I remember my Grandfather.

He was an old man even back that far, with grey handlebar mustache — unchanged since his military days.  He used to tell us that an elephant stepped on his head and pushed all his hair down past his nose. But it couldn’t get past his mouth so that’s where it stayed.

He loved to tell tales, did my Granddad. We’d sit around quietly.  Egging him on. Listening intently as he spun one tall tale after the other.

But there was one set of stories that had to wait until he was much older. Or maybe it had to wait until I was much older. One set of tales that he avoided telling.

I remember one year when I was a teenager. A friend and I made the long drive up to spend a weekend in my Grandfather’s cottages.  My friend was fascinated with my Grandfather’s collection of souvenirs and pictures. Bullets in the shape of crosses. A shell casing converted to tobacco tin. A handgrenade, its deadly cargo long removed.  And my friend questioned my Granddad about each and every piece in that old white curio cabinet.

Finally, to get some peace, my Grandfather began to tell tales from his younger days. Tales that I believe he hoped to forget. Of why he coughed such a racking, harsh cough. And how the taste of the mustard gas lasted for days after.  And mixed with the smell of the trenches.

He spoke of how his best friend in the Signal Corp had gone out for a short run one day. Of taking his Indian motorcycle — a motorized bicycle to our eyes — and going out to look for him when he was late returning. Of finding part of him on the road and part in the ditch. Of how they would clear the piano wire from the roads in the morning. Only to find it strung up again the next day.  Neck high to a man on a motorcycle or a horse.

I remember him speaking of the next great war. Too old to serve, he stayed back home that time. Of how the Mounties, he said, would come to his home. Of how they would begin to speak to him in German. Him with his medals and memories. And his three sons and a future son-in-law fighting. Of how he would answer in Welsh and watch them try to reconcile his name with this strange language.

I remember my Uncle Bern.

In those days, memories of the war were strong. Television and movies played endless repeats of how the U.S. won the war.  And the old men — my Granddad and one of my uncles — would argue about battles they fought. And three of my uncles would swap stories of the planes they flew. And of kicking their mates out of the bunk above.

I remember how my Uncle Bern would leave the room. How he never participated in any of the discussions. How he would turn off the television when we wanted to watch the squad from “Combat” conquer their way across Europe.

I learned much later that he remembered the taste of the sand of Juno beach.

Today, my son is walking that beach. In safety (I hope).  In friendship (I trust).  In reverence (I believe).

Every September for the past few years, I help my scout troop to remember an even older war. A chance to remember when my ancestors drove back an invader. I believe in the importance of teaching the young men and women of my troop about life in the army of that time. Especially as we enter the 200 year celebration.


(please note, I do not have any interest in this film)

Tonight, I hope to attend Rememberance Lodge where men remember their brothers who have lost their lives. Some to defend our freedom from those who would have stolen it away. Some to defend our world from those who now wish only to destroy it. And I will join my brothers in celebrating those who even now protect our world.

I do not believe in war. But I do believe in the young men and women who risk their lives to protect what I hold dear.

I will remember.

Wondering why I haven’t posted lately?

Besides being busy with VProz and developing courses I’ve also written a new book.

Check out the Kindle version here.

Check out the print version here (Coming soon)

So what’s the book? It’s called “How to Document a Project Plan: What You Need to Know to Design a Project Management Plan Quickly and Easily”. It’s a detailed look at what you ned to do to create a comprehensive project plan that will help you succeed.

For more information you can go here.

Or to buy it …

On the Kindle go here

In paperback go here (coming soon)

Hey check it out …

TrainingNOW (our publishing arm) has published a new book How To Build A Raised Garden Bed on the Amazon Kindle.  Two seperate step by step plans to build a raised garden bed or box, plus suggestions on how to fill it and lots of ideas on where to go from there! Trust me these are easy to build.

Currently only available on the Kindle. You can buy it from Amazon at http://amzn.com/B005J2MW3W

Oh, yea — price. Would you believe only $4.97 U.S.. (Also available on Amazon U.K. and Amazon Germany)

So why am I announcing it?  It was written using our system!

One of the basic rules of internet marketing is that you need traffic. Everything starts with the traffic. It’s like a bricks and mortar store. If people don’t come into the store it really doesn’t matter how good your product is, how competitive it is or anything else. Without the foot traffic you aren’t going to sell anything.

And it’s no different over the internet.

In order to have an audience — readers, course attendees etc. — you need the traffic. After all, not everyone who investigates what you offer is going to want to listen/read/watch it. You need enough people passing by in order to get enough people to stick around.

So how do you do that?

One of the best techniques is Article Marketing. Many traffic techniques drive traffic to your site. But it’s often the wrong type of traffic. And that just chews up bandwidth and money. Article Marketing drives high quality traffic — traffic that sticks around and eventually buys.

Now, I’m no slacker when it comes to Article Marketing. But I’m also not the number one author on EzineArticles.com. My coach, Sean Mize is.

I’ve arranged with Sean to make his 6 MP3 audio series Article Marketing Advanced available to you. It will show you how to write articles that drive traffic that sticks, where to post your articles, and much, much more. You can find more information here.

Another question for you

How would you answer it?

Our lives are a series of questions … how we answer them creates the life we wish or we fear.

One of the biggest problems that writers face is having to sell their book after they’ve written it.

In fact, selling your book afterward is probably one of the worst things you can try to do.

What? Am I crazy … what in heaven’s name am I trying to spout here. After all, the whole point of writing is to be read and without selling your book you won’t be read!

No I’m not crazy. In fact, you do need to sell your book. But you need to start the process before you even begin to write. In fact the first thing you should be doing is to identify who is going to read your book and why.

Once you’ve written your book (and incorporated your reader’s hot buttons), edited and refomatted your book it’s time to actually get out there and sell it.

Selling on the internet is actually pretty simple in theory. You drive traffic, give them something in return for their email, use emails to build a relationship and then along the way sell your book (or other product including audio, video, CD, DVD, webinars etc.).

In practice, however, building that initial list is a lot more difficult than it seems.

Now I’m the last person to claim that I’m an expert marketer. And while I can speak to it and teach people about it — I think you can do much better than myself (even if you can at least trust what I have to say).   Unfortunately, to build my own business I’m sort of forced to become an expert marketer.

So how did I become an expert (internet) marketer?

Well, I started out by taking a number of courses. But eventually I reached a point where I realized I needed a coach. Someone who could help me get ahead using this distribution channel. After a fair amount of research I settled on a chap by the name of Sean Mize. Sean came with three key ingredients … he actually was able to build a business on the internet from scratch (most started from web design companies), he produced his own training materials (most outsource both coaching and course development) and he told the truth (press a button and get tons of traffic isn’t his style).  And to boot he was the number 1 author on EzineArticles.com.

So why am I telling you all this?

I’ve arranged with Sean to make his courses on internet marketing available to you my loyal subscriber. The first of these is his List Building MP3  Series. This is a 10 MP3 training course that will turn you into a list building machine. Plus there are bonuses!

If this sounds like something you might need check it out here!

Every once in a while my partner sends me these snippets of information. I’ve always wanted to be a self-help type guru ala Tony Robbins.  So in the spirit of passing on what life hands you …

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Just in case you are having a rough day, here is a stress management technique recommended  in many of the latest psychological journals.The funny thing is that it really does work

1. Picture yourself lying on your tummy on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.
2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.
3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.
4. No one knows your secret place.
5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.
6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
7. The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out  the face of the person you are holding under the water.

There — See? –  It really does work.

You’re smiling already.  

Raymond Howard Ford

February 28, 1929 – April 6, 2011

To my Dad who taught me
the importance of customer service,
the value of my ideas,
and the need for the courage for purposeful fighting to the end.

We’ll miss you Dad.

(For my customers, I will be returning to work next week so forgive me for not responding immediately).

Well Faith ‘n’ Begora …

And a Happy St. Paddy’s to ye!

Yup, it’s Green Beer and Irish Whiskey day…

So from a part Welsh, part tea-tot’l'n Irishman (oy vay, no wonder I’m messed up  ) … May you have a drink, a song and a warm fire to rest ye’re weary bones before. Oh and a friendly road house and true friends to share it with.

And guess what the Wee Folk have brought us as a present on this fine, sunny day …

ANNOUNCING ***** Ta,Ta,Da!!!

OUR BOOK IS ON AMAZON

Yep that’s right 101 Limericks About Public Speaking is now officially available on Amazon. For only $14.95 U.S. you can have 101 of the silliest, pieces of poetry about public speaking around. Plus over 101 pieces of some great (and silly) artwork. All in a shiny paper binding. (Yes, this is a traditional printed book not an eBook). Just go here and pick up your own copy.

Go here now and make our book of humour a best seller… Pretty Please … One author to another???   

Okay, let’s face it … there isn’t much to see yet.

Maybe I’ll go back and move stuff out of the Creating Info Products area and maybe I won’t bother. We’ll see.

Anyway, I’ve decided to add some new categories that have been dumped on the Creating Info Products category.

Why?

Well, we teach how to create learning content products.  That’s the core of what we teach at LearningCreators.com. Cool. But a learning content product is useless until it’s put into a particular format (media in other words).  And the media affects the organization of the learning content.

Up to this point, we’ve seperated out Writing an Ebook from the generic category. But we’ve kind of let the other media merge together while we used books as the introduction. That’s not really fair. And we really need to modify the rules so that people can learn using whatever media they want to.

So that’s what we’re doing.

Specifically I’m adding:

1. Creating Audio Products

This will have blog articles focusing on issues related to learning content in an audio only format. Things like recording audio, organizing your podcast, facilitating your teleseminar will appear in this category.

2. Creating Video Products

This will have blog articles focusing on issues related to learning content in a video format. Things like creating a video studio, organizing your webinar, and editing your video will appear in this category.

3. Public Speaking

Maybe I should have called this Getting Live but I was originally going to use it for background core topics related to Public Speaking and then have a seperate topic for Live learning products. However, I realized that most of the live topics are really background core topics for both audio and video. So …  in here you’ll find topics like How many points on a PowerPoint, and Public Speaking tips as well as subjects related to live events such as seminars and workshops.

(By the way, I explain what a background core topic in a new post under Creating Information Products).

Enjoy!