Sounds good doesn’t it?

Well yes, in fact in my ABC’s of Blogging for Money e.book I suggest that when you start your blog, think of an exit strategy as well.  By that I mean think of building your blog with a view to eventually selling it.  Blogs and websites are virtual real estate. If your blog is giving you an income then you have a commercial or business site.  There are many variables in determining the selling price of a site, but a typical structure would be 2.5 to 6 times the value of net income generated.

What I am concerned about is that there is suddenly a proliferation of online businesses offering turnkey sites that promise you instant success.  Now there may be a company that has successfully mastered the system so that if you have the money you can just buy the business, set it and leave it or flip it for a tidy profit.  I haven’t seen one yet.

Several years ago I bought into such a system.  This company was one of the early birds of a complete turnkey system – and I have to give it to the founders for recognizing that you can build a turnkey system-  and voila!  The cash starts rolling in.

My experience was significantly different from the promise.  Without going into details the “set it and leave it” part was anything but.  Tech requirements which while relatively simple to the techie initiated were beyond the capabilities of most moreover, the cash cow seemed to be dry delivering mere dribs and drabs of pennies.  I don’t think the company was trying to scam anybody, they just overestimated what their system could do and underestimated their customer’s willingness to do more than their sales pitch promised.

Now there are several gurus who have “found” or “perfected” the secret to the riches of turnkey sites and have authored courses and developed software systems so that you and I can finally see the money truck rolling up the driveway.

That may be so.  But my eternal optimism in this business of internet marketing is now sprinkled with a healthy dose of skepticism.  If the turnkey systems are that easy why do the courses come loaded with a ton of instructions and a passel of videos that show you how to do the business?  That just tells me that no matter how “turnkey” the system is, you still have a lot of work to do.

Call me old fashioned.  I still believe that you have to know your business.  You get to know it by rolling up your sleeves and learning about it and developing the smarts needed to make it profitable.  Flipping your sites?  Sure.  I’m not above a course that shows you how to quickly build value for your blog or site or even of being in the business of buying and selling sites.  But honey, it’s just like the business of physical real estate – you better know what you are doing.  If you are an experienced internet marketer then these turnkey systems may be ideal for you, if you are a newbie my opinion is that it will be an expensive indoctrination into the world of internet marketing.

Build your internet marketing muscles first – develop your own blog income.  From your own personal experience you will be better able to judge a good deal from a bad one.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Get your own cheese first.

This weekend I attended the Cashflow Marketing seminar in Abbotsford. Think Cashflow, think real estate and Robert Kiyosaki and Darren Weeks, right? Think again.

This seminar was attended by entrepreneurs, mostly brick and mortar business owners. They came to learn how to market in these tough economic times, how to strategize, deploy tactical maneuvers and come out big time winners. The seminar spanned two days and by its end everyone had a workable system they took home with them. I am certain that their businesses will take a significant uptick on the sales chart.

One of the speakers was Dan Lok – I’ve written about Dan before. He’s a self made multi-millionaire in internet marketing. When I met him the first time several years ago, we chatted a bit about my interest in internet marketing. His advice: “Blog, blog, blog.”

With Dan Lok

Dan is nothing if not to the point- blunt, some might even say. Dan has written several books and there is a new one in the offing … we got copies of it. Did I say that Dan pulls no punches? Aptly, its title is F.U. Money. its listed on Amazon but not available for sale yet!

The book dovetails very nicely with a program that he launched a few months back as a beta and in which I have been participating. It’s a system that puts much of your internet marketing on auto pilot … so easy even grandma could do it.

Maybe I’m letting the cat out of the bag as Dan has been awfully quiet about it … but here is the thing, I mentioned several times here that I will be moving this blog from Blogger to a Wordpress based platform. I am still thinking as to where exactly I want to move it. I am thinking that putting it on the beta program system would be good, as I already have hard data and stats, and then it will be easy to compare historical data with new results once it has been moved. From my experience with the system so far, I think blogging for money will take on a completely different trajectory … UP! Stay tuned – new look coming up in a few weeks.

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogger for Money

PS… wouldn’t you know it, one of the attendees owns a gourmet cheese shop!