Archive for December, 2015

069: The Big Gaping Hole in Your Evil Internet Marketing Business: Do You Practice What You Preach, Is It Okay to Be a Recommender and Do You Need to Fake It Till You Make It?

December 25, 2015

What ways is your marketing talking you OUT of a sale? Some ways are ok: being true to your personality, because you're polarizing -- repelling some and attracting others. You don't have to apologze, and I'll explain why!

But if you repel the "serious buyers" and only attract the "tire-kickers" -- that hurts you long term. What's your goal?

Our marketer of the Week is Robert Cialdini, author of "Influence":

cialdini

I've used his "six keys to influence" in my speaking, webinars, sales letters and more. The are: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. Are you missing one or two of them, or are you skewed way over towards one of these six factors?

Scenarios We're Talking About Today... Are You Guilty of Any Of These

  1. I'm viewing a sales letter for a live chat plugin, but there's no live chat on the page.
    I'm about to buy a course on copywriting taught by some of the super-old "legends" until the sales letter tells me: by the end of module two, you'll have an idea of how to start your sales letter soon. What?!
  2. I sold a WP sales letter that wasn't actually on WordPress. Better fix it.
  3. Selling an "alternate" webinar service but you're pitching it on GoToWebinar.
  4. Selling an "alternate" landing page plugin but you're selling it on LeadPages.
  5. Blog post saying not to use "admin" as your WordPress login because it's easy to see if it's a valid account. I go to their WP login page, admin is a valid user on that blog.
  6. Selling a podcast course, no podcast. Or just one short episode of a podcast. That tells me you're not a master.

Checklist to "Check For Holes" to Your Own Business

  1. Background: What does someone find when they do their quick "research" on you, or Google search? Selling a book writing course, better have a book in print. Article course, better have some articles. Something impressive.
  2. Testimonials: better check the URLs under each testimonials in your sales letter (don't hyperlink them though) to see if the websites are still there. If not, remove the URL and ask your list for some fresh testimonials.
  3. Bottlenecks: is there an area of your sales letter that "scares" people? Long video, mentioning of too much work (3 weeks)
  4. Negative Social Proof: 100 copies total, only 96 remaining? No one wants it!
  5. Beware of Victim Copywriting: I suffered for 20 years making this so you don't have to. Great, so you'll only get buyers who "delight" in your pain. This is 500 pages, 50 hours, no one cares! Now you're talking me out of a sale.
  6. Gray Areas: fake scarcity, countdown timer, launching/closing/reopening. Unpredictability and urgency to a point. It's a booster, but don't let it become a crutch.

Internet Marketing Lessons

  1. Don't overthink it, but put your best foot forward.
  2. You don't have to be a master with 20-50 years experience, but don't leave yourself vulnerable to research.
  3. Be very careful with "distractions" like live action video, demos, lots of features and case studies to understand it -- less is more!
  4. Because I Can: you're free to say whatever you want, the only consequence is they "vote with their wallets" -- don't condone customer bullying.

Life Lessons from Robert Plank

  • Any action is better than no action.
  • It's easier to edit crap than air.
  • Time sorts out impostors from those who are truthful. Meaning, people aren't going to pay for ads or pay to keep a site going forever if it's not making money.

What to Do Now

  1. Check out Speed Copy to get the best copywriting training out there and close the bottlenecks on your websites
  2. Download and install Paper Template to get your sales letter the best it can be (with a copywriter built into the software)
  3. Setup Your Income Machine (SEO blog, autoresponder sequence, traffic, etc.) to setup a passive income business

068: My Biggest Failures (and Biggest Successes) in Internet Marketing

December 18, 2015

I'm going to get really personal today and talk about times I've screwed up...

Marketer of the week: Stu McLaren from stu.me and Wishlist Member. Rather than share a "breakthrough" I picked up from Stu, I want to tell you that when I present (a webinar or podcast), I imitate his speaking style.

When you speak, speak deliberately! Especially if you're an American and your natural tendency is to slur your words like I do.

Is there anyone in your life who speaks slowly and carefully, without becoming monotone? Then I would suggest you imitate that person's speaking style when you present.

stu

(That's us a few years ago at Inc. Magazine headquarters at
7 World Trade Center in New York City.)

I often "channel" Stu to slow down my speaking, enunciate, and speak more clearly, focus, calm. You can be intense but still make sense. See also: Ray Edwards, Armand Morin.

Fourteen Key Principles: The Common Thread That Runs Through These Successes & Failures

  1. Four Daily Tasks: I said it before and I'll say it again...
  2. Finishing everything that I start, less notebook doodling
  3. $997, $47 every 2 weeks, 5 payment option, experimenting! Charging high ticket AND low ticket.
  4. Investing in myself: attend conferences instead of stock trading which is gambling and a distraction. Dave Ramsey instead of Jim Cramer.
  5. I don't trust myself: get to the Minimum Viable Product because of the 3 day window.
  6. I'm not smart: I don't know what's going to sell without experimenting and I'm open to new ideas.
  7. Weekly focus: email for the same thing all week. Stick to your guns, don't psych yourself out or let customers bully you
  8. Membership sites: organize both high and low ticket, group multiple sites (but no all-in-one site)
  9. Pitch webinars: do something unexpected, teach a lot and sell hard. Give them a wow moment and not necessarily an aha moment.
  10. Re-marketing: phase out what's not selling and go back in future weeks to promote what's selling (Backup Creator)
  11. Don't delete old sites or content
  12. Your most popular content, marketing and products are the "beginner" stuff
  13. It's ok to repeat your most "powerful" ideas and phrases. How many times have I mentioned Income Machine in podcasts and blog posts? A lot!
  14. Don't be a timid marketer. Welcome pitch emails, upsells, ads. Don't have a buyers only email list or a monthly digest email list. Be on the lookout for what you can absorb/apply, for example, an affiliate bonus package.

Three Biggest Failures

  1. ClickSensor: should have made it an online service
  2. WPLetter (now Paper Template): should have built it out more and controlled the market faster (16k overnight from a 12 minute video)
  3. Action PopUp: should have got the entire marketplace using it, added tons of templates
  4. Bonus: all the PHP products, which made money, but not enough. Lesson: keep publishing things to get to "the good stuff."

Three Biggest Successes

  1. Bulk content creation: books, Daily Seminar, Webinar Crusher monthly, blog, podcast. Just make 12 pieces of content to last you an entire year.
  2. Must-have tool for everyone's business such as Backup Creator: pitch is all about what you can do with it, 100k sites, tie in with our other stuff (Membership Cube) -- yearly renewals, developer license
  3. Pain of disconnect in Membership Cube: selling high ticket, playing with the payment plans, pitching on webinars! (35k in a couple hours)
  4. Bonus: platinum coaching program. Lesson: the first step is getting the button online!

Wise Words to Live By

When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails.

If you don't change the direction you're going, then you're likely end up where you're heading.

Albert Einstein: "Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value."

Napoleon Hill: "Keep your eyes and ears wide open--and your mouth CLOSED, if you wish to acquire the habit of prompt DECISION. Those who talk too much do little else. If you talk more than you listen, you not only deprive yourself of many opportunities to accumulate useful knowledge, but you also disclose your PLANS and PURPOSES to people who will take great delight in defeating you, because they envy you."

17 Ways to Instantly Increase Your Productivity Starting in the Next Few Minutes

December 15, 2015
  1. Complete four daily tasks (of one hour each) every single day
  2. Run Cool Timer to time-box each task and make sure you complete them on time
  3. Clear your desk of all papers, clocks, cell phones, and TVs right now!
  4. Ditch Outlook and use Gmail for your email (don't forget to Archive or Delete emails whenever possible)
  5. Leave your computer on overnight, plan your four tasks the night before and leave whatever programs (like Camtasia or Word) open for the next day
  6. Start and stop your day at the same time every day
  7. Only commit yourself to one "project" at a time
  8. Use Google Alerts to minimize forum browsing and web surfing as much as possible
  9. Identify and remove "problem words" such as work which kill your productivity
  10. Start every day with a walk or run around your neighborhood
  11. Finish any tasks (especially freelancing) way before it's due
  12. Stay off your computer, laptop, and email as much as possible throughout the day, and don't check email until the afternoon
  13. Make decisions quickly
  14. Schedule as many blog posts, autoresponder emails, and membership sites ahead of time
  15. Only strive to be 80% perfect
  16. Stop using your whiteboard and spend 24 hours of continuous downtime from the computer this week
  17. Install and use the Roboform browser plugin to manage your passwords

067: Proof of Concept: Use the Minimum Viable Product, Prototyping and Version 1.0 to Leapfrog Your Competitors and Get Everything Done

December 11, 2015

The only way you're going to make any kind of consistent progress is to break it up into milestones.

The expert in anything was once a beginner.

Wise Words...

  • The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -- Winston Churchill
  • When people say mean things about you, it's a reflection on themselves.
  • You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. -- John C. Maxwell

INTERNET MARKETER OF THE WEEK: Marlon Sanders

marlon

He's from TheTrafficDashboard.com and the best piece of "strategic" advice I ever heard from him is to: Absorb the changes. This means, if you put out a great product, service, app, etc. and someone copies you, adding a few features, then copy them right back and make it even better. Use their copying of your idea to make your idea one step ahead of theirs.

marlon2

People give "cliched" advice like: just serve one person, imagine a customer avatar, success leaves clues. Model successful people.
What do you do when you're burnt out? Someone "steals" your idea? (No, they copied. Stealing suggests you don't have it anymore.) The best ideas are combinations of 2-3 things. iPhone, Facebook.

Most people have too many ideas, too scatterbrained, pulled in different directions. Most people can't tell the forest from the trees.

Successful FUNDAMENTALS to Model from Other Marketers

  1. High ticket course (profit margin)
  2. Low ticket solution or software (list)
  3. Warm up: free blog posts, YouTube videos, autoresponder sequence with a blend of pitch and content. A short book couldn't hurt.
  4. Platinum coaching program: easy money
  5. Be a thought leader, speaker, innovator, teacher, even if it doesn't come "naturally"

Knock these out one at a time (series) and not all at once (parallel)

Things Angering Me This Week

  1. No real mailing address on your websites? What are you afraid of?
  2. Linking directly to an order form from an email? At least show the "contract" of what I'm getting.
  3. Trying to piece together a solution (i.e. podcasting) when you should have just bought a damn course (Podcast Crusher, uDemy)

Get it working now and connect the pieces later, so you can whip up the interface when you're in that frame of mind. You don't want to over-engineer software OR your business.

8-Step Software Iteration Process (That Also Works for Non-Software Membership Sites)

  1. psuedocode / "ugly" basic interface (text and buttons)
  2. proof of concept
  3. mock-up interface
  4. test cases
  5. working interface
  6. connect it all together
  7. debugging
  8. interface again based on use-cases (iterate)

You might have to do 10-20% more "work" in the long run, but you'll have a more stable product, make the money faster. You sometimes have to "see" a design or interface in action.

Non-software example: first get the results. Show how you can get consistent AdWords traffic. Keep a swipe file. Develop a checklist. Make it easily do-able and easily relatable.

Resources

Traveling with a Laptop?

December 9, 2015

I know for a fact that you don't stay at home all day, every day. I have hit the wall again and again with a product launch problem, a product creation problem, a programming problem or I just couldn't solve some problem. 10 minute break, 15 minute walk, 30 minute drive, or a 45 minute nap, I come back and I know exactly how to solve my problem.

The next time you leave town, or even better, attend an offline event or a mastermind, even for just a few days, you'll make new connections, get a brand new perspective and solve most of your problems.

But here's the question... what do you bring to these events? And how much of your business do you take with you?

Laptop? iPad? Pen and paper? Second monitor?

I've literally been to events where 100% of all attendees were on their laptops. Not taking notes, not learning, using wifi (and mifi), surfing the web, checking Facebook, wasting time – when they could be wasting time at home!

Do You Really Need That Laptop?

My first question to you is, do you REALLY need to be that connected that you bring your smartphone, tablet, laptop, and notepad in your backpack when you attend these events? The answer is probably not. I've been to events where I tripped over power cords from plugged in laptops. I hosted an event once where one of the attendees plugged in a power strip, two laptops, and a router.

What would happen if you attended a conference and you were 100% focused on what was right in front of you?

Just think about how differently you'd think if your attention didn't have to be "split" all the time. Or if, for a few hours at a time, you were unreachable, no interruptions, just focusing on where you are and what you're hearing and seeing?

Business Building Tasks Only

One of the weirdest experiences I went through was being confined on a train for 48 hours from Sacramento, California to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I got a heck of a lot accomplished, and part of it was writing 52 articles. I used some as membership content, some were blog posts for my sites, guest blog posts, articles for a print magazine.

This was before Amtrak provided wifi service. It was also before mobile 3G and 4G hotspots existed. Even so, the cellular reception was so terrible that even my GPS device couldn't always get a signal.

I guarantee that if train wifi had existed back then, I wouldn't have written 52 articles. I probably would have used Facebook and Skype, checked my email, read articles, forum posts and blog posts, however.

Think about it. What if YOU were trapped on a train for 2 days and had no internet service? And you had no movies and TV shows left to watch? No books left to read?

You'd probably build your business. Write articles and blog posts, create videos, membership site content, sales letters, you would CREATE instead of wasting time.

Here's what I do at events. I bring in just ONE device into the room. That means it's either JUST my phone, JUST my iPad, or JUST my laptop. I don't have it out 100% of the time, and when I do, I'm not on Facebook, I'm not browsing, surfing, consuming, I'm creating. Once I've finished that article, I shut the laptop down and I'm done.

Internet Security

Here's something that might save your entire business. Never use public wifi to login to most sites. Skype, Evernote, Gmail, Facebook, and most remote desktop software (my favorite is LogMeIn) are all okay to use on public wifi because they use SSL to encrypt those communications.

Let's say you login to your favorite message board, your WordPress blog, or membership site. If the web address doesn't have a "https" at the beginning (instead of "http") or shows a "lock" symbol, then you've just broadcasted your password to everyone within 1000 feet of you. If you login to your cPanel without typing the https or you FTP without checking the box to use FTPS or SFTP, you've just broadcasted your password to everyone within 1000 feet.

Scary stuff. So other than being careful about what sites you visit, what do you do?

Remote Desktop

I have a program called "LogMeIn" installed on my computer. I also have the "LogMeIn" app installed on my iPad. Using this app, I can connect to my computer at home from anywhere. This means I view my screen over there, I can click on anything and type anything. Edit video, record video, access files, login to sites.

Remote desktop is actually GREAT when you want to login, get your computer running (like processing a video), then logout and let it crank away at home.

I've installed the app on my iPhone and on my laptop, so it doesn't matter where I am, if I need to use my computer at home, it's one "tap" away.

Here's another thing. My home computer has RoboForm installed, my laptop doesn't. This means if I lose my laptop (which is itself password protected), my passwords aren't lost. They're on my home computer.

If I need to check my PayPal balance or pay someone and I'm not home, I can just remote desktop and do it -- without setting off alarms with PayPal. If I need to login to a non-SSL forum or website, I remote desktop and do it.

Should you travel? Yes. Do you need to bring your laptop along? Probably not if you have a tablet. Even so, here's what you need to do:

  • Only have one device "on" you at a time (phone, tablet, laptop)
  • Use your device for content creation tasks instead of browsing and surfing
  • Avoid logging into non-SSL sites and use Remote Desktop (LogMeIn) whenever possible

I hope that helps when traveling and building/maintaining/growing your online business.

066: Avoid and Stop Disappointment: End the Waste, Conquer Disillusion, Get the Magic Feeling Back and Become Excited About Your Business Again

December 4, 2015

Internet marketer of the week: Big Jason Henderson from BetterPostureGuaranteed.com BigMarketingOnline.com.

big-jason

My big breakthrough from him: a membership site doesn't have to be a recurring forever monthly payment. You can create a single payment, or even better, a fixed term site, instead of that old and tired download page, using Member Genius.

Things Angering Me This Week

  1. Black Friday deals, discounts. It's a drug for your business. Get that quick "hit" that you pay for later.
  2. What you're trying to obtain from the discount is to get non-buyers to buy something low ticket. Get the juices flowing.
  3. I buy from you and you say, check your email for the download link. What? Send me to a membership signup so I get an email and have a lost password link for later. Member Genius takes care of all that.
  4. No support link from your sales letter or your membership site? Time to change that.

Five Things to Identify So You Can Get the Magic Feeling Back

Signal #1: Fear-driven thoughts. Have you been told to "manage your expectations?" Then you're always expecting to be let down. That's not a solution. That's settling!

Serve the needs of those who deserve it (customers), and cut out those dragging you down. Avoid lists of your failures, enemies. What's the point? We become what we focus on AND we become what we repeatedly do. There will be up's and down's in your business.

Signal #2: What's the pattern? Buy that course, find one thing you don't like with it? Refund or just don't implement? Off to more of the same stuff?

What if you implemented exactly as they showed you? Don't be smarter than the person. Who cares if you don't "like" the person. The real test: does it do what you said it would?

Signal #3: Can I just get one thing out of it? Go through it all. Do it all. Russians who copied WW2 planes. They left the dents in.

Signal #4: What can and can't you control? Don't depend on anything external for happiness. Only you can be happy, satisfied, and fulfilled.

Are you setting yourself up for disappointment, because you know you can't control it? My old reliable thought is: "what's good about this, or what could be good about this?"

Signal #5: Have a good support system. As in, a helpful mastermind, mentor, and role model. Kick out those toxic people and instead, get some positive perspective.

What's your goal, anyway? To pick up one extra thing? To master Facebook ads? To figure out how this person got 800 webinar attendees?

This Week We Talked About...

Quotes of the Week

  • "You cannot change others but you can change yourself"
  • "The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about." -- Wayne Dyer
  • If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed. -- Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor

It helps to know what goal you're after, and then you can monitor those who have what you want.

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December 2, 2015

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