I'm still looking.

A weakness I've noticed in many of the membership scripts is you're either IN the membership, or you're OUT of it.  It doesn't seem like there's been enough thought given over to all the different methods of actually handling members.

Even the the one I've found that has considered that you might not actually want members to be just in or out is flawed.  The assumption is that it's a drip fed membership concerned with supplying content as learning rather than as products.

Here's the specific scenario I'm thinking about where the content is product, as with PLR Code Mine.

Someone joins a membership today.  They're a member for three months and then for whatever reason they drop out.  Two months later, they rejoin.  What would you expect to have happened in this scenario?

What I expect from a really good membership script is that if someone has been a paid member for 3 months, then they should ALWAYS have access to that content, even during the times they're not a paid member.  So if the content they've purchased is updated, they get the benefit of it.

If they then drop out for two months, then as administrator I should be able to specify that they shouldn't get access to that two months worth of content.  They've missed the boat.

I may also wish to sell it to them at a much higher price than if they'd been a regular member, to allow them to catch up.

So when they rejoin at month 6, they now have access to months 1-3 and 6, but not to month 4 and 5.  They can purchase month 4 and 5 at say three times the regular membership price if they wish to, at which point they then have perpetual access to it, even if they drop out of the membership again.

To me, that would be a perfect membership solution.  But I'm damned if I can find anyone that does such a script.

I have found one where a lot of thought has gone into membership as learning, but not where membership involves a product.  What happens there is that when the member rejoins at month 6, then they get access to month 4, not month 6.  And the workaround suggested by the very helpful developer / owner involved just doesn't cut it.  Grrr…

There's nothing for it, I'll have to get my own done.  I can see from other sites that I'm a member of that there's a real need for such a script, as they all have the same issues.  I'm either in or out, and once a month has gone by, the back products get removed.

I just find it difficult to believe that no-one has ever sat down and thought about this.  Fortunately for me, it's such a glaring omission it leaves the door wide open for a BETTER membership script than the rest of the stuff on the market, doesn't it?

Watch this space.

-Frank Haywood

Membership numbers are restricted and for just 100 people, as my thank you for being a subscriber, the price is a rock bottom…

Well, you can see for yourself here:-

http://www.plrcodemine.com/

-Frank Haywood

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[EDIT] Now closed at this price.  Sorry folks.  Watch out for when we re-open at $27 for a short time.

If you've had a problem registering, check your email as I think I've caught everybody now and emailed a personal registration link.  The cause of the problem itself is now fixed.  If you haven't had a personal email from me and you've been to PayPal, don't panic, you're in!

If you're getting redirected back to the sales page after logging in, it seems to be a bug in the membership software we're using.  You ARE logged in.  Just go back to the previous page and choose one of the protected pages.

.

Last year I decided I wanted to help you get rid of your job and start working for yourself.  There are many paths you can take to get there, and I always advise people to work towards multiple streams of income.  That way if one fails for whatever reason, you have others you can fall back on.

Over the years I've been on this planet, I've done all sorts of things to earn a living, and I've held down all sorts of jobs from fish-fryer to Data Manager for the projects that introduced the last two Range Rovers to the world.  But the VERY BEST thing I ever did was to strike out on my own.

Don't get me wrong.  There have been ups and downs.  There have been some months I've started where I've wondered where the money to pay the mortgage was going to come from.  But somehow we always made it through.

And I KNOW that some people reading this are in that position right now through no fault of their own.

The problem is from the moment we're born it's always been about the job.

Our entire society literally forces people out of school and into a job, and any square peg that doesn't want to fit that round hole is frowned upon.

The problem with a job is that when you take one, you're at the mercy of someone else.  You're putting all your eggs in one basket.  Your entire livelihood can be taken from you at any moment, and you don't have ANY income security.

There's the difference.  Income security as opposed to job security.  I don't believe there's any such thing as the latter, it's really all just smoke and mirrors when you think long and hard about it.

If you want income security, then you have to do as I've suggested above.  You have to ensure you have multiple income streams.

If one breaks, it's a hiccup, not a disaster.

That's why I decided to launch this new PLR software membership.  It's so you can add an additional income stream and protect your livelihood.

This is the first prong of my multi-pronged effort to help you make it this year.

I always say your target should be to replace your current income from your job by this time next year, whenever you start.  It's not easy.  It takes effort.  But the rewards are well worth it…

-You no longer have to do what your boss tells you to, simply because you don't have one.

-You don't have to get up at 7.00am just to go to work for 8 hours.

-When you do work, then it's all for you.  You're not making someone else rich.

-If you feel like some time off for a walk in the park, then you can take it.

-You're not working for / with people that are clearly stupid in a way that it seems only you can see.  Yes, I think we've all felt like that at some point haven't we?  Whether it's true or not.

The list goes on…

Where was I?

Oh yes, multiple income streams.  That's very important.

Here's your first of 2010.

In three hours time at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST), my new monthly software membership goes live.  Membership is available for the first 100 people to make it there in time at less than half the final price, locked in for as long as you remain a member.

The aim of the site is to give you a new, completely white label piece of software that you can rename and call your own, and also show you how and what to do with it to start to replace your current income.

The price is ridulously low for two reasons.

#1 – As a thank you for being a subscriber.
#2 – The site is still being built and you should regard it as a BETA.

On that last one, the site is very definitely a Work In Progress, as there's plenty of content in the form of tools, articles and videos I want to add to the members area as well as providing you with the software itself.

And…  One or two things might not work exactly as they're supposed to.  We'll resolve those issues as we go.

Your reward for your patience is a much lower price than will be available to other people when the site goes officially live.

As I've said previously, the price you join up with will be locked in for as long as you remain a member.

And as the site grows and new groups are introduced with new software products in those groups, you'll get the opportunity to join those new groups at the same price you lock in today.

Okay that's it for now.

Watch out for the email with the link for when the site goes live at 6.00pm today.

-Frank Haywood

That's because the perceived value of software compared to say an ebook is far higher.

Well, after a few false starts, it looks like the new software PLR membership I've created for you is just about ready to rock and roll.

The new site has been created to give you a chance to fast track your business in 2010.

The idea is simple.  In order to build a business you need products, and a good way of getting those together is to use private label rights material you can put your name on and call your own.

It cuts down on your creation time and makes it easy to get yourself up and running.  You may even already be doing this with PLR ebooks, and that's okay…  But there's a bit of a downside to ebooks.

You've probably seen that everybody and his dog are now selling the same ebooks with their own name on.  They're not even bothering to change the title, which is a basic mistake in itself.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

I know that having your own source of software you can sell is MUCH better.

Software has a far higher perceived value than an ebook, but of course getting hold if it is the problem.  And even when you can get hold of it, you always end up buying it "as-is" with no warranty or support.  I've found that in nearly every case I've bought PLR software, I've had to scrap it simply because the software was never designed to be released as PLR in the first place.

What that's meant to me is it's been extremely difficult to take PLR software and call it my own.  It can cost a lot of money to take most PLR software and change even the title of it.  I know that because I've been there, and I'm sure lots of other people have too.

So in the end most people go with PLR ebooks simply because there isn't a decent regular source of PLR software that they can easily adapt and call their own.

Until now.

Opening tomorrow at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) is my new PLR software membership site.

This is a joint venture between myself and a group of developers.

Each product we create is specially put together with its final use as PLR kept firmly in mind.  This means it's written from the start with the idea of keeping it easy to edit either by the use of a language file, or if its a WordPress plugin, by editing a bit of text in the plugin.

It's dead simple, and we show you how in the members area.

The product you get each month comes usually as either an untitled WordPress plugin or PHP script, plus a sales page design and sales copy, plus some basic documentation.  All you have to do is think up a product name and edit the bundle to reflect that new name.

Hey presto!  One brand new never-before-seen product, and it's all yours to pretty much do with as you please.

We've even decided to make it effectively unrestricted PLR.  In fact there are just two very reasonable restrictions as to what you can do with the software you get from us.

#1 – You can't sell or offer PLR to any of them.
#2 – You can't offer them as part of a mass product membership, paid or otherwise.

The reason is simple – that's what WE do.

Okay, I think that's enough for now.  I'll send you another email tomorrow about the membership site, plus some ideas as to what you can do with your new PLR software, so look out for that.

Then at 6.00pm GMT (1.00pm EST) tomorrow, I'll send you the link where you can join.

Which reminds me…

As one of my subscribers you're going to get the lowest price available locked in for life, but only if you're one of the lucky 100 to get in.

What's more, as I open up new groups within the membership, you'll have the chance to join those new groups at the locked in price you get tomorrow.

NO-ONE else will get that, and they'll end up paying double what you will.

It's just for you IF you get inside in time.  I fully expect the site to be oversubscribed.

Okay?

More tomorrow, or you can leave a comment if you want to squeeze a little bit more out of me.

-Frank Haywood

These tools are the result of many hours of careful search, stumbling around, word of mouth and dumb luck. I thought it might be a good idea to share these tools as this will almost certainly help you.

First up are a couple of free text editors.

One of the problems I regularly see is when people use the built in Notepad editor in Windows – it doesn't work the way you would expect it to. Crazy I know, but Notepad will embed hidden characters and sometimes apply some strange formatting and justification if you're not careful. I see this happening when comments are left on my blog posts, and also on forum posts.

I know what's going on because I've done this myself and learned the hard way.

This is what happens. You decide to leave a comment or a forum post, write a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs and the phone goes, or someone comes to the door or whatever – you get distracted.

Thirty minutes later, you go back to your writing, gather your thoughts and finish what you were doing. You press the submit button, and you find you've been timed out or you've lost your network connection, and you get an error message.

You press the back button, but it's no good, you've lost everything you've typed in.

Aaagghhh!

Now you've learned a valuable lesson, and you decide that from now on you'll type it all locally into a text editor and save it regularly instead of typing it into an online form. When you've finished and it all looks good, you copy and paste it into the text box on the blog or forum. It's a good habit to have.

The problem is, if you've used Windows Notepad, it will sometimes format the text for you, inserting line breaks at the end of each line. It looks okay, but when you copy and paste it into the web form, all the formatting breaks.

So that's one good reason not to use Windows Notepad, and here's another – it's just not very good. Here are two MUCH better ones.

Notepad 2

This first Notepad replacement is ideal for carrying around with you on a USB stick as it doesn't require installation, doesn't create any registry entries, and all you need do is double click the executable. (Why oh why – sorry – did Microsoft ever introduce the registry? It's caused us all no ends of problems with having to re-install applications every time we move PCs or have to re-install Windows. In the good old days, all you had to do was copy the files back to the PC and run them. It was easy. I'm always delighted when I find an app that doesn't require installation.)

You can get Notepad 2 from here:-

http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

Notepad++

This is a little more feature rich than Notepad2, and adds a menu item to the Windows shell, so when you right click on a text file or HTML or whatever, one of the options you see is "Open in Notepad++" – VERY useful.

You can see the full feature set and download it from here:-

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Enjoy.

-Frank Haywood

Update: Tom Brownsword left a comment saying that there's a portable version of NotePad++ that you can use on a USB stick, along with a load of other apps on the same site that will all fit on a 512MB USB stick.  Cool!

http://www.Vendiva.com/support/

which uses TicketDesk Pro my help desk software.

The reason I've posted this reminder is because when I checked my email yesterday, I've had 3 people who are clearly frustrated because it seems I'm not answering their emails.

In fact, I've answered all of them, including all 4 of Catherine's (if you're reading this), so don't think I'm ignoring you. Email gets checked twice a week now, with my goal for it to be once a week, but the support desk gets checked several times a day.

The problem is, as I've said before, even though I have both domain keys and SPF records in place to authenticate my email (and I also use AuthSMTP on some accounts), ISPs insist on filtering a lot of what they consider to be business email. From their point of view, they supply internet services to home users and therefore will only allow "home usage" email to be delivered.

If you're running an internet business, then create a business email account off your main domain, and use that instead. No more ISP filters and you can communicate fully with the world again.

But if you really want to get my attention, then use my support desk. And if you want to ease the load on yourself, get a copy of TicketDesk Pro, it's extremely easy to use. Before TDP, I was spending 2 hours a day on support by email. Since installing TDP, it takes me no more than 30 minutes to do all my support, and that's with checking at regular intervals.

The reason it's all become a lot faster is because I've fully loaded it with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Standard Responses (SRs).

The FAQs catch most problems, and the SRs catch the bulk of the rest. In practice, many of the SRs are repeats of the FAQs as some people like to be told rather than look it up. That's okay, it takes me a few seconds to read, select an SR and add it to my reply.

I've come to rely on the Standard Responses so much that I've created often used URLs in there. So now I can select an SR, add it, then select a URL and add that too. Or I can combine several SRs to create a fuller answer.

If you're struggling with email yourself, then TicketDesk Pro is definitely the way to go to reduce your workload. It's easy to use and it has some great benefits.

So it's survey time.

Hey, if you have the tool to do the job, then why not go for it?

If you have 2 minutes, take the short survey.  You'll get the results immediately after completion – just make sure to bookmark the results page to see the updates as more people complete it.

http://www.frankhaywood.com/iss/index.php?survey=f413aa

-Frank Haywood

A friend of mine called Jason Anderson is running a special deal where you can kick start your internet business and have your own software developed by a team of people he's assembled. Why? Because they're looking to make their name known in the industry. They're a new start up and need a bit of publicity.

I won't go into the details here, you can read all about it at:-

http://www.prosoftwaredeveloper.com/

(They can develop in PHP – ASP – ASP.NET – C# – C++ – JS – AJAX – JQUERY – DBASE – MySQL – SQL – Access – Oracle – Flash.)

I promised I'd do a promotion for Jason when he launched PromoCodeSoftware.com (developed by the same team that will be developing your product), but I forgot because I was "busy" and I'm a pillock sometimes… and he was too polite to keep reminding me, which is all I really needed.

Jason doesn't know I'm doing this, and it would be nice if you at least took a look at his offer.

Now I know I might be creating my own competition here, but the way I see it is it's a big world, and there's plenty of room for us all. I've just had an email from him as I'm on his mailing list, and 4 of the 10 slots have already gone. You can read why there's only 10 slots on the site.

So if you've got this great idea but you've been having problems finding a developer (it took me months to find the two guys I have working with me), go take a look at his site.

http://www.prosoftwaredeveloper.com/

-Frank Haywood

http://www.frankhaywood.com/go/issns/

-Frank Haywood

I feel this is one of the best scripts I've released so far, and David (the developer) is I think quietly very pleased with it too. More than he's letting on.

Well, we've been busy talking about the next product in development, so we've not had too much time to linger over this one. And you know what? We wouldn't have known to even discuss this next product for months if I hadn't done a survey last week.

I'm still a little shocked by the results. Who would have thought that testing and tracking would come out as more important than list building? But then I think that's a further indication of the marketing ability and maturity of the people who read this blog.

That's no idle comment, and I'll adjust my style to reflect what I think you want from what you're telling me.

Please forgive me if I run a few more surveys to further hone in on what I'm beginning to realise is my real readership.

I'll be using ISS of course…

So 3.00pm today (GMT) the nickel sale goes live and as a subscriber to this blog you'll get to buy it for a fraction of the final price – just $7.02 if you're first.

-Frank Haywood