Single Brew Gourmet Coffee Great for Skiing and Inlaws
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Apr 20, 2009
Single Brew Gourmet Coffee in tea bag style containers is great for skiing, camping, and visiting with the inlaws.Closing day at Copper Mountain yesterday, I was having lunch in the upper lodge called Solitude Station. The downstairs restaurant was closed but fortunately I brought my lunch. They were cooking burgers on the grill outside and there was a condiment stand, a couple of microwaves, some cups in the dispenser, and a large container of hot water. That was it, but that’s all I needed to get my coffee fix!
A new client gave me a few samples of his famous “Single Brew” coffee before Christmas. My mother visited for Christmas Day and we broke open our first package, which was about the size of a large tea bag. We didn’t even bring out our coffee pot that day to make our traditional presents opening coffee. With these, you just dip the bag into hot water in your cup and your ready to roll. We both instantly fell in love with the taste. No cream or sugar needed!
Anyway, I thought we had drank them all over Christmas but on Saturday I found one straggler in the cabinet so I brought it to Copper to have for lunch. The single serve single brew bags are nice and flat and durable so I wasn’t worried about them getting torn inside my backpack as I skied around for the morning.
After my sandwich, I grabbed a cup of the boiling hot water and dipped my Single Brew coffee bag into the water and walked outside to sit in the warm sun and watch the other skiers go by. One guy could smell the coffee as he walked by and asked where I got my coffee because he didn’t see any for sale inside. I had to laugh as I told him this was “gourmet single brew single serve coffee that I brought from home, but you can always buy some for the next time at SingleBrew.com.”
He laughed and said “You say that like you own the company.” I replied with, “No, I just know the owner but it sure is good stuff.”
This summer I’m looking forward to bringing some Single Brew packets with me to Arkansas where we visit inlaws. None of them drink coffee and I always feel out of place lugging their coffee pot out just for me. This way, I’ll be able to just stick boil some water in a cup and stick it in the microwave.
Single Brew single serve gourmet coffee gets my highest recommendation.
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The “Truth” About How to Get Started on the Internet…Without Spending a Penny
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Mar 10, 2009
On a Denver talk radio show this morning the topic was about being positive about the economy. They were looking for call-ins from people with stories about business being GOOD for a change. No negative talk was tolerated. No politics comments were allowed. If you didn’t have a positive story to share, you were not allowed period.
I tried to get in but the show was almost over when I did and they were not taking additional calls by that time. What prompted me to call-in? My disgust that not one caller brought up the Internet or starting an online business as a means of making an income.
There was a guy that sells cars that offers good customer service. There’s an employer that vowed to not receive an income so she didn’t have to layoff her staff. C’mon America! We’re better than this.
A techno-phobe friend of mine started promoting affiliate products only a year ago and he’s making $30K a month now.
A client of mine hired out EVERYTHING to promote her business on the web two years ago and now manages almost everything herself saving thousands of dollars a month.
Even my own business at HereNextYear.com had a record January sales month thanks to a blog package deal we launched.
I can assure you that the “failing economy” is much different online than off-line. People on the web are definitely making money.
You know who’s doing really well I’ll bet? That commercial I see at 3am where they’re trying to get you to buy into their Internet mall and then tell your friends and family to buy the same products through the same stores…just through your affiliate link.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for selling affiliate products and have over 30 that I promote myself! But, buying into an Internet mall will not be the way to go for most. The host and creator of the Internet mall are the ones making the money from your initial payment and ongoing monthly fee.
If you’ve found yourself in this same trench, don’t beat yourself up too badly. It’s not your fault. Maybe you just got laid off and you’re gasping at straws, can’t find a job and now in a last minute attempt, you turn to the web.
So, what’s the solution?
How you can you get started on the Internet from the very beginning even if you don’t have a website and have not a clue of where or how to even register a domain name?
How can you as someone who HAS been involved online for a while consult someone who has just lost their job and instruct them how to get involved with the Internet?
The answer is to NOT try to make money as your first step.
That might not be what you want to hear exactly, but it’s true. Before you attempt to start making any money on the Internet, you need to find a way to LIKE working on the Internet.
The best way to do that is to simply learn some of the Internet’s hot tools right now.
1) Get used to talking with people and looking forward to their response
Twitter (Twitter.com) is a good starting point. Twitter is a way to meet people online and converse with them much like your teenager instant messages (IM) with his or her friends or sends text messages by phone.
Twitter is like going to a 24-hour worldwide networking event and striking up conversations with people to get to know them and for them to be introduced to you. The idea is to find interesting people you want to “follow” and also to add interesting content to the system yourself to gain “followers.” Twitter takes some time to get used to and understand its power. Sometimes you will think you’re just wasting time as “this will never make me any money.” But, that’s the point. You need to be able to look beyond the task and see how something like Twitter can benefit you later when you DO start to promote products or services.
2) Find and join a forum or two and start participating
Forums are another free opportunity for you to get started online. Go to Google and search for “bicycle forums” if you enjoy riding bikes or “furnace forums” if you just got laid off as a furnace repairman or “public relations forums” if you worked in the pr dept at a large company and just got the axe.
Whatever your area of professional expertise or hobby knowledge, find two or three popular forums to participate in. Get in the habit of answering peoples’ questions. Pay close attention to the questions people are asking right now versus the ones people seem to ask over and over again. Get good at answering peoples’ questions about your expert area. You’re going to need that for the next step I give you.
3) Type an answer to a heated question with a little more detail this time
I use this verbiage because people get all bent outa whack when I suggest they write an article. Okay, I really don’t want you to write an article okay? Just a more elaborate answer to someone’s question that you saw in Twitter or one of your forums. And, your answer needs to be about 400-500 words or so. And, here’s how I want you to give this written answer:
First, write two or three sentences stating the question and why it’s important for people to know the answer.
Example continuing with the furnace repairman: “Before you call a furnace repairman to fix your furnace that won’t turn on anymore when it gets cold, there are three things you should do. In the past 7 years of fixing furnaces for home owners, I’ve discovered that had the homeowner performed these following steps first, they would’ve saved themselves in many cases more $1000 in repair fees. These include….”
Second, offer three steps. I’m not an expert in furnace repair so I wouldn’t even know the first thing to suggest here. That’s the opportunity!
Third, summarize your points and give yourself a signature line. Like this:
In today’s economy you can’t afford to be ‘taken’ by starving furnace repairmen wanting to replace major parts of your furnace that don’t need replacing. Use these steps to protect yourself from the scammers.
John the Handyman has more than 7 years experience providing home furnace repair and is certified for 15 of the top furnace brands and is bonded to service Colorado residents. Call 303-000-0000 for a free quote and inspection.
[There is another piece to the process that involves making a headline. I’ll have to cover that one in an additional post, but let that be an invitation to join my free Level 1 member program where one of the features is a tool we’ve created that will help you make more than 200 headlines instantly! I use it almost every day myself. Join the free member area at HereNextYear.com/members.php
4) Search Google for “free article directories” and get your article added to some of them.
5) Repeat the process.
Again, this process isn’t designed to make you a million dollars overnight. It IS a way for you to get to know how people really do make money and increase business on the Internet and how you can get started without spending a time.
If you “don’t like” talking with people or “don’t want to give away your secrets” or “can’t type” or “are not technical” or “whatever other reason/excuse” you can come up with, it really is just that…an excuse.
And, I can say that every more advanced method of Internet marketing and generating online business stems from this one simple concept; providing people with value so that they want to eventually do business with you.
So, next time you find yourself listening to the news and hear the horrific stories of families being ripped apart by this economy, or if it has happened to you, or you fear your job is at stake, let that be inspiration to YOU to get started the real way to make money from the Internet. And, that is by finding others to share with and simply sharing the information you have with them.
And, that’s the truth about how to get started on the Internet…without spending a Penny.
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5 Internet Businesses Any College Student Can Start Without Spending a Dime
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Feb 27, 2009
When I was in college in 1989, we had only a few options to make a buck. Manual labor or selling products no one wanted to sell. After all, if a product was sell-able, all the experienced sales people would be all over it, leaving no open spots available for the inexperienced college student. But, the Internet has changed all that. Today, a college student only needs to look inside his or her own experiences to find ways to make money that older adults cannot invade.
1. Videographer - Sure, there are many video experts out there who are no strangers to the web. But, there are many business owners who would love to have video on their Web sites but don’t want to pay huge video production costs. Offer a video package deal that streamlines the process. The mobile device you use right now could be of high enough quality to post a fairly decent video for a business owner giving a short tour of their facility, for example. Offer uploading it to a YouTube account or their blog as part of the fee. Offer you could swing by once a week to record them on video and upload it to their blog or Web site or Facebook account. The list is truly endless if you add the word “video” into the mix. And, most business owners are scared to death of the thought of video although they know that’s where everything is happening online right now.
2. Setting up Social Sites – If you’re in your late teens or early twenties, you’ve practically grown up with MySpace and Facebook and all the cool ways and strategies to use those mediums. You probably can’t even imagine what life would be like without social sites! Business owners just think it’s “something they’d maybe get into if they had time.” You could offer a social media setup and training package where you do the setup and then offer training and support. This could be a package deal price or offer a monthly rate. Get 10 clients paying you even just $100 per month would be some pretty easy pay for you.
3. List Building – Tie in the social system with building the business owners newsletter list and even helping them with promotions. If you’ve used any html editors or even basic software, you would be able to figure out their email system like Constant Contact or other commercial email manager.
4. Affiliate Marketer – This one would just involve yourself working for you. You probably learned how to make a Web site in the 8th grade. So, use those early learned skills to promote some affiliate products. You don’t have to be a master of the industry and usually don’t even have to buy the product to start promoting it. Products abound in ClickBank.com and CommissionJunction.com where you can find products available to promote and you get up to 75% commission sometimes when one of your referrals buys. There’s a lot to starting to get involved in affiliate programs. I even created a free e-course for people in the business world who fear getting laid off and how they should start getting involved with the Internet before they lose their jobs.
5. Lead Generator - People refer business to me all the time. They don’t “sell” the client and get the order. They just tell people they know about my services and I get the phone call or they’ll go buy something on my Web site. When they do order, I pay commission on the sale to whoever referred the customer. This is even simpler than option #4 above because you don’t have to even worry about making Web sites. Simply find some companies that provide Internet promotion services (always a hot item with business owners) and offer to refer people their way for a commission on the sale.
If you go that route, I hope you would include my company in that mix. We have a particularly interesting package deal we’re selling called The Ultimate Blog Setup Package and it sells for $2500 a piece. There’s a lot of work we do on this end to implement the blog package, so we only pay 10% referrals. But, still that’s $250 just for a short conversation with a business owner, author or speaker you may already know in your network.
Imagine if you USED or expanded your network a little heavier and brought in 7, 8, 10 referrals a week for our blog package? Now you’re talking some bank.
This is just one of many examples you could use to refer prospective clients to web companies. The critical part is finding web services companies YOU can trust to get the job done…and get it done quickly. Be very careful with companies you pick to send your referrals to that they’ve been doing this for a while and that they really will pay you for those referrals.
So, that’s the scoop. 5 pretty solid and free ways any college student can start without spending a dime. And, because you’ve grown up with the technology in your back pocket, all of these will be simple for you to get into and start making immediate cash. The byproduct of course being that you will expand your education potential rivaling any college course for sure. Good luck and study hard!
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Get 19530 New Twitter Followers in 30 Days?
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Feb 12, 2009
Hey check this out…
I just found this site that shows you a way of getting 1000′s of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work
already.
http://tweetergetter.com/martydickinson
Yet another very interesting Twitter tool to try recommended by Website
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Worlds Tiniest Website
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Feb 10, 2009
Ever checkout the worlds tiniest website? I came across this during a heated forum discussion whether a website should force a visitor to scroll versus click to get to the information that they want. Programmers are notorious for wanting to develop small functionality or utilities one has to “figure out.”
Designers seem to want to never make the visitor scroll to get information. Since everyone I’ve ever hung around in the millionaire circle will tell you that half your visitors leave every time you make them click on a link, you know my stance to that question.
Yes, definitely provide the information you need to on a page where the visitors scroll whenever possible. But, just in case you get into a heated discussion with your designer or programmer, just say well, fine then, just go visit guimp.com and make me a website like that!
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Is Your Business Just a Game?
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Jan 26, 2009
Basketball is more than just a game but valuable experience too.
As many hours in a week as I’m working in front of a computer, I’m truly blessed to be able to be involved with my son’s basketball team. Last Thursday through Saturday, he played 6 games in his second tournament of the year and his team eventually won the championship! What a memory.
Throughout the competition, I kept hearing the parents complaining about the officiating (just like at NBA games!) and booing the coaching staff. I even tweeted right from the game a few times how disgusted I was at the audience’s participation.
What particularly caught my attention was the seemingly repetitive comment parents of players on the losing teams were making. They tried to justify their imminent defeat as the end of the 4th quarters drew near by saying as if almost programmed, “It’s only a game.”
Why do so many consider organized sports to be “just a game” I always wondered? Isn’t more? Isn’t any game or competition we are in simply “experience” to draw from later?
And, if we didn’t have that additional experience, whether we win or lose, where would we be then?
My friend, when it comes to our businesses and life in general, we play many games don’t we? Some we write off as “just a game” and others we consider far more important to be major tournaments. My hope is that you look at every game you play in your life and business to be thought of as valuable experience you must earn so that you may one day too hold your trophy of victory so high in the air that it won’t even fit in the picture!
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16 Essential Twitter Tools
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Dec 21, 2008
Great 16 Twitter tools article. Great job by Kalena Jordan and SitePro News! A perfect mesh of business building strategies and managing making posts. I never knew there was that much to it? Here’s the link to the 16 Twitter tools.
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362 Verbs that SELL When Writing Copy for Your Website
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Dec 4, 2008
This is really more of a list for me than anything. I always find myself getting hung up on finding verbs to use in my writing copy on the web.
Writing features and benefits of a product is always the toughest part for me about copywriting for the web; just that first word in the sentence. There’s no better word to begin a with than a verb when it comes to bullet points.
Verbs are “action words” which goes to show why they’re so important in copywriting. Without verbs, we would never get anyone take action with anything.
There would be no “Click Here” or “Sign-up Now!” Verbs are not only just “important” to have in your sales writing, they are the very heartbeat of any sales process, online or off-line.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of verbs that sell. Let me know if they help you in your copywriting efforts and make sure to add a comment if you can think of a verb that I haven’t listed here.
Verbs that Start with A:
Accelerate
Accomplish
Achieve
Acquire
Act
Activate
Adapt
Adopt
Address
Administer
Advise
Alter
Amaze (added)
Analyze
Anticipate
Apply
Appoint
Appraise
Approve
Arrange
Astound (added)
Assemble
Assess
Assist
Assure
Attain
Audit
Verbs that Start with B:
Believe (added)
Boast (added)
Brief
Budget
Build
Buy
Verbs that Start with C:
Calculate
Chart
Check
Claim
Clarify
Classify
Cleanse
Click
Close
Coach
Collect
Command
Communicate
Compare
Compile
Complete
Compose
Compress (added)
Compute
Conceive
Conceptualize
Conclude
Conduct
Confront
Conserve
Consolidate
Construct
Consult
Continue
Contract
Control
Convert
Coordinate
Correct
Correlate
Counsel
Create
Critique
Verbs that Start with D:
Deal
Decide
Define
Delegate
Deliver
Demonstrate
Depend
Designe
Detail
Detect
Determine
Develop
Devise
Diagnose
Direct
Discover
Dispense
Display
Disprove
Dissect
Distribute
Divert
Double
Draft
Dramatize
Draw
Drive
Verbs that Start with E:
Earn
Edit
Educate
Effect
Eliminate
Enact
Encourage
Endure
Enforce
Engineer
Enhance
Enlist
Ensure
Entertain
Establish
Estimate
Evaluate
Examine
Exceed
Execute
Exhibit
Expand
Expedite
Explain
Experiment
Express
Extract
Verbs that Start with F:
Facilitate
File
Finalize
Finance
Fix
Follow
Formalize
Form
Formulate
Find
Found
Verbs that Start with G:
Gather
Generate
Govern
Graduate
Guide
Verbs that Start with H:
Handle
Head
Help
Hire
Hypothesize
Verbs that Start with I:
Identify
Illustrate
Imagine
Implement
Improve
Improvise
Increase
Induce
Influence
Inform
Initiate
Innovate
Inspect
Inspire
Install
Institute
Instruct
Insure
Integrate
Intensify
Interpret
Interview
Introduce
Invent
Inventory
Investigate
Verbs that Start with J:
Judge
Justify
Verbs that Start with K:
Keep
Verbs that Start with L:
Launch
Lecture
Lead
Learn
License
Lift
Listen
Locate
Log
Verbs that Start with M:
Maintain
Magnify (Recent Addition)
Manage
Manipulate
Manufacture
Map
Market
Measure
Mediate
Memorize
Mentore
Model
Modify
Monitor
Motivate
Verbs that Start with N:
Name
Navigate
Negotiate
Nominate
Normalize
Note
Verbs that Start with O:
Observe
Obtain
Offer
Officiate
Operate
Order
Organize
Oriente
Originate
Overcome
Oversee
Verbs that Start with P:
Paint
Participate
Perceive
Perfect
Perform
Persuade
Photograph
Pilot
Pinpoint
Pioneer
Place
Plan
Play
Praise
Predict
Prepare
Prescribe
Present
Preside
Print
Process
Procure
Produce
Profess
Programm
Progress
Project
Promote
Proofread
Propose
Protect
Prove
Provide
Publicize
Purchase
Verbs that Start with Q:
Qualify
Question
Verbs that Start with R:
Raise
Rank
Rate
Realign
Realize
Reason
Receive
Recognize
Recommend
Reconcile
Record
Recruit
Reduce
Refer
Regulate
Rehabilitate
Reinforce
Relate
Relax (added)
Remodel (added)
Render
Renovate (added)
Reorganize
Repair
Report
Represent
Research
Resolve
Respond
Restore
Retrieve
Restructure
Review
Revise
Risk
Verbs that Start with S:
Satisfy
Schedule
Secure
Select
Sense
Separate
Serve
Service
Shape
Share
Show
Sketch
Simplify
Sell
Solve
Sort
Specify
Speak
Stimulate
Streamline
Structure
Study
Succeed
Suggest
Summarize
Supervise
Supply
Support
Symbolize
Synthesize
Systematize
Verbs that Start with T:
Tabulate
Tackle
Tackling
Talk
Target
Teach
Test
Train
Transcribe
Transfer
Transform
Translate
Treat
Travel
Troubleshoot
Tutor
Type
Verbs that Start with U:
Unify
Unite
Update
Upgrade
Use
Utilize
Verbs that Start with V:
Verbalize
Verify
Verbs that Start with W:
Weigh
Win
Write
Wrote
Are there any verbs I left out from this list? Please let me know by adding a comment.
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51 in Attendance at My Copy Writing Bootcamp at Davinci
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Oct 20, 2008
This past Saturday, between sicknesses, I managed to make my way to the Wolf Law building at CU in Boulder and stayed on my feet long enough to lead a workshop on copywriting hosted by DaVinci Institute. DaVinci calls their 3-hour workshops “bootcamps” but I know that bootcamps are usualy 2-3 day long events, but that’s beside the point.
The challenge (for speakers reading this post) was trying to condense a topic (copywriting for the web) that is usually taught over a full weekend…into 3 hours…with two 20-minute breaks!
Well, somehow we pulled it off and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable workshops I’ve given in a long time.
Of particular interest was the fact that we sold out the room at 51. Tom Frey of DaVinci Institute kicked off the workshop by saying they’ve never had a turnout on a Saturday morning like that for one of their boot camps. How flattering that was! How did we do that you might ask?
With 3 emails to the DaVinci opt-in list and member list.
1. The first email was to introduce the topic and its importance. I also wanted to hopefully inspire people to turn their back on the news of the economy and take charge of their own destiny by enhancing their copywriting skills. The class was half-full a couple of days later.
2. The next email went out just Monday before the Saturday workshop. It’s main purpose was to establish the potential value of the workshop. So, we stared with a question, which was “I have a question for you Ruth, Would you pay $10,000 or more for someone to write sales copy for just a single page of your website?”
3. The last email we sent out just the Friday before. We knew there were only a few spots left, so we used that news to create urgency. “If you were are on the fence about attending tomorrow’s workshop, NOW is the time…”
So, I know the economy sucks and all and a whole slew of people I know in the speaking business are being impacted by the poor economy. But, this does prove that people are willing to spend money to attend workshops still. You just have to prove to them that your topic is important enough, carries a huge monetary value, and add a big slice of “urgency.” That’s how to fill a room these days.
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Ski Season 2009 is Coming!
Posted by Marty Dickinson on Sep 18, 2008
Next time you find yourself looking dowon on impossible odds, consider this video, the worlds highest huck!
If you haven’t gotten your Copper Mountain pass yet, you’d better soon. And, once you do, send me a note and we’ll set a ski day. I usually get there 1,2,3 times per week. On a weekend, you might have to keep up with the boys though as I’ll have my 10-year-old ski demon with me. He was #1 at Copper last year and he’ll give you a workout you won’t foget!
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