I AM FINALLY IN !!!!!!!!!!!

I am finally in - 2 days and 1 hour after I signed up I went in to check the site just one more time and found that the video was working and that I had access to some of the programs which I am in the process of downloading now.

The first lot I have downloaded is the Micro Continuity program. Now I am not sure if I mentioned to you or not but I did purchase this program last year among a whole stack of others. I was running with the information overload at the time and eventually gave up on internet marketing and went back to freelance writing. The downloads I have available to me today include the 6 hours of mp3 files, some micro continuity templates (no I don't know what they are yet, but I will tell you when I know); a presentation on Micro C and a ppt presentation on Micro C and finally a free report about one of Russell's success stories, Joy Anderson. She is a success in her own specific niche and I am looking forward to reading her report.

Now I was going to mention here that I had still not received any response to my two support tickets that I have lodged about my failure to gain access to the materials but as I am downloading these files and writing this blog my second ticket was responded to and it was a very nice, and apologetic response. They did not tell me why I did not have access to my materials before this, but they just told me that now I had (which I had found out for myself, lol). I have not, as I am writing this, got a response to my first ticket, but maybe they have closed that off too now - I will go in and check shortly.

One of the reasons I signed up with Russell Brunson's DotComSecrets University in the first place was because I did think he was an honest marketer and I still do. It did make me laugh to myself when I was watching the introductory video to the 12 month Millionaire (which I am in the process of downloading now - read more about this in tomorrows post) as one of the comments Russell made was that "customer service is really important to us." I have to say that if you send out a launch that is only available over a weekend, then you would think that you would have support staff on hand to take care of any problems as quickly as possible. However, I am giving Russell the benefit of the doubt at this stage and figure that he probably had a server problem and his staff were busy working on that instead of answering client complaints.

Although I have not had access to the material on the DotComSecrets University site for the past two days I have not been idle. From other things that I have learned, some from experience and some from reading guru information, it is not a good idea for a newbie to try and break into the "make money" niche and one of the reasons I was so interested in Russell's stuff was because he does help people become successful in other niches - some quite common and others a little more bizzare. So I have been thinking about what niche I can target as my first "project".

I had two possibilities - the first was a video course showing people how to make their own wedding dresses. Now according to the keyword research I have done this is not a very popular topic online - only being searched for maybe 9 - 10 times per day. However, there is also very little competition in this niche and as I can make the videos myself, as I am making a dress for a client, this could be a little sleeper. But to try and be as successful as I can be, as quickly as I can I needed to come up with another niche topic that was more popular and that I had some experience in. I am thinking about depression (the illness) as this is a growth industry. I am using wordtracker tools and Google itself to try and come up with keyword phrases that are looked for, but don't have as much competition as others. So I will get on with that now and if you check back tomorrow I will let you know how I am getting on.

If you want to follow my progress step by step then in the niche finding arena go to http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com that will tell you how many people are searching for your term every day and then go to Google.com and find out how many other sites are already on your topic. According to Bill McRea, another internet marketer I was listening to this morning if your search term in the word tracker tool is bringing in more than 100 searches a day and the number of sites on Google are less than 500,000 then you could be onto a winning niche.

I will catch you again tomorrow :)

The First Hour DotComSecrets University Review

After I had waded through the upsell and downsell offers that were part of the sign up process for Russell Brunson's DotComSecrets University you can imagine I was quite keen to just get on and start learning something. I was finally taken to the membership area and the first thing I did was change my password. My acceptance email had explained that the set password they had generated for me would only work the once and I do think that setting your own password is a good idea. However don't expect to get away with something simple as the site tells you the strength to your password and makes suggestions on what you should add to it to make it more protective. I have had sites hacked before so I took the advice and set my new password.


Okay - I am ready to learn. Phone is turned off; television muted; cup of tea in hand I was ready to start exploring my "DashBoard" where I would have access to a whole heap of material - or would I??

In a word, "NO". Oh there were a lot of tempting things on my Dashboard - the Micro Continuity Information, the 12 Month Millionaire Course, some offers from a Coach, Membership Discount Offer links and even a "Join the Masters" link that looked intriguing but would probably cost me more money. Anyway I wanted to start with the Micro Continuity program so I clicked on that link...and got taken to a page that simply had on it "Login Links" and that was it. By the way it was not clickable. So I went back to the Dashboard and clicked on the 12 Month Millionaire Course - same "Login Links" page - this was not looking good.

You can guess the rest, but even if you cant take it as a given that every link to a course or program (including the coaching) on my Dashboard led me to that same (by now quite boring) "Login Links" page. Then I noticed that the introductory video featuring Russell Brunson had not started playing either, and when I clicked on it nothing happened there either. Crushing disappointment.

Maybe I had just logged in too soon? So I logged out and logged back in again - but nothing had changed. I am hoping that the site is just been so busy due to heaps of people taking up the wonderful offer that they have had a server glitch and that normal service will be resumed asap. After all I am on a 14 day deadline here.

But there was a spot of good news - there were only two links on the Dashboard page that worked - my account detail page and the Customer Support link. This took me to a ticket system that I had to register for before being allowed to submit a ticket. And I noticed that the DotComSecrets University option was not even included in the drop down menu of possible subjects for your ticket, but I persevered and sent off a ticket explaining my dismay and hope that the problem would be rectified quickly. But given that it is Sunday here in NZ and the USA is hours behind us the chances of me getting a reply before Tuesday (my time) are quite slim - but I am hopeful.

In the meantime I decided to set up my own umbrella domain name - www.lisaolivermakesmoneyonline.com. Yes it is a bit of a mouthful but I am determined to succeed this year and if I do I want to tell the world!!! Also because Blogger.com often cancels blogs it considers commercial based I have also bought www.dotcomsecretsreview.info and will post these posts and other information there - my hope is that if this program does work out for me I can include affiliate links to the products - you can buy from there and that will be a win/win for both of us. But I can't find any information on the affiliate program on my Dashboard as yet (although it was mentioned strongly in the introductory video I watched) so maybe that is coming "later" with the rest of my information. (BTW my two sites are not operating yet; but check back often as they will be real soon - and a good deal for domain names has to be from GoDaddy.com)

I had planned to spend the whole of today learning about the Micro Continuity Program but as I have been thwarted in that, for now at least, I have a dress that needs finishing and a couple of charcoal portraits to do. So I will close off and let us hope that my next post is a lot more positive.

The First Hour - Not what I expected!

Excuse my language but after all the hype I have listened to this morning to say that what happened next is a crashing disappointment is a gross understatement. My signing up process to Russell Brunson's DotComSecrets University was quick and easy. I was a little bit peeved to then have to wade through FIVE upsell offers before getting down to the product I actually bought, but then you can't blame an internet marketer for trying to squeeze the last dollar he can out of you before you put your credit card away - but FIVE offers - come on Russell that is a bit much. For those of you that don't know what an upsell offer is it is when you have ordered a product and then after you click the submit button instead of being taken to your product you get one of these "one time offers" that you have to scroll through to get to the link that will take you to your bought product.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think this is a dumb idea from a selling perspective. If you think about it there are not many opportunities for an internet marketer to actually catch you with your credit card out and a resolve to buy something - so an upsell offer is something that you just have to wade through. Then what typically happens is that after you have clicked the "No, and I know I won't get access to this great offer again" link you get taken to a downsell offer - in this case the same extra product at half the price. But Russell has five of these pages you have to get through, to get to your product and I don't agree with that for two reasons:

1. Five pages is just too much - by the time I had scrolled down the page and clicked the no link for the third time I was starting to get impatient and a little bit peeved. To click through another two was just overkill in my opinion - so take note prospective internet marketers - keep your upsell and down sell pages to a minimum; otherwise you are just taking advantage of your customers' good nature.

2. The offers did not appear to be good value when compared to what I had already paid for. For example the first upsell offer I got was for two DVDs that would help me go through all of the technical side of setting up websites, autoresponders and the such like. Now this in itself was not a bad thing; but these two DVDs were really expensive when compared to all of the other programs I had access too through the product I had bought. And I felt the same way about all of the offers I had to wade through.

There is another point too (so that makes 3, sorry). I had already been told that I would get all that I needed to make money online through the product I had purchased. I was also told that the price had been deliberately kept low because us "ordinary folk" don't have a lot of access to large sums of money - so why would a person who struggled to pay the introductory offer (which for me came to $24 odd USD or $45 NZD) then go on to spend hundreds of dollars on additional products? Can you see my point here? Ok, actually two more points but valid comments? Well you let me know.

But even all that was not the crushing disappointment I ended up with; but as this post is getting really long, read on in the next blog post below.

DotComSecrets University - why did I choose this one?

Who wants to make money online - to be honest I think it would be easier to ask who DOESN'T want to make money online - everyone I know is looking for that elusive something that will transform their lives, enable them to have financial freedom and an excellent quality of life - that is what an internet income will give you. However if you are anything like me you have spent years looking and still have not come up with that special something that will work for you.

I am not an internet newbie and I should make this clear from the start. I have been making money successfully online selling custom made wedding dresses and my art through auction sites and I have worked as a freelance writer for more than ten years. So I do know that it is possible to make money online. But to make that money what I did was basically create a home business - I was still working for clients and I still had to "turn up for work" everyday (usually seven days a week) even if it was in my PJs. I didn't have any of the freedom that an online residual income could bring me and I have been looking for that, for quite literally years - ten of them to be exact.

I have heard about Russell Brunson before of course and anybody that has been looking to make money online will have likely come across his wonderful videos where he makes the whole idea of making money online seem pretty basic. He made his first lot of money online with a "potato gun" and went on to make even more money with his Micro Continuity Program and more recently with his DotComSecrets University. DotComSecrets University is a membership only site that hosts a huge number of programs that will help ordinary people like you and me make money from home. He stresses that there is work involved which is a good thing - if you are looking for "Magic Millions" you are reading the wrong blog - and he can apparently show you and I how to create a "set and forget" system for making money, just like he and countless others have.

I chose Russell Brunson's program for a number of reasons. Firstly he gave a really great offer to sign up to the DotComSecrets University site - usually charged at $97 per month, for this weekend only he was offering a 14 day trial for just $9.97 - even with the international shipping rate I had to pay it was still a really good deal. (I wonder what I will get in the mail?). I decided that I would work on this program for a minimum of 14 days, full time - the idea being that if I could make the regular subscription fee of $97 (all of these prices are USD BTW) within the 14 days then I would be a happy subscriber and would keep paying for my membership.

Secondly there is something "honest" about Russell in the way he appears on his videos. He is a lot younger than me, but he talks sense and he doesn't seem to be full of the same hype that so many tacky internet marketers seem to revel in. That means a lot to me so that was a plus.

Thirdly Russell Brunson showed in the video that converted me this morning the story of a young mum (bit like I used to be, lol) who had her first site up and running in 48 hours. So I figure giving his ideas and information through the DotComSecrets University a fair go combined with my drive, ambition and hard work for a full 14 days to earn me just $97 is a fair and realistic goal.

So I am signed up; I have my login - let's get going towards a residual internet income. Wish me luck :)