Pretty lame post title I know, but I did get that all important first sale back in December. I have had an account with eBay.com since August 2006 and made a few purchases over a two year period. Late last year I decided to give online marketing another go (for the third time – I’m an ‘old newbie’ if you like) and eBay was my chosen platform. I wasn’t overly bothered by making a profit first time out, I was more interested in the learning experience and getting positive feedback. I decided on buying a used ladies watch to sell in a ‘no brainer’ auction; $1.00 no reserve starting bid with free worldwide shipping. Sure enough I got sixteen bids with the winner residing in Australia. You can view the archived auction page here.

Although I lost money on the transaction, I felt it was worth it to gain experience in setting up the description / sales wording, fielding any buyer questions, packing and shipping in a timely manner and leaving feedback as a seller. I did get positive feedback, which was encouraging. What was not encouraging was that I did not get any bids from the USA. Placing the auction just before Christmas was probably poor timing, but I did expect some interest from the States bearing in mind it was on eBay.com and the auction terms were very buyer friendly. This again raised the fear I have about trying to establish an online marketing presence when you live in a ‘problematic’ region as I do; rightly or wrongly, maybe potential buyers are put off when they see where you live. I think I may address this paticular subject in a future post, but for now I can say that I did get that first eBay sale under my belt.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am enrolled on John Thornhill’s 2009 Masterclass and Week 4 material was made available last Monday evening. Week 4 entailed opening an AWeber account and then combining this with setting up a sign-up form at the top of the student’s blog. I managed to get through the material on Tuesday evening and I seem to have followed the instructions correctly - have a look at the top of this page. I’m a bit concerned that my blog has not yet been indexed by Google – I read that WordPress is very Google friendly and indexing normally occurs pretty quickly. Have to wait and see I guess. Update – got indexed on 28 February.

I have to say again how impressed I am with John’s tutoring style – short and succinct videos together with excellent narration makes for enjoyable learning. John has scheduled a webinar, the first for the 2009 Masterclass, for sometime in the next week or two (date to be confirmed as of writing). Unfortunately I don’t think I will be able to participate as the time is set for 3.00 pm EST on a Sunday and that’s midnight my time. I start early most mornings and will be well and truly asleep at that time. Hopefully, the next webinar will be on a Thursday or Friday which would suit me no problem. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to Week 5 next Monday – John has assured us that ‘things will get tougher’.

Dubai has a big traffic problem, no doubt about it. I’m not talking about the reckless driving, which deserves a post all on its own, but the congestion and endless traffic jams that have started to become commonplace in the last few years. Dubai is undergoing a massive development programme at the moment, largely driven by the government’s desire to rid itself of dependency on oil as a sole source of income, and this programme has to be seen as a good thing in the long term. The short term inconveniences caused by a multitude of road and construction projects just have to be tolerated as ‘growing pains’.

One by-product of the development programme is the increase in the number of people now working in Dubai and, since these folk need transport, the number of vehicles on the road. According to the last statistic I read, Dubai has a population of around 1 million, yet there are apparantly 1/2 million cars on the road! No wonder there are traffic problems; Dubai is not a large city by any means and there is a limit to how many congestion-reducing roads and bypasses you can build. So the Dubai government came up with a plan – the Metro.

The Metro idea was conceived in 2004 with actual construction commencing in early 2006. The US$ 4.2 billion first phase is due to open a little later this year. Basically, the Metro is an overhead light rail system with a subsurface section passing under the ‘creek’, a natural waterway that divides the city in two. If you have the money, it is even possible to purchase brand naming rights for some of the stations! But will it work? Will the Metro ease all the traffic congestion problems? In my opinion, I’m afraid, the answer is no. At least not as a stand alone solution. I just can’t see people giving up driving their Mercs, SUVs and Toyotas for this. Also, with summer time temperatures well over 40C in the day, it is not going to be much fun walking for 10-15 minutes to the nearest station. In my opinion, for the Metro to work it needs to be coupled with, at the very least, city congestion charges and, probably, increased fuel prices (petrol / gasoline is currently sold at below production cost). I hope the system does work in the long run though and I am sure the authorities have already thought of the various problems that could arise with encouraging people to use it. Will I use the Metro? Definitely, maybe!

I signed up for a Twitter account just over two weeks ago and am was initially a bit unsure about how to go forward with this massively popular social networking website. Twitter is very straight forward to use - a 140 character limit answer to ‘What are you doing?’ leaves no room for ‘beating around the bush’ and posts need to be brief whilst at the same time getting your message over.

Within a few hours of signing up to I was surprised to find that I had a follower. I didn’t do anything about this though and the follower had disappeared the next day. A quick check of Twitter etiquette told me what should have been obvious; if anybody starts following you then you should return the compliment and start following them, which is what I started doing. I now have a small group of ‘followers’ and, of course, have a similarly sized small group of people I am following.

But where does all this lead to? I started following a group of IM experts, since I felt it would be enlightening to read their posts, and a couple of these people have returned the compliment. However, I kept getting notifications that seemingly random people were following me, I returned the compliment, and so it went on. Then I came across a couple of free guides on basic and more advanced Twittering and things suddenly made a lot more sense. You can get the guides here in exchange for your name and email address, and you can follow me on Twitter here.

A few weeks ago I was browsing through Salehoo looking for suitable products to sell on eBay; consumer electronics was the area I had decided to concentrate on. I had tried internet marketing several times in the past, buying into a couple of schemes that were based on structured multi-level marketing (or MLM as it is usually known) and it didn’t work for me. Now maybe I didn’t put the required effort into these projects, but I also did not feel comfortable relying on a fixed ’matrix’ of people to earn me a buck or two. Whatever, that form of structured MLM was not for me and I felt that selling physical products online would be a better approach.

Whilst browsing Salehoo, I noticed a small piece about “a guy from England who was quietly earning hundreds of pounds a week on eBay selling eBooks” or words to that effect. That was my introduction to John Thornhill of PlanetSMS fame, a successful internet marketer from the NE of England. I bought one of John’s products, a website to promote and sell information products, and was impressed with both the content and instructional information provided; there was also the added benefit of membership to John’s forum for help and guidance. Shortly after this I was able to secure a place on John’s 2009 Masterclass programme, a video based 36 week course designed to convert a novice into a full time internet marketer. I have just completed Week 3 of the programme and have seen enough to know that the course will be worth the outlay. John comes across as a very down to earth guy and the videos are very easy to follow. I’m looking forward to getting access to the Week 4 material this coming Tuesday, and will let you know how I progress.

Believe it or not, we don’t get much snow in the UAE; however sometimes, usually in early January, the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah do get a slight brushing of the white stuff. It disappears pretty quickly and has brief curiosity value only. Until recently I hadn’t seen real snow for a long time.

In mid-December I decided to visit my wife in Russia (she was there on family business) for Christmas and New Year. Lana is from Russia and we own a flat (apartment) in Voronezh, which is located about 600 km due South of Moscow. So anyway, I bought the ticket, obtained the visa and was set to leave Dubai at about midnight on 23/24 December. Having checked in, and done the duty free bit, I was nursing a drink in the Irish Village, happy that I was going away for a few days, but with a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something. Oh well, the flight was called and off I went.

I duly arrived in Voronezh the evening of Christmas Eve and was quickly reminded of what was nagging at my memory whilst waiting for my flight; I was seriously underdressed – jeans, street shoes, a cotton shirt and thin ‘hoodie’ kind of thing just doesn’t cut it when it’s well below zero and snowing heavily. My wife bundled me into a waiting cab and we got home an hour or so later, where I was revived by a good helping of the well known local ‘firewater’.

Lana made sure I got kitted out properly of course, and I did venture out into the cold occasionally. But to be honest, I have lived in the Middle East for a while now and enjoy the weather here. Russia in July sounds a little more appealing. But it was a great break and I returned duly refreshed, as breaks are supposed to do for you. Strangely though, it didn’t snow again until I left, after ten days in Russia – dressed in the same garb I arrived in! After all, I was going back to the sun.

I’ve always had a thing about flying. Not scared or anything…just fascinated by it. Like many young guys I wanted to become a pilot and, also like many young guys, it just didn’t happen. Unfortunately the fascination never left, but dimmed, perhaps, as I started working and tried to concentrate on other things….like the real world for instance!

It so happened that, after a few years toiling in the UK, I was offered a position in Bahrain which I took up in 1989. By chance, once settled there, I started socialising with a few of the Gulf Air flight deck crew members who were based in the Gulf state. Of course, supping ‘beverages’ with these guys, who got paid to fly Tristars and 767s around the World, just brought the old hankering back to the surface. And to make matters worse, even though I had a bit of spare cash by that time, there was no local flying school to go and have a try on my own!

Fast forward four years. In 1993 I transferred to Dubai, where I still live. And guess what… Dubai International Airport (DIA) a place where I’ve worked for the last four years, boasts its own little flying club. Needless to say, I enrolled on a Private Pilot License course ASAP and obtained the PPL flying qualification in 1998. Flying at DIA is a great experience – it’s unrestricted, in the sense that you are using the same airport facilities as the big jets and at the same time. Unfortunately, private flying is expensive and I stopped ‘going up’ in about 2000. I still have the license (of course it needs a bit of work to regain the currency) and who knows…I may ‘get up’ there again one day.

Hello and welcome to my brand new blog!

A little about myself first. I am a British expatriate living and working in Dubai with my wife Lana. We have two lovely daughters who are both studying abroad at the moment.

You may have heard about Dubai, but if not….well, it is situated in the United Arab Emirates on the Arabian Gulf coast and has a massive development program going on right now. There’s shopping malls, hotels, residential developments, marinas, golf courses and more being built – plus all the infrastructure works that goes with that. It is said that 25% of the World’s tower cranes are located in Dubai!

I actually work on the new terminal / concourse development for the Dubai International Airport expansion and the development is one of two main flagship projects here. The other flagship project is, of course, the Burj Dubai. The Burj (which means tower in Arabic) has yet to be completed but it is now officially the World’s tallest structure and is a site to behold, believe me! Part of the Burj development includes the Dubai Mall, a truly massive shopping complex.

Okay, that’s my first post nearly done – a mini-bio and a bit about where I live and work.