As I talked about yesterday, my friend Corbett Barr’s new course Affiliate Marketing for Beginners is now available!

I use this site to bring stories of people living their everyday lives outside of the realm of the typical office drone 9-5 worker. I bring the stories of exceptional lifestyles being lived by everyday people. Most of them are not living this default corporate life, but they all still earn money one way or another.

The question I get asked most from readers here is “How do I quit my job and make money?” While I don’t intend for this site to become a “Make Money Online” (MMO) site, I do intend to also highlight the many ways people who live collar-free make a living. One of the most popular is through Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate marketing is basically being a sales rep for companies who have a product to sell. You don’t need a warehouse, storefront, or distribution system. You just act as a sales rep for the company by building sites on the internet. There are thousands of companies who do this (like Amazon, for example).

There are plenty of scams and crap ideas out there. I will not ever be linking to any of that kind of junk just to make a buck or two. Corbett is only interested in helping others understand how to do this work in an ethical way. If you are looking for a pill to swallow to get rich quick or looking for ways of gaming Google, this isn’t going to work for you. But if you are willing to do a little work and follow the process, this course will take you step by step from explaining the terminology to getting traffic to your site and making sales for products of your choosing.

For the next 48 hours only, Corbett’s Affiliate Marketing for Beginners course will be offered at the heavily discounted price of only $47. After that it will jump up to it’s regular price of $87 (This is a one-time price. This is not a monthly membership charge).

He just added a deluxe package with some advanced bonus materials that I haven’t even had time to finish going through yet! Interviews with several others who are making money with affiliate marketing, a “Successful Affiliate” Tip Series, and group coaching sessions. The interviews are with Ridiculously Extraordinary‘s Karol Gadja, Adam Baker from Man vs. Debt, Everett Bogue of Far Beyond the Stars and a case study from Trever Clark, who completed this very course and his success story.

Both the standard course and deluxe packages are being offered at deep discounts for only the next 48 hours. They will still be available after that, just at their regular price.

That’s as much of the sales talk as you’ll get from me. Go check out the site if you have any other questions. Yes, that is an affiliate link

Feel free to ask any questions either below in the comments, or by sending email on the contact page.

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners from Corbett Barr is a post from: Live Collar Free

My friend Tammy Strobel over Rowdy Kittens was featured in a New York Times article over the weekend for simplifying her life and getting rid of most of her stuff.

Tammy simplified her life down to less than 100 possessions, sold her cars and the rest of the unnecessary stuff, and found she was much happier. I shared some of Tammy’s story earlier here on the blog and you can check out her book simply car free on this earlier post. She has been working as a writer and web designer on her own since making all these changes.

The question I’m asked most often by readers is how do people make a living when living in these unconventional ways. They don’t know how to design websites, or don’t think they can write for a living like Tammy. They ask about the ads that I have on this blog, and if I am making a living from them. This is a small blog and I don’t make much money from the affiliate links that I place on the site as I reference on my disclosure page. Most of the ads here just help the blog pay for itself, covering hosting costs and such. But they aren’t just random Google ads. They are affiliate ads for products I chose and like.

Most webpages on the Internet today that you see selling products are sold through affiliate programs. From tiny single page websites selling a single product, to large “compare and find the best travel deals” websites, many of these are set up to refer people to buy products that companies sell. These companies have affiliate programs set up for those people to make a commission on each referral they send. Amazon has had one since the mid 90′s, and it is a very common way for companies to bring in sales.

Many of the sites that you see are affiliate sites, and the people who own the websites are making commissions off of any products that you end up purchasing, when clicking on those links.

Tomorrow on August 10, another friend, Corbett Barr is launching his Affiliate Marketing for Beginners program at a discounted rate for the first 48hrs. In the course, he teaches a complete step-by-step course for beginners how to build your own affiliate sites from the ground up.

Affiliate marketing is probably the simplest and least expensive way to get into earning some extra money on your own using the Internet (that is legal, ethical and not a scam), and this course teaches you step-by-step how to do it. I was surprised how much information he included in the lesson plan. Even though I have done affiliate marketing, I have found a wealth of information and steps in there that I wasn’t quite doing as well as I could be. It has already helped me out quite a bit.

Since so many people ask me about this stuff, and I like Corbett and the program he has created, I’ll have more information up here on it tomorrow when he officially launches at 8am PST, so keep an eye on this space. Of course you can subscribe to our feed by RSS or email to be notified whenever there is new info here on the site.

Making a Living While Living Unconventional Lives is a post from: Live Collar Free

Colin Wright, Andi Norris and Ashley Ambirge are Way Below the Status Quo

Entrepreneurs are now more able to do work from the road with today’s technologies than in any other time in history. The internet and mobile devices allow people to submit their work and run businesses from pretty much anywhere. While some people live on the road full time, it also makes for some fun extended road trips.

Way Below Status Quo is a free online networking site organized by city, to help people get together and collaborate or get help with projects. To kick it off, a road trip is taking place now through mid-August, with the founders criss-crossing the United States. Actually, they are making more of a giant “W” across the country from the East coast to Seattle, stopping major cities along the way.

I was able to meet up with them for a short time last night while they were passing through. The famous WordPress Developer and Web Designer Andrew Norcross was also there to meet up with the group. I suppose we collaborated a bit, but it was mostly just fun times meeting for the first time in the real world instead of “knowing” each other online. And trying not to get thrown out of a local coffee shop and restaurant.

If they are going to be anywhere near your town, and you want to meet some people who are out living life, creating businesses, and helping others do the same, you really should make it a point to go hang out with them. They arrived in New Orleans this morning (July 15, 2010) for a meetup with Carl Nelson and some other people there. The rest of their itinerary can be found on the Way Below Status Quo website.

These founders and Nomadic Entrepreneurs can be found at WBSQ, as well as their own websites.

Ashley Ambirge

Ash inspires people with her thought-provoking writing over at The Middle Finger Project. Originally from Philadelphia, she spends most of her time traveling and is looking for a good place to live. See if you can convince her that your city is where she should live when the road trip is over or until she goes back to Costa Rica.

Andi Norris

Andi is taking the really, really long way home back to Seattle, and may be to blame for this road trip. Whether she is there or on the road, she runs the design firm Dezabulous, and blogs about life and causes trouble at Instigationology.

Colin Wright

It’s tough to describe Colin. Owner of no more than 50 things, Author of several books, not Canadian, and moves every 4 months. He doesn’t just move, he lets his readers at Exile Lifestyle pick the next city he’ll go to, and throws himself into the culture there. He went from Los Angeles to Argentina, just returned from New Zealand, and will be going to Thailand next. All while running his design firm at Colinismyname.com, as well as the newly-launched Ebookling.

Way Below Status Quo: Nomadic Entrepreneurs Road Trip is a post from: Live Collar Free

photo credit: DDFic

My journey to Location Independence began out of frustration. Frustration with how wasteful the business world ran, and how poorly most old-school businesses leveraged technology. There may have been a girl involved too. I’ll get to that later.

Several jobs and self-employed businesses made up my work history. They always followed the Standard American Dream 9 to 5 model. Jobs brought with them the same mundane things: the commute, the office space, the far-away promise of retirement someday, the Mondays. My forays into self-employment were not much different, because I was using those models.

At the time of my change, I was a well-paid salesperson at a manufacturer in a field that I loved. What could be wrong? Like most traditional jobs, I had to be there in an office when they wanted me there, and they wanted me there a lot. This left me little time to travel or enjoy life outside of work other than the occasional weekend. I could not find a way to look forward to another 50 years of this life. I knew there was a better way.

Leaving the Office

That corporate sales position got traded for another company as a self-employed contract salesman. I didn’t need to come into the office, but would have to visit various customers all over the state, and pick up new customers along the way. It was in the same field I loved, and a step in the right direction toward my freedom, but still very wasteful in many ways.

If you’ve ever sat in traffic in Los Angeles during rush hour, you know what I mean. If you’ve ever had to drive back and forth all over Los Angeles, you know that rush hour last all day. That’s what I did. This wasn’t an ideal solution.

The face time at customer’s shops was just how things had “always been done” in the industry. I weaned the existing customers off these regular monthly visits. Orders were not affected at all, and I had a lot more free time to spend on things apart from driving.

I would still regularly check on them, but now I only made a quick call or email reminder instead of hoping they’d be there when I made the trek out to their shop. They liked it better too. I was able to spend that extra time getting new customers and increasing sales, with only occasional visits to shops.

(A similar strategy is in Tim Ferriss’ best-selling book The Four-Hour Workweek. I had just never heard of the book at the time, and was only making this up as I went.)

Making Travel Possible

Now that I arranged my work so that I didn’t need to be anywhere in particular, I was able to travel more. I had taken regular vacations to Florida from my home in California. By this point, my intent was to make a permanent move.

Remember the girl I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it’s a long story, but she lived on a different coast when we accidentally met. Remember, life is not all about work, so these things are important.

I was now able to be in Florida for ten days at a time every month. While there, I was able to pick up new business in the state, all while still serving my west coast clients. It was no longer technically vacation, as I was always available by phone or email, but it was now just the life I was making happen.

There were still some obvious inefficiencies with my system, but it was infinitely better than having to be on a particular spot on a map for 75% of my waking hours. Using the internet and email, with only a laptop and a cell phone, I could go virtually anywhere and still make a living doing almost exactly the same job.

The Next Level

After making this up as I went for a year or two, I finally got really smart* and looked around online. It turns out that there are thousands of people using the technology available to us in the 21st century, who are doing a far better job of being Location Independent. I was on the right track, but there are better ways of becoming Location Independent than the stumbling path I took. When I finally found my way here, I learned a tremendous amount, and have made quite a few changes to the way I do things.

really smart* – This is sarcasm for “What I should have done in the first place before stumbling around on my own like a buffoon.”

I started this journey by looking for a way to spend more time living my life, traveling, and enjoying the world instead of sitting at a desk all day. I did make the move to Florida several years ago. We are now working on deciding where to go for longer than extended vacations.

Whether we travel overseas indefinitely or start with exploring North America by RV, we now know that we don’t have to wait for that someday when we retire to live our lives.

How I Freed Myself from the Office to Become Location Independent is a post from: Live Collar Free

We’ve written about the inspiring film “Lemonade” here, when Erik began seeking stories to add to the Lemonade book. The film has been viewed now by thousands of people with overwhelming support for the project. If you have not yet seen this film, you can watch it and help with the film (and future projects) through the methods listed below.

Come to a Screening

A live screening is the best way to see it. Watch it with a bunch of other people, then have drinks and talk about the film. I have not been able to get to one so far, but I keep looking for a way to get them down here.

Buy the DVD from Lemonademovie.com

Buying a DVD direct from the creators is the best way to get a copy of the DVD. They use a supplier (Kunaki) who prints on demand and can ship to most places around the world. They get to keep the most money if you spend the whopping $9.99 here from them.

Buy the DVD from Amazon

Some people won’t want to use a smaller outfit like Kunaki, and use Amazon regularly. It is available here at Amazon, though Amazon gets more than half the money you spend. It still ships from Kunaki and costs the same for you. The Lemonade folks just make a lot less of your ten bucks to put back into the project.

Hulu.com

The theme of the film revolves around people who were laid off. If you’re in a similar situation, or otherwise having a difficult financial time, you can still watch the movie on Hulu.com for free if you are in the U.S. If you enjoy the film, leaving a review helps them out too. So even if you can’t give financially, a review is welcomed.

The Future

The next project out of the Lemonade camp has recently been decided. “Lemonade Detroit” will be about the reinvention of this once thriving metropolis. Detroit has gone from the 4th-largest city in the U.S. to one of less than a million people. They are bulldozing historical mansions because nobody cares to fix them back up in Detroit. How are they going to make Lemonade from that situation? I can’t wait to find out.

The team is trying to gather enough funding to shoot a trailer to pitch to the studios this time. They made the original with all volunteer efforts, but they are going to try to do this one even better. Pitch in a few bucks if you can. The guy even has his kid hawking DVD’s out in the sun. Surely you can spare some change? You can always get more information by signing up for the mailing list on the Lemonade website.

What did you think of the film? Where did you see it? Are you looking forward to the Detroit version?

4 Ways to Watch Lemonade Movie – Sequel Update! is a post from: Live Collar Free

photo credit: Richo.Fan

It was August 20, 2009. Kristi Coyne was told she would be out of a job as of September 30. Her department of 130 employees would be let go: the county was farming out their mental health services to a private company. It’s a common story these days, but not one that everyone handles the same way.

Kristi had always done everything right. She got good grades in high school, went to college for her Bachelor’s degree, and then went on to get her Master’s in Psychology. She was working for a government-run mental health facility helping the local mental health community instead of pursuing a more lucrative career in private practice. Now she was left with her remaining student loan debt, some letters after her name, and a couple of weeks to figure out what to do — much more than a lot of people get.

The Crossroads

She had an idea that had always been in the back of her mind, but it was not that “right” thing to do. Certainly in this economic downturn going on in America in 2009, it was preposterous. Her work with the mentally ill was rewarding, and she would still be able to practice on the side. But her true passion had always been something else. Like most of us, she was raised being told that such frivolity wasn’t a practical way to make a living. She had always wanted to do something involving fashion. A fan of fabulous clothes of eras past, she had gathered enough of her own to open a store out of her bedroom closet.

Her options were to look for another job, to wait to hear what small percentage of her previous salary this new private company was going to offer to re-hire her, or to make up something else entirely. Messages from her Facebook friends were all encouraging. Her response to it after things had begun to sink in later that day was, “Thanks, guys! Your support has always uplifted me! I’d like to work on creating my own destiny now…”

The Road Unmapped

Two days after she learned that her job was getting outsourced, she looked at retail spaces and found one in an indoor mall in an old train station that she felt would be perfect for a vintage clothing store. The following week, the new company had offered its proposals to some of the laid-off staff. Kristi decided that she could not take the offer, and began a walk down another path.

The sign design was created for Nine Lives Vintage Wears before she even finished her tenure at her old position. She planned to open the doors in the first week of October. This retail store selling vintage clothes, handmade jewelry, and other items made by local artists and craftspeople was opening in a recession. Some people wondered if she was as mentally ill as her prior patients doing something that “crazy” in times like these. Once she convinced them that she was doing it, and at full speed ahead, they got behind her and watched the place take shape quickly. She had been dreaming about this for years, so she had a vision for it already that those people just couldn’t see as clearly.

A New Life

So far the store has done even better than she had hoped, and the people who thought she was doing something frivolous are starting to rethink their own lives. We are often put in situations that test us. Some people choose safety and perceived security, while others feel that would be a form of lifelong torture. The same week she held the grand opening of her store back in October, one of her former co-workers chose a much different path — jumping off of a high bridge to their death.

Kristi chose her path toward happiness and designing the lifestyle she wants. It doesn’t have to be a retail store that makes you happy, but I hope you can find your happy path.

Many people have dealt with layoffs like this. We have mentioned the Lemonade movie before. There are a lot of people out there questioning their worlds right now. Let us know in the comments below if you’ve ever been faced with a decision like this, and how it turned out for you. We’d love to hear your thoughts and story.

Full Disclosure: I don’t get anything if you were to go to Freighthouse Square in Tacoma and shop at Nine Lives Vintage Wears, or become a fan on Facebook, but Kristi’s story is relevant to this blog and my vision for it. It is just a happy coincidence that Kristi is my sister and I am proud of her for being awesome.

Career Outsourcing: Replaced by the Lowest Bidder is a post from: Live Collar Free

Crush It! - Cover

Gary Vaynerchuk is the founder of the popular and long-running video blog at Wine Library TV, also known as the Thunder Show. He began to parlay his success with the show into speaking on the subject of business in today’s world, and now has a NY Times Best-selling book out called “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion“.

I had heard of Gary about a year ago through Tim Ferriss’ blog. I watched a few minutes of his show but wasn’t very interested. I don’t drink wine, so I didn’t care about the topic (like he VERY obviously did). He seemed kind of funny, but I was too busy to watch a show about wine, and didn’t think much more about it.

A few months ago, I started to hear friends mention this wine guy, both online and in meatspace. I saw he had this book coming out and watched a short keynote speech he gave at a Web 2.0 event.

In the video he gave a passionate, cussword-laden speech about the nature of business and changing times. Everything he said was very spot-on, and got me digging into more of his thoughts on business.

“Crush It!” expands on his business keynotes, filling in details about the how and why of the changing business world. It’s embedded below if you don’t have children or nuns in the room with you.

In short, I loved the book. I bought a copy locally the week it came out, then ordered another through Amazon to pass along to someone else.

Reinventing the Rules of Business

Getting into business used to be a lot more difficult when the gatekeepers of the big media outlets were the only game in town (radio, tv and print). The little guy could perhaps compete on a very local level, but it took huge dollars to get seen by the masses in years past. With the largely free tools available to anyone with access to the internet, you can get your brand seen by more and more people every day.

This is in no way a “Get-Rich-Quick” book. The 3 major tenets in the first chapter of the “Crush It” method are:

Love your family.
Work superhard.
Live your passion.

Hardly a get-rich-quick strategy unless you skip all the parts where he talks about working until your eyeballs bleed instead of playing video games or watching tv.

Several times throughout the book, he talks about the realities of how hard you will have to work to make even a decent living like you may make at your current job. As he says, if you are even 1% unhappy with your job, you should work to change it. He does NOT suggest quitting your job to become a blogger. But if you want a change and do something you love, work your ass off after work until you can get to that place.

Hustle

Hard work and hustle is the theme of the book that he never lets the reader forget. He goes into more detail about starting out for the person who may be completely new to the “social media” scene. It is not a “one size fits all” approach to what specifically every person should do for a living, but a good starter.

There are several examples you could follow that will open your eyes and get you thinking. It’s not about selling chotchkies and passing that off as a living. It’s about working hard, becoming known as an expert in your field and doing something that will make your grandkids proud.

Passion

We all have something we are passionate about. Something we would be doing if we didn’t have to work (that job that makes you unhappy. If you’re already 100% happy this doesn’t apply). There are ways to do what we are passionate about, and make a decent living doing so.

You may not get filthy rich doing it, but there are so many ways to make a living, it only makes sense to use the tools you have nowadays. These tools have made it far simpler to get started and reach a greater audience than in the past.

It’s still a big deal for Gary to get on the Today Show and do a little sniffy-sniff with Matt Lauer, but advertisers are spending more and more money on internet platforms. The numbers of people watching each medium is changing daily. The little guys without the big budgets of the mainstream media channels are able to be competitive in this rapidly-changing world. Money follows the attention. More attention is on these internet tools every day.

Work your face off, and you can build a business that thrives, doing something you love to do. This book is a good starting place to start getting the ideas flowing. Get the book and give it a quick read. It is very short and you’ll get through it in a spare hour or two.

I don’t work for Gary, have never met him, and am not being paid to say any of this other than if people use my affiliate links above to order the book. In that case, I’ll make a couple pennies. I still don’t drink wine, but when it comes to business, I agree with what he says. As busy as he is, Gary answers emails and twitter comments. If there is anything you find unclear about the book, he tries to answer any questions. You can find him on WLTV or view his keynote speeches and other thoughts on business at GaryVaynerchuk.com.

Crush It! Work Your Face Off with Gary Vaynerchuk is a post from: Live Collar Free

If you haven’t yet heard of the film Lemonade, you really should watch the short trailer below.

Erik Proulx was laid off from his job in the advertising world back in October of last year. He was not alone. Determined to do something to try to help himself and others who shared this new-found extreme lifestyle change, he started Please Feed the Animals, a job-search website for people in the ad world.

Using Twitter, he bounced out the idea for making a short documentary of their tales as a marketing piece for the blog. He got the attention of production company Picture Park, and so began production of this documentary film.

A fascinating interview with Erik got my attention and shows the power of tools such as Twitter, as help poured in from a variety of sources. Camera crews, production facilities, a Director, and even air transportation from @VirginAmerica for his crew to fly out to film interviews on the left coast.

It’s an inspiring story, but only so much can be told in a documentary short. As Erik wrote on PFTA yesterday:

They had to have lost a job in advertising. They had to be available on a specific shoot days in either LA, Boston, or NYC. And they had to be willing to tell their story on camera.

Unfortunately, some of my favorite submissions had to be shelved because one or all of those conditions weren’t met. But their stories still need to be told. So, once again, I’m leaping blindly into a world in which I have no knowledge or experience: book publishing.

Now he is accepting story submission for the Lemonade Book.

Lemonade Book

Lemonade, the book will assemble a collection of essays from people telling stories of reinvention in their own words. Only this time, I don’t want to limit it to the advertising industry. Imagine all the inspirational personal triumphs that arose after the auto industry crash. Think of all the school teachers, engineers, and finance professionals who have found their life’s work thanks to being downsized. Those of us in advertising provide just one, very sheltered viewpoint of what’s possible in unemployment.

If you lost your job but found your calling, I want to hear from you. You can submit a simple abstract of your experience, or an entire 1k – 3k word essay. (I want this to be more about the quality of your story and less about the quality of the writing. If your story is inspiring enough, we’ll get it written.)

If you have a story to tell, and would like to be featured in this book, you can get the general submission guidelines and details from his website, Please Feed The Animals.

Follow Erik on Twitter to  stay up to date on the movie release as well as developments with the new book.

Lemonade Movie Cut Your Story? Be in the Book! is a post from: Live Collar Free