At the weekend I was down in Valencia where I met up with the rest of the “Spanish Crew” (above), who I met at Ed Dale’s conference in Manchester back in November. While there was a social element to the meetup and we went to the MTV Arctic Monkey’s gig, a lot of it was spent discussing a project that we’ve been working on for the last 10 days or so.

Now, while we had planned on starting a project together, as we definitely have complimentary skill sets, an opportunity came up the week before last that was too good to ignore. And so we’ve had hours of Skype conference calls in which we’ve really knocked out ideas into shape, looked at different possibilities, knocked holes in our ideas, re-thought them, pushed them, prodded them and kicked them into shape – now simply known as the big plan.

While the big plan is top secret – we have run it past a few people and yesterday received an extraordinarily positive response – it got me thinking about how I got to be spending so much time working on this project and the key steps that led me here.

Part of it is lifestyle design, although I didn’t know it at the time. But it goes back further.

When I was first exposed to the internet in around 95/96 I saw huge possibilities and knew it was going to change everything. So, after playing around with it for a while and getting a company webs site set up I decided I wanted to work for an ISP – that didn’t quite happen initially.

Then, in December 1997, I met a fantastic girl from Barcelona and I soon became an easyJet frequent flier. By April 1998 I was working at Demon Internet where I eventually became Product Manager for ADSL prior to its UK launch; and then to Bulldog Communications, which paid fantastically well, but was the worst job I’ve ever had.

One thing the Bulldog job did allow me to do was save like crazy; in May 2001, after working there for 8 months I quit and on August 12th 2001 I moved to Barcelona. That sounds like a big step, but in fact moving to Barcelona was easy – the difficult thing was taking action and actually telling my boss that I was quitting.

Not having a job lined up – or even any idea of what I was going to do next – I was playing around with websites again. In January 2002 I received a phone call from the sales director of a hotel booking website – he wanted me to include a link to his site on my Barcelona related site in exchange for commission on any referred sales.

Since it was easy to do, I added the link and thought nothing of it; at least not until the next month, when he phoned me to tell me I’d made 4 sales!

That was the point I knew I could make a living online

Fast forward to 2007. I’d suffered badly from combination of luck and my own mistakes. I’d been earning some pretty good money, but had been wiped out when Google gave my main website a penalty that knocked it way out of the results.

After flailing around for a while I tried Adsense Arbitrage, which worked well, but I knew it wouldn’t last; and when I saw people being kicked out of Adsense I decided enough was enough. Once again looking for some way to replace my lost income, I signed up to Stompernet SIMPLE. It cost me $1 for a month of internet training; I really dived in and signed up for the $97/month program afterwards.

While SIMPLE had some serious flaws in it, I was introduced to Ed Dale through it. Although I didn’t follow the 30 Day Challenge in August 2007, I did follow what he was doing; and in September 2007 I joined Immediate Edge run by him and Dan Raine.

The next big decision was to attend Ed’s “Coming Home” seminar in Manchester at the end of November 2009. While I was there to boost my knowledge of internet marketing, I was hoping to make some contacts; in fact, while the content was excellent, the biggest benefit was in the contacts – that’s why I was in Valencia last weekend, currently the last link in a chain that began with me finding the internet in the mid 90s.

So, what’s the key?

Good question. I’ve had good luck and bad; made good decisions and bad; felt elated and downtrodden; and it’s been hard work, but it’s been fun.

Above all, while I have had to change direction or modify my plans, I have never given up.

Vodafone 3G USB key advert by Frankie Roberto

Vodafone 3G dongles are a wonderful invention, allowing me to run my businesses from pretty much wherever I like armed only with a laptop. Just as well because in August, which is one of my busiest months of the year, I spend 4 to 5 weeks on the coast.

In the old days I used to make do with internet cafes, but these days I don’t need to leave the comfort of my holiday apartment.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, since our existing Vodafone dongle is permanently loaned out I needed a new one to test Vodafone’s service in an area. Visiting the website of Vodafone Spain I went through the order process but was surprised to find I wasn’t asked for credit card details – or any other payment method either.

E-commerce without payment????

Needless to say, I was extremely sceptical that I’d actually receive the goods so pleasantly surprised when I had a delivery a few days later. The curious thing was that I was expected to pay the delivery man.

Are people in Spain really so suspicious of online fraud that they won’t enter their credit card details on a website, even when it is as large and well known as Vodafone? Perhaps.

But, what is to stop me ordering Vodafone dongles for all my neighbours? And why didn’t they make it clear on the website that payment would be made at the time of delivery? Perhaps they did tell me. But not clearly.

Better get this out the way then!

Schadenfreude

Remember kiddies – revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Just for the record – I commented unfavourably on John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 some time last year – I still think a lot of it is long winded and I don’t think the action plan (or whatever he calls it) works particularly well, but I have actually referred to some lessons a few times for ideas and putting them into action, so I obviously didn’t think it was as bad as I thought

This year I’m getting much more organised with developing my businesses for the long term, which means developing long term plans and really working them. It doesn’t mean I won’t have some side projects and a little fun though

Then I’ll get down to some real work

3 days in Barcelona and then flying to Minorca…

This whole idea originated – I believe – in Spain with Operacion Triunfo some 6 years ago or so, and at least one singer from that first series went on to great things. Although he didn’t win, David Bisbal won at least one Grammy a few years ago.

However, it is interesting to watch both American Idol on UK television and Operacion on Spanish TV at the moment. While American Idol is nice and slick and lasts a maximum of 90 minutes, Operacion Triunfo is a bloated monster. To continue the internet marketing analogy, if American Idol is marketing the way Ed Dale tells us in the 30 Day Challenge, Operacion Triunfo is one of the spammiest sites going, with poor content and popups all over the place.

While it started on TVE, it moved to Telecinco for maybe its third season, but Telecinco is such a poor TV station that I’m not even going to link to its website. NO!

In fact Operacion Triunfo is so bad I can barely force myself to stay up and watch it with liquid relaxant in hand. Here is why I hate Operacion Triunfo:

1. Everything on Telecinco runs late and that drives me mental. I’m not talking a few minutes, I’m talking 20 minutes minimum, often more, and no explanation, no apology and no update on their EPG.

2. There are so many adverts it just isn’t true. Between the last program starting and OT starting there are 20 minutes of ads. Then it starts with the intro for 2 or 3 minutes. And then we have… 20 minutes of ads. At this point the will to continue living starts to escape.

3. All the singers do their bit, with numerous ad breaks in between. And at the end we hear the judges… but by this time I can’t even remember who sang what – and neither do I care. American Idol has it right, sing, criticism, next…

4. I’ve long advocated that OT should theme the songs, so you can compare the different contestants better. On American Idol I was pleased to find they do that. On OT you can have an English language rock song against some crappy fusion flamenco – how do you compare that?

5. On OT the judges and the contestants all have a say in who gets knocked out, as well as the audience. That isn’t marketing like Ed Dale says, let the audience decide what they want.

6. The main program is 3 hours, which is just too long! After that it continues with the contestants being interviewed, answering text messages, etc.

OT needs to adapt, it has remained pretty much the same since that first series, which was massively popular in Spain. However, audiences have declined each year, the contestants get worse and worse and the adverts seem to go on longer and longer.

You think I want to watch it? A definite thumbs down.

Technorati Tags: ed dale, thirty day challenge, 30 day challenge, american idol, ot, operacion triunfo

This morning I’m recovering from seeing The Cure at Palau Sant Jordi, where they played for an amazing 3 hours 5 minutes and performed 38 songs! Although there were problems with the drums drowning out everything else for a period, many of the songs were The Cure at their best, something akin to being run over by an express train.

The concert kicked off with a couple of numbers from Disintegration, which do benefit from the band’s stripped down sound owing to dropping keyboards from the lineup, but the highlights for me were the earlier songs.

Setlist:
Plainsong
Prayers For Rain
alt.end
The Blood
The End of the World
Lovesong
To Wish Impossible Things
Catch
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
Kyoto Song
Please Project
The Walk
Push
Friday I’m In Love
Inbetween Days
Just Like Heaven
Primary
A Boy I Never Knew
Pictures of You
Lullaby
Never Enough
Wrong Number
One Hundred Years
Disintegration

Encore 1:
At Night
M
Play For Today
A Forest

Encore 2:
The Lovecats
Let’s Go to Bed
Freak Show
Close to Me
Why Can’t I Be You?

Encore 3:
Boys Don’t Cry
Jumping Someone Else’s Train
Grinding Halt
10:15 Saturday Night
Killing an Arab

After my night of insomnia I got up really late yesterday – yes, much later than usual. After a couple of hours with internet access everything suddenly shut off – no phone, no internet.

Telefonica sucks. Worse than Stompernet.