Do the math

When it comes to making money online, it is likely that you will need to spend money in order to make money. Or, you may need to invest and manage the money you’ve already earned. It goes without saying that you’ll want to always make a net profit. For clarity, the formula for net profit is: total money made – total costs = net profit.

To further illustrate net profit, I’ll provide an example.

Say I have a lemonade stand. It took me $50 to build the stand, buy the lemonade ingredients, and buy all other supplies.

$50 is my total cost.

I run the lemonade stand for a day and I make $100. This $100 is my total profit.

To calculate net profit, I simply enter the numbers in the above formula.

total money made – total costs = net profit

$100 – $50 = $50

I made $50 running the lemonade stand for a day.

This is simple enough to understand without an example, but I gave an example just for illustration.

Unfortunately, calculating future net profit is always as the above example suggests. However, it is still incredibly important that you know you are making money, so always do the math.

Currently, I’m “doing the math”, and creating a strategy, for my Neobux venture. Admittedly, I should have done this a long time ago. I began Neobux without much of a strategy. Fortunately, it hasn’t cost me too much, but, while creating the strategy, I learned that I could easily make more money by using said strategy.

I haven’t completed my strategy, but, once I do, I’ll likely post it on this blog.

As I mentioned above, “doing the math” isn’t always easy since you may have to account for the unknowns. I’ve run into a few unknowns while creating my Neobux strategy. I’ve discovered that the best way to handle these unknowns is to assume the worst. To explain unknowns, I’ll use the lemonade stand example again. Let’s say I don’t know how much the sugar is going to cost me. So, I’ll assume the worst. I’ll assume that the sugar is going to cost me a lot, and then I’ll take this into consideration when calculating my net profit. If my calculations show that I’ll still make a net profit, even when considering the expected high cost of the sugar, I’ll know that I can afford the cost of the sugar. Now that I know I’ll likely be able to afford the cost of the sugar, I’ve prepared for the worst case scenario.

Doing the math relates back to my “stacking the odds” principle. When you do the math, you are stacking the odds for success in your favor. Additionally, doing the math helps to manage risk. There is always a risk when attempting to make money. By doing the math, you’re able to discover how much risk you are taking. Doing the math can also help you manage the risk, as shown in my explanation on how to handle unknowns.

Math is hardly my favorite subject, but I can’t deny its usefulness when trying to make money. So, do the math, and make some money.

Do you know your odds and can you beat them?

It’s no secret that gambling is popular on the internet. However, gambling isn’t the only venture that depends on chance. Binary Options, a still somewhat recent investment instrument, has exploded in popularity over the past year. Now, you may say that luck isn’t involved in Binary Options since an investor simply has to predict market outcomes to get paid. It is true that not every bit of investing in Binary Options relies on chance, but, ask yourself, what is the investor doing when he invests in Binary Options? He’s making a prediction on whether the option will increase in value or decrease in value. I’m not certain how he would know this ahead of time, so it may be safe to say that he’s relying on chance.

This doesn’t mean that Binary Options are a bad investment idea. There are many ways you can “tilt the scales” in your favor when investing in Binary Options, and most other things. That’s what this entire article is about: knowing your odds and how to stack the odds in your favor.

Discovering the odds

So, how does one go about “knowing the odds”?

You may want to watch these free videos on Youtube. They explain the basics of probability and you’ll likely find them valuable.

Okay, now that you’ve watched the entire series of videos on probability, how does one discover what the odds are?

The answer is observation.

Observe the likelihood of something occurring.

Say you want to know how many lightning bolts hit trees during an average thunderstorm in a particular area. Just look out the window during a thunderstorm, you likely won’t see many lightning bolts hitting trees. You may conclude that the likelihood of lightning bolts hitting trees is slim to none in your neighborhood.

This can be applied to many things.

Say you want to know of the likelihood of success on the pay-to-click site Neobux.

Read reviews on Neobux, read comments, actually join Neobux and discover how easy/difficult it is to earn money.

Now, you may notice something interesting. Different people may have had different amounts of success on Neobux. Why is this? Were some people just luckier than others? Or did the successful people do something to “stack the odds” in their favor?

Stacking the odds in your favor

There is a quote by Thomas Jefferson that I rather like. This is what he said:

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

Too better understand this quote, imagine this:

There are two men stranded on a deserted island.

One of the men decides to make a plan. He makes the plan in his mind and he decides to follow the plan. He gathers wood, leaves, coconuts, and an assortment of fruits and vegetables. He builds a shelter with the wood and leaves. And he digs a rather deep hole in the sand in order to gather clean, drinking water. He also does many other things to make his stay on the island comfortable.

The other man looks around, spots a boulder, then walks over and sits on the boulder. He decides to wait for a rescue ship.

The man who decided to just sit on a boulder died a few days later when he tried to quench his thirst by drinking salt water.

The man who made the plan survived for three weeks and, then, was rescued by a fisherman from a nearby island. 

 

Both of these men were subjected to the forces of chance. Assuming that they were in the same physical condition, either may have died from a heart attack or a stroke at any moment. However, only one of the men decided to increase his chances of survival while the other man decided to just sit on a rock and wait to be rescued. The first man took action and his actions increased his chances of survival while the other took no action (well, no action that increased his chances of survival).

Now, was one man “luckier” than the other. Yes, but his didn’t appear on its own. The man who survived tilted the scales in his favor by creating the conditions in which he would be the “luckiest”.

Using the lightning scenario again, you could increase the chances that a tree would be struck by lightning by attaching a lightning rod to a tree.

Similarly, you can increase the chances of becoming successful on Neobux by learning about Neobux, learning strategies, discovering how much you should invest, discovering if you should invest at all, discovering if you should use “autopay”, discovering if you should buy or recycle your rented referrals.

Similarly still, say you have to give a speech two weeks from now and you want to get a good grade on the speech. You can dramatically increase your chances of getting a good grade by practicing your speech, researching interesting topics, speaking slowly and fluently, etc.

There are few guarantees in life, and there are many, many unknowns. However, you can stack the odds in your favor by taking certain actions.

That is the central method behind all money-making: taking the right actions and increasing your odds of becoming a success.

 

If you ever want to be successful at anything, first discover the odds of success, and then discover and take the actions necessary to increase your odds of becoming successful.

Affiliate marketing: Spreading yourself too thin

A common mistake many novice affiliate marketers make is spreading themselves too thin. What I mean by this is that these marketers take on too many products at one time. They promote too many products at one time! Why is this bad? Well, first, it’s a waste of time and energy that could have been spent advertising one product on many different media. I’ve known marketers who would take a product, make a slideshow for it, upload the slideshow to a file hosting site, and then repeat this process with another product. Though, this isn’t an absolutely bad thing to do, there are more effective ways of selling products. Second, spreading your efforts too thin won’t get you any sales. Focus on one product, and hammer it on every media.

If you are a beginning affiliate, I suggest you take one product and market it using different media.

I think people underestimate the number of media by which a product can be marketed.

Here’s a couple of ways one product can be marketed:

• Make a Youtube video advertising the product
• Upload a product presentation to SlideShare and Docstoc
• Create a Twitter page for the product (I’m serious)
• Create a Facebook page for the product (I’m still serious)
• Advertise the product on existing Facebook, Twitter, etc. pages
• Advertise the product on any forum you visit
• Create a website and advertise the product (it’s fairly easy and cheap)
• Buy advertising space, on the web, for the product

These are just a few of the media you can use to promote your product. Click here if you want more information on affiliate marketing, advertising techniques, and advertising media.

So you want to become an affiliate…

Or maybe you don’t. Maybe  you don’t even know what affiliate marketing is. If that is the case, a brief explanation is due. Affiliate marketing is really quite simple in concept, but hard to pull off in practice. Well, hard for me anyway. So, what is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing refers to the practice of using affiliates to market products or services to customers. In simpler terms, an affiliate is a “middle-man”. The affiliate connects a potential customer with a product or service of a vendor. If the customer likes the product or service, he buys it. Being an affiliate can be very, and I mean VERY, lucrative.

But how is it lucrative? What does the affiliate get for directing a customer to a product?

An affiliate gets a piece of the pie. In other words, an affiliate gets a cut of the profit the vendor makes off of the sale. THAT is the lucrative part. These cuts can be HUGE, though, they often vary between 1% and 75%.

If you’re an affiliate and you “sell” a $100 product to a customer, you could get 75% of the money. That is, in this case, $75. That’s a lot of money for just having someone click your affiliate link and buy a product.

Oh, how could I forget about the links! An affiliate uses product links to direct potential customers to a products, again, if the customer clicks the link and then proceeds to buy the product, the affiliate gets a cut of the profit. These links could be put any where. They could be put on web forums, blogs, websites, documents, servers, any where  and every where.

Affiliate links are found on websites where users register to become affiliates. I’m an affiliate. The site I use is ClickBank. I registered there and I get my “promotional” affiliate links from the site. You may have noticed that I strategically placed affiliate links in some of these articles.

Being an affiliate sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? Well, it is great. But it’s tough to get people to click on your links and buy a product. Just because I placed my links on this blog doesn’t mean anyone will click them and buy the product.

So, how does an affiliate get people to click the links and buy the product?

How to get buyers

There are a few ways to advertise the products you are trying to sell. Here they are:

Friends and Family

This is a method, on the subject, that I haven’t seen any where else. It’s also a reliable and safe method, so I was surprised I didn’t see it elsewhere. Here it is: sell your product to family or friends. Seems simple, right? Well, it is. If you know of a family member or friend who want some kind of product, recommend a product from your affiliate products. Be sure to keep your ears and eyes. You’ll need to be ready to recommend a product. Or, you could just ask your friends and family what they like. Then, send them you affiliate link in an email. If you value your relationships, be sure to recommend products of good quality.

Youtube Method

One of the most common ways to promote both affiliate products and PPD links is by creating and uploading videos to Youtube. It’s rather simple, though it will be difficult to get views and purchases if you aren’t already an established member of Youtube. So, the method goes like this: create a video and upload the video to Youtube. Like I said, it’s simple. Make the video about the product you are promoting. You can review the product, test the product, or just give the product a shout-out. Be sure to put your affiliate link in the video description.

As I mentioned above, this method is simple, but it’s difficult to get views. I suggest creating multiple videos about the product. You could also buy views in order to get your video ranked higher in the Youtube index, but I wouldn’t do this immediately.

If you decide to review the product, be sure to give an honest review. Honest reviews, as opposed to exaggerated or dishonest reviews, tend to sell more of the promoted product. People will trust you more if you are somewhat critical of the product.

Blog Method

Create a blog or use an existing blog to promote the product you’re trying to sell. This method is also both simple and difficult. Here’s the method: create a blog about something in general (it could be about sports, gardening, social media, etc.) and put your affiliate links on that blog. I suggest first building an audience before you try selling them products. As you’ll likely discover, building an audience is the hard part of this method.

Website Method

Build a website around some general hobby or idea and include affiliate links to products that are related to that hobby or idea. This will cost a bit of money since you’ll need to pay your web hosting site, but it shouldn’t cost you any more than a few dollars.

Forum Method

If you participate on a forum, add your affiliate links to your posts. Be sure the forum allows you to post affiliate links.

Advertisement Method

This is the most expensive advertising method. Well, it depends on where you advertise. So, this method involves buying advertisement space on a popular website. Be sure you advertise a product site users will find interesting.

 

Okay, I’m going to end this article here, it’s getting a bit wordy. I didn’t intend for this article to be this long. Ha! Oh well…

Investment fraud article…

I found this article a few days ago. This article is just way too good. Generally, these types of articles give a few simple tips on how to avoid investment fraud. This article takes the same approach, however, it offers a ton of tips in comparison to other articles like it. I suggest you read it, and read it often.

Click here to read the article

I don’t agree with everything this article says, but it does give a lot of solid advice.

Banned from Bubblews…again

As the title states, I was recently banned from Bubblews…again. This is my 3rd or 4th ban from the site. I’ve tried to contact them about the ban, but I have yet to receive a response. To be honest, I think Bubblews is the most ban-happy site I’ve ever used. I’ve never had an account banned on the Internet and I mean, literally, never. So, this whole “ban” thing has left me a bit confused.

For those of you who don’t know what Bubblews is, Bubblews is a site where you can submit papers about almost anything. From beauty to politics, entertainment to fashion. The article variety is fairly large, though, the site didn’t offer many text enhancers i.e. different font size, bold, italics, etc. However, I wasn’t drawn to the site by its limitations. I was attracted to Bubblews when I learned that users were paid in accordance to how many views, likes, favs, etc. their submissions get. And the pay was pretty good. Before I was banned, I had made $1.25 from 28 views and a couple likes.

Back to me being banned, as I was saying above, Bubblews is ban-happy. If you ever decide to have an account with them, be sure you follow their terms of service to the letter. If you break a rule, you won’t receive any warnings, e-mails, messages, etc. You won’t even be told that your account has been banned. Do you want to know how I found out my account had been banned? I tried logging into Bubblews one day and I couldn’t access my account. I thought I was just typing in the wrong password, so I decided to have Bubblews help me recover my password via email. I typed in my email account’s name, pressed “Recover”, and received the message: validation.email.unique_key_exists. So, I took this to mean that my email, along with my account, had been removed.

So, yeah, I was banned. I’ve decided to stop creating accounts with them. It just isn’t worth the time to upload my articles if they ban me outright and without warning.

If you care to know, the articles I was uploading were from my blog, The Golden Byte. I think I know why they kept banning my accounts. They have a policy which states that submissions shouldn’t solicit the use of other services on the Internet. Perhaps this is what the site, or its owners, thought my articles were doing and, thus, banned me for it.

Additionally, I’ve heard that the site is a scam. Purportedly, they aren’t paying some of their users when they, the users, request payment. I’m not certain what to think of this. I’m not so certain they are a scam site. But, I don’t have any evidence one way or another. All I have is random, internet comments and we all know how reliable those are.

I’m not bitter about the bans. Bubblews lacks many features that I love to use in my articles. It’s also restrictive in regard to what it allows its users to say. I’m just too much of a wild card, I guess. I like to speak freely and criticize. I don’t think Bubblews would appreciate my above criticisms. C’est la vie…

In summary, use Bubblews at your own risk.