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Success

Business Lessons: What I Learned from an Unsuccessful Website Launch

by Michael Wong on July 10, 2009

mikesmarketingtools2001It just occurred to me that it’s been almost 3 weeks since my last blog post. I have received some positive feedback about my blog in my Twitter account, so that has encouraged me to not let the blog lapse into disrepair. Thanks to all those who gave me the wonderful feedback. I appreciate it very much.

I’ve been so busy that I found I got a lot more work done when I didn’t worry about writing my next blog post or Twittering. In fact I hadn’t logged into Twitter for 3 weeks. I did just log in and post an update and respond to those feedback tweets.

For the last 3 weeks I have been working from 9am to 12 midnight, 6 days a week, updating my sites. That is no exaggeration.

Why am I working so hard? Two reasons: First, I want to increase my income to pay off my mortgage as soon as possible and also give my family a comfortable lifestyle. We purchased our first home a few months ago and the mortgage is a bit of a burden. I’m 40 this year and I want to pay it off long before I reach retirement age.

My wife gave up her career as a flight attendent for United Airlines so that we could bring up a family here in Sydney, Australia. Hence, I took up the responsibility of becoming the sole breadwinner so that my wife can spend more time looking after our son (and me).

I know how tough her job is. I looked after our son when he was two, for 4 days a couple of years ago while my wife went skiing with her friends (she needed the break). I quickly realized it is a full-time job. So the last thing I expect is for her to look after us and go out and work a full-time job.

maverickbusinessinsider200Second, I want to build the business to the point whereby I can live a lifstyle whereby my business fits around my lifestyle, not the other way around. I realized that this should be how it works after I read Yanik Silver’s 34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs from his Maverick Business Insider newsletter.

Don’t get me wrong. Business is good. I’m making more money than I ever dreamt possible. But I don’t feel rich. I don’t live a millionaire lifestyle. I don’t work less than others - in fact I’m working more. I don’t wear designer clothes. I have a big mortgage. I fly economy. I drive a Toyota.

I am grateful for everything that my internet business has given me. I don’t take it for granted for a second. But I don’t feel secure. I feel like I’m not realizing my full potential. Success has made me lazy. But now is time to let my foot off the brake. Maybe it’s mid-life crisis talking. Whatever the reason, I know this is the right way to go.

The problem started because a few weeks ago I realized that that my new AdWords keyword tool at JUMBOKeyword.com is not going as well as I had hoped. Since I switched off the advertising, the site has just attracted 2,761 visitors in the last 30 days. That is extremely disappointing to say the least.

Upon some analysis, I realized that while a few advanced AdWords advertisers find it useful, it offers far too many features and is probably too complicated for most people. I also spent far too long developing it - something like 8 months.

Second, I realized that affiliate marketing is unstable and becoming far too competitive. For example, one of my most profitable campaigns, WebPosition Gold, was earning me as much as $4,500 a month a few years ago. It went downhill after it was acquired by WebTrends. They wrote to me last week telling me that they are shutting down the affiliate program. So it went from $4,500 a month in 2005 to zero in a few short years. That isn’t the only campaign that has crashed and burned. I’ve had bigger losses.

I also don’t like the way affiliate marketing is going. This year has seen a flurry of software tools that allow anyone to spy on AdWords campaigns to steal profitable affiliate campaigns. They help you to copy the ads and keywords of profitable campaigns that you find. So, let’s say affiliate A uses one of these tools and copies a profitable campaign he has found. Then affiliate B stumbles upon affiliate A’s campaign and copies his campaign. The affiliate C finds and copies affiliate B’s campaign. And so on. When will it stop?

Hence, I have decided on a new plan of action. I want to diversify my business away from affiliate marketing and relying on big product ideas.

First, I will bring all my sites together with the same look and feel as my most popular site, Mike’s Marketing Tools. I have interlinked them all, but have blocked most of the links with the ‘rel=nofollow’ tag so as not to upset Google. I will slowly release the links to make it look for natural.

Second, I will update all the sites. I have already updated most of the sites. Mike’s Marketing Tools requires a bit more work but should be done within the next 2-3 weeks. I did a bit of house cleaning with Mike’s Marketing Tools. There were pages that I hadn’t touched since 2002. It’s like the loft you dare not enter because you know it would take a lot of work to tidy up. Do you have old sites like that?

I have to say that it felt good cleaning out all those sites, removing unprofitable products and broken links, and replacing them with new up to date products. I feel the last few weeks have been the most productive I have been since 2002. For the first time in a long time, I feel I have more control over my sites than I ever had.

I also decided to integrate the Mike’s Ecommerce Software site into a new ‘Ecommerce Software‘ category, because Mike’s Marketing Tools has much better link popularity and PageRank than the Mike’s Ecommerce Software site. The Mike’s Ecommerce Software site didn’t attract any top 10 Google rankings and hardly any traffic.

I used 301 redirects to direct Google to the new pages, and my efforts have paid off. The new ‘Ecommerce Software’ category in Mike’s Marketing Tools has been indexed by Google and is already ranked #10 (sometimes #11) for the search query, ‘ecommerce software’.

Third, I’m thinking about integrating my GoDefy.com, Jumbo Keyword .com, and Michael Wong .com sites into the Mike’s Marketing Tools network and give them the same look and feel. I haven’t completely made up my mind about them yet. But I’m leaning towards doing this because I feel it would benefit those sites if they were integrated with the rest of my sites.

I did think about updating the look and feel of the Mike’s Marketing Tools site. I got the idea to use that orange/yellow color scheme back when CNET was using a similar color back in 2002. Being a marketing site, maybe I should use a color scheme that better reflected the nature of the site. i.e. blue for business. After giving it some thought, I decided I didn’t want to change it.

Here’s why: Firstly, the orange/yellow color scheme actually makes it stand out from all the other marketing sites that use a blue color scheme. Second, millions of people have passed through the site over the last 7 years. People like things that are they are familiar with. Changing the site’s color scheme could confuse some people. So why change? Hence, I decided not to. The downside far outweighs the upside from what I can see.

Once I have updated all the sites, I will start work on diversify my business away from affiliate marketing.

Like I said earlier, part of the reason was because of the JUMBO Keyword .com disappointment. I realize now that I spent far too much time developing that site and putting far too much hope into it. I realize now that I should develop products that people want, rather than ones I want and think others would want too. So I’m going to find out what people want based on search queries. Plus I will advertise in AdWords and ask visitors what they want and how much they want to pay for the product.

armandmorinmmt200The basic idea is to develop easy-to-use products, as quickly as possible, that solves a single problem, for an affordable price. I only realized this was a good idea while I was adding all of Armand Morin’s products to his page in my Mike’s Marketing Tools site. I noticed that his products are relatively simple and are designed to solve just one problem, nothing more, quickly and easily. As a result, he has over 20 products to his name and made millions with them.

I also thought about what people really want nowadays. And I came to this conclusion. Most people, including me, are lazy. In this world of instant gratification, they want things done for them, right away. So it makes sense to create products that offers just that, instant gratification. And with the internet offering so much free stuff, people don’t want to pay a lot, if anything. But people are willing to pay a fair price if you make it afforable enough.

So without giving too much away, I have decided on developing a line of internet marketing products, that solves a single problem, quickly and easily, for a low price. The idea is to develop and launch one product a month, on a limited budget, say $1000 to $5000, so that within a couple of years I will have a couple dozen products to my name. Some of those products may not be a success. That’s okay. I would have only wasted a limited amount of time and money on them.

Now instead of putting all my hopes on one product, I spread the risk over dozens of products. This will also help minimize sales fluctuations. Having my own products also helps to attract customers to purchase affiliate products via my affiliate link because they can get my products as bonuses if they sign up via my affiliate links.

I had been using this strategy to promote WebPosition Gold for years, and it worked very well. After all, affiliate products are just commodities. People don’t care if they buy it from you or another affiliate. But if you give them an incentive to purchase the product via your affiliate link, then you will have an edge on those that don’t offer anything.

You might be thinking, hasn’t this product idea been around like forever? Yes, you’re right, it’s nothing new. But it’s taken me 10 years to finally see it! As you can see, I am not that bright. Don’t ask me why I did do this before. I guess part of the fun of building a business and of life is the learning from the mistakes you make.

Thanks for listening to me. Well, you’re now up to date with what I’ve been up to. I hope you found my update interesting. Until next time, I wish you continued success with your internet business.

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Success: Top 5 Best & Worst Business Decisions I Made in 10 Years of Running an Internet Business

by Michael Wong on May 27, 2009

Since I started my first web site in 1998 I have made many business decisions. Many turned out to be good ones, but there were a few that were rather poor in hindsight. Here’s a look back at the top five best and worst business decisions I have made during that time.

Top 5 Best Decisions

1. I Took the Risk of Starting an Internet Business

The best decision I ever made in this industry has to be taking the decision to take of risk of starting an internet business.

Back in 1998 few people had heard of the internet. So it was not surprising that no one supported my decision when I told my friends and family I was starting an internet business.

That fateful decision has enabled me to live and work around the world. I now enjoy a lifestyle that I would never have dreamt possible in my old job as a waiter. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not living a millionaire lifestyle. But I do have the freedom to do things that I would never have afforded on my old waiter’s income.

2. I Switched From a Pay Per Hour to Pay Per Performance Business

After I released my SEO book in March 2002, I was inundated with SEO work. After three months I realized that I would be better off optimizing my own websites than other people’s. There are only so many hours in a day so if I were to work on a pay per hour basis, I would severely limit my income potential.

I understood the true value of a top 10 ranking in Google or Yahoo!, and realized people just weren’t willing to pay what it’s really worth. In 2002 the typical market rate for a SEO campaign was only a few thousand dollars, and that was what website owners were expecting to pay. There were firms charging tens of thousands and even firms charging a few hundred dollars.

The fact is a top 10 ranking is potentially worth tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In some niches, a top 10 ranking is worth millions of dollars.

I felt the full power of being paid for my performance instead of by the hour, when I increased my income by 207% in 18 months in 2006. I achieved that not by working harder, but by working smarter.

3. I Do My Own SEO

I have always hand coded my HTML webpages and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) just came naturally to me as a result. I am so glad that I decided to do my own SEO all those years ago. The power of being able to create webpages that rank highly in Google and Yahoo! is priceless. I would not have achieved half the success that I have without that skill set.

SEO delivers targeted traffic for free. That allows me to reduce the average cost per acquisition of a customer. As a result, I am able to increase my AdWords bids which is sometimes the difference between my ads being shown for a particular affiliate offer, and a competing affiliate who does not have the benefit of the free SEO traffic.

4. I Advertised in Google AdWords

Google AdWords as we know it today was introduced in February 2002. I started advertising in AdWords in July of that year. Next to SEO, advertising in Google Adwords is the next best form of marketing I have used. AdWords allows me to micro-target potential customers by keyword and location. Aside from word of mouth marketing, which is pretty difficult to control, I don’t know of another form of marketing that is so powerful and yet cost effective.

I have spoken to small business owners who are still skeptical of the power of AdWords. I am astonished as to why they feel that way. If you are reading this article and are one of those people who are still hesitant about advertising on AdWords, let me give you some friendly advice: don’t procrastinate any longer. Make it your top priority to learn about AdWords and start a campaign as soon as possible. Google offer everything you need to know about AdWords on their website. You can run a test campaign for as little as $50. If that is too much of a risk for you, you shouldn’t be in business.

5. I Continually Expand My Knowledge

I don’t think I read an entire book at school. I used to think I didn’t enjoy reading books. That was until I started reading books on self improvement, business and internet marketing. I’m not sure just how many books I’ve read in the last ten years. I have about 150 self improvement, business and internet marketing books on my bookshelf behind me and I’ve probably read over 95% of them.

Do you read books? If not, why not? Don’t have time? Rubbish. We don’t have time to do everything we want, but we can all make time to do all the important things. Expanding your knowledge is so important that you cannot ignore it. Make the time for it.

I make time by reading when I’m waiting for downloads to complete, just before I go to sleep, on the plane, on a train, in the car while waiting for my wife or son, and so on. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I even read when I’m doing a number two on the toilet. If you drive to work, get audio books and listen to them instead of the radio.

You see, you can find time if you really want to. I have learnt so much from the wisdom found in books that I can honestly say a large part of my success is because of what I learnt from them. I read regularly and plan to continue to expand my mind for the rest of my life.

Top 5 Worst Decisions

1. I Sold My First Internet Company

Looking back, I think selling my company back in 2000 was probably the worst decision I have made so far. The idea of being acquired for half a million dollars in cash and stock by a start-up, backed by SoftBank Capital, which also backed Yahoo! and E*Trade, was incredibly appealing.

The reality was that I lost touch with my site visitors and newsletter subscribers, I lost all control of my sites, and every major decision I made had to be approved by senior management which often took days.

It was probably the worst time (not that it was that bad mind you) of my internet business life. And when the start-up company imploded after the dot-com bust, I had to start all over again. I felt lost during the two years between selling my company in 2000 and re-establishing myself with the launch of my SEO book in 2002.

There were upsides; I got to live and work in North Hollywood, and met my future wife, so it wasn’t all bad. I did learn a couple of lessons from that mistake; (1) only accept cash - no stock; (2) do not work for the acquiring company. You can be sure I won’t make those mistakes again.

2. I Didn’t Build a Mailing List

Virtually every major internet marketing expert recommend that you build a mailing list. The proof of the power of a mailing list is in the fact that the top 10 affiliates for all the major internet marketing product launches in I have seen recently all seem to be the same names. The one common theme between all these super affiliates are that they all have built up a large loyal following with the help of their mailing list.

I did try to build a mailing list a few years ago. Heck, I even built one up to about 10,000 subscribers. The problem was that I didn’t enjoy the process of writing a newsletter every week. I got lazy and didn’t email the list for a while. And then I did, a few of the subscribers accused me of spam. This almost got my domain shut down. So I abandoned the list and decided not to pursue that marketing channel.

I am trying to build a mailing list of sorts now. I’m using my blog and Twitter. This way I won’t be accused of spam again.

3. I Didn’t Invest in Domain Names

In the first week of 2000 one of my referrals for a domain registrar I had partnered with registered something like a couple hundred domain names. It never occurred to me that maybe that person was onto something.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I read about Yun Ye, a Chinese American, who became a legend in the domaining industry when he sold his portfolio of 100,000 domain names for a whopping $164 million!

I finally realized that maybe I should invest in domain names. So I registered a couple of hundred ‘.com’ domains that I thought I could sell for a profit. Boy, was I wrong! I have had a couple of inquiries but I haven’t sold a single domain so far. I even got conned by someone pretending to be interested in one of my domains. It’s a long story but the gist of it is they insist on a domain appraisal to get a ‘professionally assessed’ value. Naturally, the company they recommend has some kind of affiliation with the domain buyer. The bottom-line is that I got conned out of about $70 which is a cheap lesson to learn.

This year I changed my domain investment strategies. I have invested over $10,000 in domains in the last couple of months and intend to invest much more. I am quietly confident my new strategy will prove profitable in due course. I will share with you my new strategy in a future post so stay tuned.

4. I Didn’t Follow the Latest Fad

I have never been one to follow the latest fad. I started blogging years after I knew about it. I still have not joined Facebook despite the fact that most of my friends use it. I only joined Twitter because I thought I better register my name before someone else does.

In an earlier post, “8 Ordinary People Achieving Extraordinary EBusiness Success“, I talk about Ashley Qualls who built WhateverLife.com, a website offering MySpace page layouts for free. The site has raked in more than $1 million in Google AdSense advertising revenue. The business brings in as much as $70,000 a month. Ashley has even rejected offers to buy her young company, including one for $1.5 million and a car (valued up to $100,000)!

I have been to MySpace but have never set up my own MySpace page. As such, it never occurred to me that people would be interested in page layouts to decorate their MySpace page. If I had joined the MySpace fad, maybe the idea of offering free page layouts would have crossed my mind and I could have had the pleasure of rejecting an offer for $1.5 million and a car.

Since I started using Twitter I have come up with some interesting web app ideas. I found known about Twitter for a couple of years now - I should have joined earlier. The lesson from this mistake is that from now on I will jump on every new fad (even before it becomes popular) that comes along, so that I don’t miss the gravy train in future.

5. I Didn’t Build on my Success

I often read about successful business owners who say they reinvest every penny back into their business. I have to admit I have not done that until now. I have used the money to provide a good life for my family and I.

Like most people, I don’t enjoy paying taxes. But I accept that is part of life and if I want the government to provide good services, I have to pay my fair share of taxes. But my tax bill is getting ridiculous. So I’ve decided that I will take just enough out of the business to maintain our family’s lifestyle, and reinvest the rest back into the business.

I will use the money to invest in domain names, especially premium domain names. I was going to invest in real estate, but realized that online real estate (domain names) is potentially a better investment in many ways. The cost of entry is lower, the returns are potentially (and typically) much higher, and it is much easier to convert back into cash, if I need the money.

Final Words

Some wise person (not me!) once said, it is good to learn from one’s mistake, but it is wise to learn from someone else’s mistake. I hope you learnt something from the best and worst business decisions I have made during the last ten years in this industry.

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Success: 8 Ordinary People Achieving Extraordinary EBusiness Success

by Michael Wong on May 14, 2009

A 17 year old high school dropout rejects an offer of $1.5 million and a car for her MySpace layout website. Markus Frind earns $10 million a year working just 10 hours a week on his free online dating site. A 62 year old grandmother creates the world’s most popular online greeting cards site, valued at an estimated $23 million. These are some of the incredible success stories explored in this article.

It has been said that the internet levels the playing field for everyone. Now more than ever, anyone with enough desire can find success and riches with the help of the internet.

We have all read the story of how the Google guys became Billionaires. But let’s be honest with ourselves - most people, including me, don’t have the ability to create a search engine like Google.

I get more excitement and inspiration from reading about ordinary people achieving extraordinary success - the type of achievable success that makes you think why didn’t I think of that.

These types of stories give hope that anyone, irrespective of sex, age, education, or location can become extraordinarily successful online. You don’t even have to be particularly talented or skilled, or have any business experience.

Here are the stories of eight ordinary people achieving extraordinary success online.

17 Year Old Girl Rejects $1.5 Million + Car Offer

ashley-quallsAshley Qualls, a mere 17 years old, dropped out of high school, bought a house for $250,000, helped launch artists such as Lily Allen, and rejected offers to buy her young company, including one for $1.5 million and a car (valued up to $100,000)!

Ashley’s web site, WhateverLife.com, which offers MySpace page layouts for free has raked in more than $1 million in Google AdSense advertising revenue. The business brings in as much as $70,000 a month.

According to Google Analytics, Whateverlife attracts more than 7 million individuals and 60 million page views a month. Quantcast ranked Whateverlife.com a staggering number 349 out of more than 20 million sites. Wow! She’s how old?

Source: Girl Power (Fast Company: December 19, 2007)

How To Earn $10 Million A Year Working Just 10 Hours A Week

markus-frindMarkus Frind, created the online dating site, PlentyofFish.com, and working 10 hours a week earns net profits of $10 million a year. Thirty-two year old Markus runs the web site from his 83-square-metre Vancouver apartment.

Markus built the Plenty of Fish site in 2003 as an exercise to help teach himself a new programming language, ASP.net. The site became popular with English-speaking Canadians, then spread across U.S. cities with minimal advertising.

According to data from comScore Media Metrix for November 2007, Plenty of Fish had 1.4 million visitors in the United States. In December, site served up 1.2 billion page views. It has 600,000 registered customers, despite the fact that each month it purges 30 percent of users for being inactive.

Plenty of Fish makes money from banner ads, Google AdSense and affiliate marketing links that send users to other dating sites. Markus boasts of making $10,000 a day from Google Adsense alone. He even posted a photo of an AdSense check for $901,733.84, which Google confirmed as being genuine.

Customers submit 50,000 new photos every day, each of which has to be verified that it is an actual person and does not contain nudity. Volunteers review each and every photo. Some have made it their principal pastime. Among Plenty of Fish’s volunteers were 120 who last year evaluated more than 100,000 images each.

Source: From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year (The New York Times: January 13, 2008) - You have to log in or sign up to a free NYT account for access. However, if you visit the URL via the Google search result link, you can view the article without having to log in or sign up.

62 Year Old Grandmother Creates The World’s Most Popular Online Greeting Card Site

jacquie-lawsonJacquie Lawson, a 62 year old grandmother in the village of Lurgashall, West Sussex, England, created JacquieLawson.com, the market leader in online greeting cards.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, JacquieLawson.com had 22.7 million visitors in December, more than double that of its closest rival, AmericanGreetings.com.

The web site has 531,227 members, each paying a £4.50 ($6.80) annual subscription fee, generating nearly £2.4 million ($3.6 million). Websites like JacquieLawson.com usually sell for 5-6 times income, so JacquieLawson.com could be worth nearly £15 million ($23 million). Five years ago the egreeting cards site, BlueMountain.com, went for $35 million.

Trained at St Martin’s School of Art in London, Jacquie worked as a freelance artist for years. She got her first PC in 1998 and began using the animation program Macromedia Flash in 2000. After six weeks of trial and error she finished her first electronic Christmas card and sent it to 30 friends, then went to Australia. When she returned she had 1,600 messages from people all over the world who had received her card. Many asked that if she produced another card, she let them see it.

The following November, a simple website was born, only to crash under huge demand. Jacquie’s friend, Andrew Dukes, and nephew, Mike Hughes-Chamberlain, helped her set up a more sophisticated website. The rest is history as they say.

Jacquie, who had been designing her cards slowly with a mouse, now uses a touch-sensitive tablet and stylus.

Source: UK’s cottage industry beats US internet giants (Guardian: February 12, 2006)

Super Affiliate Earns $1.4 Million A Year

jeremy-palmerJeremy Palmer, an expert on affiliate marketing, earned gross profits of $837,465 on revenue slightly over $1.4 million.

Jeremy discovered affiliate programs in 2003 after noticing that some of the affiliates for the small financial services company he was working for were earning thousands of dollars in commissions. So he added some affiliate links to a website he owned. He says the commissions he generated encouraged him to build more affiliate sites in other industries.

Within two months Jeremy was making more money from his affiliate sites than he did at his day job. Within six months he was making twice as much, so he decided to quit his day job to focus exclusively on his affiliate business.

Jeremy generated $100,000 from his websites in his first year as an affiliate, and over $1 million in his second year. In 2005, he won Commission Junction’s Horizon Award for Innovation. That year, he grossed $1.1 million, and went on to make $1.4 million in 2006.

Jeremy’s stats for 2006 make interesting reading:

Revenue: $1.4+ million
PPC Spend: $560,000+
Gross Profit: $837,465

Not bad for a one-man band business!

Source: Should you trust the million-dollar affiliate? (Associate Programs: September 25, 2007)

Blogger Wins $300,000 Book Deal 2 Months After Launching Blog

christian-landerChristian Lander, created the funny blog, Stuff White People Like, and won a book deal with major publisher, Random House, for an advance fee of $300,000, just two months after starting the blog.

Stuff White People Like is a blog that takes satirical aim at the interests of North American left-leaning, city-dwelling white folk. The site attracted almost 15 million visitors in a little over two months.

The blog was created in January 2008 by white Canadian, Christian Lander, and co-authored with his Filipino Canadian friend, Myles Valentin, after Valentin teased Lander about his watching the HBO television series The Wire. The blog became popular very quickly, registering over 300,000 daily hits and over 40 million total hits by the end of September 2008.

The Stuff White People Like book was released on July 1, 2008, and has made several bestseller lists.

Source: Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal (The New York Times: March 30, 2008)

Mortgage Stress Relief Arrives In The Form Of $800,000 Income From IPhone Game

ethan-nicholasIn August 2008, Ethan Nicholas and his wife, Nicole, were having trouble making their mortgage payments. Medical bills from the birth of their younger son were piling up. Then he remembered reading about the guy who had made a quarter-million dollars in a hurry by writing a video game called Trism for the iPhone.

Although Ethan had years of programming experience, he had never programmed for the iPhone. Because he grew up playing shoot-em-up computer games, he decided to write an artillery game. He sketched out some graphics and bought inexpensive stock photos and audio files.

For six weeks, Ethan worked day and night - by day at his job at Sun, and after-hours on his iPhone game. On its first day of release, iShoot which sold for $4.99 earned Ethan $1,000. The second day, $2,000. On the third day, the figure slid down to $50, where it hovered for the next several weeks.

In January, he released a free version of the game with fewer features, hoping to spark sales of the paid version. It worked: iShoot Lite has been downloaded more than 2 million times, and many people have upgraded to the paid version, which now costs $2.99. On its peak day - January 11 - iShoot sold nearly 17,000 copies, earning Ethan $35,000.

In the same article, Kostas Eleftheriou and two friends made more than $100,000 in three months with iSteam, a program they wrote in seven days. iSteam fogs up the face of an iPhone like a bathroom mirror, and you swipe a finger across the phone’s surface, iSteam’s pretend moisture is wiped away with a realistic-sounding squeak. When the phone is tipped on its side, droplets of condensation roll as if pulled by gravity.

Both Ethan and Kostas were inspired by Steve Demeter, who made $250,000 in two months with a game called Trism, which involves aligning rows of brightly colored triangles.

Source: Coder’s Half-Million-Dollar Baby Proves iPhone Gold Rush Is Still On (Wired: February 12, 2009)

Self-Taught Make-Up Artist Launches Cosmetics Line

lauren-luke1A British self-taught make-up artist built such a loyal YouTube following with her video tips on how to imitate celebrity looks that she just launched her own line of cosmetics: By Lauren Luke.

Lauren, a 26-year-old single mom and former taxi dispatcher, started selling cosmetics on eBay. To help her customers, she started making YouTube tutorials which have attracted over 40 million views in 18 months.

Lauren sells her By Lauren Luke line exclusively through her website to customers in the US, Canada and Europe. Each kit comes with a video tutorial on how best to apply the make-up.

Source: From YouTube tutorials to her own make-up line (Springwise: April 30, 2009)

Mysterious Chinese American Sells Domain Portfolio For World Record Price

yun-yeI have left what I think is the most incredible success story to last. There are many domainers who have made a fortune with domain names, but this story is the most widely reported. When I read the story, I thought to myself, why didn’t I think of that.

In November 2004, Yun Ye, a Chinese American, became a legend in the domaining industry when he sold his portfolio of 100,000 domain names to Marchex for a whopping $164 million!

Yun Ye began building his enormous collection of domains after graduating from the University of Maryland in 1998. Yun gobbled up thousands of expired domains, often names that the previous owner had either forgotten or decided not to renew.

When Yun Ye was building his portfolio, the only way to make money from domain names was reselling them. In 2000 that changed when paid search started to take off. Advertisers would pay for each visitor that Pay Per Click (PPC) search engines, such as Overture (which later became Yahoo! Search Marketing), sent. And Overture would pay domainers like Yun Ye for placing their ads on their domains.

Yun Ye’s portfolio of names were bringing in more than $20 million a year in revenues, with $19 million in profits. Marchex paid the equivalent of 8.6 times annual earnings, based on figures provided in SEC documents.

Yun Ye is intensely private and dealt with Marchex only under the agreement that they never mention his name. To this day, Marchex execs refer to the deal by the company name Yun Ye adopted for the transaction: Name Development.

To give you an idea of the amazing prices premium domains can command, here are 10 domains that attracted 7-figure price tags:

$7.5M - Business.com
$7.0M - Beer.com
$6.0M - Diamond.com
$5.5M - Casino.com
$5.0M - Korea.com
$5.0M - AsSeenOnTV.com
$3.5M - Shop.com
$3.3M - Wine.com
$3.0M - Loans.com
$2.5M - Tom.com

Source: Masters of their Domains (CNN Money: December 1, 2005)

I hope these incredible ebusiness success stories inspire you to find your own success online. I haven’t quite achieved the same level of success that some of these people have achieved. But the internet has given me and my family the quality of life that I could only have dreamt about 10 years ago.

If you come across other amazing ebusiness success stories, please let me know by tweeting me at @michael_wong or emailing me at @Michael. If I receive enough amazing success stories, I will look at doing a follow up article. I wish you every success with your online business.

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Success: 38 Software Products & Services I Use to Make a 6-Figure Income Online

by Michael Wong on May 6, 2009

michael-wong-site-200In my effort to share with you everything I have learnt in the last 10 years of making a living online, I share with you the 38 software products and services I use to run my internet business.

I have always used Dell computers running Microsoft Windows since I discovered the internet in 1997.

But then a couple of years ago my hard drive died and I decided it was time to switch to an Apple Mac. I am so glad I did.

The Mac operating system (OS) is much more user friendly and fun to use. Although the Mac OS X crashes every now and then, it crashes far less often than Windows OS.

The main reason I didn’t switch earlier was because I was worried about not being able to run Windows programs. I used to write reviews on internet marketing software for my Mike’s Marketing Tools site, and the majority of marketing software is created for Windows. But with the new Intel based Apple computers, I can have my Mac OS and also run Windows OS for running Windows software. In fact I can do both at the same time.

Because I use an Apple Mac, the majority of the software programs mentioned in this list are for the Mac. Where possible, I have include the Windows equivalent. Even if I don’t list a Windows equivalent, it will give you an idea as to why I use the program. You can go and find a Windows equivalent on software sites like Download.com.

Out of the 38 products and services, 30 are free. The products and services I pay for add up to $757.84, plus recurring payments of $262.95 per month. You can see it clearly doesn’t cost a great deal of money to set up a profitable business online.

I haven’t listed hardware equipment such as a computer, fax/printer, office desk and chair, etc. The cost of those really depend on your budget and taste.

Here are the 38 software programs and services I currently use to make a 6-figure income online:

Advertising Server: OpenX (Free)

openx200For years I have been using an open source advertising server software to serve ads throughout my various web sites. It used to be called phpAdsNew but is now known as OpenX.

OpenX offers all the features you would want from an advertising server, including displaying all types and sizes of ads, targeting, and extensive reporting. The amazing thing about this amazing piece of software is that it’s free!

OpenX is open source, and therefore free, and runs on a server that supports PHP and MySQL or PostgreSQL-configured database.

AdWords Keyword Tool: JUMBO Keyword .com (Free)

jumbo-keyword-200Okay, this is a plug for my latest web site. But I do genuinely use it all the time so I think it’s fair that I include it in this list.

As a full time affiliate marketer and AdWords advertiser I build big lists of keywords using keyword databases such as the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Wordtracker.

Large keyword lists require a lot of editing and cleaning which is tedious work. For years I have used regular expressions in a text editor to help me clean the keywords. Once the keywords were cleaned, I would use my AdWords Wrapper tool to convert keywords into the various AdWords keyword matching options.

The regular expression functions helped speed up the cleaning process, but I only knew a few functions so it still took too much time and effort. This is why I decided to create JUMBO Keyword .com. It is a free AdWords keyword tool offering 70+ 1-click Google AdWords keyword editing functions.

Now I can edit hundreds, even thousands, of AdWords keywords, as well as convert cleaned keywords into the various AdWords keyword matching options with just a click of the mouse.

Email: Google GMail (Free)

gmail-200I switched over to Google’s GMail in January 2008 after using Eudora for 8 years. I wish I had switched earlier.

GMail is much easier to use than Eudora because it has a nicer user interface and an excellent spam filter. With Eudora, I had to set up all the spam filters and it was a constant struggle keeping up with new spam techniques. I used to have to manually delete hundreds of spam emails a week. With Gmail, only a handful of spam emails appear in my inbox each week.

I also like the fact that (assuming I am logged into GMail) my emails automatically appear in my account and GMail notifies me that I have a new email the moment it arrives. With Eudora, I had to download emails to my computer before I could even filter them. This meant Eudora would download all the spam emails as well, which was a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

Email Back-Up: Apple Mail (Free) / Outlook Express (Free)

mail-200In December 2006, GMail users reported mass email deletions. Rumors were that GMail was hacked using a hole exploit in Firefox 2 - the issues have since been resolved.

Google’s official policy is that once emails are deleted, they are gone forever. So, if you value your emails, I highly recommend you back-up your GMail emails by downloading it to your computer.

I own a Apple Mac and use the Apple Mail program that comes with it. Windows users can use Outlook Express. Google has easy to follow instructions on how to back up your email using your computer’s email software.

FTP: FileZilla (Free)

I use the open source FileZilla FTP software for uploading my web pages to my server. FileZilla is free and runs on Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.5+, and Linux.

Google AdWords: AdWords Editor (Free)

adwords-editor-200AdWords Editor is a free Google application for managing AdWords ad campaigns. I can download all my accounts (I have a few), mass update campaigns, and re-upload the changes to AdWords.

I still prefer to set up campaigns via the AdWords website. But I use AdWords Editor when I want to make bulk changes (such as updating bids or adding keywords), and also to copy or move a large number of items between ad groups and campaigns.

AdWords Editor is free and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.4+.

Image Editor: Picnik (Free) + Picturesque (Free) / Paint Shop Pro ($69.99)

picnik-200Not being much of an artist, I do as little image editing as I have to. On occasions when I have to edit an image, I used to use Paint Shop Pro (PSP) on my Windows computer. Paint Shop Pro runs on Windows XP/Vista and costs $69.99.

The main reason for using PSP is because I’m cheap and didn’t want to spend $600-700 on Adobe PhotoShop or Illustrator. :-)

I haven’t really found a replacement for PSP on my Mac. But the only graphics editing functions I really use are cropping and resizing thumbnail images. I have been able to replicate those functions using Picnik, a free online photo editing web app.

I also use Picturesque which allows me to quickly and effortlessly add 3D effects, reflections, corner curves, shadows, glows and strokes to any image. You can see of an example of an image created with Picturesque on the JUMBO Keyword .com homepage. Picturesque is free and runs on Mac OS X.

Instant Messenging: Skype (Free) / GMail Chat (Free)

skype-chat-200I use Skype Chat to chat (via instant messaging) to freelancers. Russian and India freelancers are a bit shy about chatting with their voice.

Skype is free and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.3+, Linux, Windows Mobile, and iPhone.

I also use GMail Chat to instant message with my friends who also use GMail.

Internet Connection Monitor: Little Snitch ($29.95)

little-snitch-200Windows users typically have Firewalls, like Norton or ZoneAlarm, installed on their computer. These programs typically monitor your internet connection and notify you if a program, such as spyware, tries to send data from your computer.

Most Mac users, like myself, don’t use firewall software because there is no need. So I use Little Snitch to monitor which programs are sending out data from my Apple Mac. Little Snitch costs $29.95 and runs on Mac OS X 10.4+.

Link Checker: Xenu’s Link Sleuth (Free)

xenu-link-sleuth-200I use Xenu’s Link Sleuth to check my web sites for broken links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets.

The great thing about Link Sleuth is that it is free. Link Sleuth only works on Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista.

Local Data Back-Up: Time Machine (Free) + 1 TB Time Capsule ($499)

The Apple Mac OS X comes with Time Machine, a software program that automatically backs up everything on my Mac. I use Time Machine and a 1 Terabyte Time Capsule external hard drive to make local backups of everything.

My Dell computer’s hard drive literally died on me a couple of years ago. I took the hard drive to a data recovery specialist, but even after a week of intensive work they were unable to save the drive or recover any data from it.

Luckily I had backed up everything except for a few months of emails. Learn from my mistake. Back up your computer’s data on another hard drive! Don’t say I didn’t want you.

Long Distance Voice/Video Chat: Skype (Free) / iChat (Free)

I use Skype (and sometimes the Apple Mac’s iChat) to chat with freelancers and friends who live overseas. Skype voice chat requires both parties to have Skype installed on their respective computers. And if both parties have a web cam, we can see each other as we chat.

If you have never tried Skype, I highly recommend that you do. You will be pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. Skype gives you the feeling that the person on the other end is in the same room as you.

I have even had a 3 way chat with my cousins in Hong Kong and England. I was in Australia. The sound quality was excellent, but only if I switched off the video. I felt like they were in the same room as me.

The quality of video picture is excellent when the window is small. But as you expand the window, the quality deteriorates.

Long Distance VOIP Phone Calls: Skype (From ¢2.1/minute)

skypeout-200I use Skype to make cheap international VOIP calls if the person I want to talk to doesn’t have Skype installed or isn’t online. I can call landlines and mobiles from 2.1 cents per minute.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls are carried over the internet instead of phone lines. The sound quality varies but are generally as good as the sound quality of calls made from standard landline and mobile phones.

Skype also offer two unlimited landline call plans; (1) unlimited calls to a single country for $5.95/month, and (2) unlimited calls to 40 countries for $12.95 per month.

You can also get an online number for friends, family and business colleagues who don’t use Skype. Anyone can dial your online number from any phone or mobile and you take the call on Skype. Skype offers online numbers in over 20 countries so when people call your online number, they only pay the local rate - you don’t pay anything to answer the call.

Music: iTunes (Free)

I love listening to music while I work, especially when I’m doing tedious repetitive stuff like cleaning large numbers of keywords for AdWords campaigns.

I have Apple’s iTunes on my Mac and use it to manage my music collection. I listen to all kinds of music, including Pop, Chinese, Trance and R&B. My favorite album is probably Substance by New Order. It’s wicked!

Online Backup Service: Mozy ($4.95/month) / Carbonite ($54.95/year)

mozy-200Local backup onto an external hard drive is good, but it’s not enough. I also have off-site backup in case something happens to my computer and local backup. I live under a flight path so a plane could land on my home - not likely, but possible! There’s also the threat of fire destroying the hard drives and someone breaking into my home and stealing my computer and backup drive.

It’s better to be safe than sorry, so I back up my data online using Mozy. The great thing thing about Mozy is that it automatically backs up the data in the background on a regular a basis - I don’t have to do anything.

After the initial backup (which can take a few days depending on the amount of data you have), Mozy only backs up files that have been added or changed. So far, I have 94.5 GB of data backed up on Mozy.

Mozy offer unlimited (yes, unlimited!) backup for just $4.95 per month and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4+.

A word of warning if you, like me and probably millions of Australian internet users, are on an internet plan with a bandwidth allowance that includes outgoing data. The initial backup can take you over the bandwidth limit allowed on your plan, so you might need to change your plan for a couple of months, or spread the backup over several months if you have a lot of data to back up.

When I had a Windows PC, I used Carbonite to back up my data. I switched to Mozy because Carbonite didn’t work on the Mac when I purchased my Mac. They have since added Mac support. Carbonite costs $54.95 per year and runs on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.4+.

Phone/Fax Number: JConnect ($15/month)

jconnect-200Pssst… this is one of my best kept secrets so don’t tell anyone: I have been able to work and live around the world with the help of a JConnect phone and fax number.

I used to live in Los Angeles (L.A.) but moved to Hong Kong and now Australia. Before I left L.A. I set up a JConnect phone and fax number with a local area code (you can choose from over 2,000 cities around the world). So the number looks just like a regular phone number. Whenever someone leaves a voicemail or sends me a fax, JConnect emails me the voicemail/fax.

This, along with my California registered company and mail forwarding address enable me to operate a business out of California, even though I haven’t lived in the United States since 2002. The phone and fax number only costs $15 per month, so it’s very cost effective.

Photo Management: iPhoto (Free) / Picasa (Free)

I use Apple’s iPhoto to organize all the photos on my computer. For Microsoft Windows users, I recommend Google’s Picasa - that’s what I used to use when I had a PC. Picasa is free and runs on XP/Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.9+, and Linux.

Screen Capture: Skitch (Free)

skitch-200The Apple Mac has screen capture functions, but I prefer to use Skitch because it also include some basic functions to edit the screen capture without having to open another graphic editing program. Skitch is free and runs on Mac OS X 10.4.6+.

Server Uptime Monitor: Uptime (Free)

Web hosts typically promise something like 99.9% server uptime. But how can you be sure that your server is working 99.9% of the time? And what about the other 0.1% of the time? 0.1% is 8.76 hours of downtime a year.

This is why I use Uptime to monitor my server to ensure it is working properly. Uptime periodically requests a page from my server and emails me if the site is unreachable. If my server is unreachable, Uptime will continue checking my site until it becomes reachable again, at which point it will email me to let me know my server is back up again.

There have been occasions in the past when my server was inaccessible for long periods. Without Uptime monitoring I would not have known about it. Do you know when your server goes down?

Spreadsheet: Apple iWork Numbers ($79)

Apple iWork Numbers is Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Office Excel. I can import Excel files into Numbers, and export Number files as Excel documents that can be opened and edited with Excel.

Text Editor: Smultron (Free) / EditPlus ($35)

smultron-200I used a text editor to write my HTML pages, make notes, brainstorming and plan my business. There are probably better programs for doing those tasks, but I prefer the simplicity of a text editor. It means I can access all those details from one program.

I used to use EditPlus when I had a Windows PC, but switched to Smultron when I moved to the Apple Mac.

Smultron is free and runs on Mac OS X 10.5+. EditPlus costs $35 and runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

Typing Shortcuts: TextExpander ($29.95) / Perfect Keyboard ($19.95)

textexpander-200I respond to a lot of emails, and hand type HTML code - I guess I’m old fashioned. The problem is that I am not trained in touch typing, so I’m relatively slow.

When I had a Windows PC, I used to use Perfect Keyboard to help me retype commonly used email responses and HTML code with just a few keystrokes. I also used it to automatically fix common typos, such as ‘teh’ and ‘can;t’. I switched over to TextExpander when I moved to the Mac.

TextExpander runs on Mac OS X 10.4+, and costs $29.95. Perfect Keyboard runs on Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/Vista, and costs $19.95.

Web Browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Chrome (All free)

firefox-200I use Firefox to surf the web because it offers many add-ons that allow me to customize my browser and help increase productivity.

I also create my own webpages and it is important to make sure they display properly on all popular web browsers. So I also have Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera and Google’s Chrome installed on my computer. All the web browsers are free.

Web Browser (FireFox) Add-ons

There are thousands of add-ons you can install to customize your Firefox browser.

Here are 7 add-ons that I use:

  • 1Password ($39.95) / Roboform ($29.95)

    1password-200As an affiliate marketer I have far too many login usernames and passwords that I care to remember.

    Hence, I use 1Password to manage my login usernames and passwords. Features include password generation and sharing data across web browsers.

    1Password costs $39.95 and runs on Mac OS X 10.4.11+ and Safari 3, Firefox 2/3, Camino 1.5, OmniWeb 5.7, DEVONagent 2.3, and NetNewsWire 3.1. 1Password is also available for iPhone/iPod touch and Palm.

    When I had a Windows PC, I used Roboform to manage my login usernames and passwords. Roboform costs $29.95 and runs on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista (all 32-bit versions), IE 6/7/8 and Firefox 2/3.

  • Better Gmail (Free)

    Better GMail lets me customize GMail with options such as show inbox count first, show unread message count in the Favicon tab, add row highlights, attachment icons, filter assistant, show message details, hide chat, hide invite boxes, and hide spam count.

  • CustomizeGoogle (Free)

    customizegoogleCustomizeGoogle offers far too many options to list them all here.

    The main options I use include adding position counter to Google search results, rewrite links to point straight to images in image search results, stream search results, and always secure (https) GMail, Google Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets.

  • Firesizer (Free)

    firesizerFiresizer lets me resize my web browser window to 640×480, 800×600, or 1024×768 pixels. I can also add custom sizes or remove any of those default sizes.

  • Google Gears (Free)

    Google Gears allows me to continue reading, writing (without losing anything GMail had not auto-saved) and editing emails in GMail even when I can’t access GMail or I am off-line.

    Google Gears is available on Mac OS X 10.4+ (Firefox 1.5+ or Safari 3.1.1+), Windows XP/Vista (Firefox 1.5+ or Internet Explorer 6.0+), Windows Mobile (IE Mobile 5+, Opera Mobile), Linux and Android.

  • Tab Mix Plus (Free)

    Tab Mix Plus enhances the Firefox tabs with all manner of features. You can add duplicate tabs, control tab focus, undo closed tabs and windows, add tab options to the Tab Context Menu, and much more.

  • TableTools (Free)

    TableTools adds options to copy, sort, or filter HTML tables you find on any web page. This helps retain the table structure when I copy and paste them from a web page to a spreadsheet.

Web Hosting: Softlayer (From $258/month)

softlayer-200I have used several web hosts in my 11 years of running an online business. Each has been better than the last. I switched to Softlayer a few years ago at the recommendation of my tech guru, Peter Cooper.

Like most people, I used virtual hosting for the first few years I was online. Virtual hosting is sharing a server with hundreds, even thousands, of other web sites.

As my business grew I decided it was wise to get my own server, otherwise known as a dedicated server. This way I have full control over the server and don’t have the possibility of unscrupulous sites on the same server using up an unfair share of resources and slowing down other sites on the server.

The server I have with Softlayer is an Intel Xeon 3220-Quad Core 2.4GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM, and bandwidth allowance of 2,000 GB. Remember that I got this a few years ago, so you can probably get a faster processor now for the same price.

As soon as I switched to the quad-core (4 core) processor, I immediately noticed a big difference in the response time of my websites. The Marketing Forum Watch page in my Mike’s Marketing Tools site is quite resource intensive and used to take as long as 20 seconds to download on the old server. On the new quad-core server, it only takes a second or two. That’s a huge difference!

The one major downside with having your own server is that you need to know how to set up and maintain the server. I am not a techie so I don’t. Luckily Peter takes care of that side of the business for me.

I pay $258 per month which is a lot of money. I can skimp and save on other parts of my business, but web hosting is not one of them. After all, if my server is down, then I’m not open for business. If I had a real store, I would probably pay tens of thousands per year in rent. If I compare that to what I’m paying for web hosting, I think web hosting is a bargain.

If you have multiple web sites or your site is slow, I recommend looking at upgrading to your own dedicated server, especially one with a multiple-core processor.

Windows Operating System: VMWare Fusion ($79.99) / Parallels ($79.99)

vmware-fusion-200The latest Intel-based Macs allow you to run Windows and Mac applications side-by-side, without rebooting. You can even drag files between the two operating systems.

You accomplish this by creating a virtual machine running Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) inside of your Mac OS.

There are basically two main programs for doing this; VMware Fusion and Parallels. I did a lot of research to find out which is better, but I couldn’t find any conclusive evidence to support one version over the other. Users like both Parallels and VMware Fusion. So I chose VMWare Fusion although I can’t recall why.

Both VMware Fusion and Parallels cost $79.99 and require an Intel Mac, 1GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11+, and a copy of Microsoft Windows.

Word Processor: Apple iWork Pages ($79)

pages-200Apple iWork Pages is Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s Office Word

I can import Word files into Pages, and export Pages files as Word documents that can be opened and edited with Word.

So there you have the 38 software products & services I currently use to make a 6-figure income online.

Here is a recap of all the software products and services:

If you have any comments, tweet me at @Michael_Wong. Thanks!

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Success: How the Pareto Principle Increased my Income by 207% in 18 Months

by Michael Wong on April 22, 2009

The 80/20 PrincipleIn a previous post, “Success: How I Broke Through My Glass Ceiling“, I mentioned that I increased my income by 207% in just over 18 months. One thing I didn’t mention was how I did that.

Here’s how: I applied ‘the Pareto Principle’ to my business.

What is the Pareto Principle you may ask?

I discovered the Pareto Principle in Richard Koch’s international best selling book, “The 80/20 Principle“. It states that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to the majority of results, outputs or rewards.

If you take it literally, this means 80% of sales or profits come from 20% of products or customers. But don’t take the 80/20 figure literally. The percentages don’t even have to add up to 100%. You could have 95% of profits come from 15% of customers or 65% of sales come from 5% of products.

The Pareto Principle was discovered in 1897 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. His discovery has been called many names, including the Pareto Principle, the Pareto Law, Pareto’s Law, the 80/20 rule, the Principle of Least Effort, and the Principle of Imbalance.

So what did Vilfredo Pareto discover?

He happened to be looking at patterns of wealth and income in 19th century England. He found that most income and wealth went to a minority of the people in his sample. Pareto’s other finding, one that really excited him, was that this pattern of imbalance was repeated consistently whenever he looked at data referring to different time periods or countries.

I applied the Pareto Principle to my own business and discovered that 70.7% of sales came from 17% of products. As a result of this new found knowledge, I refocused the majority of my promotional efforts and budget on those top selling products.

The results were dramatic: within 4 months sales from the top selling products increased by 91.7%, and overall sales increased by 71.6%.

I have followed the Pareto Principle ever since. I am so thankful I picked up a copy of Richard Koch’s excellent book, “The 80/20 Principle” at Amazon.com. I rate it amongst the top 5 most influential books of my life.

You don’t need to read Richard’s book to understand the Pareto Principle and apply it to your business. But if you do read it, you will have a better understanding of how you can apply it to different areas of your business, your career, and even your life.

This post is not meant to be a review. But to give you an idea of how highly I rate this book, I give it 2 thumbs up and a score of 9/10.

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Success: How I Broke Through My Glass Ceiling

by Michael Wong on April 21, 2009

moneyOne of the biggest revelations of my life happened to me at a seminar in 2006.

I was attending a 3 day financial success seminar in Sydney, Australia, organized by Mal Emery.

This was my first seminar but it was what I thought it would be: a room full of self-confessed seminar junkies. Experts would preach on stage for about an hour or two on all manner of products from copywriting to real estate investing. At the end of their  speech they pitch their high priced products - I’m talking thousands, even tens of thousands, of dollars for a single product. Crazy huh?

I can’t remember most of the speakers but I do recall seeing Stephen Pierce and Ted Nicholas. Ted was very lively and entertaining, especially for someone so ‘mature’ in his years.

All those speakers on stage were supposedly very successful at what they do and making a lot of money. Yet they had nothing in common, at least not from what I could see. They came in all different sizes. Some were tall, short, thin, ‘plump’, young, old, male, female. Some were more attractive than others. Some even came across as a bit ’shady’, although I’m sure they weren’t.

I thought I was doing okay but these people seemed to be so much more successful than I was. By the end of the seminar I didn’t learn anything worth noting from the speakers. But something occurred to me. It was something so profound that it changed my life forever.

It occurred to me that if all of these people with nothing in common from what I could see, or had any special abilities to speak of, could all be incredibly successful and make lots of money, then why couldn’t I? There was no good reason that I could think of that I couldn’t achieve the same level of success and make as much money as those people on stage.

In that moment the invisible success and income ceiling that had always subconsciously hovered above my head disappeared. I’m not sure why it was there - it just was. Maybe it was due to my upbringing. We were always quite poor, so the concept of making a lot of money just wasn’t something that belonged in my head.

Anyway, I no longer felt like I wasn’t worth it. I felt like I was free and able to be as successful and make as money as I wanted. From that moment on I felt like I could, and decided that I was going to achieve a far greater level of success than I had experienced up to that point in my life.

The result? I increased my income by 207% in just over 18 months. Sorry but I’m not going to reveal how much I make - that’s not me. Let’s just say I feel incredibly lucky for the success that I have achieved. I will never take it for granted though because I’ve seen first hand how success can come back to bite you if you do.

It sounds corny but I never imagined when I discovered the internet back in 1997 that I would one day make the kind of money I am making now. It’s probably not a lot of money by some people’s standards. But for someone from a dirt poor background, left nothing but a burden of debt when his dad passed away (mum left dad when I was 8), who never made it to college and was scraping a living as a waiter for 10 years, it’s a dream come true. And that is an understatement.

I read somewhere that when sales people start a new job, they tend to make only as much money as they did at their old job. For some unknown reason when they reach the previous income level they would stop and not make any more even though they may have plenty of time left. Isn’t that odd? Maybe these people also have the invisible success ceiling that held me back for so many years.

Psychologists tell us that we set these ‘glass ceilings’ based on our beliefs. When we hit our success ceiling, it triggers limiting beliefs that reinforces the ceiling. The result is that we subconsciously do things that stops us from going above the glass ceiling. In short, limiting beliefs are mental blocks that stand in the way of success for most people. I never knew I had this limiting belief. I’m happy I’ve been able to burst my invisible glass ceiling. I hope my story helps you to do the same.

My goals are much bigger nowadays. I now dream about building a website that would one day be acquired by the likes of Google or Yahoo! for $20 million. Yeah I’m dreaming. Maybe it will never happen, but that’s okay. So long as I have fun trying, I am happy.

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