You’re always told to ‘select your target audience’
right?

Doesn’t work.

Oh sure if you’re producing an ebook or product
aimed at a niche market such as the much exampled
‘people with acne’ or ‘tropical fish lovers’ then
that’s definitely possible

What ISN’T possible is to try to create your online
personality to get a certain demographic of people
to follow you

(otherwise I’d be targeting female naturist
volleyball players who send out pictures)

I have a good IM mate who PERFECTLY appeals to the
demographic of 25-35 year old males who like fast
cars and flash lifestyles…

 

Continue reading →

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Well it’s weird…

Most marketers don’t know exactly where their sales come from and if sales are coming in OK they think they don’t really NEED to know

Which is utter balls as I found out to my dismay

See the screenshot below?

It’s just ONE of a load of tracking ‘things’ I do to find out where my sales come from. So for example my newsletter sales…

I know they come in every single day and it would be easy to sit back and be happy about that.

But most payment processors don’t tell you exactly which link a sale has come unless you really know what you’re doing with tracking links.

When a new subscriber comes onto my list they go through an eight or nine follow-up message sequence.

I’s assumed that the first TWO follow-ups were responsible for most of my autoresponder sales for my newsletter

Nope

You can see from the screenshot that it was actually follow-ups FOUR and FIVE that did the best.

What a bugger!

Because I’d been focusing on the first TWO emails and I dumped the ones that were actually working because I wanted a short sequence.

I THREW AWAY the links that were bringing me the most sales in the AR sequence purely because I didn’t know where the sales came from and what was (and wasn’t) converting.

Which is why I wrote ‘The Missing Link’

You can get more details by clicking on the link below or the pic of the hairy bloke at the top of the post (not me), and seeing if it’s something that wiggles your woggle.

Get ‘The Missing Link’ HERE

Comments welcome as always

Tony

 

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(Here’s a post from my newsletter of about a year ago – I was reading it this morning and thought it made a lot of sense so published it here for you…)

We’re internet marketers right?

We’re in it to make money.

Those of use that are in the ‘make money online’ niche actually teach other people how to make money online.

So why the Hell do 95% of all marketers spend 95% of their time doing things that DON’T make them money?

It’s time to get harsh with yourselves people!

The recession is not going to go away for years.

Which means that more people are going to want to make money online to supplement their incomes or go full-time.

Some of those people will be your customers.

But some of them will be your competitors, and guess what?

Some of them will be smarter, more creative and more motivated than you (and me)

And they’re coming into YOUR niche right now!

At the moment you have the advantage of experience and knowledge over them, but that won’t last long.

So this is the time to take a long hard look at your business and DUMP everything that isn’t making you money, and instead focus and expand on the things that ARE.

You no longer have the time to fanny around with that authority site you ‘really want’ to build.

It’s no good bunging an odd post on it every month and a half.

Instead force yourself to make one post every single day for 30 days, and to slap some banner ads, AdSense and other forms of monetization on it right now!

If it’s not making you money, or working toward that goal then it’s just mental masturbation.

(Told you this would be harsh, but what a great phrase though!!)

Ah! You say…

‘But most of my sites ARE working towards making me some money’

What I would say to that is, if you’ve not seen any results from your efforts in a month then dump it.

Unless you’re working on a huge software product or other project that going to take a lot of time, you need to limit yourself to 30 days’ worth of action then you need to see results.
Creating a product and launching it does NOT take more than 30 days unless you’re playing at it.

You can’t make excuses for yourself any longer guys. You need to get established in IM as quickly as you can.

The longer you leave it the harder it gets.

And people who are RIGHT NOW seeing their first IM site will be working hard to establish themselves.

And it could only take a matter of WEEKS before they get to your level then surpass you.

You see yourself in any of the following scenarios? I did.

See if you use any of these excuses (I’ve used them ALL before I started kicking my own arse)

‘It’s taking me forever to create this content’

Outsource it.

‘I’m finding it really difficult to drive traffic to my site’

Buy some

‘I don’t have enough time to work on my IM business because I have a full-time job’

Get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour later

‘I don’t know which part of internet marketing I want to go into’

Go do some research and decide, or go do something else with your life

I don’t especially like ranting but I’ll be honest, it was a rant that kicked my arse in the early days and prompted me to do the one thing that has kept me going more than any other:

‘Just Find A Way!’

The old example is that you’d ‘find a way’ if someone was pointing a gun at your head.

They’re not now. Not literally of course, but give it another 12 months and the state of the US and Europe might get to the point where you need to rely on your IM income.

And by then it might be too late.

Like I said, I don’t like motivation through fear.

I much prefer help and encouragement. But it was someone ranting like this that actually got me going in the early days.

I hope you take it in the spirit it’s intended and start making the move today 🙂

Comments welcome below – what do you think?

=================================================================

Did you get into Dave Nicholson’s coaching program yet?

This $500 program is currently accepting members for a one-off $27 payment.

Get more details by clicking the link below:

http://www.tonyshepherd.info/limitedcoaching

The price returns to $500 in three days or when it’s full.

I think it’s well worth checking out.

There’s a flashing banner thingy below that you can click to find out more details too:

=================================================================

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We had a problem with the business I set up with Tony Newton.

It hit us like a ton of bricks a few months back

(This was the business that we set up to create plugins, themes and apps if you remember)

We got hacked.

Pretty damn badly actually.

What made it worse was because many of our sites
were ‘set and forget’ and we didn’t notice them
until sales stopped dropping in…

…AND they lost their search engine rankings.

All due to the fact that Google noticed the sodding
hack before we did

It took a while to fix and we lost revenue,
rankings and time to get it mended.

I still have little idea what the invaders were
doing on our sites but I have heard horror stories
of innocent site owners getting (real-life) visits
from the authorities…

…because their sites had been used in phishing
scams to collect Paypal and bank details

And just to make your Monday even grimmer than
usual, it seems things are going to get worse
because a major hacking sh*tstorm could be on route

In October just gone, security agencies such as
FBI, CIA & GCHQ have issued warnings of
“unprecedented levels of attack” so if you haven’t
already been hacked there’s a fair old chance you
will be soon

Yes It’s scaremongering, and yes I’m telling you
about this because I’m going to recommend a product
that can help…

…but I can’t tell you enough what an almighty,
stressful and expensive PAIN IN THE ARSE getting
hacked was

Protecting your sites is definitely the BORING side
of internet marketing.

Although trust me if you DO get hacked you will NOT
be bored

I was sweating like a fat girl in a pie shop when I
realised the damage that had been caused and the
time and expense it was going to take to put right

So lock down your sites – especially your WordPress
sites (this is where we got hit) while you still
can

If you want to know from an expert what to do to
protect your sites (and this bloke is the first
person I called when I saw our mangled sites)…

…the check out BlogDefender by Matt Garrett

Click the link below for full details:

http://gojvz.com/c/7617/20094

The guys behind these videos have over a decade of
experience in running HUNDREDS of high traffic
blogs, blogs that are often attacked, but are NO
LONGER HACKED

It’s not rockstar and it’s not sexy…

…but if you don’t put this in place you ARE in
for a shock at some point

Remember I’ve been doing this a long time and we
still got badly hit.

Click on the link below for more details

http://gojvz.com/c/7617/20094

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Here’s one of the major reasons I use Safe-Swaps.com to buy my solos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the stats from just ONE day’s solos a week or so ago.

It doesn’t always happen like this but around 80% of the time it DOES.

Let’s dive straight in with this method:

DON’T buy all your clicks from one seller because the over-delivers (the green + numbers in the screenshot) won’t be as high. Typically sellers only over-deliver around 10%

If you buy from seperate sellers they’ll ALL usually over-deliver and you’ll end up with more clicks for your money.

You can see from the screenshot that I ordered 400 clicks.

Cost me $125

The ACTUAL number of clicks I got to my landing page was 508

That’s an extra 108 clicks.

Worth $30-$50

I’ve mentioned this in an email to you recently but I just wanted to show you the actual PROOF when the stats had updated.

So if you’re looking for the best possible value when buying your solos, join safe-swaps.com, don’t buy more than 100 clicks from each individual seller (you can see the biggest solo in the screenshot with 200 clicks over-delivered the LEAST pro rata)

Getting the best value possible for your clicks means you can get away with a much lower conversion rate and still remain in profit.

Comments / questions welcome

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Obvious eh?

It seems not…

I’ve touched on this before but I reckon that you have to be around internet marketing fro a while before you actually REALISE the truth of it.

It’s also the reason why many newcomers never EVER make decent money online.

 

I’ll give you an example.

If all I do in a certain day is send a promo out to my list – just a single promotion for another marketer’s product with my affiliate link in it – I might earn between two hundred to two thousand dollars from it. Perhaps a little more if it’s a total killer.

But that’s it.

I’m not complaining of course, but it’s important to understand that it’s the MAXIMUM reward I can earn from that amount of effort.

If all I do is that one mailing, that’s ALL I will earn.

Follow?

You only earn what you allow people to pay you.

So if I want to add another $100,000 to my bottom line I might spend some time creating a new continuity program.

If I want to add a million dollars to my bottom line I might build up a new stand alone business for a year or so then sell it.

So my point is that the money you make is CAPPED – it’s limited – by the things you do.

If you have a $17 product and you get a mailing out to 1000 people you might make in the region of $2,000 based on a decent conversion rate.

But no more than that.

To earn more than that you either have to keep promoting it – maybe by buying solo ads, doing adswaps or getting jv partners or affiliates….

….OR you have to so something else that brings in money.

Think about this:

If you want to make $10,000 you might have to (for example) take on 10 coaching clients paying you $1,000 each per month.

Not that hard to do if you have skills to sell, BUT you have to put the work in because that 10k isn’t going to drop out of the sky OR by putting a link to a $7 ebook on your blog.

Putting that $7 link on your blog AIN’T worth ten grand a month, yet some people expect it to

You following me?

You have to do the RIGHT things to make the sort of money you require.

So start from the money?

Let’s say you want an income of that $10,000 a month.

You could do the mentoring thing as I mentioned above.

Or you could start a conintuity program for $17 and get 600 members.

Again (surprisingly) not that hard if you keep promoting it.

Or you could sell 1428 ebooks a month at $7

Bloody hard work. Won’t happen unless you’re very lucky.

Let’s look at $5k a month

You’d only need 185 members paying $27 to join your PLR club or your group coaching.

You’re following this by now right?

SO many people just don’t get this.

So look at your setup

Look at what you’re offering.

If you’ve created your first product and it sells for $9 and your target income is $3,000 a month then you need to sell 334 of them every single month to hit your 3k target.

That’s over 10 a day.

That’s no easy task, even though it sounds like it is.

You could make it easier for yourself by offering a $17 continuity as the upsell – an extension of the information in the ebook.

Or a ‘done for you’ service could work too.

It might involves outsourcing but get your figures right and you could have a hefty profit after paying your workers.

So here’s what I’m saying.

If you find yourself saying ‘I’m not making any sodding money!!’

Then look at what you’re selling.

If you’re putting half-hearted afiliate links to other people’s products on a blog that gets visited by 47 people a month then that’s WHY you’re not making any money.

Donald Trump would have trouble making money under those circumstances.

You need to have a viable system to support the income you want.

Selling $7 ebooks alone will NOT bring you $10k a month. Not unless you’re VERY VERY lucky.

But adding some continuity, a bit of mentoring and an offline ‘arm’ to your business might…and probably WILL.

There’s a very REAL relationship between what you’re offering for sale and how much money you make. Money, even in internet marketing does NOT leap up and say hello.

And surprisigly not a lot of people understand that. Esecpially when they get started in internet marketing with all it’s dingly dangly riches and sexy promises.

I didn’t understand it myself when I just started out.

It was probably only when I first dabbled in continuity I thought ‘bugger me my bank balance has shot up a bit there’ that it started to really dawn on me.

Have a think about it….

Comments welcome as usual – how’s YOUR setup?

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I’ll explain the picture halfway down this post 🙂

So if you’ve been in internet marketing for any length of time you probably know what you should be doing to make money online right?

Find a niche – go through the research thing, desperate buyers and all that, have some graphics made, produce some content, bung some Adsense on there and all the rest.

You know the score.

Or maybe you prefer affiliate marketing.

You start an authority blog that you post to daily, or maybe some smaller blogs that you optimize for SEO then put Clickbank ads on there, or Commission Junction ads.

Or maybe you just build a bloody big list and send them emails every other day recommending products through your affiliate link.

That’s how it works right?

NO!

It’s all big a pile of steaming cow crap, complete with grass poking out the top.

I’ve got a fair idea of what I’m doing with this internet marketing game, and there’s not a chance in HELL that I would ‘do some niche resaerch to find desperate buyers….’ and all that rubbish.

At least not unless I added something of my own.

Because everything EVERYTHING you’ve been taught by 99% of the marketers you listen to is WRONG.

Not intentionally of course – they know what they’re doing and more importantly it’s working for them.

It just won’t work for you very well.

Here’s why.

You’re missing out a vital ingredient.

and that’s YOU.

Your personality.

Let’s back up a second and imagine I have piles. Huge throbbing dangly great hemorrhoids that give me grief day and night.

I snap at the kids, can’t sleep properly and would rather throw myself off a cliff than even THINK about going on a bike ride.

And it’s 3am and I want a cure.

I’ve had enough and I want one now.

I start googling and I come across a handful of sites, one of which is yours.

They all have affiliate links to Clickbank ebooks about how to cure your piles with a wire brush, a 12 year old single malt and a clothes peg (to bite down on)

(I’m being silly of course but there is a point to this)

Which site do I buy from?

Well which site would YOU buy from?

Well personally I would check out at least a couple of these competing sites to see what they had to offer.

And I’d buy from the one that resonated with me the most

The one I related to.

Liked.

Now you don’t have to agree with me (net yet anyway) because there’s more…

Think about the last 5 products you’ve bought online. I’m doing the same while sitting here writing this on a sunny morning at about 7.30am

I bought one of them because I had wanted it for a while but never gotten around to grabbing it.

The other FOUR I bought from links in email from marketers who I like and trust.

I read their blogs, I open their emails.

Now when was the last time you bought something from a random site you visited from a Google search?

Quite a while ago I’d guess.

Oh sure I go Googling for stuff that I need. I get the results and read through a few sites.

I probably type in the word ‘review’ after the product name to get a few opinions on it.

But then when it comes to buying I’ll mostly buy either from the main link (Amazon or Ebay) if it’s a physical thing that needs posting to me, OR if it’s en e-product, course or membership I’ll buy through the guy I’ve either heard of or like the sound of the most.

Why do you think perfume manufacturers, car companies, insurance companies and shedloads of other pay Hollywood stars, sports stars and pop stars to advertise or endorse their products.

Yep that’s right – it’s because we know who they are and the companies assume we’re more likely to buy because of that.

You open my emails right?

Who are your top three favourite marketers (apart from me of course :)?

Why do you like them?

They tell the truth, you like their way of imparting information, you trust them

Whatever your reasons just look at WHO you follow and WHAT you buy

How much of that is anonymous – just a random visit to a site or an email from someone you don’t know?

Probably not so much eh?

So why the f*ck are we taught that internet marketing. niche marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing is all about anonymous, sterile, non personality marketing?

Because it ISN’T guys – if you’re doing it like that you’ve got a long hard struggle in front of you to get anywhere.

Several years ago I got an email from a young school teacher who was trying to get into internet marketing. He (flatteringly) called for advice and to ask for a JV which we subsequently did.

We met up for lunch in a pub, had a few pints and chatted about internet marketing.

He was Lee McIntyre, and he’s one of the biggest marketers around now. He’s a great bloke and an outstanding marketer.

And look at the amount of personality he puts into his marketing. ‘Blimey’ and crisp butties.

Little things but they make him real.

It would fall flat on it’s arse if his marketing was crap of course, but it isn’t.

And neither is yours.

If you’ve not hit the success you want at this moment in time try putting your personality into your marketing more. A LOT more.

Look at the ‘new’ marketers who have come through in recent years – Garry Sayer, Simon Greenhalgh, Oz, Mark Lyford, Dean Holland

They’re all personality-driven businesses.

You don’t have to put yourself out in video all the time – I don’t – or be as flamboyant as a gay gypsy, all lyour have to know is let people know your opinions.

Which is what most new marketers are scared of.

I tend to let my opinions loose on my blog and it loses me readers and subscribers.

But it also gets me rabid fans.

If you share your opinions and values it WILL upset some people.

That’s their loss.

You CANNOT please everyone no matter how hard you try…

…so DON’T try.

Be true to yourself and put your personality into your marketing.

Safe is boring.

Reading someone who can see ‘everyone’s side of the argument’ is mind-numbing.

I want to read someone who knows their own mind.

I do quite often get emails from people who say a particular post offended them.

Welcome to real life!

No-one has ever exploded because they read someting that ‘offended’ them.

It’s not being offenseive either, it’s just expressing what you think. If another person CHOOSES to be offended by that well that’s their problem.

Heh I’m waffling – let’s get back on track.

It’s just as important whern you’re marketing to tell people what you DON’T like as well as what you do.

I tried article marketing for quite a few years.

Now I have the honest opinion that anyone who follows advice to ‘write and submit 20 articles a day for two weeks’ needs locking up for their own safety REGARDLESS of the results it brings.

You may disagree 🙂

But I think that the internet has changed, and it’s no longer a place where cold hard information is king.

It was, which is why people were making a hundred grand from AdSense ads each month.

But now information is COMMON on the net.

There’s shedloads of it.

What counts now is how it’s presented and who presents it.

We’ve followed how TV works, and now the easiest way to get rich online is to use the marketing skills you’ve acquired since you started – the email marketing, the SEO, the list-building, the blogging, the LOT…

...and inject your own personality into it.

Start a blog.

Find your own style and use it in your emails

You don’t need to pretend to be something you’re not.

You just need your honest opinions, your beliefs and your personality.

Without that you’re just another website.

 

Let me know what you think – comments below!

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My lovely dad (that’s not him in the pic) had a real issue with ivy growing up the sides of houses. He said it got into the brickwork and would eventually cause structural damage (he always inferred the house would collapse but never said it in so many words)

A few years back when my wife and I needed to move from our wonderful tiny cottage to something bigger because the family was rapidly expanding, and we went house hunting I found that we both loved the look of houses with ivy on them, but I could never quite shake the feeling that buying one would mean going against my dad’s advice, and I might end up standing on a pile of ivy-strewn rubble.

(Our house now has some ivy on the front, and hasn’t collapsed yet even thought it’s over 200 years old – the house not the ivy)

Back to my dad.

He also thought that getting taxis was a waste of money in every circumstance and no wars ever should start untl the president or prime minister of all warring factions was standing on the front line with a helmet and a gun. I’m with him on that one.

But I’m well aware how your parents can affect what you think for the rest of your life.

Philip Larkin famously said in his poem ‘This Be The Verse’:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Grim, funny but true right?

I’m eternally grateful to my mum and dad for giving me a questioning mind, lots of love, support and the ability to laugh at myself and realise that we all have our ‘funny little ways and beliefs’ and we shouldn’t take them too seriously.

I find myself passing on all manner of crap to my kids because of some weird opinion I picked up somewhere along my journey in life. I try not to, but we all have our deeply ingrained (often stupid or hilarious) beliefs that we’ve never questioned too deeply just because of habit.

My son was checked out at the eye clinic a few weeks ago because they thought his left eye had a squint. He didn’t – he’s perfectly fine – but at the time all I could think about was ‘Is it because he has long hair and a long fringe?’ because my mum always said that long hair in boys caused a squint.

It’s total nonsense, and I’ve laughed about it with my mum especially she realised she got that particular opinion from HER mum. along with the belief that eating freshly baked warm bread (one of the delights of life) was bad for you.

(I got my ability to laugh at myself from my mum.)

Anyway you know I’m going to relate all this to online business right?

Well I am 🙂

It’s weird how we come into a cutting edge arena like internet marketing where we should have NO pre-conceived ideas at all at how it all works, yet we do.

Im my courses and through my personal coaching I constantly come across people who have the weirdest unfounded ideas about how internet marketing works.

One student of mine refused to even consider expanding his business by developing plugins and themes (a perfect add on for his particular business) because he didn’t uderstand the coding that went into them. When I pointed out that this didn’t matter and we used freelancers to do ALL our plugins he was horrified.

‘What if you get a technical support issue you can’t answer?’ or ‘what if it needs updating when a new version of WP comes out?’

I told him we got a coder in to sort it out.

He was still horrified and likened it to someone pretending to be a doctor then looking symptoms up on the internet before prescribing medication.

This was a very clever, pretty successful bloke I hasten to add, not some scared newbie. He just had a strong opinion about not selling things you don’t understand yourself.

I told him he was leaving a big pile of money on the table. He told me I was wrong.

I still don’t agree with him but I respect his opinion.

Speaking of leaving money on the table, I was VERY guilty of that for quite a few years because I had a major bug up my arse about paying for traffic.

For AGES I would only work with free traffic and I had some success with it (obviously because I was making a fair chunk of money).

I wouldn’t pay for traffic.

It’s not that I’m a ‘tight northerner’ or didn’t have the funds. In fact I’m a huge advocate of paying for services that advance your business such as good hosting, good autorepsonder, and we employ two people full time not to mention a lot of outsourced work.

But I wouldn’t pay for traffic because it felt ‘wrong’ somehow.

When my awakening moment came and I converted to paid traffic I could have kicked myself round the room for leaving it too long.

So I became a total ‘paid traffic’ nut and even wrote a quite popular post about why free traffic is a mistake in my opinion:

You can see that when I ‘converted’ I swung right round to the other opinion in true ‘born again’ style.

Why the initial refusal to pay for my traffic?

Well I reckon I picked up that opinion in my early IM days. Some sort of mental block from the first IM stuff I read.

I had my gurus like everyone else, and when you decide you like how someone does something and you can relate to what they say, you LISTEN.

Unfortunately many of these beliefs stay with you and as human beings we’re VERY reluctant to change our opinions, especially in public.

We take it as some sort of weakness to say ‘I’ve changed my mind’

If you take a person who has certain opinions about life at 20, and they have the SAME ones at 40 then in my view they’re not a strong willed person, they’re an idiot.

And online business, just like life is an ever changing thing. You (and I) need to check out new strategies and opinions with an open mind and a balanced outlook.

Otherwise you could end up in one of two camps:

1. Either buying every new shiny opp that comes your way

2. Not moving on or even considering new techniques and leaving your business stuck in the article marketing, Adsense days.

It’s hard to do.

Your opinions are who you are, and how you choose to live your life. It’s bloody hard work to change, and to be honest why should you?

Well because it’s hugely refreshing to let go of some of the opinions that were holding you back. It lets you look at things from a different viewpoint.

If you’re still eating your steak well-done because you tried it rare when you were 17 and didn’t like it, give it another go. Your 50 year old palate might have changed.

If you’re still desperately trying to defend the Labour Party, Democrats, Republicans or Sinn Fein because you voted for them 30 years ago, try listening to the ridiculous shitey rhetoric that passes for their ‘manifesto’ these days and vote Green, Ron Paul or stand yourself. Or line your hamster’s cage with your next voting slip and go and learn Samba dancing instead of voting.

It’s uncomfortable but refreshing. Freeing actually.

Business-wise I am fighting daily to get out out my old ways of thinking. It’s a good mental exercise.

Getting a mentor is a good way of doing this.

 

We all come into the world unburdened, innocent and wonderful (despite what some worryingly moronic religions tell you), but we go out carrying more baggage than a shoplifter at Christmas.

If you can find a way to dump some of that baggage halfway through life it’s an incredibly liberating experience. For some it just takes thinking hard about your beliefs.

For others it may take therapy.

But if you can do it from both a personal AND business viewpoint, then speaking as someone who’s only scratched the surface with baggage loss, I PROMISE that the sun will brust through the clouds and light up your life.

And if you’d like a little help with your internet marketing baggage, here’s a gentle suggestion:

And if you’re still reading….thanks. Most people find it hard to think about their core beliefs without getting uncomfortable.

I do for sure.

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You ever visited a forum to get a review on a particluar method or product before you buy it or start using it in your business?

And you read the following comment:

‘It didn’t work for me’

(I’m told it’s one of the most common refund reasons too).

Five little words that are possibly the most frequently muttered in IM circles.

‘It didn’t work for me’

But those five little words provoke some quite revealing and unanswered questions that are extremely valuable when it comes to getting to know yourself in terms of being an entrepreneur AND possibly explains why you’ve made bugger all money so far.

Think about this:

What’s YOUR definition of something that ‘works’?

It’s very subjective.

Suppose you try a method a technique from a pdf you bought as a WSO and implement the method.

Exactly WHEN does it ‘not work’?

Do you try it for a day?

A week?

A month?

What exactly constitutes failure?

What if it only brings in $15 and the product creator made $100 from the method?

Is that failure?

What if it DOES bring in the $100 but the product creator does it in a week and it takes you two months?

Is THAT failure?

Here’s my hypothesis on how this works. Me included.

I think once you’ve been involved in internet marketing for even a few weeks you create your own ‘ideal magic money machine’ in your head.

It’s your own personal ideal of how much money you’d like to be earning, how long it should take to come in, how much work you’d like to do, and an image of the lifestyle you’re living while doing it.

I had my ideal when I first started in IM.

I knew what I liked doing, how much work I liked to do in a day, how much money I wanted to earn, and how I wanted my lifestyle to be.

Have I acheived that?

Does my reality match up to my dream?

No it most certainly does NOT.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m not happy with what’s going on in my business, or that I don’t feel fulfilled. I am both. EXTREMELY.

It’s just that your dreams rarely live up to reality.

I’m typing this while in the middle of a summer cold. Blocked up nose, piles of papers, folders and books on my desk. Total mess.

The car needs the brakes checking over, my T-shirt is ever so slightly streteched over my belly because I’ve just had a big breakfast and a small project I worked on last week in another niche has BOMBED big time.

Compare that with the reality of wandering across the beach in your bare feet launching your latest product and watching the sales roll in. I’ve done that too as I manage to remind you every chance I get.

But it ain’t the day to day reality of things going wrong, feeling like chucking the PC out of the window because Dreamweaver is being a total tosser or spilling a coffee over your keyboard.

Easy for me to say when the money is coming in eh?

Well think about this –

You think your dream is JUST to be able to make money online?

If you had the green stuff flowing in you wouldn’t care HOW it arrived?

You’re wrong if you think that, trust me.

There are things you just WILL not do.

If you don’t believe me then wny aren’t you making 30 videos for your first product right now?

Or writing 30 articles per DAY to start your own PLR article site?

Because no matter what you (or I) believe, in the western world we’re lucky enough NOT to have our backs against the wall that much. (not yet anyway)

We’re not watching our children go hungry. I don’t know about you but if I was in that situation and it could be cured by writing 30 articles a day I’d be typing through the night.

And I was the same when I got into IM

I knew exactly what would bring me the money I needed.

HARD WORK.

STUFF I DIDN’T WANT TO DO.

BORING REPETITIVE TASKS

UNCOMFORTABLE, OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE SITUATIONS.

And I just didn’t want to do ANY of them.

So did I heroically struggle through all of the above to break through into the warm sunlight of success?

Did I balls. No way.

I found every excuse under the sun not to do anything I didn’t want to do.

Instead I watched what other people were doing and bought products BUT ONLY IN THE AREAS I WAS INTERESTED IN.

I don’t particularly like article marketing even though it was really big at the time. I love writing but only if it’s what I like to write. Writing 400 words on genital herpes is NOT how I want to spend my sunday.

So I mostly ignored article marketing.

Blogging however, and newsletter based products were DEFINITELY high up on my interest level, so I investigated this area, bought products on it and worked at it.

And I worked my ARSE off without actually realising it. I really enjoyed it so it was a totally natural thing when money started rolling in from it.

Now to be fair to anyone who’s just starting out today, there wasn’t the constant ‘noise’ that there is today. I’m talking about information overload.

There are new products and techniques and methods and WSO’s coming out every single day, and unless you’re some sort of willpower guru you’re going to buy and try some of them. Maybe a lot of them.

I do.

It’s human nature and while you can’t fight it all the time, there are things you can do to help your business along.

So here’s what you need to do to create a successful online business in my view.

And it IS this simple.

You need to go back to basics and look at the stuff that works:

Blogging

Creating and selling your own products

Affiliate marketing

Buying traffic to put into your funnel (most definitely the fastest)

Developing software

There are more of course, but I focus on the above because that’s where my interest and expertise lies.

The other thing you need to do is to be honest with yourself.

Instead of saying ‘It didn’t work for me’

Try saying to yourself:

‘Well I HATED every minute of that, couldn’t really be arsed to put the work in and I’m not altogether convinced it was right for me’

Don’t do stuff you hate just because other people have had success with it, if it;s something you’re likely to dislike doing. You just won’t get anywhere.

Also consider this.

The internet marketing dream is like your ideal woman or man.

How often does anyone marry the ideal image you had at 16 or 17?

You meet someone who BECOMES your ideal (if you’re lucky)

Things change, and in IM that’s a good thing.

The stuff you initially fancied doing, like perhaps those big six and seven figure clickbank launches we had a few years back could now seem like WAY too much hassle.

Instead you might discover you’re happy bringing in a few thousand a month just writing a newsletter about hand-made model soldiers because it’s where your interest lies.

Whatever it is, you need to figure out what constitues ‘it’s working’ for you.

How fast do you want to see results, how much money, in what areas, and doing what sorts of tasks?

Work out the above, and you can select the latest new shiny products and wso’s to try – but ONLY if they fit the bill of how YOU want to work.

You’ll find success much quicker doing that because you’ll filter out all the stuff that works for other people but isn’t right for you. Dump it. Even if it does work for you it’ll seem like pulling teeth in the long run.

No matter how much other people say a technique works, if it’s not something you want to do then you’re gonna fail.

Comments welcome – what do YOU think?

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> Continuity programs
> Recurring payments
> Membership site
> Subscribers

Whatever you want to call it, in my opinion having regular monthly payments come in for a product or service you provide is the BIGGEST SINGLE ADVANCE you’ll ever have in your online business.

You already know all the stuff about only having to make the sale once, having some security to your business etc

The fact is this.

If you know that on the 17th of the month, $9,756 is going to drop into your account as your members are rebilled you feel SAFER.

My first major continuity site added $10,000 to my monthly income in a little over 24 hours.

It feels good.

I now have multiple continuity programs at different pricepoints in the IM niche, and some not in the IM niche.

So let’s cut down to the gristle and ask the awkward question:

‘So why doesn’t everyone have a continuity program or membership site?’

The answer is because your approach to continuity is plain old DUMB

Mine was too.

If I told you to set up a continuity program your dumb old mind would come up with a dozen reasons why you couldn’t.

It’s like sexual fetishes.

We each have our own particular dark secret.

Mine was the technology behind it. Still is to an extent.

Yours might be not having a product, or being scared that nobody will subscribe, or being left having to create a monthly product when only three people have subscribed.

All the above are BOLLOCKS.

They are NOT valid reasons for not setting up your own continuity site and therefore starting out on a successful business.

I know all the above are about being SCARED.

That’s fine too if you want to be a feathery clucker all your life.

I was bloody terrified when I pressed the ‘send’ button on my frst big continuity. I was bricking it.

Remember I had no problem with the idea for the product but I was extremely anal about the mechanics behind it all.

Passwords, logins, forgotten login details, membership ‘levels’ and areas, support, product delivery, php, coding….

I was really uncomfortable with it all.

Then I realised one thing.

This tiny realisation has probably made me more money online than any other single thing.#

Ready for this?

ALL YOU NEED TO SET UP A SUCCESSFUL MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM IS A SUBSCRIPTION BUTTON!

Honestly.

If you create a payment button in Paypal or Clickbank for (for example) $9 that is set to rebill every month, you’ve got a continuity program that will have a MASSIVE effect on your income.

The rest doesn’t bloody matter.

My first major success in continuity was delivered by a link to a pdf in an autoresponder message sent out every month.

There were no logins or anything. No members area.

Just good honest info delivered by autoresponder follow up message. As they joined they got message one. I’d only actually created message one at this point 🙂

Then at regular intervals set by me in Aweber they recieved the next message giving them a link to the next part of the course. Same thing the next month…

When people unsubscribed I had to manually remove them from the autoresponder list.

But I was making $10,000 from this program alone so what do you think I did?

Yep – hired someone to do the admin and support for me. It only took me 30 minutes a day anyway.

I made around a quarter of a million from that clunky membership.

So set up your subscription button.

Get your first month (or week or whatever) of content ready and deliver it in the easiest way possible.

I wasted MONTHS fannying around with various scripts and plugins trying to get the perfect membership area going.

I should have realised it’s all about giving people what they want. They don’t actually CARE that you’re running the lastest version of whatever plugin to ‘handle the back end’

I know people who have paid thousands for ‘hand coded solutions’ for their membership areas who then make $40 a month from them. These are the same arseholes who email me to say I’d be ‘better off delivering my content in a different way. Here’s what THEY use…’

Come back when you’re making five figs a month from your fancy plugin mate eh?

I’m being snotty of course. But my point is the one I made earlier…

You ONLY need a subscription button that is going to rebill your customer the same time next month to have a continuity program. Figure the rest out as you go along.

It’s easy to make a password protected directory. Sure all your members will have the same password and username but they don’t sit around talking to each other. They’re too busy reading your excellent content.

Change it monthly and you’re 90% secure.

Don’t obsess about theft.

YES some people will nick your stuff. It WILL get stolen and published on the web.

If Time Warner and EMI can’t stop it then you’ve bugger all chance sunshine.

So concentrate on making the sale and giving good value.

AND getting those recurring billings in every month.

Deliver it by autoresponder, or updating a ‘secret’ website every month. It doesn’t have to be high-tech.

Will other marketers laugh at your clunky delivery. Probably. Do you really care what other marketers think about you? If you do, get out now.

Flee.

When you get your membership site going you will see the biggest difference EVER in your online business and finances.

I promise you.

Not only will 90% of your financial pressure vanish overnight, but you’ll have more focus. Instead of having to create and promote new products all the time, ALL you’ll need to do is promote your membership site.

When you get each new subscriber in there you’ve got recurring payments coming in every month.

Affiliates will promote continuity much more too.

And think on this…

If you get just 180 subscribers (6 a day for a month) you’ll be earning a recurring $3,060 a month.

Keep on doing that and, well I can’t do the maths but you’ll end up with $20,000 a month in a very short time.

All you need to do is keep more in than leave.

Seriously, honestly, genuinely, sincerely…..if you do just ONE thing this year for your business, work on a membership site.

It’ll change your life.

Comments welcome

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