The End is Just The Beginning

So the time has come for the IM Remarkable competition to conclude. It's been a fun ride and I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank Howie Schwartz for organizing this event!

It's people like Howie that truly get my admiration. Yeah, sure, it's his business and this is how he makes his money, but it's the leaders that emerge from us all that truly take the spotlight. Every one of us is a leader... we just let it emerge when it is required. Howie is no exception. The right man at the right time!

This event has been a very important one for me in many ways, and I'll do my best to get it out in this note. Despite the fact that I juggled multiple niche projects and never really followed the expected format of the event / challenge, I did follow the real life aspect of it for myself and how it fits into my own world. It will be hard to compare my journey with others because of my past experiences dabbling in online marketing, as well as the different route I choose to take, involving launching businesses instead of dominating a niche topic using Mass Control techniques.

Now, time to get serious a bit with my back story and how it ties into my quest online. You see, I come from a very poverty oriented background, living in a welfare oriented province in Canada called Newfoundland. It is a place that developed on it's fishing industry so basically the main resource and export of the province was fish. That was until the fishery died / was abused, and things got rocky here.

Jobs were hard to come by (I'm talking 16 years ago now mind you) so I knew I had to be different. I initially began really working in the landscaping industry and that financed me into college where I majored in computer science / programming.

It was a tough ride but I knew computers were the future and stuck to my guns. I graduated knowing I had a full time position waiting for me with a multi-billion dollar a year corporation in Ottawa, Canada @ Newbridge / Alcatel Networks (who build networking mainframes, internet backbone, etc) with a very handsome salary.

I had over 100 personal clients from around the world, maintained the quality and statistical datamart for the manufacturing floor's data (in which million dollar decisions were made), programmed software and applications, and was riding the gravy train in stock options.

However, a difficult time was approaching, and everything I knew around me was about to collapse. My youngest of two sister's had committed suicide close to the 911 timeframe and my entire life descended into a black nightmare. She was a light worker who had helped 1000s of people, and at the time, was doing her university dissertation on Rape Crisis at Oisie University in Toronto, Canada. My family fell apart.

I was the closest with my sister so it tore deep into me yet I was the one who had to be the strongest for my family. The youngest but only son. My parents aged 20 years over night.

It was only a 3 week break I got from work to mourn, attending and giving spontaneous eulogies at 2 funerals (one in Toronto and one in Newfoundland for my parents), then going back to Ottawa to work again only to require another week for just myself. I never cried so hard in all my life.

I lasted about 1 more year in corporate life.... no longer caring about the structure and demands anymore. I was very familiar with the emerging .com world and was already studying from great marketers like Marlon Sanders, Corey Rudl, Armand Morin, et al.

I spent all of my savings and lay off package backpacking South East Asia and starting two of my own companies. One is Spinning Blue Planet, which is still powerful. The other was a film production company... my true passion. Spinning Blue Planet became my stage to the world to make a difference and at the time I launched it's first product, The Groove, which altered the perceptions of several thousand people! Joe Vitale was contacted to help me promote it but that was when his wife died and he also went into mourning, thus I was faced with the task of trying to get my word out to the world in any way I could. I resorted to self publishing and direct marketing.

However, during this time frame I was scammed out of $5000 by a consulting firm called "Professional Marketing Group" who assured me many things but scammed many people out of millions of dollars and kept changing their company name to hide from us and the law. I had also racked up much credit card debt in ebusiness marketing materials and courses, software costs, travel, and going through independent film production hell at the wrong time with the wrong people. A film project that grew too big too fast for what I could afford.

$26,000 later in debt across 3 credit cards, I lost everything to avoid going bankrupt. Bye-bye home, girlfriend, and stability in many ways. Because my ebusiness and film production companies relied heavily on credit cards, both businesses fell flat and I went offline for a year. The Groove would forever be the great revolutionary book that rose fast then dissappeared, only to be somewhat mutilated 2 years later by a movie called "The Secret", which still was only 1/10 of The Groove.

Another stab in the heart but it didn't stop me. For 4 years I worked on how to build an ebusiness without the need for credit cards (back then you needed them badly, not like today!) and l'o and behold, things started to come back together. Blogs and social media were becoming the in thing, and I had philosophized about that years before.

I was in and out of "jobs" for a few years, and never fitting into them, but was always a great employee. My heart was never into anything else but delivering my messages to the world, via art and philosophies, so in and out of working from home I would keep going.... scraping by each month in debt payments and trying to live... buy food.... pay rent. I lost my car and have been riding around on a bus now for over a year. I also had to give my two cats away, crashed several computers losing so much data it gives me shivers each time I recall such nightmares.

Today, things look very promising for me, with several businesses growing (still not profitable, but it is all coming together slowly but surely). I have been interviewed on radio programs, have screenplays in production, made over 120 paintings, many of which had sold, always consulting and coaching clients in many industries, and working on dozens of projects.

Very soon I will have a great success with one of them which will finally make me financially independent away from relying on other people. BTW... I am doing all of this while back living with my parents again. They like having me around and their support has kept me from living off of the streets! The community is slow and not too supportive but it is peaceful here.

I thank people like Howie Schwartz because he understands the under dog, but also because he is a leader, motivator, and someone who knows the power of the internet for helping us all.

I have been doing this IM Remarkable challenge now for years.... competing with my circumstances..... so you better believe not much will change after this event.

Thanks again, Sir Howie.... it has been an honor getting to know you exist over the past couple of weeks. I thank you for reminding me this stuff is fun, rewarding, and there are people out there who actually care about others while making their cash. :)

Bravo!

My love and blessings to everyone reading this. Shine on!

Chris Darroch Biggs

http://www.twitter.com/chrisdbiggs
http://www.spinning-blue-planet.com

Around and Around I Go

Sorry for being away from this blog and not fully documenting everything I have been doing. Things are a little hectic and when I get on a roll I tend to get things done and little gets documented / captured.

Over the past couple of days I launched the Spinning Blue Planet Business Coaching Program, the Spinning Blue Planet Health and Fitness Group, have been consulting a client of mine with his product launch (Warrior Built) as he dabbles in PPC, set up several GetResponse autoresponder forms and sub sequential email followups, have been working on a screenplay for my director / producer friend in Ottawa, Canada, and have been doing extensive webpage / graphics design behind the scenes.

My niche promotions have been pushed aside a bit because of my desire to set the stage a bit better in my businesses, but believe you me, this niche control stuff is great and I'll be going head first into it for the weeks to come!

I doubt I'll post much more about my niche journey seeing as the competition is ending soon, but I am certain the content I have provided here will benefit many.

Keep it real, peeps!

Chris Darroch Biggs

Gift Giveaways Help Bring LOTS of Traffic!

Ok, ok... time to update this blog with what I have been up to. I decided to side-track myself a bit to take advantage of something I was already piecing together, which will help me build my home-based business coaching group over at:

http://www.spinning-blue-planet.com/bizcoaching

As part of my business coaching side of Spinning Blue Planet, I wanted to create a lead generation system backed by a One Time Offer (of 3 levels). Upon opt-in, any new client gets added to my GetResponse autoresponder email list and then gets access to my OTO pages before they can download their free member gifts.

Here's what the promotion looks like:



The OTO consists of a MASSIVE collection of Internet Marketing Resources (1000s of em!) for a very low price. The follow up saver OTOs reduce the collection by 25% for a cheaper price. If they buy, they get their products and free member sign up bonuses all on one page. If they bypass all offers, they reach a page that just has the free gifts available for download.

I can now promote this squeeze page anywhere, but especially in Internet Marketing Giveaway events like these:

Social Marketing Gifts

The Daily Available Giveaway

The People's JV Giveaway

IM Training Giveaway

Marketing Heist Giveaway

Giveaway Place

...and many more!

Here's what my listing looks like in just one of these events...:

What giveaway events exist in your niche???

Hope this helps!!!

Rock on,

Chris Darroch Biggs

Google Profile Updated

Finally made public!

http://www.google.com/profiles/spinningblueplanet

Keep it real!

Chris Darroch Biggs

Landscaping and Gardening Niche Work

So in my previous post I indicated that I was also involved in the Landscaping and Gardening niche. I myself have worked in the industry on and off for 15 years, my sister is a professional horticulturist and has owned and operated 3 different landscaping / gardening companies, and I have already done extensive work in the ebusiness side of things for this niche.

MrTurf.ca is the current physical business my sister runs, and I had developed a company website for them back in 2005.

In addition, my sister and I wanted to create a separate landscaping / gardening company just for ebusiness purposes, so we are in launch mode for landscapingmastermind.com right now. She also teaches at a local college for the industry, including governmental employees, so the products we are going to launch will help put us into the forefront within the niche!

I already have Twitter accounts for both companies set up and they are increasing in followers daily with little effort on my part!

http://www.twitter.com/mrturflawncare

http://www.twitter.com/landscapingmind

I plan on increasing my muscle building niche the same way. :)

Here's some images to prove work is on da go for the green thumb niche:

- Squeeze page for 10-day ecourse:


- The ecourse material development:



- Landscaping Mastermind Launch notice:


- Landscaping Mastermind Blog:



- Mr. Turf website:


- The Twitter Accounts:




I guess the lesson you can take away from this post is to STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW, HAVE CONNECTIONS WITH, AND EASILY FITS INTO YOUR LIFESTYLE!!!!

Picking a niche just because it makes money is nice, but you can easily get bored and unmotivated with it.... I highly suggest you find what you like, do your research, and enjoy it!

Hope this helps!

Chris Darroch Biggs

Resting, Exercising, Refining, and SWITCHING GEARS...

Wow, have I been a busy boy since last I posted. I got side tracked from keeping this blog updated and stormed on in many ways, which I will briefly outline in this post and hopefully update more about what I did in future posts.

After my last post I ended up relaxing for a day to recharge the batteries. I did a lot to catch up in the challenge and needed to regroup and focus on myself more and also implement some additional concepts away from my muscle building niche.

First off, I spent all of yesterday implementing GetResponse email autoresponder forms on 8 different businesses that I am running. I had to create campaigns, emails, and web data entry forms for many concepts and niches that I am a part of. Why, you may be asking? Because GetResponse just went offline for a few days as they upgrade to their 6.0 release. During that time, all of the admin control panels will be unavailable and thus no new implementations would be possible. Any new clients that opt-in to your lists are being queued until they release the upgrade.

Being the clever fellow that I am, I went ahead full steam and implemented all of the projects I have on my plate, generating the opt-in forms to use despite the GetResponse site being closed off. Now, all I need to do is throw up a webpage, and I already have the opt-in form code ready to go. :)

Also, Howie recently released a 2nd niche ebook with 10 more niches in it... and lo' and behold the niche' I initially wanted to work on is in it.... "Gardening"! Well, more specifically, Landscaping and Gardening. Well, gosh golly, I just had to do some readjusting and work on multi-niches all at once so I can reap massively fast.

Yes, many will say I'm nuts for even trying this, but I'm no slouch and have been working this way for a while. Besides, I am still doing the IM Remarkable Challenge with the muscle building, but now I plan on revolving through my niches. When I implement something in one (such as a Weebly website), I'll quickly be on the same roll and do this for some, if not all, of my other projects.

When things are fresh in your mind.... ACT ON IT!!!!!

I have businesses in the Personal Development (Spinning Blue Planet), Art (I'm a painter), Landscaping (my sister is a Horticulturist), Health and Fitness (also with my client's Warrior Built product), African Volunteer (my philanthropy with VARAS.org) , Internet Marketing, Film Making (yes, I'm also a filmmaker), and even Sustainability niches!

That's right... I also purchased some new domain names and began creating their web page templates, as well as refocusing some of my works from the past.

Also.... not only have I added more niches into the mix, but I have also been writing two books, implementing promotions in "Giveaway" events to build my lists, and consulting a few clients of mine along the way! It's exhausting, but it will all pay off for me in the long run.

Don't get me wrong.... I'm not spreading myself too thin here..... my main focus is still on making cash flow from one at a time.... I just need to get the ball rolling in several ways for myself, so that when the opportunity arises in a niche, I can quickly capitalize on it before it fizzles away. Hey, maintaining autoresponder lists is EASY once all of the work has been done up front. ;)

My next stage is to go back and re-research my muscle building keywords even better, and implement them in my internet real-estates.

Am I remarkable???? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!!!!!

Until next time,

Rock on!

Chris Darroch Biggs

First Sale Comes In!

Excuse the shotty picture.... but I needed to hide some key information...:



Woot woot!!!