We’ve been writing our weekly newsletter for the last three years now for YTB and ZamZuu business owners. It’s been one of the most rewarding things we’ve ever done. The compliments and appreciation we get from subscribers means more than we can truly express. What started out as a team newsletter has spread throughout the company. Today, we send broadcasts reaching thousands of YTB and ZamZuu subscribers.

While our publication is designed and written for existing members of YTB and ZamZuu only, there are those who have subscribed under false pretenses. Opting to lie about their identity under an assumed name and e-mail address with the intent to play “Mall Cop”. After the California Settlement was reached two years ago, I was contacted by the Home Office with a list of “violations” from the Attorney General’s Office in California.

The AG had incorrectly charged that our publication was being used as a “recruiting tool” which was most certainly expressed by overzealous critics who desperately wanted to have my publication shut down.

After seeing so many desperate and childish stunts which feed Zealots uncontrollable obsession over YTB, we were well prepared for such an outlandish accusation. We set up our newsletter to verify our members with a valid ID and website address. We also used a double opt in feature to ensure that everyone who signed up actually verified with us they did indeed want our publication.

No shenanigans on our end.

These precautions were two fold. One, I wanted to make sure that everyone receiving this information was actually in YTB or ZamZuu already. And two, I fully expected the trolls to sign up – which they did – and were promptly deleted.

While their first attempt under real names and e-mail addresses were banned from our system, the sleaze then resorted to lying. Finding a YTB member in their local area that mirrored a location close to their own IP address, these parasites sucked off the other site owners ID and website address with a newly created gmail.com account and presto! Success in having our publication diverted to their inbox anyway.

Pretty elaborate scheme don’t you think? That’s the kind of bizarre behavior I’ve come to know while they pretend to be this noble, honorable “Mall Cop” for pour, unsuspecting souls. Truth is, they’re as dirty as the day is long.

A quick fix for the entire Attorney General debacle was a report of my entire list of subscribers with valid ID and website address, verification IP address, minus the user last name and e-mail address. The report clearly validated all subscribers were already in YTB and opted in under their own free will. A letter explaining that it was highly improbable that I was “recruiting” existing YTB website owners based on this report was also sent to the Home Office.

Not sure if it was the last time the AG or the Home Office ever heard about these “violations” again, but I certainly haven’t.

Interesting how morals, ethics, and honesty have no place for an obsessed Zealot that has to be right. When it comes to justifying their perceptions and perpetrating their fears and misconceptions to the general public, all this ethical stuff is mere window dressing they like to hide behind. It’s not just my newsletter they’ve infiltrated either. They’ve signed up as free Reps with the company, have become Fans of every Facebook page YTB or ZamZuu has, and have subscribed to every YTB and ZamZuu publication and newsletter they can get their hands on in order to feed their uncontrollable addiction.

With the latest settlement with the Attorney General in Illinois behind us, a new push by these imbeciles is once again in full swing. Obviously, they’re a bit upset that YTB was able to come to an agreement with another Attorney General and we are able to continue our business model. That’s what normal adults do – come to an agreement. Critics however have resorted to intercepting a new round of private correspondence, making its way to the internet with lists of supposed “violations” to say “see I told you I was right”.

While it’s clear that these correspondence are designed for “members only” – it’s upsetting the owners of these publications. Therefore, I’m offering up a list of items or precautions that you should implement in order to protect your publication and our fine company.

First, you need to accept that there will be sleazy little liars who will do and say anything in attempt to save face or to justify their position. Its part of the game they play. While I certainly don’t agree with it, getting upset and frustrated about it gives them the power and the control. You can take every precaution you want, and they’ll find a way to gain access. They’re that desperate for information and they need something they can spin against you and the company.

Second, most systems have a double opt in feature – use it. With the current CAN-SPAM Act that is in place, it’s not just jerks you want to protect against; it’s the FTC. Signing up someone to your mailing list is a practice we’ve never used. If your information and content is the quality it should be, you’ll get plenty of subscribers the right way. Every single subscriber we have has verified with our system they want our publication.

Third and I know this kind of sounds obvious – but put a disclaimer on your sign up page and in your publication something to this effect:

This newsletter is for information purposes for existing Website Sellers and Website Owners only.
It is not to be used as a recruiting tool for anyone outside the YTB company.

It won’t keep the pin heads out – but it will protect you in the event a pin head tries to play “Mall Cop” and claim you’re trying to recruit the general public or violating any rules.

Forth, and I know you’re not going to like this – but either turn off the “forward to a friend” feature or make sure your subscribers know that it’s only to be sent to existing team members. We’ve never used the “forward to a friend” feature for this reason: There may be some really good content that your subscriber wants to share with team members. Those team members however, may not want or feel the information is necessary. An issue we’ve had for years are folks who forward our publication out to team members and the team member unsubscribes the subscriber who sent it – because they don’t want it. (An unsubscribe link is also mandatory with current SPAM laws by the way.) Disabling this feature keeps complaints to a minimum because it’s only going to folks who actually subscribed.

An alternative for team members is having them forward your opt in link and have team members subscribe on their own. What you’ll find is an open rate that extraordinarily high, and a complaint rate that is practically non existent.

And finally, look over your data. We were able to spot our unauthorized troll by looking over our data. When Aweber changed their pricing along with their terms and conditions on us about a year ago, we had to upgrade. While we were upset at first having to pay more for exceeding 2500 subscribers, the new system and reports it offered showed just who was clicking what.

Low and behold, we found that one edition of our publication that was ripped off and posted publicly on a Zealots blog had over one dozen clicks from a single subscriber. A dozen clicks on the same link? Maybe two or three, but that amount raised a red flag. While the subscribers ID matched his website, and the IP matched where he lived – we found this subscriber based in Annapolis, Maryland had two subscriptions. One with a legitimate, unique domain, and the other with a Gmail account. The high click count came from the Gmail account – so we knew who was real and who the liar was.

It took me no time at all to delete the overzealous little twit.

If you have a newsletter and send correspondence to your team, I realize that you’re doing your team a service. I know all about offering news, support, training, mentorship, and positive reinforcement. It does have value and is a worthy and important part of being a true leader. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to acknowledge those traits because they’re so jacked up on hateraide. They simply can’t get past this idea that all you do is recruit and pick the pockets of poor unsuspecting souls. That’s the mantra rattling around in that empty space where a brain should reside. While they have no practical experience to base this limiting and false belief on – trying to change it is a complete waste of your time and effort. Just realize that they own that belief and you don’t have to.

So there you have it folks. Take it from me. These idiots have done it to me dozens of times and to no avail. Follow these simple steps and you not only protect your publication from being squashed, but you protect our fine company as a whole.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

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If you’ve been wondering when you’d be able to post some of your Deals and Steals specials on your Facebook wall, the wait is officially over.

Yeah-yeah-yeah, I know…YTB’s no longer in the “Travel Business”. Well, somebody forgot to tell the Home Office. ;-P

Typical of YTB and one of the reasons why they’re still around: YTB see’s opportunities to expand and grow business. Its probably the single biggest reason why I absolutely love this company.

This type of integration is such a piece of cake for the end user. It’s so easy, it’s almost embarrassing. See a deal that someone else might like? Want to share it with others? With one simple click of an icon up pops the link with comment box to share on your wall or via a private message to whom ever you’d like in your network.

If you need to jazz it up a little, or input some of your own information, that can be done as well in four different areas. (If there’s any doubt concerning what I’m talking about here, just click on the link and it will bring up a picture of each area.)

First is the comment box, which we’re all familiar with and use to doing if you’ve linked to any type of file or video in the past. From what I’ve seen, most people stop there, and that’s all well and good – but did you know you can do more?

• You can insert your own heading above the link
• Insert your own description under the link
• And of course – you can change the thumbnail picture to one that suits you best

After that, all that’s needed is a quick click on the “share” button to post it to your Facebook wall.

Sharing with family members, specialty groups, or close friends is now just a few simple clicks away on the most popular social networking site on the internet. Promoting your travel business has never been easier than this.

Just one more feather in YTB’s cap that shows how innovative and cutting edge this company really is.

Thanks YTB!

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

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One of my favorite hobbies is frustrating our critics. It’s not all that hard to do when you know the right buttons to push. Exposing the truth with third party documentation typically does the trick. All that’s required is finding the patients and the time to let the truth bubble up to the surface. But when it does, I write about it and it always gets massive attention and criticism from a few of the better known critics. I just sit back and watch the traffic and the boards light up with excuses, justification, and spin.

By no means do I claim to be a psychologist, (I haven’t been able to find an MLM that will allow me to break into that market yet), but you should know that when someone gets defensive or emotional about a subject there is a level of truth (although most of the time at a subconscious level) that what is being said is true about them or the subject their trying to defend. Nobody, including me, likes to be proven wr…wroo…wrrrrr… (Dang Gummit) Likes to be “mistaken” about their beliefs or their stance on a particular subject. For some unknown reason, there is a belief that if they talk about the way things should be long enough, it will magically create a reality for everyone, including me. That’s why you see idiots posting on blogs every day for the last year, along with a thread on scam.com with well over 10,000 posts just on YTB proclaiming how things are in their own little world.

If they claim it’s true loud enough or long enough somehow that will make it true. Problem with that idea is that it’s like me trying to tell you the sky is purple. No matter how loud or how many times I post that the sky is purple, it doesn’t change the color from blue to purple. 

A big reason why I’m talked about and linked to on both sides of the fence is because I provide the truth about our company (YTB) and our industry (MLM). One side of the fence expresses it’s gratitude, while the other side expresses it’s frustration and anger, along with some really obscure illusions about what they “think” our model should be, yet none of these critics have any practical experience in working with MLM’s or Direct Sales.

As a side note: for those of you who want to find out a little more about our critics and why they think the way they do, you really need to read “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind“. This book totally transformed my thinking and beliefs about myself and gave some incredible insight on why people like our critics have these very strange and dysfunctional beliefs about business, wealth, and money. It was a real eye opener for me. I’ve received a number of comments about a post I did years ago about this book and what it teaches. The question is always asked how anyone can claim to know someones financial blueprint based on what they say. Unless you read the book, (and go to one of his free seminars) you couldn’t possibly realize how simple it is. Today, even I can spot someones financial blueprint based on a few comments in a few posts. (Even if they jump up and down claiming that everything’s peachy.)

All this victim talk about how YTB is ruining “their” reputation and “their” industry is nothing more than a bullhorn that life controls them, not the other way around, and until they shut up, take responsibility for their own actions and their own business, nothings going to change for them. And while they wear the mask of knowledge and arrogance they they know better, under the mask lies fear, anger, resentment, and bitterness that they have no idea how to control or get rid of because they were never taught a better, more productive way to think or act.

Which oddly enough brings me back to point.

Back in December YTB rolled out new “Terms and Conditions” for it’s Travel Store Owners. In the terms and conditions one section was found by our critics, which brought upon an onslaught of e-mails and links sent into the Home Office in Wood River.

3.5 – BLOGS, CHAT ROOMS, SOCIAL NETWORKS, ONLINE AUCTIONS, AND
OTHER ONLINE FORUMS
Travel Site Owners shall not use online blogs, chat rooms, social networks, online auctions
sites, or any other online forum to market, sell, advertise, promote, or discuss YTBTN’S
products or services.

What our critics saw was an opportunity not only to shut this blog down, but anyone who is involved in YTB. This policy hands over the keys to the inmates providing them free reign to do and say as they please. And since our critics have such a huge fondness for my style and comments here, who do you think got most of the attention?

As an alternative, I decided to do the following;

Why not open up a dialog with those who are responsible for making the decision and discuss the pro’s and con’s like an adult?

Now there’s a novel idea! With a couple quick e-mails, a phone call and a trip up to Wood River, a dialog has been opened to review this policy and come up with an alternative that could make both sides of the fence happy. Well, maybe not one side, but you have to realize that nothing other than total destruction will suffice for critics who need to blame others for any issues they have.

You remember my friend “No Moron Here” right? Why do you think he was told in so many words to go pound sand from his employer? Do you think based on what he’s written his employer finds his ideas productive? Does it make his employer money? Do his comments solve anything? Do you think acting like a child brings about respect and admiration? No, but he sure feels better about himself, now that he’s sufficiently cried enough times, deflecting and distracting everyone to take the focus off himself and laying blame on someone or something else which enables him to continue standing on a soapbox that screams “I’m a victim”.

Me, I went in the opposite direction, and decided to take ownership and responsibility to come up with ideas and solutions that were constructive; therefore finding a company, and a business model, that is not only open, but willing to listen to new ideas and alternatives. What’s even more insightful and promising is that this isn’t the only subject that the company was willing to accept ideas and constructive input on. Imagine that? A Company, Founders, and Executives that is willing to admit that they might not have all the answers and is willing to accept new ideas and alternatives from others.

What a concept?!

It’s certainly not what you would expect from a bunch of scam artists that only want to fatten their wallets with your money.

There was however one requirement in order to pull this off. You had to act like adult instead of a child. And for those of us who understand the basics of communication and negotiation now have an inside track to create and produce a company we believe in that will not only solidify their dominance in the industry, but mine as well. A win-win.

I know all about the dark skies looming from the critics and the myths they perpetuate not only concerning the Home Office, but myself. While they’re busy writing and thinking about ways to spin and distract everyone, I get a call from the Home Office to provide input on the Convergentware upgrades we’re experiencing as part of the “Travel Products Steering Committee”.

Not exactly the color our critics have been trying paint the sky now is it? Why do you think my favorite phrase to our critics is “Thanks for sharing”? Sometimes it just better to let them rant and rave about thier own illusions. I have better things to do with my time and energy.

No matter what they do or say, it’s not going to change my blue skies.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

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It’s hard to believe my new home here on JustPictureItNow has been live for one month. I have to steel a line from my Director Tim Dominey when he looks at something that surprises him, “Goodnight!” Not because of what’s been written, but because how this new format and home has exceeded every expectation I had about the power of a Blog.

I’ve told you before about the definition of F-E-A-R, which is nothing more than False Evidence Appearing Real, and my fear at the time was that I would loose my initial readership, basically having to start from scratch building all new links and search engine results so people could find me.

Okay…here goes…

I was wro…

I was wwwr…

I was wrrrrrrrr…. BLASTED WORD!

How ‘bout, “I was merely mistaken”.

If you would have told me last month that I would have had this type of traction this early in this move, I would have told you that you were nuts. I’ve been blogging for a long time, and I watch and read other blogs and track their growth and popularity. I track how much traffic they’re able to get, how they rank on search engines, and who’s talking about them.

Many site owners like to use Alexa to see how well their sites are doing. For those that don’t know anything about Alexa, the easiest way to compare them is Nielson ratings. If you take a look at the Alexa report for this site, you’ll see that it climbed to a spot of 1.2 million, up some 7 million spots in the last three months. (Truth be told, thats in the last month.) I realize that there are some that like to claim they are doing as well, or as relevant as this blog, however this same report shows a decline of nearly 1 million spots to around 2 million in the same 3 month period.

Another report I like to look at is traffic value from SEMrush. I was shocked to see how quickly this site ranked after only a months time. If you compare that with No Mix, it clearly shows a vast difference in organic search engine rankings and value.

So why the vast contrast?

I have to send out a HUGE thank you to many of the loyal readers of the previous blog and my newsletter for getting the word out and putting your own links pointing to my new home. Within days I saw referral links from quite a few readers with a post or comment that I had moved. To have so many of you do this without even asking tells me that you believe that what I have has value.

The newsletter subscriptions also helped during this time. I have several Directors now pointing to my newsletter signup page telling their teams to subscribe. I didn’t host the signup page on Blogger, but do now on JustPicutreItNow. That combined with a 200% to 600% open rate from people forwarding my newsletter to other RTA’s in the company creates a considerable amount of traffic. The average number of monthly subscriptions more than doubled in the month of November.

Lastly, WordPress is simply a more powerful blog format. What was totally unexpected for me was how search engines not only found what I transferred over, but indexed the three years of posts within a matter of days. (I thought it was going to take MONTHS!) A big key in all this was how WordPress was able to transfer everything over, including categories with a simple click, making it very easy for the crawlers, spiders and bots to find and then index year’s worth of content.

So how do YOU keep this new home growing with all of the links to third party documentation that helps verify the truth instead of spin and hype about our fine company? Use the “Share / Save” button at the bottom of every post. With Social Bookmarking as the new way to link and share information, it’s a breeze to link important and relevant content you find here for prospects, clients, and other RTA’s to get accurate and relevant information about the travel industry and our company.

Thanks for making this such an easy and quick transition. I’m completely blown away over how quickly this happened, and I’m thrilled over this realization. It’s an honor and pleasure to be considered a relevant source in this vast and expansive format we call the World Wide Web.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

PPS - Subscribe to the Just Picture It Now RSS feed, (including e-mail) for all the latest posts and updates found right here!

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I’m kind of scratching my head these days wondering what in the world is going on with YTB.

I’ve been told that the California Attorney General will be shutting YTB down, and I would assume that means my days with the company are numbered.

If you look at this logically or from a legal standpoint, California can only prohibit YTB from operating in their particular state. This notion that Jerry Brown and his office has the power to shut the entire company down is nothing more than wishful thinking. Illinois, on the other hand, does have to authority, and while they are cooperating with California, we are coming up on a 3 months without any further word or action from the Illinois Attorney Generals Office.

Some are still holding on to hopes that they will. Of course these are the same people who are looking for the FTC to come around, even after the ASTA was told to go pound sand back in 2005.

Meanwhile, “back at the ranch” YTB has been rolling out marketing materials and upgrades like there’s no tomorrow. (Like that play on words don’t you…”no tomorrow”.) We’ve seen new presentations both on line and off line within the past week. We’ve also seen a brand new Travel Training Course, which enables those of us who care to, to earn 70% of the agent commission paid to YTB.

Now late last night, I see that the company has upgraded its marketing site with a brand new look.

While I’m not 100% positive about this, and I could be mistaken, I believe this is yet another “reactionary move” as our critics like to call it. It wasn’t enough for California and other critics that YTB had a marketing site that looked like all the other REP sites out there. It didn’t matter that there was never any possibility for someone to join YTB as a REP from the main YTB Corporate domain (ytb.com) the company needed to make a clear distinction between what belonged to Corporate and what belongs to the REP’s and RTA’s out in the field.

I also have to wonder if the home office flipped the switch yesterday in honor of one of YTB’s favorite critics. While there was a post yesterday on the blog that finally came up with something to spin about the new killer presentation, (although he did say it was “great”) he did lead the rest of the flock right to the YTB main domain that this new site is hosted on.

Leave it to him to break this kind of upgrade.

For the record, the home office isn’t done. I’m really not at liberty to discuss here what’s in the works, but we’ll all find out soon enough from the proper channels.

You’ll just have to check back in the next few days to find out.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

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The goal of working online is the same as traditional networking: you’re trying to form a relationship with somebody you trust and that trusts you. People have formed relationships online for years, through message boards, instant messaging and e-mail. This relationship however only begins online.

Sales 101: People buy from people they like. Online marketing does not replace the human element of developing, maintaining, and nurturing any relationship. Real trust in any relationship only comes from personal contact, either in person, or over the phone.

Finding your way into the online networking realm, and using your visits there effectively can be helped by applying traditional referral networking thinking. With online networking, there are several ways to develop your word-of-mouth marketing, but it’s important to understand that the foundation of making online networking work for you is the same as with any kind of networking–you’ve got to develop relationships with trusted business associates.

I’ve been able to start many a friendship online and quite honestly, two of the best team members I have on my team came from online marketing. The question is how was I able to start these relationships, and get them to join MY team? How in all the millions of e-mails and posts that generate online every day, did these two people single me out of cyber space?

The answer is simple: Apply good networking fundamentals online. I believe there are five keys for networking success online:

1. Join one or more online networking communities – Actively participate. No matter which community you choose, however, after joining, you need to participate. Take a genuine interest the people on the board and talk about what they have posted in a positive, informative matter. After they get to know you, and if you are able to contribute something meaningful to the board, they will be the ones who contact you. Those two team members I told you about earlier, came from the same message board I contribute to regularly.
2. Start a Blog or write a regular column for a website or e-newsletter. You can start a Blog (basically an online diary just like this one) on one of the larger blogger sites or online communities; you’ll create more buzz for yourself. Talk about your industry, either in general or be more specific to you particular market. It doesn’t matter as long as you make the reading informative.
3. Develop an e-mail newsletter for your own company. Create an e-mail database of clients, customers and friends, and send them regular content that drives them to your own website. A good rule of thumb for something like this would be once a month. A monthly newsletter gives you plenty of time to come up with a number of stories and articles to share. Keep a folder of ideas you would like to talk about and work on the project over the entire month. It’s also important to set a specific date and time, and then stick to that date. I’ve been getting a monthly newsletter from a company call “Home Toys” for years. I know to expect that newsletter on the first of every month without fail. Others are sent twice each month, and some even every week.
4. Never forget that online networking is still about developing trust. In order to drive business to your company by word of mouth, you must focus on developing real, personal relationships with people. Do not use these boards, blogs or newsletters as a platform to actively pitch and promote your business. A subtle signature with a link to your web site is all that is needed. Making you signature BIGGER or LOUDER will not drive people to your site. What you have to say and contribute is far more important and makes a much better impression than any banner ad or signature could ever do.
5. Understand that online networking has its own cultural norms. Many cultural pretenses don’t exist online, however, and people tend to be much blunter when responding online than in a face-to-face meeting. With online networking, people feel it’s easier to be more direct.

I want you to pay particular attention to what is NOT on this list: Sending out thousands of unsolicited e-mails from a mailing list. This is not an effective marketing tool when it comes to developing relationships. When was the last time you opened an e-mail from someone you didn’t know and read all the way through? (And why are most of these e-mails mile and miles long and still never really tell you anything about the product or opportunity?) More importantly, when was the last time you wanted to develop a relationship with the sender of that e-mail? Once a relationship is formed and they trust the sender of that e-mail, then it’s from a trusted friend.

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

PPS - Subscribe to the Just Picture It Now RSS feed, (including e-mail) for all the latest posts and updates found right here!

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