Joel Comm, a recognized expert in the field of Internet revenue, was a workshop speaker at the Rhea Entrepreneur Days held in Nashville, TN August 3, 2006.  I was one of the few persons allowed to attend the session, the first closed-door workshop by the man known as Dr. Adsense.

One of the first things that struck me about Joel is that he is just an ordinary guy.  I arrived early for the workshop and was wondering what type of day it would be.  I was hoping that Joel wouldn’t prove to be one of the hyperactive hucksters who know how to turn on the Type A personality long enough to work an audience into a fever pitch just long enough to make a sale.  Thankfully, this was not the case.

Joel took time to get to know a little bit about each participant.  He wanted to understand what each person was looking for from the workshop in order to better tailor it to meet our needs.  This tied in directly with the first part of his presentation which was related to finding your passion in order to develop a focus.   There is money to be made on the Internet, but Joel’s admonition was not to follow the money.  Find out what you like to do, what you are passionate about sharing, and then the money will follow.

Part of the course involved looking at practical tips to more fully utilize the Google Adsense functionality.  I won’t spoil it for you by listing those here.  If you want to know that, you can purchase his book.

We also spent time reviewing key ways to develop traffic to a website.  I’ve been doing Internet sites for over 10 years, and some of the ways he mentioned were new even to me.

Joel also shared numerous resources he has discovered online which he has used over the years to outsource some of the mundane aspects of website development which are too boring or too technical for the average person.  Do you want to learn to code, or do you want to share your content?  If the latter, then use the resources that are out there.

Additionally, Joel shared a number of other ways to develop revenue streams that can augment your site’s overall profitability.  He shared some of the better affiliate programs which have performed well for him.

The workshop concluded with live analysis of several workshop attendees’ websites followed by open questions and answers.

Interesting fact:  Did you know that during the Internet bubble burst of 2000, Joel had to lay off his entire staff including himself?  When he shared some of his failures along with his success, it was apparent that monetary success is not the driving force behind the man.  Joel’s passion drives him to do what he is doing, even when the going gets tough.  And that is what separates the entrepreneur from the wanna be.

Visit Joel’s website for more information.