The Intuitive Life Business Blog

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFatherhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

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Recommend an affiliate or Internet marketing training program?

I received an interesting letter via a colleague on Facebook:

Hi Dave! I've been following you for a couple years and I've always been interested in online business but until now haven't been ready to make the commitment. Now that I have the time and resources I wanted to ask your advice for either a course or training I can sign up to learn starting up an online business. I think I would be most interested in learning affiliate or product creation. Can you make a recommendation on where I should go?

This is a bit of a tricky question because I have a number of friends and colleagues in this space, some of whom have packages and training courses that they sell. Still, to me the question is always about the "replicability" of their offering, and it's why I stopped hawking my own "make money blogging" courses at conferences too: if you can't duplicate it, it's not worth buying.

Here's what I decided to say in my response:

Nice to hear from you. Not sure how I can help as I think that the majority (to say the least) of what's out there in terms of internet marketing and online marketing training is a scam and consists of someone who has "stumbled across a secret formula" that turns out not to be easily duplicated, though they're happy to sell you their $999, $1999, whatever training course and coaching calls.

One thought, though: join meetup.com and search through it to see what kind of internet and marketing meetings happen in your area. You'll meet folk and won't have to pay $$ to do so.

Wasn't sure how that would be received because, well, isn't this guy asking me to help him attain his dream and here I am shooting down most of the squadron before we even go further on what exactly he wants?

Not so! Here's his response:

Wow thanks Dave! What you advise is exactly why I asked you. I don't want to be swindled and I thought of spending about that much on learning how this online marketing works. Your advice just saved me 2k. Can I just write you a check for half that? Thank you again.

I opted not to take his $1000, though it's tempting, but what I do want to ask all of you faithful readers is: what's your take on how to learn marketing, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, etc? Are there reputable programs and instructors out there, or is it so polluted with scams and hustles that it's better to keep your day job? (just kidding about that last bit!)

Posted by Dave Taylor on June 23, 2012 | Comments (5)

Twitter is down! Now what?

This morning Twitter is apparently offline, and in the flurry of panicked messages I saw on Facebook about the problem, one stuck out, from my friend Monika Runstrom. I asked her to elaborate on her thoughts regarding what to do when Twitter's offline and here's what she came up with...

Twitter is down....Now what?

This is a question that I haven't had to ask myself in...years! I kind of forgot about the days when the Twitter Fail Whale made appearances often. And yet, here I am in 2012, completely surprised that I do not have a way to connect with my followers.

Now to be fair, I actually hadn't realized Twitter was down until a friend G-chatted me and asked if I could tweet, because he couldn't. It wasn't until that moment that I suddenly had SO much that needed to be said...Immediately.

Since that moment, I have done the same thing that many others did: turned to Facebook to update my status to let the world know that I was aware that Twitter was, in fact, down. I have read through all my friend's status updates from the past 3 days, updated my Facebook profile photo, and started adding more photos to my Pinterest food board.

With so many other social networks to turn to, I am at a loss which to turn to!

On Facebook I could:

· Go through my privacy settings

· Clean up and manage my subscriptions

· Unlike some of the brands I have liked due to work

On Pinterest I could:

· Create more organized boards

· Follow creative people and pin projects I will never attempt

On Google+ I could:

· Actually log in and poke around

· Create a hangout with friends

· Add people to cirlces

· Post something about Twitter being down and ask if anyone knows why

On my blog:

· Queue up some posts

· Work on formatting

· Update Wordpress

In Gmail

· Attempt to get to inbox zero

· Unsubscribe from the million Group-esque sites that I never open

All in all, I guess I should start being productive instead of hitting refresh on Twitter until something loads. Or maybe I'll just keep pushing "reload"...

What do you do when Twitter goes down?

Monika Runstrom is a lover of music & concerts, blogger (@theindiebitches), tech junkie, drinker of beer, wine and whiskey (not usually at once) & Account Manager at @theblogfrog.

Posted by Dave Taylor on June 21, 2012 | Comments (0)