Consider when you are going to a location where you have never been before. Thankfully there are all kinds of ways to get a map online and print it out. If you are traveling across the country on vacation or business then you might have an electronic device in the car or have a book-like set of maps.

If you go hiking in a national park there are maps of the trails. For boating both within navigation channels as well as out of the sight of land there are maps that are called charts.

But when I comes to navigating the Internet there are very few maps.

I recall when I first learned to surf the internet. It was confusing and disorienting.

When I was in high school and college I sailed as much as I could in Galveston Bay. I learned to navigate by recalling landmarks. That was when I was driving all over Houston my hometown and Atlanta where I attended college. So I learned to navigate the car also by a mental map in my head of the landmarks. I could drive to a location in my mind eye by recalling the shopping centers, sky scrapers, special houses and other unusual features.

While moving around the Internet I recall the look and feel of the home pages of remarkable sites as well as their logo.

I have collected lots of bookmarks and put them in carefully labeled categories.

So that is the background story to this lens.

Then two years ago I took an interest in seriously developing a passive income business online.

I began to collect dozens of links and crafted more subcategories for them.

I easily think visually. I have crafted dozens of mind maps and diagrams for previous projects. So naturally I made visual aids for this income generating adventure too.

When I talk with friends about this new direction in my life they hear many unusual words and foreign concepts. I have desired many times to have a way to show them a visual representation of my words.

Currently I have many rough drafts of these as mind maps. I will be completing them soon. I will host links to them on one of my Squidoo Lenses, blogs or websites. I will create many short Power Point slide shows and screencast videos that teach little slices of what I have learned.

All of those resources need to have a central hub. And I will use this lens as that initial hub.

So it is my hope that within a few weeks those who come here will have easy access to various visual aids in a variety of media formats. These are intended to assist them to most effectively discover and develop profitable niche sites.

At LONG last I have FINALLY found a way to make lots of money by doing what I enjoy. And that involves offering lots of valuable lessons of FREE. I earn my income when you have understood the principles I present and then go to sites of the best possible vendors. I will have previously registered with them as an affiliate. So when you buy there I will earn a commission.

Here are the parts of that process that I enjoy.

Research - I am frequently exploring the Internet and uncovering all kinds of cool tools

Organizing - I like to put things together into orderly groups and sequences

Diagramming and Mind Mapping - I know I have conquered a complex topic when the guts of it are distilled into a simple visual aid.

Teaching - I need to use the visual aids to guide my steps and after testing that for a while I make revisions. Then I delight to share that with others. In my files I have hundreds of lessons yet a large percent of those are about the principles of marketing. In a way I have been seeking for many years to find an outlet for what you will find on this lens in the future.

Giving - One of the biggest troubles I have had for many years is that I love to give and I dislike to sell. If I could have sold my teachings then I would have been a rich man long ago. I know that those who need what I have to offer often cannot afford to pay much or anything. So I get to freely GIVE these mind maps to many and various people. It will deeply satisfy me that they will quickly and easily understand principles and processes that took me many hours to distill. That guidance will direct the wise uses of their time and money. There is a deep contentment in me as I consider that long term prospect. And a small but critical part of that system is that those who use the marketing maps will go to the sites I recommend. There they will buy some of the best products and service on the market. I will be rewarded for sending them to those vendors.

It is my hope and expectation that soon I will develop a membership organization. I look forward to working closely with many individuals and various membership levels. There will be beginner and intermediate educational modules.

As I work with them I know in my heart that we will form strong relationships.

I totally respect their free will to choose the path of how they will build their business online. And as they use the marketing maps they will make suggestions that will lead to important improvements.

Along this journey of serving them I know from the pattern of many other relationships I have had over the years that I will become a major person they turn to for needed tools and supplies.

I seek to become an expert in teaching the basic principles. I want those who come to my membership site to learn the skills needed to create online media that can be used in a wide range of applications.

I do not need to teach the advanced lessons. There are plenty of experts online that will take the members of my site unto heights and depths according to their specialty.

As my online business unfolds another related part will grow along the side of the teaching and equipping. Some people will hire me as their consultant to design a marketing system to suit their new online niche or existing offline business.

There are lots of business owners today that could hire me to apply the concepts of the marketing maps to their existing operations. If they have been in business for a few years then they already have enough knowledge of their marketplace and what those like their current customers want.

There are various ways to harness the power of the various communication technologies. For example audio, video and text can be used to attract new prospects, sell some initial digital products online and provide better customer service after the sale.

Synergistic systems can be used to find new clients as well as better serve the existing customer base. In 5 to 10 hours of my time we could together develop a system that would be worth implementing. It is likely that in less than 90 days the price paid to me would be recovered and new profits could begin to be added to the bottom line.

Then it would be wise for that person to hire me as a coach to work with them to continue making improvements.