Mr Freelancer's Random Thoughts

Freelancer Listing has Officially Become YourBizListing

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:33:00 +0000

It has become official!
Freelancer Listing (www.freelancerlisting.net) has now become YourBizListing at www.yourbizlisting.com. People are already calling by the acronym "YBL".

Bigger, Badder and Better
I must say, this is for the better. I was comparing the old Freelancer Listing to the new YBL and YBL is far, far better! They've improved upon just about everything. What I really like about YBL is how they listen to their members. It only takes a few handful of members to drop a request for something and a high chance that the tech team is on it and making it happen. That's how a lot of the latest features are added... because of enough requests.

So what makes YourBizListing better than before? For starters, it a lot cleaner website design, which also means it's much easier to navigate around and get things done. This is a BIG PLUS! When the user-interface is cleaner, nicer and easier to use, it makes it that much more enjoyable to use the great features the YBL system has to offer.... such as the Email Marketing system.

The Event System is Awesome!
Remember their own event system? How limited it was and pretty much not worth using? Well, that has completely changed! It has "grown" up. Now, you can post event pictures, more text, start and end dates/times and you can even take registration/signup forms and even CHARGE for your signups! The best part, YBL doesn't charge you any fees! I love it!

What's also cool is each event that you post gets it's own "shortcut". Meaning, an event URL can be something like www.yourbizlisting.com/events/my-big-event. And going strait there will all the info on the event... much like Meetup but I think it works better because it integrates directly into YBL's marketing system, email campaigner, contact lists and more.

Everything to Gain, Nothing to Lose
If you haven't already, check out YBL. It's a near perfect solution for marketers, freelancers, and business owners. And because their basic membership is completely FREE, there's nothing to lose! In fact, you will gain! Check it out at www.yourbizlisting.com/whyjoin if you're curious.

Email marketing service offers Rollover emails

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:08:00 +0000

Email marketing service offers Rollover emails

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Speaking of the Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:34:00 +0000

So here we are, a horrible economy and things don't look like they're improving. You would think in times like these, one would start stocking up on goods, hoarding their hard earned money, cutting back on luxuries and being more mindful of the news. But....... nope, not me! I'm one of those that think just the opposite. I'm one of those that will see people running away from something and I'll run just the opposite. If people are bailing out of the stock market, I'll jump right in head first. I've always been the type of person that, rather than flow with the waves, I want to know what would happen if I "didn't" flow with the waves. So in this bleak economy, I found a few golden opportunities to snag up some stocks. Even stocks that everyone in the world advised NOT to get, I got anyway. And guess what? I just TRIPLED my money! Wahoo!!! Of course, I'm down some on other stocks I bought, but I firmly believe they'll rise given the time.

Speaking of the economy, what do you guys think? Should our government be spending money to excite the economy or do we impose a freeze like some of the politicians want us to do? Well, here's my two-cents. I'm completely for spending money to excite the economy.... 100%! What's my reason? Basic econ buddy! Econ 101.

You see, when money is spent, it creates a "chain-reaction" that effects many other sectors of the market. Think about this example......
I'm hungry, so I go out and buy myself a burger at some local joint. That local joint was happy to take my business because
1. I'm paying for goods, and
2. I am now a potential "lead" since I can recommend this place to others.
But even better, that joint now has money to spend, so they go out and decide to upgrade to a brand new super-duper-burger flipper... (just humor me for a moment). So they call into "Joe's Custom Burger Flipper Inc" and put in an order for a brand new unit. Now, it gets even better! Over at Joe's, he's flipped (no pun intended), about a new order and starts processing it right away. But oh crap! He's out of plastic materials to make it and he just went through his last stick-on label. Sooo, our entrepreneur Joe emails his buddy Tim, who runs the raw plastic outlet store to ship in more plastic parts. He then calls Jane, the manager of the paper store to get a box of stick-on labels. But here's the problem. Jane is low on paper so she puts in an order for more over at Greg's Raw Materials... who in turn gotta tell the loggers to get back into action. But Jack the logger just broke his chainsaw, so he's gotta head to the nearest toolstore to spend a grip there.

So all of a sudden, that toolstore just made money from Jack the logger, who just made money from Greg's Raw Materials, who just made money from Jane the manager of the paper store, who just made money along with our buddy Tim, because Tim's friend just put in an order for a brand new super-duper-burger flipper AND ALL because you spend $5 on a burger!!!

You get the picture? Not only did I satisfy my hunger, but I also just spurred growth in the Food Industry, the Paper Industry, the Plastic Industry, the Raw Materials Industry, the Logging Industry and even the Retail stores! AND NO, I'M NOT A FREAKIN' DEMO-CRACK!

And that's how we kick-start the economy. Spend baby spend!

The Online Solution for Business Owners and Freelancers

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:17:00 +0000

One Solution!
One of the hardest things to find on the internet is a business service that can offer just about everything under one roof. If you want an email marketing service, you've got to sign up with a service such as Constant Contact. If you want to be on a directory listing, you've got to join a service such as Directory Vault. If you want to be able to post calendar events & notices, you have to use a service such as Meetup. And the list goes on and on.

Wouldn't it better to find a service that offers it all in one simple, easy to use place? You won't have to worry about a dozen usernames & passwords, or all the bookmarks to sort through. You won't have to worry about countless membership fees and overhead. That's why we created Freelancer Listing! The "One-Stop Solution" for all your online business needs.

What does Freelancer Listing offer?
For starters, we offer a powerful and competitive Email Marketing system. Did you know that in 2007, *Forbes found that email marketing can increase your marketing results by 1,537 Percent! Now imagine the percentage today? Our email marketing system was built to be quick and easy, yet give you all the flexibility you need such as dozens of template designs, stats, scheduled emails, campaigns and a huge contact list to store thousands of your contacts and information. All this for less than half of what our competitors offer.

Not only do you get our email marketing system (MyEmail Campaigner), we also offer you an easy-to-use Community Calendar, Business Profile Listing optimized for search engines such as Google & Yahoo, a storage system (MyDatabase) to store all your contacts, a Job Market to post or bid on jobs and much, much more!

So What Does it Cost Me?
You would think such a service as this will be pretty expensive for membership fees and other costs. Well, you couldn’t be any more wrong. For all of these great services, our Gold package is only $9.95 per month, PERIOD! No hidden costs, no extras, no “gotchas”.

Think about this. If you joined an email marketing service that costs $9.95/month, then joined a directory service at $4.95/month, then a calendar service for another $9.95/month, that will cost you over $24 per month! That’s way too much overhead, too many usernames & passwords and too many websites to remember. Our Gold package offers the same exact things for only 1 price of $9.95/month, with only 1 username & password and only 1 website to remember. Now which would you choose?

Want Even More?
How about Business Web Hosting and Domain Names? Yes, Freelancer Listing even does that. We offer business web hosting tailored to entrepreneurs and freelancers for as little as $4.95/month. You can even get your next domain name for a low annual cost.

Having all your business marketing solutions and services in one location will save tons of time, money and hassle. This means you will have more time to spend on marketing and selling your services whether you’re a business owner or freelancer, or both. Freelancer Listing will help you do just that.

Join now at: www.freelancerlisting.net/register
Visit us for more information at: http://www.freelancerlisting.net/
Got questions? Drop us an email at: www.freelancerlisting.net/contactus

*information on this can be found at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_March_29/ai_n18766575

Don't be afraid of Email Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:28:00 +0000

When it comes to advertising your website, your products or services, one of the most common methods many business owners and even freelancers neglect is Email Marketing. Yes, you heard right, email marketing. Such a scary idea isn't it?... considering that you're probably thinking, "Oh no, I'll be labeled a spammer"!

Well, fear not! I, Mr Freelancer will explain the nitty gritty about email marketing the "proper" way..... of course, as a disclaimer, this "proper" way may be subject to interpretation by critique -artists and bashers of all kinds, but hear me out if you will. It's a common knowledge that spammers are the scum of the earth and should be locked up for eon's time, thus, there are several techniques in email marketing that one should adhere to so as not to fall into that category of "scum-of-the-earth". Some of these techniques I will illustrate down below.

RFCs
One of the biggest things one should do is follow the email RFC 2821 & RFC 2822. These are nothing more than "standard" protocols and procedures an email should follow. Really in a nutshell, these two standards alone are "almost" enough to be your guiding light. However, there's more....

Domainkeys & SPF
These two concepts are relatively new. Both act like "digital signatures" when sending an email as a means to "authenticate" the sender and help combat spam. Domainkeys were developed by Yahoo! and thus currently deployed by them and Google. It's a good idea to implement these two if possible, at least I did and wow, I've noticed a dramatic increase in mail being delivered to the Inbox. They're not the easiest things to install with a green light but there are plenty of articles and tutorials in dealing with just that. In fact, here's a great place to get started.

Proper Email Headers
Although this can be covered under the RFCs, I'd like to mention it here to stress the importance of proper email headers. Having your typical "From", "To" and "Subject" headers is typically NOT enough; especially if you're sending email via a script such as PHP. Here's a few others you should really consider....

Sender: the "real" "From" header. This will tell email programs where the email possibly came from. It's especially needed if you plan on implementing Domainkeys.
Reply-To: the address the recipient will reply to. This will be the header used when the recipient clicks on the "reply to" button.
Return-Path: Generally used via the email servers. An example would be bounced emails. Bounced emails will use this header if it's specified.
Date: Kind of sounds silly, but yes, it's a good idea to add this. Typically Comcast servers will flag emails with a caution of "Non RFC compliant" in the header.

Other notible headers would include, Message-ID, X-Mailer & MIME-Version. Ever since I've implemented all these headers, including some obscure ones, my email delivery rate has nearly been 100%. In fact, Yahoo! themselves has even whitelisted the emailing services at freelancerlisting.net because of the fact that Freelancer Listing implements ALL these procedures and more.

Proper DNS Records & Host Name
Having proper DNS records, including an rDNS is quite crucial in th eyes of the big boys such as Yahoo!, Google and ol' Bill Gates. These are used to "authenticate" the email and from whence it came. *By the way, for those of you who use PHP (or any other server-side script) to send emails, sending as "nobody" will cost you. I hate to say it but email standards are getting tighter and tighter and a message from "nobody" is basically shooting yourself in the foot. I myself am an avid PHPer (no cut-n-paste here), and I've learned a looooong time ago to make sure to avoid the "nobody".

With all those and some common sense.... and a little luck, you can email blast those flyers, brochures and specials to all your clients, customers and prospects without too much fear of being labeled a spammer. Of course, I'm not to blame if you "do" get called a spammer. Afterall, the "spam button" is all too easy to press these days.

Last but not least, you've got to find a reputable and good email marketing service. There are plenty of them out there such as iContact & ConstactContact, but pick and choose wisely since many of them do not follow said protocols and procedures. However, freelancerlisting.net is one of the few (pretty new), that is a bang-for-your-buck! You get a ton of services and resources for FREE and even more for less than $10, all designed for business owners and freelancers! The best feature is their "MyEmail Campaigner", a powerful email marketing tool that comes with a FREE huge contact list storage system.

Anyhow, enough said. I'm tired and need a shower... not to mention, I've gotta go visit the porcelain god and pay homage by offering my goods..... hehehe!

Until next time...... To Your Success!!

Going Freelance

noreply@blogger.com (Mr Freelancer) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Freelancing can be a scary thing. Especially when you're used to the usual 9-5 job and knowing that every two weeks (or monthly), that a paycheck will be there ready to be devoured by the hungry mouths of bills. And after it's all said and done, you've got a few bucks left to go buy a burger at McDonalds. If you're lucky, you might be able to afford to super-size it, even though you really wanted to buy the chicken nuggets as well.

So what's the solution to having the super-size plus the nuggets? Simple. "Freelance". If you've got a trade, a profession or you're really d*mn good at what you do, why not freelance? "Sell" yourself to businesses and people who are looking for your services, be them corporate or private. I mean, afterall, you sold yourself to your boss to get your job didn't you? And chances are, you probably sold yourself in various other ways to various other people and businesses. So what's the difference?
Here's the difference. Freelancing will get you that extra change in your pocket. Freelancing can be the perfect extra income you were looking for and even better, it can ultimately be the only "job" you ever need. I can't guarantee that you will have an income every two weeks or even a month but even then, you may end up making more from a single client than 2 or 3 paychecks combined. Imagine turning in your resignation, quitting your job to freelance full time. That means working the hours YOU want to work and dressed however you please. Heck, more times than not, I'm making money freelancing simply sitting in front of my laptop, on the couch, in my boxers and chugging a beer. And guess what? I'm making more in that hour than a whole work day from the job I had quit.

Now, don't get me wrong. Freelancing is not always a "walk-in-the-park" and you may not make money hand-over-fist. But three things are for sure...

You gain freedom to work as you please.
You own your own business.
You can give yourself a raise anytime you wish.

However, with initial hard work, dedication and getting your name out there, you will soon realize that freelancing has far more percs than you imagined. I love freelancing and been doing it for over 8 years.

If you're still unsure and confused as to where to start, don't worry. There are plenty of help and services online. There are dozens of websites, tutorials, articles and e-zines to help you in determining if freelancing is indeed for you. Then once you decide that freelancing is for you, there's even more resources out there to help "sell", "promote" and "market" your business and services. In fact, here's a perfect place to visit: www.freelancerlisting.net. A great place for freelancers & entrepreneurs.

Well, that wraps it up for this entry. Until next time, to your success!