Joined Ads4Dough CPA Program

Posted on March 17, 2008 by Sam

A few days ago I joined the Ads4Dough program (www.adsfordough.com). I’ve started to explore the promotions they offer and some look like good money makers.

They are a CPA website that joins Merchants/Advertisers and Affiliates/Publishers.
CPA stands for “Cost-Per-Action“, and is a form of advertising model. The idea is that an advertiser pays a specific amount for each successful sale or lead.

Merchants want more traffic to their product offers, program leads and other dollar generation areas. Some of the programs I saw include:

  • Mesothelioma– If you do Adsense, this is a high paying keyword. Mesothelioma is cancer caused by asbestos. Lawyers want to get as many clients as possible for these high dollar cases.
  • Premium Cigars– If you’re in for a good smoke, try it out.
  • Disney Book Club– Who doesn’t love Disney? We’ve gotten the Disney books before for our kids.
  • Find Your College– If you are even remotely looking to increase your education try this free service. You will be able to find many quality online and offline (traditional) programs from around the country.
  • Netflix– You can get a free 2 week trial to check out their service. Now you don’t have to wait for the disks to arrive in the mail, the movies can be downloaded. Think about no due dates and no late fees.

I’ve started promotions on a number of these and others. Check out Ads4Dough for yourself, see what niches you know and market to those people.

Start Your Promotions,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Affiliate | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Sell It By Ebay Auction

Posted on March 15, 2008 by Sam

A few days ago I encouraged you to unclutter your house. The third way was to sell it. Here is a little more about selling your items on Ebay. (Hint- The shortcut is at the bottom of this post.)

Steps to take for a successful sale:

  • Setup an account with Ebay. Take a few minutes to decide on a username that people will see when you sell items. Many people use a name close to the type of items they will sell (ie. dart boards would be dartman). Even if you’re not ready to sell, buy a few items to see how the process works. It will also help you gain positive feedback, no feedback makes buyers wary of buying from you.
  • List all the items you want to sell and start taking pictures of them. I recommend putting a bed sheet or single color background behind them. There are alot of listings that have so much going on in the background, that it gets confusing.
  • Search around the site to determine what other people are buying similar items for. There is an art to pricing. You would be surprised to find that you want to start with a low listing price to get a high price sold in the end. you want to get them committed to the item and then they will want to win it no matter what.
  • Write the description, include all the features, what it includes, condition (used, new, etc.), shipping costs, returns, etc. There is alot of information you will want to give.
  • Finally get down to putting the listing on Ebay. Pay the fees and determine how long you want the auction to last.
  • Sell it, take payment and ship it. Paypal seems to be the easiest way to accept the money.
  • Get feedback- this helps future buyers have more confidence in you.
  • Rinse & repeat- keep the money flowing.

This whole process can be very complex. The list above really just glazes over what you need to do. Put a system in place to maximize your profits, best way to do this is take advantage of a Free Ebay course at: Auction Success. All you have to pay is shipping, which is $4.95. That link is:
http://www.samcarrara.com/auctionsuccess

Sell It By Auction,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Ebay | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Get Back Up

Posted on March 14, 2008 by Sam

How many times have you tried something and failed at it? For me it’s numerous times. There are a few good quotes to encourage you to fail again.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. (Thomas Edison) This was in response to all the ways to create a light bulb that didn’t work. What if we gave up on the 147th try? You may be in the dark.

Fall down seven, Get up eight. In Japanese it is translated nana korobi ya oki. No matter the number of times you fall, get back up.

Some people fall and refuse to try again. Don’t be one of those people. Pick yourself up and try again. LEARN from your mistakes. Push past failure to success.

See what Keith Goodrum had to say about getting back up:
http://www.keithgoodrum.com/help-ive-fallen-i-refuse-to-get-back-up/

Get Back Up,
Sam Carrara

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Unclutter Your House- 3 Solutions

Posted on March 12, 2008 by Sam

Do you have books, DVDs, CDs and other items lying around your house? Have you used them in the last year? I have alot of said items that are using up space. I’m planning to get rid of many of these items over the next month.

Why would you unclutter your house? Two Reasons:

  • Sanity– Many studies have shown that a cluttered house causes anxiety. So clean it up and reduce your stress, this can help you get your creative juices flowing.
  • Money– As a fast food restaurant slogan goes, “Because you gotta eat.” Selling items helps raise money to pay bills (car, house, utilities, etc.) or fund product launches (marketing, producing, paying fees, etc.).

Here’s what I’m going to do with them:

  1. Trash– There are items that have little to no value that it would be easier just to throw them away. Magazines, newspapers, receipts (non-business ones), etc.
  2. Donate– Medium value items are good to donate to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army. The money they make on them will help their programs continue. You can get a receipt to get a tax deduction, but many times I forgo that. I that by giving to others, I will get more back later (Law of Reciprocity).
  3. Sell– Those items that have a higher dollar value can be sold at auction. They need to be higher dollars due to the fact of shipping, listing and credit card cost. As a minimum I would say something that sells for $20 or more. If you end up making a regular business of this your figure may go up or down. Don’t forget to figure in your time, it is valuable.

To get started visit the link below and start listing items:
http://www.samcarrara.com/auction

I’ll give more tips soon to help you out. If you have specific questions, leave a comment. To let you know I have gotten warnings from EBay before for violations I didn’t know existed. If you get too many of those, you lose your account no matter how many positive ratings you have. Stay tuned to learn…

Unclutter,
Sam Carrara

p.s. Just say no to clutter. Tell me your clutter story, best one gets a prize.

Posted in Advice | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Driving, Write Notes With Your Voice

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Sam

Here’s the situation: You’re driving down the road and you want to be safe. A great blog post, product creation or any other wonderful idea pops into your head and needs to be recorded before you forget it. You are adept at driving with your knees, but not so much at writing while driving.

The Solution: I call Jott. They ask me who I want to Jott, I say myself. The response is “Jott Yourself.” It almost seems like they are swearing at me every time, then I remember to say my notes. When complete I can set a reminder about this note.

I can also Jott anyone I want, I just need their email address. So I have sent Jotts to my wife and a customer who doesn’t pay their bills (as a reminder).

Later I check my email and the note has been transcribed. The first few Jotts were an OK transcription, now they are very good. I think the computer transcriber gets to know my voice over time. Try it for yourself at:
http://www.jott.com

Jott

I even used it for this blog post today. I took the text from the email, made a few edits and here it is.

Jott Yourself,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Blog Tips | Tagged , | 4 Comments