I spent all of last year in pretty much the same spot. Nothing changed from month to month and life kinda just had me feeling stuck. It was one of those situations where I looked back at the year and wondered “what just happened to that year?”. And there’s no way that was going to happen again! It was time to do something about it and move on.

It’s tough to admit that something isn’t going as planned and that it’s time to cut ties and go separate ways. After spending about 8 months building up an online presence for a skating company I was a partner in, it was decided that things just weren’t ever going to work the way they were. I’m just glad that it was recognized sooner than later. Life is too short. It was unfortunate that there wasn’t a future for me in the skate board business, but it was also a blessing that it worked out the way it did.

That was when the decision was made to move back to Costa Rica and stay for a lot longer this time. My first stay here was one of the best/happiest periods of my life. Surfing is my equalizer. It’s the one thing in life that when I’m doing it, nothing else matters. My brain shuts off and the current moment is the only thing that exists. And that’s why I knew it needed to be more a part of my life.

Now my focus is on building my brand, Surf Bums while still doing very selective consulting on contest projects like the one I’m running for Mobile Money Bandit. Best thing about it is using my knowledge of social media and online video marketing is making building this up really enjoyable. It’s a niche that I truly wake up in the morning craving to serve. Here’s the first video I made about a week ago…

Since moving back down here, I’ve met some of the coolest people on earth. Most people here are different and that’s a very good thing. Everyone is a character in their own right and it makes the dynamics here fun on a daily basis. And best of all, the differences in view point from all these different mindsets help tremendously with creativity, which is a corner stone of my business.

Moving on helped me find that “happy place” or my place of zen. It would have been easy to ignore the stuck feeling and just stayed in my current spot for longer just hoping things would change, but that would have led me to becoming old and only being a fraction satisfied with life. That’s just not what I envision life being all about. I’m urging you now that if you feel stuck and don’t see the avenue to grow in life, then move on and create a drastic change in your life to move towards what will make you truly happy and congruent with your core being. When you can match that core being with the proper external influences, you’ll feel a plethora of good feelings that will lead you to true bliss!

One of the most underused features inside ContestBurner is the affiliate module. And that’s a shame too. It’s my absolute favorite feature of ContestBurner. Why? Well, because normally people won’t spend money promoting a contest, but when they can get paid to promote the contest, then they’ll do what it takes to spread the contest far and wide. Even if that means paying for traffic.

Let me explain a little bit about how this affiliate module works and why it’s my favorite feature. When you activate the affiliate module, it allows the affiliate the opportunity to embed their affiliate link directly into their contest link. Then when they share their contest link, they are in effect sharing their affiliate cookie without anyone even knowing that’s what is going on. All the person clicking on the contest link sees is the contest.

But even better than that is you can set it up where the affiliate can really leverage the contest and your prizes. What you can do is allow the affiliate link to be passed down through contestants based on the amount of levels you specify. It’s basically like a pyramid structure except the only person getting credit for all the sales is the affiliate at the top.

Here’s an example: Let’s say Affiliate A refers Contestant B. Contestant B then refers Contestant C to the contest. And from there Contestant C refers Contestant D. As long as you’re allowing the link to be passed down at least 3 levels, Contestant B through D are all now sharing Affiliate A’s affiliate cookie inside their contest link without even knowing it.

It’s the ultimate form of stealth marketing. And the affiliate doesn’t have to buy any prizes to take advantage of the contest. All they have to do is drive traffic to the page as much as possible.

If you use ContestBurner and have your own product, then I highly suggest you use this extremely valuable module!

Doyle Carter was elected Jacksonville City Councilman in March 2011 and I’m proud to have played a role in his campaign. We won this election with over 60% in a 3 way race. We used technology and the website a few different ways. City Council campaigns aren’t really loaded with donations, so my primary goal with the campaign was to find ways to use technology to save the campaign resources and keep people engaged. We used a few things to accomplish our objectives.

That’s a bold statement, huh? Well, I’ve got a method of ethically and legally helping clients rank for competitors’ business names in a way that isn’t frowned upon. How is this you ask? Let me show you.

I like to use local or niche based directory/review sites. For instance, Massages in Boston is one of those review sites. Everyday, I’m getting visitors that were searching for business names and found my site instead. After a few months, I expect to rank in the top 3 for almost every business in that area and niche.

What this does is allow my client to have the “featured” ads all to themselves and be seen every time someone was looking for another business in their niche. Best of all, this site only took me about half a day to completely put together and setup. AND it’s all on WordPress making it extremely easy for you to manipulate.

This is a great upsell for any local marketer to spread their client’s reach just that much further.

If you would like me to build you one of these directory sites, contact me on Skype at Brendan.Wenzel or use my contact form. Just let me know what you’re looking to do and I’ll send you over a quick quote.

Website Development and Design

Site is built on WordPress with a customized Thesis theme. We integrated social sharing, facebook comments and Open Graph.

YouTube Channel

Our longboarding videos have quickly grown a nice viewership rate. We’ve gotten nearly 40k in the last 4 months and gained close to 900 subscribers. You’ll notice by looking at our channel that we have in video ads and if you search YouTube for Longboarding, you’ll see our channel there on the first page.

Facebook Page

Our Facebook Page has gotten to 1,700+ fans in the last 4 months with two methods. We’ve run Facebook ads that get us likes for about $.04 a piece and have used unique contests to attract people. Our fans are very active and keep our page constantly filled with fresh content.