Awesome Nintendo Wii Contest...

John Chow continues to give and give to his readers. This time his blog, which teaches how to make money online, is giving away a Nintendo Wii to a winner that will be drawn at random! This contest is open to anyone with a blog, all you have to do is link back to his site, and to the sponsor of the contest, 1234pens.com, which specializes in promotional pens! John Chow dot com is sharing the wealth again and again, good luck to anyone that enters this cool contest!

Ultra Reviews: SecretAffiliateMarketing.com

Another day, another review. Actually while checking out the many other blogs that have been suggested or seen blogs that have contacted us, we've seen a lot of different methods and programs people are using in their quest to make money. SecretAffiliateMarketing.com is The Source for Affiliate Marketing Tools & Tips on Making Money Online. This blog is full of useful tools that you can take advantage of and use to build and enhance your blog. It features a nice list of the programs that are out there and give them an honest review. The other main feature I liked about this blog is that it tells you what to stay AWAY from. They hold nothing back when they provide information on programs that are a waste of time or are straight up useless. This is a great place to learn about the various programs that can be used early on, or even later when your blog is making some money and you're ready to move up to the next level with your blog. As always with the blogs we review, SecretAffiliateMarketing will link to your blog if you do the review about the blog (which is a PR2 blog.)

Ultra Reviews: Ja Kel Daily Dot Com

I'm glad to say my John Chow Dot Com review has brought me some new readers and I'm starting to get suggestions and and ideas flowing already from readers, which is great. One of the people that contacted me was Jason Neuman, who also follows John Chow and views him as a mentor in making money online. I checked out Jason's blog and have enjoyed the viewpoint of someone who is closer to my level and trying to accomplish some goals that John Chow and others on that level have achieved. Jason has also adopted John Chows method of getting links back to his blog. Jason's Ja Kel Daily Dot Com eventually wants to make money and is offering to link to your blog if you review his blog. I was surfing through his blog and liked the layout and navigation of the site, combined with some good reads. I particularly liked his blog "Bloggers are Millionaire's - When to Quit" which takes a look at peoples expectations when they start a blog, and why some people give up so easily. It also provides some great tips on how to handle frustration when trying to build a blog and how to handle the temptation to just give up on blogging. I recommend this site as a good read for anyone who is starting out, and needs some direction and tips on how to stay on track with their blog.

Motivation Anyone?...A Review of John Chow dot Com

So when I started all this blog stuff, I had read a few different ideas and stories about how blogging could help your site grow, and just like I am now, I"m willing to do anything to help my site and grow. After a few months of doing blogs about phones that were featured on my site, and then later on some blogs about some entertainment topics, I stumbled across some stories about people who were actually making great money off their blog itself, and that was an idea I'm a big fan of, so what better place to find a blog that is making great money than the top, in other words John Chow dot Com.

John Chow dot Com was one of the top reasons I decided to create this business blog. After hearing the story and some of the facts, I was surprised to find that John Chow dot Com wasn't a a super site with bells and whistles and filled with super graphics like I expected. It was in fact just a normal blog that featured great content, especially on how to make money online. This blog was highly appealing because it showed me that even with a basic layout and some knowledge on using ads and tools like Feedburner properly, combined with a drive to type up loads and loads of good content (such as John has), achieving financial success with your blog was indeed possible. John Chow's blog basically set off a light bulb in my head, that I could blog about my everyday business experiences, and maybe even get some readers who could add some knowledge on certain topics or maybe even get help themselves in their businesses, which is the type of environment John Chow has created, while also keeping a fair amount of humor and entertainment content as well, which I'm sure keeps his readers going back for more and more.

And now while John Chow dot Com is one of the top blogs on the Internet, he is willing to help other peoples blogs and will link to you if you review his his blog. I think this is awesome to see someone who is at the top still willing to help out those of us who are striving to make it. If you are someone who is interested in making money online, I highly recommend John Chow dot Com as the first place to visit, as I've learned a huge amount of different information in a very short period of time.

My Past Business Failures Series: AMWAY part 1

Welcome to my new series that will look back and review my past business experiences and what went wrong, and what I learned or experienced from it. I'm starting from the beginning with my first "own your own business" experience, when in 1997, at the age of 17 and in my Junior year of high school, I was introduced to Amway. I intended on this being just 1 blog, but after getting some of this down, I realized my Amway experience will come in multiple parts, so with that, I bring you, Amway part 1:

I was introduced to this company by my dad (who I have to honestly say is notorious for falling for anything that claims to make you rich, and get you rich fast.) My dad was introduced to this opportunity by his boss (who owns a successful janitorial company with contracts across the country and even over seas,) and he was introduced to it by his accountant, and so on and so on (notice the pattern already.) All I knew so far was that my dad's boss was coming in from out of town, bringing some "business people" with him, and they were going to show my dad, our family, and anyone else my dad could get to come to our house, this great opportunity, OK cool. So the night arrives, food is on the table, people over, got a little party going on, works for me. The business people arrive, complete with dressed up attire and ready to do their thing. They bring out their dry erase board and they're ready to do this. So somehow things get going, and somehow I get targeted for the first question:

(For the sake of naming names, we'll refer to my Dads boss as "Mr. R."

Mr. R: So, tell me what your dream car is?

(Me, being brutally honest, state that the '91 Dodge Stealth sitting in the driveway that I had gotten a few months earlier was it....oops, guess i messed things up from the get go.)

Mr. R: OK, well, what's another car you'd get if money was no object?

(OK I'll play along this time)

Me: Uh, a Corvette.

Mr. R: What would you say if I told you in the next 5 years, you could make enough to buy that car, have a house, take vacations, basically not have to worry about money?

Me: Uh, well that sounds good

And from here, the push was on. The dry erase board was off and running, drawing circles that represented you (everyone in the little group), then connect another circle to your friend, your uncle, your co-worker, your cousins friends sister, etc. The basic idea being, why buy groceries and household products from a store, when you could buy it from your own business? They had their stats to show how much money is made from Walmart, Grocery Stores, etc., and how instead you could be making big money like they do. Buy everything from food to toiletries to vitamins and cleaning products from your own business, then get everyone you know to buy it from you too. Also while your doing all this, sign more people up "under" you, and when they repeat the process of buying products and getting their friends to buy, you'll get paid off that too. Yeah, basically they were making a dreaded pyramid out of bubbles on the dry erase board. They showed how if you signed up "X" amount of people under you working, ordering, etc., you'd make "Y" amount, and that "Y" amount would grow and grow as the number of new sign ups under you grew. Well, at 17, hearing these business guys tell everyone how "Fired Up" they were (and I don't know how many times I'd hear the term "Fired Up" in this meeting,) was kind of motivational, and the idea that you could sit back and be rich with a bunch of people under you working wasn't so bad I thought. These guys were ready to give up their jobs and be "walking on the beach" together, as they put it. They let everyone know that the "kit" to get things started was only $250.00. This kit was full of reading material and cassette tapes from the big timers in Amway who were gonna share all their tips on how to get where they were. Well i was 17 and in high school, so the $250.00 wasn't an issue to me, I figured I'd just help my Dad out and hopefully we could all be rich like these guys said. It sounded like we were joining this group of business professionals that were going to work together to get super rich and be financially free! These guys had a way to make you think they were excited about YOU, and your potential. They used the popular term FIRED UP (now that I think of it, the FIRED UP gets worse and worse as this story goes on), and AWESOME in reference to whoever they were talking to at the time in the group. So my Dad was in before this meeting ever took place, and him and his boss were set to do big things with this. We were officially Amway reps.

Not long after this initial meeting, we began buying the majority of our food and products from Amway. We had a giant catalogue and I had no problems ordering food items from it (mostly frozen food), but I wasn't picky, and they had a selection. We received boxes weekly with tons of products. My Dad was using the cleaning products for his business, we were eating the food, we were on our way. Pretty soon there was word that a huge cannot miss Amway convention was hitting Baton Rouge Louisiana, and my Dad wanted me to go. I'd get a free day off from school out of it, so off we went for our first Amway weekend….

To Be Continued…

Still to come: The Amway Convention, the red flags that told me something was wrong, becoming a rep. Myself, future conventions, more home meetings, Chris Hansen vs. Amway, and much more!

Simply Stated...

I ran across a short and simple article on making money (a six figure income specifically) with your home based business from Business Program Reviews. It goes right along with what I've said in my previous posts about people not getting or wanting to get the knowledge that is necessary to succeed in what they are doing. Patience is a huge factor in home based business. I've seen people literally drop hundreds of dollars into a program because they believe every word they've been told about how "You'll be buying your dream car" and "You and me will be walking the beach together." Uh, that's nice to fantasize about, but I've learned that there has to be something fishy about this guy I met 10 minutes ago telling me how excited he is to talk on a beach with me, and if he's been doing this and is so rich already, why isn't he on the beach already?? (I'm sure some of you have been in situations like this when your being told about some GREAT program that will make you RICHER than Rich.) Luckily I don't fall for that type of stuff anymore, but i know people and even family members that have and still do. Then reality hits, you've been doing this program for 3-4 months, or even less, and you have no money, so what is the answer? Usually just drop it and hope the next "big thing" is better than this one. It's an ongoing cycle of "Get Rich Quick" mentality. The first key in getting into a program or starting a business is knowledge. You have to know exactly what you're getting into and THEN decide if it's for you, only after you know all the details you can.

After some mild success with my website, I've had people who are in similar businesses or own websites and are trying to achieve the same things I am, ask me how I do it or what I do. Well when i reveal that I spend hours doing link building and exchanges, and read entire lessons full of pages on just one small topic that has to do with what I"m working on at the time with my site, they either don't believe me, or get inspired to follow what I'm doing, then run out of gas and just give up. So basically to succeed, you have to learn various areas of how to make money with your business, and then put it all together. Having someone help you who is knowledgeable in the area and can pass along good info. is great if you can get it, I've gotten great help in various money related subjects from my webmaster G.C., and have learned a great amount, as where others are just too lazy to do all the work or they look for a shortcut that they THINK will accomplish something. I"m 100% against the shortcuts. Too much of a chance to get penalized somehow and destroy your entire business. Hard work and consistency is the only way to make it.

I want to reference another outstanding article from Business Program reviews, this one explaining How to Start Working From Home. They list things that I have done and have worked for me. And this article also explains, that contrary to what the majority of people think of "working from home" or "online business," it is still WORK, and LOTS of work if you plan on making this your primary business. Remember, there is competition out there, and they're not going to wait around while you sleep and watch TV all day. I can tell just by the way people question me at times, that they think sitting at the computer all day isn't a "real job." Well I can tell you it is if you make it a real job. As stated in the above article, sometimes you can do all the right things and get off to a great start, and STILL not be making money, simply because more work is required.

Hopefully this will give any of you who have just started out with your business or those of you who have started but haven't found direction yet on how to get things rolling. It took me a little over a year to get a direction and find out exactly WHAT I needed to be doing, but actively searching for good info. such as the articles I've provided should start things out on the right foot, and once your focus and determination to make it work are there, you can build upon that solid foundation that has been built.

Starting at the BOTTOM...

So today, it feels like a new beginning for me, after being away a week house sitting for some friends, and my fiance being off of work for spring break, reality hits that I'm back to my normal life and I'm looking at where i stand. As i stated in my first blog, I lost my "day job" as of last week, and I start this week with my online business being my primary income for the first time in my life. It's a good and bad feeling i guess, being that my day job was a hassle to deal with and very unstable, but it was also my main source of money so adjustments have to be made. As thing stand now, I'm making a small amount from my business, my fiance has a good job, but it will barely cover our bills right now (but this will hopefully improved as we are 2 payments away from paying off our installment loan,) and we live with my Mom in my Grandmas old house since my Mom and Dad are getting divorced and my mom was willed this house by my Grandma. So basically, I'm at the bottom of the barrel right now, barely making it, but I'm not afraid to admit it get to work. So this with this blog i wanted to put down my current situation, so I can look back in a few months and see that I'm doing better. I find that in times like this, I seem to get more work done in a day, because its motivating to have the need and want to make things better. Right now, I've just set some small goals that I'd like to achieve, like covering bills, and being able to buy groceries and such without having to worry about money. Sure me and my fiance have big dreams like many do about future vacations and things of that nature, but right now we're being realists and hoping to achieve minor goals like being able to move out and have a place of our own, and have some financial security.

There have been a few other times when we've had to worry about finances and making it, and have even overheard family members saying I need to "Get out and get an F'n job," in reference to me working and putting time into my website (which obviously isn't good enough for some people.) But I've learned to turn that type of thing around and use it as motivation to work twice as hard at my business and make good things come of it. Sure I could go scrub toilets or flip burgers at a job I hated, and make myself miserable, all for more money than what I have now. But, as I said before, those of us with the "vision" can see that we are building something much bigger, more stable, and something that we can own, without the worry of a boss walking and and firing you for whatever reason, and having your whole world turned upside down.

So now I have it down, I'm at the bottom and ready to move upward, this is the starting point of working for myself officially, and relying on my business to at least get us to a "living without worry" stage. I"m trying everything even outside of sales from my site, since my rankings in Google have dropped earlier this month (at the worst possible time), including AdSense, Amazon Affiliate Ads, Auction Ads, and blogging. I'm aiming to bring in enough income to pay for groceries and a place to live (even renting a duplex would be suffice right now,) so small goals are just fine right now, nothing fancy, just want to get by on my own, without the help of people who didn't want to give it anyway. Upwards I go...I hope!

Let The Journey Begin...The Story Behind This Blog...

Welcome to my newest blog, Ultra Business Ramblings. This blog was a brainstorm of mine after thinking about all the things I do daily in an attempt to generate enough income to support my needs. I recently lost my "day job," which i held for the past 8 or so years. I basically reported payroll information and probably have been on easy street as far as a "job" goes for the past few years. Being my Dad was my boss, under normal circumstances you would think I'd be pretty secure with my former job, but really it'd been the exact opposite for the past few years and I've been well aware of it. Since about 2001 or so I'd been interested in making money online, and have been a part of many many money making programs, in which almost all of them turned out to be failures or scams. But nonetheless, my interest in making money somehow online, and bringing in my own income without having to rely on an unstable job remained steady. Around 2002 I ran across a company called Cognigen Telecommunications. At the time it seemed interesting, but it involved the sale of phone service, Internet service, and many other telecom related services, which I didn't see myself making money from being I didn't think I could go door to door selling these services, and didn't know how to drive any traffic to a website, so I passed on Cognigen at the time.

About a year later I began hearing about Cognigen again while in chat rooms with a few people discussing online business opportunities. This time around I got a better explanation of how it worked and read up more in depth and could now see it was a legit company as opposed to all the others I had either seen or been a part of in the past. I liked the business set up and the fact that no money was required to join, which told me they weren't just out to get my money like many others. I joined Cognigen and began trying to sell the services via flyer's and mainly chat rooms. I made a couple of small sales such as domain names or a cell phone plan every few months, which didn't amount to much. After some frustration, I began learning more and more about how to make this work. The first key was getting my own domain name, and driving traffic to the site. Another thing I picked up was that I had a good number of people I was talking to online, that were also frustrated with what they were trying to do, but the path most of them took was just to jump to another program or sell something different if whatever they were working on wasn't bringing in money fast enough. Those people were failing time and time again, which made me realize I needed to stick with whatever was stable, and learn how to make it work. The group that once shared ideas in similar chats was cut down fast and pretty soon, myself and my future webmaster were all the remained. We were both in Cognigen, but he had been in longer and had more experience making sales and had a lot of information to pass along to me. Pretty soon we had thrown out a lot of ideas about making it work, and our goals were very similar, which mainly were to not have to get a 9-5 job flipping burgers and answering to a boss, and instead build something we would own and could generate our own secure income from.

In 2005, after many attempts at throwing a few different websites together and experimenting with a few different ideas, I hired G.C. (who I mentioned above to take over as my webmaster. This was the first time we had a real site together and were ready to make an impact. A few months in, we were learning about link exchanged and pay per click advertising, which was a huge step that had me making a little extra cash off the site finally. We had a few thousand link exchanges going, and PPC was also bringing us descent traffic. To our surprise, in May of 2006, I was contacted by someone who was interested in buying my domain since we had built it up to the point that it had descent search engine rankings, mainly on MSN. So the price was right, and we sold for a nice amount (for a first time website.) It wasn't all about the money in the sale, we saw it more as a chance to start from scratch and go back and correct mistakes we had made early on, and had since learned how to do better (even choosing a better domain that would be more targeted).

A few weeks later, UltraCellSaver.com was born. We've had a few ups and downs so far, but we surprised ourselves and got ranked in Google for many keywords in a short period of time and picked up some nice traffic for a few months. Since then, we've dropped out of Google for a lot of keywords, so we've explored more options such as different PPC services, directory submission, and better site navigation and options. We're learning daily about perfecting the art of search engine optimization, which is not an easy process, but we've come a LONG way since 2004.

So now I've created this blog to share our ideas and maybe even get some opinions from other bloggers and readers who would like to share their experiences. Since losing my unstable job, my website and everything related to it (such as this blog) is now officially my primary source of income. I know there are more of you out there who are also trying to make a living off of their websites and doing what we're doing as well. I've experienced the question "OK you have a website, but WHEN is it going to make you money?" To those people that don't have the vision that we who believe in what we are building and see the great potential it has, those people can have fun at their 9-5 jobs with bosses they hate, hours they cant stand, and the struggle of now knowing when their rug could be pulled out from under them, until they're elderly and realize what they COULD have done with a little hard work and determination. (Hey, at least they'll KNOW when their getting paid, and the EXACT amount, unlike us website people who have no idea what we're doing or talking about ;-)

Welcome to the blog, I hope this will be a place where people can learn, share, and make all of our businesses GROW!