(Personal) I’m starting to gain the benefits of controlling my bad email habit

Like a lot of us out there, I have a problem with email.

- I get distracted.
- I’m on too many IM lists.
- I get bombarded with way too many offers. Daily.

After all of this I find myself doing email instead of getting some real work done.

I had enough so I went about controlling my bad email habit (link to prior post). It’s a lot like quitting smoking.
At first I did not know what to do once I got online. I kept looking at my inbox waiting for new emails. Pathetic I know, but that’s what happened.

And I’m glad to say I think I have my problem under control. So much so that I can actually close my email entirely when I need to get things done without having an anxiety attack

I encourage everyone reading to make sure that you actually get some work done when you’re online. Most often than not you might realize that you’re not working as much as you think you are.

But what also happened was that I stopped buying into hype. It’s probably because I stopped reading all the hyped up offers I used to get in my mail and after a while I stopped listening to hype. Instead, I started practicing effectiveness. I stopped running in circles and started paying attention to true business building techniques which we’ll cover in a moment.

- I know because the business I’m creating now is different than almost all I’ve done online to this point.
- It’s different because it’s work. There is no magic button.
- It’s different because it won’t make any substantial income for me right now. It grows every month and it is consistent money that will be substantial in about 12 months, it’s just not billions of dollars RIGHT NOW.
- It’s different because I’m building it’s foundation now. A business foundation like I was taught in business school, where the entire business is not based on my efforts. It’s not even based around me. so I can scale it and have others run different parts of it when the time comes for that. I’m building it with the end in mind. I’m building it for the long term.
- It’s different because it feels lonely. It’s like everyone’s in a party dancing and drinking (these are the hyped up emails) and I’m here working. But we all know that no one makes any money with those quick fixes. What’s even more disturbing is that even those offering those quick fixes can’t live off them consistently. You may not know this, but a lot of the people doing those great launches you hear about need to do more and more launches just to keep their business afloat. They’re basically stuck.

Sadly most of us in the IM industry want those quick fixes. And most marketers will gladly sell them to you. There’s hardly anyone teaching true business building. I can think of Rich Schefren and that’s about it in terms of giving you the training you need to build your business. All the rest are teaching you techniques that might work today and might not, and will certainly not build you a complete business.

I’ve started on a real business building path right now, and that all happened when I got fed up with all of the hype and really started to work. Mind you, it’s not real hard work and I am having fun.
But I finally realised that I could keep going on in the IM niche, buying product after product, trying some things and then chasing the next shiny object. And I could do this for years without ever having any major success.
Sure I make money online, but nothing to write home about. This is changing and it all started with closing off my email.

It also started changing once I stepped out of my comfort zone and….. started planning.

I hate planning. I absolutely HATE planning.

But nowadays I will not open my laptop before I know exactly what I want to achieve.
The transformation is amazing and I could not have believed it about myself had you told me, but that’s what I do now – I plan.

Now I’m only a small step of the way to were I want to be. The next thing for me is to follow the advice and do what works for those having extreme success. I can’t say it better than Mike Filsaime which posted this reply on the warrior forum way back in 2007:

SET A GOAL, WRITE IT DOWN, and work with a MENTOR that will keep you accountable.

Some advice I go by.

#1 – NEVER EVER buy a tool or course that

- Will distract you from your current project

- Will send you in a total 180 from what your current goal is.

- That you are NOT ready to use right now.

#2 – Don’t fall for hype. ONLY BUY WHEN…

- you are at a point in your business when you can not go forward without the tool or the information you need.

#3 – Don’t be afraid to pay for information, as long as it is what you need when you need.

#4- Stay off messenger. Use Yahoo and stay invisible. Chat is treading water. You need to swim forward.

#5- Stay out of forums….

Use them as a reward AFTER you complete you work for the day. I post mostly only before I go to bed after I had a chance to get my work done.

#6- Prioritize your work for the next day and write a new to-do list each night before bed and work on it the next day.

Wash…Rinse…Repeat

The first of EVERY month write a 30 day goal based on your current projects and do not get distracted.

Keep your head down and work on your goals and projects and to-do lists.

#7 – Have a 6 month goal and review/modify it every 3 months.

Set your goals on projects etc… not money.

Do not say “I want to make $5000 per month” Rather, say, “I want to complete this ebook, launch the site, have 50 JV partners, and have 500 opt in members in the first 30 days and 50 sales in the first week.”

#8- Form a mastermind with positive people, a INNER CIRCLE of people in your niche, mentors etc. FIRE all of the negative people in your life and focus on associating with “Do’ers” and “Winners”…

Your income is the average of your 4 closest friends. So associate with the people you want to be like.

#9 – Invest in your education when you start to make money.

#10 – When the money comes in, start to outsource so you can leverage your time better and your income will explode. Pay attention to when you are stating to TREAD WATER, if that happens, out source so you can SWIM FORWARD.

Know what your time is worth and never do anything that is not worth “your rate.” Outsource it and concentrate on maximizing “Your Rate” to what you do best

So, tell me – when are you going to close YOUR inbox?

The Ultimate Marketing Test – “Selling” Benefits of Broccoli To a 6 Year Old

So what do you think the ultimate marketing test should be?
Are we talking:

a. marketing to people online using brilliant copywriting

b. upselling products to someone that wants a free gift opting into your list

c. getting a 6 year old to eat his broccoli at dinner

I don’t know about you but for me this has to be option c. – getting a 6 year old to eat his broccoli.

And not just any 6 year old – this is my son we’re talking about. A boy that absolutely hates anything “green” (as do most boys his age).

So why am I telling you this? Well, because if you can find a way to market broccoli to a 6 year old, you can market anything online.
If you find a way to “sell” broccoli to 6 year olds – you’re a marketing genius in my book.
6 year olds are the toughest crowd when you’re talking broccoli.

But I’m past that. I’ve done it and you can too.

I recently picked up “How To Win Friends & Influence People” and started reading this 80 year old book. It’s been a bestseller for these past 80 years and it’s full of practical advise and tips you can use right now.

More importantly, I started implementing the book’s strategies right away. And it was so easy!

The tips were tested a couple of nights ago in the roughest of places – my kitchen, where my son did not want to have anything to do with broccoli.
You know, just a typical dinner with the family.

And as usual, my wife tried to get him to eat. I don’t know why but after reading that book it all seemed to click.
I understood why we never could get him to eat his “greens”. So I had a go.

One sentence. That’s all it took. One sentence
and my son was gobbling the broccoli like it was some sort of candy made of sugar.

I was stunned. It was magic.

After the initial shock of my achievement, I a, now ready to unleash my new powers online. You should too.

There where millions of copies of the book sold so you probably have a copy somewhere. Do yourself a huge favor and read it once more.
You’ll turn into a super efficient marketing machine.

And if you haven’t yet read the book and want me to send you a copy, just say so in the comments section below. I’ll be glad to do it because I’m interested in what other feats you can accomplish using this book’s tips.
So go ahead and comment about the extraordinary feats you’ve accomplished after reading the book.

I’d like to see anyone come close to anything extraordinary as getting my son to eat his broccoli

Online Marketing Plan or How Teddy Bears Pay $30000/month Rent

I just came back from a family vacation in New York.
Ahhh, New York at Christmas is wonderous. And it was snowing and everything so we had a great time.

Mind you, flight travel with 4 kids that can’t sleep on flights is not the best way to start off a vacation (not by a long shot) but it was all worth it.

I’ll leave the flight story for another time.
What I wanted to share with you is a story of a couple of days before Christmas while we were just showing the kids the great fun stores in Manhattan.

You know, the M&M store, the Disney store ….

In the midst of all the excitement I found myself with all 4 children and my father in law on 5th Ave. in a huge store that sells teddy bears. They sell all sorts of stuffed animals actually but teddy bears are their main thing.

Now my father in law runs a local business in Manhattan so after a while he says to me ‘I don’t get how they manage to pay rent for this place selling teddy bears. The rent is probably $30,000 a month at least’.

I’m not sure how much rent they actually pay but seeing the size of the store and since it’s in a prime location on 5th Ave. I’d bet they pay a huge sum, maybe even more than $30,000.

So how do they do it and what’s it got to do with online marketing?

Well, their marketing funnel is so good I think you need to hear all about it and create one just like it for yourself.

So as we’re walking through the store I notice that at the counter no one pays the $10 or so a teddy bear costs. What I could here were things like ‘oh that will be $69 sir’ or ‘that’s $85 madam’. It seemed no one left the store with just the stuffed animals. They were upselling all the time.

But there were no sales reps anywhere to be seen. All the staff was there to entertain the children and help if asked. No one pushed the sale.

And then my eldest boy, Tom, asked if he could pick a teddy bear just to play with while at the store. The minute I said yes I entered their marketing funnel.

I didn’t realise it yet, but I was knee deep in their buying process. Even though not a sales rep was seen, they had these signs everywhere that steered you along the sales process.

Here’s what the signs in the store steer you towards:

1 – pick an animal
2 – go to the stuffing machine and have a friendly staff person help you
3 – name it and register it so they can have a birth certificate ready when you go to the next step
4 – adopt it (aka take it home and let dad take care of the bill)

But the real marketing genius happens once you stuff the animal.
Next to every stuffing machine there’s a box of small hearts. Just a simple small heart made of cloth.

Once you get to the stuffing machine, the person there stuffs your kid’s animal, takes a heart and asks them to rub it against their own heart so as to give it a pulse, they ask them to kiss it and also to make a wish.

They then take the heart and put it in the animal.

I remember smiling and saying to my father in law that it’s genius – they make an emotional attachment between the kid and the stuffed animal. I remember thinking those poor parents won’t know what hit them.

Because once there’s an emotional attachment, price will be irrelevant.
Once there’s an emotional attachment, the sale has already been made.

It’s a small thing easily missed if you’re just browsing and not taking part in the stuffing.
But that small thing is HUGE.
I was looking at the other parents thinking this, not realising that I was one of them!

Boy was I floored once we decided to get going.
Once we were ready to leave, Tom would not budge without his teddy bear. It took me 15 minutes of convincing to make him let go of all the other merchandise he had for his new teddy bear. We only ended up paying $10 for it, and not $70 with all the merchandise.

But the thing is, he would not budge.

What started as just browsing, looking and having fun, was sealed as a deal when that little cloth heart went into that stuffed teddy bear.

OK OK I had fun too. Their sales process was so amazing and it was so much fun, that I had a really good time.
Yeah I know, it sounds real lame, but I learnt a lot and you should too.

Imagine tweaking your sales process so that when someone gets to your site just to browse, they end up as a customer more times than not.
Imagine tweaking your sales process so that you create an emotional attachment with the people that come to your site.

When you do that, you can charge almost anything. Price will be irrelevant and your sales figures will shoot through the roof.

In many ways, going into that store and seeing the sales process first hand was my Christmas gift.

And now you too understand how they can pay so much rent selling nothing more than teddy bears

I suggest you take a minute next time you buy whether online or not, and try to look at the marketing funnel the store puts you through.
Your online business will thank you for it.

So that’s my Christmas story. How about you? Anything interesting you found out that will help online business? Put your thoughts and comments below

SEO part3 – The Tools I Use

OK, so we’re in part 3 of this SEO series. The first 2 parts were the “what”
and this is all about “how to” or at least, the tools I use for making this happen.

As a quick recap, SEO is all about getting great rankings in the search engines,
which in turn drive traffic to you. You will then need to build your list with that
traffic and start email marketing.

Those are your 3, and only 3, pillars to succeed in internet marketing – Traffic,
building your list, email marketing.

Focus on them and you’ll be well on your way to success in this industry.

Move away from these 3 at your own risk.

You might make it, you might not, but you’ll be wasting you’re time trying to
create something new, when those 3 things are PROVEN to make you succeed.

I think it’s a no brainer which route to go, but hey, it’s your choice.

Got it? Right! Let’s keep moving along.

I’ve compiled a list of the tools I use. Stuff which saves time, money and
frustration. Stuff that I had no idea existed and once I found them I never
stopped using them.

I started this list with SEO specifically in mind, but then I figured I’ll just
go ahead and list all of the good stuff for you in one place.

And just so you’ll know, most of the tools I use are free.

If you have other great tools to share, please add them in the comments.
Maybe I’ll add them to my main list if I start using them.

Ready? Here goes:

FreeMind – mind mapping software to gather all your thoughts and processes in a visual manner. Another online alternative is MindMeister or good old pen and paper

That’s my list. Again, if you have other great tools you use and want to share, please add them in the comments.

So What’s The Big Plan? How Do You Get Results?

That question gets asked a lot and unfortunately, not only by newbies. There’s so much information out there, it’s real easy to get information overload. Even if you get real valuable info and not crap, the #1 reason people fail online is by far information overload.

Most people tend to get their information when it’s offered, especially if it’s free. But if you study the habits of the most successful people online you’ll quickly find that they tend to focus, learning what they need only when they need it.

Rich Schefren talks about this a lot.
So does Alex Jeffreys and anyone else I’ve ever had the privilege to be mentored by.

Don’t disregard them just because that advice sounds simple. They each have training programs that cost
thousands of dollars. Heck, I’ve paid thousands in training.
And these guys know what they’re talking about.

So let me be your guide and make sure you cut out all the fluff and get to the core.

Internet marketing at it’s core is not that difficult. Now, no one said it’s easy but it doesn’t require you to be a rocket scientist to do it.

If you’ve yet to see any significant cash, then you need to simplify and make sure you understand internet marketing at the core level.

Look, I’m an 80-20 kind of a guy. I simplify things, get to their core and find those 20% of things that make up for 80% of the results.
That’s why I’m only going to teach you those 20%. It’s stripped of anything other than the core so you can get to your results faster.

If you really make sure you understand internet marketing, and focus on the core things needed, you will work less, be a lot more effective, and a lot more successful.

Get rid of all the fluff until there’s nothing more to get rid of and then you’re at the core. You are then seeing perfect (as Rich Schefren would say).

So what are the core principals of internet marketing?

Traffic

List Building

Email Marketing

That’s it.

Focus on those 3, make sure you are always working on those 3, and you’ll get the results you’re seeking.

That’s why I’ve made the SEO series for you.
I know I know, only the first 2 parts have been posted. Don’t worry though, the 3rd part will be posted sooner than you think and it will all be filled with specific tools for you to use instantly. The first 2 parts (SEO part1, SEO part 2) were the “what” and the last part is the “how to”.

But the reason I started posting about SEO anyways is because it gets you traffic.

Remember the only 3 things you need to focus on?
Well when you do simple SEO, you’ll get traffic flowing. And the more SEO you do, the more traffic you’ll
get.

I’m going to post that 3rd SEO post that’s all about tools to get you going (these are either free or cost
$5 so don’t worry about that).
Before I move on to the next subject though, I’d like you to add your comments so I can create the content that you need right now to get you results.

Remember my mentors drilling over and over that you need to get information when you need it? well I want to give you the information YOU need and only that.

I don’t want to give you great content that you don’t need right now.
I don’t want to add to information overload.

So head over to the comments section and tell me what you’d like to learn, and I’ll make sure I give you the best resources to do so.

Here’s to your results!
I’ll see you at the top,