Tales of a cyber-hippy running an online business from home
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Thanks
Tony
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to buy my latest laptop. It runs Vista which I hate, but that wasn’t the reason why. The reason was that it cost me around $1,000 – £499 in the UK.
Now it’s a necessary tool of my trade I know but it still bugged me because somewhere deep in my heart I know that one of the main reasons that I’m now able to do this full time is because I’m a tight-ass.
Or to put nicely – I can’t see the value in spending money on my business unless it provides a skill that will increase my income.
Bum Marketing is the term people use, but the truth is that if you can keep your overheads – your expenses down – then you’re much more likely to succeed.
In the early days I had some launches that would have crashed and bombed if I’d followed the advice laid down my several gurus, but by following my own ‘tight-ass ethic’ I managed to turn a small proft that got me through the month and enabled me to fight another day as an Internet Marketer. I didn’t pay anyone to do my graphics for me, I didn’t hire any ghostwriting or copy-checking people, my hosting was less than bog standard and I stayed up for 48 hours delivering the download links and collecting email addresses manually because I couldn’t afford to pay for autoresponders or mailing list admin services.
And I made a profit!
Now you coudl argue that streamlining the whole process would have increased by products, as would paying for a pro graphics service. But let me ask you this –
What if it hadn’t???
I can answer that easily by saying that I probably wouldn’t be typing this now – I’d be working for an employer or at the very best struggling in an offline business. I couldn’t take the risk. It was a calculated bet that I would at least make some profit by keeping my launch expenses to almost zero.
If I’d spent $500 on the above then the profit I made wouldn’t have been enough to enable me to live for the month while I planned my next venture. i would have been forced to take a job. I didn’t have children at this point so I was able to live on pretty rough food but I loved it because it meant I was a full-time marketer.
The internet is unique in several ways but in my opinion the best thing about it from a marketers point of view is that it costs very little to create and launch a product except in terms of hard work.
And that’s why I love it. It levels the playing field. Anyone who can afford a PC and internet connection can make a million.
And it doesn’t matter if your PC is an old, cranky thing as long as it does the job. Nor do you need the latest software when free versions are available. You need to keep your overheads low so thath most of the profits that come in remain with you – they’re not passed on to other people.
The one exception to Tony’s Tight-Ass Rule is education. I will happily pay for any piece of knowledge that will increase my income -period. It’s a no-brainer. If I buy an ebook for $27 that increases my income by $2700 then I don’t need a week’s meditation to make my mind up.
Which is why at Laycock Publishing we only write about methods that work for us, are proven to work for us, and that we use in our day to day business. One example of this is http://www.viralsneakiness.com
I realise you must ‘speculate to accumulate’, but I’d rather listen to what my Gran used to say – ‘In business any expense that guarantees a fiscal return must be, by definition flawed, because the only true guarantee that captial remains in situ is a determined policy of non-expense related marketing’.
Actually she didn’t but ‘where there’s muck there’s brass’ doesn’t have the same ring to it 🙂
Cheers!
I’ve tried complex and complicated businesses. They just confuse the Hell out of me. I had a 6 month ‘thing’ about buying turnkey sites and trying to monetize them. That was probably the hardest work I’ve ever done in my internet marketing career. If you’re not sure what a turnkey site is (and I’m not too sure still) it’s a ready made website – a business in a box – that you just need to promote. Some are good, some are worse than awful. Guess which ones I chose?
If you’ve started off with turnkey sites and have made a profit with them then I’m now bowing and taking off my hat to you because you’re a better marketer than I am.
More likely if you’ve started off with turnkey sites is that you’ve had a few weeks of frustration, are now in debt and at some point you’ve thrown your computer across the room and embedded it a couple of inches into the wall. I speak from experience.
I say too often that something is ‘one of my greatest internet marketing discoveries’ but possibly in the genuine top three is this one – I’m not very intelligent.
Oh I’ve been to University and won a few bottles of Vodka in pub quizzes but when it comes to internet marketing I find it’s really easy for me to lose money. REALLY easy. Unless I do one thing:
KEEP IT SIMPLE – KEEP IT ‘ME PROOF’!
The very first day I worked this out I made more money than I’d earned in the WHOLE of the previous YEAR. I’m not joking – we’re talking blinding flash of light, rapturous music and me floating six inches off the floor in stunning realisation that I was never going to work for anyone else again.
(Incidentally that involved a national newspaper ad, a couple of very surprised marketers, a comb-binding machine and 48 hours without sleep fulfilling orders).
One of the turnkey sites I built had dozens of pages, dozens of product links and pictures and …….. it actually makes my butt clench with anxiety thinking about the damn thing even now. It took me longer to upload than it did to grow facial hair when I was 12, and once it was up and running it brought me nothing but….. actually just nothing.
Which is why today I’ m master of keeping it simple.
Why over-complicate things when they don’t need to be? One or two comments on the video two posts below this ruffled my feathers a little. Write about your experience of internet marketing, make it personal, stick on opt-in box, some freebies and a couple of affiliate links on your blog and you’ll make money.
I made ten grand in 3-4 months doing this.
Then I found myself apologising because some silly sod thought it was too simple.
Honestly what do people want? If somebody offered you a diamond, and you could either receive it in a brown paper envelope one wet afternoon, or you had to follow clues halfway across Afghanistan, dodging bullets, nutters (from both sides) wild animals and disease to collect it from the bottom of a 60 foot well full of camel dung, which would you choose?
Exactly. Why complicate matters?
Sales page, sales button, downloadable product – you don’t even need a download page if you use something like e-junkie.
Minisites, small websites, simple SIMPLE processes where not much can go wrong and you can build them in an hour.
If this was my first day as an internet marketer I’d spend an hour on the forums checking out what people were whinging about, struggling with and asking for answers about. Then I’d pay a ghostwriter $200 to write me an ebook that gave the solution to a particular problem. I’d build a site, stick a Paypal button on it and advertise it by forum posting, article writing and pay per click if I felt brave.
Make sure the text of the page includes some long tail keywords (phrases that people type into search engines rather than just keywords) and wait a while.
It works – google ‘paypal button tutorial’
Then look at result number 5 or 6 on the first page.
http://www.anthony-shepherd.com/pbi/
I’m using an opt-in box here to build my list but it could easily have been a paid product.
Simple, straightforward marketing.
I make it a rule always to listen when someone explains something and ends with ‘and that’s it…’ because it usually means I’ve just been given access to a simple, extremely effective method.
And that’s it……..
Here’s a link to the ‘a day in the life’ post that some have you have requested.
http://www.tony-shepherd.com/2007/11/09/complete-and-utter-indulgence/
I’ve had this idea for a membership site for ages, but since my ideas book is starting to get as thick as the official Elvis impersonator’s register I’ll probably never get around to doing it.
My idea is a membership site – I know I said that already – but with a difference. I don’t know what the content will be, and that’s maybe not as important as the marketing idea, but it’ll cost perhaps $49 a month for membership.
The twist is that NOBODY will be able to sign up for it. It won’t be open to the public.
I’ll invite maybe 100 of my internet marketing contacts to join and then tell them that they’re allowed to invite people. In fact membership will be by invitation ONLY.
So nobody will be able to get in unless one of their friends says ‘Don’t worry dude – I can get you in!’
And people being people I reckon that the whole of the Internet Marketing niche will flock to join because of the ‘buzz’ of being able to say to others ‘I can get you in’
Genius.
Can’t understand why nobody has come up with it before. Or maybe they have and they’re still waiting for the first member to show up……..
Hmm…….maybe I’ll just concentrate on niche marketing for a while……
I first came across the following site when a subscriber told me that the guy in question had given one of our books a less than complimentary review!
So naturally I fired off an email asking what he thought was wrong with the product.
What I got back was an intelligent, reasoned argument. He pointed out that the book wasn’t actually bad, it was just perhaps wrong for certain sections of the IM world. I couldn’t fault his argument and although I didn’t agree with him we kept in touch and swapped the ocassional email from time to time.
This was my first contact with Matt James, and his site http://www.the-complete-guide.com/
This isn’t a guru site and Matt isn’t the best known marketer in the business, but he does have something that I like and that I think is lacking in our business, and that’s integrity.
If you’re looking for honest reviews – detailed reviews – of IM products then check out Matt’s site. He’ll take on anyone, regardless of their size!
I think it was GB Shaw who said ‘Youth is wasted upon the young’
Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but here’s a Tony Shepherd quote that I’m pretty sure is true:
‘It takes a long time to learn to break the rules, but it’s the best lesson you’ll ever take’
When you’re a child you learn pretty fast that the best way to survive – in life – in school – is to blend in. So you colour inside the lines, don’t ask too many questions in class and make sure your homework is in on time.
As you get older (about 40 I reckon – ahem!) you start to seriously enjoy breaking the rules. Getting your nipples pierced, not washing your car ever, and wearing top hats.
When my wife was teaching she brought home a ‘stranger danger’ book that she’d been showing to her class, warning them not to trust people – especially men – they didn’t know.
Through hysterical giggles she opened the book to show me the ‘stranger danger’ man who had unkempt hair, a beard and torn jeans. He looked exactly like me.
Most perverts I’ve seen on TV look like lawyers (maybe they are) but we musn’t break the rules by telling kids this.
Actually the media goes on all the time about how dangerous terrorists are, and muggers and identity theives and the like but I thought about this. Who has relieved me of most of my money in my adult life?
It wasn’t some bloke in a hooded top with a knife requesting my wallet or someone who pretended to be me and bought a porsche on Ebay – No – it was some bloke in a suit called ‘the tax man’ or in a bank or a lawyers office! Yet we’re taught to be wary of people in scruffy shoes.
Armani suits and silk ties more like.
I digress…..
Yet again we can relate this to internet marketing. Most successful internet marketers didn’t become that way until they learned to break the rules. We’re told to submit articles, construct sales pages in a certain way, bang away at your list with an autoresponder and never, ever offer too many freebies to your list or that’s all they’ll want.
Why the hell do top marketers tell people this WHEN THEY DON’T DO IT THEMSELVES?
Look Mr Guru – if you explain the truth to me slowly with pictures and pretty diagrams I’ll understand it.
I might not be a neuro surgeon but I can tie my own shoes. Don’t insult my intelligence by telling me to follow the rules when you know damn well that the fastest way to get rich in IM is to break them!
So I broke the rules and now earn 6 figures. That’s it.
Here’s the plug. I wrote down one of the methods I used to do it. The experts tell you not to do it this way but they’re wrong. It worked. I tried giving stuff away and earned eight thousand dollars in a number of weeks. That was just ‘trying it’. Now I’m serious about it and guess what? The money is increasing.
I don’t put my picture in it though – I don’t want to scare you!
I’ve been called an expert on Viral Marketing.
The reason for this is that I don’t like emailing people asking for JV’s or checking out products that other people ask me to push to my list for them. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve regularly undertake JV’s and they always – always – bring in a big cash boost, so I’m not complaining (much).
What I’m saying is that I want my business to be completely self-sufficient so that I never need to do another JV as long as I live if I don’t want to and still remain extremely comfortable as a full-time marketer.
Impossible?
Not with viral marketing. It’s the best kept secret in Internet Marketing – because when you think of viral marketing you think of submitting articles, rebranding e-reports and the like. Some of viral marketing IS about that but not the way WE do it.
If you could throw together in a couple of days a viral product that would then roam the internet for as long as you wish throwing money back into your bank account as it went, wouldn’t you have a go?
Don’t take my word for it – Google ‘viral sneakiness’ and read the reviews from the people who use the system themselves.
I have a really badly knackered knee.
I sometimes tell people that it got injured as a I rescued a little old lady from muggers. Other times I’ll say it was a motorbike accident sustained as I crashed on a Greek island (that actually happened but I was completely uninjured because luckily (for me) I came off my bike, flew 12 feet through the air and landed on someone.
In reality I injured my knee (quite seriously actually) watching Yoga on TV. Not doing Yoga you understand – just watching it.
I’d had a few beers and was relaxing after a long dinner and great conversation with my wife. She wandered into the kitchen to refill her wine and I flicked the TV on. I still don’t know what the TV was showing but they were featuring a 98 year old woman in a leotard who was a Yoga master. She was chatting away while sitting in the lotus position (for those who don’t know it’s a sort of cross-legged position but with your fee on TOP of the opposite leg)
Well machismo kicked in and I said to myself – ‘If she can do it at that age, then I can’
But I couldn’t. I used to be quite supple but not any more.
After 5 minutes of sweating and cursing I got hold of my left leg with both hands and pulled it onto my left knee. For half a second I actually acheived the Lotus position.
Then my knee emitted a noise like someone grinding a walnut between two bricks and a wave of pain hit me like a Tsunami.
As my wife (who’d heard me scream) pulled my legs back into their usual position while yelling at me for being a ‘silly bugger’ I vowed that I’d never again worry about what other people could do that I coudn’t.
Which is why I’m very happy with my Internet business. It’s doing pretty well both with Sara and with my own ventures.
So when the latest marketing guru tells me what I should be doing, I squeeze me knee until it hurts, re-learn the ‘Yoga Injury’ lesson and go do my own thing.
Hurts less.
