Rental Properties as a Muse

---

One of my Muses is rental properties. Before you start about having to fix toilets in the middle of the night let me assure you that I consider plumbing right up there with bamboo slivers under the fingernails and waterboarding. We use property management and let them worry about it. If you buy the property right and are in a good rental market, you can lease it out and use the monthly proceeds to make the mortgage payment, pay the property taxes, pay the rental property insurance, pay the property management fee (usually 1/2 the first month's rent and 10% per month after that) and STILL pocket some profit each and every month. We shoot for at least net $200.00 before the property management fee so we still usually clear $180.00 per month per unit. All Property Management can put you in touch with property management teams around most of the U.S. Some PM companies specialize so it is best to double-check the property type for accuracy when requesting a quote. Think of them as a Virtual Assistant for your rental business.

All Property Management

All Property Management Web Site

"AllPropertyManagement.com is committed to being the most comprehensive, useful and informative resource for those researching rental and association management companies. We enable you to quickly and easily locate and compare thousands of rental and association management companies throughout the United Stated and Canada. We also provide expert advice to the most commonly asked questions to help facilitate your decision making process.

Owned and operated by All Property Management, LLC, the staff at AllPropertyManagement.com is comprised of a team of marketing and sales experts with over 35 years combined experience. Our consultants have a lifetime of experience in the property management industry to help assure that the needs of those using our site to seek rental and association managers are met.

If you represent a rental or association management company and want to be listed in our site, please contact our sales department at 509-996-8286 (DO NOT CALL this number if you have a property and are looking for management - view our featured property managers)." AllPropertyManagement.com

All Property Management, LLC

P.O. Box 1013

Winthrop, WA 98862

Landing Pages

---

I notice on a lot of the forums set up for web-based businesses and internet marketers that a lot of novices make inquiries about landing pages. I ran across this web site and it looks pretty interesting. From it's marketing pitch below it appears to be all that the novices are looking for and more.

Landing Pages System

Landing Pages Website Link

"Welcome to LandingPages, a website system specifically designed to help Serious Internet Marketers promote their business, OR the business they work for, and in a big way.

LandingPages is NOT just another flip site, capture page generator, or even a limited custom website or template. No, it is much more. LandingPages is a fully featured website building system that has been specifically designed for Internet Marketers. It has unique marketing specific features and expandability not found in other systems or websites, giving you the freedom to be as creative as you want to be, and even getting you back on Google PPC." LandingPages.ws

---

Kickstarter.com

---

Kickstarter Web Site

"What is Kickstarter? Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. We believe that...

• A good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide.

• A large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.

Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

Who can fund their project on Kickstarter? Kickstarter is focused on creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. We're a great way for artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers, illustrators, explorers, curators, performers, and others to bring their projects, events, and dreams to life.

We know there are a lot of great projects that fall outside of our scope, but Kickstarter is not a place for soliciting donations to causes, charity projects, general business expenses, or raising funds without a specific goal." Kickstarter.com

---

Free eBay Classifieds

---

eBay Classifieds

Free classifieds similar to Craigslist but eBay is supposed to use some filters to keep it more family friendly. Definitely worth checking out and an important tool for eliminating clutter from your life or finding virtual assistants and local travel deals. Broken down by major city or metro areas.

"eBay Classifieds exists for one simple reason: life is busy. It's a rare day when you're not doing at least one thing where eBay Classifieds could help: looking for a job, buying a car, selling your old bike, lining up a babysitter, or warming up to your kids' plea for a puppy.

Life is too busy to deal with iffy classifieds sites. Sites that are not completely free, remarkably simple, and safe enough for your kids to look at — they're not worth your time. eBay Classifieds strives to be all three. There's always "someone home", and we're here to help.

eBay Classifieds launched originally in the U.S. as Kijiji.com in June 2007. Since then we have grown a very large community and, more recently, re-designed our site to make their lives even simpler. We loved the Kijiji name ("village" in Swahili) but felt it was time for a change and that the eBay brand would breathe some fresh air into online classifieds." EbayClassifieds.com

---

Mini-Retirements and Discount Travel

Tim Ferriss discusses the concept of the Mini-Retirement" in his book, "The 4-Hour Workweek". In his view one or two week vacations are simply not enough to break free mentally from the old grind at work. He advocates for smaller 1-to-several month long mini-retirements throughout your working lifetime rather than postponing for the sometimes elusive end-of-work retirements that is more common for most people.


He also chooses to travel extensively during his mini-retirements and, fortunately, a number of discount travel sites have sprung up recently that have made it within the financial grasp of more people. Following are some of the discount travel sites I have been able to locate during my research. I also thought these might come in handy for the upcoming holiday travel season. Enjoy!

---

OneTravel.com

Fly and Stay Cheap with OneTravel.com

"OneTravel provides you with the tools you need to book cheap flights and cheap tickets. Our site promises to find you the best flight deals around and our expert travel advice ensures that you’re getting the best airline tickets, car rentals, and hotel deals possible." OneTravel.com

---

CheapOAir

Domestic Super Saver Round Trip Fares at CheapOair.com.

"Start saving on air fares to top Domestic & International destinations & choose from 100 million flights options. CheapOair is a 7-time award winning travel website, ranked #7 amongst travelers by Hitwise.com. We offer one of the largest selections of airfares, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages and travel deals obtained from multiple sources, including three of the most respected and widely used reservation systems and fifteen other negotiated rates data sources to bring the best value to our customers." CheapOAir.com

---

One Bag

One Bag

"Pack light with One Bag. One Bag is a great site with lots of advice on travel and packing light. There's no question: overpacking easily heads the list of biggest travel mistakes. Thus this Web site, offering exhaustive (some might say exhausting) detail on the art of travelling light, living for an indefinite period of time out of a single (carryon-sized) bag." LifeHacker.com

---

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet

"Welcome to the Thorn Tree Travel Forum, the place where the Lonely Planet travel community get together to exchange travel information, advice, hints and tips. Get help, get connected, get inspired, have your say. Please choose from the Branches below or sign in to start posting." LonelyPlanet.com

---

BootsnAll Travel; The Ultimate Resource for the Independent Traveller

BootsnAll Travel

"The BootsnAll Travel Community is, we like to think, the soul of the company. It’s the place where like-minded travelers come to talk and exchange stories, travel tips and ideas. Our membership includes thousands of people from more than 90 countries – including experts in the travel industry – all interested in talking and reading about travel!

Becoming a BootsnAll member allows you to interact with the members of our travel community, whether you’re planning a trip and want feedback from others who’ve been there, in the middle of a trip and want to share your excitement, or you’ve just gotten back and can now answer questions for people who are in the planning stages. It’s wonderfully circular!" BootsnAll.com

Contact: 1-866-549-7614

---

Clickbank Digital Marketplace

Have a digital product but not sure where or how to market it? Several of the role models I am emulating for my Muse project have earned their fortunes through Clickbank and I plan use Clickbank for my primary marketing to as soon as my project is done. Once set up on Clickbank, one has the potential for an entire "army" of affiliates to promote and sell your product for you. Definitely worth a look-see before you commit to something else!

"The Web's Most Trusted Digital Marketplace - Founded in 1998, ClickBank is a secure online retail outlet for more than 70,000 digital product vendors and 110,000 active affiliate marketers.

ClickBank makes a sale somewhere in the world every three seconds, safely processing more than 27,000 digital transactions a day. We serve more than 200 countries, and are consistently ranked as one of the most highly-trafficked sites on the web.

ClickBank is privately held with offices in Broomfield, Colorado and Boise, Idaho. Click Sales Inc. is a subsidiary of Keynetics Inc. All products and services offered by Keynetics or its subsidiaries are subject to the ClickBank Legal Notice." Clickbank.com

Link to Clickbank Digital Marketplace

PDF Creation Software

PDF Creation Software

A sizable portion of information products are produced in the popular PDF format. PDF (Portable Document Format) was created by Adobe Systems over 15 years ago and is a formal open standard maintained by the International Organization for Standardization. ISO 32000 continues to be developed with the goal of protecting the reliability and permanence of PDF which will continue to provide an open standard for the millions of PDF files that exist today.

Beginning at $449.00, Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro software is a little on the high side of what most bootstrap startups can afford. PDF Creator is not as full-featured as the Adobe product but is more than sufficient for most applications required by the budding entrepreneur working on a Muse for Lifestyle Design.

Both products offer a free trial version which I have included links for below but be forewarned, the trial version of these products is really not suitable for Muse creation for various reasons. Use the trial version for testing but spring for the full version when you create your product. It will appear more professional and so will you.

"PDF Creator is a cost effective solution over the leading PDF product, Adobe Acrobat®. PDF Creator allows you to create PDF files from documents, spreadsheets, presentations, emails, websites, and virtually any file that can be printed. PDF Creator is a virtual printer so it's automatically integrated and ready for use in all of your favorite Windows® programs. This includes all of your Business applications, Multimedia applications, Web applications, Presentation applications and the list goes on and on. If you can print it, you can turn it into a PDF document." PDFCreator.com

PDF Creator Software

---

Adobe Software (PDF, PhotoShop, etc.)

Download Adobe Free Trials Here

"Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information. We help our customers create and deliver compelling content and applications as well as fully realize their business potential. Together we’re turning engaging digital experiences into more valuable interactions every day — across media and devices, anywhere, anytime." Adobe.com

EasyVideoPlayer 2

EasyVideoPlayer 2

Easy Video Player 2 is video marketing software that allows marketers to add links right inside of marketing videos.

"Easy Video Player 2 is fully compatible with HTML5 and the iPad and iPhone. This gives you immediate access to all of the millions of iPhone, iPad and mobile device users who right now may not be able to watch your video. (You need to upload a video in the right format, and we show you how). Increase the amount of viewers who can see your content by millions. iPad & iPhone HTML5 support is just one of the benefits of Easy Video Player 2. EasyVideoPlayer 2 Also Comes Bundled With Its Own WordPress Plugin To Make Things Even Easier" Quated material from Easyvideoplayer.com

EasyVideoPlayer 2

Receiving Payments Online

I first began using Paypal back in 1998 or 1999, about a year or so after opening my Ebay account. I resisted using Paypal initially because I didn't trust online payments at the time. Repeated customer requests through Ebay plus the hassle of dealing with checks and money orders finally convinced me to give Paypal a try and I was hooked immediately. It worked so seamlessly I added Paypal "Pay Now" buttons to my web site and sales increased there, as well.

To date, after thousands of transactions, I have only had one "chargeback" and that was from an Ebay customer who insisted they had not received the auction item they had bid on and won. I didn't use "delivery confirmation" back then either so I didn't have a leg to stand on and wound up mailing a replacement item.

Needless to say, I'm sold on using Paypal to process credit & debit card transactions as well as electronic check transfers. Unlike traditional merchant accounts, there is no start-up fee with Paypal though they do charge a per-transaction fee and percentage fee on every payment they transact. Many online merchants offer both a conventional credit card processing service and Paypal but for a new business on a budget, Paypal will get you up and running in a flash.

Paypal offers both personal and business accounts but the personal account has limitations on the amount you can accept every month and more payment options are available with the business account. Save yourself some time and grief and go straight from the get-go with the business account. Oh yeah! Almost forgot; Paypal accepts mobile payments now, too!

PayPal.com Online Payment Service

"PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay and get paid online. The service allows anyone to pay in any way they prefer, including through credit cards, bank accounts, PayPal Smart Connect or account balances, without sharing financial information.

PayPal has quickly become a global leader in online payment solutions with more than 153 million accounts worldwide. Available in 190 markets and 24 currencies around the world, PayPal enables global ecommerce by making payments possible across different locations, currencies, and languages.

PayPal has received more than 20 awards for excellence from the internet industry and the business community -most recently the 2006 Webby Award for Best Financial Services Site and the 2006 Webby People's Voice Award for Best Financial Services Site.

Located in San Jose, California, PayPal was founded in 1998 and was acquired by eBay in 2002." Paypal.com

PayPal.com Online Payment Service

Email Deliverability Tips

Email Deliverability Tips

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered. Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like. Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content. Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com/
• http://www.habeas.com/

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Setting up your business entity

Many people are familiar with LegalZoom.com but fewer are in the know about MyCorporation.com. MyCorporation.com is geared more toward the entrepreneurial community and offers a lot of free information intended to ease the transition from sole proprietorship to forming an LLC or incorporating as an S or C Corporation. This is definitely a site you'll want to visit while setting up your muse during your lifestyle design adventure!

From their web site:
MyCorporation is a leading provider of online document filing services for clients who wish to form a corporation or limited liability company.
For nearly ten years, MyCorporation has helped small business clients and real estate investors incorporate their businesses in a reliable and affordable manner.
In addition to offering document filing services for online incorporation, MyCorporation also offers trademark searches and applications, copyright registrations, DBA registrations, registered agent services and many more products that help customers protect and maintain the legitimacy of their businesses.

To go to MyCorporation.com: http://bit.ly/bnTKYm

Email marketing and response solutions

GetResponse is a feature-rich email marketing solution, fully scalable and capable of handling both small and very large lists (1 million+ subscribers). For over 10 years, it has provided easy-to-use, self-service applications and expert support for creating and managing email and video marketing campaigns, newsletters, and autoresponders that convert contacts into customers. Through responsible and fully automated list hygiene, anti-spam practices and established relationships with major Internet and Email Service Providers, GetResponse has maintained the highest possible deliverability standards for over a decade, ensuring that our customers’ messages deliver the highest possible return on their email marketing investment.
Find out more: http://bit.ly/dswwzX

Lifestyle

"Lifestyle is the art of discovering ways to live uniquely." Jim Rohn

GHMDVHD14472842

Lifestyle Design Solutions

The Four Hour Companion is committed to exploring Lifestyle Design Solutions in tandem with those suggested by author Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Workweek and the Four Hour Blog. Stay tuned!