Stay Out of That Old Mine! – Recreation
Stay Out of That Old Mine!
Sandin Phillipson
It seems like the most adventurous thing in the world. That dark opening in the hillside beckons, tantalizes, excites. What wondrous treasures await discovery inside What artifacts might remain in this time capsule, mute testimony to an era when grizzled men moved tons of rock in pursuit of their dreams Such is the poetic, romance-novel appeal that might induce you to take leave of your senses and crawl into an old mine. Thousands of such small openings are scattered throughout the country. Although most common in the historically "hard rock" Western mining states, they can also be found in the old lead and copper districts of the Midwest. In reality, multiple dangers lurk beyond the pale ring of light that filters through the adit mouth.
While scoping out a field area for a thesis project, I spent six weeks camping and hiking in the West Elk Mountains, in the Colorado Rockies. My days were spent tramping around the flanks of a majestic 13,000-foot peak, chosen due to tantalizing reports of silver mining activity around 1900. During my ramblings, I came across several old mine workings. Some were simply short adits driven into the hillside, designed to test for the presence of silver, copper, and lead minerals that might be distributed within the contact zone of the porphyry intrusive that defined the mountain peak. Other workings, though small, were relatively more sophisticated and had rail tracks extending from the passageways out onto the progressively extended pile of fine waste rock. I explored each of these, sometimes crawling over piles of rock that had fallen from the roof or ribs, or widening a hole and sliding down the pile of washed-in dirt to reach the adit floor.
This really was the height of folly, as I was alone in the wilderness and had no idea of the potential dangers. I currently work in the field of ground control engineering, and have firsthand knowledge of numerous fatalities that occurred in active mines when rock fell out of the roof without warning. I have also become more familiar with the extensive engineering design work, and variety of support systems, required to develop and maintain a mine opening. The "old timers" were often lucky by developing small openings in hard rock, but modern mining engineering indicates that time does not favor stability.
A more insidious danger is represented by a lack of breathable air. In sealed underground openings, the air may have become "stale" by not being circulated through the outside. In modern mines, a staff is devoted to designing and maintaining ventilation systems that cycle fresh air through the mine. Some gases displace oxygen, but are colorless and odorless and give no warning of danger until the person suddenly realizes that they feel as though they have been holding their breath for several minutes. This is a condition known to miners as "black damp" that can cause loss of consciousness or death. While working in Bolivia, I entered over a dozen small mines in a district that had been developed initially by the Spanish, or perhaps even the Inca, and later by a Polish mining engineer in the early 1900
The Headless Newbie – dont burn that credit card – Affiliate Programs
The Headless Newbie - dont burn that credit card
Marc Howlett
Are you a headless newbie
I know I was when twelve month ago when I started looking into setting up an online business. Whichever way I turned people were willing to offer me advice, e-books, freebies, newsletters, amazing money making opportunities, advertising, search engine placement and much more. This was great but my head started spinning and my credit card started to melt and worst of all I wasnt making a cent.
I learnt a lot during this time and have started to see my commission cheques increase so here are my top 5 tips to help the newbie with the credit card rush to stop sit back and actually start earning some money.
1: Before you sign up for anything read the sales page fully and see what you are actually getting for your money. Many of these pages contain a lot of information and the tendacy is to skim them for the interesting parts ie: How much does it cost. This is exactly what they are desinged to do, so slow down and read everything fully. When I first started I signed up for several programs just because they seemed to offer a lot for not a lot of money, this was true but none of it was at all useful.
2: Join some relevant forums and ask questions about the affiliate programs you are interested in. People are only too happy to help and you will get some good honest feedback both good and bad.
3: When you decide on a program give it time and if it doesnt work straight away keep going. One of the biggest mistakes is to jump from program to program to find one that will work. As with any business it takes time to build and see results so stick with it and keep telling yourself what brought you to internet marketing.
4: Decide on a monthly budget and make sure you stick to it. With the ease of online credit card transactions you will often be tempted by amazing one time only offers, these are designed to get a snap decision from you.
5: Dont keep checking your emails for sign ups. Firstly you will be disappointed if you dont have any and secondly you will be sent lots of emails offering you the world. Its very easy when you are down to try something else and this often invloves your credit card.
Thats my top five but the biggest piece of advice I have been given lately is to take the odd day off and dont do anything, especially at times when you are down and nothing seems to be working. I did this recently and came back to five sign ups, the feeling was great and I went about my business with new vigour.
Copyright 2004 Marc Howlett
About The Author
Marc Howlett is a sales professional with several years experience. Currently working full time as a sales director for a large import wholesale company. I am also making a full time living working part tme online. For help and advice check out my website:
http://www.cash-attack.com
For personal advice contact me by email: marc@cash-attack.com
5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course That Pulls In Thousands of Rabid Subscribers… in a Flash! – Real Estate
5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course That Pulls In Thousands of Rabid Subscribers... in a Flash!
Jim Edwards
One of the fastest ways to develop, build, and grow your own list of subscribers is to develop a "mini" course with an incredibly compelling promise.
I have personally used "mini" courses to build lists of several thousand subscribers in as little as a week.
A "mini" course is simply a series of e-mails where you teach people a specific skill, set of skills, or reveal other information they really want to know.
In the process of providing this focused, valuable information, you prove to your subscribers that you are THE expert in a particular area - and, you also encourage people to pay you to get even BETTER information from ebooks and information products youve either written or recommend.
An example of a "mini" course offer Ive used with great success is the free mini course at www.7dayebook.com that appears in the exit pop up window when you leave the site. The promise of this "mini" course is strong and compelling. Heres what it says...
FREE eBook Mini-Course
"How to Write and Profit from your own eBook...
while youre still young enough to enjoy it!"
All the registration page asks for is first name and email address... and this mini-course has generated thousands of subscribers!
So heres the basic formula in a nutshell: Strong promise+ low risk+ high perceived reward= Subscribers
Now, if youd like to build your own list of rabid subscribers, here are 5 sure-fire tips for creating a mini- course that truly kicks butt!
Tip #1 - The Promise
If you want to launch a successful mini-course, target an audience with a specific need and then make them the biggest possible promise you can deliver on.
People are pressed for time and rarely see as much value in something they get for free as opposed to something they pay a lot of money for.
Add to this the fact that the Internet gets more and more crowded everyday and you can see that the best offers are the ones that grab peoples attention by making a benefit- driven promise they cant resist.
Even though you offer your mini-course for free, you still must SELL people on WHY they should pay you with their time and attention.
Example: If you want to do a mini-course on real estate investing, look for the biggest and best promise you can make for people.
Lets look at these various promises for identical mini- course content:
Good: How to make a fortune in foreclosures.
Better: How to find and buy a profitable foreclosure within 2 weeks.
Best: How to find and buy a profitable foreclosure property in your area within 2 weeks - using none of your own money!
** The promise you make has everything to do with whether or not people sign up. IMPORTANT: After they sign up, make sure you deliver on the promise.
Tip #2 - Dont reinvent the wheel
Look for existing content - your own or other peoples - you can adapt directly or indirectly into the mini-course.
Hey, I understand youre busy... Im busy too!
Why would you want to spend 2 days coming up with all the content for your mini-course if you already have past information you can adapt!
If you dont have any existing material, then find someone else who has written an article and use that for part of your mini-course - with their permission of course.
Youd be surprised at all the pieces of the puzzle that are out there independently which you could combine into a great mini-course without nearly the mountain of effort you might expect.
Tip #3 - Give yourself lots of chances to make money
One way to build more value into your mini-course and make sure people hang onto your messages instead of deleting them is to put lots of quality links into your mini-course.
This allows people to get additional information on specific aspects of the mini-course.
Some of those links can be to free resources, others to resources where you earn an affiliate commission, and still others to your own products and services.
The more links you have that actually contribute to your students learning the subject of your mini-course and fulfilling the promise you made to get them to sign up, the better your chances of them clicking those links.
If you create lessons people save for future reference because they have great links in them, youll make more money!
For an example look no further than your "in-box"! Almost everybody has email messages theyve saved from other people because they contain links to sites you want to use now or access in the future.
Tip #4 - Build anticipation for the next message
If youre going to take the time to put together the mini- course, wouldnt it be great of the majority of people who subscribed actually read your messages!
If you want to launch a successful mini-course, youve got to rise ABOVE the noise of all the other email messages people receive every single day.
One way to do this is to always end each lesson with a small "ad" or excitement builder for the next message. You do this by really playing up a big benefit theyll receive as a result of reading the next message you promise to send them.
Heres an example:
"The next and final installment in this mini-course will give you five tips for how to get 10,000 visitors to your website without spending a dime on pay-per-click traffic! So stay tuned for the next lesson in 2 days..."
Its a simple, yet very powerful way to build anticipation for the next message into EVERY message you send.
This simple step helps make them look forward to the next message so it gets read... not trashed!
Tip #5 - Tell them what they dont know!
If youre using the mini-course to promote a product that covers a much "bigger picture" of the topic as a whole, constantly remind people that the mini-course is just a "tiny piece" of the whole product.
Remind them of what else they need to know and tell them if they buy the product then theyll get this benefit, and that benefit, and even more specific information.
Remember, you didnt publish this mini-course to practice your typing skills! You are in this to make money, to get subscribers, and to make sales!
Once you deliver quality content that gives people a real taste of whats in store when they actually purchase, then its time to close the sale... you deserve it!
About The Author
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
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