Mon - June 25, 2007Goal Setting Activities that Lead to Success - IMS #125How Succeed Living One Achievement at
a Time
You can achieve greatness, accumulate wealth, and
be happy, all at the same time. I'm going to give you a secret goal setting
activity. Once that has been used by successful people, for the last 100
years.
When you first set out on a project, it can seem like a daunting task. Do not worry about your circumstance, or become overwhelmed by uncertainty, fear or doubt. What I'm about to share with you will help you through it, regardless of how big, or long, the task may be. Read the full article: Two Simple Goal Setting Activities that Lead to Success Posted at 08:47 PM Thu - May 24, 2007Let Your Own Morals Guide You - IMS #124Recently a "brand name" marketer
wanted me to promote his report. He even offered me 50 cents for every person
that downloaded it.
Rather than jump on the chance, I decided to read the report and watch the videos before recommending it. Good thing too, because I don't agree with the author. The report and video encouraged me to covet and
steal my competitor's advertising. It suggests that I copy and paste their best
performing ads, and compete directly with the original... then try to improve
upon them.
The author doesn't seem to be aware that ads - at least in my country - are copyright. In addition, many of them contain trademarks, servicemarks, slogans, brand names and other forms of ownership in the words and phrases. Most companies record all their online activities. If an identical ad suddenly appears there could be legal action. It's also a potential liability risk for all parties involved. What the author is telling me to do - in my opinion - is ethically and morally wrong. And it breaks at least two of God's 10 Commandments. It's sad really, because otherwise, it's a decent product. If they had gone about promoting it a different way, I might have got behind it. But not this way. I'm taking the high road and steering far away from this nonsense. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to push my morals on you. Believe me, I'm making a lot of enemies in the marketing circles just by reporting this. I simply want to make sure you - the consumer - are aware of the potential dangers involved, that's all. When it comes to any product or service, you must decide for yourself, how you will use it. Make your own choice. Let your own conscience and morals be your guide. And in the end, you'll know you made the right choice, if you feel at peace with your decision. Posted at 03:29 PM Sun - April 29, 2007Sowing the Seeds of Ultimate Satisfaction - IMS #123What are you working on this week? Did
you get into it for the rewards... Or to reward the universe? If you do
something just for the benefit it brings you, it's called a job. If you do
something because you love to do it, it's called a passion.
What types of sites are you setting up? Are they
for MFA (made for AdSense) sites? Are they offering any true value to the
reader, or are they just there to earn revenue from
clicks.
What was your intent? Your motivation? The visitor can sense it as well. Same deal with affiliate revenue sites. Did you put any effort into product comparisons and helping the visitor make a purchasing decision, or did you just copy and paste a few articles? Your greatest rewards will come from contribution. Giving to others and helping them. Yes, you are still the most important person in the world, but being confident in that fact, lets you give freely, without expecting anything in return. That is a very powerful beam of self confidence and positive attitude, to carry in yourself, and present to the universe. When you have a feeling of contribution, you are sowing the seeds of recognition. People will reward you, not just once, but many times over the lifetime of the relationship. As I wrote in 1999, in the opening words of Nothing but 'Net, "Do what you love to do." For if you truly love what you do, you'll never burn out, you'll never lose your passion. You work will be a joy, something you look forward to day after day. And if you truly enjoy what you do, the journey is enjoyable as the goal. It will never seem like work and you'll always be happy. Now let me ask you again... are you capped out, tapped out or burned out? Then stop working and start contributing. Start helping people in some thing, some way, some topic that you are passionate about, and never get tired of talking about. For if it's sustainable.... so is your enjoyment and your ability to continue to service that market, with ideas, products and solutions, for years to come. Learn all you can, share all you can, and you will lead the field. You will be recognized as the guru. Soon you'll be "the one" that people turn to for solutions. Your contributions will become even more powerful and carry greater authority than anyone else. And as you sow, so shall you reap. Your followers will continue to reward you... emotionally, spiritually and financially, for years to come. Posted at 02:25 PM Wed - April 18, 2007Do What You Love and Never Give Up - IMS #122Here is one of the most inspirational
texts that I've read this year. It's three very short stories by Apple CEO Steve
Jobs, that was delivered at Stanford University's commencement
address.
The first story is about connecting the dots. The
second story is about love and loss. The third story is about death. His advice
is to Stay Hungry and Stay Foolish.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice." "And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." Read the full Steve Jobs commencement address here. The motivation message will leave a lasting impression and you'll definitely want to bookmark it. ==> http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505 Posted at 01:40 PM Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt - IMS #122Here's another interesting gem, for
those of you who like to read history and know how things came to be. It's Fred
Vogelstein's Wired News interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
"The interview is a fascinating conversation about
how Schmidt along with founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin ran and, based on
recent conversations, continue to run the most interesting and profitable
company in a generation."
"In it Schmidt talks about what it was like to join Google back in 2001 when it wasn't yet making money, and how the company almost disintegrated amid bickering over how to partner with AOL in 2002" Google CEO Interview ==> http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/04/my_other_interv.html Posted at 01:39 PM Mon - March 19, 2007Being The Best - IMS #120Loving what you do isn't enough. You
also need to possess the skills to do what you love, or dedicate yourself to
getting them.
And if you truly love what you're doing, you'll be
passionate and enthusiastic about it. So much so, that others will catch
positive energy from you.
You'll also need to believe in yourself. To believe deep in your heart that you want to be the best at what you do. If you're doing your best, and you believe in yourself, success is your only option. Failure cannot stand in your way. Fear, uncertainty and doubt, never enter your mind. If you want to get good at sales and marketing, study the masters. Study what they do. Then practice it. That's how you become good. If you want to learn SEO, it's the same deal. Get a few published works from the leading experts, and try to emulate what they do. Do you want to learn PPC advertising? Then study what works. Learn why it works. Start practicing in some small way. Once you're successful in a small way, it's easy to scale it up. It's easy to apply what you've learned to a large project. There is no magic pill. There is no substitute for hard work. Hard work creates opportunity. It creates success. But if you love what you do, and you want to be the best, it doesn't seem like work at all. You'll go forward, acquiring the new skills you need as you go along. Never stop being a student. A humble student if possible. Never stop learning. Keep adding to your skill set and truly believe, that you are doing your best. By doing your best and believing in yourself, you ARE becoming the best. Opportunities will come to you, rather than you having to seek them out. People will recognize you. Your reputation will precede you. You'll become known as THE expert in your field. So let me ask you. What do you love to do? What is your passion? What are you going to dedicate yourself to? What are you going to be the best at? What are you going to be KNOWN for? Believe in yourself. Study and practice what you love to do. Go do your best. And before you know it, you will be the best, in all that you love to do. Posted at 07:25 PM Thu - February 22, 2007Very Smart People Talk at Google - IMS #119Ever wonder who Google hires to
inspire their troops, give talks and presentations? How about people like Seth
Godin and John Battelle.
You can view these presentations and others by very
smart people on the "Videos from the Googleplex" page. They aim to provide a
sample of great conversations and
presentations.
The Tech Talks are designed to disseminate a wide spectrum of views on all sorts of topics. But my favorite is Authors at Google. It's a speaker series where, "Thought-provoking, Zeitgeist-making, trend-setting authors come to the Googleplex to read from their works and share their thoughts with us." It's top notch stuff. Googleplex Videos ==> http://video.google.com/googleplex.html Posted at 10:57 AM Fri - February 16, 2007In Whom Do You Trust?When do you become spiritual? At the
end of your time when you're standing in front of the pearly gates? The door to
hell is wide open. The note tacked onto the pearly path says, "You didn't care
about us while you lived. Why should we care about you... now that you're
dead?
If there's one great trait amongst all great
people, it has been their faith. From King Solomon, to Benjamin Franklin,
Winston Churchill, Napoleon Hill, to modern icons like Tony Robbins and Zig
Ziglar. They all believe in a higher power. They all have
faith.
When you believe in God, it's easy to give up control. You ask everything according to his will. You no longer have to trust in your own strength, you can trust in his. If you trust in your own strength, you have every reason to be anxious, apprehensive and fearful. But with the power of God that is in you, not of you, there's nothing that you cannot do. Becoming spiritual takes time, study and practice. But when you invite the great divine powers to lead you, life becomes a lot easier. What does this have to do with marketing? Everything. Because everything you do, becomes infused with the energy behind it. It's the message you are delivering to your prospects. If it's a positive mental attitude, it's a blessing, it's contagious and it leads to success. Internet Marketing Secret: Find your God and find your path. For he will lead you along the path of least resistance, in your life, in your career, and with your family... and you'll know it, when you feel at peace. Ask for that peace and let him lead you there. Posted at 07:20 PM Wed - November 1, 2006Doing it Makes Procrastination and Worry Disappear"Hi Michael. After reading your
Clickin' it Rich Action Plan, I'm going to start with the "anonymous" system and
use Wordpress blogs as sites, since I don't want to fool with learning HTML just
yet. Does that make sense?"
"One thing did dismay me, though.
Nichebot recommends getting the Wordpress Tutorials from Sherman Hu, 120 videos!
That's a lot of material and
time!"
"Do you feel the tutorials are necessary to do the simple one page sites you recommend in the action plan, or even to proceed to link them into mininets? I thought I would just go ahead and do simple sites with Wordpress and upload to the host." "Also, do you feel any other software or tools are needed or are especially helpful at this stage?" ~ Lisa Answer: Hi Lisa. Yes blogs can be a very effective content management system. All you do is enter your text, drag in the graphics and click publish. The blog software will look after all the coding and HTML work so you don't have to. I also recommend Sherman Hu's videos whole heartedly. Yes there are over 120 videos and 15 hours of instruction. But you could focus on just the beginner's 101 series. It covers setting up the blog, getting hosting, pointing the DNS and using the control panel. Learn to Blog Videos ==> http://www.cdzn.com/wpt If you already know how to do everything listed above, then go ahead and start using Wordpress to set up your minisites. And yes, you can link the blog sites into a mininet. You can also use JUST blogs to form your mininet. The search engines don't care what software you used to create your sites. Once you finish reading Clickin' it Rich and Revenge of the Mininet, you'll have a better idea of where you want to go, and which tools will get you there. But the best advice is to take what you already have and just start plugging away at it. Funny how doing it makes the procrastination and worry disappear. It's just like the old marketing saying... Ready... Fire... Aim! Sometimes it takes a bit of doing, before we discover what it is that we like to do. Posted at 10:43 AM Sat - October 28, 2006Website Templates are Like Cake MixComment: ""Let me start by saying, I
have all your stuff and Revenge of the Mininet really opened up my eyes a couple
of years ago. I also want to tell you that those were great tips in issues 101
and 104 for modifying templates.
Just a comment on IMS #104 though, if you are going to take the time to modify templates so heavily, you are probably better off to build your own sites from scratch. This will ensure uniqueness. ~ Don"" Response: Hello Don. Thanks for the kind words.
Glad I could "open your eyes." Hopefully your awareness and perception showed a
sense of wonder when you first saw all the linking diagrams in
Revenge.
Yes, it's always better to create your own websites from scratch. But templates exist for the same reason as cake mix. Not everyone can bake a cake. Either they can't follow a recipe, don't have the time, or just want something that looks and tastes half decent for their effort. Earlier this year when Michael Cheney came out with his AdSense videos, they revolutionized how everyone placed the adverts on their sites. I emulated his layouts - without copying them - and my AdSense clicks went up 372% and my revenues went up 283% in less than a week. Get Michael Cheney's AdSense Videos ==> http://www.cdzn.com/av So sometimes, a template can be used as an idea generator. It can jump-start the design and production process. All you need to do is start typing into the HTML page and replace the elements with your own. As soon as you put your site up, Google looks at your Partner ID. It then checks your other sites. The trouble starts if you have several sites looking like they came from a cookie cutter. I chose to tell people how to modify their templates, because I know that not everyone is a designer, or good at the computer, making graphics and sizing photos for the web. If they can make their own site from scratch, great. But if not, and they need to start the design process from a template, then that's ok too. The important thing is to encourage everyone to take action. To stop worrying if what they do is good enough. Just get something up. Do the best you can with what you have. Then once you have your first website up, go on to the next. Make each one as unique as you are capable of, and know what? You'll do ok. Now if everyone would just download a copy of SeaMonkey and start poking at it, they'd find that HMTL isn't scary at all. You don't even have to look at the code, or know how to program. Just start typing on the page and dragging in graphics, just like a word processor. It's that simple. Then when you "Save" the page, it automatically generates the HTML for you. Sorry Don, I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. If people need to use templates, I say go ahead and use the training wheels. But when you're big enough to try riding the bike, download SeaMonkey and start poking and playing with it... it's just software for crying out loud... it doesn't have feelings. Then one day, before you know it... you'll be modifying templates with ease. Even creating your own sites from scratch. And all it took was a little playing around with software. Thanks for the poke in the mind Don. Posted at 09:53 PM Robin Nobles' Idea Motivator BlogMy friend Robin Nobles emailed me the
other day about her new blog. The good news is, it's Robin at her best, being
creative and just letting go.
There are some serious discussions like, "Why
should I buy from YOU rather than your competitors?" But most of the blog has to
do with using the right side of the mind to find solutions to everyday
problems.
Robin told me, ""My goal is to help people learn how to tap into the right side of their brain. They'll be able to generate new ideas for their websites, and create content that their visitors will love and come back for."" I have to agree Robin, that if you create genuine content, and it comes from the heart, you'll be original and people will want to read it. Not only that, they'll start linking to you, and before you know it, your link popularity goes up, and so does your search engine positioning. Having read much of Robin's published work (yep, the kind you buy in book stores) plus her SEO training, and the SEO Workshops, and can truly say that I've never seen her sparkle like this. It's almost as if she's found her calling. So if you'd like to have some fun and experience Robin Nobles at her best, click to her blog, and don't be surprised if you start getting some fresh perspetive served up daily, for your reading enjoyment. Robin Nobles' Idea Motivator ==> http://www.sew-wrc.com/idea-motivator/ Posted at 09:49 PM Thu - October 26, 2006Ugly Web Site? No Worries. Roses Grow From Piles of ....Question: ""I have bought just about
every product out there and I am more confused and stuck than when I started
out. I have a computer background and also do web design. My question is, I need
someone to help me cut through the fog and help me get started earning an income
on the internet. I hope you will say yes to mentoring me."" ~
Paulette
Answer: Hello Paulette. Sorry but I don't do the
coaching thing anymore. Best I can recommend is that you read Clickin' it Rich
and get busy. Use your computer and web design to put up a basic affiliate
revenue site... and I want it done by next
Thursday.
Just get your mouse in gear and stop procrastinating... I don't mind if your site is ugly and doesn't convert well, as those issues can be addressed later. Just get the site up. So long as it's something that you're interested in, you won't burn out on it. There's affiliate programs for everything. Just go to any search engine and type in your keyword followed by "affiliate program" in quotes. Usually there will be plenty to choose from. Once you have something to look at, we'll take it from there. But while you're here visiting the IMS Blog, look under the "Conversion Ratio" category. Read the "14 simple rules to boost your sites conversion ratio to as high as 8%," and keep them in mind while designing your site. But don't spend any more than seven days on any single site. Put up one site per week. Make the second site on a similar topic to your first, then link them together like I show you in Revenge of the Mininet. After you have four or five sites done, then and only then, go back with "editors eyes" and fine tune what you did when you where designing. That will cure the biggest problem of all... worrying if what you create is good enough. It's just software. It's just a web site. It's not a big deal. It's not going to bite you. Just get your sites up. It's that simple. Remember, the Clickin' it Rich student that made a million dollars in a single year? Had the ugliest web site that I ever saw. I even called it a train wreck! But even a rose can grow out of a pile of... so please get busy and plant your flowers. Nourish them, watch them grow, and enjoy your garden of prosperity. Posted at 07:34 PM Wed - October 25, 2006Clickin' it Rich Student Makes $1,000,000.00 in a Single YearComment: ""Hi Michael, I think I was
one of your first coaching students, back in 2001! I was the carpenter who had
the weight loss website. You said it looked like a train wreck. My friend was a
truck driver at the time.""
""Just wanted to send a kind thanks
for all the help you provided back then. If it wasn't for you, I don't think I
would have made it.
Just to give you an update. In Jan 2003 I quit my day job as a carpenter and started affiliate marketing full time. In 2005 I grossed about $1,000,000 in income. Pretty damn amazing. I'll never forget the first conversation you had with my friend, we have it on tape. You asked him what his website was, and he said um, "I don't have one." You said, "Uh, um, ok... what do you want me to help you with then." It was pretty funny. His first website from back then is still up, and still amazingly makes money. He just bought a 3,000 sq. ft. house in Florida and just recently moved there. All thanks to affiliate and adsense income. Both of us owe you a huge thanks. Sincerely, Paul."" Reply: Hi Paul, thank you so much for the kind words and wonderful testimonial. Evidence that Clickin' it Rich and Revenge of the Mininet not only work, but work very well. I'm so happy to hear about your success. And WOW... you made over a million dollars last year! That is staggering. I can only hope that all my readers can achieve even half that. So there you have it my friends... get busy and read the free courses. Don't let them just sit on your hard drives. Get into action and fail fast, fail forward, fail often, and learn from every single defeat. Get up and dust yourself off. Learn from your mistakes. Make a commitment. Be determined to make this change in your life. The past is not your future. Your tomorrow is programmed today. So take simple positive steps each day, and before you know it, you'll have traveled a hundred miles towards success. Posted at 04:47 PM Thu - September 21, 2006The Secret to ProductivityQuestion: How on earth do you do it?
How do you manage to write your newsletter and pump out sites the way you do?
You must work at least 60 hours a week! What's the secret to your
productivity?
Answer: If I have a secret, it's the power of
focus. I don't let myself get easily distracted by things like email. Usually I
do it last... at the end of the working day. I save my creative energy for
writing the newsletter and content for my
sites.
(One exception is customer service. If you have your own products, then you must look after your customers first. This includes answering their questions about your products, refund requests, download issues, and any other problems they may encounter.) Now that my products are off the market, if frees me up to get productive from the moment I wake up in the morning. Working from home with affiliate programs, there's no commute, or getting dressed in work clothes, no bag lunch or headgames with coworkers... but you already knew all that from reading Clickin' it Rich. ;-) Then around noon, I walk in the park for an hour, rain or shine. I get caught up on podcasts like Twit, CNet News and Buzz Out Loud. I get new ideas for products and how to position them for existing markets. Once I get home, I jot down all my new ideas and let them be. I'll put them on the back burner of my mind and let them stew... because it's time for the grunt work. The grunt work doesn't involve a lot of thinking. After the writing is done - which includes original work and modifying articles - it's time to assemble the sites. I source the artwork. Compress the photos. Create any graphics, banners and mastheads in Photoshop Elements... without even thinking about it. (Yes, it's easy for me, because it's part of my core competencies. I have over 20 years of advertising experience, so designing advertising collateral in Photoshop and doing page layout are as easy and mundane as driving a car.) I then assemble the site using whatever site builder strikes my fancy. Depending on the size and nature of the site, I might use XSite Pro, smArticle, SeaMonkey, or Dr. Andy's SEO Website Builder. XSite Pro ==> http://www.cdzn.com/xsp smArticle Composer ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ace SEO Website Builder ==> http://www.cdzn.com/wsb After the grunt work it's late afternoon. I finally start on the email. Friends and family. The JV requests. Checking out new product announcements. And all the questions. I strive to answer every question I get. The better ones become FAQ content for my blog and this newsletter. I look at it like a deposit in the bank of Karma. The more good I do, the more I'll get back in return. But all that said, even with discipline, the power of focus and intense concentration, there's something underlying all this. It's the real secret to productivity. Lean a little closer and I'll whisper it in your ear... It's your ability to communicate with the device used for production... which in this case is a computer. Believe it or not, The MOST productive thing anyone can do, is learn how to type FAST and learn the keyboard shortcuts for their favorite applications. Ok, I know that seems obvious, but if you've ever watched anyone hunt and peck, they're still working on the first paragraph while I've finished two 500 word articles. You must be able to type as fast as you can think. People who know how to type, don't think about how to spell words. Their minds work in patterns. Shear repetition lets the neurons fire in the brain and entire sentences spill out in sets of patterns at the fingertips. And before you whine that it's too hard, get software to assist you and do the lessons. Practice 30 minutes per day and at the end of two weeks, you'll suddenly find yourself typing without even thinking about where the keys are. The other big booster is learning the keyboard shortcuts for your favorite apps. Do you grab the mouse and spend minutes looking at the drop down menus or do you just instinctively hit "Control Shift F" to forward an email, or "Control B" to make text bold? Some people hold the mouse most of the day and travel a lot of real estate on the screen. Pros make a note of the keyboard shortcut, even posting a sticky note on the monitor and rarely have to leave the keyboard. So yes you must have focus, drive, determination and concentration, but nothing is going to help you be more productive than making the computer a motor skill. It's no different that learning how to ride a bike or play the guitar. Once you've mastered the basics and they're hard wired, you'll be amazed at how productive you can be. Posted at 02:24 PM Sun - September 17, 2006Gee... Cost Per Action... AgainQuestion: I feel like I'm spinning my
wheels and can't get any traction. I've read so many opinions from so many
marketers and I keep buying stuff that I don't use. But the truth is, that I'm
afraid that I'm going to make a
mistake.
Now I just heard that AdSense is dead and that's what I was planning to do. What should I do now, should I try cost per action? I'm worried about what the next thing will be. I'm feeling totally overwhelmed with too many emails. Can you help me? Answer: Gee... lets see now... SEO is dead... so
are article sites, so is RSS, so are article directories and press releases,
PPC, hub sites, Mininets... yep, all toast. Now AdSense has been declared dead
and "cost per action" is all the
rage.
Dude! Save yourself from getting on yet another list. Cost per action is nothing more than a fancy way of saying, "affiliate program." Every six months or so, some industry expert or newbie starts touting cost per action as the wave of the future. Guess what? If you've been following the advice in Clickin it Rich and Revenge of the Mininet, you ARE doing cost per action. As an affiliate, you don't get paid until the action or transaction has taken place. You can buy all the clicks you want. You can capture SEO traffic. You can persuade the visitor all you want... but you don't get a commission if they don't buy anything. That is a true cost per action. Another example of cost per action, is simply getting your visitors to fill out a form. It's called CPL or cost per lead. It's a model used by insurance companies, real estate agencies and others, where they pay you per action. And that action is getting leads for them. Yea... you can tell I'm a little miffed. Every week someone touts something else as dead and their "new" way as the only way. But you know what? It's the same old stuff going round and round. Just like fashion... if you didn't see it first time round, it all looks new. The "commercial" internet has been around since '94, when html debuted along with the Mosaic browser, at the Seybold publishing show in San Francisco. I was there, standing in that long line, to get my piece of the "future of publishing." Few people have been around since the beginning of the internet. Even fewer since the birth of BBS services and 300 baud modems. And just a tiny handful of us when Adobe, Aldus and Apple burst onto the desktop publishing scene, revolutionizing the print industry forever in 1986... But what's the point? Why am I telling you all this? I just want you to consider your information sources. Do you really need to be distracted by the next "big" thing, especially when it's just a rehashed old thing? Pick your mentors and gurus, and stick with them. If something is truly important, you'll hear it from them. Unsubscribe and get off all those lists. They're only causing you to lose time and focus on your work. Get away from all those who just bombard you with offers. Consider the relationship you have with the authors... do they answer their email? Can you contact them? Do they hide behind support tickets, web forms and layers of personal secretaries? Do they have any formal training in marketing and advertising? Do they have solid track records and good reputations? Do they provide you with strategies, tactics and news that affects your business? Or could it be that they are just opportunists posing as marketers, trying to build lists, so they can sell you everything and anything that comes along? Are you nothing more than a name on a list? Are you a cash cow? A piece of meat? It's not something to consider lightly. You're given a finite amount of time on this planet by your creator. You are trading your time to read what they write. You are giving them your limited heartbeats and precious breaths of life... And as you get older my friend, you'll come to respect time. You can't get any more of it at any price. So please choose whom you let into your life, by phone, by email, or in person with a great deal of care and attention. Choose your relationships wisely and wiser yet you'll become. Posted at 09:20 AM |
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