My Journey To Creating a Membership Site and Forum

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Hello Team Warrior,
As I have received a lot of help over the years from this amazing community, I wanted to take the time and put in writing my own journey to running a membership forum site. There are no affiliate links here and I'm not profiting in any way from this post. I merely want to take the time to share my lesson from the school of hard-knocks when it comes to membership sites, in the hopes to help some of you who are on the fence about running a forum. I also placed a link to a 10 minute Youtube video talking about what true freedom means to me (while driving in my car).

Pre-Research Work:

The research to find just the right forum software was a long, sometimes agonizing road, which took several years, lots of grey hair (okay, even loss of hair) - and I can guarantee you that had I known what a learning curve I was about to embark on by undertaking a membership site, I would not have taken on the journey. Ignorance is indeed bliss at times. Alas, here I am, proud of my accomplishment and deeply grateful for all of the generous assistance I have received from many of you along the journey. Just perhaps my insights received from my learning experience in hindsight can be helpful to some of you.

It's important that you know that I'm not the most technical person. I started off with a Blogger blog because Wordpress was just too much for me. After 2 years Blogger became too limiting and I made the jump to Wordpress, but had to hire someone to create it for me because of my technical lack of experience. After spending a small fortune I decided to just learn the darn thing. Now I have several websites run on Wordpress, I manage them myself today. But Wordpress became too limiting and the Wordpress membership site add-ons were just too ugly looking, needed too much reworking or were just volatile and vulnerable to spammers (not something I wanted to experience).

My Background - What I do:

I hold tele-seminars and teach others how to do the same. I'm a metaphysician, holistic life coach and my forum is in the field of metaphysics, spirituality and overall a personal development and self improvement forum, including spiritual businesses. It's important that you get clear with who your audience is and what your message is. The site of my name is Core Freedom because at my heart is for people to find freedom at their own core. This is why I also teach people how to integrate and make tele seminars a part of their business, no matter what their business is. Tele-seminars can be pre-recorded, turned into products in a jiffy and can be held from anywhere on the planet. This I teach via the forum as well. Everything I produce, everything I do, is for people to achieve freedom at their most sacred core. My forum reflects this and thus it attracts those kinds of people. You must know who you are because your essence will carry through to your forum and attract those who are just like you, or those that need to learn from you or have something to teach you. Don't under estimate this...

Within 2 months of launching the site the page rank went from non-existent to a PR4 site. Today it has dropped to a PR3 site, which I haven't quite figured out yet why.

Choice of Membership Site Software:

I personally researched almost every membership site on the market for a full 9 months, for hours each day, before making the final decision. I shed many tears in the process, no kidding. This by far, I would say, is one of the key ingredients to running a membership site. Not the tears, but the research. :-) I bought and/or downloaded most of what was available then, tried them all and returned all of them but one: Xenforo.

The reason I chose Xenforo was simple. As a metaphysician, hypnotist and intuitive (which is what my board is about), I looked into the past and future of vBulletin and plainly put I liked what I saw with Xenforo much better, even though there was a chance that their legal battle with vBulletin would have the power to shut them down. For those of you who are unaware, the original design team of vBulletin left to start Xenforo. It was a conscious decision to give my energy to the "XF guys" who were starting over, rather than the rich guys who only wanted to shut the "little guys" down for profit and market domination. I wanted to do my part in ensuring Xenforo's success and future. Besides that, Xenforo's user friendly forum software was an absolute no brainer. Their own forum was so intuitive, easy to navigate through and a mere pleasure to hang out in, that I wanted my users to have the same experience.

The admin panel of vBulletin was way too complicated, it felt clunky, unnecessarily so for my taste, whereas Xenforo's admin panel felt like something I could learn (with help that is). Today most of the Xenforo admin panel is handled by me, it's that easy, even I can handle it. :-)

The support Xenforo extends on their own forum for license holders is something we rarely see with any company. Period. I can post a support request and within literally 2-5 minutes someone in the community will respond with impeccable help, sometimes a staff member, sometimes another XF user. Please don't take this as a guarantee of how fast Xenforo staff responds, it just has been my experience that the community as a whole, including the entire Xenforo staff, has been utterly helpful and is working in collaboration with one another.

I've had my share of struggles with my forum and without Xenforo's awesome help I would have closed my doors a long time ago. For example, Brogan and Jake (both XF staff members), have extended the most amazing help by always being there. Other license holders like Matt, Borbole and Andrej have reached under my arms and pulled me out of some serious technical hick-ups. Matt and Borbole are my go-to guys when I have server nightmares. :-) Andrej, for example, is my go-to guy when I need changes made to the forum. Andrej does just about everything from upgrading, updating, tech support, header replacement, cosmetic fixes, and managing much of my admin panel. He's been in the XF forum from the beginning and is one of the nicest guys to help me with my forum. I trust him explicitly (another must-have when you run a forum). His website is, pleXineu - Setup, Configuration and all that's in between. and of course he's also on the XF forum. You can find Matt and Borbole there too.

Know What You Want From Your Forum - Think Long Term:

As I stated at the beginning, I started with a Blogger blog with a mere wish to keep an online diary, which turned into a Wordpress site on which I had Wishlist installed (a form of membership). For neither my Blogger blog nor my Wordpress site I really had any long term goals. Eventually, however, I wanted a two-way conversation between me and my readers. I found that with a blog I was doing 99.99% of the talking and the rest was in form of comments. Actual back and forth communication, however, is not really as easy with a blog or a website. Hence my wish for a forum where people could really immerse themselves into awesome discussions.

Most forums are known for people doing what I call a "hit and run" move. They visit once, vomit their opinion into the forum or register to access some information but overall the members have little to no interest in really building a community. Or worse, they're just there to drop their links for selfish reasons (something that is prevented with the Xenforo software, thank goodness). I experience virtually no spam. My forum is a mixture between a blog and a forum, hence we call it a Blorum. If you do a Blorum search on Google my forum should be between position 3-5 on the first page. I wanted long posts and long responses. I deeply care about the evolution of people's soul and my forum and our members reflect this. My goal was to build a community of equally caring individuals, balanced between mature men and women. So whatever your goal is for your forum, make it about YOU so that your passion for your forum will sustain you. Because sometimes you feel like you're running out of steam, so purpose is key.

Making Money With Your Forum:

Although my forum started as a continuation of my blog, which all started as a labor of love, eventually came the dilemma of "how do I make money with this thing." It's not something I was planning out at the beginning because my heart was in it, creating a forum was not a business decision, it was an act of love. While that maybe noble, it's really not a smart business move (ok, it's actually quite dumb). Heads up: eventually the cost of running your forum will catch up with you and there really is no reason not to make money with your forum. To some, making money with a membership site is their number one priority. To others like me, providing quality content and building community comes first, money follows automatically.

What I didn't know is that while I could have a little hosting account for my website, putting a forum on a little, shared hosting account is not that great of an idea. I ended up getting a server account and have help maintaining it (I'm just not technical enough to manage it myself). Support with this is key!

And this also means higher maintenance costs. So making money with the forum becomes a necessity. You may want to plan this from the beginning, rather than just falling into this trap like me. :-)

Today my forum provides me with several income streams, some passive, some active. Here are just some examples:

1. Various membership levels (monthly income)
2. Product income
3. Advertising income from allowing others to sponsor posts, etc. (note, I do not do Google ads and want to keep my forum ad-free)
4. Consulting income (from members and those who find the site)
5. Speaking opportunities (which result in more members, more one-on-one clients and more product sales)
6. Renting forum space**

Be Creative When Creating Your Forum:

**After the steep learning curve and almost giving up I decided that there must be others who are struggling with the same technical issues. So just like a hair salon owner rents out chairs in her salon to make her overall salon's rent at the end of the month, I too am renting out forum space within my community. I stumbled across this because a member asked for it.

My forum offers the entire technical platform to anyone who needs to reach an online community. And you want to set yours up the same way if you want to making money from renting forum space or creating various levels of memberships where members have higher permissions to certain areas, etc.. For example, our members can not only create long blog like posts, they can create signatures that lead back to their own site. We also have a Directory listing on our site where members can literally create an unlimited number of directory listings for the services they offer. We also have a marketplace/classified section where members can advertise their workshops, books, products, etc. And the newest add-on feature I am working on is creating a Resources page that allows members to create a Resource listing with downloadable files and products, with a "buy now" option and a rating ability for all site visitors to purchase their products directly from the site. This is also a place where clients can leave ratings and customer testimonials. All these features are available for upgraded members, yes, they pay to have these privileges.

In essence, anyone who does not want the technical hoopla of owning and managing their own site, having their own hosting account, and the overall dilemma of having to advertise, can rent platform space for probably less than having one consulting client per month. It's a win-win for everyone. Those who rent space in my community manage and moderate their own forum. We bring the clients and they provide the content and the material, they engage the members in conversation, run workshops, seminars, tele-seminars and more. We of course manage the technical aspects.

Keeping out Spammers - Membership Approval:

All of our members are manually approved. I only approve on average 1-3 new members per day, the software automatically rejects 100-150 per day, most of which are spammers. Quantity is not important to me, quality is hugely important to me.

Running a forum or a membership site does not have to be the same for everyone, you can make it as boring or creative as you want it to be. Let your own authenticity and your overall life purpose shine through your own forum.

Time To Travel the World:
One of the main reasons I wanted to diversify my speaking business onto an online platform was so that I could be truly free to live wherever I wanted to live and pick up and move at a moment's notice if I felt like it. I want to work when I am inspired to, as much or as little as I feel like it. I want the freedom to go learn a language by immersing myself in that culture and traveling to that country, all while running my online business. I want the nomadic, non-materialist life style. I had the big houses, the luxury cars, and it just got "old" and burdensome after a while. Over the past couple of years I've been to Canada, moved to Italy to learn Italian, moved to Switzerland to get my PhDs and just a few months ago moved to the U.S. where I am still traveling from State to State, trying to see where I fit. And yet, other countries are already calling again and no matter where I want to be, running a forum and teaching tele seminars allows me to do that no matter where I am in the world. This to me is true freedom. And you can have the same.

I hope this was a helpful post and if there is anything I left out, which I'm sure I have, just ask. I do my best to answer some questions.

Blessings to all!

Cha~zay

Edit, 3/30/13 - I decided to take a video (while driving) about what true freedom means to me. Enjoy. You can watch it here on Youtube.
#buddy press #creating #forum #journey #membership #site #vbulletin #xenforo
  • Profile picture of the author fcf360
    Thanks for sharing this great story. Learned quite a lot. Now, I know where to look if I ever choose to go own with a forum again.

    I did setup a forum 5 years or so ago with vBulletin. I thought I did have some controls in place in membership approval, but eventually it all turned into a spam fest. But, I was just a novice and I didn't know there was a 24/7 spam machine out there with bots, and automated tools to put on spammy backlinks any, and everywhere it can.

    Good luck and I too wish I could get to "Core Freedom".
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  • Profile picture of the author marketermatt
    Thank you for this post! It must have taken a while to write it out fully!

    In never really thought about making a membership based forum. I guess the idea of fighting of bots everyday isnt to advertising.

    I remember I created a simple phpbb3 forum around 2 years ago and within about 3 months I was getting bombarded with bots and spammers. It was something like 200 new accounts sign up everyday to spam!

    I have no idea why people use such bots on such low ranked rubbish sites like that.

    Anyway!

    Thanks you for that post it was very insightful.

    Thanks

    Matt
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    • Profile picture of the author goindeep
      I just came here to say that I didnt read a word of what you said.

      Not out of dis-respect but because of 3 reasons;

      1, your name is Cha~zay and that is awesome which distracted me.
      2, Your from a place called Sedoona and that sounds like something from outer space which is awesome and distracted me once again.
      3, if thats really you, your pretty cute.

      Well done on distracting me.
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      • Profile picture of the author butters
        Originally Posted by goindeep View Post

        I just came here to say that I didnt read a word of what you said.

        Not out of dis-respect but because of 3 reasons;

        1, your name is Cha~zay and that is awesome which distracted me.
        2, Your from a place called Sedoona and that sounds like something from outer space which is awesome and distracted me once again.
        3, if thats really you, your pretty cute.

        Well done on distracting me.
        Haha I feel like you should be at match.com after reading this

        OP very nice post, I hope it continues to expand and grow!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
    fcf360 and marketermatt, I totally agree with the spam scare. It had me freaked out too and everywhere I turned people were saying "don't do a forum, you'll spend 99% of your time on spam issues." That's why I shied away from all the free forum software because the spam bots are just made for those. Xenforo is set up differently from the beginning. But what truly keeps the spammers out are mods (add-ons) that place spammers in a holding tank area where I just click one button that says "delete" and it'll get rid of thousands of wanna-be spammers.

    goindeep, your comments had me laughing out loud - thank you for that!
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Change the title tag on your homepage from "Blueprint4Love" to something more meaningful like "Personal development and self improvement forum"
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      Change the title tag on your homepage from "Blueprint4Love" to something more meaningful like "Personal development and self improvement forum"

      I have totally overlooked that! THank you so much!!
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      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by Blueprint4Love View Post

        I have totally overlooked that! THank you so much!!
        No problem.

        Run your site through Google using the site operator and look for any other similar issues.
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        • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
          Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

          No problem.

          Run your site through Google using the site operator and look for any other similar issues.
          John, I've never heard of Google Site Operator. :confused: What is it?
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  • Profile picture of the author StevenJones
    Subscribed Want to see where you are going with this.
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  • Profile picture of the author mahol
    wow lot many tips in single post..... you really rocks... thanks for tips
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  • Profile picture of the author MovingAround
    That's a good read. Can I ask:

    1) I didn't quite catch how you do the membership, are you using Xenforo alone for the membership or do you use Wishlist and connect it to Xenforo? Sorry for asking, I know people who use the second option but it's a bit technical and I'm curious to know how you handled this given that you prefer to use user-friendly tools (me too).

    2) It's interesting that you made enough money to be able to travel; I think that's a great benefit of passive income. You mentioned you traveled for your PhD and I noticed you used the Doctor title in your name for your videos, what's your PhD in? I'm considering doing a PhD (economics) or MBA (business management) now that I have my sites making me good money on autopilot and I have enough money saved from my other job (I don't have a forum though).
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by MovingAround View Post


      1) I didn't quite catch how you do the membership, are you using Xenforo alone for the membership or do you use Wishlist and connect it to Xenforo? Sorry for asking, I know people who use the second option but it's a bit technical and I'm curious to know how you handled this given that you prefer to use user-friendly tools (me too).
      Sorry for not making it more clear in my original post. Wishlist is an add-on tool for Wordpress sites. Xenforo is a stand-alone forum software and not a Wordpress plug-in. You can have a Wordpress site and a Xenforo site and bridge the two with a third-party add-on. I have not tried it yet because my Wordpress site does use Wishlist and we have not yet tested the compatibility of Wishlist with Xenforo. I use Wishlist for my sites where I keep my digital products for sale (as form of a protection).

      Originally Posted by MovingAround View Post

      2) It's interesting that you made enough money to be able to travel; I think that's a great benefit of passive income. You mentioned you traveled for your PhD and I noticed you used the Doctor title in your name for your videos, what's your PhD in? I'm considering doing a PhD (economics) or MBA (business management) now that I have my sites making me good money on autopilot and I have enough money saved from my other job (I don't have a forum though).
      My forum alone is not yet giving me the monthly $$ to travel and go anywhere, most of my income for that is coming from teaching others how to run teleseminars as part of their business strategy. Teleseminars equals working from anywhere, plus a nice paycheck. However, most of my clients for the teleseminar training come from my forum, so the two go hand in hand.

      My PhDs are in metaphysics and holistic life coaching, with a BS in Business Management.

      Good luck on your journey! :p
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      • Profile picture of the author MovingAround
        Originally Posted by Blueprint4Love View Post

        Sorry for not making it more clear in my original post. Wishlist is an add-on tool for Wordpress sites. Xenforo is a stand-alone forum software and not a Wordpress plug-in. You can have a Wordpress site and a Xenforo site and bridge the two with a third-party add-on. I have not tried it yet because my Wordpress site does use Wishlist and we have not yet tested the compatibility of Wishlist with Xenforo. I use Wishlist for my sites where I keep my digital products for sale (as form of a protection).



        My forum alone is not yet giving me the monthly $$ to travel and go anywhere, most of my income for that is coming from teaching others how to run teleseminars as part of their business strategy. Teleseminars equals working from anywhere, plus a nice paycheck. However, most of my clients for the teleseminar training come from my forum, so the two go hand in hand.

        My PhDs are in metaphysics and holistic life coaching, with a BS in Business Management.

        Good luck on your journey! :p
        Excellent to see that you have followed an educational path to then create a community; that way you certainly provide the most value to your members! Kudos to you

        I had another quick look at your site, and I apologize if it looks like I'm asking again: in your case, how are you bridging the sites with the forum? I.e. a visitor becomes a member on your site, or do they become a member in the forum (hosted on your site or a new site?). If they become a member in the site, how do they access the forum with their private account? Do you email them their login details when they join and those details are used to access the forum?

        I once looked at integrating a membership site with a forum, and I dig the way you've done this. My sites are hobby related and are bringing enough to save on furthering my education, but I'm considering building a membership site to seal in a community.

        P.S Since you changed the title header of your site as per suggested by another warrior, I have a suggestion for you: ensure to have your Twitter profile on the sidebar, with the amount of followers you have and your activity, having your Twitter profile visible to new visitors would further enhance your website and its trust factor.
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        • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
          Originally Posted by MovingAround View Post

          ...how are you bridging the sites with the forum? I.e. a visitor becomes a member on your site, or do they become a member in the forum (hosted on your site or a new site?). If they become a member in the site, how do they access the forum with their private account? Do you email them their login details when they join and those details are used to access the forum?
          The sites are not technically linked (yet), only by providing links. Most of my traffic is guided to Google because Xenforo has a great way of "communicating" with Google. Don't ask me the details, I have no clue how it works. Based on new members most come from Google or Youtube and also referrals. Once in the forum I announce my products there in various forums within the community with an external link to where they can make a payment and receive the product. However, Xenforo just released their newest feature called a Resource feature, which allows members to sell their products directly from within the community, with payment functionality linked to wherever they want to link their url to. Xenforo allows for product uploads (files, etc.). This feature is only 2 days old and it's not active yet on my site as I'm working on creating the resources.

          Originally Posted by MovingAround View Post

          P.S Since you changed the title header of your site as per suggested by another warrior, I have a suggestion for you: ensure to have your Twitter profile on the sidebar, with the amount of followers you have and your activity, having your Twitter profile visible to new visitors would further enhance your website and its trust factor.
          Thank you! Unfortunately I have not had access to my Twitter account for over 1.5 years and Twitter is not helping in helping me recover my password. Their "recovery" feature sucks. So posts from the forum do get automatically posted to my Twitter account, but unfortunately I have no way of getting into my Twitter account to communicate with anyone, very frustrating. Additionally, my target market is generally not on Twitter, they actually dislike Twitter quite a bit.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    Type this into Google.

    site: http:// corefreedom.com (remove the spaces)

    Then go through the results and look for any issues that may need correcting within your title, and description tags (check your URL structure as well while you're at it)
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

      Type this into Google.

      site: http:// corefreedom.com (remove the spaces)

      Then go through the results and look for any issues that may need correcting within your title, and description tags (check your URL structure as well while you're at it)
      Thank you so much John! Never heard of it, and the learning continues. I appreciate this. :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author art72
    Core Freedom... Thank-You for this VALUABLE post!

    I definitely admire your achievements.

    Being I can totally relate to your journey... as I too started (blindly) with a free Blogger account, moved on to learn WordPress, and have spent 2+ years learning a great deal of the techy stuff...I'm still learning it, actually.

    It's nice to hear others share in that success, very moving and motivating.

    I believe, much of that which I studied was important to learn, but also created tons of distraction to my 'original' reason for getting started online... which was to explore my writing passions and help others. In the beginning, it was never for the money, and as you mentioned... my thinking has changed, not to being greedy per se - the experience has made me more business minded, focused, and goal oriented to afford to exercise my true passions and assist others through writing quality content.

    Being I am in the creative process right now and developing a product line of my own, I just started asking questions and researching membership platforms for a paid members site to house them... is quite intimidating, indeed. As is VPS hosting, and since I have nearly everything you mentioned in my current blueprint...(less perhaps the full confidence and knowledge, lol) to make this dream a reality, it's kinda scary. There's definitely, a lot to it... and I believe few make it to the level you have, as a result. Proving persistence pays off, for those who do not quit!

    Thus, the timing of this thread was perfect!

    Talk about green, I didn't realize blogging, writing eBooks, and marketing these practices was going to keep me in this seemingly endless learning curve either... but I've grown to love and hate the challenges it creates. Honestly, I just wanted to write full time, and with no 'academic or worldly' experience - (such as a professional writing gig prior) - it's been a ride, indeed.

    Your journey connects on so many levels as to where I've been, and where I want to go with my 'product line' ideas, that seeing this thread today is 'confirmation' of sort, that I am on the right path. It's not an easy one, that's for sure.

    I have bookmarked this page to reference again, and I am truly grateful you took the time to share your experience. It definitely struck a nerve, and resonates a positive message those who remain persistent in our IM efforts... I often question; "if I am insane for wanting to continue" as the goal always seems to be just a few more yards ahead... and each lesson learned draws us closer to the goal.

    Looking back on my IM journey... it reminds me of that warning written on rear view mirrors of our vehicles; "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" - it's learning to adjust our perceptions that's really difficult... a major learning curve in itself!

    Congrats, and I wish you long-term continued success... you've obviously earned it!

    All the Best,

    Art

    PS - While I haven't had a chance to check out your site yet, in reading your writing alone, you seem very grateful, sincere, and motivated to help others... that is truly the 'key' that can open many doors!
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by art72 View Post

      Core Freedom... Thank-You for this VALUABLE post!
      Art, and thank you for a seeming parallel journey to mine and coming here and also taking the time to give your input. I think what people need most these days is encouragement and knowing that they can do it. If I could only make people see how close they've come to success right before they gave up...

      Your passion for just wanting to write is exactly how I started out. A quadruple Gemini (which 'they' say you understand), I must communicate. On stage, on the phone, in person, in writing - however, whenever. HOW and WHAT exactly we do with our gift is up to us. Everyone has a gift, a blessing to bring to the world. Unfortunately, most people are so bogged down by bills, sadness, stress and lack of health, that they are chasing after money first. I did too at one point, only to find that my health declined and that I became harder and harder and less happy. When I finally said "screw it, I'm gonna do what makes my heart sing and no worry about money," I first started to get happy again and soon after that I was broke. haha. Because I forgot the business component doing ONLY what I loved without the use of my faculty calling "thinking" and making "good choices." But when my forum made it clear that it required overhead, allbeit a small amount compared to having a store front, it was a wake-up call: either use your passion WITH your smarts or let go of the passion and go back to work for someone else.

      No thanks, been there - done that. I know most can relate...

      So maybe this helps, Art. I too have created products rather than chasing after affiliate products. Rather than selling THEIR stuff I now create my own products and am in the process of making them available for other affiliates to market for me. I have found that selling other people's stuff is like riding someone else's pony when in reality I have my own stallion in my own barn. What the hell was I thinking?

      I'm all for automation, hands-off, create-it-once-rinse-and-repeat. That's why all my tele-seminars turn into products. Why repeat myself again and again when I can say it once and cash in for a long time to come?

      I just created the Resources page on our forum and added a couple of my products just for testing sake. yes, they can be bought and they are real products. But the Resources page is not officially launched yet, as you will see there are only 2 products there. What the Resources page is - is an added Xenforo jewel that allows our upgraded members (or anyone you give permission to), to list their products for sale. You can add files, click a check box and add your paypal button's link and people can buy your product right from within your forum. The Resources page can be completely customized to give access to members only, some members, all visitors including non-registered people, etc. etc. Because my site gets quite a bit of traffic now and creating a Resource for my members will make them money, I am only allowing a certain membership level the ability create Resources (although anyone can buy them). This prevents me from having to charge a percentage and deal with petty overhead accounting nightmares.

      I have started to create some videos of me while driving in the car along my travels here in the U.S.; I so wish I had started them in Europe but oh well, let it be a lesson to you, take videos of your happy moments, you can always compile them later. Yes, I take unprofessional videos whenever inspiration strikes, I find it exhilarating and put those on youtube, where people find their way to the forum and eventually they realize that if they want to create a truly free life where they can be anywhere in the world, they decide to get one of my products that shows them how.

      I hope this spurs some ideas for you, Art (and others as well of course).

      I just enabled the "Resources" page and it will take a long time to get it "filled." Remember, it can be just one income stream. The membership itself is another. Individual coaching is another. Speaking engagements is another (I get invited on radio shows, which bring people into the forum), product sale is another.

      A final thought. I suck at sales, I really do. And marketing too. It's just not my strong point. But that's where the money is and I feel torn between really learning to ride this animal (sales and marketing) or just being myself. I decided a while back to just be myself and give and give and give, without worrying about marketing techniques, SEOs and otherwise "manipulating" things. It's paying off for me allbeit probably much slower than if I really learned sales and marketing and internet techniques. Like you said, this journey can get us lost in keyword research, CPC, CPM and whatever other fields we're supposed to master (they sound like venereal diseases to me, so confusing). I just let it go and decided to have fun. There might be a faster way, but I'm too old and enjoy life too much to live fast and just want to be happy and have fun. This works for me.

      Hang in there all - and do what you love, really do what you love. Money is divine and is right there to bless you, IF you are about your true purpose, find that first, the rest will come...
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    Great post, great story, and thanks for your insight. I found the part about forums really interesting.
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