Creativity Sucks! Well when the inspiration and knowledge is lacking. Sometimes the brain just shuts down and I can sit there gazing at my monitor. But that doesn’t have to happen any more.

Question: Do you know who are these business people talking about?

“…He’s one of the most ingenious and innovative marketers…” – Daniel S. Pea, Sr. Founder and Chairman of The Guthrie Group

“…He’s to copywriting and marketing what Tiger Woods is to golf…” – Frank McKinney “The World’s Premier Creator of Oceanfront Multi-Million Dollar Estate Homes

“…He shows you clearly how to seriously increase your profits…” – Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing

“…He’s a marketing genius, a world-class copywriter and an incredibly savvy entrepreneur. Get his products, get his coaching, get whatever you can from him, you’ll be totally glad you did!” – Mike Litman Co-Author #1 International Best-Seller
“Conversations with Millionaires”

No they aren’t talking about me but thanks. They’re all talking about Dan Lok, author of, “Creativity Sucks, How to Generate Million Dollar Ideas in 60 Seconds or Less.”

You can get your own copy for FREE here…

“Creativity Sucks” is the bestseller on how to instantly generate dozens upon dozens of powerful money-making ideas for online or offline information products.

Hmmm, what marketer doesn’t need that??

And “Creativity Sucks” is just one of SIX big bonuses you’ll receive in the mail when you subscribe to Dan’s newsletter.

I’m not going to spoil the other five bonuses, you’ll have to go to the website and see for yourself.

But I will tell you that the combined value of the bonuses is a whopping $1,165.95, and you get the whole bonus package for FREE when you subscribe.

You can subscribe to Dan’s newsletter, get your bonus package, and then unsubscribe if you like. There’s absolutely no risk, no contracts, no nothing. But here’s the catch: Only the first 750 subscribers get the bonus package. If you get to the site and the package is gone, well… sorry.

I turned 55 today and my brain is foggy and no it’s not from too much drinking and guitar last night. Well ok, maybe a bit. I’m trying to get the cobwebs out of my brain today and know I have not been getting nearly enough exercise this winter. It’s been a long cold winter and I have been stuck inside way too long which causes the brain to fill up with cobwebs making it harder to work efficiently.

To make things worse, today we have about an inch of ice over everything causing a lot of damage and power outages. We didn’t lose our power over night but everything looks like a ice sculpture. Beautiful but deadly if you go out into unprepared. No walking out there today.

Exercise is good for us in many ways.

• It helps us maintain a healthy weight.
• It allows our bodies to run more efficiently.
• It reduces our risk for a number of health problems.
• And it’s good for business.

How can exercise be good for business, you ask? For starters, it helps us to be healthier overall, resulting in fewer sick days. It also makes us feel better about ourselves. And it improves our motivation. I am always more motivated after a good one hour walk. It gets the blood flowing through your body giving you and your brain more oxygen.

How Can Exercise Affect Motivation?

Starting a regular exercise routine takes discipline. Sometimes it’s hard to get started, but once we’ve made ourselves do it a few times, we begin to look forward to it. Working out produces its own motivation. This motivation tends to carry over into other areas of life as well, including our work.

Exercise also works wonders for mental clarity. It makes our bodies healthier, which in turn allows our minds to function better. It doesn’t take long at all to see the effects.

Even short walks can do amazing things for our minds. When we get frustrated or burned out at work, taking a brisk walk can help us blow off steam and take our minds off of the situation long enough to help us regain our focus. And the exercise itself gets our blood circulating, resulting in more oxygen and glucose to the brain.

By the time I get out for a walk to blow off some of that steam I am going to look like a locomotive train going down the street.

How Can I Find Time to Exercise?

Busy business people often have a hard time fitting exercise into their schedules. I am as guilty as the next person. But the benefits of working out regularly can increase our efficiency, giving us more time for other things. The hardest part is getting started.

Working out early in the morning provides a great start to your day. It increases alertness and improves our mood. Exercising early also lets us get it over with so that we don’t have to worry about fitting in a workout later. Plus I love to walk just around day break as it’s like the world is coming to life and has a very calming effect on my while still giving me that workout time.

After the work day is over is a common time for people to exercise. Working out in the evenings is good for you, but it’s important not to do it too late. Exercising less than two or three hours before bedtime can affect your sleep, and sleep deprivation is detrimental to motivation.

If you can’t seem to fit exercise in before or after work, you could start small with mini-workouts during lunch or break time. This will allow you to begin feeling the benefits of exercise, and it can increase your energy levels and efficiency. You may find that the added motivation and energy allows you to get more work done in less time, and then you can start working out before or after work.

Exercise can do wonderful things for mental clarity, motivation, and attitude. All of these benefits can positively affect your business. So why not give working out a try?

Inspiration is very important to continued blogging. It can provide motivation to get you through the tough times. It can spark ideas for new posts, products, services, or marketing efforts. Or it can simply make a mediocre day a little brighter which can show in your writing.

Although we may not realize it at first glance, inspiration is all around us. I don’t even have to leave the house to find it. It can take many forms, and it can show itself in things that look like the exact opposite of inspiration. By keeping our eyes open and looking at things in the most positive light possible, we can find all sorts of inspiration in everyday life.

Be sure to keep a notepad handy so you can jot down those inspirational ideas.

I Watch My Kids As They Play

When my son lived at home he was a wonderful source of inspiration. They don’t even need to be your kids. I see so much just looking out my home office window. Kids are every where.

Watching my brothers girls and their small children are especially inspirational, because they have so much to learn and tend to keep at it until they get it right.

For example, think about a child who is learning to walk. It’s certainly not something that happens overnight. First he gets up on his knees and crawls, then when he’s mastered that he pulls himself up and stands. Eventually he’s holding onto things and taking small steps, and before you know it he’s walking all over the place on his own.

How can you not talk about that.

Kids go through many similar learning processes. When they find something they want to do, they keep at it until they get it right. If a child can be that motivated, so can an adult.

My Nature Walks

I walk for an hour a day and nature is happening all around us. As a fly fisher I love what nature has to offer. Sometimes it’s even a bit overwhelming.

• Nature is a beautiful place to look for inspiration. There are tons of examples that business owners could follow from plants and wildlife.
• Beavers work together to build and repair dams making great places to have a few fishing experiences.
• Plants sometimes grow and flourish in places that we would never dream that they could.
• Birds search high and low until they’ve found everything they need to build nests for their babies. These are just a few of the things in nature that can inspire us.

Art and Entertainment

Inspiration can often be found in art. Just looking at the artistry and craftsmanship of our favorite pieces can be awe-inspiring. The attention to detail can inspire us to put the same amount of effort into the things we do.

I have a very inspirational picture hanging in my office, right in front of my face. The scene is a brook running through the forest in autumn. It’s the only picture I have ever purchased but it reached right out and grabbed me. I get inspired just looking at it each day.

The movies and television shows we watch and the music we listen to can provide inspiration. There is no shortage of negativity in these mediums, however, so it’s important to choose what we watch and listen to carefully.

These are just a sample of the things that we can look to when we need inspiration. If we look at things in the right way, we can find inspiration all around us. This inspiration can then be channeled into our business endeavors, giving us the fuel we need to succeed.

I was reading a blog post from Ades on AdesBlog.com this morning about Twitter and a plug in that is great to have.

The world is full of twits and that can be a bad thing but the Twits I follow are worth following and they are not bad at all. They are Twitter-ers and use Twitter.com to express thoughts of 140 characters or less.

I have been a Twitter-er for a few months now and it’s nice to be able to just throw out a message and have it appear infront of all those I follow in Twitter. You can follow me at Twitter and see how it works.

Currently I am only following a few people but as time marches forward I am sure I will be reading the Twitters of new friends.

Ades is one of those Twitter-ers that I follow because he has things to say that benefit me. I love to learn and if Twits can teach me I will listen.

The plugin that Ades talks about is one that I have used from the time I learned about it. It allows me to make a post from this blog and my post is automatically referred to on my Twitter page.

Twitter Tip of the Day

But I also use FireFox and have a Twitter Tools Addon that allows me to use the address bar to Twitter a message of 140 characters. I don’t have to make a post or even log into Twitter.

It’s all part of the social networking which can take time so this little add-on helps me do the social networking a bit eaier and faster.

I wrote this little article on a day the we desperatey needed rain and we go it. Aren’t we blessed!

Today we are getting some rain that will save many plants and trees. The heat wave we have had in the last week has been so intense that we have had more forest fires already that we had all last year.

That has me thinking of my flowers and how hard I had to work to keep them alive over the past week. It is an on going process that keeps them alive and thriving, but every minute I put into my plants is worth it, and they pay me back with their beauty and seeds for their future survival.

I think growing a flower and growing your eBusiness makes for a great analogy. The care you take at the beginning will determine how beautiful they both will be when they flower. They foundation you prepare ahead of time will determine how many seeds your flower or ebusiness will produce, which is security for the future.

Fertile Ground…

First you need fertile ground, an area that your seed or idea is going to be able to take root. If it is not the type of ground that your seed needs, or the right niche for your idea, it will give you zero results or it may start and then just wither and die. Different seeds need different ground to grow in and not every seed or idea will survive either, so you never just plant one seed. Very biblical.

Your business ideas are seeds that need planting and planted firmly in fertile ground. The internet is your garden and there are many types of soil, you have to research it to find the most fertile ground for you ideas.

So, you study the requirements needed for a success garden and you manage to find a great spot for your seeds, but…

…fertile ground still does not guarantee beautiful flowers. You have to nurture and protect those seeds to keep them from be destroyed by a misplaced foot step or a hungry bird looking for an easy meal.

New eBusiness ideas can be as delicate and helpless as those seeds. Friends and family, although full of good intentions, may just step right on your ideas, giving you doubts and in no time your ideas are stomped on and destroyed. Guard your ideas and keep them safe, only share them with people that have vision, keep away from the bird-brains that will just pick them apart until they are all but destroyed.

Give them the gift of life – Water…

Those little seeds can be as hard as a rock and appear to be lifeless, but add a little water and WOW, you have life. You have to be sure that your seeds get just enough to allow them to thrive. Give them too little and they will be starved for water and if you give them too much you will drown them.

They also need to be gently water without using to much pressure. If you water your seed with too much pressure you may just wash it right out of the ground and it will just sit there until it is eventually useless and gets blown away. Gently water that seed and your seed will begin to sprout. But your work is not done yet is it.

Your eBusiness ideas need to be watered enough to make them come alive and to have them thrive. You have fertile ground to give your ebusiness a good foundation for growth and you water it just enough to keep it health but not so much that it is a washout.

You have to be aware of weeds also. They will sprout and take right over your garden. Knowing what are flowers or great ideas is important. Your contacts and business partners need special attention also. Enough attention to stir life but not so much that you drown them with your attention. Over watering with too much attention can be just as deadly as no attention at all.

Light

Unless you plan on growing mushroom you can not keep your garden in the dark all the time. Your new sprout now need light. Your garden need the right type of light depending on what they are capable of handling. The light that will one flower growing and healthy can burn other flowers. Too much light for some plants is overwhelming and can actually stop their growth, it can kill even kill some helpless little sprouts.

Your eBusiness contacts need light in the form of knowledge, but just enough to make them reach for more. Too much knowledge at one time can give them information overload and actually stiffle their growth.

Fertilizer…

I would imagine your mind filled with ideas about the type of fertilizer found in internet gardening. :-0 I had a lady laughingly ask me where I get fertilizer for my internet garden and I told I got it from all BS web sites that make promised they have no idea how to keep.

It is important to give your eBusiness the fertilizer required for the best growth, but not so much that you burn your beautiful flowers. When you contact a prospect or subscriber do it with great content that is based on the topic of the initial contact and that it is going to help them grow their internet garden.

Results

Now you have the right combination of earth, water, light, and fertilizer to grow the best possible flower. One that will make you and others grow better internet gardens. When your flower grows and matures it will then produce new seeds that you can use to produce more beautiful flowers.

Time

Looking back to the moment you planted the seed you will notice that it did not happen over night did it. From seed to maturity it took work and nurturing to get the best results. To grow an eBusiness that produces beautiful results takes time, work and nurturing. Too much of any one thing can stop growth and even kill.

I have been kind of put off buy the pennies I earn on most of the click throughs I get from Adsense style ads on my blogs. A friend and client of mine told me to check out HavAds and he has not steered me off course yet so I spent some time and read about them. I was excited right away.

This is info from their site but at this point they can explain it better than I can. It is worth the read and I mean WORTH the read. This is something I thought about doing for myself but had no idea how to start but now I don’ t need to.

Before you read on I will be using this in the next few days and then create another post explaining how I really feel about installing and using HavAds.

HavAds are a brand new way of keeping targeted traffic at your site, even when they click on a search engine ad for a different product. The HavAds software helps you to generate your own targeted niche ads, so when potential customers click away from your landing page or any page of your site, you still have control over what they are seeing and where they are going, Unlike traditional ads that you have no control over, you can manage what customers are seeing and you can even write the text to the ads yourself with ease. You can place HavAds in your site and if they generate a sale, you keep the commission for yourself.

The software program couldn’t be easier to use as it takes you step by step through the process for creating your own ads. The rule of thumb is that while traffic comes into your site, it eventually has to leave the site. How traffic leaves your site can have a lot to do with your profit margin. Often, webmasters use search engine ads, although they often aren’t very profitable. The reason that search engine ads aren’t profitable is because once a prospective buyer clicks onto one, they go off to another site, already in the buying mode from your site and chances are you won’t ever see them again.

If a prospective customer from your site goes from your website to another site and decides to buy there, some other website owner earns an affiliate commission and you have been rewarded with a measly one hundredth of a cent for your troubles.

With HavAds you can turn the scenario around by placing highly targeted ads of your own, rather than from the search engines. This gives you a few useful advantages. The Ads that you are placing on your site are highly targeted, so if the potential customer doesn’t buy anything on your site, they may choose to click on one of the ads that are placed on the site. Ads that you, the website owner, get a full affiliate commission from.

So if the customer does choose to buy somewhere else, you will still be getting a commission on the sale. The beauty of HaveAds ads is they look exactly like regular search engine ads. Even though the ad has been clicked, the potential customer does not leave your site. If the customer buys from this ad you will receive a commission, as you are the affiliate for the ad. If the potential customer chooses not to buy and close the browser, then they are back to the original landing page and you are given another chance at enticing a sale from the potential customer.

Have Ads have many benefits available for website owners wanting to
make a change in their internet marketing campaign.

• Since its new to the market, it can give a website owner an edge over their competitors.
• Ads are flexible since they can be created to each individual website owner’s specifications and for any type of niche market.
• Website owners are able to keep their traffic and potential customers at the site longer, which increases the chances of a sale.
• HaveAds has been created with human subconscious behavioral patterns in mind.
• The program is both effective and easy to use.
• The earnings potential of this program is unlimited and ads can be generated or even tweaked in minutes for a website.
• The website owner can also choose which programs are displayed on sites, unlike conventional search engine ads.
• The website owner writes the text for the ads. So knows they will attract interest.

There are also large ranges of pre-programmed ad styles to choose from that are generated by a wizard in the software program. Once generated
the website owner can view the ads and make changes if desired. Once a HavAd has been created, the website owner only needs to copy and paste the ads onto the website in a table.

Another advantage for website owners is that HavAds can be generated or duplicated as many times as the owner sees fit and can be placed on as many pages of a site as the owner chooses. The HavAds program takes about two minutes to generate an ad and there are no specialist skills or coding knowledge needed to make use of the software. A wizard takes you through each step of the process. All that is really required of the website owner is to find worthy affiliate partners for their niche market. It is that easy.

I have never entered a contest online but I like Collin’s blog and follow it in my Bloglines RSS reader daily. His post are useful, so I don’t mind being associated with him.

I feel that a lot of people just do what’s required to join but don’t do anything after that so I usually just leave contest alone.

Join the Feed Flare contest but take the time to go through Collin’s great content and you will find that you are already a winner. Go Collin.

You can read about the contest on the Feed Flare but here are the prizes just to give you a teaser.

Here are the prizes!

1. Mini Unix web hosting package free for 1 year – Donated by BlurFur web hosting services (value – $70.00) – random draw
2. Advertising voucher with Bidvertiser worth $200.00 in free clicks (value – $200.00) – random draw
3. Blog branding package which includes (Favico, header, logo, 125×125 button) design package donated by Graphic Identity (value – $200.00) – random draw
4. Free advertising for one month in the form of a 125×125 button on Blogging Cents. (value – $35.00) – random draw
5. Win one of 3 free advertising spots on the “You Can Learn Series” blog in the form of a 125×125 ad button (value per spot – $10.00) – random draw
6. Exclusive Theme donated by Unique Blog Designs (value – $99.00) there is around 10 different themes you can chose from if you win – random draw
7. Win one of 2 copies of the “Written Promptly Everyday” E-Book donated by The Prompt Writer (value per book -$5.00) random draw
8. Win a copy of “How to launch a profitable free lancing business for under $50.00? donated by the “Self Made Chick” (value – $12.00) random draw
9. Custom banner design and the size will be of your choice donated by Dat Money dot com (value – $50.00) random draw
10. One month free 125×125 advertising on Jason Boom dot com. (value – $20.00) random draw
11. Grand Prise – 25,000 Entrecard credits (one lump some, the largest amount to be given away in a contest to date) draw date is March 31st (value – not really sure but some where around $250.00 I think)
12. Bonus gifts – we have 200 pages on the “One Buck Wiki” to give away – the first two hundred contest enterer’s will be each given one page as a bonus gift just for entering our grand opening contest.You will still be able to win any of the other prizes we have as well. The current selling price for a page on the “One Buck Wiki” is $20.00 making this our largest prize package worth over $4000.00 in cash value.
13. Featured Grand Prise = $500.00 cash payable via PayPal with the draw date being March 31st. You can thank my nice income tax return for this prize!!!

Total prize packages are worth just over $5200.00 (cash value) plus the 25,000 Entrecard credits.

Be sure you read all the rules.

————————————

Learn the importance of Really Simple Syndication.

Once you take the time to look around Feed Flare you will see that you can also advertise with Feed Flare.

Collin knows the importance of spreading the word so I would like to add a couple of the featured sponsor of this great contest.

Featured Contest Sponsor – Dat Money

Featured Contest Sponsor – My Radical Blogs

Nothing worse than being in a race and tripping over your own feet 6 and landing on your face just inches from the finish line.

That seems to be what I did with my Alexa ranking when I changed my focus. But not to worry I am moving back closer to the magic 100,000 mark again. I also took a nose dive from a PR4 to a PR3.

For myself and many other marketers the Alexa ranking is important too, just as the Google PageRank(PR) is important.

It seems that the group of readers I started with were mostly Alexa toolbar users and my new readers, well not so much. I will have encourage them to install the Alexa Toolbar into their browser.

It’s pretty easy, just hop over to Alexa.com where you will see a link in the top center of their page. Of course you can go directly to that page with this Alexa Toolbar Download link.

You can read the article that I just finished reading. The article that encouraged me to improve my alexa traffic ranking to get into the top 100,000.

I have always had my main site as my default page in both Internet Explorer and FireFox so when I installed the Alexa toolbar I was considered a visitor every time I load my browser.

It will actually help your Alexa ranking by just a bit and every little bit helps.

Note: To get a better Alexa ranking be sure you create unique content instead of duplicating other people’s content.