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)
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.
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.
