Robert Plank

Reading time: < 1 minute

Update: We're going with Sherm's suggestion and meeting on September 23rd 2010 from 4:30PM to 7PM at:

Melody Bar & Grill
9132 S Sepulveda Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Neighborhood: Westchester / LAX

Who will be there: Robert Plank, Lance Tamashiro, Sherm Cohen, Wal Gifford (chunked out), Robert Vance, Rodney Daut, Evelyn Brooks, Dennis Barakos.

You guys voted for where we should meet for my 26th birthday and the majority said: Los Angeles!

Now my question for you is:

1. Are you "probably" coming, or "definitely" coming?

2. What bar in the LA area should we hang out at?

Preferably I want this near the airport, and there is no set time... people can just come and go throughout the evening.

Go ahead, answer those 2 questions for me right now so I can at least have a head count.

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Are you experiencing writer's block in some form or another?  Are you having trouble finishing that sales letter? Finishing that article? Finishing that chapter? Or even writing that blog post or email?

The most common problem I see with writer's block is that people are trying to make their writing perfect as soon as they write it.  I am here to tell you that you HAVE to get over that!  You cannot edit as you go along.  You need to write first - and edit later.

You do that by dictating, by reading forwards and backwards, and reading aloud.  It is more important than anything to get something on paper until you can edit it.

I once tutored someone in College who was trying to write an essay, and I literally saw her rewrite the same sentence TWELVE times until she had something she liked!  This meant that in the time it took her to write one page, I could have written twelve pages!

This is One of Those Top Habits to Break!

You need to get used to writing down just the first draft of whatever you want to say.  You know how to string together a sentence TALKING to someone - and that means you can put together real coherent talks.  You need to write the way you talk!

For me, I can write a first draft pretty easily; but when I am stuck I do have to dictate it and get it transcribed.  Maybe this is what you have to do:  dictate it, then hand it on to someone on a service like Elance or oDesk and get them to transcribe it for you.

Now, what do you do when you have the text that comes back from the transcriptionist?  It's time to edit it.  If you are not careful, you are going to run across the same problem I explained with the College student who rewrote the same sentence twelve times over!  The key to editing is you see what catches your eye and make it a little bit better.  It is never, ever going to be 100% perfect!

All You Can Do is Make It a Little Bit Better...

Here is what I like to do: I like to read it first backwards and then forwards.  Reading it backwards makes it seem less tedious and more like I am reading something new. It also helps with the transitions:  if I made a very strange transition from paragraph to paragraph, it is much more easy to spot when you are reading backwards.  Read the bottom paragraph first, then the second-to-last, the third-to-last, and so on.

If you spot a sentence that doesn't quite seem right or is too long, throw out small chunks - but not big chunks.  I know you are tempted to rewrite the whole entire sentence from scratch - but 99% of your sentences are salvageable!  Usually, you just need to rearrange some of the words or remove some of the words, to say the same exact thing; and now the same point has been made but suddenly it makes sense.

I know that when you write or when you talk, you don't speak gibberish! You DO have points you are trying to make; the only issue is what are the correct words and phrases to make those points?

Finally, something that helps me a ton with editing is reading what I just wrote aloud.  Sometimes when I write things, they look okay in my head, but when I read them I realize how stupid it sounds; or when I really said one thing but meant another.  Read it aloud - or even better read it aloud to a friend or have a friend read it back to you.  You might cringe at first - but this will be really great for toughening you up and getting you used to people reading your material.  After all, isn't that the point - for you to write something and then have somebody else read it?

One other big benefit I have noticed from reading my material aloud is that I notice a lot of repeated words and phrases I use when I talk and when I write.  For example, words like "so", or "simply", or "like", or "however", or "but."  It is okay to say these words every now and then, but if you notice you are saying these at the beginning of every sentence or every paragraph, these are problem words you need to keep notice of and just note to scan for these particular words; remove them from your writing - and it will suddenly look a whole lot better.

And that is how you are going to edit the things you write so that you can write quickly, but also write well. Simply dictate or quickly write out the first draft version first, before even going into editing mode.  Never edit as you go. When you DO edit, edit very minimally.  Read backwards and forwards and throw out the small chunks but not the big chunks.  To help find things that need to be changed, read your work aloud, or even get a friend to read it - especially to notice the repeated words and phrases.

How much of a problem is editing for you? What is your best editing tip?  Post a comment below telling me. Thanks in advance for that!

Reading time: 1 - 2 minutes

My 26th birthday is coming up in a few weeks, on Thursday, September 23, 2010. I'm having my "real" birthday party a few days before because on Thursday I'm going to be traveling to JVAlert Live in Denver.

Here's my question to you: what major city close to you, can you get to on Thursday, not for anything major, just to hang out at a bar where I buy you a drink?

I don't want to fly into the northwest, southwest, midwest, northeast, or deep south, and I'm staying in the United States... so that pretty much leaves these choices:

Update: Here's what you guys voted...

• Los Angeles, CA (17 votes)
• San Francisco, CA (10 votes)
• Las Vegas, NV (7 votes)
• Salt Lake City, UT (3 votes)
• Denver, CO (6 votes)
• Dallas, TX (9 votes)
• Austin, TX (9 votes)
• Atlanta, GA (12 votes)
• Orlando, FL (6 votes)
• New York, NY (7 votes)
• New Orleans, LA (2 votes)
• Washington, DC (2 votes)

Which of these cities can you be in to meet me on Thursday, September 23, 2010? Go ahead and vote with your comment below.  I'm not sure if I'll be doing it yet, it depends on the votes.

Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes

1. You're overwhelmed by all the new offers you see.
2. You're switching between too many tasks every day.
3. You're doing too much of the work yourself.
4. Your to-do list keeps getting bigger (not shorter) and you can't prioritize.
5. You procrastinate and can't seem to finish what you start.
6. You're a perfectionist.
7. You're unhappy.

1. Choose one "computer free" day of the week, and one "email free" day (even when you're at the computer).
2. Only focus on ONE project this week, such as launching a new product, finishing that sales letter, or creating that membership site content.  Everything else can wait.
3. Outsource just one thing.  I recommend you dictate ten articles (2.5 minutes each) and send them out to get transcribed, that saves you one day of work.
4. Throw away your whiteboard and only write down four daily tasks instead of having a long to-do list.
5. Reward yourself with 30 minutes of TV, a bowl of ice cream, or the rest of the day off for finishing your project early.
6. Be "perfectly complete" instead of "perfectly perfect."  In other words, try to win the high score.  If your goal was to write 10 articles and you wrote all 10 before your deadline, you scored a "perfect" 10 regardless of the quality of those articles.
7. Use the extra money from internet marketing to go on a vacation, pay off your mortgage faster, spend time with your family, or send your kid to college.  In other words, use the money to do something you enjoy.

Reading time: 3 - 4 minutes

As you probably noticed, last month, I made 30 blog posts in one month (instead of my usual 1 to 3).

Why did I do it? I wanted to see if it would build my list faster, make me more money, and make more connections with the other participants of the challenge.

How did I do it? I outlined a few lists like "5 Elements of Social Proof to Explode Your Business" ... "11 Easy-to-Implement Ideas for Your Next Webinar to Ensure Maximum Attendance, Interest, and Profit" or even "12 Can't Miss Rules of Highly Effective Membership Sites" ... dictated them, got them transcribed, and scheduled all 30.

How long did it take? It took about two days to make all the posts.  Half a day to outline everything, a day to dictate, then half a day to schedule and edit the transcribed posts.

What were the results? I'm glad you asked... the big reason I did this was to get more email subscribers.  In May (before the 30 Day Challenge) I got 1,867 new e-mail optins... and in June (during the challenge), I only got 1,537 optins.

In other words, blogging 30 times in 1 month instead of once per month... got me the same number of optins!

But Didn't It Get You MORE Audience Participation?

Good question.  In May (before the challenge), I had 198 comments on my blog.  In June (during the challenge), 660 comments.

30 times the work, to get triple the comments.  If I had spaced out those 30 posts into 3 posts per month, I would have 10 months of blogging scheduled and out of the way to get the same comments.

But Weren't those all NEW Commenters?

Let's look for fresh blood.  In May when I had those 198 comments, 78 comments were from people who had NEVER commented on my blog before -- 39 percent.

In June, out of those 660 comments, 83 comments were from brand new people on my blog -- 13 percent.

See what happened there?  Triple the comments, but the exact same amount of new people.

I segmented my list for this month and only sent ONE sublist a notification about a new post on most days.  But even when I mailed the WHOLE list about a blog post, it usually got the same number of comments.

But Did the Challenge Make You More Money?

My earnings in May after commission, fees, and expenses: $19,400.71. June earnings after expenses: $21,412.78.

Before you say, "The blog challenge made you an extra 2000 dollars..."  Keep in mind I have a lot of recurring membership sites and autoresponder followup sequences, so you can't automatically assume that this extra 10% boost in income was due to blogging.

Will it Pay off in the Long Term?

I'll have to check back in a month or so to see if this extra 30,000 words of blog content gets me more search engine listings, but for now, it didn't get me a big boost in traffic.

RobertPlank.com had 6057 visitors in May, and 8586 in June. A 41% boost, but not 30 times or even 3 times the traffic as a normal month.

Did Anyone Comment Every Day?

At the beginning of June, I asked you guys to promise to leave a comment once a day every 30 days.  Almost everyone said something like, "No, I won't do it.  I'll forget."

It looks like Melanie Kissell and Henrik Blunck both managed to leave me a comment every day for a month, so I want you to leave a blog comment congratulating them right now.

Reading time: 2 - 3 minutes

The winner who I'm taking as my guest to Persuasion X, a $5000 seminar, is: Pamela Miles!

Here's what Pamela had to say:

I hear that this truly is Armand's best event. I know that I really need this information to fully capitalize on the opportunities that are going to be presenting themselves with the new weight loss concept I'm bringing to the world! I've been approached by a doctor out of Texas who has offered to take my product to the board of her hospital (which also owns several hospital corporations) about having me speak at their monthly Healthy Women Conferences at their various locations around the country. I don't have a lot of public speaking experience...so if I can learn from the best...I'll really be able to catch up to speed fast!

Plus I need a chance to redeem myself (insiders Cara, Robert & Lance will know what I mean)

There were 9 people in the running... so why did I choose Pamela over everyone else?

1. Not only has she taken many of my classes, I had already seen Pamela at other seminars so I knew she would have no problem getting there. It's the worst when you choose a winner, and they can't make it.

2. She was one of the only people who didn't seem offended when I said I don't want to sit next to the winner at the conference.

3. She stated not just what she wanted to get out of the event, but what she was going to do AFTER the event.

If you didn't make it, no hard feelings... it's not you, it's me.  I wish I could take all 9 of you.

Here's the mean part: In exchange for being able to go to this $5000 seminar for free, I made Pamela promise to have her entire business setup by October 2, 2010... including an optin page, autoresponder sequence, joint ventures, paid advertising, affiliate program, articles, an improved sales letter... all of it.

She didn't know I was going to be stating this in public.  I just set a reminder in my Google Calendar to check back in October, and tell YOU guys if she succeeded or failed.

Now that you know this, go ahead right now and post a comment: congratulating Pamela, and telling her "good luck" ... she's got literally 100 items to add to her business in the next 3 months.

I want to have a bunch of "good lucks" under this post... comment below right now, ok?

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

Any time somebody teaches membership sites, you always see the question come up, "Should I offer a payment plan or should I offer some kind of a trial?"

And while it seems like a lot of fun, and while it seems like you might get a lot more subscribers and customers into your funnel by offering a payment plan or a trial period, I recommend you stay away from them, for these three reasons:

You are always training your subscribers (whether you realize it or not); you are training your buyers as well; and trials just plain suck and attract the wrong kind of customer that you do NOT want to be a part of your business.

How Do You Train Your Subscribers?

Even if somebody doesn't see everything that happens behind closed doors within your membership site; even if they have not bought a lot of things from you, they still see the way you market your stuff.

If you are always offering a payment plan, or if the reason for you offering a payment plan is because no-one is buying, you look desperate!  If you are not emailing to your subscribers enough, then they get the feeling like you are not much of a marketer.

If you keep dropping the price or keep piling in more bonuses without actually marketing your product, you look like somebody who will simply pile on more "stuff" in order to get a sale; and not really marketing and not convincing people and giving real good REASONS for them to join.

And let's say somebody does join.  You are training those buyers as well. If someone is used to only paying you $1 or $5, and they have been doing it for years, it might be a little bit of a struggle to get them to the $100 or higher mark.

It might take a little bit of time - but if you can get your buyers to pay you more money to get more stuff, instead of paying you less money to get less stuff, they will be used to dedicating a larger portion of their monthly budget to getting your solutions.  And that includes payment plans and membership sites.

I am totally for having a membership site where with every payment they get some new kind of concern.  But too many times I see launches happen where someone is offering a product for $100, and people split it up over five payments: they pay five times but they only get one thing at the very beginning!  How much sense does THAT make?

And the reason why many marketers offer payment plans like this is to claim a high number of sales. They get a lot of people to pay them $20 and then they claim that every sale was a $100 sale, when really it was only a $20 sale, and many people canceled along the way - because after all, why should somebody continue making payments if they already got the product they paid for?

Payment Plans Are Good If There Is Ongoing Content...

But they are not good if there is just a single-time delivery and you are doing it to inflate your sales numbers.

And finally, payment plans, and trials, and low barriers of entry just suck!  I have tried membership sites with and without a trial - and with the trial there were lots more dropouts.  There were a lot more people not logging in and not using the material because they didn't really have any motivation to; the price was low enough that it didn't really hurt their pocketbook, and they didn't have a good reason to make their money back - because there was so little to make back.

Trials really do suck. The new credit card laws are moving everyone slowly away from trials.  And I would definitely recommend you TRY marketing your site without a trial.  If you are having difficulty, it might be because you haven't trained your subscribers or your buyers enough.  Tell them why you are not offering a trial, and turn it into a good selling point.

For example, there is no trial because you want to reduce the number of people who get access to this information; there is no trial because you want them to take action on what you show right away; maybe certain bonuses are worth a certain amount of money and a trial would cheapen that.

And that is why you should only offer a payment plan for ongoing content, not for a single-time product:  because it trains your subscribers, it trains your buyers - and trials draw in the worst kinds of customers.

Do you offer a payment plan or not on your website? And what is the reason?  Please comment below telling me.