However, just because I won’t be adding any new content here; doesn’t mean that the old posts dont provide any value.  I plan on keeping this blog live for your reference as needed.  As I look back at some of the old posts I see that there is really some great content here (at least I think so).  The content provided in the past is really everything that someone would need to get started creating niche websites.

I can also understand that it can be hard to read an entire year’s worth of posts to find the gems.  So, I went through and make a quick list of the posts that I thought would be most helpful to someone trying to create niche websites.  As always, you can visit the archives page to view a complete list of the posts made.

However, to make it easier I have listed the top articles that I think are the best.  Here they are in chronological order:

• How I Will Choose Niche Keywords to Target

• My Overall Process for Building Niche Websites

• Keyword Research Videos: Using SEO for Firefox

• Long Tail Keywords

• Understanding the Google Dance

• In Search of Black Swans

• What I Learned from My Challenge

• 10 Linkbuilding Strategies to Dominate Your Niche

• Your Sites Might be in Danger…Mine Are

• Dear Google, Please Unbreak My Heart!

• Are There Really Still Good Keywords Out There?

• Are Niche Websites Dead?

• Video Introduction to My New Blog

So, there you have it!  If you are looking to get started in building niche websites, I would start by reading the above posts.  Of course there is lots of other great material here, but these are some of the highlights.

The great news is that just because this blog is dying, doesn’t mean that I am going to stop discussing niche websites!  In fact, I will be discussing so much more over at my new blog.  So, if you haven’t taken a look yet feel free to take a peak and leave a comment!

Go to Spencer’s New Blog!

As always, feel free to leave a comment below.  Or better yet, head on over to the new blog and leave a comment there.  I am going to start adding some great content over the next few days and beyond!  See you there…

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Anyway, I don’t have this video transcribed, but essentially its an introduction to my new blog!  I have been dropping a few hints here and there what it is about, but now I go into much greater detail.  And of course after watching the video, you will be able to get access to the new blog!  So, head on over there and lets get the conversation started over there.  I may have one final post on this old blog, but that will be about it…everything else will be at the new location!

Get Access to my new blog below:

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All I can say is that I am very pleased with the way everything has worked out.  I was able to build my business on the side and continue to work full-time until my income has become large enough to support my family.  As I posted last week, my income last month from Google Adsense was the highest it has ever been.  The month of March appears to be even better so far.

Right now, I don’t have any useful tips or tricks to share; however, I thought you might be interested in seeing the office I am giving up to work from home.  I am giving up a VERY large office and will be moving to a very small work area in my home.  These pictures will make it look like a step down, but I wouldn’t have it any other way at this point.

Current office at my “day job”

Now here are some pictures of my work space at home.  Its really just my desk, chair, and computer in a space in my master bedroom.  However, I can always lock the door during the day so my kids won’t hassle me too much.  Really its a decent setup and has everything that I need to build niche websites and my internet company.

New Workspace at Home

Anyway, I think I will make another post on Monday to discuss some of my future projects here (i.e. my new blog).  I expect to launch it by the end of the month.  I will leak a few more details in a few days!

Anyway, please feel free to comment below if you so choose!

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To read up on the recent Google changes I recommend reading a few sources.  First, check out the Google blog to see what they say about and the official announcement: Finding more High-Quality Sites in Search.  Also interesting is to read some early analysis on what types of sites were hit (lost rankings) by these changes.  You can read a couple of great articles over at Aaron Wall’s SEO Book: Google Kills eHow Competitors and Sistrix.com: Google Farmer Update: Quest for Quality.

What Sites Got Hit?

These articles give you a good idea of the type of sites that got hit, and to me it makes PERFECT sense.  The type of sites that lost rankings are huge article and answer directories that have very little in-depth content and no core focus.  According to the sources mentioned, here is just a taste of the sites that got hit:

• Ezinearticles.com
• Wisegeek.com
• Suite101.com
• Hubpages.com
• Buzzle.com
• Associatedcontent.com
• Articlebase.com
• Mahalo.com
• Answerbag.com
• And MANY others

You get the picture though.  Large article directories with a lot of low quality user submitted articles took the bulk of the hit.  I actually applaud this update, because these articles never had any business ranking as well as they did.

In fact, one of the ways I knew to find low competition keywords was to find keywords that the above sites were ranking well for and then I could feel confident that I could outrank them.  These sites tended to rank well with 1 short article on the subject and usually no backlinks to those articles…it was ridiculous!

My Niche Sites Traffic and Earnings

So, what does this change mean for Niche Adsense Websites?  Are they dead?  Well, I can only speak for my own websites.  At this point, I have seen only positive changes in traffic and earnings since the Feb. 24th change to Google.  I haven’t seen a major jump in traffic anywhere, but overall my sites are doing very well since the change – no decrease in rankings.

In order to show the type of earnings that my sites have been making both before and after the Google changes, I thought it might be interesting to see a daily snapshot for the month of February.  So here is a simple PDF showing the earnings for my Niche Websites for the month of February, and remember this is ONLY earnings from Google Adsense.

Click here to see my Feb. Daily Earnings.

In fact, February has turned out to be my best month ever with Adsense!  So, what has the Google Algorithm changes done to my Niche Websites?  Well, nothing negative that’s for sure!  I think this is also a testament to the business decision I made to switch from making 1 or 2 page sites to larger more quality websites (even though they still usually only start with 5 to 10 pages).  Read my article here where I discuss focusing on quality – wrote this post 9 months ago!

What to Focus On – Quality

Overall, I see no indication that Niche Websites are dead (mine are stronger than ever!) as long as you are focusing on quality content.  The fact that you can build a site on a tightly themed subject provides tremendous value to readers and gives you a huge advantage over article directories and other thin content pages.

So, even if your site only has 5 or 10 pages of content surrounding a subject, as long as that content is quality, then you provide the user significant value over a simple 400 word article submitted by someone to EzineArticles.com.  From what I can see, Google agrees with that previous statement.  Of course, you should grow your 5 to 10 page website with more content as you see traffic and success to provide even greater value.

So, niche websites are NOT dead and never will be if you are providing true value and quality to your niche readers.  Things will always be changing with Google and certainly there will be minor tweaks here and there that each of us will have to make with our business model, but overall niche websites are alive and well.

So, that’s my thoughts on the subject in case anyone was wondering.  Do you have a comment to add to the discussion?  Do you think niche websites are dead?

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So, I went through and tallied up the comments for and against doing some sort of teaching or not.  In total, 73% of those who responded think that I should offer a course or some sort of coaching or variation thereof; while only 27% think I should NOT doing any niche website training.

I have been considering this decision for a number of months because many have you have personally requested that I share some of my insights on niche websites with you individually.  So, all of your comments have been appreciated in making my decision.  If this were a democracy, the decision would be simple.

I’m a Dictator

However, the fact of the matter is that my blog here is currently a Dictatorship, and yours truly is the all-powerful Dictator over what I do with my business.  So, I have made my decision and I don’t think there is much you can do to change my mind at this point.  I will NOT be offering any type of course or coaching on building niche websites!

This shouldn’t come as much of a shock to anyone as I clearly stated in my last post that I was leaning this direction anyway.  However, I now feel much more confident in that decision after reading your input.

Here is one great comment by Chris that sums up some of the main reasons against coaching:

I have to come down on the dont do it side of things, I spent a couple years working in the coaching area, there are so many people who will buy the coarse and the coaching and then just sit on the information, its how the gurus make all the money one coarse after another knowing full well only 5% of the people will ever put the informations to use.

The problem is you risk your integrity when they all whine about how they didnt make any money, you could get caught up in endless coaching sessions with these kind of people and they are a huge part of the market place.

hate so sound so negative but unless you have some checks in place to weed through the disatified get rich quick people you could end up with a whole boat load of them and end up doing everything for them.

I just dont think 25k is worth the stress and headaches, the gurus sheild themselves well so they dont have to deal with any of the customers and that takes some capitol as well, anyway enough of my nay saying you layed out the pro,s and cons quite well

I often see a course and think, “if it really worked why would you share it with the world”.

Here’s My Reasons

In addition to these points made by Chris and others, I would add a few other reasons.  First, I want to have time to work on other projects such as new software or other niche business ventures.  If I tie myself down to coaching or doing a video course a HUGE chunk of my time will be spent supporting and working with people.  There is nothing wrong with that, but I simply have too many other projects that I want to get to.

Secondly, I think I can make way more money if I don’t do coaching.  I guess this really is just an extension of my first point, but I really believe that creating some additional software or pursuing some of my other business ventures (both online and offline) will allow me to increase my income much more.

Finally, I personally have never purchased an internet marketing course on building niche websites, etc.  I learned how to build websites and do keyword research all on my own using free tools and information available through a search engine called Google.com (you should try it).  Since I didn’t use a course or coaching to get started, I think others can also manage doing the same as I.

So, that’s that.  I’m not doing it.  I just want to make that clear so that you don’t expect anything different from me.

This Blog – and a New One!

So, where does that leave this blog?  Well, just because I won’t be doing any coaching etc, doesn’t mean I won’t continue to blog about my niche websites!  In fact, I have some HUGE plans for my new blog – which I hope to launch in the next month or so. (I will have much more time when I officially quit my full time job in a couple of weeks – March 11th to be exact!).

I don’t want to give away too much of my new blog, but the concept is new and I don’t believe I have seen any blog like the one I will be doing before.  Without giving too much away, the topic will be more broad than simply “niche adsense websites” as it is here.  The core of the blog will focus more on Niche businesses in general – with a huge twist that I think you are going to love.  Like I said I haven’t see anyone else doing this before.

I have read enough “internet marketing” blogs to know what the norm is…usually pretty lame.  This will not be an online marketing blog, it will be a “niche business” blog with an awesome twist that will allow you to interact with me quite a bit.

Anyway, I’ve said enough at this point.  Yes, NicheAdsenseChallenge.com will be dying in a month or so, but I will not be (at least I don’t plan on it).

Your Comments

If you have any comments to leave today, I would love to hear it!  What do you think of my decision to NOT pursue a coaching or video course?  Any other thoughts?

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As of today, I leaning towards NOT creating a course on building niche websites…perhaps ever.  Let me give you some of the reasons why:

Reasons Against Creating a Niche Websites Course:

1. I don’t want to be associated with those slimy sales people that make money telling people how to make money – (i.e. most of the courses on clickbank).  I absolutely HATE the hyped up crap that comes out of the internet marketing community.  This is why I don’t buy internet marketing courses…I just learn on my own.  In fact, these exaggerated “make money online” courses are the norm in this arena – and so I would surely be associated with these snake salesmen at least in some people’s minds.  I don’t want that.

2. The integrity of what I share for free would be called into question.  When I share a technique that makes me money, lots of people would think “Well, maybe he is really just trying to get me to buy his latest course”.

3. Its a lot of effort to create, promote, and support such a course.  Its time that I could spend building other niche websites, creating new software, or doing other projects.

4. I don’t want to train my competition!  If I am having success with a particular technique, I don’t want to always be giving step by step instructions to the very people that could put me out of business.  (Yes, I realize that all of you are potential competitors when it comes to niche websites).

5.  I don’t want to share my domains.  I know that this is what everyone wants to see – a live example of one or more of my websites.  Quite frankly I don’t want to leave myself open to copy cats for my keywords.  Once one of my domains are out there, it just makes it that much easier for people to find all of my domains and potentially copy all of my “money” keywords.  I just prefer to keep it private.

6.  In reality, I probably wouldn’t make enough money for it to be worth it.  For example, Chris Guthrie recently revealed that he has made about $25k in the past 6 months from his latest training course.  I would expect his income from this to be significantly less over the next 6 months as everyone knows these courses have a short life span.  I probably wouldn’t promote my course as much as he did, and quite frankly I’m not interested in $25k for giving up the 5 things I mentioned above.  Its just not worth it to me.

7.  I would probably make much more than $25k over the long run if I focus on building niche websites or other projects that I have in mind.

8. I already did my ebook – Long Tail Handbook that explains everything I do.

Reasons FOR Creating a Niche Websites Course:

1. I could make money.  It would diversify some of my income away from the search engines.

2. I could help other people learn the ropes of building niche websites.  I do enjoy helping other people, so in a way it would be rewarding.  It is also nice to see other people become successful.

3.  I would get to know lots of other people and would be able to network quite a bit more.  The relationships that I could build through my course I’m sure would be very rewarding.

4. I could build my personal brand quite a bit.  So, even if the course doesn’t make a huge amount of money – I would be getting my name out there.  This would probably help build my subscriber and email list much more so that if I have products in the future I would have an audience.

5. Many of you have asked for it.  I have been contacted on several occasions by people who want me to either create a course or to coach them on a personal basis.

6. It would open doors for lots of Joint Ventures or other networking opportunities with fellow internet marketers.  I’m sure that more people would contact me to ask for help in promoting their products, or perhaps relationships that could lead to future business opportunities would arise.

Anyway, this is just kind of me thinking out loud.  To be honest, I have created a couple of hours worth of videos over the past few months that I was planning on using for a course.  So, I was planning on doing one, but I just don’t think I want to anymore – at least that is where I am leaning.

Do You Have an Opinion?

However, you could change my mind!  I’m not sure what your thoughts are on this stuff, but I would be really interested in knowing.  Do you think I should create a video course on building niche websites?  Do you think I should offer one on one coaching (as several people have asked me to)?

If you have an opinion one way or another – I would love to hear your thoughts!

PS – Depending on how this little thought exercise goes today, I may be sharing some of my plans for my future blog…I will be needing your input on the exact direction…so stay tuned!

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As you can imagine, I am quite excited about the prospect of working full-time on my own to build my internet business.  This will not only give me the time to pursue a few different ventures that I have been interested in, but I will also have the time to grow my existing niche website business.

So, you may be wondering how my niche websites are doing.  Well, quite honestly things have never gone any better for me.

My Earnings Over the Past 2 Months

Last month my niche websites averaged about $200/day from Google Adsense.  I also had additional income from other internet marketing efforts (ebook and Long Tail Pro), but I am not comfortable sharing those earning levels.  I like to keep a little mystery around my income!

This month (February) my niche websites are on track to earn close the $250/day on average from Google Adsense.  To be honest, if I put some more effort into my existing sites, I think they could easily top the $300/day mark.  Its almost mind boggling for me to see these kind of numbers registering on my Adsense accounts – but they have been every day for the past couple of months.

In fact I have had a few days over $300 from Adsense, and one day this month hit $350!  Oh snap!!

If you recall, it was only about 3 or 4 months ago that I made a sad video about Google deindexing my sites.  Then I made the CRITICAL decision to take some of the keywords from those deindexed sites that I knew could perform well and to build new sites based on those keywords.

I rebuilt about 10 of those sites.  The new 10 sites are outperforming by FAR what my old sites were doing.  So, in a way the fact that some of my early sites got deindexed was the best thing that happened to me.  I’m now making more money, and the sites that I build are bigger and of better quality.

I also consider myself lucky because I know I am sitting on a treasure trove of keywords that are very low competition yet very high paying.  So, if for some reason my new sites that are performing so well take a hit, I am confident that I could re-target these awesome keywords with a new website.  However, I really doubt that I will be seeing the same penalties that I saw in the past because of the precautions I have taken.

Anyway, I just wanted to provide a quick update in case there is anyone out there that cares.  I’m pumped to quit my job and get going on this stuff full time!  March 11th will be here in just a few short weeks!

If you have any comments, please leave them below.

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One method that I have discussed in detail to find those keywords that pay well, is using the Cost Per Click (CPC) displayed on the Google Adwords Keyword tool.  However, this number can sometimes be deceiving.  For example, I currently have a website that is based on a keyword that has an Exact Match CPC of $1.38 in the adwords tool.  However, in reality I am only making about $0.07 or $0.08 cents on average per click!  What happened?  This caused me to dig a little deeper as to why I could have picked such a low paying keyword when the adwords keyword tool suggested differently.

My 3 Mistakes

I made 3 mistakes – I didn’t look at the broad match cpc, I didn’t look at the amount of advertiser competition (more is better), and I didn’t think about the overall profitability of the market.  If I simply would have looked at the broad match cpc, I would have seen that this broad keyword only pays $0.28 rather than $1.38.  So, what’s the difference between broad and exact match CPC?  Well, usually there is not much difference.  However, in this case there was and I now I think its always a good idea just to check both match types.  More importantly, I think if I would have looked at the amount of competition a little closer then a red flag may have gone up for me.

Check the Competition

The level of competition available on the Google Adwords keyword tool shows the number of advertisers that are paying to display ads based on this keyword.  Google only shows whether the keyword is Low, Medium, or High competition (and the green bar displays how low or high).  So, if you are building niche websites you actually want to see High competition in this case because that means more advertisers are willing to pay for this keyword – more advertisers usually means there is more money for you in the market.

So, if I would have looked at my keyword, I would have seen low competition and known that the $1.38 CPC was probably an anomaly.  If there are only 3 or 4 advertisers, and one is bidding $1.50 to be first, but the rest are only bidding $0.05, then the chances are that you are going to be getting $0.05 clicks on your website.  What you need is lots of competing advertisers bidding over $1.50 or more to really start to expect to see $1.50 clicks on your site.  If the competition is High for a keyword, and the CPC is also high, you can start to feel a little more comfortable that the keyword data is more reliable.

Is the Market Profitable?

Finally, its also important to look at the overall profitability of the market that you are going into – not just the single keyword.  If can see that the overall market has lots of money spent on advertising in it, you can be more certain that the keywords you are targeting will pay well.  In fact, even if you discover keywords that say they only pay $0.05 or $0.10 – they actually might be worth targeting if the overall market has a lot of ad dollars being spent!

For example, a HUGE amount of money is spent in the education market (think University of Phoenix, etc).  In fact, University of Phoenix spends over $20 million per month on Online ads (its probably much more now as this article is from 2008: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-displays-big-spender-university-of-phoenix-category-continues-to-wait-f/) Its possible to find keywords in the online education market that only have a CPC of $0.05 on the adwords tool. In fact, I just found one – “online schools for education” according to the Google Adwords keyword tool only has a CPC of $0.05.  I promise you that this keyword pays WAY MORE than $0.05.

The adwords keyword tool shows that similar keywords in this market are paying closer to $5 to $15 on average.  So if I were to build a niche website around the keyword “online schools for education” I would fully expect to get paid at the higher CPC – not $0.05.

Broad Match CPC Better?

The reason is mainly because of the amount of money that advertisers are spending in this market.  The discrepancy may occur because maybe less advertisers are targeting “online schools for education” specifically; but LOTS of advertisers are targeting “online schools” or “online education”.  So, your website will mention “online schools”, so you will still get advertisers for this keyword even though you are targeting “online schools for education”.

Anyway, hope some of that made sense.

So, one great way to find profitable keywords is to simply target those markets that you know have a lot of advertising dollars being spent.  This will ensure that you know there are advertisers spending money, and you are sure to get some great CPCs for your sites.

Let me know your thoughts below!

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Actually, on Thursday night, I began to get extremely nervous about the prospect of telling my boss that I was leaving my job.  I was nervous about leaving the highest paying job I had ever had and most secure.  I have been with this company for over 5 years, so its a big change for me.  Secondly, I was nervous about what my boss would think.  I actually respect her a great deal, and she has always been a great manager to work with.

Despite being nervous about it, I had obviously made my decision to go through with it long ago.  So, on Friday morning I went into my bosses office and closed the door.  I started by expressing my gratitude for the great boss that she has been to me over the years.  I won’t go into details, but she was instrumental in allowing me to move my family to the state of Washington (which is what we wanted to do).

I then discussed the fact that I have always been interested in business – I got my undergraduate degree in business management/finance and I got my MBA just a couple of years ago.  She was also aware that I won a business plan competition (ironically about a website idea that I had) while I was attending ASU.

My Boss Reacts

So, then I simply explained that I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur and that I had found a small business opportunity that I planned to pursue full-time.  Not only did she take the news well, she was actually very excited for me! This is more than I was expecting.  She was genuinely interested in my career development and she saw this as a great move for me; especially since I already had established an income from my internet business.

Later on Friday, we called the entire staff together and announced my plans to leave the company and pursue my business full-time.  My co-workers were very happy for me as well.

I actually received lots of questions from people to clarify exactly what I was doing online, and I shared one of my sites with people to kind of demonstrate.  (I tried not to go to in depth with SEO etc, because I could tell I was losing people by simply saying I make money from advertising on my websites).

It was also interesting because a few of my coworkers approached me because they too had actually had websites ideas and had some questions.

Anyway, so revealing the news to my boss was nothing to be nervous about at all!  Everyone was very encouraging and supportive of my decision!

When Is My Last Day?

So, how much longer am I going to work?

Well, we are still working out some of the details, but I told them I was willing to work as long as needed (within reason) to make it a smooth transition.  It looks like my last day will be sometime between March 1st and March 15th.  I will probably have additional details in the next week or 2.

Anyway, I am one step closer to being a free man!  The prospect of working full-time from home is very exciting to me.  I should be able to get at least twice as much done each day as I do currently.  Hopefully, that means doubling the size of my business over the next year!

Anyway, I just wanted to keep everyone up to date with my job-quitting saga.  If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post below.

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This is an exciting accomplishment for me because I set a goal for this a long time ago.  I started building websites over 5 years ago (before I even started my current job).  When I first started, quitting my job was just a pipe dream so I continued to work my “day job” and realistically expected to do that for a very long time.  However, about 18 months ago I finally discovered niche websites and the power of targeting less competitive keywords.

I’ve discussed exactly how I make my money online many times, so I won’t go into too many details about that.  However, I did want to keep you up to date with the reality that I will soon be working from home full-time!

How to Tell My Boss?

So, when I go into my bosses office tomorrow I really don’t know how I will explain it.  Very few of my co-workers have any idea that I make any kind of money at all online.  In fact, this whole thing kind of snuck up on me.  I mean at what point should I have started to spread the news that I had a real live potential business?  For years, I didn’t make anything worth mentioning from my websites.  Then I started to make $5 a day, but this was nothing to go tell my boss about.  Then I started to make $10 then $50 a day, but even that wasn’t always consistent.

So, I guess there was really never a “good time” to bring the subject up.  After all, I didn’t know if the income from my websites would “stick” anyway.  However, now I am at the point where my sites are earning more than they ever have and it makes complete sense for me to make the switch over to full time entrepreneur.

So, when exactly will my last day be at my job?  Well, I don’t know that for sure.  I am going to discuss it with my boss and work out the details.  However, I am hoping to work the rest of February and then March 1st be 100% on my own.  So, that’s only about 3 more weeks of corporate life!

Checklist to Quit My Job

So, as you are all aware I have been planning to quit my job seriously for the past few months.  But I wanted to ensure that a few things were in place before I did that.

First, I wanted to ensure that my online income was at least as much as my full-time job income.  Check.

Second, I wanted to have at least 6 months of living expenses saved up.  This is of course to prevent against the risk of not making the projected income that I have for my business.  By the end of February, I will have around 8 to 10 months of living expenses saved up.

Third, I needed to make sure I had health insurance in place.  Getting small business insurance is not fun and definitely more expensive than corporate insurance; however, its just one of the costs of being self-employed unfortunately.  This box is checked as well.

Fourth, I wanted to make sure that I had a work space all set up at home.  I just bought a brand new desk and chair for my little work space.  So, I’m all set on that front.

Fifth, I wanted to have multiple sources of income.  My primary business relies on Google search engine traffic and I wanted to diversify this before I quit my job.  As you are all aware, I just released my first piece of software – Long Tail Pro – which does not rely at all on natural search engine traffic.  I plan to create some additional software down the road or create other products to continue to diversify my income.

What to Expect

So, there you have it.  I am officially breaking the news to my boss that I will be quitting my job!  This is both a very exciting time and some what nerve racking time as I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future.  However, I am very optimistic.

In addition, I will be able to focus more on providing value to you!  In addition to building more niche websites and potentially more software projects; I plan on focusing on providing more valuable blog content that you can benefit from.

Anyway, I will be sharing with all of you how my BIG discussion with my boss goes in the next few days!  In the meantime, I would love to hear any comments or words of advice that you might have.

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