Flickr is a social photo sharing site. What does that mean? It is simply a website where you can share your scrapbooks, vacations or fondest memories with people all across the world. It is a photo sharing site mixed with a social foundation. If a picture says a thousand words then consider Flickr as your visual blog.

On Flickr, You can find other photography enthusiasts who love what you love about photography or certain events, which I will discuss in more detail later.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Flickr is the best way to get your photos noticed on a large level. Posting them on your blog or other social networks can only do so much. But Flickr is the photographer’s meow.

There is a way to pay for the pro version of Flickr and then you own the rights to your photos and can sell them professionally. However, because of the beauty of social networks, this option is not necessary. The more traffic you drive to any one site helps you out immensely. Flickr is no different.

Before You Start

Step 1 Go to Flickr.com and click “Create an Account.” Follow the prompts and in no time you will be able to start uploading photos. Flickr is owned by Yahoo, so if you have an existing Yahoo account you will be prompted to use it when you sign up. This will make set up easier. If you do not have a Yahoo account that’s fine, it will just take a little longer. Once your account is set up, get started by uploading all the pictures and videos you want!

Sneaky little trick There is an app on Flickr called the “Little Uploader App.” When it is activated you can right click an image and send it directly to Flickr, allowing you to bypass all the uploading options.

Tag, You’re It!

Step 2 Tagging is one of the essentials to keyword optimization and traffic generation. When tagging a photo, use words that will entice your viewer and explain the intentions of your photo. Once you have uploaded a photo you will be taken to a screen like the one shown below. Enter the tags that you want. Once you have added all the tags then you can move on to the next step.

Sneaky little trick: If there is something in the picture that is hard to see or needs further explanation you can add a note. A note appears when a viewer scrolls their cursor over an image. However be sure notes are short, clear and do not overlap.

Creating a Set (Album)

Step 3 A set is Flickr’s version of a photo album. This is the place where you can organize your photos. For example, if you go on vacation to California, you can make a California set. That set will contain all pictures from that specific event. Communities, which I will discuss later on, allow you to share sets.

Sneaky little trick Flickr has the amazing function to Geotag your images. What this means is that you can pin-point your pictures to the exact location that they were taken. Now you don’t have to explain where the British Virgin Islands are in your post – you can just Geotag it and it will automatically show people where the picture was taken. This is great to show progression or the location of an event. Mappr is also a great app. With this, all of your pictures show up on a map! Go to Mappr.com and www.ProgrammableWeb.com/api/mappr for more information.

Collect Your Sets

Step 4 Collections offer a great way to organize your sets. For example, let’s say you went to a three day conference. You could have a set of “Day 1” with pictures from the first day and one for each following day of the conference. Then you could make a collection with the title of the conference. Collections are a great way to show progression of an event or a product.

Get Social

Step 5 One of the tab options at the top of your account is “groups.” Click that and a screen like this will show up:

Once you see this screen you can create your own group. When creating a group, think about interests, not products or things that only you and people you know would be interested in (i.e. family photos). For example, if you enjoy watching the sun set, you can create a group for images of beautiful sunsets. More than likely there are other people on Flickr who share your passion for sunsets as well, so search for a group and modify it. If you find there is already a group for sunset photos, then create your own for sunsets in the Northwest. This makes it yours but pin-points your audience. Flickr communities are a great way to network and share.

From Here

Step 6 So you have your account set up, you are interested in a couple groups and have maybe even created your own. So where do you go from here?

link your accounts together. Tell people in all other networks, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and more, to check out your latest collection.

Post your pictures in other sites such as Your Minis, Tumblr, Delicious, Digg and other aggregator sites. These sites will give you instant traffic if your material is picked up. If you have a picture that is humorous, Digg is a great way to get it noticed. It only takes about four people telling all their friends and sharing it to make something viral.

Then go take more awesome pictures and grow!

Sneaky little trick If you find that you love photography and Flickr is your favorite network I would suggest getting a pro account. It is roughly $2 a month and then the pictures you take belong to you and you can sell the rights to them. This is just one way to upgrade something that’s already awesome. To upgrade, look for the “Your Account” link at the bottom of your screen. On the next screen, click the “Upgrade to a Pro Account” link and there you go!

How would you like to legally “hijack” high PageRank from authority sites and watch as your site receives an immediate boost in search engine rankings for almost any term (even highly competitive ones!)? It’s a well known fact that obtaining backlinks from sites with high PageRank (PR) will increase your search engine rankings as well as boost your own site’s PR. In this installment of 21 Minute Traffic we’re going to explore Angela’s Backlinks and Paul’s Backlinks to find out why they work so well and how you can use them to your own benefit for a ridiculously low cost.

Each month, these services provide packets that show you exactly where to find sites with a high “domain level” PR and how to set up a link. You then register an account on these sites, create a profile and drop your backlink (with your keyword as the anchor-text) in the bio area. The high PR from the site is directed back to your own site, helping to establish it as an authority site in your niche as well as increasing your search engine rankings.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Each month’s packet contains PDFs that give you a step-by-step “idiot proof” diagram on how to set up each site. By using these packets each and every month you can watch your site continue to rise in the search engines. As soon as you start seeing your site on the first page of Google you’ll begin seeing an increase in organic traffic.

Traffic alone will not make you rich. How you monetize this traffic is up to you. It is important that you’re implementing an effective monetization strategy on your site (like building your list with a squeeze page, Adsense or affiliate offers). I highly suggest that you use this free traffic to build a targeted list to sell to.

Grab Your Ammo

Step 1 Visit Angela and Paul’s sites and order as many monthly packages as you can afford (they’re super inexpensive so it’s crazy not to buy as many as you can get).

Get Organized

Step 2 Create a new Gmail account (http://mail.google.com/mail). You’ll need this to verify the registration for the websites you’ll be registering for. After you create a Gmail account, create a Google Docs Spreadsheet (http://docs.google.com) to keep track of all your work.

Follow the Steps

Step 3 Thoroughly go through the PDFs, following each and every step. Make sure to keep track of these in your spreadsheet. You’ll want to make sure to keep track of the following information (a screenshot showing how to set this up in your Google Docs Spreadsheet has been provided below):

• Monthly Pack
• URL
• Username/password
• Email Account Used During Registration
• Profile URL
• Time To Return
• Comments

Some of the sites will require you to come back in a week or two to complete the registration. Note that on the spreadsheet as well as the day you should come back. You will want to Social Bookmark the Profile URLs and/or create RSS feeds and distribute these feeds to RSS directories. Check your newly created Gmail account to verify registration for each site.

Get Your Links Right

Step 4 Be aware of which format you must use to create hyperlinks (BBcode, HTML, etc.) for each site. Use the code shown on page 18 as a guide when creating your links. Note that Angela backlinks are in a .txt file included in each pack.

Have a Plan to Cash In

Step 5 Make sure to have an effective monetization strategy for your site as it starts to rank. No matter what the primary monetization method is, it’s important to always build a list. This means posting an optin form and using an ethical bribe to convince the user to give up their name and email address.

Outsource It

Step 6 When you become proficient in setting up Angela and Paul’s Backlinks (usually one month’s pack is enough to know what you are doing), create a short Jing Video showing how to do it and then outsource the work so you can do more effective things with your time.

Put It On Autopilot

Step 7 (Optional) There is an automated way to setup Angela’s Backlinks and that is by using a program called Brute Force Linking Loophole. This program will complete the process for you. However it’s still important to keep track of the data in a spreadsheet.

For the past year, I have been able to work from a home office while taking care of my one-year-old daughter. At times it can be difficult, but at the end of the day the rewards are rich. It’s amazing to be able to join in a dance party with my daughter, or snuggle with her as she falls asleep – then get right back to work. I also love being able to improve myself as I push the bounds of what I think is possible in my professional life.

One of the rewards of what I do is that I constantly get to meet other people who are using the education they get from DotCom Secrets University to build their own dream lifestyles. Many of these people have become skilled in managing their time effectively while working from a home office. These individuals have learned how to take the limited time and resources they have to achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves.

Making Your Home Office Work for You

While the benefits of a home office abound, it also presents some unique challenges. With a home office, you don’t necessarily clock in at eight and out at five. You also might have a variety of other things vying for your attention like kids, pets, roommates, friends and neighbors. And with no one to report to but yourself, it can be easier to procrastinate on your hardest tasks. Since you are your own boss, you have to keep yourself motivated despite these challenges. Follow these simple steps to set up your own home office and maximize your time as you build a thriving online empire:

Be Firm About Your Work Schedule: Other people may not understand that even though you work from home and set your own schedule, you can’t stop what you’re doing at any given time to be part of other activities. When these situations arise, politely tell the person that you have set aside a certain amount of time for work and ask if you can reschedule with them. If you give the impression that you take your work schedule seriously, others will naturally do the same.

Set Daily Goals for Yourself: Every morning before you start working, make a list of the things you need to get done. It’s also a good idea to keep a running list of extra tasks you can work on in those rare moments when you have some time to spare. This will help keep you focused and give you a way to measure how much you have accomplished. Plus, at the end of the day, it feels good to be able to physically mark off the tasks you’ve completed.

Set a Start and End Time for Yourself: It’s easy to start working from the moment you wake up until just before you turn in for the night when your commute is just a short walk down the hall. But working every waking moment will quickly leave you feeling drained. Create a schedule and try to stay as consistent as possible. Soon, it will become part of your routine and increase your resolve to continue working when other distractions arise.

Eliminate Distractions: If you were working for someone else, you wouldn’t check emails, make personal phone calls, or go shopping during work hours. That shouldn’t change just because you’re working for yourself. Set a schedule and don’t allow distractions to get the better of you. The hours you set aside for work should be solely for working. You’ll get much more done and be able to enjoy more free time later to do all the other things you want.

Find an Office Away From Your Home Office: As an at-home entrepreneur, it’s not always possible to work 100 percent free from distractions. Make sure you have a backup plan and someone you can call on for support when you feel overwhelmed. If you have kids at home, it’s a good idea to find a place you can go when you need to work for a few hours without interruption. That could mean sending the kids to grandma’s for a day, leasing office space away from the home or setting up play dates with other parents where you exchange babysitting.

Remember Your “Why”: Maintaining motivation when there’s no one there to give you a pat on the back for a job well done can be one of the most challenging aspects of working from home. On days when your energy is waning, give yourself a reminder by creating a vision board and posting it in a place where it’s visible from your desk. A vision board is a collage of images and phrases that inspire you and remind you of the reasons why you started your own business in the first place. It could be pictures that remind you of family fun time, the beach, your dream home… anything that speaks to your heart and reignites your passion.

Join Up With Allies: If you’re someone who thrives off of working with others, it can be a challenge to go solo. Get involved with groups of like-minded people in your local community so you can network and feed off of each other’s creativity. You can search for groups on Meetup.com or join in local volunteer efforts.

The Rewards of Working From Home

Once you get into the habit of doing these things, your home office can be a huge blessing. Here are just some of the benefits you will enjoy as you become master of your own time working from home:

Being There for Your Family: If you’re a parent, or plan to be soon, imagine being there every day to watch your kids grow up. As a work-from-home entrepreneur, you’ll be there to guide and teach them when they need you the most.

An Office Anywhere: The home office doesn’t have to be located in your home. If you have a laptop and a cell phone, it can travel with you to the backyard, the beach or the car while waiting to pick the kids up from soccer practice. This flexibility can help you maximize otherwise “dead time” and allows you to enjoy a refreshing change of scenery from time to time.

Traffic Free Commute: Having no commute can add an extra hour or more to your day. People who take a half hour commute each way, five days a week, end up burning 10 full days each year sitting in traffic! And many people commute two or three hours a day. The sad fact is, this is the reality for most people working in the corporate world. But as an internet entrepreneur taking full advantage of a work from home lifestyle, your commute can be a quick 30 second walk down the hall.

Time to Focus: Most people who work in a traditional office lose valuable time each day with “got-a-minute meetings” and chatty co-workers. With a home office, you can set your schedule to work for you and get more done in less time as you learn to minimize distractions.

Financial Perks: Depending on where you live, there are a variety of financial benefits to setting up shop in the spare bedroom. You’ll save on gas, eating out, avoid wear and tear to your car and may even be eligible for some extra tax breaks.

Unlimited Vacation Time: As your own boss, you don’t have to worry about keeping track of vacation days and sick leave. As long as you have a laptop, a phone and an internet connection, you can work anywhere.

Unlimited Income Potential: With the flexibility to work when and where you want, your income can be a direct reflection of how much you put into your business. There’s no waiting around for pay raises or bonuses – just you and your motivation to succeed.

So love your home office and the freedom it gives you! Remember that some days will be more productive than others, but as you set goals for yourself and tangibly track your progress, you’ll be able to make your home office work for you.

It’s one thing to have copy that merely says, “Buy this gadget now!” but it’s another thing to use certain “sneaky” devices that nudge people toward a purchase decision. These emotional triggers that urge people to buy are elements I always use in my copy when I write a sales letter for Russell.

This article will include several emotional triggers I use every time I write a sales letter. Don’t worry, these are all ethical – they just allow you to gently “nudge” your buyer toward a purchase through your copy. This also assumes you’re selling something that brings value to your customer, and not some kind of scammer just trying to get money from people. Ready? Here we go!

Trigger 1: Proof of Value

This is an extremely useful trigger you’ll want to use in your copy over and over again. Let me share a story with you that illustrates this: I am an avid runner. I like to run eight to 10 miles three or four days a week. I’m not an Olympic hopeful or anything like that, but I like to run in road races and have even finished a Marathon.

One of the things I struggle with in running is my time. I feel like I have plenty of endurance but speed is what I lack. Any competitive runner will tell you that in order to race well you need to have both speed and endurance. That’s why any good training program will mix in long endurance runs with speed interval training on the track.

If someone created a DVD entitled, “How To Run a Three-Hour Marathon by Training Only Three Times a Week,” I would buy it because running three times a week is all the time I can devote to running. And in case you’re not familiar with the sport, people who are able to run sub-three hour marathons run much more often than that.

So let’s say this DVD costed $97. To me this would be a lot of money because I’m used to buying DVD movies for $10 to $20.

However, if you told me that after watching this DVD, I’d be able to run a sub-three hour marathon and qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon, I would plunk down my $97 in a heartbeat. And if you told me that no other training method would give me those results, I’d be further sold.

Further, if you told me the price was only the cost of a monthly electricity bill or a month’s worth of Starbucks, then this would further overcome my price objection.

Do you see where I’m going with this? By reframing the cost of the product around justification for the price, you’re building value around the product in your customer’s mind. You’re not just saying, “The DVD is $97… Click Here To Order!” You’re justifying the price by building value. This is also called “reframing the price.”

This is something I put in every sales letter and you should too. Never tell your customers the price of your offering in a vacuum — always reframe and justify the price in your copy. This is something people always think about when they see the price and you need to be prepared to resolve those objections.

Trigger 2: Establish Authority

Customers love to do business with people who have become established authorities in their industries. That’s why you need to use this emotional trigger in your copy and all your promotions.

This is something many marketers don’t do effectively. You can talk the big talk, but if you don’t establish authority in your copy and your marketing, people may question your knowledge on the subject — and they may not buy from you.

Above you can see a screenshot of the home page for DotComSecrets.com. When people go here they know that Russell is an authority on internet marketing. Here’s how visitors can tell:

Media Exposure: There are “As Seen On…” icons from the networks and magazines Russell has appeared in. Russell has been invited to several news stations to tell his story, so he truly was on these networks. The funny thing about people and this culture is if someone has written a book or appeared on TV, they are considered an authority.

• On a side note: One of the dirty little secrets about our culture is that many books in our bookstores and libraries written by “experts” are horribly written… and just because you’re on TV doesn’t mean you’re an expert.

However, our culture values people who have either appeared on TV, written a book, or are constantly in the public eye. That’s why people fawn over celebrities. Not to put down these people, but a small warning to do your own research into the authority of an individual before you buy from them.

Expert by Association: There’s a video with Russell talking with Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is considered a household name in the self-improvement industry, and the video of Russell shaking Tony’s hand and interviewing him indicates that he has achieved “expert” status in his field to warrant the opportunity to hang with Tony Robbins.

These elements weren’t put on the front page of our website by accident — we made sure these things were front and center (and “above the fold”) on the DotCom Secrets website so people would instantly associate Russell with authority status. Then they could take it from there and do their own research.

Trigger 3: Feeling of Involvement

One of the things that urges people to buy is a feeling of involvement. You’re more than likely to buy a TV from Wal-Mart if you play with the controls than you are if you don’t touch the set at all.

However, in direct response marketing, you’re selling your product or service where the customer cannot pick it up and try it out. That’s why you need to be as descriptive as possible so they can imagine picking it up and touching it!

That’s one way to get the customer more involved. Another way is to include an “involvement device” in the copy. For example, if you’re selling a weight loss product, you can simply ask a question above the fold that says, “Do you suffer from the following (check all that apply)” and have several symptoms with a check box people can click on.

These check boxes don’t do anything when clicked on, but they allow customers to be more involved in the selling process. It’s like having a customer switch channels on the TV before they buy, or take a new car for a test drive for a weekend before purchase.

In fact, just having people enter their name and email address before they see a sales page can raise conversions. Armand Morin reported in his recent course, “Internet Marketing Explained” that his conversions were higher when visitors passed through a squeeze page than when they were taken to a sales page alone.

There are several reasons for this, but one of them is the simple action of entering an email address meant they would take bigger (and more expensive) actions on the sales page. That’s why we always send traffic to our best selling course, Micro-Continuity, through the squeeze page shown below first:

These are just some of the many emotional triggers you can ethically exploit in your copy and all of your marketing. It’s amazing the power of sales copy when it contains four to five of these emotional triggers in the same copy! So make sure you put these to good use the next time you write your next promotion. I will be revealing more emotional triggers in future issues so stay tuned!

This is another service that I wasn’t sure how to  exploit when I first saw it, but within a few minutes we were using its power to drive traffic to our websites!  But before I show you how to use this site, I want to tell you the background story on why it’s called the “mechanical turk”.

The mechanical turk was a fake chess playing machine someone made in the 18th century. The box was supposed to be like a computer that could beat humans at chess. The box toured around and beat some of the best chess players of the time. Years later they found out that it was just a hoax and actually had a small Turk inside of the box who was really good at chess.

Recently, Amazon launched a new service (called the mechanical turk) that allows you to hire people from around the world for micro-projects and pay anywhere from $.01 to a few bucks each. I’ve heard stories of people who have used this service for a lot of different things. I heard that one person wanted to show his wife how much he loved her, so he put an offer of $.10 to text his wife that he loved her, and within a few hours she was receiving hundreds of text messages from around the world.

So, how do you think you could use a service like this to make more money…? We’re currently using it in a lot of ways in our company. I don’t want to spoil the creative ideas that you may be having (because there are an unlimited number of ways to use this service), but here are a few ideas that might get your creative juices flowing:

• Backlinking: We all know that backlinking is one of the most tedious tasks in the world, but if you are only paying $.05 to each person who gives you a link, and you can get 2,000 people to do that quickly for you – just image the diversity and quantity of links you can get in record time.

• Get unique content written: Take your articles and instead of using a spinner (which rarely turns out good articles) break them down into paragraphs. Then have 30 people re-write each paragraph. So, if you have an article with 10 paragraphs, you would create one project with 300 HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks). In theory you’d have 300 people each re-write one paragraph. Now, you have 30 variations of paragraph one, 30 of paragraph two, and so on. You can now mix and match that article and make hundreds of variations of new articles all from one article!

• Researching or pulling data for you: If you have a list of people – or the type of people you’d like to contact – you can setup a project and get people to find the data for you. For example, if you’d like the contact information for all of the people on the first five pages of Google for the keyword “make money online” (or the first five pages for 10, 20 or 100 different keywords) you could easily get others to get that information for you and it would cost you less than a nice dinner for two.

The possibilities are literally endless. I’ve seen people using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to build their Twitter and Facebook followings. I’ve seen people use it to get backlinks, create social media pages, research data and more. It gives you the ability to tap into a virtual workforce of thousands of people where you only pay them pennies for a micro-project.

Recently I came across something that, at first seemed like a cool service but not something that could really make me a lot more money. The service (which I’m sure you’ve heard of) is called Google Voice. It used to be a service that was by invitation only, but recently it was opened up to everyone!

If you don’t have an account yet, get one ASAP… But if you already have an account, let me show you a few ways that we’ve tweaked it. Now it is not just a cool tool, but a diamond in the rough that has made our process of generating content, articles and money 10 times faster than ever before!

So before I show you the strategy, let me share with you the background story. One of my close friends was bragging to me about his new Google Voice account, and the fact that I didn’t have one. He then told me to call him so I could see it in action.

I called and left a message. After I hung up, a few seconds later, he got a text message from me with part of the message transcribed. I thought that was pretty cool, but didn’t think much more about it at the time.

A few minutes later he got an email, and he forwarded it to me as well. What I saw was literally a game changer for me. It was my entire message transcribed!

That’s when the whistles went off in my head. I then called him back and this time I picked a keyword that we have been focusing on in our SEO efforts. When the voice mail picked up, I simply asked a question (with that keyword in the question) and then I answered it (again… using that keyword two or three more times).

Now, Google voice only allows messages that are up to three minutes long. If you talk longer, then it hangs up on you. But… what happened next was amazing.

In about five minutes, my friend got an email that had my entire message transcribed. I counted the words from my two minute, 28 second message, and there were about 550 words with perfect keyword density.  A perfect article that I normally pay my article writers $10 for, and I was able to get it done off the top of my head, in less than three minutes flat!

I then took a list of 10 other keywords we were focusing on. Within 30 minutes I had 10 articles that were perfectly written and ready for us to start using to drive traffic! Ever since we discovered this, we have been using it to create mass content for blog posts and articles in all of the niches we have a presence in.

Often what I’ll do now, is on my way to work, I’ll take my list of 10 keywords in the car with me, and instead of just listening to the radio, I’ll use my cell phone to leave myself 10 messages. By the time I get to the office, I’ve got 10 new articles that are ready to make me some money!

This is one very powerful tool that is saving us thousands of dollars each month on article writers and giving us the ability to pump out 10 times the content!

I have heard that question many times as people seek to find the secret behind the success of the big network marketers. Now, I want you to pay close attention because what I have found through multiple studies is that there are two key and quite frankly obvious components each and every successful network marketer has.

The other day, Russell Brunson introduced me to a video Tony Robbins compiled a while ago for his 50th birthday. It was filled with quotes from Muhammad Ali, the Rocky Balboa movie, Nelson Mandela, quotes from Tony himself, and other great inspirational leaders. It really moved me and helped me re-realize that it is me who is responsible for my destiny. It is me who is the master of my life, my wealth, and my happiness.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first person to tell you that connecting with people you trust, look up to and respect is vitally important on your journey to becoming a successful network marketer, but it is ultimately you who makes it happen – you who brings it all together. You can go watch the video online by going to: www.DotComSecrets.com/howgreatiam.html. I confess I watch it nearly every day to really get me pumped.

No matter how rich I am, I can’t transfer my wealth building skills to you unless you understand this first key principle: you are an agent unto yourself. That being said, I can’t wait for you to show me just how great you are!

Why Do So Few Make It?

C.R. Koerber, a great thinker and philosopher of our time, said, “Prosperity is the consequence of choice. One must choose whether to be free and responsible for his or her actions or whether to be a victim of environment, circumstance, or some other external factor. America’s Declaration of Independence proclaims all men and women have been ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.’ Along with these rights has been bestowed an inherent responsibility. This responsibility is co-equal with the ability to choose and to act. One must choose to be prosperous.”

If you’re going to be great, it is you who has to do what it takes. Now you may be pining for more detail on exactly what steps to take. Well, here’s the good news – that trail is already blazed and if you look around you’ll know exactly what it takes to walk it. What’s interesting to me is our human reluctance to ‘do what works’ and our innate desire to reinvent the wheel. I see it every day in my personal downline as well as in others. You all know what I’m talking about.

Nearly every network marketing company out there has a tried and proven method of building the business. And guess what, it works. It may not be the sexiest plan and you may even think that you can make a better one. But here’s the ugly truth – those who follow the outlined marketing models are those who win. And those who fritter away their days outlining and testing out new marketing methods are those who get passed right up. While they are still planning their battle strategies, the humble distributors with nothing but the guts to follow the plan zoom right past them to join the wealthy few who make it.

So this is the first question and the first key answer: Why do so few make it rich in network marketing? Because there are few who have the guts to put their head down and just keep moving forward on the already emblazoned path until they reach the great heights promised. It is then and only then that you should ever allow yourself to look back and modify the plan.

“Well, I’ve already tried that,” you say, “and it just didn’t work for me…” It’s so easy to try something for a few days or even a few weeks and then make a rash decision that it doesn’t work. The only true answer to someone like that is not that the system doesn’t work but that they don’t. Let me tell you something you already know – Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are multi-millionaires. If you want the success, and you want it bad enough, then commit to me right now that you will follow the plan with exactness and without fail for six months straight each and every day.

Note: If you are a God fearing man like me and would like to have Him on your side as you build your business, you are allowed to take your Sabbath day off but no more.

The Second Question

Now comes the second question I asked: “What differentiates between the people who have the ‘guts’ and those who don’t. How can one earn said ‘guts?’” What I have found is that it has everything to do with your reason – your why.

Let’s do a little exercise together. I want you to imagine with me that you are earning a high five figure income right now in your network marketing business. I want you to focus on that, hold it in the front of your awareness. Focus on it until it becomes real. Think about it – what are you doing with an income and lifestyle like that? I mean it, really think about it and daydream with me. What comes to your mind? What is it that your soul really longs for down deep…

• To be free from the shackled burden of debt?
• To travel to the exotic corners of this beautiful earth?
• To be able to spend your life with your family instead of with your office desk?
• To drive that car you’ve only dreamed about?
• To own a beautiful mansion with enough rooms to house an entire family reunion?
• To be able to watch your babies grow up and be a full part of their lives instead of just a passing shadow?

You decide and then emblazon that image – that why – on your heart and don’t let it go. That image is your strongest asset and your best safeguard. There will be times as you build this business that it will get hard – maybe even harder than you anticipated and it will be that image that will get you through.

When you are nervous, scared, frustrated, or just tired push through because of that why. For a moment, fast forward and feel what it is like to have achieved that. Now, remember what that feels like and keep that feeling with you. That is your foundation, your ‘guts’ that will get you through to the top. When you feel frustration or pain, hold on to this and keep moving forward.

The Simple Path

That’s it – it’s that simple. Now I’ll tell you a couple of things I am certain of. First, I am completely confident that if you daily and consistently do the plan as outlined by your company you will achieve the five figure income you envision. Second, there is no such thing as “getting rich quick and easy.” It’s just a plain fact. Don’t believe me? Look around. How many people do you know who are chasing after that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The fact is, it isn’t there. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ll be the first to tell you that becoming a millionaire is within your reach I just want you to understand that it’s not easy.

I don’t mean that it can’t be simple. In fact that’s what network marketing companies do best is outline the simplest path from beginning to wealth (because it’s in their best interest for you to get as many people into your business as possible and succeed).

What I do mean is that you will have to fight emotional battles in your head. You will have to fight back the dragons of complacency and doubt.

You will have to have an insatiable drive for the goal. Even when you don’t have the energy or willpower you will have to go through the motions for the day and do your outlined plan. You will have to take complete responsibility for your own successes and failures, learn from what you do wrong and keep moving forward.

It’s that simple.

After spending six years studying architecture in college, Aaron J. Perry took his degree and found a good job, or at least what looked like one on paper. It wasn’t long before he found himself fully entrenched in a career that demanded 65+ work hours per week and left him hungry for a life outside the office.

After eight years of this, the Australian native made the life-changing decision to jump off the corporate ladder forever. That meant building a new income and life from scratch.

With a new, less demanding job that gave him more time freedom, he decided to revisit a lifelong dream that had been put on the back burner for years – becoming a martial arts instructor. Alongside a few friends, Perry opened a martial arts school and began designing a curriculum that included one-of-a-kind games to help kids have fun in class and stay focused. These games were such a hit, that before he knew it, Perry and his friends were getting such positive word-of-mouth advertising about their school that they had to start a waiting list.

Soon, he realized that other martial arts instructors could benefit from his unique curriculum. That’s when he created his first product and opened MartialGames4Kids.com. Today, he is enjoying the freedom to travel and spend time with his wife, Wynn, while growing his businesses.

When we contacted Perry, he was headed to the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia for the birthday vacation of a lifetime. He graciously agreed to share his story of how he built his first website, and what he’s doing today to make it so successful. His insights into starting and growing an online business offer powerful strategies for anyone who wants to do the same:

Q: What was your original career in the architecture field like?

A: I don’t regret my past but it seems crazy looking back. At 24-years-old I was working in an office with 75 staff and I was opening and closing the office most days of the week and worked nearly every weekend.  Averaging 65+ hours a week, I had my music collection and dinnerware in the office because I lived there more than my apartment. I was in that particular office for three years then one Christmas holiday when the office was shut I realized I’d been so focused on work that I’d lost touch with all of my friends. It was a wake-up call to realize I had no life outside the office. The real kick in the face was being laid off with two hours notice when the market turned quiet.

Q: What finally made you decide to leave the architecture field?

A: I’d always planned to have my own business, but after eight years in different architectural firms I decided that it wasn’t the industry for me to sink my teeth into. I looked at the people above me and most of them were either divorced or on their second or third marriages. Most were still doing long hours in the office and worrying about landing the next contract for a building to keep the business running and cover their overheads. It just wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted for me.

Q: Where did you go after that? What role did martial arts play in getting your life back on the track you wanted to be on?

A: I took a job as an architectural rep promoting building products to architects which was easy given my background but this role helped convince me that marketing and sales was something I loved doing. All of a sudden I was only working 40 hours a week and had a great new bunch of friends. Once I had my nights and weekends free I started training Martial Arts again and got myself back in shape.

A year later I met an American Martial Artist named Jeff Speakman and started learning American Kenpo.  This man and my new friends have had an incredible influence on the life I now have.

Q: When did you open a martial arts school?

A: A group of us started a Kenpo Karate school in 2004. There have been some great changes over the years and it is now a Jeff Speakman Kenpo 5.0 school.  My role has changed focus recently to concentrate on Internet Marketing, building an Australian MMA brand and working with young fighters who want to break into the UFC.

Q: At first, what did you do to market your classes and what was the response?

A: The initial advertising was a mixture of traditional methods: leaflet drops, demonstrations, local newspaper articles and some community radio spots.  The response was minimal. It was working but it was a lot of time, effort and dollars. We soon learned the most effective lead generator was unintentional word-of-mouth from the new students.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

A: When we realized that most new students were attracted to the school because of the word-of-mouth advertising from a friend we focused more on just teaching great classes and letting the students be our free advertising. One of the reasons our classes were so popular was the Martial Arts Games we were creating to help teach the kids. The kids were having a great time in class but the parents were also commenting that we provided more serious content in every lesson than other MA Schools and the kids were learning to really defend themselves very quickly. Everybody was happy and it created a buzz about the school.

Because the games were having such a great impact on the kids I started focusing on creating new games to keep things fresh month after month as the kids skills increased. I soon had a good collection of martial games and decided to put them into a manual for other instructors to use in their lessons.

Q: What was the biggest hurdle you faced in building MartialGames4Kids.com and how did you overcome it?

A: Haha, the biggest hurdle was me! With my design background I want to have total control over how everything looks. That means I had to learn to do everything myself, the writing, design layout, building the website, writing the sales copy, learning to generate traffic, anything and everything…

I wrote the first version of Martial Games for Kids in 2005 but sales and growth were a frustrating struggle because I insisted on doing everything, which was a long slow process. When I received a call from DotCom Secrets the timing was perfect. Turning MartialGames4Kids.com into an online business was starting to happen but it had taken years to just break even. I was frustrated as I knew what I wanted to achieve and I could finally admit that I didn’t know how to get it to the next level. Just like learning Martial Arts I needed an instructor/coach to improve, to show me the right steps.

Q: How long have you been marketing to other martial arts instructors and what’s been your biggest success so far?

A: I had been marketing with Google ads on and off for a few years but my efforts were unfocused and hence my results were average. Once I started getting coaching from Michael Taggart at DotCom Secrets, he opened my eyes to all the different ways I could market my business (videos, articles, web 2.0). I had already built a list of interested instructors but I had never really kept in touch with them. Just emailing my list with updates and insights reignited interest in the games for teaching kids martial arts.

Q: What has been the most effective way for you to drive traffic to your site?

A: So far banner ads have shown the best results.  Initially I ran banner ads on CPC, then checked the analytics to see where they were being shown and the click through rates. Then I selected the best websites and contacted them directly to place permanent banners on their sites. One website was costing $.89 per click through Google but now I have rotating banners on there for $40 per month which more than pay for themselves in the first week. Repeating this process is one of my main focuses right now.

Q: Do you have any advice for other marketers who are just starting to try paid traffic methods like media buying on how to make their investment work for the long term?

A: Yes, just keep experimenting in small doses and track everything until you find a method that shows positive results. When you find the media that works for your niche focus on it and get it humming. Then you can start looking for additional methods to add for continued growth. A combination of paid traffic (instant) and free SEO traffic (long term) is best. Diversify your traffic generation for long term security.

Q: What do you love most about the entrepreneurial lifestyle you’ve created for yourself?

A: A lot of things… waking up and checking my Clickbank account and other affiliate accounts just to put a smile on my face. But the real pleasure is developing new products that I know Martial Artists around the world are using to help teach young kids.  Knowing that I can provide a great secure lifestyle for my family while helping others reach their goals at the same time.  I’m building a business that I believe in and can be proud of.

Q: What’s coming up next for you and your martial arts businesses?

A: One of my biggest goals is to help one million kids reach their own Black Belt goal and then continue their training for life. I’m currently working on a new program for young students which will be launched this year, the aim is to help them develop their physical and mental strength and become great martial artists and future leaders in their communities.

I’m also building up my own MMA Brand of clothing and training gear here in Australia and my goal is to help sponsor some talented young Aussie MMA Fighters to travel to America and train at Xtreme Couture, eventually helping them reach their goal of fighting in the UFC in 2011.

I’m also looking forward to buying some property in Hawaii and making that our home away from home in the near future.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

This is a tool that we used to use in the past and forgot about for awhile. Recently, we started using it again for some of our campaigns and have been pleasantly surprised.

StumbleUpon is a network of over 10 million users. These users install a toolbar, and they have the ability to give a thumbs up or down to any website they are on. They can then click on the “StumbleUpon” button and it will find them more new sites that are similar to what they already like.

While the majority of the websites inside SU are free sites, you can also buy advertising inside of their network. When you do advertise with SU, make sure that you are not advertising your normal websites (squeeze or sales pages) or users will normally vote you down and you’ll stop getting traffic fast. Remember that you want to show them things that they want to view, and use that as a hook to pull them into your sales process.

So far, we have been having success with funny or motivational videos that people watch and share – we then have ads around it pushing to our products or an optin box to get their contact information.

Just remember that if people vote your content down within StumbleUpon, you won’t be seen, so make sure you give them awesome stuff, and then others will see it!

A few months ago my wife and I had just gotten the kids to bed, and she remembered that we needed some milk from the grocery store. I headed down to pick up the milk when something red caught my eye. Right outside the entrance to the grocery store were brightly colored red kiosks. These vending machines were filled with DVDs, and there was a lineup of people both renting and returning movies. I was curious, and did what anyone would do… I got in line to check it out.

I was able to scroll through multiple screens of movies that were stocked in this vending machine. I was excited to find out that it would only cost $1 a day for a DVD rental and there were no “late fees.” I rented my DVD and then retrieved my milk from the store and headed home. I was so excited to tell my wife about what I had discovered. I saved a lot of time by being able to get a DVD and milk in one location.

This Redbox company was truly amazing. As I did more research online, I found out that there were several Redboxes within a few miles of my home. I could even rent a DVD from one box and return it at any other box in the country. Talk about convenience.

Through some research, I found out that Redbox was a joint venture between McDonald’s and Coinstar.  This would explain why I initially saw these machines outside most of the McDonald’s that I drove by.  According to Wikipedia, Redbox was founded in 2003 and as of December 2009 was estimated to have over 22,000 locations in the United States. In 2007, each kiosk was estimated to bring in almost $40,000 a year in sales. The grocery store closest to my house has three kiosks on their property.

All You Need is One to Say Yes

I was blown away as I started to think about what process Redbox had used to grow into such an amazing business with kiosks in so many locations. All they needed to get started was for one business to say yes. Let me explain.

McDonald’s of course is one of the biggest brands in the whole world. They serve over 47 million customers a day. Redbox initially had their kiosks exclusively in McDonald’s, but as business started to grow, so did their locations. They were able to take their knowledge of the business and start approaching other “high traffic” locations and ask if they would like to have a Redbox on their premises. They just needed one business to say yes.

It would have been an easy sale. Redbox representatives could show how much money other locations were making and all that they needed was some space either inside or outside of the store, power, and a phone jack. They made it very easy for stores to say yes.

They then went to the next business. I am sure they started having businesses approach them asking to have a Redbox at their location.

Be Like Redbox

We should all be just like Redbox. No, I don’t mean we should get into the DVD rental business, but we should follow what they did. Here are some ideas on how you can do this in your online business:

Gain Credibility: Your product should be unique to the marketplace. If you have an information course teaching listbuilding, what makes your course and program unique? What sets your program apart from all the other listbuilding programs? This usually comes down to credibility. McDonald’s is a trusted business.  They have the credibility because of their obsession to test everything. If they roll out a new hamburger to all of their locations you better believe that they have done the market testing to back up that decision.

What can you do, or what have you done to gain credibility? Do you have screenshots of your bank account or other merchant accounts showing sales that can be attributed to using your product or system? Do you have examples of others using your system who have found the same success? What makes you so special? It’s important to really look at yourself. Why would someone buy from you?

These questions are vital as you prepare to talk to potential joint venture partners. Initially, the representatives for Redbox were probably asked a lot of questions. I am sure they had already anticipated most of those questions and had prepared adequate answers and proof to back up their claims.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

High Traffic Channels: Like Redbox, when you are looking for potential JV partners, it’s important to find high traffic locations. Look for reputable JV partners who are getting a ton of traffic to their sites. A good way to tell if they are getting traffic is to look at their “Alexa” ranking. You can download the Alexa toolbar at: http://alexa.com. When you go to a website, look for the Alexa ranking in your toolbar. The lower the number the more traffic they are getting. For example: if you go to: http://google.com you will see a #1. According to Alexa, Google is the highest visited site on the internet.

You should also find sites and blogs where companies are paying to advertise their products or services on their site. You can approach the potential JV partners and see if they would like to promote your product or service.

Complementary Products: As you make a list of potential JV partners, instead of contacting individuals who have competing products, look for JV partners who have complementary products.

For example, we started publishing the monthly newsletter you are reading now over three years ago. We happen to think this newsletter is pretty darn good. In fact, we feel that it’s the best in our industry. I get frustrated when people contact me, asking us to promote their physical newsletter. It isn’t anything bad about them, but we have to turn them down. How can we in good conscience promote an offer for another newletter and tell our subscribers to go and invest in it when we want people to continue receiving our newsletter? It won’t work, and will be very confusing to our customers.

However, when someone contacts me and asks for us to promote their new software that will help our customers set up their website faster, that is a better fit. A software product could complement the education that we are already providing our students. Education plus specific software are complementary.

Make things easy: Make it super easy for JV partners to promote your product or service. I am sure when Redbox approached different businesses to allow them to put a kiosk on their property they offered to take care of the electrical requirements and made arrangements to get the machine set up. They appreciated the business owner’s willingness to participate, and wanted to make things as easy for them as possible.

When you have JV partners say yes to help promote for you, make it easy. Create affiliate accounts for them if you need to and get them their affiliate link and sample email copy or banners. The harder they have to work to promote for you the less likely it will be to happen. They are busy, and if they have to search for their affiliate link it may not happen.

Thick Skin: The last point I want to make is to not be discouraged if people say no. This is going to happen to you. Grow some thick skin, and keep going. Your offer is not going to be the best deal for everyone that you contact, and that’s okay.

If after you contact several people and they all say no, then you might need to look at your offer, or the way you are presenting it. When someone says no or that they aren’t really interested, you can be respectful and ask what specifically caused them to say no. You may need to try and resolve some concerns that they have, and invite them again.

Internet Marketer of the Year

A few years ago a lot of internet marketers were hosting teleseminars. Some really successful marketers made a ton of money hosting a teleseminar series by having guests teach something to their customers over the phone, and then selling their program or service.  The customers were happy because they could learn and buy good products without leaving the comfort of their home or office. The product owners and teleseminar host were happy as well because they would then split the money from the sales and not have to travel or deal with the expense of hosting an actual conference in a hotel.

Russell had an idea to follow the same model as a teleseminar, but use the webinar platform that was just beginning to gain popularity. This idea was brilliant. We quickly made a list of our “dream team” of internet marketers that we were going to contact to participate.

Initially, as we started contacting partners we had some people say no. They were busy and didn’t have the time. I started feeling like it may not work. Russell then said something very profound. He said, “We just need someone huge to say yes.”

At the time, Russell had been in contact with Bill Glazer about a few things. One day Russell asked him if he could help us get Dan Kennedy to participate.  Russell knew that if Dan would say yes, then we could fill up our schedule very quickly.

Well that’s exactly what happened.  Everyone wanted their name to be associated with Dan Kennedy’s. The JV page we created had our list of potential partners shown with their pictures darkened. As soon as someone said yes, we then lit up their picture. As I continued contacting people, my strategy went to just trying to get people to look at the JV page with me over the phone.  The instant they saw what we were doing they wanted in. We filled up our schedule, and had customers and JV partners very happy. It was a win/win/win.

I know that you can do this in your business. Instead of thinking about how the joint venture will be good for you, think about how it will benefit them. What’s in it for them? Refuse to accept no, and push forward. You will soon experience the sweet taste of JV success.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

This article is going to be a little different than my past articles. Like most business owners, you are probably interested and curious about the newly announced Facebook privacy settings and the impact they will have on your social media marketing.

This article will cover a little history about Facebook as well as their new open graph system and privacy settings. I’ll also talk about what the new privacy settings mean to you as a business owner and how they will change as we progress into the future.

Facebook offers powerful benefits to business owners. It is a way to communicate with niche markets on a global scale. The new open graph system makes it even easier for marketers to target the exact audience they want. If you are not using Facebook to drive traffic, you are missing out on conversations about your niche, product and company that your competitors are capitalizing on. Social networking is not going anywhere, so it is better to be on the cutting edge than be left behind.

The Original Facebook

CEO Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook while at Harvard. He originally began Facebook as a way to keep in touch with other Ivy league students. It then progressed into a way to find old classmates and stay connected. Facebook was around the same time that Myspace was becoming overwhelmingly popular. It became apparent to Zuckerberg that people want to be social on the web. This idea is what fueled Facebook and the changes they have made since.

Facebook is now taking over the web and making it a social experience. Between the open graph system and the ‘Like’ button being allowed as a plug-in on other sites (I will discuss the implications of both these features later), Facebook is changing the web as we know it. As of today, the majority of the privacy settings announced in April have been implemented.

So what does this mean for the future? Well, it is going to change aggregation and the web as a whole. Web 2.0 is more social and open. The thing to be cautious about is that on the other end of everything being social and open is Zuckerberg and Facebook. Facebook will be monopolizing on information gathered through its users.

The ‘Like’ Button

The ‘Like’ button has become second nature to most. When we come across a ‘Like’ button on a site that we like, there is rarely a thought given to pressing it. However, what does you ‘Liking’ something mean to Facebook, or the web as a whole? Surprisingly a lot! When you say that you like a hockey team, book, food, movie or hobby, you are marketing yourself to businesses. When you like something it shows up on your wall for all of your friends to see.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but consider the people who want to know your interests most – marketers who promote goods that are compatible with your demographic profile. Through the ‘Like’ button, Facebook is creating the most personal, targeted database ever. It is personal because you are creating it by voting for what you like. Statistics show that of Facebook’s 400 million active users, each individual ‘Likes’ an average of 60 pages. That is an insane amount of profitable information!

When the ‘Like’ button became available to any and all websites it seemed like a no-brainer to most companies. It was free promotions for them and a way to pinpoint their audience. So from a business point of view, this is a great idea. Why not use it?

But on a personal level, we are basically giving ourselves away to advertisements and sales opportunities. How do you know if you are affected? Have you noticed the Facebook ads on the right side of your screen becoming ironically personal? For instance, I recently changed the status on my Facebook account to “in a relationship.” Ever since then I have been served ads for wedding planners and engagement rings. This is one of the implications of an open graph system.

To an individual, the open graph system may seem scary. But to a business, it is a powerful marketing tool. Not only can you learn who is interested in your niche but who they are friends with and who else has the same common interest. For example, let’s say you have a knitting product. You can look up anyone who talks about knitting on Facebook and then go and be friends with them and have access to them and all their friends who knit as well. Facebook does all the research and leg work for you.

On the bottom left is a screen shot of the fan page insights for DotCom Secrets. If you create a fan page you automatically have access to all the insights of anyone who is a fan of your page, i.e. your interested customers.

The insights break down the types and volumes of interactions, gender of users, age range of users and more. This is invaluable data for entrepreneurs. This is what Facebook can offer.

Facebook: The Company to Watch

There are three reasons why Facebook is the company to watch.

They are the largest social network. They at least double the number of users their competitors have. Facebook has just surpassed 400 million active users. These are not people who get a page and walk away, they are using and interacting usually on a daily basis.

People wonder about Facebook’s most liked adversary Google. But there is one thing that Facebook has that Google doesn’t and I don’t think they ever will. Facebook knows people, Google knows computers and technology. Google buzz was Google’s way of becoming social; it proved to not be nearly as liked as Facebook.

The last reason Facebook is the company to watch is their open graph system on a social platform. All the information we provide through Facebook and its plug-ins is now going into their database. If you read over the policy and agreements set by Facebook when you set up an account, they basically spell out that anything you post they own and can use or not use as they please. Therefore, in an extreme case, if they do not like what you represent or what you say they could shut you and any affiliation to Facebook you have down. This is an extreme case but that is the power they have.

Where to Go From Here

With all of the exciting changes that Facebook is making comes caution and responsibility. Although this is a great advancement for businesses, be careful what and where you post. Other than that there is a brave new social web out there that we should learn how to maneuver.

Resources and References

Below I have left a few websites that may help you further understand the new policy and changes.

The Effects of Privacy Changes: This article and interview explains the changes Facebook is making to their privacy settings and what it means to an individual.

Short Video: Zuckerburger explaining Facebook’s new privacy settings on YouTube.

The Open Graph Protocol Explained: This is the open graph protocol which explains what exactly an open graph is. (It should be noted that this site is very technical and is hard to understand. However, this is the exact open graph policy that Zuckerberg used when creating Facebook’s open graph system).

Facebook Statistics

This is where the rubber meets the road. You do not email people from your own email account. What you do is sign up for an autoresponder that does two things:

• Allows you to automatically send out emails at specified intervals (1 day, 3 days, etc.) after people sign up.
• Allows you to broadcast to your entire list all at once.

People ask us what is the best and we think it’s a little bit of both. Reason being is you want your autoresponder sequence to be timed out after they opt into your squeeze page. This is where you’re going to get your repeat sales. And if you’re promoting someone else’s product or just want to email your list letting them know about a sale, you’ll want to use the broadcast function.

We feel like Aweber.com is the best autoresponder for beginners. It is easy to use and a lot of big-name marketers use Aweber. This is a brief tutorial on how to set up your first list:

Create Your First List

Step 1: The first thing you need to do is sign up for Aweber. There is a 30-day trial and then it costs $19 per month for the first 500 leads. When you create your account and login you’ll click on the “My Lists” button. Once you do that, you’ll click on the green “Create a New List” link to get started.

Set Confirmed Opt-in

Step 2: This is extremely important. After you create your list you’ll be taken to the List Settings tab where you’ll get to name your list and set basic information. This part is pretty self-explanatory. However, you’ll want to click on the “Confirmed Opt-In” tab so you can set this to ON or OFF.

This is where you can decide to have either a single or double opt-in list. Single opt-in means when people opt-in they’re automatically on your list – no questions asked. However,  double opt-in leads are required to confirm their opt-in by clicking on a link in an email that’s sent immediately after they opt-in… thus confirming their subscription.

Whether to turn this ON or OFF is almost like having a debate on religion or politics – there are two sides to the story and people will never agree. We recommend turning this OFF so that you can build your list quicker – since 60 percent on average never confirm their email address. If you do your own research and decide that leaving this on is good for you that’s fine – you are not wrong.

Start Loading Up Your Emails

Step 3: Once you set your confirmed opt-in to ON or OFF, it’s time to start loading emails into your autoresponder sequence. Just click on the messages tab at the top to start adding follow-up messages. You’ll be taken to a simple form where you can start including your email messages and what days you want to send them out.

Create Your Web Form

Step 4: After you load up your emails, it’s now time to create the Web Form you’re going to place on your site to start collecting leads. The good news is Aweber has progressed with the different types of graphics you can use on your form. Before they used to just supply the HTML code and nothing else.

Once you create your form, all you need to do is cut and paste your code into your web page. From then on Aweber will take care of everything. Their deliverability is the best in the industry. Although when your list gets larger (in the 100,000 range) Aweber gets a little expensive.

In this article I am going to talk about how to set up an effective email marketing campaign. This is the lifeblood of any online business and it’s important you do it correctly. I am going to show you some email marketing basics along with how to set up your email marketing campaign in Aweber.com – our recommended autoresponder. But before I do this, let me reveal what I call the “3 Rules of Email Marketing.” These are rules I consistently see our coaching students and seminar attendees violate. If you do not violate these rules your email campaign can be a success. Let’s get on with it.

Rule #1: If At First You Don’t Succeed

The key is in the follow-up. This is extremely important. I am going to illustrate this by telling you a story. About two years ago we decided to spend $5,000 on an email blast. We basically bought an email list that was supposed to go out to over one million email addresses. We wanted to promote one of our lead generators and were hoping we would get our investment back.

The email campaign was a bomb. We only got $1,000 back and we thought the campaign failed – at least on the surface. But what was amazing was that we started to get sales about 10 to 20 days after the email blast.

How is this possible? We had people go through a squeeze page where we collected their names and email addresses. Then we followed up with them through a daily autoresponder email campaign that lasted 15 days. We ended up making our investment back and then some. And it was all through the email campaign.

This illustrates a very important marketing axiom: prospects need to be exposed to your message an average of seven times before they will buy. Most people who do not focus on listbuilding do not take that extra step to  build a list and follow up via email. They are losing out on customers and sales because they have no way of following up with their prospects.

That’s why having an email marketing campaign is extremely important. We recommend following up with your prospects at least three times via autoresponder.  We’ll get into autoresponders in a second – basically this is the “software” you’re going to use to send out your emails automatically.

Rule 2: Have a Great Subject Line

This is very important. It’s akin to having a good headline on a sales letter – a compelling subject line is what’s going to get people to open your email. The best subject lines have the following in common:

• Personalization: It is possible to merge each prospect’s first name into the subject line of the email. This almost always boosts response.  Wouldn’t you rather open an email that said, “Hey Kevin” instead of “Hey There?”

• A Specific Number: Using a specific number in your subject line also boosts your email open rate. For example, “37 percent” or “only 23 left!” are good attention getters.

• Tell a “Secret”: I always tell people when they’re starting out that the best subject line or headline goes like this, “Discover 7 Secrets Most people Will NEVER Know About Fixing Computers.” This works because people love secrets… and are inherently paranoid that other people have knowledge they don’t have. This is a huge curiosity builder and a variation of this concept would be great for a subject line in your emails.

In short, don’t be like most marketers by thoughtlessly adding a subject line and calling it a day. Make sure you put a lot of thought into your subject line. Remember your audience: they get bombarded with emails every day (I have over 13,000 unopened emails in my personal inbox since I only open those with intriguing subject lines).

Rule 3: Keep It Simple

I might get a lot of flak for this, but I am not a big fan of long emails. If you’re on Russell’s list you’ll notice his emails are very short and to the point. There are several reasons for this:

• They Keep People’s Attention: People online have attention-deficit disorder. If they see a long email the chances they’ll read the whole thing will go down. Sure, if the subject line is compelling enough it could get read, but for the most part shorter emails are better.

• Better Deliverability: It decreases the email’s chances of getting filtered out by the spam filters. The longer the email, the greater the chances it will never hit the inbox of the prospect.

At DotCom Secrets, we use something called the “List to Blog” effect. Basically, if we want to send an email to a prospect that will involve a longer pitch, we direct them to our blog. This is where all the content will be located. This allows us to send shorter emails and evades spam filters. Plus people get to interact on the blog – adding the element of community.

The Lifeblood of Your Online Business

Email marketing is the lifeblood of an online business. The ability to follow up effectively with your customers on a regular basis is critical. One of the most important things you can do right now is get on the email lists of other people in your niche to see how they market. You’ll get more insights into your competition and ideas on how to write your own emails. Consider it to be your “swipe file” of emails you can refer to when you’re writing your own.

Another thing I recommend is creating a list of subject lines that made you open the email. If they made you open the email, then chances are they’ll do the same for other people. Just create a simple text file where you can cut and paste compelling subject lines.

Entire books have been written on email marketing and some people have full-time jobs where they deal with email deliverability. However this article should get you started on the most important marketing activity in your business.

There is no doubt that good design plays an important role in your customer’s buying decision, but you also need to plan your site with the search engines in mind. The following are four key areas of design and navigation that you should focus on first when creating a website:

Navigation

Do people get lost on your site? Do your visitors know how to navigate from one page to another? Do you have too many links, making it hard to know which ones they should click on? Can people get back to your home page easily? There are too many competing websites out there. If your site creates confusion in the minds of your visitors they aren’t going to stay on it very long.

The purpose of your site is not to solve all of your clients’ problems on a single page. Make sure that each page has a clear purpose, and that it is easy to navigate to the next step in your sales funnel.

Colors and Fonts

Making a website easy on your visitors’ eyes in a way that emphasizes the important concepts and terms that you want them to focus on can help increase your sales. It can be fun to experiment with colors and fonts, but make sure not to go overboard. Your site should use a simple, understated color palette with a few colors that complement each other. In addition to that idea, avoid using more than three typefaces throughout your site.

Graphics

If you are placing tags and creating titles with keywords in your graphics, then your graphics can not only help you make your site look better to human eyes, but you can also make your site look better in the eyes of the search engines as well. Search engines can’t read your graphics. They can read the taglines, and titles that you can insert into the code of the graphics, but they can’t read the graphics themselves.

Remember to use this fact to your advantage. For example, search engines are giving lower rankings to pages that have the word “free” on them. If you have a graphic that says something about a “free giveaway,” then you could simply put some taglines behind that graphic that contain keywords, and never mention anything about “free.” Humans see the “free report” graphic and it catches their attention, and the keywords in the taglines help you get ranked in the search engines. This creates a powerful win-win situation for you.

Sitemap

If you want to make your site user friendly to search engines, as well as make the navigation simple for your users then a site map is one of the easiest ways to accomplish that feat. By creating a site map, you are in essence organizing a webpage that includes links to every page on your website. This process makes it easier for a search engine spider to quickly crawl through your site and naturally index every page. A site map should be created using HTML as well as an .XML file submitted to Google using Google Webmaster Tools (www.Google.com/webmaster/tools/). Doing this will result in higher relevancy scores through free and paid search campaigns.

In the last 60 days, we have started 14 new online success businesses in 11 niches. Each of these niches has a project manager who works for me and earns a percentage of what those businesses make. Here is a list of the niches these new businesses are in so that you can get an idea of some of the areas we’re going after (and maybe give you an idea if you don’t have a niche you’re in yet): forex, relationships, diet, speed reading, hypnosis, addiction recovery, cold sore/herpes/shingles cures, conspiracy theories, fitness, network marketing and stocks.

I was creating a checklist of the process I am having my project managers go through with these businesses, and I thought it would be valuable for you to see it as well. Model this in your business and you’ll see success.

Step 1: Brand It

The first thing you need to do is find a brand that you can get a .com domain name for. I think it’s very important to find an overall brand (not a product name) that you can put multiple products in. A few examples of ‘brand’ names that I have include DotComSecrets.com, ForexNuke.com, BodyEvolution.com and SimpleChangesHypnosis.com. They are each a domain name that also contains the overall brand for the niche.

Step 2: Get a WordPress Fusion Site Designed

You can get your site created and installed from www.wp-fusion.com. This will give you the site design for your brand, a blog in WordPress, and the ability to create your squeeze and sales pages within the theme.

Step 3: Get Your Autoresponder Setup

I recommend using either Aweber.com or iContact.com. Create your first list, and get it setup in your wp-fusion site. The first goal is to start creating a list, so it’s important to get your autoresponder setup right away. You don’t need to have messages yet, just put in the first message and say something like, “Hi, thanks for joining my list. I’ll be sending you some cool stuff on this topic very soon. While you wait, go check out this cool product (and put your affiliate link for a complementary product).”

Step 4: Start Your SEO Clock

You need to start posting something to your blog as soon as you can. The first thing I would do is go to ClickBank.com and find four or five products that are related, buy a copy of them, and then write a review on each. Post your reviews on your website as your first few blog posts. Feel free to add emails in your autoresponder series pointing to the product reviews on your blog.

Make your product reviews good. Don’t tell people that everything is great – just share your opinions, good and bad. You can write or make a video, it doesn’t matter much, just get some content on your blog. Use the product name and author name in the blog title for SEO purposes.

Step 5: Do Your JV Research

This is crucial to getting this business making money fast! Go find everyone who is actively selling a product in this niche. Make a list of their names, websites, products, shipping addresses and any other vital information you can find. It’s important to build a relationship with them now (not later when you need them). The best thing is to see how you can serve them now (and the best way to serve any product owner is to sell their product)!

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Step 6: Keep Actively Posting to Your Blog

You need to be blogging at least three to five times per week. Post your product reviews, tips, resources, parts of your interviews, anything to start adding content to your site.

Step 7: Product Planning

Now it’s time to start planning what your first product will be. Unfortunately, the most important part of your product is the title. I spend a lot of time trying to find the right title and the right angle. I want to make sure that the product I’m creating is going to serve the market in a way that isn’t currently being served. In this step I’m looking for two things: what is the title, and what is the overall hook and angle? As soon as I have those, I can move on to the next step.

Step 8: Choose A Content Format

Now that you know the title, and the hook, how are you going to package it? Will it be an ebook? A membership site? A micro-continuity site? An interview series? A software product? My main goal with the first product is to make sure it’s something that we can sell digitally while we test out the market.

Step 9: Create An Outline

After you know how you are going to package your product, the next goal is to create the “outline.” When you build any product you need to create an outline. I like to look at the outline as chapter or module titles and give each title or chapter a name (for example: “How to…”). This outline is a huge key in the product development process and gives you the core to the “system” that you will be teaching.

Step 10: Fill In The Blanks

Now it’s time to fill in the outline. If it’s an ebook, then you need to start writing the content for each chapter. If you’re doing a membership site, it could be audios or videos teaching each module. If it’s an interview series, then it could be finding an expert on each of the major topics and interviewing them.

Step 11: Point Out The Benefits

As you create the content for each section – make bulleted lists of the benefits of what you talk about in each module. The more specific the bullet points, the better. You will need them a lot in the future.

Step 12: Start Gathering

After the product is created it’s time to gather data. Here are the things you need to have before you can start on the sales process:

• All of the bullets from each module
• The headlines, subheadlines and bullets from all of the competitors in your niche
• Industry statistics or numbers that can help confirm what you’re teaching
• A list of known controversies in your niche
• Links to the major online forums
• Lists of the common problems people are talking about on the forums

Give away the product to 20 people and try to get their testimonials and feedback

Step 13: Pull Out The Camera

Use the resources listed above to craft your sales video. I wish I had space in this article to go over how to craft a sales video. The best way is to look at other successful sales videos that you can model yours after. You can see some of ours at LocalMarketingMyth.com and MicroContinuity.com.

Step 14: Sell The Opt-In

Create a squeeze page that sells why someone should give you their name and email address to get your sales video.  You can see two of our squeeze pages at the same links listed in step 13.

Step 15: Assemble Your Squeeze Page

Now it’s time to hook everything together. You need to put your autoresponder on your squeeze page. When visitors optin, it should take them to your sales video.  After they watch the sales video, it should give them a link to your order form. You will need to use ClickBank.com or some other shopping cart that will create your order form. After they buy, they should be sent to a thank you page to get all of your content.

Step 16: Drive Traffic

Now that you have all of the pieces together, it should be time to start promoting and selling your new product! The first thing to do is to send an email to the list that you’ve been building. The next steps would be to start contacting the joint venture partners you’ve been building relationships with. Then start writing more blog posts related to your product, pushing people to buy the product from you. You can then look into other paid traffic sources.

Taking Action

So that is the basic process. I know that I wasn’t able to go into great detail on every step, but I hope that this serves as a checklist for the order you should go through to be successful online. It’s the same process we’re doing over and over again in our business and it works!

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

The most important decision to make about starting your coaching program is deciding on your niche, your area of focus. Clients typically hire a coach because they have a specific problem that they need help with, and they believe you can help them. These problems range from being overweight and unhealthy, to starting or running a business, to overcoming a fear of scuba diving, and everything in between.

These problems are what define the specific niches within the coaching industry. When you first start your own coaching program, don’t fall into the trap of helping (and marketing to) everyone. It’s not healthy as a coach to believe you can help all ages, male and female, and every background you can imagine; or coach people on everything from losing weight, to dating after a divorce, to starting a business or trading in the future’s market, while helping clients learn how to overcome their fear of flying.

It is much easier to market and enroll new clients into your coaching program when you specialize in a specific area of interest or field of expertise. When you find your niche, your coaching will become more productive, and as a result, you will generate more happy clients – which most often leads to more business!

Think of it this way. If you generalize about that which you coach about, and you do not specify your expertise, then your potential clients will have a hard time deciding if you are the one who can help them find a solution to their specific problem.

For example, if you call yourself a “Life Coach,” what does that mean specifically and what topics are you an expert in? Business? Relationships? Investments? Corporate training? Health? Weight loss? Marketing? Technology? Entertainment? Publicity? eCommerce? Sales? Get specific!

Only when you drill down to the specific niche topic on which you truly are an expert, will finding clients be that much more of a breeze! Imagine if you said you were a “Life Coach.” Can you imagine what people would say in response to that? “Gee, that sounds great… Good luck with that!” Compared to a specific niche you specialized in… “Wow, I know five people who could use your expertise!”

If you aren’t convinced yet, then look at the following benefits for establishing your specific niche:

• Eliminate the discomfort of trying to explain coaching. Speak directly to your target market about their wants and challenges. They are already interested because your services are geared to them.

• Build visibility and credibility faster through referrals. Think about it, when you are successfully helping a client with a specific problem, chances are, they know other people with the same problem, and will happily refer your coaching services to others they know.

• When you have a niche, it is much easier to make every “marketing minute” count by funneling prospective clients into a series of leveraged marketing efforts. For example, a targeted website which offers a subscription to a bi-weekly eZine, that also advertises a free product, eReport or eCourse, which in turn gives prospective clients some of your information, ultimately leading them to paid products and group coaching programs if they like what they see and want more (of you).

Suppose, you are a health and weight loss coach and you meet a prospective client at a networking event. Tell them, “You know, I have an ezine that I send out twice a month with advice on how to get healthy and in shape. Would you be interested in getting those emails?” Then, send them to a website that advertises this ezine, and allows them to join.

The bi-weekly ezine keeps you in their inbox, and minds, and the free, valuable information you provide in them builds credibility. From there you can offer them many different kinds of products and coaching. From ebooks and physical books, to audio programs and teleseminars, group coaching, one on one coaching, and even live seminars.

Since you captured their email address they will remain in your database and continue to buy from you for as long as they like. Now isn’t that better than just handing them a business card?

• Command higher fees. People value what you have to offer if you charge them more. Niche coaches cost more than generalized life coaches. You have training, skills and expertise to offer your clients. Set your fees accordingly. Don’t be afraid! You’re worth it!

• Develop expertise more quickly. Get recognized and make yourself available for those who will want you to speak publicly, be on panels and write articles. They advertise for you.

• Build a sustained pipeline of prospective clients who are interested in the same thing. By being more specific, you will drastically reduce your marketing time. You won’t be wasting time marketing to those not interested or qualified to be your clients.

• Distinguish yourself from thousands of other coaches out there, most of whom don’t consistently target market.

Example Coaching Niches
Executive/Corporate Coach: Work with senior executives and business managers on improving communication and rapport, as well as balance between work and personal life.
Relationship Coach: This is probably the number one emotional pain people are experiencing today. The divorce rate is high, causing split families, and there are more single men and women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s then any other time period in history.

• Wellness Coach: For people seeking a lifestyle fix rather than a meal plan or workout regimen. Wellness coaches focus on the whole shebang – stress, time management, diet and fitness – to encourage personalized, sustainable, healthy behaviors.

• Leadership Coach: Clients who are complacent, bored, and unclear about next steps invest in a Leadership Coach to challenge them to their next focus.

• Wealth Coach: Debt, credit, retirement, budgeting, investing, mortgage, taxes, wealth building, etc.

• Small Business Coach: Sales, team-building, leadership, management, corporate, executive, vision, etc. Most small business owners already value coaching, and seek out small business coaches to help them grow.

• Career Coach: Focus is on career changes, freelancing, cover letter and resume writing, interview skills, etc. Forbes rated career coaching as one of the top 75 businesses to own in 2009.

• Style/Image Coach: We live in a very image obsessed culture. Whether you like it or not, people judge the way you look. The way you look can make or break an interview, a negotiation, a sale, or date! If you like shopping, talking to people about their wardrobe, hair and skin care, then it’s a no brainer – you are a Style Coach.

• Sales Coach: If you have had either a job in sales, or even if you just love helping sales people make more money, you can easily learn how to become a sales coach.

• Marketing Coach: Everyone wants to play online, but most don’t know the game. A Marketing Coach helps people drive more traffic to their websites, or they might specialize in helping people with their networking skills to better get clients via offline marketing.

In this article I’m going to talk about how to build value in your prospect’s eyes so you can easily justify the price you’re charging them. It’s an advanced copywriting strategy I always include in Russell’s sales letters and videos… and I’m going to share how to do it here.

First things first, what exactly is a value builder? Let me tell you a quick story to illustrate what I’m talking about. When I was younger I used to play a lot of golf. That is, before I went to grad school and didn’t have enough time or money to continue. I hit the golf course a handful of times each year, but definitely not the frequency I used to due to time constraints.

One day, I was in a pro shop and came across a video that claimed I could hit longer drives in only three practice swings. I thought it was a bunch of bull since I always believed you’d have to practice a lot on the tee and play tons of rounds to get better. However, I thought it would be beneficial since all golfers want to add an extra 20 yards to their drive.

Then I saw the price of the DVD. It was $97. I underwent a little sticker-shock since I was used to buying movie DVDs from Walmart for $5 to $15. I had never spent that much money on a single DVD and wasn’t sure if I was going to pull the trigger on this one.

But after thinking about it and reading the back cover blurb, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could lengthen my drive by 20 yards in only three practice swings?” Basically I could watch the DVD and possibly start playing better golf right away. My buddies would wonder if I took some steroids and would gawk at my golf ball as it rifled down the fairway… yards past theirs.

In my mind, all these benefits made learning what was on the DVD worth the $97 price tag. I ended up buying the video and it did, indeed, lengthen my drive by a slight adjustment in my stance and swing.

What I Did To Justify This Purchase

Basically what I did to myself that allowed me to justify paying a steep cost for a DVD was “reframed” its cost in my head. Sure $97 was pretty expensive. But in the context of the potential benefit I would get (hitting longer drives and lower scores), the $97 was a drop in the bucket. I was willing to trade that money to get the advertised benefits. And the only way I was able to do that was by building the value of the DVD in my head.

This is what every person does before they buy anything. They weigh in the cost of a product and decide if they want to part with their money to obtain the promised benefits. If in their mind it’s not worth it, they don’t buy. Simple as that.

But when it comes to copy, there is a way you can build the value in a prospect’s mind so they’ll buy your product. I’m going to show you how.

Anatomy of a Value Builder

The first thing you need to do is think of different ways people can obtain the ultimate benefit your product gives them… but are vastly different and more time consuming or expensive than your product. For example, if you’re selling a weight loss ebook, you would think of other ways to lose weight that don’t seem as appealing as yours.

Before I bought the golf video, I thought about the alternatives to getting that extra 20 yards into my drive. Those included more time on the driving range and spending hundreds on lessons with a golf pro. All of these could run into the thousands of dollars. Whereas the $97 DVD claimed it could give me the same benefits in less time. It was a literal no-brainer to me since I knew what it was like to hack away on the driving range and take bad advice from a golf pro.

Spending thousands of dollars versus spending just $97 on a DVD – it was an easy decision for me. And that’s how you need to position your value-builder in your copy. You need to show the customer that what they are paying you is peanuts compared to other options.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Example of a Value Builder

Here’s an actual value builder I used for a client that illustrates what I described above:

So, what’s the catch…? How much is this weekly video coaching going to cost me? Here’s the deal: there are businesses out there that simply don’t “get it” and waste thousands of dollars and go through years of trial and error before they accidentally stumble upon these “follow-up” secrets. In fact I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it’s probably worth more than any tuition to any major university. I know that sounds a little over-the-top, but considering you could make your investment back over and over again… it could eclipse the cost of any major institution of learning. But I’m not going to have you pay that much. In fact, you may be amazed that I’m giving access to the 5-Week Video Coaching Clinics for only $150 or two monthly payments of $75. That’s equivalent to a month’s worth of Starbucks coffee, DVD rentals, and magazine subscriptions… things that do nothing to increase your business. Why not use that money to catapult your sales and get a leg up on your competition? So there’s really no question about whether or not this course will make you money. These strategies I’ve assembled over the years just work too well, and the investment I’m requiring is so insanely low that it’s impossible not to make a positive return on your investment. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the price is irrelevant!

This is the “value builder” portion of the letter I wrote for a client selling a membership site that teaches people how to follow up with clients. One of the things I like to do is talk about the trial and error and reams of books they would have to read in order to get the same secrets.

Most people value their time and money so this is extremely effective. The key is to tell the prospect, never assume they will figure it out for themselves. You have to be in control of what the prospect thinks… and the best way to do this is to be as descriptive as possible. Tell them what’s in it for them and how they are missing out if they don’t buy now.

Another interesting trick I like to use in the value builder section is to compare the price to everyday expenses, like Starbucks coffee (a common comparison) DVD rentals, and magazine subscriptions. Pretty much anything that seems like a frivolous purchase and does not help the prospect achieve the benefits advertised in the letter. It makes the prospect think, “Hmmm I already spend $300 a month on Starbucks Mochas… I could perhaps quit Starbucks and learn how to get better at golf!”

Finally, I make sure I tell the prospect that the benefits they will get from using the product could make the price irrelevant. In the example, I say that they could easily make multiple times their money back than they paid for the membership. That really builds value – especially if you’re selling a “make money” product.

All of this essentially wraps the price of the product around realistic justifications for the cost. If you were to introduce price by itself, you would leave it up to the prospect to sort it out on their own… and more than likely they will talk themselves out of the purchase. Whereas when you tell the prospect why the price is a great value compared to the alternatives, the chances of them buying goes up.

Other Value Builder Do’s And Don’ts

DO introduce the price of your product in this section. You never want to introduce price by itself… the key is to wrap the price around the effective value builder so it “reframes” the price and makes it more affordable.

DON’T call out other products and services by name when doing your value builder. For example don’t say, “You could waste thousands of dollars on David Leadbetter DVDs or you can get mine and only pay $45.” You could receive a cease and desist letter. Just be as general as possible… it’s just as effective.

DO introduce the value-builder with a subhead. I usually use a subhead like this before introducing the value builder and price: “So what is it worth to you to (insert ultimate benefit people are going to get).”

DON’T introduce bonuses into your value builder. Only concentrate on the main product. An effective way to introduce bonuses is after the value-builder and price. So you’ve essentially introduced the price and justified the value.. and now you’re going to bowl them over with bonuses on top of that. The value just keeps building up… so make sure you introduce bonuses after the value builder.

The value builder is one of the most important sections of your sales letter. Never introduce price in your letter without framing it in a proper value builder. It can really boost conversions since you’re “reframing” the price in the prospect’s mind so it’s a no-brainer to purchase. So make sure you include an effective value builder on your next sales letter.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

During a recent family vacation, I found myself literally compelled to put a puzzle together. It’s a tradition. So, as I am too frequently reminded, we simply must do it. And in the words of the great philosopher Tevye, “You may ask, ‘How did this tradition get started?’ I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.”

As per our “tradition,” we attacked this puzzle with the same assembly strategy we have used for years: we found all the edge pieces and built the border, we grouped the pieces of like color or similar pattern, and then we assigned quadrants we each would be laboring in; after which some had even gone to the extent of repeating the entire abovementioned process for their own little section of the puzzle (yeah… we’re tons of fun). Anyway, we got to the end and we were missing a piece. Hours had been invested in the process. We had (or so we assumed) everything we needed, but the outcome was not as expected.

Fast forward to several weeks later, I found myself calling a friend whose number I had just programmed into my phone. Instead of reaching him, I kept reaching a Greek deli (it ended up working out well for all parties as I needed a place to have lunch with my friend – lemons into lemonade, but I digress). It seems in my haste to program my friend’s number into my phone, I had inverted two numbers. I had all the right numbers, but the order was wrong. I had performed the necessary function, my phone had dialed ten digits, but because the sequence was off the result was wrong.

The reality is, as with dialing a phone number or assembling a puzzle the number and order of the pieces matter. In other words, if you’re missing something the result will not be complete. Although you have all the right stuff, if you do it out of order, it doesn’t mean it will still work. With a puzzle, it will take a lot longer if you approach it haphazardly or drive you insane if you are missing a piece (which we later found in case you were wondering, and disaster was diverted). With a phone number, if you dial out of sequence you’ll end up talking with someone entirely different than you had planned, which can be its own little adventure, but the outcome is still contrary to what was originally predicted.

With websites, it’s really not too different. The presence and order of the essential pieces matter in the long and short term success of a site. Let’s take two competitors, www.Netflix.com and www.Blockbuster.com, and discuss why one is winning the marketing war, leaving the other to languish to the point they are left watching their business model start to implode. These two sites have many of the same essential elements, but one is considerably outperforming the other. The story of who is the winner or loser is told in their websites (and site marketing efforts). But spending time, money and effort to drive traffic to a broken site is an exercise in frustration and futility.

A Side-by-Side Comparison

Let’s quickly compare and contrast these two websites. Both are nice looking sites, but one is the clear winner. Netflix has decided to focus their entire web effort (marketing, site design, etc.) on one simple activity: to get people to sign up for a trial. Netflix knows they don’t make money from people surfing around their site clicking on images. It is not their goal to show off flashy design work. They want you to do one thing per page… and that’s it. If you look at their landing page, they have a value proposition, a call to action, and really only one choice you have to make that page (log in or sign up). When you visit Netflix.com, there is no confusion over what you are expected to do, what you get for your efforts, and some fairly compelling reasons why you should do it.

When Blockbuster.com is juxtaposed with Netflix.com, you can see Blockbuster’s site suffers from a distinct lack of focus. You’re left wondering if they actually want you to do something or just click on images of movie posters and take surveys. Coincidentally, Netflix also offers images of movie posters and descriptions for you to click on, but those are buried behind the login/free trial page.

In theory, Blockbuster should be winning this battle; they have a longer-established brand and a distribution advantage. They offer practically everything you can get from Netflix, plus they have physical locations where you can trade in movies you received via the mail. With the advantages of brand and distribution, it should be a slam dunk for them. But they waited too long, competed too poorly, and now they’re losing the war.

The First Two Essentials

This leads us to two of the five things your site should have that Netflix does and Blockbuster does not: clear purpose and a conspicuous call to action.  Now, obviously these are not the only differences in how these businesses operate. However, the existence of a clear and actionable purpose and call to action (or lack thereof) are an obvious expression of the overall business philosophy used by both companies.

It can be argued that one of these companies knows which business they are in (the business to acquire customers). To see how these philosophies translate to business success or failure, you need look no further than the comparative stock charts for both of these companies (in case you were wondering, Netflix is the blue line, which appears to be on a hockey-stick trend that would make even Al Gore smile).

Creating a Clear Path of Action

This type of problem isn’t confined to Blockbuster.  Once every month we bring some of the best marketing minds in our company together to analyze and critique the websites of a handful of our top clients. Almost every one suffers from the same disease that is affecting Blockbuster – there is no clear focus on what people should do and why they should do it. Not to belabor the point, most people are simply trying to get their websites to be, and their visitors to consider, too many things, in which case they will end up doing nothing at all.

There’s a marketing adage that goes something to the effect of, “A confused mind always says, ‘no.’” The same applies to visitors to your site. If someone doesn’t know what to do when they arrive at your site, they will eventually become frustrated and leave, likely to never return again. To add serious insult to injury, the visitors who bail on your site, will probably end up on one of your competitor’s sites who will tell them what to do, leaving your competitor with the sale and you watching on the sidelines, wondering about what might have been (as evidenced with the above stock chart).

Adding an Opt-in Box

Okay… now let’s move on (we’ve whipped that poor, deceased horse enough). Our next puzzle piece is an opt-in. If you notice both of the above sites had an opt-in box, one just happened to be marketing it, giving reasons to fill it in, and actually getting people to do it a whole lot better than the other. It will always astound me that people go to all the trouble to create a website and absorb all the expense to market it, and then leave prospects to make a buy/no-buy decision right there, resulting in 97 to 99+ percent leaving the site, never to return. They have ended the conversation forever.

Having an opt-in box can give you the ability to keep the conversation going. Granted, you must give your visitors a compelling reason to surrender a real email address (we all have at least one junk email address, let’s just admit it… so the content must be enticing enough to motivate someone to give you unfettered access to them). By having an opt-in, along with a compelling reason to fill it in, you can get anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of your visitors to give you legitimate contact information.

Opt-In Box Essentials

Now, there are a few quick guidelines with reference to your opt-in box:

• Put it in the upper right hand portion of your site. Sure, you can try to put it in another place, it won’t work as well, but hey… it’s your site.
• Make it clear and obvious that you are trying to get them to opt in (think Netflix, not Blockbuster).
• Make sure it is the primary, if not only, action your visitors can take.
• Help people make micro-commitments. Don’t ask for a huge laundry list of information, first name and email will get you most of what you need. If you want more information, put it on the second page or in later communication.
• Make the offer compelling enough that people will actually part with their primary contact information. It’s not fun in the junk folder or the junk email account. It’s an email hell you cannot escape from.

Now go put these into practice.

Omgili allows you to utilize the power of subjective information. Once you search for your target keyword, the results returned are from forums, blogs, newsgroups, mailing lists, answer groups and more! These are differentiated by topics, titles, replies and the dates of the discussions. With this tool, you will have the ability to analyze the hotspots where people discussing your target keyword are hanging out online. This is very desirable since this is your target market participating in an active conversation. What better time to make a sale?

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Once you have found a result you would like to explore, follow the links by clicking them directly. It will take you to the exact discussion you want to insert yourself into. Do not just walk in and proclaim yourself or your product as the answer to all of their problems/prayers/questions/needs. If you do that, you will most likely be banned from the site, or at the very least, heckled mercilessly for self promotion.

This technique requires the same finesse as when you promote via any other social media type site. You will want to do this one of two ways, the first being you “pretending to recommend” the product as a third party. You may be able to get away with this tactic (it IS possible), but you are not being completely honest and that may possibly come back to bite you later.

The second, and most recommended method, is to enter the conversation as an authority of some type. Be helpful, contribute to the conversation, and if you must promote your product, do so modestly and with permission. The link in your signature or post should reflect something relevant to the conversation, such as your product. This works very well in forums. As you build up “posts” on the forum, you build your credibility. With that credibility comes traffic to your site, people clicking your signature link and buying your product or service.

Cash In On Keywords

Step 1: Use Google External Keyword Tool, Market Samurai, or another tool of your choice to come up with a keyword list. You can focus on long tail keywords, but if you use general keywords you can typically find more results and traffic.

Type in the keyword and look for sites that are relevant to your product or service.

Cash In On Keywords

Step 2: Select the site by clicking on the discussions bubble next to the site, then click on the results that pop up on the right side of the screen. These secondary results are the exact conversations people are having regarding the corresponding discussion results.

Join the Conversation

Step 3: Join the conversation by contributing or by recommending a product. Again, I recommend that you position yourself as an authority for your product, and answer questions and be helpful. This goes a long way to building credibility and pre-selling your product in the customer’s mind (without directly selling them in the blog/forum post).

Make the Sale

Step 4: Offer them free guides, checklists, and ebooks to help them see your authority value. This also gets them to your site to opt in. Once they opt-in, deliver the download item via autoresponder, thus getting them into your list. Market to them in emails with more good content, direct sales, or whatever you want to sell them. Make the sale and cash your check!

Linkedin is a social networking site for business professionals. What LinkedIn lacks in homepage sex appeal it gains in monetization opportunities. Lewis Howes called LinkedIn, “The red-headed step-child of Social Media.” There are so many people on LinkedIn who are looking to expand their businesses and dive into opportunities to work with others. It is the grown up serious version of social media. People who are on LinkedIn are there to expand and increase their business.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

The unique thing about LinkedIn that many people do not know is that most members are serious about enhancing their businesses by creating connections with other professionals. The average household income of a member on LinkedIn is $109,000 a year. The people who are on LinkedIn are decision-making business professionals. They are willing to spend money to make money and help others do the same. This makes it a great place to quickly form partnerships that can pay off for years.

Getting Started

Step 1 To start go to www.LinkedIn.com and fill out the box that says “Join LinkedIn Today.” Once you submit this form your account is ready to be completed. Be honest when filling out each field. Starting out with a profile that is not fully truthful is a slippery slope.

Also be sure to fill out each box to its entirety. LinkedIn has a great measurement bar that shows you how complete your profile is. The reason why LinkedIn focuses so heavily on making a profile complete is because if a profile is only partially filled in, it lowers credibility and connection opportunities. LinkedIn wants to make sure you are fully utilizing all the potential they have to offer. By not fully completing the profile, you promote laziness when another business professional who may want to work with you comes to your page and sees that it is not complete. The image below is a picture of what the bar looks like when your profile is not complete. Once the profile is complete the bar will be green and indicate that you can start making connections.

Making Friends

Step 2 LinkedIn has something that none of the other social networks do. It offers the capability to not only import but export your list in and out of the network. This means all the contacts you gain using LinkedIn can be exported into your email list. This is great for building your list and adding contacts to your networks. There are four good ways to go about building your list through LinkedIn:

Import your email list into Linkedin This will be one of the prompts offered when setting up your account. It should ask you if you would like to add your email contacts to your network. Answer “yes” and add only the contacts with the blue LinkedIn symbol next to them. This indicates that they are already on LinkedIn.

Look up businesses that you know are on Linkedin Many professionals have LinkedIn accounts. Look up some businesses you know are on LinkedIn or have worked with in the past and invite them to join your network.

Find similar businesses It is good to look up businesses within your niche because first, they may be your competitors and it is good to keep an eye on what other similar businesses are doing and second, you can see what groups they are involved in, what forums they attend and automatically you know where all the professionals in your niche are.

Use Your Other Social Media Accounts Lastly, inviting people from other networks to join your LinkedIn network is a sure-fire way to get people to join. However, let me caution that until your profile is complete and 100 percent ready, it is not a good idea to encourage people to join your network. Wait until your profile is fully functional and ready, and then start inviting people.

Creating an Interactive Summary

Step 3 When creating an account, the more interesting the account is the more likely people will be interested in it. With that said, creating an interactive account can speak volumes about your profile. Here are three tips to making your summary sexy:

Add a website When making your summary make sure to include websites. This makes your summary more interesting and more than just something to read. By adding a website you are giving people the option to become more interactive with you.

Customize your websites By making your websites one of a kind it makes the experience more memorable.

Create a Call to Action In addition to customizing your website and making the name unique, try to incorporate a call to action in the title of your site. A call to action is basically something you want your connections to do. An example of this is having either the name of your site be “MakingMoneyOnline.com” or saying, “This site teaches you how to make money online.” This gives the connection reading your summary something to act on, opposed to just something to read.

Combining Accounts

Step 4 As with other social networks, the more visible you are on social media sites, the more connections you will have. When making your LinkedIn account let people know on Facebook and Twitter that you are joining LinkedIn. (A little tip is if you ask people for suggestions on how to use LinkedIn you’re guaranteed to get responses. People love to help others by giving advice or opinions). The other cool option about LinkedIn is the ability to add applications to your profile. Below is where you can find the option to add your summary and applications.

As you can see this page has added the WordPress application. I suggest using WordPress for blogs. I also suggest that you link your blog to your profile, as well as your Twitter account and if you have events such as webinars, add them to the application. All of these applications will make your profile look more superior and be catching to the eye, which is ultimately the goal – catch people’s attention and engage with them to form a connection.

Reciprocal Recommending

Step 5 LinkedIn is like an interactive resume on steroids. One of the great features that LinkedIn also has is the ability to recommend people. This is a great way to strengthen the connection you have. If you work with someone within your network you can recommend them. This strengthens your connection and most likely they will recommend you back. This is a way to gain credibility within your network or niche.

Staying Current

Step 6 Events have become a great way to let the world know when you are doing webinars, or going to conferences, posting new blogs, or launching new products. LinkedIn has an event application that you can add. Your events will post on your profile and update as time goes by. The other nice thing about the event calendar is as people reply or RSVP to the event you will be able to see who else is attending and so will everyone in your network. The trick is to post a thank you on their page after they RSVP so they will hopefully bring more people to the event.

Joining and Starting Groups

Step 7 Groups are a great feature of LinkedIn. Groups provide a forum for your product, niche or company. By joining groups, you can add value to that topic by adding your expertise and then start groups to engage people in conversation about your niche or business. Managing groups is a great way also to start the conversation and then let others take it over for you. People who buy your products or like your company instantly become spokespeople within those groups.

All in all, if you are serious about your business and ready to connect with other serious people, LinkedIn is the place to be. It is not as showy as Facebook but if you are looking to make deals, LinkedIn is full of decision-makers. Go get yourself a LinkedIn account and start making connections!

A few years ago I was at a seminar in Napa California called “SANG.” It stands for Speaker Author Networking Group. I had a chance to meet some amazing authors, TV celebrities and just really cool people, but there was one guy whose story left a profound impact on me.

I don’t remember his name now, but I do remember a pad of paper that he gave me, and on the front cover it said “Got Goals?” When I saw it, I knew it was a play off of the “Got Milk?” commercials I’ve seen for years.  I didn’t think much about it until everyone started to introduce themselves.

He got up and told his story about how he trademarked the words “Got Goals,” and then went on to license the phrase to other companies. He licensed it to soccer companies, to students, for t-shirts, books and more. He also created a training series based around those two simple words. But the most amazing part about his story was the fact that he had made over $1 million dollars that year alone by licensing those two words to other people!

A few years later I bought a course on licensing by Bob Serling, and then this year I bought one by Yanik Silver. Even though the concept has fascinated me for years, I’ve yet to really do anything with it until recently. And if you ask anyone in my office, they will confirm that since I got my first taste, I’ve been addicted, and I think that you will be too. As you’re about to see, I really think it’s the ultimate shortcut!

So this is the basic formula for finding and making a ton of money with licensing deals.

Step 1: Find A Product

Find a product or service that is currently selling well, or was selling well, but for some reason it seems like no one is promoting it anymore, or you think the product has potential, but no one is promoting it.

Let me tell you a few cool stories about products that I’ve found that I’m licensing now. I may have to be vague about some of the products or people because I can’t disclose all of the parts of our agreement, but I hope that these stories will help get the wheels in your head turning.

Story 1

I met someone who was selling a product on ClickBank and making a small killing with it. He was actually averaging over $8,000 per day in sales through PPC in the content networks, but then literally overnight Google “slapped” his landing page and his site went from $8,000 a day, to $0 overnight. Because he had been focusing on just one traffic source, the site had stopped making sales and he was focusing on a new product. I saw this as a perfect licensing opportunity. It already had a great product, a killer sales letter that was converting, the only problem was that it got kicked out of Google… (more on this later).

Story 2

I was at a seminar recently and met an amazing guy named Howie Berg. Howie holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest reader in the world. Not only is he one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, he’s also very humble. If you haven’t seen him reading yet, be sure to search YouTube to see the video clip of him on Fox news when he read a 1,500 page senate bill in under an hour!

Now, Howie had an infomercial in 1992 that made over $65 million dollars, and I saw a huge opportunity for licensing.

Story 3

I was doing some niche research and finding a few markets that I wanted to be in. I didn’t have a product or any desire to create one, so I went looking for someone who already had a product I could license. I searched on Google for a few hours looking for as many products as I could on these topics, and I eventually found a few that I really liked. They looked like great products, some already had ecovers designed, others had great sales letters already done, but I could tell that they probably weren’t making a lot of money yet, so I contacted the product owners and asked them about licensing.

Okay, I hope that those three stories helped you to get some ideas about where you can find licensing deals. I promise you that there are millions of them out there… Just start looking…

Step 2: Find Your Angle

The reason I see that most people who try licensing fail is because they don’t bring anything special to the table. You need to focus on where you will be bringing value to the relationship. If you go to a product owner who is successful in PPC, and you tell them that you want to license their product and sell it through PPC, he’s going to tell you to become his affiliate. There is no advantage for them to give you their product. You need to find out what your angle is that will make your offer different to them.

So if they are great at PPC, maybe you can license it and sell it through joint ventures. Or if you find someone whose product is selling great offline through direct mail or TV, you could offer to help them sell it online. I can’t tell you how many deals I’ve gotten by buying a copy of “small business opportunity” magazine at the grocery store, contacting the product owner and asking them if I can sell their products online. And I’ve also done deals the other way where I contact online marketers and ask them if I can sell their products through direct mail.

In story number one, I switched the media they were selling (PPC in the content network) and told them I was going to focus on affiliates and SEO. I was also going to translate the product into Spanish, German and French. Do you see the two different angles I was able to bring to that deal?

In story number two, I was able to help Howie take his products from infomercials and seminars to the internet, and story three, I was able to help them sell their amazing products online because they weren’t able to on their own.

What is interesting is that most great product developers can create amazing products, sales letters and more, but often they struggle at marketing them or they don’t want to do things outside of what they are currently focusing on. By bringing your area of expertise to the equation, it literally opens an unlimited number of possibilities.

So what area of expertise do you bring to the table?  If you don’t have one yet, another easy way to short cut the process is to team up with someone who does.  Find an SEO or PPC expert, or someone who is great at joint ventures and partner up with them. Tell them that you will bring them killer products that they can promote and you’ll split the profits.

Step 3: Close the Deal

So you’ve got a great product in mind, you know your angle and how you’re going to be able to add value to the relationship, the last question is how do you structure the deal?

Unfortunately there is no right or wrong answer here. We’ve setup deals in dozens of different ways, and so can you. But let me give you a few guidelines.

In story one, the product owner didn’t want to do any type of long term maintenance for the site, help in content creation or anything. He just wanted me to take the site, make a bunch of money, and send him a percentage of the profits. This was an easy deal to setup. We just had to negotiate to figure out what we were both comfortable with, and we were off to the races.

One thing to note in this and any deal is that we usually take out all production, shipping and marketing costs before we pay ourselves or the person we are licensing the product from. So for example, if we made $1,000 in sales, but we had to pay 50 percent to affiliates and 10 percent to fulfill the product, then the remaining 40 percent is where we would pay out the percentages.

I’m sure a lot of you are wondering what percentages we pay people. Again, this depends on every situation. Sometimes we pay a lump sum up front, and no percentage, other times it’s a smaller fee of five to 10 percent. Normally we do a lot of deals where we pay around 20 percent, but I like to try to incentivize the product developer to help give us content, articles and  continue to create products. In these situations I’m willing to pay up to 25 percent if they are actively involved in that part of the content creation process.

The key to any good licensing deal that I’ve found is to make sure that everyone feels like they are getting a great deal. If they are, you’ll create a powerful, long term relationship that will be profitable for everyone and a lot of fun.

So, what are you waiting for…? Don’t create something from scratch, go out there and find the product of your dreams that is already finished and waiting for you to turn it into gold!

There are certain factors involved when positioning yourself for success, many of which are no different than those you would consider when seeking employment. It’s important to ask yourself:

• Do I want to be a part of this culture?
• Do I like the products or services this company brings to the market?
• Do I trust this company to stick around for the long run?
• Am I willing to become my own best customer?

If your answers to these questions are all a resounding yes then let’s move on to the mechanics of the business.

Network marketing is simple when you boil it down. There are, in fact, only two key components that are vital to your success: recruiting new distributors and then teaching them to do the same. That being said, the livelihood of any network marketer is directly related first, to the quality and second, the quantity of their leads.

Leads can come from many sources, both online and off. Some are more effective than others and all are progressively easier the stronger your belief in the company is. Some sources of leads, along with their benefits and drawbacks, are as follows:

Your Personal Network

You can contact people you already know who might be interested in the product or opportunity:

• Pro: 90 percent of all people in a typical network marketing company come from this source, the process can be duplicated, requires no technology and the right approach brings less severe rejection compared to other lead generation methods.

• Con: If you have the wrong approach or try to strong-arm people you could end up with awkward situations and hurt feelings.

A List Broker

You can purchase generic opportunity seeking leads from lead providers:

• Pro: The ‘finding’ work is done for you and gives you an emotional distance from any rejection.

• Con: Purchasing leads is costly and sifting through the 50 “no’s” to get the one “yes” is both taxing and time consuming. Few of the people in your downline will duplicate your efforts, and it takes a specific type of salesperson to be successful at calling cold leads.

Traditional Print Media

Ad space can be purchased in traditional print  media like newspaper or magazine classifieds:

• Pro: Print advertising can reach a large audience and may feel less confrontational than the previous two sources.

• Con: In most cases the ad will reach the wrong target audience. You will likely get people calling who are seeking employment and are not interested in a side-business until they have a primary income.

An Online Sales Funnel

You can build an internet sales funnel with landing pages, sales letters, and optin forms:

• Pro: This can be an effective way of finding new people who are excited about what you offer.

• Con: Creating a squeeze and sales page requires programming skills (or costly outsourcing) and cannot be duplicated. It also requires expensive traffic generation advertising and extensive search engine optimization, which has a high level of complexity.

Local Events and Meetings

Consistently seeking out and meeting new people in your local area through events, shows, community service, groups, networking meetings, and in everyday life can help you build your personal network:

• Pro: Networking like this builds your business as well as your general network and sphere of influence (positively impacting all facets of your life), can be readily duplicated, can be fulfilling and enjoyable especially for extroverted personalities.

• Con: It requires time and effort, a positive attitude and relationship building.

Online Classifieds

You can post ads on free online classified sites like Craigslist.com and Kijiji.ca:

• Pro: If you have the right wording and post diligently, you can generate leads.

• Con: If your post looks at all like an MLM ad it will likely be flagged and removed. This method requires frequent posting with each new post having at least slightly different wording (or it will be tagged as a duplicate and removed). There is also no saying what type of people you will attract.

Social Media

In addition to all these sources of leads there is another that is being successfully utilized to generate leads for network marketing businesses and I highly suggest adding it to your arsenal. Social media websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter can be powerful networking tools to expand your downline.

Facebook is my personal favorite because it’s simple, friendly, and easy to build a following using groups. Your goal is to start groups where you can meet new people, build a quick relationship with them and when the timing is right, introduce them to your company.

There are three specific group types you could start. The first type would be a group about a niche or a specific theme that could be tied back into your product or opportunity. Depending on the network marketing company you are with, this could be anything from a group about home based entrepreneurs, specific health concerns, weight loss, greeting cards, homecare, etc. The second type would be a group with the purpose of reconnecting you with people from your past (maybe a college, high school or even junior high re-connect group would fit in this category). The third type would be a group centered around an interest or hobby of yours.

Once you have created the group, proceed to invite all of your facebook connections. Some will join and some won’t. The hope is that those who join will also invite their friends and so forth. Keep in mind that the group needs to provide some sort of value for this viral growth to happen. Value can be found in starting discussions on the wall about topics of relevance, sharing insights, sending inspiring or useful messages on a regular basis, or making connections with people you otherwise wouldn’t be able to find.

You can also join and take an active role in groups that already exist (instead of starting them yourself) but the disadvantage is that you are not the leader and therefore not allowed to message the entire group as a whole.

Enter relationship building – the old adage that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care still holds true in social media marketing. Take some time and get to know these people by messaging back and forth. Get to know what they are up to, what makes them tick, find a problem that you can remedy and then provide the solution. For example, if they start complaining about the economy it’s a perfect open door to talk about how you have a side income stream that’s helping buffer the negative effects of the economy. It will be a natural addition to the conversation directed to an attentive audience.

Math is the tool we use to measure business success or failure. Peter Drucker, the father of modern business thought, is known for the adage, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” The measure of a business is the simple addition of revenue and subtraction of expenses. What is left over tells you if you have done a good job or if you need to improve. This equation can (and should) be done by campaign, by employee, by division, and for the entire company.

Some would certainly prefer if business were all about colors, logos and happy feelings (aka “branding”). If you are someone who has that mentality, and would rather not trouble yourself with the accountability of mathematics, please feel free to move on to a different article. Or perhaps now that it’s a bit warmer you can go enjoy all the happy things in life like chasing butterflies or flying kites…

You Are In Business For…

When it comes right down to it, you are in business for one reason: money. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am well aware of the fact that I have spent the better part of this article series explaining how important it is to keep your customer’s needs and experiences your first priority and to not let money be your primary motivation. And then from all appearances, with one simple sentence I change everything.

You cannot legally print more money. So unless you are the government, you must balance your books; you cannot run a deficit. It’s an unfortunate reality of life. Therefore, the purpose of your business, whether you are for-profit or non-profit, is, ironically, profit. It’s what you do with that profit that matters.

If you own a non-profit, that profit doesn’t necessarily carry the same implications it does for a for-profit company, but you are going through the action of being in business to do something (raise money for kids in Africa, breast cancer awareness, the local food bank, etc.). It is critical that in your business, like its for-profit cousins, revenues must be greater than expenses (aka “profit”).

Regardless of your status (for- or non-profit), in terms of the long-term sustainability of your business, you cannot let profit be your primary motivation.  Where customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty, and referrals are certainly the lifeblood of your company, profit (or the lack thereof) is the blood pressure. If the blood pressure is too high, or too low, you’re headed in the wrong direction.

That said, now that we have established the importance of revenues exceeding expenses (profit); let’s discuss the primary ways to increase profitability. Jay Abraham talks about three ways to grow a business:

• Increase the number of customers,
• Increase your price, and
• Increase usage and rate of purchase.

In reality there is a fourth way to increase profit – that is to reduce costs, or as one of my mentors always put it, “addition by subtraction.”

Increase the number of customers

The actions encapsulated in this topic are what most would consider “marketing.” Throughout this article series, I have outlined various ways to attract new customers, decrease customer attrition rates, and create happy, loyal customers. So, for the sake of brevity, I’ll assume the topic has been adequately covered, and move on.

Increase Your Price

Price says a lot.  Price is marketing without marketing. Just a few numbers preceded with a dollar sign communicates to the world what you think and your prospects should think about your products. Do you price high and go for an exclusive message, or price low and try to attract budget-minded customers? Or do you avoid distinguishing yourself at either end of the pole and try to exist somewhere in the middle?

There have been volumes written about pricing theory, but to quote another mentor, “If you cannot afford to be the cheapest in a marketplace, there is no economic advantage to being the second cheapest.” In other words, there will always be someone who can out-cheap you. “Cheap” is not a sustainable competitive advantage. Also, in most cases, the price the premium brand commands is anywhere from two to 2,000 times (or more) higher than the bargain brand; which means, the manufacturer of the premium brand has to sell fewer products to have just as much revenue.

The irony is that although it may cost more to produce a premium product, the costs do not necessarily increase proportionally as selling-price increases, meaning there is a higher profit margin, and therefore more profit.

Increase usage and rate of purchase Several years ago the dental industry came out with a radical announcement: brushing your teeth twice a day and visiting your dentist only once a year was no longer acceptable. The new recommendation was to brush three times per day and visit your dentist twice a year… a 50 percent increase in brushing and a 100 percent increase in dental visits… it’s no wonder dentists smile. That one recommendation increased toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, floss, and gum sales, not to mention the increase in office visits.

The important thing with this method is to make sure there is a rational benefit for the increased usage rate.  With the dental example, it was to prevent cavities and the corresponding drilling… that was enough to motivate most people to start brushing more. I’ll bet you it was an apple grower who came up with the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Decrease Your Costs

There are many ways to reduce costs. Some of the more popular are slashing overhead, cutting employees and reducing marketing. The somewhat less popular method I have seen executed brilliantly is what is known as a “Silent Price Hike.” The snack food industry is particularly adept at using this method.

The first thing is to get the market familiar with a certain size. Then, reduce the size, but come out with a “bonus size,” which is nothing more than a repackaged original size. Then, when the promotion has ended, you have a smaller size which costs less to produce. Some manufacturers have gone on to spell out how this change was actually a benefit to the customer in the form of fewer calories per serving and more servings per container. This is how a cookie manufacturer was able to decrease manufacturing costs, increase the number of servings per container and cut out 1/3 of the fat per serving. For example, instead of having 30 cookies per container, there were now 24 plus they changed the recommended serving size from three cookies down to two. This means that instead of 10 servings per container there were now 12. The store owners don’t mind because this allows them to fit more products on the shelf.

You can also see this scenario play out in the popular 100 calorie serving packs, that ounce per ounce cost you more than the normal package made especially for those with some restraint. So, through the right marketing message, the manufacturer’s desire to increase profits strangely appears as though it creates a win-win-win scenario for everyone.

Using Your Profits Wisely

The real trick is you don’t have to use just one of these strategies. In fact, you shouldn’t. You should try to use as many as possible. These are guaranteed ways to increase profit.

Now that I’ve covered how to increase your profits, it’s important to have a quick discussion on what you should do with that profit. Surely some of it should go to you – you’ve done all the work after all. But you should also keep some to reinvest inside the company.  Far too often more than a few small business owners fail to recognize how important it is to keep money in the company (retained earnings, plow-back, etc.). They believe that the sales will just keep coming in and that they can fuel next month’s expenses with next month’s income. But what happens when sales drop, or expenses spike unexpectedly? Not only can this money help you fuel future marketing efforts, it can provide a shelter for you if things get rough (and things do get rough).

Normally it’s a good idea to keep enough on hand to cover three to six months of fixed expenses. You will likely want to have this semi-liquid if not liquid.  Ironically enough, this is one marketing guy who will tell you to talk to, and coordinate this with, your finance guy.

Written by Brent Coppieters, Affiliate Manager for DotComSecrets.com

The other day my 4-year-old son Carter asked me about the tv shows that I used to watch when I was his age. We only had three channels when I was growing up, so my selection wasn’t that great. I went to YouTube and searched 1980s cartoons. Wow, did that bring back a flood of memories! “Thunder Cats,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Transformers,” “Inspector Gadget,” “He-Man” and “G.I. Joe.” Why don’t they make shows like these anymore? I remember at the end of “G.I. Joe” they would do short public service announcements where G.I. Joe would intervene and help the kids. He would always say, “…and knowing is half the battle.”

It seems simple but it’s true. First we need to know, and then we need to do.
In the United States, we just finished filing our taxes. Some people ended up overpaying during the year and received a refund. Others didn’t pay enough and must send the government more money. Knowledge truly is power as those who know and understand the ins and outs of taxes usually benefit in the end with paying less – or at least they don’t get stuck writing a check at the end of the year.

As online business owners, it’s important to know some basics when it comes to taxes and affiliates. The information in this article is based on a business that is running out of the United States. I am not an attorney or tax accountant. The information here is merely based off of the systems I use in running the affiliate program for DotCom Secrets.

Keeping the Right Information on Hand

As a business owner who pays commissions to affiliates you need to be sure that you get your affiliates to fill out either a W9 or W8 form. These forms are important as they verify that your affiliates are real people.

A business owner who has an affiliate program is able to “write-off” the commissions that they pay to their affiliates. For example, if I sell an ebook for $50 and pay my affiliates a 50 percent commission, then I get to keep $25 and my affiliate gets $25. On my taxes it will essentially show that I made $50, but show $25 going out. This prevents me from being taxed on the whole amount.

It is your responsibility as the product owner to have a current W9 or W8 on file for each affiliate. This will help cover you in case you are ever audited by your government tax team. In the United States, the IRS can walk into any home or business and ask to see their records. Audits help them verify that you have the correct information about your affiliates and the way you conduct your business.

Tracking and Organizing Affiliate Information

A few months ago, Russell and I were at an affiliate appreciation event at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a good opportunity to meet with other successful internet marketers and affiliates in person. We work closely together, but only see each other every few years. Most internet marketers communicate via phone, email and instant messenger. It’s nice when you have been working with someone virtually to put a face to their voice.

The event was hosted by a well known internet marketer and friend of ours, Mike Filsaime. He told how the IRS paid him a special visit at his office a few years ago. They wanted to perform an audit to verify the information he submitted on his taxes. Unfortunately he didn’t do well, as he couldn’t provide all the paperwork they requested. They talked about how he claimed to have paid affiliate commissions, but he didn’t have W8 and W9 forms on file for every affiliate who earned more than $600. These forms are important as they provide you with the necessary information to send out 1099 forms). Mike mentioned that he had their email address and contact information in case the IRS wanted to talk with them.

Mike was able to find a few, but didn’t have them for the majority of affiliates he paid. This was not a good time. The IRS agents informed him that it was his duty to have that information, and that they had no way to verify that he actually paid all of these affiliates. Mike was then told he needed to pay taxes on income he received and could not “write off” the commissions for anyone he didn’t have the proper tax form on file for. He said he had to pay over $1 million to the IRS. What would you do if the IRS came to your home or office for an audit? Would you have everything you needed?

Mike pleaded with us in Las Vegas to not let the same thing happen to us. As a result of this experience he developed a new software program called PayPeopleOnline.com. This software helps business owners and affiliate managers keep track of all their tax paperwork when paying commissions. I am not yet using the service, but hope to soon. I am still tracking it the “old fashioned way.” No matter how you track and verify that you have all the paperwork, just start doing it today. Don’t put it off for another day, month or year.

Using a Simple Three-Step System

Whether you choose to use Mike’s PayPeopleOnline.com or not, it is absolutely important to get the tax forms from your affiliates. In the past, we have waited until the end of the year to make sure that we have the proper forms on file. This is a huge pain as December isn’t the best month to get stuff like this from anyone. Having this paperwork doesn’t mean that you won’t run into any problems, but sure helps.

Another issue that I have run into is fraud. Affiliates who are doing things they shouldn’t will not send you their information. And if they do, and the information is not correct, you are at least protected. If you were audited, and the information the affiliate gave you was incorrect, they are the one in trouble, not you. I believe the term is “due diligence.” You need to make sure that you at least make the effort to get the information.

Remember that “knowing is half the battle.” Mike opened my eyes to the seriousness of getting this information. Sometimes the idea of pleading ignorance is not an option. You can’t say, “Well, I didn’t know about it, so I don’t have to do it.” The IRS expects you to know and follow the tax rules.

After our time in Las Vegas and hearing Mikes’ story I knew what I had to do. Russell and I decided that we needed a system in place so that we never have to worry about going through what happened to Mike. I have broken it down into a few easy-to-follow steps:

Choose one of the following:

Require any new affiliate to submit their W8 or W9 prior to being able to promote.
Provide a downloadable PDF in your affiliate center so that it’s easy for affiliates to fill out the form and email or fax it back.

You can include links to the forms in your first welcome email after affiliates register.

Do not pay any commissions until you have the forms in your hands!!! Make sure you have this in your affiliate terms and conditions. This gives you some leverage in case you have not got their forms. Continue to follow up with affiliates until they submit their information.

Ensure that you have multiple copies of W8 and W9 information. I have a physical copy that was emailed or faxed to us organized in a book that is locked in a file cabinet. I also have an Excel spreadsheet with the information available. The spreadsheet makes it easy for our accounting department to get the information they need in order to send physical checks as well as 1099 forms at the end of the year.

This is a simple process, yet is important for your business. An audit by the government is sure to not be fun, no matter the outcome. Be smart about how you are running your affiliate program. It will pay off in ways that you can’t imagine. If you are wondering, just contact my friend Mike Filsaime. And like my pal G.I. Joe used to say, “Knowing is half the battle.”

In Boston, not long after the American Revolution, two brothers got together at the dinner table and tried to figure out if there was anything on their family farm they could sell. They had two things in abundance, both of which were of little use to them – rocks and ice.

They decided they couldn’t sell rocks. Instead, one of the brothers, Frederick Tudor, had an idea that was nothing short of radical for the time. He decided to start cutting ice blocks from the farm so he could ship them to warmer parts of the world.

Once he figured out how to keep the ice from melting on a boat ride to the Caribbean, his only problem was keeping up with demand. In fact, with his ice farm, Tudor became one of the wealthiest men in early American history, employing tens of thousands of people and earning him the name of the “Ice King.”

Using Your Resources Wisely

While this is a simple story that happened over 200 years ago, it has powerful lessons for anyone who has ever struggled to come up with a winning product idea. What I find interesting is that Tudor didn’t try to invent an amazing new device or build a business empire from scratch. He looked at what he already had and built his wealth on that.

Like Tudor, the entrepreneurs who will always win are the ones who are aware of the resources available to them and devise a plan of how they can use them to achieve their goal. If there is something they need that is not readily available, they use what they do have to get it. This is especially true when it comes to product creation.

Becoming “Content King” in Your Niche

When creating products, it’s easy to start with the “perfect” finished result in mind. When the realization comes that what’s being aimed for is unachievable with the resources that are readily available, many people throw their hands in the air and give up.

What often holds many of our students back from finishing their own products are things like better video equipment, better speaking skills, or the ability to write, design, edit, hire outsourcers or purchase expensive tools. In reality, these things are nice, but not necessary to create products that sell. The lesson that can be applied from Tudor’s story here is that often the most profitable and fulfilling opportunity is the one closest to home.

As an information marketer, there are many places you can look to find content, tools and inspiration that will aid you in creating your next winning product. In this article, I want to share a few of the most simple, yet powerful places, that are often overlooked.

In Your Own Head Your first best resource is yourself and the knowledge you already have. Don’t discount your own knowledge. Chances are that you are an expert in something that someone else wants to know about. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are people often asking me for help with?
• What do I often get complemented on?
• Is there something I do for free for friends and family that they say they would pay for?
• What topics do I love to talk about? Could I carry on a meaningful conversation?
• What are my favorite hobbies? What do I wish I could spend the majority of my time doing?

It’s interesting how Tudor turned something commonplace into a luxury item. Boston has no short supply of ice in the winter, and it’s likely that his was not the only family farm that had it in abundance. While most farmers saw the cold and ice as a roadblock, because it meant they couldn’t work for the winter, Tudor was the first to recognize that it could provide value to others. Remember, even if what you do comes easy to you or doesn’t seem like a big deal, there are likely many people who would love to sit down with you and learn all your secrets.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

From Your Personal Network: One of my all-time favorite DCS success stories is Xan and Jenn Spencer, winners of the DotCom Secrets $100 Million Challenge. They wanted to launch a product, but didn’t have any niche that stuck out to them. Instead of giving up, they talked to a friend from church who they knew made beautiful hair bows and worked with her to create a product.

One month after they launched they earned over $2,000 and soon after their monthly income grew to over $16,000 while only spending a few hours a week maintaining their traffic and taking care of customers! Xan was able to retire from his corporate job and the couple took an 86 day tour of the United States in the Corvette they won (if you want to hear their whole story, go online to university.dotcomsecrets.com and watch their interview with Russell).

If you have a friend or family member who has a unique talent, don’t hesitate to ask them to work with you on a product. They’ll likely be flattered you asked and love to help! You can also call up industry experts and ask them for interviews. Most people will do interviews for free because it gives them good publicity and boosts their credibility.

In Your Existing Products: Recycling content from your current products is one of the fastest and easiest ways to create a whole new offer. By recycling, I mean taking content from your existing information products and repackaging it into a new format. Here are a few ideas on how you can do this:

• Turn each chapter of an ebook into a new weekly module for your Micro-Continuity course.
• Turn a seminar presentation into a book by having transcripts created (a great place to get this done is VerbalInk.com).
• Take articles you write for your newsletter and turn them into traffic generating content for your blog. If you have a paid newsletter, you can just use the first 100 words as teasers and direct readers to subscribe to access the full article.
• Strip the audio out of a video product and give  the MP3 away as a bonus with their purchase to add value.

The cool part about this is that everybody learns differently. So by offering the same content in different formats you will be able to help your customers consume the information better than they would had you simply given them a one-size-fits-all option. Don’t waste anything! If you invest your time into creating content, make sure you get the most out of it by recycling it.

In PLR Products: Most internet marketers have private label rights (PLR) products taking up space on their hard drives, but few ever try to sell them the right way. The biggest key to having success with PLR products is creating a unique angle that will differentiate you from all the other resellers who just throw up the included sales letter and graphics and call it good. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Start With the Sales Process in Mind: Most people find a PLR product first and then try to market it. Ideally, you should do your market research and have a sales plan mapped out before selecting a product.

• Develop a Unique Selling Proposition: Since marketing PLR products often means you are competing against other sellers, make sure your offer is unique.

• Make Sure the Product Calls Out to Your Target Audience: People pay for content that is tailored to their specific situation. Reniching PLR products is a great way to make them unique to you and add more value for your customer.

• Make Sure the Terms of Service Allow you the Flexibility you Need: Because licensing rules vary from product to product, always read the terms of service carefully and make sure they give you the wiggle room you need to make it profitable.

You may also want to make some simple edits to your PLR product, like rebranding it with your name and website, changing current affiliate links to your own, adding a disclaimer, or changing the content or graphics.

PLR products are a great, inexpensive resource and because they are already made, you can literally have a ready-to-sell product in minutes from now.

In Affiliate Products: Even easier to start marketing than PLR products are affiliate products. Plus, you can literally make money without spending a dime!

When you choose an affiliate product to promote, make sure it is something you would buy yourself. It’s also a good idea to create some type of bonus offer for people who purchase through your affiliate link. It may just be the tipping point that gets people to buy.

Trading Talents: If you have an idea for a product, but don’t have some or all of the skills necessary to create it yourself, all is not lost. You can find someone who knows how to accomplish what you want and offer to provide a service to them in return.

For example, a couple weeks ago I met with a landscaper friend who is working on a few new business ventures to talk about some options for graphic design. I love design and jumped at the chance to help her. In return, she agreed to take a look at my yard and give it some much needed help. Since I would much rather design than do yardwork, and she already has the tools to landscape, it was a great deal for both of us.

You can find people to swap tasks with in forums, networking at workshops or seminars, or by simply talking to someone you know who could help you. In general, people will be flattered when you ask them for help and as long as you provide them with an equivalent service, the partnership can be mutually beneficial.

Staking Your Claim

The product you sell does not have to be the next miracle breakthrough invention. It just has to solve a problem – however simple it may be. Get started using the resources you have around you. The good news is, every day, technology makes it even easier to find and use the resources you need. So even if you don’t have any experience marketing or money to invest in product development,  you can still stake your claim in the lucrative market for information.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

How YouTube Works

Youtube is a video sharing site that allows you to post videos where people can rate them and leave comments. As a business owner, you can use it to tell a story about your product and capture the attention of your target audience. YouTube also contains its own aggregator and because of it’s popularity, videos you post have a better chance of going viral than other video sharing sites. In today’s culture people want information in the fastest most entertaining fashion – ultimately making video your best option.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Youtube is a great way to send targeted traffic to your site. How many times do people hear about infomercial products and buy them? Not much. How many times do people see infomercial products and buy them? A lot. YouTube is your interactive infomercial, your interactive story, your interactive television show. It is your way to show people your product or story. If you use it correctly, the passion you convey through your video will make viewers want to experience your product and be a part of your story.

Create Compelling Content

Step 1: What part of your product or story is most compelling to your fans? Once you come up with what exactly makes your business so compelling, brainstorm three or four main points to focus on and develop during your video. Next write a sexy, flashy, passionate title to hook people’s interest.

Tip: Any video or message you put out should include a call to action. Give viewers something to do. For example, “See the rest of this video on our website,” or “For more information, go to…” Always have a call to action.

Lights, Camera, Action

Step 2: A common misconception about filming is that it needs to be professional quality in order for your video to be credible. That is not the case. The quality is not that important. However, here are some simple tips on lighting, sound and camera choice:

When choosing a camera, pick one that includes an editing system. This will make your videos much easier to produce and put out. A recommended camera is the Flipcam HD Mino. This is a great camera and has an easy internal editing system. It costs about $149.

When choosing lighting people often think that having a lot of light is better. In reality, unless you know the properties of how light works with your camera, a good rule to follow is softer is better. Also, outdoor and natural light is better than indoor light. The scenery outside will also give your video more depth and life opposed to a boring background.

Sound is one of the most important parts of video. If the sound is poor quality your message will not be received. So make sure above all that your sound is clear.

Create Your Channel

Step 3: When driving traffic through social media sites, the goal is to keep them congruent with one another. If someone was to stumble across your video it should be easy for them to find you in other networks.

To post a video, go to www.YouTube.com and click “upload.” You will be taken to a page that will ask if you want to subscribe. Click that and enter your information. Find other channels you like and comment on their videos. This will build your visibility within the network. Also, use other social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to promote your videos. We will be talking more about specific tactics to promote your videos later.

Join YouTube Groups

Step 4: Connecting through YouTube groups is a great way to build your list and your network, especially if your business is within a certain niche. YouTube groups are a place where you can find similar videos and rate them. Every time you comment or rate a video a link shows up on your home page. This will promote that you are active within your account and network.

You can also start your own group. For example, if you are in the cooking niche, you could make a group called “Meals in 10 Minutes.” You could then invite people to come and share their videos of their own 10 minute meals. Once people start posting their videos you can urge them to share with people in their networks as well as you sharing your videos within your network. This will generate new leads that may not have been available before. This is a way groups can help narrow down your audience and increase traffic.

Use YouTube Insights

Step 5: YouTube insights are going to be irreplaceable when you start getting traffic to your video. To see your insights, sign in and click on “My Account.” Once you get there your videos should be lined up.

Click on “Insight.” You will be taken to a screen similar to the one shown below. This breaks down who is watching your videos, where they are watching them from and what parts of the video are the most interesting. They will also tell you who your audience is and where they are coming from. There is so much more within these insights. Feel free to play around with them. In the example below, Russell may have never known that he had such a high response in India. This could be important to his marketing strategies.

YouTube Essentials

Step 6: The following are four tips and tricks to driving traffic through YouTube that you cannot live without:

Post videos as replies When you do this it makes you more personable to your customers. They feel as if they are getting to know you as a person and in turn trusting you more. If you have FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) you can make video replies to those questions to make your business more interactive for your customers.

Embed your videos into other networks Put them in your blog or on your other networks to bump up your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) results. This will make your video easier to search.

Trickle your videos into different networks When you film a video cut it up into one to two minute segments. This will make it easier for your customers to watch because it is not so long in length but also you can leave them with cliff hangers. For example, if the title of the video is “Ten Tips to Making More Money” cut them up into two tip segments. Then put two tips on Facebook and two on Twitter and say, “to see the other eight tips go to my website.” Then once they get there have them enter their email to get the other tips and you will build your list in no time.

Tailgate Tag-Lines: When you use this tip, be careful not to tailgate too much. But if you find a video that is popular on YouTube and is relevant to your niche, make your headline similar. This will ensure that when people go to see that video they could see yours in related searches.

How PixelPipe Works

PixelPipe is a web service that helps you syndicate your content to over 100 social networks, websites, microblogs, and blogs. They allow you to shorten URL’s using their service, host a landing page for your PixelPipe profile, and distribute your content with the push of a button. This service is a phenomenal source of responsive traffic that can be routed to your site or wherever else you wish. In addition to sending traffic to your site, it is also great for SEO activities like backlinking, and keyword anchor linking.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Using this service will allow you to drive traffic on a daily basis for a keyword you choose. You may choose to monetize this traffic by linking to a relevant CPA offer in the description of the video, drive them to your site and capture leads, or to an affiliate sales page. There are many more uses for this service, it mostly depends upon your needs and some ingenuity. Though I usually only use this for video distribution, it is a great way to get articles out onto numerous blogging and content sites as well.

How PixelPipe Works

PixelPipe is a web service that helps you syndicate your content to over 100 social networks, websites, microblogs, and blogs. They allow you to shorten URL’s using their service, host a landing page for your PixelPipe profile, and distribute your content with the push of a button. This service is a phenomenal source of responsive traffic that can be routed to your site or wherever else you wish. In addition to sending traffic to your site, it is also great for SEO activities like backlinking, and keyword anchor linking.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Using this service will allow you to drive traffic on a daily basis for a keyword you choose. You may choose to monetize this traffic by linking to a relevant CPA offer in the description of the video, drive them to your site and capture leads, or to an affiliate sales page. There are many more uses for this service, it mostly depends upon your needs and some ingenuity. Though I usually only use this for video distribution, it is a great way to get articles out onto numerous blogging and content sites as well.

Create a Video

Step 1: Make a video of any sort. You can use a Flip camera, any camcorder or even your mobile phone. You can also use any of the services listed in the video resource section on page 15. I recommend using Animoto.com because it allows you to create animated slideshows in minutes.

Do Your Research

Step 2: Do research with the keyword tool of your choice. I prefer Market Samurai (www.MarketSamurai.com) for a paid tool, but Google’s external keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) is a free alternative. Look for the keywords in your niche that have a high search count with a low amount of competing pages. I look for words with less than 150,000 competing pages using a phrase match, or a search performed with quotes. An example of a phrase match search would be “Best Keyword Research Tool.”

Name Your Video

Step 3: Once you have found the keywords you want to target, place the video on your computer. Name the video file a keyword (you should always do this for SEO reasons).  You can also do this with pictures and microblogging posts to be ultra effective on keyword targeting.

Add Pipes

Step 4: Create your account on PixelPipe. Once inside you will have to create accounts on all of the “Pipes” or sites that you wish to be syndicated. I usually hire an outsourcer to do all account creation for me. My favorite place to locate outsourcers is Odesk.com. Have the outsourcer add your information to the pipes by clicking “Add Pipes” on the side menu. Once that is completed the first time you will not have to worry about this step.

Start the Social Media Storm

Step 5: You will need to add the video to Pixel Pipe via the “Quick Post” function. Go to the browse area and select the video from your hard drive. Write an SEO smart title using the keyword, also using the same keyword(s) in the description body, and tags of the video. Once finished select “Upload” to distribute the video.

Increase Your Speed

Step 6: PixelPipe has a Firefox plugin (shown on the top right)! It is a must have for any serious video marketer. Make your life easier by using it frequently.

I usually follow up by visiting the video on the sites I have distributed them to, and using my OnlyWire Firefox plugin to create close to 35 social bookmarks per video. This helps to increase the speed in which the video gets indexed and ranked high in the search results.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the latest FTC rulings regarding the use of testimonials and endorsements. If you’re not familiar with the latest guidelines, I urge you to go to the following website to read the full 81-page PDF.

There are a lot of marketers out there who are saying that “testimonials are dead” and the sky is falling. This is definitely not the case. Testimonials should always be a part of any promotion and leaving them out could lead to lower response rates.

In this article, I will talk about the latest FTC guidelines and what you need to know regarding how to use testimonials in 2010. Keep in mind that this is not a substitute for legal advice – if you want to stay in the clear you will probably want to hire a lawyer to go through your sites and check out your situation. But before I go into that, let me tell you a quick story…

The Day I Will Never Forget

I remember it like it was yesterday. Last fall, Russell asked me to create a new version of the sales letter for Micro-Continuity. We had received great testimonials and case studies and wanted to launch a purely case-study driven sales letter. I had just finished writing the letter and was working with the graphic designer to put it all online.

Then we heard the news. The FTC released new guidelines that outlined how to legally use testimonials and case studies. This meant we had to completely retool the sales letter and other letters that were case-study driven. We even went as far as hiring a lawyer to go over our sales letters and point out possible violations. It was extremely expensive to hire him, but we figured it was better than going to jail or having to pay hefty fines, especially since we were getting big enough as a company that people were starting to notice.

So I went through 40 pages of legalese and changed the sales letter based on our lawyer’s recommendations. Most of the changes involved removing testimonials from the sales letter. It was a pain, but the good news is I became well-versed in the latest FTC guidelines and can basically spot potential violations from a mile away.

Okay Testimonials vs. Great Testimonials

Before I continue, let me go into what is considered a great testimonial and what is considered an okay one (or better than no testimonial at all).

A great testimonial is one that is specific and results-based. This means that the person used the product and got the advertised benefits after using it. An example of this testimonial would be: “After using Acme’s Odor-Away, my body odor disappeared and I was able to attract more women and not be as repulsive to my co-workers. Thanks Acme!”

This is a humorous example, but illustrates a results-based testimonial. The customer used the product and got the desired benefit.

An okay testimonial sounds something like the following: “I bought Acme’s Odor-Away and I look forward to using it. I know that it will remove my body odor and my co-workers will love me for it!”

This is what I call a “pat-me-on-the-back” testimonial. It’s not a results-based testimonial but tells people it’s a good product.

If you’ve read any marketing books or what I’ve preached over and over again in this magazine, you’ll know that results-based testimonials (for example, lost 23 pounds, made $342 dollars) are more powerful. Sure, the pat-me-on-the-back testimonials are okay, but the really good testimonials are the ones that describe specific results and show potential customers that other people have gained the advertised benefits.

However, the latest FTC guidelines have changed this. Here is why – according to the FTC, specific testimonials cannot be used unless they represent the average result people would get using the product. For example, let’s say you’re selling a make-money-online product and you have the following testimonial on your page: “I used Joe Blow’s ‘How To Make Online Riches’ and I was able to rake in $15,000 in a single week! Thanks Joe!” To be within the FTC’s guideline, you would need to have evidence that the average result people should expect is making $15,000 in a week. This includes endless case studies, testimonials and hordes of data that you could use to prove that number in front of a judge.

Of course, here’s the rub: it is virtually impossible to get this information if you’re an information marketer. Everyone knows that most people, when they get a course or a book, won’t read past the first 10 pages. And when they do, most people will not take action on the material they learned.

So the average result would be that most people will not do anything with the information and let it collect dust on the shelf. Therefore, using a testimonial as shown above would not be compliant in the FTC’s eyes. However, all is not lost. You can use specific testimonials for any product as long as you tell people enough about the situation in which the result took place. That way, people reading the testimonial can see that the product worked for their specific situation – and in their market.

Here is an example of an excellent testimonial from our old Micro-Continuity page:

This testimonial was deemed FTC complaint because it tells the exact circumstances in which she made her money – enough that readers would be able to determine that Micro-Continuity was successful to her… in her market… and her specific circumstances.

That said, it’s not enough to be as descriptive as possible in your testimonials and case studies. According to the FTC you have to tell people in your copy that the product worked with these people in their specific circumstances. On our Micro-Continuity site, we included a disclaimer shown in the block of copy at the bottom of this page.

Now, keep in mind it’s not enough to put this disclaimer in small text at the bottom of the page. For example, you can’t just put, “Results not typical. Your results may vary,” in small text at the bottom of the page. The disclaimer has to be front and center in the copy for proper disclosure.

How to Get Good Testimonials

One of the questions I am often asked is how to get good testimonials. Keep in mind that most people are extremely busy and don’t know how to write or record a good testimonial. So if it’s a written testimonial I get them to write a couple phrases that describe their experience with the product. This is a lot easier than getting them to write out a full-blown testimonial.

I will then rewrite what they send back and return it to them for approval. If they approve, which 99.9 percent likely will, then you’re good to go. Keep in mind there is nothing unethical about this as long as you get their permission.

As far as video testimonials go, I always try to have people go through the following outline:

• Describe the problems they were going through before they bought the product
• Describe what happened after they got the product
• Recommend the product or service

That’s it. Good video testimonials should be short and not run on – people tend to get a little “wordy” so you have to reign them in a little bit.

The Diagnosis

So are testimonials dead? No they are not… you just have to adjust how you use them so they follow the latest FTC guidelines.

My recommendation is to stick with the non-specific testimonials to be on the safe side. They aren’t as powerful, but you don’t have to worry about making sure you have the right wording in your disclaimer. Like I mentioned before, non-specific testimonials are still powerful compared to not using any testimonials at all… and can still boost your conversions.

However, if you want to use results-based testimonials, it would behoove you to review the FTC guidelines, seek legal counsel and heed the recommendations outlined in this article.

This is a lesson I have to give myself every two to three months, and I suppose that if I’m this thickheaded, a few of you may be also. This is literally the difference between success and failure in any niche, with any product. If I were to hire myself right now for a consultation, this is what I’d tell myself again.

Last week I had a chance to speak at a seminar in Chicago. As speakers at these seminars, we don’t get paid to speak, but at the end of our presentations we have a chance to sell our products and services. At a normal seminar that I speak at I usually do over $100,000 in sales from my 90 minute presentation, but not this weekend.

I haven’t spoken in about a year because I’ve been shifting my focus to other things, but decided to speak here so I could stay in practice. I created a whole new presentation showing what I’m doing in my business now to make a ton of money. I showed our systems, the psychology behind them, and how you could easily invest some money to make a lot more.

Sounds pretty good right…? Wrong!

What I showed people is exactly what they needed.  Unfortunately for me (and them), people rarely buy what they need, they buy what they want. (I spent two years knocking doors in New Jersey, and it was always amazing to me that I’d meet people who didn’t have phones or a car, but they had 50+ inch televisions in their one bedroom apartments. People buy what they want even if they have no money for it).

In the elevator after my presentation I met a guy who said, “Your speech was awesome, but I didn’t buy your package. I bought the other guy’s because his software made it seem so easy.”

When he said this, it pounded back in my mind the mistake that I had made. If you are selling something you have to focus on what people want. That is how you get them to buy.

I’ve made this mistake multiple times in my career.  One of my first big product launches was selling a home study course that gave people everything they needed, but nothing they wanted. Again, it was a flop that barely made us enough money to cover our costs.

Serving Your Customer

So how do we sell them what they want but give them what they need? That is the question that we want to focus on. Unethical marketers know that people buy what they want, so they give them exactly that. Unfortunately, that rarely ever serves your customer, so it’s important to package your products in a way that gives them what they want, but also delivers what they need. The way you do that all comes down to an offer.  Let me explain…

My Core System: At DotCom Secrets, we teach a core system that is exactly what people need. We teach them how to create a product, setup a website, write a sales letter, drive traffic, and everything else they need to start making money with an online business.

What’s the problem with that? It sounds like work!!!  And people hate work! So what do we do? We create simple. sexy front-end offers.

Front End Offer: Micro-Continuity was one of our front-end offers. It taught people how to build mini-membership sites and get tons of subscribers by giving away free CDs! It was very sexy and we sold a ton of them, but guess what!?! After someone signed up to use Micro-Continuity, they were taught most of our core system.

Another of our front end offers is “The 12 Month Internet Millionaire” which is an interview I did with a guy who made over $100 million in just 23 months!  This is another sexy offer that sold a lot, but when people learned what was taught in the interview, they were again brought back to our core system.

How Does This Work in Other Industries?

Think about the diet industry. “Take this magic pill and you’ll lose weight fast!” How often do you hear that? But after you get any magic pill, the instructions are always to take the pill and eat well and exercise. The core system for almost any diet is what you eat and how you exercise – but those are not sexy, sellable things.

So to create a product that people want, you have to figure out your hook, your story, the thing that makes your product different and exciting to people, that will then bring them into your core system.

One of our coaches recently started a new diet.  When he explained the diet to me, he said that you take some liquid under your tongue each day and it makes you lose weight. He started two weeks ago and today told me he’s lost 17 pounds so far! I was amazed, so I started to dig further.

“So all you do is take that stuff and you’ve lost 17 pounds so far?” I asked.

“Well, that’s the core, there’s also a few other little things that are part of the diet,” he said.

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Well, I can only eat 500 calories per day while I’m taking the supplement. I’m starving…”

Hmmmm…  does that sound familiar to you? After I teased him for a few minutes, I suggested to him that if he saved his money on the supplement, and just ate 500 calories a day, he’d probably see almost the exact same results. But… the hook (and the thing that has helped him follow through on the diet) is the liquid supplement.

The Purpose of Your Front-End Offer

The front-end offer that you create has a few very important purposes:

• To grab someone’s attention and motivate them to take action.
• To introduce your core system in a simple way that gives someone what they want and pushes them into what they need.
• Serves as an anchor that brings them back to the dream that made them purchase in the first place.

Three Steps to Finding Your Front-End Offer

The best way to create your core system, and then to identify and pull out your front-end offer, is simple. Let me show you how:

• Step 1: What is the system that you want to teach? How to lose weight, make money, play baseball, do yoga, write a book… everyone has some system they can teach – what’s yours?

• Step 2: Pretend that you are writing a book teaching your system. What will be the title of your book (system)?

• Step 3: What are the titles of each of your chapters? Start each chapter title with “how to” when you write it out.

That is all you need to do to create the outline of your system. Now, after you have created all of the chapter titles, look at each of them, and try to decide which of those topics is the sexiest and most exciting if you were to explain it to a customer.

Is it a special diet plan…? Or a trick to get a lot of traffic to your website…? Or a move that helps you pitch a baseball better…?

Pick the chapter title that focuses most on what someone would actually want, and use that as your first front end offer that will get people motivated and excited to be part of your system. That is where you want to focus on selling to get new customers.

Again, the biggest mistake that I make often is I created powerful systems that will change people’s lives and businesses, but that’s not what people want – they want quick changes and things that solve their problems fast. This is where we must immediately focus to get them in, then from there you can focus on applying your system to get them what they really need.

WARNING This article contains mathematics and probability. Most commonly known side effects from this are: dizziness, cold-sweats, anxiety, paranoia, shortness of breath, and in rare cases suicidal thoughts and actions. Should any of these occur, please seek the help of a certified professional. In the immortal words of Bill Glazer, “Marketing begins with math.” Some would certainly prefer if marketing were all about colors, logos, and happy feelings. As such, if you are one who has that mentality, and would rather not subject yourself to mathematics, please move on to a different article. Really, I won’t be offended… in fact, I’ll never know. It can be your little secret. However, if you are still reading I have assumed you wish to continue… and so we’ll move on.

Taking an Initial Loss

A few years ago, I was in the middle of a fairly complex consulting project. My team and I were in London working on a bundling strategy (our objective was far from simple: double sales in three years). As a side note, doubling unit sales can be quite easy (you simply drop your price to the point where it’s foolish for your customers not to buy). The problem was our client really wanted to double revenue and maintain current profit margins, which is somewhat harder.

As a result, it became essential to outline the strategy of a loss-leader to support the premise that when properly executed, a loss-leader will encourage consumption.  And, as I’ve established in prior articles, consumption breeds more consumption, thereby expanding the customer base, which then will positively impact sales and consequently LTV.

When the client saw they were going to take a loss on the initial transaction, they were not too keen on the idea. This is not uncommon and stems from looking at business as a series of individual transactions rather than seeing the initial transaction(s) as an opportunity to create and maintain a relationship with a customer… and that relationship leading to a lifetime of transactions.

The first step was to gather together all the client’s customer records and demonstrate that there were several repeat customers. Then through a series of calculations (which we’ll get to momentarily) we showed our client their customer LTV. At that point, they started to understand that while they might strategically lose money on the initial transaction(s), they were more than making up for it in the long run. In fact, we were able to clearly demonstrate that they would hit profitability in less than two months after the initial purchase.

Also, because of the tests we ran on the bundle strategy,  we were able to demonstrate that the client was able to get an additional four months in customer lifetime. Needless to say, when the client saw the overall impact this strategy would have on the number of customers and the customer LTV, they jumped at the opportunity. Coincidentally, we were able to double sales… and it only took two years.

Weighing Benefits and Risks

Every marketing campaign you create will costs you time, money, and effort, but each campaign also brings with it the potential for increased sales, customer retention, etc. But before following the siren’s song of sales and retention, you must be sure that the benefits outweigh the costs or investments. This is where knowing the customer LTV becomes important.

There are many reasons to know your customer LTV and correspondingly how to calculate it; however the biggest reason you want to know customer LTV is so you can determine how much time, effort and money you can afford to invest to acquire a customer. But this little number will allow you to know how much you can spend, enabling you to create better, more attractive offers, and consequently acquire more customers than your competition.

When you realize that customers are actually an ongoing stream of revenue as opposed to a one-shot sale, you can re-focus your marketing efforts or take risks your competition cannot or are not willing to take. In other words, you can invest more today to reap much larger profits later down the road as long as your cash flow is healthy enough to support “the float” (the time between you experiencing the loss on creating a customer and when that customer becomes profitable).

Methods for Calculating LTV

There are many different and often conflicting methods of calculating LTV. Some equations focus on revenue, others on profit. Some try to take into account any customer referrals and somehow work those into the equation. Some of the more advanced methods run LTV by lead source (this is something you should do, but don’t start off there).

Written by Tom Rich for DotComSecrets.com

We’re going to start with a simple, bread-and-butter type approach to help introduce you to the concept of calculating LTV. Once you’ve done this generically (or average for your entire database) you will have created a baseline to then go back and re-evaluate each lead source against to determine which are doing well for you and which are underperforming and should be eliminated.

Sample Case Study

Let’s look at the figure above. This represents a business model. Let’s say for simplicity’s sake that this is your business and you have a lock-step ascension model (where a customer must purchase the first product on your value ladder before they can move on to the second, and the second before proceeding to the third, and so on). And, for ease of calculation, let’s assume these transactions represent your entire database after refunds and that you have been gathering for the past two years.

You have 1,000 customers who have purchased the introductory book and CD set at $50. This gives you $50,000 of revenue from the first level. Of the 1,000 customers to purchase the book and CD set, 200 then go on to buy your $200 webinar training series (a 20 percent conversion rate) and giving you $40,000 in additional revenue.

Of the 200 who buy the webinar series, 10 will then go on to purchase your high-end coaching package at $5,000 (a five percent conversion from the webinar series, and a one percent from the initial 1,000 customers) creating an additional $50,000 in revenue at this level. Finally you have two customers ascend to your top level of “Done for You Solutions” (.2 percent from your original 1,000 customers and 20 percent from the high-end coaching).

Your 1,000 customers have generated the following:

• A grand total of $180,000 in revenue
• A total of 1,212 transactions
• An average of 1.212 transactions per customer
• An average of $148.59 per transaction
• Total unadjusted LTV is $180 (total revenue divided by total number of customers)

Another way to generate the LTV is to look at the probability of a customer reaching each level. As  mentioned before, this is a lock-step ascension model.  So, the probabilities are as follows:

• P of reaching the first level at $50: 100%
• The contribution to LTV is $50
• P of reaching the second level at $200: 20%
• The contribution to LTV is $40
• P of reaching the third level at $5,000: 1%
• The contribution to LTV is $50
• P of reaching the fourth level at $20,000: .2%
• The contribution to LTV is $40
• Total unadjusted LTV is $180 (total sum of the contribution to LTV)

Yet another way is to multiply the following:

• The average (actual or estimated) number of transactions per customer: 1.212
• The average (actual or estimated) transaction value: $148.59
• Total unadjusted LTV is $180 (the average number of transactions multiplied by the average transaction value)

Since earning money and saving money are one in the same, I believe it’s always a good idea to keep your product creation costs to little or nothing until you know your numbers. So, if time or money are keeping you from bringing your product ideas to life, then you’re in luck. This article is packed with tools and resources you can use to create profitable products quickly and do it on a small to nonexistent budget.

These resources have been discovered over years of searching, trial and error. While I can’t take credit for discovering all of these resources (some have been recommended by team members and clients) they have all become a part of the DotCom Secrets arsenal for creating both digital and physical products fast.

QuickMenuBuilder.com ($25)

This is one of my favorite programs to use in product creation to boost perceived value and create a professional look. It does just what the name implies – builds quick menus. All you have to do is upload an image, add buttons to videos, audios, PDFs, websites and more, and export your menu. The menu will run on autoplay when your customer inserts your CD or flash drive into their computer.

Here are some creative ways you can use this software to save time and money:

• Put a Course on One Disc: CDs and DVDs are expensive to produce. If you have a product with multiple videos or audios that won’t fit on one CD, upload all your content to a website instead. Then use Quick Menu Builder to link to your videos. When you’re done, you’ll have an entire course on one CD and save a whole lot of money on printing and shipping costs. This also allows you to upload multiple types of content (for example an audio file, ebook and welcome video).

• Keep Software Updates Simple: Using the same concept above, create a download page online for your software program. Then, create a menu with a button that links to the webpage and put it on a CD. This way, you’ll be able to ship a physical product, and every time you create an update to your software, past customers will have easy access to it.

• Sell Then Create: If you’re short on time, you can create your menu and have it link to webpages where your content will go. Then you can launch your product and even start shipping it out before you ever make the content live. It’s a great timesaver for quick product launches.

Turn an ebook or DVD into a CD Out of books, CDs and DVDs, CDs are the cheapest to produce. To save money on production, create a menu that links to a PDF of your book or video file.

You will need artwork for the menu’s background,  so ask your graphic designer to create one for you when they design your cover. And of course, don’t forget to add buttons that point back to related offers on your website before you export your menu.

Shutterstock.com ($5 to $10 per Image)

Most designers use iStockPhoto.com to get stock images for products, marketing materials and websites. I still often use iStock because their image library is so large, but they have steadily been increasing the price of their images over the last couple years. Now I turn to Shutterstock first when I need stock photography in order to save money. Shutterstock works similar to iStock (in fact, you can purchase many of the same images) but are substantially cheaper for large, print quality images.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Stock.Xchng is a website where you can get stock photography for free. The photo library on this site is made up of images taken by photographers who want to get their names out, don’t think they can sell them or who just want to spread good carma and share their creativity. There are several great images on this site, and there are also some that aren’t so good so you may have to do some searching to find the perfect photo.

The terms of use on the Stock.Xchng are a little different than paid stock photography sites, and vary from image to image. So it’s important to always read the terms of use and any restrictions set forth by the photographer before using images. You may also need to contact the photographer to get permission, so plan ahead if you want to use one of these images.

JingProject.com (Free)

Jing is a screen and voice capture program similar to Camtasia (they are both made by the same company) with a few major differences – the biggest being price. Camtasia costs $299 (not exactly entry level) while the standard version of Jing is free. At most, if you decide to get the professional version of Jing, you’ll make off only paying $14.95 per year.

Jing also has a five minute recording limit. So if you’re creating a product, just divide your material into short, 5 minute morsels. You’ll probably find your customers appreciate how fast it is to access the content they want anyway.

When you are done creating a recording on Jing, you can share it immediately through Screencast. No editing, no uploading – just record and go.

StockLayouts.com ($39 to $99)

If you want to create a uniform, professional look across all your sales materials and products, but don’t want to dish out the big bucks to have a graphic designer create a unique business identity for you, then StockLayouts.com could be a good option. This site has hundreds of professionally designed templates for brochures, newsletters, ads, posters, business cards, you name it. They include logos, photos, artwork, color palettes and professional layouts in print-ready format.

You could easily spend $99 on the images and artwork alone if you were creating your own layout, but they take out the searching and design to save you time.

The best part? You don’t have to be a publication designer to edit your templates. They are available for editing in a host of programs, including Word,  Publisher, InDesign and Quark. So whether you edit your templates yourself or outsource it, you’ll save big over hiring a graphic designer. If you don’t want to spend money up front, they also offer free templates. Just go to StockLayouts.com and click on the “Free Trial” tab.

Kunaki.com ($1 per CD or DVD)

I have mentioned Kunaki a few times in past articles already, but they’ve recently made their deal even better. It used to cost $1.75 per retail-ready CD or DVD ordered, which was already a steal compared to other companies. Now it only costs $1 each. That price includes the case, cover art, insert card, disc and shrink wrap. Kunaki also offers first time customers a free sample copy of the first disc they upload.

The best part about Kunaki is that they print on demand so if you only want to buy one disc, you’ll only pay $1 plus the cost of shipping. And because they drop-ship, all the risk of ordering inventory and hiring a fulfillment company are eliminated. They’ve made it so anyone can create their own products easily.

When you send a new disc to Kunaki, you will not mail a master disc and email artwork to a sales rep like you would with traditional disc manufacturers. In fact, Kunaki prides itself in being a machine and provides little in the way of customer support. However, their process is fairly simple – just upload your artwork, put a copy of the disc in your computer, and wait for it to upload to Kunaki’s servers. Once it’s uploaded, you can place orders whenever you need to and they will be shipped out the following business day.

ColourLovers.com (Free)

If you ever need some design inspiration, or want to communicate a style you’re looking for to a designer, a great resource to check out is ColourLovers.com. This website has millions of colors, palettes, patterns and photos to get your creative juices flowing.

OvernightPrints.com (Varies)

Online printers have become so fast and competitive in recent years that you can save over 50 percent compared to going to your local printer. And you only need a few days notice to get an order placed and delivered. While there are several great online printers, one of my favorites is OvernightPrints.com. Their list of products includes brochures, posters, magnets, postcards, envelopes, business cards and more.

Their cardstock is thick and high-quality and they offer free UV coating on materials like business cards and postcards. You can even ask for spot UV coating – an upgrade most places charge an arm and a leg for – and they’ll do it for free.

A couple other great online printers to compare pricing with are Uprinting.com and PrintPlace.com.

PrimoPDF.com (Free)

Our students often ask for free software they can use to convert Word documents into PDF. This is it. Primo PDF doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Adobe Acrobat has, but it’s easy to use and gets the job done without making you jump through hoops.

RetailMeNot.com (Free)

This is an online coupon site where people submit discount codes for online retailers. I check RetailMeNot.com before I make any purchase online. They have discount codes for stock photography from Shutterstock and iStock, printed materials from OvernightPrints and Uprinting and even StockLayouts.

Coupon codes are kept current by other users, who mark if a coupon worked or not. The coupons that work for the most users are listed at the top of search results.

A 30 second search on this website can yield savings anywhere from five to 50 percent, so it’s a good idea to make it a routine part of purchasing.

Even if you have little or no budget to spend on product creation or graphic design, you don’t have to settle. Be creative and use the many resources available to get your products created.

I want to leave you with one last word of advice. That is to keep running with your product idea until you have it created. Too many people get an image of “their perfect product” in their heads and never finish when they find out they don’t have the time or money to match their vision. The most successful entrepreneurs are aware of the resources that are available to them and build the best business they can with what they have.

Happy Savings!

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Quick Glance

Source: Joint Venture and Affiliate Traffic

Cost: Joint venture partners and affiliates are paid based on their performance, so you don’t have to pay anything until they’ve made a sale for you! Some of the recruiting suggestions in this checklist entail an upfront cost – but these costs are flexible based on your needs.

Resources: Shari’s Berries, Send Out Cards

How Joint Ventures Work

One of the fastest ways to get traffic hands down is through leveraging others. Joint venture partners and affiliate marketers have the ability to send massive traffic via an email, and long term traffic via integration marketing. A banner advertisement on their blog, or website, or an email promoting your offer in their follow-up series are examples of how they can integrate your offer into their marketing. The only real challenge is your ability to recruit and find top performing joint venture partners and affiliates. Developing positive relationships with them can also go a long way in securing their help for your promotion.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Internet marketers have been using referral marketing for years. Generating sales solely from your own efforts can be somewhat challenging. When you have hundreds of people all helping you drive traffic and generate sales it can be powerful. Sure you have to give up a portion of the sale, but I would easily give up 50 percent of a sale to get a new sale.

Not only are joint venture partners and affiliates able to reach a larger number of people, a referral also helps build credibility for you, the product owner. For example: If I have been following Marketer X for three years, and they recommend that I use a product I am more willing to do it. The trust that I have in Marketer X helps assure me that the product will do what it claims. After all, why would they endorse something that didn’t work? How many times have you bought something based on the recommendation of another? How many movies have you watched based on a recommendation? Even most major retailers now offer ratings of products and testimonials from previous buyers on their sites in the hopes that those who enjoy their purchase will help generate additional sales based on their recommendations. Referral Marketing works. In the following checklist, I am going to give you some different ways in which you can recruit joint venture partners and affiliates.

Pick Up The Phone

JV Recruiting Idea 1: Researching potential joint venture partners and affiliates can take a lot of time. However the time invested can pay huge dividends when you can recruit them to help promote your product or service. It isn’t necessary, but talking to potential joint venture partners and affiliates over the phone can go a long way towards solidifying their support. It’s a lot tougher to tell someone “no” over the phone then via email, or just flat out ignoring their email.

Tip: Don’t call and immediately start talking about how great YOU are. Build the conversation on common ground and ask about them. Ask them how you can help them before talking about what you want. Remember, it isn’t always about the money. Joint venture partners typically look for other things, such as reciprocation instead of money. The right partnership and support in the long term can supersede the money or commission in the short term.

Send a Gift

JV Recruiting Idea 2: I don’t know about you, but I love to receive gifts. It doesn’t matter what it is. Maybe it takes us back to when we were kids, and the anticipation and excitement we felt around Christmas time or our birthdays. Most joint venture partners and affiliates feel the same way. Russell loves receiving gifts and packages in the mail. I have seen him tackle a fellow employee because they mistakenly opened a package addressed to him.

Business can be distracting and noisy. You need to send something that will help you get that person’s attention and help you stand out. I still remember a workshop attendee who sent chocolate dipped strawberries to Russell. That guy could have asked for anything, and he would have gotten it. The whole office enjoyed the tasty treat.

Offer Tools and Extra Resources

JV Recruiting Idea 3: Be willing to go the extra mile for a joint venture partner or affiliate. Create tools that they can use in your promotion. Some examples include pre-written email copy with their tested affiliate link embedded, creating banners and sample blog posts or articles that they can use. We have even created customized sites that are exclusive for them and their lists. JV partners and good affiliates are busy. Their time is valuable. Make it easy for them to promote for you.

Create Some Competition

JV Recruiting Idea 4: Contests and special promotions have always worked to motivate JV partners and affiliates. In our recent 12 Month Internet Millionaire 2.0 launch, Russell offered to buy the affiliate with the most sales a brand new $55,000 car. He ended up taking the cash equivalent, but told me that he promoted hard because he wanted the prize. Along with the amazing prize, he still earned his commission on the sales that he generated. This was a huge payout, but one that we gladly gave.

Tip: Not everyone can and should offer a huge prize like this when launching a product. It’s important that you know your numbers.

• Source: LinkedIn

• URL: www.linkedin.com

• Cost: Free to join. Prices range to advertise.

• Resources: The key to LinkedIn is to join multiple groups and add people to your network. With any social media network the more networks you have overlapping the better. For example, if you post your Twitter feed on your Linkedin profile, you can build your followings on both.

How LinkedIn Works

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social networking site. It has 60 million users and is still growing rapidly. On LinkedIn, you must know the email address of each person you try to connect with. You also have to say how you know them (for example, were they a classmate, co-worker or partner?). Because of this, connections on LinkedIn tend to be more professional than personal so even a small network on LinkedIn can yield big results in your online business.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn is all about quality relationships – not quantity. Because it is professionally based, many people take contacts they make more seriously.When you send someone a message on LinkedIn it should only pertain to business interests, unlike Facebook where updates can be about a variety of things. LinkedIn can also be a great place to generate ideas and get feedback from other professionals. LinkedIn also contains the profiles of thousands of experts in many areas. LinkedIn allows you to engage in conversations with these experts who you may have otherwise been unable to reach. Each connection you make through Linkedin can result in financial gains. For example, you can form lucrative joint venture partnerships, find experts to interview for products and build your credibility as an expert in your niche.

Set Up Your LinkedIn Account

LinkedIn makes signing up as easy as 1-2-3-4. All you need to do is:

• Enter your first name
• Enter your last name
• Enter a valid e-mail address
• Think of a password and enter it

Where In The World Are You?

Next you will be required to enter your zip code and company name so that you can connect with people who work with or near you. This does not limit you to connecting with people in your office or local area, it just makes it easier for LinkedIn to narrow down potential network connections.

Once you have entered your location and company, LinkedIn will tap into the email account that you enter and show all of your contacts that are already using LinkedIn. You can choose to skip these steps. I recommend that you choose contacts you know would be beneficial to your business interests. It’s also important to post a message or button within the other social networks you are part of to let your friends and followers know you are on LinkedIn.

Create a Bio

The bio you create on LinkedIn is going to be different from past social media bios you have made. On LinkedIn, your bio should be similar to a professional resume. You should talk about past work history, achievements and work experiences. All of these components will add to future connection prospects.

Tip: Resumes can be boring and stiff, so present yourself and your work experience in a way that will stand out to other business professionals but stay true to yourself at the same time.

Complete Your Profile

I will be going over every part of the LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has a cool new setting that allows you to see your completion (this is what the red arrow is pointing to below). Once your profile is 100 percent complete the bar turns green and it will show that your profile is done. You can still use LinkedIn even when you are not at 100 percent. For your profile to be fully functional, LinkedIn suggests that you fill everything in and get to 100 percent completion.

Edit Your Information

This next part is the most vital to your LinkedIn profile. The box that is highlighted shows your most recent post. I suggest that you update what you post on LinkedIn at least once a week if not more. Unlike most social network platforms the amount of updates does not correlate with how active you are. Unless you have business related comments to post there is no need for minute to minute updates. As always, be relevant and show value to others in your network. Would someone else find what you are posting useful or informative? If the information that you are posting was not yours would you still read it? Put yourself in your follower’s shoes.

Keep Your Profile Current

The highlighted box in the screenshot above shows all the good content that is eventually going to tie you to employers and other business partners. This part of your profile consists of eight parts:

• The first part is your current position. If you are unemployed this could be a position that you are looking for. Just make sure and clarify in the heading that you are looking for that position.

• The next part is past positions. If you have held any professional positions in the past this is where you put what they were, who you worked for and how long you were employed. I do not list any on my profile because none of my past positions are relevant to what I am looking to do today. (HINT: You can fill this portion with volunteer work. And don’t forget to include any events you’ve helped organize).

• The third piece of information is your education. Put your highest level completed. If you have gone to more than one college list all the colleges you attended. This can help you gain connections with past classmates. Do not put high school unless that is the highest level of schooling you have completed. Remember, this profile is your selling point to other people within the network.

• The next part is a cool feature LinkedIn has provided -  you can get people to recommend you. If you have a former employer or professor who is on LinkedIn they can recommend you and this will amplify the credibility of your profile.

• The connections link shows you how many people you are connected with. If you click the number of connections you can see who they are.

• The website portion gives you the opportunity to tell all your connections where you are on the web. I have my blog, my website (which is actually linked back to my Facebook profile) and I have my portfolio (which is a site I made containing my portfolio). These links can go to whatever web pages and social networking sites you are on. LinkedIn makes it effortless for you to find where people are.

• LinkedIn recently added a Twitter tab. This allows you to see if a connection is on Twitter and to connect with them in one click.

• You can use the “Public Profile” link to send to employers or post in other networks that will lead people directly to your LinkedIn profile.

Create a Group

Creating a group is another useful feature on LinkedIn. If you have a business or a cause you can create a group where people can meet others who are interested in the same topics. You can post details on events, news about that group, and other vital information.

Being a part of other groups can also be beneficial. If you are in groups within your industry, you can keep up on what other business professionals are doing within your industry. If you click the groups tab at the top of your account, it will lead you to a screen that looks similar to the page above. The search box is on the left. Type in what group you would like to search and results from within LinkedIn will come up.

You can see the results of my search for “internet marketing” in the screenshot. With any social networking system there will be an internal search engine that will focus any keyword you have to solutions within the system. You can look up companies and groups within the LinkedIn network to help you stay connected with all the top people and groups in your niche.

The Bottom Line: LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform. Be your business professional self in this network; connect with people and groups alike. When connecting with people in this network think about how the connection is going to benefit you and how you can be a benefit to them. Make updates when you have something business related to say. LinkedIn is another great way to connect with people you may not have connected with before; use this network to advance your business relationships. Now get out there and build your network!

One of the questions I often get asked when people come to our workshops is, “How do I use copywriting to drive traffic?” About 90 percent of my work involves copywriting for sales pages that are driven with joint venture traffic. I do not have to worry about keyword density via articles or trying to entice people to click on a link. However, there have been times when I was appointed to run Russell’s eBay and Craigslist campaigns. It required a different type of copywriting prowess than just writing long-copy sales letters. The purpose of this article is to outline several key elements to writing copy to gain traffic to your website. Let’s get started!

Craigslist and eBay

I am going to lump Craigslist and eBay into the same section since most of the principles are the same. Both require you to write a keyword-rich headline between 55 and 70 characters in length that is impactful enough to get people to click. Both also require writing a keyword-rich ad once you get people to click on your listing. The rules are different than long-copy sales letters you see on most of our sites.

Here’s a story to illustrate this: when Russell asked me to start using eBay and Craigslist to drive traffic to our sites, I thought all I would have to do is plop one of our sales letters into the listing and put any ol’ headline in the subject line. The decrease in response and horrible results told me otherwise. After studying a couple courses on the subject, I learned three secrets to copywriting for Craigslist, eBay, or any other classified-auction site:

• Grab Attention: People on these sites have massive attention deficit disorder. Your subject line has to literally grab them by the lapels and force them to read your ad. The typical eBay and Craigslist user is doing search after search, scanning headline after headline, until they find something they want to click on.

• Write a Stand-Out Headline: Here are some things you can do to attract attention to your listing headlines so they’ll get more attention:

Put quotes around your headline. This little trick makes it appear like the listing is speaking to the reader — as in actual dialogue. Plus, it makes your headline stand out.

Put a “specific” in your headline. This could be a number or percentage. It has been shown that having a specific amount (for example, “seven methods” or “49 percent off”) can attract attention to your headlines.

Pretend you’re writing for the National Enquirer. If you browse the Enquirer while waiting in the grocery line, you’ll notice they use power words like “explosive,” “gripping” and “exposed.” These headlines are written by some of the best copywriters in the world, and using these words can strengthen your listing.

Use “Secrets” as much as possible. Ever notice headlines that always use the word “secret”? This is because it’s one of the most powerful words in copywriting. It plays upon people’s paranoia that others are withholding information from them. If you ever had someone come up to you and tell you, “I have a secret to tell you!” you probably stopped what you were doing and paid attention.

Use the word “FREE” as much as possible. Free is probably the most powerful word in marketing. People like getting free stuff, so incorporating free as much as possible in your listing headlines can boost clickthrough rates. Examples of ways you can incorporate this include offering “FREE Shipping” or “Get This Widget FREE When You Buy Now!”

• Keep It Short: Make sure your listings are short and to the point. One of the mistakes people make when selling on Craigslist and eBay is they use the same long-form sales letters that are on internet marketing websites (I should know…I did the same thing).

The one thing about Craigslist and eBay is people are on the site looking for bargains and are proven buyers. They don’t need to be sold as much as other types of traffic. So to drive traffic to your site, all you need to do is write a short listing that’s no more than 150 to 200 words with a call to action telling people to click on your site for more information.

• Use the right Keywords: Make sure you use the right keywords in your listing. When people search for items on Craigslist and eBay, they usually use the search function. This function scans the headlines and body copy and returns results that have the relevant keyword. Therefore, it is imperative you have the correct keywords in your listing.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. If you’re selling a Ford Explorer, just make sure you have “Ford Explorer” in your listing so people can find it. It is a good idea to “stuff” a couple more related keywords in your listing. For example, you would want to make sure you have the acronym “SUV” in the heading as some people will just type that into search to see what comes up.

Article Marketing and Other SEO Copy

There is no way I can write a “copywriting for traffic” article without talking about SEO.  This includes writing articles for submission to article directories and writing blog posts. Essentially the same rules apply regarding keyword density and headlines that I described above.

Regarding keyword density in your article, I never try to strive for a percentage. The search engines are smart, and can tell when you’re “keyword stuffing.” In general, I make sure the keyword I am going to target is in my headline, the first paragraph of my article, and the last paragraph. I also sprinkle some keywords in the body of the article without overdoing it.

I will say this: when writing blog posts and articles, I have had my best results with giving people “steps.”  People like to learn things step-by-step; for example, “7 Steps To Getting More Traffic,” or “5 Steps To Getting A Higher Response With Your Copy.” This is also powerful since there is a specific number in these headlines — which we already discussed can increase response.

Conclusion

Copywriting to get a sale is one thing; copywriting to drive traffic by enticing someone to click on a link is a whole different ball game. The purpose of this article was to improve your ability to get more traffic to your website so you can make more money!

Someone sent me a video this week that had such a big impact on me,  I now watch it every morning when I first wake up (and I recommend you watch it every morning as well before you start your day). I put it on my iPhone so I can see it every time I need to get focused again. You can download an iPhone ready version of the video or see it on YouTube here. I want to start with a quote from that video:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

To be successful in business and life, you need to become a leader. You need to become someone who is willing to “shine,” and bring those around you to a higher level. But I need to help prepare you because as soon as you decide to step up as a leader, you will notice that people around you will almost instantly try to pull you down. That is why most people do “shrink,” because they are afraid that others around them will feel insecure – and that is why we don’t have more leaders in this world.

Jay Abraham said that “people are silently begging to be lead.” I believe that is very true, and those of us who will stand up and lead are going to be those who make the money and have the ability to change other people’s lives. Here are three things that will help you to start playing bigger in this life.

Lengthen Your Line

I want to share this first story because it will be important for you for two reasons. The first is how you will look at successful people around you, and the second is to understand why people will try to pull you down as you become more successful.

This story is from a book I bought at a used book store in New Jersey when I was 20 years old. I saw it on the book shelf, and for some reason I thought it would be fun to read. It’s called, “Zen And The Martial Arts” by Joe Hyams. An excerpt reads:

…I was practicing Kumite (sparring) with a more skillful opponent. To make up for my lack of knowledge and experience, I tried deceptive, tricky moves that were readily countered. I was outclassed, and Parker watched me get roundly trounced. When the match was over I was dejected. Parker invited me into his small office; a small sparsely furnished room with only a scarred desk and battered chairs.

“Why are you so upset? ” he asked.

“Because I couldn’t score.”

Parker got up from behind the desk and with a piece of chalk drew a line on the floor about five feet long. “How can you make this line shorter?” he asked.

I studied the line and gave him several answers, including cutting the line in many pieces.

He shook his head and drew a second line, longer than the first. “Now how does the first line look?

“Shorter,” I said.

Parker nodded. “It is always better to improve and strengthen your own line or knowledge than to try and cut your opponent’s line.” He accompanied me to the door and added, “Think about what I have just said.”

When you see someone more successful than you, there are two ways you can get to their level. You can lengthen your line, or you can try to cut them down to where you are. Unfortunately most people take the second option, where they cut down others. Don’t let this be you.

Look at what successful people do, and model it so you can lengthen your line. And just be aware that the more successful you become, the more people will try to chop you down to their level. Remember the quote at the beginning of this article when this happens: “Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do.”

Your Finest Hour

One of the things that always makes me laugh is when I hear people tell my story, and they end it with “he became an overnight success.” If only they knew how many years of work and preparation I had to go through to get my “overnight success.”

Here is another one of my favorite quotes spoken by Winston Churchill: “To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents, what a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for that which would be his finest hour. ”

Success does not come overnight. It comes from a lot of hard work and preparation. What I feel is the best way to prepare yourself is through a concept I learned from Tony Robbins called “immersion.”

When I am interested in a topic, or need to understand something that I know is going to be necessary for success in a part of my life, I immerse myself in that topic. For example, a few months ago I got very interested in Neuro Linguistics Programming (NLP). So to understand and learn how to use this concept in my life, I didn’t dabble in it, I immersed myself in it. I bought as many books on Amazon as I could find on the topic. I then found out who the “gurus” were on that topic, and I bought copies of their audio programs. Then for the next two weeks, I immersed myself in this topic. I listened to audios when I drove to work and back. I read copies of the books at night and during lunch, I read articles and case studies on Google. In about two weeks I had absorbed the concepts to the point where I could use them in my life.

I am convinced that you can learn almost any topic in about two weeks if you will immerse yourself and focus on it. Every two weeks you could get the equivalent of a college education on any topic that you want. Prepare yourself now through constant and intense education on the topics that will prepare you for your finest hour.

However Long And Hard The Road

In what was probably the most powerful calls of courage ever uttered in the English language, Winston Churchill, after being called to be the prime minister of England went to the house of commons with this speech:

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us. . . .That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory – victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be.

As a leader and someone who is playing life to the fullest, you have to realize that there are going to be times in your life when the task seems almost impossible. Unfortunately most people under those circumstances give up and quickly go towards an easier way. Do not let that be you. Fight for your dreams and do not give up.

I covered three important principles that will help you to become a leader and to live life at its fullest. The first is to always Lengthen Your Line, the second is to increase your knowledge, and the third is to fight for a victory no matter how long or hard the road might be.

I want to challenge you today to make a goal to become a leader. Decide today that you are going to become a better you. Dream big dreams, then focus and fight to make those dreams become a reality. That is how you are going to do your part to change the world.  As you start living life at a higher level, you will help others rise to your level as well.

“And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

There are dozens of brilliant product ideas bursting to get out of each one of us. These are products that would have the power to change people’s lives and make the world a little better place to live in. The problem is, most people don’t know how to implement their ideas. And those who do are often frustrated and intimidated at the thought of failure.

If you’ve ever sat down at the computer to write a book, draft a speech or outline a presentation – you know that it doesn’t matter how long your staring contest with the blank screen lasts, or how hard you glare – the screen always wins. That is, unless you start with a battle plan in mind.

In reality – an attempt at creating a new product for most people usually goes down something like this:

• An idea pops into your head at an inconvenient time (usually while on the toilet, in bed or talking to someone you’re only pretending to listen to). Your heart starts pounding fast and you’d crank the product out then and there… if only you had a computer or something to write with. You resolve to work on it the first moment you have to spare.
• That first moment comes and goes. Then many more “moments” pass by. Finally, when your motivation has waned and all you want is to get it done so you can stop thinking about it, you plop down at the computer to have a go at your product idea. After 30 seconds of staring at a blank screen, you realize you haven’t written to your Great Aunt Thelma in three years and begin typing an email.
• Back to the blank screen. After a minute more of staring, you try typing some nonsense in hopes that the action of pushing buttons will inspire you. When that doesn’t work, your eyes wander around the room, and you suddenly become ravenously hungry… and the cycle goes on until you either give out or take a different approach…

Does any of this sound familiar? The feeling of being defeated by an inanimate object like a computer screen is humbling at best. So, if you’ve got a great product idea (or even if you don’t), read on to find out how you can use simple but proven content templates to quickly turn your idea into reality.

Choose A Content Template

Content templates make it easy to come up with product ideas quickly. They also help you segment main points so that the information is organized and easy to understand for your end-user. The examples below can be used when outlining any type of info-product, including books, audios, videos, articles, webinars, teleseminars and live presentations.

The first set of content templates comes from a poster that is included as part of our Instant Traffic Systems course (I added an example for each to get the ideas flowing):

• Alternatives Healthy and Delicious Alternatives to Eating Out

• Benefits Eight Benefits of Having a Destination Wedding

• Commandments 10 Commandments to Writing Action Movie Scripts

• Cures 12 Natural Remedies for Back Pain

• Flaws Embarrasing Signs of Aging Most Women Try to Hide

• Frustrations Seven Shared Frustrations of Elderly Voters

• Boosts Five Ways to Boost Your Credit Score in 30 Days or Less

• Challenges Eight Challenges for Higher Education in 2010

• Concerns 12 Concerns Caused by the Rising Price of Oil and What You Can Do About It

This list is just a beginning. Here are a few more content templates you can use to create products:

• Mistakes The Four Most Common Family Budgeting Mistakes

• Checklists Quickstart Checklist to Selling Your Home Without an Agent

• Ideas 52 Date Ideas for Under $10

• Strategies The Top Five New Age Strategies for Marketing Your Independent Music Band

• Questions The Seven Questions You Should Ask Before Buying Life Insurance

• Resources Insider’s Top 100 List of Electronic Wholesalers

• Sins The Six Dirty Sins of Collection Agents and How to Protect Yourself

• Secrets 12 Secrets to Prevent Signs of Aging

• MYTHS The Three Weight Loss Myths That Will Kill Almost Any Diet

Start in the Middle

Once you’ve chosen a content template that is appropriate for your product, use the outline below to quickly organize the bulk of your content:

Introduction

Main Point 1 Include a story, case study or example

Main Point 2 Include a story, case study or example

Main Point 3 Include a story, case study or example

So, if you were creating a product called “The Four Most Common Family Budgeting Mistakes,” the first main point might be buying on credit. Make sure to include at least one story for each main point. For this example, it could be about a friend you know who charged a luxury vacation to their credit card and is now eating macaroni and cheese every night to pay it off.

Now, it makes sense to start at the beginning for most things in life. If you eat cake from the center, you’ll get frosting on your face, if you put your pants on before your underwear, you’ll look like a wannabe superhero and eat lunch alone. In most instances in life, society punishes us for jumping ahead and starting anywhere but the start. So naturally, when we sit down to create content, most people try to start at the beginning.

The problem with this is that the beginning is the most intimidating part of an info-product because it is the most important. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book, giving a speech or recording a video – if the lead is weak, no one will continue to listen. So when we sit down to put our ideas into words, and the astounding lead we’re looking for doesn’t come, it’s easy to walk away frustrated and pass the whole thing off as a bad idea.

Instead, start with the basic outline shown and fill in the middle. It’s easier to get ideas flowing, and by the time you are done, you’ll have invested some time into the product. Another bonus to this method is that often as you begin getting your ideas down – the great lead you were hoping for pops into your head.

Create your own “Do or __”

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do or die.” I’m not advocating death as a punishment for not completing a product. Rather, take the first part of the phrase and create your own, less brutal “do or __” by filling in the blank with something that motivates you. It might be, “do or don’t watch the big football game,” or “do or eat your least favorite food.”  Then, to make sure you hold yourself accountable, set a date and get an accountability partner who loves you enough to annoy you until you finish.

Follow the simple steps in this article, and your next staring contest with a computer screen will be in the bag. And more importantly, you’ll be able to create your great product idea, make some money and maybe even change the world.

I remember back when I was just graduating high school. I had big plans and thought I had everything worked out. First I was going to travel to a foreign country to do some service for my church. Then I was going to return and hit college hard, study, earn my degree, then go take on the world. I even had plans to live in a tent up in the foothills behind the college so I could save as much money as I could. I was going to wake up early, workout at the gym where I could take care of my personal hygiene, eat food on campus or cooked over an open fire and in my hermit life I would study my way to the top. As it turned out, I was completely missing the point. Life isn’t about me—it’s about me in relation to them.

Now on a related topic, let’s switch gears to network marketing. I have always been attracted to network marketing as a business model with a low barrier to entry and a high potential for earnings. What I couldn’t figure out was why so many people would join a network marketing company, proceed to expose a few acquaintances to the business and then give up after three or four rejections, declaring that the model was flawed.

This is a common scenario that can easily be avoided. It’s all a matter of network. First off, I want to talk about the importance and power of a network and how to leverage yours. Second, I’ll cover various ways to reach out and increase the potency of your network so it can begin to work for you.

The Size of Your Personal Network

How many people do you know? When initially asked this question, many beginning network marketers respond with a phrase designed to immediately discount the value of this asset. They may say something like, “not very many people,” “no one worthwhile,” or “pretty much just family.”

For the vast majority of people, this is simply not true. We often discount the size of our personal network. The quickest way to realize this is to open your cell phone or your email contact list. Go ahead, take a look. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a name and some kind of contact information for over 200 people or more. And we haven’t even scratched the surface. More ideas are listed on page 37.

Now you may be saying, “Well sure, these are all people I know but what does that have to do with anything. They don’t care what I have to say. What would make then interested in listening?” This brings me to my next point: the virility of your network.

The Virility of your Personal Network

You may have never put it in this light before, but you truly have an invisible credit score with everyone you know. Although there is no formal scoring agency tracking your worthiness (or lack thereof), the scores are there inside of each of your contacts’ opinions and emotions towards you. Each time you meet someone new, they give you a score. As you continue to interact with them over time your score goes up or down based on two basic ideas—how much they like you and how much they trust you. Jordan Adler, a highly successful networker, lists a few things that directly affect your individual score with each person in your network:

• How you treat them
• Whether you show interest in them as a human being or wether you are just trying to get something from them
• How long you have known them
• How well you do at staying in touch and how often you are in touch
• How much value you bring to their life
• How much time or attention you give them
• How well you respect their time
• How well you establish and maintain rapport with them
• How much sincere interest you show to the people and things that are important to them

Adler goes on to explain that, “Your ultimate ‘credit’ score will be determined by how well you do in all of these areas. A high credit score earns you trust with the people in your life. When someone trusts you they will take you seriously when you have something to talk to them about. They are more likely to ‘loan’ you their time when you have a high score. If you have a low score, people will give you excuses and avoid you. They won’t be interested in signing up with you.”

There are certain things you will want to avoid like the plague. These are a few things that will quickly lower your credit score if you repeat the offense:

• Saying you are going to do something and then not doing it
• Overstaying your visit
• Calling someone after not talking to them in a few years and asking for something from them
• Hard selling your opportunity to someone who hasn’t given you permission to share what you have
• Forgetting important dates like birthdays and  anniversaries

It is of absolute importance to actively work on increasing and maintaining a high credit score with your network. According to Adler, if you do the simple things it takes, your success in your Network Marketing company will be “a cakewalk for you!”

Homework Assignment

So, your homework is to think up simple ways to boost your credit score with the people you know. Let me give you a short list to get your started:

• Be a regular birthday card sender
• Go the extra mile and send people happy anniversary cards
• Always take the opportunity to send holiday cards
• Make an effort to notice little things people do for you. Get in the habit of thanking people either in person or through a card
• Get outside of your busy head and notice people
• Make an effort to smile and wish people well
• Make occasional, friendly phone calls just to say hi
• Invite people over for dinner or go out of your way to do something nice

Unlike your FICO score, you can gain a high credit score with people fairly quickly by doing simple things that lift them up. In fact, go ahead and take a minute to write down 10 things you could do in one minute or less that will raise your credit score with someone.

A couple of weeks ago we held a small seminar for some of our clients. They flew from some of the biggest cities around the world to come to the thriving metropolitan of Boise, Idaho (talk about culture shock). These clients represent business owners in practically every stage in the evolutionary process of business. During this event, I was reminded that regardless of where you come from or what stage of growth your business is in, the same questions plague the majority of business owners.

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The two questions that seemed to dominate our conversations throughout this event were, “How can I tell who my best customers are” and “How do I increase customer lifetime value?” The answers I gave to their questions corresponded closely with my article… so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone (not that I condone killing birds).

WARNING This article contains math and the use of probability… if that’s a problem, please move on to cheerier articles about customer service or logo design or something that might better suit your fancy.

For those who have decided to keep reading, we are first going to tackle potential methods on how to identify your best customers and separate them from the rest: RFM analysis. Several months ago, I briefly mentioned RFM analysis. RFM is certainly not the only way to evaluate your customers, but it’s fairly quick and unsophisticated. RFM is a three-dimensional approach to determining who your “best” customers are.

While there are undoubtedly some limitations to this model, which I’ll briefly cover, there are several key insights that can be derived from using this type of analysis, which make it beneficial to discuss. RFM comes from sorting your data according to three main variables which directly contribute to the overall value of a customer:

• Recency How recently did a customer order?
• Frequency How many times has a customer ordered?
• Monetary Value What is the total value of all the orders a customer has placed?

Step 1 In order to start the RFM analysis, you will need to organize customer records according to each variable (recency of purchase, how frequently they purchase, and the total amount of all of their purchases). Once you have these records, you will be ready to start the process.

Step 2 The next step will depend primarily upon the size of your database. You need to break your database into groupings, for this you can use something like CHAID or simply eyeball where one segment should stop and another start. If you only have a few records, you may want to consider tertiles (3), for those with larger databases you can use quartiles (4), quintiles (5), or deciles (10), or any other number that you prefer (it is not recommended to use more than 10).

Just one bit of advice, you want to make sure you have enough records (at least 20 to 30 per segment) to make the analysis mean something, but the more you can break your database up, the more clarity you will be able to derive from this exercise. Just make sure to keep the segments across each variable the same (don’t have 5 for R, 8 for F, and 10 for M), and don’t have more than 10 segments per variable – it gets a little too fragmented. Also, try to clump similar values in the same segment, that way you won’t have a value represented in multiple segments.

Most of you will end up using quintiles (5). So, for illustrative purposes, I will also use quintiles (despite only having 10 records). Again, for databases this small, it’s not impossible to send each a personalized email everyday –let alone pick up the phone and talk to them. But for ease of following how RFM works, I need to have at least 10 records. Below is the initial sample data.  This is the first step in the process.  Once you have collected and organized your data, move it to Excel where overall manipulation is easier.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Sort by Recency:

Like you did with your recency segmentation, you are going to add a column for your frequency score, then run a re-sort based on your frequency column.  And, based on the number per segment, start assigning values again (starting with the segment with the highest frequency as the highest score down to the lowest).

Re-sort by Frequency:

Your last new column will be for monetization. You will re-sort your data according to the total amount spent and award the highest value for the customers who spent the most all the way down to those who spent the least.

Re-sort by Monetization:

Finally re-sort by RFM scores (shown in the table above) starting with recency then frequency then monetization. This final re-sort will help outline the various strategies you should use to approach various customer segments. For example, your first order of business is to find Michael Jones and everyone like him and make sure you keep them happy. You should target this group for special offers to keep them active and engaged. These are your “best” customers. This isn’t to say you should ignore the rest; in fact you’ll likely ruin your entire database if you do. If all you do is target this one segment, you’ll burn them out and leave the rest to die from neglect.

For everyone not in this segment, you need to find ways to increase the chances of them buying from you again and more frequently (monetization usually takes care of itself, but it’s a good determinant to eliminate the possibility of a tie – a 5-5-3 is worth more than a 5-5-1).  RFM allows you to focus on the key activities that customers are or are not engaged in and creates opportunities for them to change for the better.

There are other ways to do RFM (sorting within sorts, adding the values from each variable to give you an overall score – 5+5+5=15, 3+4+2=9 – or weighting the values based on which variable is most important to your business 4R+3F+1M). Regardless of how you ultimately decide to use this tool, the one major lesson to be had is this: use it.

When to run analysis One last thought on RFM, this analysis is not something you run once and forget about… you want to do this regularly (as often as it makes sense: quarterly, monthly, weekly, etc.). The real benefit of frequently running this analysis is you are then able to monitor the scoring variance between each run to determine which customers have moved up and which have moved down. This is where you can start to gain traction building meaningful relationships.

Limitations of RFM Analysis Even with this, RFM is not perfect. Critics of RFM analysis point out several potential limitations or risks inherent with it. The primary criticisms of RFM revolve around it being a descriptive analysis instead of predictive. In other words, you cannot forecast any potential for a segment to take a future action as a result of this scoring method, i.e. which segment future customers will be in, nor does it bring other grouping characteristics to the forefront, i.e. one set of customers bought at the same time or from the same source and they all have similar purchase histories.

Additionally, if you only use RFM to determine which customers get which marketing messages, there is a real danger in ignoring what appear to be underperforming segments that could be just as profitable with the proper time and attention, as well as the sobering possibility of over-marketing to what appears to be the “best” RFM segments.

Finally, RFM also fails to properly account for the variability of customer behavior. It assumes that customers will always be in the same segment or react the same way (a 5-5-5 will always be a 5-5-5).  We have discussed a few ways to overcome most of these valid criticisms.

Still, in spite of what the critics say about this tool, RFM enables you to quickly determine which customers are white-hot, which are struggling or not performing so you can prevent lukewarm customers from shifting into a cold apathy, and which customers are in dire need of CPR or to be brought back from the dead. Each segment presents its own unique opportunities and challenges. Nevertheless, this is information and clarity you would not have had you not performed this analysis. As such, RFM is a vital tool to have when used appropriately.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

• Are there any print magazines on the subject?
• Can you provide value in a continuity program?
• Is your audience willing and able to spend money?
• Is your target audience willing and able to spend money on your backend products?
• Do the keywords suggest the market is solid?
• When you’re ready, are there opportunities to advertise offline on a large scale in mediums like television, magazines and direct mail?
• Can you provide something new to the market that people are willing to pay for?

As you answer these questions, remember, you don’t have to be an expert in a niche to build a business. Partner with a friend or neighbor who is an expert or take the role of reporter and interview people who have established names in the industry. If you’re still stumped, use the following list of over 300 niche ideas to uncover the hidden market where you can provide value and build a profitable online business:

Animals and Pets

• Aquarium Owners
• Bird Watching
• Boxer Dogs
• Bulldogs
• Cat Care
• Dog Diets
• Ferrets
• German Shepherds
• Horse Breeders
• Horse Racing
• Pet Owner Handbook
• Saltwater Aquarium Owners

Business

• Article Marketing
• Business Start Up
• Drop Shipping
• Ebay Selling
• Internet Advertising
• Magazine Publishing
• Networking – Working a Room
• Small Business Grant
• Social Networking
• Start An Investment Club
• Start a Retail Business
• Video Marketing

Career Training

• Astrology
• Become a Chef
• Beekeeping
• Career Planning
• Coaching and Consulting
• Digital Photography
• Event Planning
• Film Making
• Interior Design
• Jewelry Appraisal
• Job Interviewing
• Kitchen Design
• Massage Therapy
• Mystery Shopping
• Nursing Job
• Online Degree
• Photoshop
• Pilots
• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Private Investigation
• Professional Speaking
• Public Speaking
• Resumes and Cover Letters
• Web Design
• Wedding Planning

Cars

• Beat a Speeding Ticket
• Buy a Car
• Buying a Used Car
• Car Auction
• Car Owners
• Car Subwoofer
• Cheap Used Car
• RC Cars
• Radio Controlled Cars
• Start a Car Detailing Business
• Used Car Loan
• Vintage Car Enthusiasts

Exercise and Weight Loss

• Adkins Diet
• Body Type
• Boost Metabolism
• Exercise Program
• Fat Burning
• Gain Muscle
• Get Six Pack Abs
• Hoodia Gordoni
• Lose 10 Pounds
• Lose Love Handles
• Muscle Building
• Reduce Calories
• Stretching
• Walking

Going Green

• Composting
• Energy Efficient Home
• Going Green
• Save Money At the Gas Pump

Parenting

• Baby Music
• Baby Sitter Service
• Baby Sleep
• Birth Announcement
• Child Adoption
• Child Custody
• Child Modeling
• Children of Divorce
• Colic
• Daycare
• Family Vacation
• Hire a Nanny
• Home Schooling
• Internet Child Safety
• New Mothers (i.e. baby’s first year)
• Parents
• Personalized Child Book
• Potty Train Your Child
• Single Parents
• Taming Teens

Family and Relationships

• 101 Ways to Say I Love You
• Buy a Diamond (Engagement Ring)
• Cheating Wife
• Dating After Divorce
• Enhance Your Love Life
• Genealogy/Family History
• Grieving Tips
• Marriage Counseling
• Marriage Help
• Matchmaking
• Online Dating
• Romantic Ideas
• Save My Marriage
• Seduction
• Stop Your Divorce
• Taking Time for Family

Fashion and Beauty

• Acne
• Adult Acne
• Anti Aging Treatment
• Designer Bag
• Hair Loss
• Mole Removal
• Reduce Cellulite
• Skin Care
• Staying Young
• Stretch Marks
• Tattoos
• Teeth Whitening
• Varicose Vein
• Young Skin

Food and Drink

• Brew Your Own Beer At Home
• Cake Decorating
• Coffee Maker
• Dessert
• Healthy Recipes
• Herbs
• Restaurant Recipes
• Salad Recipe
• Spanish Food
• Sushi
• Vegan Diet
• Vegetarian Recipes
• Wine Tasting

Finance

• Art Investing
• Avoid Bankruptcy
• College Scholarships
• Credit Card Insurance
• Credit Repair
• Economic Recession
• Education Grant
• Estate Planning
• Fix Your Credit
• Forex Trading
• Fundraising
• Home Improvement Loan
• Identity Theft Protection
• Online Coupon
• Penny Stocks
• Recover from Bankruptcy
• Retirement Planning
• Saving for College
• Sell Annuity
• Setup a Budget
• Tax Help
• Trading the Forex Market
• Trust Deeds

Health and Welness

• Acid Reflux
• Adult Dyslexia
• Allergies
• Aromatherapy
• Arthritis Pain
• Asthma Medication
• Asthma Treatment
• Autism
• Back Pain
• Bad Breath
• Blood Sugar
• Alzheimer’s Caregiving
• Childhood Obesity
• Eczema Treatment
• Fibromyalgia
• First Aid Training
• Glycemic Index
• Gynecomastia
• Headache Sufferers
• Herniated Disk
• Hypertension
• Insomnia
• Living Healthy
• Lower Cholesterol
• Menopause
• Mental Health Support
• Natural Cold Fighters
• Natural Sleep Remedies
• Pregnancy Nutrition
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Sjogrens Syndrome
• Skin Cancer
• Stop Snoring
• Yeast Infection

Hobbies and Crafts

• Antique Collectible
• Candle Making
• Card Tricks
• Coin Collecting
• Crocheting
• Do It Yourself
• Dream Interpretation
• Fly Fishing
• Go Carts
• Home Decoration
• Home Improvement
• Knitting
• Learn Spanish
• Learn To Play Guitar
• Learn To Play Piano
• Love Poetry
• Magic Tricks
• Model Ship Collectors
• Model Train Collecting
• Nascar Racing
• Online Freebies
• Paintball Accessories
• Paintball Guns
• Painting
• Photoshop Tutorials
• Play Poker
• Quilting
• Scrapbooking
• Sign Language
• Singing Lessons
• Speed Boat
• Stamp Collecting
• Surveys
• Texas Hold’em Poker
• Visualization
• Woodworking

Holidays and Events

• Bachelor Party
• Bachelorette Party
• Beach Weddings
• Bridal Shower
• Christmas Gift Ideas
• Cut Wedding Costs
• Destination Wedding
• Groomsmen Gift Ideas
• Homemade Gifts/Gift Ideas
• Wedding Speech

Legal

• Legal Help
• Lemon Laws
• Paralegal Schools
• Patent Information
• Public Records

Natural Living

• Alternative Health
• Body Detox
• Midwifery
• Natural Gardening
• Natural Health Remedy
• Natural Insecticide
• Wheat Grass

Outdoors

• Bow Hunting
• Deck and Patio Plans
• Horticulture
• Koi Ponds
• Landscaping
• Outdoor Survival Skills
• Rose Gardening
• Swing Set
• Vegetable Gardening

Real Estate

• House Floor Plans
• Mortgage Refinance
• Property Auction
• Real Estate Appraisal
• Real Estate Success
• Reverse Mortgage
• Sell Your Home
• Sell Your Home Yourself

Safety and Self Reliance

• Burglar Alarm
• Car Alarm
• Emergency Money
• Survival Kits
• Water Filter
• Women Self Defense

Self-Improvement

• Alcohol Addiction
• Avoid Procrastination
• Bad Habits
• Better Grades
• Boost Your Memory
• Change Your Mind
• Destress Your Life
• Get Organized
• Influence
• Leadership Development
• Live With Passion
• Mood Swings
• Motivation and Goals
• Nicotine Addiction
• Quit Smoking
• Self Esteem Building
• Self Help
• Self Hypnosis
• Setting Goals
• Speed Reading
• Staying Motivated
• Stop Bedwetting
• Stress Management
• Stress Relief
• Subliminal Messages
• Teambuilding
• Time Management

Shopping

• Garage Sale
• Memory Foam Mattress
• Reverse Phone Directory
• Used Camera

Sports

• Aikido
• Fantasy Football Pics
• Golf Ball
• Golf Slice Cure
• Golf Tips
• Golf for Free
• Latin Dance
• Mixed Martial Arts
• Mountain Biking
• Scuba Diving
• Senior Golf
• Soccer
• Swimming Technique
• Table Tennis
• Yoga

Technology and Communication

• Blogging
• Build a Computer
• Computer Programming
• HDTV
• Headphones
• Ipod
• MP3 Player
• Podcasting
• Stop Spam
• Virus Alert
• Web Video
• iPhone

Travel

• Cheap Airfare
• Discount Travel
• Fear of Flying
• Last Minute Travel
• Travel Tips

One of the things most marketers do not understand when they write copy is their prospect is in a certain mindset. It’s a mindset that is different than when they’re in Walmart buying a bedsheet or in the shoe store trying on a pair of shoes. This one statement could literally change the way you market your products and write copy.

Ready? Here it is: “Your Customer Doesn’t Want To Believe You!”

You see, when you’re writing copy for the web, you’re selling something people cannot pick up, touch, smell, or taste. You are using the power of your words to sell your product. It’s one of the hardest things to do – as the language that needs to be used is vastly different from what most people have ever learned in any English class. Copywriting is about motivating people to take action – and web copywriters have to rely on the written word to get that done.

Plus, you’re dealing with the inherent skepticism of your customer. People are becoming more and more skeptical of advertisements as time goes on… and as our society becomes more and more over advertised to it’s only going to get worse. Plus, everyone has bought something that didn’t work as advertised. These are just some of the things that are working against you when you put up that website.

However, there are several things you can do to boost the selling power of your copy beyond the words on the website and screen. It’s all about gaining the trust and credibility of your audience so they feel safe buying from you. Implement these elements and the selling power of your copy will skyrocket!

Testimonials and Case Studies

People like to see that other customers have obtained the same benefits you advertise the customer is going to get when they purchase your product.  There are some who are skeptical about testimonials since there are a lot of marketers out there who use fake testimonials; however, they are few and far between.

When creating your testimonial, make sure you highlight the “good part” so it attracts the attention of people who scan your copy down to the order button. You can see an example of a testimonial I gave on John Carlton’s “Simple-Writing System” website (www.simple-writing-system.com). This is an excellent course, by the way.

Case studies are testimonials that are more detailed. They are frequently placed as part of the copy…not just a separate box like testimonials frequently are placed.

“As Seen On TV”

We live in a culture that highly values celebrity and people on the television and radio. Being on a news or radio show (even internet radio) can be a huge credibility builder. It shows that someone thought your subject matter was intriguing enough to warrant being featured on a public program.

If you can, try to get on any program where you can talk about yourself and your product. Then you can easily put “As Seen On…(insert media outlet)” above the fold on your website. When customers come to your site, they’ll see that and you’ll get instant credibility – or at least enough that they’ll want to know more about you.

Below is an example from Russell’s blog: (www.dotcomsecrets.com/blog) where we placed the media outlets where Russell has been spotted. We make sure these are placed above the fold on the page (this means it’s on the first part of the screen without scrolling down) so it serves as an instant credibility builder.

Write A Book!

In the same vein as being covered in media outlets such as TV and radio, today’s culture lays huge credence to people who have published a book. You don’t have to be Stephen King or Michael Crichton either – it’s generally easy to self-publish a book yourself.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

–>

Dan Kennedy, the self-proclaimed Renegade Marketer, admits he doesn’t make a lot of money selling his “No B.S.” line of books (which are excellent by the way) – especially when it compares to the money he makes selling his info-products.  He says the real reason he wrote the books was to build credibility with the general public (and potential customers) and so he could call himself a published author.

Get Someone Popular To Endorse You

One of the big credibility builders you can use is to get in cahoots with a household name in your industry. For example, if you’re teaching people how to get more sales, you would perhaps get Brian Tracy or Zig Ziglar to endorse you. If you’re selling info on how to become a better basketball player, you would get a household name like Shaquille O’Neal to endorse your product.

One of the reasons our recent Self Improvement Millionaires launch was massively successful was because the first thing people saw was the self-help icon Tony Robbins introducing Russell onto stage at a recent speaking event in Fiji. Tony is a recognized guru in the self-improvement market and seeing Russell on the same stage as Tony brought huge credibility for Russell.

Keep in mind that this is the hardest thing to do since most A-list people are hard to contact. But if you had someone else in your niche who’s lesser-known to endorse your product (and easier to reach) you’ll get instant credibility.

Demonstrations

This is basically the “bread and butter” of credibility. Like I mentioned before, people are reading your copy and making decisions on whether or not to buy from you. And most of the time they’re doing it with just words on the screen.

However if you have a great demonstration of your product, this will make the buying decision easier. This works unbelievably well with software products. You can easily make a five to 10 minute Camtasia video showing people what the software can do. It only takes five to 10 minutes to do it…but the effect on sales can be huge.

We did this for our Live Webinar Replay product we recently launched. The sales page video includes a basic pitch for the product that includes a quick demonstration. You can see a screenshot on page 10. Showing people how the software worked made the buying decision easier for customers.

Further, if you’re selling a membership site, you can create screenshots of the member’s area—even a Camtasia video. Most membership sites are sight-unseen…meaning people don’t know what they look like—they’re just sold on the benefits of joining the site. If they are able to see what the site looks like inside, it will boost their desire for the product and the chances of buying will go up.

Show Your Real Face

One of the biggest credibility builders you can incorporate into your sales letter is to use your own photo on your website. Most people do not like to buy from nameless/faceless entities online. By showing your face on your website, you’ll gain your customer’s trust since they’ll see there’s a real person behind the website—not a faceless entity.

Conclusion

Finally, I want to leave you with an important thought. This is something that has served me well in my copywriting career.

Here it is: “When you’re writing copy, pretend you’re a lawyer trying to make a case before a judge.”

This is extremely important. When you write your copy with this mindset, you’ll start to think of ways to build credibility and trust in your copy.  This will allow you to write a credible sales letter that is full of proof that the prospect has no other option than to buy from you. Because 98 percent of sales letters fail because they are not credible or contain the necessary proof elements. Incorporating these elements into your sales letters will allow you to write copy that will boost your chances of getting sales!

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Have you had a chance to watch the show “The Shark Tank” yet? This is by far the best show on television right now, and the only show where you can learn powerful business tactics that will help you transform your business. (You can see past episodes by going to http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank#). As I’ve been watching this show a lot, I want to share with you its premise and then some gems that I’ve learned from watching it.

Each week there are usually four or five entrepreneurs who have some type of startup business. Most of them have made some money, but they are not able to get to the next level by themselves. So they come to the “Shark Tank” to ask the Sharks for money in exchange for a percentage of their business. The Sharks consist of five people who have each built up huge businesses that they have either sold or made a ton of money from. They have a chance to look at the businesses that are presented, and if they like the businesses, they will give their own money in exchange for an agreed upon percentage of the business.

And that’s where it all begins. Now, I highly recommend watching a few episodes online, and when you get back, I want to discuss a few of the core principles that they drive home over and over that you should be thinking about with your business.

Your Cost To Acquire A Customer

In one of the episodes, a guy had a cool business where people would take their ink cartridges and mail them to him in a pre-paid envelope and he would fill them with ink and mail them back. On the outside, the business looked cool. It had a great idea behind it and filled a need (the annoying part of going and buying ink when you run out).

When the sharks started to grill him on the details of his business to find out how much it costed him to fulfill orders, what the profit margins were and how big the market was, he knew the answers to almost all of their questions, except one… “How much does it cost to acquire a new customer?” This was the one question he didn’t know the answer to, and they ate him alive because of it.

In your business you have to know your numbers, especially your cost to acquire a new customer. Do you know how much it costs you to acquire a new customer? If not, how do you know what you can spend on advertising?

The Power Of Your Personal Network

If you watch a few episodes, you’ll notice something interesting happens almost every time a shark decides to invest their own money. They only do it if they know they have someone in their personal network who could quickly take that business to the next level. You’ll notice that they will give the entrepreneur a little money, try to get 51 percent of the business, then behind the scenes they tap into their personal network, shake a few hands, and make a lot of money.

In every episode they show past businesses they bought from entrepreneurs who came to the Shark Tank and what has happened to them since. What is interesting when you watch what happens is the shark does very little, yet oftentimes they profit over 51 percent. They know one or two people who can get that product into retail, or they know someone who has the ability to sell a lot of the product, introduce them, and walk away.

Now that is a cool way to build a business. There are two things I hope you get from that nugget. First, you need to start building your own personal network as fast as possible. Try to meet influential people in your industry and others. I can trace almost all of my successes in life (both business, athletics and personal life) to one or two influential people I met and became friends with. Second, you can use these relationships to build your own business, or you can broker other relationships and make a percentage in the middle. Someone once said that your personal network is equal to your net worth. I believe that is very true.

The Power Of Distribution

The person who has distribution (or knows how to get it) will always win the game. In one of the episodes, two of the sharks were fighting over a product. One of the sharks (Kevin Harrington) has made his money in infomercials. He has the ability to control media and mass distribution.  He got in a fight with another shark who wanted the business, but knew he couldn’t get the same distribution as Kevin, so he backed out.

Another shark (Daymond John) made his billions getting his clothing line “Fubu” into huge retail distribution. When he finds a product he likes, that he knows he can get distribution for, he buys it and immediately it’s in stores around the world.

I have a friend who works for a large scrapbooking company. His job is to pitch companies like Walmart on letting his company put their products on their racks. He told me that every rung he can negotiate in Walmart is equal to over $1 million in profits for his company! Do you see the power of distribution?

In internet marketing, our distribution comes from our lists, or our blog readers, our ability to buy banners, or other media. The people who control some type of distribution are the people making the money. I’ve got a half million people on my email lists, and those people are worth millions of dollars a year to me. So the point of this story is you need to either get your own distribution channel or partner and network with people who do. When you do, you have the ability to push any product or service you want!

How to use equity to grow fast! One of the powerful things you have in your business that is often overlooked by beginning entrepreneurs is equity. It amazes me how often I meet people who want to make money online, but they can’t and are frustrated because they don’t know how to make a website, or write copy, drive traffic, or have any money to hire someone. A lot of them have a good product, but don’t know what to do next.

Just think of the power you have if you give some equity to a potential business partner… someone who has skills, or relationships, or money that you don’t have. In almost every case in the Shark Tank, the big benefit to the entrepreneur is not the money they get from the shark. It’s the percent of equity that the shark gets, who is then able to leverage their skills to take the business 10 times bigger and faster than that person could ever do on their own.

You have the ability to leverage your equity to bring partners into your business who complement you and help you grow fast. As long as you keep 51 percent, you will have the creative control – so always look at the 49 percent that you have to help build the right team that will help take your business to the next level.

In one of my new businesses, I have a 50 percent equity partner. We started looking at what talents, skills and people we want on our team – people who we know will allow us to explode our idea fast. We’re currently assembling our team, testing them out, and if they succeed, they will have the ability to get a percentage of the equity in our company.

These are just four of the powerful gems that I’ve learned by watching this show. I recommend you  watch some back episodes and TiVo it on your TV so you can see all future episodes. It’s not often that we get shows on TV that teach us how billionaires think and give us a glimpse into why and how they became so successful in their businesses.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

StumbleUpon is a unique website that takes users to random sites that pertain to their interests. Members create personal profiles that list what topics they are interested in and what they are not. A “Stumble” button is installed in their browser and each time they click it, StumbleUpon takes them to a webpage within their network (sometimes belonging to advertisers like us) that matches their profile.

These users are then able to vote on whether or not they like the site and leave their comments. The more positive feedback a site receives, the more traffic StumbleUpon will send. Good websites can become viral quickly using this site!

Turning Traffic Into Cash:

The cost of having your site shown through StumbleUpon is often significantly less than running a Google Adwords campaign. StumbleUpon users are looking for interesting and unique websites that they may not have thought to look for on their own. The webpage you send users to should have something that grabs their attention and makes them want to explore. StumbleUpon lets you view comments left by visitors. Use this feedback to make improvements to your page and increase the number of people who see it.

Step 1: Create an Advertiser Account

Go to www.StumbleUpon.com and scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Click on “StumbleUpon Advertising” in the footer.

Step 2: View the Demo Video

This demo video is quick and helpful. It’s worth taking a few minutes to watch before you start creating your campaign. When you’re done, click “Create A Campaign Now!”

Step 3: Choose Topics Related to Your Site to Create a Profile

Enter the webpage where you want StumbleUpon to send visitors. You can send them anywhere, including your blog or squeeze page,  just be sure it’s a page where you can collect the names and e-mail addresses of the visitors you receive.

To help you get the most targeted traffic possible from StumbleUpon, they have provided you with several categories to help describe your site. Try to be as specific as possible when selecting these categories, as they will greatly influence the quality of traffic you receive.

Step 4: Set Your Budget and Location

On the right side of the screen, you can specify where you want your ad to be shown by country, city and state. You can also specify the sex and age of visitors.

Select how many visitors you would like to receive each day based on your budget.

Step 5: Create Your Login Profile

Your first time creating a campaign, you will need to fill out the login information at the bottom of the page for your administrator account.

Step 6: Activate Your Campaign

Once you’ve clicked “Create Campaign Now” you will be asked to verify your e-mail address and then login. After you’ve done this, you need to add funds to your account through PayPal. You can also set your daily budget here.

When your campaign is running, be sure to login often to check your stats and track how well your traffic is converting. Adjust your campaign accordingly.

Social media is one of the best ways to drive traffic online. And because it is relatively new, the playing field is wide open for any business owner to grab some fast traffic. There are literally dozens of ways to drive traffic using social media sites, but if you do nothing else, you should incorporate Ping.fm into your traffic generation efforts.

Ping.fm makes it simple to post to multiple social media sites at once. Their network includes over 40 sites that can be posted to simultaneously – all you have to do is login to your Ping.fm account, enter the information you want updated, and it will be sent to the most popular social media sites across the web!

Turning Traffic Into Cash:

Social networking sites give business owners a unique opportunity to market their personality for free. It is now easier than ever to build a strong relationship with people across the world who are interested in your niche and create a following. Ping.fm allows you to take the multiple social networking sites available and update them all at once – multiplying your marketing efforts and doing it faster than ever before!

Step 1: Create an Account

Register your free account by going to http://www.ping.fm and clicking on the signup link.

Step 2: Add Social Networks

This step is the most time-consuming and tedious. But you only have to set this up once. You will need to choose which social networks you want Ping.fm to update each time you make a new post.

If you aren’t sure which sites you should add, start with the largest social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Blogger and WordPress and work from there. Some sites are for broader audiences and others are more niche specific, so keep that in mind as well when selecting sites.

Step 3: Enter Your Login Info for the Sites You’re Already Part Of

If you have already joined some of the social networks listed, you can simply enter your login information once.

Step 4: Create Accounts With the Sites You Aren’t Already Part Of

Go to each website that you want to add and create an account if you do not already have one. Again, this may take some time but it only has to be done once.

Step 5: Make a Post

This is where Ping.fm gets powerful. In your dashboard, you can add content that you want to be distributed across all the social networks you just added. You can include images, text, links, blog posts and more.

You will need to select the type of content you are creating from three options:

• Status Updates: For example: “Jamie is getting ready to go jogging.”
• Micro-Blogs: For example: a single sentence, single image or short video clip.
• Blog: Longer posts that may include multiple elements. You can only post these to the social networks that accept them.

Step 6: Ping It!

When you are finished entering your post, click “Ping It!” and instantly send your message out to multiple social networks. These will go live instantly.

Continue making posts and using Ping.fm to multiply your social media marketing efforts without any more work!

The Warrior Forum is the premiere forum built around the topic of Internet Marketing. The idea behind the forum is to bring together the world’s internet marketers into a place where they can share ideas and incubate greatness.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

There are a number of different ways to make money from The Warrior Forum. In this quick guide, we’ll only focus on two of them. First, is to place a “mini-ad” for your product in your signature file. By doing this, you will be able to subtly promote your product with every post you make in the forums. If your forum posts are good, people will click on your ad to learn more about you and your products. The second method is through the posting of Warrior Special Offers (aka WSO’s). Because the Warrior Forum is made up of Internet Marketers, this forum is ripe with opportunities to sell information related to Internet Marketing. Knowing this, the moderators of The Warrior Forum designated a complete discussion thread to Offers. Good offers can show almost immediate results.

Step 1: Create an Account

Go to http://www.warriorforum.com/register.php to create your free account. If you want to give Russell props (he won’t actually receive anything), you can put his account “russbrun” as the referrer. After following the registration steps, you may have to log in to start using the forum.

Step 2: Edit Your Profile

After logging in, you will want to edit your profile. To do this, click on username displayed in the upper right-hand section of the page. Then, click on the “customize profile” link (see image).

Step 3: Edit Your Details and Signature

Click “Edit Your Details” to customize the displayed information for your account. If you don’t do anything else, be sure to enter your websites in the ‘Home Page URL’ section for the backlink.

Click “Edit Signature” to add your ‘mini-ad’ to the bottom of each post. Remember to save the changes.

Step 4: Make Posts on the Forum

Click on a forum thread that interests you and start posting valuable comments. The point of a forum is to discuss different topics, so add your voice. As with any forum, don’t post just to post. But do add comments where you believe you can add value to the conversation. With every post, your signature will appear and you should start seeing traffic relatively fast.

• WSO Step 1: In order to post a Warrior Special Offer (WSO), you must first be a registered member of the Warrior Forum. Since registering is free, there is no reason not to do this. Follow steps one through four above to register and set up your account.

• WSO Step 2: Another requirement to post a WSO is to become a War Room Member. This is a one-time $37 fee for lifetime access. This is a real bargain considering the power in a WSO (according to admins at The Warrior Forum, some WSO’s have launched $20,000/month businesses). To upgrade your account to Full Warrior Member status, visit http://www.warriorforum.com/payments.php.

• WSO Step 3: The third requirement for an account to be able to post a WSO is to post 30+ comments in other discussion threads. As indicated in Step four, please add value to the conversation and avoid posting junk or ‘spam’ comments just to boost your post count. Some potential WSO customers actually go to the trouble of reading other comments you have made just to see the type of information they might find in your product.

• WSO Step 4: With the pre-requisites completed, your account is ready to post a WSO. To do this, navigate to the “Warrior Special Offers Forum” and click on the “New Thread” button. The first post of your new thread is where you will put all the details of your offer. This is essentially your Sales Letter, so make the offer a good one. When done, click on the “Submit New Thread.”

• Tip: Use the “Preview Post” option to see what the post will look like while editing. Only click “Submit New Thread” when you are completely ready to submit the WSO for admin review.

• WSO Step 5: After submitting your WSO, check your Private Messages for both approval and payment notices from the Warrior Forum admins. Your WSO won’t go live until after you have submitted payment of $20. Once you’ve paid, it should go live immediately, and you may begin to see orders almost immediately, too!

How Backlinks Work

As most of you know, having high quality backlinks is critical to getting a high ranking in Google for most competitive keywords. For those of you who don’t know, backlinks are essentially links that are pointing to your site from other sites. These help you get traffic in two important ways:

• 1. People on the sites where your backlinks are located will click through to your site.
• 2. Google and other search engines look at the number and quality of the links pointing to your site when determining how high they are going to rank you for any given keyword.

The quality of backlinks simply means that you are getting links from sites that Google recognizes as being authorative in your niche. Low quality backlinks can actually hurt your rankings so you do want to be careful. Sometimes backlinks are natural (meaning that people link to you because you are providing useful and unique content) and sometimes backlinks are created by you to funnel traffic and increase your rankings.

Unless you want to leave your business up to chance and good fortune you will want to go out and create these links yourself to ensure that you get free SEO traffic to your site as quickly as possible.  What follows is how you can do this with all the latest tips and tricks to ensure you are not spamming the sites where you will get links as well as not raise red flags at Google that you are trying to manipulate their search results and therefore get your site removed from Google’s index altogether.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

In order to monetize SEO traffic, you must establish a sales funnel that is designed to convert your visitors into customers. You need to be able to craft a marketing message that speaks to your target audience and compels them to take action on your site.

This type of traffic can be less targeted than paid traffic so it is usually best to have your “money page” (the final page of your funnel that will make you money) be some sort of squeeze page that will give you the opportunity to sell to your customers after having built a relationship with them. This can be either your product, an affiliate product or a combination of these. Now on to the steps you can take to get some free traffic:

Step 1: Keyword Research

Go to SEnuke.com, sign up for an account and then log in and download your software.

Do your keyword research and identify one keyword that you would like to target. Choose one that has enough traffic and low enough competition that you can rank for it in Google. If you are not sure of how to do this there is a ton of free training that will show you how at: http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/. This keyword should be used in the domain of your site as well as in your main conversion page where you want to send the traffic.

• Tip 1 You don’t need to use the service recommended in the thirty day challenge called traffic-bug if you are using SEnuke because SEnuke will create all your backlinks for you. They do recommend using a market research tool called Market Samurai. We do recommend this tool.
• Tip 2 Use WordPress to create your site because of its ease of use and SEO benefits.

Step 2: Spin an Article

Choose a related keyword that has an acceptable amount of competition and write one article optimized for this keyword. Now go ahead and have the article spun using the service recommended by SEnuke called human spinner. They provide you with an SEnuke Ready version of your article that can produce hundreds of unique variations.

• Tip Don’t use an existing version of the article to start with as SEnuke encourages. Always start with a 100 percent unique article. Make sure that your article is well written as well. We are not trying to spam links here. We are trying to provide useful and unique content that people will like while also reaping the SEO rewards of the links that it provides.

Step 3: Web 2.0 Submissions

Create a round of web 2.0 accounts in the “Web 2.0 Account Creation” module.

Now go to the “social network/article directory nuke” and paste the spinnable version of your article in the box. Now go ahead and select the web 2.0 sites where you want to post your articles. The following sites will probably freeze your post or ban your account so do not select them: hubpages (do this one manually), blogsome, terapad, diaryland, and thoughts (just ignore these). Also do not select the article directories.

Step 4: Spin Your Anchor Text

At the bottom of your article in SEnuke, go ahead and create some anchor text. Use the same anchor text as the keywords that you were targeting for your money page where you would like to send the traffic (as stated previously, probably a squeeze page). Now come up with three different variations of the keyword. Type this and include your keywords: {keyword 1|keyword 2|keyword 3}. This will spin your anchor text and randomly put one of these on every post. Now highlight this entire text and then select “add link to selected anchor text” and simply input your link in the box and hit “okay.”

Step 5: Preview the Article

Click the “Preview Sample Article” at the top and make sure everything looks okay with     your article and hit the “start” button. The software will now go out and create unique costs on all of those web 2.0 sites.

Step 6: Do More With SEnuke

Go watch the video training that is included in the software and learn all the other things that SEnuke can do.

This checklist covers a little-known traffic method that allows you to take topics that are popular in the media right now and strategically dominate the first page of search results for related keywords. For example, let’s say Oprah mentions a new product on her show and thousands of people go online to find out more. You take keywords related to the product she mentioned and submit articles, audios and videos to popular Web 2.0 sites. Since these sites are already loved by the search engines, it is easy to get ranked more than once with the right keywords. It doesn’t have to be Oprah though. It can be events happening in the news, movies or new product releases.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

The purpose of the Oprah Traffic Method is to find keywords that are both profitable (meaning someone typing it in is looking for something to buy) and have little competition. Use affiliate links for related products in your content to make money off of the traffic you receive.

Identify a Hot Trend

Find new, popular topics in the media that you can monetize by:

• Listening to what Oprah talks about on her show (Hint: Go to Oprah.com to find out what she is going to talk about and have your article written and submitted before new shows air.)
• Following local and national news for big stories
• Following local and national events
• Researching untapped keywords that people are looking up
• Upcoming movies, concerts, book releases
• New and novelty product releases

Research keywords that people interested in these topics might be typing in the search engines. This is the most important step. If you choose keywords that are too competitive, this system won’t work. But if you choose the right keywords, you can dominate the search engines very quickly. A good rule of thumb is to look for keywords that have less than 10,000 search results.

Write an Article About the Topic

Write an article that is approximately 500 words in length on the topic. Include the keyword phrase you want to target about once every 100 words. Include an affiliate link to all the products or services you mention and for related products as well as a resource box at the end of your article driving readers back to your website.

Blast Your Article to Hundreds of Web 2.0 Sites

Register for each Web 2.0 site (see page 21 for a list of the top sites you should submit to). Use the free software found at: http://articlesubmitter.imwishlist.com to automatically send your article to all the Web 2.0 sites you registered for. Take your article and create a Squidoo Lens, Hubpage and Weebly page.

Share Your Content

Submit your story to Mixx.com, ShoutWire.com, Digg.com and Propeller.com. For each include a title, link, description and tags.

RSS Submit

From your Squidoo lens, click on the RSS symbol to the right of the URL in your browser window. In the example below, the RSS Feed address looks like http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/seeeurope.

Use RSS Submit to submit your RSS Feed to all directories, or do this by hand. You can get a list of the 69 RSS Directories you should submit to in the September 2009 issue of the DotCom Secrets Journal or by logging into your account at http://members.dotcomsecrets.com.

Recycle Your Content

To really increase your chances of dominating the search results, recycle your content in two ways:

• 1. Create some simple PowerPoint slides and record yourself reading your article to make a video. Submit it to multiple video sharing sites through TubeMogul.com or TrafficGeyser.com.
• 2. Take the audio from your video and submit it to podcast directories.

Wait for Your Content to Get Ranked in Google

If you did everything right, then you will have over 100 possibilities at a first page Google ranking. All you need is for 10 of those sites to rank on the first page and you have dominated that keyword!

This month, I was planning to dive into the types of business entities you can use to protect your assets. But as I sat down to the computer and started to write, I realized you can’t protect yourself if you don’t know what you’re up against. So I decided to take a time out and explain who the predators are who want to come after your money and how they can find out exactly how much you own. I also want to teach you what the goals of asset protection are so you know your top levels of defense before you start structuring your business.

The Armies of Creditors

A Creditor is a person or institution to whom money is owed. All you need to do is read the newspapers to determine that we live in a dangerous environment for conducting business, or doing much of anything. The risk of getting sued today, especially when conducting your own business, is greater than it’s ever been. There are now more practicing attorneys in the United States than anywhere else in the world. While the United States has barely five percent of the world’s population, we have approximately 70 percent of the world’s lawyers.

This staggering number of attorneys is having a devastating effect on our economy and on our prosperity. That effect can be seen in the extreme rise in the number of bankruptcies over the past few years. Last year, 1.6 million Americans filed for bankruptcy to fend off creditors.

Who Can Become Your Creditor

If you are sued and lose… the person who sued you becomes your creditor! Let me give you a real life example of just how easy it is to find yourself in the middle of a lawsuit facing a creditor you never even had any dealing with prior to the lawsuit.

Recently, Pete Van de Punte, a San Antonio, Texas man who owned the Dixie Flag Manufacturing Company, found himself a defendant in a lawsuit in which he wasn’t even involved. It seems the alleged victim in the case had stopped to help employees of a business lower a large American flag on a windy day. A gust of wind allegedly whisked the flag and the passer by 70 feet into the air. The flag then ripped and dumped the airborne person to the ground.

The resulting lawsuit claimed severe injuries were incurred because the flag was unreasonably dangerous without warning labels, and that the flagpole was defectively designed to allow consumers to become airborne. Pete was sued, even though he neither manufactured nor sold the flag in question. He was sued because he was a manufacturer of flags and happened to be in San Antonio. Like many small business owners innocently dragged into such cases, Van de Punte settled out of court rather than face the high legal bills and immense waste of time involved in fighting the lawsuit.

Unfortunately, many small business owners surrender to out-of-court settlements to protect their businesses from the brutal financial beatings inflicted by today’s expensive and lopsided legal system. Even if an entrepreneur goes to court and wins, his legal fees and court costs could still mean bankruptcy.

The Cards a Creditor Holds

Creditors have a great deal of power given to them by our legal system! They have the power to…

• Seize your assets
• Garnish your wages
• Even force you into bankruptcy

All by someone you never volunteered or agreed to pay a penny to! To make things even worse, the courts are now on their side against you.

Once the lawsuit is over and in the likely event of your loss, the court will immediately order a “judgment lien” on behalf of the newly formed creditor on all your assets.

The judgment lien immediately attaches to all real estate in your name, all bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and other assets. A lien acts like a mortgage or trust deed. You cannot sell or refinance a property without paying off the creditor, and he can foreclose on the real estate and seize any accounts in your name. A creditor with a judgment lien clearly holds all of the cards. You have no leverage and no room to negotiate. At that point he has got you. You are trapped and there is no way out. Certainly that is not the position you want to be in when you deal with an adversary.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

A Predator is an organism that feeds on another organism. A predator plaintiff is a person who actively seeks for opportunities to force you into court in the hope of taking money from you.

There are actually people who try and make a living by faking injuries and then suing for their inflated medical bills, alleged pain and suffering and perhaps they can hit the lottery and go for punitive damages.

I knew one such person. He would go to stores and supermarkets and look for freshly mopped floors or for debris in the aisles and would fake a slip and fall and sue the establishment.

Once he took his car to an oil change facility during peak busy times. While his car was being worked on he took the opportunity to casually stroll out of the building to the area where the cars waiting to be serviced were parked. He watched for an attendant to get in the next car in line and as the attendant was trying to back the car out of the parking stall, he walked behind the car where he was hit at a slow rate of speed. To make it sound worse, he struck the car making a loud noise and then he fell over riving in pain. Then the next thing the poor owner of the oil change facility knew, he was hit with a negligence lawsuit.

Who Predators Target

Predator plaintiffs and their lawyers follow vulnerable individuals with assets the way sharks follow blood in water. There is a constant effort to encourage potential predator plaintiffs to come forward. Just take a look at billboards, TV and radio ads or look into the yellow pages. Does this sound familiar?

• Injured at work? Call us for a free consultation. No FEES unless we collect!
• Call “The Hawk” after ANY ACCIDENT. Aggressive Attorney that works for YOU!
• We can tell you right on the phone if you have a good case.
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• Medical bills piling up? Understand your options and get $$ NOW!

Let me give you a real life illustration of a predator plaintiff in action:

Mrs. Drake was a seventy-five-year-old widow. She sold a duplex she had owned in California for many years for $200,000 and used the money-her life savings-to move to Arizona and buy a condominium. Her only income was Social Security payments of $1,200 per month, which she used to pay her living expenses.

Three years after the sale, the real estate market in California collapsed and the value of the duplex dropped by half. That shouldn’t have mattered to Mrs. Drake since she had sold the property three years earlier. The new buyer was just unlucky when he lost his equity in the property.

But that’s not how it works anymore. The buyer sued Mrs. Drake in California claiming that she had failed to disclose defects in the property. None of these allegations were true. The reality was that the buyer had lost money when the market declined and he wanted it back. So he asked the court to rescind the sale contract – meaning that he wanted his $200,000 back plus interest.

The lawsuit placed Mrs. Drake in a terrible position. To defend the case she would have to hire an attorney – and these types of cases are very expensive. She was told that legal fees to defend her would run from $25,000 to $50,000 – amounts she clearly could not afford. The buyer’s attorney, on the other hand, was handling the case on a contingency – so the buyer really had no costs and nothing to lose by pursuing the lawsuit.

Rather than risk losing her home and the rest of her savings and knowing that the litigation costs alone could wipe her out, Mrs. Drake settled the case for $70,000. She borrowed the money against the equity in her condominium and she now uses most of her Social Security check to make the monthly mortgage payment. Instead of a comfortable retirement enjoying her life, she lives a Spartan existence, barely surviving each month.

What did she do wrong? She sold her property at the top of the market. She should be rewarded for her good business sense. Instead, because she was an easy and a vulnerable target, the buyer and his lawyer managed to extort most of her life savings.

It is estimated by many that upwards of 70 percent of the world’s lawyers are in the US (according to the American Bar Association for 2007: www.abanet.org/). Some recent figures as of 2007 show that in the US we had 1,143,358 Lawyers. At that time we had a population of approximately 303,000,000 people (population numbers were pulled on Jan 2nd 2008 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population). That gives us in our country one lawyer for about every 265 residents and the number of attorneys grows every year.

The Armies of Attorneys

These armies of attorneys are aggressive and hungry. Of course they are going to encourage lawsuits. Statistics are staggering; you will be sued more times than you will have a hospital stay.

I once spoke with a plaintiff attorney and he jokingly said that he would rather sue than eat. Then he added, “I have to sue to be able to eat.” I think that sums it up very well. Remember, a plaintiff’s attorney does not charge an hourly rate. He only gets paid if he can win a case or if he can get the other party to give up and agree to a settlement.  So, simply to survive, a plaintiff’s attorney has to sue.

There are certain traits that appear to be shared by the successful plaintiffs’ lawyers.  Those traits would include the following:

• They love money. The more they stand to gain, the better they like it.
• They love to gamble. They don’t mind losing cases now and then, because the winners far more than pay for the losers.
• They love to fight. They don’t mind wrestling with your lawyers for years in an effort to see who comes out on top.
• They love to control. They will gladly spend weeks in depositions asking you tough questions so they can show you who is boss.

All these cards stacked against the defendant’s favor make it almost impossible to fight these predators and their attorneys in today’s judicial system. How did our legal system become so unbalanced? Next month, I will discuss how trial lawyers have infiltrated capital hill and what their lobbying has granted them legal rights to do – despite  reason or fairness.

Then, once you’ve learned the games these trial lawyers play and the rules set forth by our legal system, I’ll describe how we, as business owners, can level the playing field through the use of proper asset protection strategies.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Don’t get stuck writing your own list – get your future customers to tell you their most burning questions for free by running a simple ASK Campaign! The purpose of an ASK Campaign is to gather the most important questions your target market has. It is a powerful tool for market research and product development. To get your campaign going, either:

Option 1: Sign up for an account with AskDatabase.com ($29.95 per month).

Option 2: Create your own webpage with an email form.

To see an example ASK Campaign, go to www.HowToMakeAPotatoGun.com.

When the Results Are In.

Compile a list of the questions you received, starting with those asked most frequently. Divide the questions up into sections by topic to create a table of contents. This will be the outline you use when you start recording audio in the next step.

Recording Your Audio.

As you record your product, number each question outloud to emphasize that you are listing the most common questions and answers about your topic.

Option 1: If you are an industry expert, record yourself answering each question. You will need a basic microphone or audio recording device.

Option 2: If you are not the expert, contact someone who is and ask them to do an interview. If you have a high speed internet connection, you can use Skype to record your phone call. Otherwise, upgrade to a paid service.

Preparing for Sale.

Clean up your audio with an editor like Audacity. This is free software you can download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net. Convert your file to an MP3.

Generate an ecover graphic of a CD and jewel case. You can outsource a designer to create your ecover graphic or create one yourself.

You can also create a physical CD without fronting any money by going to Kunaki.com. Once your product is set up you can get a free test copy in the mail. As you start taking orders, they will print copies as they come in and drop-ship them to your customers. You never have to pay for inventory or worry about shipping CDs!

There’s a simple truth that applies to most customers, actually it’s more of a natural law: things will almost always follow the path of least resistance (unless you’re a salmon in heat). Customers are no different. According to Seth Godin, people are begging to be led, to be shown what to do. If  you can provide a clear, logical path, they will follow it. Your customers will come to you to solve a problem or fulfill a need. Your product/service should alleviate that problem or need. After that, it’s up to you to have them continue to utilize you to fulfill that need, offer additional solutions or fulfill additional wants/needs. In other words, if you don’t give your customers a place to go, your competition will.

In order to help you discover how you can expand upon your offering, it’s important you have an overall example. This process exists in practically every industry: dentists, lawyers, chiropractors, massage therapists… you name it, there is likely a way to utilize the concept you’re about to see. You’ve likely seen a variation of this before; however, that variation was likely lacking one key variable… that of resistance. The understanding of resistance is key to the success of creating lasting relationships and directing your customers up the value ladder.

As a general rule, customers resist what they don’t know. In fact, we all are rather skeptical of things we don’t know (children are afraid of the dark, some grown-ups too, new hires are nervous about what to expect, war, sickness, etc). As such, it’s best to make your value ladder as predictable and familiar as possible.  This is how many information marketers use the value ladder:

The Value Ladder

As you can see in the chart above, the highest point of resistance is in the beginning of a relationship. Once you’ve established a history of fulfillment, a customer’s resistance to your offers decreases. Therefore, there’s profit in relationship – a lot of profit. Hence the marketers of the world invented clubs, memberships, subscriptions, and continuity programs… all of these are designed to help consumers, well… consume. Consume is a bit too simple. Really it’s creating predictable consumption; meaning the customer knows what to expect when purchasing from you, so they purchase (or not purchase) from you knowing you’ll likely continue to fulfill in a manner similar to that of prior fulfillment.

Monthly memberships are a great way to continue to add value to your customers. Instead of overwhelming customers with too much information, you can distribute enough actionable content to keep them happy and on the right path. Now a few important points about memberships:

Disclose everything

Don’t hide it in the fine print, if you’re offering quality products/services people won’t care, and it’s not worth the few extra dollars from the people you “trick” into it… always disclose that you’re charging people a monthly fee.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

DotCom Secrets strongly recommends using a Micro-Continuity approach.

Offer Bonuses

As you review your monthly membership customer buying records, you’ll likely stumble upon a few interesting bits of information. You’ll notice that, given enough customers and the right amount of time, cancellations will tend to clump together. For example, you may have a higher cancellation rate on months four and six. For these months, it’s best to offer a bonus (special training, webinars, reports, access, etc. to help incentivize those who are entering into these key months to stay around for an additional month or two.

Offer Quality Products

Let’s take the buying behavior of a member of the DotCom Secrets customer service team. I asked if I could use her as an example, and she told me I could as long as I attributed her name to her experience… in fact, many of you may know Nicole (if not, drop her a line, I am sure she’d love to hear from you). Last year around Christmas, Nicole was looking for a somewhat unique gift. After a lot of thought, she decided to buy her boyfriend a membership to a “beer of the month” club. For this membership, she spent around $125. For $125, she received, and I think she said it best, “Three months where they shipped me 12 bottles of the worst beer ever made. Bottles were broken, the beer was horrible. If I hadn’t been forced to buy three month’s worth upfront, I would have cancelled after the first sip. This stuff wasn’t fit to boil brats in.” It was obviously not a gift she was going to continue buying. They lost a customer for life.

Now take another experience… the “popcorn of the month” club. Our office would literally fight over who got to open these packages… all because they fulfilled on their promises (great popcorn delivered to your door). So when we discovered we could go from one bag per month to three, we also signed up for a full year, as compared to three months… well let’s just say we’re all a little fatter from the added popcorn.

Say Thank You

Another fairly important key in keeping customers around is acknowledging them for the actions they take. That’s a nice way of saying, “Thank them.” Whether it’s through a telephone call, email, or handwritten note, take the time to genuinely thank your customers. There are an infinite amount of ways your customers can spend their money… you should be honored it’s with you.

Just a quick tip on saying “thank you,” there are many who would say that a thank you is a great opportunity to make an upsell. Where this is certainly the case, it’s also a good idea to make sure that at least once throughout your customers’ experience with you that you have a true, 100 percent unadulterated thank you.  It goes a long way in perpetuating your relationship.  Remember a true relationship is more than you asking for something (your customers’ money) and getting it.

Create a Logical Path

Really it all boils down to this: if you believe in your product, sell it. If your customers believe in your product, they’ll buy it. If your customers believe in you, they’ll continue to buy from you.

You need to give your customers a predictable and logical path to follow; don’t go from selling real estate to vitamins. People tend not to follow drastic changes very well (so don’t try to justify it); make things predictable and familiar  – think of it as your favorite pair of jeans or shoes; there’s a reason they’re your favorite.

Also, be sure the next step(s) logical. It needs to make sense in the mind of the consumer. For example, a home study kit leading to a seminar or one-on-one coaching program makes sense; whereas Windex going from cleaning windows with an ammonia-based product to trying to sell furniture polish for wood didn’t. Make sure your next step is relevant to your consumers. If you like Coke, you’ll likely try Coke Zero; if you don’t, it probably wouldn’t matter if Coke was giving the stuff away.

A Customer for Life

And finally, be sure to recognize that your customers have options… sincerely thank them for choosing you (we’re not talking about a quick, perfunctory airline-style ‘thank you’). The sincerest ‘thank you’ comes from how you treat your customers. If you see them as an ATM, they’re likely not going to come back for more. But if you treat them well, give them a familiar and predictable direction to go, and deliver on your promises, you will have a customer for life.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Network marketing is an industry known by a variety of names. Some call it multi-level marketing, party-plan marketing, or simply direct selling. Since its inception, this industry has had a unique dynamic of intertwined business-building actions: customer acquisition and recruiting of new business builders. Let’s attempt to unravel these two markets in an effort to better understand how to successfully approach them.

Customers and Product Users

In a network marketing company there are those who sign up only to use the product. These individuals play a vital role in your business’ success. They are not only the backbone of the industry but they also are the ones who create your long-term income.

There are specific reasons why you will want to focus on this part of your business. First of all, customers are easier to come by than business builders. It is safe to assume that there are more people in the world who are interested in the solution your product provides then there are people interested in selling that product. Some people just don’t want to be involved at that level. Second, spending some time building a customer base can provide you with a quick start in the business. It can take time to find and train good business builders but customers need little to no training. Also, a good customer base can provide a steady stream of income while you work on your recruiting efforts.

Another thing to look at is income security. If you get 50 customers who are using your product because they like it, you have income security. If a few of them decide to stop using the product, it’s okay, you still have 47 individual sources of income.

How to Acquire Customers

In our world there are good sales people and there are bad. Because of the negative experiences most people have had with bad sales people, coming across as a salesperson at all tends to repel people. According to Kim Klaver and her “Three Scripts Course,” the best way to do prevent the run-away-from-salesman instinct is to maintain a friendly approach. Here are key things to remember while building your customer base:

• Avoid Generalities: These are words and phrases that speak to no one in particular. Keep in mind, if you talk to no one in particular, you will gain the interest of no one in particular. An example of what not to say would be: I do telecommunications, I am a health and wellness coach, or I am an independent software agent.

• Avoid Industry jargon or words you normally wouldn’t use in conversation. A good rule of thumb would be to not use any word your average 13 year old would not understand. This category also includes names of diseases or disorders, the company’s name, and product names. Here is another string of examples of what not to say: I sell proven unique patented nutraceuticals, this cures fibromyalgia, or Nutripharms’ new NurtureGreen Supplements are simply the best. These words are most likely not a part of your listener’s language and will not have any positive results. Note: if you do want to talk about a disease, talk about symptoms instead. Talk about achy-muscles, talk about congestion, talk about tiredness – people know and experience these and it will be much more likely to get their attention.

• Avoid Hype, Promises, Chest Beating and Text Screaming: This includes everything and anything that sounds inflated, excessive or extravagant. This category includes everything from claims on how much weight they will lose, to phrases like: the most exciting, amazing, highest quality, cheapest, best, etc. This also includes type that is in all caps, or surrounded by excessive punctuation: THE MOST ANTIOXIDANTS OF ANY FRUIT!!

In “The Elements of Style” by Strunk William and E.B. White this piece of wisdom is found, “When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.”

Have you ever recommended a good book to a friend or maybe told your coworker about the movie you just saw and how it affected you? Even though you weren’t thinking about it at the time, that is a form of marketing. Ironically, it is one of the most effective forms of marketing: word of mouth or referral marketing. All you have to do to be effective at getting customers is to repeat that marketing model. Follow these steps to develop your personal story:

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Think of a specific benefit that this product has had for you individually. Have you noticed that you have more energy, sleep better, it has reduced your phone bill by $20, or has helped you get out of debt?

Create your story by putting the pieces together. Tell about the problem you had and what you did in the past that didn’t work. Next, share how you found the product and how it has helped.

Keep all the hype and radical statements out. Just say what truly happened and people with similar problems will respond favorably. In Kim Klaver’s book, “If My Product’s So Great How Come I Can’t Sell It,” she has an excellent example of what a personal story should sound like:

“You know, eight months ago I fell down the steps and hurt my knee. And ever since I had to have therapy because it hurt so bad. My doctor gave me some drugs, but they gave me stomach pain and I was worried about other side effects. So I tried this new cream and rubbed it on my knee. And within five minutes I noticed the pain was almost gone. I immediately stopped the drugs and one week later I stopped the therapy. It’s been five months now and my knee feels fine. And I can exercise again like I did before I got hurt. Do you know anyone who might like to know about a product like that?”

Business Builders

So, if getting customers is how the money is made, why should I recruit business builders at all? That is an excellent question. It’s a matter of leverage. Play with me here – in a perfect week, how many customers can you find? You say 10. Well that is your max growth rate – assuming you never recruit a business builder, you will never be able to grow any faster than 10 customers a week. But even if the 20 people you recruit are only one-fourth as good as you on average, your growth rate has increased fivefold!

Customers are the backbone of an excellent income. That being said, a good recruit is one who is interested in building the business, they believe in the product, use it themselves, and understand that there is opportunity to make an income spreading the good news. Getting a good recruit is like getting a customer who has a vested interest in generating more business for you. It’s like having an active customer base.

How to Acquire Business Builders

Often customers who enjoy the product or service you offer will begin telling their friends about it – this is natural. If these customers are savvy, they will realize that the product could benefit other people who have needs. History shows that if a satisfied customer converts to be one of your business builders, they have a high chance of being successful. This is one excellent source.

A second source would be to actively seek people interested in making some money with this business concept. Again, make sure that these recruits see the vision behind the product or service. If you only recruit them on the idea of “making it rich,” you will find yourself doing a lot of babysitting, dragging, and motivating to no avail.

Like in your customer acquisition efforts, there are certain phrases you should avoid while promoting your business opportunity. For example:

• Say business idea or business concept instead of business opportunity
• Say getting someone started instead of signing someone up or closing the sale
• Say network marketing instead of multi-level marketing

Now let’s talk about closing or rather, getting someone started in the business. If you ask someone or say a closing phrase when they are not ready it will appear as pressure to that person. Effective closing is simply asking someone if they want to do it as soon as you get their positive signs. It’s just the next logical step after you have shown them what it’s about. Positive signs are little expressions that your prospect says while experiencing the product or service. They may sound something like: “This is really cool,” “Why didn’t I think of this?,” “I wish I knew about this last month,” “I can see myself using this” or “I know this guy who could really use this.”

These are signs that the person likes what they see and are positive about it. They are okay at this point to hear a closing statement. Just simply say one of these: “Well, do you want to do it?,” “Do you want to get started?,” or “Which one of the three options do you think that you’d want?”

If you ask your get started question after you have gotten the positive signs, you will get one of two responses: Either “Yeah, let’s get started,” or “Well, I’m not ready yet but I really like it.”

If they say the first, shut your mouth and get the paperwork done. Don’t keep selling them on it, you may talk yourself out of the deal. If they say the latter, simply ask questions about what they would like to wait on and how they will know when they are ready. Send them some more information and set a time to keep following up with them until they are ready.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Are you confused about CPA? You are not alone. But with the help of a few friends and many split tests later, you can figure it out. If you have ever placed an affiliate link on a website (and let’s hope everyone reading this has done that at least a few times) then you have already participated in a cost per action scenario.

The Players

Before I explain the mystery that surrounds CPA Networks, I want to make sure that you have a good understanding of the players.

An Affiliate can also be called a publisher. This is the person who seeks to promote other people’s products on their website, in their emails, in newsletters, in Pay Per Click channels or any other venue that will accept ads that people can respond to and take a compensated action. Compensation comes in the form of a commission.

A Merchant can also be called an advertiser. This is the entity that seeks to have affiliates (or publishers) promote their products or services.

A Network is a network. There are two basic kinds of networks, an affiliate network, like Commission Junction (CJ), or a CPA Network like ClickFusion or ClickBooth.

The Difference

There are several differences between the two that may not be plainly obvious at first glance. CPA Networks do not allow the advertiser to see exactly who their affiliate is. This is completely different than CJ, Linkshare, Share-a-Sale or the myriad of other “affiliate platform solutions” that are out there. In the traditional sense you have Commission Junction type platforms on one side of the spectrum, and in that scenario, an advertiser signs up to CJ and is able to approve and communicate directly with their affiliates. In the CPA scenario, advertisers do not know who the affiliates are who are running their campaigns.

Another distinction is that traditional affiliate networks normally pay out their commission as a percentage of a sale. This means that if an end user pays $100 for a widget, the advertiser will pay a percentage of the sale back to the affiliate for having sent the visitor to their site through their affiliate link (which they got from the affiliate network interface).

In CPA networks, percentage based payouts normally do not exist. What is more the norm is a bounty payout. This is a set amount that is awarded to an affiliate when a compensable action is taken by the end user. Under normal circumstances, the “action” can be the sale of an item or service, or the filling out of a lead.

What Is CPA?

So what is Cost Per Action (CPA, sometimes referred to as Pay For Performance) Marketing? Well it isn’t much different than affiliate marketing except for some significant tweaks. As the name implies, there is a cost and there is an action. The “Cost” refers to the amount of commission that the advertiser is willing to pay for a particular “Action” to an affiliate (sometimes referred to as a publisher). The action can take on several different meanings, but in essence it means that the end user that the affiliate attracted completed an action. That action could be:

Clicking on a Link Referred to as Cost per Click (CPC), the advertiser pays the affiliate a per click commission not unlike Google’s AdSense model. Usually the click commission is less than $.10, so it takes a lot of these actions to make money for the affiliate.

Filling Out a Form Referred to as Cost per Lead (CPL), the advertiser pays the affiliate a commission for an end user filling out a form that the affiliate has directed the end user to through their affiliate link.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Making a Phone Call This is a relatively new twist on the model and is referred to as Cost per Call. This is a bit more complicated to figure out the action, as most of the time Cost per Call is compensated only if the operator at the call center makes a sale, then the affiliate is credited with a commission. With the rise of mobile advertising this option will more than likely gain a lot more traction over the next two to five years, at present only a small proportion of advertisers pay this way.

The History Now is a good time to give a little history of CPA Networks. In the beginning, there was CJ, Linkshare, Performics (now owned by Google) and a handful of other affiliate networks that jump started the affiliate marketing niche. If you had an offer, you were limited to these networks to place your offer on and have an affiliate pick up your link to promote your product. The problem was, that if you didn’t want to play with CJ and the like, you had to roll your own solution.

Then came a company called DirectTrack, which was founded by a brilliant internet marketer, Jason Wolfe.  What Jason did was nothing short of revolutionary.  He wrote a piece of code that eventually became a standalone platform that allowed any advertiser or agency to become their own Commission Junction. In CJ, if you had more than one product you either had to have a “store” in which you could house multiple products (like dog toys or shoes), but it was nearly impossible to promote a series of singular standalone products, each having their own landing pages and associated creatives that affiliates could use to promote those individual products. Direct Track solved this issue.

Anyone who wanted to could simply buy a license to DirectTrack and voila, you were your own mini-CJ.  DirectTrack allowed any advertiser who had a product and an existing affiliate base, to then be able to offer multiple products for affiliates to promote. This was a paradigm shift in thinking compared to the existing model.

Jason also built in another option that is eventually what spurred the enigmatic growth of CPA networks. DirectTrack pioneered the cross-publication model. Simply put, you did not need to be an advertiser with your own product. Now all you needed was a decent list of friends and affiliates and you could “cross publish” offers from other advertisers into your own “network” and get a commission for introducing your list to the advertiser’s products. This is what eventually became the model for many CPA networks today.

That was eight years ago and things have changed quite a bit since then in terms of marketing channels and internet marketing. Jason Wolfe sold his company and has moved on to other projects. But DirectTrack under new management and an influx of capital continued to grow. Now nearly 75 percent of CPA Networks use their software as their backbone.

CPA Network Advantages

As an affiliate, you may be wondering what if any advantages there are for you to play with a CPA Network as opposed to going direct with an Advertiser in their in-house affiliate program or use a Commission Junction type of network to find offers to promote. Good question. Working directly with an advertiser, whether through their in-house affiliate program or through CJ’s interface will give you an additional amount of reach to the affiliate managers for the campaigns. Because they control the campaigns directly, you can request (and usually get – if you do decent volume) specialized creatives that will match your specific marketing efforts. You also get a better relationship with the particular advertiser because they know who you are and you can talk directly with them.

In terms of payouts, both the in-house and CJ based affiliate campaigns are able to adjust payouts based on the performance of your traffic. The issue in using this route for most larger affiliates, is that there is not enough choice of advertisers to run with. Another issue is that most in-house and CJ like programs do not offer cost per lead type campaigns or bounty payouts.

Large affiliates tend to use CPA networks for several reasons. The main reason is selection. CPA networks collectively have thousands of campaigns available for affiliates to promote, in both direct sale and lead gen formats. They also are usually more competitive in terms of payouts. What you see “on the street” or the standard payout for a campaign is usually just a starting point. Depending on the volume and quality of the traffic you send, the street price is irrelevant. Because CPA Networks make a percentage from every sale, if you do good volume with quality traffic (defined as traffic that converts well into not only the lead offer for the advertiser, but also does well on the back end) your affiliate manager will normally bump you up in commission to increase your incentive to send more and more traffic. The other reason you see larger affiliates play here is because they can do lead generation, Cost per Lead, campaigns.

The Right Choice

What I have found in the most successful affiliates is that they use all three interchangeably; in-house, CJ-like networks, and CPA networks to pull the offers that they want to run with. The difference between success and failure by most affiliates is usually not the campaigns they choose or the network model they run with, it usually comes down to the methods they use to drive traffic and the unique pockets of converting traffic they find to promote campaigns to. The only way I know that they achieve this is through hard work, a disciplined approach to their job as an affiliate and a willingness to do the proper research that yields the greatest amount of sales.

I will be writing more in-depth articles in the months to come that will explain in greater detail the inner workings of being a CPA affiliate and how you can use these networks to grow your revenue. I hope that I have been able to take some of the mystery out of the CPA equation for you.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

How HubPages Works

Similar to Squidoo, HubPages.com is a Web2.0 property that allows its registered users to create “Hubs” focused on a given topic. With easy-to-use tools that allow even the most technically inept to build a professional-looking page, HubPages.com is an ideal tool for building back links and driving traffic to your website.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

There are a couple ways to monetize your Hubs. The first is to put any one of the monetization “Capsules” on your hub, such as Google Adwords, eBay or Amazon Affiliate. These capsules will make money for HubPages and they will share a small portion of that revenue with you. It isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme by any means, but it can make a few dollars over time. The next is to produce a Hub that is so interesting visitors will want to visit your website and learn more.

Create a Free Hubpages Account

Step 1 Go to http://hubpages.com and click on the “Join” button to register your free account. After completing your registration, click on the “start a new hub” link to begin the process of building your first Hub.

Use Your Keywords

Step 2 Give your new Hub a title (a unique web address will automatically be created, but can be changed), select a category, layout and a couple tags.

Tip Enter as many keyword targeted tags as possible to gain maximum exposure within the HubPages Search). Then click continue.

Add Your Content

Step 3 Begin building your Hub by adding and editing the various capsules. I recommend using an article you’ve already created for Article Marketing or a blog post as a starting point (why reinvent the wheel?).

Tip Remember to add at least one link back to your website).

Publish Your Hub

Step 4 After inserting all the information from your article or blog post, click on the “Publish” button to make it go live. Rinse and repeat for additional topics or keywords.

Source: Facebook

URL: www.Facebook.com

Cost: Facebook is free to join but the cost of advertising can range from $1 to $1,000 per day and up. The cost per click can be adjusted as well.

Resources: To gain maximum profit, join other Social Media networks such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg and Flickr. Connect those to your Facebook account for maximum exposure. The goal of Social Media is to intertwine and overlap all the major networks. If you see one you should be able to see them all.

How Facebook Works

Facebook is the big Kahuna of Social Media. Facebook has become a powerful way to connect socially with other people, as well as a way to communicate with other businesses and even new clientele who may have been out of reach before. Facebook has the capability to narrow down the desired target audience. You can find how many people are interested in a certain subject, topic, or activity and adjust your marketing efforts to fit each niche. But the best part is even without the ads you still have the opportunity to connect with these audiences for FREE!

Turning Traffic Into Cash

It’s all about the connection. The key with Facebook is to be a person, not a product. If you are more interesting than a logo, you have the opportunity to capitalize. The other trick is to not come on too strong. Don’t try to sell on a first date. People want to get to know you, feel you out. Facebook gives you the ability to make quick connections that can turn into lifelong customer relationships.

Make a Facebook Account

Step 1 The trick with making an account is, if you are just starting out, use your name and not the name of a product. People like people, not products. Get a following. Sell yourself before you sell a product. Another tip is to use a picture of yourself smiling. 63 percent of people will be friends with a person who is smiling in their photo. The bottom line? If you are more interesting than a logo there is a good chance that people will like you.

Make a Sweet Bio

Step 2 Be yourself. If you don’t like cats, say you don’t like cats. The more honest you are, the more people will trust you and consider you credible. Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Be who you are and people will come regardless.

Be an open book. The more people know about you, the more they will feel like they know you personally and then when you come out with a product people will trust it is good because they trust you. People buy from their friends.

Find Friends

Step 3 Finding friends is easy. Go to the search bar and type in fly fishing. Facebook will bring up everyone who likes fly fishing, ask them to be your friends and presto, you have a network. Find people you are interested in. Yes, Facebook is about quantity but at the same time it’s about the quality of the relationship. If you have nothing in common with that person what will you talk about? Find people with common interests.

A Secret Trick About Facebook

Step 4 Here is an insight that is imperative when you become viral. Facebook is good about setting rules and following them to a T. One of those rules is a friend cap of 5,000 on normal Facebook pages. So here is the sneaky little trick. Never get 5,000 friends. Get 4,930 – just under 5,000. The reason is, once you reach the cap, people cannot friend request you anymore. If you stay at just under 5,000 friends an unlimited amount of people can still request you and you can keep all of those people at bay until you make room for them by deleting inactive friends.

So instead of only reaching 5,000 people you can have 4,930 friends and another 3,497 friend requests, allowing you to reach more people. Step eight will also teach you a way to reach those other people who are waiting to be your friend.

Update Your Facebook

Step 5 I’m going to let you in on a secret. Facebook monitors how often people post, with that said, update your post five to six times a day. Any more than that and you run the risk of being yanked from the Facebook realm. The more friends you have, the bigger of a commodity and threat you become to Facebook. Stay active but be cautious at the same time.

Content is Key

Step 6 What you post sets the tone of the kind of person you are. If you post useless information, people will find you useless. Many people think, “No one is going to want to know what I am doing every second of every day.” Well they’re right, they don’t. However if you find helpful tips, more than likely someone else will be able to use them too.

Pre-tested content is a great way to ensure that people will find your posts interesting. Sites like Digg.com, PopURLs.com, and Mashable.com all offer pre-tested content for you to use and share with your network. I would recommend following these sites regularly. The bottom line? Always be relevant to you. If you are a more serious and informative person then make sure your posts reflect that while still offering valuable content for your followers.

Other Types of Content

Step 7 Videos are a great source of content. YouTube.com is the largest video sharing site to date. Another great feature about posting a video on YouTube is that, like many other sharing sites, it has its own internal aggregator. This will be key to making your videos viral which should be the ultimate goal. Posting your YouTube video on Facebook will help make it viral as well.

Here is another trick of the trade I’m going to let you in on. The video does not need to be professionally made. Take your Flip cam and make ten or fifteen two minute videos and use those as content for months. Trickling your videos into your Facebook site is another trick. If you have ten videos don’t post them all at once. Post one and get a response then right when the hype starts dying, post the next. This makes life easier on you and is easy to become and stay viral.

Promoting Your Pages

Step 8 Facebook has cool options available to make fan pages and group pages. I am going to focus on fan pages in this article. Setting up a Facebook fan page is simple. Go to the bottom of your home page, it should look like the image below, Click “Advertising.”

Next click the tab that says “Pages”:

You should end up here. Click on “Create a Page”:

Fill in the information for whatever you want the fan page for. In addition to extra promotions, fan pages help you out with the friend cap that Facebook has. This is where the loop hole comes in. Fan pages have no friend cap. Therefore you can have all the people waiting to be your friend overflow to your fan page and in turn maximize potential customers and revenue.

The Bottom Line Social Media sites like Facebook provide a great way to communicate. If you stay true to yourself and have good intentions then you will do great! Just remember to be relevant and useful to your friends. Only pick friends who interest you, and don’t max out the amount of friends you have. Now take what you have learned and go conquer Facebook!

Over the past 10 days, we have seen a lot of changes in the internet marketing world. Our business took a few big hits, as did thousands of other people online. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, there are going to be changes that can injure or kill a business, and if you aren’t prepared, you may lose everything. Dan Kennedy once said (and I may be misquoting the exact number of months), that every four to six months you will be faced with a problem big enough that it will kill your business if you don’t make the right decisions.

Sound scary? Or exciting? I always thought it was exciting until we recently had one that hit us hard. This article is about what we’re doing now to protect ourselves, and what I wish I would have thought about before some of these problems came about.

Now, the potential problems could come from many places. They could come from FTC changes (like the new advertising laws that came into effect on December 1st). They could come from the merchant account companies. They could come from government regulations (like when they banned fax blasting or spam). They could come from new competitors in the marketplace. They could come from new technologies, or other technologies going away. They could come from Google changing their algorithms, or your favorite magazine that you advertise in going out of business.  The problems are there, and they are going to come to you, so you need to be prepared.

I remember this summer I was in Fiji speaking at a Tony Robbins seminar. At the event, Tony was talking about how the way we build our muscles is by breaking them down, and then they rebuild stronger. He then went on to say that God, or whatever higher power we believe in builds us in the same way, by giving us trials that break us down, and then we grow back stronger. In life and in business, he said it’s important to remember that, and take the challenges not as bad things, but  good, necessary things that we need in order to grow.

So, here are the big takeaways I’ve learned, and how I’m rebuilding our company to be stronger in the future.

Takeaway 1

Keep your overhead light Many entrepreneurs, including myself, get excited by their gross sales. It’s a number we’re always trying to grow. But the much more important number to focus on is how much money you take home. Each year, set a goal for how much you want to make in net sales, and work towards that goal. It may not be as much to brag about, but it takes less work and overhead to achieve it.

When big problems do come, it’s your overhead that will kill you. Expensive office equipment, employees and more can kill you when your cash flow slows down. Make sure you know exactly what your break even point is each month in your business. Then don’t pay yourself or anyone else until that break even point is hit. After that, then you can start paying yourself and others.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Eat what you kill This is something that all entrepreneurs are familiar with. We only get paid when we make a sale. The problem when you are growing a business is people want to get paid a salary every two weeks, no matter if they sold something or not.

Instead of hiring a bunch of employees, find partners, or 1099 workers, and pay them a percentage of whatever you sold. I learned this from Chet Holmes this summer. He told me that everyone in his entire organization is paid 100 percent on commissions. He said that way he has no overhead and little risk. Then the quote he said that I love was “big months big checks, little months little checks…” This is my new philosophy in business building.

Takeaway 3

Diversify where you get money from I don’t mean start 10 businesses, but diversify how you get your money. For years we’ve relied on one merchant provider to accept money and get us paid. That is where we got hit with our business, and we had no backup in place.

What I would recommend is first, put your products in different places. Put a few into ClickBank, some on PayPal and others in a merchant account. Also set up merchant accounts with different companies. One of the potential problems is having your social security number on every merchant account. So work with business partners, and have them set up some accounts in their names. Again, the key is to diversify your risk and where you get money from. Give people bonuses if they send money by check or money order. You’ll save money on processing fees and you’ll know you’re getting the money.

Takeaway 4

Diversify your traffic I haven’t yet had any problems with this one, but I know way too many of my students and friends who have. Don’t rely on one source for getting new leads. Your primary role in any business should be focused on customer acquisition from multiple sources. Traffic sources like Google are not stable. They change their algorithms often. Use them as part of your strategy, but look at as many other customer acquisition methods as possible.

Takeaway 5

Focus on your hedgehog concept In the book “Good to Great” they talk about something called the hedgehog concept. They tell about how the few companies that have gone from good to great all followed one hedgehog concept. It tells about other companies that act like foxes. They jump from thing to thing, and are fast, but don’t have a core goal to focus on. The Good to Great companies all had one solid hedgehog concept that they focused on and pursued. They didn’t chase every opportunity that came their way.

The problem I have (and I’m sure some of you do as well) is every time things start to get comfortable in my businesses, I want to start another one. This year I started five or six other little companies. Each of them were awesome, each has huge potential, but each pulled money, time and resources from the others. It is very difficult to keep cash flow coming and remain profitable without all of your focus on one hedgehog and one business.

What I am doing now, is finding partners for each of these other businesses. Giving a partner who you trust the larger percentage of equity in the company to so they have the power to run them will pull you out of the business. I’ll keep a smaller percentage of the ownership and money, but it pulls me out of the equation. I’d much rather have 20 percent of five thriving companies then 100 percent of five struggling companies.

If you wanted to sum up this whole article, I’d say the important thing to do would be to diversify your risk, and increase your focus. That is what you need to do to stay in business now and in the long term. It will give you the ability to be flexible when the hard times come and make everything more profitable as it grows.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Mark Joyner first coined the term and has been talking about integration marketing for several years. It is basically the integration of one marketing process into another. Some easy examples are:

• When buying a product, you see an upsell page with a similar offer that can add value to what you just purchased
• Buying a McDonalds Happy Meal and your kids getting a game or toy about an upcoming movie

Integration Marketing is not a new system, but it can be absolutely powerful for your business. It is an easy way to leverage the work that you are already doing. Mark offers an online forum where you can find potential people to partner up with, and also advertise your products that you would like to integrate.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

Through integration marketing, you place your products and offers in the flow of sales. You can get banner ads created and place them on websites or blogs. You can get your offers in your competitor’s auto responder series. You can add your product to someone else’s sales process as in providing an OTO (one time offer), or getting your offer placed on their Thank You page.

The opportunities to integrate are endless. You are able to generate more sales, and they can increase cash, and look good to the customer by providing other quality products. You will start to generate easy traffic that you never thought was possible.

Identify Potential Deals

Step 1 Perhaps a sold software product is lacking in your respective niche. Create the software and get it on all your competitors Thank You pages.

Test Your Offer

Step 2 Before you contact potential competitors about ways to integrate your products, test it yourself first. Try running a small scale PPC campaign, or sending the offer to subscribers on your email list.

Contact Other Business Owners

Step 3 Use IntegrationMarketing.com to find and contact competitors to let them know the ways in which you can work together and both profit. See the traffic checklist in the September 2009 issue for seven more ways to research affiliates and competitors using: DomainTools.com, AffiliateElite.com, PayDotCom.com, ClickBank.com, Archive.org, Alexa.com and Google.com.

Ramp It Up

Step 4 Keep setting up more and more deals. Keep repeating the process as long as the offer continues to sell.

CPV (also known as PPV traffic) is a traffic source that many people do not know about. When utilized correctly, it has the potential to generate loads of responsive traffic on demand. Essentially, this traffic comes from adware that people have installed on their computer, therefore, many people see this traffic source as “black hat.” However, this is not the case as this adware is installed with the user’s consent in exchange for giving them access to freebies like games and movies… So, in short, people get free access to stuff and agree to have ads served to them daily in exchange. That is where we come in.

Essentially, this traffic is contextually targeted pop-up traffic. What this means is that your ad is triggered by the content of what the user is looking at when your ad is shown. This is the same principal that the Google Content Network is using when displaying relevant ads on pages of content. There are several key differences that need to be explained. With CPV, adware traffic you are not showing ads on any pages most of the time. Instead, your creative (or ad) is a pop-up that will pop over the user’s landing page literally right in front of their face.  Therein, lies the power of this type of traffic. The user has no choice but to see your creative.

Another key difference from traditional contextual advertising is that you can target people not just by keywords (you bid on keywords that the system uses to look for content related to that keyword on the page that the user is visiting to display relevant ads), you can also target people by the domains that the user is visiting (also known as targets) which will be the focus of this lesson.

Turning Traffic Into Cash

The biggest thing about any type of traffic is that you will need to test your ads, landing pages, and sales funnel in order to get the best possible result. This is especially true for CPV traffic. It is easy to spend a ton of money with little to show for it as the traffic comes fast and hard and it can sometimes take up to 30 minutes after you pause your campaign before the traffic stops. CPV traffic can be cheap at just $.01 per page view (also known as impressions) or even fractions of pennies and can be monetized in a variety of ways. A .5 percent conversion rate can make you a lot of money since the traffic is cheap. I suggest testing three types of landing pages:

• A large banner ad (such as an html email creative from any network) that will pop up that the user has to click on to reach your landing
• A squeeze page
• The actual offer page that you are promoting

Never limit yourself though. Remember to think big, go out and innovate and break new ground. This system should get you started. Do not break their rules because they will swiftly ban your account.

Get a TrafficVance Account

Step 1 Note on Getting Approved into Traffic Vance: You will either need to be a large affiliate (or have a referral) or be a direct advertiser (you have your own product as many of you should) and will need to tell them that you have a large advertising budget or they will not accept you. They will then ask you for a $1,000 deposit to get started.

If you have the budget, I highly recommend you try CPV advertising. TrafficVance tends to have the best performing traffic for the price, although there are other networks out there as well such as MediaTraffic.com. While media traffic allows you to start with just $200, their impressions tend to be more expensive and less responsive.

Explore the Interface

Step 2 Please note that the interface is similar to that of any PPC account that you should already be familiar with. The big difference here is the way in which the traffic is delivered as well as how you are able to target the visitors as I already explained.

Set a Daily Budget

Step 3 Click the “new campaign” link and you will be taken to a page where you can name your campaign and also enter a brief description. Then you will need to enter your daily spending limit for your campaign.

Tip Set your budget as low as you possibly can which is $10. There is no reason to spend more than that until you get a feel for how much traffic you will get in your niche and whether it is turning into leads and sales!

Name Your Creative

Step 4 On the next page you will be able to name your creative. This is simply your landing page that you want to display to your visitors. Most of the information on this page is easy to figure out. Select “Display” as the creative type.

Tip TrafficVance is now requiring you to enter all of your landing pages that you want to rotate. This simply means that you wish to split the traffic between multiple pages to see which one is best. I highly recommend that you do this whether you are an affiliate or a direct advertiser.

If you are an affiliate, you may want to put multiple offers that you wish to test here. If you are selling your product, then you will probably want to create multiple versions of the same page to see which one is best. If you do not do this I can almost guarantee that you will lose money!

Add Targets

Step 5 Now you will need to add the targets (which are the domains that will trigger your ad to pop-up).  You can get these by either using their tool or using Site Sniper Pro to scrape related domains from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. For a lesson on this, please refer to the article that I wrote on placement targeting using the Google Content Network in the November 2009 issue.

Tip Some markets have more adware traffic available then do others as some demographics have adware installed on their computer at a higher rate. The demographics of TrafficVance users tends to be younger, females who play games online.

Bid on Targets

Step 6 Now simply bid on those targets. Keep your bid as low as possible as there is no advantage to bidding higher than you need to since your pop-up will not be competing with other ads. Normally you will want to hit the “make my bid highest” button giving the list of targets a quick scan to make sure you are not bidding more than $.05 for anything. Now review your campaign and start the traffic!

Tip You can use their tracking pixel to track performance or most third party tracking solutions. Prosper 202 will work as well. You can pass keywords by using the {KeyWord} token just as you can with Adwords. If this confuses you then just use their tracking pixel and follow the instructions they provide for this.

Many businesses struggle with the concept of customer recruitment and retention. In other words, “How long do your customers stay around, and how can you increase it?”  The reason we’re going over this is pretty self explanatory: unless you know how long one of your customers stays around (which presumably means they are active, happy, and loyal– or it means they don’t have acceptable alternatives to you… either way), you can’t hope to maximize lifetime value– let alone calculate it. The question covered in this month’s edition is a bit of a misnomer… most people will look at it and assume it’s primarily an economic question. It is not. Although the answer to this month’s question certainly carries with it economic repercussions, this article is almost entirely about relationships.

An Urban Legend

There’s a bit of a marketing “urban legend” that goes something along the lines of: it costs 5x, 6x, 8x, or 10x more to acquire a new customer than retain a current one. The variable, I assume, is somewhat arbitrary (seeing as how 68.745 percent of statistics are made up on the spot). In reality, it is difficult to put a fixed multiple on how much easier or more valuable it is to keep old customers versus trying to recruit new ones.

The difficulty spawns primarily from the high degree of variability across industries, product lines, and buying behavior of consumers. However, regardless as to the actual number, the general concept this urban myth is suggesting exists is still applicable: people do business with companies they know, like and trust (because it’s familiar or predictable). Therefore, it would stand to reason that if your customer bought a product from you (and assuming you fulfilled on the promises you made to get them to make that initial purchase), the next time you have a product to sell, they will be more likely to buy from you. It’s all based on the concept of marketing inertia.

In other words, the whole marketing “urban legend” about it being more valuable to keep a customer rather than trying to recruit a new one carries a certain logic or truth with it. For example, the greatest resistance someone will have to purchasing a new product or service from you is when, for the first time, they are deciding whether to buy from you or someone else.  After that, assuming you’ve done your job, subsequent or repeat decisions to purchase from you become easier and easier, until your customers reach a point where the decision to buy from you is practically habitual.

Benefits of Strong Relationships

To further demonstrate this point, as you are no doubt aware, Proctor & Gamble practically owns the laundry detergent aisle (Tide, Gain, Ivory, Cheer, Era, to name a few). But that level of success hasn’t come overnight. Proctor & Gamble has perfected the art of creating and maintaining relationships to enable maximum customer retention. For example, not only do they have Tide users, they have multi-generational Tide users. My grandmother used Tide, so my mother used Tide, now I use Tide, and my children will likely follow suit. Another good example is Coca-Cola, who has also enjoyed near-rabid devotion to its brand for generations. Coke has had a transformational and multi-generational effect on most of the world (Santa Claus wears red because of Coke).

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Two Vital Questions

Now that we have established that the development and maintenance of customer relationships are key to the longevity and profitability of a product or service, we should return to the question at hand: How long does a customer stay around, and how can you increase it?”  This is a compound question and in order to properly evaluate the answer to it, we must first break the question into its respective parts… first, how long does a customer stay around; and second, how can you increase the amount of time the average customer stays around? So, as with most things, it’s best to start at the beginning.

How Long Does a Customer Stay Around?

Measuring Relationships

A true gauge of the depth of your relationship is how long customers stay around. Actually, that could be said for practically any relationship. Take dating for example… if you end up meeting someone who, at first, seems to be absolutely perfect, but only after a few minutes you discover your original assumptions were completely wrong… how long do you stay around? Not long, I imagine.

Regardless of how persistently that person pursues you, how likely are you to return phone calls, emails, or letters? Not very. It is safe to assume that your customers will also follow this type of pattern. If you sell them on the idea that your product/service and their want/need are a match made in relationship heaven and it turns out you were only off by… oh…180 degrees, don’t be too surprised if customers don’t beg you for more.

Two Components

Any relationship boils down to two main things: knowing which promises to make and keeping them. When it comes to knowing which promises to make, that should be a derivative of what your product/service does, how it does it, and how that will alleviate specific wants or needs perceived by your customers. As for keeping your promises… that should be pretty obvious. However, this is deceptively simple. Many business owners misunderstand this concept; because a promise (unless specifically and tediously spelled out in page upon page of legalese that both parties understand and agree upon) is actually two promises: the promise you think you make and the promise your customer thinks you are making to them. Most business owners understand what they think they are promising and fail to understand the other side of the agreement.

In a world where customers vote with their wallets, it’s pretty easy to tell how well your customers feel you’re holding up to your end of the bargain. Often, one of the best gauges as to how well you are doing at fulfilling your promises is the collection of refund, cancellation, and charge-back rates. Assuming you can keep the total of these below eight to 10 percent for single purchases and 18 to 22 percent for continuity purchases, you are likely on the right track. Anything above that threshold, you may want to reevaluate the promises you are making.

To quote the great Bill Glazer, you need to be “in the ‘two things’ business, 1. finding customers and 2. keeping customers.” The reality is, depending upon your niche, product and customer buying behavior, there will be many customers who won’t make it past the first purchase. This happens for a variety of reasons (they fulfilled their need from the first purchase, you failed to live up to promises, they were distracted). Regardless as to why– you should always try to find out why someone left or didn’t buy again– you need to discover what it is… mostly, customers will fail to make additional purchases because you made it too difficult or confusing. You need to offer a clear path for repurchase.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

When it comes to earning money on the internet, affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to get started. It really is quite easy. You find a product where the product owner offers to give you a portion of each sale you help generate, and drive traffic. It isn’t too difficult to understand. People have been referring others to buy products and services forever. I am still waiting for movie theaters and other “brick and mortar” businesses to start offering commissions when you refer a sale. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a good movie and told your friends and co-workers that they needed to go check it out? Just a thought…

Affiliates who are generating sales on the internet are making really good money. They merely have to drive traffic to specific websites and get the customer to take some type of action, whether it’s buying a product, or just entering some information into a few blank fields. No matter your hobbies or interests, there are thousands of ways to make money as an affiliate.

A challenge that affiliates have is to spend their time working to promote the most profitable campaigns possible. Why spend three hours setting up a promotion that pays $20, when you can spend the same time promoting a product that will pay you $200? There are other mistakes that affiliates make all the time that affect how much money they make. In order for you to maximize the amount of money that you can make, I want to share with you some of the biggest commission killers I have seen.

I first want to say that some of these suggestions depend on how you market products as an affiliate. For example, if you have a large list of subscribers and you typically send email promotions to your list, some of these tips will affect you differently than if you are a pay per click (PPC) affiliate.

Commission Killer 1

Promoting the Wrong Products First off, it’s important that you endorse and promote the right products. If you typically promote internet marketing products and then try to sell the newest and coolest dog food – you might have some problems. It depends on how you market as an affiliate. If you have a blog that is focused on internet marketing products, then start advertising on the blog about dog food those who frequent your blog are going to be confused.

It’s also important to be selective in the products that you promote. I have seen several affiliates promoting a new phone from t-mobile. It looks like a good phone, but what if it isn’t? If you’re one of these affiliates, the customers who purchase the phone through you will not be happy.

I have seen this first hand. A well known internet marketer sent an email to his entire list promoting an offer. The offer sucked, and he had no business promoting it. He received a ton of negative feedback from his list. He actually sent out another email admitting that he didn’t review the product and promoted it anyways. I know that this was not only just embarrassing for him, but it also hurt his credibility as a well known marketer.

Please do not make this mistake. Make sure that you properly review products before you promote them.  And if you sell your own products, you need to be extra selective in the products that you promote.

For example, we produce this physical and digital newsletter every month. We believe that this product is the best available for educating our customers about the latest and greatest information related to internet marketing. As a result we cannot promote another physical or digital newsletter that says they are the best. This would only confuse our students.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

Using the Wrong affiliate link Make sure that you have your correct affiliate link before promoting. The last thing you want to do is go to all the work of promoting a product and not get credit for your sales.

In order to prevent this from happening to you – make sure that you verify clicks. This is easy to do:

First: Login to your affiliate account where you can check your sales and commission reports.

Second: Click on your affiliate link, or copy and paste the link in your browser window. You should be taken to the product sales page.

Third: Log back into your account to see if you received credit for the click (when you clicked on your own link, the system should have tracked that).

If you ever have any doubts about your affiliate link – check with the affiliate manager or owner of the product you are promoting. It is the affiliate’s responsibility to notify the product owner if a link is not working properly.

Commission Killer 3

Spamming A mistake that I have seen in the past has come when affiliates promote our products via a paid email list. This is basically spamming as those receiving the email did not opt in to receive email notification from you. All it takes is one spam complaint against you, and you will lose all the commissions that you have earned, and more than likely will be booted from the program.

Make sure that you have been given permission to contact people, or are renting a list that emails several offers to their subscribers.

Commission Killer 4

Not setting PPC budgets I have heard stories from affiliates who market primarily through paid advertising. When they are first starting out, they get their accounts and keywords all set up and get excited to see commissions start rolling in. It’s important to set up a budget of how much per day you are willing to spend on advertising because you are going to pay no matter if you generate sales or not. Every time someone clicks on the link, you will pay.

I have heard stories where people forget to set budgets on their accounts. What happens is your ad gets shown over and over again whether you are generating sales or not. I have heard of people who go to sleep and wake up thousands of dollars in debt. Please do not let this happen to you.

Commission Killer 5

Not Offering Good Bonuses You hear about “bonus wars” during some big promotions. These are usually good for everyone involved in a promotion. Affiliates offer bonuses to help encourage people to buy a product through their affiliate link. He or she will generate more sales as a result. The product owner is happy because he or she will get more sales in general thereby making them more money, and the customer is happy because not only will they receive the original product that they wanted anyways, but will also receive the bonus. This is a win-win-win.

A mistake that some affiliates make is to not offer a bonus. Even if it isn’t during a big promotion, adding value is always a good thing to do. Customers will be more appreciative and will look to buy from you in the future. It’s important if you are offering a bonus that it is high quality. Don’t just offer some old ebook. Be creative with your bonuses. This is especially important when they are just getting started and trying to get to know more people.

Affiliate marketing can be rewarding. Avoiding the mistakes that I have covered will help you become a more successful affiliate and generate more sales.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Whether you like it or not, every business relies on numbers. The most basic numbers, and arguably the most important, are in the sales and expenses of a business. You know… basic profit and loss stuff. But when it comes to an internet-based business, some entrepreneurs tend to get overwhelmed by all the new numbers that get thrown into the mix.

You see, one of the biggest benefits of the internet is that everything can be tracked. We can find out where a visitor was just prior to coming to our site, where they go after they leave, and everything they do in between. We can discover what type of computer they were using and approximately what part of the world they are in (when I say approximately here, I mean down to the city and possibly zip code). With some advanced techniques, it’s even possible to track browsing patterns and eye movements on a page.

With all these new “numbers,” many entrepreneurs get overwhelmed. Some even stop looking at the numbers all together thinking, “It’s just too much to worry about,” or “I don’t have time to look at it all.” But instead of quitting altogether, let me help you focus on the statistics that really matter for your website, and the tools that you can use to get them.

Number to Know 1

Return on investment (ROI) The first statistic that any entrepreneur should focus on, regardless of their business is the age old Return On Investment, also known as ROI. When considering any “investment” in your business, the first thought should be about how much money the investment will allow you to make. This seems pretty “common-sense” to me, but if the amount of money coming in is less than the amount spent, one should reconsider the investment.

Calculating ROI is a simple math problem. You just subtract the amount of the investment from the amount received in return. If the result is positive, keep the investment going. If the value is negative, then you are losing money on the investment and you should stop (I told you it was simple).

Number to Know 2

Conversion Rate With a handle on ROI, let’s start to look at some web-specific statistics that should matter to any business, regardless of its size. The first of these is Conversion Rate. In the most general sense, conversion rate can apply to just about anything. The base (or denominator) is almost always the total number of visitors to a page. From there, you just divide that by the total number of visitors who complete a particular objective on the page. Of course, this objective will change depending on the page. If your page is designed to get people to sign up for your email newsletter, then the conversion rate for the page would be the total number of opt-ins divided by the total number of visitors. If your page is designed to sell a particular product, then the conversion rate would be the total number of sales divided by the total number of visitors (to that page).

When calculating conversion rate, it is important to use page-specific visitor numbers as opposed to site-wide visitor numbers (which would deflate any conversion rate and skew the true picture). You may also want to select the number of “unique visitors” as your base instead of the total number of visitors. The difference between those two numbers is simply the number of repeat visits from any individual visitor. If someone visits your squeeze page, gets distracted and goes to another page, then decides to come back for some reason, the tracking will perceive it as two total visits from only one unique visitor.

> Click Here to Read Part 2 of This Article

If ROI and Conversion Rate are the only two pieces of information you look at for your website, you will be well ahead of most business owners. One of the best parts of this is that there are free statistics packages that help you track these numbers in one convenient location. One of the best packages available is Google Analytics.

I’d like to spend the rest of this article walking you through the Google Analytics Interface and how you can get your account set up to track your conversions while giving you enough information to determine your ROI. To access Google Analytics, just point your browser to http://www.google.com/analytics, the page should look like this:

After logging in, you can add your website to analytics by clicking on the “sign up >>” button.

Next, you just fill out the registration forms for your website. There will be four steps culminating in a page containing HTML code that you then need to take and add to the code of every page on your site. It should look something like the screenshot below.

Once you have this script on every page, Google will begin to track all of the visitors on your site. Since this begins from the time you get it set up (in other words, it doesn’t go back and tell you what has happened on your site prior to set up), it will take a while before you start getting the real valuable information from your reports.

Another thing to remember is that the numbers on Google Analytics are reported with about a two hour delay. To see the current day’s information, you will need to change the calendar because the default end date will always be yesterday.

Setting Goals

Now, one of the most powerful features of Google Analytics is its ability to track traffic through your sales funnel. From the outset, your analytics account will not be set up to track this, so you have to do this yourself through the “Goals” feature.

While you can set up a variety of goals on your site to track anything from opt-ins to purchases, I’d like to take you step-by-step through the process to help you gain a basic understanding of how it works. Please note that Google has a robust help section that will also answer just about any question you may have that isn’t covered here.

So, after clicking on the “Set up goals and funnels” link (shown in the image to the left), you will see an overview page with a profile of your website. To add a goal, click on one of the “+ Add Goal” links in the “Goals” section of the profile page (shown in the image above).

On the next screen, you can name the goal anything you would like, but be sure you select it as a URL Destination goal. When you select URL Destination, you will be presented with a number of additional fields to complete. The first is “Match Type” which you will want to set to “Exact Match.” This means the URL of the goal page must match exactly before it is counted as a completed goal.

The next field is for the “Goal URL.” Because we are setting up an opt-in conversion goal, you will probably want to enter the URL to your sales page (which is hopefully the page you are sending visitors to after they submit their name and email address. (Note: you may want to make this your confirmation request page if you have a custom confirmation page on your domain). I always like to check the Case Sensitive box just because most URL’s are. Next is the Goal Value option. This is a great option for sales page conversions, but doesn’t usually help much with opt-in pages. I usually leave this blank, but if you make money with each opt-in, you may enter the amount you earn here.

Next, you should see an optional Goal Funnel feature. You definitely want to set up a goal funnel for this to help you form a more precise control over the conversion number. To create the funnel, click on the “+ Yes, create a funnel for this goal” link in the Goal Funnel section of the page. For an opt-in conversion funnel, you’ll probably only need one step. Put the URL and name of your Squeeze page in “Step 1” and put a check in the “Required Step” box. This will make it so that conversions are only counted if the visitor first goes to your squeeze page and then opts in. If they come through a link in an email you send out or some other avenue, it won’t count.

Sales Conversions

Setting up a goal for your Sales Conversions would be similar, but you put your post-purchase thank you page as the goal page and your sales letter page as step one in the funnel. With your Sales Conversion goal, you can also set the value as the amount you earn (either before or after fees) with each sale. This will give you an additional number that ties directly to your revenue that you can plug into your ROI calculations.

More From Google Analytics

Now, there are tons of reports and a lot of other information in Google Analytics that I just don’t have the time to cover today. After you get your account set up and it has run for a week or two, go back into your account and start exploring the features. You will find that it tells you everything from the countries your visitors are coming from to the browsers they are using when they hit your page. There will be information about the sources of your traffic (specific websites, search engines and the keywords used, or even PPC traffic) as well as page performance indicators such as Pageviews and Bounce Rates. One of my favorite features is the “Site Overlay” in the Content section that shows your page and where your visitors are clicking.

In closing, let me urge you to take the steps necessary to get your site set up with analytics so you can see what’s going on with your sales funnel. And remember, if you aren’t tracking it, you’ll never know if you are making an improvement.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article

Break The Pattern As soon as you recognize the pattern in yourself or someone else, you need to immediately break that pattern. For example, if you notice that every time you get stressed out you grab something to eat, or you check your email, the second you notice that pattern happening, you need to do something drastic. It could be jumping up and screaming, or doing 10 pushups, or something to shock your brain and break yourself out of your negative pattern.

Level Three

Replace The Pattern This is where true power over yourself can happen. Not all patterns are bad, in fact, many of them are great. So, what you need to do after you recognize and break your pattern, is to replace it with something productive that will give you pleasure, but in a positive way. So, if you turn to food, find a replacement… maybe it is pushups, or eating something healthy that you like. If you turn to emails, or complaining, or going on a smoke break – replace it with something else that will move you towards your goal instead of away from it.

Learning to recognize, break and replace your patterns is one of the most powerful ways you can quickly achieve your goals this year. I’m guessing that most of you have enough information (or too much) to get started. Most of you have more than enough time to get a business up and running and making money (I honestly think it shouldn’t take more than one or two hours a day).

What Keeps People From Success

The problems that keep all of us from being where we want, are the patterns we’ve created that are pulling us to immediate pleasure and gratification and away from the long term pleasure we want. I’m sure that watching television, or hanging out with your buddies, or watching the funny new YouTube clip, or checking emails is more pleasurable than reading a book, or contacting joint venture partners, or learning how to run a successful PPC campaign… but the long term pleasure you will have from your business is worth 10 times the immediate gratification your brain will lead you to if you’re not careful.

And this is true in any part of your life. If you’re trying to lose weight, start a business, learn something new, trying to spend more time with your family or anything that is important to you that you’re not currently doing that you’d like to do. I promise that if you spend some time recognizing your own patterns, you will start to see powerful trends of where your brain is pulling you, and 90 percent of the time it’s away from what you actually want and desire.

So instead of making New Year’s resolutions this year, focus on the things that you really want in life and make a list of the five most important things you want this year. Then start looking at the patterns in your life that are keeping you from accomplishing these goals. As soon as you recognize these patterns, focus hard on breaking them immediately. But if you stop at breaking them you’ll likely fail (like most people do as you’ll notice from how many people try to stop smoking, or lose weight). You have to replace your old patterns with new patterns that will drive you towards immediate pleasure, and help you to accomplish your long term goals.

That would be my greatest advice for this year. Give yourself a gift and don’t just read this article and move on. Spend some time looking at yourself and the patterns your brain has created. Take control of them, and build new patterns that won’t pull you from your dreams, but will give them to you. If you just focus on that, then we’ll keep focusing on giving you the best content, services, strategies and tactics you need to take your business to the next level.

> Click Here to Read Part 1 of This Article