You’ll easily find me if you do a Twitter search, but for ease of use, just click on the following like http://twitter.com/markmcwilliams and that’ll take you straight to my tweets.

Have fun, and see you in a couple of days!

So what did I receive then? (I was VERY impressed with it, and this makes me want to do something similar even more!)

Well the CD arrived through my door packaged inside a Jiffy Bag. The CD itself was inside a clear pouch, with a little leaflet type thing giving me a discount to another one of his products. (If I hadn’t already owned that specific product, then I would have taken a look and quite possibly purchased it!)

The interactive CD itself was great too, and I enjoyed the look around! I’d definitely recommend grabbing your copy when John releases it for the general public in the near future. Thanks John, I owe you one!

While despite losing our very first game, we battled through to the semis and just scraped through into the final. (At this time, I was just fortunate that I’d made it this far!) In the final we got off to a good start that built up over the 6 ends we played. Eventually we came out winners with the score being 12-6. What a day of bowls that was!

For starters, I never actually expected to make it into the semi-finals, let alone the final. It’s as I always say though, it’s the taking part that counts! And that is true; all I was there to do was take part and have as much fun as I possibly could! (I think I managed to do that!)

Now instead of just talking about my weekend, I thought I’d throw in something that is marketing related. I spent 10 minutes yesterday (Sunday) thinking about it, and could only come up with one thing.

So what would that be, and how in marketing is this related?! Well what I came up with was a JV Competition. (I’m being serious!) We all know that marketing is fun on its own, but to be able to make an appearance in one of these competitions would just help boost your business far! OK, let me explain how I see it!…

The taking part in a JV Competition counts, but if you came out better than you started, then surely you’re a winner?! You’re having fun to start with, and promote the product to your list as you really did enjoy its quality, but if your name made it onto the leader board…then you’d have more than just something to laugh about. This would be a HUGE promotion for you, and could result in even more. It’s nothing to be sniffed at in my books!

If there’s any new product launches coming up soon, then why not jump on board and see how well you can do. If you don’t manage to make it onto the board, then you’ll have always made some commission hopefully!

When big marketers check out the status page or the JV Competition and spot an unusual name on it, then they’ll be watching to see what you do next. They would hopefully go and read more about you, which has the potential to be massive. I’d probably faint if someone like Jim Cockrum, Kevin Riley or John Thornhill (In fact any well known marketer!) asked me to review one of their products or even asked if we could do a simple JV.

They have spotted your name, and for you, it’s probably the best thing that happened to you! I know that’s the case for one UK marketer, Lee McIntyre, when he made 3rd in a JV contest. So what’s stopping you?

So the first product I bought was DLGuard! The reasons being that it was going to manage all my downloads and simple membership areas. It’s not just that, but it can power my WHOLE business and I can just login and from the one admin area. DLGuard has many other features that I like, and look forward to using!

It just so happened that Sam (Owner and developer of DLG) was doing a Warrior Special Offer for his software, and I managed to grab it at $97! But even at $127, it’s still a steal! If I hadn’t have seen the WSO, then I would have quite happily gone and paid the full amount. (Sam can tell I’m a happy customer!)

And in all honesty, that’s all I’ve spent from the money I received! You see, I don’t like letting my money go down the drain! (However I seem to like buying domain names all the time, but that’s for another day!)

The chances of me spending the rest of my cheque are quite high, as I still have to signup for an autoresponder. And while the debate may still go on about their recent changes, there is one feature that I really quite like.

Anyway I hope you’ve been making money through Clickbank, and if not then keep pushing! It took me time before I started to see any results, and there are still days when I make absolutely nothing. We’ll get there together though!

If we take Tesco as an example then they are always doing this, and we never think too much about it. However when it comes to a marketer offering a similar sort of offer, they always seem to get backlash for NO apparent reason!

This isn’t making much sense, and I see no difference.

I remember one occasion were Paula Brett released her Operation eBook, and John Thornhill made a blog post recommending it. (Why wouldn’t he, it’s a GREAT report!) He also mentioned a couple of times about the price increase after the 7 days. Well to cut a long story short, there was a sudden surge of comments coming from every part of the planet. It turned out into an interesting debate, and I think quite a few of us learned a thing or 2!

So WHY do us marketers decide to offer a new product at an introductory price? Well it’s quite simple if you think about it.

We are all about over-delivering, and providing quality to our subscribers/customers. If you can build on the relationship you have with your current subscribers, then they are more likely going to purchase further products and recommend them to their friends. Not to mention it might help you clinch that vital JV (Joint Venture) you have been longing to get.

If you recon that special offers are a scam, then what about ‘Buy One Get One Free’ or ‘3 For The Price Of 2?’ They are all an offer in their own way, and if you can offer a discount on your information product then why not?

When I go and register my domains, I search the internet for the latest discount coupon code. But why do that? We’re all out to grab a bargain from time to time, and if you really want the product then you’ll buy it. Whither you get the discount or not!

The next time you launch a new product, why don’t you think about offering an introductory price? At the end of the day, we’re just an online shop selling our products. Nothing much diferent than a shop in the high-street doing the very same.

(Have your OWN opinion, then post a comment expressing what you think!)

You see I’m into bowling, and no it’s not ten-pin bowling either! For all the UKers out there, this can often be called ‘Crown Green Bowls.’ And before anyone says that it’s an old grannies sport, I’d ask you to think twice! At our club, we have quite a few youths who do very well and there are even a couple who play for Scotland. Sadly I’m not in that ’section’ anymore, but there are plenty more opportunities for me!

Anyway, enough about them! LOL

On Saturday I got up about lunchtime and had something to eat then headed out to watch a very big tournament taking place at the club. I was helping out with the big scoreboard, but as I’d already planned to go and watch, I really didn’t mind as I could do both! After a few soft-drinks, it felt as if the day flew by and before I knew it…the party had started. It was nice to talk with the players and have a few games of pool! (I’d like to say that I’m amazing, but some would just say good!) And no I wasn’t out until all hours!

Then came Sunday, the day that I was playing in an open tournament. Much as I’d like to win from time to time, its the taking part that I enjoy the most! You really do have a good laugh with the usual crowd that arrive to play. From youngsters to O.A.P.s!

So all in all I had a great weekend, and hope you did too! I’m no were near the stage were I only need to do 3 days of work and have the money rolling in, but it’s still nice to have the weekends to yourself! And there are plenty more weekends were that came from!

What a relaxing way to finish the week!

Now there has been a lot of talk about the changes on various marketing forums, but I’ve only seen ones on the Warrior Forum. (Some of the comments made by certain people are quite interesting, and some are just not reading what HAS already been said!)

So knowing that John Thornhill has a massive list, I thought I’d ask him about the changes and all he said was…

Quote John Thornhill:
The pricing structure seems a little pricey. I don’t think I will be using this feature in a hurry.

…I really found this pretty interesting! But I’m sure John had a good look over the new features, and weighed up the pros and cons before making his decision!

This is were I put my spin on things, and look at it from a completely different angle. I’m going to look at it if your an existing customer and debating the upgrade.

Lets say you have 2,000 leads (subscribers) and before you had to pay $19.95 a month. You were quite happy with this, and therefore you don’t mind staying on this plan if you’d rather not upgrade.

With the new pricing plan it would cost you $29 a month instead! And if you carry out a simple calculation, then you only need to generate $0.0145 per subscriber each and every month to cover your AWeber costs! (To make things a little more easier, we could easily call that $0.02)

I do apologise now if you didn’t quite understand me there, but I would hope that you get the general idea that I’m trying to put accross.

Before I go though one of my favourite marketers (Lee McIntyre) has just produced a video explaining the reasons why he IS upgrading.

Check that video out today… Why I’m Happy About The AWeber Price Increase …And if anyone is planning to upgrade, or has already done so, then I’d love to know your reasons for doing so!

You can see that I have the general layout and design sorted, but doing this I can now ask you to give me your initial thoughts on it. In fact knowing John Szram, whenever he pops over to see this new design he’ll be telling me that I shouldn’t be doing any ‘live’ changes! (He’s true though, but I test the changes elsewhere first!)

And yeah, this is yet another short post! However look out for the new changes, and see if you can spot WHAT has been changed. (This could turn out into a little challenge, but I’ll see about that!)

The main aim today was to inform you on what I’ve been working on, and let you see the results!

Well from that last post, you can see how I couldn’t manage to register a domain name because it was apparently ’banned!’ So I headed over to NameCheap and decided to see if the ‘Domains’ department was on live support first, and to my amazement…they were!

I filled in their required details, and got given a nice person called Kate to handle my inquiry. I guess this is standard procedure but they still asked if I had enough money in my account to cover the domain, and also if I was renewing it or not. But hey, that only took me 2 minutes to answer!

As I had uploaded the screenshot for the first post, I thought I’d sent Kate the link so she could see what error I was receiving. (I wasn’t sure if it might help them out a little?!)

Within 5 minutes of checking the screenshot, I was told that they could register it manually for me. I thought GREAT, but I still wanted to find out why it was coming up when the actual domain isn’t banned itself. The response I got was, “It may contain a string of some banned characters!”

Fair enough, these domain registrar companies don’t want to be held accountable for maybe selling something that they shouldn’t have, so systems are put in place to stop proceedings.

They were even cheeky enough to make ME pay for it! And as I only had enough money to cover the domain with a coupon code discount, I sadly had to confirm the coupon code too! Grrr, what next would I have to do? Ask for my free WhoIs Guard that I’m entitled too?!?

(Oh, wait a minute…I did ask for that!)

Anyway putting all that aside me, I am officially the owner of that domain name and will be setting myself up a squeeze page quite soon. Just got a few things to complete first.

Shall I begin?!…

I never thought I would see the day were I go to register a domain name and find that it has been BANNED! Well guess what happened over at NameCheap today? Today was that very day, and to put it in a polite way, I’m not best pleased!

Just take a look at the screenshot below that I took, as some proof and just in case anyone told me that it was not a banned domain.

From the image, you can see that all I was trying to do was register MarkMcWilliamsNewsletter.com and for some bizarre reason it tells me the domain is available, but when you reach the checkout, all I receive is that.

(A trip to NameCheap support is in order I think!…)

Ever since I got started online, I have used NameCheap for all my domains and this is the first problem I’ve ever had! While I should have contacted their support first, I just wanted to make this quick post for you! HEHE

This 5 minute job is probably going to turn into a couple of days, and means that I’ll have to drop the odd job and make this my priority. There is NOTHING stopping me from using http://www.mark-mcwilliams.com/newsletter/ for example, but I personally think the other looks a lot more professional, and cleaner.

I’ll definitely make sure to post the outcome of this, and if there does happen to be a valid reason WHY this domain has been banned, then you’ll find out for sure!

In a way, I am kinda shocked at the whole event! Any comments and/or suggestions you have will be much appreciated, just use the comments box below.

This could quite possibly turn into a very educational blog post! So keep your eyes peeled!…