So here we are.... some however many months later. We FINALLY sold our last couple of things we've had hanging around some random Amazon warehouse waiting to be bought and got our little baby payout for it. All in all... it was a legit flop for us.
Key word being: FOR US Getting a good deal on stuff to resell and staying on top of what you CAN and CAN'T sell, where to send it, where to find it, how to fund it... listen, we wanna make dough and we know we have to work for it but DAMN! We felt like we were sacrificing more of what we're trying to GAIN (read: family time, money, TIME...) giving Amazon FBA a shot so... I requested all the crap that wasn't moving to be sent back to me, the rest of it finally sold, like I said aaaaaand we're back to square one... maybe even at square -6 or so by now because the crap that wasn't selling is now in the garage in the bucket of "take pictures and post on ebay or Craigslist or something and try to recoup SOME money". Also which has now been sitting there for.... ohhhh... well over a month. Hey now! Don't be judging me Nacho! I tried! I'm a woman who always has a project and somewhere along the lines of my wall-hitting frustration I decided it would be a good idea to make some small updates around the house and drive my incredibly patient husband bonkers. Aaaaaaaand THAT project also isn't finished... but you know... that's a blog post for another day... and another blog... ayyyyyy yay yay... * note to self: lookup the nearest "unifinished projects anonymous" group * Alright so anyway... there you have it. We tried Amazon FBA, we failed, we moved on. Affiliate Marketing: In all honesty, I still haven't put much effort into it. I LOVE writing, I do... but when it comes to writing about stuff that doesn't necessarily interest me because I HAVE to... all of a sudden I'm brain farting worse than old Aunt Bert when she accidentally eats too much ice cream with "that lactose" in it after Thanksgiving... yeah... its no bueno. I don't actually HAVE an Aunt Bert, but He does aaaaaaand while I quite honestly have no idea whether there is any truth to that amazing example I just made up, Im pretty sure it would be like a slow nostril death regardless.
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Well folks... we tried. We tried our damndest. We even made a few sales! But... then life... as it tends to do... got in the way.
We haven't quite given up completely, but as for now, clearly, our amazon FBA adventure is stranded. We will update as soon as we have something tangible and worth reporting. Until then... stay tuned warriors. Our epic adventure has only stopped for a quick breather. We will ride again! Amazon has abbreviations... and super fancy lingo that nobody understands unless you've been looking into this thing for... well.. longer than we have... and its been months. So the most amazing suggestion came through to post a list of all the abbreviations and phrases you'll hear with Amazon.... aka... The Amazon to English Translation DictionaryIs she right?! Totes... so she knows there is a litany of information out there and probably several dozens of lists just like this... so why read this one? Well... first of all, you're already here, and second because maybe... juuuuust maybe... You kind of like the way we work things here and like getting a laugh or two out of your reading time. Ok, so down to the nitty gritty! Amazonian Lingo - TranslatedMF Merchant Fulfilled - No, it doesn't mean that other thing... It simply means instead of sending it to Amazon to send to the Customer, you send it to the Customer yourself. (it also puts you in charge of customer service, if any is needed). FBA Fulfillment by Amazon - Basically the opposite of MF. You package your product(s) up and send them to Amazon, they handle the rest! When a Customer purchases your item Amazon will pack and ship it to the Customer. If the Customer wishes to return the item, they will deal with Amazon directly to coordinate the return. ROI Return on Investment You're in this to make money, right? So you're going to want to see the money you put in to this business working for you. The only way to do that is to see your money grow! That growth is your Return On Investment. How much money you put back in your pocket once the item has sold and Amazon has taken their fees. Generally people use the 3x rule. EXAMPLE: You find an item That will cost you $1, selling for $3 on Amazon Using FBA. Once this item sells you earn your $1 back you invested, AMazon keeps $1 in fees, and you keep the additional $1 as profit. Congrats! You just doubled your money! Now do that bigger!!! *This is just an example, we have no idea what amazon charges in fees per item. Sorry folks, we can't do ALL the legwork!! SR Rank Rank/Sales Rank Out of all the products being sold under that particular category the sales rank you see is where this product ranks out of those items. #1 being the top selling product. The rank differs for each category and sub-category, and is constantly subject to change. The addition of products in that category and the sale of an item in that category can affect the sales rank of each individual product. Profit Margin The amount of money you will make after you subtract your investment and Amazon fees. For example, if you pay $10 for an item and send it to Amazon FBA, and the item sells for $30, if Amazon fees and shipping costs total $10 (for example) your total profit would be $10. sales price: $30 - investment: $10 - amazon fees: $10 ---------------------- profit: $10 ASIN AMAZON System Inventory Number This is basically the barcode Amazon uses to identify the product in their catalog. Like their own barcode system. Merchant SKU Basically the same as an ASIN but this is the manufacturers barcode. Gated There are some categories individual sellers, and some new pro-sellers are not able to sell in. These are called "gated categories". Categories that are not gated to any sellers are: * arts/crafts * most Baby related items * Books * cell phones/accessories * electronics * home and kitchen * office products * patio, lawn and garden * pet supplies * sports and outdoors * tools and home improvement * toys and games * video games Ungated If you are a pro seller and wish to sell items that are considered "gated" you can request to be ungated in a category provided you meet certain criteria and submit whatever items is required by Amazon. You can only request to be ungated if you are a pro-seller. Individual sellers are not able to be ungated in any gated categories. Poly Bag Anything you send to Amazon FBA that has open/exposed parts/pieces must be covered. IPS Inventory placement Service Additional ReferencesOne great source for lingo translations is FBA Master. Actually, this is a great site for FREE Amazon info all around! Amazon Seller Central - Seller University. There are tons of videos, lots of information and more! Let's not forget about the most important and accurate resource available to us as sellers (and soon to be sellers... if you're scaredy-cats like us). *** She'll make sure to update this list as she comes across random terms that aren't plain english! *** - Me and Him Ok, so maybe we know a LITTLE more... but not much. But just tonight she came across some miracle of the Oracles' or maybe the old witch doctor lady's concoction with eye of newt... regardless... we came across an amazing site! It's called FBA Master and it has the most incredible amount of information ever! Links to sourcing tools if you want to source online and everything! They also offer their free facebook group which, of course, also contains endless amounts of information. Ummm.... Yesssss? We bought some stuff... as in EOS chapsticks for $1 from CVS because they were on clearance... so nowwwwwwwwww they're sitting in our pantry waiting to be sent to amazon... or listed... yeah, no... We haven't really done anything... unless you call buying some chapstick on clearance something. It's so scary! LOL We're not sure why we're so nervous to pull the trigger already! But we are! We've agreed we're going to do a boatload of research this weekend together though and we're going to start taking some real action. She's come across some good advice recently and decided it would be best to share it with you, so here it is! Juuuuuust a little edit here:Wow..... She just re-read this and realized she didn't even include the advice!!!! **Forehead slap** She failed you guys... she apologizes! The good news is: She's fixing it right now! And she vows to not try to rush a blog post out in the middle of the night just because it has been too long and she wants to make sure she at least puts SOMETHING out there... OK! So... back to business! The amazing advice: "Don't get bogged down in delving into too much "how to" information. You can easily find yourself jumping from reference to reference, feeling like you have to learn it all to overcome the fear of getting started. No matter how much you learn by reading posts, watching videos and going through trainings, everybody makes some mistakes. Learn how to use the Amazon Seller App, get out, buy some stuff, send it in, make a few mistakes and get your business started. There's plenty of time to learn from many resources as you go. ...TAKE ACTION!" -Jody W. Have you already pulled the trigger?So! Now that she finally updated the post and shared the best advice she's gotten so far... How has your experience been with FBA? What was it that lit the fire under your caboose and got you going? What resources did you find helpful? We'd love to have you share with us because in case you forgot... We still don't know anything! We hope to be able to start getting more helpful information up as soon as we can! - Me and Him
Why do we get distracted?Yes, it's true... life! Please tell us you haven't forgotten, we're real humans, just like you! We actually do the same things you do day-in and day-out. Wake up, feed the kids, go to work, come home, housework, dinner, clean, kids in bed, you to bed and the next day you're off the the races once again. (of course, this is assuming you're a normal human like we are and not one of these "Results Not Typical" found the niche of a lifetime and is making zillions robots we read about... then again, if you were one of those chances are you probably wouldn't be reading this...) The fact is, we're trying to do this thing in our spare time. And our spare time is limited. We had agreed that when we got back from vacation (note: our vacation means a 24 hour drive to and from Seattle to visit family... that does not include the 7 additional hours of traffic and delays from horrible accidents) that we would start taking some action towards the Amazon thing. So on the long... looooong drive home, she decides to make the most of the free time and gets's started getting a game plan together. "Ok, So we need to come up with an LLC name, then research products for retail arb. Then we need to just go out and get the stuff and send it in. Get this thing started." she says. Then he reminds her we need to save up the emergency fund again. Ok, so postponed about a month so we can save the emergency fund again, and money to invest in product to sell. Then she remembers school starts in 3 weeks and we need to buy school clothes and supplies for the kids. So postponed about 2 months now, which puts us into September. And we all know all those holidays that come rushing in right after that... Once again, making do - and doing our best to try to make headway. Ok, Let's just go for itWe can't lie, we got ourselves down. Neither of us are really "risk takers" and this, to us, is a bit of a risk. It's slightly out of our comfort zone, but you know that old saying... yeah, she doesn't really remember how it goes but something along the lines of like... "in order to grow you have to move outside of your comfort zone"... something along those lines. We know you know... just go with it. Anyway, so one day he's at the store and he decides you know what? Ok, let's just go for it! He spent 4 long hours searching several stores for "inventory" scanning everything he could. Then he came home with two things... for the kids... because he. found. nothing. And we felt even more disheartened. Where the hell are the goods?! How are we going to find deals good enough to profit from after fees and shipping and all that?! What products should we even be looking to buy?! The next day she “had” to go to cvs (you know how she loves cvs!!!) and she sees golden aisle after golden aisle with these beautiful 75% clearance stickers scattered in them. Her eyes get wide and she thinks "Oh my god... is this it?!" She grabs the tangerine eos that is currently 75% off and thinks, dude, even if we can't make money off these things i'll buy 20 simply for the fact that they're only $1 and usually like 4 and for whatever reason our damn kids are obsessed with them. Now we'll have our own lifetime supply! Out of curiosity she scans it and it came up at like $6 profit AFTER fees! Now, granted its not currently that high... but it was! So she bought all the clearance eos she could find, knowing she wasn't even approved to sell in "health and beauty". Feeling renewed she went home and showed him. This got him a bit more jazzed as well, so again, we set off researching our little hearts out trying to get this thing figured out. Where are these products now? Well... let's just say they haven't been loaded on to amazon yet... Basically we still have no idea what we're doing or how to do it so... it sits in its CVS bag in the pantry until the time comes when we aren't so clueless... We need MORE information! Update however many years later... they were used.... by us... and never made a profit BUT!!! Softest lips in the West?? So How do we stay on track?Well, in all honesty, we're still trying to figure it out ourselves! We all know family has to come first. So since we know we've got that under control, now comes the part where we figure out how to get on the fast track to progress.
Here's what we've come up with: 1. You gotta have a game plan 2. Your game plan should include goals that you can attain within a reasonable amount of time. 3. Act on your goals, one by one, check them off and move on to the next goal! Do the snowball thing. Short term actionable steps help you feel like you're making headway (trust us on this one). Just because we haven't really hashed out a game plan doesn't necessarily mean we aren't working on one... so you know we're all about the free and cheap stuff. This will be an ever-growing (maybe sometimes changing) list of the free and helpful things we have encountered along our journey! We will do our best to separate them by categories and give a brief description of the listed item. If we happen to have mentioned it, or discussed it in any past or future posts, we will be sure to link to that post so you're able to get a bit more information on it. And, of course, please!! If you have any questions or suggestions, experience beyond what we have listed, etc. share!!! Contact us! We're real humans! Remember?? We'll totally respond ASAP! enough talk! Here's the good stuff: Free blog related informationHosted blogging sites
weebly * offers the ability to pay to drop the .weebly.com from your web address. Blogger wordpress.org Analyzing your website data google analytics * This blog perfectly explains and breaks down how to read google analytics and use it to grow your blog! We've been using Google Analytics now for about 3 weeks and we're excited to finally have come across this blog so we can finally USE the information we get through Analytics. Facebook insights maybe we're really dumber than we thought.... It's now two weeks in to this blog, we're still "researching" just how this whole thing works. She feels like she's getting off-course left and right (more on that later) so today she got fed-up and decided she would bite the bullet and sign up as an individual seller on Amazon. So, is selling on Amazon easy? Or at least as easy everyone seems to make it sound? maybe. she did a Google search "sell with Amazon FBA" and it took her to site that looked like the pro seller sign up. Either her headache is worse than she thought or the "individual seller" sign-up was hiding. It was asking her for her tax Id and international credit card. what the hell?!
Immediately her headache gets worse. She does another search "Amazon seller individual". This time it works... Or at least made the individual seller option more visible. Still asks for a credit card but just for IF you incur fees. They put $4 on your credit card and then it goes away after 7 days. Ok... She can manage that. Do you ever feel like things are just not moving fast enough? You're ready to get started and you just want to put the pedal to the metal and get started already! She's impatient - Very - Impatient - Annoying impatient. (She's totally the one writing this by the way, but trust that he agrees, and that might be an understatement) She's not really sure why she's like that. But that's always how she's been. (Ok, it's not with everything). one thing she is like that with is "knowledge". She wants to know everything yesterday. She gets frustrated with herself if she doesn't know everything about everything the second she wants to know it. And then gets even more frustrated when two weeks later she still doesn't "get it". And in fact, has now officially fallen into this blogging/Amazon rabbits' hole. It's that "pit bull intensity" thing she mentioned earlier... That hyper-focus (which apparently is a real thing, another random thing she learned recently, which was also very validating). It's like that Geico commercial with the two scientists. There's a green blob that swallows up the one scientist. She's the scientist and whatever thing she's fixated on at the time is the blob. Or in this case: the blog/Amazon thing. have you ever dreamt about work, and then when you wake up the entire time you're brushing your teeth you're trying to remember whether that really happened, or if you were dreaming? She solves all sorts of world mysteries in her sleep but can never seen to remember them when she wakes up, but she KNOWS it happened... in her dreams LOL. Thats been her for the last week or two. This week for sure she dreamt she had come up with all these blog topics she wanted to be sure to cover. Saw herself typing them in to her phone and saving them so she wouldn't forget. Even thinking in her dream "Oh yeah! That's a good one! I can't wait to start working on that one! I'm glad I'm saving it so I remember". Not even kidding. She wakes up, you know... Gets ready for "real" work, the usual. Then later goes into the blog editing app to remember the topics only to find they weren't there.... It was a dream! And of course she can't remember the topics either. It was one of those shoulder hunching experiences. Like all this work was unsaved and then your computer crashes. Have you ever done that?! Please say you have. No, but really... Please... So tell us: Have you had the same sentiments while delving in to the monstrosity that is blogging? Have you made sense of whatever the hell AdSense is? (Yes, we get that it's a way to make money, but that's about where our understanding ends) What helped you understand it? Or what helped you turn a corner and start noticing more traffic to your page? What resources did you find that you felt were the most informative? She can honestly say she's probably signed up for every single free e-book, free e-course, free e-insanity imaginable and she still can't get a handle on this damn thing. And to make matters worse she reads an article last night that says the number one thing to getting and keeping readers to your blog is to: "WRITE EPIC SHIT" Really? Well she's kinda feeling like maybe she should go start kickin' rocks! I mean, she loves to write but let's be real here, it ain't epic... Yet... Hey now, even the never ending story had some slow parts... Boring slow parts I mean... Not the tragically slow part with Artax and her childhood crush Atreyu... She means like the part at the end where it's Bastian and the childlike empress and a candle or something? Who really remembers that whole part? But you remember the part where all of a sudden Bastian is riding Falcor through the streets and teaching those bullies a lesson! Is she right??? See?? She wants to fast-forward to that part. Riding the sweet victory of "epic" posts with perfect keywords and giving stupid SEO a run for its money! Phew... She tried to get him to contribute to the content of this extremely long and boring and non-epic post, and he did actually... But she decided to remove the rant about the actual computer not performing at optimum and him making a smart side smile remark. He's such a butt. You gotta love someone who knows just the right amount of "jerk" to apply to make you not only laugh, but laugh at yourself when you're frustrated beyond belief. Shout out to HIM for always being the balance! Now start writing some epic shit! -me and him
How does one follow a title like that with a hopelessly boring blog post? Just like this she guesses... This first sentence has now been written and re-written at least 4-5 times. Comedy is hard people! And pairing funny with an attempt at helpful-online-money-making information???
Mr. Make-do, it's high time you start coming up with some material for me to use in this thing!
Ok, so she's on her own on this one...
She's decided she's just gonna have to throw it out there plain an simple and hope maybe a smidge of comedy finds its way in somehow... So here goes... She is always trying to find weird random ways to save money, make money, be more money efficient, make budgeting easier, etc. She blames pinterest and her "pit-Bull" hyper-focus disorder that makes her obsess over things until she either conquers it, or admits defeat and moves on. One such endeavor was before she went back to work and when the whole extreme couponing thing hit (in her defense, she actually started trying to learn to coupon like, right before the Extreme Couponing shows popped up). In her search to better understand couponing, she somehow came across the blog of this amazing woman named Josie. She looks young, she's super cute, her blog is super informative and helpful, and she's in So-Cal?! She signed up for her blog 'cause if she was going to learn from anyone, it'd be her! This woman knows the struggle of living in Southern California and knows how to save! And not just save, but also how to save money on healthier food, not just the processed Cheese-Whiz crap that you usually get coupons for. She faithfully clipped coupons and organized them in her binder full of plastic baseball card organizer sheets and tried making lists of dinners to make off of sale stuff, tried to match sales with random coupons and different stores.... She's tired again just writing about it.
It was work. A LOT of work. It was her job when she wasn't working, And she didn't enjoy it. And she didn't even really understand it. She admitted defeat and moved on. but she never stopped following Josie's blog.
SIDE NOTE: Both her couponing and Smart Money pages are packed full of super useful information and guides and she definitely encourages her so-cal friends to check out both of Josie's pages. She's really hoping Josie starts a blog about blogging so she can learn some more and maybe reach more people like us. Fast forward 3 years later and she gets an email from Josie's blog saying she's starting a new blog about budgeting. Of course her interest is piqued. Especially when in this blog she talks about how she "accidentally" started an amazon business and made $4,000 in one month.
Right?! That's what she said too, and that's how the pit-bull intensity obsession began. Josie took the Amazon Boot Camp course (about $300 and offers a 3-month payment plan for slightly more) from The Selling Family (Referenced in the previous post when he said: "what happened to the $300 one?"). They offer a couple different options, each option has different information inside. An A-La-Carte type of thing which is cool for those who #1 may not have the money to invest in the boot camp, or #2 are really only looking for information on one aspect of AMazon business.
But like we said before, we want to try to do this as free or cheap as possible. And we need the whole enchilada plate, beans and all and maybe a fountain drink of horchata if you're in to that (blegh). So she dug deeper... Next she came across Scott Voelker aka The Amazing Seller. And he-is-amazing. He admittedly talks fast especially when he gets pumped telling people about Private Labeling products and selling them on Amazon. We've watched a few of his webinars and he gets you pumped and jazzed and ready to go! (again, hence the previous post about "What happened to the $300 one?"). He touts himself a "normal guy" and starts to give you a little background on himself.
Well we don't know about everyone else, but to us, that is not what we consider a "normal guy. Clearly he has some business knowledge, how to start a business, etc. Scott does say he learns a lot from watching, listening and talking to others and teaches himself through research etc. And we get that. We respect it! It takes drive, or as he says "Action"! He also says he loves to help and teach others which we think is awesome. And we do believe his knowledge and the things his program includes is more than likely worth the value he charges for the course. But listen, if that kind of money was in our budget just chillin', lookin' for a reason to be spent, we wouldn't even be writing this blog. Side Hustlin' with his lady
So again, we press on in the search for free information. Then Sunday (Father's Day), through some miracle of technology, she came across quite possibly the best blog about this amazon-blogging-learning-curve thing ever written by this dude named Matthew Allen!
Matt says he calls it "Side Hustlin' with my lady". She laughed out loud and called him over to tell him what Matthew called it, explained how he's a truck driver and she thinks this just might be the guy who we're gonna learn everything we need to know from because he sounds just like us and he's been doing it for a while and how he thought it was so cool that this was something he and his wife could do together! A normal human with a family and a real job and just wants to generate some extra cash for his family. Just like us! He laughs and continues playing water balloons with the little guy, fully enjoying his 110 degree father's day with a belly full of shrimp boil and beer. She goes back to her iPhone reading as much as she could while trying not to melt. She wonders where his blog was back in May when we were searching google for "real normal people trying to start an amazon business with practically zero dollars to invest and equally if not less knowledge about starting a business"? Maybe we were using the wrong keywords... Curse you SEO!!!!
So disclaimer: we clearly just found his blog, and he has a ton, and we mean a TON of content. And because it does look like he has clearly been where we are now, we want to take our time reading it, understanding it, you know the drill... so we haven't read through all of his posts yet (because again, we're normal average adults who both work full time and have a family and sometimes we try to sleep too...) but what we've read so far, we feel we can say we think this guy is pretty awesome. And he's real, like real real. he just tells it like it is, and is honest about things. Which is exactly how we would be if we were as far into this journey as he is.
Another thing we respect is that all the Amazon and blogging stuff he knows is 100% self-taught. He says in his blog he listens to several podcasts (which was actually one of the first things she downloaded when she first started researching, but has yet to listed to any of them), research and undoubtedly some trial-and-error too. Shortly after she found his blog she commented and asked a couple questions and he responded pretty quick! Not just a response though, like "took the time to include a link to one of his posts that would answer her question" kind of response. So We're pretty excited to dig deeper into his blog and learn as much as we can from his experiences so we can at least try and get a basic understanding of this Amazon thing. So shout out to Matthew Allen! A big thank you to you and your wife for beating us to the punch and sharing your amazon journey with us!
-Me and Him
p.s. She almost forgot to add the smidge of comedy! She couldn't think of anything clever or remotely funny to say, but in her search for something funny she came across this photo.... and the story behind it. And that, dear friends... that's funny right there!
We said we'd be honest and so… its true folks...
She'll catch an infomercial selling sunshine in So-Cal (we're still in a drought for those of you living under a rock) and she'll look at him with wide glassy eyes and say "did you see that?!?! How have we lived without that this whole time?!" he's the "balance". Here's the story: There are several, (if not more) "selling on Amazon" classes, boot camps, "gated communities" whatever you want to call them. They all promise to teach and walk you through every step it takes to be successful selling on Amazon. In fact, these are the very steps they took that lead them to success (in most cases). To save you the "trial and error" period. And who doesn't want that? In an effort to make sure she does her due diligence researching what it takes to run an Amazon "store", she signs up for every website, podcast, blog, free downloads, free webinars... Anything. You've got to have a hunger to learn, right? And this mama's HANGRY! And this is something a Snickers ain't gonna satisfy (never thought she'd hear herself say that).
one such webinar she watched about private labeling. In essence: you find a product, research/review it, make it better, find a supplier, order your product check it out, send it to amazon aaaaaand wham-bam-thank you ma'am!
You're now in the private label business! You've got your very own supply of consistently in demand product and you have complete control over inventory. OK, obviously the entire process is waaaaay more involved than that, but that's about the gist. her eyes instantly get giant. Of course! It makes perfect sense!
It's perfectly logical really. If you're making money and moving product you'll want to be able to control inventory. Run out of inventory, run out of sales.
You'll want something unique, but practical and useful. "Wait, you're telling me there's a basically a roadmap to doing this Amazon thing?! Like... Lots of roadmaps?! I mean, sure, we'll be using the credit card for this, but We'll make double our money back anyway, right?! We need to do this now!!!" And they offered "for the first time ever" a 4-month payment plan plus a 30-day, 100% money back guarantee no questions asked with full and complete access upon the first payment?!?! She literally had her credit card out, payment page pulled up when he texted her back.
its no risk, but at the same time, it is...
It's that nagging voice in your head that makes you question yourself. "you just spent the money you had saved up specifically for something else going to New York for a different financial endeavor, and that set you back. You had to reconfigure the budgeting to make sure this other thing was covered but you did it and now you're back on track. but vacation is about 2 weeks away, then it will be time to buy school clothes, then this then that, meanwhile pay off the credit card, then... Then.... Then..." the list goes on, and whenever it ends, it repeats itself. Like we said: we make do, but sometimes it takes a lot of doing without to make headway. Sounds more desperate than it actually is. In a nutshell; we live in Southern California. And although we live in an area that's "cheaper" in comparison to San Diego or Los Angeles, it ain't cheap! And we probably have the cheapest rent for a house with a good size backyard in our whole little valley area here! (If our Landlord is reading this: Just kidding! Please don't raise the rent!!!!!) Let that boggle your brain for a little bit... now, that being said, we do appreciate the position we are in! We're not in a bad financial place by any means. Could we go Dave-Ramsey-balls-to-the-wall-live-out-of-cars-and-sell-all-belongings-for-however-long-it-takes-just-to-save-money-to-buy-a-house? Sure! Is that reasonable? Not for us. we just don't think people around here would be taking us up on "mowing their lawn, teaching them piano" or other random skills we've seen suggested to make side money... Aside from that, we don't really think we have all these random skills like that to offer... Or ones that would justify spending the little amount of time we have during the week with our kids and each other away to make an extra $10. Its not exactly our idea of "living like no one else so later, we can live like no one else". (yes, we read the book, we did the whole envelope thing bla bla bla... It's one of those things you have to take with a grain of salt, In our opinion) We feel like we already live like no one else! Unless there's somewhere in Idaho, Oregon or Washington State called "Cancun" or "Maui"... maybe we drove past it on our way to visit family? It's hard not to get caught up in the moment and jump the gun knowing the payoff will come... especially when you know "results aren't typical". So it's back down to the ground she comes... no more fizzy-lifting-drink for her.
-Me and Him
we think we have our niche! Now what?
now comes the research. she now knows some free places to go to research it but she really has no idea how to analyze the data and make sense of it... Also the niche is more of a general idea and isn't really a new one but something we personally have felt the need for (I know you're probably waiting for her to just say what the niche is but she feels like every single thing she's read so far nobody ever talks about what specifically their "niche" is so.. She's following suit. Sorry folks. Trust us, we know how freaking annoying it is!) pssssst... we have no niche
alright so we've got two posts up, 13 "original views" and more than likely our blog is probably only coming up in Google when someone decides to type in "random couple blogging about money and nothingness"... Which is totally what someone is going to search for, right?
yeah, she didn't think so either.... She knows there is a way to add keywords somewhere, somehow that will increase our blogs' chances of moving up the Google totem pole, so she decided to look into it to increase the chances of like-minded folk to stumble across our blog. Turns out this ability is called: SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Isn't it funny we totally understand those three words and yet at the same time really have no idea what exactly that means? Like, How exactly do you "Optimize for a search engine"? What does that really mean?
Well, she looked into it! And she had absolutely every intention in the world to post it all right here for your viewing and learning pleasure; Bullet point by sweet sweet bullet point... But 6 1/2 hours, 3 Coronitas (She's like, a midget folks, let's cut her some slack) and a bowl of cookie dough ice cream later this was her:
There's just no way to streamline every single detail without tumbling deep deep deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into the rabbits hole...
It's one of those paradoxes... it's simply complicated. Hmm.. that doesn't sound the way she wanted... it's confusingly simple? It's.... it's just a damn paradox people, ok?
She thinks it's just one of those things you have to actually understand to even begin to try to break it down into layman's terms for someone. And we're just not there yet. But one day, when we are, we'll post it for ya. Just the way she imagined it. It will be a thing of beauty, she promises... she just may need a reminder later on... you know... like in never years when she finally gets it?
You might have to get in touch with Guy Pierce and ask him if he still has access to that amazing Time Machine from the movie (that movie was awesome...) Ok! Before she goes waaaaaaaaay further off subject. SEO = COnfusing = Frustrating = Do not attempt when tired and drinking coronitas. She ended up signing up for Google Analytics (free). We shall see how that goes. Even that was a bit confusing and not really "normal human" terminology... or she should say, it is, but it isn't (Another Paradox?!??!). I know what a "container" means to me in my personal life, I also know what a "container" means to me in my secular life, but in Google tag word terms? ahhhhhh no. We'll be sure to update any who are interested about how that nonsense works out. Ok, ending this long boring blog about nothing now... maybe when we figure out the SEO crap we can add the keywords "Boring SEO Blog" and spare future visitors the time! Until Then...
- Me and Him
So We (she) decided to start a blog. But since we eventually want to start a business, and hopefully link the two she figured The First Step would be to come up with a clever website/company name and claim it immediately. She marched her fingers straight to GoDaddy.com and registered that bad boy. And with a nod, tap and a hot $12.17 MeAndYouMakeDo.com was born... or rather, registered... We had no idea there was more to it than that. Little did she know that basically all she did was the equivalent to registering a business name. All that $12.17 does is "reserve" that domain name for you for a year, or however long you want to pay just to own that name.com. Again, going by just the commercials, they make everything seem to straight forward. You "buy" a domain at godaddy and that's it. Boom... you have a website. So the Next step was to search "i bought a domain on godaddy. Now what" (yes, she really typed this). And guess what! That's EXACTLY what came up! She's going to be honest with you, she only skimmed the page. She is way too impatient to read all the technical businessy stuff when she's tired. She only read the bolded black title that said "Create a website". Ok! Got it! Website! and off she went to find a way to do this thing as free or cheap as possible. Queue "free website builder" google search. RESULTS: WEEBLY.com Along comes Weebly. It was fairly easy actually! Drag and drop stuff that you can almost put anywhere you want. Change the font colors, background colors or add a photo, etc. She spent two evenings typing it all up, making it look the way she wanted and adding the first blog post and then: it was time... But first! I'll let Kevin Spacey set the mood: (that means read that in his voice!) "It's 11pm on a Tuesday. You've been up for 18 hours, The house is quiet and you're exhausted but you're there! You're FINALLY THERE! Weebly was your cow..." And so... She hit the "Publish" button! a popup appears asking her what she wants her domain name to be... "Ok, No biggie" She thinks. She shakes it off and clicks the "I already have a domain I want to use" button and enters the address thinking "Ok, now here comes THE BIG CLICK!" And then another pop up saying it can't be transferred, but she can pay to transfer it over, blah blah blah, money money money... Detour: Proceed to the route. Ok, so GoDaddy must have something that does the same, right? we're already paying for the domain, let's see what they have. It was pretty straightforward... She even chatted with someone who walked her through signing up step-by-step. GoDaddy offers something called Managed WordPress Basic, it includes the domain name (if you don't have one already), up to 25,000 monthly visitors and a fancy email with your business name at the end to boot! All for the easy payment of $3.99/mo (of course that's if you sign up for a year or more) or $7.99/mo. Not free, but Not a bad deal, she figured. She tried to log in on the app for iphone to edit the site when she had time during the day with no luck. Kept saying her login information was wrong. And though the larger screens on the iphone 6s are amazing, it's not the iphone 6 Plus, or Ipad mini, or even a regular ipad... It's just not the same as having a keyboard and mouse. So logging in on safari wasn't giving her the view or capabilities she wanted either. She starts to work on the website as soon as she gets home, trying to recreate the amazingness she created on Weebly with wordpress. First roadblock: The Fonts: Listen, not everyone cares about fonts. She gets it. But she does! We work with boring 12pt Arial Unicode day in and day out at work. Can we get some character up in the blog please?! She tried searching for how to put the code into wordpress but short of installing some app and then putting it into the "coding" it's not very brain-fart friendly. Second roadblock: boring layouts that look worse on iphones: Browsing the layouts they looked nice. Classy, fun, exciting. When she applied them to use them for this blog? eh... And forget about how they looked on an iphone! It didn't take long for her to realize she wasn't happy, ANd she didn't like it. She wanted the weebly site! It was perfect! What did she do? Can she get out of This?! Is it too late? Lucky for us, there was still time! SHe called and cancelled GoDaddy and Wordpress in about 1 minute (turns out this can be done with the click of a button in your Account Settings as well) and she was back to weebly! NOw, we still have the domain registered at GoDaddy. Frankly because we paid for the year, and currently we're not missing the $12. for whatever reason today she was actually able to find an article about how to make weebly and godaddy work together (which she will look into later) (Update, you have to wait like 60 days after registering a domain name to transfer it anywhere, so… We'll update after that). For whatever reason that site did not pop up in her search before the purchased the WordPress with Godaddy, but nevertheless, it's there now. But she figured in the meantime, let's just get this bad boy up and running already! We'll take the free weebly site for now. One of the free "How to Blog" books she downloaded on Kindle said "before you go pay for a .com to blog, use a free one first and see if you even like it. Wise words Mr. Lotich! So she went for it. She hit that "Publish" button like her name was Desmond Hume (PLEASE say you understood that lost reference!), she typed in that website address with .weebly at the end proudly and boom. The blog was launched! So, the question remains... GoDaddy or No Daddy? In all the free Blogging books I downloaded for kindle there are several domain name places you can go to reserve your name. I haven't looked into them because I've already paid for the year, like I said. But I'm sure there is a spectrum of places you can go to that will include different things with their registrations, etc. Or you can pull a "make do" and go free and see how it goes! Ultimately it will be a matter of personal preference whether you choose Godaddy or a different site. I prefer Weebly this far. However most, if not all of the bloggers who wrote these free books suggest WordPress. Stating there's More you can do with it. I beg to differ, but you know... who am I? I have one, almost two whole posts ever! - Me and Him p.s. If you'd like more information on the free kindle books I downloaded please send us a message and I'm more than happy to provide a list!
"Here goes! First post titled "So... Here we are..." She says all proud of herself for being so clever and funny.
"So typical" he says "don't give your social out on the blog" and laughs, because let's face it, he's funny! And then we move on to normal parent-y type conversations about dinner that we'll have to start making in about an hour as we sit here in the hot southern California sun in the dried up, weedy backyard of the house we've been renting for about 5 years. Earlier today we did a little research on starting an Amazon business together but we didn't get very far. Just the idea of starting a business is daunting and wore us both out. Everyone makes it sound so easy! "Just" do this and that, or "just" pay $300 that you don't have to LEARN how to do what we did and make 6 digits in 6 months..." Yaddah yaddah... You know the drill....
somewhere towards the end of our research she came across a blog about a dad who says he first started blogging, and eventually started an Amazon business and how lucrative selling little weird wedding napkins is and how he can't even believe it himself! (Neither can we, but OK!)
He has one blog post specifically about the advice he would give people exactly like us, who don't know where to start or how. and the advice was basically this: if you don't put yourself out there you'll never know. Gather an audience. And the first step is to just put yourself out there. Well, Mr. MyWifequit... Advice Taken! "So... Here we are..." Boom!! See how that's clever?! Wife wins! He may disagree, but she's the one posting this so, she's calling it. She figures why not? I'm sure tons of people have done it before us (although for the life of me, I can't seem to find their blogs). And it gives her something to focus on while she sits here sipping her cheap champagne mimosa out of a cheap insulated plastic cup with a straw getting sun burnt.
So, that's about it for now... in fact, for "keeping it real"'s sake, she started typing this bad boy up Sunday and it is now Tuesday at 9pm. Why won't these damn website builder/editors just put stuff where I want them the way I want them?! We sure hope someone (besides us) gets a kick out of these posts. And if you have some suggestions, or directions on how to navigate this Selling on Amazon maze: please! Share!
Me and Him |
Oldies but Goodies
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