I went swimming this Monday as I am desperately trying to win a bet with my wife.

We are both trying to lose 14 lbs in a month and the winner gets … well I’m not sure really maybe bragging rights or a years supply of cakes or something?!

Maybe we should discuss this a bit more!

Anyway as I was walking to the pool I was suddenly engrossed in thinking “what the heck should I write about in this week’s blog post”.

I was getting quite into my thoughts and trying to wrack my brains.

Then it literally him me in the face …

The pavement that is!

I got myself so engrossed in my thoughts that I tied my bike up to a lamp post, walked about a yard forwards and fell flat on my face over a metal knee high boundary fence … crrrrunch!

What an absolute donkey I felt … and to make matters worse 2 other people witnessed the whole scene!

Oddly though they neither laughed or came to my aid, but just carried on walking.

I guess us British folk just don’t like any fuss and to be honest I was bloody glad too!

Anyway I took my crimson face into the pool and then whilst doing a few lengths I got to thinking of a dream I had the previous night …

This involved me teaching my old MLM mentor and lots of other mad MLM junkies how to market using email.

Now I did a catalogue MLM scheme called Kleeneze that was a ton of hard work and made me virtually nothing in 12 months!

It was the biggest “Rah-Rah” hyped-up nonsense you have seen where 95% of the people seemed to make nothing and grafted like hell!

What a waste of time and energy!

But I do have to say I’ve never been slimmer than that time - running around with catalogues and delivering household essentials like washing up brushes and tea towels with “funny” slogans on!

But the dream made a really good point … that there are probably tons of local businesses that could hugely benefit from learning the basics of email marketing, blogging, online surveys etc.

And I am sure that some of them would pay handsomely for the privilege.

So I plan to put up a site some time in the near future targeted at local businesses in my area and run some traffic there via some local newspaper ads.

I’ll probably give away a free report “20 ways to use the internet to boost your business” or something of that nature in exchange for their contact details.

And I will have my contact details in the report to encourage them to get in touch for a free consultation.

I really think this could do well and am sure that if you’ve been around the basics of online marketing for more than 10 minutes you’ll know about 99.9% more than most local businesses about marketing on the web.

Could you set yourself up as a local expert and sell your expertise in blogging, email marketing, pay per click traffic and the like?

I bet you could if you gave it a go.

Think about it …

This could be a great little stream of business to go alongside your other online ventures.

It’s always good to have a few streams of income … just in case one dries up for a while.

Food for thought I hope …. Until next time …

Happy Marketing …

John Hillage

Hello and welcome to the VERY FIRST Post here on my blog –

I was up burning the midnight oil last night assisting my web designer Fahim, who lives out in Pakistan, to put the finishing touches to the blog - so I hope you like -

Well to be honest when I say “assisting” I was just sending emails saying “make this bigger” or “move that a bit” - the clever technical stuff all came from Fahim!

No matter … I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s 100% better than those very basic “Tesco Value” web pages that I was using to share my “make money online” tips before.

Note for Non-UK Readers – Tesco Value is a very low budget supermarket brand featuring dainty blue and white stripes that sells tinned baked beans for about two pence or something ridiculous!

Anyway on with this week’s tip …

Steven (from the UK) recently emailed me the following excellent question:

“Does my idea for making money on the internet have to be “new”, or can it be an “old” idea?”

Well Steven I certainly wouldn’t waste much time looking for 100% new ideas out there; for several reasons really.

One big reason is that most of the ideas in the world in the 21^st Century are recycled whether you are on the internet or in the “real” World!

Think of the diet industry for example, which I guess must be a Billion Dollar industry at very least around the world.

There really isn’t too much to it on the new ideas front …

Cut out eating all that crap food, exercise, and burn off more calories than you take on board … and you will lose weight.

This is not new, yet every year great “new” weight loss products come out that work largely on that idea … and sell a bundle!

The twist is that they add some gimmick to it, some new technology or just give it a different marketing message.

There’s the GI Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers, Slimming World and a million and one other books, DVDs, magazines and membership sites.

A lot of people make a ton of cash in this huge area but certainly not with new ideas; just old stuff recycled and repackaged.

Another good reason to not worry about new ideas is that I am a great believer in seeing what the really successful people online are doing.

And what they are often doing is taking the same basic ideas and re-packaging them.

To give an example Steven Pierce (one of the giants of internet marketing) brought out his e-book “The Whole Truth about Internet Marketing” a few years ago.

In it he mentioned some clever search engine technique at the time called Smart Web Pages.

Another marketing heavyweight Armand Morin came along and produced some software that would make these Smart Pages and started to sell his software like crazy!

He even signed up Steven as an affiliate for this product that Steven had actually thought of!

So clearly new ideas are not needed to make money online.

And look at skills like copy-writing online …

All the top writers have “swipe files” made up of thousands of other peoples advertising pieces and they adapt and use these ideas to then help them write their own copy and ads.

Also the top copywriters have learnt all their skills from the “old masters” of advertising like Claude Hopkins who wrote “Scientific Advertising”.

So the key is to find old ideas that work well and give them a twist, add a fresh outlook and re-package them.

A few of the biggest markets online are weight loss, dating and how to make money.

Where the basic problems and answers remain pretty much the same, year in year out:

Weight Loss – Eat less and move more.

Dating – Be confident, attentive and listen properly if you’re a man.

- Talk less and remember that most men are very interested in sex (yes really!) if you’re a woman!

How to Make Money – Spend Less Than You Earn.

That’s all there really is to it at a base level …

The problem though is that as there are millions of dollars in these areas there is also a lot of competition.

But if you can find a different angle and learn what it takes to be able to run a successful online business, then you could carve off a tiny part of that topic and make a great living from it.

For example I know of an Equestrian Dating Site – exclusively for horse lovers that does really well.

Or what about weight loss tips for busy teachers (or lawyers, or government workers or whatever niche group you can think of) around the world.

And you only need to start searching online to see the million and one different ways you can try to make money online!

So opportunities are everywhere you just have to apply a little bit of intelligence and cunning when it comes to marketing and re-packaging them.

I hope this helps and remember that old works just fine.

And please add your thoughts and comments as I really want this blog to provide opportunity for debate and discussion on all things related to making money online.

Happy Marketing

John Hillage