Black Friday Savvy Shopping & Bonus

Today is Black Friday. Traditionally the biggest shopping
day of the year.

Are you gearing up your Holiday gift shopping?

If so I have an incredible little known resource for you to
get huge bargains on eBay.

And it all has to do with many eBay sellers inability to
speel (er, um spell).

http://www.dealzorama.com/spelling.php

This little tool will take any keyword you are shopping for
and misspell it in myriad ways.

How does that help you?

Because auctions with misspellings are more difficult to
find. Difficult to find auctions mean fewer shoppers and
much lower bids. It generally means huge bargains for those
that find these hidden gems.

Here's another reason to shop at
http://www.dealzorama.com/spelling.php

When you have shopped through that site and you email me
your receipt I'll send you an extra special mystery bonus.
So if your shopping eBay for the Holidays you mind as well
shop here. Email your receipt to daniel (at) speakers cruise free dot com

If you want a finer point on how to use this savvy shopper
technique I've got a more thorough article for you here:

http://www.speakerscruisefree.com/ebay.html

Happy bargain hunting.

A Thanksgiving Message & Gift

It's Thanksgiving morning here in the States. I got up
early this morning. Everyone else was asleep. I shuffled
out to the kitchen to turn on the coffee sent to me from
Puerto Rico by Speakers Cruise Free Coaching Club member,
Dr. Scott Brown (http://tinyurl.com/docscott ) and then to
my home/office to check my orders and email. On the way to
my desk I turned on the satellite radio Reggae station and
then ensconced myself in my office chair.

What did I do next...?

I thought about the significance of the day. I thought
about my family and just how blessed my life is. And I
thought about YOU!

A profound feeling of gratitude overcame me. Yes, in fact,
I did tear up a bit. The feeling was so strong that I felt
compelled to write and tell you about it.

So I am writing to let you know that I am thankful for YOU!

Thanks for being a loyal subscriber...

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be in your life...

Thanks for allowing me to help you cruise free...

Thanks for trusting me to help build your business...

I do not take you or your trust for granted. I am deeply
grateful for both.

And this is a perfect day to communicate this fact. No
matter where you live in the world -- Happy Thanksgiving!

As token of my gratitude for you I wanted to give you access
to an interview I did with with Tom Antion in which we cover
the top 10 ways to make money as a speaker and the top 10
ways to be great on stage. You can stream the interview
here:

http://tinyurl.com/thanksu

Enjoy..

Procrastinator's Guide to Authorship

Get ready to harpoon your hesitancy.

...fix your foot draggin’

...and pin-back your procrastination because in 36 hours
Rita Emmett is launching her Procrastinator’s Guide to
Authorship System.

The site (http://www.helpwritingbook.com/ ) will go live on
Tuesday, November 25 at 12 PM (noon) Central Standard Time.

Rita’s program will take you gently by the hand and help you
finish (or start and finish) your book even if you’ve been
thinking about (or writing) it for the last 20 years. And
just so we’re clear when I use the word "finish" I mean
completed, published and making money!

If you know you tend to procrastinate.

If you know you need help finally getting your book finished
and making money. You’ve got to get over to
http://www.helpwritingbook.com/

Let this be your first break through in throwing off your
procrastination shackles.

Rita’s system goes live in 36 hours and there only 500 slots
available. A ton of people have already emailed to say they
want in so be watching for the post "It’s Live, Go, Go,
Go!" then go grab your spot.

Free Cruises & Florida OJ? Say What...?

I really admire when marketing has the potential to go viral. Here's a perfect example....

Brilliant. Thanks to John Kremer for the tip http://blog.bookmarket.com/

Dubrovnik, Croatia - A Very Pleasant Next Stop

I was looking over my blog and realized that I've not posted anything on the rest of that cruise since our stop in Venice. So I'm going to pick up the ball and run with it.

This post is all about our stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

First, I must say that I had very low expectations about the place. And shame on me; I did not do my usual research. That being said we learned a bunch during our time there.

What made Dubrovnik so special to me was its old city. Dubrovnik was once the ancient city-state of Ragusa. At one point it was one of the only city states on the Adriatic to rival Venice. It's wealth was derived from maritime activities and the aristocracy were skilled diplomats.

The old city was completely walled. While the walls around the city were stunning it was what was contained within the walls that made the city so remarkable.

Dubrovnik's old city appears to be a perfectly preserved and pristine medieval city. When I say pristine I really mean clean and perfect in just about every way. There is no motor-traffic within the old city which makes it all the more quaint.

Also, because of the ethnic warring that has gone in the region in the last couple of hundred years the place does seem that heavily "touristy".











The people were great too. Very friendly and open. Many of them wanted to talk about the presidential election. Jamey and I had lunch made at a local grocery store and ate on square with a fountain. We had a long conversation with a Croat sea captain who was in for the day. He was drinking a beer and visiting with neighbors. We were instantly brought into the conversation and were treated as old friends. In the photo to the left a Croat musician in traditional dress plays for us. The fountain behind him is actually an ancient drinking fountain which is placed right inside the main city gates. You can see a woman refilling her water bottle.










This photo is taken from top of the wall. There is a walk-way on top of the wall all the way around the city. As you might imagine it has spectacular views. The structure behind me here is fortress designed to protect the North end of the city wall.











The old city is very much still mostly residential. And most of the "streets" look like this quiet & peaceful alley. Here a feline resident takes time for nap.
















But here's the cool thing: trips like this become so much easier to take when you are cruising free as a enrichment speaker. And make no mistake you can do it too (if you are so inclined) and you get some help. That's precisely why I designed my Speak on Cruise Ships program and the Speakers Cruise Free Coaching Club. I hope you will allow yourself the opportunity to make your cruising dreams come true.

Cruise Speaker Memory Maker - Alaska, Family and Bears, Oh My!

Okay, and now for a sweet, sappy story that got me a little teary eyed when I thought about it.

My 7 year old son Jeremy (I call him Jem) came home last week with a school assignment. He and I were to create a "bear" project.

Because I am fairly comfortable creating multimedia products, Jeremy and I approached his teacher about doing a short bear video. She was excited and thought that that was a great idea.

At the time, however, I really did not know what we'd do a video on but I was confident we'd come up with something.

Later that day I was talking to my wife about our upcoming Caribbean cruise (we depart December 28) and it dawned on me that during our last cruise to Alaska the family and I had an up close and personal encounter with a bear while riding the Yukon & White Pass Rail Road up into Canada.

I even had pictures of the event (if I could only find them) and thought they'd be great for use in the bear project video. Luckily, after about 2 minutes of searching I found the photos on a CD.

They were much better than I remember and I had bunch of them with my Jem in them (no surprise there) . As I reviewed the photos I became nostalgic and grateful that because I was an approved cruise speaker I can take my family on fabulous cruises all over the world and create one of a kind memories and not have to worry about its effect on my wallet.

The experience was made all the more special when I sat down with Jem to reveiw the photos and come up with a plan on how we would present them in a video. (BTW I used Camtasia studio and you should learn to use it too see this post)

Jem lit up!

He got so much out of the experience. Both the one in Alaska and looking at the photos.

In any event, he pointed to the pictures he wanted to use and I helped him to put his "bear" project together. Using cues Jem remembered I wrote the Alaskan bear story and put in PowerPoint and my Jem narrated it into Camtasia Studio.

It was a thoroughly heart-warming and bonding experience for the both of us because we essentially got to live this wonderful cruise memory.

Want to see the results of the collaboration?

I posted below the video we turned in at school today.



So are you ready to make your own great memories as a cruise speaker?

What are you waiting for?

I've laid it all out for you. There is no guesswork. With my program I take you gently by the hand and SHOW you and then personally HELP you get it done.

What's my success rate?

I've never actually figured it out but the vast majority of people in my Speakers Cruise Free Coaching Club have been approved or are on the verge. In fact, here's a video of Tom Antion in which he talks about the experiences of some of the people he has referred to me:



So are ready to get started? Great!

Go get my Speak on Cruise Ships program which includes a free month in the Speakers Cruise Free Coaching Club at http://www.speakerscruisefree.com/cruise-free.html

The memories you'll make are priceless.

Membership Software: Beginners Making the Right Choice

Membership sites can be a great source of recurring income. Unfortunately, some of the membership software it takes to run these sites can be quite expensive or complicated or both. As such choosing membership software can be daunting and may scare off the beginner. Consequently, I wrote this article to help you make an informed decision.

The big question: Do I want to invest a little or a bunch in my membership software?

There are alternatives ranging anywhere from thousands of dollars to essentially free. On the upper end of the range is a membership software company called MemberGate. This is definitely the Rolls-Royce of the industry with lots of bells and whistles. Problem is - it is cost prohibitive for most beginners with packages ranging from nearly $4,000.00 to over $15,000.00.

In the mid range of cost is membership software from Amember. This software is around $300 and you must host the software on your own server. I use this software for one of my membership sites and I am fairly happy with it. Problem here is it fairly costly for a beginner and in my opinion the membership software is rather clunky and NOT intuitive. That is, the learning curve for using it is fairly steep especially if you are not technically inclined.

At the low end of the investment range is using open source content management software like WordPress. In fact, using WordPress with available plugins you can have your own membership site up and ready to accept paying members in 2 hours or less and you can essentially do it for FREE. And here’s the best part, you can have the same powerful functionality as the more expensive membership software. Namely, you'll be able to:

• Start accepting payments with PayPal so you can make money right away.
• Email your members from within your membership site so you save time and hassle.
• See members and guests on your site so you always know who's there at any given time.
• Offer free content and yet protect premium content so you can make more sales by allowing free browsers a hint at what's available to them in the premium area.

The challenge with using WordPress and plugins for membership software is there is no real roadmap that describes how to set-up the WordPress software and how and where to find the needed plugins. That being said, it is definitely doable with Google searches and significant trial and error.

Alternatively, you can check out http://www.wpmemberprofits.com/ and sign-up for FREE WordPress tips, tricks and insider details for making a WordPress membership site wildly profitable.

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Watch the video of this article here: