Archive for May, 2016

091: How to Choose a Niche for Your Internet Marketing Business and Decode the Science to Making Money Online

May 28, 2016

"Fail in private, succeed in public." -- David Ogilvy

Stage 1: Quick Research

  • Find the intersection of: what people want, what people need, what you're good at, and what's fun for you -- forum search, Amazon table of contents, ask your list if you have one
  • Build a better mousetrap than your competitors, find their holes, absorb the changes, combine things from two competitors, give away one piece that your competitors normally charge for
  • Important: teach something you've already known for several years, that way you're saying "something" (as opposed to bizopp stuff), and you don't have to do any new learning

Stage 2: Find Competitors Making Money

  • Are there high ticket items, seminars, and membership sites about this?
  • Paid ads?
  • Do the high profile guys keep promoting it and keep their websites around for a long time?

Stage 3: Is There a Future In It?

  • Why is weight loss a good idea but back pain isn't? Weight loss is an ongoing problem you can continuously help them with, back pain isn't.
  • Huge offer: what can you sell for $100 that's worth $1000 to $10,000?
  • What can you checklist and systematize to "dumb it down" and make it super easy

Resources

090: The Path to Internet Freedom: Start with That Day Job and Transition From Freelancing to Products and Membership Sites

May 24, 2016

Today's Sponsor: Profit Dashboard (Make Money on Fiverr course)
"You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks." -- Winston Churchill

The Steps

  • Phase 1: day job (get some income rolling in, overlap skills with your internet business if possible, find the win-win scenario)
  • Phase 2: freelancing (small jobs, don't become a monthly employee, get good at just one hour per day, avoid scope creep)
  • Phase 3: information products (solutions to real problems, find the sweet spot between power, simplicity, and speed)
  • Phase 4: membership sites & passive income (use the untapped potential of your list, 2 week mini-launch & pitch webinar, keep piling in a batch of members)

List, Traffic, and Offers

  • list: prospects and buyers (email autoresponder, opt-in page, follow-up sequence)
  • traffic: bigger community than yours, joint ventures, SEO (blog posts, guest posts, YouTube videos, podcasts), PPC (retargeting, AdWords, Facebook, Bing)
  • offers: affiliate products, resale rights, $7 solutions, $197-$497 four-part membership course, $2000/month coaching program
  • time management: four daily tasks, wake up one hour earlier, leave the computer when you're done

Fiverr Income (ProfitDashboard.com)

  • goal: one hour, 1 dollar per minute, 10 repeat clients
  • ranking: deliver fast (easy if you enjoy what you're doing), leave feedback, tweak gig description, get ratings
  • process: wake up to orders (knock out audios, videos, written material, software reports), tweak those numbers to grow and avoid a slump, upsell and scale (i.e. charge higher rates for the same time/effort)

089: How to Handle the Ups and Downs Of Being a Self-Employed Entrepreneur

May 21, 2016

Today's Sponsor: ProfitDashboard.com
"Learning is a gift, even when pain is your teacher." -- Maya Watson

You should be excited to get out of bed in the morning. You should be itching to knock out 40 minutes of money-making tasks on the computer, then leave the computer.

If you're feeling unmotivated, get off the computer until you do.

THE LONG GAME
1. Treat your business like a real business: boundaries for "focused" time (Four Daily Tasks) -- no split focus
2. Anytime you're making a decision or deciding to commit time to a task, ask yourself: will doing this really earn me more money? If you're not sure, then is it worth risking an hour or 5 minutes to find out? (Usually: yes.)
3. Look to put yourself out of business, because if you won't, someone else will. (Which means: move your business to the next logical step.) Complete what you start, but after completing and getting the low hanging fruit, don't rely on that income stream to keep paying you for 10 years.

SETBACKS
4. Support System & Mastermind: have someone to talk to who understands you
5. Light at the end of the tunnel: don't plan more than your next product, next book, next three podcast episodes, etc. Go back and connect the dots later.
6. Make Money: you'll be more excited (and have an easier time justifying what you're doing to others) if you're making some initial money

MINDSET
7. Take Time Off the Computer to Think: Either weekends, or specific days of the week. Don't just "zone out" all day and all week staring at the screen. Take quiet walks or drives to think, too. Exercise to clear your head and reduce stress.
8. Be an Above-Average Person: Actually listen to what people say in your everyday life. Avoid being the zombie who drifts through things. Don't watch so much of the news, and avoid live TV if possible. Quit gossip and complaining. You take actions, things don't happen to you.
9. Have an Abundance Mindset: Provide lots of help for free to others, not to feel superior or to get credit, just because it makes you feel good.

ACTIONS
10. Traffic: most people setup their site hoping everyone will find it. WSO's, seminars, viral affiliate program, retargeted traffic -- get lots of people to your site
11. Strengthen Your Content Muscle: this doesn't necessary mean writing. It can be webinars, podcasts, YouTube videos, product creation. Get used to producing "something" helpful to others at least every few days -- paid or free. Note: build content on sites you control, not forums and Facebook.
12. Minimum viable product: What's most important is that you take action, that it leads you to making more money, and that you complete and follow-through. Getting it "done" and 80% right is better than getting it perfect and 100% right, which is impossible.

088: Create More Free Time, Become Super Productive, and Enjoy the Money Making Process Again

May 15, 2016

"Be big enough to admit your mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them." -- John C Maxwell

Traps you fall into: perfectionist, self doubt, self defeatist, the stars have to align. I need to "force" myself into getting motivated. Yeah, right.
"Usual" advice I'll skip over: Four Daily Tasks + Camtasia babysitter + accountability partner + computer hotseat + one take content
Usually, the "thing" you have to do is just 5 minutes, or just 1 hour: speak out book, run webinar, send email
Stop multitasking with the phone, email, Facebook, TV. Leave it out of the room.

  1. Stop watching TV: biggest time waster (or at least put it off for a couple weeks)
  2. Schedule time on the calendar to get it done
  3. Throw away the old notes and papers, you don't need that clogging up your mind
  4. Don't walk into the office after a specific hour: this forces you to get more done
  5. Anchoring: associate your office, sitting at the computer with fun, creativity, productivity, flow state (leave windows open so you can sit down and go)
  6. Take short breaks without the phone: it'll be easier to multitask when you get back (take up walking during your breaks if you can)
  7. Spend just 5 minutes doing something you love like playing the piano
  8. Read a lot more: just one page per night
  9. Leisure goals: running a certain distance, scoring high at a certain sport (create something).
  10. Enjoy the "fun" of building your business. The meaning is what you make it. Get to the making-money phase and get to stoppable/resumable milestones.

Bonus: Wake up one hour early for an "easy" boost to the day.

087: Break Out of Your Money Zone (and Uninstall Negative Money Beliefs) Using 80/20 and 10X

May 6, 2016

Important Quotes & Terms

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Reasons We Became Entrepreneurs

  • Result: travel, retire, better house/car
  • More time for what matters
  • Break out of the daily grind
  • Freedom
  • Control
  • Less stress, work
  • Build something undeniably great with your name on it
  • Crack the code (or nut) using your intelligence
  • Help others to build their business, write a book, lose weight, etc. Change lives.
  • Get the high score

Reasons You're Trapped in That Money Zone

  • self-esteem (you think you're not smart enough or don't deserve it), too old or too young, fear of change, fear of losing friends, comparisons to your parents and friends
  • scarcity mindset insetad of an abundance mindset
  • it's hard to speed towards a brick wall: you tend to slow down when those bills get paid, instead you need 10
  • problem: what we resist persists

Quick & Easy Solutions

  1. Meanings don't exist: any meanings or conclusions you come up with are in your own head. There is no absolute truth. Only many truths you have created.
  2. Locate the source: Write down the specific issues that are holding you back from making more money -- people, attitude, obligations
  3. Counter example: Find the exception that proves the rule: when were you productive? When did you have more money than you needed at the time?
  4. Provide real value for others
  5. Cut out the negative people (and customers) in your life
  6. Write down a daily metric for how you're doing (as in, money, sales, content created)
  7. Write down issues to correct them

Socratic Questions

  1. Clarification: why do you say that?
  2. Assumption: what could we assume instead?
  3. Evidence: what's an example?
  4. Perspective: what would be an alternative?
  5. Consequences: how does it affect other things?
  6. Meaning: what does it mean and where does it come from?

Questions to Correct Mistaken Beliefs

  1. What's the evidence for this?
  2. Does this ALWAYS hold true or has it ever been wrong?
  3. Does this take the big picture into account, both positive and negative?
  4. Are you being fully objective? Where did this idea come from? Or is it only emotional?

Negative Self Talk

  • Worrier: anxiety. Worst case scenario, overestimate the bad, exaggerated images of that. What if? Change to: so what?
  • Critic: self esteem. Judging. Ignores positive qualities and emphasizes the bad. I'm ok with the way I am.
  • Victim: depression. Helpless, powerless, regret. Belief that nothing will change or is too difficult. One step at a time.
  • Perfectionist: burnout. Says you should be working harder. Intolerant of mistakes and setbacks. It's ok to make mistakes.

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