Pondering Many Things....
It does appear that twitter followings are amongst the most responsive of all the social media.
If you are trying to promote anything, it is probably a good idea to be on twitter.
So, here you can list your twitter handle, like this.
Hopefully, you will find more followers by listing here.
We have done something similar for Facebook Pages and Goode Plus Pages, so I thought we would try twitter now.
Use the comment section below to list your twitter profile
Take It Easy?
One of the lessons I have been forced to learn is that I must ‘take it easy’.
I have been through a grueling three and 1/2 years since I was laid off from my job. I have worked almost non-stop at all hours of the day and night.
During this time, I let the important things in life slip a little. I did not meditate as much as I should have.
I did not help out as much by volunteering my time to help fix the world’s tragic situations.
All Work And Very Little Play
I worked and I worked trying to push my online business to the next level. I did not take vacations, I did not do much of anything besides work, work and more work.
In the end, I have realized that I must stop this.
My online work is still not to the point that I want it to be. But it is sufficient (at the moment) for me to live and I should be thankful that I have that. I am thankful for that.
But, I also know that doing more of the important things in life, like working against the persecution of Falun Gong in China, is going to require that I reach the ‘next level’.
Must Refocus on What Is Important
If I don’t get back to meditation and the important things in life now, when will I? The answer is, possibly never.
That means I need to stop worrying about what I am able or not able to achieve and refocus.
If I don’t take the time for the important things, I may not be able to tomorrow.
I do not want to forget what is important to me. If I do, what is the point of everything I have tried to accomplish to support those goals?
Take It Easy
Perhaps, I have finally learned the lesson that needed to be learned. I need to take it easy and stop stressing about my business and the 1,000 other things that come into our minds during the day.
I appeared to have entered a vicious cycle where I extrapolated and concentrated my worry on things that might never happen.
That is really a kind of mental torture.
I have been forced to realize that not everything I worry about will come true. In addition, I have also been forced to come face-to-face with the reality that I do not, nor do any of us, have the level of control that we think we have.
So, why not take it easy?
Now that I am learning to take it easy, I am making more time for what is important in life to me. This is a breakthrough for me.
I learned that I do not and cannot have the level of control over life events that I want to have. Perhaps, there is a reason for that?
We are humans and we live within a framework of limitations.
The answer to breaking free of that doesn’t exist within our limited field of perception. We need to go outside of that.
Very Little Control
Maybe I cannot do or achieve everything that I want to, so why not focus more on what is a priority for me. I can spend less time on my business and I think I should.
As human beings we believe we have a certain level of control over our lives. But in reality, we have far less than we think we do.
Human beings live approximate 100 years or so and currently, they tend to die somewhere around or before that 100 year mark. Perhaps in the future we will love longer.
But, how much can we really accomplish even with 100 years?
It seems like our lives are over in the blink-of-an-eye.
That’s an interesting thought. I want you to think carefully about it before leaving your thoughts and comments below.
Some other posts you might enjoy:
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Update: My account was available again on July 12th 2012. No fanfare. I simply submitted a review request after changing my cover photo and one day later – it was turned on again. You can read the whole drama below:
I went to my google plus account as usual to post some great content from ATP only to find that it has been suspended. Fortunately, our google plus page for All Things Pondered still functions.
Here is what my personal profile says:
What Does This Mean?
As usual, Google is about as clear as mud as to why my account was suspended.
This is typical of Google, instead of contacting a person or business to work with them when something is wrong, they just up and suspend accounts.
If I had to guess, I had a cover photo collage of this blog uploaded to my personal Google Plus profile.
They apparently only want you to have personal pictures on your google plus profile. Anyway, I think this could be the reason. But, I am definitely NOT positive about that.
Interestingly, enough, they did not suspend my google page for this blog.
The unfortunate part is that I had most of my circles attached to my personal profile and not my page profile.
This means that my reach on google plus has been significantly diminished.
It will take a little bit of time to build a page following.
No matter, onward I say!
Ambiguous Google Plus Suspension Message
As you read over the image above, consider how little google actually tells you about what is going on.
They really don’t tell you what the problem is / was, they just suspend the account and point you to their endless policy pages.
Unfortunately, this is not a good answer – nor are you likely to figure out exactly what they want from you to get your profile turned back on.
This was the same way when they shut off my google adwords account back in 2010. They did not give a reason. I am glad that I did not try to figure it out from their policy pages, because in the end, it would not have helped me.
Even though the problem google got in a snit about with my Adwords account was something that would not have been discernible from their policy pages – except in an extremely vague way.
Fortunately, that issue was resolved. Unfortunately, they turned it off during the Christmas shopping season in 2010 which had a negative impact on our ecommerce store.
For Adwords their actually is a phone number to call. But, for a google plus profile, it is very unlikely that you can find a number.
They number for Adwords is hard enough to find – if you need it, it is: (866) 246-6453.
But do not bother calling them about your plus account, there is not likely to be any help for you there.
They will want your Adwords account number when you call before you get a chance to chat with anyone. There is no such customer account ID for google plus profiles.
The Irony
The reason that google does not give you any specific reason is because most of their processes are automated. They suspend accounts on an automatic basis based on algorithms rather than what ‘customers’ want.
And they don’t feel sorry for you when you get caught in their algorithms – quite the opposite actually.
But the funny part is that the suspension almost seems to be inviting you to delete your google plus account, doesn’t it?
Do Not do that, unless it is what you really want.
Instead, you can look forward to trying to submit your profile for reanalysis after you try to guess and fix what is wrong.
Then, you will get a nice automated reply telling you that they won’t unsuspend your account because you did not fix whatever problem their computer tells them you have.
In this message, there will still be ZERO attempts to tell you what is actually wrong. You will just get another link to their sufficiently vague policy or terms & condition pages.
This leaves you in the position of having to try again and resubmit for review again.
This seems to be how Google operates. If it gives you any comfort to know they treat everyone (as far as I can tell) the same way, that is (generally) how it is with them.
So don’t feel bad, you will (possibly) get your profile back in the future. Just keep trying!
Wish I had better NEWS for you and for me!
Leave your thoughts, comments, and other ideas below in the ‘comment section’. I will be glad to hear from you!
Additional Pages You Might Enjoy:
Why Blog Commenting Is Beneficial
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The Problem With Blogging And Why You May Want Your Own Ecommerce Store Instead
The Internet is filled with bloggers who are not able to earn a full time income from their blog.
If you are one of them, you may want to consider eCommerce instead of blogging.
I have about 3 years experience with my own ecommerce store: ToothyGrinsStore.com and it has been worth it.
Bloggers Are Struggling
I’ve seen the discussions, many bloggers are struggling to earn enough money with their blogs to quit their day jobs.
I must admit it is a tough thing to do. Unless you are very lucky or very skilled, you will likely struggle to obtain the results that you seek.
Yes, there are some successful blogs but their are thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of non-successful blogs for every successful one.
If you want to be successful as a blogger what you need more than anything is a loyal follower that eagerly awaits your next blog post.
Ecommerce As A Viable Option
– Selling physical products and receiving pay in return for those products is something that has been tried and tested. It is a model that has worked for thousands of years and it is likely that it will continue to work well into the future.
Ecommerce is just the modern way to employ this model. You buy products at wholesale and sell them at retail.
Your customers get a valuable physical item in exchange for cash. They are used to doing this and have done so practically since the time they were able to hold money in their hands.
Selling Physical Products Is Better Than Selling Digital Ones
The one exception to this might be software. But even there, there are problems. The public is tired of buying ‘abandonware’. What does abandonware mean? It means you bought a peice of software to do a particular job but the creator of that software has moved on to other products and does not keep it updated.
Therefore you software becomes problematic when operating systems or content management systems change. If there is no updates to your software, it may become useless to you.
The public has seen enough ‘abandonware’ to be leery of buying more software.
In short, you need to be REALLY good and poeple need to believe you won’t abandon them and their investment in the future.
I have purchased a LOT of junkware over the years. That accounts for a lot of wasted money.
People and small Businesses have learned that buying software on the Internet is problematic at best.
Selling physical products that people can touch and feel gives them the sense that they received something of value for the cash they gave you. This is a much better and safer way to go.
Why E-books are Less Attractive Now
There has been a lot of hype about the ‘low cost’ to create digital products. E-books are, generally speaking, earning their creators less and less. Competition has made it hard to sell an e-book for more than a few dollars now.
Take a look on the Kindle store or the I-Book store. The competition and the larger fees that the bigger retailers are taking are eating into the profits of e-book publishers – small and large a like.
In addition, there are tons of places to download pirated copies of e-books for no or very little cost.
While the government will spend tax-payer money to protect the larger industries and merchants are they going to care about the small publisher at all? Nobody is going to help you reclaim losses from pirated copies of your e-book.
Many people are now giving e-books away for free now! How are you going to make money on your e-book when other are giving similar information away for free?
Even my own book: What You Should Know About Gum Disease – sells for less as an e-book than it does as a paperback!
The only real exception to this problem is if you have a loyal following that are willing to buy whatever you create.
Leveraging the Power of Affiliates Working For You Rather Than Being One Affiliate In Someone Else’s Army
This is perhaps one of the greatest advantages to having an eCommerce store. You can create an affiliate program that capitalizes on an army of commission only salesman.
In fact, you can offer slightly more than a certain big name retailer to your affiliates and get their attention. Why would they sell a product for a measly 4% commission when another program will give them a 10% commission for the same exact product?
Do you see the potential here?
There is nothing wrong with being an affiliate at all. In fact, we have an affiliate program at Toothy Grins Store that you can join today. It’s free! Yes, there are banners and links and even a data feed you can use to promote our products.
However, having hundreds of people promoting YOUR products is a lot better than being one person (all alone) promoting someone ELSE’S products. Wouldn’t you agree?
The Power Of Online Shopping Comparison Engines
As an affiliate selling someone elses’ products or as an e-book or digital product seller you miss out on one of the greatest opportunities for marketing exposure.
Online product comparison engines such as Google’s Product Search or Bing’s equivalent or 100’s of others are available to the merchant’s of physical products but you cannot get e-books or digital products listed in these engines.
That equates to a whole lot of exposure that you can get!
PPC Marketing
This is another area that online merchants have an advantage in. You know how Google has cracked down hard on a lot of people using PPC or ‘Pay Per Click’ marketing?
Well, the good news is that they like ecommerce stores and I suspect they even ‘favor’ them. You can use PPC to market your physical products easily. And this is a lot easier to do than it is for an e-book or a ‘digital product’.
People shop for physical products online every single day. These searchers are often ‘buyer’ searches. These people are searching for a product because they know they want to buy it.
As you know ‘buyers’ are exactly the kind of visitors that you want to your website.
Email Marketing
Everyone talks about email marketing right? Well, would you rather have a list of people to market to that have already bought something from you OR would you prefer a list of people that signed up to get your free e-book?
The answer is clear, it is much better to have a list of people to send email too that have already bought from you. They will be far more likely to buy again than someone who never bought anything from you and just downloaded your free e-book.
With an eCommerce store you can develop a list of BUYERS. What could be better?
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So, have I convinced you that is time to put away your blog and create your own ecommerce store yet?
Hate what I said? Love what I said? Have questions?
Sound off in the comment section below now and don’t forget to share this page on your favorite social media!
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What Is Ecommerce?
For the purpose of this discussion, Ecommerce is the online retail sale of products that you buy wholesale. Nothing fancy-schmancy, a simple but powerful concept!
This is a time tested and ancient way of doing business. It has been this way, probably for thousands of years.
You go to the store and buy a product at retail price that the store bought at wholesale. You might even do this every day of your life.
This is called commerce. The online version of this time honored business model is Ecommerce.
As funny as it sounds, Ecommerce is nothing new, it is just a modern twist on what has always worked.
You can sell your digital products side-by-side with your physical products if you wish.
I’ve sold both physical and digital products. I do believe that the physical product side is, generally speaking, going to be more lucrative than the digital product side.
Of course, there are exceptions, that is why I said ‘in general’. LOL.
But more often than not, I think a real business, built on real, physical products is an easier rode to ride.
Go ahead and call me crazy (or ignorant) if you wish!
Why Consider Ecommerce?
Many people are looking to monetize their websites and perhaps even build a full time income or to increase the revenue of an existing business!
As I’ve mentioned before it is not easy to build a business.
I also mentioned how it might be necessary to generate additional income streams when you are facing a lot of debt and (just) being frugal still isn’t enough based on current income.
Just do not be blinded to the fact that whatever type of business you end up building, it is likely going to take a good bit of work!
With Ecommerce, you can build a list of buyers who have already purchased a product from you. If you are into ‘list building’, that is exactly the kind of list that you want.
You can also get affiliates to promote your Ecommerce store products for you! You can even have a data feed for the affiliates whereby they display your products on their sites.
BTW: If you are really into affiliate marketing. We have an affiliate program at: Toothy Grins Store – just scroll to the bottom of Toothy Grins Store and there you can sign up for our affiliate program. It pays a little better than some of the ‘big name’ retailers out there do.
You can take (more) advantage of PPC (Pay per click) marketing. Because you are directly selling a product, it MIGHT be easier to create a successful campaign than with other types of products. The search engine PPC programs seem to favorably regard Ecommerce stores over some other types of sites.
It’s clear that you are selling a product, so there is less chance for misconception on the part of your readers / site users. This may be another reason that SEs (Search Engines) like Ecommerce sites.
When people arrive on an Ecommerce site, they can see right away that there are products for sale there, they have no need to fear a hidden agenda. Indeed, many times they are looking to buy the exact product you have on your site.
How Does Ecommerce Fit In With Blogging?
That is fairly easy to explain. You could use your blog to drive traffic to your Ecommerce store.
You Could:
Blog about your products and display images of them.
You can post positive feedback and testimonials from YOUR customers.
You can blog product related stores about the products you sell. These can be your own stories or those of happy customers.
Ever wonder if you were getting credited for all of your affiliate sales? Well, with an Ecommerce site, you KNOW if a sale has been made.
That is some of the power of Ecommerce over other forms of monetization that exist on the Internet today.
Some examples of Ecommerce stores, aside from Toothy Grins Store, are Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Best Buy, Dell, Apple, WalMart, and many, many others.
You might have better luck selling physical products over digital products.
Ecommerce seems to work for a lot of people.
It may not be right for everyone, but maybe it is right for you?
Comments / Questions are OPEN on this post.
What Do They Really Have To Offer?
That seems to be the catch phrase of a lot of companies that want to give you financial advice, doesn’t it? (Become debt free NOW).
Let us focus on this for just a moment. The question becomes: What kind of fancy advice or service can they really give you?
Debt is a widespread problem. And it requires just a little bit of thought – not too much – just a little.
Basically it comes down to this – You have to spend less than you earn. Use your monthly surplus to 1. pay down any debts. 2. Save money.
Rinse – Wash – and Repeat until you achieve any financial goal you happen to be after.
Not Enough To Reach Your Goals?
The other laughable thing about much of the financial advice you can pay for is that whatever scheme or plan they come up with, execution still depends on your financial abilities.
What if you have a goal that is beyond your ability to reach with your current source of income no matter how frugal you become?
If that is the case, you will want to develop new revenue streams.
Here are some ideas:
1. Start a business. It is not an easy thing to do and it IS hard work. BUT, there is potential there – if you can get it going.
Momentum is the key. You have to develop momentum. That is forward motion in simple terms. Getting a big rock to roll takes a LOT of effort. But once it gets rolling it can really go – feeding on its own motion.
Getting started is the hard part. Don’t fool yourself though. If the money coming in does not exceed the money going out, then you have a liability and not a business.
Do not quit your day job until / if your business reaches the point where you make many times the income that your day job provides. Only then MIGHT it be safe…
2. Passive income such as Real Estate, publishing books or music and no doubt a variety of other similar concepts can work to provide additional revenue.
By the way, publishing can feed upon itself and generate momentum. A good example would be writing a book that develops an audience. This would be a group that is hungry for your next book. Once you have a large enough audience, you just keep on writing and additional revenue comes in. Without the audience – not so much!
3. A second job? – No one likes the idea of taking on a second job. But if it can get you over the hump to where you get your debts paid off and can actually start saving, it might be a good solution. In college I would work several part time jobs just to keep things going. But, this is not for everyone.
Overall Lesson: Bring in more than you spend.
Additional problem to overcome: Money loses its value over time.
Disclaimer. I’m not giving financial advice here, find a professional for that. I’m just sharing my thoughts!
Comments are open on this post
A quick search on Capital One complaints yields quite a few negative comments about the customer service of Capital One.
It appears that many people are unable to get satisfaction by calling the customer service line provided on the back of Capital One credit cards.
If you are among them, here is the address and phone number for the corporate office.
Address:
1680 Capital One Drive
McLean, Virginia 22102
Telephone number: (703) 720-1000
Hopefully, you will find someone at corporate that is more willing to help than the regular customer service line.
It is always a good idea to keep detailed record of the people you have spoken with, the time of the call and what they said.
You should also discuss what the are putting in their official notes as well and make note of that.
If you keep track of everyone you talked to and what was said and the date and time of each conversation, you may have a better chance of getting the help you deserve.
Don’t give up – especially if you are 100% in the right!
If you think the information on this page will be helpful to others – share it:
I have found that a lot of PLR (Private Label Rights) sites are offering pre-made content that you can ostensibly place on your site or blog or anywhere that you would like.
One of the biggest problems with this content is that other people are buying it too. This spells duplicate content!
The one exception to this is if you are using this content in your email auto-responder series or in a private membership site. Then you may not need to worry about duplicate content penalties.
Many people do not believe in the duplicate content issue. Well, I personally think that you should ‘believe’ in it.
There are many SEO people who are saying that duplicate content is becoming more of a problem. As the search engines continue to evolve, it only makes sense that they WILL filter out more and more duplicate content.
Why? Because no one wants to do a search and find the same content over and over again. They want different information from each site they visit.
This only makes sense.
Sites that provide unique, one-of-a-kind content are going to dominate sooner or later. You might as well do it the correct way now and not have to start over from scratch in three, five or ten years.
Get used to writing your own content and become prolific. The more you write the easier it gets.
If you are using the content for email or a private membership site or in some manner where you are not wanting or caring about search engine traffic, then you may not need to worry about using PLR content. In those cases, I can see where it would be a nice short cut.
Even with that, one of the problems for me, is that I often do not agree with the content that others produce. Often times, I can see that the ‘author’ of this content doesn’t actually know the subject well. How can I use his writing on my site when I know it lacks depth of understanding?
These ‘content writers’ spend their time writing content. They are probably not the kind of people that truly qualify as experts on any one subject or topic. They just write on all kinds of topics. Some of this content is not hard to spot. They seem to follow some type of template.
These articles are filled with fluff and what I often consider to be meaningless phrases. Get to the point! But, they cannot get to the point. This is because they do not understand the subject matter well in the first place!
They got their main points from reading someone else’s content and try to duplicate it in their own words. They don’t understand the deeper points because they do not know the subject well. It shows. This is what it comes down to in the end.
Write your own content. If you do end up making money from your website, at least you will know that the value people are finding is coming directly from you!
This is what I think about PLR content and PLR packages: Stay away from them, unless they are for email or private membership sites where it doesn’t matter what the search engines think. But even then, won’t you feel better knowing that you are making your business run off your own content and not some duplicated PLR with questionable origins?
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Building a business from scratch might be one of the most challenging things that you will ever do in this world.
Of course, some people bring a ton of money to the table and that makes it far easier for them. They are not so completely invested in the success or failure of a single business. I am not talking about that kind of situation.
What I am talking about is someone who sinks everything he has into making a business work. I don’t just mean financially either. I am talking about a total commitment. Gigantic mental and even emotional efforts go into creating and running a business from scratch.
You can be consumed and overwhelmed very quickly.
Imagine trying to do it with no business training. There are so many problems to solve. And when you don’t even know how a business is supposed to work, it makes it that much harder to make one work.
Another complicating factor is a person’s degree of morals and ethics. I certainly hope you have plenty of both.
There is a difference between running an honest business and a dishonest one. In a dishonest business, you don’t mind breaking the laws or doing morally corrupt things to get your business to work. It is often easier to do it that way – until you get caught.
That is a dishonorable path. It damages society and even the lives of individual people in countless obvious and less-than-obvious ways.
However, there are many people who do operate that way. In the end, good wins. But it might take a while for that to happen.
In the short term, bad people can triumph for a little while. This causes others to consider trying it that way too.
Therefore, starting, growing and running an honest and morally upright business is a tough challenge to take on.
What matters in the end is the level of honesty and integrity that you bring to the business. When you know that you didn’t cave in to doing things the ‘wrong’ way, you feel good.
Owning a business and having an income that is independent of a boss can be liberating. You do not have to modify your behavior to conform to someone elses’ wishes.
I think that happens to many people who are employees. Their boss is their source of income or the key to their continued income. That puts the pressure of conforming in a way that makes the boss happy onto the employee.
How many employees know their boss is in the wrong and actually challenge him on those issues? There are not many who are willing to do so. Considering that their chances of keeping the job, let alone getting promoted, may diminish rapidly from that point forward, fear can be enough to dissuade those who prefer to do right over wrong.
In this world, you are often not rewarded for ‘doing the right thing’. In fact, you are often times penalized or punished in one way or another for trying to do the right thing. That makes it harder to choose the morally upright path, doesn’t it?
You have to wonder if there isn’t a greater power that puts you in such situations to test your moral fiber.
It becomes even more complicated when you have to worry about the well-being of your family. When you are alone, sometimes it is a lot easier to ‘do the right thing’.
Regardless of whether you own your own business or work for someone else, it is a struggle to first recognize what is right and secondly to uphold it.
Therefore, if you have walked a good path regardless of whether you are an employer or an employee, you have most likely had serious challenges and struggles. If life has been easy for you up to this point, you may need to think things over a bit.
A good book about what it really means to be human is Zhuan Falun. I recommend reading it. But you’ll need to be up to the challenge of self-examination. If you are, it can be a true eye opener!
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What do you guys think about Toyota Stock right now?
I’m curious as to what you think because it seems that there are some issues with the quality of Toyota vehicles.
When you stop to consider that the acceleration problems have been widely reported and at the same time intensive investigations have failed to unveil a problem, does it make you wonder?
If there really is a problem and Toyota has failed to find it, then what will the consumer sentiment be?
Even if there is truly no problem, the perception will remain that Toyota failed to uncover the (a) flaw?
How do you think this will effect Toyota Sales now and into the future?
After answering that question, how do you think Toyota Stock will be affected?
Is it an investment that you relish making or will you probably avoid the stock for the near and long term?
Or, do you think the public perception will really have no bearing on Toyota stock?
Leave your comments below.