Success is not Sticky - You Have to Hold the BALL!

Failure holds you back. If the status quo is not where you want to be in life, then it holds you back. I've written about it here on this blog before. Everything pulls you back to where you are when you're trying to get ahead in life, when you're trying to improve yourself. Your situation, your friends, your family, your debt, everything... maybe not intentionally, but everything holds you back.

Success isn't that way. If success was sticky you wouldn't have scandals and sad situations like Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Brittany Spears... well the list is pretty long so I'll stop. If success was sticky, celebrities, sports stars, and politicians would actually still be role models that we could feel good about our kids looking up to. Instead, failure is pulling at them to, in spite of their successes.

The reasons are different though. When you're in failure mode, your mind is overwhelmed with the situation of failure. Every step can be a struggle. Work two jobs and you're too tired to do your best job at either one, and if you have children, you'll miss spending time with them and that makes you frustrated and angry too. Get behind in your bills and the phone calls and letters will drive you crazy. Constantly trying to figure out how to pay this or keep this on and woops, that check bounced, takes it toll and soon you're yelling at the ones you love the most. It takes incredible dedication and focus to claw and inch your way out of that situation. It can be done. Most don't make it out though.

A successful person does not have these same worries. You'd think they would be able to reach new heights of creativity and productivity with the clarity of mind that not worrying about all those failure things can bring. Some do. Some keep it. A lot fail. The human mind is a very sophisticated instrument. You can walk into a smelly bathroom and after a few minutes you no longer notice how bad it smells because your brain adjusts a few things and re-centers what "normal" smells like. Or after changing a dozen diapers, you no longer gag... and before long you can keep eating while making record fast changes. The brain works against you too. Success can lead to thinking you're bullet proof, to thinking that you can get away with things that are wrong, or with sub-par performance. Success also brings followers, people who may or may not have your best interest at heart, people who want to pull themselves up to you but end up pulling you down.

The key is focus. This weekend is Super Bowl Sunday. If you watch the game you'll see some excellent examples of focus. Quarterback who can keep their cool and look around for an open receiver downfield, and throw the ball accurately, all the while a bunch of 250 to 300 pound (or more) massive, angry, incredibly strong and fast guys are trying to kill him. You'll see receivers look only at the ball as it makes its way to their outstretched hands... all the while knowing that another player is running at them as hard as they can and will try everything they can to obliterate them and make them fumble the ball. All the while thousands of fans scream as loud as they can. You'll see coaches execute their plans, evaluate, compensate, and adjust trying to out-coach the other coach.

If anyone of the starting lineup gets hurts or starts slacking off, there are several ready, willing, and able players on the bench to take their place. If the quarterback throws too many bad balls or interceptions, there's someone to take his place.

The effect of focus and the fact that success is not sticky is easy to see with sports. It's easy to watch a great dancer, an exceptional gymnast, any Olympic athlete and know the years of training and focus it took to reach the top. It's just as easy to understand that if they stop working out, if they stop practicing, if they start eating junk food and smoking, they will quickly loose their position at the top.

What's hard is having this same understanding in others areas.

I've heard someone say that they didn't like the book or movie "The Secret" because it said just think about it and it will happen. No work involved, just think about it and sit down and the world will come to you. That's not what it says. Back to our sports examples: athletes go through very detailed mental pictures of winning before a competition... and no one doubts the effectiveness of those exercises. The Law of Attraction is basically the same thing - get it in your head and then work for it.

Get the image in your head of what you want to do, where you want to go in life, and then work for it. Focus. Focus. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball... you can catch it... don't worry about how much it's going to hurt when you hit the ground... don't worry about the footsteps you hear running to tackle you... catch the ball... don't drop it... when the play is over and the dust settles and you're in the End Zone holding the ball, it will be worth it!

Until next time,
Fred

Until next time,
Fred

Let me know what you think!

Fred

I spend a lot of time working on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), both for myself and for clients/customers. There're a lot of "standard" questions I get asked, but one of the most common is "just how much do links really count?"

A few months ago, I was helping a client with a blog. I totally restructured and redesigned their blog. Their blog had been around a while, but only had 2 posts. I added 2 or 3 more posts before I started the redesign. Originally the blog had been in the root of the site, however, I changed that and ended up with the blog under a "blog" folder and a few "static" pages in the root of the site. I also changed the page naming scheme the blog was using.

The end result was that the search engines had indexed all 5 of the blog pages, but they were now in a different location with different names. If it was critical, I could have created files that matched those old names with a permanent redirect (301) to the new pages, but it wasn't. I knew we'd take a hit for this, but it should not last long.

What's the Value of a Link to SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

I tracked the page rankings for a few keywords and we took a major hit (shown as drop "A") in the graph. This occurred because I basically scrambled the site around and didn't tell the search engines what I was doing. Notice that only Google seemed to care. And that we were pretty much ranking #1 or #2 on Yahoo and MSN (Bing) for the keyword phrase I was tracking.

There was another problem. This site was hosted on a Unix box using Apache as the web server (no, that's not the problem). Because the blog was originally in the root of the site and because the blog software is WordPress, the rewrite engine was on for the root. But I had moved the blog from the root to a "blog" folder. So when a search engine spider would crawl the site, trying to locate the old pages with the old names (that no longer exist), they would get a partial, messed up, broken page - Instead of getting a 404 page not found, they were getting junk. Because of this, the old pages were not being removed from the search engine index, AND the search engines thought the site was garbage (but only Google seemed to care). Once I found the source of the problem and turn off the rewrite engine for the root, that problem was solved (somewhere near the end of October on the graph).

Back when I started working on their blog, I added a link to their blog from my blog. My blog has a Google Page Rank of 3, so it has some decent value.

You can see over time and with more SEO effort on my part, such as submitting articles, etc. their ranking in Google improved for the keyword phrase I was tracking.

Toward the end of December that client became a non-client. I was cleaning up my blogroll around the end of the year and decided to remove their link. Look at the drop at "B" on the graph - that is the result. As far as I know, that's the ONLY thing that changed! It's hard to tell from the graph, but the drop occurred on January 5th 2010.

Notice again, Google is the only one that cared. Their blog is still pegged at #1 on Yahoo and MSN(Bing) for the phrase I'm tracking.

Why did Google care when Yahoo and MSN(Bing) did not? I'm not totally sure except that it appears that Google is much more sensate to problems on your site, drastic changes, etc.

But this does show the value, especially on small, fairly new sites with not many inbound links, of good, solid, one-way links from sites with good page rank.

Want to know more about SEO? SEO Secrets Revealed.

Until Next Time,
Fred

Internet Business Ethics 101

Class Sit up pay attention, you're about to learn something... Something I've paid dearly to learn, but you don't have to... as long as you pay attention and heed my advice.

Being a victim is a hard pill to swallow. No one likes to admit they were a victim. Criminals, rapists, child molesters, conmen and the like know this and count on the fact that a lot of their victims will not make public what happened to them. Knowing this, they live free to strike again another day.

There are plenty of fake gurus, lame products, and "takers" in the Internet Business, home business, and marketing arena these days that count on the same quirks in our human nature to get away ripping people off. Over the last few years I've been taken in by one... I'll name names below, but keep reading for now.

Hardly an hour goes by without an email showing up in my inbox (just think how many were trapped by my spam filter) hawking the latest plan, formula, or product that just earned someone hundreds of thousands dollars in just minutes or days without doing much of anything. These are obvious lame products, yet people still fall for them. It's hard to imagine, but people still fall for the Nigerian scam letter from the wife of the late Mr. x who was the so and so in charge of so and so's vast fortune...

Before I go any farther, let me say that there are honest and ethical people in this business. In fact, I would bet that most are. Just like a barrel of apples, one rotten one can ruin the whole thing. It's a shame that one or two rotten apples can tarnish those who go out of their way to help others and to make sure their products and services are first class.

If you're really sharp and have followed my blog for a while, you've noticed I've removed a few names from my blog roll. One of the names I've removed lately is Eric Graham, The Conversion Doctor.

I have a DVD product in which I interview Eric, it's called Masters of Online Income - The Eric Graham Interview - I'm pulling that product from the market today - the last day of 2009.
Why? Because I no longer feel comfortable promoting or being associated with Eric in anyway. Over the past year my opinion of him has steadily dropped. You're known by the company you keep and if I'm selling a DVD that features me interviewing Eric, people will assume that I approve of his business tactics and dealings - I do not.

The DVD we made contains good material. I worked hard to create it, and have never recouped what I paid for the time I spent with Eric - but I don't want to sell it anymore. There's nothing dishonest in the material on the DVD, and if you have one, it contains good advice. But I feel uncomfortable selling it.

What exactly happened?
I have followed Eric's blog for some time. He calls himself the "Conversion Doctor" because he has performed hundreds of tests on his web sites and his client's web sites to determine what factors will improve your sales. The things he's suggested that I've tested tend to be true.

The truth is, I paid for one of his packages that included a day together followed by a year of email coaching (among other things) and he has not followed through on his end of the deal. I've since been in contact with others who have had the same experiences. In fact, there are several complaints to be found from his dissatisfied clients (I'll give the link to a few below).

From time to time Eric promotes a "special" on a "package" that includes some variation of a day-long visit where he would flies into your town and spends the day working with you. Usually the package is combined with 6 months to a year of email coaching, 2 to 4 phone calls and / or web meetings, creation of joint ventures, new products, offloading his overflow of copywriting work to you, opening the doors to you to other "big" names in the Internet Business arena from his "huge" rolodex, etc. In the video promoting the package I purchased, he totals up its value to be around $47,000 and offers to discount it to $4,997 if you'll provide a video testimonial of how much he's helped your business. The day-long visit can be used for anything - working on your business, creating new products, etc.

I took him up on one of these specials at the end of 2008. We had some scheduling issues and instead of Eric coming to my location, I went to his location at the end of December 2008. During the planning of the trip, all using his public email address, we had no communication issues what-so-ever (this would later change).

We spent the day together and planned out a membership site, tweaked an existing sales letter I had for an existing product, and recorded the video for the DVD. We also recorded a video testimonial from me about how much we'd accomplished that day. I had assumed the testimonial he wanted would be at the end of the year after he had helped me improve my business - so I was a little surprised when, at the end of the day, he want to record a testimonial.

When I returned home, I realized he had never given me the email address for his coaching program. I had to ask him for it.

That's when things started to go south. I had problems with the video from the start. My video camera had jammed so we used Eric's video camera for the interview. I happened to have a small external hard drive with me and left it with Eric for him to copy the video to and ship to me. It took a while but it finally arrived, at which point I proceeded to drop the box the drive was in (geez). When I connected it, it didn't work. I emailed Eric to have him copy the file to something else and he no longer had it. His email responses started taking longer and longer. He could not locate the file. A couple of months went by. I took the drive out one more time to try it and got it working - and was able to copy off the video. I proceeded to work on editing it and creating a DVD.

With most email coaching programs like this, it's common to ask the coach one question a day and get an answer back the same day or the next day, at most a couple of days. Most of my emails to Eric went unanswered - what I mean here is completely ignored, no responses at all. The few that were answered took weeks and some took 3 months - without any mention of the lapse of time. It's like he just woke up one day and answered a 3 month old email. I would get fed up and send him a scathing email saying how frustrated I was with his help and how disappointed I was in him and would summarize the questions I'd sent him that he never answered. A couple of times, in response to these hostile emails, he would forward me a month (or more) old email to me that I never received asking me if I ever received it ("did you not see this" he would ask). I have all his email addresses and domains in my spam white list, so I know he never really sent these "missing" emails.

Back to the DVD: for some reason I had a lot of problems editing the video from Eric's camera - the video and audio out of sync - like a Japanese monster movie. After a ton of work I got it fixed up and created a really nice DVD.

The time had come to make the sales letter. I had figured Eric would help with this, but that was not to be. After several emails he sent me a long copywriting preparation worksheet - which I really like by the way - to fill out and then create the copy from. There were also flash videos of him talking about the worksheet and a sales letter template he had made (which he said was just for me but later he made public on his blog). So I created the sales web site and got it launched.

All along I was looking forward to Eric promoting the DVD to his huge email list. He had said he would mail his list about it. I had been a subscriber to Eric's email list for years and never saw any email from him promoting the DVD. I thought this was strange. I emailed him a few times about it with no response from him. So I went to his blog and I noticed he'd had a few blog posts that I didn't get email about either... one of which was about my DVD... but looking in my stats, I had no traffic to speak of from his blog. So I filled out the form to sign up for his email list and instead of it saying I was already subscribed, it let me sign up... seems I'd been removed... strange. I emailed a blogging buddy of mine who I knew was also on his email list and he said yes, Eric did send an email about the latest blog posts, include the one about my DVD... that included a link to my sales page... but where was the traffic??? I could understand if people showed up and didn't buy, but I only saw 5 to 10 visitors from his blog and no bump in traffic what-so-ever around the date of his mailing about my DVD. My conclusion - he either has a very small email list, or it's very stale.

Over the course of the year, I slowly stopped trying to get help from Eric. I've sent a few emails telling him how frustrated and disappointed I was. Also over the course of the year, he has made several more videos advertising the same or similar packages, one or two using my video testimonial. I've asked him to stop using it.

He was supposed to help me get other "big names" in the business to agree to do more of these interview DVDs for the Masters of Online Income site (which was supposed to be a membership site). During the visit he gave me a list of web sites and names. That was his help in opening doors for me. I actually did email every one of these names (that I could find contact info for) telling them that I was working with Eric he had given me their name and that I wanted to interview them. It's pretty easy to count the number of positive responses I had - 0. I assumed, as you probably would, that he would pick the phone up and call one or two while I was there and we'd get something setup and started. Our original plan was for this to be a membership site with me doing one of these video interviews a month.

It's embarrassing to admit to the world that I was taken by Eric. He'll probably say I didn't follow his plan to the letter and that's why I was dissatisfied. But the facts stand that over the course of a year he responded to and answered only a small handful of emails and never followed through on the other items on the list of things in the package.

I've also exchanged emails with two other people who have had the same experiences and I've heard from a top Internet Marketing Coach who says he's heard the same complaints from several of his clients about Eric.

My point here is not to bad mouth Eric but to present the facts. I do actually think he knows how to improve conversion and that when he says things like "make links blue and underlined" he's right. But I want to warn people NOT to purchase one of his package deals or other consulting services. He's running one now titled: "How to Make 2010 Your Best Year Ever!" for $1997. My advice - DON'T DO IT!

He's also raising the price on his Web Site Evaluations.com, "due to extreme demand" by $1000 on 1/4/2010. That makes the price almost $3000. Again, he does not take credit cards for anything over $1000 so you have to wire the money, use an online check, or overnight a check. My advice - DON'T DO IT!

Here are a few links to others who have been taken as well:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/graham-advantage-c200917/page/1.html

http://emarketworks.com/category/eric-graham/

http://www.elanelan.com/EricGraham.htm (this one contains screen shots from the video promoting the same package I signed up for)

You may be wondering why I've not pressed Eric for a refund. First, read the posts at the 3 links above. Eric does not take credit cards for these big packages, only checks or wire transfers for items over $1000. Geez, I wonder why!

But, I didn't pay Eric with money; we traded something of equal value to the cost of the package. I have asked for it back, or the cash equivalent, but, like the complaints in the links above, he has never respond to those emails. Actually he responded to one with the copywriting worksheet and videos mentioned above, contained in a forwarded month(s) old email he says he sent but that I must have never received... with no mention of my refund request or returning my property.

So that's today's lesson. There are good guys you can trust, and I'll keep them in my blog roll. But there are a few rotten apples that will spoil your day. Do your homework before spending a large sum of money with anyone - use a search engine, type in their name and add the word scam, rip off, etc. - you might be surprised what you find.

You can thank me later!

Oh... please Digg, Stumble, etc. this post so that as many as possible will see it...

Until next time,
Fred

Exploding Your Copy (and life) From Sissy to SEISMIC.

I love the color gray.
I also hate the color gray.

Grey is a great color for some things... like a nice grey suit, socks, or even my hair! But it's a really bad color for life, copywriting, marketing, first dates, race cars, etc.

Passion is anything but gray
Political Correctness is so gray
Specifics are not gray at all
Generalization is gray, and when you generalize you loose people.

Want to make a difference in this world? Want to stand out? Want your message to be heard? Then you want to be vibrant. You want to be dynamic. You do not want to be a gray person or have a gray personality.

Why do you think celebrities do such strange and stupid things? Because it get's them attention and media coverage. One way or another that usually translates into more money in their pockets. Then again, I think that some celebrities become so addicted to it that they can't stop doing strange and stupid things!

Like the flamboyant mating dances and displays of some birds, the biggest showoff and most colorful bird gets to mate and pass on those colorful genes to a new generation! I think it's built into the deep recesses of our cerebral cortex too. The end result: more people care about utterly stupid and worthless reality shows than real suffering and real issues. More people read about Tiger Woods than the laws and programs our Congress and Senate leaders are voting on.

What does this mean when it comes to making money, selling something, writing copy, marketing, or living life? Be the colorful bird!

Make your copy interesting and vivid. Make your presentation colorful. Take a stand. Don't play it safe. Too many people are obsessed with being politically correct: pc this and pc that... it MAKES ME SICK!

If you think playing it safe and trying to please everyone and not insult or offend anyone will get you ahead, think again. It doesn't work in most cases. Lukewarm gets lukewarm results. If you want to sizzle then you need some HEAT!

What if you just have a grey personality and just can't seem to muster any color whatsoever? You can try roll playing. Sometimes I go into my TV Evangelist alter ego! Screaming and hollering and making wild motions with my hands! Maybe when it's time for you to write your blog posts, or write some copy, or go on a date, you put on a particular jacket, shirt, or hat. And BAM! You're now seven shades of hi-gloss purple passion instead of flat, dull gray!

It takes courage to stand out! Inside even the most subdued person there's a star bursting to get out. Fear keeps their starlight locked inside, just like a black hole stops even light from escaping from it's core.

So GET FIRED UP!
Get some PERSONALITY!
Go from wuss to WONDER!
from plain to PASSIONATE!
from dull to DAZZLING!
from empty to EMPHATIC!
from so-so to SO WHAT!
from sissy to SEISMIC!
Be the colorful bird!

Until next time,
Fred

Long Tail Keywords

What is a "Long Tail Keyword Phrase"?
This is the definition in my "SEO Brain Dump" which is only available as the bonus to my SEO Secrets Revealed course...

Why is it better to have fewer people landing on your page, site, or blog? It's better to have targeted traffic, or traffic that's interested in what your site is offering or is about. If you had to choose between 10 "targeted" visitors who were looking to purchase your product or learn about the topic of your blog, or 1000 visitors who had only tangential interests in your products or subject, which would you choose? Even if you're not very smart at all, the obvious answer is 10 "targeted" visitors.

As your momma probably told you, you can't make up for a lack of quality with quantity. Well, maybe your mother didn't tell you that, but she sure should have!

That's what long tail keywords are all about. Because they are more specific, they're more targeted. Because fewer sites are trying to compete for them, they're easier to rank for too. So it's a win/win situation.

You can use a couple of methods to gauge competition for a keyword phrase and also how many searches are performed per month.

The quick and easy way to determine competition is to do a search in Google for the keyword phrase you're interested in, for example if you are selling "blue banana brushes" then you'd just type this in Google and see how many sites are listed. This particular search on this particular day says 1-10 of about 145,000. (I tried to pick something that would not exist!). You may also want to go to the next page of results to see if the 145,000 figure changes.

The next quick thing you can check is to do this search in Google, "allinanchor:Blue Banana Brushes". This "AllInAnchor" search will give a lower total figure, in this case on this day, 1-10 of about 955. This search gives the number of pages that have links to them that use the words in the phrase "Blue Banana Brushes" in the anchor text of the link. This figure can more accurately represent the stiffness of the competition for ranking for this term.

Now what about finding out how many searches people perform for a term? You'll need to have a Google Adwords account. Sign up for one and you can use the Google Keywords Tool. You don't have to fund your Adwords account to use the Keywords tool. In the Google Keywords tool, you type in a keyword phrase or list of keyword phrases and the tool will return to you the number of monthly searches, both US and Globally. This will give you a feel for if it's worth trying to rank for.

There's no fixed formula for determining how to use the information you've just gathered. I wish there was! For example, I rank very high for "Internet Business" (which is NOT long tail), currently, today, if you do a search in Google for it, it returns 1-10 of about 439,000,000. The AllInAnchor returns 7,020,000. These are BIG NUMBERS and I RANK #2. It was very hard and took a lot of work to get there and continues to require effort to maintain. These numbers are NOT what you should shoot for! Look for smaller numbers.

For example "Copper Cooking Pots" returns 1-10 of about 1,440,000 and 731,000 AllInAnchor. Big numbers, but doable! Google Keywords tool shows 1,300 searches last month (October) and Global Monthly Search Volume of 1000. Not big search numbers, but if you nail the #1 spot then you'll get some highly targeted traffic. I would probably play around to find a related or similar keyword phrase that has more search traffic but still kept the doable competition numbers.

So there you have some solid advice on how I select keyword phrases to target.

Once you've done that, how do you get your site to rank high on the first page, or even number 1? I spell it ALL out in SEO Secrets Revealed.
Get it today!

Until next time,
Fred

Masters of Online Income - Price Slashed!

I've Slashed the Price on one of my products from $193 all the way down to $29!

Why? Because so many people are hurting for cash right now and this DVD spells out how to make money online using some of the easiest methods out there.

Get it here: www.mastersofonlineincome.com/

Fred

Start Your Own Home Internet Business with these 7 Easy Steps...

I'm going to layout for you a different way of finding a product/market/etc. and setting up shop online.

I sell one product that I physically handle (meaning box and ship). The others are either electronic (as in downloadable) or shipped by a distributor (DVDs or CDs) and I never touch the order.

What is the one product that I physically handle? Blue Glass Bottles. Yep... you read that correctly, Blue Glass Bottles.

How did I get the idea?
It comes from a book titled Zero Limits by Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len (Hawaiian Ho'oponopono master). In the book, Dr. Len says that drinking water from a blue glass bottle that you've placed in direct sunlight for over an hour will help clear problems from your life. When I read this, I said to myself, "I want a blue glass bottle". However, I couldn't find one that was big enough to make the effort worthwhile. I searched online and didn't immediately find what I was looking for. I finally found exactly what I was looking for, but I had to buy a case (12 bottles).

Being that I was already selling information products online I tried to find an easy way to sell this product online. There are businesses that will fulfill orders for me, but we're talking low volume here and it is too expensive at low volume. I decided to go the simple route and put up a web site and ship the orders myself. I knew if I sold an unexpectedly large number of bottles I could hire help or use a fulfillment service.

So I ordered a few cases of bottles. I made a web site. I used what I know about Search Engine Optimization to optimize the site. And I was in the bottle selling business.

I started getting orders! I've not paid for any advertising. My traffic comes from my blog and from search engine traffic.

No, I don't make a lot of money doing this; however it's a small regular stream of orders. It's a perfect way for someone to get comfortable running a home-based Internet Business.

I didn't even bother to try and figure out if there was a market because the startup investment was so small: a case or two of bottles, a Paypal account, and a simple web site. I figured the best test in this case was to just do it.

Here are the steps:

1. Identify a product. Joe Vitale is a popular author - he sells a lot of books. So I knew that I was not the only person that would want a few blue bottles. You can do the same thing by staying current with trends and new books, etc. If you find something that you want, but have some difficulty finding it, or finding it exactly like you want it, start thinking about filling that void. It may be a situation like mine where you end up packing and shipping the product yourself or you may find that you can drop-ship it from the distributor or manufacturer.
2. Get a PayPal account. Very simple. Just go to Paypal.com and signup for a merchant account. In my bottle example, I already had an order system in place that I plugged in, but, you can just go directly to Paypal from your order page, I show you how to do this in free course Make Money Online.
3. Setup a web site. You'll need to purchase a domain name, and a hosting account. You can do both at 1and1.com . These days, most hosting accounts come with a ton of features and options, but stick with the basics. You can learn about making web-sites with two more of my free courses Web Site Creation and Interactive Web Site Scripting. Working though these courses will give you enough knowledge to make a basic web site that can take orders.
4. Setup a Google account (if you don't have one) and setup your site in Google Webmaster Tools. See my post Google WebMaster tools for more information.
5. Link to your new site from your other sites (if you have any). Post some valid comments on blogs that allow you to leave a URL with your name. This will help get your site indexed by search engines.
6. Write some articles about your product and put them on your web site. You can create a blog if you want to and put it "under" your site (www.mysite.com/blog) or you can just add more pages to your web site manually and put an article per page. You don't have to do this, but it will help get traffic from search engines. I'm not going to go into all the whys in this post, but just trust me, it helps.

7. Optimize your site for Search Engines. I have a product to show you how to do this and save you a huge amount of trial and error: Search Engine Optimization Secrets Revealed.

The above 7 steps will get you going and get your feet wet. From there, you will be much more comfortable selling other peoples products as an affiliate, or selling "virtual" products that you never see, touch, or handle.

Get my Masters of Online Income DVD to learn how to tweak and master the selling process, find affiliate products, use Google Adwords to promote your product, and take your online business to the next level!

Until next time,
Fred

John Maxwell's book Talent is Never Enough...

Congratulations Ben Goss! The random number generator says YOU are the winner of "Talent is Never Enough"! Send me a mailing address and I'll get the book headed your way!

In case you missed the post on my latest give-a-way, read it here: Win a FREE, SIGNED Copy of John Maxwell's book: Talent is Never Enough....

Until next time
Fred

P.S. Ben, I've sent you an email, just reply to that, or, leave a comment with your address (I will not approve the comment so it will not be seen).

Social Networking Common Sense

Social Networking is all the rage these days. Every Internet Business Guru Wannabe is proclaiming his or her secret method to making Twitter or Facebook or Myspace put dollars in your pocket.

Well Bubba let me throw in my opinion. If you're using these social networks to promote you or your business in a marketing effort then you need to follow a set of rules.

Fred's Social Networking Rules for Business Use...

Use Some Common Sense: I'm always surprised when people post things that they obviously have not thought about how someone else may interpret. If it's not your business and you work there, don't post things like "my boss sucks" or "I can't wait to get out of here" or "our clients are sooo stupid to use us"! People do actually read what you write...

If it IS your business, or you're in business for yourself always present a good, solid, positive image and never post things that make you look bad... and that looking bad thing is not always easy to discern, so think about it from a potential client's perspective, not yours. This seems like common sense but it's very easy to just post anything that crosses your mind - don't!

Get Personal: Why do people follow someone? Because they're interested in that person. Why do all those gossip magazines you see at the checkout at the grocery store sell so many copies? Because people want to know the "behind the scenes" and "personal lives' of celebrities. You may not be a celebrity but people are interested and will be more interested if you let them into a little of your personal life. Post about your kids once in a while. Show a cute photo. Post about your pets every now and then. Post about issues that everyone can identify with, especially if you have a unique or humorous way to deal with it.

Use Your Name: It's uncomfortable at first to use your real name and start posting, but you need to. You're not trying to hide, you're trying to build a following and create a relationship with your followers. If you use an alias it will come off as disingenuous.

Add New Networks Slowly: Don't jump into all of the social networks the same week. Give yourself some time to get to know how each works and get comfortable using one before setting up an account on the next one.

Link Them: The Internet is linked together... so don't forget to link your social networks so that someone following you on Twitter will see that you have a web page, and a Facebook account, and a MySpace account, etc.

Keep 'em Updated: Once you have a few social network accounts, it's gets a little hard to keep the up the discipline to update them regularly. It's important that you do. Some you can configure to update others automatically, others' you can't. But if you update or post on one, it's a good idea to update the others you have accounts on... you don't need to keep them 100% in sync but any large item or important information should be posted on all networks that you have accounts.

Don't Sell, Tell: Most social networking situations do not work well for direct selling. Instead, provide communication, information, and build a following. Driving people to your sales site, or main web site, is fine but don't try to sell directly on the social sites.

Interact: This should be a "well Duh!" point, but it's important to drive this home. The whole point to social networking is to network. If you think you're too good to interact with your clients or fans then it's probably best that you don't do try social networking. You don't have to answer each and very comment, but it's amazing how big of an impact some interaction will have (see my real world example below).

Leave the Games, Surveys, and Toys to Personal Users: Your followers are following you because they respect you, your business, or your [insert whatever you do here]. If you're busy doing whatever it is you do, then you shouldn't have time to play all those stupid games that go around on Facebook, or have a Myspace profile that takes 3 minutes to load because of all the crap you put on it, etc., etc., etc. The professionalism of your account needs to match your business - an attorney would have a different level of seriousness than a used car dealer, but neither one should have the games, surveys, or other crap on their site, layout, or profile.

A real-world example
Social networking is all about interacting with your followers and building a community and rapport. Even before Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and other social networking sites, my real-world example was using an old-fashioned message board to build a huge following. Rhonda Vincent is my real-world example. Rhonda is, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Queen of Bluegrass. Way back when most artists had static web sites, Rhonda put a message board on her site and mentioned it at performances. Her band is called the Rage and she (or someone) coined the term for the people posting on her message board as "Ragers". She even had buttons made up for them. The message board turned into a community because Rhonda would personally post, as well as comment, on some threads. People became friends without ever having met. It created such a close knit community that prayer requests are very common. Rhonda is extremely talented, but as we all know from my previous post, Talent is Never Enough. She has embraced technology as it's become available. She has a weekly chat over a messenger client. She has live webcasts from her studio when she's recording. She's on most every social network. Some people try to use technology to hide behind, Rhonda uses technology to let her remain close to her fans and interact with them. The result is a fan base who will go to battle for her. Rhonda pretty much follows the rules I've outlined above and it shows.

The lessons here are many: embrace it, use it, promote it, and be genuine with it.

Until next time,
Fred
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Fred Black (me - on left) meeting John Maxwell!

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to hear John C. Maxwell speak, as well as meet him. It was my first time hearing him speak - he is a very powerful speaker and motivator.

I purchased two copies of this book "Talent is Never Enough" so that I could read one and give one away here. I was also fortunate enough to get him to sign both copies. If you'd like to have a chance to receive one of the signed copies - free - keep reading.

Win a FREE copy of John Maxwell's book Talent is Never Enough...

Win a FREE copy of John Maxwell's book Talent is Never Enough...

For those that don't know, John Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author. He has sold over 16 million books! That's a lot of books! He's a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-selling author. He was also one of only 25 authors and artists named to Amazon's 10th Anniversary Hall of Fame. Three of his books have each sold over a million copies each. He regularly speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and audiences as diverse ad the United States Military Academy as West Point, the National Football League, and ambassadors at the United Nations.

"Talent is Never Enough" is a MUST READ book! I've not finished it yet, but in the few chapters I've read, John has already answered some very important questions that are critically vital to my life.

What is the book about? Talent alone will not make you successful. It can open doors but it takes more than talent to keep them open and succeed. In this book, John Maxwell outlines and defines exactly how to hone your passion, maximize your potential and live the life of your dreams. He uses authentic examples and time-tested wisdom. John shares thirteen attributes you need to reach and sustain your goals.

What kind of talent? Any type. Everyone has a talent. Some have multiple talents. Talents cover the range of things a person might be good at, not simply things like music, art, or sports. It can be business, management, marketing, teaching... anything. This book teaches you to take whatever it is you're good at and excel with it.

How to Enter...
Sign up to my mailing list using the form below and then leave a comment to this post. If you're already on my mailing list then just leave a comment to this post. If you're not sure if you're on my mailing list, then try to sign up and it will tell you if you're already subscribed. Then leave a comment to this post. I will randomly select one commenter from this post to receive John's book, but that person must be a confirmed and activated subscriber to my email list (meaning you've clicked the link in the email you receive after entering your name and email address in the form).

You have 1 week - I will select the winner next Tuesday (9-22-2009), so be sure to enter by midnight on the 21st.

Until next time,
Fred

We want you as a customer! - Well Duh!

How hard is it to understand - you can't make your business grow by turning people off? Let me give you a couple of examples.

I'm going to a conference this weekend. Flying out on Thursday morning. I'm going to hear and meet John Maxwell and Clebe McClary.

So I bought a few new shirts and got my suit and some other things out of the closet and took them to the dry cleaners on Tuesday morning. We didn't get there until around 11:30am or so, so I didn't expect to get them back the same day. As I handed the person working the drive up door my clothes, she said you can pick them up on Thursday afternoon. I SAID THURSDAY?? Today is TUESDAY! I explained that I would not be in town and needed to pick them up on Wednesday. She proceeded to explain that it was too late today (it was only 11:30am!) and that they no longer cleaned anything on Wednesdays, that they had to cut back. So I asked for my bag of clothes back.

Now keep in mind that I've had a bad experience once before with this same dry cleaner, so this was the last straw. Before, I had bought a brand-new shirt and dropped it off on the way home from the store to be cleaned (I don't like to wear anything new without washing or cleaning it). When I picked it up, my new shirt had grease marks on it. They claimed it was my fault and I had to get mad before they finally bought me a new shirt.

Ok... back to the present problem.

So we drove down the street to a non-chain cleaner who has been in business for 60+ years. I drove up to the pickup door and the owner came out and saw my bag with the other store's name on it and started smiling. Just to find out, I ask if I could get them back today... he said yes, but he'd prefer to have me pick them up on Wednesday. I said fine. I explained what had happened and he told me he gets a lot of their customers and they don't usually go back. He thanked me for trying their service and said that they do a much better job than the other place and that I will be pleased with their work.

Today I picked up my cleaning and the same person waited on me. He remembered my situation. He also said that there was a hem on my suit pants that the thread had started to come loose and they fixed at no cost. I paid and he thanked me and said he hoped I liked their work and to come back, and get this: "WE WANT YOU AS A CUSTOMER!"

Imaging that, treating the customer like a real person and telling them that they want my business. Guess what? I'll be back!

They also did a great job on my clothes.

I also went to get my hair cut. There was an article in the paper within the last few days that featured the owner of the salon where I go. She talked about how bad her business has dropped off, how she's had to renegotiate the lease, and this and that. How they no longer offer free drinks to their clients, etc. Does that say we want you as a customer? NO! Not at all. If I owned that salon, I would have had the stylists who work for me call some of their clients and get the chairs full when the reporter came out. Tell them I'd give them a gift certificate or half-off or something, but get the place filled up. Instead of talking about how bad things are, I would have told the reporter that everyone is hurting in this economy so when you're in our salon, we're going to treat you like you're worth a million bucks. That we'll treat you to a free soft drink or glass of wine. We'll give you a coupon for your next visit or to give to a friend. If you've never had one of our massages or facials, then we'll do one for free to existing customers and half-off to new customers.

The point is everyone, and I mean everyone wants to be wanted. Even if it's being wanted by someone you're paying money to for a product or service. No, the customer is not always, automatically right, but a good customer should be treated like gold... because they are!

It's just not all that hard to figure some of this stuff out... how do people, and in some cases smart people, keep screwing it all up?

Until next time,
Fred

Scarcity: Fanning the Flames of Desire

I just read an interesting post from Ryan Healy titled Waiting for a Reason to Buy where he talks about a product he already wanted, was sold on so to speak, but could wait to buy. He had no urgency to "buy it now". Eventually he purchased the product when the person selling the product lowered the price and threw in some bonus offers.

I wonder if Ryan would have bought the product without the bonuses and at the original price if the vendor had created an air of urgency with scarcity instead...

Scarcity - used correctly it's almost like a magic elixir!

How to breathe life into old toys.
My wife packed up two or three bags of our son Walker's toys and put the bags by the door for us to take to Goodwill. It wasn't long before Walker asked why his toys were in those bags. The news did not sit too well with him to say the least! Some he didn't mind loosing (I don't think) but others he wanted to keep. Now keep in mind that we had not seen him play with ANY of these toys in a very long time...

... here's the good part: he played with some of those toys for two days straight and after that has still played with them from time to time.

Scarcity - it's wonderful stuff!

Remember the old saying: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" - kind of the same concept.

Why?
I'll explain why, but only to the first 100 people who continue to read...

When the availability of something we want, or even think we may want at some point in the future, is limited or taken away, our brain reacts and wants it even more. I'm sure this is a deep-seated, primal, caveman survival trait that smart marketers and copywriters are exploiting today with "limited number" and "deadline" tactics.

According to Robert Cialdini in his great book "Influence, Science and Practice" (which I highly recommend to everyone)

1. We assign more value to opportunities when they are less available.
2. People generally think something is better or of more value if it is difficult to obtain.
3. As we loose the ability to get something (sometimes regardless of actually wanting it or not), we perceive to have freedoms taken away. We don't like to have our freedom taken away. Most people will fight to get it back or keep it.

Disney is a master at this... you've seen those commercials "From the Disney Vaults... only a limited number of copies of this DVD will be produced." They have enough great films in their "Vault" that they can rotate "opening the vault" for a particular product and then after a few years do it again.

If you've ever paid way too much for something at an auction and walked away scratching your head wondering what made you keep bidding every time someone outbid you... now you know. Scarcity - each time you were outbid your subconscious kicked in and said get it back!

Creating Desire with Scarcity
If you can build scarcity into your marketing efforts in a way that is legitimate and not perceived as manipulative, you'll definitely benefit!

A lot of online marketers use scarcity when they introduce a product by offering it for a reduced price for a limited time, like 24 or 48 hours. This usually works great. I like to offer my email list an even better price for a day or two before I post about a product. This rewards people for subscribing to your email list and keeps them on the list. You can sign up to my list using the form at the end of this post.

Until next time,
Fred

P.S. As to my question about Ryan, I'd bet that he would have bought the product if he knew it was to be discontinued or somehow limited in availability. Ryan what do you think?

Programmed to be Poor

Money, Money, Money... everybody says they want more of it, but do they really? Deep down, below your conscience, do you really think money is bad? Are you ashamed to have it?

I'm sure you're thinking I'm nuts at this point! But stick with me.

Joe Vitale talks a lot about beliefs that limit and how to remove them. But most people just blow that off as New Age crap. As I've posted here before, it's not new; you can find passages in the Bible that attest to the same thing: Thermodynamics, Proverbs, and the Law of Attraction!

Cash in Hand
Have you ever held a large amount of cash in your hand? For example, let's say you just sold your car or boat and the buyer paid you with cash. So you have, oh, $15,000 cash in your hand. How do you feel? I'll bet you feel a little in danger. You probably like the feel of the heft of the cash, but are nervous that someone will see it. Nervous that they'll either steal it from you, or, think you are rich and you don't like that feeling.

I'll say it again: they'll think that you are rich and you don't like that feeling.

That is the subconscious feeling you have about money.

Feelings, Nothing More than Feelings...Like I was explaining to my daughter you have to listen to your feelings. When you meet someone you should pay attention to what you feel in the first few nanoseconds. The feelings or reaction you have about someone when you meet them, in those first few nanoseconds, is your subconscious talking to you. Your subconscious is much more connected to the world around you than your conscious brain. You have to train yourself to listen to it.

Likewise with money. Go buy a pack of gum at the local convenience store and give the clerk a large bill, like $100. Some stores will not even accept large bills anymore. But find one that does. Make sure the store is crowded. Notice how you feel when the clerk counts out your change. That's how you feel about money.

I'll say it again: you're scared they'll think that you are rich and you don't like that feeling. I'm not saying you should be a showoff and braggart. I'm saying you should not be ashamed of what you have.

Maybe you want money, but at the same time you don't want certain people to know you have money. I'm pretty sure the second feeling trumps the first one.

Why Do We Feel the Way We Do - Government Conspiracy?
I think cash brings out these feelings much better than checks, debit cards, or credit cards, because cash is real. But fewer and fewer transactions are conducted with cash. Some of that is for safety because if you carry cash you can get robbed, beaten, or killed, if the wrong people find out about it. But the larger picture is that we've been programmed by the government and credit card companies to think cash is bad. The government wants as many transactions conducted by check and credit card as possible so that they can keep track of every little thing we do. They can't track cash. If I pay my neighbor $5000 cash for his grandfather's vintage shotgun, the government never knows. But if I write a check they do.

Again, you may think I'm nuts but I really believe that the government and credit card companies have worked for decades to instill a subtle fear of having large amounts of cash on hand as well as for paying for anything substantial with cash.

Thinking cash is bad is the same as thinking money is bad: your subconscious can't tell the difference.

Religion
There are deep held religious beliefs about money. Terry Dean covers this nicely in his book "Financial Freedom A Step-By-Step Practical Guide for Walking in God's Blessings". Search for it on Amazon. He tackles all the common myths and misunderstandings people have about money that are based on scripture. I learned a great deal from his book and I find myself recommending it all the time. I've given away several copies too.

Change
How do we change these limiting beliefs that are robbing us of our potential? The first step is to understand that limiting beliefs actually exist and learning to tune in and recognize them. I'm no master at this by any means. A lot of problems will disappear once you shine some light on them. Other problems take a lot of work to solve. Start paying close attention to your feelings - they're incredibly important and often overlooked. Read Terry's book and some of Joe's books - they actually do mesh together nicely. Take it one step at a time - that's what I'm doing!

Until next time,
Fred