Split Testing Myself Has Left Me Split At The Seams

You remember my last post about split testing myself?
No wonder everyone tells you to focus on just 1 thing. Trying to do all 3 business models at once has left me, well, feeling a little split at the seams.

There’s not enough time in a day and time is slipping through my hands. If you’ve ever seen the famous internet marketing manifesto by Rich Schefren (you know the one with the cover that has all the different job descriptions and each and every one of them has the word YOU as the person doing the job), then you know I’ve been doing things wrong.

Rich Schefren's Manifesto

Hey, I’m not embarrassed doing things wrong. I’m not embarrassed at all. I’m engaged in the doing and that’s half the battle right there. When I do things wrong, I can always change things for the better and start doing them better. If there’s anything embarrassing it’s in NOT doing.

Seth Godin recently wrote his blog post about something similar, naming it “Hope and the Magic Lottery”. As newbies entering internet marketing for the first time, we’re fed so much hype from all over all the time that it feels like the norm. We’ve been feed the magic lottery story and find ourselves looking for shortcuts wherever we turn. Until that’s all we do. Until we start NOT doing anything.

Here’s what Seth Godin has to say about it:

“When someone encourages you to avoid the magic lottery, they’re not criticizing your idea nor are they trying to shatter your faith or take away your hope. Instead, they’re pointing out that shortcuts are rarely dependable (or particularly short) and that instead, perhaps, you should follow the longer, more deliberate, less magical path if you truly want to succeed.
If your business or your music or your art or your project is truly worth your energy and your passion, then don’t sell it short by putting its future into a lottery ticket.”

Unfortunately, I want to do so much that I end up not doing a lot. I literally feel like that diagram on Rich Schefren’s manifesto cover.

The one good thing I’ve been sticking to for a long time is planning. And since I write down my plans for each and every day, I can also look back at what I’ve achieved.
In my case, it’s sad. I really don’t get much traction going. I want to, but de facto I don’t do much damage.

I could quit. It’s the logical thing to do.
I could bitch and moan about how I don’t have enough time, how I don’t have the energy.
OR…
I can find a way to overcome the obstacle.

So I choose to overcome the obstacle. My real obstacle is time – I don’t have enough of it. But you can’t create more time, right?
Or can you?

After thinking long and hard about it, my solution is outsourcing. And I don’t mean handing out small mini projects to someone on Elance.com or Odesk.com (popular outsourcing sites). Nope. I’m talking about taking on someone full time. Someone that you teach once, and then they implement for you again and again. Someone that in time can actually take the load off and give me more time to work ON my business rather than IN my business.

I’ve been closely monitoring a guy names John Jonas for a long while, and that’s exactly how he does it. His own success as well as countless of the people he taught how to do this has inspired me to hire someone full time.
It’s scary to be responsible for someone’s job, and I hope I’m not overwhelmed trying to teach it all to someone else, not to mention the fact that I need to figure out how best to communicate, how best to plan, how best to track, how best to pay without a lot of hassle.

Luckily I’ve got John Jonas on my side. He’s actually got a program with all of the tools and all of the tutorials for your people, so I can save a ton of time instead of trying to do it all myself.

So I’m off to find my first full time employee. Wish me luck and I’ll be back soon to tell you how it’s going.

Gil

p.s. I’d love it if you could share any of your own experiences outsourcing, either good or bad. Even extremely bad
I’m sure I’ll learn a lot.

Split Testing Myself – My 3 Business Models

Some have asked what I do online.
Well, after going through my share of mistakes I am now pursuing 3 different business models. Yeah I know, I need to focus and go after one. I know that, yet I’m still not sure which one is the best fit for me so I’ve decided to go for all 3 and see which one works best.
Obviously it’s only a test for myself and if I were someone else I’d probably see completely different results. Having said that, I love the fact that I can test the waters of any business model before I commit to it full time. It’s what the internet has enabled. So basically I’m doing split testing, only I’m split testing myself.

(reading that last statement again makes me fell weird, but don’t worry, this isn’t going to be some weird post).

Ok, I’ve steered myself off topic somehow. Let’s get back to this post’s topic – what am I doing online nowadays.

So here’s a rundown of my 3 business models right now:
1) Publishing books on Amazon
We’re dealing with information so what’s better than having the grand daddy of information selling your info for you? With the publish-on-demand companies such as lulu and createspace, you can write a book and have it featured on Amazon. I have now written several books and started seeing sales. With a little technique I learned form the warrior forum, I can now write a book in about a week. My aim is to tweak the process so I can outsource it and still be profitable. I can then go ahead and create a virtual publishing house that can realistically publish around 100 books a year (that’s if I outsource it completely).
This is a complete business that will generate return sales again and again as Amazon enables people to list the books, post reviews about them and gives me the platform to sell sell sell.

And as a result I’ve also learned a valuable new skill – I am now an author. True, I write under pen names for now yet I can become an author under my own name when it’s right and that creates a level of trust and creates instant expert status. Obviously I’ll also be able to market my new skill if need be.

2) Ranking Local Businesses on Google’s First Page
There’s another skill set that anyone with anytime in the Internet Marketing niche has probably developed. I’m talking about direct marketing and SEO (search engine optimization, which is a fancy way to say getting ranked well on Google, Yahoo and Bing).
There are more than 4 Million small businesses in the US alone. And most of them don’t know anything about marketing online which is a shame because traditional marketing doesn’t work all that well anymore. Did you know that almost 80% of people searching for local businesses go to the internet? So there’s a real need for anyone that can help a business move to internet marketing.
I know I can help these businesses and I know I can build a business of my own doing so. My hurdle is the fact that I’m so far away, I can’t meet with potential clients. Not that I know how to sell face to face, so even if I could I’d probably suck at it.
I tried partnering up with someone that can sell face to face but that partnership fell apart. I’m still not so sure why really but I didn’t let that get to me since the potential for this is huge. I’m also stubborn so I’m still going for it.
I know my situation isn’t unique – even if you live 2 hours away from the nearest big city then for all practical purposes, you can’t realistically meet potential clients either all day long.
So how do I overcome the hurdle?
I give before I expect anything in return.
I rank sites on the first page of Google and then email prospective clients showing them that I can do what I say I can do. And that’s probably a lot different than the promises made by my competition. I’m showing what I can do before asking for anything.
I also put my money where my mouth is and guarantee to give back all the money paid if I can’t rank their site in aresonable amount of time.

If they ask for it I could also publish a book with them as the author using my previously discussed skill set

3) Creating A Software Product
This sounds pretty simple – generate an idea for a brilliant piece of software, build it, launch it and have affiliates promote it.
Sounds pretty straightforward and for the most part it is. It requires a lot of work though. And I do mean A LOT of work.
This is also the first time I’ve done this so I put most of my energy in creating a killer application and not so much on marketing and affiliates. If there’s one thing I’ve already learned, it’s that you should focus primarily on the marketing.
I should have seen this coming yet in hindsight I realize that I fell for the old “build it and they will come” mantra. So I built it and the software performs a lot better than what I had hoped but without extensive marketing it won’t sell like it should and affiliates won’t come storming in.
I’m not complaining. I’m very proud of my little piece of software, and I know it works. I’ve also made some money out of it already and I’m happy to be on the product creator side of the affiliate equation. To top it all off, I’ve also learned a ton during the experience. Now all I need is to roll up my sleeves again and put in the marketing effort.
(damn)
Doesn’t anything happen without marketing? (I already know the answer)

So there you have it – my 3 business models. For now I’m still tweaking the process for the self publishing model so I can have it outsourced profitably. I’m doing the seo ranking model by myself and I have a partner for the software creation model. So it’s not like I spend 25 hours a day doing this.

What will be the best performing model for me? You’ll have to wait and see. Place your bet in the comments section below and I’ll keep updating so we’ll see how this unravels.
It’s going to be interesting.

Gil

My biggest mistakes online, and why you need to overcome them yourself

This has been a very slow time for me. Somehow, this time of year made me stop and think about where I want to go and why. I know, I know, this is supposed to only happen on new year’s but what can I say? I’m a bit slow.

Anyways, after detoxing from hype by unsubscribing from numerous lists I’ve been on, and trying frantically to limit my inbox intake to a bare minimum, I’m now trying 3 different business models to see which one I should move forward with.

See, after thinking about my 2 years online I was shocked and embarrassed to see what I had done (had not done is the more correct in my case). Gmail didn’t make this any easier on my soul as I could look at all of the emails and look at my shame head on. I made so many mistakes that I’m almost too ashamed to admit. Regardless, I’ll list them here because I think a lot of people will recognize these patterns as well, and maybe you’ll join me in actually running online businesses and not drowning in hype. I want to start a mini revolution telling it how it is so you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into when you start your “business” online.

So here goes:
1 – Affiliate is the way to go
Being an affiliate has its advantages – you don’t need to create any of the products, the websites, the copy, the marketing funnel, the upsells. You can do this right now without any money and with minimal work. Right?
Wrong.
If you only want to make 1 sale then this is true. But if you want to move online with any significant income, then you’ll need to put affiliation as part of YOUR business. That means you need to learn how to build a list and maintain it, or how to do effective advertising (PPC and the likes) and manage it, or how to get first page Google rankings and maintain them etc etc.
And don’t forget who makes the most money in this deal – it’s the product creator. As their affiliate, you are their salesman working solely on results, and you’re competing against a lot of other affiliates promoting the same product. (So in time I suggest you create your own products and let affiliates work for you.)
As I said, you might be able to pull off a sale here and there but for the most part you’ll need some kind of edge to make it online as an affiliate

2 – Content is king (so buy this PLR)
Let me ask you this – if I hand you the complete product set that an online business sells for millions a year, would you be able to make money with it?
Think about it.
The content is superb and you know it sells but will it sell for YOU?
See, content on its own does not make a business. If you’re still worried about content, I’ll even teach you how to get prime content for nothing (just comment below so I’ll know to post about it). But content does NOT make a business. Once you have a business, then you need good quality content. On its own, content doesn’t help you all that much.
So learn how to build a business or you’ll fail even with the best content there is.

3 – Push button systems
I was a real sucker for these. They sound so good that you can’t let them pass you by. Just buy it, push a button and voila’, sales come to you.
Or not.
It’s not that the systems aren’t good. They are. But they do the exact same thing for you and for anyone else. So your offering turns into a commodity since there’s nothing to distinguish between you or anyone else. You’re just one fish in a pool with a million others. And with no differentiation, you’re not going to do well.

4 – Not learning marketing
This one’s a biggie. Especially online. They don’t call us internet marketers for nothing you know. It’s not internet sales nor is it internet production. Nope. It’s internet MARKETING and that’s because marketing is the one and only thing you’ll need to do to be successful.
You could have the best products, with the best designed website and first page rankings – and still fail. How? Well in this example, if you’ve targeted the wrong audience then you’ll fail. If you’re selling something that’s not for them, ditto. If they think your offer is good but they need to think about it, you loose. And a million other reasons.
Marketing is the one thing you should learn over and above anything else.

5 – No mentor
So much to do, so little time. So why waste it on doing the exact same mistakes others before you have? Why not learn how to push through your own limitations, learn how to focus on what works for you, learn how to get to your goals in a hurry?
Look at athletes – have you ever seen an athlete without a coach? Even if they are the best in the world at what they do (so supposedly they don’t have anything new to learn in their field), they still have trainers to work with them and make them even better.
So if it works for the best of the best, why would you even consider being without a mentor?
There’s no one successful that doesn’t have a mentor and loads of people that are struggling and don’t have one. Which group do you see yourself in?
Get a mentor.

6 – I’ll do it all myself
I used to think this all the time. The internet is perfect for this – you work on your own terms from home, by yourself. But in reality there’s so much to do that you need help. And it gets lonely so you need people to brainstorm with. You need partners for your campaigns.
In short, forget about doing it all yourself and start interacting with your customers, your potential partners, gurus in your niche, people on the warriors forum etc etc. And don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. You’ll get help. And never forget to help someone else if you can when they’re stuck.

7 – No planning
I hate planning. When I say hate, I mean HATE. There’s nothing more alien to my DNA than planning. Yet I had to learn how to do it to get my focus and start getting results. One of the things that shocked me was to see how much time I wasted and how little I got done when I went online. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people are the same. I didn’t want to look back 3 years from now and see that I was still struggling, so my mentor told my I had to plan.
Long story short, I now make a daily to do list and will not go online without a detailed to do list. I also do what’s on that list first so as not to get distracted.
This is the only way to move forward consistently so whatever you do – plan

I made a ton of mistakes but those 7 are the biggest. I plan on making a ton more mistakes as part of taking action, but none of them will be as huge as those 7. In a nutshell, those 7 mistakes made sure I had no real chance of making it online, even though I was making some money.

I suggest you learn from my mistakes and not make these yourself. Of course, if you recognize any of these you’re making then you can fix them. It’s easier said than done (believe me I know) but it’s still worth it.

In my next post I’ll be talking about the 3 business models I’m currently exploring. If my list of mistakes resonates with you, let’s hear it; You can comment on this post.
Of course, if you’ve never done any of these mistakes you’re probably lying to yourself and in denial.

(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