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orangepunkwitch-blog · 6 years

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Not dead! Not an abandoned blog, either! This kinda happens from time to time, so lemme explain myself:

Did the read-more page-breaking thing so nobody has to scroll for eons if they don’t care to read...

Anyway, my absence. My mental and physical health have been absolute shit, and I’m starting to think I may have seasonal depression on top of situational depression as well since every damn winter I have no energy to do much of anything. But as this year progresses, I’m finding myself perking up some. My physical health is largely due to flare-ups (I haven’t been diagnosed but it’s strongly considered that I may have endometriosis; I need to get a laparoscopy to find out and currently cannot afford that, etc. etc. long story for another time) and lack of proper dieting and exercise. The flare-ups and shitty periods are why I can’t exercise when I’d like to, and we can’t always afford healthy food for strength and energy I need to do things (my metabolism is high enough to where gaining weight isn’t exactly an issue with me despite being almost 30). The worst of my pain occurs the first couple of days on my period, to which I have ultimately resorted to smoking marijuana which helps tremendously. The only time I use it off the rag is during an extremely bad flare-up, which are thankfully rare.

‘Kay... mental health... My husband and I still live with my parents here on the farm and it’s been stressful to the point where I’m getting anxiety-related chest-pains from time to time lately (long story-short: my parents---especially my dad---are assholes and even Loki said that no amount of magick can help them so I just rely on my wards in my room to have a safe haven). This and the fact that we may have a lack of proper oxygen in this house might be contributing to it. I plan on beginning my luck at growing pet-safe indoor house plants such as succulents and aloe vera to help with this after visiting a friend’s house whose mom pretty much has an indoor garden and realizing how much better I feel just being there for a few minutes.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about a topic relating to what this blog is about: Paganism, witchcraft, and being a Lokean.

Nope, still a solid Pagan with Druid beliefs and such, still a Lokean, but I haven’t practiced entirely too much witchcraft because there haven’t really been ways for me to use it where it’s needed. You can’t expect certain spells to work if you’re not doing anything to help it along (such as a job wouldn’t just fall into your lap because you still have to apply for a job). Money spells can get expensive if you’re doing it constantly for your spouse or parents because you’ll eventually run out of candles and such (I can’t do it without ingredients because I’m scatterbrained and need a damn decent point of focus and stuff).

I’ve got plans, though! I still haven’t invoked Loki for practice (which he’s cool with) so there’s that; I need to work out a ritual, and Loki says that for me, being short, sweet, and too the point is the best way to go. So I’ll be working something out with him in the (hopefully) near future. There’s also the fact that I plan to try out my green thumb and see about growing pumpkins and sunflowers. The sunflowers are to help with luck or prosperity or something on the property (honestly, I really wanna grow some out front to make the place look nice and having half a field of these flowers will be great for the faeries living there). The pumpkins are because I fucking love Halloween and love pumpkin pie and have a few recipes involving pumpkin I wanna try. I’d also like to try my luck at selling some, too.

While Loki tells me he isn’t associated with pumpkins, he sure as fuck likes to press the whole “come on, you know you wanna” bit onto me with growing them, and I’m getting this feeling that he’ll show up presence-wise whenever I go out to the pumpkin patch, so... Whatever, I’m gonna grow pumpkins because pumpkins are fucking awesome.

I’ll be asking the neighbor that owns the property across the street from us if I can do some bone-hunting and maybe a little bit of fossil-hunting. I still have the deer bones that my friend gave me that I need to wash, plus a dead young skunk I’m trying to decompose for bones, but winter makes this shit hard, so that’s part of my spring/summer activities. Loki wants me to try and articulate the skunk and have it mounted on a wooden platform and put onto his altar and I’m sitting here like: uuuuhhhhhh you don’t have much in a way of room... Regardless, articulating a mammalian skeleton will be beneficial in starting myself out in first-hand osteological studying, which is something you kinda have to know if you wanna be a paleontologist (which I do). I’m also interested in creating a staff involving animal bones, but I’m not sure what I’ll be using it for. If not for magick use, then it’d make for a great bring-along prop for a future druid character for D&D night (my husband and friends and I are just starting out with D&D because we haven’t been able to afford the books to play in the past, so we’re real excited about this).

Speaking of osteology, I plan on going to the museum with my husband and some friends in Pittsburgh and taking as many reference photos of all the fossil skeletons as I possibly can so I have decent and varied angles of the animals for reference when I practice to better my paleoart. I don’t wanna keep on using artistic renditions or limited angles of the same damn pics of fossils on the internet for references. I just need a decent camera, and I’m hoping my mom will stop acting immature and demand from a supposed friend that they give her her camera back. She has more authority to demand it back than I do, and I never talk to those people anyways, so it would make sense if she tried getting the damn thing back. Even though it’s sort of old, it’s still very high quality even for today’s standards and cost my parents nearly a grand to purchase. If not, my husband (who is extremely knowledgeable in technology and quality) can help me get a new decent camera (because my iphone sucks and his samsung phone can only hold so much memory for the amount of pictures I wanna take).

I do plan on doing more magick this summer, largely to help with learning a new instrument. While I do wanna properly learn the French Horn since I simply have the instrument, I need the proper mouthpiece (not sure if I’ve bitched about this in past posts), but every damn time I try to get the proper mouthpiece that I need, shit happens and I never get it. However... There’s a very strong possibility I could be learning how to play drums. I’ve always wanted to play but my parents did their damnedest to keep me from that thinking I’d just be annoying on drums. Turns out I’m quite proficient in terms of knowledge on how to play after a clerk at the local music store permitted me to play around on a drum set in one of the tutoring rooms because I paid very close attention to my band teacher helping the percussion section back in middle school. That knowledge stuck with me because I wanted to play drums so damn bad. So as it turns out, looks like I’ll be a drummer after all! It’d be a great way to help me stay in some upper-body shape and help relieve stress through movement while creating music. I’ll worry about starting a band later once I’ve actually become proficient in actually playing the drums, though.

Loki has made sure I stayed on the right path to where I don’t completely go on hiatus regarding creativity. I have a deviantART now if anyone is interested, and I’ve been working on some DIY punk clothing for myself. I’ll also be working on getting my hair how I want and learning how to apply makeup. It’s apparently time that I start expressing myself how I want now that I know what I’m doing. I’m going to go for a goth-punk look that I’ve always wanted since forever, just didn’t know how to achieve the look without spending a fuck ton of money (turns out that I never needed to in the first place).

....yay tangents.

Loki’s basically been trying to teach me to stop relying on the pendulum so damn much. Basically I have to accept that I’m not going to know everything and find some other coping mechanism unless I absolutely have to consult with a pendulum, otherwise he’s just going to lie to me to hammer the lesson into my head. I mean, his opinions? Fine, sometimes I can’t take a hint on my own, he knows it, and sees the pendulum being something that could work. But other stuff I won’t get into, he’s like, “Okay look...” He’s also apparently preferring that I use tarot readings in general divination than runes. I think it’s because the runes were a nice beginner’s way of helping me figure out the whole divination thing. I’ll Sometimes combine tarot with the pendulum if I’m not sure and very damn confused on certain things, but other than that, I’ve been getting the hang of it.�� I still need the handbook because holy dumbfuck, I can’t remember every little thing about every damn card.

Actually, this one tarot spread tried to basically tell me to compare what I’m going through to a caterpillar’s life and I’m currently in the pupa stage. Meaning: I’m working on the appearance that I want, and when I finally achieve it, something something butterfly/moth analogy. Of course, it isn’t narrating my whole damn life, just a part of my life.

Regarding art, I’ve been working with Kenaz, and that’s the rune I have on the Loki painting I may or may not have shared here sometime ago (I’m pretty sure I did but I’m too lazy to go get it so...) The painting has now been moved to a new part of my room (after rearranging shit for the millionth time) and it’s lined up to where it’s directly across from where I sit to do art. Ever since then, I’ve been able to dish out projects with higher quality than what I usually do at a faster rate. It’s just that lately, thanks to precipitation, I can’t do charcoal drawings for a while. Reason being is that I have to go to the outer garage to spray fixatif on it when I’m done and I need proper air circulation for that, and my windows aren’t meant to be opened... the architect of this house was a fucking idiot.

I am not entirely sure if I’ll be purchasing and reading anymore Pagan/witchcraft books for a good while, especially after being better informed, checking my amazon wish list, and finding out that some of the stuff I wish-listed is empty garbage because a lot of crud cranked out by Llewelynn tends to be garbage for money (note: I said “a lot,” not “all.”) But I do make purchases of incense from a small business witchy shop (they make their incense sticks). Lately, I’ve been focused on finding affordable boxes suitable for Bast’s, Thoth’s, and Cernunnos’ altars because my asshole cat likes to knock only the tiny shit off them. I’d also like to get proper statues for Bast and Thoth, too.

I’m also interested in making a smaller besom for general workings, and putting my bigger one up above the front door for protection purposes.

I don’t know how to end a ridiculous post like this, so that’s all I’ve got for now. I’m not disinterested, it’s just I don’t have a whole lot going for me, plus my health isn’t entirely the best right now. Take care, everyone!

#personal #life update #holy shit I hate winter #I didn't proof-read this so if something sounds weird then I'm sorry

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meetawaisnow · 4 years

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One Funnel Away Challenge Review

Building a sales funnel is essential for any online business.

A simple sales funnel using ClickFunnels helped boost my book sales by 150%. And my results are modest compared to thousands of other ClickFunnels users.

But if you’re new to online selling or have never built a sales funnel before, getting started can be overwhelming.

Where do you begin?

One year ago I was a complete newbie to sales funnels. So I signed up to the One Funnel Away Challenge, which is the flagship training guide to ClickFunnels created by its founder Russell Bruson.

In my ultimate in-depth One Funnel Away Challenge review, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about this popular training program based on my personal experience of taking it.

I’m going to:

Give you a comprehensive overview of the challenge.

Show you step by step how it helped me sell more of my books through my website.

Outline the pros and cons of signing up.

My One Funnel Away Challenge review is perfect for anyone completely new to sales funnels who wants a no-nonsense introduction to this popular training program.

This is the article I wish I could have read when I was weighing up whether to sign up to this program.

Let’s get started.

What is the One Funnel Away Challenge?

The One Funnel Away (OFA) Challenge is a virtual 30-day program that will guide you every step of the way in creating a highly profitable sales funnel.

I took the challenge myself (more on that below) when I was just starting out with sales funnels.

Russell Brunson, Stephen Larsen and Julie Stoian are the instructors. Via video lessons, they will be teaching you everything they’ve learned in developing multiple million-dollar sales funnels.

Each day, they break down complex topics and give you missions (similar to homework) that you need to complete to get to the next step.

People retain 90% of what they learn when they put it into immediate practice, so when you complete the daily missions, you’re solidifying your knowledge.

But don’t worry, the daily missions set by Russell aren’t too difficult to complete; however, they are designed to make you stretch your limits and think outside the box.

After the end of the 30 days, you’ll be ready to release your first (or next) funnel to the world.

Who is this challenge for?

But is the One Funnel Away Challenge for you? I definitely don’t think this challenge is for everybody.

The challenge is a highly fast-paced challenge that demands your time and attention for 30 days.

The challenge is perfect for you if you:

Have an idea for an online business but don’t quite know how to get your products/services out there

Have hit a wall with your business and need a structured game plan to reach the next level

Are an affiliate marketer who wants to increase sales

Have never built a funnel but want to learn how

Need to fix an existing funnel.

However, the challenge is probably not for people who:

Don’t have the time to watch the vidoes and work through the missions

Want a “get rich quick” business strategy

Want a training that they can set aside for weeks at a time

Don’t believe in investing money into their own business (this challenge is not free and we’ll talk about the price later on)

Think their sales funnels are perfect and don’t want tough-love to learn and grow

If you fall into any of the above, you’ll probably want to stop reading my One Funnel Away Challenge review as the challenge likely isn’t for you.

Check Out The One Funnel Away Challenge

How the One Funnel Away Challenge helped me

I don’t like blowing my own trumpet about making money online.

There’s plenty of online marketers out there who are much more enthusiastic about doing that than I am.

However, it’s going to be helpful to give you a step-by-step overview of exactly this training program helped me.

It will give context to everything I talk about in this One Funnel Away Challenge review.

So here’s a brief rundown of my story.

Before I discovered the One Funnel Away Challenge program, I was a blogger who wasn’t making a lot of money. If you’re a blogger too, or know one, then you’ll know I was hardly Robinson Crusoe in this regard.

The thing is I’m a decent writer who knew how to get a lot of traffic to my website. Unfortunately, I was terrible at actually making money from what I was writing about.

Here is my organic traffic for the 2019 calendar year:

As you can see, by August I was getting 60,000+ unique visitors a day to my website from search. That’s not bad.

When I first started blogging 5 years ago I thought I would be rolling in cash if I ever achieved this level of traffic. While I was earning decent money from Adsense and a few other things, I definitely wasn’t taking any holidays in The Hamptons.

I knew something had to change.

And one thing I needed to do was sell more of my eBooks.

Selling eBooks is one way my website makes money. It’s not my main focus but it’s still something I wanted to get right.

In 2018 I churned out 7 eBooks on topics ranging from Buddhism, to mindfulness, to taking responsibility for your life. The books were good but my sales were underwhelming.

I started using Shopify to sell these books. Shopify may be a great e-commerce platform but it’s poorly equipped to help people sell their eBooks. I found the sales pages to be ugly and the functionality poor.

My biggest mistake, however, was that I didn’t have a sales funnel of any kind.

I had heard great things about sales funnels and ClickFunnels more generally. However, I had no idea how to actually create one (literally none). So starting my first funnel was more than a little daunting…

That’s why I dived into the One Funnel Away Challenge. I knew I needed some hands on training in order to create some highly profitable sales funnels.

The One Funnel Away Challenge taught me step-by-step how to create the perfect sales funnel for the products I was selling. It was the launching pad for increasing my book sales by 150% practically overnight.

Here’s exactly how I did it.

Increasing my eBook sales by 150%

Almost one year since switching over to ClickFunnels, my eBook sales have increased by 150%.

I went from selling $120 of eBooks a day on average using Shopify to $300 with ClickFunnels.

The traffic I sent to the sales pages hasn’t increased meaningfully. The key is that I’m converting much better and my average order value has increased from $11 to $19.

Not a bad boost to something that’s only a side hustle for my business.

A look inside my sales funnel

I chose the 2-Step TripWire after learning about it in the One Funnel Away Challenge.

It’s a pretty simple funnel and perfectly suited to the eBooks I had to sell.

The key to this funnel is to offer an irresistible upsell.

A single eBook of mine costs $9. After they purchase this, they are taken to my high-priced 1-click upsell. If they don’t buy my upsell they are then offered a lower priced 1-click downsell.

My 1-click upsell is a bundle of all 7 of my eBooks for $25. The 1-click downsell is 2 eBooks that are closely related to the single eBook they initially purchased for $8.

The 1-click aspect of this is important. As I have already collected their credit card information from the single eBook purchase, they add the upsell or downsell to their cart with only one click. No need to ask them for their credit card information again.

So the 6 steps of my funnels are:

Sales page

Order form

Upsell

Downsell

Order confirmation

Delivery of eBooks

Here is my upsell:

And this is my downsell:

Instead of only being able to generate $9 per transaction from each customer for a single eBook, I now earn up to $34 transaction in one transaction.

This is how the One Funnel Away Challenge helped me.

Clearly the funnels you design after taking this challenge will likely be very different to what I did. A sales funnel can mean very different things depending on the type of business you are in.

The best part is that the One Funnel Away Challenge will help you design just about any type of sales funnel you can imagine.

Why should you care about funnels?

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of the One Funnel Away Challenge program, I want to explain the importance of funnels.

Without understanding why funnels are fundamental to your business, you won’t understand why the knowledge shared in the OFA Challenge is so valuable.

If you’re new to online selling, you won’t want to skip this part.

Simply put, a sales funnel is the journey that guides your customer towards your offer, whether that’s a product, service or an affiliate sale.

When your funnel is structured properly, it acts as a salesperson who holds the hand of your prospects, shows them the way and encourages them to purchase from you.

We take part in multiple sales funnels every day, from buying our morning coffee to getting groceries to shopping online for items we’re interested in.

As a savvy business owner, you should know how to optimize your funnels to get more clicks, leads, and ultimately, sales.

Unfortunately, sales funnels can be complicated, and if you don’t know what a proper funnel looks like, it could end up doing more harm than good.

A poorly-designed funnel will leak out prospects along the way, leaving you with low conversion rates and frustrated customers.

On the other hand, a well-thought-out funnel is the secret sauce to scaling your business.

The One Funnel Away Challenge is going to take you by the hand and teach you absolutely everything you need to know to create high-converting sales funnels for your business.

Sound good? Let’s dive right in to the program.

Check Out The One Funnel Away Challenge

What you get with the One Funnel Away Challenge

The One Funnel Away Challenge is a robust system designed to set you up for making more money online.

When you enroll in it, you’ll receive a box delivered to your door filled to the brim with materials and resources (that’s if you choose to pay for shipping, otherwise everything is online).

Here’s what you’ll get.

30 Days of Mission Videos from Russell Brunson

Russell Brunson, the founder of ClickFunnels, started his own $360 million SaaS business, entirely self-funded.

He’s a best-selling author who has sold over 250,000 books and has a following of millions of entrepreneurs.

Quite honestly, he’s someone you want to be taking advice from.

For 30 days, you’re going to be getting various missions from Russell that will simplify the funnel-building process.

One Funnel Away Challenge bonuses

The above training videos and accountability calls are worth more than $2,000 when offered individually, and quite frankly, they are all you really need to create your funnel.

But like any good salesman, Russel Brunson also throws in a bunch of bonuses to make signing up to the challenge even more compelling.

Here are the One Funnel Away Challenge bonuses you’ll get thrown in immediately after you enroll.

Physical copy of the workbook

Studies show that writing your notes pen to paper will help you remember what you’re learning better than taking digital notes.

You can use your physical workbook to take notes and help retain everything you are learning.

30 Days hardcover book

Russell asked 30 members of his Two Comma Club (ClickFunnel members who have earned more than $1 million from their sales funnels) this question:

“what would you do if you lost everything, including your name, reputation, and followers? How would you earn back your millions in only 30 days?”

In other words, he asked his Two Comma Club members to lay out a day-by-day plan for those who are just getting started, so they can reach $1 million in sales.

Their answers were collected and put into a hardcover book.

It’s like having 30 different blueprints to build out a million-dollar funnel all in one place.

This bonus alone is awesome.

MP3 Player with all the recordings

If fitting one hour of additional work into your day will be an obstacle, you can use the MP3 player to listen to the recordings wherever and whenever to make it a bit easier.

The recordings will also include Stephen’s coaching calls from the last challenge.

In total, you’ll have over 40 hours of coaching calls and interviews on your MP3 that you can conveniently listen to anywhere.

Unlimited access to 30 Day interviews

During the 30 day challenge, you’re going to be busy completing missions and building out your own high-converting funnel.

The interviews included in this bonus are filled with helpful tidbits, but if you don’t find the time to watch through them all during the 30 days, you can go back and watch them afterwards as you’ll have unlimited access.

Interviews with the Two Comma Club

In these interviews, 30 Two Comma Club members will discuss what mistakes they made along the way (so you can avoid them) and what they did right (so you can replicate their success).

They don’t hold back, and these interviews are exclusive to the OFA Challenge members only.

Check Out The One Funnel Away Challenge

What you’ll learn

Here’s an overview of what you’ll learn across the 5 weeks of the One Funnel Away challenge:

Pre-challenge week — All about getting in the right mindset to propel your business forward.

Week 1 — Learn the basics of how to sell online, including how to get the attention of customers with a hook, the importance of storytelling, and what it takes to build an attractive offer.

Week 2 — All about sales copy. This is the week I enjoyed the most as it’s completely relevant to selling books. I learned exactly how to implement the hooks, tell a story that generates an emotional reaction from the reader, and how to generate the “aha” moment in the minds of my audience about the new opportunity.

Week 3 — The nuts and bolts of building your sales funnel. This is the practical advice I wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere else. I learnt how to create sales pages, sequence pages, One Time Offers (OTOs), etc.

Week 4 — Focuses on traffic and promotion. Although I’m an SEO guy who swears by organic traffic, it was still fascinating to learn about all the paid traffic opportunities out there.

I probably learned hundreds of practical things across the 5 weeks. However, two things stand out as being absolute gamer changers for me:

Exactly how to tell a story for the product I was selling. As Russell Branson explains in the first few weeks, there’s a template for telling stories that builds belief, emotion, and trust that could apply for any product. My sales pages are so much better now for having learnt this.

Actually creating the funnel. By the end of the challenge, I knew everything about designing a high-converting sales funnel, and how to build it within ClickFunnels. I learnt how to build a sales page, squeeze page, an upsell page, etc, and the correct sequence depending on the product.

Now, a lot of people say you need to read or listen to everything the 3 instructors give you (in order) and complete all the homework assignments without fail. I think they’re overstating how rigid the program is.

You do need to put in more work than the average online marketing course but I skimmed over a few things that were less relevant to my business and was laser-focused on the things that really mattered to me.

I think a bit of cherry picking works fine with this program.

Benefits of joining the One Funnel Away Challenge

On top of receiving thousands of dollars of materials that you won’t be able to find elsewhere, there are a few other pros to the OFA Challenge I want to highlight.

Joining the One Funnel Away Challenge will open many doors for you, including the chance to get to know some of the best online marketers there are (Russell, Julie and Stephen).

You’ll also be able to interact with other challenge members, many of whom are great people to network with and get to know.

Cons of the One Funnel Away Challenge

When I say this course is fast-paced, I mean it. You don’t have the option to work through things slowly and haphazardly.

If you choose to take time off, you will fall behind.

Now, I wasn’t the most diligent student when it came to this challenge, but I still forced myself to put some time aside most days to learn something new from this course.

But is 30 days of hard work worth the potential of creating extremely valuable sales funnels?

It was for me.

Frequently Asked Questions about the One Funnel Away Challenge

How much does it cost?

The One Funnel Away Challenge costs $100. If you want the physical kit, you’ll have to pay shipping of $19.95 within the US and $29.95 outside the US. However, you can just access the digital only version of the challenge which has no shipping cost.

Is it worth the cost?

So, your total investment to join the One Funnel Away Challenge is $100.

That’s not pocket change but it’s a pretty small cost in comparison to what you’ll learn. By the end of the program, you’ll make that money back within a day with your new and improved funnels.

I certainly did on the very first day I launched my sales funnel.

And to put the $100 into further perspective, Russell Brunson currently charges $100,000 to sit down with clients for only one day of coaching. And that’s not including Julie’s and Stephen’s rates for coaching.

But with the OFA Challenge, you have 30 days of coaching with three world-class marketers for a fraction of the price.

Do you need a ClickFunnels membership?

The beauty with this challenge is that you don’t necessarily need any additional software or add-ons to complete the work or learn from the information provided.

But in the name of transparency, I will say this: ClickFunnels does make the funnel-building process so much easier. After joining the challenge, you might find yourself interested in signing up for ClickFunnels yourself.

And by week 3 in the challenge when you start building your own funnels, having a ClickFunnels account will definitely help.

However, building out a sales funnel can be done in a variety of different ways:

Through your website

From your email marketing software

From other funnel building software.

So, if you want to take the challenge but don’t want to sign up with ClickFunnels, no worries. You’ll still benefit from everything the course has to offer.

You can read my complete review of the ClickFunnels platform here.

Why can’t I just learn everything online for free?

You can absolutely learn about funnels and direct response marketing online for free.

In fact, I’ve learnt most of the things I know about blogging and online marketing from free resources on the internet. Yet I didn’t hesitate to sign up to the One Funnel Away Challenge myself.

Here’s why.

First, when you Google “sales funnels for beginners,” nearly 55 million results show.

And from all those resources, many are outdated and inaccurate.

Also, imagine how much time it will take to piece together all that information by yourself.

6 months?

1 year?

You need to ask yourself how much your time is worth. If you have months (or years) to try and master sales funnels on your own and you’re in no rush to drive your business forward, perhaps learning by yourself is the route you’d like to take.

Not only that, but you’ll also likely make mistakes along the way, costing you sales and future customers.

When you think about it from that perspective, $100 really isn’t that steep of an investment if it’s going to prevent wasted time and lost sales.

If you want to figure out sales funnels within 30 days, the One Funnel Away Challenge is your answer.

Secondly, free courses have notoriously low completion rates. 85% of people who enroll in free programs and courses never finish them.

And I know what you’re thinking: “but I’m different, I’d actually complete the course!” But honestly speaking, when you have your own skin in the game (such as money invested), you’re more likely to go through the material and learn the content.

Can I join the challenge at any time?

Unfortunately, you cannot join the challenge at any time.

Because this challenge is so hands-on, Russell, Julie and Stephen need to work it around their schedules to give you personalized attention.

It’s open right now, but there are no guarantees that it will open back up again (Russell doesn’t have a date for the next challenge and hasn’t specified if there will even be one).

My One Funnel Away Challenge review verdict

The One Funnel Away Challenge has been getting a lot of buzz with entrepreneurs and online business owners recently.

I’m pretty skeptical about online courses, especially those to do with internet marketing. And Russell Brunson from ClickFunnels is the ultimate salesman. The shiny sales page for the One Funnel Away Challenge is testament to that.

The simple truth is though that the One Funnel Away Challenge delivers real value to those prepared to commit to the 30-day training program.

I had hit a brick wall selling my eBooks before I signed up to the challenge. Immediately after launching my first sales funnel through ClickFunnels, I increased my book sales by 150%.

If you can commit to doing a bit of work every day for 30 days, the One Funnel Away Challenge will help you make a lot more money online.

Check Out The One Funnel Away Challenge

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forkanna · 7 years

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NOTE: Rated T for Teen. Will contain occasional nigh-NSFW moments, including sensuality and mild gore, but nothing out of place in a PG or PG-13 movie. TRIGGER WARNING: there will be some racism and an attempted sexual assault in later chapters. See below for more notes!

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

Unlimited Together, we're unlimited Together, we'll be the greatest team there's ever been, Glinda - Dreams, the way we planned 'em If we work in tandem There's no fight we cannot win

Just you and I defying gravity With you and I defying gravity They'll never bring us down...

CHAPTER ONE

"Glinda, come with me. Think of what we could do! Together…"

Time dragged to a standstill as poor, bewildered Glinda-née-Galinda Upland stood somewhere she definitely shouldn't be, riddled with indecision. Never had Elphaba Thropp looked at her with such intensity, such desperation in her eyes. No one in all the land of Oz had! Not Fiyero, nor any other classmate, nor Elphaba herself before today. Even during those classes at the university in which she had spoken so passionately about the mistreatment of sentient Animals, she had not seemed so… fervential? Was that a word?

And here she was, hoping to enlist her help in this cause. Was she out of her tiny verdant mind?!

"Elphaba… I…" Her throat worked to swallow as she glanced between the barricaded attic door and the brilliantly green hand clutching the broom handle. Wind seemed to come from nowhere, swirling around them and blowing the long strands of raven-black hair around her strong jawline. Now she had to turn her eyes away from those of her roommate, which she could no longer meet; too much intensity that made her stomach feel strange. Then again, Elphaba's intensity had always done that to pretty much everyone she met.

"Well?" the newly-awakened wizardess demanded of her. "Are you coming?"

What a crazy notion! How brazen, how reckless! She couldn't simply uproot and follow on Elphaba's heels. How could she? Her entire life was at Shiz University; her classes, hopes for a brilliant future in sorcery. Following that, a modern, Ozmopolitan life, and the prospect of becoming more than just another tittering debutante, beholden to her family name. Friends, admirers…

Fiyero…

"Elphie, you're trembling." Was she coming? Casting around for some kind of distraction, she found a large black cloak discarded upon the floor. At least it matched her hat. "Here, put this around you…"

As Glinda fastened it around her friend's bony shoulders, heart aching from the prospect of losing one of her dearest companions in such a ridiculous way as this, she decided: no, she could not go with her. Of course, she had great respect for the sentient Animals of Oz — the deposed Dr. Dillamond especially. They were every bit as important as the human persons that she attended Shiz with. Why shouldn't they be? They could walk, and talk, and exchange ideas the same as anyone else.

At least, they could. A recent shift in tense from present to past. Catching and caging them was a deplorable idea, and she had been equally sickened by that class in which they were forced to look at the Lion in its prison, presented as a spectacle instead of a person. The Wizard and Madame Morrible should be ashamed!

But Elphaba truly was taking things too far. Some things simply defied her understanding. All of this fuss, over sticking a few pairs of wings on a few monkeys?! Her unsociable roommate could be mistaken, after all; perhaps the Wizard had simply flipped to the wrong page in the Grimmerie before handing it to her. It needn't be his fault, not necessarily. Didn't the great leader of their entire Land of Oz get any benefit of a doubt? And what was so awful about monkeys having wings? Wouldn't that only improve their lives? She herself wouldn't mind having a set, being able to soar above the clouds…

"GLINDA!"

Rousing herself from her introspection, she took a step forward. Perhaps she had taken too long to contemplate; they didn't have the luxury of time on their side. In the end, of course, it was mostly the thought of the lean, masculine Fiyero and his easy charm that prompted her to tell Elphaba what she must tell her. But she needn't be harsh about it; she could break the news to her gently, with the warmth of their friendship and a wish for her future. She deserved that much.

"Oh, Elphie…" A hand laid on the one holding the broom, causing Elphaba to blink at her in surprise. "I hope-"

There came more pounding at the door. Elphaba's emerald eyes flicked toward it, then back to her in a wild panic as a gruff voice on the other side barked, "Break it down! For His Ozness!"

Cursing under her breath, the black-clad girl straddled the broom, the Wizard's spellbook still tucked under her arm as she bade her, "Get on! There isn't time — we can discuss this later!"

"Wh-what?! We can't, surely they wouldn't truly-"

Her words were eclipsed by the sound of wood splintering. Apparently, they surely, truly would.

"Galinda, it's do or die! Get on this broom now!"

Do or die. They wouldn't use deadly force… would they?

The attic door suggested otherwise.

Before she knew what was happening, Glinda was on the back of a broom, arms looped around Elphaba's waist. They were already rising into the air before her mind caught up with her body, and she squeaked, "Wait!"

In vain. The guards were nearly within arm's reach of them when Elphaba rose above their heads, cackling madly at the feeling. Glinda was too terrified to share in her joy at the sensation of flight, but in the back of her mind, she knew it was one of the most exhilarating experiences she'd ever had in her lifetime. With an effort of will, they were shooting toward a large stained glass window on the Western wall.

"ELPHIE, LOOK OUT!"

But she needn't have bothered shouting; making things explode was something at which her green-hued classmate had always excelled, even before classes helped her hone the magic within her. Amid a shower of breaking glass, the two exited the Royal Palace.

Soon, the Emerald City was laid out below them, sparkling and majestic. Glinda caught her breath. Every street and every spire reflected the sunlight, dazzling her eyes as they hung in midair. Had any of her fellow Ozians ever seen this? Had they been so lucky?

"I don't know where to go now," Elphaba confessed, frantic voice intruding on Glinda's reverie. "Back to Shiz? Do we… should we get Nessa, or Fiyer-"

"NO!" When Elphaba twisted around to look at her, strong, severe features mildly surprised underneath the brim of the large black hat, Glinda shrank back from the stare as she added, "We… don't have the right to drag them into our sensationifical mistake! This is something we've done, we…" Her face went completely ashen. "We're criminals. You are, and I'm your accomplice, and…"

Setting her proud jaw, Elphaba turned back around and gazed down at the ground, at the guards amassing in the streets, though they had no hope of catching the two women suspended at such a height. Eventually, her eyes slid closed in shame. This was a deeper look of pain than she had ever seen in her roommate's forestful features, which looked yet greener due to the twinkling emeralds that lit up the cityscape below. But she did not speak on that matter.

Elphie looks so phosphorescent in the sunlight, she suddenly noticed. Though that thought seemed to come from nowhere.

"We'll go to my home, to my father. They won't think to look there right away, and then…"

"And then?"

"And then… I don't know."

Glinda swallowed hard as she tightened her hold on Elphaba, the vertigo finally catching up to her adrenaline-soaked brain. "Th-then maybe we'll drop in on my family? Or… well, we'll just have to think about that later, I suppose. But yes, let's go see your father, and hope that he doesn't… turn us away."

"I'll head West first," Elphaba said, even as the broom tilted in that direction. "To confuse them, and then North until we're past Shiz, and then back East to Munchkinland. Might save us having any unpleasant surprise visits, at least for a while."

"A better plan than I had, which was 'say you're sorry'. Don't think that would work now."

"Probably not, but… oh, let's just be rid of this place!"

And without another word, Elphaba shot off toward the lowering sun, gliding over the tall skyscrapers, the gorgeous palaces and museums. Ones Glinda was terrified she would never see again.

~ o ~

The Coven Of Oz

A Canon Divergence in Three Parts By Jessica X

~ o ~

Only once they had made good their escape and circled the Emerald City and its environs by a wide berth did either of them speak. It was Elphaba, turning in her seat to make herself more easily heard. Her voice was hoarse from the earlier shouting, and perhaps with grief, but Glinda didn't want to assume anything.

"Before we left, you were going to say something."

"What?" Glinda whispered, then cleared her throat and repeated it louder, so as to be heard over the sounds of rushing wind. "What?"

"You… were going to tell me you didn't want to come."

Her heart seized. "Oh. Well… please, Elphaba, try to understand… it's not that I-"

"No, no. You had every right not to… follow me on this dangerous crusade. I'd think you a coward, but not a fool; I'm the fool." Her body became more and more tense, which was impossible for Glinda not to notice due to their close proximity. "The Wizard, Madame Morrible, and the entirety of the Ozian military… they're all intent on the suppression of Animal rights, and here I am, thinking any good and decent citizen of Oz should want to band together to stop it! They should, if they have a damn conscience, but they…"

Some time went by with the wind whipping at their faces before Glinda prompted in a soft voice, "They?"

"They have something to lose. I do not. I'm just a hideous green bean with a weird trick or two up my sleeve — unlike them, who all have family and reputations to protect."

"Hmm… that is true." Wincing at how that had come across, Glinda hastily added, "About them, not you, obviously! Because you do have a family, right? And… and a couple of friends, at least. And you're not hideous, just perhaps… deciduous!"

The hands tightened on the broom as she growled, "Why was I put in this position? All I've ever wanted was to… work with the Wizard, ask him to guide me, and maybe…" Her voice had grown more and more embarrassed, and she finally fell silent again. "Nevermind. I'm just a romantic idiot. And he's just a charlatan. Maybe we really were made for each other from the beginning. A couple of bumble-brains."

In all of those words, Glinda heard something unsaid, as she was so used to searching for when her roommate spoke. An apology. The antisocial thing had been so opposed to interaction in the first place, and only through steady insistence from her — and from Elphie's sister, Nessarose — did she begin to blossom from her tightly-clenched bud. Of course, she still preferred isolation and study, but at least they had begun to get her to attend various social activities, to travel all the way to Emerald City, even if only for one short day. There had to be some room left for understanding her idiosyncrasies.

"Aww, Elphie…" How could she word this? "It isn't that I didn't want to come with you, alright? I admire your stance, your zeal! You've got a moxieness when it comes to Animals, and I think you have a chance to do some real good in this world! Or did have, anyway… I just… your cause is not my cause, you know? So it wasn't about you, it was… a difference in interests! Does that make sense?"

After a moment to mull that over, she more felt than heard Elphaba sigh. "It does. I'm… you're right, and I should have waited to listen to you instead of pushing you to join me."

"Too late now," she muttered.

"It is."

"Oh, no, I- that isn't how I meant- I don't blame-"

"You should; you have every right. I let my fury at how the Wizard tricked me make me forget that you were there, and that you were with me. That my actions would reflect badly on you, as well. That was selfish." Another sigh, louder, more stunned. "Wow… I've completely ruined your life."

"What?! Come on, Elphie, don't be so dramatical. Nothing's 'ruined', we just have to… okay, I don't know exactly what we 'have to', but there's a thing we have to do to make this right, and we'll figure out what it is! Together!"

"But you shouldn't…" Shaking her head back and forth, she admitted, "Guess it doesn't matter anymore. Let's just figure out where we're going and what we're doing right now, and the rest of it later."

Nodding, Glinda pressed her face into Elphaba's back. Her warmth was becoming more and more necessary, with the chill wind pulling her own body heat away. That was odd; given how cold and standoffish the woman had been during their year at the university, she would never have guessed she had any heat at all. Like the reptiles she resembled with that green skin and those sharp features. A pleasant surprise, especially in such a time of need.

And that's how things will be for a while, she admitted to herself as their speed increased, skimming them over treetops. Until we get this all straightened out, we're going to need to stick together, whether we like it or not. Just hope we don't end up hating each other before it's all said and done. Not two best friends like us. Wouldn't that be an awfully tragic tragedy?

To Be Continued…

#The Coven of Oz #wicked fanfiction #the wizard of oz #the wicked years #gelphie #wizard of oz #forkanna writes #halloween fanfiction #forkanna the writer

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successprogress · 4 years

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High School Teacher explains how this capsule did everything for her and Measuring Progress And Success Also, Perfect Loss without the Gym

Writing good content for a blog, whether corporate, personal, or otherwise can be incredibly challenging.

Creating content and presenting it in a thoughtful and engaging manner, consistently, is a skill that can take some years to build up. And you never really get there - it's a continuous practice that you can always improve on.

However. Measuring and tracking the success of your blog analytically isn't nearly as difficult. In fact if you are tracking the proper gym items surrounding your blog you will be able to gauge your success and momentum allowing you to alter your strategy if need be or push harder the direction you're going.

create a holistic dashboard using as many metrics as make senseThe analytics you choose to pay attention to surrounding your blog will be largely driven by the goals you have in place for this piece of your website. If you haven't defined your goals yet - I'd suggest starting there.

That said you can derive valuable information from most all of them about how your content is received, what effect it is having on the traffic to your site, etc even if it isn't directly tied to a KPI you have set.

Given that - I would encourage you to create a holistic dashboard using as many metrics as make sense for your business. From here you can build out your regular reporting if necessary. You'll need to be sure and frame the measurement of all of the metrics you are pulling with the amount and regularity of content you are creating. Everything else, or most everything else will be in direct relation to this so it HAS to be considered. Beyond that here are some more suggestions to look at.

Visits and Visitors This is a fairly broad metric but can give you a very good idea if your content is reaching anyone and if they're reading it and going to the gym

An important note here is that visits and visitors are different. For example, one "visitor" can have multiple "visits" to your blog. It is important to understand the definition of this metric in your particular tool set as I've seen several that refer to them in unique terms.

Keeping in mind that your actual blog is not the only place readers can consume your content of course. More on that in a few bullets.

Engagement Measuring engagement can be kind of tricky on a blog. Depending of course how you define it.

I measure engagement separately from sharing while I know others who lump them all in to one category. For my purposes I measure engagement with teacher by the number of comments and 'Likes' on each post. I use a separate 'Share' button for Facebook which is why I personally like to include the 'Like' in engagement. It's a vote or a 'Hey - I liked this' so it goes in the engagement category.

There is no prime ratio for this. It's a way of measuring yourself, against - well, yourself. Not every post will warrant comments. Nor should you expect it. There's also no "ideal" number of comments. This is simply a way of encouraging yourself to create increasingly engaging content and being able to track your progress. It can also give you a really good idea of whether or not your readers are enjoying the content you're publishing.

Sharing Closely tied to engagement is that of sharing. A reader doesn't have to be engaged to share and they don't have to share (as used here) to be engaged. But quite often they are very closely related.

Sharing analytics are just what they sound like. And depending on what tool you're using for this you'll have different availability of metrics. ShareThis for example provides some pretty decent metrics available. (Take a look at the availability of the tool you're looking at before implementing. It's very difficult if not impossible to gather this data retroactively.)

Are users sharing your content via email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, (and on and on)? If you find your readers are very actively engaged on your blog but not sharing as often as you would like consider taking a look at on-page optimization possibilities. Take a look at your blog and make sure your sharing buttons are easy to find and use. Beyond that try different placements to see if that changes up the results. For example, perhaps moving them from the top to the bottom will have a positive benefit in this way.

RSS Subscribers Don't forget that on your actual blog is not the only place your readers may be consuming your content. Be sure to track and measure how your users are interacting with your content through RSS by using something like Feedburner or whatever your site will allow.

As I mentioned previously this is tied in quite closely with Visits/Visitors. I put it here however, because if your numbers are not what you would like them to be you can try optimization efforts similar to those you might use in optimizing for sharing. Users generally subscribe to your RSS via a RSS button so you'll need to test on what gets the highest conversion among your visitors.

Path Analysis Sure your readers can find your content on social sites or via RSS. But can they find you from other pages on your website?

Check out your path analysis to find out. How are they getting to your blog posts from within your site? And once they get there you'll also want to look at where they're going. What is their exit path?

If they're hitting your blog and leaving then maybe you're not doing a good enough job "merchandising" your blog content. Consider highlighting top posts, or moving the category listing etc. Looking at the path analysis can also help you to determine what people are looking for. Use that insight to make it easier for them to find that information.

Bounce Rate There are a lot of intricacies around bounce rate. It's quite often used in promotions to measure their success.

Keep in mind that many things can influence bounce rate. For example if someone is entering your site on a particular search query that they quickly find the answer to they'll likely exit soon thereafter. If they're entering from a social sharing site like StumbleUpon or Reddit the bounce rate would likely be different. But that is generally quite individualized.

It is an important thing to look at in judging, on a blog specifically, how long people are spending ingesting your content and whether or not they're looking for more once they arrive.

Inbound Links While not necessarily a measurement of success (depending on who of course, you're talking to) it can be quite interesting and valuable to take a look at what conversations you are inspiring elsewhere on the web.

If someone is blogging about you, chances are likely they will link to your post that incited the conversation. Of course if link building is one of your goals for the blog (which would make very good sense) then this will be an even more important metric. You may approach your content slightly different at times as well because of it.

Is there more? There are many other specific metrics to look at in relation to your blog than I've listed here.

To find out what you should be measuring it's imperative to ask yourself "What story are we trying to tell here?".

You need to know what questions you want to answer first, or what story you're looking for. Then you can dig into the analytics and pick out the ones that help you answer these questions.

What is available to you in terms of data will be largely determined (and possibly constrained) by the analytics you're using on your site but most should cover the basics for sure. Look around for other tools that you can tack on if need be. Chances are likely that you're spending a great deal of time managing your blog and if you are unable to present your work with numbers and data within your company it will be as if it never happened.

"In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data."--Mark Lopez

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markjsaterfiel66 · 5 years

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Enginursday: A Beginner's Guide to Sourcing from Alibaba

Alibaba is the Wild West of product sourcing - a freewheeling, international bazaar offering low-cost bulk parts and products that range from the mundane to the, well, bizarre. Here, the risks are high but the potential benefits manifold. You may seek your fortune reselling low-cost goods (or finding low-cost parts for your widget), but you may find yourself flim-flammed, hoodwinked and yes, even bamboozled. But oh, the rush when your diligence pays off!

It seems excited.

I will begin with an important disclaimer: at this stage in my procurement career (and in SparkFun’s history), sourcing from Alibaba is basically the last resort. SparkFun has worked hard over the years to develop a list of trusted vendors. Many of these companies have locally-based representatives, knowledgeable sales contacts and field application engineers we can meet with face-to-face to discuss all our latest needs and quirks. Others are vendors in China, Taiwan and other countries whom we discovered via Alibaba eons ago, and have since built long-standing relationships with.

If you already have a supplier with whom you have an established, trusting relationship, love and cherish them all the days of your life. Understand also that their capabilities may extend far beyond what’s reflected in their catalog or line card. If there’s something specific you need, ask your existing contacts. At the very least, they may be able to provide you with a referral. I also highly recommend ThomasNet as an alternative starting point for finding reliable, quality sources for components, hardware, equipment, you-name-it.

That said, onto the fun. If you’re starting from scratch as we once did, or you simply like to walk on the wild side, you may be ready to plunge into the wacky world of Alibaba. Let’s begin with the search bar.

Don't look at my search history.

This part is pretty straightforward. Here, you can search for parts by keyword or toggle the little arrow to search for particular suppliers. As with any search, you’ll want to find that sweet spot between specificity and generality. It’s also important to know what that thing you’re looking for is called! That seems obvious enough, but keep in mind that there are different synonyms out there for the same type of product (e.g. “coin cell” vs. “button cell”), and businesses in other countries might have different naming conventions than you’re used to.

You can also browse items by market (at left) if you have a vague idea of the type of things you’re looking for and just want to peruse the marketplace. There’s also a new image search feature (the camera icon at the right). As it turns out, you can even search for products based on the current status of your life:

Time to hit the gym!

Once you’ve honed in on a thing you might want to buy in quantity, you’ll see on the product page a handy little pricing scale, info about shipping charges and lead time.

How many horse masks will you require today?

Great, right? Well, ignore it. IGNORE IT ALL. It could be accurate, sure, or it could be that the supplier just put random information in there because honestly-who-really-knows. If you want to know how much the thing costs, ask.

But first, try to learn a little about the supplier by clicking on the supplier name at right and perusing their company page. Alibaba is far less Mos Eisley Cantina-ish than it once was. They have a variety of verifications and certifications to help you sort out the legit from the sketchy, although there’s always some risk regardless. I like to see a high customer satisfaction rate, “Gold Supplier” status (multiple years is always a plus) and a decent rate of response.

Lookin' good.

Once you’ve achieved that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, feel free to message away. At the bottom of the page you’ll see the box you can use to send a message to the supplier. I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep this first message as simple as possible. I’ve found that I’m far less likely to get a response if I include multiple questions, customization requests, lists of products, sample inquiries, etc. I know, it’s hard to imagine that somewhere a sales rep is perusing their inbox and smashing that delete button every time a message is more than three sentences long, but there it is. Here is the basic template of what I send:

Dear Mr/Ms [rep name], Hello, this is [name] with [company name]. Please quote me for [quantity] pcs of your [product name or part number]. Thanks and kind regards, [name] [email address]

That’s it! This is not to imply that Alibaba suppliers won’t send you samples, customize their product, give you quotes for multiple pricing tiers and multiple products, discuss terms, etc. This simple first email jus gets the conversation going, and you can feel free to move on to all those subjects and more once the wheel has begun turning. Alibaba has a messenger feature, but I always include my email in the signature of the first message to emphasize that I’m okay with them emailing me directly. Personally, I prefer to communicate this way, but to each their own. If you do include your email, you will eventually get spammed, so be ready. You can also make a “business card” on Alibaba, which includes your contact information, and you can choose whether to share it or not with each message you send.

Yes, there is such a thing as too much squid.

You may find you’re not satisfied with a quote or minimum order quantity (MOQ). $1,400 per ton of giant squid tentacles may be more than you are willing to pay, or perhaps you only require 10 tons of them instead of 25. Again, ask away. Alibaba reps often have room to haggle. If you have other quotes or retail pricing to show them for comparison, go for it. Just don’t be a jerk about it. Consider what you might be able to offer them to make it worth their while.

If an MOQ is higher than you’re willing to commit to, it doesn’t hurt to see if the supplier has some flexibility there, too. Maybe they can lower it if you commit to purchasing multiple different products (giant squid eyeballs?). You might also consider committing to multiple smaller orders spaced out over the course of a year, assuming you’re confident in your volume projections. If you have a slew of questions, I recommend putting them in a numbered list to avoid important details getting lost in a big block of text.

I always request at least one sample before agreeing to purchase an item in quantity. Usually, suppliers with whom you do not have an existing relationship will expect you to pay for the sample, and that’s quite understandable. Sometimes they’ll just request that you cover the shipping. I usually ask them to send an invoice with a PayPal ID/email, but you can also pay directly via Alibaba. It’s important when requesting a sample (as with a full order quantity) to confirm what it is you’ll be receiving before committing to it. Some product pages display multiple products, or have multiple versions of a single product available with varying specs. Requesting a datasheet, manual, or any other supporting documentation is crucial.

This may require some vetting.

Once you’ve received, evaluated and approved a sample, you may be ready to commit to a full order. I won’t dive too far down the rabbit hole of payment terms, but most Alibaba suppliers will expect money up front, often via bank wire transfer (“T/T”) or PayPal, at least for your first order. Be wary of Western Union, as it offers relatively little protection against scams.

Alibaba also offers its own Alibaba Secure Payment platform. I haven’t personally used it for more than small dollar (usually sample) transactions, but it does offer a path for disputing transactions. You will also want to work out your shipping method and terms with the supplier. That is yet another topic that could be a post unto itself.

No, we don't make scooters.

A final word of caution: be wary of copyright, trademark and patent infringement. Even companies that are generally open source still aren’t exactly thrilled with companies impersonating their brand. It’s one thing to build off an existing design, but it’s another thing entirely to copy it and slap another’s logo on there. Knockoffs tend to hide quality and reliability problems behind the mask of others’ hard work and diligence. And they leave the real companies’ support personnel scrambling to field questions about products that end up having nothing to do with them. So once again, don’t be a jerk.

Moreover, should you choose to be a jerk nonetheless (or inadvertently stumble into jerkhood), customs often stops shipments of knocked off products, and you as a reseller are potentially liable for the things you choose to put on the market. Some violations are harder to spot than others. Did you know you can trademark a vague color combination? Well, neither did we!

Which leads me to another thing: educate yourself on product compliance issues (RoHS, CE, FCC, Prop 65, etc.), export restrictions, etc., or consult with someone who can get you on track in that vein. There’s a whole prairie full of rabbit holes there.

Anyway, if you want to source on Alibaba, just remember the five Ds:

1) Don’t take anything for granted 2) Documentation, documentation, documentation 3) Don’t be a jerk 4) Do do do due diligence 5) Dkeep it simple

And here is my Comprehensive List of Things Not to Buy on Alibaba:

ICs (take our word for it)

Uranium (this happened)

Human hair (because yikes)

Endangered species

Stuff that will get you sued

Things you otherwise can’t legally resell

Bulk mayonnaise (I mean why)

Doll heads (self-explanatory)

This cannot be unseen.

Be careful out there, folks. Take my timeless wisdom into consideration, trust your instincts and you will (probably?) do just fine. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I will emerge from my meditation cave to reply as soon as the Alibaba oracle bestows her answers upon me. Happy hunting!

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moyconsulting · 4 years

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3 Ways Roofers BURN Their Money on Google Ads

So you've tried Google Ads in the past, and it hasn't quite panned out or worked out for your company. You blew through thousands of dollars and you just couldn't see, you know, how this thing could be profitable for your company.

Well, I'm going to dissect what some of the common issues are, so that way you can see exactly where you probably went wrong, all right? So let's dive right in.

[embed]https://youtu.be/dbvb1qAHxMw[/embed]

For the best advice on generating roofing leads online be sure to subscribe to my channel, hit the notification bell so that you get notified every single time I release a new video, just like this one each and every single Wednesday.

For those of you guys who don't know me, my name is Mats Moy and I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Google Ads, helping roofing companies do just that, generate roofing leads from me.

And so by the end of this video, I'm gonna share with you some common mistakes that I see roofing contractors making that's blowing through their entire budget, spending thousands of dollars and to yield zero results whatsoever.

Alright, so let's get started.

Now, the reason why this topic is coming up is that I spend a lot of time on the phone trying to learn, you know, the market, trying to figure out what people are doing to generate leads. I speak to a lot of roofing contractors. And a lot of them have this one thing to say about Google Ads: it just doesn't work.

And one thing that I wanna set straight right at the beginning of this video here is to tell you that Google Ads works. It works.

Not having a basic understanding of Google Ads

I've seen companies generate tons and tons of quality leads from Google Ads. And so I can tell you personally tell you from my experience from generating those leads for contractors, that it works, right?

I was on the phone with a roofer the other day, and you know, he was explaining to me that, you know, he spent maybe $6,000 on Google Ads and he didn't get a single call, right? And so I asked him, what were you using? Google Ads like the Expert Mode or Google Ads Express?

For one he didn't know, but my guess is that he was using Google Ads Express, right? This is something that Google normally throws at you when you've signed up for a Google My Business listing, they'll say, "hey, why don't you try Google Ads to try and get more leads?"

And so if you don't know much about the online digital marketing platform, right? You wouldn't know that Google Ads is pretty much a money grab for Google, right?

In my opinion, that's what it is because it doesn't yield much result, right? You'll see that some people are typing in something along the lines of, you know, garage door estimates, and that'll trigger your ads. And Google will charge you whenever somebody clicks on your ad, right?

If you don't have the level of control that you need to be able to run a Google Ad, then you're pretty much losing right out the gate.

Don't use Google Ads Express

So what is Google Ads Express? A lot of you might be a little bit confused. Well, isn't Google Ads, Google Ads? Well, no, right?

For the people who don't necessarily know how to use, you know, some of the more expert stuff on Google Ads, you'll tend to lean more towards Google Ads Express. And again, as I've already mentioned, it's a money grab, right? This is Google's way of kind of just siphoning in your money.

It is not the best platform for you to start generating roofing leads, especially if you don't know what you're doing. So that leads me to my second point, right? What should you be doing to get a better grip on how this Google Ads platform works? Learn. You need to learn how Google Ads works, okay? You need to have a basic understanding as to how people go online and start to generate those leads.

Download my Google Ads Cheat Sheet for Roofers

What I wanna share with you right now is just a basic understanding of how the platform works, right? I'm not gonna dive into it right here. I've created a cheat sheet that'll give you all of the definitions and give you a basic understanding as to how the platform works. That way you can kind of educate yourself, right?

It is 2020 guys. I can't tell you how many business owners I see, right? With their marketing and they don't have any form of understanding as to how this whole internet thing works.

You need at least a basic understanding as to how this works. Instead of you just saying, you know, I'm gonna hire this guy, I'm gonna hire that guy and kind of just, you know, leave it to them, right? This is how you get taken advantage of you need a basic understanding.

And so I created this one-page cheat sheet for you. It's available for download in the description down below. Here's what they, this is what it looks like. So this is what the cheat sheet looks like.

Again, I'm giving you some basic terms here, terminology, giving you an example. You know how to set up your campaign, how to write your ad, write your ad copy, how to optimize them over time. I'm giving you a basic understanding here. It's available for download again, down in the description down below.

So learn how it works. Don't be ignorant to this, right? This is extremely important, right? You're letting someone else market your business. You at least wanna have a say in it, right? You at least wanna be able to, you know, pitch in. throwing ideas, ask why they're not doing this or doing that, right? So get involved. Don't take a back seat, get involved with your marketing and figure out how we can make this work, how we can make it better.

Not measuring results

Another common mistake that I typically see, right? Is not measuring results, not tracking the conversions, right? When I speak to, let's use that same roofer that I spoke to, let's call him Roofer A, right? When I spoke to Roofer A the other day, I asked him, "When you were using Google Ads, how many phone calls did you get?" He said, "well, none." I'm like, "well, how do you know?" "I don't know." Right?

You need a way to track the results, you need a way to measure them, right? Set up the conversion tracking, give them a value, right? Don't leave it at zero. Put it at least $1.

If you don't wanna put a specific amount, and you can calculate this by the way. But if you don't know how to calculate that, just put it at $1 so that Google's algorithm can at least see that when a phone call happens or when a form submission happens, they can add a value to it. And that way Google can start to work to giving you more of that value, right?

Otherwise, if you leave it at zero, we can't quite tell what's worth what, right? If a roof repair's worth, and I'll use this as an example, or if a roof replacement is worth $5 to you, then a roof repair might be worth, I don't know, $2 or $1, right?

Give Google an idea as to what's, you know, what the value of each service is to your company.

Don't be intimidated by the costs

And a lot of people might think to themselves, well, Google Ads is very expensive, right? It's quite expensive.

Well, if you know what you're doing on Google Ads, and you have a decent conversion rate, and for me decent is anywhere between 10 to 20% on the conversion side of things, right? And roofing clicks are not cheap. They're quite expensive. I'll tell you that compared to other industries, right. But the same thing goes with the value of a roof job, right?

So if you wanna compare the roofing industry to let's say, I don't know, landscaping, for example, right? For someone to get a yearly contract on, you know, fertilizing, you know, taking care of lawn care, then two completely different things, right? A package, a lawn care package for the year might cost you I don't know what $300 for the year versus a roof, right? I can go anywhere between, you know, $4,000 on the super low-end to, you know, $20,000 on the high-end, right? It's totally dependent on, you know, the price, right, how much you're charging per square.

And so with that being said, understand that roof clicks are typically more expensive. And so you really need to understand what you're doing on the platform on a day-to-day so that you can get a return on investment, right?

So looking at anywhere between 10 to 20% on the conversion rate. So that simply means for every, one out of every 10 clicks that you get should turn into a conversion or one out of every five clicks that you get should turn into a conversion, right?

And clicks can range anywhere between on average, maybe $6 on the low-end to as high as, you know, $20. If you're in Texas or in Colorado, it's a completely different story here, right? You might spend as much as $50 on a click, right?

But again, it has to be worth it, you have to see the return on investment. And this is why tracking everything, measuring results is extremely important, right?

Do the math

Let's say I spent maybe $25 on a click. We do that times five, right? Five of those clicks before one of them turns into a lead, right? And so we take that five, multiply it by 25 because that's how much a click is. That's $125 for one conversion, right?

Five people clicked, one conversion. That one conversion is a quality lead. Someone who has a roofing problem because they came to you. They're calling you saying, "Hey, hello, Mr. Roofer A, I saw you online, clicked on your ad. I want you to come out and give me an estimate." You'll go out and give that estimate. And the one thing that I hear all the time is if only I can get in front of more customers, right?

Everyone thinks they have a super high closing rate. And if that's the case, if you really have a really good conversion rate, closing rate, you're a good sales rep, then you should have no problems going in there and, you know, selling the roof. And so that one conversion, that $125 conversion going in there selling the job.

How much are you selling that job for? 4,000, 20,000? Is that not worth it? Right? Let's even say that you got, it took you five of those, right? It took you five of those leads before you closed one job. What is that? Almost like 600, $600 for you to go in and close that job. What is the profit margin on that job for you? If you sold it for 4,000 or $20,000? Does it not make sense? Return on investment-wise, right?

You spent $600, you spent a thousand dollars to close that job. How much are you making on it? Are your profit margins thin? If they are, then you might be in trouble, but if you have decent profit margins, you're a good sales rep, then this makes sense, right?

And so when I tell you that Google Ads works, it most definitely does. This is why I wanna push it out there.

If you're currently using Google Ads, let me know in the comments how well that's working for you, or if you've tried it in the past, what is your experience been with it? Did you know what you were doing? Right? Or did you just simply hand it off to a company that tanked your entire campaign? Right, let me know in the comments, I'm genuinely curious.

Not having enough or having too many keywords

Another common mistake that I typically see is not having enough keywords or having too many keywords, right?

So when you don't have enough keywords, you might not get enough impressions, enough clicks, and ultimately not enough phone calls from the whole platform.

And when you have too many keywords, maybe you're getting too many clicks, too many impressions, and too many irrelevant phone calls, right? And so you really have to have a good balance between keywords, right?

The keywords that I find work the best are the ones that have a location within it. So for example, you know, roofing companies in New York, let's use New York as an example, right? In New York City, right. Or in Manhattan, right. Let's use Manhattan as an example.

So whenever somebody types that in, that gives me information that I need to know to make sure that, hey, this is probably someone who is looking for a specific roofer within a specific area. versus if you don't have the right keywords such as targeting, going after something like roof repair for example.

Well, what about roof repair? There are so many different variables that come into play here, right? And so targeting a keyword like "roof repair," you could have had someone that looked for best materials for roof repair, right?

Now that might not necessarily speak directly to you as a contractor, but you're still bidding on that keyword, right?

Start with keywords that would attract people to your business

So when you're first starting off for Google Ads, it's best to go after the keywords that show the most buyer intent, right? The keywords that you think would attract phone calls and form submissions to your business because they're looking for a roofer to provide them with a service.

Once you've established yourselves on those keywords, you can then start to add some of the more broad keywords such as roof repair, right? Metal roof, right? So start adding some of those slowly into the account so that you're starting to scale and grow that Google Ads campaign.

So like I mentioned to you in this video, Google Ads works. And I wanna give you an example as to what a pretty good campaign looks like. So this is an example of a pretty good campaign. This is a roofing contractors campaign, and they have a decent conversion rate. This is what I'm looking for, right?

19%, 17 conversions at $30 a piece. These are quality leads. These are homeowners who are calling this specific roofing company to come out and give them an estimate, right? At $30 a piece. Now we have 17 of these and they've spent a total of $523. What do you think the return is? Assuming you have a really good salesman. What do you think the return is on this $500 that they've spent here? 17 estimates to go out and give, right?

Even if they close just one, one, one, just one lead out of those 17, is the return there? You tell me is the return there?

If I got you in front of 17 homeowners who all needed a roofing-related service. Now this could be a combination of repairs and replacements, right? But even if I got you just one, let's say one of those were replacements, right? If I got you just one and I'm gonna keep saying it just one, right? What would that return look like for you? Now imagine doing that month after month after month, right?

That campaign was over a span of 30 days, right? So we've got one lead from their Google Ads campaign every other day or so, right? And so this is a profitable campaign.

Start scaling once the numbers are in your favor

Once you have these kinds of numbers, you can then scale, right? You can scale that campaign to start targeting the areas, to start adding more keywords, to increasing the daily budget, right? There's so many things that you can do with this, right?

On top of that, we wanna add remarketing, right? Display network.

There's so many different things that you can do with your Google Ads to scale it and start getting more of those leads. And this is why I am telling you that it works. If you know what you are doing, you have a basic understanding, right? You can make something like this work.

So if you like this video, please give me a thumbs up to let me know that, hey, this is good quality content, and you liked what you saw. And ultimately you would like for me to keep making videos like this. Give me a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell so that you get notified every single time I release a new video just like this one each and every single Wednesday.

Also, if you wanna join a community of roofers, just like yourself who are learning about this forever-changing space called the internet, then be sure to join my free Facebook group Mastermind, where I share strategies, up-to-date strategies that are working and helping numerous roofing contractors generate roofing leads online.

All right, so that's it for today's video guys. I will see you next Wednesday. Peace.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Book A Call With Mats: https://matsmoy.com/apply

Google Ads Cheat Sheet for Roofers: https://go.matsmoy.com/google-ads-cheat-sheet/

Be sure to join the secret Online Roofing Leads Mastermind Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlineroofingleads/

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Originally Published Here: 3 Ways Roofers BURN Their Money on Google Ads

Moy Consulting 60 Queen St E #103, Brampton, ON L6V 1A9, Canada https://goo.gl/maps/hodRjHCYkvtjSwFW8

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tarojposts · 4 years

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Being a Part of a Blogging Society

The blogosphere, made up of countless blogs from all over the international, is one of the most popular faces of the Internet. It's no longer just for teenagers anymore. Several years in the past, most blogs had been run through kids who simply wanted to preserve in touch with their friends, or people who just wanted to speak about their each day existence.

These days, almost each person online has a blog.

Chances are, you have got one - and in case you don't, you ought to.

Stay at domestic moms like to weblog about their every day lives and elevating children. CEOs of most important groups personal blogs about the contemporary happenings at their corporation. Many celebrities run blogs, and they blog approximately their upcoming occasions, movies, and roles (no longer to say scandals).

And marketers have blogs approximately each niche possible!

I'm assured to say I myself am part of the blogging subculture.

Blogging is a tremendous way to attain out to the human beings on the Internet. They can touch thousands and thousands of lives, and spread your message like no other medium. You can say nearly whatever you want, and there will be an audience for almost each niche!

You can run a blog just for fun. If you want to speak approximately parties you attend, eating places you devour at, locations you go shopping, or wherein you go on vacation, a person will probable need to read about it.

Even if the handiest audience you have got is your close friends and relatives, you will have amusing and be able to say something's for your mind.

More and greater human beings are turning to running a blog as a way to make money. Some humans simply want to make some greater bucks for spending money, however others are genuinely creating a complete-time earnings with their blogs.

A few distinguished bloggers even boast of creating masses of hundreds of greenbacks with their blogs (a la Perez Hilton, who parlayed his blogging fun into lots of greenbacks in advert cash every month, which delivered him his very own TV show, podcast, and apparel line)!

There are plenty of approaches to make money running a blog. Whether you are a college scholar who just desires to make a little extra money for pizza and garments, or you're a serious marketer who desires to make a small fortune, it's totally possible with running a blog.

Blogs are huge, even supposing they are small. Some blogs get tens of millions of hits in keeping with month. Blog visitors has been growing progressively for numerous years as customers benefit self assurance from friends in place of trusting hard hitting sales pitches they find at the web.

With increasingly humans leaping onto the blogosphere bandwagon, it in all likelihood won't sluggish down in the foreseeable destiny. If you are considering getting into blogging, it is a very good concept to get commenced now.

It commonly takes a few months to begin building up a following. And you actually need everyday visitors if you need to make money along with your weblog. You ought to work to benefit subscribers to your RSS feed, due to the fact the ones human beings will come returned often to read your new posts.

And consider to lend your personal unique voice to your posts. One of the maximum crucial nuances with reference to why running a blog is the sort of major worldwide phenomenon is the reality that people definitely enjoy analyzing unique voices on certain topics.

They crave the differences in personalities. It's clean to examine data that has personality and is not stale or stuffy, which means it's been translated by means of a unmarried editor in order that every voice is uniform. This is why columnist pages in nearby newspapers are so famous.

Your specific voice is the most crucial a part of getting regular visitors in your blog. If you want to peer examples of this, go to a number of the maximum popular blogs you can discover. You'll see that one thing those blogs have in common is the fact that the bloggers make attractive, humorous, or original posts.

That's your secret to meaking it massive within the blogosphere!

Before You Blog, Build a Blueprint

A lot of bloggers put together a weblog without any real plan for a way they're going to sell it or monetize it. Putting a weblog collectively with out a plan is like looking to build a residence with out a blueprint.

It's feasible, sure. But the give up end result is probably going to be shoddy, and the whole lot should collapse at any minute.

You have to create a strong plan of action before you even purchase the domain. You need to increase a strong blueprint earlier than you ever get commenced. Waiting until after you have already set it up and are getting site visitors should imply a variety of extra work getting in to accurate mistakes.

Changing themes and including plugins when you're already getting traffic should interrupt your site visitors. Sometimes new plugins and topics can briefly break your weblog, that may imply a lack of site visitors (and cash) until you're capable of fix the whole thing.

The first part of your plan ought to be deciding on a spot, of route. Part of selecting a spot is finding products you could promote. If a gap has no merchandise to be had, you may create your very own.

But if there aren't any affiliate merchandise available, it can be because there isn't always enough demand there for a product. In this example, you'd ought to do a little careful market research in an effort to decide whether or no longer a niche is clearly feasible.

What's your cause for blogging? Do you have got your very own product you need to sell? Do you need to promote affiliate merchandise? Do you need to simply positioned AdSense or CPA offers to your site?

You want to ask your self questions like those so you'll recognise how you want to monetize the site. If you intend to promote affiliate products, you ought to take a look at the goods your self before you promote them.

If you don't, your traffic should come to be being very disappointed if you promoted a product of truly bad first-rate and they sold it due to the fact they depended on you. Even worse, what if you turn out to be selling something that turns out to be a scam?

You do not necessarily need to buy each product you desire to sell. If you could prove you've got a decent quantity of traffic (and once in a while in case you simply ask), you will be capable of get free review copies of some of the products you'd like to sell.

It would not harm to invite. Even if you don't have any present traffic but, you may write to the owner of a specific affiliate application, tell them what you're planning to do, and ask if you may get a review reproduction.

Some people won't give you a assessment reproduction. Plenty of entrepreneurs get requests for evaluate copies from folks who simply need to get a replica in their product free of charge. So in case you run into a skeptic, or a person who is been burned earlier than, you can get became down.

In this situation, it is probable pleasant to simply go in advance and purchase the product in case you really want to sell it. If it is a scam or a definitely crappy product, simply ask for a refund.

You also can don't forget the usage of a donation button for your weblog. If you can not find any true products to sell, and also you don't have the time, cash, or capacity to create your own product, you may still put up a donation button. If your weblog is excellent, you can get donations.

Or, you could always promote advert space on your blog. If you start getting a significant amount of site visitors otherwise you get a completely excessive PageRank in Google, you can fee quite a few money for a hyperlink to your blog. You can also get paid for making posts in your weblog that review different websites.

Should a Blog Topic Be Broad or Narrow?

There are two schools of thought concerning blog topics. Some people trust your topic must be very centered, due to the fact you may deliver in a flurry of laser-focused visitors. Plus, you've got much less competition in smaller marketplace segments.

Another institution of humans agree with that whatever worth doing is really worth doing massive. They consider that the most effective manner blogging can simply be well worth it is in case you're bringing in large visitors, and the handiest way you may reap that degree of traffic is by means of being very extensive - casting a wide internet, so to talk.

For example, you may have a sports activities blog that has extensive enchantment. You may want to talk approximately baseball, soccer, basketball, football, tennis, and golf. This would come up with a miles more large appeal, and the potential for larger traffic.

But on account that there might be so much competition, it might take lots longer to get greater traffic coming in. Plus, the manner I see it's far, if I'm interested in golf, I truly may not care approximately the opposite elements of the blog, so the price of it plummets in my eyes.

But shall we say you pick golf as your vast topic. Even that is huge, even though you just segregated it from the alternative sports in life. There are many stuff you could write about golf - holidays, clothing, golf equipment, guides, strategies, etc.

You should pick out an even greater focused area of interest like women's golf or senior golfing. This is a smaller phase of a small niche. This way you can get visitors quicker, because there would be less competition.

Less competition method you've got the ability to upward thrust faster in the seek engine ratings. Of course, women's golf could get a ways less site visitors from the primary spot of Google than the mixed visitors of all the different sports activities niches, but the probabilities of that visitors changing into a sale will jump.

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Flying High Again – Ten Takeaways From Eagles 32, Texans 30

A lot of NFL teams can’t put one decent quarterback on the field, but the Eagles have two that are pretty damn good.

It’s why they won the Super Bowl in February and it’s why they’re still alive for a playoff berth heading into week 17 of this season. The pretty damn good backup was able to step in for the pretty damn good starter, and the Eagles have now won four of their last five games.

That’s my top takeaway. It’s the rare positive outlook from me, the anti-Negadelphia if you will. Is it posi-delphia? I don’t know. That doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but the only thing that matters is that the Eagles head into the season finale with a chance to sneak into the playoffs as a 9-7 wild card team. That seemed inconceivable as recently as 15 days ago.

Of course you would like for them to “control their own destiny,” but they don’t, and wins against the Rams and Texans might only serve to reignite the “what if?” flames that were originally sparked during bogus early season losses against the Vikings and Panthers and Bucs and Titans. Go figure that they’d struggle against some utterly average teams while knocking off a pair of 10-win clubs in consecutive weeks. That adds to the bitterness for sure, because they should have taken care of business back in October and November.

But they’ve still got a chance, and it’s possible to appreciate both Carson Wentz and Nick Foles at the same time without automatically going into some sort of “quarterback controversy” type of hot take on social media or sports radio. God forbid Eagle fans be grateful for what each player has contributed over the past two seasons, but if you want to argue with your friends or family or total strangers on Twitter, I won’t stop you.

1) Big **** Nick

471 yards is the most an Eagles quarterback has ever thrown for.

Ever!

The previous mark was set by Donovan McNabb back in 2004, when he slung it for 464 against Green Bay. Also, this was Nick’s fourth 400 yard passing game, which is also an Eagles record, and his 120.4 passer rating is the 9th-highest single-game mark of his career, the best number he’s logged since last year’s NFC Championship game.

Foles was also 8 yards short of passing Pat Mahomes for the highest single-game total this year, which happened in the 54-51 Chiefs/Rams barn burner a few weeks ago.

The fumble and the interception were the two blemishes on an otherwise stellar game. Nick finished 35-49 with four touchdowns and the pick, and again this week he hit on some deep balls that Carson simply wasn’t trying in weeks prior. Last week Nick was 3-5 in passes thrown 20 or more yards down the field, and this week he went 2-4 in that category, according to NFL Next Gen Stats:

(I counted that green dot on the far left as 20 yards. Looks like it’s maybe 19.8 yards? Close enough)

And what you can say about the final drive? He led an 11 play, 72 yard foray down the field to score the game-winning field goal. He only went 2-6 on the drive but connected on massive 19 and 20 yard completions, which, combined with a penalty and some effective running, got the Eagles close enough for Jake Elliott to do the rest.

I’m not sure what it is, but Nick just has that quality in him, that clutch factor when playing for this team. Consider the fact that he did all of that after getting absolutely obliterated by Jadeveon Clowney, and it makes it even more impressive.

2) When pass/run ratio doesn’t matter

50 passes and 22 runs on the day, which wound up being lopsided because of the nature of the game and the necessity to throw in the fourth quarter.

Therefore, whenever anyone gives you that statistic of, “the Eagles win blah blah amount of games when they run the ball X amount of times,” you know it’s generally bullshit. Yesterday is the perfect example.

Even if you take away the final three series, when the Eagles were leading by two touchdowns, the split would have been this:

40 passes, 16 runs

That includes a QB sneak as well, and it gives you a 71% to 29% pass/run split. They basically built a two score, second half lead while throwing the ball 71% of the time, so tell me again about how Josh Adams needs to see more of the rock. He doesn’t. The whole point of finding a 60/40 split is that it just allows you to balance out the play book and throw different things at defenses while allowing your offensive line to get moving in the run blocking game, but otherwise there are just too many variables to make blanket statements about run/pass split.

Plus, Houston’s defensive strength is in the trenches anyway, and here’s a good exchange between Doug and Jimmy Kempski that sort of sums it up:

Q. You had a lead for most of the game, but the pass/run ratio was pretty lopsided. Was that because they were depleted at corner? (Jimmy Kempski) DOUG PEDERSON: Did you see their rush defense today? 35 yards rushing the football. It was hard.

Q. I’m not criticizing. (Jimmy Kempski) DOUG PEDERSON: Okay. I thought maybe we needed to run the ball more or something. [Laughter] That’s a tremendous defense now. That’s a great group. That front seven, eight guys with their safeties, they do a really good job. They create different angles for our offensive linemen. So some of the things that we’ve been able to do in the last couple weeks, they just kind of took us out of it. I knew we were going to have to run the ball late in the game, even when we were up by 13 there, 29-16, I felt like we could get a little momentum, run the ball, make them use time outs and maybe we could finish the game at that point, but we didn’t do it. It was just great defense.

For what it’s worth, last week Doug Pederson went with 51 shotgun looks for Nick versus 8 under center looks. This week he used shotgun 63 times and again only went under center 8 times, so nothing super different there. The Eagles are a shotgun squad and they run almost the entirety of the offense from those sets. That’s the base for their RPO game, and while they do fire off the occasional screen from under center, yesterday both screens came out of the shotgun.

3) Calling audibles

The 83-yard touchdown pass to Nelson Agholor was actually not supposed to happen. Foles audibled out of it:

I saw a unique coverage that they play. We had a play in our arsenal that wasn’t the one that was called, and I felt like I had time on the clock to check it and really take a shot with some speed with Nelly. We were able to execute it. Nelly made an amazing play to finish it off with a touchdown. It was really all of us being on the same page, recognizing the coverage, understanding how to run the route, and the line gave me time to throw it. It was awesome.

Pederson confirmed that the original play was a pass, and added this:

It was a coverage check that he saw, something Houston had been running earlier in the game. He saw it, got to a play that would attack that coverage and great protection and allowed him to get the ball down the field.

I’m probably going to need the all-22 film to get the best look, but for whatever reason, the Texans use a safety to kind of double down on the weak side of the field, where Alshon Jeffery is lined up. On replay, check out how the 60/40 safety kind of cheats up here in a nickel look:

Nick Foles finds Nelson Agholor for a HUGE touchdown!

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/UdVAYVcWSc

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) December 23, 2018

That allows the Eagles to move the second safety with a post pattern and then you’ve got Agholor 1v1 with Tyrann Mathieu without any safety help over the top at all. Houston plays a lot of zone, and the linebackers just sort of hold here, so Nick obviously saw this look earlier in the game knew he could get “Nelly” down the field with inside leverage while using Zach Ertz to pull the second safety out of the way:

Maybe later this week I can go through the film and try to see where Houston showed that coverage earlier in the game. Nice read, nice audible, even better pass.

4) Scissors

There were a couple of key plays on the game-winning drive, but I think the best quote was from Zach Ertz, on the 20-yard third down grab that he made to keep the chains moving:

“It was just kind of a scissors corner route that we always have, post by number one, I had a corner, and Darren was in the flat. I had been taking a lot of inside releases against him, so I kind of sold the inside release and threw him inside and I think he kind of ran into the linebacker. Something happened where my feet got tangled up so I was kind of off balance and Nick just kind of laid the ball out there and allowed me to run under it. I was able to stay in bounds and make the play. I tried to get out of bounds in that situation.”

Yep. This is a really nice design, and I think they ran the same thing earlier, or something very similar, on their first 4th down conversion of the game:

This is actually more about sealing off the linebacker responsible for the runner coming out of the backfield. Ertz does a really nice job, as he says, selling the inside here, and while he successfully picks off the linebacker, both players actually fall down, leaving Sproles open, but also springing Ertz even further down the field.

Check it out:

Huge play to put the Eagles in field goal range. Well designed, well executed.

5) Record setter

Sunday, Ertz set a new record for the most single-season receptions by a tight end.

The Eagles’ PR staff put together the notes in their post game email, so I will courtesy them and drop the information in here:

Zach Ertz now has 113 receptions in 2018, surpassing Jason Witten in 2012 (110) for the most receptions by a TE in NFL single-season history. Ertz, who led the Eagles with 12 receptions, posted his franchise-record 10th career game with 10+ receptions. He became just the third TE in NFL history to accomplish that feat, joining Tony Gonzalez (15, 1997-2013) and Witten (11, 2003-17).

Ertz moved past Brian Westbrook (426, 2002-09) into 3rd place on the Eagles’ all-time receptions list (currently 434), behind Harold Carmichael (589, 1971-83) and Pete Retzlaff (452, 1956-66).

Ertz, who tallied his 11th career game with 100+ receiving yards (5th of the season), moved into 9th place on the Eagles’ all-time list for receiving yards (currently 4,812).

Ertz recorded his 5th career multi-TD game and now has a career-high-tying 8 TDs this season (also 8 in 2017), which are tied for the 2nd-most by a TE in Eagles history, trailing only Pete Retzlaff in 1965 (10).

It took Ertz 89 games over six seasons to reach those numbers.

Assuming he continues on a similar trajectory, he’s slated to break Carmichael’s receptions record in three seasons. He actually might get there sooner. He would need 77.5 receptions next season and the following season to reach Carmichael’s 589, which is not inconceivable. Even in 2015 and 2016 he caught 75 and 78 passes, so the record will fall at some point.

6) NFL “officiating”

Jesus H. Christ, was it bad.

In no particular order:

The missed facemask call on Foles was outrageous.

The roughing the passer call on Brandon Graham was one level below outrageous.

The roughing the passer on Clowney was iffy. I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with that hit, but if you think his head is lowered there as he makes contact with Foles, then you could make a case that he’s breaking the rules. Honestly, if that was called against an Eagle and not a Texan, I think there would be a ton of complaints.

Alshon Jeffery threw an illegal screen on the second Ertz touchdown catch. He literally just ran straight forward into the defender and made no move to disguise the pick at all.

I think the helmet contact penalty on Tre Sullivan was a good call, same with the roughing on J.J. Watt, who hit Foles in the head while trying to bring him down. The unnecessary roughness on Cre’Von LeBlanc I though was somewhat of a borderline call, because he hit the ball carrier with his shoulder as that guy was going to ground. Those are weird plays, aren’t they? It’s hard to pull out of those at the last minute if the offensive player is dropping his head or trying to avoid contact.

7) Auxiliary battles

Some good, some bad:

won time of possession, 34 to 26 minutes

-2 turnover margin

9-16 on third down (56.2%)

4-4 on fourth down

allowed Houston to go 3-10 on third down (30%)

lost 9 yards on 1 sack

1-2 success rate in red zone

11 penalties for 105 yards

They against crushed a team in time of possession, but that -2 turnover margin was a killer, as were the penalty yards, which were almost double what they’ve been over the past three weeks.

Those third and fourth down numbers are the reason they won the game. Foles was just phenomenal playing “situational football” throughout, and the line’s ability to protect him yesterday outside of one sack and the fumble was a big deal.

8) Doug’s best call?

I thought he really nailed his fourth down play calls.

The wheel route to Sproles was perfect. The play action pass to Dallas Goedert, complete with pre-snap motion, would have gone for a touchdown had he not slipped. Ertz ran a brilliant route on his first touchdown catch.

I also thought the draw play on the final drive really caught Houston off guard after the Eagles threw the ball seven times in a row to chunk their way down the field. There was no better time to throw them for a loop with a delayed hand off type of design.

It was just really nice stuff all around from Doug yesterday, who looked like the 2017 version of himself with aggressive decision making and calls that made a lot of sense when factoring in down, distance, and the time remaining on the clock.

9) Doug’s worst call?

Going for two when you’re up 13-9? That’s really the only one that comes to mind.

I guess the idea there was to extend the lead to six instead of four, which would force Houston into two field goals to tie the game. Or, if they score a touchdown, that would also put a little more pressure on the kicker to hit an extra point to go up 16-15. I’m just not sure it was necessary at the time, and they could have used that point in the fourth quarter, when Houston scored to take – you guessed it – a one-point lead.

10) Can’t be bothered in the broadcast booth

I kind of like Ian Eagle, but Dan Fouts seems like another color guy who is just sort of there, another guy who treats the game like it’s just another day at the office, as if he’s working some sort of 9-5 job.

That manifested itself I think in the goofy exchange where they were talking about Big V and didn’t attempt to say his first name. They sort of laughed it off to the tune of, “I’m not even gonna try to pronounce his name.”

Yeah? Well isn’t that your job?

Imagine if a home builder said, “well that nail is way up there, I’m not even gonna try hammering it in.” Two years later, the house falls apart because dude was lazy and/or inattentive to detail.

Imagine if an electrician, like Tom Cudeyro, said, “yeah I guess I could connect these two wires, but I don’t feel like it.” And then the lights in your brand new house simply don’t work.

Or, imagine if a paralegal said, “yeah, well I’m just going to omit this line about beneficiaries because I’m trying to hit my lunch break at Chipotle.” Then, when you croak, your kids can’t get your money because this person didn’t feel like finishing the task at hand.

See how dumb it really is?

Plus, it’s really not that hard if you go over it a couple of times:

Halapoulivaati Vaitai.

Ha-la-pool-ee-va-tee.

He played in the Super Bowl last year, so it’s not like the dude is brand new. He didn’t just sign yesterday.

They also borked the name of Boston Scott in the first half, calling him “Austin” instead. Otherwise everything about the broadcast was suitable.

Happy holidays. Enjoy whatever you celebrate – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or maybe a Festivus for the rest of us.

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topicprinter · 6 years

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First of all, who am I to give advice?I went from a well paid, but incredibly boring, office job in Sydney, to now owning and running my own remote business that has allowed me to circle the world for 3 straight years while making a respectable salary. THIS IS NOT “GET RICH QUICK” ARTICLE, this is advice on how to earn a decent enough income online while traveling around the world or simply working in your pyjamas in bed while watching The Office all day (I do this once a week).I know several people will likely ask for evidence of my “success”, but I am not here to sell myself or my services, so it’s up to you if you want to believe me or not. I do this because I am incredibly happy and have been for 3 years, and like all people, want to leave a legacy. Perhaps this could be the start of my legacy, helping other people achieve happiness through providing helpful information? Or perhaps I just wasted a day writing this up? Time will tell.Please note: None of the below links are affiliate links, nor websites/courses I own.So here are my 6 ways to make a decent salary while traveling around the world - hopefully they serve some use to those who are thinking about making a shift to 'location independency' or 'digital nomadism'.Find a Remote Role at a Co-working SpaceI took a flight from Sydney to Bali with $2,000 in my bank account and 0 job prospects. Fortunately I very quickly discovered that a lot of co-working spaces have physical job boards where entrepreneurs pin up jobs they’re trying to hire for. Within a week in Bali I had picked up a social media manager role that provided me with enough money to live comfortable (in South-East Asia).How: Explore your local co-working spaces and check for job boards. When you’re on holiday, check co-working spaces in the area as well. See if you can score a few jobs that equal a good salary.Tip: A lot of co-working spaces have Facebook groups where a lot of jobs are posted too. I’ve personally hired several people that way. This group has helped me find jobs and employees, but has now become a little too spammy, but worth keeping an eye on - https://www.facebook.com/groups/cmnomads/Job types: Marketing, copywriting, coding, photographyResources: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cmnomads/Capital needed: $0Effort required: 5/102. Drop Ship a Product Through Click funnelsI’ve had varying success doing this, but there are tens of thousands of people making a tonne of money this way. There are a lot of people who have tried and failed who are very negative about drop shipping and using click funnels, but let me assure you, that’s likely because they’ve failed. I’ve met hundreds of people who use this method to live on the road, and I don’t hear them complaining. It’s low risk and can be a lot of fun, just make sure you find a reliable supplier if you go with a physical product, and don’t get sucked into a paid online course - all the content you need is available to you for free.How: Carefully select a product (physical or info product) to sell online that you can drop ship directly from a supplier or create/write yourself. Create an awesome landing page/ sales funnel on Click Funnels, and put some money into FB ads to promote it.Tip: https://escapetheamz.com/ offers a free online video course on selecting products and building sales funnels. I recommend starting here.Tip 2: There are countless resources for learning how to do Facebook marketing, but I would suggest starting with Hubspot - https://www.hubspot.com/facebook-marketingJob types: Drop Shipping, eCommerce MarketingResources: https://escapetheamz.com/ , https://www.hubspot.com/facebook-marketingCapital needed: $500+Effort required: 8/103. Sell Products on Amazon through Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA)This is where I’ve seen the majority of my success. I’ve been selling on Amazon for several years now and now work with a team of 6 people (who all work remotely). FBA is the worst and best thing to ever hit the internet. Amazon service is absolutely horrible and they will close your account without any explanation, but you can also make a lot of money very fast. I did 20k in my first month of sales. I now do about 2.5 million in sales a year (although I pay myself a very modest salary, probably a lot less than 90% of the people reading this). You can run this business as passively as you choose.How: Select a product that will sell well on Amazon and isn’t too competitive, expensive or complicated. Open an Amazon account ($30 I think), send your chosen product stock to Amazon and let them do the rest.Tip: The Amazing Seller, an American Dad, was my inspiration and guide. He has an awesome podcast and website with tonnes of free information on how to create a business - http://theamazingseller.com/. The education won’t cost you a cent. For this with money, there are some great Amazon coaches floating around the web also, but choose wisely.Job types: Amazon SellerResources: http://theamazingseller.com/Capital needed: $500+Effort required: 10/10 (worth it for the massive potential)4. Become an online TranslatorsI’ve met countless amounts of people living amazing lives traveling around the world who make money through online translation services. Obviously this requires you to be able to speak a different language, but there may be english teach jobs available online also. If you are fortunate enough to be bi-lingual+ then this could be a great way to get started if you don’t mind earning a modest salary.How: Sign up on a number of translator website and cross your fingers. Otherwise, use method 1 above and check your local coworking space job board, I very often see translator jobs posted there. Here is one such website you could use - https://www.verbalizeit.com/become-a-translator/Tip: Do some networking with people already doing this on the road. I suspect a lot of these jobs are spread through word of mouth. Post in a digital nomad facebook group to find some people who could help you outJob types: Translators, TeachersResources: https://www.verbalizeit.com/become-a-translator/Capital needed: $0Effort required: 2/10 (if you can speak another language)5. Become a Health & Nutrition CoachThis is another job that is definitely “trending”. I can’t tell you how many health and nutrition coaches I’ve met this year, but they all seem to be doing very well and making a really solid living on the road. I’ve been looking into doing this a lot myself since I run a health and wellness brand and wanted to learn more about the science behind it all. I’m currently starting with a cheap gut health course online to see whether I will actually finish it or not which you can view here - https://www.udemy.com/total-gut-health/learn/v4/. This job mostly consists of online consultations with people around the world who are eager to improve their diet/fitness/health, so I’m sure it can be a very rewarding job if you’re good at it.How: Get certified, create a basic website offering your services, put some money in FB ads to collect some clients and put them on a retainer. No shortcuts though, as you’re playing with people’s health.Tip: eCornell is well known for their online nutrition courses, so if you have the capital, you could fairly easily get your certification there. I’m planning on doing this Plant Based Nutrition course soon as I’m fascinated by it - https://www.ecornell.com/certificates/nutrition/plant-based-nutrition/Tip 2: You could use your new found nutritional knowledge to create an info product and sell it using method 2 above.Job Types: Health and Nutrition Coach, Nutrition ConsultantResources: https://www.ecornell.com/certificates/nutrition/ ($1,200 a course inc. certification)Capital need: $500+Effort required: 9/105. Convince Your Company to Let You Work RemotelyBy far the easiest option for those with an office job who are eager to work while travelling the world! There has been a monumental shift in corporate allowing their employees to work remotely, especially since the company overheads drop dramatically and they don’t need to offer as many benefits. My girlfriend convinced Walmart to let her work remotely while travel the world and manage their online advertising, so if she can do it, so can you.How: Come up with a very convincing argument and have a sit down with your boss. Come armed with stats and data proving that working remotely can dramatically increase productivity while decreasing company overheads.Tip: There are a tonne of articles online that will help you build your argument. Start here - https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/5-tips-for-negotiating-a-remote-work-policy-with-your-boss.htmlJob Types: Whatever it is you doResources: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/5-tips-for-negotiating-a-remote-work-policy-with-your-boss.htmlCapital needed: $0Effort required: 1/10In Summary:I am definitely guilty of over-simplifying some of the above methods, but I have included an “Effort Required” rating under each to more realistically show you the amount of work needed. Good luck out there and please, if you have any other tips or questions, please post them below :)

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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ctsmclovinya · 6 years

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You would think a full month (near enough) of travelling Europe by train would be as simple as it sounds. Hop on a train, end up in a city, find somewhere to stay, and Bob’s your Uncle; I never did meet Bob. Pints all round and before you know it you’re a local.

You believe you’ll be thinking,

What even is a tourist, OMG.

Well, no.

First up, DO NOT GET TOO CONFIDENT

Our first mistake when booking the Interrailing was to leave looking into it and booking our trains as late as possible. We bought our pass literally two weeks before we were due to leave as we wanted to accumulate enough money as possible so we could essentially do the whole thing correctly and take our time over it, to ensure that we did everything the way WE wanted to. Booking our journeys about 6 days before we left however was never going to be a good idea; is that a surprise though?

You see, through the website portal once you order your pass there is an area where you can literally plan all your train journeys and free of charge (I KNOW RIGHT). While some may be too far in advance, you can reserve seats on these (which is usually all that is needed to be eligible to make a journey) through their actual portal to save yourself stressing whether you can get on that train that will get you to Rome in time to check into your hostel etc.

Exhibit A: A Free service helps you plan out what type of trains you will need and when, down to the exact minute, SO MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

However, you need to book your journey far enough in advance for this to be possible. If your journey is two weeks after you try to do this, there is no chance you are doing it this way…

BUT FEAR NOT, DO NOT PANIC. Although at this point you are left with the challenging and frustrating task of visiting German, Swiss, Italian etc. rail websites and trying to reserve your train through translating them, it is possible. May I add, a lot of them genuinely do not have that oh-so-helpful ‘translate’ button, so you have to Google Translate EVERY SINGLE WORD on that page, and lemme tell ya, THAT. IS. NOT. FUN. But, it’s possible.

HELP YOURSELF OUT

There are resources and ways to help you plan your journey out. If it is easier for you to know where you are on what days and what you have time to do, then print a calendar out.

Almost better than an Advent Calendar… Minus the chocolate of course: This technique will do you wonders when booking your travelling and accommodation.

Organisation never hurt anybody! Keeping a folder to put all your train reservations and hostel bookings in together is super helpful and definitely recommended.

Keeping everything together makes each journey stress-free. Pink folders are also cool, don’t judge.

Hostels are your best friend

Prices, comfort (mainly, I mean it beats a cold hard floor), the possibility to meet people you would never have met otherwise. In a hostel you share rooms with strangers but it’s really not as bad as it sounds. The inhabitants are usually in the same boat as you. They want to see a city, they want to sleep inside for minimal price and, on the most part, usually to make friends. I mentioned in a previous post my past fears of hostels but I could not have been more wrong. Hostels are well and truly a travellers best friend, and I don’t say that lightly.

The only example I have (legally) since taking pictures of rooms isn’t usually my thing, this is CityStay Mitte in Berlin. A good night’s sleep in a fabulous city for on average €23.8 p/night in the middle of August is something you just can’t argue with.

Usually hostels will have games areas, bars, and even kitchens that not only save you money but help you decide the quality of your own food. Furthermore, some even offer free breakfast and the opportunity to have dinner with a group who necessarily maybe don’t want to cook themselves and save those pennies (or cents). Some even have nightclubs attached to them (Try Generator in Paris) and others are in the middle of nowhere (Innsbruck comes to mind), some are even like an actual hotel (Wombats at the Naschmarkt) however, you’re treated the same way that you would be in a hotel. Sharing a bathroom and communal area is really not that bad and if you really cannot go without your own space, many offer private rooms but these are much more pricey.

Hostelworld.com, Kayak, and even Booking.com are the usual booking suspects, but I thoroughly recommend Hostelworld. The ease of booking, the range of hostels that they have available and even the prices, (hostels are so much cheaper than hotels it’s crazy) you would be a fool to ignore how helpful they are.

Airbnb is another option too. The places available are actual homes, definitely like nothing you have ever stayed in abroad before. I’ve heard nothing but great things from people I know who have used it, so it is another option.

Disclaimer: I really make no money whatsoever from hostelworld.com for saying this, so really take my word for it, they made this trip a hell of a lot easier.

Research the cities a little (But surprise yourself a little too)

Correction, surprise yourself A LOT. But, researching a little so that you can utilise your time in each city is certainly a smart way to go about things. You see, travelling for a month will mean that at some point you’ll probably want a little resting time, y’know, the occasional morning where you won’t be getting up at 6am; not that we did that every morning but emphasis always helps my point. While you’re doing this to explore, it’s like a holiday so embrace that factor too.

Planning (even slightly) pays off: Knowing that in Milan we wanted to visit the San Siro, evaluating how much time we had there meant that not only did we get to tour the world famous stadium, but catching a game there was possible too, something we would not have been able to do if we didn’t consider it already.

So, planning pays off. It leaves you with no worries and the freedom to know that you can do what you like when you’re not doing what you planned. Honestly, surprising yourself is even better though, but you still have to get the amount of time you have free correct as well. While you may not be planning to visit 14 different cities in 30 days, having a little idea of what you want to do where you’re going, knowing why you are going there more than that it “looks pretty”, helps. FACTOR IN TRAIN TRAVEL TIME AS WELL. One thing we got wrong was the complete utilisation of our time in Vienna. We did our research while we were IN the city, and that was ultimately our downfall. We had about an hour at the funfair/theme park Prater which we were gutted about because it was somewhere we could have dedicated a whole day to. It happens.

We planned our trip to Pisa and took a Flixbus which, for the record, is another method of travel I would recommend. Another way that you can travel Europe and for a decent rate, with chargers and Wifi on their buses, there are many ways to make your trip less stressful. The issue with our Pisa trip however was that it left us with such little time in Florence that we never really got a feel of the city. Planning IS KEY.

Don’t formulate expectations

Prague, I underestimated you ever so much. From somehow ending up in a gay club (AND HAVING ONE OF MY FAV NIGHTS EVER, MAY I ADD) to meeting literally some of the best people, I'll never forget your ability to amaze me; that, and how cheap things are here. You're way more than absinthe and cheap booze. You make me more thankful than I already am. #Prague #CzechRepublic #Travel #Interrailing #CharlesBridge #StudentNomad

A post shared by C (@thelostenglishman) on Aug 13, 2017 at 2:09am PDT

Prague/Bern blew us away

Long story short, my opinions of Prague were formulated by the gov.uk page on the city (yes, yes, I know!) but in a way this helped it blow me away. The beauty that the city breathed, the prices, the people and the sense of freedom we felt when we were there made it an easy top 3 destination for us.

Rome failed to live up to expectations

Rome on the other hand was not comfortable for either of us. Aside from my stupidity in nearly being run over by a bus (story for another day) the Colosseum and Pantheon were breathtaking landmarks, simply unbelievable to see in person, but even they failed to balance the city for us. The hype we built beforehand was clearly too much as we never felt safe there. Again, expectations.

Budget (Know your limits unless money grows on trees you grow in your garden)

You’re gonna have to sacrifice some things, inevitably. Know how much money you have free (after you book your trains and hostels and even work out food costs). I ended up budgeting on £20 for the last 2 days, did I mention that that was not including food.

Some places will be more expensive than others (Switzerland). To say that it was worth it would really be the biggest understatement (regarding Switzerland anyway) EVER. It was incredible there and it was easy to make exceptions for how expensive it was there, because it was that pretty, however, we made incorrect estimations and money spent exceeded our budgeting. REMEMBER, RESEARCH.

Eating out is expensive – I’m not going to lie to you, we ate out everyday until our 9th city, that’s 17 days into the trip… RESTAURANT FOOD IS GOOD, OK. We were lazy, inconsiderate of the money we took and ultimately paid the price at the end. Buying food in and using the kitchens available to you is a valuable tool my friend, so utilise it while it’s there.

Conversion rates – learn before you go, and maybe take a bit of everything whether it be Euros, Kuna, Franc etc. many of them are different, make it easier on yourself. The rates were fluctuating while we were travelling so buying a little before you go does not do you any harm.

*If you budget correctly, activities such as Disneyland at the end of your trip can be made with no worries. Truthfully, as previously mentioned, my £20 p/day budgeting for the last 5 days of the trip meant I could not afford my ticket. So I gave my buddy a full weeks wage of mine when we got back so I could go… Not everyone has this freedom!*

YOU DON’T NEED TO TAKE YOUR WHOLE WARDROBE – Essentials

(An idea of what to take for a month):

1-2 pairs of shoes

1-2 pairs of long trousers

Girls – Makeup ofc, don’t go overboard – you’re gonna be walking with your bag a lot – be kind to your back.

2-3 pairs of shorts

1 jumper/hoodie

1 small raincoat

5-6 t-shirts

A charging pack and your charger – this will be important since some hostels have a limitation on plug sockets (yes, I know)

Just over a week’s worth of underwear – THERE ARE WASHING MACHINES. UTILISE.

CORRECT PLUGS – Despite being in the same continent, some nations need different plug adaptors, double check this before you go.

SUNCREAM. IT GETS HOT. BE CAREFUL. You can buy this in shops if you forget.

SHOWER GEL/SHAMPOO. You can buy this in shops too.

Books (a few of these) – Travelling alone? It’s good company. Travelling with someone? Sometimes on the train journeys you just want a break from each others voices, work that brain even whilst travelling.

Headphones – a saviour for when you’ve read way too much

Notepad and pen – if you come across something you have to remember or you like writing…

Playing Cards – Something you and your travel companion can interact over.

Travel Insurance – Just in case something happens, be careful homies.

A helpful travel bag – This is key as you will be walking A LOT to hostels and on your final day in cities when you have to hand back your room key because check out is early.

The North Face Base Camp Duffel Bag does not come cheap (we payed at least £90 for ours each) but the freedom to carry it or use it as a backpack made our lives SO much easier with all that walking, SO. MUCH. WALKING. There are many bags like this so choose what one suits you best, whether it be North Face or not, whatever caters to your travel needs.

Fanny Pack (yes, I know) or Waist Wallet – This is so much more important than you think. Keeping your passport and money in a save place on you at all times is important. You might think that it is not fashionable; bear in mind that it goes under your clothes, that it is an inconvenient object, but it proved me wrong and put me at ease even on nights when my paranoia sky rocketed.

The Hydroseal Waterproof Waist Wallet is cheap, has enough space for your cards, passport, and money and is the safest option when it comes to carrying your valuables on you.

I likely forgot something here, but it happens, these are ESSENTIALS.

GET IN THERE BEFORE YOU NEED VISA’S FOR EACH COUNTRY (Post-Brexit life nears… DUN DUN DUN)

You knew the Brexit talk was coming, c’mon, you should’ve prepared for this badboy.

As the UK slowly edges towards no longer being a member of the EU, we start to reminisce about all the things we are going to miss like the freedom to travel to other European countries without having to apply for Visa’s. Once we exit, it is likely that you will need to apply for EVERY country, making interrailing a nightmare, and possibly more expensive too.

The new passports are meant to be blue (WHY BLUE, WHY) and this makes us feel blue, because, just why? Oh politics. Anyway, utilise being part of the EU while you can, cause once it’s gone, it’s gone.

There are likely so many other things on here I have not mentioned, but as I always say, any questions, queries or a general interest in things that happened on our journey, hit me up and I’ll be only too happy to enlighten you. Happy Travels! 🙂

It''s been a while, let's kick off that talk about Inetrrailing yeah? You would think a full month (near enough) of travelling Europe by train would be as simple as it sounds.

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filiplig · 6 years

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Hardford, Tim - The Undercover Economist Strikes Back

page 5 | location 70-72 | Added on Tuesday, 16 December 2014 09:51:44

the Great Depression profoundly revolutionized economics—how could it be otherwise? Economists asked themselves what was happening, and why, and whether anything could be done. They took new measurements, formulated new theories and proposed new policies, all concerned with the central question of economic performance as a whole. In short, the Great Depression gave birth to macroeconomics.

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Microeconomics concerns things that economists are specifically wrong about, while macroeconomics concerns things economists are wrong about generally. P. J. O’ROURKE, Eat the Rich

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If, like Simon Kuznets, you’re looking for a single number to measure the size of the economy, having everything measurable on the same scale is handy. Think of it this way: it’s a little bit like mass. Your brain weighs probably around three pounds, and a small bag of sugar typically can weigh one pound. The fact that you value your brain more highly than three bags of sugar doesn’t tell us that mass is a useless concept.

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The man who invented GDP never thought it was a measure of welfare, and neither should anyone else.

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Anyone who insists that running a modern economy is a matter of plain common sense frankly doesn’t understand much about running a modern economy.

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A simple, commonsense view of the economy is attractive but dangerous, because in macroeconomics, whenever you point to some obvious change occurring right before your eyes, there is almost always something else changing behind your back, the two phenomena connected by invisible strings and pulleys. The definitive statement of this

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Money systems such as the goldsmith’s notes were initially anchored to an intrinsically valuable commodity, but against all intuition that valuable commodity turned out to be unnecessary. All that is necessary for money to have value is for everyone to believe that it has value.

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That’s what I mean by a standard of value: if you want to keep track of how you are doing, it helps to choose a unit of measurement that is stable relative to the problem at hand. This will often mean thinking of your salary or your net worth in terms of a currency, because good currencies typically are quite stable relative to all the things you might want to buy. It is confusing to think of your salary in terms of Apple shares; for that matter it is confusing to think of your salary in terms of apples.

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(There’s a handy rule of thumb called the rule of 72—divide 72 by the annual inflation rate and the result is approximately how many years it will take prices to double. In this case, 72 divided by 0.7 gives you prices doubling in a century.) Today, 0.7 percent inflation isn’t much: these days central banks aim for 2 percent inflation, or thereabouts. At that rate, prices would double every thirty-five years or so.

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Specifically, remember the money illusion—the professor who was infuriated by a pay cut, but didn’t mind a below-inflation pay raise, even though they are exactly the same thing. That should tell you that a little bit of inflation can be quite helpful. Imagine a sector of the economy in which productivity is falling, perhaps because foreign competition is reducing the price that companies can get for their products. Wages need to be trimmed or the whole sector is likely to go bust. We know that bosses probably can’t get away with cutting nominal wages. If inflation is zero, that means they won’t be able to cut real wages either. But if there’s some inflation, they can get away with making the necessary cuts to real wages by giving below-inflation raises. There’s another reason to aim for a bit of inflation, one that’s arguably even more important: monetary policy is not a precise science. Central banks will sometimes overshoot and sometimes undershoot their targets. If they aim for zero inflation and undershoot, they get deflation—and I want to persuade you that deflation is a much more serious problem than moderate inflation.

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But with deflation, prices begin to drop. Your wages are a price, so they are falling. Of course, the prices of food, clothes and fuel are all falling, too. But your mortgage repayment never changes. It is taking up a larger and larger portion of your monthly salary. Your loss is some saver’s gain, of course. But remember that in a recession, what we want is people spending money to stimulate economic activity. An unexpected dose of deflation is going to achieve the exact opposite, because it redistributes money from borrowers to savers, and borrowers are more likely to be spending than savers—they wouldn’t be borrowing otherwise. Add in the problem that when lots of people find it hard to pay back their loans, the entire banking system can run into trouble.

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If you print $100 and give it to a starving man, he’ll spend it. If on the other hand you give the $100 to a ninety-year-old lady with a decent pension and an anxious disposition, she may simply put it in a cookie jar, just in case she needs it. That $100 is going to do nothing whatsoever to stimulate demand, and it will not increase inflation either. And at the moment, despite enthusiastic money-printing by many of the world’s central banks since 2008, a lot of the money is ending up in the equivalent of cookie jars. The money may be helping prop up spending in the economy as a whole, or it may be distorting decisions and storing up trouble for the future. But one thing it is not doing is creating hyperinflation: the inflation rate remains close to the central bankers’ targets.

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The babysitting recession is an example of Keynes’s Law: Lack of demand creates its own lack of supply. In a Keynesian recession, Say’s Law doesn’t hold, and it is possible for supply to stand idle for lack of demand. If consumers don’t want to spend, instead preferring to save or pay off their debts, perhaps no price cut will tempt them to change their mind—or perhaps a price cut would, but the price cut does not come because prices are sticky. Business investment might take up the slack, but then again it might not, because why would businesses invest when they already have factories and shops standing quiet, dark and empty?

page 102 | location 1562-1565 | Added on Monday, 22 December 2014 23:22:29

So we’ve found an example when Say’s Law applies, and another when Keynes’s Law does. It sounds like neither of them are really laws at all. Yup. This is social science—what did you expect? Sometimes an economy’s output is constrained by the demand for goods and services (Keynes’s Law) and sometimes it is constrained by their potential supply (Say’s Law).

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It feels like what you’re saying is that I should run my economy like a tough bastard right-winger during a boom, and like a bleeding-heart left-winger during a recession. That’s not such a bad idea. A boom is a great time to trim spending, pay off debt and try to make markets function better by reducing unnecessary regulations. These are all right-wing hobbyhorses. A recession, however, is a terrible time to do those things. It’s better to keep spending, run up debt and launch big infrastructure projects. Unfortunately, it seems we tend to get the opposite: in booms, we feel like we can afford to elect left-wing governments to improve labor protection and launch big public-sector projects, often running up debt in the process; then when trouble hits, we elect a right-wing government to slash the deficit, scrap investment projects and make a bonfire of labor protection regulations, all of which simply makes the recession worse.

page 121 | location 1845-1848 | Added on Tuesday, 23 December 2014 07:54:33

So that’s the sense in which I semi-jokingly said that Henry Ford invented unemployment. Of course unemployment was with us long before Ford came along, but Ford’s system introduced a new and important source of unemployment. By pioneering efficiency wages, he helped to bring into existence a group of people who want to work but, through sheer bad luck, can’t find jobs. You should keep that in mind the next time someone tells you the unemployed are all work-shy layabouts.

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But we’ve begun to realize that explicitly modeling the process of job search and recruitment is valuable. Unemployment is now routinely modeled as a process of searching for a match between a suitable vacancy and a suitable worker, much like dating and marriage. Christopher Pissarides won the Nobel memorial prize for his work on this topic. He points out that unemployment is the initial condition of economic existence, just as being single is the initial condition of romantic existence—all of us are born unemployed and single, and if we want that situation to change, sooner or later we will have to start looking for a suitable match.

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There are two ways to fight unemployment. One is to fight recessions—constantly battling to get the economy to the top left of the Beveridge curve, with plenty of vacancies and few unemployed people. But the other is more structural, trying to shift the curve down and to the left, so that for any given level of vacancies, there will be fewer people without work. For the most part, I don’t see any reason why you can’t try both methods at the same time.

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Some degree of aggregation is inevitable, but do also remember that you can measure inflation, inequality, unemployment and GDP without having to produce some amorphous summary of all four of them. All of these measures, and others, are useful in informing your policy priorities. None should monopolize your attention.

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Day reconstruction produces quite different results from the more traditional surveys of life satisfaction. One survey comparing women in France to those in Ohio found that the American women were twice as likely to say they were very satisfied with their lives. And yet it was the French women who spent more of their day in a good mood. Enjoyment as experienced minute by minute is not the same as a once-and-for-all judgment about how satisfying life is. If you really plan not only to measure happiness but also to use it to influence policy, this is a distinction you will have to start taking seriously.

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the world’s two most unequal wealthy economies offer a mediocre school education to the masses and an outstanding university education to an elite.

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Keynes famously remarked, “If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists, that would be splendid!” It’s a good joke, but it’s not just a joke; you don’t expect your dentist to be able to forecast the pattern of tooth decay, but you expect that she will be able to give you good practical advice on dental health and to intervene to fix problems when they occur. That is what we should demand from economists: useful advice about how to keep the economy working well, and solutions when the economy malfunctions.

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armorroofing · 7 years

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eliottweetsill · 7 years

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The Daily 30th: Sacramento Kings

Mood: Finally tried blowing in the cartridge, and it fucking worked.

Best thing going: Massive youth movement

Best player: George Hill

Worst player: Kosta Koufos (which ain't bad!)

1-year core: Zach Randolph, George Hill, Vince Carter, Garrett Temple

5-year core: Buddy Hield, De'Aaron Fox, Skal Labissiere, Georgios Papagiannis, Justin Jackson, Harry Giles, Willie Cauley-Stein, Malachi Richardson, Frank Mason III

Holy fucking shit, you guys. Look, let's stay calm. Let's not get too overexcited but like, that's nine future All-Stars. Not really. But maybe. All of the above players listed in the 5-year core are 23 years old or younger. Shit. Let's rank 'em.

9. Malachi Richardson, SG/SF, 21, Syracuse

OK, it may have been a bit gratuitous including Malachi Richardson in the 5-year core group. Overall he makes for a decent prospect, and has shown a knack for finding space to get off his shot, but he's clearly a level below the rest of the tantalizing prospects on the Kings' roster, and there's likely going to be no room for him on the roster when the year opens up, so he'll likely have another year on the Reno Bighorns to improve and fill in should anyone more important become injured.

8. Frank Mason III, PG, 23, Kansas

I think Mason's potential exceeds some of the shinier prospects on this list, but since he's old even for a 4-year graduate, he became the lowest-drafted Naismith Player of the Year winner ever. This list is meant to be objective with my personal spin, otherwise he would be higher. His graduation has coincided with a hard-on of historic proportions for one-and-done players, and an equivalent distaste for players with college experience like Mason. Mason was great in college, and there is plenty of doubt to have about him, but as a second rounder, he's worth a flier. You could see him becoming a solid backup, or flaming out and going to China and dominating a la Russ Smith. Either way he's a low-stakes gamble, perfect for a team willing to spend some time working on developing youth.

7. Harry Giles, PF, 19, Duke

Giles could wind up being one of the better players on this list, and as a 19-year-old prospect, has some of the highest potential. But, injuries and a poor showing in college have cast a lot of doubt on Giles as a pro. The good news on Giles is that he's shown a freakish athletic ability and is hyper young and can be developed. A year in the G League (weird, first time calling it that) should not be considered a damnation of his potential. Giles needs a platform where he can find his wings and not have to do it against the best players in the world. The decision was made (by whom, I wonder?) to keep Giles out of summer league, so the Kings appear to be taking the slow approach in developing him. That's fine. That works for Giles, keeps a veil over him like the yearling bride he is, and if nothing comes of him, at the end of the day, that's totally fine. He was the 20th overall pick, and the Kings have hella forwards to work with besides.

6. Georgios Papagiannis, C, 20, Greece

Great name, decent game. 10 years ago, Papagiannis would have been considered an “athletic” big man. In the modern game where unicorns abound, though, Papagiannis lacks that certain agility that could make his potential elite. He still looks, when he head fakes, like he's performing a learned routine, rather than acting reflexively to shake a defender. Still, his energy is good and he should develop over the years into a starting caliber player. His body needs work (he's 240 pounds, needs to put on a couple dozen more) and his scoring repertoire needs to increase beyond a plucky jump hook to threaten opposing defenses.

5. Justin Jackson, SF, 22, North Carolina

Jackson's development is critical in Sacramento as he fills the gap between Hield's small-wing stature and Labissiere's stretch-four frame. Hield can't easily slide over from the two, and Labissiere can't easily slide over from the four. Jackson is a lanky, vinegary player who projects as a three-and-D wing but could exceed that diagnosis with good coaching and the right opportunity. He can learn from Garrett Temple and fucking Vince Carter as well as coach Dave Joerger, whose entire future in Sacramento now depends on his ability to develop young players. The Kings will likely end up in the lottery, but Vlade Divac may have brought in too much talent to count on a top 5 selection next year. Not a bad problem to have, but it would mean settling for a player more of Jackson's caliber and hoping to get lucky, as opposed to claiming a more prized prospect.

4. Willie Cauley-Stein, C, 23, Kentucky

Cauley-Stein feels younger than 23, probably just because anyone who gets drafted out of Kentucky is assumed to be 19 years old, but Trill was a junior when he went pro. His developmental window isn't as wide open as his bouncy and raw game would suggest. For his personal timeline, the DeMarcus Cousins trade was likely healthy. Buddy Hield was brought in at the same time he was brought to the fore of the rotation. In that sense, they were able to grow together at the tale end of last season. This will be a big year for Cauley-Stein in showing that he can be a franchise center.

3. Skal Labissiere, PF, 21, Kentucky

We'd probably know a lot more about Labissiere if he played for anyone other than the 2016-17 Sacramento Kings. On a team so heavily steeped in shit, though, it didn't seem like it mattered much. With a good draft and a wave of competent veterans on the way into Sacto, it'll be important to know who this guy is. Labissiere is wiry and wily. The threat of his natural athleticism is neutralized by the distinct quality he has of always looking like he's falling over. Labissiere's signature game came against Phoenix, basically a G League All-Star team, but it jumps off the page: 32 points and 11 rebounds in a win. It's one thing to get 32 and 11 in a loss, where the opposition has you beat and doesn't care if you score on them, but Phoenix needed to stop Labissiere and couldn't and that's different. Labissiere has a shooting stroke worth developing, a body that can only get bigger (the little noodly guy!), and solid instincts. He has a tendency to disappear, though, and hasn't asserted himself on an albeit loaded summer league team. If Labissiere can become more consistent in his second year, and develop into a solid rotation player sooner than later, the Kings could have a great core in place with Fox, Hield, and Cauley-Stein.

2. Buddy Hield, SG, 23, Oklahoma

Buddy Hield was the cruel punchline to the DeMarcus Cousins trade, which swapped a perennial All-Star for a rookie averaging 8.6 PPG on under-40% shooting. Whether it was the system that worked better for him or simply the belief in him as a player, Hield's numbers jumped to 15.1 PPG on a more-respectable 48% shooting, including a comforting 42% from three. Hield still has plenty to work on, but his shooting stroke continues to look more viable and as the Kings become less of a trash heap, Hield is helping make the Cousins trade look respectable. If I'm a Kings fan, I was depressed to hear that Hield was the most viable player received in exchange for Cousins, but now I'm excited to see him develop. Having George Hill and Vince Carter in the building will help him learn good habits. That's what I love about Sacto's veteran signings — they brought in good teachers who can flex positions. You can play Hill and Carter with either Hield at shooting guard or Fox at point guard, and develop them with veteran guidance.

1. De'Aaron Fox, PG, 19, Kentucky

Fox is fast. It'll be cool to see how he shoots. It'll be cool to see how he defends. It'll be cool to see how well his speed ages. There's a lot we don't know. We know he's 19 and teeming with potential. He moves like a jitterbug in the half-court, and with long, speedy strides in the open floor. Most players are either quick laterally or fast when in their lane; Fox is the rare gem that just gets everywhere at a high rate of movement. It's exciting to see the type of player Fox will turn into. Somewhere between Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday? Darren Collison? Lou Williams? Kyrie Irving? Michael Carter-Williams? Kris Dunn? Emmanuel Mudiay? D'Angelo Russell? Dante Exum? Marcus Smart? Elfrid Payton? Trey Burke? Brandon Knight? Kemba Walker? (It's fun looking back at point guards taken in recent drafts.) How will we look at Fox? There's a feeling he could be great. But history tells us we never really know and not to trust the Kings to get lucky. Fox kind of needs to be great, to an extent, for this massive youth movement the Kings have launched to come together. I mean, it's him or Frank Mason.

#Daily 30th #Sacramento Kings

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easyweight101 · 7 years

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Alpha Max Review: Don’t Buy Before You Read This!

What is it?

Alpha Max is a testosterone-boosting male enhancement product made from natural ingredients. The makers of Alpha Max claim this product offers youthful energy and a greater desire for sex.

Alpha Max is meant to be used on a daily basis for best results. Ingredients like epimedium and tongkat ali help promote sex drive, while orchic substance, wild yam and nettle extract are present to help boost testosterone levels and regulate hormone production in the body.

After evaluating several testosterone-boosting male enhancement products, our expert reviewers have found Viritenz is the most effective herbal solution for improving hormone levels in the body. Made from unique formulation of all-natural ingredients, this product offers long term benefits to men with sexual performance issues or low testosterone. Plus, this product has been subject to clinical trials in order to ensure it is both effective, and side effect-free. Read more about Viritenz and the benefits it provides by clicking the link here.

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Alpha Max Ingredients and Side Effects

We were able to locate an image of the Alpha Max label on Amazon, though it doesn’t specify the exact measurement of each ingredient included. While the dosing information would help us more effectively evaluate this supplement, most of the ingredients are pretty standard for male enhancement products. Here’s a look at what’s included in the formula:

Epimedium Tongkat Ali Orchic Substance Nettle Extract Saw Palmetto Wild Yam Extract Sarsaparilla Extract

Epimedium: Also known as horny goat weed, epimedium is an herbal substance used to treat sexual performance issues and erectile dysfunction, as well as awaken sexual desire.

Side effects associated with epimedium may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, headaches, dry mouth amd nosebleeds.

More serious side effects may include heart arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat, muscle spasms and trouble breathing.

Tongkat ali: An herbal remedy from Southeast Asia, tongkat ali is used to enhance male sexual performance, as well as treat erectile dysfunction and infertility.

Saw Palmetto: A plant typically used to promote the health of the prostate, saw palmetto is thought to boost sex drive and aid in the production of testosterone.

Saw palmetto may cause nausea, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea, as well as headaches and dizziness.

Nettle Root: A plant that is generally used to support urinary function, nettle root is thought to help inhibit the production of estrogen, by suppressing an enzyme known as aromatase. Aromatase converts testosterone into estrogen, particularly in men who are working out a lot.

Orchic Substance: An extract derived from cow testicles, it is thought to help promote sexual function and general male virility.

Wild Yam Extract: A plant extract that can be converted into steroids like DHEA and estrogen in a lab setting, wild yam is often used as an alternative to traditional hormone therapy, though its effectiveness is questionable.

Sarsaparilla Extract: Best known as the beverage of the Old West, sarsaparilla is thought to treat joint pain, inflammation, itching, swelling and skin conditions like psoriasis. Sarsaparilla is also used as in place of a steroid for bodybuilding or improved physical performance.

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EDITOR’S TIP:Combine this supplement with a proven male enhancement pill such as Viritenz for better results.

Alpha Max Quality of Ingredients

The ingredients of Alpha Max are fairly standard for a male enhancement product. Ingredients like tongkat ali and epimedium are well known to help boost sexual function and improve the ability to achieve an erection in men with ED.

Nettle root is generally used for urinary health as a diuretic, and it’s effects an as an anti-aromatase are largely unknown.

Alpha Max’s use of saw palmetto and epimedium indicate that there may be a small risk of adverse effects with regular use, though most people shouldn’t experience anything too uncomfortable.

Overall, there aren’t many reports of people who had experienced serious side effects after taking this product, so we don’t know what the risk of a bad reaction is.

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The Price and Quality of Alpha Max

Alpha Max retails for $34.99, though it is difficult to find. The official website appears to be out of commission and this product is currently out of stock on Amazon.

As far as quality is concerned, ingredients like epimedium have been linked to some issues, particularly effecting the heart, as well as some lesser, but still unpleasant effects like nausea, dizziness and vomiting. We don’t know exactly how much epimedium is included in the blend, so it’s possible most people won’t experience any issues.

Additionally, wild yam and nettle have not been proven to alter the hormone levels in the body. According to WebMD, there is insufficient evidence that these ingredients perform as the makers of Alpha Max claim.

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Business of Alpha Max

The name of the company that sells Alpha Max is known as Ultra Champ, and their information is as follows:

Email: [email protected]

The Ultra Champ website is currently unavailable. We are not sure whether this means the company is out of business, or if they are in the process of redoing their company branding. Either way, it definitely raises some concerns from a consumer perspective.

Ultra Champ does have a Facebook page, but the social media account also hasn’t been updated since June 2016. They posted a “pre-launch announcement” back in May of 2016, so it’s unclear how long this product was available for purchase.

It’s nearly impossible to find any clear details on Ultra Champ. They failed to list an address or a phone number or address, and it’s unlikely their email address works, as it has the same domain name as their non-functional webpage.

Customer Opinions of Alpha Max

According to the customer reviews we found, Alpha Max does not seem to produce many negative side effects, and is likely safe for most people looking for a natural testosterone booster. Still that’s no guarantee it works for everyone. Here’s a look at what consumers have had to say:

“The proprietary blend is only 742mg, which means you aren’t getting enough of any of the ingredients to make any meaningful difference. A decent amount of epimedium should be at least 500 mg alone.”

“After using this product for about two weeks, I developed a blood clot in my leg. I’m in my 20s and otherwise have been relatively healthy. My doctor says Alpha Max likely caused this problem and to stop taking.”

“I’ve tried a variety of testosterone boosters, and this one simply doesn’t stack up. I haven’t experienced any negative side effects, but haven’t seen any positives either”

“I haven’t seen any of the promised effects yet. However, these pills are not coated and are loosely compressed. Unfortunately, it’s easier to chew the pills and chase them with juice or water than to swallow them whole.”

Reviews for Alpha Max varied quite a bit, but there was a high instance of negative reviews citing issues with lack of results after using the product as directed. Plus, the mention above of someone finding a blood clot is a bit troubling, though we can’t be entirely sure if Alpha Max actually caused this problem.

Aside from the quality of the formula, there were several people that mentioned the pills were too large to comfortably swallow, and that the company did not make good on promises of an e-book or a Skype session the website reportedly mentioned in the past.

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Conclusion – Does Alpha Max Work?

Based on the information outlined above, Alpha Max we do not recommend using Alpha Max as a male enhancement solution, whether you’re looking to improve sexual function, increase testosterone or both.

As a test booster, this product doesn’t contain any ingredients known to help boost muscle mass or strength. Ingredients like wild yam, nettle and orchic acid may have an effect on hormone levels, but there are no clinical studies linked to this product that demonstrate their efficacy.

As a sexual enhancement solution, this product may be effective. Tongkat ali is known to help with sexual performance and male fertility, and epimedium, despite its risk of side effects, has shown some promise in helping treat erectile dysfunction.

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Flying High Again – Ten Takeaways From Eagles 32, Texans 30

A lot of NFL teams can’t put one decent quarterback on the field, but the Eagles have two that are pretty damn good.

1) Big **** Nick

471 yards is the most an Eagles quarterback has ever thrown for.

Ever!

Foles was also 8 yards short of passing Pat Mahomes for the highest single-game total this year, which happened in the 54-51 Chiefs/Rams barn burner a few weeks ago.

(I counted that green dot on the far left as 20 yards. Looks like it’s maybe 19.8 yards? Close enough)

2) When pass/run ratio doesn’t matter

50 passes and 22 runs on the day, which wound up being lopsided because of the nature of the game and the necessity to throw in the fourth quarter.

Even if you take away the final three series, when the Eagles were leading by two touchdowns, the split would have been this:

40 passes, 16 runs

Plus, Houston’s defensive strength is in the trenches anyway, and here’s a good exchange between Doug and Jimmy Kempski that sort of sums it up:

3) Calling audibles

The 83-yard touchdown pass to Nelson Agholor was actually not supposed to happen. Foles audibled out of it:

Pederson confirmed that the original play was a pass, and added this:

Nick Foles finds Nelson Agholor for a HUGE touchdown!

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/UdVAYVcWSc

— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) December 23, 2018

Maybe later this week I can go through the film and try to see where Houston showed that coverage earlier in the game. Nice read, nice audible, even better pass.

4) Scissors

There were a couple of key plays on the game-winning drive, but I think the best quote was from Zach Ertz, on the 20-yard third down grab that he made to keep the chains moving:

Yep. This is a really nice design, and I think they ran the same thing earlier, or something very similar, on their first 4th down conversion of the game:

Check it out:

Huge play to put the Eagles in field goal range. Well designed, well executed.

5) Record setter

Sunday, Ertz set a new record for the most single-season receptions by a tight end.

The Eagles’ PR staff put together the notes in their post game email, so I will courtesy them and drop the information in here:

Zach Ertz now has 113 receptions in 2018, surpassing Jason Witten��in 2012 (110) for the most receptions by a TE in NFL single-season history. Ertz, who led the Eagles with 12 receptions, posted his franchise-record 10th career game with 10+ receptions. He became just the third TE in NFL history to accomplish that feat, joining Tony Gonzalez (15, 1997-2013) and Witten (11, 2003-17).

Ertz moved past Brian Westbrook (426, 2002-09) into 3rd place on the Eagles’ all-time receptions list (currently 434), behind Harold Carmichael (589, 1971-83) and Pete Retzlaff (452, 1956-66).

Ertz, who tallied his 11th career game with 100+ receiving yards (5th of the season), moved into 9th place on the Eagles’ all-time list for receiving yards (currently 4,812).

It took Ertz 89 games over six seasons to reach those numbers.

6) NFL “officiating”

Jesus H. Christ, was it bad.

In no particular order:

The missed facemask call on Foles was outrageous.

The roughing the passer call on Brandon Graham was one level below outrageous.

Alshon Jeffery threw an illegal screen on the second Ertz touchdown catch. He literally just ran straight forward into the defender and made no move to disguise the pick at all.

7) Auxiliary battles

Some good, some bad:

won time of possession, 34 to 26 minutes

-2 turnover margin

9-16 on third down (56.2%)

4-4 on fourth down

allowed Houston to go 3-10 on third down (30%)

lost 9 yards on 1 sack

1-2 success rate in red zone

11 penalties for 105 yards

They against crushed a team in time of possession, but that -2 turnover margin was a killer, as were the penalty yards, which were almost double what they’ve been over the past three weeks.

8) Doug’s best call?

I thought he really nailed his fourth down play calls.

9) Doug’s worst call?

Going for two when you’re up 13-9? That’s really the only one that comes to mind.

10) Can’t be bothered in the broadcast booth

Yeah? Well isn’t that your job?

Imagine if an electrician, like Tom Cudeyro, said, “yeah I guess I could connect these two wires, but I don’t feel like it.” And then the lights in your brand new house simply don’t work.

See how dumb it really is?

Plus, it’s really not that hard if you go over it a couple of times:

Halapoulivaati Vaitai.

Ha-la-pool-ee-va-tee.

He played in the Super Bowl last year, so it’s not like the dude is brand new. He didn’t just sign yesterday.

They also borked the name of Boston Scott in the first half, calling him “Austin” instead. Otherwise everything about the broadcast was suitable.

Happy holidays. Enjoy whatever you celebrate – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or maybe a Festivus for the rest of us.

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