So what is a blog? After all, it just looks like a regular website to many people. In fact, it is one of the best ways of holding a conversation online. You can hold this conversation with as many people as you want and it is only limited by the amount of people who come to your blog.
It is a great way to connect with people especially those with similar interests to yourself. Simply put up interesting or controversial thoughts and opinions and invite comment. If you have a particular passion you can easily attract interest from similarly passionate people and stimulate further interest in the subject.
Of course, it hasn't taken long for commercial interests to cotton on to this and see the money making opportunities inherent in this technology. The main object here is to establish yourself as an authority on a particular subject and to build a profile for yourself.
This can work for anybody from an internet marketer selling money making products to your local real estate agent or neighbourhood lawyer. However, building credibility has it's cost. You need to maintain contact with your readership and regularly write interesting and valuable content for your blog. This regular input is the most daunting aspect of blogging unless you are a skilled and competent writer. Fortunately, these written pieces do not have to be very long but they do need to be regular, especially if you are also hoping to get noticed and indexed by the search engines. Getting on the first page of Google is incredibly good for business.
Be careful to avoid blatant advertising in your blogging. Otherwise, it is all too easy to put people off. A casual recommendation is the best promotion. Building your profile and authority will have all the positive spin-off to bring people knocking on the office door. Encourage questions that can showcase your knowledge in your answers.
Google alerts can be emailed to your email address daily and can be a source of inspiration on what to write or discuss with your readership. Regular attendance at online forums on your subject will also give you ideas on what is of current interest on your subject.
Blogging can be purely a platform to share your passion on a chosen subject or it can be a great way to build your business. If it is for building your business be careful not to be too obvious about it. Give good content, good advice and be open and conversational and you can't go wrong.
Blogging is incredibly easy to set up. Google's Blogger.com or WordPress are very easy to set up even for those challenged by technology. And there is now also a new blogging platform for entrepreneurs called Marketive. There is no need to do anything fancy just blog regularly with good content and try to remain current with what is happening in your niche.
Being self-employed is a way of life for almost five million people in the UK now, with some deliberately opting for a life of working independence and others being forced to adopt it.
Figures released by the Resolution Foundation this week said average earnings for self-employed workers are now lower than in 1994-95 but that the UK's self-employed workforce had grown by 45% in the past 15 years.
How has the life of a self-employed worker changed over the years – and what benefits or drawbacks does it bring? Some have shared their stories.
The session singer
JANINE RASCH
"Payments to session singers have increased little in real terms in the past 20 years"
Payments to sessions singers have changed very little in real terms over the past 20 years, according to Sam Blewitt.
The Twickenham-based singer has been self-employed for 30 years and has sung with Madness, The Streets, Dizzee Rascal and Ultravox, as well as on soundtracks for films, TV shows and commercials.
"There have been good times and bad, but generally, I am working for the same as I was 10 or even 15 years ago," said Mr Blewitt. "I do believe I was earning more 20 years ago.
"Then the added impact of the change in people's music-buying habits have really changed the way self-employed musicians and singers earn money. My publishing income from music sales is virtually non-existent these days."
The cleaner
DARREN SMITH
On his 40th birthday Darren Smith decided to make some major life changes including giving up his job in a large shop-fitting company to set up his own cleaning business.
"I was living my life out of a suitcase week in, week out, and though the money was good, when did I get the time to spend it?" said Mr Smith, from Eastwood, Nottinghamshire.
He got a part-time job packing computer components to ensure he had some money coming in while he worked on building up a client base, which involved designing leaflets and delivering them himself.
Nine years on Mr Smith – although earning less – says his decision to become a sole trader was the right one.
"I've taken a big drop in wages, but I have cut my cloth accordingly," he added. "My partner and I live a frugal, but in my eyes, a very rich life. My work-life balance is much better, and yes, there are times when I'd pack it all in tomorrow, but doesn't everyone have days like that?"
The homeopath
SUZANNE WRIGHT
A patchwork career is a modern way of balancing motherhood with work
Suzanne Wright found that when she became a self-employed homeopath her hourly rate was actually higher than when she was employed as a part-time distribution manager. So while her income dropped, it was because she was working fewer hours.
The mum-of-two from Northampton decided to work for herself because she and her husband found it difficult to arrange flexible childcare for their primary school-aged children.
"A lot of people have started up as self-employed in recent years," said Mrs Wright. "Many, like myself, are mums seeking to work for themselves so that they can manage their working hours around school times, so that they can be with their children.
"A patchwork career is a modern way of balancing motherhood with work – it generally means less income, but also more family time."
Mrs Wright said she does have to spend additional time working on marketing and keeping her financial records up-to-date: "I get more career satisfaction now because I'm building something of my own. My husband is in full-time, permanent work, so I do know the mortgage will always be paid."
The shop owner
CHRIS PETTERSON
For the last decade Chris Petterson has owned and run three greeting card shops, but found he had to use his pension from a previous job to supplement his income.
Mr Petterson, from Wakefield, North Yorkshire, has had to work full-time in one of the shops himself but has only been able to pay himself less than the minimum wage.
He said: "I have eight part-time staff but the costs with pay changes and pensions has gradually risen as have rates, rent, utilities, whereas business has plateaued over the same period.
"One of my big frustrations is the unfairness of business rates. I have two shops of similar retail space, but one shop has a rateable value of £6,000 whilst the other is £13,500."
However, he said the positive side of being self-employed was being able to spend more time with his grandchildren.
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Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive markethive.com
FBI Document Dump Proves This Woman Has No Business Anywhere Near Power
I'm guessing that many of you do not know this, but there was another dump of 100 pages from the FBI yesterday relating to the investigation of Hillary Clinton. Folks, I'm here to tell you, there is no way this woman ought to be anywhere near the Oval Office. She ought not be anywhere near the White House. I don't care what Donald Trump's faults are. I don't care what people think of Donald Trump. This woman has no business. I can't believe, after looking at these documents
This is astounding what the FBI dumped yesterday. Why this hasn't been dumped earlier is obvious. It is damning! It is destroying of Hillary Clinton, as a person, as a secretary of state. I go through all these emails. Have any of you who've spent any time going through any of the emails, part of the WikiLeaks dump, are you seeing anybody that works for her talk about what a nice person she is? I am not. I see references to friends of Bill that need this and friends of Bill that need that. I don't see any references to friends of Hillary.
I'm reading a bunch of people who are doing what they can to advance this woman's career because it is their job and because through her they maybe get to advance what their agenda is; but I'm here to tell you, there doesn't appear to be any personal attachment beyond Huma in any of these, including Podesta. You know, Podesta is actually a Bill guy. Podesta was Bill's chief of staff sent over there, runs the Center for American Progress, a leftist think tank, and is now over there steering the Hillary campaign.
I'm telling you, folks, it's incredible. And this 100 pages — and most of it's redacted. The stuff that they haven't redacted is damning. It makes Watergate look like Romper Room. And I'm wondering, what in the hell were they doing at the FBI when they decided none of this was actionable? This goes so far beyond quid pro quo. Of course that's a big, big deal.
But all the stories that we heard back when the Clintons were in the White House about Hillary disliking the Marines, disrespecting the Marines, throwing ashtrays, apparently it's true, because she did it at the State Department. She was so mean to people that State Department security agents, which they have, every bureaucracy has security agents that travel with the ambassadors, with the secretary of state. None of them wanted to work for her. They all quit over the four-year time she was in the secretary of state's office. None of them.
The people that ended up on her detail were brand-new and had no idea. They were the last ones to go there because everybody else begged off, because she was just plain and simple mean and rude and disrespectful. She was violating protocol at every turn. As an example, one of the parent protocols is that when the secretary of state's traveling, you get off the plane and you always join the ambassador to whatever country you're in. The ambassador gets in a limo with you, it's a security thing, too, from the airport into the embassy or wherever you're going.
In other words, when you get off the plane in a foreign country, you are joined at the hip with the ambassador. She never would do it.
The only person allowed to get closer to is Huma Abedin and whoever this guy that runs around with her, this big, big black guy who is there rubbing her back and telling her just keep talking, just keep breathing. He's obviously some medic, and he's constantly around her. Other than this guy and Huma Abedin, she just blows off everybody and everything. You can't find any references, or very few, to people with any affection for her. They're all working for her and they're all trying to rig the game for her, but there doesn't seem to be any affection.
It's amazing what's in these 100 pages alone, and these are from the FBI. This is not WikiLeaks. This is not the result of a hack. They can't say that the Russians are behind this. Now, I don't think that any of this is gonna end up in the Drive-By Media. Because they are part of this. Well, that's part of the WikiLeaks dump, too. But reporters are sending their stories to John Podesta for vetting before they're published. One guy, Glenn Thrush from Politico says (paraphrasing), "Hey, look, now that I've become a (hack) for you guys, I've got this story. Here it is. Make sure it's right before I run with it."
This is happening constantly, not just recently, but constantly with Mrs. Clinton. He's not the only one. All of them, practically everybody in the mainstream media is on her team and coordinating with her and her campaign about how to do stories, what stories to do, what to leave out of them and so forth.
Now to the FBI document dump.
It's a hundred pages and it's dynamite, and it's just astounding, folks. You look at this and you wonder how in the world did this woman not get charged? How in the world did this not get sent to the grand jury? Of course, we know. President Obama didn't want it. He didn't want any of it going anywhere because he's implicated in it. He lied. He said he learned about Hillary's private server while watching the news just like all of us, except that's not true.
He was regularly communicating with her via her private server and all this suspicious email activity using a fake name, a pseudonym, if you will. He was fully aware. And that's why to go after her would have included him, and ah, ah, ah, ah, not going to happen. I did as much looking into this as I could, and I have to tell you, John Hinderaker at Power Line has probably put together the best summary of this.
Yesterday "the FBI released another 100 pages relating to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State." This was not just an investigation that was limited to her emails and server. By definition, it ended up including her conduct as secretary of state. Why it has taken so long for the FBI to review, to redact, and publish — I mean, a hundred pages is a small quantity. It's dynamite. What's in these 100 pages, even what is not redacted is dynamite. But the question, why it has taken so long for the FBI to review, to redact and publish a hundred pages is inexplicable.
The pages that were released yesterday are explosive, big-time explosive. Folks, it's serious stuff. And it all — you can't conclude anything other — this woman ought not be anywhere near the levels of power. This woman is as corrupt as anybody. This makes Watergate, as I say, look like Romper Room. Now, you may have seen headlines that Hillary's State Department tried to pressure the FBI to say that various documents located on her home server were not classified. That was critical. It is critical, obviously, because one of Hillary's lines of defense was to claim — falsely, as it turned out — that she never sent or received classified documents on her off-the-books email system.
She said that in her first press conference that she held at the U.N., and she said it subsequent times. (imitating Hillary) "I never dealt with. I I I I I I never sent or received classified documents. It was a mistake, I'll never do it again, I learned from it, but I never sent classified documents."
But to get the full impact, you have to see the relevant portions of the FBI investigation, and they're all here, in all cases. They've been published and I'm gonna just read to you a so-called executive summary of them. "In the first page, an unidentified FBI employee says he was 'pressured' to change the classification of an email to render it unclassified. This pressure came from someone within the FBI."
This is in FBI documents. This is not somebody's speculation. It was in what was released yesterday. You remember, now, she has denied trafficking in classified documents, sending or receiving. And yet in one of the pages yesterday, an unidentified FBI employee says he was pressured by someone within the FBI to change the classification of an email to render it unclassified.
This person within the FBI "who said he had been contacted by Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who 'had asked his assistance in altering the email’s classification in exchange for a "quid pro quo."'" You may see people denying this left and right at the State Department. It's in the FBI documents. It happened! Somebody within the FBI called over to state, talked to Patrick Kennedy and asked for his help in changing the classification of the email in exchange for a quid pro quo.
And what was the quid pro quo? "The quid pro quo was that, if the FBI would say the email was unclassified, the State Department would allow the FBI to 'place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden.' Subsequently, the interviewee was summoned to an 'all agency' meeting at the State Department to discuss the classification review of the Hillary Clinton emails. This fact," and that's what it is, "is astonishing: the meeting was attended by representatives of the State Department, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency 'and other government agencies,' including, obviously, the FBI."
So you had an all-agency meeting at the State Department to discuss reviewing the classification of Hillary Clinton's emails and changing from classified to unclassified, with all of these government agencies at the meeting. "Patrick Kennedy presided. Someone asked whether any of the Hillary emails that were being reviewed for production were classified. Kennedy replied, 'Well, we’ll see.'"
Meaning, when we get through here, after we've declassified a bunch of 'em, probably not. So they had classified emails, agency-wide meeting with all of these different elements of the government to discuss declassifying certain Hillary emails. Why would they do that? To protect her. To protect them. To protect Obama. There were classified emails. She was trafficking in classified email on her unsecure server that she had lied about and denied doing, that Obama claimed he knew nothing about when he did.
And so it was an all-agency meeting where they circled the wagons and after the fact they're gonna change from classified to unclassified email by email by email in exchange for a quid pro quo for the FBI.
"Following the all agency meeting, Undersecretary of State Kennedy renewed his effort to pressure the FBI to change its classification of the document in question. The FBI representative wouldn’t budge." The FBI said, "No, we are not gonna help you declassify this classified document."
"So Kennedy asked who else at the agency he could talk to. The interviewee gave the name of Michael Steinbach." All of this was in these hundred pages dumped yesterday. "The interviewee then participated in a call with Kennedy and Steinbach, in which Kennedy 'continued to pressure the FBI to change the classified markings on the email to unclassified.' Steinbach refused. What happened next is — deserves to be, anyway — a bombshell.
"Prior to ending the conversation, Kennedy," of the State Department, "asked whether the FBI or State would conduct the public statements on the matter. Steinbach advised Kennedy that the FBI would not comment publicly on the matter."
Well, I mean, folks, right there is corruption admitted to. Here you had an all-agency meeting to discuss the declassification of an email in order to protect Hillary's claim that she had not trafficked in them. And everybody at the meeting admits to and knows what's going on. And the FBI says, "Don't worry, we're not gonna talk about it. Steinbach of the FBI told Kennedy we would not comment publicly on the matter." Meaning, whatever you do, nobody's gonna know about it. We're not gonna blow the whistle on you. Whatever you do, go ahead, we're not talking.
"That was enough for the astonishingly corrupt Hillary Clinton. This is what happened next: The conference call ended and, according to [ ], the Associated Press (AP) published the story within the hour. Former Secretary of State Clinton appeared in front of the press shortly thereafter to deny having sent classified emails on her private email server."
So before she goes out and speaks, they had this agency-wide meeting to declassify something classified, it ends up happening in exchange for quid pro quo. The FBI sitting in on the meeting, "Okay, we're not gonna say a word.' That's the signal to Hillary to go out and lie that she had never sent classified emails on her private email server.
What you have here, folks, is a clear pattern of corruption that, as I say, makes Watergate look like Romper Room. Hillary's aide at the State Department, Patrick Kennedy, tried to bribe the FBI with the promise of a quid pro quo, tried to bribe the FBI to change the classification. It was a Benghazi document, by the way. What's being discussed here is a Benghazi document.
So Patrick Kennedy, Hillary's aide, tried to bribe the FBI to change the classification of a Benghazi document so as to enable Hillary to lie and say that she did not send or receive classified information on her illegal home server. The FBI refused. James Comey was not involved at this stage, by the way. This was before the serious investigation even began. But they learned of it. Comey learned of this later on. He wasn't involved at this point.
"Hillary’s aide then asked whether the FBI would be saying anything publicly about the classification issue," what they just had, the all-agency meeting. "Once assured that the FBI would be silent –" Steinbach said don't worry, we're not saying a word "– Hillary took the stage and alleged publicly, and falsely, that she never used her illegal home server to send or receive classified information."
They had just taken a classified document and agreed to declassify it just because they needed to for her, not because it deserved to be. It was still a classified bit of information, but they declassified it, enabling her to go out and lie. This is just one document. How many critically important documents have been given the same treatment, have been discussed in the same way? The State Department has put some documents, archived them way back down in the basement, nobody to ever see them again
Folks, this is just one element of what's in this hundred page dump. But this one, this story illustrates the full-fledged corruption of Hillary Clinton's State Department, working with the FBI. She says she never trafficked in classified data, sending it or receiving it. She said that after an agency-wide meeting, an all-agency meeting in which a document about Benghazi was declassified.
Richard Nixon only dreamed of this kind of stuff. On the surface it may not sound like it's that big a deal when treated to governments doing things, our government especially in private, prying eyes don't see it. She's been lying through her teeth. Everybody on her side, everybody has been lying about what went on, trying to maintain the idea that she never trafficked in classified documents.
She did, she knew she did. She knew she was lying about it. She corrupted a bunch of agencies to collude and get together to change the classification on her behalf so that she could go out and lie. She was enabled as a liar with the mass participation of a bunch of other government agencies.
An O.S.H.I.T. Moment? Folks the USA appears far more corrupt than even Russia or Venezuela!
Guess what, my friends? Obama's got a press conference, or just finished one with the prime minister of Italy in the Rose Garden. He was asked about what I just shared with you. Question by Kevin Freking of the AP. "Mr. President, does it distress you that folks at the FBI and State Department talked about the proper level of classification of emails that were on Secretary Clinton's server? Would you acknowledge the appearance of impropriety and should the State Department officials look into this further."
OBAMA: You've heard directly from both the FBI and the State Department that the notion or the accounts that have been put out there are just not true. And, you know, you can question them again, but based on what we have seen, heard, learned, some of the more sensational implications or appearances, as you stated them, aren't based on actual events and based on what actually happened and I think derive from sort of overly broad characterizations of interactions between the State Department and the FBI that happen a lot.
He's flat-out calling everybody involved in this a liar. He's saying it never happened. The evidence is from the FBI, documents released from the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's conduct as secretary of state, deriving from and originating with her email server. So here's Mr. Obama who told us that he didn't know about any of this until he heard about it on the news, which is a lie because he was emailing Mrs. Clinton. By definition, everything he sends is classified. Everything the president sends, everything he writes, it's classified at origin by virtue of the fact he's sending it. "I didn't know 'til I read about in the news, just like all of you."
He was using a fake name! The man who said you like your doctor, keep your doctor, you like your plan, keep your plan. The man that told you your premiums are gonna be reduced $2,500. The man has lied I don't know how many times about how many things. He and Hillary are in a race to see who's the king or queen of lying, plus we know this is a corrupt bunch! He's just called everybody involved "Oh, they have these interagency meetings all the time, you know, these rivalries, they've already denied it." The allegations were not even made. The information comes from the FBI in a 100-page document dump yesterday, and he just called everybody involved a liar. "It isn't true. They said it didn't happen." Come on, folks, come on. We know what's going on.
For the record, ladies and gentlemen, there are four people, at least four people who have talked about the pressure to take a classified Benghazi document and make it unclassified. Two of the people at the FBI, two of the people the State Department. Four people independently have said they were pressured to do this. Barack Obama has just called them liars as well.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, there seems to be some confusion where these hundred pages came from. They are official. And the best I have been able to determine is that the FBI released these 100 pages that everybody's talking about. (interruption) Well, I usually am. But some people are saying, "No, no, no. The FBI didn't officially do it. Somebody at the FBI did it 'cause they're ticked off and they think Hillary should be arrested."
In other words, somebody's trying to tell me that a rogue element released documents. Everything I've seen is the FBI itself did this and that Comey was not aware or involved. Comey wasn't involved in this all-agency meeting that took place. Look, let me summarize this and try to tell you why this matters.
This is standard operating procedure for Bill and Hillary Clinton. This is a woman who destroyed subpoenaed documents in a court case way back in the nineties. These are the people that hid billing records and other relevant documents sought by a court for years that mysteriously turned up on a table in the Map Room in the White House during their first term in the White House. Then the whole Lewinsky scandal happened, and we know how everything was — if it hadn't been for that blue dress — seriously, folks.
I'm not trying to be funny here. If it hadn't been for that blue dress Bill Clinton would have gotten away with saying (Clinton impression), "I never had sex with that woman, not a single time, not ever, and I never asked anybody to lie," he would have gotten away with that. We would have never known the truth. If it hadn't been for the fact that Linda Tripp, I think it was, convinced Lewinsky to give up that blue dress, and she kept the blue dress because it was historical, it was a souvenir. She loved the guy and having his semen was, I guess, a memento.
So there it was. This is how the Clintons operate. They accuse. This is a woman who was thrown off the Nixon Watergate committee as a Democrat lawyer. She was thrown off by Peter Rodino, the chairman, because she was trying to engender things that would deny Nixon and his legal team constitutional rights during the Watergate investigation. This woman is every bit the Alinskyite that Barack Obama is. She was an Alinskyite before Obama was. Her thesis, and she was at Wellesley, was on Alinsky.
But the woman is dishonest. She is dishonest and she is corrupt. Look at the Clinton Foundation. This is an organization set up to take donations in the multiple millions of dollars from foreign governments and foreign wealthy individuals while she was secretary of state and while she's campaigning for president. Now, folks, the people giving the Clintons money are not doing it 'cause they like her. They're not giving her $300,000 to make speeches at banks because, wow, she says such interesting things. They are buying the Clintons. They are buying access because the Clintons have made it known their entire public life they can be bought.
The Clintons do not do much of anything aboveboard.
At any rate, so there's a history, a documented history. Now, if you're a Millennial — Millennials do not know of the existence and the nature and the truth of Soviet communism. It's not been taught to them. So "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," the Berlin Wall falling, the Cold War and its meaning and relevance all during the sixties is irrelevant to them.
They simply don't know. They haven't been taught about it. And that's, of course, by design. If you're not gonna teach communism, if you're not gonna teach what it really is, it makes selling socialism easy. This is exactly what they've done. Same token here. Millennials, a young group of people, do not know of the Clintons of the nineties. To you and me, we know it like the back of our hand. But young people don't. And some low-information people don't as well.
So, in addition to all of the things starting with Whitewater, all moving forward, everything the Clintons have done — well, can't say "everything" — the vast majority of what the Clintons have done has had many purposes, but at the top of the list is personal enrichment.
Do you know that she also stole furniture from the State Department when she left? That's in this document dump. She stole furniture from the State Department when she left just like they stole furniture from the White House when they left. She just picked up and took what she wanted. Violates all kinds of protocols. Would not hang around with ambassadors, would not travel with them, would not give them the perk of appearing with the secretary of state, would not let them fly in the plane, would not them ride in the limousine.
Only Huma Abedin was allowed body contact. Nobody else. The security agents for the State Department all wanted to quit her detail. She was so rude, mean, disrespectful, none of them wanted to work for her over the course of her four-year term as secretary of state, which comports with everything we'd heard about the way she treated Secret Service agents in the White House and Marines and other uniformed military personnel. The woman is a viper and she's dishonest and corrupt. And it's the way of the world in that world the Clintons occupy.
So just to review, hundred pages released by the FBI yesterday clearly detail an all-agency meeting wherein the State Department and a guy named Patrick Kennedy attempted to persuade other government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency and others to go along with changing the classification of, in this case, one particular document detailing Benghazi, from classified to unclassified, so that Mrs. Clinton could go out and do a press conference and claim that she had never trafficked in classified information.
And in exchange for doing this, the FBI was offered, in exchange for doing this, an increased presence in foreign countries to do investigations and other things. You remember what the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia were blown up, the FBI's right there investigating, because American citizens were dead. So the FBI can go, but they are limited in what they can do. State Department has purview. So a carrot was dangled that allowed the FBI a little bit more access and power in exchange for going along with declassifying a classified document.
Four people — two state, two FBI — have added to what's in these hundred pages claiming they were pressured to go along with this. Now, President Obama just had a press conference concluded recently at the White House with the Italian prime minister in which he was asked about this. Now, there's two sound bites.
So here's the question. "Mr. President, does it distress you that people at the FBI and the State Department talked about the proper level of classification of emails that were on Secretary Clinton's server? Would you acknowledge the appearance of impropriety, and should the State Department look into this further?"
OBAMA: You've heard directly from both the FBI and the State Department that the notion or the accounts that have been put out there are just not true. And, you know, you can question them again, but based on what we have seen, heard, learned, some of the more sensational implications or appearances, as you stated them, aren't based on actual events and based on what actually happened and I think derive from sort of overly broad characterizations of interactions between the State Department and the FBI that happen a lot. It happened between agencies.
The short version of that is "It didn't happen. It's all made up, not true, uh, these things happen all the time." So he's denying, calling people liars. This is in an FBI document dump. This is not something that some right-wing website found and is publishing. This is from the Obama FBI. And he's claiming everybody involved — and there are independent people. As I say, four others who are claiming they have been pressured to go along with the declassification of classified documents on Mrs. Clinton's server.
I can imagine some of you, "What does that matter? There's so many other things, what does it matter?" It matters because, folks, it's a culmination of things. The cumulative effect of behavioral patterns here that indicate this woman is dishonest, is corrupt and has no business even taking the oath of office because she cannot honestly do it. She has no business being president of the United States.
She uses the power that you get as an elected official or appointed official at the upper echelons of U.S. government to artificially alter and change things in her favor outside of courts of law, things that no one else could do or try. Things for which we have forced a president to resign simply because he thought he wanted to. Richard Nixon and Watergate, that's nothing compared to what has actually gone on here, but it gets better.
Surfing isn’t as mellow and laid back as those picture-perfect images of Malibu sunsets make it look. Out in the water can be a real hustle. Very often you’ve got to paddle out into a line-up of established and hostile faces and stake your claim for a right to be there. Sound familiar?
2.Think outside the box
As with business, it’s very often the people who don’t follow the crowd that reap the rewards in surfing. Those people who are prepared to take a chance and go a long way out of their way to search for new ways to rip the ocean waves are the pioneers. Guaranteed they’re surfing innovations are rewarding them extreme new surfing experiences as well as netting great wealth in the process.
3.Surfing teaches you failure
Like nothing else. (Except maybe business!) When you first start out you’re gonna try, try and try and fail, fail and fail. Cold water will rush through your sinuses. Your arms will feel like someone’s tried to rip them from your body. People will shout at you telling you to get out of their way. And yet, you can see those guys, just beyond the breakers, gliding along the face of the waves like they were raised by a pod of dolphins. Don’t let the failure hurt you. Get back on your board, stick with it, and you’ll get there. Once again – sound familiar?
4.Live on a shoestring
Surfers know how to exist with very little. They can make $100 dollars last longer than most people would imagine possible. They don’t go on holidays, they go on expeditions, and they want to stay away for as long as they possibly can. Two months on a remote Indonesian island eating nothing but rice and bananas? If the waves are good it’s all worth it. Surfers make sacrifices for their passion, just like the most successful startups.
5.See the bigger picture
When you’re starting a business, it’s so easy to let it become your world. Tunnel vision kicks in and you can’t think of anything except the next list of potential clients you’ve got to email or what a blogger said about you on Twitter. Here’s where surfers have an advantage. A little time spent in the ocean reminds you that there’s a much bigger world out there; that you’re just a tiny part of it. That kind of perspective can be helpful when you’re stressing about how many Facebook likes you got this week.
I was born an entrepreneur, but surfing entered my life when I first saw the ocean at the age of three. I was thunder struck and fell in love with that big blue ocean. Every real surfer I know is an entrepreneur. Unable and unwilling to hold a job down longer than the next swell.
Kawabunga, Markethive is my newest surf board to ride the coming quadrillion dollar swell. Are you with me?
Well? Are you?
Thomas Prendergast
Big Kahuena and CEO of Markethive.
I pray that the majority of Americans have common sense, good sense, curiosity, empathy and self respect. This machine, this matrix, this system we live in has usually been subtle in controlling us.
Remember 911 (2001) just a terrorist attach folks, go back to work and keep shopping? But as well as that deception was done, it began to unravel. And continued to do so. At first we (including myself) rejected the notion it was a false flag, but even I came around to see it as such.
That was 2001, 15 years ago. A lot has transpired and I believe we have all had our "take the red pill" moments. The majority of us, know something is wrong.
And here is the sweetness of Trump. He is the "outsider", he beat 16 other Republicans, all of them puppets of the system. Even Ted Cruz with his hand tucked under his coat (AKA Glenn Beck Illuminati meltdown drama queen).
As this machine consorts and thrashes and screams ever louder with more frantic and obvious desperate attempts to destroy Trump, The huge revealed cheating (ie: the polls) the obvious gamed debates, the false accusations and manufactured witnesses, it is becoming so very clear, that a vote for Trump is a knife in the systems heart.
I ultimately trust the American people, that they have and are waking up, that this election is the beginning of a huge revolution. This election's outcome will have two stark paths; An America where WW3, ruin and civil war, despair, will be our reward, or an America were the people's unity is restored, the Rise of the Entrepreneur will lead America into a innovation and new wealth for all renaissance making America the greatest nation on earth (again). The choice has never been more clear.
Vote carefully, as this time your life depends on it.
The choices have never been more black and white, good vs evil, prosperity vs disparity, honesty vs deception, life vs death.
is the only system that does not violate good email practices
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Forrester Research)
(Or, how to build an effective email auto responder campaign primarily attracting your outside leads via capture pages, to join through you in Markethive’s Social Network. Then we, as a team, continue to turn your leads into raving advocates and your best friends. Remember, Markethive is your partner)
What we are not and never will be
Let me explain what the traditional nurturing systems do and how we do not utilize their spying bad email practices. First, let me illustrate how traditional email nurturing works. A typical corporate inbound marketing email system uses hidden image pixels within their email that reports back to the server, the IP address, email address, geo location and when that email is opened and how many times it is opened and the dates and times it is opened.
Now what Lead Nurturing is really all about according to Markethive
Selling in today’s market isn’t for the timid or inexperienced marketer. Today’s prospects are researching according to their needs and on their terms, and they expect treatment accordingly and with respect. They are drawn towards companies and services that are personalized, friendly and timely. As marketers we must be ready to meet each prospective customer on their terms their way.
How can you make sure you are sharing the right information at the right time, and getting it to the right person? Markethive’s lead systems automate this process for you. As an entrepreneur seeking to attract likeminded entrepreneurs, Markethive’s Alpha Workshop systems, gently coach your leads (your children) through a learning and awareness program. This program rewards your “leads” (your children) to expand their profiles (IE: Phone numbers, Skype address, multiple Social Networks, keeping the email current, etc.) This process wields you to your leads, prospects (now you know why we call them children) for life.
Unlike the “other” traditional vertical systems, Markethive’s workshops, tools, and social networks, develop your prospects into well educated, integrated members of your own social network within the Markethive overall system.
When your “campaigns” bring in “leads” at the core of your custom Markethive auto responders, should always include an invite into the Markethive environment via your automatically “dripping” relevant messages to your leads over time.
The Markethive system can address various products of interest, pain points, common objections during the sales cycle, and more, depending upon your targets and goals, the number of campaigns you build the crossover of these campaigns and your eventual goal being to turn prospects into subscribers, subscribers into customers and those customers into lifelong friends.
With Markethive’s campaign systems, your system’s customers are placed on a track based on what we know about them. You’re learning more about your customers every day — as they learn more about you — so the nurturing process is a two pronged arena, both from your customized systems and the Markethive Social Network. Eventually all your leads become associated with you becoming your “children” or family for life, obviously you becoming the “parent”.
Stop wasting time.
If you engage a “child “lead too early, you have to spend a lot of time explaining what your solution does and pitching the value. Nurturing has the power to significantly speed up your connected cycle by taking care of some of that education before a lead even becomes active within the Markethive Network. It’s effective for both those actively evaluating your brand, and those who aren’t quite there yet — just make sure you use data to deliver the right message.
Markethive sees to it your leads are raised up effectively preparing them to embrace working with you and appreciating the power of the Markethive system and the incredible ease of the learning venture.
No longer deal with Dormant Leads
Today we are strapped for time and resources. If you’re balancing multiple priorities and doing everything manually, it’s easy to go too long without checking up on your leads. Markethive fills the gap with our constant offering and rewards for our automated and live marketing workshops. These workshops address all the power of the Markethive platform, turning your "lead“" (children” into virtual marketing warriors.
When you add your own flavor to this process, your “children” become loyal lifetime clients, friends and associates for life.
So it makes sense to add the invite to join your Markethive family to all your autoresponder campaigns with Markethive capture pages and widgets.
Building your own Campaigns to nurture your array of leads
Markethive’s core focus is building your portfolio of Markethive “children” leads into powerful allies joining you to improve your overall marketing effectiveness and reach.
Depending on the type of capture lead you develop; here are a few examples to build your capture page leads into members of your business, team, agenda, etc.
Welcome Campaign
Welcome emails in response to a particular offer are highly anticipated, frequently opened, and simple to automate. By turning your welcome emails into a nurturing campaign, you can begin to establish a lasting relationship. In the initial email, remember to remind them why they converted, confirm their opt-in, and let them know what to expect from your program. Then, start providing them with light, educational content to build awareness and keep them interested. Be sure to keep it targeted based on the offer they converted on and especially invite them to join Markethive as your special member offering them the many incentives Markethive offers. Invite them to your Markethive blogs and Groups to join and experience the power and family of the Markethive experience.
Top-of-Mind Campaign
The top-of-mind drip is designed to engage with your leads at regular intervals, preventing leads from forgetting about your company and getting swooped up by your competitors. This drip takes place over a longer period of time, providing sales with consistent touch points, and uses content primarily focused on value to the prospect. For early-stage leads, make sure to choose the right content. Start engaging them with interesting Markethive blog posts, helpful third-party content, and other content around related topics, and watch for key activities that indicate they are interested in learning more about your actual offering. Engaging in your blogs or joining your groups signals your leads are ready to upgrade to the culture of the Entrepreneur and join you in Markethive as a premium lead (we call them childen).
Re-engagement Campaign
Have an old list on Aweber or another email service? Here is an idea. Not all of your prospects will make it through this process. But by consistently inviting your lead databases on the other email systems, to engage in your Markethive blogs, join your Markethive groups or come subscribe and experience the difference with the first Market Network called Markethive. Markethive’s workshops make your leads become family. And that makes for a loyalty program that lasts a lifetime.
Product-focused Campaign
As prospects progress through the sales process and begin to seek out more product-focused content, you’ll want to make sure they’re getting the right product information from your series of auto responders, instead of a competitor or biased third party. Focus on your prospects’ pain points, how your product can address them, and the key features and benefits that will help along the way. For this type of drip, you’ll want to invite them to Markethive Groups regarding the case studies, customer testimonials, data sheets, and more in-depth white papers found there. Be sure you have visibility into all touchpoints with your customers so that you can tailor your conversations based on activity history. Remember; produce auto responders that engage your leads to continue the reading via your Markethive blogs (In other words, do not tell the whole story in your email). This is where you will be able to convert many of your leads into raving maniacs!
Competitive Drips
This type of campaign focuses on differentiating your product or service from your competitors by highlighting the advantages of using your product, as well as the disadvantages of not using it (note: you’ll want to refrain from harping on the disadvantages of your competitors’ products, since this can come off as distasteful). Focus your content on the priorities of your prospects and the competitors that come up in deals with your company. A general differentiator campaign can be effective, but if you know that a customer is currently using or evaluating a particular competitor, you can really position your product to win. Invite them to a special Group that is being set up to evaluate the different products and reporting within that Markethive Group. Access to the Groups does require Markethive (free) subscription and this is exactly what you want with all your contacts. To work within the Market Network of Markehive.
Industry Expertise Drips
As prospects move closer to the middle of the funnel (register for a Markethive account), it becomes important to reinforce that your company is the right choice. Pass on any helpful press releases, industry reports, or high-traffic content as part of this drip to establish your company’s authority. For example, if your company was recently covered by an analyst report, be sure to share it with your prospects and put your own spin on the review. Make sure all relevant information is available in Markethive Blogs and Groups.
Promotional Drips
As your prospects near the purchase stage of the sales funnel, a well-timed promotion or special discount can be just the catalyst they need. (Markethive has numerous services to offer for this) Consider offering special pricing or additional features based on their individual needs, especially if you’re working with bigger accounts where closing the deal is critical to growing your business. This also works well for companies that use a free trial model. The right offer near the end of the trial can help encourage customers to commit. (Like I keep saying, with Markethive’s Hive Portals and other powerful services for free, building a huge organization of customers, clients, friends and advocates, is real easy)
Onboarding Campaign
Onboarding a new client will always be a high-touch and manual process, and rightly so. However, nurturing campaigns allow you to automate some of the more repetitive tasks involved in onboarding, like providing introductory training resources, a list of next steps after close, timelines for product kickoffs, and frequently asked questions. These helpful resources can help your new clients get started on their own, without having to wait on a customer service rep for assistance.
Upsell Drip
The upsell (or cross-sell) campaign is designed to capitalize on your existing clients. By providing your clients with information and incentives to expand the list of products they are using, you can drive more revenue with little effort. Just be sure to focus your message around the benefits of the new offering, and remember to use a tone that feels friendly and approachable to your customers.
Renewal Campaign
Renewal nurtures can be a convenient way to remind your existing customers that it is time to renew their contracts. This drip can be triggered a month (or more) before the renewal date, send multiple reminder emails over a specified period of time, and notify the assigned account manager if no action takes place. This makes it far less likely that your clients will miss the renewals on their contracts, and takes the tedium out of the process for your service reps.
How Lead Nurturing Usually Works
The benefits of implementing a lead nurturing program are pretty self-explanatory, but how does nurturing actually work? Let’s take a look at some of the mechanics behind nurturing to see the steps involved in setting up a successful nurturing program.
1. Choose the type of campaign you would like to run. As discussed in the previous chapter, there are several different types of programs you can run based on what you want to accomplish. Are you hoping to revive inactive leads? Remind your current clients that renewals are fast approaching? Your next steps will hinge on this initial decision.
2. Choose the list you would like to nurture. Lists and segmentations are the reason that drip emails can be so highly targeted. If you want to nurture a specific segment of your database, sort these prospects or clients onto the same list. Need some inspiration to get your wheels turning? Try segmenting by specific locations, certain product segments, new users, or leads who have been cold for longer than six months. You can use logic rules to filter your prospects accordingly; this will also ensure any new prospects entering your database are evaluated and added to the campaign automatically.
3. Build up your flow and decide on your content.
Once you’ve decided which list to target with your campaign, you’re ready to develop your drip campaign and choose your content. There are several items to consider here:
• How often will you be sending drip emails to this list? This will depend on the type of campaign you’re running. If you have a long sales cycle and are targeting a list of inactive leads, consider spacing emails further apart. Other emails, like training emails or time-sensitive renewals, might be spaced closer together. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend sending emails between six and 30 days apart (to prevent sending more than one email in one week, or going more than a month between touch points).
• How complex do you want your drip campaigns to be? Your nurturing tracks can be as simple or as complicated as you want — it all depends on the drip logic that you create. Nurturing campaigns can be set up linearly, where prospects will progress through them in straight lines, offering different action points to different capture pages, groups, blogs, profile page to eventually bring them all into the social environment of Markethive where the ultimate nurturing occurs.
• Don’t forget Markethive. With capture widgets that can be embedded into blogs, capture pages, landing pages, etc. any auto responder can easily branch but should always lead to your leads (that are not Markethive Members) to become Markethive Members, where the extreme nurturing takes place.
• What will trigger each prospect to move to the next stage of the drip program? Lead nurturing is a type of trigger-based marketing, a technique that allows marketers to deliver highly relevant messaging based on a prospect’s response or reaction to an offer. Marketers can use many differing incentives to pull from your flat leads list (limited to a name, email), whether in Markethive, Aweber, Get Response, Mail Chimp, etc. to come into the extreme nurture environment of Markethive.
Markethive the ultimate Lead Nurturing environment:
You invite a list of customers to register for an upcoming webinar. Those who register are thanked and sent a related blog post. Those who do not open their email or respond are undetected. Markethive uses only good email practices. Put spying agents into an email to determine if it gets opened goes against our privacy policies and good email practices.
A prospect on an early-stage education nurture accesses your latest e-book offer, views several key pages on your Markethive blog, or registers into your Markethive capture page to view a video. Their value shoots up quickly as they finally enter into the Markethive environment! Email drips should always include invites to join Markethive Membership. You get the upgrade notification, and quickly connect with her, seeing her activity history so you understand exactly what she’s interested in.
Markethive invented Inbound Marketing. We did this back in the 1990s with a company called Veretekk. Our primary drive was we found spam, telemarketer calls and email violation (bad email practices) wrong, distasteful and not effective. Back then the standard procedure was to buy a database, spam them, cold call them and beat them over the head. This did not work, violated my “Do Good” policies in general.
In building the first Inbound Marketing, I focused on attracting traffic and offering them valuable services for free in return for their contact information. Once subscribed to a traffic portal we nurtured them to subscribe to the “whole enchilada” the Veretekk membership, where we trained and empowered them and most upgraded there to become paying subscribers and advocating zealots.
That was 20 years ago. A lot has evolved, but the underlying principles of integrity and good practices still remains foundational to Markethive.
Thus we built the Inbound Marketing platform (Markethive) to always result in the “lead, prospect” to ultimately enter into the Markethive community where true nurturing can occur in the social environment. We offer this alternative so we can avoid utilizing email sniffing techniques that in the opinion of email security companies like SORBs and IronPort are violations of privacy and considered bad email practices.
How does an email sniffer work? When an email is sent it will have a 1 pixel coded image that alerts a script on the mother server when it displays. All image displays draw upon the server and live a log footprint, IP address, date stamp as well as other information transferred that is found in that image name string.
This is akin to spying and is why email clients like Gmail default your email to NOT display images. The only thing an email sender should tract in an email is its deliverability or if it bounced and why. (ie: Spam, Mail Box Full. No such client “server to server codes”). And we do report that data in our system.
This is an example tracking image link:
Enough said? Markethive offers Good Practices and a better Lead Nurturing environment and solution. There are no shortcuts with Markethive. We always do it right.
But we are making WordPress better! Let me explain:
WordPress has established itself as the 400lb undisputed CMS (Content Management System). WordPress is taking over the Internet! And MarketHive is retooling to support and make WordPress better. Over 75 million sites now depend on WordPress. In the realm of self-hosted sites, WordPress accounts for over 19% of all websites. What is even more amazing is that over 70% of sites worldwide do not use a CMS.
22% of new US registered domains run on WordPress. Out of every 100 domains in the US, 22 of them will be run on WordPress. Considering that an average of 120,000 domains are registered worldwide per day, it's safe to say that WordPress is growing by leaps and bounds. That "18.9% of all websites" figure is exponentially increasing.
WordPress receives more unique visitors than Amazon! WordPress records an astonishing 126M unique visitors per month, while Amazon falls quite a ways behind, clocking in at 96M unique visitors per month.
6 New WordPress posts every second! That's right. Every second, close to 6 new posts are published on WordPress blogs. That averages out to 34.2 posts per minute. Just about 20,000 per day. And a grand total of 7.5 million annually.
Not only is WordPress.org the world's most popular self-hosted CMS solution, but the free version is also second in popularity on the list of free blogging platforms, with Google's own Blogger.com topping it.
29,000 WordPress plugins and growing daily. Without doubt, the number one feature that sets WordPress apart from any other CMS is their plugins. Plugins extend and capitalize on the functionality of WordPress, removing access to them would cripple WordPress users (and that's one of the reasons why WordPress falls second to Blogger).
Fortunately, nothing of the sort is happening. On the contrary, WordPress.org's database of plugins has recently hit 29k and a new one is added nearly every hour. In total, these plugins have been downloaded 286,000,000+ times. Give it a few more years and you'll be hearing "there's a plug in for that".
WordPress is most popular with business websites. Of the top one million sites, the number of business sites (most popular with WordPress) powered by WordPress is five times the number of WordPress-managed news sites (least popular with WordPress).
This statistic is not all that surprising, as online marketing circles will often discuss WordPress more than any other CMS out there. WordPress also ranks high as one of the most blogged topics in the online marketing niche and nearly all its keywords have very high PPC competition.
So the Point is clear:
Do we build a competitive option to WordPress? Or do we move forward with our abilities and our Blog platform to support and make WordPress better? Stupid question! The force multiplier ability of MarketHive's platform, the technology we already have, our very mission in fact, begs us to support and empower WordPress!
If you have yet to explore or utilize the tools we already have in our blogging platform, do it today. It is becoming a virtual gold mine for those entrepreneurs that have discovered how MarketHive can make your WordPress or many WordPress sites, effective, powerful SEO machines, including an exponential increase in Social Network sharing as well as massive legitimate engagement in the comments systems.
If you have a WordPress site, join us. If you have already joined us, explore our Blog platform, build your teams, down load the plugins and watch your WordPress campaigns explode!
Now that is what Harvard business school calls a Force Multiplier!
MarketHive did not make WordPress but we make WordPress better!
If you ever wondered what drives Markethive? This video explains it all. We did this for you. This is why it is basically free. This is why it was built, for all of the entrepreneurs who strugle and have a dream.
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