Review of ShoeMoney Network’s Course

We live in tight economic times!  This week I ran across a course offering to teach Internet Marketing for FREE! The word FREE lept off the screen at me and I had to watch the first video!  When I found out that ShoeMoney Network would PAY me to take this course, I signed up.  The Terms and Conditions were great, but there was a caveat that I might need to pay third-party companies for their services. 

ShoeMoney NetworkThe claim that you get paid $1 for every task you do is true.  Some of the tasks I did were not paid out to me for reasons I am still uncovering.  I am pretty sure one task wasn’t paid out to me because I used an existing account rather than create a new one.  A second task might not get paid out to me because I thought I’d completed the step when I found out later that I didn’t.  I completed the step when preparing to do a step related to it.  So it’s quite likely I will be one of the few students out there who don’t get everything they otherwise could have earned while taking this course.

The other potential negative, if you are not tech savvy that is, is the age of the videos.  It appears the video teachings were created at least 1 to 2 years prior to 2016, as interfaces and options shown in various third party websites have changed.  If I find a suggestion box, I’ll be recommending an update to the video content in order to stay current with what’s out there.  A tech savvy student however will see the changed interfaces and still be able to do 95% of the stuff shown in the videos.

If you live in Canada, as I do, the exchange rate works in your favour when exchanging your Paypal funds from USD to CAN.  That is extremely helpful for someone struggling to pay the bills!

At this point in the ShoeMoney Network course, I am about to learn about boosting a post on Facebook.  Although I’ve been actively marketing my author page on Facebook, and have a sizable business page on Facebook as well, I have never used the boost feature.  I did run Facebook ads for awhile, but those did not convert as hoped-for.  So It will be interesting to learn how ShoeMoney Network handles boosting, and see what the results are.

The biggest thing I’ve learned about this course is that it is for people who have never had a blog before, never used a newsletter system before, never created a Facebook page before, etc.  I’ve done all of this in the past, not just for myself, but for others as well.  However, we are about to reach the part of the course I’ve been interested the entire time, which is learning about the focus of this course, namely – Internet Marketing.

My goal is to glean new things that I might have skipped over so far in my own efforts, learn something new I can try for my existing websites, etc.  To that end I have made a couple notes regarding the use of autoresponders.  I need to give those notes some serious consideration going forward, to see if they will assist me in making more of a career with my writing and my books.

By the time I have done with ShoeMoney Network, I will have spent just over $70 US, and earned just over $12 if I do get paid for some tasks I’m puzzled about, and don’t make further mistakes like the two I know about.  If the marketing lessons I’m about to take turn into cash right away, that will be awesome, because I couldn’t really afford to pay for another webhost.  The course doesn’t let you input an existing webhost and accompanying url.  So that’s a disappointment.

Overall, if you are brand new to the concept of using a blog to promote your ideas, ShoeMoney Network will walk you through step by step to where you have something you can polish, populate, and promote.

Thank you Jeremy for paying me as I take this course!  Your concept is unique and something I’ll also tuck into the back of my brain for future ideas.

If you’d like to get paid to take this course for yourself, Click here to register.  It isn’t every day that someone is willing to pay you to take their course instead of asking for registration fees.

EDIT:  MAJOR EDIT ALERT!  I completed the white to black belts in two days, and the real meat of the focus at ShoeMoney Network has suddenly been unlocked!  I hadn’t seen these before this evening!  Attendees of this course get access to over $400 worth of further, deeper, more in-depth online marketing training upon completion of their Black Belt!  Two courses and a PDF’d textbook for one of them, plus a number of unlocked instruction videos covering link tracking, legalese and copyright, even making wise and optimized use of services such as Youtube and Pinterest.

Now Pinterest has already been rather instrumental in the sales of my grad gift, “Mom’s Little Black Book: Godly Advice for the High School Graduate”, which I sell on Amazon, on my author blog, and many others places online.  I’ve even made a video about how to use Pinterest for Authors.  But these advanced online marketing courses are precisely what I was after when I signed up!  I just thought for awhile that maybe they weren’t there.  I apologize. . . I was wrong, and I’m quite happy to admit it!

Ode to a Toaster Oven

Today, on my 45th birthday, a toaster that came to live in our home from the Salvation Army Thrift store years ago, finally kicked the bucket!  It isn’t much to look at, but this little toaster oven was a real trooper.  We used it for far more than just making toast!

Did you know you can use toaster ovens to:

  • Make toast
  • Cook meat
  • Warm up pasta in pasta dishes just like the microwave but without wrecking the nutritional content of your food in the process
  • Bake fresh pasta dishes such as baked spaghetti
  • Bake Scalloped Potatoes
  • Bake scones or biscuits if you’re only doing a single batch
  • etc.

These handy little ovens are far more useful than most people give them credit for.  In our home, cooking the evening meal often involved cooking the meat in this toaster oven’s much smaller space rather than heat up the entire oven below the stove.

Not only did we get marinated steaks, breaded pork, sausages, meatballs, and other dishes cooked on time, but for far less electrical cost as well. When you’re on a tight budget, saving money on electricity is something that should be looked at with a critical eye.  Our little kitchen helper proved quite helpful in this regard.

It is important to realize that this toaster was used when we got it, meaning it is far older than the years it spent in our home.  We will be seeing if it’s possible to resuscitate it’s wiring system, but if not, we will be forced to say good bye to an awesome little kitchen helper!