My First Mini Retirement - Help Needed

[batesy67]

Hi Guys,
I am seeking some advise. My wife and I are currently on our first mini-retirement (www.infinitescope.com.au/travelblog). I was calling it a mini-retirement long before I had ever picked up one of Tim’s books. It seems that everyone on earth has similar views, we all want to work less travel more.
In order for us to take on our mini-retirement my wife and I had to work more, spend less and save more. We cut out many things we loved doing just to have that little bit more. However we are now having to eat into our mortgage to continue the lifestyle. This I am not happy about, but we have 2 months left before returning to the real world, so I can deal with it. Now my question for everyone is: ‘How can I earn an income while away traveling? What is the best option for someone who has a laptop and quite a bit of spare time?’
I created http://www.friends-4-eva.com while on this trip, fortunately the idea is sound, unfortunately the sales are not. As a result of this, I don’t want to spend more than an hour or two on the site a week. As such I am looking for further ideas, I am currently investigating drop-shipping. Ideally my goal would be to earn $200 US a day ($200 — our daily budget) from some kind of venture. I would be able to dedicate around around 4 hours a day if needed, though obviously the less the better. Can you guys, the NR, or NNR (nearly new rich) offer me some suggestions? And give a guy who currently needs a lot of help and a shove in the right direction?
Thanks In Advance
Jono

[batesy67]

Hi Guys,

I have not had any replies to my post, however a few of you have looked at my mini retirement site (http://www.friends-4-eva.com) for which I am extremely grateful.

However I really need some help on marketing and promoting my site.
Is anyone here experienced in online marketing? And if so, do you have contacts within the travel industry? or know someone that knows someone? If so, would you be interested in a possibly lucrative partnership in which my site helps fund your mini retirement.

I am looking to partner up with someone who can really help me in my venture. I whole heartedly believe in the idea and the code that drives the site. It just needs some help and possibly some prettying up.
The best email address to contact me on is jono@friends-4-eva.com

Thanks in advance,
and I can not wait to hear from you.

Cheers
Jono

[Thor]

bugger mate sorry to hear of your troubles.

F4E takes too long to work out what you're trying to do/say.

Maybe a brief intro paragraph? To be honest i didn't have to read and work it out. i didn't see a clear offering of what you're trying to promote - no signup or buy now section.etc

Jealous you're out there.. hang in and enjoy!

[nghs22]

bugger mate sorry to hear of your troubles.

F4E takes too long to work out what you're trying to do/say.

Maybe a brief intro paragraph? To be honest i didn't have to read and work it out. i didn't see a clear offering of what you're trying to promote - no signup or buy now section.etc

Jealous you're out there.. hang in and enjoy!

I second that.

[Eire1977]

Jono,

I know absolutly nothing about this market but here is what I think.
I only looked at it for a few minutes.

1, Make it clearer on the site what you do.
2, Get rights from the customers when you take the photos that you can resell them.
3,Put the good images on somewhere like Getty images and create income from there.
4, Speak to people like budget travel Thompson travel JMC holidays. They all ,as well as many more have many reps all over Europe (I am sure there are companies like that in USA. Give them a little bite of the cherry and maybe they could bring their reps on board.
5, Do the same for all the stag and hen nights all over northern europe Prague etc Im sure the same is possibble in Vegas.
6, Dont aim at the reps aim at the companies that employ the reps. Therefore if you can get on company on board you may get a 500 rep package.

As I say I know nothing about this market ut its what I would do.


Regards
John McCarthy

[batesy67]

Hi Guys,
I have had a bit of an update, removed the overly verbose text and hopefully it now makes a bit more sense.
Let me know what you think :)
www.friends-4-eva.com
Cheers
Jono

[Truerate]

Hello,

It sounds like you need to make money now.... Do you have high speed internet? Im leaving in 20 days to Costa rica for 4 months. I have a sales company and the commissions come big and fast. Average 1200-$1500 if you spent 40 hours on our power dialer you could possible make 3 sales. If you are intrested let me know. We sell loan modifications for people in trouble with there mortgages in the US. Also whee are you?

[jetpacklife]

If you could offer something unique of value, you might get a following, and the money could follow. Your eva site pissed of google, because I'm getting public service ads. Your blog doesn't seem to have ads? It's also just a long narrow page, not the best navigation.

[batesy67]

Hi jetpacklife, I did have non public service ads running prior, however I am unable to get the Google mail (post) with my special 'license key' or whatever it is. So I decided not to chase it up until I am home (2 months time), but I also like the idea of the public service ads. It makes me feel like I am doing something other than just trying to make money... Trying to do something positive I guess.
As for the design, I make no disagreements, it could be a lot better. I think I need to employ the use of a designer, again I just don't have the money to actually put towards it. As such I do it all myself, and I am far from artistic...

The value comes from giving tour group tourists a physical copy (DVD) of each other photos. Is that not value enough? I really am at a loss, I am in the process of contacting the bigger travel agencies and seeing if they can have their tour guides sell our services. Though that is not progressing so well, I am beginning to assume this idea of mine is not that great!

AHhhhhhhhh.
:)

[blackhatontherocks]

a) Next time, post this in the automation forum where virtually everyone is talking about there muse projects.

b) Your homepage Talks about Stuff no User cares about. The first 2 lines might be a little interesting - but you already started with "what we do" instead of "what We/The Site can Do for You". The rest is maybe intersting to someone looking to buy the company, but not to a first visitor. Change that to a more inviting side, focused on the user, and what you will do for them.
Constructive Feedback: Start looking for good salesletters and steal from there. Do the thirtydaychallenge(.com). Look for free copywriting courses.

Everything else will cost you money, and as your unwilling to spend it on this stuff, you should get going this way.

c) I checked about 13 different "travel communities" on the german market alone while doing backlink research for a start-up I'm part of, only 2 of them had something that you could even remotely call "traffic" and a user base.
One of many features that most, if not all of them had were that people could upload all their vacation photos online, comment on them and show them either to the public or share them with a specific group of friends.

Chances are, if there are that many providers of these kinds of services in germany, you're likely to have a couple more in the U.S.

Other than that, every drugstore around here allows you to get a cd-copy of your photos, whether you handed them in on a digital medium and plain old film. And you can always order as many copys as you want to send them manually to your friends.

So your entire USP is based on collecting the photos and sending out the dvd's to everyone.

People who are firm enough in their internet skills to visit and use a site like yours probably don't know why they would need to share photos via dvds if they could have private photo-sites online. So the target market for your product would be people not well versed in using the internet. Which you won't reach through a web page.

See where I'm going here.
Maybe there is an angle to your Idea to make It sell, right now, you Lack

a Way to Reach your market (but you can handle that by getting deals with travel guides)
a useful frontpage - centered on the user experience first and foremost and
all information neccessary to grasp your service presented on the front page, as easily and with as few words as possible.


Good luck.

And a bit of advice: NEVER Live into your mortgage. Cut your living costs instead.

I eat out every day, buy only high quality, healthy food and still pay less than 30€ a day, rent included. Unless you stay abroad for months but keep living in fancy hotels instead of neat appartments, you can do that, too.