Possible drawbacks of running your own online business:

-       It is Addictive (meaning even though you might not ‘need’ to work 15 hour days, you find you will, because it is fun)

-       You don’t leave your computer chair much, so no fixed eating times

-       You are your own boss, so you have to be self motivated

-       You eat what ever is handy or nice, and you eat at your desk

Short Personal Story:

I travel a fair bit and always get my blood work done in Australia, as I like and trust the system here. (People trust who and what they already know, good to remember for your marketing campaigns) – In 2007 my results were quite good, everything in normal range. I carried extra weight as my lifestyle is lots of meals either out with friends or in front of the computer (takeaways normally) but the blood sugar, cholesterol and live was all fine.

2010 were my next results and WOW, what a change, high cholesterol, liver readings off the charts and a few other ‘highs’ where they shouldn’t have been. I was 97kg (213lbs) and stand 180cm tall (6ft), so well over ‘normal’ range considering I am a computer guy with a fairly low muscle mass.

I decided it was time for a change, and ‘dieted’ aggressively for a couple of months and dropped my weight to 87kg (191lbs) and felt good, so I went back to my old habits, and ended up doing even less exercise than before. The weight came back and now for this year…

2011 – More blood tests, weight was now 96.5kg again (212lbs) but this time I got a shock. I now had high fasting blood sugar levels and needed further blood tests to see if I was diabetic. The results came back negative, I am ‘pre-diabetic’ and have a glucose sensitivity (basically means I don’t digest sugar well and my system is out of whack) so the solution…

I am vegetable juice fasting… 5 veg juices a day and no food. This is day 2. I found out about my high blood sugar just over 2 weeks ago and have already lost 5.7kg (12.5lb). After a 10 day Juice fast, I will eat the right foods until, as well as after I hit my goal weight of 80kg (175lbs)… and here is where you come in:

Vital ingredient to be successful in online business & life:

Your health is your most prized possession, and your functioning mind is your most valuable asset, so here is some short tips to look after it…

• High Protein intake to control blood sugar and protect muscle mass (the body’s main fat fighting tool)
• Lots of Vegetables. 80% of Americans DON’T get anywhere near enough veg. Vegetables are the vitamin and nutrient base for your body, this is your medicine. I used to hate veg, now I see it as my friend, and my best advise to you, for a functioning mind (clarity important in business) and a happy body is to increase your veg intake. Either freshly squeeze a juice once or twice each day, or increase your raw veg intake on your plate each meal. The more you eat, the better.
• Very low carbs… This is filler food, it is a waste of calories. Things like breads, pasta, rice, and even some fruits like orange, banana and pears… Don’t eat these, (or in massive moderation) Instead, eat more protein and more veg.
• Exercise – This one is Vital… Movement is what our body was built for, it is what our body wants. Even 30 minutes walks each day with a bit of stretching time is enough in most cases if you really don’t want to go to the gym and currently don’t play any sport. Swimming is also one of the best, low intensity, high efficiency activities you can do, so if you have access to a pool, or the sea, use it a few times a week

This is my plan going forward and I will keep you updated occasionally on how it is going. I expect to hit my goal weight before March next year… and then it is about maintaining the healthy lifestyle.

If you are feeling a bit out of shape, or feeling a bit consumed with your business, take some time each day for yourself. Make healthier food choices and take a few walks, where you can think about your next business move

I recently wrote a post about an amazing story of the last WW1 soldier that just recently passed away, aged 110, and how much he lived through and achieved  in his life….

Well today I want to show you a video from a young guy from Korea, who had a shocking childhood but has an amazing talent and sings Ennio Morricone amazingly well. It is a great motivation when next time you feel the odds are stacked against you… Suck it up and take it on… This is worth the 8 minutes!

To Your Success in Business & Health in Life,

		Colin Klinkert CEO, ColinKlinkert.com

P.S – Lets live life to the fullest and to the best of our ability! We owe it to the people who are less fortunate than us and who would simply love to have what we have.
I am challenging myself, come and join me!

What do you think he felt about where the world was going? This is a guy who has lived through it all, seen cigarettes cost 1penny a pack, and seen amazing, motivational leaders… as well as the current crop we call ‘leaders’. He lived with his wife for 76 years until she passed, aged 98! He has seen his Daughter live to 84, and his grandkids the age of my parents. Mr Choules, who was active and dancing past the age of 100, took a creative writing course in his 80′s and wrote his autobiography, aged 108…

It is a life to be remembered, and to use for reflection in our own lives. Take inspiration from this, take understanding and percpective on life from this and most importantly, feel proud that there are people who have come and gone, that fought for what we now take for granted. Please reflect on how lucky we all actually are, to be here, to be free and to be able to communicate with eachother via the power of social media!

Mr. Choules proves that nothing is impossible, and you are never too young (going to war at 14) or too old (writing a book aged 108) to take life by the horns and achieve something special!

Have a wonderful weekend and try to spend it with loved ones. The thing I took out of watching this video is the happiness he seemed to have, despite what must have been a very hard, and at times, very amazing life!

But you need to think about money and making money, the nitty gritty of internet marketing. Presumably all of us are in the business of making money, but a lot of people new to internet marketing get so wrapped up in learning and setting distant goals that they never get around to making a living. Too many forget about short range and medium range goals.

The reverse is also true, actually; a lot of people start doing small things to make a living and spend so much time doing that that they end up never actually get around to the big long range goals, which are important. If you don’t have the big goals, all you’ll end up doing is treading water.

What you need to do is make sure that you always have short, medium and long range projects running. This ensures that you both have a cash flow to live on or reinvest in your business while making sure that you don’t end up not getting around to tackling the big, money making projects.

If you’re a writer, this might look something like this:

Short – Getting article assignments daily.
Medium – Have at least one ebook that you’re working on.
Long – Set up a membership site that provides new content every week.

These projects should change over time, as your career and your business progress, but you should always try to have at least one short, one medium and one long project going at any time. Do you already have all three short, medium and long range projects? If not, you should definitely start thinking about this… Make sure you also make the difference between goals and dreams: Goals vs. Dreams (highly recommended).

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below!

Known unknowns are things that you know that you don’t know. I do not, for instance, know how to make a paper crane. I am fully aware of my on ignorance in the matter, and so I can plan around it. If you don’t know how to set up a website, then knowing that you don’t know that is something you plan around.

Unknowns unknowns are pretty exactly what they sound like: things that you don’t know that you don’t know. This is actually kind of hard to describe, which is why Rumsfeld got hammered by the press. But it’s something that you need to consider and anticipate as best you can.

Let’s say that you’re unaware of the SEC rules about reviews. You don’t include the necessary legalese because you have no idea you should. This is a different sort of ignorance, because you can’t plan directly for it. Not knowing how to write good legalese is a known unknown, but not knowing you need it is an unknown unknown.

There is a couple of ways to combat unknown unknowns. The first step is to make yourself as familiar as possible with the things relevant to what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to set up a PLR store, then you need to read as much as you can from multiple sources.

The second thing is to anticipate that you don’t know everything. Basically, the way to confront unknown unknowns is to be aware that they exist. This means that you need to keep a certain amount of flexibility in everything you do in internet marketing, because you don’t know everything!

Any thoughts on known unknowns and unknown unknowns? Feel free to leave a comment! Remember you can also get in touch with me via my Facebook page!

Goals vs. Dreams

A goal is something that you, yourself, have the power to make happen. Losing weight is a goal, albeit a vague one, because you are entirely in charge of all of the variables necessary to make that happen. Selling a thousand copies of your product, on the other hand, is not something you can directly control. People will buy it, or they won’t, and while you can absolutely influence, you can’t control it.

You need both dreams and goals, but you need to be able to tell the difference between the two. The problem with mistaking a dream for a goal is that if you don’t succeed with your dreams, which may be out of your hands, you’re going to be disappointed, and that’s going to drain your motivation.

What your goals should do is support your dreams. What I mean is that you should break your dreams, which you can’t control, down into things that you can. For instance, if your dream is to sell a thousand copies a month, then your goal could be to produce new content everyday, or to learn how to get Cheap PPC Traffic. These are goals, and they will allow you to reach your dreams.

Reaching a goal will however require more than just envisioning a positive result… I, for example, set myself a goal to produce new content on my blog at least twice a week, either with new blog posts like this one, or new videos like those you can find on CKTV. This is a goal I set myself and that will help me reach my dreams but it requires action and commitment.

So what are your goals, and what are your dreams? Do they sync up? Please leave a comment below! Remember you can also get in touch with me via my Facebook page!

The chances are pretty good that you’ve already gotten way off traffic even though 2011 is just barely out of the gate. This is not a bad thing, believe it or not, because what you need aren’t resolutions, as such, what you need are habits. Resolutions, in general, are too nebulous to actually be particularly helpful.

Let’s say you have a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. This is too big to really be useful. On the other hand, if your resolution is to weigh and measure everything you eat, that’s something that you can say you’re definitely doing or not doing every day. You can lie to yourself about whether you’re working towards your goal, but it’s hard to do so with something concrete. That’s why habits are better than resolutions.

Even more so than that, it’s something that you can do habitually. Habits are something you can create, and they’re what you need to do to accomplish big goals. Losing weight is something that requires an application of will. Weighing your food, on the other hand, will rapidly become a habit, and habits don’t require willpower.

So what does that have to do with internet marketing? Well, you probably made some resolutions for this year, and what I’m suggesting is you chuck those and pick stuff that you can make New Year’s habits out of. Here are a few examples:

Answer All Your Emails Everyday – Well, the ones that need answered anyway. You can probably ignore that Nigerian prince who needs your help, but a lot of people have a bad habit of procrastinating, and this is one to prevent that.

Write Everyday – It’s a fairly rare internet marketer who doesn’t need to do some writing everyday, and it’s an even rarer marketer who does as much as he should. So make it a habit to do some everyday, no matter what! Write every single day of the week!

Backlink Building – If you want your pages to rank well in the search engines, you should build backlinks. However, building backlinks isn’t a one-off thing, it should be a daily habit! Build backlinks to your pages every day for long-term, consistent results!

There are of course plenty of other habits that you could have. Do you have any in mind already? What habits will help you get ahead this year? Feel free to leave a comment! Remember you can also chat with you on my Facebook page!

Actually, the only real secret is to do your homework. Like any other business venture in the traditional marketplace or online, you need to know what you are getting into, before investing the time and money necessary to get started.

Doing your homework is the biggest internet marketing secret, like for example, golf… If you want to be a good golf player, you need to do your homework on what is required to swing correctly. Once you know this, the next most important part comes in… practice, practice and more practice. You can’t be an expert overnight and understand everything overnight, you need to read up on it and figure it out as you go along. (That is also what this blog is here for, to share methods with you to make your marketing learning curve much smaller, and cheaper!)

First, you need to determine if there is a market for the product or service you want to sell. For example, if your town has 10 Mexican restaurants, chances are you will not want to start yet another. Instead, maybe your town could use some Japanese cuisine. Unless you can setup the best Mexican restaurant, then you can take the ‘traffic’ from your competition.

The same can be said for Internet businesses. If the Web is already saturated with a particular business, and the people offering a similar product or service are struggling, you might want to come up with a better idea.

But, how do you find out if consumers will be interested in your product or service? Based on my own personal experience, do a lot of reading and ask around. Google your business of interest and do some reading. Check out other sites. Also, join some business blogs and ask for advice from people who are already working online. Neither action will cost any money. In the long run, it might save you a few bucks and a little heartache in the process.

Second, see what you need to set up your site. Do you have a Web host? Find the best deal based upon price, support services, and ease of use. Many hosting sites will offer packages with discounts for signing up for longer. In addition, the good sites will provide tutorials and other services to help you build an optimal site for your new business venture. Also, if you can afford the expenditure, many hosts have website designers on staff to help you create the best site to attract consumers.

(I co-founded and run ViralHosts – it is a website provider with a simple point and click SimplePanel, so you can get a great site up in a few clicks!)

Third, you must research what you need to place on your site to make it more user-friendly, while highlighting your product or service. Then, learn what it takes to market your site and bring consumers to your virtual doorstep.

In truth, there are really no Internet marketing secrets, nor are there any real get-rich-quick schemes. Like any other traditional business, it takes a lot of dedication and hard work to get a new business off the ground. However, the rewards should be well worth the effort, if you do your homework.

I Currently earn six figures a year online, and am learning something new everyday, I hope you are learning something new all the time too!

It is also the 2nd Annual: ‘Nelson Mandela International Day’ – The guy has done so much for my country (South Africa) and so much to unite the world, that the United Nations General Assembly declared July 18 Nelson Mandela International Day in recognition of the former South African president’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom world wide.

What can you do? Well 2 simple things, the first is, spend just 67 minutes doing something good for your local community tomorrow on Mandela Day. This is to signify the 67 YEARS Mandela spent fighting for Social Justice. It doesn’t matter where in the world you live, try and spend just 1 minute per year that Mandela spent, helping out tomorrow!

For more information, please visit his website: http://nelsonmandela.org.za/

Post a comment and I will Donate an Additional 100Rands

Then 2nd thing is to spread the word about Mandela Day, and you can do so in part by sharing this post. Please post a comment of your support below and I will donate an additional 100Rand to Nelson Mandela’s foundation ($13.70). Once you have posted your comment, please share this post. For every person that posts a comment on this thread by Monday I will donate an additional 100Rand. This means that even if you personally can’t afford to donate, I will do it for you, as a direct result of your action (Taking a minute to post a comment of support for the great man).

So please place your comment below and then share this link on Twitter, Facebook, with your lists and friends, tell them to come here, read the message and post a comment! (link: http://www.colinklinkert.com/nelson-mandela-day/)

This is one of those rare times where I will feel GREAT about getting hurt in the pocket, so please spread the word. Thank You!

Update: I just donated 1,800 Rands (approximately $250 USD). Check this out:

Thanks a lot of your participation and support!

The navigation menu was on the left side and the about box on the top. I really liked this navigation menu but wanted to add more links (to new pages of the blog, some are still under construction at the time this blog post is published). I also wanted the content to appear higher on the page and the opt in box to show up high in the sidebar. I didn’t make all those changes myself but got a designer / programmer to do it for me… and I’m very happy with his work! I had everything in mind before though.

If you scroll down, you will also notice that the layout has changed. In the past the home page was showing the ten latest blog posts (in their full version). Only one full blog post shows up at the top now, followed by two abstracts and a few archived posts. You don’t need to scroll down during hours anymore to find out what the previous blog posts are about. It is now much easier to find the blog posts that most interest you. I also added a testimonial… and there are more coming.

I’m pretty sure these changes will significantly improve the usability and I hope the new layout will help me grow the community I want to create on this blog. I’m sure these changes will make a difference! Anyhow, I hope you like the new design! Feel free to leave your feedback. A few weeks ago I also changed the design of my help desk, check out the following blog post for more info: Reply2Colin: New Design for Better Usability!