All Things John Eberhardt

Time to think about your options

Hi again everyone, sorry for the vacation but the world changed again so I thought I’d adjust my life to take advantage of it and then talk a little bit about it. I’m talking about the economic downturn that has wreaked havoc throughout the world and now I hope to do my part and help who I can.

So far the score for the poor and middle class (I think that account for most of us) is this; there are a lot more poor and a lot fewer of the middleclass. Even the rich took a hit. I know more than a few millionaires that were completely ruined, wiped out. One guy I know was building huge subdivisions of McMansions and lost everything; his business, his house, his cars and then some. He now has a $10 million dollar judgment against him adding insult to injury. Another guy was a real estate investor that lost everything as all his equity went upside-down BUT the IRS doesn’t care about excuses they just want their cut of his losses and that comes to about $500k (ouch!). So why am I telling you about those that  nobody really cares about (those who had it all and lost it all)? Because there is opportunity everywhere.

Since the days of the “Internet Millionaire” is fewer and far between (still here, just much harder work these days), I looked for those opportunities that were elsewhere and elsewhere turns out to be everywhere.

Since all real estate is having a fire sale and the banks aren’t lending (but they could if they wanted to) but if you could borrow you’d be getting the lowest rates in history, what is one to do? Well I’ve been thinking about that over the past few years and I’ve been busy learning “secrets” that no one seems to know and no one talks about. For instance, did you know that you can take an IRA (or most any retirement account), like my IRA, and turn it into a self directed IRA and then proceed to buy houses or multifamily houses or even commercial real estate or even businesses with it? The IRS has a publication that explains the whole thing (IRS Publication 590 - Individual Retirement Accounts, great for toilet reading or when looking to fall asleep).

John Eberhardt with Lady Liberty

I was shocked that this has been a fact since 1974 and I’ve never done it. After the revelations on Wall Street about how the evil brokers on high call us “Muppets” and steer us into crap investments that make them money hand over fist but for us, well, not so much. No wonder we are all holding these pathetic mutual funds or even worse, anemic CDs, in our retirement accounts. And on the outside it gets even worse- you have a bank account that actually loses your money by charging you fees for the privilege of letting them gamble your money away on risky hedge funds that they wouldn’t invest their own money in.

First you have to find a trustee (custodian and get used to “for benefit of” or F.B.O.- lol) that will hold your account and make sure that you aren’t able to benefit from it before you’re supposed to. I started with Equity Trust because they were the biggest and had the most educational material available. They have been very helpful and responsible for keeping me from engaging in “disqualified transactions” and getting in any kind of trouble. There are many out there and I can’t say one is any better than another so do your own homework and get references (if such a thing is possible). Start with Google and “self directed ira custodians”. Also Biggerpockets.com had a nice discussion on their site. I’ll tell you more about my adventures soon.

All the best and I wish you all great success,

John

Hi All,

I am a great fan of Dan S. Kennedy, Jay Abraham and many, many more (and if you are in the IT consulting world, I strongly recommend everything that you can get from Robin Robins– you will achieve RESULTS!).

They have given me strategies and tactics to isolate specific things in my life and translate them into action items that I can do to keep myself on track to being the kind of person that success can find.

I have found the works of Napoleon Hill and Keith Cameron Smith to be useful in changing my mindset and to focus on the core elements that lead to lasting change (I also recommend “Change or Die” (2007) by Alan Deutschman for lasting ideas on how to change your life).

To that end, I’ve read “5 Laws” by Brett Harward (pictured here is business consultant and master fisherman, Brett Harward) and have used Brett’s observations and tactics (and also some of Spike Humor’s) to change my business fundamentally and focus on building the business and running it while keeping it from running me and consuming me and my life.

Brett has now teamed up with Garrett White and is offering some of his best material free at http://www.itisarevolution.com.

Anyway, after I reviewed this free material, I enrolled in the wildfire program with Brett Harward and Garrett White. I strongly recommend that you take a look at his FREE material.

It is of GREAT VALUE for FREE and has NO STRINGS attached ( and no I do not know why wordpad software messes up the spaces in your blog for different browsers, just a bug). I would hurry if I were you because with all the stuff that they have going on (Brett is getting MARRIED on the 15th of May!!!) it might be pulled down at any minute. So get over to http://www.itisarevolution.com now and sign up for this great FREE stuff!

And Garrett White is a total BLAST-he is pure energy. It is kind of like watching a nuclear bomb go off when he does a presentation so don’t miss it! Both of these guys are the real deal.

I don’t know if is a good fit for you but it may be for many of us. I hope this helps you in some way and please let me know if it does, as I love to help others AND hear about it so don’t be shy.

To your success,

John Eberhardt

I’m Back!

I had a great summer and I hope you did, too. But now the leaves are falling and the chill of winter is at our door. So here I am back at the keyboard to compose a love letter to all of you. Writing is a great way to share your thoughts, get something off your chest or just start a discussion. Sharing something of value, something educational should be your goal, I think. If I can teach someone just one thing that will help them to succeed, they will remember me for the rest of their life.

The people who I know personally that are very successful think a little different and do a few things differently. So over the next few days I will give you few ideas that may help you to get on top of this “economy.” Without further ado, I present for your reading pleasure, a few things that I’ve learned over the course of my life.

Recessions can be good for your business

Recessions are part of living in the USA
If you have lived here for any length of time you have been through a recession. Of the ones I can remember, the one in the 80’s was really bad (July 1981-November 1982). I was working my way through college and watched workers get picked off and fired one by one until it almost got to me and then things started to get better. It was the longest 14 months in my life (until now). Then there was one in the 90’s. I really didn’t notice that one at all. I just had my first son and the medical electronics industry (and their computer budget dictating the safety of my job) was virtually unaffected. It lasted from July 1990-March 1991, about 8 months. The next one was another 8 months. It started on March 2001 and officially ended November 2001. 9/11 kicked us all in the teeth during that one, but the IT support industry (and the internet) was booming. I did not notice much of a difference at all during those 8 months.
And so that brings us to now. I am told it started in December 2007 and we are still being strangled today. And again I don’t see too much of it in my daily life but I can see it everywhere in the stores with the “for lease” signs and the “going out of business” sales. I meet people all the time that tell me that they lost their jobs and can’t find another one. You can almost smell it in the air.

But again I don’t really see it affecting my business all that much. People would be foolish if they did not buy computers for their businesses and hire expert help to keep everything running properly (If you need expert help, order my free report on “How To Choose An Honest, Reliable, and Competent Computer Repair Technician from my website, see http://wisegroup-llc.com). Computers make people more productive, period. Faster computers waste less of any worker’s time. Preventing problems from slowing productivity down makes sense (and saves dollars). Backing up your data and having a BUDR (back up and disaster recovery) program will save your company if (or, rather, when) a disaster strikes. Remember the massive flooding that came out of nowhere in the spring of 2008? Many businesses never even heard of a DR (disaster recovery) plan, and many of those never recovered from the damage and went out of business.

Sure I have to work harder to get new business but it is still out there. So here is my advice. You need to be the best you can. Keep the customers you have and work hard to get new ones. Smile, things are only as bad as you think they are. Watch your cash flow and follow the market a lot, more than you ever did before (if you do not know how to do that, get in touch with me and I’ll help you out).

Be the best at what you do AND at your marketing

Be the best
Strive to be the best at what you do or make the best product that you can. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin who is (according to Forbes) the 261st wealthiest person on the planet said, “When you create and deliver the BEST (product or service) there is, you don’t have to worry about not succeeding.” If you deliver the best product or service that you can, you can guarantee it with complete confidence. You will need to “spread the word” because no one will know how good you, your product, or your service are before they buy your “stuff.” They will only know you by what they read about you in your marketing. After you get the word out and people start to buy, then word of mouth will make a huge impact on your business if you are truly the best.
And while you are at it, try to see the best in all the people around you and tell them about it. Compliment them. There is nothing better than the feeling that you get when you can make someone feel good about themselves (and also the incredible difference you can make in the lives of others just by being honest, sincere, and open in your compliments).

Have an attitude.

Upbeat marketing requires happiness and optimism

As the song goes “just put on a happy face.” I know there is a lot of doom and gloom (just in time for Halloween– ha-ha) out there in the media but I think it is getting better every day and to a large extent it is what YOU make of it. It takes a winning attitude—a smile and an optimistic outlook. Feeling and thinking successful goes a long way. But it also takes quite a bit more to keep your business going, let alone growing (like lots of work, good cash flow and customers). I can’t stress the value of having an optimistic outlook especially in these dark economic times. People can smell fear and that goes for success as well. If you are feeling successful, optimistic and happy, people will feel it. They will feel the positive energy that comes from you. I don’t know about you, but I like to hang around happy, upbeat and successful people.

Do more marketing NOW- win big!

So do more marketing
During hard times, many businesses cut back on advertising and cut their marketing budget. The old quote “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise” is repeated all over the web these days—and with good reason.

Here is some food for thought: In a famous study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies from 1980-1985. The results showed that firms that maintained or increased their advertising during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and after (for the following three years), when compared to those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were “Aggressive Recession Advertisers” had risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. In addition, a series of six studies conducted by the research firm of Meldrum & Fewsmith showed conclusively that advertising aggressively during recessions not only increases sales, but increases profits.

These days I have to work twice as hard on my marketing to get half the sales, but it is well worth it. The money is still out there and I am getting new market share at my competitors’ expense. In my case, people will always need their computers fixed, websites designed and programmed, and still others will need marketing help. I do my best to perform the very best job and at the same time find the best fit so my customers’ experience is supreme.

So can we learn anything from this? I think so. For me it means work a little harder and market a lot more.

What next?
Next time we’ll talk about a few more ideas to get you through these darkest days of winter- so that’s enough for this session.

As always–don’t want to do this? No time? No website? No worries, we can do it all for you. Whether starting out with a new domain name, business, website or any combination we can help you to get to where you want to be. In these times of economic chaos, money is always a bit of a sticky issue, so we accept credit cards and offer easy payment plans to ensure your success. Invest in yourself today!

For website related business questions, visit http://www.websitemarketingmasters.com today (type it at the top or just type in “wmm seo” in Google or Bing or Yahoo and we usually come up number one) and fill out your contact information. Be advised that we are very selective of our clients and interview each one to make sure that we can do the best job for you or your company.

Computer question or problems? Find help at http://wisegroup-llc.com. We provide personal service to South-Central, Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois.

JCE

Today is the first day of the rest of your success. If I can help just one of you to create a successful blog or website, I’ll be a happy camper (please let me know, I love praise).

Now that you have identified something that you are passionate about (generally that means things that we love but it can mean things that we hate as well), we are now going to show you how to create and use a very powerful tool to share that feeling of exhilaration with the rest of the world!

Keeping this goal in mind, I have explained why we need to create a separate website and you have selected an appropriate domain name for it. I have explained the importance of search engines and search engine optimization (SEO will be covered in great detail over the next few months) and the critical nature of proper selection of your keywords (more about this very soon as well).

 Therefore, we are now able to move on to the mechanical process required to create of a Godaddy hosted website and blog (this will be the “free” version with ads on top as you can see here).

In this session our mission will be to demonstrate, step-by-step, the construction of a solid foundation on which to build your successful ventures on the Internet. We will start from scratch and take you to the point where you’ll have to wait for up to 24 hours for the website to initialize.

For today’s blog I have asked a technical writer friend of mine, Christopher Eck, to document and break down this process into simple steps. Christopher is a freelance writer that holds an English BA in professional/technical writing.

So without further ado, take it away Chris…

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A Step-By-Step Documentation of Hosting Account Set-Up

Originally created on Wednesday, April 08, 2009

For John Eberhardt

By Christopher Eck

1. Open a web Browser (like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox)
2. Login to www.godaddy.com
3. Locate “Hosting” on the navigation bar between “Domains” and “Email” (it will be the second from the left)
4. Under “Hosting Management,” click on “My Hosting Account”
5. Within the yellow box, click on “Use Credit”
6. Scroll through to select the domain name you wish to utilize
7. Choose between  the options of  “Free Windows Hosting” (which uses all Microsoft products) OR “Free Linux Hosting” (uses all sorts of free programs and has other advantages that we’ll get into later)
8. Click on the green continue box
9. Under “Manage Hosting Account” it may say “You currently have no Hosting accounts,” so click here to access the Hosting Control Center OR instead (it also gives this option) click to purchase a Hosting account
10. You may need to Login again (using the same username and password previously engaged)
11. You are now at the “Hosting Control Center” Note:  Steps 12-16 are optional depending on your needs (more about this later in the series). 
12. Select “Assign Account Executive” (this action opens a confirmation box)
13. Click on “Add Account Executive” (which is highlighted in blue)
14. Fill out the fields of “First Name,” then “Last Name,” and finally “Email” (also remember to confirm your Email a second time
15. Click “OK”
16. Your “Account Executive” invitation has been sent
17. Now check the box and click on “Set-up Account” (which is highlighted in blue)
18. Check a box which reads, “I have read and agree to the Hosting Service Agreement” and then click “Next”
19. Login, entering “Username,” then “Password,” and finally “Confirm Password” (be sure to follow the Username and Password clarifications, such as utilizing upper case and lower case letters in addition to numbers) and then click “Next”
20. “Account Details” will now appear (the following is an example)

                        Important Details

                                        Operating System: Linux

                                        Bandwidth Allotment: 300,000 MB

                                        Diskspace Allotment: 10,000 MB

                                        Number of MySQL Databases: 10 Available

                        Domain Associated with this Free Hosting Account:

                                        YOURDOMAINHERE.COM

21. Click “Next” upon viewing your “Account Details”

22. An “Options” choice will appear for you to specify a PHP Version

        (either PHP 4.x or PHP 5.x)

23. Choose PHP 5.x and click “Next”

24. A “Confirmation” will appear showing a “Summary” including “Username,” “Domain,” and “PHP Version”

25. Click “Finish”

26. Please be advised you will have to wait for a period of 24 hours upon completing these steps to proceed any further

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Next time we’ll talk about how to complete more of the steps required to build your own site so that’s enough for this session.

As always–don’t want to do this? No time? No website? No worries, we can do it all for you. Whether starting out with a new domain name, business, website or any combination we can help you to get to where you want to be. In these times of economic chaos, money is always a bit of a sticky issue so we accept credit cards and offer easy payment plans to ensure your success. Invest in yourself today!

Visit http://www.websitemarketingmasters.com  today (type it the top in or just type in “wmm seo” in Google and we come up number one) and fill out your contact information. Be advised that we are very selective of our clients and interview each one to make sure that we can do the best job for you or your company.

JCE

That is a good question.  

There are plenty of good blogging sites out there like Wordpress, BlogSpot and Blogger that work just fine for most people.  If you just want to vent, express your thoughts or just like to write, then these blog sites would probably be best for you.  

But if you want to attempt to make money, use more tools, have more pages, or be able to search optimize your site and use analytics on it, then it might be best for you to have your own website.

 I like to do lots of stuff with my blog so that’s why I recommend having your own dedicated website. I like Wordpress software and their done-for-you blogging website but I also use Google’s Blogger. When you do use Wordpress software (did I mention that it was free software?) on your own dedicated website, you get to use many free and even some paid tools (if you want) to keep tabs on visitors and their behavior. The information is priceless (and I’ll show you why in a future example). 

As always, if you don’t want to do this or have no time or no website, no worries, we can do it all for you. Whether starting out with a new domain name, business, website or any combination. No money could be a bit of a sticky point but we do offer easy payment plans. 

Visit http://www.websitemarketingmasters.com 

(or just type in “wmm seo” in Google and we come up number one) and fill out your contact information. Be advised that we are very selective of our clients and interview each one to make sure that we can do the best job for you or your company. 

JCE

I’m hoping that you have your domain purchased by now and are ready to move on.

According to Chandler Harris of Entrepreneur.com, “Companies that rely on the web for sales have two choices. Embrace SEO or don’t embrace SEO. And one’s not really a viable option.” I read this in an article on MSNBC last week.

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. Basically, for an online company this means rank high (on Google) or die.  I recommend building SEO into your website from the moment you choose its name.  So let’s start with a little talk about keywords.

Keywords are the key to a good site

The words people use to find you on the Internet are called keywords.  Choosing keywords is the first step in building a successful website.  There are many tools out there to help you research these keywords (too many to list here).  So do a search on your favorite search engine, like Google, and find some tools and do the research.

Once you have an idea what words people are going to type into the search engine to find your website, you use these words to construct it.  Great websites are built on a foundation of great keywords that are found in relevant, excellent content.  Visitors come to websites for the content (though they might leave right away if your website is really ugly).  Whether they come to learn something or to buy something, content is king.  If I didn’t have good content on my websites and my blogs no one would come to visit.  If no one comes to visit a website that is selling something, that is a very bad thing.

Next time we’ll talk about how we use these keywords to build a site so that’s enough for this session.

Don’t want to do this? No time? No website? No worries, we can do it all for you. Whether starting out with a new domain name, business, website or any combination. No money could be a bit of a sticky point but we do offer easy payment plans.

Visit http://www.websitemarketingmasters.com

(or just type in “wmm seo” in Google and we come up number one) and fill out your contact information. Be advised that we are very selective of our clients and interview each one to make sure that we can do the best job for you or your company.

JCE

By John Eberhardt - Monday, December 29, 2008- 8:58am.

Blogs have been around long enough to become one of the coolest things in the web universe (besides Twitter). They are fairly easy to launch and manage. If you blog frequently, your blog will create fresh, user-generated content that search engines such as Google like to eat for breakfast.

So for 2009 I’ve decided to give you a reason to have a brand new, cool “New Year’s resolution” (one you can actually follow through on). I am going to give you your own blog on a silver platter; a step-by-step tutorial on how to create and maintain a successful blog. To prove a point, I present for your enjoyment…this one! Here it is, and it is about as cheap and easy as you can get. I am even leaving the free GoDaddy ads on top so you can see how a “free” website looks (don’t worry: we’ll go through this step-by-step so you can see how I did it AND we will get rid of those ads after awhile).

So let’s start with step one:

Get a domain name. I am assuming that you either have something to say or you have a business or website to promote (conveniently I happen to have a couple of those lying around to use as examples). So now let’s break step one down into steps.

1. Select a name (something meaningful to your business, cause, or being). This can be a big deal. Cooler is better but don’t let it hang you up so you get frozen into an ice block of inaction. I mean really, what does Yahoo or Google mean anyway? With that in mind, I took my own name and went to GoDaddy.com and typed it in (I have no relationship with GoDaddy but I’m thinkin’ maybe I should at this point, hmmmm).

2. Once you find one that’s vacant, stake your claim before someone else gets it. Some bozos already had johneberhardt.com and Eberhardt.com (but no websites, what’s the deal with that?) so I had to stick my middle initial “C” in there (aw poo!).

3. Start to learn their tools. You need to figure out how to get stuff up there and get it to work. GoDaddy’s tools are great (and again, don’t worry I’ll cover those in the next installment). That is why I’m using GoDaddy in this example (because anyone can do this with what they give you).

That’s enough for now; I don’t want to clutter your minds with too much before New Year’s Day. But if you start now, you’ll be able to hit the ground running on day one 2009.

Don’t want to do this? No time? No website? No worries, we can do it all for you. Whether starting out with a new domain name, business, website or any combination. No money could be a bit of a sticky point but we do offer easy payment plans.

Visit http://www.websitemarketingmasters.com

(or just type in “wmm seo” in Google and we come up number one) and fill out your contact information. Be advised that we are very selective of our clients and interview each one to make sure that we can do the best job for you or your company.

JCE

Today is the day to start your own business or take your hobby to the masses. This blog is dedicated to building your “online presence”. My business is your success. I invite you to visit some of my other professional websites and blogs at:

http://wisegroup-llc.com

http://websitemarketingmasters.com

My hobby is saving the world so I invite you to visit my blog at:

 http://johnceberhardt.wordpress.com

Here is a little taste of my hobby blog:

So let’s get busy and fix what we broke. And while we’re at it, let’s not break any more stuff. It’s about time that we stop lying to ourselves and own up to the fact that the global warming is the worst thing that is happening right now (at least until that comet hits us) and we are making it worse.

Climate is fickle.
If you look at the center of the United States, about 5000 years ago ended a 4000 year long dry spell that left our breadbasket incapable of producing bread. And more recently, from 1300 to about 1850, we had those 550 years of “Little Ice Age”. Either way I’d have to move somewhere else. So if you think the economy is bad now, wait until we can’t produce any food. I think that will get your attention pretty fast.

First let’s all do just a little bit to help. I’ll keep driving my 55 mpg VW diesel and you try not to discuss who will be the next “American Idol” on your cell phone while you’re cruising 90 mph in your Escalade today on your way home from work. At least park your giant gasmonster and walk into McDonalds to order your McBurp Sappy Meal at the counter instead of idling a few gallons away in the drive-thru while discussing who will be the next “American Idol” on your cell phone. Please help us Stephen Colbert!