Foolish Adventure

how did you make money from a free program: donations, adverts, or lossleader?

That’s a good question. One of the main ways I make money is by promoting affiliate products. For example, when I teach people how to set up a website from scratch, I let them know that they have to get hosting. I then recommend a hosting company and use my affiliate link.

It’s a service they are going to need anyways if they want to set up a website, and if they use my link, I get a commission. That’s just one example. It goes like this – Seek to provide value, and where appropriate, use an affiliate link. That’s a good way to start making money even when you don’t have your own product.

Hope that helps. All the best!

I would highly recommend NOT using GoDaddy for hosting. I’ve not had success with them especially with WordPress being hosted by them. You’ll most likely have problems with them in the future typically in the form of a slow loading website. I only use GoDaddy to register domain names, which I have been doing for many years.

I’m a big Hostgator fan and Izzy uses Dreamhost, which is a snap to use, which is why the training was done based on Dreamhost and we included our recommended services in a pdf in the training.

I know you’re 2/3 through, but I do recommend you switch to a host that at least uses cpanel.

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Thanks Tim, I will now switch to Dreamhost,.. I’ll consider this my first foolish oversight.

Do I just copy the wordpress folder to retain the content already there, or is there a different method to change hosting ?

Migrating can be a pain in the ass even when moving from a cpanel host to another cpanel host. But GoDaddy has their own system for managing hosting. Cpanel is a brand name for essentially a control panel for managing your hosting.

My wordpress designer handles all that for me, so I can’t even give you a current how to on migrating your site. I would recommend you go onto elance.com and post a job for migrating your site. You should be able to get it done for $75 or less.

If you want to do it yourself, you can find the instructions here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

Thank you guys for the great programme! I am one of those who is taking the action right now and is anxiously waiting for every episode you make. You are really inspiring!

Great episode guys and excellent work Leslie. Not that we need any other insights other than our foolish guides here, but I thought I would share another great podcast that dovetails nicely in with Tim and Izzy. The Copyblogger team has a podcast call Internet Marketing for Smart People that is really good.

Thanks for all the comments and subtle digs here guys, but i think somewhere along the way, you lost the point from one of your paying customers.

I guess what I’m saying is that I wont be buying anymore half arsed programs that, as you told me you were … ” too lazy to finish .. ”

In this case it would have been quicker to just figure it out myself.

Just listened to the show and was disappointed there was not more specific information. Guys you have to ask more searching questions.
How long did it take for leslie to start making some decent money.
How much was some decent money
What did he do to get people to go to the site
Which products has he found to be successful in terms of gathering sales
Is there something he recommends as a money maker that should be on every online entrepreneurs website.

and so on.

It seems that the internet business that people do all the time is to teach other people how to make money online. Very often without giving some proof or validation of any sort of having started an online business from scratch and being successful.
In fact I often see people selling courses about online business and they have never done it themselves with a product either real or digital.

OK Izzy has been successful with the Video site and has described some of the techniques used.
Don McAllister gave some good info about how he did it.

Leslie could have been asked about where he was pulling money in from , advertising, affiliate sales, sponsorship. What sort of timeline did he have from starting the business to actually bringing in some cash that he could spend.

I know – lots of complaining there and all I would say is that you should listen back to the show and ask yourself if there were any concrete useful tips aside from the one about doing it instead of just thinking about whether it would work or not and doing nothing.

So what does Leslie think are the things to be done in order of importance that actually will end up with money in the pocket?

David Allen
Mac20Q

One concern i had ( that wasn’t clarified) is re. using course work recorded at a school (and edited later by a student according to the podcast) then used on his own Biology website?

Forgive me if I have misunderstood this but surely schools have rules about the use of content that is delivered within the school and it could get awkward with them.

Just wouldn’t want someone to try and monetise something they don’t legally own and then have their moneymaking site pulled down by a lawyer. Though of course I am not saying this is the case in this instance.

If you are referring the FA product, I seem to remember the email about the Foolish Training did advise us that if we got the ‘early adopter’ edition it would not be perfect. Hence the discount.

Let’s not bash Tim & Izzy here, I appreciate all the info even if it is vague in $$ terms at times.

Look i’m not bashing these guys here,… Firstly, I know that Izzy has done a great job of providing awesome content, and has in some ways set a good standard.

I know that Tim has got some great ideas and knowledge on marketing, and I think they both knew before they even started that they would make a great team.

But on this occasion, Tim should’ve listened to Izzy.

I bought it, almost with a disclaimer that it might be faulty,… and for me it was,..where does that leave the consumer ?

Had it not given the disclaimer, the consumer might find them to be fairly sub standard. And how does that get you repeat business ?

I just think that getting it out there half done, especially when you’ve already set a standard, is not a good idea. They would have been better to wait a couple of weeks, and brainstorm the idea that came up in the latest Webinar of a graphical look at the tools needed.

I would have paid for that,… now i’m a little skeptical.

Izzy and I discussed before we launched FA the idea of sharing numbers. We know it makes for a great marketing tool to tell people how much we are making especially during a launch or when interviewing others.

We decided to keep some things private. We won’t ask our interviewees how much they are making unless they have already publicly stated such or they say they want to mention it during our pre-interview session.

This was a tough decision for Izzy and me since we want to be transparent, but we felt with all the hype that exists in the Make Money Online world that we wanted to take a more low-key approach. We may change our minds in the future if it really makes sense because it could help more people succeed in their passion, but not to be self-promotional.

That’s a good question, and I did check with my principal first. We have them sign a waiver as a part of their application process that we are allowed to use anything they do here online, offline etc. I was actually concerned about this at the beginning, but the informed me that I was fine. For example, we have a teacher that records all of the events and sells them personally.

I’m still somewhat uncomfortable with some of that so what I’ve decided to do was not sell any of that content. That way no one can claim that I have used their child to make money. I initially put up the videos for students that are away because of illness.

My monetization strategy for that site will be selling other resources. Really and truly, having the videos there is just a strategy I’m using for getting traffic consistently.

Thanks guys for a good show!

I´m a little late in my comment (just started listen to the show).

Listening and learning is good, but acting on what you learn is great. Keep it up!