Quote of the Week: "Even the sharpest of knives cannot cut if held the wrong way." -- Rachel Wolchin
Catchphrase of the Week: "Don't hit the baseball, hit through the baseball." Some people on my Little League team even tried "throwing" the bat at the baseball to "save time getting on base." Guess how well that worked out?
Thought of the Week: You need to have enough judgement to know when to be the "drone employee" (follow the steps exactly) and when to be the creative CEO (remove steps or experiment)
Strategy #1: Four Daily Tasks & Accountability Group: four business related measurable tasks you COMPLETE, and not CONTINUE.
Strategy #2: Deadline & Three-Day Window
Strategy #3: Minimum Viable Product: what if you had to stop today? (absolute focus on one goal, milestones, and use early profits as motivation to keep going) -- avoid "fake it till you make it"
Strategy #4: Do It Better Than "That Idiot Who Doesn't Deserve It" (common enemy)
Strategy #5: What's In It For Me (help others with real solutions instead of talking about yourself)
Strategy #6: Teach Your Notes, Criteria, Checklists, and Templates (product, membership site, book, blog, podcast)
Strategy #7: Don't Compare Your Insides to Their Outsides (keep your own side of the street clean when it comes to: haters, competitors, customers) -- mind your own business, you don't know what happens behind closed doors, what and what "they" are going through. People don't care about your mistakes as much as you think. How do I know? Write down today's date, but 5 years ago. Then try to remember someone you know who embarrassed themselves 5 years ago today. You can't think of one. People won't remember your mistakes or embarrassments either.
Bonus: Think about the benefits instead of the difficulties. (i.e. that new car you'll buy instead of your hourly rate)
Dave Koziel from PublishWithDave.com is going to tell us how he makes $10,000 to $30,000 per month from Amazon Kindle. He's created 60 to 80 Kindle books (6,000 to 12,000 words in length) for $80-$150.
Some books produce hundreds per month while even the "duds" generate $20-$25 per month. He's going to share not only his numbers and "ah-ha" moments, but his secret strategies for making money with Amazon Kindle publishing. (As well as CreateSpace physical books and ACX Audible audiobooks.) Topics covered:
How to make money with Amazon Kindle without writing any of your own books (Dave only wrote two of his own books, for fun)
How even an underforming book (6,000 to 12,000 words in length) makes Dave about $25 per month and can make as many as hundreds of dollars per month (so how many books like these would you outsource?)
The secret to getting Amazon buyers off Amazon and onto your list
How to get started with that first Kindle book
Get more reviews from your Amazon books using review swaps
Ever wonder what those successful internet marketers do all day? Probably less than you, and that's why they make more money. Let's talk about how to "work" smarter (and not harder) to do more in less time, just like the "big guys" do...
Let's talk today about "business card" books to build your business. You should get your best ideas down, and re-use (even sometimes repeating yourself) your best content, especially in the form of digital and physical books. Amazon lets you publish an unlimited number books, so you might as well make the most of it.
Marketer of the Week: Jeff Mills (be the salesman -- best salesman for an app creator but he didn't even make the product)
Quote of the Week: "When you focus on problems, you'll have more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you'll have more opportunities." -- Unknown
Catchphrase of the week: "Don't live life with one foot on the brake." Comfort zone, money zone. Nobody likes a backseat driver.
Thought of the week: What if you just put 10 minutes a day into that goal? Put aside $10 a day to build your business? Read just 1 page from a book per day?
Catchphrase of the Week: See a movie or go to the park. Quote of the Week: "The number one reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they have gotten." - Unknown Marketer of the Week: Gary Ambrose (show someone how to "make a million dollars in five minutes" -- his membership hosting platform includes pre-made membership content, sales letters, emails, just click and it's in)
1. Fiverr services (Profit Dashboard) 2. Tiny little $7 reports: it's all about the upsell (Income Machine) 3. Low-ticket webinar: fake out and drop the price down to $7. Anything to get them buying. (Webinar Crusher) 4. Platinum coaching program: seminar, application, recurring GoToWebinar. (Membership Cube) 5. Yearly software: license table, updates, developer license, lifetime access. (This is how we sell and market Backup Creator). 6. Webinar membership sites: 4 or 8 week class, fixed term site, deactivatable software, checklist, pain of disconnect like a directory. (You can use the WP Notepad and WP Kunaki plugins for this, included for free in Membership Cube.) 7. $2400/mo Websites for Offline Businesses (we don't have a training for this but we use Backup Creator to re-use our template.) 8. Kindle books: (Make a Product is our Amazon publishing course.)
Let me share my podcasting formula with you: 5-10 minutes of a problem, 5-10 minutes of a solution, and 5-10 minutes of a case study implementing that solution to the previously stated problem...
Segment 1: Problem
Content marketing traffic (also transcript and book)
Whatever money issue, technology issue, or motivational issue you're dealing with, chances are the things that slow you down or hold you back are currently 80% internal (the way you think about things) and 20% external (your actions and the things around you).
Many times, if I'm feeling a bit lost or otherwise unfocused, I'll first identify the SPECIFIC problem I'm having (i.e. frustrated, overwhelmed) and then find a bunch of articles dissecting the problem.
Usually, reading about the cause of things like burnout, guilt, and distractions (for example) -- and the various strategies for dealing with specific problems like journaling, meditation, exercise, find a mastermind, complete smaller tasks -- are far more helpful than any amount of denial or self-reflection...
That's why I'm revealing my "master file" of inner mindset solutions to you...
First, if you're trying to overcome a negative issue (like a bad mood), then find your problem and solution in the first section
If you're looking for a positive change in your life (focus, doing more in less time) then jump to the second section
If you want to get motivated, check out the third section below
And finally, if your goal is daily maintenance or you're looking to think your way out of a problem, jump to the bonus section where there's an interesting list of questions to ask yourself
Have fun. I see this post being a resource you turn to again and again when you need that little boost.
Part 1: Overcome Negativity & Bad Habits (eliminate the bad): 85 Tips
Success threatens because it creates change: increased challenges and responsibilities
Believe in your ability to change: your skils and talents are variable
Flight or fight response is natural: fear of being inadequate and fear of rejection
To overcome fear, make it conscious: failure is not the enemy of success. If you don't succeed, try something new. The real enemies of success: complacency, apathy, over-zealousness
Fear itself as a motivator is only a defensive tool: engage fully with life, and not timidly.
Read a different newspaper. If you read the Wall Street Journal, read the Washington Post.
Make up new words that describe the problem. e.g., "Warm hugs" to describe a motivation problem and "Painted rain" to describe changing customer perceptions.
Which of two objects, a salt shaker or a bottle of ketchup best represents your problem? Why?
Imagine your idea and its opposite existing simultaneously.
If you could have three wishes to help you solve the problem, what would they be?
Write a six word book that describes your progress on the problem. e.g. "At present all thoughts are gray," "I am still not seeing everything."
What if you taught weight loss? Give me a 5x5 table (or dashboard) where I can choose the meal plan I want to lose weight.
Hypnosis membership site? Let me jump to the exact recording I want to listen to in order to feel good, fall asleep, get focused, etc. Let me choose the exact real estate form in your real estate membership site.
Catchphrase of the Week: When you copy the airplane for the first time, duplicate the dents, too.
Question of the Week: What's the One Word That You Own? Drip, clone. Template.
Quote of the Week: "No focus = overwhelm." -- Dan Blank
Marketer of the Week:Joe Lavery (put the pressure on your website visitors using scarcity)
Our Membership Cube course shows you how to setup WordPress, a domain name, sales letter, and use Wishlist Member as the "gatekeeper" to manage all your members: let them in once they pay, or kick them out if they cancel/refund.
Today we're talking about a silly way of making money using Fiverr. Our course for this is at Profit Dashboard. Everyone can do this. Even if you're bored, goofing around, looking for startup money, or starting a business that someone else can continue.
Phrase #2: Think about what you'd do if you were desperate for money. Then do some version of that (on a smaller scale) so you don't actually have to become desperate.
Quote of the Week from Revolutionary War Colonel William Prescott: "An obstacle is often a stepping stone."
Marketer of the Week: Daniel Hall from DanielHallPresents.com. Have a whole year of webinars booked. Book 2-3 different webinar swaps with someone if the first one works well.
First, make the money ($100). Then, scale it to make more money ($1000). Then, scale back the time so it doesn't take over your life ($100-$1000/hour)...
Today, think about living life on your terms: where no one tells you what to do, and you can do what you want. Run your own blog, webinars, podcasts, events, publish your books. Do what you want, but do something! Stop thinking.
What if you provided a coaching bonus when someone buys from you? (even for $17 or $97) -- TimeTrade.com
What if you send a personal postcard to people who bought, or even attended your webinars? -- WPKunaki.com and DoubleAgentCards.com
What if you asked QUESTIONS from your email subscribers? Most marketers don't know to do this.
Appointment-Based Business: Could you run your entire internet business in just 1 hour a day? You probably could, if you got off Facebook, emails, customer support. Guess what? You still have that time. It just shouldn't be "business time." You might need a day planner or a calendar.
Fiverr: A Silly But Effective Repeatable Income
Fiverr Marketplace: people buy things for $5, usually more with upsells, multiple "gigs", fast delivery
Based on ratings and rankings so it's not a sketchy marketplace like DigitalPoint, Craigslist, or even Upwork
Voiceovers, videos, run SEO software, transcriptions, article writing
Post your "gig" (or job) and choose your pricing (i.e. $5 for 50 flyers or 100 word voiceover)
Take steps to get traffic to your gig (this is unique to Profit Dashboard)
Check your orders, complete them in a few minutes, and deliver them
Get rated and rate your buyers -- rise in the rankings
Closing Thoughts: Small Increments
What if you read just 1 page of a book per day? (minimum)
What if you earned or saved an extra $100 per day? ($3k/mo = $36k/year = $720k in 20 years, even before compound interest)
What if you put in an extra 10 minutes into your business every morning? 5 hours per month or 60 hours per year
Most people bastardize "Think & Grow Rich" because they forget about FOCUS. Most marketers talk themselves out of taking any action because they're already "imagined" themselves doing it.
Stop thinking. Just do. You can course correct later.
This is how I automate my posting of social media... I can post an entry to my blog and it cross-posts to my Facebook fan page... but THEN replicates to Twitter, my other Facebook fan pages, and my personal Facebook wall. I also have triggers that go off when I upload a YouTube video:
You can connect all kinds of cool stuff. For example, send me a text message reminder at the same time every day, or populate a Google spreadsheet when I add a file to Dropbox, and more:
Marketer of the week: Teresa King. She Taught me how to keep it simple. One of the first people I knew with a membership site (1999) -- BoxedScripts with me. Redirect Pro.
Feature Presentation: The Penny Test
Does your business pass these three tests?
Penny Test (what happens if you set your product's price to 0.01, actually purchase for real, then change the price back to normal later? Can you completely pay, check out, and create an account in your system? What about logging back in?)
Login Test (upsell, test user, MG user masquerading, dashboard page, login-logout)
Opt-in Test (single-double-triple optin, re-optin with existing address) fill in contact form)
Ten Bonus Tests
1. Is your mailing address on your website? 2. What about a contact form? 3. What do I see when I google your name? 4. Search your name on Amazon? 5. Search on YouTube? 6. Search on iTunes? 7. Do you own the .com? 8. Where can I optin on your site? 9. What can I buy? 10. If I only buy one thing from you, what should I buy?
Bonus test: where's the one place that I can find your "best stuff"? (best of page on your blog, blog post listing all your products, etc.)
If you feel like there are holes in your internet marketing knowledge, that maybe you're trying to learn college calculus but can't add two plus two, then this is the podcast episode for you!
Many marketers are obsessed with split testing, funnels, and setting up 1-click upsells, but they don't even have a buy button on a sales page.
Can I walk you through what I tell someone if they're struggling, can't get a sales page figured out, and just need a quick web page online?
The first thing is that you should have a copy of Paper Template (just $7 dollars) installed on WordPress, because you can easily click and create anything you want. But now what do you write on that web page where you want people to enter their email to subscribe? What magic words do you place on a web page where you want people to click and pay you money?
Marketer of the Week: Robert Puddy
I created a couple of products and launched a couple of services with Robert Puddy back in the day. His big thing then was creating traffic exchanges to bring in lots and lots of hungry traffic.
His biggest site is Launch Formula Marketing (now Login Frequency Marketing). Puddy monetizes unsubscribes from his list (link them to SpamAssassin with your affiliate link), even lost password pagees (Roboform). Make them login to your site every day, for example, to watch a webinar.
Wise Words This Week
When we get overwhelmed, we often use multitasking to get back on track. It often causes more problems than it solves. Usually when you split your attention, you’re giving half the effort and producing half the results. The solution is to develop "single-handling" activities. --- S.J. Scott
Copywriting Shortcut
AIDA/WWHW: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Why, What, How-To, What-If. Keep it stoppable stupid, look with fresh eyes, bottlenecks
Who Else Wants To... (this headline is my squeeze page starter)
Imagine... (starter for emails)
What Would Happen If... (starter for webinars)
Quick Question... (starter for sales letters)
PHASE I: Minimum Viable Product
Headline: Who Else Wants To?
Ten bullet points: why should I get this?
Price and buy button
WWHW re-ordering
PHASE II: Fundamentals
Button, stack, headline (in that order)
Product breakdown (individual modules)
Problem agitate solve (story)
Four objections (no need, I don't believe you)
PHASE III: Persuasion
Four stages of awareness
Cialdini 6 elements
Typos and numbers not adding up
PHASE IV: Window Dressing
Case studies and testimonials
Graphics
Jump links
Resources
Paper Template (This is the WordPress plugin I use on all my sites for sales letters, optin pages, webinar replay pages, and more.)
Fast Food Copywriting (Here's how I churn out attention-grabbing, high-converting sales pages in just a few minutes on-demand.)
Speed Copy (The complete course on how to make a full-time income with money-making web pages)
Maybe you're bored in your internet business right now because there's no real risk, challenge, or excitement in your business? This especially happens if you fall into the trap of "lying" because nothing is real. Let's get you creative so you can think your way out of your current predicament (even if that problem is boredom)...
Creativity doesn't only mean "get a bunch of ideas." Notice how the word "create" is in it? Creativity = to create. Make something new and valuable. Idea or invention.
Why slow down? If you're on a roll, keep going, so during slow times when you're tired, your past self (on a timer) is like an extra employee you don't have to pay.
Four minute mile: 100 article days, book in an afternoon, class in an afternoon, airport product. $2k product twice a week. Hack a 100k income, how many products to sell to achieve that goal. $1000 per hour income (webinars). 1 hour per week full time income (Amazon). 1 hour per day income (Fiverr). Think your way out of a situation.
Albert Einstein made creative breakthroughs by asking interesting questions, such as: what would it be like to ride a wave of light?
Distill the noise down: do you take 20 pages of notes at a seminar/webinar or 5 bullet points / key takeaways?
Separate the forest from the trees! Getting so bogged down by the details you don't see the big picture, end goal, reason why, do's and dont's. Presentation on 187 types of content? A mile wide and an inch deep. Solve some problems instead. Good for pitching/presenting, bad for a product.
Our Marketer of the week is Ken Evoy from "Make Your Price Sell." He was the first marketer I've seen with a dynamic price. For example, you sell a product where the price increases by 1 penny every minute.
Let's break the stages of you unlocking your creativity and solving any problem into four steps: WHY (reframe), WHAT (mindmap), HOW (insight), and WHAT-IF (creative flow):
Step A: WHY Reframe (change the interpretation)
Hit the problem from multiple angles with probing questions. Questions must be answered! Here's what you need to ask from yourself:
A1: What's the big problem? What happens without this solution? (common enemy) A2: What am I solving? (specific goal) A3: What's the current way to solve it? A4: Why is my solution better?
Who am I solving it for?
Why does this even matter?
What can I learn from this?
What's funny about this?
How do I start this?
What do I do after this?
During this stage, our goal is childlike curiosity (kids ask lots of questions but adults are set in their ways). We want to limit perfectionism and take up exercise such as free-writing. Apply random words to your situation. Think of as many "C" words as possible, for instance. Criticizing in this stage is only good if you ask: how could I have done better? You need to think up good possibilities and ideas to shoot down later.
Step B: WHAT Mindmap (branch out)
Get the structure, outline, manipulation, trimming, and the sequence.
B1: Brain dump sub-problems. B2: Get it dialed in: Diverge (go big, seek out) vs. Converge (decide, connect, guidelines, reduce). Combine, split, add, remove, edit B3: Professor Elliot Eisner: boundary pushing (rules are constraining, let's bend them), inventing (useful combinations), boundary breaking (least common: opposite thinking, gap filling, the rules themselves are the problem), aesthetic organizing (order from chaos: most common)
Boundary pushing: can we shave one second off this plugin? Remove one step from the process
Boundary breaking: we host this software for them.
Aesthetic organizing: for example, in every 10-episode chunk of my podcast, I'll plan on having one episode about WordPress, a case study episode, a product pitch, mindset episode, marketing, writing, and so on.
Inventing: A or B eye doctor test: does it work better as "A" or work better as "B"?
Step C: HOW Insight (Professor Arne Dietrich Creativity Matrix)
This is the step where you think of the solution, but you don't implement yet. The reason why you might feel you've "hit a wall" is because you're only using one type of creativity. There are four:
C1: deliberate vs. spontaneous, cognitive vs. emotional.
Deliberate cognitive: Thomas Edison (I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways it won't work). Build knowledge, pay attention, make connections
Deliberate emotional: ah-ha moment. Flash of insight, emotions/feelings. Bad chain of events leads to a revelation.
Spontaneous cognitive: Isaac Newton and the Apple. Eureka, dopamine, out of the box unconscious thinking.
Spontaneous emotional: Einstein. Epiphanies from artists and musicians. Least controlled.
C2: How to get to these quadrants: Knowledge + time = DC, Quiet time = DE, Escape (incubation) = SC, Random = SE
C3: You need all four.
Einstein's combinatory play: stop working on the problem. Ideas come to you when you're in the shower.
Don't let "that" person's negativity get inside your head.
Magic wand thinking: if there were no limitations, what would I come up with?
Paint yourself into a corner to get out of your comfort zone. Take a risk.
State change: exercise, take a break, Aaron Sorkin shower, Winston Churchill nap
Step D: NOW Creative Flow (it all falls into place)
Implement the solution!
D1: Anthony Robbins would say you're looking for a Type 1 experience that: feels good, is good for you, helps others and helps the greater good D2: Repetition is the mother of skill: Unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence.
Figure out your routine: write every day, certain hours of the day. What motivates and demotivates you.
Rush to get things done during alone time.
Blue backgrounds = creativity, red backgrounds = attention to detail
Brain tricks. Set a time limit. Get back to a state when you were excited, crazy, unstoppable
What's great about this system we've laid out is that there's a huge "well" of techniques and ideas you can draw from anytime you're stuck thinking of a save to "save" a dead launch, increase your income, revive a dead email list, or even flesh out the chapters of your next book.
Speaking of your next book and eliminating your writer's block, we highly recommend the Make a Product course to get your next book finished and published on Amazon within the next few days.
Are your goals S.M.A.R.T. goals? Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Tune into today's program to uncover the tried and true techniques (16 total) to keep yourself motivated, focused, out of the procrastination zoned and focused on getting it all done and achieving that goal:
Our marketer of the week is Jim Edwards from TheNetReporter. My biggest takeaway from him: just point and shoot PowerPoint for your video. It doesn't need to have quick cuts, fancy edits or be professionally done -- at all.
General Motivation
Four Daily Tasks: Business-Building, Deliverable (no degrees of doneness, no chipping away, no to-do lists)
Seinfeld calendar (do something small every day so the cycle isn't broken) + 5 day sprint
Formula and checklist: for example, 3 part podcasts and "research heavy" blog posts: 100 solutions, group into 4-5 categories and whittle down so it's all meat and no grissle, which leads us to...
Reduce and rearrange the raw materials -- SIMPLE mindmapping with FreeMind helps with this.
Absolute Focus
Dual monitors: left for viewing, right for creating
Remove: distractions, phone, social media, email, TV, news
Clear the clutter: delete temporary EverNote notes and delete after you've made the blog post or product. Clear off desktop items at the end of the month. Quick calendar reminders later in the week to "check on" things and then delete.
Micro-projects: start on Monday, end on Friday or Saturday. You can restart on Monday, but don't leave things open-ended. (Optimistically pessimistic.)
Procrastination
What quick 10 minute activity have you been putting off? Do it now.
Accountability partner. Call every hour if you have a really bad "problem."
Shut down distractions. Close tabs, uninstall Facebook.
Change the pattern. Commit. Don't ask yourself how you "feel" about it. It's a must.
Concentration
What are the top 3 things to focus on? Avoid going an inch deep and a mile wide.
Meditation (meaning silence and reflectiveness).
A state change is as good as rest.
Appointment based business: webinars, meetings, Google calendar, TimeTrade coaching calls.
Wise Words to Live By
Three simple rules in life: 1. If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. 2. If you don't ask, the answer will always be no. 3. If you don't step forward, you'll always be in the same place.
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. -- Oscar Wilde
You may think the grass is greener on the other side, but if you take the time to water your own grass, it would be just as green.
Philosopher Karl Popper: True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
They usually aren't S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, and time-bound). SMART goals are pretty self explanatory but let me lay it out so there's no confusion: when you set out to do something, make sure that it's:
simple and clearly defined (specific)
something tangible so it's 100% clear whether or not you accomplished that goal (measurable)
enough of a stretch to move you out of your comfort zone, but not a shot at the moon (achievable)
all about an outcome instead of an activity (results-oriented)
in such a timeframe that it creates a sense of urgency for you (time-bound)
I think when most people set a goal that they're serious about, they intuitively and automatically make it specific, measurable, and achievable. The two biggies here are "results-oriented" and "time-bound."
Issue #1: You're Not Results-Oriented & Time-Bound
People don't know WHY they're doing something, for example, someone tells me their big goal is to write a book for their business. Why? Just because. Someone told them to do it. There's no real plan beyond that, and their heart isn't in it (no emotional reason-why) so it's just not going to get done. (It probably won't get started.)
The average person makes a silly goal like, "I'm going to run 2 miles every morning all this year." That's bad. It's open-ended, and it's not time-bound. A better goal would be that you're going to walk 10 minutes every evening for one week, and that's it! Nothing recurring.
Issue #2: Your Goals Are Too Big
Second problem, the goals are the wrong size. Usually too big. They're so big that you've subconsciously set yourself up for failure before you even started. You could have made your goal "write a 1/2 page blog post" but instead you said you'd write a 200-page book, including editing.
Can you please be honest with yourself? If you don't want to do anything different this year to grow your business and change your life, I honestly think that's okay, but ONLY if you're honest with yourself about it. That leads us to...
Issue #3: Belief & Honesty
Third, there's no real belief behind these S.M.A.R.T. goals. Maybe you're going through the motions and setting these goals because you think you "should", and you feel "bad" for not having one. Maybe you feel excited when you plan it out. But that excitement wears out in a few days, doesn't it?
The problem with a New "Year" resolution is that you probably start thinking of a goal around December 1st (Thanksgiving is over and it's holiday time), decide on that goal around December 5th, and then give up on the goal completely by December 15th. A small portion of people make it until January 10th, and even less until February 1st.
The solution to your "belief" crisis is to gain a small victory so you can not only see what's possible, but you've also broken that vicious cycle of:
feel bad -> over-engineer a pie-in-the-sky solution -> give up on it -> feel bad again
The Answer: New Month's Accomplishment
I have a better path for you and it's actually pretty simple:
Don't wait until January 1st to do something different
Don't have a huge year-long or recurring goal (just hit the next milestone)
Do something SMALL and ONE-TIME, like writing one blog post or going on one walk (anything is better than nothing)
Don't tell others you're going to do it (just do it and brag about it later)
Use the new month as an excuse to run a new "experiment", but keep doing more what's making money and less of what's not making money
Let's just call this a "New Month Accomplishment." This way, it's something small and S.M.A.R.T. that you can knock out. The reason why the end-result is so small is because the journey is more important than the destination, you're trying new things (and re-visiting old things that worked but you forgot), and if you get some small successes, you're more likely to be happier and more confident about those small achievements of yours. You're more likely to repeat those things and make them good habits.
What's Your New Month's Accomplishment?
My "New Month's Accomplishment" for January was recording an audiobook. That's something I've wanted to do for a few years, and I have eight books on Amazon at the moment, but no audiobooks. A few days ago, I sat at the computer, and did nothing that day but dictate (read aloud) the first half of my first book (100 Time Savers).
That took almost exactly two hours. The next day, I didn't check my email or Facebook until I recorded the second half (two hours), then adjusted the audio according to ACX's (Amazon and Audible's) specifications, and sent it off. It takes a few weeks for them to approve the audio book, so I'm just waiting on that.
My business partner Lance Tamashiro's New Month's Accomplishment (just from my observation) was sending a handful of thank you cards to some of our customers. This is something we used to do every day, but we stopped and forgot about it. Now we're doing it again. Simple!
Let's say you're sick of that messy garage. Instead of making a "commitment" (yuck) to "try" to "clean up better" this year, take one of item out of that garage, take a picture of it, and list in on Craigslist within the next few minutes. Done! New Months' Accomplishment finished.
If you have trouble writing: Ernest Hemingway only wrote 500 words a day, but he did it every day. Stephen King writes exactly 2,000 words (7 pages) daily. If he hits 2,000 words and he's in mid-sentence, it doesn't matter, he stops!
If he writes 1,500 words and gets to the end of the book he's writing, he types THE END and writes the next 500 words for the next book. Your New Month's Accomplishment could be to only write 500 words tomorrow. Don't worry about the next day or month or the rest of your life, just get 500 words out of the way.
I'm curious to know what your New Month's Accomplishment is, but don't tell me!
In fact, don't tell anyone what you're doing. Finish something simple that you can complete in a day (or two at the most), or preferably just 10 minutes today, and now you've finished more than those schlubs who "planned" their "resolution" for the "New Year" and never even started.
I'm finally starting to get it. The newbie mindset (or clarity mindset). Your training should "lean" towards the newbies and making a sense of the mess, with some how-to thrown in.
If you don't have a blog, YouTube channel, an affiliate program, and lots of free content or search results where people can find you, then that's yet one more tool that your competitors have at their disposal, that you don't.
Useful content: weekly podcast, weekly video, weekly blog post.
Ideas: roundup your favorite links, post an embed reactor (a YouTube video and your opinion underneath it), become a "data scientist" and share your results
Think beyond just a blog: guest posts, podcast, book, viral videos
Mild keyword stuffing: use phrases people are searching
(Steve Celeste wasn't actually his real name, and his blog is long gone, but you can check out an archive on the Wayback Machine.)
Steve Celeste's blog and marketing training gave me the idea of creating a "build it to sell it" site. We used that model on DailySeminar.com. I didn't want to commit to a chore of having to crank out membership content on a regular basis, so we listed it for sale even as we were launching it. I also made sure things like the Clickbank account, membership software, etc. were all things that could be detached.
The site only had 53 members paying $47/month, but we had 55 "weeks" of content (20 minute Monday training, 20 minute Tuesday training, 20 minute Wednesday interview, Thursday bonus report, and Friday question day) created in advance. That part took about 40 hours of total "work" -- mostly recording training. We launched it on December 15th of (year removed but it was over 8 years ago). By February 27th of the following year, we had a buyer for $32,000 for everything. $32,000 from 40 hours? That's not a bad payday.
How do you decide what info to give away or charge for? The answer: Use the "William Shatner" model (he has 228 acting credits on IMDB, appeared as himself in 357 more appearances, 9 CDs on Amazon, and 70 books on Amazon). Keep putting stuff out there.
Reasons People Buy From You
They love you: they buy everything you put out (top 1%)
They want it (fad or trend): You got in front of a wave, i.e. everyone's talking about membership sites or one click funnels so you're teaching that
They need it: you're solving a real problem (people will always need to know about affiliate programs, copywriting, etc.)
Fear, convenience, entertainment
What path brings people to you? Our favorite Platinum studnet (Dr. Charles) came from a Jeff Mills guest webinar we presented, then he attended our live event in Salt Lake City and joined our Platinum there. Another Platinum client came from a one-time $997 mastermind session we both attended in Las Vegas. Yet another Platinum student of ours came from a speaking gig where I presented an pitched a $997 offer in San Diego.
Blogging and podcasting the "random-ness" (mindset etc) has put me on a path for the big ideas for books and courses. Here's where I stay in inspired and get a "feel" for what's popular and what people want to hear (without becoming a copycat or a me-too):
Facebook: Unfollow the negative nelly, political complainers or time vampires on Facebook and instead follow: BusinessInsider, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc Magazine, Fast Company.
It's also been helpful seeing bloggers like Tim Ferriss from the Four Hour Workweek write long-form blog posts in an era where people are trying to tell you that attention spans are down. John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire consistently publishes 5 podcast interviews per week (now well over 1100+) which I find super cool. IMNewsWatch is yet another example of sites that put out tons and tons of helpful free content that lead to things to buy.
Follow a formula with your writing, like this:
How to (3 things -- each crazier than the last), without (blank) -- add a keyword or two if you can
Questions, categories: create some kind of order or structure from the huge mess of possibilities
7 ways, 12 tweaks, 35 websites
You don't have to write "poetry" as you're not Seth Godin. Provide value and don't worry about rhyming, or being catchy.
Tip of the Week: I use Zapier to either propagate social media, or notify you every day to produce or publish that content. The most prolific writers have a schedule.
Five Steps to Profitable Content Marketing
Part 1: Consistent podcasting. Join us inside of PodcastCrusher.com to get your podcast up and running in 5 minutes, so you can double dip untapped search results and get listed in BOTH Google and iTunes.
Part 2: 5 minute YouTube videos all week to capture those searches. What do people actually search for? Check out 100 competing YouTube videos with high view counts and group them 4-5 categories. If you haven't experimented sending your subscribers to a video or blog post, you need to. It stirs up the list and gets people to login again.
Part 3: Blogging ideas. Here are some ideas if you're stuck:
A. Why did you get started? Early successes and failures B. What angers you? What's being done wrong in your industry and what are you reacting to? C. Or, just give me something helpful
Part 4: Book. Combine your your best stuff (greatest hits) into a Word document. MakeAProduct.com shows you how to use Kindle and CreateSpace to put out your hardcover and softcover books.
Part 5: Accidental sales. This is where you have so much free stuff out there, that it's hard to tell where your sales exactly came from... iTunes, YouTube, Kindle, your blog, or just a plain Google search. Put out something high ticket, or something with a payment plan and yearly support. This is great for software.
Now that you've used content marketing to feel your niche out... what does their business depend on? What tool or service could you put out there to 10X their business and make them depend on you, in a good way? Maybe you create template sites for offline businesses and charge $2400/mo to keep them going (like Lance and I do). Maybe you create a managed AdWords ad maintenance service, or a Facebook ad service.
The point is, many marketers have a scarcity mindset when it comes to being helpful and putting out content. They're "afraid" of sharing anything cool because they're worried that sharing something for free takes out of a paid product.
My answer to that is to use that free content marketing as a way of getting the bugs out, and build something software or service based into your products so it doesn't matter how much "free" information is out there. They still need your software (or tool) to make it happen.
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":
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
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?!
I sold a WP sales letter that wasn't actually on WordPress. Better fix it.
Selling an "alternate" webinar service but you're pitching it on GoToWebinar.
Selling an "alternate" landing page plugin but you're selling it on LeadPages.
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.
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
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.
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.
Bottlenecks: is there an area of your sales letter that "scares" people? Long video, mentioning of too much work (3 weeks)
Negative Social Proof: 100 copies total, only 96 remaining? No one wants it!
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.
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
Don't overthink it, but put your best foot forward.
You don't have to be a master with 20-50 years experience, but don't leave yourself vulnerable to research.
Be very careful with "distractions" like live action video, demos, lots of features and case studies to understand it -- less is more!
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
Check out Speed Copy to get the best copywriting training out there and close the bottlenecks on your websites
Download and install Paper Template to get your sales letter the best it can be (with a copywriter built into the software)
Setup Your Income Machine (SEO blog, autoresponder sequence, traffic, etc.) to setup a passive income business
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.
(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
Finishing everything that I start, less notebook doodling
$997, $47 every 2 weeks, 5 payment option, experimenting! Charging high ticket AND low ticket.
Investing in myself: attend conferences instead of stock trading which is gambling and a distraction. Dave Ramsey instead of Jim Cramer.
I don't trust myself: get to the Minimum Viable Product because of the 3 day window.
I'm not smart: I don't know what's going to sell without experimenting and I'm open to new ideas.
Weekly focus: email for the same thing all week. Stick to your guns, don't psych yourself out or let customers bully you
Membership sites: organize both high and low ticket, group multiple sites (but no all-in-one site)
Pitch webinars: do something unexpected, teach a lot and sell hard. Give them a wow moment and not necessarily an aha moment.
Re-marketing: phase out what's not selling and go back in future weeks to promote what's selling (Backup Creator)
Don't delete old sites or content
Your most popular content, marketing and products are the "beginner" stuff
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!
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
ClickSensor: should have made it an online service
WPLetter (now Paper Template): should have built it out more and controlled the market faster (16k overnight from a 12 minute video)
Action PopUp: should have got the entire marketplace using it, added tons of templates
Bonus: all the PHP products, which made money, but not enough. Lesson: keep publishing things to get to "the good stuff."
Three Biggest Successes
Bulk content creation: books, Daily Seminar, Webinar Crusher monthly, blog, podcast. Just make 12 pieces of content to last you an entire year.
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
Pain of disconnect in Membership Cube: selling high ticket, playing with the payment plans, pitching on webinars! (35k in a couple hours)
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."
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
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.
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
High ticket course (profit margin)
Low ticket solution or software (list)
Warm up: free blog posts, YouTube videos, autoresponder sequence with a blend of pitch and content. A short book couldn't hurt.
Platinum coaching program: easy money
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
No real mailing address on your websites? What are you afraid of?
Linking directly to an order form from an email? At least show the "contract" of what I'm getting.
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)
psuedocode / "ugly" basic interface (text and buttons)
proof of concept
mock-up interface
test cases
working interface
connect it all together
debugging
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
WP Notepad (Checklists and Fill in The Blank Forms for Your Membership Site)
Internet marketer of the week: Big Jason Henderson from BetterPostureGuaranteed.comBigMarketingOnline.com.
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.
Black Friday deals, discounts. It's a drug for your business. Get that quick "hit" that you pay for later.
What you're trying to obtain from the discount is to get non-buyers to buy something low ticket. Get the juices flowing.
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.
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?
"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.
Are you annoyed that an Internet marketer is marketing to you? Instead of looking at other marketers as people who are "serving" you as a consumer, why don't you look at what successful things they repeatedly do, like consistent products, blogging, and webinars? And model what they do!
Dennis wrote the book from 5BucksADay and has the membership site Earn1kaday. Like me, actually leaves his money-making websites online. What a concept.
If a site makes me money, I'll keep maintaining and promoting it. He has lots of irons in the fire such as a new product and new Kindle book every month.
Complaints of the Week
I'm at your sales letter. Where do I go to login to your membership site?
I bought the "lite" version and I login. Where can I go to upgrade? Marketers delight, 5 site license to unlimited license.
What about an in-your-face upsell or interstitial ad? I want something else you're selling.
You're supposed to "sell the click" in emails but what the heck am I clicking on? You're only telling me about the Pro and Basic packages, launch deadlines, but what it is, in one sentence?
Feature Presentation: Course, Blog, Podcast, Book, DVD
I once found an internet marketer "coach's" page but I couldn't find 1 product, 1 video, 1 book by him or even his last name.
What do people find when they search for you? What about on YouTube? Amazon? You should always be URL dropping or off-handedly mentioning the things you sell on your blog and podcast. Who needs testimonials? Use yourself as you own examples, testimonials, and case studies.
Course: Four milestones for $997 to get in the "high ticket" mindset, then drop that price SLIGHTLY (MembershipCube.com)
Blog: content marketing, cannibalize your Facebook re shares, 5 minute YouTube content: what pisses you off (your opinion) or something helpful (video to create a PayPal mass pay file, or resize an image without Photoshop) (IncomeMachine.com)
Internet marketer of the week: Ray Edwards. Creator of the Rapid Writing Method. He absorbs what Brendon Burchard, Michael Hyatt, Dave Ramsey all do very well -- branding and unification.
A huge breakthrough I got out of his "Writing Riches" book was that just taught straightforward copywriting. Not a lot of silly stories or parables mixed in like others teach you "should" have in a book. What a concept!
Common Cop Outs (That We Just Solved in Today's Show)
My niche is people with money! Who wouldn't want it?
My niche is young people because they're smart, or old people because they have all the money
Split test it!
I'm going to provide value and give everything away for free
I'm still learning
I have an idea but it's already been done before
I have an idea but I'm waiting on someone else to do the work
I'm "waiting" for the right time
A Confused Mind Never Buys!
Delayed buy button and I can't buy, or I can't buy on an iPad
I optin and I can't buy right away, I have to wait for your sequence
I have to buy 3 upsells just to get the thing I actually wanted (Lance says: sell what you sell)
Blogging or posting without purpose (Add Signature plugin and URL dropping)
Too many choices: 2 or 3 at the most. More choices = "experimental" pages (yearly and trial)
Optin page: headline, 3 bullet points, call to action, optin form (no video, no testimonials)
Sales letter: have you noticed they're way shorter? very few words, even. Software is all about the screenshots and features.
Short & To the Point Landing Pages: Keep it Shippable
Make the buy button first, before anything else
Then headline and subheadline
Then the offer stack (what's in it)
Then flesh out the bullet points (dream product), story and transitions
Then create the product after all that!
(PLR placeholder is optional)
Quick Questions Answered in Today's Program
To replay or not to replay?
Non fast forward video?
Squeeze page? What's the exact structure?
What niche? Healthy, wealthy, or wise
What product? Solve an actual problem that's easy for you, tough for others, that people are willing to pay money for, that's repeatable in checklist form, but there's still enough wiggle room for people to be creative. It gets them there and delivers a FAST result
Testimonials? Don't let that hold you back from launching. No review copies, but have an email sequence asking how they like it. When people use it and respond, piece together a testi from their response.
Upsell? This is another "goodie" you don't need right away. It shouldn't "just" be something "bigger" or something lazy like resale rights. It should be "the bigger picture."
Five Dimensions of Knowledge from Jonathan Wells of AdvancedLifeSkills.com
What we actually know
What we think we know
What we would like to know
What we don't need to know
What we used to know
Let's add two more (the hardest ones to sell to you have to "sneak them" inside other ones: what we don't know we don't know, and what we need to know
Internet Marketing
World's largest taxi service owns no taxis (Uber)
Largest accommodation provider owns no real estate (Airbnb)
Largest retailer has no inventory (Alibaba)
Most popular media company creates no content (Facebook)
Largest movie house owns no theaters (Netflix)
Largest software vendors don't write the apps (Apple & Google)
Today's Quotes from Henry Ford
You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do.
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
Attributes That Should Be Running in Your Head all the Time, Consistently
New Things Coming Down The Pipeline: There is no such thing as luck. (Scientific studies have disproved luck.) You just have to keep putting offers out there and promoting them.
Follow-Through: Finish what you start (focus, minimum viable product, iteration, debugging, refactoring)
Self-Actualization: Know the difference between a lost cause, an offer that's "close" but needs tweaking, and a "home-run" that you should keep rolling.
Creativity: New ways of solving the problem bigger and faster while working under limitations (and making old tired concerts new and exciting to prospects)
Easy & Repeatable Solutions to Your Current Problems
We created it because there was no good way to manage all our WordPress sites from one location. The other solutions that "tried" to do it, sucked!
Solve a real problem. It doesn't matter if "a" solution already exists. It probably sucks. Yours will be better.
When we put Website Remote together, and had our new affiliates sell and market our existing Backup Creator plugin, I had a few realizations...
Realization #1: Get Out More
You don't have to confine yourself to little sites like the Warrior Forum. You can use other peoples' land to build a list, but don't live there.
This is true when it comes not just to pricing and positioning your products, but also what advice or training you listen to.
Your business is your business. You're free to charge whatever price you want, limit the number of sales, email as often as you want. Update your blog or submit podcasts as frequently as you feel like, because you can. You don't need any reason for why you're doing what you're doing in your online business, other than because you can.
Realization #2: Eat Your Own Dog Food
If you actually use the products you create and sell, then you can't use because it's something that helps your business regardless of how slow or quickly it sells.
The programming term "eating your own dog food" means that if you use the thing you sell every day, then you'll transform it to a piece of crap into something that's useful.
To make our tool useful, we iterated. I created a simple version of our tool, and had Lance login sight unseen and show me how he was using it, and where he got stuck, to see his thought process. This is called hallway testing.
Because of "dog-fooding", we added SSL support for our Paper Template, Member Genius, and Video Player plugins this month, and made them all compatible with WordPress caching plugins, because we needed those things in place for our launch.
This past couple of weeks, we launched our new version of Backup Creator (3.0) and had an army of affiliates make us a bunch of sales, without us using our list at all. We gave away 100% commissions, and the point wasn't to make money but to recruit some new affiliates and build a list of buyers.
Realization #3: Treat Your Business Like a Real Business
We created the minimum viable product (version 1.0) and the launch deadline pushed us into gear and got our priorities in order.
Get that first version out there, and market the hell out of it. Don't make any rash moves like offering discounts or lifetime access which shouldn't be on your radar for a long time until you can "run the numbers."
Price your offers where there's buying resistance. Don't give into the mob. You might just need better marketing.
We need to do a little better with the positioning on Website Remote to compete against free, inferior, and generally worse "similar" products (not necessarily competitors).
Realization #4: Follow the "Four Daily Tasks" in Order to Get Everything Done
Four Daily Tasks means you should complete four business-related tasks, each in one sitting (three 45 minute sessions and one 10 minute session). Every day, complete the four tasks that get you closer to making more money.
I'm at my best when I alternate days between proactive business-building tasks (traffic and product creation), and on alternate days, business-maintenance tasks like answering support desk tickets.
Automate your business as much as you can, for example, queue up autoresponder emails for the week so there are no distractions.
Simple Words of Advice
It takes the same amount of energy to feed your dreams as it does your fears. Make a list of things that make you happy. Make a list of things you do every day. Compare the lists. Adjust accordingly.
12 things successful people do differently:
They Create and Pursue FOCUSED Goals
They Take Decisive and Immediate ACTION
They Focus On Being PRODUCTIVE, Not Just "Busy"
They Make Logical and Informed Decisions
They Avoid The Trap Of Trying To Make Everything "Perfect"
They Are Willing To Work Outside Of Their Comfort Zone
They Keep Things SIMPLE
They Focus On Making Small, Continuous Improvements
They Measure and TRACK Their Results and Progress
They Maintain a Positive Attitude and LEARN From Mistakes
They Spend Time With Successful and Motivational People
They Always Maintain a Balance In Their Life
And finally, be sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (link below) and grab your Website Remote account to remotely manage and control your WordPress sites.
Are you scared? What if you became more aware of what made you anxious, scared, or nervous? Could you dissect those into smaller pieces? If you did, you'd be able to change and improve those small, manageable pieces...
What if I asked you to write down a page of words to describe a "bad mood" such as: flustered, dejected, beat-down? What if I asked you to then write a list of words describing a "good mood" such as: happy, energized, bubbly?
My guess is, that list of "bad mood" words would be longer than the "good mood" list. Let's change that for you.
To become more successful in both our personal lives and our businesses, we need to become more detailed about the positive things and less detailed about the negative. Whatever you apply more detail to is where your mind will focus.
What's the "trick" for overcoming that fear and thinking more positively and effectively?
Answer on a 1 to 10 Scale
When you go to the store, the clerk asks, "How are you?" Both of you are expecting your response to be a mono-syllabic "good" or maybe a "great."
Instead of doing that, ask yourself how you are on the 1-10 scale. Maybe you're having a "better than average" day, so you say 8.1.
Not only do you cause a "pattern interrupt" for the clerk, which might get you a nice laugh, but it will help you out by causing you to actually think about how you feel, instead of just replying generically with a word that has no real meaning.
Use the 1 to 10 Scale in Your Own Business
Okay, so we can see how evaluating yourself on a 1-10 scale can put you more ‘in touch' personally, but how does it help in your business? Here are a few examples:
Writing and Revising: The majority of people are not the greatest writers but if you are in internet marketing, you have to put out content. You need to be able to put out on okay first draft and for the most part a first draft is good enough. This isn't school and you're not going to triple your income by making some small edits to an email.
If you're writing a book, you might need to spend more time than on a blog post, but the principle is the same. We don't want to spend an hour writing 1 chapter of a book and then spend 5 hours doing edits.
How do you edit quickly so you don't consume all of your time? Again, the answer is scale from 1 to 10. Once the book is written (and it's been typed/spell-checked), you could just skim paragraphs and rate each one on a scale from 1 to 10 for substance.
Then, you quickly average those to get an "overall" rating. If you come up with an 8 or 9, great. But, if you come up with a 7.0 book, and you wanted an 8.0, your strategy would be to just go through and focus on fine-tuning the lower-rated paragraphs.
Overall Business Strategy: What if you're not making enough money from your online business? What if someone asked you, "How are you doing with Facebook ad campaigns?" If you answered with "good" or "okay", that's not going to help. "Good" is not measurable and it's an "automatic" response, instead of one that forces you to look for clarity.
Use that 1 to 10 scale to pinpoint issues. Rating gives you better accuracy about what/where the problem is and where you'll improve it.
Here are 10 areas that you could focus on and maximize to improve your business overall and make more money.
Time management and Mindset
Building the List
Email Follow-up and Auto-responder sequences
Membership Retention
New Customers
Joint Ventures
Free Traffic
Paid Traffic
Info Products and Recurring Income
Big-Ticket Sales and Coaching
Write a number next to each of those above items. Look at these factors individually and "score" them. This draws attention to areas where you'll capitalize to improve the overall picture.
For example, if a real problem that you have is not emailing, rate that lower. If you need more traffic, then you'd rate those lower.
Doing these one by one will help you think of solutions to improve that specific aspect of your business. Then, look at that average number. You'll see where you are and where you're headed.
Today's Winning Quotes
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, but small minds discuss people." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
"I found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active and show up more often." (Brian Tracy)
"1 in 160 are Millionaires in the U.S. 1 in 1460 are millionaires in the world." -- Dan Kennedy
Check out Robert's proven method for writing a winning e-book at Make a Product, his A-Z strategy for developing your own "free traffic-generating" podcast at Podcast Crusher, or his fun and easy course on creating your own graphics at Graphic Dashboard.
You can also get more personal guidance in his monthly mastermind at Double Agent Marketing.
Get all the latest insights with membership sites, passive income, mindset, and more.
About Robert & The Podcast
The Marketer of the Day Podcast interviews entrepreneurs who have been through “the struggle.”
They’ve experienced the headaches of repeat failure, trial-and-error, scaling, delegating, course-correcting, and getting their online businesses to succeed beyond their wildest dreams… and want to help you get to where you need to go.
