Ask Database

I know a few people that pay money for the “Ask Database” service by Alex Mandossian.

I’ve found free alternatives for two of the features:

1. The “Ask A Question” form (this is great to help bulk up sites and give a “more content” feel, as well as to get valuable customer input.

2. The obnoxious text popup when someone tries to leave.  I haven’t used this yet, but I figured I’d throw it out there.

For the “Ask A Question” form, you can get a free script right here. As I said, this is great to bulk up the content section of a website. I use both “Ask A Question” and “Submit A Topic” on one of my websites. It’s essentially the same thing, but it really bulks my site up well.

For the obnoxious text popup, use this code (I found it on The Warrior Forum from member “dabuzz”:

<script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript”>

var exit=true;
function unLoad()
{
if (exit && document.all) {
	var popPage;
	var popHeight=550;
	var popWidth=520;
	popPage = “http://www.yoursite.com/popup-page.htm“;
	showModalDialog(popPage,window,’status:no; help:no;
dialogHeight:’+popHeight+”px; dialogWidth:”+popWidth+”px;”); }
}
window.onunload=unLoad;
</script>

(Enter the “dialogHeight” line of code in a new line, and make sure it’s in the preceding one… right after help:no;)

Add it RIGHT after the “<body>” tag, and don’t forget to upload your pop-up page..
and replace: “http://www.yoursite.com/why.htm” in the above code with your URL.

CMS Infusion or Joomla or aMember

So I said I’d get back with my reviews…

Because of Ryan Deiss’s endorsement (and the fact that Dan Raine uses it for Immediate Edge), I decided to try aMember again. I had tried it a while ago and found it kind of confusing. It’s either become much easier, or I’ve become much more adept - either way, I definitely like it more than the other two.

(And they’ll install it for you if you don’t find it easy, anyway).

As you can see from my CMS Infusion review, I really wasn’t 100% thrilled with it anyway… and I mentioned that if someone could make a CMS Infusion + XSite Pro product together, I’d be all over it.

One thing that I’ve learned is that there’s always an “Option C”… and my “Option C” was using XSitePro + aMember.

This works out great because XSitePro is incredibly robust (maybe not as robust as Joomla as far as all the extensions, but you can easily add scripts to XSP…) and the learning curve is pretty much nonexistent. It’s the most user friendly piece of software EVER.

aMember integrates wonderfully with it, and like I said, they’ll install it wherever you need it, anyway.

I’ll write more on this later… running out to brunch with a few friends, haven’t seen them in weeks!

Jason Henderson Is Going To Be The Next Internet Millionaire!

My little buddy, Jason Henderson was picked as the first contestant for The Next Internet Millionaire reality show!

Yay! He’s going to dominate the competition!

It’s not just me who believes this, either. Check out over 30 videos about Jason Henderson and The Next Internet Millionaire. He has some of the top marketers in the world endorsing him (besides me, of course. ;))

P.S. - I interviewed him for that second video, but he CUT ME OUT! Pfft!

P.P.S. -  I was promised that he’ll come to PA when he makes the top 12, and that he’ll take me to dinner. I’m making it public now, and I’ll be updating you as to his progress! :)

Back from Cancun!

Well, I’m finally back home for a little bit!

I’ll be home for about a month, and then I start my cross country journey somewhere between August 10-12.

I took a video of one of the beaches, and also part of my horse riding journey. Let me tell you… speaking Spanish (I was doing really well!), while riding a horse (my first time!) on a beautiful trail in Mexico… that’s the life!

Here are some pictures:

Cancun

That’s the gorgeous beach…

Cancun

My sister and I after horseback riding. The instructor told us to hold hands… I ended up loving the picture!

Cancun

I love all inclusive, and I *really* love barstools inside of a pool!

Cancun

My sister got incredibly burnt, despite using suntan lotion…

Cancun

That horse was $250,000 and worked for the Queen of England!

Rach

An hour or so into the trip and a few glasses of wine later..

Cancun

Our last night… :(… but on the bright side, check out my tan! :)

cancun

I’m a huge nerd. I’ll leave it at that. :)

Cancun

How beautiful is that!?

Road trip!

I decided that I’m going to drive to California from my house in Philadelphia.

I have the Playboy Mansion party in Beverly Hills on August 17th, Wizard Training Camp in Santa Barbara from September 2-6, and TIMME 3 from the 14-16 in San Francisco.

I LOVE California anyway, so why not stay and explore?

Anyway… if you live anywhere on the way from Philly to Cali, let me know… we should meet up!

(Okay, back to packing for Cancun :))

Warrior Camp!!

So I had the most amazing time at Warrior Camp ever… best week of my life, by far.

I really don’t have a lot of time this weekend, so I made a quick recording to briefly discuss my experiences.

Point blank - You need to go there. I don’t care who you are.

As I said in the audio, if you are struggling to afford it, let me know, and I’ll send you back the affiliate commission that I get when you sign up. I have no problem doing that - I feel that strongly about the camp. (If you can afford it, please be fair).

They do have payment plans… and again, like I said in the audio, I don’t care what your situation is. I don’t care if you’re living out of a cardboard box. You need to go. The end.

For some reason, I can’t get the audio to be embedded in the page. I’m sure I could do it if I put more time into it, but I’m really in a hurry. Please just download the file right here.

If you call and give my name, then you have 30 days from June 28 to get the special seminar pricing of $2995 (the class is normally $5995 or $6995 - I don’t remember which one). You really need to act fast though, because they only do the classes during summertimes, and most of them sell out a year in advance. There are a few classes with limited seating available though.Call 1-888-868-8883, give them my name for the discounted price, and sign up! You can also view more about the camp right here.

YOU NEED TO GO.

P.S. - I’m sort of in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to edit out the 53 million times that I said “like”, “incredible”, or “powerful”. And I usually talk faster than that, so be grateful. :))

P.P.S. - Despite what it sounds like, I swear I’m 24. ;)

Update…

I’ll be out of town next week, and I won’t have access to the Internet.

I’m going to T. Harv Eker’s Warrior Camp. It’s going to be 5 days in the wilderness with all sorts of insane assignments. I’m so excited, this is SO out of my comfort zone, and so not me. :)

I’ll be back for a few days, and then I’m going to Cancun the very next week. My sister won a trip and invited me. :)

I hope to have a computer with wireless access by then… but if not, that’s why I won’t have the positive things updated.

Have a great week (or two!)

Positive Things

(If you don’t know what the deal is with the positive things, please go here.)

Anyway, the excerpt has been copied and pasted for your viewing pleasure:

—

1. I decided to not go to a seminar that I was going to go to in August in
order to justify going to… drumroll please… the Rich Jerk’s Playboy
Mansion party!!! I’m SO excited!! I wasn’t going to go, but a lot of other
people are going… plus Jason James had a bonus where you could
JV with him and his list of 75k subscribers plus his 10k customers…
so with my 5% conversion on TSR, even if only 1% open his email and
go to my link, I should hopefully make my investment back. I made a
special report about how I get the top rankings for him, so that should
increase purchases as well. But whatever - PLAYBOY MANSION!

I’m so excited! I found the perfect dress for it too. Look at it here!!

I’m in love. :)

I put up a blowout WSO today in order to fund the dress before I leave,
because I’m afraid it’ll sell out. I sold 3 copies so far.

2. I lost 6 pounds! Yaaaaay!

3. Speaking of lost weight… hehe… I’m doing this thing where I eat
high protein, low carb… actually it’s a specific diet recommended by Tim
Ferriss, the author of The Four Hour Workweek. Anyway though, I have
to be super strict all week, and then Saturdays, I can eat anything I want.
Literally. He says he eats like.. 12 cupcakes a day, tons of candy bars,
etc. etc… and almost makes himself so sick that he doesn’t want to eat
carbs for the rest of the week.

I’m just excited to have Swedish Fish tomorrow. ;)

(And as you can see, that fruitarian diet didn’t work out. haha.)

4. I was playing with aMember today, and I think I like it a lot better
than CMSI. In fact, I wrote for a refund (haven’t yet got an answer, but they’re
usually pretty slow with customer service anyway). Ryan Deiss seems
to recommend aMember, and I know some other people that I
really trust like Dan Raine use it too. So yay. It’s gotten a lot
more user friendly since I’ve last played with it, too. My calorie
site should be up soon!

Random, before I forget… that PDF Converter 4 that Gina was
talking about doesn’t convert audio to pdf… just pdf to audio, and it only
does one accent - an American male. The website says that they do
a plethora of accents, and when I called, they said that although that’s
what the site says, that’s not what the product has. Just thought I’d
share with you in case you were thinking of purchasing.

Okay, back to positive things…

5. I’m SO excited for Warrior Camp. It’s going to be so much fun!! I
actually have to leave Sunday morning (thought it was Monday). Can’t
wait :)

6. I’m happy that I kind of stood up to (Rachel’s note: edited out for the blog)… not that he/she’s unapproachable, but… I don’t know. I felt good about it. If I tell her/him about
it, I can’t feel guilty for venting to you about it, right?

7. My uncle and cousin are in town (haven’t seen them in years! They’re
actually two of only 5 family members outside of immediate family
that I have in USA, too. Isn’t that weird?) and I’m going to meet them for
breakfast tomorrow.


Success Journal

Through working with The MasterMind Zone, I met an amazing guy named Jambhala. We briefly talked a few times via phone, and then I got to meet him in person at Orlando for the Stomper event (another great friend, Paul Steinberg, invited me to that. Love him!).

Anyway… Jambhala and I hit it off really well, and we started emailing each other on a daily basis. We have great conversations, and the emails are often extremely long (some would probably be over 10 pages if printed out).

It’s always really fun to wake up in the morning and read my daily email from him! :)

Anyway, I digress.

I was writing an email to Jambhala one day and felt like the email sounded really negative. I try to think as positively as possible, so I didn’t feel right about sending an email with that “feel” to it. Because of that, I made myself list some positive things that happened throughout the day.

That has since morphed into making a “Success Journal” (something that I learned from T. Harv Eker). Pretty much, every day when I email Jambhala, I’ll tell him about 5 personal successes that have happened to me.

This is really great for my mindset, and it really forces me to make sure that I have those personal successes.

So why am I telling you all this?

I decided to start posting these successes to my blog as well. Why not? It’s my blog! :)

I welcome anybody that reads this to add their personal successes in the comments, or to make their own journal. It really is very empowering. :)

The lists are going to read like I’m talking to someone. That’s because I am - I’m copying and pasting the lists directly from the emails that I send to Jambhala. I might make a few “Rachel’s notes” sections… but for the most part, they’re verbatim.

So without further ado:
1. Interns call was fun, the whole SalesBully.com thing seems really interesting, and I’m excited to do teleseminars. Actually, I might do one with Andrew Wee soon, too.

2. I have the best friends ever. I kind of had a weird situation with a guy that I went on a few dates with (the one I told you about) last night, and the night ended pretty awkwardly. I’d go into details, but at this point, I made the email so long already! Anyway, they gave me some great advice, and it worked out well. :)

3. I’ve been using this ninja strategy to get top rankings for certain lenses. I ended up getting to be #1, #3, and #7 for “*** (Rachel’s note: took that out)” on Google, and I made a sale today. Yay!

(Pretty much, I do *** (Rachel’s note: took that out just in case I decide to sell the information). I told Simon and he says I should write a report about that and all of the content ideas that I have for membership sites. It seems like a good idea, but again… focus!!)

4. I reran my WSO (Rachel’s note: I do this under the name “Olga”… long story) and have made 7 sales so far today. :)

5. A few awesome people found my WSO and asked if we could cross-promote, which will hopefully work out well. I’m excited about it!

CMS Infusion Review

CMS Infusion was recently recommended to me by someone that I really trust.

I’m in the process of launching a membership site and CMSI seemed like it’d really make things go a lot quicker.

I still can’t decide how I feel about it.

I feel like Joomla is a lot more robust (and free!), but CMSI is a lot quicker and maybe slightly more user-friendly.

Although I wouldn’t call it “difficult”, I still wouldn’t say that CMSI is as easy as everyone makes it out to be. There are parts that can get kind of confusing. Even in the tutorial videos, the narrator got confused a few times. With that said, it’s probably still easier than Joomla. Joomla has been around for a while though, so there is a lot of support on the forums. When I submitted support tickets for CMSI, there was anywhere between a 6-24 hour lag… and then sometimes the responses weren’t sufficient, so I’d have to go through the process again.

Also, CMSI doesn’t have options for forums or blogs yet. I guess I could just make a forum, create a link within the CMSI navigation panel and redirect to the forum… but it would be nice to integrate everything.

That being said, from my research, it seems like CMSI is still the quickest and easiest membership tool out there. I think I’m going to keep using it…

Since there really aren’t very many tutorial videos within CMSI, I’ll make my own videos and upload them to this blog as I learn about new features.

What would REALLY be awesome is if someone made some kind of product that integrated CMS Infusion for the membership side and XSitePro for the design side.

(If you don’t have XSitePro, by the way, it’s the most incredible piece of web design software EVER. It’s very user friendly yet incredibly robust. I absolutely adore it and pray that Version 2 comes with membership functions. Also - if you purchase it anytime from now until when Version 2 comes out, you’ll automatically get a free upgrade.).

If anyone uses any membership scripts that you really like, I’d love to hear about them. I’ve experimented with CMSI, Joomla, and aMember and have talked to people who have used Drupal and JV Manager. It seems like CMSI is the best option out there right now, which is kind of sad. :)

« Previous page

Next page »