One of the most important steps in getting sponsored to fish tournaments (whether you fish for bass, walleye, crappie, musky, redfish, marlin, etc.) is to focus on what YOU CAN DO for your sponsor not what your sponsor can do for you. When trying to obtain sponsorship from a company, first make a list of the things you could provide for your sponsor.

Put yourself in the potential sponsors shoes. Does he want to give you money so you can fish? More than likely he or she doesn’t want to do that. No matter what type of business you are contacting for sponsorship, they want to know what’s in it for me! In other words, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR ME?

To answer that question, pretend you were in your senior year in high school and your senior paper had to be written on: TEN WAYS TO PROMOTE A POTENTIAL SPONSOR. If that were the case you would do all the research possible to find 10 ways to do it and then write your paper.

Do the same thing when preparing to contact YOUR potential sponsors. When you approach them with your 7, 8, or 10 ways YOU WILL promote them; you’re answering their question - “WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR ME?”

Remember that the next time you approach a potential sponsor and you’ll dramatically increase your chances of getting sponsored to fish tournaments.

Bass Wishes

Scott Rauber
Author of the HOW TO GET SPONSORED FOR FISHING TOURNAMENTS manual.
http://www.fishforfree.com

3 Dangerous Online Work-At-Home Myths And How To Avoid Falling
For Them

Copyright © 2006 by Bruce Carlson

Starting up an online work-at-home business is the dream of many
people all over the world. The benefits of working at home with
the Internet are many, and it’s no wonder people are coming
online in droves looking for business opportunities to fulfill
their dreams.

But the world of online work-at-home is filled with myths.

Dangerous myths.

Here are three of the most dangerous online work-at-home myths.
Take these to heart and you’ll avoid falling into some of the
common traps that snare new online entrepreneurs.

Myth #1: You can make money online without doing very much work

There are so many get-rich-quick schemes floating around the
Internet that by now you’d think we’d all be wise to them. My
favorite is the one about the teenager who made over $70,000 on
eBay in a couple of months just by sending out email. Ha! How
many of us got hooked into that one? Or something similar? Quite
a few, I’d dare say…

The fact of the matter is you need to be prepared to do some
serious work if you want to make money online. That may not be
what you want to hear, especially if you don’t have much extra
time because of your day job and taking care of your family.

But there are many ways to streamline a work at home business.
Even if you have only a couple of hours a day or a few hours on
the weekend you can still get the most out of the time you put
in.

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to make your online work at
home efforts more efficient is simply to educate yourself about
direct marketing. The Internet is, after all, direct marketer’s
paradise. To join in with the others in paradise, you need to
learn what they’ve learned.

There’s a ton of good direct marketing advice available for
f_ree out there, advice which will help you learn how to get the
most out of your limited time and budget.

And if you have a little money to invest you’re in even better
shape! Buy one good book on direct marketing at least once a
month.

And sign up for every small business marketing ezine you can get
your hands on. Then set aside some time each day to read. You
need to get good before you can get rich. So concentrate on
getting good as quickly as you possibly can.

Myth #2: You can make money online without selling anything

Joining programs and then doing nothing will not bring in any
money, I’m sorry to say, no matter what some of the MLM’ers may
have led you to believe. You need to sell, sell, sell in order
to get cash flowing.

This holds true even when it’s the program itself that you’re
selling in order to recruit people for your MLM downline. You
need to make a heckuva lot of calls and send a heckuva lot of
emails and direct mail, because most people in your downline
aren’t going to take action without really being pushed. The
only way you can light a fire under them is to use proven
selling tactics.

So learn all you can about selling. Learn all you can about
copywriting. Jump into selling with every fiber of your being!
Find good products and sell, sell, sell.

The greatest advantage of the Internet is its potential for
reaching out to a huge amount of customers. You **can** sell on
the Internet without becoming an annoying and illegal email
marketer! The Web offers many low-key, low-cost ways of getting
quality customers to your website.

Myth #3: You can make money online without having your own
Website

Having only an email account is not enough to make money online,
especially with all the new spam filtering software that people
or their service providers are loading into their email programs
– software that filters out up to 50% of legitimate marketing
email messages. You need something more.

And while many affiliate programs offer you your “own” website
(which is just one of their’s with your name or affiliate number
somewhere) in exchange for marketing their products for them,
let’s face it, it’s just not the same as having your own!

Having your own website builds credibility with customers. It
says, “Look at me. I’m ON the WEB. I know what I’m doing!”

Having your own website also allows you flexibility, since you
can change its look and add or remove things when you need to.
You can even change horses in the middle of the stream and
switch to a whole different type of marketing or even to a
different product.

Most importantly, having your own website keeps your profile out
in front, rather than the merchant’s. The center of your online
work-at-home business is YOU and the purpose of your website is
so that people will buy from YOU.

Doing affiliate marketing, which is one of the easiest ways to
get started making money online from home, works much better if
you drive prospective customers to a landing page on your own
site rather than directly to the parent company’s sales page.
You keep control this way.

After all, you want YOUR name and business to still be
remembered after your customers start going directly to the
merchant (think of what happened with Amazon.com; how many
people go to Amazon through affiliate links on Websites
anymore?). Or what if the merchant goes belly-up?

You Have What It Takes To Make It!

In my 3 years online, I’ve seen many people fall for some
version of one of these myths. And yes, these myths may seem
obvious, but the fact of the matter is that it’s easy to
overlook them when all the stories about easy money are staring
you in the face.

So don’t fall for one of the 3 big myths, or you’ll end up as
yet another of the many disappointed and embittered ex-online
businesspeople out there. Work hard, educate yourself about
direct marketing, selling, and copywriting, and get your own
working Website up right away. It will pay off big-time. I
guarantee it!

Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

Targeted Content Sites

Highly targeted, focused sites that are related to specific market segments are highly advantageous and can often be created using existing web content. The key is to provide value.

Think of the time spent surfing the web gathering resources and information. By creating a topic-centric resource compiling information, webmasters are providing a service or value. In many cases that value is simply the compilation of topic-specific information in a single resource. The compilation of this information in itself is the value.

These highly focused content sites can be great supplemental portals that are invaluable as a marketing tool for niche products. Niche portals help define expertise in a specific market segment, not to mention the added benefit of providing valuable topic-specific links. The topic-centric portals also tend to achieve high search placement and will often provide advertisers high quality exposure, allowing webmasters the opportunity to capitalize on their efforts.

What to put in topical portal?

ARTICLES
Many article writers allow webmasters to republish their articles.

Search the large article directories for quality topic-specific articles using keyword searches. The articles contained in these directories often allow publishers to freely reproduce the article’s contents as long as the hyperlinks in the article and article resource box remain intact.

Resource for finding articles for publication:
GoArticles - http://www.goarticles.com

RSS FEEDS
By nature, RSS feeds are designed for syndication. Most RSS feeds can be freely reproduced. Locate topic-specific feeds using keyword or category searches. The contents of the feeds can be used to populate web pages. There are a number of free scripts available that allow webmasters to display the contents of an RSS feed (see http://www.rss-specifications.com/displaying-rss-feeds.htm for instructions on displaying feeds).

Resources for finding RSS feeds for syndication:
RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com
RSS Locator - http://www.rss-locator.com

LINK DIRECTORY
While this takes a little more time, compiling a collection of niche websites on related topics can significantly enhance the value of a portal. Topic-specific directories and search engines can achieve high search engine rankings with the larger engines like Google and MSN, and can easily be optimized for a collection of search terms. The process can even be automated if you have programming experience.

Sample Link Directory - http://www.investing-partners.com

TOPIC SPECIFIFC FORUM
The most successful forums are those that are highly focused and niche-oriented. Establishing a community of individuals with common interests will result in return visitors. Managing a forum is not overly complex and there are free forum scripts available that will provide the forum structure. Many of the forums have scripts available that will allow for search engines to spider the contents and forum posts. As the content flourishes, the site will increase in value.

Free Forum Scripts: http://www.phpbb.com

More on topic-specific portals or information radars can be found in Robin Good’s book ‘Newsmastering’.
http://www.masternewmedia.org/reports/newsmasterstoolkit/

A site that is focused on a relatively narrow range of goods and services will find that there is less competition. Topic-centric websites that provide a gateway to niche information related to a particular industry, sector, topic or market segment are becoming increasingly valuable and popular. Compiling the resource using free resources will minimize the capital investment. Regardless of whether you are marketing a product, service or advertising, narrowing the topic focus will attract a targeted audience who genuinely are interested in the website topic, allowing you to monetize the portal, and minimize the expense.

About the author:

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.comsoftware for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.neta wireless text messaging software company.

Recreation is an essential factor in the life of every human being. The anglers or the fishermen represent the largest single group of recreational seekers, and have a decided advantage over the other groups who utilize nature’s creatures and elements for recreation or food.

The popularity of fishing in many areas has been largely based upon the angling pressure, which is far beyond the normal capacity of the streams and lakes. There are species of fish for every type of angler and each one may choose the species of fish or the method of fishing that has the greatest personal appeal or attraction.

It is for this reason that many people are enticed to spend their vacation in a fishing activity. But, for people who would like to have planned fishing activities, they opt for fishing charters.

Fishing charter is one way of enjoying fishing even if an individual does not have the means or the equipment as far as fishing is concerned. It aims to provide the necessary services in a fishing activity.

However, not all fishing charters are created equal. Hence, it is important to know the factors required to be taken into account before jumping into conclusions.

Here is a list of some mportant factors that need to be considered:

1. The cost of the trip

Like any financial decision, people who would like to use fishing charter should know the required charges of the trip.

It is best to know the necessary requirements like deposits or contract agreements before committing to a fishing charter.

Best of all, people should be aware of the items they are paying for. They should know what the kinds of services included on the package are.

2. The length of time required in each charter trip.

Most captains are enticed to do a little fishing before going back to the dock. This will not pose a problem at all but if it will cost the person, who requested the service, additional charges for extra minutes or hours spent beyond the agreed number of hours, then, that is a problem.

Hence, it is important for the individual to know what time the charter will start and end.

3. The captain

It is important for a person who wants to engage in a fishing charter to know the competency and the skills of the captain. Hence, in order to have a successful fishing activity, it is best to get the experienced captain.

A fishing charter is one way of enjoying fishing at its best.

Travis Clemens is a life time fisherman and he knows the ins and outs of gettinem on the hook! You too can gettem on the hook with Travis as your guide! www.best-fishing-tips.com