Monthly Archives: April 2013

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A Coffee Shop Millionaire Review

English: Roasted coffee beans photographed usi...
English: Roasted coffee beans photographed using a macro technique. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Over the years, I’ve tried all manner of business. I’ve been in Amway. I did the iMall when it first started. I’ve tried Russ Dalbey’s real estate notes business. So naturally I had to try Coffee Shop Millionaire.

Like many people who have fallen so this scam, I came across a video narrated by Anthony Trister. Here he claims to show ClickBank accounts that he “hasn’t touched in 3-4 months” and are on “autopilot”. The numbers look impressive. A few thousands dollars in sales everyday can really add up. Wow. Tell me more.

Anthony goes how to say how this video will not be on the Internet for long and that it could be taken down at anytime. This is, of course, total bunk and is there to make you turn your purchase into an impulse buy. This is the take away maneuver.

The Coffee Shop Millionaire video continues to show sales by “ordinary people” who are using the system. The next phases being how much the program is worth. Anthony claims it is worth thousands. The truth? Simple searches using Google will show you all the Coffee Shop Millionaire program will teach you for free. Want to know about Google adwords? Search for it. Want to know how to use YouTube or FaceBook to generate leads? Search for it. The Internet has all this information for free. Why buy the Coffee Shop Millionaire to get free information?

This is why the price for the program drops the longer you watch the video. The value is given in thousands of dollars, yet the price starts in a few hundred. Then it drops to $97. Then $37. Some links will give you $10 off the price and therefore the worthless program can be had for $27. If this program was really worth thousands of dollars, do you really think it would be sold for $27? Image if this was a house and the bank claimed it was worth hundreds of thousands, but they stated it could be purchased for only $3,000. Would you wonder what is wrong with it?

Oh wait, there’s a users’ forum. Oh goody. Here people who have no idea what they are doing can exchange worthless ideas with one another. Yeah, no thanks.

In all, the Coffee Shop Millionaire is a worthless program. Want to do affiliate marketing? Spend some time searching the web for information, blend it together and find your path. Want to know SEO? Search on adwords and SEO, do it in your blogs and test the results. You surely don’t need some worthless Coffee Shop Millionaire program.

 

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Random Musings

More Calls For Passion

Keleigh in Black and White
Keleigh in Black and White (Photo credit: BrainMuffin)

Several months ago my daughter started taking modeling classes. Not long ago she had her first photo shoot with their photographer. Afterward she told me I should make a portfolio and offer my services. Though I’ve been taking pictures since the late 1970’s, I’ve never pursued it as a professional. The true pros laugh at my Nikon cameras (D80 & D7000) as not “pro” cameras. I have seen what they produce and consider myself better than most.

My daughter agrees. After all, I’m not so creepy. I do like to take photos and am getting better at taking them of people. I do use manual mode quite often. And I do have a passion for photography. At least as a hobby, but as a profession?? Too scared.

Last month while in Phoenix, Arizona attending a Marketing and IT conference, I met the owners and founders of VForce. Sure, we talked shop, but we also talked about us. A item that became apparent to them is my passion for beer. I love developing recipes and having my friends try my home brew results. With the smallest of exceptions, my beers are as good as any craft beer that can be purchased in the store. Two of them told me I should really consider following my passion: beer.

For some time now I’ve been wondering which passion to follow and how to do so. Ever since my first encounter with computers I’ve had a passion for creating programs. My mother instilled in me talents for cooking, though it took me years to develop an outlet for my passion to cook resulting in eatable food. Discovering beer making spoke to my cooking passion, wanting to create and enjoyment of good beer. Photography allows me to be creative in capturing what my mind sees. In all avenues I’ve experimented from the start. Sometimes the food had to be dumped. Sometimes the roll of film was wasted. But most was success.

About 14 years ago I developed another passion. I truly love to help people discover their true talents and learn to express themselves through it. I yearn to watch people grow and blossom before my eyes. When I lived in Marion, Ohio I walked people through the results of their gifts test and helped them plug into the right groups to grow them. People found their place in the church and found a purpose to their service. My purpose was to help others find theirs. It was great. I ran.

Five years ago I switched from full time development to management. I still yearn to help people grow. I still want them to find their passion and pursue it. I still want to help. I still need to help. Now my passions are crossing paths.

Tonight at our yearly company meeting I learned something about a coworker I didn’t know. Her husband is a brewer and is looking to start his own brewery. He is meeting with perspective backers. Again beer has crossed my path. Again a passion is calling. I have no idea how I should respond. I know I cannot back him financially. I know I cannot leave my current position. I also know I cannot neglect my other passions to pursue only one.

So, I write. Why? Because it is another passion of mine. Somewhere in all this is a way to mix all my passions and still make a living. Somewhere in the stillness of these many streams is the answer. Somewhere. I need to be quiet and listen. Then be ready to move.

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Random Musings

The Apple ][ changed my life (part 1)

The Apple II Computer on display at the Museum...
The Apple II Computer on display at the Museum Of The Moving Image in New York City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As an introvert, I grew up loving books. In the summer of 1979, I moved to Fort Belvoir, Virginia from Seymour, Tennessee. My father was in the Army in the Corp of Engineers and Uncle Sam decided he should takeover managing the construction project at Blue Plains. He was attached to the Capitol Area Office of the Baltimore Engineers, so we lived at Fort Belvoir on 21st Street (yeah, the Army can really pick great street names, can’t they??).

There my brother met David Panzer. He showed us both the great library on the Fort and my passion for reading was fed in overdrive. I would check out 12 books at a time and read them in a week. I loved the Hardy Boys books and soon moved on other mystery books such as Encyclopedia Brown. It would not be long before J. R. R. Tolkein would enter my life in the form of The Hobbit.

During the second half of my sixth grade year, I took an elective on book writing. It was taught by a wife of an Army officer who had written a children’s book about living in the African bush. She taught up about form and how to submit transcripts to publishers. My vivid imagination had an outlet. Over the next few years, I wrote about space battles and far off planets. I invented military ranks and battle plans. I wrote a short story about an invasion of Washington, DC. I used real maps to determine paths and defenses. We had no television, so reading and writing was what I did. (I also played against myself in Risk, but that’s another tale.)

Before I started 8th grade, Uncle Sam decided it was time to move us again. This time we packed up and moved to Fort Ritchie, Maryland where my father became the Facilities Engineer. Our first question was naturally, “Where is Fort Ritchie?” Nestled in the Mountains of Maryland in Cascade, it was a picturesque and quiet post. The perfect place for my imagination to grow. And grow it did. The plans became more elaborate. I started to create my own alphabets. One day, it all changed.

It was near the end of my 8th grade year. I was walking through the school library when I saw some of my fellow students using a computer hooked to a television. They were making a shape move across the screen. A Realistic cassette tap recorder from Radio Shack was connected for long term storage of programs (yes, recorded to cassette tapes as noise. so old school). The computer was an Apple ][. It was magical.

I watched and tried to learn. I pestered my fellow students for the syntax to AppleSoft BASIC. I had to know more. The library had little. There were programs and skills tests in our Algebra textbook, so I tried them. Soon I could write a program for any of the skills tests, even if we had not yet covered the math behind it yet. It was a whole new world.

Where the Apple ][ would take me I would learn over the coming years.

 

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