Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Sep 17

The following is a paid review, but is completely my own opinion and is not at all influenced by being paid.

I recently signed up for Pay Per Post, a blog marketing site which has been gaining and gaining in popularity with bloggers as a way to use a blog to make a little (or a lot) of money. It’s also very popular with internet marketers as a way to drive traffic to their sites! If you’re already writing, and you already use products and surf the web, why not make a little money while doing so, right? I’ve been experimenting and learning about online business for a little while now, and have not had much success. To be fair, I’ve also had a lack of focus and not spent my time where it might make the most impact. I’m trying to change that, because - as you see from my last post - I am edging my way back to my original career goal (since high school or college) of becoming a professional pilot.

Since flying isn’t cheap (my first flight in nearly four years lasted nine-tenths of an hour - that’s .9 hours or 54 minutes - and cost $115.64!), I’ve newly refocused my online ambitions to help me pay for the cost of flight training. I figure that if I can make $30 per day, every day, from my online businesses, my flight training will be nearly paid for! With that in mind, I am refreshing my interest in Pay Per Post, starting with this post. I hope to be able to use it to get a good start on my goal of $30 per day. If I am able to make more than that through Pay Per Post (and/or other advertising, donations, etc.), I will increase my flight time commensurately.

Up to now, I have found Pay Per Post to be pretty easy to use. It was very easy to add this blog to my account and get started. I actually got an offer for $30 to review a site - which I was pretty excited about, but then I got distracted and forgot to actually post about the site. The offer was susequently rescinded - unfortunately it happened on the day I remembered and was going to post about it! I ultimately would like to add some of my other blogs to my account at Pay Per Post (blogs like environmentastic! and Teacher’s Forum, but Pay Per Post requires that you have 10 approved posts before you can add any more blogs to your account. I wasn’t aware of this (or I had forgotten), and I was a little frustrated trying to find out how to add another blog to my account… you actually have to do that under the “my posts” tab. That was a little confusing to me, and then frustrating that once I found out where and how to add another blog, I wasn’t able to until I did more posts.

Other than that I think Pay Per Post is a really nice site to work with. It’s easy to learn, use, and navigate, and it has already given lots of people another stream of income! I know Tyler Cruz (visit his blog) has had some success with it… I hope I can make enough to start subsidizing my flight training soon! If you’re interested in making some money with your blog (even if only a little), check out Pay Per Post.

Have you used Pay Per Post? What did you think about it? Let us know - leave a comment!

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Jul 23

I went up to Michigan (Traverse City, to be exact) this past weekend to attend the wedding of a close friend with whom I have been terrible about keeping in touch since college (and even during our last two years in college, now that I think about it).

We have sporadically kept in touch since graduating from Eastern Michigan University - mostly through another mutual friend who stayed in Michigan for a few years after graduation and only recently moved back to Central Ohio. He comes down and stays once in awhile, and sometimes I’m even able to get out to our mutual friend’s place and visit with everyone - but not always.

So on Thursday night, four of us piled in my car and we drove to Traverse City, Michigan for his wedding. We barely made it. After a couple of stops and several slowdowns due to construction, we made it to the hotel at about 4:15pm on Friday - the wedding was at 5pm - and we hadn’t even changed into our wedding clothes! We made it into some seats just before our friend the groom walked down the aisle to seat his grandmother. Whew.

The location was beautiful (Frog Pond Village), as was the ceremony - non-denominational readings and poems and vow exchange… funny and light, and meaningful, somehow, all at the same time. My favorite (and least favorite - this weekend was full of conundrums, it seems) part was near the end, with a statement along the lines of “we hope that you can reconnect with old friends and kindle relationships with new friends as well…” I wasn’t recording, but it was something like that.

It was my favorite part because it worked - I feel like I reconnected with at least a few of my old friends - the couple we drove up with certainly, as well as the bride and groom (in the short amount of time we could steal from their busy wedding schedule). We also connected (I think) with a new couple that we knew, but not well - we did wine tastings and climbed Sleeping Bear Dunes on Saturday; those six of us spent all day together.

It was my least favorite part because, to me, it felt like a direct chastisement of my inability to keep in touch with people who are not in my direct vicinity. The statement “Out of sight, out of mind” is generally used to comfort people who are reminded of a bad experience by some trinket or item they own - getting rid of it can help them forget. In my case, “out of sight, out of mind” is more accurately a statement of how I correspond with people - or not. I know the newlyweds didn’t mean it that way (it would be the epitome of vanity to think they put that statement in their vows to make ME realize that I haven’t been a good friend), but it did strike a chord with me, and I’m going to use it to get back in touch with people who have been - and still are - important to me. So if you’re reading, newlyweds: I’d like to thank you for that.

And if you’re reading this, old and new friends: don’t be surprised to hear from me! And if I don’t contact you, you better contact me…

Fair Winds,
Andrew