WA, my first month in review...

I became a WA member on December 1, 2014, singing up for the 7 day free trial, deciding that I would sort of jump in with both feet. If you reviewed my profile or followed some of my blog posts, you know I recently went broke... in a big way. I wanted to fully evaluate WA's potential within the free period, so ya, I jumped in.

The first thing that impressed me is how welcoming the community was. I mean right from the get go, you guys were reaching out, saying hello and offering to help. Thank you for that. It made me feel welcome, and even felt like I clicked with several of you.

The second thing that impressed me was the lack of hype. Yes, I can read through the lines and I felt the soft sell to pull out my VISA and click the premium button, but it was just that, a soft sell. The training video's were easy to follow, they didn't promise the moon, and I felt like I was actually learning something. I also enjoyed post lesson interaction... posting my work, asking for feedback and discussing what the good, the bad and the ugly of my little web site. My first criticism? Too many half assed reviews (amid some very good ones). No offense, just being honest. I hope the ranking algorithms filter well written reviews vs HA reviews.

I wrote my first blog post.

As with any new adventure, I had a few initial questions. I was impressed with the existing knowledge base, and how fast a few of you guys jumped on my questions. Thanks once more. Also, some of you move into the acquaintance category and I felt a connection with you. Rex, Mr Wailor, Donnie, Whit, Double Tap, Brez, Dfishell, Cookma, NWTDennis, KLewis, Olive, Jeffster, Dave, Skyler, the lady with the cowboy hat, and a whole herd of others. You know who you are. :)

I figured I could spare $19.

The third thing that really impressed me was the quality of peer supplied training. Rebeccas sent me a link to a great article she created on creating a niche. You owe it to yourself to check it out. It's very well written and informative. Between the WA video's and the peer supplied training, there's a wealth of information here... no pun intended. I continued to contribute within the boundaries of my personal experience.

I opened my email today,.. 268 emails, most of which came from WA.

When I converted to a premium membership, I created three simple goals...

1. Create a web site

2. Rank in the top 200

3. Have 1,000 followers

There wasn't any magic to any of these goals. My thinking was by accomplishing them, I would become fully imersed in WA, getting things figured out quickly. I hit 1 and 2, but fell about 150 short on the number of followers. Still, I now have a pretty good grasp of how life works at WA.

One of the challenges I initially experienced at WA, and will continue to struggle with, is the ease of distractibility. It's one of the reasons (not the only one though), I don't do face book. I enjoy being part of a community, and I enjoy contributing to that community. At the same time, it's easy to get distracted. If you are a newbie, it's just something to be aware of. If you've been here for awhile, I bet you already know what I mean. Yes it's good to participate in the community, but if you are like me, you'll need to find a balance.

As you may be aware, I built my initial web site for a friend of mine. A freebie for him, experience for me. By following the WA video instructions, AMXwipermotors.com quickly ranked ar the top of the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo very quickly. By December 31, 2014, the site generated a total of $640, of which $64 was affiliate income for me and $572 of income for Dave, the guy I built the web site for. I also made my first WA commission of $8, for a total of $$72 for me.

All said and done, I'm happy with WA and plan on continuing my relationship. I covered my overhead right off the bat, leaving me with some pocket change, which in my mind, proves the concept works. This coming Monday, I will start building a web site for myself in an attempt to create an income worthy of my definition of financial success.

At this point, I give WA a solid "B"... a good value for the money, with room for improvement.

More to come...

Rico