when I'm licked! So our new blog is here
It is NOT perfect yet and it will undoubtedly look different in the not so distant future. It has looked vastly different in the very recent past. But it is a work in progress. I am not a genius coder, that is for sure! That being said, if there is something you would like to see - put in a comment over there and let me know. So far I know that it doesn't have the Networked Blogs or the Google Friend Connect, for some reason I can't get those to show up. I put in a support message over at Networked Blogs - I figure the fix may be similar for Google Friend Connect so I will hopefully be able to apply both to that. The other issue is I haven't found a Facebook Fan Page plug-in that I am super happy with, the ones I tried didn't display very loverly so I am still looking for a good one - recommendations are more than welcome.
Other than those issues - if there is something you hate or you want to see, definitely let me know. It does have commentluv, keywordluv and dofollow for the curious. I was able to import the commentluv comments from this blog so that kinda rocks! See ya over there!

Do you like Rush? or Who's Your Customer?

One of the music stations did Rush Hoshanah, 24 hours of Rush, and I was thriled, because not only is that hilarious, I love this band. Of course, I'm a boy, so this isn't too horribly shocking.

When Heather and I were first dating, she went to a used records store and bought all the used cds she could find of Rush. The clerk (male) came up to her and said, "New boyfriend?" And she said it was indeed. And he said "You must really like him, lucky guy!" And she said, "Well, I do, but it's early, so I'm just buying the used cds :)"  I still love her even though she said that.

Anyway, we are hosting a Traffic Rush, which is a fun way for people not as familiar with exchanges to try them out because you can win cash,  over at Trophy Hits. And the reason I signed up to do it, why did Traffic Rush catch my eye...yes, because it said Rush. Isn't it weird - it has absolutely nothing to do with the band or the music, but that simple association is what prompted me to pay attention. 

I've known people who haven't signed up for sites because they haven't liked the girl pictured on the site (who was a bought image from a photo site - not really personally associated with the site in any way) reminded them of someone they didn't like. I've known people (including me) who have signed up for sites because we have liked the theme of it or some image of it, even if there were other similar sites that were otensibly the same quality product or service. There's a lesson in there about knowing who your customer is and what their potential interests might be so you can have graphics and themes that speak to them. There's also perhaps a lesson about having a variety of sites and not using all of  the same images at each of them so that if they hate one of the images they won't hate all of your sites! A little variety while still maintaining your brand is good.

If you have never thought about who your customer is and have no idea how to start try this idea! Get a ton of post-it notes - the small kind. Write on each one - one different thing about your customer and write at least 5 different things every day. You may know some immediately - "Stay At Home Mom" or "likes baseball" or "someone who needs leads". Really stuck- how about - are they over 18? Over 21? Over 30 - are they more likely to be male or female, with kids or without, have a job outside the home or not. You can put things like are they more likely to have a Facebook account or one with eHarmony or a reunion site. You can put if they are likely to watch certain tv shows or not - you can reference these in your ad campaigns. Or you can put if you think they are likely to be people with various health problems. Maybe if you are not directly selling health products you can do a joint venture with someone who is - or you can buy their mailing list. After at least a week, shoot for 10 days, start grouping the items and see if any patterns emerge that lead you to more brainstorming or ideas on how to market or reach out to you customer. You may realize you know more about them than you think.

And obviously you may have various subsets of customers - a male subset, a female subset perhaps or a subset that is newbies at something and one that is beginners, maybe even an intermediate group - you would target those differently.Try it and see where it leads you.

Have a great rest of the week!

Rob

Rainbow Traffic Solutions

Plan to Succeed - Updated on the Training Doc for Rainbow Traffic Solutions

I'm happy to report that the training documents at Rainbow Traffic Solutions are getting read. Awesome! So less questions for me, right? Sorta... Now, the questions we are being asked is how fast will I fill my downline completely and how long before I see all the results with all the advertising for my own business with it that I am looking for? So we added a new section to the training document that we hope helps and we are posting it here as well...

Plan To Succeed

Success – it doesn’t happen overnight! A question we get asked is – how fast will it happen for me? This depends – on you! Are you the type of person that thinks, plans and acts on those plans? Or do you hope and procrastinate…. Check out this great post by Wendy Hewlett on the Success Mindset versus the Average Mindset  That ought to help you switch gears a bit into where you need to be. Edward Elliott, a real helpful guy, can bring you the Summer of Success training calls (it’s free, don’t worry) and you don’t have to listen to them in the summer.  This will help get you started with some ways of thinking and planning to get yourself going.

After those two things, where do you want to go – would you like to join the team?  You’ll still need to do work on your own depending on how quickly you would like to achieve your goals with us. You may want to join some other networking groups – there are a lot of them out there that focus on getting your mindset in order to attract wealth and/or to turn yourself into the type of person that is ready to receive wealth. Or if you are not into that way of thinking and you like step by step action – you could develop a business marketing plan for yourself on Excel or in a contact management program or even in a word processing program or in scheduling software that pinpointed what kinds of activities you were going to do and when. You could plan roll-outs for these and then follow your plan. Or you could go large scale and develop a strategic plan – if you want the coolest post I have ever seen about this, check out Beth Allen’s post Strategic Planning and Tall Trees. But then be prepared to do some serious work cause hers is not a strategic plan for wimps.

  

You can find a lot of help online for how you want to proceed – the ball is in your court. We will do our best to help you succeed, but you have to step up and grab the ball and shout – hello world, I'm making this shot! 

Till next time...

Rob

Rainbow Traffic Solutions

Guides Available on Rainbow Traffic Exchange and Lead Generation on Trophy Too and Pests

So the Help Guides have been popular over at Trophy Hits and since they are equally applicable over at Rainbow Traffic Exchange they are over there now too. So if you have any questions about how to add your sites or convert credits or things of that sort you all squared away with those now. But of course, if you have any questions, it is always okay to put in a support ticket or just email me directly.

At one point we had a little document about squeeze pages, lists and leads in traffic exchanges but in the midst of script updates and various other improvements I moved it somewhere for safe keeping and it is so secure now that I can't find it now, lol. Anybody watch that show C.I.A. Secrets - I think I must've paid too much attention one day when the were doing the episode about moving documents and dead drops:)  I was reminded of this by a message I got from someone asking me about lead generation in traffic exchanges. Fortunately somebody else wrote a very popular and effective report on this (which is free) that I have put on both of the above mentioned exchanges. (My other 2 exchanges must not be feeling the love but I have and will do other cool stuff for them soon, lol)  You can find the report on TE List Building in the member's area right next to the Help Guides.

Somebody else wanted to know why I tell stories about Heather all the time instead of stories about my job in pest control. And I thought, really, you want to hear about pest control? Trust me, you don't, lol Well, the answer is because I pick the stories about the thing that is closest to my heart, which is Heather and I pick the stories about the things I feel lead me to making a point, which is usually Heather. So, for the time being, I think I will stick with that unless some burst of pest related inspiration hits me and I write an epic about marketing based on getting rid of pests. Isn't marketing usually about being a pest until they sign-up for your opportunity - oh wait, there's the title - how to not get pest control called in while marketing!

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Rob

Social Media Vilillans and How to Get Rid of Them

We found this fun graphic from this blog and they said to share it around so we are - thought everyone would enjoy it! We know that everyone runs across this from time to time and thought it was good for a chuckle :) - Rob

WWE

Now we have a Team Training Doc

Another super quick post - the team got jealous that we had a training document for the membership site but not one specifically for the team. So now there's a mini-one just for them :) The things I do to keep people happy, lol Also, somebody had the most excellent idea that I post a date modified on the training documents so people would know when I went in and added stuff. Some observant souls noticed I'd been sneaking some things in... so done and done! The team doc is on the team page. The main doc is still on the main page.

Now we have CommentLuv!

Hi gang! Somebody wrote to me sad that we didn't have commentluv...I thought we couldn't have it because we didn't have WordPress, but that is simply not true - so now we have it. This is not a full-fledged blog post, just an FYI that all new blog posts will now have this feature. To add it to the old ones, I'd have to delete the existing comments, and although not a ton of comments, I don't want to delete anybody's words! There isn't an import feature at this time. But hooray for luv for the future :)

I am not a number and other things you shouldn't say in public

Some people might have seen this, Patrick McGoohan and his marvelous door opening ways and his fabulous conversations with many different No. 2s but he gets to say... "I am not a number, I am a free man" or "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered"  Heather and I love this show. Anyway she is at the hospital  for a blood draw which the doctor called her to do, but forget to actually place the order for. While she is waiting for them to sort it out, a nurse comes out and asks "What number are you" and Heather says "I am not a number, I am a free man" and she starts to go on and quote the I will not be pushed, filed stamped but stops herself and giggles. 

She was waiting at a bus stop coming home from the hospital the other day and an older lady starts to talk to her about being late for the eye doctor because the bus is running late. The woman is very concerned and has been debating which of three buses to take and has been jumping back and forth between all three of them (had she just picked one and actually gotten on one of them she probably would've made her appointment okay). But anyway, she is not ceasing to speak to Heather and so Heather says completely deadpan, "Well," and hold up her blind cane, "you can see what happened the last time I was late I for the eye doctor"  Really really really long pause. Then the woman finally laughs. I think Heather was slightly evil for trying this joke. 

Why is Rob telling us what a nut job Heather is? Well because last night she was leaving her Feldenkrais class (which is a movement class - they have chronic pain people take it sometimes) and it was a rough class during which she had trouble not crying. She was walking to the bus stop and she burst into tears because of one of those super intense overwhelming pain times where you can't hold it in anymore and you are just screaming and crying in pain. When she could bring that under control a little bit she had to figure out if it was safe for her to get on the bus where she couldn't really lie down at all or if she would just wait it out somewhere at the hospital or go to the ER and get a bit of relief. She hasn't gone to the ER in years but she went last night - she didn't check in though, she just laid down there (lying flat helps reduce some of the pain) for a whole variety of reasons - she doesn't want to tell her story again, she doesn't want to be labeled a drug seeker, she doesn't want them to think she's being manipulative and trying to highlight that the schedule they have her on, which forces her to leave the house and do something at the hospital almost every day of the week now (and ride public transit back and forth which tacks an 1 1/2-3 hours each way) is too much,  she didn't want to be condescended to, there were a whole bunch of reasons. She shouldn't necessarily get on the bus or try to cross streets if the vertigo is too strong and then if she gets too disoriented because of that it gets troublesome and nobody really wants her screaming on the bus, lol. So what's a girl to do...

Marketing on the internet is often like making the decision about whether or not to go to the ER - it's about perception. Will this person think I am commenting on his blog just to get the love back? Or will he realize that while, sure, there may be an element to that, there is definitely something specific to his blog that I like which is why I am able to point to that and say something about it as opposed to just saying - hey, nice blog, come look at mine.   Or if I friend someone on Facebook - will they get that I might actually think that their status updates are funny.cool.interesting.smart and pay attention to that and go check on them and want to form a business relationship or will they just assume that I am in it solely for myself. Will they realize that if they only approach me with their 'stuff' , not even noticing when I am responding to their stuff and promoting their stuff, that I will be unlikely to respond super-positively to that and that the relationship that does form will, in fact, turn out to be superficial and won't lead anywhere. 

Developing relationships online take time. And I don't always immediately notice somebody's Diggs or all the Tweets and Buzzes and whatnots out there. I do spend more time looking at various people's ones as I get to know them and get more interested in what they have to say and recommend. Then these are the people's ones whom I am likely to re-tweet and to re-digg. As I connect with people on other networks I find that some people seem to be better at reading what people have to say than others- I've had messages sent to me where they clearly didn't read my message. Then after I reply back and they reply back to me -it's just more generic stuff, no real reply back or any indication that they actually read that message either. And then I think - well, that's someone I think I can take off the list of people I am going to spend time trying to connect with - because let's face it - limited hours in a day! I can't connect with everybody. And so many of you guys are fantastic! So I'd rather invest the effort there :) 

So....why did I start this off with 2 silly stories...because we need the humor to humanize us. We need the humor to let off steam. And since the point of the post today was that although marketing online obviously entails a bit of trying to get something for yourself - you are also trying to connect with other real live human beings out there! 

So happy connecting! 

Rob

Graphics added to Membership Site and 24 Hours for Water and Celebration

Ok - no earthshattering thoughts - just 3 quick updates...

So had three different emails from my people asking me if I knew where to find some good "buy now" or "on sale" buttons for their site which is a record since that isn't something people usually ask me about. I found some and found some other cool graphic backgrounds, bullets , people images, trial offer, discount offer, contact icons, and download now buttons etc  and master resell rights to the whole package and threw that up (not literally,lol ) on the matrix membership site.

Also we are still raising money for mycharity:water - they help get clean drinking water to developing nations (usually in Africa, usually by doing wells)- you can check out where they've helped by looking at some of the GPS coordinates on their website, it's pretty neat what a huge difference this makes. A lack of this kills more people than war - which really makes sense since we are made up so much of water. We are aqua-beings! Anyway, we are able to offer an extra promo code for the next 24 hours ( the normal promo codes and how to claim are here ) at SportsFanTraffic which is another traffic exchange . We can give you a whopping 300 conversion credits - that means you can take those and  convert them to banner ads, text ads or regular credits for your website. Any amount you donate over $1 qualifies you for this promotion - donate, leave your name in the comment area and then contact me or me personally through Facebook and I'll get you hooked up with the credits.

And finally, if you aren't following us as as group on Facebook or aren't a member of Rainbow Traffic Exchange you might not know that we do a celebration of the day over there. You know - It's Broadway Musicals Day,  It's National Sugar Cookie Day, etc. Who wouldn't want to celebrate this stuff? It runs in our surf bar. We think it's fun. We just started announcing this on Facebook and to sweeten the part are awarding prizes to people who also surf 50 pages and submit a support ticket and share something relevant to the day. For example, today is National Frappé Day so you'd write in a say what your favorite coffee drink is after you're done surfing. We reserve the right to share the best answers with everybody so watch out on the 12 when it is Moment of Frustration Day :)

Have a great week!

Rob

New - Mini-Training Document Available

So I was reading a blog post today by Greg the Writer on How to Build A Network Marketing Team and it got me to thinking. Oh boy, says my business partner Patty de, never a good thing, lol. Actually, in this instance I think it was!

I have this tendency to want to be reserved, I feel important internally, I don't usually need external validation for that. I think it is one of the reasons why originally I was not supposed to be the one doing the blogging or the public face of the business. I don't usually feel less alone if I am working with a big group.

So I'm a freak - most people are much more social than I am and need to connect. That's a good thing really. Without these connections, people lose sight of each other and don't care for one another like they should.

So how does all this relate to the business? Well, people need more communication rather than less and they need more how-tos and how-not-tos etc. And that's my job to provide. They need to know that they are important to me (and they are!) and that I worry when they write to me when they are having a problem with something (which I do) and that I drop everything to try to fix it (which I do).

Some problems may take longer than others and I may have to call in big guns for support, it doesn't mean I have dropped the issue. Some problems are quite easily fixed. Sometimes it is something really simple with one of the exchanges - sometimes it is a user mistake and sometimes it is something I need to fix. Either way there is something I can do to help.

With the matrix membership site, people want to know how to get referrals and how to keep referrals mostly. We have a blog for that, but that doesn't seem to be enough so I made up this new document to help a bit with that. I posted it on the site. You don't have to join the matrix to see it - it's not super-secret information - it's information that various people have shared with me that have helped me and so I have gathered it together and am sharing it now with you. I'll update it as there is cool new information to add. Or things that I remember that I forgot to add (which is likely)

And that's all for now! Have a great weekend.

Rob

Trophy Hits - New Surfing Contest - Actually View People's Sites!

We know that the whole point of traffic exchanges is actually getting views to your site. Sometimes in the mad rush to earn credits people click, click, click and just keep their eyes open for prize pages and verification pages. There are even things to make that easier for you to do. And sometimes with chatting and surfing multiple sites simultaneously, the actual viewing and paying attention to people's sites get lost a bit.

There have been some social networking surfing exchange that have been trying to change that which is great and  I think some of the quality of traffic can be higher on those. However, sometimes in the rush to leave comments that might get rewarded, people are sometimes just copying and pasting generic messages that don't have anything in particular to do with the site. Or just using sites to get social networking contacts. Neither of these things are totally horrible - quality of traffic and making contacts is definitely better and that's good. And it is things like this that the industry has to do to try to get people focused at looking at sites and connecting with people to make surfing more viable again. It's up to surfers too to participate in such a way at these and regular surf sites in the spirit in which we all design and try to run them - to help people get quality traffic.

So we're having a surfing contest to try and get people looking at your site:

1. For every accurate abuse report we get for a site that is having a problem - i.e. the site no longer is there, the site displays with a bunch of error messages, the site tries to break the frame, etc - you'll get 500 banner impressions

2. For every banner or text ad that you submit you'll get a bonus of 100 banner or text ad credits (we want to have good fresh stuff in rotation!)

3. For every site that you submit you'll get an extra 10 credits (again with good stuff in rotation)

4. For every banner or text ad that you report that has a bad link or bad image (you can right click and you'll see what the url is and you can use that to report it as a support ticket) you'll also get a 500 banner or text ad impressions

5. For every site that you submit a report for that is a good site and you click Report site anyway and submit a review of that goes beyond "good site" that has actual content indicating you viewed the site - you'll get 100 credits

6. For every 3 sites that you do that kind of review for you'll get 1 solo ad @ Trophy Hits and the 300 credits

7. For every 5 sites that you do that kind of review you'll also get a tweet of your site in addition to the solo ad and the 500 credits


This will run the whole month of October. If you're not a member of Trophy Hits already, now is a great time to join!


Happy Surfing!


Rob

Chat Capacity and What Works and Falling Asleep!

So Heather is taking a Feldenkrais class which is Awareness through Movement and the teacher is apparently extraordinarily fond of saying things like "and you get credit for falling asleep!" Basically the idea being that you need to rest, less is more and that your mind is still listening and that you don't necessarily need to physically do the movements for the neurological connections to be made. The think method works - alert The Music Man!

So I have been thinking about that (ha-ha). I can't simply think about contacting a person and the person is contacted - but obviously in thinking about contacting people before I do so I can more effectively contact them. Not just in terms of making the points I want to make, but in having the tone I want to have, in conveying what it is I actually want to convey - which is more important than the actual words I use.

Sometimes in taking time out to be aware of what it is we are doing in business, in writing an email, in writing a blog, in surfing a traffic exchange, we can gain an insight we didn't previously have and would be unlikely to get if we were just doing it mindlessly. Kind of Buddhist in a way, but nobody has a hold on being mindful. The other important aspect being - you need to rest - you need to take a step back. You can't be doing constantly or you have no time to think, no time to process, no time to actually understand what's happening, to assess and change course and act appropriately.

So to segue into the question of the week - I have been offline due to some computer problems for about 5 days (resolved now - yee-ha!). But I have now answered the question publicly and privately  - does this work - about 37 times. And the answer is basically the same - you get into things what you put into them. Yes, it does work. You can wait for it to happen due to the efforts of people working for you or you can work yourself and make it happen faster. You can take advantage of the things offered to you and utilize them fully or you can ignore them. Up to you!  It'd be nice if I could say -yes, it works like magic and you have to do nothing and no one anywhere has to do anything, but that's simply not true. I've personally been a member of sites that have said that - and it has NOT been true but some people, even though they have already been scammed by sites that have said that they still want to hear that line. That's part of the reason for this post - if you don't step back and take a look at what you're doing, you'll keep making the same mistakes. Just trying to keep it real!

So I know, I know, another chatty post. Again, we have the chat capacity test coming up  - Oct 24 12 PM PST. You are all invited - it will be super fast - no sales pitches, nothing like that, we are just seeing how many it can hold before it bursts. Kinda cool. See the link for more details. My awesome and nice business partner Patty is running this through her site.

Have a great rest of the week!

Rob
eb00b260478f4ff384d3974d102119d8

What do you want, chatting and trivia

Okay so the blog was originally only supposed to be business updates, but what fun is that?
Brian had posted something on his facebook page about moving towards what you want or away from what you don't. I was thinking about that yesterday when Heather was um..complaining...(she does that sometimes) about several different people all on the same day giving her a difficult time. Why? She's legally blind/visually impaired - she can see a little big of color if it's super bright and some motion if she's looking right at it - and that's about it. And so people feel compelled to comment to her when she is trying to get around to her doctor's appointments.
Now, mind you, different people at different points on her journey made these comments to her "Your life is so much worse than mine, I had felt bad about my life, but now looking at you, I feel okay now", "I would kill myself if I were you", and "I don't know why you even try". Okay, and those were just 3 of her favorites from that one day. And people wonder why she doesn't like to leave the house anymore, lol.
From the point of view of these people, they would be moving away from the reality of her life, which is difficult (she has other disabilities too that interfere with her ability to walk amongst other things - some of this would be visible to an outside observer) And I think much of the time she would like to move away from her reality as well. I try to have the focus that we still have each other, we still have (most of the time) our sense of humor (which is usually dark and sometimes very very wrong) and I still have that feeling when I see her of being completely in love. It eases my pain, it eases my suffering, it makes my life worth living. And I don't care if a business or a job or another relationship or the world or anything else is wrong sometimes so long as I can turn and just know that she is there. I don't really care if we're at a doctor or we can't do something because she isn't healthy enough at that moment - if I'm reading some comic book to her that's enough or if she tells me one of the ten million corny jokes she likes and I laugh, that's enough.
And so the point of all of this is - what do you want? Much of my motivation to be successful comes from the desire to be affluent enough to be able to provide the kind of resources and support she needs to be able to live more easily, more pain-free and thrive. That costs money! Another part of my motivation comes from something I learned from her back when I watched her run a non-profit - we don't live in a vacuum, it's our responsibility and privilege to care about others as well - and there's a part of you that is missing when you don't. So affluence for me means giving back to communities in need in various ways. And the rest of my motivation comes from wanting to be able to have a lot of cool stuff :) Seriously, you get the idea - our motivation is broken up into parts - shared a few of mine to help get you thinking about yours...
And you say, wow, what happened, not normally so chatty. Well, blame Patty. The chat on her site is so cool, it has made me chatty. Don't believe me, come join us on October 24th 2010 to see if we can break her chat room. How many people can we cram in there. Nobody tell the safety inspector... And there I go back to business, lol - you knew it had to happen
And finally, yes, it is a new week and so yes, there are more trivia questions over at Autumn Harvest Traffic. Surf and find 'em and answer them to claim your winnings. Answer them correctly that is... And see if you can do it without searching for the answers in Google....And yes, the Sweet Christmas question is in there.....
Have a great rest of the week
Rob
Rainbow Traffic Solutions

Widget Mania or Bang the Drum Slowly or Answer the Question

Based on people liking having some widgets over at Trophy Hits we have added some over at Rainbow Traffic Exchange as well. Don't worry - we will still celebrate something every day - today is Checkers Day, by the way, but that has moved - way up to the top of the surf bar. Sometimes we will run promotions based on you knowing what the special celebration of the day is and commenting on it by sending in a support ticket or sending us a message. Those will be announced through Facebook and Twitter so be sure and catch up with us there!
We also moved the banners down to the bottom. Up where the banners were is a widget that displays a question of the day - this is not hosted by us and different people can contribute questions so it can be interesting. Check it out! Almost went with business quote of the day but we thought this would be more fun and there are so many other excellent sources of business motivation quotes readily accessible.
Down below by the banners we have kind of a fun one, it's a little drum set you can bang on and it will make noise. Sometimes you need to make some noise. Sometimes you need to bang on something. Mission accomplished here. There was a thought about meditation chimes, but this is Thor and Heimdal and Volstag and all those guys - drums are probably more appropriate :) The other rainbow site that is more mellow is probably the place for the chimes if we ever go widget crazy over there :)
And you can chat while surfing - so that gives you some stuff to look at and do while surfing. There are also prize pages in rotation to report. Plus the banners have a little bar at the top that sometimes appears that you can click on for extra credits. This is also an exchange where you can earn some solo ads not only here but at other exchanges as well so be sure and surf to your desired level if that interests you. If you need any help - contact us with a support ticket there or email Rob
If you're not already a member of our exchange this is a great time to join and we'd love to see you there!
Rob

Should I bother with safelists?

Got an email today from someone asking me why they should bother with safelists. It wasn't even about the safelist we run, he was asking about one of the giant safelists that we'll just leave nameless. He hadn't gotten any response and had been on it for a few months.

It was pretty similar to a message I got about 6 months ago from somebody else about a different, but still major, safelist. And I periodically get variations on these messages for the various safelists we've run or promoted or when we've said - yes, use safelists as an advertising method.

Somebody else had recently asked me how many sign-ups they could expect from one safelist mailing. Well - without knowing what they were promoting, how they were promoting it, which safelist, - any information at all, it's hard to answer that question. And even if you do know all that stuff -it is still kinda hard to answer. You can test and get some insight - but advertising is still some art form mixed with some science.
 

And since I'm in a grumpy mood (it's been known to happen) I figured I'd write a blog post instead of doing my regularly scheduled work :)  So here is the short answer - yes, bother with safelist advertising. The sign-ups I have gotten from safelists have been good, strong ones - when it comes from a non-credit based safelist, I've noticed that these are people that can, ahem, read - and they often wind up using the site, visiting again or being otherwise great. From a credit-based safelist this can be true too. 

In general it is easier to get sign-ups from a credit based one because they have more incentive to click. However, if there are a lot of ads that come out  - they have a lot of choice, meaning they might not choose yours. So have a good subject line.  Timing can help with that too - people sometimes click more when they need more credits to send out ads - so you might see a surge on the weekends. But sending out multiple ads with varying titles as often as you can really helps with the response rate - and  you can test the success rates of either titles or timing - keep track in an spreadsheet or even on a sheet of paper (remember those!?)

There's a free ebook that talks about how to make the most out of safelist marketing that has a bunch of tips. These work well on listbuilder sites and text ad exchanges too - anywhere you are going to send out email type messages to a bunch of people. 

Anyway, back to the actual grindstone now or the peppermill or whatnot (for those that don't know I cook, hence the peppermill....)

Rob...who is actually looking for a lost shaker of salt  :)

Autumn Harvest Upgrade Added and 2 More Downloads to Members Area

You asked for it and you got it - Autumn Harvest Traffic Exchange now is added to Rainbow Traffic Solutions matrix in the upgrade section. So your membership there will get an upgrade over at this fun exchange.

Also added to the members area are two reports - one is about getting results from traffic exchanges. The other is about blogging and has a ten step plan (don't ya love those?!)

We're always looking for great things that we think you might like and that will add value to your membership there. Come check it out today!

Rob

Another Downline Member - Will You Be Next?

I got another downline member here. This is a really great program. You get paid to advertise your own programs - everybody here has those. The backoffice is easy to use. The owner is accessible, responds quickly and is actually helpful! There's information there on how to set up effective ads if you need some tips as well - and we can always benefit from that :)

Bottom line - I highly recommend this program. You can make money with this. There's spillover, so you can wait for it to happen. Or you can be more assertive and advertise yourself and get your own referrals. Up to you. I like when there are choices.

Learn more here by watching this video. Feel like you're ready to sign-up? 

Have a great week! - Rob

Building Your List and more social networking

So we've added 5 reports on list building to the downloads area of the matrix. Why 5 - well it's a big topic and this way you get some different perspectives, lots of tips - take what works for you. One thing we've learned is that sometimes somebody will say something and it just doesn't hit you and then somebody says almost the exact same thing and all of a sudden the light bulb comes on and you have that - ah-ha moment! Everything becomes clear and you know what you need to know, what you need to do next. We want you to have that ah-ha moment! And what better thing to have it about than list building

And we posted a couple of other social networking communities on the site - some already big, some smaller but seem to be growing. People keep bringing these to our attention and it's pretty fun! We'd love to have you connect with us there. So come on in and join with us :)

If you haven't joined - join today! You can make money monthly, plus get upgrades, credits, downloads and network with us and others :)

Rob

Affiliates Promotions Chat Capacity Test

Unbreak my heart - come break my chat room....or something like that...


Seriously though come chat with me and Patty and the Affiliates Promotions gang on October 24th at 12 PM PST and let's see how many people we can cram into the room before it explodes. 


It's kind of like the Large Hadron Colllider experiments - will we be able to get 70 or 100 people in there or will we create a black hole and destroy the universe as we know it. 


The only way to find out is to show up!


The chat room is very cool, feature rich, user friendly, there are video chat features too and you can talk to people privately and....well...just come along and see...


And of course, if you'd like to swing by the chat room before and check it out, you're more than welcome :)


Rob

Don't Show Us Your Face - Avatar Contest

Just a reminder that this contest is still happening.....

New contest at Rainbow Traffic Solutions inspired by people's love/hate relationship with avatars. Personally, I love avatars. I don't necessarily need to see a photo of a person to do business with them. A cool avatar is fine. I still believe that they are a real person. The photo doesn't do anything to instill any extra trust for me. Talking with them via email, im or whatever method we choose to use and seeing what they do over the course of time does. And frankly - some of the photos I have seen make it LESS likely that I would want to do business with you, lol. Sometimes I have this fabulous image of you in my head - and then you go and spoil it with the truth of how you actually look.

So we are having an avatar contest - send us your avatars - no photos accepted. It can be an avatar likeness of you or it can look nothing like you. It's up to you. You can submit as email to rainbowtrafficexchange@gmail.com . We will be the judge of what avatars we like the best and our decisions are final. The prizes are as follows...

Grand prize: 52 solo ads at Rainbow Traffic Exchange and Trophy Hits
1st Prize: 12 solo at Rainbow Traffic (our first one)
2nd Prize: 1000 log-in ad view at Autumn Harvest Traffic Exchange
3rd Prize: Ad sent out in Rainbow Classifieds Newsletter

Deadline: September 30 2010

And as promised, for those of you that MUST know what I look like - here is me, all bulked out in an Aquaman outfit for my friend's movie.

Note: Here's Patty's Avatar -

Patty's Chat is Cool - Check it Out Today!

So I went into Patty's Affiliates Promotions Chat the other day checking it out because our very cool raffle is coming up and we'll be holding the live part there. Now we know that I am a little socially awkward at times and maybe a bit anti-group chat/phone etc see here but this chat I actually liked. Not only is it not a phone call, lol, (although with the video/webcam thing you could talk live!) but it is very user friendly - it is super easy to use, very fast loading, I even like the smiley sets. I like how easy it is to talk to one person individually outside of the whole chat. I like that I can see video - you click on the camera icon next to somebody's name - and it's like magic - you can see. Normally, this isn't something I would do - but comes in handy if you want to have a raffle and people want to be able to see the draw :) And I like that I have control over all these options. You can also create different rooms - so you can gather together to have online meetings for a variety of reasons for business, social networking or just to hang out.

There's actually a lot of other great features on the Affiliates Promotions site itself so it is worth hanging around and checking out as well, but even if you aren't participating in our raffle - and what are you crazy - it's a great deal and a great cause! - Patty's chat is terrific and well worth a look! And if you have questions about it or want to talk more about a cool test she is planning for it- you can reach her at Facebook.

Rob

The. Best. Raffle. Ever. - Seriously!

This is very cool and I am extremely excited and I just can't hide it :) We are having a live streaming raffle. And I'm not doing the drawing of the 3 winners. Not just 1 winner. Not just 2 winners. But 3 winners - count 'em 3 whole winners! And I'm not doing the drawing!

Who is? A really super cute kid. Patty de's grandson in fact. You can see a picture of him here and you can buy your tickets there too. $5 entry fee - and get this - all of the proceeds go to the mycharity:water project that I think is so awesome. So what a great deal right? And you can enter as often as you like.

So what do you win? What do you want? Advertising of course! And not just from us! From everybody! And if you are an everybody that I have not yet contacted about being a part of the raffle or that just wants to take part - contact me and let's get you involved.Solo ads, traffic exchange credits, banner ads impressions, text ads, point packages, referrals, start pages, featured ads, a marquee ad on a social networking site, or a banner ad for a month on a forum site - whatever you'd like to have be part of the raffle is probably something we can do. Social networking sites, text ad exchanges, traffic exchanges, list builders, forums, classified sites, viral ad builders, PTC/PTR, all ad sites and networking sites, etc. are welcome.

We have some sites listed on there right now to launch with and we are adding more as we speak - so get your tickets and spread the word - hey the money goes to a great cause and we do have 3 winners!  

Rob

Why I Don't Skype

People often ask me to Skype. Or why I don't Skype. They say it's easy to get, easy to understand, it allows you to connect to more people etc. etc. I feel I am pretty accessible - many of my sites have direct support tickets mechanisms and/or email contact info. I have gmail. I have GoogleTalk. I have Facebook, Twitter, ApSense, ImFaceplate, am on several Ning network and on other social networks and a few forums. I've a blog with a comments feature I've used other chat systems - Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, ICQ, for various needs. I've used team chat and chatted in traffic exchanges publicly.  I have a cell phone for my super close friends and business associates. I even have postal mail - oh my! I'm not unreachable.

And I have felt that many of the methods listed above can serve the same function as Skype. I know there are a few other cool functions of Skype - but honestly - 99% of the time, people want me to be on Skype for a call or a group call.  And it is with the phone call aspect of it I am a little uncomfortable. Not because I have a wacky sense of humor that not everbody immediately understands. Sometimes I post a comment somewhere and people don't understand the joke till weeks later. And then I'll get 20 private messages from different people telling me how funny it was :). Sometimes people immediately get it - and I like that too :)  But I don't like Skype because I am a little awkward verbally in real time. When I have the time to craft a message, even if I have the time delay that you can in a typed chat sometimes, that helps. But speaking is different and a different part of the brain too. So I haven't wanted to do Skype or the VOIP programs that came out pre-Skype either.

Part of the reason I was excited about online marketing is that it gives me the chance to be successful. When you hear me speak, I may not be the most compelling guy in the world. But when I'm online, it's not about that - the playing field is levelled and it is more about the printed word and the cool graphics and splash pages. That's why we have the avatar contest - cause it's not about how exactly we look - it's about what we're putting out there online - what we are creating, what we are making for ourselves.

And you know - I honestly didn't originally come online so that I could be the world's most accessible human being or so that I could share what I thought about everything every second of every day. Some people like to do this - they post everything on Yelp, every encounter on a blog, etc. full profiles everywhere, pictures on Flickr, etc. People tell me - you can share info constantly on Skype and it's just like you're in each other's living rooms or offices all the time! LOL - a little privacy is okay :) Sharing information so you can network and work with others is good - but sometimes the people I see doing this just seem to be having a lot of their time being eaten up by this. Sometimes it is seems unnecessary and the parts you do need you could just do by other means. Sometimes it just seems like - hey, it's kinda cool so let's do it this way. Maybe it makes them feel more productive - but it makes me feel less so - if I've talked to so and so for X amount of time and we worked out some issue, great. But I've noticed that a lot less gets done that day because there is so much more "social" stuff that has happened. Maybe something terrific came out of that or we'll have a longer lasting relationship because of that, but most of the time, from past experience in the olden phone and in person days - usually not. Perhaps because I'm a bit verbally awkward so hence not the best way for me to connect.

So - you probably won't hear me on Skype - but you will most likely catch me online somewhere.

Have a great rest of the week :)

Rob

P.S. Machete don't text - bet he don't Skype either :)

Can you do better than this? We still don't want to see your face!

Ok - so Patty submitted her avatar!  If you didn't see it....

Patty's Avatar

Can you do better than this? See the contest Splash Page  or the original Blog Post about the super cool event we are having and the prizes you could win. Plus you can see me pretend to be Aquaman, and who doesn't want to see that :)

You can submit your avatars to me via email if you like! Have a terrific weekend - and get designing....

Rob

Today is National Dream Day - Post a dream

As some of you know, we celebrate national and international days at Rainbow Traffic Exchange in the surfbar. Today is National Dream Day because Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech in 1963.

Which made me think about a recent post I saw on Im Faceplate about writing down your dreams and the power that can have  - how that can help you bring them forth into actual reality! Which is what we want, right - to actually achieve and not just whine that we don't have things.

I know that what is important to me now involves concern for the world - partly this is manifested by the mycharity water project. Setting that up - contacting the owners - and I contacted a lot more owners than are listed there :) and promoting the project has involved a lot of time and resources. I am confident that people will be able to find it in their hearts to be able to donate $1 to get a bunch of advertising promo codes while it gives clean drinking water to people in developing nations. This is part of my dream of what it means to be a charitable and compassionate businessman and human being.

And I have other personal dreams involving travel and dreams of health for my significant other, etc. etc. etc.

I wonder what your dreams are. I'd like to have people post a dream here - any (clean!) dream that you have and a step that you are taking to achieve it and maybe something small that you need to achieve it - maybe somebody else reading it will be able to help.

Another New Splash for Autumn Harvest

Autumn Harvest - Yep, it's party time over there. I added a new trivia question to the mix. So go over there and surf and see if you know the answer :) You'll see them while surfing and win credits when you know the answer. New questions every week!

And a new splash page. Too fun, right!

That's in addition to the other pretty new splash page from , what, like yesterday?

And don't forget, if you could, that you can get $10 worth of advertising bribes over there by becoming a follower here so don't pass that one up.

There's several one-time-only offers at Autumn Harvest that really are just that - they only display once, and you won't see better offers on the site - Not that I don't make great advertising offers in the rest of the place, but still - don't pass those up.

And at Autumn Harvest - you get commission for referring upgraded members. And if you are an upgraded member yourself, you get more commission. So that's a pretty sweet deal.

And if you didn't catch it yet - we now have solo ad over there - so that's a great way to reach the whole membership. Let me know if you have any questions, need any help, etc etc etc.

Happy harvesting...
Rob

New Report and Network at Rainbow Traffic Solutions

It's always fun to add things to Rainbow Traffic Solutions so we added a new report on social networking there in the download area and a new networking location we like. If you aren't a member yet - there is no better time to join!

If you are nervous about joining alone - know that you can join as part of a team, and that they won't stop promoting till you have at least 3 people in your downline.

Plus, if you clicked the team splash link above, you saw a team splash, if you go here, you can see some of the team ad bonuses you'll receive.

We'll do our best to work with you to see you succeed. Obviously it takes your effort to - but together - we can make things happen! If you don't join, you can't benefit. We are here to help - that's why we keep looking for the best stuff to add, the best social sites to join, etc.

Ok - so see ya there

Rob

New Splash Page at Autumn Harvest Traffic

To celebrate Autumn Harvest's new script update, we have a new splash page - we will probably wind up with a few more in the upcoming weeks. But we wanted to point out that it is a bit more fun over there.

There are a lot more advertising options there too. Go check it out! Plus check out the earlier post to see how you can get $10 worth of advertising there. It's a bribe and it's pretty sweet.

Have a great rest of the week!

Rob

Become a Follower of this Blog and Get Rewarded! Up to $10

Become a follower of this blog and get 500 log-in promo page views at Autumn Harvest Traffic Exchange. Yep, it's a bribe. Worth $5!

To claim it - follow us here and then leave a comment with the url you wish to have be the login promo page.

Special bonus - if you join Autumn Harvest Exchange open a support ticket there with your user id and include a url of a banner and the url of the accompanying site you wish to promote and I'll give you 500 Featured Site views. Another bribe - Also worth $5

So you could get $10 worth of bribes!

Act today, this offer can be taken down at any time or modified.

Rob
Rainbow Traffic Solutions

Rainbow Traffic Solutions - New Additions

Rainbow Traffic Solutions - some new additions. Soren Jordansen's Internet Marketing Success Formula - it's an excellent step by step guide about making money online. There's a new GPT community site that we've joined that we think will be a great, thriving place to hang out and network. And we've added Autumn Harvest log-in ad views as a regular monthly benefit.

So if you're not a member yet, come on in!

Rob

Rainbow Traffic Exchange - Solo Ad Madness

It's $1 solo ad madness time along with 5000 credits added to your account at Rainbow Traffic Exchange. Why - cause I'm celebrating all the excitement here at Rainbow Traffic Solutions.

I've been doing all sorts of fun and exciting things lately - our sister site Trophy Hits has been undergoing major renovations - if you aren't a member there you are seriously missing out on the fun. Rainbow Traffic has it's own domain now, has it's great surfing rewards (similar to the surfing rewards here), it's letterhunt and lottery so that's a barrel of fun. We have the Avatar contest and an upcoming joint contest (more details soon) plus the mycharity project and so much more going on. I've finally started blogging more and hanging out on Facebook and other social networks and we have our cool Zazzle store.

So to celebrate - let's have $1 solo ad madness time - plus you get 5000 bonus credits added to your account for purchasing. This is for a very limited time. We have sold solos for up to $20 here - solos are considered super effective forms of advertising these days - so stock when I'm in a good mood and prices are cheap! Act now :)

Rob
P.S. If you don't know how to get your solo ad after you sign-up, open up a support ticket and I'll walk you through it - but it's really easy - just click on on Solo Emails in the Tools area.

Trophy Hits - To Banner or To Twitter

Twas nobler in the mind to banner or to twitter- that is the question....or something like that....

Ok...more exciting news...it never ever stops around here :) There's a nifty widget that is now in the upper surfbar at Trophy Hits that lets you log-in to your Twitter account and tweet to your heart's content. Now, this replaces the banners that were there.

So that leads you to a big, huge decision - would you rather have the banners or the Twitter? Let me know - it's your exchange. Now I know there is theoretically room in the lower bar. But, my wimpy programming brain cannot figure out how to get two widgets side-by-side down there. More hours than I would care to admit have been spent trying to do this - if you know how - shoot me a line. (about how do it - not of that other stuff, it's not the 80's)

Banners will still display on other parts of the site and I did add them into a few new places. I can even add them into a few more. Plus banners display on other sites when people use the banner codes from the members area. Currently we were powering through banner impression super fast and I was having to give people extra banners and stock in my own just to keep up with the demand. So slowing down the rate like this might not be such a bad thing.

But let me know here or at Trophy what you all want.

Have a great weekend!

Rob

Only 60 Days Left - Help Us Reach Our Goal

Ok all you great people out there - we've only got 60 days left to reach our goal and we really need your help! Check it out at our cool site today. Only $1 will help. Did you know that $20 will provide clean drinking water for 20 years. Kind of blows your mind. It's hard to get a great pizza for that. These people use your money well. Hey - they actually make wells, lol. Okay - so you can see using GPS coordinates on their main site some of the places they have helped. Go check it out. Mess around on their site - they have a lot of info.

And we contacted multiple owners - it's not just our network of Rainbow sites - to get you some great promo codes - to thank you for donating. $1 will get you that. $20 will get you that. Doesn't matter the size of the donation. We need to raise $5000. Help us get there.

Lack of clean drinking water kills more people than war. Kind of blows your mind. It leads to a whole host of health problems as you can maybe begin to imagine. Donate through Paypal on our site if you wish. Donate on the main site using your credit card if you wish. Donate on the main site by sending in a check - they have information about where to send and how to mark it so it gets credited to our efforts.

You can get a Big Gulp refill for about 99 cents in many places. Or you could donate a buck to this project. We'd really appreciate it if you chose the project! We know you can't donate to every charity project that along - but this one gives something back to you - advertising to your site - at a price that you can't beat. So pull it out from your ad budget, pull it from your coffee budget, but pull it.

And we'll do our best to shout our thanks from the rooftops. We'll shout out to you on Twitter, Facebook, ApSense, ImFaceplate, here, there, everywhere we can think of and we'll probably even throw some extra advertising your way (especially if your donation is bigger - hint, hint :)

Ok, have a great weekend! And go here

Rob

P.S.I like this quote by Thomas Fuller- "We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." The sad thing is - some of these places have never even had the well to begin with - let's change that!

Two New Downloads For Rainbow Traffic Solutions Members

More excitement at Rainbow Traffic Solutions! We have available for download in the members area 20 graphics with transparent backgrounds. We grabbed this one up because some people wrote in griping about transparent background issues. If you have ever gotten graphics off the internet and tried to put them on your website and blend them in - you know what I mean. So hopefully these will help.

The other download is a recommended report by Mike Filsaime about Marketing - and this is another people have said - this guy knows where it is at - listen to him and get into your success groove. And that's what we what for your - successful grooviness. My spell checker doesn't like the word "grooviness" but I do, so there :)

We also added in a couple of the other social networking places you can find us in the members area - always great fun.

Have a great weekend. And if you haven't joined up - get on it and get some cash!

Rob
Rainbow Traffic Solutions

Don't Show Us Your Face

New contest at Rainbow Traffic Solutions inspired by people's love/hate relationship with avatars. Personally, I love avatars. I don't necessarily need to see a photo of a person to do business with them. A cool avatar is fine. I still believe that they are a real person. The photo doesn't do anything to instill any extra trust for me. Talking with them via email, im or whatever method we choose to use and seeing what they do over the course of time does. And frankly - some of the photos I have seen make it LESS likely that I would want to do business with you, lol. Sometimes I have this fabulous image of you in my head - and then you go and spoil it with the truth of how you actually look.

So we are having an avatar contest - send us your avatars - no photos accepted. It can be an avatar likeness of you or it can look nothing like you. It's up to you. You can submit them as comments here or you can email rainbowtrafficexchange @gmail.com (take out the space before the @ symbol before you email!) them to us. We will be the judge of what avatars we like the best and our decisions are final. The prizes are as follows...

Grand prize: 52 solo ads at Rainbow Traffic Exchange and Trophy Hits
1st Prize: 12 solo at Rainbow Traffic (our first one)
2nd Prize: 1000 log-in ad view at Autumn Harvest Traffic Exchange
3rd Prize: Ad sent out in Rainbow Classifieds Newsletter

Deadline: September 30 2010

And as promised, for those of you that MUST know what I look like - here is me, all bulked out in an Aquaman outfit for my friend's movie.

Note: Here's Patty's Avatar -

Now at ApSense and ImFaceplate and more oh my!

You can find Rainbow Traffic Solutions all over the place these days. I won't bombard you with a comprehensive list here.  But Patty wanted us to have a presence over at ApSense  - so my personal profile is more or less there :) and we have a business profile I will be expanding as I can. I'll be responding to contact requests regularly, so drop by and say hi and we can connect there. 

ImFaceplate seems to be growing rapidly and you can follow me and Patty if you like! 

Don't forget to not just friend me at Facebook but to go be a fan of Rainbow Traffic Solutions - see the big box on the side of the blog! That would be most appreciated. And if you have a page we will be most happy to friend/fan you back. I do my best to read the emails, respond the comments/notifications etc within a few days. If I have missed something just send me a direct email there and I should respond :)

Have a great rest of the week and happy networking!

Rob

Two New Splashes - What a Wave Of Wild Wacky Fun!

One of our new splashes if for Trophy Hits Traffic Exchange to celebrate the new radio feature. It's called the Pole Dancing splash but it has these lovely sweet blue butterflies on it so I guess it could go either way between a nice splash or a naughty splash!

The other splash is for the matrix/membership site Rainbow Traffic Solutions. We really aren't logging anything, it's a joke of course and we hope it makes everyone smile.

We are poking gentle fun with both of these pages and hope it makes people smile while surfing. Advertising and marketing should be a little fun and hopefully not too dreary! So head on out and join on up if you haven't already. We look forward to seeing you at both sites.

Rob

Autumn Harvest is the Name of the Exchange!

So last night I got an email from someone who used a fake email address and no name and a fake member number to tell me that it was unprofessional to have Welcome to Autumn Harvest when it was summer time. I should pick the season and market it well.

Ummmm...the name of the exchange is Autumn Harvest Traffic Exchange. I don't change it to Winter Doldrums or Spring Forward or whatever each season. Thought that might be fun :) Now, I didn't start the exchange and I didn't name the exchange and honestly I wouldn't name one that and wouldn't necessarily want one named one that. (I just bought it cause I was doing a friend a favor) but I have seen other seasonal ones and haven't been confused by it. This person seemed very confused.

And also commented on how hard it was to find me. Which was weird given the fact that he or she used the contact form on the site to contact me. So it was definitely a weird e-mail and I just thought I would share the weirdness.

So happy winter, spring, autumn, and summer. Come on down and join Autumn Harvest. Actually, it's about to have a big script update. Glen from AMCS Traffic is about to do that and I am pretty excited. Anyone reading this and joining - send in a support ticked over there and say "weirdness" and I'll give you 100 log-in ad views :)

Rob

Trophy Hits Now With Tunes

Exciting News Over at Trophy Hits You can now surf along with music!

It's with the Pandora widget. So at the bottom of the surf bar you'll see My Stations and whatever the station of the day is- click on that and then you can choose one of my stations or set up some stations of your own. I like Pandora because you can Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down the music so it learns what you like. It will also choose other songs and artists based on what you like/don't like. You can also choose stations by genre. Plus you can choose to skip a song or simply to not listen to a song for a month if you're just slightly burnt out on it.

So thanks to Patty de (eight8ths) for the great idea. She's the best. I know there are still a few quirks over at Trophy Hits I am still working out - bear with me as I sort it all out and accept the music as a gift in the meantime  :)

Happy Surfing!
Rob

Saving the World - One Person Can Do It

I am really excited about this book - Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference For those of us that work at home and those of us that still sludge around voluntarily or not in the offline world there is some great encouraging information here about what we can do to make the world a better place.

It's so easy to get bogged down in pessimism and to see what can't be done and to point out what's wrong and what can't be done and what is so big and seems too huge to change. But what feels empowering and nurturing to my soul and I would imagine to everyone's soul and spirit is the things that we can do, the changes we can make. Then the realization seeps in that as these small changes add up the big institutional mess has been slowly eroded so that it is just a little more easy to tackle. And anything we are not making worse is good! Anything we are making better is good!

You can go here to read a conversation with the author, Tim Sanders.

This book lets you know how one person can make a difference. That one person can be you. Will it?



Publish Post

Store Status Updates

Okay so now we have 2, I can't believe it either, 2 Amazon stores. These will grow in slightly different directions. One will be more focused on our joint ventures with non-profits like the Mycharity:water project we have currently happening. And the other more traffic exchange et. all based. And we'll be adding more hand-picked items to the stores as we get feedback from you, we have already changed items in the main store based on some input!

But wait, there's more. We have the way cool Cafepress store. We like this because you get the t-shirts and bags, but you also get unusual items like things for your dog. Can't beat that in our book.

But maybe you can...We found Zazzle and what we liked about that is the travel mugs and the eco-friendly sacks especially. Rob obviously has a warped sense of humor which is evident in many of the "funny" bags. And there is a collection of fractal bags which were very fun to make. Items will appear and disappear on the site so if you see something you like - you better get it, cause it may be gone if there is an idea we want to put up there instead :)

Have a great week - and be sure and let us know what you'd like to see in the shops!

Rob