We are on a roll baby!.  Two Shortie reports in two days!  WOW!  I am on fire!  Unfortunately that’s it until I write the next report (poss this weekend).   Shortie 0002 is a step by step guide to streamlining the Zen Cart Account Creation Process (try saying that after a few sherbets!).  Judging by the amount of Zen Cart Forum posts relating to this subject it is a report that is required by the majority of Zen Cart based information product sellers (including me!!).

The report is free of charge and includes MASTER RESELL RIGHTS enabling you to sell the report and keep the profits or to GIVEAWAY the report to help others or build your list.

More information on this report is available here.

I have updated Shortie0001 and Shortie0002 to now include the exact same (did that make sense) sales page that I use.  I can’t stress how much that will improve your chances of selling the report or giving the report away!

As a famous superstore keeps on saying, over and over again…….every little helps!

C Ya

John

WAHOO!, as my 5 year old would say (obviously he wouldn’t say it on a blog as he can’t type – can’t reach the keyboard see!).  I finally got my rosy red backside in gear and published my first Shortie.  Shortie 0001 which is a step by step guide to cloaking affiliate links using HTML redirects.  An extremely simple process…….once someone has shown you how to do it!

The report is free of charge and includes MASTER RESELL RIGHTS enabling you to sell the report and keep the profits or to GIVEAWAY the report to help others or build your list.

More information on this report is available here.

I hope it is of benefit to you.

TTFN

John

Hi there,

I may be unable to post for a little while (the next week or so) as I am undertaking the FA level 2 coaching qualification.  Day 2 was today and every single muscle, plus a few I didn’t even know I had, are sore!

I am now going to go and have a bath with more bubbles in it than a gigantic aero!

If I can muster up the energy, motivation and enthusiasm I may post a little about the course tomorrow, once I have finished my homework!

I will be back with the new “shortie” feature once I have created a few more reports.

‘Till next time!

John

Hokey then!  It’s been a while.  Well actually it hasn’t!  I mean I posted a lengthy tome last night (not war and peace mind you but a fair chunk sized post!).  I re-read that post today and got, well, slightly miffed at the world in general, Tescos (for not exchanging my jeans), Terry Pratchett (for not writing enough books!), the postie (why not!) and the cat (made me spill coffee, well okay I spilt the coffee and the cat just happened to be in the vicinity, well in the house anyway!!).  I’d just had some disappointing news and was feeling pretty doggone low! (Bless, I know!).

I deleted the post!  As is usually the case, as soon as I had deleted it, I wanted it back!  There is probably some kind of zen thing there, or at the very least one of those Chinese proverbs; you know the ones, “man goes to bed in evening with coat-hanger in mouth, wake up in morning with smile on face”.  What does that mean exactly.  I can think of quite a lot of things that would make me wake up with a smile on my face (well okay, one thing and I can’t write it here!) but going to bed with a coat-hanger in my mouth would just hurt, really, really badly!  So did someone actually do that then, I mean, go to bed with a coat-hanger in their mouth.  If they didn’t, then how do they know that you wake up with a smile on your face?  Anyways, I digress a little!!

I was fed up and took it out on a poor defenceless blog post.  Instead of trying to rationalise the situation, or at least sleep on it, I kneejerked!  I reacted to the situation and instead of taking a step back and having a thunk, I ploughed right with nil, no, Nada, zip, bugger all consideration for the consequences of my action.  Still, at the end of the day, it was only a blog post!

Back to this post then (collective sigh of relief!).  What does the title mean and why write now (at stupid o-clock in the morning!)?.  Well it means that I have decided to change direction in my erstwhile but realistically fruitless attempts at earning a living online!  I have been trying to do everything; create a product, create a membership, create a shop, maintain a blog, post videos, spin articles, drum up traffic, build a list, create another membership and to what end.  Lots of frustration and nil achievement!  Stuff that then!  And by the way, I’m writing this because a very good friend reminded me in the usual totally unsubtle way that I needed to write a post.  Of course, if said friend had bothered to visit the blog last night, they would have seen the original (now extinct) post and not had to resort to blatant mockery in order to get me to post….thanks though!!

I signed up to the John Thornhill Marketing Masterclass last year and I’ve got about 11 weeks to go until I complete the course.  John is ace and is even acer (!) as of the other day when he sent all members an email stating we had free membership to this years course.  So this is what I have decided to do.  Bin the membership site, blog shop etc and concentrate on two things.

I am going to keep ResellRightsShop going, even though I am extremely disillusioned (more on that in next post).  It would be easy to give on the shop.  It’s a lot of work.  It would be easy if I could do what people on info product sites such as trade-bit do; blatantly ignore the terms of the license, price everything at under a dollar despite the obvious value and earning opportunity if done correctly.  That said, I have put a lot of personal time into ResellRightsShop and don’t want to have wasted that time.  I will therefore keep uploading a product on a daily basis until it is one of the largest (non auction) information product shops in the world, nay the universe!

The second project I am going to keep going is this blog.  I will use it as a sort of buffer for the John Thornhill Marketing Masterclass.  I will start the new course whilst finishing the old course and post regular updates to tell the world what topics we are studying and how they will benefit my marketing campaigns.  As part of the course I will write my first information product and will make it available as a download to my subscribers.  Of course that means you will need something to subscribe to before you can be a subscriber (err, chicken, egg, anyone?!).  Not sure what the product will be yet but probably something on the social networking side of Internet marketing.  There are a hell of a lot of resources out there that will aid any Internet marketer in establishing a secondary “social” list to market to.  There are also a lot of sites out there with resources pretending to help that will actually harm your campaigns.  I have learnt this through often painful experience!  In the meantime, I will maintain the thread of compliant sites, looking at what policies you really need to ensure you don’t have the contents of your bank account taken from you!

So there ya go.  Hope you are still awake and looking forward to the next cunningly constructed (try saying that after a few sherbets!) post.  At the end of the day, there is always someone a little worse off than you are, in my case its the cat and I will have to go and remove my Homer Simpson slipper from it’s backside pretty soon I think!!

That’s all Folks;

John.

PS – I’ve just spellchecked this post and Teco’s aren’t in the dictionary. Ha, sherbet is so that puts Tesco’s lower than a children’s confectionery (even if it is a damn good confectionery and even if Tesco’s sell them, which they probably do as they seem to sell everything else!).

PPS – I managed to change my jeans in the end.  I found the ticket thingy in the pocket!  Which just goes to show………………something!

Well, go on then, are you??

This may come as a shock but if you have a marketing list (which you should have, at the very least, started if you are an Internet Marketer) and dictate the purpose of  use of said list, then you are a Data Controller! OMG!

This post is subject to my usual disclaimer of IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer!) and the contents of this post cannot and may not be construed as legal advice.

A data Controller is defined by the Information Commissioner’s Office as;

“a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed.“[1]

Okay, yeah, but, well , like..what’s personal data then? Good question, well asked. The ICO, under Key Definitions of the Data Protection Act, defines personal data as….

“Personal data means data which relate to a living individual who can be identified –

(a) from those data, or
(b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller,

and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual.“[2]

Whoah that was little bit over my head and slightly ruffled the quiff there John.   How exactly do we decide if a person can be identified?

Ah ha, I knew you would ask that question and clearly so did the ICO because they produced an informative booklet with the alluring title of  “Data Protection Technical Guidance – Determining what is personal data”. The booklet does exactly what it says on the tin, or rather, the cover, and defines personal data as……..

“An individual is ‘identified’ if you have distinguished that individual from other members of a group. In most cases an individual’s name together with some other information will be sufficient to identify them.“[3]

And therein lies the problem. If you are collecting email addresses and a name (i.e. the usual sign up form) then you are, in effect, A DATA CONTROLLER.

Stay tuned (via RSS or Twitter) as my next post will cover the responsibilities of a Data Controller when applied to the Data Protection Act.

[1]  Data Controller

[2] Personal Data

[3] Identifiable

Regards

John