My Journey Through Life » Uncategorized http://www.derekcladek.com Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:58:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Oh Hot Damn! Its Hot In Seattle http://www.derekcladek.com/oh-hot-damn-hot-in-seattle/ http://www.derekcladek.com/oh-hot-damn-hot-in-seattle/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:25:19 +0000 Derek Cladek http://www.derekcladek.com/?p=124 Working from home is awesome, until you get a nice heat wave and don’t have air conditioning! You think that after making so much money you would want to invest into some kind of air conditioning unit, but really it doesn’t get this hot in Seattle very much. This is one of those really really rare heat waves. In fact so many people don’t have AC units, the only places you will find them are in stores, restaurants and theaters. The forecast has temperatures going into the 90s almost all week. In Western Washington anything over 80 degrees in the summer is pretty warm and anything over 90 is rare and really hot!

seattle hot 72709

]]> http://www.derekcladek.com/oh-hot-damn-hot-in-seattle/feed/ 0 How Do You Become An Authority When No One Is Watching? http://www.derekcladek.com/how-do-you-become-an-authority-when-no-one-is-watching/ http://www.derekcladek.com/how-do-you-become-an-authority-when-no-one-is-watching/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:15:47 +0000 Derek Cladek http://www.derekcladek.com/?p=75 Becoming an authority on a subject matter takes a lot of work. People go to school for years to learn a specific skill set. Doctors for instance will go to school for 8 years before they get their degree! But does that really make them an authority? Having a degree in a subject matter should not be all that is required to become an authority.

First off what is an authority and how do you become one?

Well on google you can become an authority in your subject matter by getting loads of links to your site, both on the home page an internal pages. You will see some of these authority sites when you search for something and the first result has a list of links from their site. This is a great authority to have but there is also another authority like what John Chow holds. He holds an authority in that everyone knows he makes a ton of money blogging.

A person with authority either has a gun or has a specific skill that they are good at. If I had a gun I would have authority over you. If I had a specific skill that you didn’t have I would also have an authority over you. Its something that people have that you don’t. Being an authority isn’t just a skill set though. Its something you have mastered the art of, its something that is second nature to you. For instance Jonathan Volk is an ‘authority’ in Affiliate Marketing, while Andy Jenkins is an authority in Ecommerce, SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing, Sales pages, and the list goes on!

I own multiple online stores doing over 1 Million dollars in sales each year, does that make me an authority in the Ecommerce world? Some would say so, some would say not. I know I have a skill set that I could teach others that would replicate success. Owning your own online store takes a ton of work and I know that successful affiliate marketers are probably laughing at me or even making fun of me because they probably make much more money than I do. I like the fact that I have something I can sell, I supply products to a market and people buy these products. I like that I can be self employed and I like that the opportunities online are endless.

In the near future I would love to teach what I have learned, to give insights on how I became successful online by starting an online store and how I make money online every single day. Some of that money is from Adsense, Clickbank but the most is from Ecommerce and hopefully one day this blog.

See, you can establish yourself online as an authority by simply giving away knowledge that you have acquired. What can you give to your audience that no one else is? What makes you unique, because I am here to tell you that most people are copycats, but its what makes you unique that will set you apart.

]]> http://www.derekcladek.com/how-do-you-become-an-authority-when-no-one-is-watching/feed/ 0 How Does A Newbie Blogger Start? http://www.derekcladek.com/how-does-a-newbie-blogger-start/ http://www.derekcladek.com/how-does-a-newbie-blogger-start/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:02:39 +0000 Derek Cladek http://www.derekcladek.com/?p=72 You have to start somewhere with blogging, but where do you start? How do you start blogging if you don’t know what to write about? Whether you want to make money from your blog in the near future or if its just a hobby, you have to start somewhere. I was once told that sometimes you must ‘fake it until you make it‘. Whether you want to become a Pro Blogger one day you have to start somewhere. Most of the time you have not the skills, the knowledge or even the money to become a successful blogger. That is why faking it until you make it can be your best friend.

Of course I am not saying to be a fake blogger, you just have to know that you must start somewhere. Write about what make you live, what are you passionate about, share life stories and experiences that have gotten you through hard times. With your knowledge you can help others and also gain knowledge. Relate to your audience and write about what they have questions about, ask questions and then give them answers. A great writer that does this is Dave Taylor at AskDaveTaylor.com. He started off by asking people to send him questions and all he does is research the answer, gets them the information they are trying to find and he makes good money doing it! How do I know? Well I actually met Dave Taylor in Seattle once for lunch.

Also piggy backing off of other successful bloggers and even following their lead can be something that gets you by. What are professional bloggers such as John Chow Dot Com or Jonathan Volk writing about? Follow their lead and learn from them. The reason why some of these people blog is because they want to teach you how to make money online and because you are reading their blogs and following them, you are making them loads of money.

I believe in educating yourself and gaining knowledge that will help you become the best blogger on the net. I personally just signed up for a blogging course that is 6 months long and promises to teach me what I need to know about becoming a successful blogger. It’s so much better than going to some college to learn how to get a JOB and its so much CHEAPER! As long as you start somewhere you can’t really go wrong. Of course you will mess up and have tons of mistakes but with a common goal in mind of making this is a business, one day the traffic will start and by then you should have learned enough to make it a business.

]]> http://www.derekcladek.com/how-does-a-newbie-blogger-start/feed/ 0 Time To Get Out Of The Closet! Im A Blogger http://www.derekcladek.com/time-to-get-out-of-the-closet-im-a-blogger/ http://www.derekcladek.com/time-to-get-out-of-the-closet-im-a-blogger/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:05:07 +0000 admin http://www.derekcladek.com/?p=50 So I have decided to get serious about blogging. This is basically my coming out of the ‘closet’ in the blogging world. I have been online for many years and saw Johnchow dot com become the great blogger he is today. I watched as many different bloggers went from every day people to the professionals they are today.. which I must say are making a killing on the internet.

I have always dreamed of becoming a great blogger just like them, so why can’t I? I figured out that the only thing holding me back is myself. Its not money or a lack of knowledge because anyone can start blogging for free and anyone can search google for answers to any question. I have spent the last two days looking through successful blogs and the one common instance I keep seeing are these bloggers are young and persistant. They never give up and they blog every day. Consistancy is key.

Below are some small examples of successful bloggers online today and what people are achieving from their own websites and online ventures.

These are some of the stated incomes from some popular bloggers:

These people are making their living just from blogging and some are making just enough to pay their bills, pay for a new car, buy a house to traveling the world. Whatever your dream is, you can accomplish it just by starting somewhere. One lesson I have learned over the years is that if you ever want to be successful you have to start.. that’s it. By starting something you are way ahead of the countless other people who just dream of success. Failure is starting something and stopping or never starting in the first place.

Blogging is something anyone can do and I am here to prove it. I currently run a few online stores selling physical products (one store with 8 months above $100k in sales) and built a rather large adsense site that gets roughly 65k visitors every month. That same site has been making on average $7k/year for the past few years and there is nothing more I need to do with that site, it runs itself.

I know I can start this blog especially since I am already self employed. It should be easy for me, right? Wrong! I really don’t like writing and it’s already hard enough to come up with ideas on what to write about. I do not have the best spelling and when it came to writing school papers I dreaded it. Blogging just seemed like a dreaded task. But that is where I had wrong thinking. Blogging should be fun and it is if you blog about what makes you happy, what you like, what gets you going everyday. If you were to blog about boring stuff, you would quit or give up. So this blog is going to be surrounded by self improvement, which I can write about many subjects that interest me, especially entrepreneurship, making money online, investing, health, fitness, spirituality, and the list goes on. I am going to take the next few months and take this slow.. learning as I go.

I have learned that if you blog about what you are passionate about, what keeps you going every day.. then nothing should stop you. I can tell you my goals are to be wealthy from this blog, but really I have no idea what I am getting myself into. This is a hobby that I wanted to take up years ago, to get my thoughts down. Blogging is a great way to basically keep notes for yourself.

So I guess I’m officially out of the closet ;) and not in a ‘homo’ way.

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