I never really considered getting rich in 1998, I was too busy. I am and will be involved in getting rich s l o w l y . . . marketing.

Last year was a building year, building in preparation for the sales that will follow, Yes sales doubled last year but in reality it was only a drop in a bucket of the sales to come. For example If you double a dollar you get two but if you double 1000 you get 999 times the profit as when you doubled that first dollar. Last year we did the work that will give us a foundation to build on in the future. If you are new to the e-zine and newsletter you might visit our searchable archives where you can search any marketing concept or method you wish to learn.

Residual income only comes A F T E R you do the work. This seems like such a simple statement yet last year the Internet was raped by get rich quick scams. I remember reading a large newspaper ad for a free similar on Internet marketing.

Free !! I decided to check this out.

As it turned out it was a Internet Mall developer who claimed that for $3,000 they would tell you the "real secrets" that would make you rich in just weeks. Not only that but they would do it in one 7 hour marketing class. They advertised that they had something like 50,000 hits a month. ( a hit is just a call to a server to deliver anything), on my sites I load a header and a footer java-script files along with several graphics, so one visitor browsing 3 pages might generate 150 hits. I actually get seven times their number of hits a month and I don't brag about it because there are sites that get one hundred times the number I get.)

Now I can do the math. $3,000 dollars times 24 people in the class, that's $72.000 and all in a 7 hour day. We all know who is getting rich quick don't we :)

And what did they get for the $ 3,000. The "OPPORTUNITY" to cold call every business in the yellow pages and try to sell a classified ad for $75 on a low traffic mall. You can see these guys coming easily, they will tell you that's it's easy and all you have to do is... If they tell you it's easy, they probably can't provide proof of the income".

Heck if it was that easy why would they want to share with you? This holds true both for MLM opportunities and for most associate programs which may pay out better because the profit is shared on fewer levels. The truth is profitable business won't fall into our lap they all require a lot of work and/or money up-front.

I'll tell you, if it was easy we would all be getting rich. The word "OPPORTUNITY" is found everywhere as if it was something that exists separate from you and I, as if it were something you could purchase and everything would be done for you. That's not opportunity, opportunity already exists on it's own - it's an inside job, and it's free.

The problem is NOT the lack of opportunity - opportunities are already everywhere. We are smothered with information, it actually gets in the way of our ability to see the real opportunities that are already there.

Last year's theme was learning how to see opportunities already in front of you as a seed, then do the work to nurture the seed because we all know that "a seed gives birth to Fruit of its own kind."

We can all learn something from our neighbors in third world countries where opportunities are tougher to find, A village in Africa that sell handcrafts on line, a businesses man in Malaysia working on line while his countries economy falls apart outside in the streets. Everywhere we look on the internet we see people processing opportunities that we pass up for hundreds of reasons.

In the west we think that if something is worth doing it's worth over-doing. I am also guilty of this faulty thinking. It's true that it takes more time and energy to start fresh at anything. The key is to discover your own opportunity.

You have heard the expression that "you ARE what you eat" in a way that is true but more importantly "You are what you think".

Each living being has been in training their whole lifetime in order to fulfill their own destiny. We nourish & grow in life what we want the most.

Our connection to our own immortality requires discipline, to achieve. In the western world there are just too many distractions.

In reality 1998 the Internet was not the year for most of us to earn a lot of money, perhaps we achived something more important than money, a greater measure of freedom, more time at home. Time to walk the dog.

We learned that opportunity is everywhere and to achieve we need to focus that energy. For example, if you love animals start a internet business helping inform animal owners and bring them the benefit of your expertise. Deliver your products and services

Hopefully in 1999 we can move beyond spam and scam and get really focused into developing our own home based businesses. Personally I will strive to be at least 1/100th the person that my dog already thinks I am.

In order "to live our life without regret"we must find our own place to serve the world. "Right Livelihood" is doing what you love to do until the line between work and play disappears entirely.

This year as we evaluate opportunities, lets consider opportunities from our own unique point of view. Don't get blindsided into burning up your life's energy doing anything just for the money, it hardly ever works that way anyway.

Lets choose our seeds carefully, plant them in well prepared soil, water them wisely. And wait for the fruit that must surely come.

In 1999 I'll focus my marketing efforts into something developing what I call "A MasterMind Alliance".We will also offer more success stories such as the one that follows this article about David Beroff. We hope hope that by learning & sharing marketing that works not only helps others it may help ourselves.

That's the main reason why I decided too offer advertising this year. We will start next week, A 6 line ad with 69 characters per line will cost $10, or $40 a month, we still have room for a few more ads in next weeks addition. Also consider a monthly program - it's 25% less and repeated exposure usually works best.

In such an alliance everyone we all gain more mileage out of a given amount of marketing & promotional work. Using MasterMind alliances we can each find our own unique success finding a need within our niche or speciality and filling it.

      Best wishes for a more prosperous new year.

Bob