He is probably the only singer who really got me hooked.. Love his music, love his dance moves, love his entertainment on stage. Had always harboured the dream of seeing him perform live on stage, but sadly this will never happen.

Anyway, my condolences to his family.. And my prayers are with him..

Below is the video narrating his death and two of my favorite songs of his are below.

RIP MJ..

Billie Jean

Beat It

So here I am with some updates on my life and also with a renewed determination (again) to blog regularly..

The past few months have been awesome in all areas of my life!

My business profits with IM Buzz LLP have been going up every single month despite this gloomy economic recession. In fact, in just the past half year alone, it has literally doubled. That’s the amazing thing about internet marketing honestly.. With so many opportunities lying around and with the low startup costs involved, it’s honestly one of the best income streams one could create.

I’ve also recently hired a few in-house employees and converted one of my rooms to a home office. I must admit I’m still trying to get used to it as it does affect my freedom a little. In the past, all work was outsourced to overseas freelancers. But we wanted to use a mixture of in-house and freelance employees, hence the change.

Of course, Patricia and I will be getting a new dedicated office soon so we don’t always to be around in the office and will have more freedom!

I guess this recession has served as a wake up call to many people that you simply can’t rely on just your job if you ever wish to attain the freedom to do the things you like. Hopefully it will serve as a blessing in disguise to most people!

This leads me to this brand new site which Patricia and I have been working on for a couple of months:

Work From Home Singaporeans

It’s basically a free Internet Marketing training portal targeted towards mainly Singaporeans. In the midst of the global recession right now, more and more people are starting to see the need for extra sources of income and are slowly turning to the Internet to help them.

So we sincerely hope that through this site, it will serve as a viable platform to equip Singaporeans with the knowledge and tools required to achieve the income and freedom they so desire by becoming a work from home entrepreneur.

Just check it out here! http://www.WorkFromHomeSingaporeans.com

It was launched around one month ago and has just breached the 2,000 members mark. As it’s targeted towards Singaporeans only, naturally it takes time to grow. But it has been a decent start and we’ll be ramping up our promotional efforts soon to increase its exposure so more Singaporeans can benefit.

This is the start of many projects that Patricia and I will be embarking on, many of them geared towards the local market. So stay tuned!

Will be heading to Korea from April 27th-May 4th and will update this blog with more pics!

That’s all for now! I’ll be back soon!

Oh well.. Now that I’ve graduated and able to fully concentrate on my businesses and IM, I shall work hard to recover all that’s been lost and revive this dying blog!

Yippeeee!

As stated, I’ve officially gradudated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Adminstration (BBA) degree. Gosh, I’ve just ended my status as a student after a long long 18 years. Shucks, no more student discount for haircuts, movies & meals (yeah right, whoever says u need to give up your concession pass. haha)

Anyway, apart from me graduating, there were also several milestones in all areas of my life during these 5 months. There’s simply too many.. but let me try to recall!

Not in order of chronology:

• Had my biggest and most successful product launch ever (IM Buzz Blowout Sale which did around USD24,000 in sales in less than 6 days)
• Launched over 15 software and ebooks with Jonathan Teng (Mauritian biz partner and great friend) You can check out most of our products here.
• Took my last paper in NUS
• Met up with Jonathan Teng (yup he came to Singapore)
• Set up IM Buzz LLP
• Brainstormed like a dozen business proposals
• Met up with Jonathan Teng (again) and Venkata Ramana (all the way from India!)
• Set up another company (Zion Marketing)
• Secretly working on a HUGE project for Singapore… and many more projects in the pipeline for Zion!
• Celebrated my 2 years anniversary with Patricia
• Shared countless hugs, kisses and joy with Patricia

And many many more…

Geez.. that’s roughly the bulk of what I can remember..

Now back to my convocation ceremony.. Naturally, the first thing most of my friends asked when they saw me was ‘Have you found a job?’ Naturally I answered ‘no, I run my own business’. So most would ask, ‘oh so what business are you into?’ Like any normal internet marketer, I hesistated and paused a lil while deciding what response should I give.

I believe this is a funny situation which many internet marketers face. I remember listening to Mike Filsaime in the 7 Figure Secrets and he too was narrating this tricky situation which many of them have to go through.

So what business am I exactly into? It may seem really weird to most people. I stay at home and don’t go to work. But yet, I believe I’m currently earning much more than 95% of fresh graduates (or should I say I was already when I was schooling). Oops. Ok I have no intention of boasting about my income and I actually dread those who do.

But anyway, so back to the question. What business am I into? I still remember when I first discovered internet marketing, I was really excited to share with my friends. I mean, hey.. You get to earn money while sleeping and doing the things you enjoy.. Who doesn’t want that?!

The surprising thing is, most people seem to shun away from such topics.. And many seem to prefer the traditional way of entering the workforce and the rat race. Oh well, I don’t blame them. Most ppl simply won’t see the need of creating multiple streams of income until the need arises. And most will only realize how dreadful getting stuck in a job is when they’re actually in one.

Thankfully, I pre-empted.. And I worked hard to ensure that I’m out of it.. even before I graduated. Yes it was a CHOICE that I made real early ago. And I worked REALLY hard for it. Was it worth all the effort? You bet! While most of my fellow graduate friends are complaining badly abt their current jobs, I’m enjoying every single moment I devote to my business. And I thank God for His grace and guidance.

Geez.. I digress again.. So what business exactly am I doing??

Oh well.. Let’s just say I sell information/physical products online. On top of that, I create social networks (think Facebook) .. And plan to venture into consulting and coaching as well.

Yes, more great things to come ahead for Patricia and myself.. Of course, we thank God for placing the right people and right opportunities to us. And our faith lies in Him.

With that, I shall end this post with a couple of my graduation pics and just wanna thank whoever is actually reading this now. God Bless!

Me with Patricia Darling

Me on stage receiving the degree scroll

Balloons attack!

Me with my parents!

3 lovely couples!

Ermm.. Some weird pose we thought of

3 guys!

Weeeeeeeee!

Okie this is slightly overdue..

The reason why I haven’t been blogging much is because I’ve been working hard on my first membership site (actually not exactly the first as I’ve got a social network Kanggie)

But it’s my first big-scale launch, so naturally had tons of things to prepare.

Shan’t talk too much here…

But I really DO urge you to check it out here:

http://www.imbuzzsoftware.com/

At such a low investment, you get a brand new software which you can rebrand completely unique to your own.

And on top of that, you get a TON of other bonuses.

Sales are coming in real quickly…

So join these people and unleash the power of S-Buzz marketing as well!

http://www.imbuzzsoftware.com/

And the first of the series of viral software that I’ll be launching with Jonathan Teng (a marketer from Mauritius)  - Keyword Buzz is officially launched! If you’ve received a rebranded version of the tool in your inbox, here’s where it originated from. =)

First let me tell you more about the functions of this keyword research tool.

It helps you research keywords with a click of the button and extracts the daily amount of searches from wordtracker. Next up, it can show you the amount of competing results on the three big search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Hence, you’re able to analyze the demand and suppy of any niche market within a few minutes. And you can easily uncover untapped niches as well.

Alright, but that’s not the best part of Keyword Buzz. If you were to purchase the rebranding rights, it can get extremely viral for you as you get to rebrand one banner and two text links directing to up to 3 websites of your choice inside the software.

Talk about driving exposure and traffic to your sites and business! You can now freely give away this tool to your list or put in on your website/blog and promote your business at the same time.. This is certainly viral marketing at it’s best!

This is certainly one awesome tool you cannot live without.

And I’ll like to present you with a free version of the tool (w/o rebranding rights) as well..

Just download the FREE demo below:

>> http://keywordtool.imbuzzcreators.com/calvin.zip

And after you’ve checked out how handy the tool can be, check out how you can purchase the rebranding rights and unleash the full power of this viral tool:

>> http://keywordtool.imbuzzcreators.com/

P.S. Keyword Buzz also has an affiliate program which pays out 100% commissions instantly to your Paypal account. So do not miss out!

There’s an Asia Internet Congress Early Bird Special which will end this coming Friday 9th Nov. And there’s an insane discount…

The speakers include Ewen Chia, Jermaine Griggs (whom I’m sure would have plenty to share after his ultra successful Nitty Gritty launch), Dr. Mike Woo-Ming, the organizer himself Fabian Lim and also a few other established marketers.

Oh well, it’s during my exams though. Argh…

But I’m sure there are many others who could benefit from this.

One thing to bear in mind, that is always remember to network network and network!

Now pls do not do the usual ‘Hi, I’m who and who.. Then goes on to rant on your accomplishments… And then ask for the other party’s name card so that you could spam his email’

I’ve seen a ton of ppl do this. They just go on and on about how successful they are. Without caring a damn about who you are. And when they ask for your name card and you think ‘Wow, they are actually interested in me!’, you go back the next day to find they’e conveniently added u to their mailing list.

I have only these words for these losers ‘Get a life!’ There’s one particular Singaporean marketer (and a rather successful one) who does this at every single event and on his website he actually states blatantly that he believes in ethical marketing. I almost laughed my head off when I read that.

Ok what was intended for a short post has turned out to be a rather long one. The bottomline is, DON’T ever do that. It will only disgust ppl and reflect badly on you. True, there might be some newbies who might take u up on your offer and earn you some gains. But in the long run, your reputation will not score well (unless of cos all these do not matter to you)

Ok.. Happy networking during the Asia Internet Congress!

Here’s the link to grab your Early Bird Discount:

>> http://www.CalvinWoon.com/meetthegurus.html

Argh! But thankfully, it’s back to normal now.. But anw, it’s time to buy a new one! So shall wait for one of the IT Show or PC Fair in Dec.

Ok shall just post a quick follow up to my previous post here.

Some people have been asking me how exactly we promoted the IM Myth and how did we generate our own subscribers from promoting it.

Frankly, there’s no secret.

This method is called Ezine (electronic magazine) advertising.

Basically, you pay for advertising for emails to be sent out to subscribers of a particular ezine. There are a ton of ezines for the various niches, so you just have to search for ‘your niche + ezine’ to get a list of ezines you can advertise in.

Of course, not every ezine will have the same conversion rate, and not neccessarily every ezine ad you purchase will bring in profits.

So what does your success depend on? There are numerous factors, but shall just touch on the main ones.

1. Quality of your email: If you’re purchasing a solo ad (one entire email ad), obviously the quality of the way your email is crafted will affect your success. Just observe how the top marketers write their emails and learn some techniques they use.

2. Quality of your squeeze page: When paying for advertising, it’s best to direct your visitors to a squeeze page. As people may not purchase, if you manage to capture the leads and build your list, at least you won’t lose out. So make sure you design a squeeze page which converts well. In the IM Myth instance, my squeeze page converted at a MASSIVE 30% for one of the ads I did. So that explains why…

3. Quality of the ezine: Yes this affects your conversion and profits and ROI very much. There are a ton of ezines out there, but some are simply trash or not targeted. So you need to find an ezine which has targeted subscribers to your niche and also one which does not bombard their subscribers with ads every single day. Else, the chances of your ad converting well will simply be too low.

4. Quality of the product you’re promoting: Ok, this has got to do with the product you use to monetize your ad. as mentioned, you direct your visitors to a squeeze page. Of course, you will hope to make an instant profit so as to cover back the cost of your advertising. Hence, the product that you promote instantaneously should convert well in order for you to profit. And in the case of IM Myth, it being free and having a two tier affiliate program is lucrative enough. So that explains it’s success.

Alright… That’s all for this post! All that has been mentioned is being covered in greater detail in Kanggie. So check out the tutorials in there!

By the way, Patricia was in the top 10 referrer’s list, just slightly losing out to Mike Filsaime but managed to edge out Gary Ambrose. Lolz! And we actually did that without even blogging about it on our personal blogs, though I did make a post on it at Kanggie here. Hence, this should really broaden some people’s mentality that a blog is the only platform to make your promotions.

Well basically, the IM Myth Report was a report which Russell talks about how he integrates offline marketing with his online marketing efforts. It was an awesome report really as a ton of ideas flooded my mind instantly and I can’t wait to execute them.

Nonetheless, the crazy thing about it was Russell was paying $1 for everyone you refer to download his report and $0.50 for everyone your referrals refer. Hence, it was a two tier pay per lead campaign.

Not surprisingly, skeptics were abound as many of my subscribers even doubted the authencity of the promotion and hence missed out. Now, it isn’t alot of money, but from what I observe, most ppl ain’t even making a single cent online. Hence, that indeed served as a good opportunity for many. At least there was one other person who benefited from it, who was Alvin.

Now do I blame the skeptics? Not really. Many of those who emailed me say they refused to believe it as they have tried out many other programs and have failed to succeed in them. Hence this explains their skeptical mentality.

After being labelled politely as a skeptic by me, one of my subscribers even got angry and said he was not interested in all my bullshit strategies! Lolz! I think he did not know the definition of a ’skeptic’. And I do pity him. As he was obviously interested in learning how to make money online as he opted in my list to learn how to do so, but just that he did not know how to.

Oh well.. From a layman’s point of view, such pay per lead campaigns frankly do look incredulous. Although it is not new, as marketers like Joel Comm, Mike Filsaime have attempted it previously with huge success, it is still rather uncommon. So the question is, why would they do that? Russell paid out over $20,000 in commissions I think. And Mike Filsaime paid out much more.

So who benefits the most ultimately? Of course the mastermind himself - Russell Brunson! In the short 1 week, he’s generated over tens of thousands of subscribers. And he’s certainly one who understands the lifetime value of a subscriber/customer. You see, the true value does not lie in the front end but in the back end profits. Hence, he’s willing to pay out $1 just to capture a lead and make a loss on the front end(known as a loss leader). Simply because he’s able to earn back his investment many times in the future!

Furthermore, the pay per lead campaign culminates in his launch of the 12 Month Internet Millionaire, an interview he did with Vince James, who made $100 million in 12 months. You can still grab it before the price rises here. Not surprisingly, that product ended as a Clickbank best seller. So just from that product alone, he prolly made back his investment. Not to mention the list is there for him to keep.

Of course, you obviously need a hefty capital before attempting such a daring move. Certainly not something many people can execute.

Alright so back to how we accomplish such a huge feat. Well, apart from promoting to our own lists, we also did some advertising on some ezines. Of course, we did not advertise the IM Myth website directly. We advertise our squeeze page first before directing others to the IM Myth site. Hence, we not only generated over 2061 subscribers but also generated US$874 in revenue, making close to a 300% return on investment. Not bad for giving away something free.

Hence, the bottomline is, always find a way to monetize your ad, even if it is just a squeeze page. You see, normally when you advertise, you tend to be afraid of making a loss on that ad. In this case, our ad did not even sell others anything as it was a merely a squeeze page giving out a free report which I wrote. However, in this case, we found a way to monetize it, which was the redirect to the IM Myth site. That ensured we not only recouped back our advertising costs but also made a cool 300% ROI. Plus we got 2061 subscribers.

True, such campaigns do not occur frequently. But you can either offer a one time offer, or just redirect to an affiliate product which does not cost much and which people might be more inclined to buy, like Michael Worthington’s Quick Cash Secrets over here.

Alright shall share more strategies in time to come. Have been busy implementing many new strategies recently and inching closer to my $100 a day!

And Kanggie is doing pretty well too! Do check it out here.

Ok I know this is long overdue, as the contest results were announced last last week. But pardon me as I’ve been really busy recently (yah yah excuses again). I made a resolution (or should I say goal) to blog at least thrice a week. So pls bear with me.

But anyway, we were really ecstatic over our truimph in the blogging competition and more importantly our acquisitions! (who wouldn’t!) To think it was only a last minute decision to take part as I had 3 tests to study for the following week so was really tight for time. Nonetheless, I asked Patricia if we should take part and she said why not. So we collaborated and came out with two entries, one in the inter-organisation category and one in the intra-organisaton category.

It took us around 3 hours to complete the two entries and we’ve visualized it, believed and received our miracle. (all glory to the Lord) We just feel so blessed and favoured!

Shall post my winning entry over here for everyone to see and critique!

 ————————————————————————————

It’s a given fact that people are spending more time on the Internet searching for information they need. They search for information about the product that they need; the company that they intend to invest in; the organizational culture of a company that they intend to work for and a company’s credentials, track records of projects and accomplishments when searching for reliable service and product providers. Companies are always looking for cost-efficient mediums to share such information and connect with people. What better way to do so than through the use of blogs, online social networks and other social computing tools.

Business blogs are certainly a great way for companies to share information about the organisation’s portfolio, list of products and pricings. Blogs are easily set up using blogging platforms rampantly available online and organizations can choose to set up public or private blogs depending on the purpose of it.

For instance, the purpose of the blog can be to share with people (i.e. Consumers, Investors) its product development plans, presentation of possible offers and the appeal of them and new product concepts or marketing ideas. Given that there are many online widgets available, organisations can easily conduct polls too. They can upload images or videos into the blog for concept testing. By creating such content rich blogs for such purposes, companies can quickly create for themselves a community which they can test ideas on, get feedback and criticisms from and discuss between their customers.

Other than blogs, forums are popular amongst internet users because it allows them to interact and provide feedback and comments about a product, topic or area of interest. People can also freely express opinions and discuss specific questions and offer help to one another. Feedback on forums is also almost instantaneous and the insights from the consumer-to-consumer conversations and how they compare with other products on the market are priceless for organisations that thrive on satisfying consumer needs.

Organisations can set up forums for their current and would-be consumers to exchange user experiences with one another, and for past consumers to have an avenue to give their criticisms and suggestions on how to improve the company products, services etc. In addition, surveys can also be posted through the forum which can be carried out using a threaded discussion.

Both blog reading and participating in forum discussion have become the most popular pastimes of the online community because the informality in writing makes content easy to read and enables readers to connect more personally to ideas, information and suggestions that are offered on both the blog and forum. And traffic and readership is targeted, meaning to say that people who are reading them are definitely interested in the company, its products and services and even providing their two-cents worth. 

Another social computing tool which should be utilized once companies have set up their own business blogs is the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. RSS feeds automatically update whenever the business blog is updated. Readers can get first hand notification of blog updates when they log in to their RSS readers and will know all about your company activities, ideas, launches etc. For people who do not subscribe to RSS feeds, companies can enable email notifications on the blog where updates get emailed directly to your customers email inbox. Annoucements and news can then be quickly spread through these two mediums. RSS Other popular social computing tools include real time communication tools such as live chat and video conferencing tools and companies can make use of it to provide personal assistance online. It can build up consumers’ trust and increases the company’s credibility. It can shorten customer service queues and make convenient for consumers who have trivial matters to settle such as queries.
Companies can provide a tagging service through their site where tagging is a social computing tool that companies can utilize and they can enable consumers to easily share data with one another by tagging interesting documents, reviews, product photos or music and it makes it easier for them to search for such data.  

Basically it’s a variety show which invites some experts and members of the public to air their views on a highly debatable topic each week.

And this week’s topic is on blogging. And the reason why she’s appearing on it has got to do with our recent feature on MyPaper for the rising trend of affiliate marketing. You can read about the article here.

And thus the editor referred us to come onto the show. At least that was her original intention. UNTIL… the producer decided that the two of us represented sort of the same group and wanted just one of us.

And finally, it’s decided that since Patricia is a Pyschology undergrad whereas I’m a Business undergrad, the producer figured that it’s more refreshing as she felt it’s only natural that I’m doing an online business (ya right… how come I don’t see my peers doing the same thing? Lolz)

But anyway, I soon realized on the day of the recording that my first chance at stardom was taken away by the famous eyebrow plucker AKA STEVEN LIM!! Manz.. It’s like adding insult to injury! Lolz!

For those who are unaware of SG’s most famous celebrity (for the wrong reasons), he’s well known for his weird (and shameless) antics which include stripping during Singapore Idol and making a monkey out of himself on some other shows. Oh well… one thing I have to admit.. he certainly has much more entertainment value then me.. so I’m not complaining.. Lolz

Honestly, I had an equally fun time sitting beside the producer and watch her control the entire show.. And trust me, she’s really good. For an ordinary looking woman in her 40s to control all 4 cameras and directing what the host says, it is really no ordinary feat.

And the funniest thing is, they invited another celebrity blogger Xiaxue (arguably SG’s most famous blogger) who happened to have a feud with Steven Lim. Hence, you can imagine the tension and entertainment the duo produced. And I had to control my laughter when the producer shouted repeatedly to the cameraman, ‘Stop filming Steven’s armpit hair! It’s damn gross!’. Yes, he wore a balck singlet to appear on national TV…

Oops.. realized I’m blabbering.. ok back to the show… Frankly, Patricia blabbered a lil too.. (guess we 2 are alike). But it’s more due to the fact that she can’t really speak Mandarin for nuts. Lolz.. so all those chinese terms that we practised the night before weren’t put to use. and honestly, she couldn’t really put her points across strongly.

But nonetheless, it’s still a valiant attempt for someone who has never made her Chinese teacher proud to appear on national TV for a chinese variety show. So KUDOS to her…

and to all Singaporeans who can understand Chinese and would like to entertain yourself with the drama enacted between Xiaxue and Steven, do tune in this Thurs 8pm! And show some support for Patricia too!

Do leave your comments and thoughts here or over at her blog too!