Tag: jason fladlien

Banned From YouTube

April 27, 2009 • 101 Comments

As some of you noticed, I was banned from YouTube. No reason given!

That account had 160 videos, 50 subscribers, has been around for 2 years and responsible for a couple of extra accidental sales per week.  Some of the videos on that account had over 2,000 views.

Long story short: the Thursday morning of April 23, 2009 I drove from Turlock, south down Highway 99 and then Interstate 5 through Fresno, Bakersfield, Los Angeles then finally San Diego to meet a few people who were in town for Mass Control 2.0.... Jason Fladlien, Lance Tamashiro, Dale Maxwell, David Risley, and Bryan Blyss (Faceman).

Tragedy Strikes!

We check into Jason's room at the Hard Rock Hotel, break out the laptop like usual internet marketing nerds and check out our Video Sales Tactics blog.  Try to play the latest YouTube video I have posted there... and it's been "removed for terms of use violation."

That's weird, I say... and try to play another YouTube, same message.  I load my YouTube profile... it says, "This account is suspended."  Try to login to that account, same deal.

YouTube never sent me any e-mail about any videos being a problem or about the account being taken down.  YouTube has no phone number of e-mail address, but after filling out a 10-part form I was able to get this canned response:

Hi robertplank,

Thanks for your email. Your "robertplank" account has been found to have violated our Community Guidelines. Your account has now been terminated. Please be aware that you are prohibited from accessing, possessing or creating any other YouTube accounts.

YouTube staff review flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week to determine whether they violate our Community Guidelines. When a video or account is brought to our attention we investigate and take action if necessary.

We are unable to provide specific detail regarding your account suspension or your video's removal. For more information on our what we consider inappropriate content or conduct while using YouTube, please visit our
Community Guidelines and Tips at http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines and our Help Center article http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92486.

Regards,

Roberto
The YouTube Team

So YouTube tells me my account violates their community guidelines, but won't tell me which ones, and it's obviously none because their community guidelines refer to copyright infringement, anything illegal, hate speech, etc. of which my account had none.  It was ALL talking head and PowerPoint how-to videos.

The icing on the cake is that being "suspended" from YouTube not only means your account is gone, but you aren't allowed to create any new accounts.  (The guys from Traffic Geyser told me to create a new account at a friend's house, but there's no way I'm doing that.)

That Sucks!

The lesson to all this is: post videos in Camtasia format on your blog so you aren't stuck with a bunch of "this video has been removed" links all over your blog.  I have the originals of all those videos and YouTube only accounted for 5% of my traffic, but it still sucks.

Build your own site, not someone else's. You shoud be posting your YouTube videos on your OWN blog, including hosting the video itself.  It's just like how you should be posting your own articles to your blogs, and not just EzineArticles.

Matt Levenhagen responded to my tweet on Facebook and mentioned sxephil (Philip DeFranco) who is one of my favorite YouTubers, who does this too.  Use your videos to get people offsite and on your list so you can continue posting videos on your blog.

As far as why I was banned? The only thing that makes sense is Traffic Geyser. It looks like I was wrong, other internet marketers not using Traffic Geyser have been banned for the same reason...

What Does All This Mean?

The moral of the story is YouTube throws great parties, but is not trustworthy enough to watch your kids.  Use YouTube as a traffic source, not a place to store all your content.

That's the true story of the last YouTube ever posted by Robert Plank... what are your thoughts on this?  Make sure to comment below!

Time Management on Crack

February 24, 2009 • 13 Comments

$30K month is going very well, last night's launch of Time Management on Crack put me over the $26,000 mark. I've got two offers lined up for this week but I might only need one to push me over my goal.

This is what I've been doing the past week.  Product launch was just about automated, so I went on the "lecture circuit" to land a couple of joint ventures, have fun and add value.

Last night, Jeanette Cates interviewed me about time management... which was the perfect time to launch the time management report.  We shared a ton of tips with her subscribers and had fun.

You know what, a short time ago my sister sent me a job posting for a teaching position up in the mountains at a community college close to Yosemite National Park.  More money than I make at my current day job and less hours.  No master's degree or teaching credential required, just a bachelor's degree which I have.

Here's what I would have done if I was laid off from my current job and really needed that job: I'd implement stuff from Time Management on Crack!   It's not what you think: let me explain...

I would look at the exact job description and do a search for resumes plus some of those descriptions to see how people were customizing their resumes to fit that kind of job... measuring marketplace demand!

I'd use my copywriting skills, especially the A.N.S.W.E.R. formula explained in the time management report to draft one heck of a benefit-oriented cover letter that showed my personality, presented an irresistible offer and gave a clear call-to-action (call me up and tell me I'm hired).

Finally, and I wouldn't spend longer than an afternoon on this, I would take 30 minutes to find a handful of pain points based on the subject they wanted me to teach (I think it was PHP programming).  I'd find the things community college students have the toughest time learning about PHP.

Then I'd use my 5x10 video creation formula to solve those problems and make a DVD demonstrating PROOF that I know what I'm talking about, with the URL embedded in the three ways I explain to have a call-to-action in video.

I know a lot of places only accept online resumes these days, so I might have to settle for making it web video and adding the URL in the cover letter and resume.

I'd send that out, and if I ever felt like I had nothing to do while "waiting" for a response, I would put those videos on a blog at the same URL I provided in the resume, stick the videos on there, and use the R.A.T.G.U.M. blogging formula to whip out a bunch of blog posts in an hour... even more proof.

Worst case scenario, not hired.  Then I have to be willing to relocate a little bit.  I'd go to job sites like Monster.com and apply for similar positions and have a kickass web site to show that will stand out better than 95% of the other applicants.

Regardless if I was hired or not, how hard would it be to turn that proof into a product?  Surely I must have come across a few gotchas, do's and don'ts... I could turn my job posting process into a system, turn the cover letter and videos into templates and give a step-by-step of what I did EXACTLY.

How hard would it be to create a product like that, if you already DID anything in it? It would be tough to keep it under 20 pages... real tough.

Anyway, copywriter Karl Barndt is interviewing me tonight about e-mail marketing for his blog, that'll be a lot of fun.  In the meantime check out Time Management on Crack if you haven't already.

For you commenters, the question of the day is: if it was an emergency and you absolutely HAD to get a day job... what internet marketing skill would you use to make yourself irreplacable?  I need 10 comments to keep this party going... thanks.

Always Write a Report About What You Learned

September 30, 2008 • 30 Comments

I'm back from my trip from Affiliate Incubator 2008 Dallas.

I learned a lot, and here's my tip for attending seminars: Take whatever notes you write down and turn it into a PDF report, that you NEVER show anyone else.

Not only does it train you to keep pumping out 5 to 10 page reports, the information becomes a part of you because you retyped it and revised it.

If I had a clone who wasn't able to attend the seminar, I could just hand this document over to him and he would have all the info without having to attend.

I'm a pretty rare note-taker.  If you're a smart enough businessperson you know that 99% of what's being said doesn't apply to your business, but I still wrote about 10 pages of notes.

I took the best of Perry Belcher's AdWords tips, Ryan Deiss' continuity management, Mr. X's time management secrets, Frank Sousa's traffic tips, Russell Brunson's "moving the free line" and article marketing stuff, and Anik Singal's affiliate marketing techniques... plus some stuff I learned from chatting at meals and made it into an 8 page report.

To be honest, I walked out of all the other presentations to avoid information overload.  There's only so much information you can absorb over a weekend, and with seminars I always avoid the newbie oriented stuff.

Now I've torn most of the pages out of my physical notebook and I have stuff to do for the next 30 days to keep me busy.

To be honest, looking back over my report, I'm going to ignore about half of the tips on there because I know I just won' t have time for them.

Knowing what NOT to change on is even more important than knowing what to change in your business.

Anyway, my friend Jason Fladlien wrote up a quick report of his own about the 8 mistakes he saw being made at these seminars.

Some of these are truly classic, like the SEO guy and the "60 Second Rule."  If you can't make a decision about something, give yourself exactly 60 seconds to decide.... even if it's the wrong choice.

P.S. No, I didn't get to meet Russell, but I did meet Stu McLaren, Joel Christopher, Big Jason Henderson, Blake Milton, Bobby Walker, and more.  It was great to see Eric Louviere again, and Marc Harty talking about mini-days.

P.P.S. I'm also on an article writing frenzy, setting aside one hour per day to write 7 articles... before I come off this seminar high.

Today's Question: What's your best post-seminar productivity tip?  How do you get back on track, and maintain that seminar high?

I need my ten comments... if I don't get them, I'm never attending another seminar ever again.

Affiliate Incubator Part 1

September 21, 2008 • 14 Comments

I'm attending the Affiliate Incubator seminar next week (Sept. 25th - 27th 2008) in Dallas, Texas. I'll probably learn lots of things about promoting stuff as an affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is pretty cool, you don't need to worry about product creation or customer support, you just send traffic to the vendor's page and then get your commission.

My own products sell the best to my list ($2000 to $4000 launches all the time) but I have been known to send $500 e-mails on a regular basis. Recently, I promoted the legendary Ben Prater's "iPhone Secrets Exposed" package.

That landed me 8 sales on a $397 product with 50% commission. You do the math... that's 1500 bucks from a couple of e-mails, probably 20 minutes of work writing the follow-ups. Those e-mails were so good that Ben incorporated them into his sales letter.

Let me empty out my brain with what I know about affiliate marketing already...

Affiliate Tactic #1: Have a List Already

It's simple, you can't expect any big profits unless you have a list of leads you've built yourself and more importantly, qualified buyers. Write up a quick 10 to 20 page report, record at least 20 minutes of videos and price it at $7 to get lots of buyers. Make sure to capture an e-mail address after the sale.

If you can get just 100 people to buy that $7 report, you can safely assume you'll score one affiliate sale... if you promote a complementary product to that list.

Affiliate Tactic #2: Think of Something They Didn't Think Of

I learned this one watching Todd Gross promote affiliate products. He promoted a product called "Floating Action Button" ... it's just what it sounds like, shows a hovering box that moves as you scroll. My Action PopUp script does the same thing.

Instead of giving people the usual sales pitch about popups, he showed how cool it was to place a YouTube video on the floating button, giving your sales pitch in the corner WHILE they read your sales page, and you urging them to click the order button.

All I see Big Jason Henderson do when he promotes affiliate products... records a video of himself (either screen capture or talking head) going over the benefits, then he watermarks his affiliate link to the bottom of the video and blasts that video out to YouTube, Revver, Vimeo, all the video sites.

When I promoted "iPhone Secrets Exposed" I just thought of what Ben left out of his sales letter...

E-Mail #1: You should be in a SPECIFIC profression... i.e. iPhone programmer instead of a regular programmer. No URL yet, just warming them up.

E-Mail #2: Code iPhone apps to get a recurring income on subscription fees... I just looked at Ben's bullet points and asked myself, "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME when I create an iPhone application?"

E-Mail #3: Are iPhones an untapped resource? What would you do if you invented YouTube, MySpace, before anyone else. If you don't code an iPhone app is it like letting the next Facebook pass you by.

E-Mail #4: Statistics to blow them away. There are this many iPhone users, this much profit from the AppStore, this many applications (low competition).

That's it. I could have fired that off as one e-mail but I spaced it out into several.

This tip goes without saying: Don't promote the same launches as everyone else and don't use the samea cut-n-paste affiliate messages as everyone else.

Affiliate Tactic #3: Proper Redirects

Don't promote your naked affiliate link. Get a simple script to send traffic from a link like http://www.robertplank.com/recommends/some-affiliate-program so it's not totally obvious you're using an affiliate link.

Actually what I really prefer is, I register a .com domain and use that as a redirect. It's only 8 bucks, and I've got some really good ones. For example, Jason Fladlien's 7 Minute Article product is on a domain name called "InstantContentCreation.com" ... but I grabbed up 7MinuteArticles.com and redirected it to my affiliate URL.

I'm sure Affiliate Incubator will have a lot of newbie-oriented info like, promote recurring products... how to calculate the Clickbank refund rate or statistically decide if a product is worth promoting... how to make a squeeze page and a viral report. How to add your own crazy bonuses "Gary Ambrose" style.

But if I can find out just one thing I don't know, the trip will be worthwhile (just like everything).

What's your FAVORITE affiliate marketing tactic? I mean marketing AS an affiliate, not MANAGING affiliates... we'll get to that later.

I need ten comments on this post... add yours below... or I might stop creating products for good, and only promote affiliate offers.

Is Your Photo on Every Sales Letter?

May 9, 2008 • 20 Comments

Earlier this week I realized I had been doing something very stupid... leaving my photo OFF of my sales letter!

Seriously, you already go to the trouble of adding your photo to Facebook and MySpace...

Why Aren't You Doing the Same Thing on Your Sales Letter?

I noticed this when I attended my first internet marketing luncheon. It was just a warrior lunchtime get together in New Jersey (I flew down from California to New York City for the weekend just to attend).

Immediately I recognized Mike Ambrosio and said hello to him... because his photo is on all of his sales letters! I also recognized Mike Merz, and of course when Mike Filsaime showed up, he was surrounded by so many groupies, no one could go talk to him. (So many Mikes.)

So... I knew who three people were, but the other 50-ish people were total strangers.

At the Warrior Event in Austin this April: I recognized Willie Crawford (his picture is EVERYWHERE) and Dr. Ron Capps the NicheProf, Marlon Sanders and Jason Fladlien... but again, that was about it!

Even some of the speakers were people I'd heard of... I'd read their sites, responded to them in forums, but didn't recognize them.

For that reason, I went through all of my sales letters this week and added my kisser to them.

On some sales letters I was able to do an "align=right" and place it to the right of the text, but sometimes I just gave up, centered that image, and placed it below my signature line at the bottom of the page.

Can You Please Do the Same on Your Sales Letter?

I'm not saying adding your photo will get you recognized instantly at real-world seminars. At the very least it will remind your potential customers reading that sales letter, that you're a real person.

You don't have to be wearing a suit or a hawaiian shirt... any picture will do.

  • If it's a family photo, crop the image so it only shows you -- that way your kids aren't appearing on your sales letter.
  • If you look like crap, crop the image even more so it only shows your head.
  • If you think you're ugly, resize the photo of you down to 100x100 pixels.
  • If you don't even have a digital camera, find a friend with a camera phone.

You have every reason to post your photo on a sales letter. Stop procrastinating and just do it.

Please comment below and tell me when you finally realized you needed to have your photo on your sales letters.

If you don't have your photo on there yet, add your photo to your sales page and post the URL here for all of us to look at.

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