DMR COACHING CORNER

Tosca Reno: From Overweight To Fitness Guru On GMA Health (VIDEO)

2010-04-29T11:18:00.001-07:00

Here's a major issue that many "gurus don't mention. Body weight and fat distribution has a very definite genetic profile. If you are mesomorphic, your fat distribution will be different from someone who is endomorphic. Mesomorphs can burn fat and build muscle quickly. With proper diet and exercise, they can achieve the standard athletic build.

Endomorphs have much slower metabolism and their fat distribution gives them the round or pear shape. It is much harder to maintain the athletic look. This is why endomorphs blow up far more easily when they practice yo-yo dieting. The good news is that the endomorph body type can build muscle easily, so they can increase their metabolism but should not concern themselves with trying to look skinny. The point is to be healthy and fit.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Death Panels' Debate Returns To Congress: Congressman Building Support For Proposal

2010-04-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

A profitable industry has grown up around fake outrage and righteous indignation. The opponents of our progressive system of government are simply cashing in on our misfortunes.

The problem with most sensible solutions to our health care system is that common sense plays right into the hands of those who can easily distort truth for a buck. It not that these entertainers care about promoting the general welfare as our Constitution phrased it, it's not even that they are against the common sense solutions; it's that these solutions make an easy target for their fake outrage. They are selling us down the river in order to make a living. This is why they can protest the very thing that they believe in or benefit from.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's $3.8 Trillion Budget Includes Record Deficit

2010-02-01T11:21:00.001-08:00

I seem to remember ex Vice President Dick Cheney saying that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. Where were all the news hounds and Teabaggers when Cheney was in power? Was no one watching when we dropped from a surplus to a deficit?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Facebook | Message: Great job! The group is growing and people are posting.

2008-10-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

Facebook | Message: Great job! The group is growing and people are posting.

Your Affiliate Commissions Can Experience Overnight Success.

2008-09-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

If you are already an affiliate marketer, you have the ability to double, triple or even quadruple your income.

One of the easiest ways of starting an online business and earning more profits is the development of an affiliate business.

Here are some powerful ways to increase your affiliate program’s commissions and profits.

Get higher commissions from your merchants. If you are a successful marketer with a sizable list, you can approach your merchants and negotiate a percentage increase on the commissions. Of course, to make that happen, you must already be successful.

If you are working in a particular niche, you can bundle your affiliate products by offering a range of products in a free e-book about your niche. Create the e-book and include the links to your affiliate products in the book. This is now your viral product that everyone can have for free.

Once your business is growing and you have your list, offer a new product each month that takes care of the subscriber’s problems.

Be careful and deliberate in the selection of your selection of your affiliate programs. Create a return on investment spreadsheet on each program you accept in your portfolio. There are quite a few affiliate programs online so you can afford to be discerning in your choice. Select the best for your bottom line and your subscribers.

Pay close attention to your process. Tweak your system to make it more profitable. Set up a schedule to audit your system once a month. Remember that you’re running a legitimate business and for heaven sakes, keep accurate records.

Never under any circumstances send your prospects directly to your affiliate link. Always set up a squeeze page to get the names and email address of your prospects before sending them off to the affiliate link.

If you can, set up a sequence that offers a free book to bring the prospect, get their address and name. Use the auto-responder to communicate with the prospect and send them to a product page.

Give your email list a reason to stick around. Offer them a lot of free material to keep them engaged. Work hard to find out what they want and make sure that they get it. Stay up on the issues in your niche.

Publish an online newsletter or Ezine. It is always best to recommend a product to someone you know than to sell to a stranger. This is the purpose behind publishing your own newsletter. This also allows you to develop a relationship based on trust with your subscribers.

This strategy is a delicate balance between providing useful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.

If you use Pay Per Click advertising, monitor the placement, the price and the search results regularly. PPC search engine is the most effective means of advertising online but it can get expensive. You can lose money while making money if you don’t watch your numbers carefully. Then you should try and monitor them to see which ads are more effective and which ones to get rid of. You can lose big if you have several niche markets running at the same time.

Give these tips a try and put them through their paces. You’ll be glad you did.

How To Work Your Magic In Forums

2008-09-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

This might seem a bit trivial but I see this often since I use forums as part of my marketing mix. The question is how do you get people to pay attention to you once you get to the forum? There are six things that I would be concerned about when scoping out the forums. Here are the steps that I use to get traffic from forums.

1) Get your keywords formalized. It is important to have a collection of keywords that fit your niche. If you don’t use Pay Per Click advertising you still need to collect at least 50 quality keywords for your niche. The point of focusing on your keywords is to tie your website to the chosen keywords.

2) Your choice of responses must work to your advantage and to do that you must consciously optimize your responses and input to match your website keywords. If you sell soft sculpture toys, your niche keywords might be perhaps toys and perhaps teddy bears or other soft toys. Your input and responses should include some of your keywords in order to bolster your back links to your website.

3) If you create articles or have a blog of your own, you can reference them in your responses on the forums. Let’s say that you flagged a question on care and packaging or soft toys. You have a great answer to the post; so you compose an answer and reference your blog post from last year. You hyperlink the blog post line and ensure that you have a few keywords from your blog in the post. So you would write something like this: “I know how tough it is to store and ship soft toys I wrote a blog post on it at my blog – (blog name). This is solution to the problem is (fill in the blank).

4) There is a certain trick to using forums for marketing purposes. You should carefully craft your bio or your signature section to promote your squeeze page or blog. Once again you should make certain that your keywords are injected in your signature. If you are selling the soft toys at www.softhuggybears.com, you might have a signature that says “How to take good care of your soft huggy bears. Get my FREE report at www.softhuggybears.com.” make the case for your solution to their problem.

5) Keep the conversation on topic and move it along with your responses. Once you reply to the original post, send another post to add a twist to the conversation and perhaps pose a follow up question for the other members to respond to. That keeps the thread open and more people will read it. More people reading the thread means more people involved in the conversation and seeing your signature.

6) If the forum has an article section, contribute to that section as often as you can. Take a few of your blog posts and reconfigure them into articles. You’ll need to reach a lot of forums to make this pay off. Don’t stop at one or two forums and expect the get a flood of traffic. This is a business venture and must be treated as such.

This is a great way to get back links and build your reputation as well more traffic to your website. Be sure to get your facts straight when posting and stay honest. People will hold you accountable when you are solving their problems.

New blog for the folks who want to learn about traffic strategies..

2008-08-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

There is a new blog created for Internet traffic strategies. Go to http://massivetraffic.didarticles.com. It's new and chronicles the traffic generating tactics of a new product roll out. Check it out and keep tabs on the progress.

It seems that getting traffic is the toughest part of this business. It doesn't matter how great our products are, without getting the needed traffic, we can't make any money. I'm always looking for more information on better ways to reach my target audiences. I'm sure you are too. Let me know if you come up with anything new and interesting.

The New Challenge

2008-08-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

I will be creating a new project from scratch using the latest ebook Massive Traffic Pack Gold. This book shows any Internet marketer how to take a product from 0 to profitability in 30 to 60 days.

As a promotional challenge I've decided to create a separate blog to chronicle the daily activities while continuing to discuss the marketing and promotions on this one.
You will be able to read about the progress at http://dmrcoaching.didarticles.com.

Viral Marketing Can Explode Your Business

2008-08-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Put The Power Of Viral Marketing To Work For You

When the term viral marketing is used, people often think spam or malicious computer killing software sent through email. the term of course refers to the idea of speeding a message, joke, a video or other piece of information that excites us momentarily and is then passed on to others for their own show, amusement or amazement.

Viral marketing is any method that is used to encourage someone to pass on a marketing message to someone else. This creates the domino effect of one person passing it on to another and another and so on. The potential for exponential growth is enormous because if you really are impacted by a new game, video or some piece of useful software, you will with a little prompting pass it on to others as with pleasure.

So how does it work? Viral marketing appeals to several emotional factors in us; the most obvious of which is curiosity. Once we get the "gift" opened, if we like it and it the viral message leaves us in a heightened state. If it's funny, we laugh a little louder; if it's scary we feel it more acutely.

No one can accurately predict how well a viral marketing strategy will work but there are elements that must be included for a viral message to go to work. Not all of these elements need to be present; but a combination of them must play out for there to be successful.

Something must be given away; whether it is a product or service. For instance there are software creators who have chosen this method to propel their games to instant success. The first person shooter Doom was an example of effective viral marketing. The creators did the unheard of thing at the time; they allowed free downloads of their games and even allowed people to create their own levels and characters.

Before the Internet, one famous rock band was making a fortune from viral marketing and is still doing so today. The Grateful Dead allows recording of their music at their live concerts. People make living selling bootleg merchandise in the parking lots. The Grateful Dead is one of them most successful bands of all time in spite of; even because of the free attitude of their music and viral nature of marketing. They have consistently sold out concerts throughout their career.
Their intergenerational fans have done most of the selling for them over the years.

Digital products are perfect for viral transmission. Whether it is a video of someone's cat wearing a ballet outfit or the Jib Jab animations of our presidential candidates, we are captivated by the message and with a mouse click able to send the file or a link to it off to our friends and family. We have not even touched the product, it all happened without physical contact.

Sociologists say that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. The theory of Six Degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from

Viral marketing takes advantage of those principles. A teacher, for example, may send emails regularly to hundreds of parents in a year. A young college student will text message her lover in another town. Network marketers have always understood the potential of these powerful human networks, both the close networks as well as the broader networked relationships.

1. Everyone loves the word FREE. Give away products to get the buzz effect.
2. Make it easy to pass your message along. Distribution should be effortless.
3. The campaign must be able to handle explosive growth.
4. The emotional effect of the viral marketing campaign must be intentional.
5. Use the media - computer, animation, email, voice, cell phone, or video
6. Get others to get the word out for you. This is the essence of viral marketing.

The biggest issue with viral marketing is its unpredictability. No one has been able to guarantee that their viral campaign will work. If you follow these basic points you'll have a better chance of success.

Starting a new campaign tomorrow.

2008-08-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

I'll be starting a new e-book campaign tomorrow and writing about it in several formats. This blog will host the how to part. My new blog at http://massivetraffic.didarticles.com will host the observational portion. The new blog will deal with traffic and list building. I'm going to have a lot of fun in the next 30 days.

How to handle the home based business alone

2008-08-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Picture the image of you sitting in your office looking over your business; you are the chief, cook and bottle-washer. Everything that's critical to your business depends on you. For hundreds of thousands of business owners, this picture is very real. They are going it alone in business. The sad irony is that the more a sole proprietor tries to do to propel the vision of their company, the harder it is for them to go it alone.
The vast majority of sole proprietors take care of the accounting, billing, book keeping, marketing and production for their business. Sure, they sometimes have assistants working on the process but it's their baby. Entrepreneurs tend to try to do everything themselves not just to save money but because in many cases they feel that they are the only ones who know how to get it done. Of course, this is nonsense.
How do we grow when you're a one man band?
The problem we face in business is that of profitability and growth. It's very difficult to grow and get that much more profitable when entrepreneurs go it alone. There is a finite amount of time and effort on the part of one or two people to accomplish all that a viable organization really needs.
Here are some important but not so obvious issues solo business owners face:
What is the most profitable and satisfying use of your time?
How can you get it all done and build a solid personal life?
How do you go on to the next level of business success?
How do you get your business working for you?
The Self made person myth.
There is a certain romance to the self made man (or woman) that still gets portrayed in books and in the media. Why is it so important that we dispel the myth of the entrepreneur as Lone Ranger? The major reason small businesses fail is due to lack of business experience and business follow-through. The average small business owner needs to create a strong support system of people who will successfully handle the areas of business that are vital to its success but not crucial to the direct decision making process.
The reason I say that is because the business owner must be able to become a capitalist in the true sense of the word. They must manipulate capital to benefit their business and allow the business to generate profits without their direct day to day input. Once this level of business is achieved, the entrepreneur becomes a viable business owner. They can focus on the growth and success of the business and not on its day to day operation.
Building your bulletproof team to support your vision.
Each business owner must take the time to assess the strengths of the components of their team. One of the most powerful reasons to prepare a business plan is to identify the members of the support team. Each member of the team must be chosen dispassionately. Rather than picking someone who you like to fill a spot, choose each member as if you were selecting someone to raise your children after your death. I know it sounds morbid, but remember that each consultant must be trusted, and verified to do the job. They must be supremely qualified to give advice in their field of expertise and also be willing to tell you what you don't want to hear. Their value is in the collective experience they bring to the business.
Your team will consist of accountants and lawyers to be sure, but don't forget that you'll be assisted by many others as well; you'll need graphic artists, administrative assistants, housekeepers, printers and sometimes even the lawn guys. The team will be there to make the life on an entrepreneur that much more comfortable in order for their vision to become realized.

The Traffic Crunch

2008-08-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at the numbers a lot closer lately since working on the Gold version of my free ebook Push Button Profits - $120,000 a year in 30 days on autopilot. A lot of the people I work with have the the primary issue of having a website but not enough traffic. Traffic seems to be the number one issue for most people. I think the problem has a solution but not a simple one. The amount of work necessary to achieve the number of visitors and in turn the number of dollars needed to stay in business is going to take a lot of effort or a lot of money.

Most people in this day and age who get into Internet marketing tend to have more time than money. That means writing articles and finding outlets to post free promotional information.
I'm going to list 24 proven ways to build traffic to your website that will bring you traffic.
The issue is not what will they do for you but what will you do for the traffic. This is about 10 hours of work a week perhaps 20 if you're serious. I'll even list the tools needed to get it done.

There will be a lot more detail in the upcoming book Push Button Profits Gold. Ok, here are the 24 legal and proven methods of list building and traffic building for your Internet marketing business:

Purchase expired domain names that still gets high traffic
Use fancy pop-ups and pop-under boxes that help to persuade people to join your list
Cultivate joint ventures to promote your squeeze page
Interview experts in your niche and promote your interview as a webinar or tele-seminar ask them to promote the interview to their subscriber list.
Set up an affiliate program
Crate a blog and post your links in your articles
Comment on other people's blogs and leave your signature to your squeeze page
Create a training program for others and get them to promote you
Post on forums and leave your signature
Create viral videos, games or applications that get passed around by friends and co-workers
Create how-to videos and post them on file sharing sites as well as video sharing sites
Create a really compelling signature for your emails
Use Pay Per Click advertising to promote a free report or information about your niche
Write articles and submit them to article sites ad a link to your squeeze page
Do ad swaps with other list builders
Send out press releases monthly
Viral giveaways - free reports or e-books that can be re-branded by others
Integration marketing with other partners - you share may links on thank-you pages
Ad sharing sites like Traffic Swarm will promote your web page as you surf
Ezine ads
Create a podcast and promote it regularly.
Product promotion launches
Giveaway joint venture sites - offer a free program or ebook at a giveaway website
Direct mail to a target market who have previously purchased a similar niche product
You can post your free offer in the local newspaper or circular

These are the top 25 legal and proven ways to build a big list. If you know of other ways to do it, let me know and I'll add it to my up-coming book. Your goal should be to have a niche with keyword searches of at least 10,000 searches a month. That will be necessary to gain the type of traffic that will give you 2000 visitors a month. We can extract subscribers or customers from that kind of traffic easily. I'll give you some links to help you in the your goal when you subscribe to my free 30 day course. http://www.doublemyrevenues.com/profits

The Biggest Cause of Internet Marketing Failure is Giving Up

2008-08-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Information Superhighway is littered with the bodies of failed businesses. Forget about the dot-com bust of the 2000's. The dot-com bust continues because many Internet marketers have an unrealistic expectation of the result they should achieve due to the over hyping of the slick sales men and women who sell Internet marketing systems. Online marketing success is possible; here's how.

The biggest reason for the failure is the misconception that Internet marketing is easy. Sure it's easy if you have a buddy with a clean email list of opt in subscribers of say, 20,000. It's easy if you are a spammer in Belgrade with a 10,000,000 email list. The problem is that Internet marketing is not a get- rich-quick scheme. Like any other business, there needs to be supply and demand. I prefer to call it demand and supply.

There needs to be be a clearly identifiable market with a need for what you have and the ability to pay for it. Affiliate marketing can be brutal on someone who is new to pay per click and starts experimenting. It can drain you of your cash pretty quickly without give you an adequate return on your investment. So enough of the pep talk, let me tell you why you can successful at your Internet business. Follow these 8 rules to Internet marketing success.

1) Don't quit your day job until you can't afford to work it anymore.
You will need money. This is first rule of business; maintain adequate capitalization. You can't pretend that you'll hit that lucky strike any time now. The business doesn't work that way. It sounds great when you read the sales letters but those people have been laying the groundwork and made the connections prior to the “windfalls” that they get. I you had a list of 120,000 spread over several JV partners, you would have a few “windfalls” a year as well. You need to pay the bills while you pay your dues to the business.

2) Carve out your schedule.
Don't believe the hype that you can do this business for 2 hours a day and make a million in 10 weeks.
I'm sure that it happens to someone, but it's not terribly duplicative. Map out your schedule and post it on your wall in your office. Stick to your schedule as well as you can. Adjust it as you need to.

3) Respect your time on the job.
Treat your business time as if it were paying you a million dollars an hour. The temptation to get up and clean house or watch the news is a strong one when you're trying to get a lot done. Emails, games and even community sites can be a distraction. Set break times to help you re-focus and refresh your body and mind.

4) Take time every day to learn something new.
You need to get over yourself and get back to school. Proper IM training is not reading one ebook and considering yourself an super affiliate or an Internet marketing master. Only experience and time will put you in that arena. Even the big boys and girls in the industry spend thousands of dollars a year learning and it shows in their bottom line profits.

5) Lay out your schedule and take action consistently.
If you do decide that you have enough savings to stay at home to do this thing full time, map your schedule ahead of time. I have my schedule on my wall in the office. I don't always follow it but I need to be effective; it's an ADHD issue for me.

6) Create an atmosphere of success by networking with successful network marketers.
You need to be on a few conference calls and touch bases with the mentors and teachers to whom you pay good money. They are not gods or angels, as a matter of fact, they like input and feedback. You can email the good ones; they leave you contact information. They have blogs and belong to communities. This is a great way to develop joint venture partners. Develop friendships first and grow your business together.

7) Share your triumphs and pratfalls with others in your circle.
Don't try to do this alone. Get on the chat rooms or forums. Join a blog or IM community. Share links and ads with others at your level of development. Grow with a few associates who are ahead of you and support them financially. mentor a few below you and support them financially as well. If you are an affiliate marketer and you're looking for a few contacts to share ads and product ideas, there is huge community of like minded affiliate marketing communities on the web.

8) Don't give up - get better.
Internet marketing is a pretty small world, but is it is growing bigger by the day. You can get moving in this business and it can and will kick your can a few times. The ones that succeed are the ones that stay. Find your subject and build your niches, work them and build your business honestly. You'll succeed if you stay focused and consistent. If you don't give up, you can't lose.

Here's a recommended giveaway..

Today, I wanted to teach you about something that most internet marketing 'gurus' won't dare
talk about with you, as it's one of their shortcuts for online success.

Where you've probably been working hard trying to create your own online business, and get it up and running, other 'gurus' are doing it a lot quicker than you are...and in a minute you'll see how.

Under normal circumstances, this type of information is something that you would normally
have to pay for, but just for you, I made a deal with my new friend, T.M. Harris, so that you'll learn about it without you having to pay him for it.

Now, T.M. sells this package of ebooks on this 'secret' for $17 from his website. But thanks to a
little bit of 'sweet talking' he's waived the fee for you.

You'll see no "one ti.me offers" or any nonsense like that. I simply want you to be well-informed as to what these 'gurus' do to quickly build an online empire from scratch, with little or no work involved...and how you can easily duplicate it quickly.

So, unless you want to work harder than ever trying to build your own online business, then you need to at least check out T.M.'s series of ebooks absolutely free.

Here's where you can download it:

http://www.cheapplrprofits.com/takeit.html

I hope you enjoy it, and consider it my gift to you for being a valued subscriber of mine.

Using Affiliate Marketing To Kickstart Your Business

2008-08-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

If you want to get to know how online businesses work, start with affiliate marketing.
Most brick and mortar businesses require a lot of start-up capital, personnel and infrastructure costs. Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective ways to get going because you can produce income and learn how to run a business without the huge cost required to start and run your business. Let me show you the pros and cons of starting in affiliate marketing.
There are a lot of misconceptions about affiliate marketing. As an affiliate, you will be marketing other people’s products for a commission. The point of being an affiliate is to promote and sell another person's merchandise. You are responsible for the cost of marketing and promotion of the products. Depending on the product, the commission can be 30% to 50% on every sale that you make. You will be able to sell a wide variety of products and services without any boundaries or territories.
Affiliate marketing is a proven, tested method of increasing your website traffic. If you start your own Internet business, the best entry way is through affiliate marketing. It is an excellent guide for your own marketing strategy.
1.No product to create or stock in your garage – all affiliates simply link to the parent company sales page and website's shopping cart.
2.No shipping or handling to perform. All materials are either automatically downloaded by your customer or shipped by the parent company to the customer's address. The sales process is automatic. You get your commission within30 days.
3.The company provides website, domain name, sales page and shopping cart for your convenience. Like a franchise, all companies who use affiliates provide the promotional tools for their affiliates to ensure success. The promotional materials issued by affiliates include banners, ads, articles and links.
4.Initially, when you start an online business, you set up an online presence, a website, squeeze page, an auto-responder, a shopping cart or payment page. All these features (except the auto-responder) are provided for you by the company. Many people find this the best way to gain experience in online marketing because they only have to focus on the marketing portion of the business. If you're just starting or starting over, I recommend following this program to gain experience in online marketing.
5.As an affiliate, you do not have to worry about handling refunds. It is the product owner’s responsibility to handle any requests for refunds. You might need to look at any legal disclaimers in your affiliate contract to avoid any misunderstandings.
6.There are so many products and services for you to choose from. You can go to several websites that provide many affiliate options and tools. Go to the search engines to research the many sites that host hundreds of affiliate programs.
So what are the downsides? While it will sound trivial to mention that you will be working on your own and without a boss to monitor your work, it will be really tough for some people to work alone at home without the prompting of a supervisor or the regular schedule of a 9 to 5 job.
The temptations of home life can waste many hours and divert your attention from getting work done. Many people who aren't used to this type of life tend to fail because they overestimate their ability to be consistent and self-managed. As soon as their patience or their savings run out they give up and try something else.
Affiliates don't have much control over the process. They don't have a list after they've promoted the company's products unless they take the opportunity to create their own sales page and collect their leads prior to sending them to the affiliate page.
Affiliates must provide their own adverting and marketing outlets. Many people automatically start with PPC and Ezine ads to get as many people to their webpage as possible. Pay per click advertising can be very expensive and depending on the sales return, can put you at a loss. It is important to know your Return On Investment on your ad campaigns.
Affiliate marketing is therefore the best and easiest way to start making money online. Anyone can do it, and you can do it too! Get a copy of Push Button Profits today to get your affiliate marketing program off the ground and running smoothly. You'll also get a Free 30 day online coaching program to help you from day one.

Testing, testing 1,2,3

2008-07-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'm evaluating a
viral listbuilding
software tool from the folks at ListHero.com. It's
the fastest, simplest and easiest way to build your list that I've seen
in a long while.

Here's all you
do...

Create a short ad that promotes
your newsletter or ezine
Add some
code to the pages of your website

... sit back and watch your list
grow.

ListHero helps you generate 1,000's of highly targeted
subscribers for free and pays you generous affiliate commissions as
your list grows.

I'll let you know what I think of it once I've had a
chance to check it out. Meanwhile go grab access to this free href="http://tinyurl.com/tdpubs">viral listbuilding software
while it's still free.

How To Improve Your Business Outlook in 8 Simple Steps

2008-07-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've lost count as to how many times I've read and heard of new businesses failing almost daily. It seems strange that we often see the ads with the quietly confident figures looking rich and successful. The ads usually depict smiling great looking people living the fairytale life of riches and glamor. Sorry folks, successful business ventures demand 70% hard work, 20% smart work and 10% lucky break.

I suppose we all have to face reality at some time and face the fact that working your business means - working your business. The hidden issue about business success is the psychology behind business success. People who tie their self esteem to their position in life or the job they do can have their ego crushed when they first face the inevitable crisis of business management. Whether it is cash flow, employees, taxes, production or marketing; business owners are constantly facing down new and challenging situations. There is no magic business that doesn’t have issues to confront on a regular basis.

I've met with very intelligent men and women who have started businesses based on their expertise in their fields. They find out very quickly that their specific expertise is not enough to succeed in business. So what does it take to be a cut above the rest? Here are some of the things you can think and improve on that should be enough for a week. They are working under the assumption that running a successful business requires a lot of product or service knowledge. It also requires a flexible outlook.

The problems arise when they have to face unknown or unfamiliar challenges. The mental outlook of the entrepreneur is that of the tough as nails pioneer who overcomes all obstacles to get to the financial mountaintop.

Successful entrepreneurs also tend to develop a positive and open attitude when it comes to problem solving. They encounter lots of problems. Here are 8 essential factors to consider if you’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed in your business.

Identify the obstacles
Everyone who has been in business has dealt with challenges and obstacles. There are several solutions to every problem. Keep your composure and realize that obstacles bring out your creative problem solving skills. The more difficult the obstacle to overcome, the greater the satisfaction when the solution is found.

Identify your purpose
Are you wandering through life with little direction - hoping that you'll find happiness, health and prosperity? Identify your life purpose or mission statement and you will have your own unique compass that will lead you to your truth north every time.

Identify your values
What do you value most? Make a list of your top 10 values. Some examples are honesty, security, openness, freedom, family, spiritual development, learning, social conscience, service, resourceful. Check your goals against your values. If the goal doesn't align with any of your top 10 values - you may want to reconsider it or revise it.

Pay close attention to your inner self
Increase your awareness of your intuition. Spend time with your self. Commune with nature when you can. Breathe deeply to quiet your distracted mind. It’s difficult to find the peace and quiet we want it so take it when you can. I tend to take my quiet time during my morning walks. Working out or performing in a sport that brings you into the moment Find a practice that takes you away from the complexity of your business and allows you to experience a difference perspective.

Identify your needs
Identify your life purpose or mission statement and you will have your own unique compass that will lead you to your truth north every time. Your business should conform to your psychological needs. If you feel that your self esteem is low or you aren’t meeting your true potential, search for what you want.

Identify your passions
You may not have achieved your goals yet. You may not even know exactly what makes you tick. The act of searching for your passion will get you closer to it. You can examine the dreams and fantasies you had as a child; take time to dream. You’ll find that your business will benefit from your expansive vision.

Seek to serve others
If you examine your business and find that your profits are low, perhaps your focus is on making a living more than serving your market. There is a saying, that if you want to get rich and stay rich, give a whole lot of people what they need to solve their problems.

Celebrate your strengths
What are your positive traits? What special talents do you have? List three - if you get stuck, ask those closest to you to help identify these. Are you imaginative, witty, good with your hands? Find ways to express your authentic self through your strengths. You can increase your self-confidence when you can share what you know to others.

Self-improvement is indeed one type of work that is worth it. It shouldn't always be within the confines of an office building, or maybe in the four corners of your own room. The difference lies within ourselves and how much we want to change for the better.

8 Profitable Reasons To Develop A Big Opt In List

2008-07-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

Building a huge list is vital to an online business. A small percentage of viewers actually subscribes to an opt-in list. Internet surfers usually find promotional emails annoying until they find something that is compelling enough to get regular information on. You will have to provide a good reason for them to tune in regularly. If you are able to keep their interest, you'll see your list grow rapidly. Here are a few tips for your list growing efforts.

I often pick up a new tip now and then from the really great Internet marketers and give it a try. I'll tell honestly that most of the information on the web about list building is conjecture. If you want the best way to build a solid list overnight, you have to find someone with a massive list and get them to promote your product. That is by far the best way to quickly build a massive list quickly. If you can't get that done you'll have to take a look at some of my other articles on list building. I'm going to give you eight reasons why you should build a big list today.

What constitutes a big list?
So what would you consider a big list? For a majority of experienced Internet marketers, a list that is over 10,000 is a big list. For Internet spammers a big list is anything over a million. The difference between the opt-in list and the spam list is the difference between night and day. A person getting an email from you should be able to feel good opening it up. Once they read the material they should trust you enough to take action on the message you sent them. A big list in my book is any opt-in list that has over 20,000 valid names and email addresses of people with an interest in your subject or market.

What the Obama campaign learned about a big list.
The Barack Obama campaign managers learned from previous presidential campaigns how to use the cumulative power of the Internet. They utilized a wide variety of marketing techniques to bring their subscription list up to almost 2 million people. Imagine if you had that many people on your auto-responder? What would you do?

How to put 10,000 people to work for you in one hour.
So if you have a list of 10,000 to 20,000 and a buddy in the industry calls you up and offers you a hot product with a 30% conversion rate and a payout of $50.00 per product for your help, what would you do? Imagine if he said that they were about to launch and all they wanted for you to make the team is your audio endorsement and a picture. Would you do it if you trusted the person? That imaginary scenario happens quite often with people who have big lists. Do the math. If you get a 30% conversion on the first pass of an offer by email, you'll be quite happy.

The list can be your Social Security safety net
The majority of 401K plans are not pulling their weight these days. The average 401K or 403b retirement plan from 30 years ago will yield about $150,000. That will not help the boomer or you for that matter if you plan on living to a ripe old age. That doesn't even account for health care costs. If you start now to develop a big list plan, you can have an unending stream of income from your growing list of targeted prospects. Don't forget that both your buyers and your prospects will be looking forward to your next venture if they are profiting as well.

Here are 8 profitable uses for a big list:
1) Send out reviews of new books and ebooks monthly in your niche market. Set up a squeeze page OTO page to get your prospect to take a second look at your listed product.
2) Turn your prospects into affiliates with money making offers to promote your products. They will be more interested in purchasing if they can profit from getting the product.
3) You will be able to participate in those big joint ventures you see and hear about. When a heavyweight in the business calls you up and tells you that he's got a new course coming out for $1500 a pop and you can make 30% of that with your list of 20,000 subscribers, you know that your house will be paid off this year.
4) We never sell lists but we do recommend other products to our lists. Now you can almost double your list by contacting your big list buddies with your free premier package offer. Give away an awesome niche market package to your associates in a joint give-away. You all team up and win big with a 10 to 15% increase in your opt-in list.
5)If you haven't already done so, create a membership site or series of membership sites around your niche markets.
6) Your big list can be a great market research tool for your business. When you're ready to crate a new product, contact your list and ask them what they need and fulfill the demand with a new product.
7) How about becoming an Amazon Best Selling author by promoting your next book to your list and that of your other associates? You can get them to purchase your book at the same hour all over the world. That will immediately increase the Amazon ranking and increase your position in the retail list of other book buyers as well.
8) Create your multimedia meetings - become an expert interviewer. Interview other experts and hold regular seminars. You can promote your products and other products on a regular basis.

Once you have developed a big list, don't sit on it.
So you see, the uses for a big list is wide and varied. You won't have to stop with these suggestions. There are more ideas at my website if you wish to pursue more options. Treat your list like gold. Treat it like a gold bearing tree. Keep it healthy and strong; never take it for granted and when someone drops out of your list, take the time to send them a personal email to inquire why they left. Keep the tone positive and see if you get a constructive answer.

Use Psychological Tools to Create Dynamite Products That Your Customers Keep Begging For More.

2008-06-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

You can take a look at many of the websites that offer products and services and ask yourself which ones are actually making money and which ones are just getting by on hype?

How do successful companies choose the best products for their market? Can you actually find products to sell that have a virtually guaranteed market? Yes you can. You can come up with a product that sells well, is low cost and brings a profitable return on investment.

To do that you must consult Abraham Maslow. Maslow constructed a fascinating format for evaluating the needs of humans and graded those needs. The image of Maslows groups look like a pyramid. The ideal product satisfies one or more of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

If you are going to be in marketing and sales, you need to memorize this list. Here is Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

The base level houses the Physiological needs: Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion. These needs must be met for normal biological functions. You can see why they are so powerful as motivators.

The second level houses the Safety needs: Security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, of the family, of health, of property.

The third level houses the Love/Belonging needs: The need for friendship, family, sexual intimacy.

The fourth level houses the Esteem needs: Self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others.

The fifth and highest level houses the need for Self-actualization: Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.

So why is this important in choosing a product and marketing it? Because smart entrepreneurs never make a product without first finding a need, want or desire to fill. The greatest business people look for a problem in search of a solution. What Abraham Maslow gave marketers was a shorthand profile of needs, wants and desires and the framework for advertising products.

Maslow's pyramid shows you where to focus your marketing efforts as well. The first four levels are what he called the deficiency needs; people don't feel anything significant when these needs are met but feel anxious if these needs are not met. The deficiency needs are Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, and Esteem. The top level is call the Growth needs- once the basic needs are met, these needs become driving motivators of behavior; these needs include the desire for knowledge, and appreciation of beauty and aesthetics, and the desire to fulfill their highest potential.

When choosing a product, take into account where your target market falls in the hierarchy. Where do your ideal customers fall in the needs level? Take a look at the problems your target market faces and match them to the levels on the list. Once you're able to identify the needs of your target market, to the problems your products solve, you'll be able sell to the right people and generate massive income.

Four Important Mistakes Made By Email List Owners And How To Fix Them.

2008-06-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

There is a great push to develop lists now that it's better known as the golden egg. If you've taken a lot of time to compile a list and you now have 1, to 5,000 emails, you have an asset and a liability.

What could be the downside to a nice list? First, you are now running a list that can get noticed by the Law and your ISP. This is why it is so important to run your list through a double opt-in service outside of your Internet Service Provider.

Don’t forget to put an un-subscribe feature every time in your opt-in list so that you avoid any confusion. There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe. Never leave this line off your email – ever. Once you begin to generate a sizable list that can actually produce results, you must cultivate it and keep the group happy.

Most people never get to the stage where they need to spend a great deal of time caring for their list, so they never get to that point of running their business seriously. If and when you do, treat your list like a bank account. That means balance it daily or weekly.

1) Never rent your list out to anyone if your stated policy says you don't. The Federal government CANSPAM act is not worth messing with.

2) Watch for bounce backs. Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are messages that were not successfully received by the subscriber.

There are a lot of reasons for undeliverable messages, it can be bad timing. The person's mailbox might be full, there might be an issue with their ISP. What you want to do is check to see if they same emails are consistently bouncing with each message.

Mark those emails that bounce. Erase the email account from your list so that you have accurate email statistics.

3) Your emails should always have an un-subscribe feature. Your website should have one as well. When someone in your list files a request to be un-subscribed, do it immediately. You will be sending them spam if you continue to send them email.

If someone reports you as a spammer, you and your business can be blacklisted. The Feds can become involved in your business and you don't want go there.

4) Never send overtly sexual or hate speech materials in your newsletter. If you are working in a sexually explicit market, send the subscriber to a link or place the age disclaimer on the email. You can't control who will open the email on the other end.

Be aware that there are more steps to organizing and maintaining your list but you must start with the basis. If you are going to handle a mid-sized or big list, you should start with a reputable auto-responder as soon as possible.

I recommend that you seriously look into the following auto-responders if you’re serious about list building and maintenance. If you need any assistance, just shoot me an email. Checkout www.aweber.com www.getresponse.com www.icontact.com.

For more information, go to www.doublemyrevenues.com for a free training book that can help you to build “Push Button Profits” $120,000 a year on auto-pilot. Hurry before the

To Keep Your Email List Fresh, You Must Find Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back

2008-06-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever been on a website that offers you great information on a topic that you’re very interested in, you’ll tend to bookmark it and go back for more information from time to time. If you sign up for updates and newsletters, you’ll tend to go back to the website regularly to see what else they have to offer.

Many thriving websites rely on returning visitors to account for a large portion of their traffic. Those visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. Those who are prompted by email alerts and regular newsletters have a higher response rate to sales messages. The credibility of the website stays high. Therefore, if you want to succeed, you will have to keep your visitors coming back for more. Here are a few tips to keep them coming back:

1) Offer your viewers puzzles, games and quizzes
The web term for keeping visitors on your site is called stickiness. If your visitors enjoy their online experience and have a reason to stick around, you’ll gain a fan. Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

2) Start a web log (blog)
Set up an online journal or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with regular information. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Initiate regular polls to find out what your viewers want
Surveys and polls are great forms of contact that should be added to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to get involved and offer their opinions. A great way to keep your visitors interested in participating is to post the results by email to your email list. People will be prompted to take the next poll if you introduce the next poll with the previous results.

4) Internet forums are web applications used for holding discussions and posting content. Forums allow your regular visitors to interact with each other. The forum should be moderated and prompted regularly with posts. Those who post regularly and offer assistance to others might even help in moderating the forum.

5) Ad fresh content to your site regularly
Be consistent in your updates. Many sites lose their viewers when they repeatedly go back and find no new content. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors. Make it a point to refresh your content and make an effort to notify your email list when changes are made.

6) Add a tell a friend script to your website
Now your regular viewers will enjoy your website but you want more traffic. You need to generate more traffic with the help of your loyal visitors. You can apply a script to your website that will allow your viewers to recommend your site to four friends at once.

I recommend Michael Bloch's script for starters. You can get it here.
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles3/tell-a-friend-script.htm.

If you need assistance, feel free to contact me. You can sign up for my free ebook; “Push Button Profits” at my website www.DiDPublishing.com.

The new free book

My New Podcast

2008-05-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

Being the do it yourself type, I wanted to create my podcast from scratch. I worked on this thing for about a month and got the first segment up on Itunes. The following episodes would not show up. I switched to another great podcasting program and got on farther. I've had a devil of a time getting my podcast to work properly in Itunes.
So, I finally broke down and used mypodcast.com. The process was easy as pie. They even have a free audio program that you can download for easy submission.
I create my audio with audacity and clean it up for broadcast Adobe Soundbooth. Once the audio is done, I just upload the file to mypodcast.com. Check it out. Go to http://dmr.mypodcast.com/index.html and let me know what you think.

The Catastrophe Most Businesses Face When They Omit This Phase Of Operation

2008-05-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

Every year I get to work with a few individuals who want to get started in Internet marketing. They them tell me about the ideas they want to pursue, how much they want to make and how quickly they will make it.

A few of the clients I work with have already started their business and come to me when they feel that things aren’t working. The first thing I do is ask them to show me their business plan. I really can’t work with a business if they don’t have a written plan. The reason is simple; if they can’t show me a written outline of their goals, chances are they don’t have a clue where they are in the process.

Many times, the solution to their problem is simply to get back to basics. That means starting with the preparation phase. The prep phase allows you to explore the market and identify the specific business model that gives you the greatest profit at a competitive rate.

During the Prep Phase, you get to study your market, craft the ideal business model for your company using the many profiles available to your profile. The best way to start the prep phase is to go to Google, Yahoo and Alexa among others. The reason you want to explore those sites, is because you can see the variety of websites and approaches that they take to market and sell their products.

You should make use of Google trends to examine the trend lines of your market. What you are looking for when you use these tools is the specific use of your product, how many people are using the product and in what way are they using it.
Set up a bookmarks folder that holds your research sites. You’ll be visiting them often. Here are a few of my favorite among my many research links:
• Google – use this site for checking the number of searches for a given keyword, the number of paid ads connected to a keyword and even more.
• Wikipedia – I use this site to get a handle on the history of a market or product. There are also interesting tidbits of knowledge associated to a product or service or the people attracted to them.
• Mapquest – I use this map website along with Google earth to look for geographic trends as well as similarities among target groups.
• Answers – This site covers a wide range of topics and like wikipedia, gives fairly good information on everything from apples to zebras.
• CIA The World Factbook – The government resource for worldwide information. It is updated regularly. Learn why Moldova might be a key country to look to as a future place of business.
• Keyword discovery – This site offers a comprehensive view of keywords and though it’s a pay site, is invaluable for the professional Internet marketer.
• Spyfu – Peek under the hood of your competition website to see what keywords they use to stay at the top of the search engines. Take a look at their pay per click word choices and much more. Another pay site with a free trial option.
• Google Trends – This is a must for every business owner. Whether you make your money on or off the web Google trends allows you to take a look at what’s trendy what’s popular and where the trends are most popular.
• Alexa – See where your website and other sites rank in popularity on the Internet. Use their “Wayback Machine” to see how websites have changed over time.
• NNDB – I use this site for getting information on people in the news and in history. There are lots of useful information on people and their role in society.
• Technorati – I use this site to check the popularity of blogs and the various industries they cover. Use it to check the popularity of your product.
• Clickbank and several other affiliate websites. Look at what is selling and what is not. Check out the squeezes pages of the sellers.

There are more on my list but this is a start. They will help you to see the big picture of your overall market. Take your time to ensure that you’ve got a clear snapshot of the various permutations of the market for your product. This is vital.

This is where the majority of new Internet business startups end. They spend years fooling themselves that they need just one more idea.

You need to study the market and decide which direction you wish to take. For instance suppose you are interested in selling an information product in health market? You should take the time to see if people are looking online for your intended product. Be absolutely sure that people are buying a similar product form someone else in large enough quantities to justify a business model.

Check to see if the product is on the way in or on the way out. Trends are very important; keep your eyes open. There will be a lot of temptation to skip over some steps or innovate as you go. You need to keep the numbers in front of your vision as you develop your plan. If you need more help contact me and I’ll get you more information on preparation.

Why You Absolutely Must Have An Information Product Regardless Of Your Business Model.

2008-05-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Let's say you run a Chiropractic office and you've been in the profession for a number of years, you've built up a certain amount of expertise. There are things you know about the practice of chiropractic medicine and running a practice effectively that can fill a book. Regardless of your profession you can create an information product. You don’t have to be a writer.

Why is this important? Because other people are interested in what you know. Patients and prospective patients find value in learning about the subject from an insider's perspective. The material can be instructional and informative. Your image as an expert in your field goes up one thousand percent after publication. Last but not least, you can actually sell your knowledge and make money doing it.

Business owners in the service industries have a more difficult time with prospects because they tend to sell an intangible. How effective would it be if someone who services chimneys produces a how-to booklet on the dangers of chimney asphyxiation? What about a carpet cleaner who produces a booklet on the top ten things to look out for in maintaining a healthy home environment?

When you can take your knowledge and produce a beneficial information product, you will elevate your status to a level of trust and esteem that borders on public relations. When you do have a new information product you can create a press release to announce your new product. Contact your local newspapers and get the word out. If you have a client list, you can contact them to let them know you have a free offer for them if they will refer your business to others.

My clients always ask “How can I produce an information product if I don't know how to write?” My answer to you and others is if you know to talk, you know how to write. You don't have to do the work of the final creation; you just have to produce the content. The material can be edited by a professional editor and crafted into a marketable product. Once you have the original material give it to someone who knows what they're doing. Don't be proud; be rich.

You can sell the book or information product on your premises or online at your website. There are infinite ways to promote your products but my recommendation is to limit your promotions to no more than five ways.

Choose a format for your information.
Once you've gotten the ideas down and edited, you can start by marketing the product as an e-book. Based on the response of the e-book, you can take the information product to any number of other upgraded product lines. You can create:
 Hard cover or paper back print on demand books
 Audio books
 Instructional Video series
 Internet and Local Seminars
 Workshops
 Newsletter subscriptions
 Membership sites

So what does it take to make an information product? Think of your information product as an interview or seminar. You can identify a problem or situation in your area of expertise and come up with an organized series of steps or answers to the problem. Once you layout the foundation of your speech, you now have chapters to your information product. The first step is usually the hardest. Once you get started you can get help from professional writers and editors. The benefits of an information product are too important to ignore. If you need help in developing a product, drop me an email and I’ll be glad to assist you in any way that I can.

Winning Steps To Building An Effective, Profitable Website

2008-05-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Have you determined the main purpose of the website? The end result of your website defines your plan for creating one in the first place. Once you come up with a plan, you'll need to evaluate it based on your final objective. Are you looking to sell something? Are you going to promote something or is it a vanity website?

Will you hire someone to design and build it or will you have to learn how to build it yourself?
If you're creating a profit centered website, you'll need to pay close attention of the market which you would be pursuing.

When creating your website, segment the site into appropriate divisions. Start with your written plan then break the plan down into logical segments. Make a link page tree that will determine your navigation system. Next, begin to create your sketch of the navigation system. Decide what the viewer will see first and what you want them to do at each step.

We are planning the website around the content. The main reason you're building is website is for the people who will visit it and so we are taking control of the message and its delivery from the start.

Your content will determine the navigation style. Your market will determine your content. Your marketing will determine your market. Your purpose will determine your marketing.

Now that we determine the focus of your website, we'll go for the look and feel. The biggest piece of advice I'll give you here is to design your website to the expectations of your audience.

Three must have sections that you need to include in your website if you are going commercial are Contact Us
FAQ
Landing pages
The Contact Us page is no longer just a link to your email address. Take advantage of the readers who go to your contact page. They can even sign up for your newsletter or fill out a survey.
Your FAQ page. Use this page to gather more information from those seeking information from your website.
Landing pages are created solely for the purpose of test marketing your web presence. It is used to either sell a product to a specific target market, generate contact information for the company, generating targeted traffic that can be tracked through a web interface. Learn as much as you can about the practice of using landing pages if you're building a commercial website. These pages are essential if you're using Pay Per Click advertising.
Your website will need to be upgraded from time to time. Remember to include that service in your plan. If you had a complex flash website built by someone, be sure to ask for the native files on a CD for future upgrades and or adjustments. You never know where your web designer will be in the future.
Keep your website Search Engine friendly and create a comprehensive plan to promote it regularly. Doing these thing won't guarantee your success, they will help to get you on the right track.

The brand new podcast is now available.

2008-04-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

After three months of trying to get my act together, i finally got the podcast for Double My Revenues up and running. The major problem was just finding the time to put the pieces together, schedule the interviews and still work on the Core Training program.

I started this project back in September when I wanted to move away from building websites for clients and do more coaching. There were a few hurdles to overcome when changing the business model in mid-stream. You have to tell the people who rely on you for work that there was good news and bad news. The good news was that I was going to ease up on my nit-picking and finicky habits when it came to their work; the bad news was that they were not going to get as much volume out of me as the once did.

The podcast is now available on I-Tunes and also available on the DoubleMyRevenues.com website. The first interview is with a noted business coach by the name of Robert Hartung; the author of "Beating The Time Bandits". Check it out when you have some time on your hands.

I love business, I had my first venture when I was 14. I printed and sold T-shirts. Sales and sales strategy made me happy. Now that I'm 51, I don't travel as much and my priorities have shifted. I still love the game but from a different perspective. The podcast and the membership site for small business success will take a lot of my time.
I'm sure that it's better to hang out at home and see my boys come home from school, knowing that I can take care of them, than it is to come home at bedtime to say good night,then leave at breakfast time again.
Here's a link to the podcast if you want to enjoy a few short missives from a reformed work-a-holic http://www.didpublishing.com/podcast/DMR-Podcast0.xml

Are you generating leads from your web presence yet?

2008-04-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Are you generating leads from your web presence yet?

I've found that some business owners with the best of intentions place a website or online listing on the Internet and then only remember that it's there when the time comes to pay the bill.

This isn't a slam on business owners; I'm pointing to a situation you might or might not be in right now.
The Internet is still an evolving medium. Some read it like a magazine, others watch it like Television. Still others listen to it like radio. It's kind of hard to keep up with the trends when you've got a business to run.

Ever flirted with the idea of direct mail? Maybe you gave it a try but found it too expensive and didn't get the return that you expected?

You've worked hard to get where you are and probably have developed a great base of clients to keep you busy. That's great, let me ask you a simple question, when was the last time you doubled your annual revenues? For most businesses in your field that was around year two or year three.

It seems pretty crazy to think about doubling your revenues when you seem to be working more hours than you want to already, doesn't it? For most business owners, the thought of that kind of increase usually means adding another round of sleepless nights to make it happen.

What if we could use the power of targeted direct mail with the speed and efficiency of the Internet to help you double your business income? What if we could set it up to work in the background so that you only think about it when the time comes to make the deposits?

The secret to the strategy is in the list you develop. Who would you rather work with, someone who is convinced that you can help them overcome their problems, or someone that you have to convince after spending time and money, that you can help them?

The goal then is to find the people who are easy to work with and who really want to get help and can afford to be helped by you. That means offering something to the general target audience that will separate the ones who are already interested enough in your offer to take action. Those are usually the 30% of the market who are qualified to do something about their problem now.

Your next step is to collect the information of these prospective clients and begin to help them through the process of working with your product or service. Take them through the steps of becoming your valued clients.

You can create a simple turn-key system for lead generation by creating special pages on your website that prospective clients can sign on, to receive their free offer. The free offer then leads to a steady stream of the information to the prospects that contains sales offers with a regular call to action.

You can then develop your list to find out what they really want, get referrals from your list as well as test new products and services through your list.

The very best way to keep the list fresh and keep the list growing is to send out a weekly email newsletter. Perhaps a few tips on the subject of interest to your prospects. You can include an offer at the bottom as the sponsor of your email tips of the week.

Here's a trick that can double your list in 30 days. Send out an email to your list letting them know of a special offer for those who will refer three friends to a special sign-up form. Include a special form for those persons to send an email with the standard information about your subscription to their three friends email addresses. Once the special form is filled out and submitted, your subscriber will be sent to a special page to receive their online gift.

If only 25% of your list responds to your offer, you've significantly increased your list overnight. You may want to try this at selected intervals throughout the year.

Imagine that you've taken the time to invest in a list and after awhile, you've accumulated a following of say, 8,000 or 9,000 emails. Let's say that you wanted to test market a new product or service; how easy would it be to send out a survey to your list and get a response?

That's the power of a great list.

A Plan To Create An Online Empire

2008-04-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

A Plan To Create An Online Empire
We had to create a program to promote a client over a three month period to get the buzz around their product and create a solid email list. The client created a health care product and wanted to offer other products to her list in the future. The main idea was to put a simple but effective online marketing plan together for list building success. Once the list grew to critical mass, she would roll out more expensive products and even a membership website.
Here's how you can do the same:
1.Before you create your product, go to Google or Yahoo and check the popularity of your idea. Go to several online book sources, including Amazon, Borders and eBay to research the availability of your product. Once you've decided that the product you've chosen has a market that satisfies your needs, create or purchase the rights to your product.

2.Now, you'll need to gather enough of your market to make the project worthwhile. That means gathering a list. There are many ways to compile your list of prospects but you'll need to calculate the number of prospects you need to create the income you want. You'll be determining your conversion rate and tweaking your offer to reach optimal response.

3.You'll begin to craft your offer based on the needs of the prospects and the problems your product will solve. Make your offer based on the price and value of the product. If you have a low price product, you could attract your market with a one-close sales letter. If your product is expensive, you might need to set up a series of closes to bring your prospects around. That means capturing your prospect's interest with a series of email tutorials on tackling their issues. Set up a series of closes to gain their trust and acceptance.

4.Your website should have a special form to capture the name and email address of the prospects who come to your website. Once they sign up to receive more free information, you can continue to educate them on the benefits of your product. You can even continue to communicate with them regarding other associated products as long as you offer useful information on a regular basis.

5.Use weekly email alerts, electronic press releases, joint venture email lists, e-zines, your personal blog and articles to develop organic search engine traffic. If you want to get from zero to sixty fast, use pay per click advertising to boost your traffic. Be sure to offer free information in your pay per click ad. This has been the fastest way to attract attention and generate your list..

6.Get connected to other buyers and sellers in your product range. Offer incentives for them to carry your product or recommend your product to the people on their lists. Make it a point to test your ads regularly and track your progress.

Now if you've made some money through this system but haven't made your first million yet, don't worry. What you need to do is evaluate how much money you are making each month and the method you've used to successfully acquire your profits. If you duplicate that system with a new product launch every few months, you'll have yourself an online empire in a few short years.

The Danger of Getting Caught in the Message Clutter

2008-04-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

The Danger of Getting Caught in the Message Clutter
I found out years ago when my first child was born that we had to ramp up our income. I was working for several clients and making enough money for a guy and his new bride to live a comfortable lifestyle. Then came the first child. We had to scramble to increase our income dramatically. I now had to market my services at a level that I've never had to before. I needed more clients!
The reality of advertising and marketing hit me very hard. I now had to face the same issues my clients face on a day to day basis. The biggest issue to marketing my business was getting through to more prospects. My message kept getting caught up in the mess of advertising, marketing, and daily life.
So here's my answer to overcoming the issues of getting my message to my prospects. First, let me give you a little background information.
April 2004: A Yankelovich Partners poll for the American Association of Advertising concluded that consumers believed they are constantly bombarded with advertising.
61% said that advertising was out of control.
60% said that they had a negative opinion of advertising.
54% said that they avoided buying products that overwhelm them with ads.
How do you overcome the Message Clutter?
Carefully select your buyers.
Educate your prospective clients.
Entertain them.
Focus on referrals
Make them an offer they can't refuse.
If you could build the ideal profile of your best client, what would they be like?
List 10 traits of your ideal client, then determine how many of them you can realistically service each month. How much is my ideal client really worth to me and how many of them can I work with?
Do the math to calculate your conversion rate.
If you actively presented your business to 100 prospective clients, how many could you convert to paying clients for your product or service in a month?
Is there an opportunity to generate repeat business from these clients?
What is the buying cycle for your average client?
Let's take your answers to the next step.

For example:
Our Dentist has an average per patient rate of $3200.00 a year. He wants to double his ideal patient roster and introduce several new products this year.
Our Dentist currently sees 100 patients a month. The number of patients that currently fit his ideal profile is about 40 a month. He determines that an additional 40 ideal clients a month would make his goal a reality. Now he must find them.

Educate your clients.
Now that we have a idea of who we need to reach, let's get to reaching them.
Let's be clear about this fact. People might hate being sold to but they all want more information on what to buy. They want to be educated.
People are interested in knowing more about the things that interest them. If they can get the right information at the right time, they will be in a great position to take action in their interest.
Entertain them.
When you want to stand out, you can make an impression with your audience by inserting humor into your presentations. Humor leaves a lasting impression.
Focus on Referrals
Another way to circumvent the message clutter is to petition your current clients for referrals. There are ways to do this without begging. One way is to combine education and referral strategies – Invite your clients to a seminar and offer an incentive to bring a few friends.
Make them a offer they can't refuse.
This is not just a tactic of gangster movies. If you search thoroughly through your feature, advantages and benefits of your offer, you can find one unique area that will undeniably appeal to your market. If you show them how they cannot lose by using you or your product then they will move to act in their own self interest.
Create offers that not only give top notch value, but also appropriate information. Give them an iron clad guarantee. There must be something in your offer that shows how confident you are in what you have or do.
Get your message to the right target audience. Then make sure that they get it over and over again.
The most important practice in marketing is getting the message to the people who welcome it as an opportunity, not an interruption. Use this frequency to develop a relationship. Education seems to build that relationship while offering something to the prospect that they find useful.
Education cuts through the message clutter because those who are looking for your solutions will better understand the nature of their problem and look more closely at your solution.

Working on the list for gaming continued...

2007-11-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Ok. Now we both feel a little bit intimidated. My research into blogs that cover game cheats, came in at 35,000 plus search results. I looked at some of the blogs and was impressed with the level of detail that the good ones had and laughed at the pitiful attempts at commercial hack jobs by the bad ones.

My oldest son is not that old and is working on his typing skills. This is definitely going to be an interesting project. I chose a blog format instead of a website because it's easier to set up and he'll be making his money through Adwords. It's the easiest way to make money on the web. The problem is consistency and the need to impart useful information to the site are the two areas that kill most blogging projects.

To make the blog useful and attract Google's attention, you really need to place useful information on the blog everyday. There are plenty of blogs with a few pages of ramblings that never see the light of day. What makes a financially viable website using Adsense is a blog with a lot of content.. I mean a lot of content.

So, we'll be investigating a strategy for driving traffic to the blog. First, I'll be doing some keyword research to see what Google Adwords can do to drive traffic to a free offer on a webpage. This will determine if we have a viable market, willing to signup for something.

Getting your email list the right way.

2007-11-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

There is an art to ethical email marketing that most people who try to get their business started aren't even aware of. My oldest son wanted to make some money (he's 12) so I asked him what he thinks would be a way to make some money on Internet?

Like most of my clients, he shrugged and said, "I don't know." That, by the way is the correct answer. He then proceeded to come up with some ideas for products he could sell door to door to make money. I stopped him right there. I told him that the amount of time it would take and the money involved in getting started would be ridiculous for a kid without working capital.

So I sat him down and treated him like any other client that came to me. I said, "What would you love to do two hours a day if you could and make all the money you can spend?" The answer came out before I was able to finish the last word.

"VIDEO GAMES!" he blurted out.

So we came up with an idea. He's going to create a resource for video gamers who needed cheat codes, he'd also create game reviews and sell books on gaming.

I told him that there is a step by step process to the launch of any new business idea and we would work together to make it happen. He agreed to work with me on this.

Step number one is the market. Is there a market for the product? We decided to find out. The search term video game cheats turned up over 38,000 searches in a month. I told him that this was pretty good. The next six related search terms made the prospects even better, they still came up above the Dennis Francis de-markation line of 6,000 searches. I use several programs for this kind of research but my favorite is Traffic Travis from www.traffictravis.com.

So being the chip off the old block, my son asked me how we were going to build the website and how we were going to get people to buy stuff? I referred to the first rule which was "We were going to take this one step at a time". We now needed to do some testing.

That required seeing how many people would willingly give up their names to a list for something free on the Internet that fits their interests. It was time to do some research. We needed to see how long it would take to collect 100 names and email addresses of people who were interested in videogame cheat codes.

I believe that the best way to test a product or service idea is to first see what kind of response the targeted consumer will give you if you made them an offer. In this case, what kind of offer could we give to the marketplace that would be of benefit? That was his assignment.

So to obtain a really good email list, first check to see if there is a sufficient market for your idea. Then see if there is something you can offer to that market online that will cause at least 100 interested people to contact you for a free offer.

Next, we'll see how we can reach the right target audience with our offer.

SPAM and Internet marketing in the 21st Century.

2007-11-17T15:23:00.000-08:00

I started a new project a few days ago with a local chiropractor who wanted to know more about Internet Marketing. After he peppered me with a dozen questions, I stopped him and asked my usual opening question. " What exactly do you want to accomplish?

He wasn't quite sure what I meant. This is not all that unique in my profession. I see this look (the deer in the headlights image) when I try to get business owners to decide on a goal before deciding on a strategy.

"I want to get solid leads of local business owners so that I can develop a relationship with for future business." I said to him. Being much smarter than I am, he got the hint. "

I want to generate a master list of qualified leads with whom I can build solid relationships over the next year." my client said. I was impressed.

He was now able to shape his questions based on his goals. It turns out that email marketing was something he was interested in but felt that spamming was going to get him in trouble. He hated spam but didn't see how email marketing worked around the issue.

"You need to treat email like cold calling on the phone." I said. The people who are great at cold calling do two very important things first. They only call people who fit the defined demographic of their target market. Then they do not call to make a sale. They call to see if there is an opportunity to share information now, or later.
They use the first phone call to qualify the prospect. If there is a good match, the prospect is rewarded with a free offer, or information. If there is no match, the prospect is evaluated for future contact or dropped if he/she is disqualifies.

Email should be treated the same way.

So what constitutes Spam? This is the current information on SPAM the unsolicited email practice, not the canned meat-like product. O.K., let me get this off my chest. SPAM stands for Shoulder Pork and hAM, SPAM.

Now back to my client's serious considerations. Spamming (the Internet variety) goes all the way back to the days of the USENET newsgroups; around 1978 or so. The practice bases its effectiveness on the principle of averages.

If you can get one person out of a thousand to do what you want him or her to do, then you can get 100 to do the same out of 100,000 people. This idea and the ease of distribution of the web led to the proliferation of unwanted and repetitive email.

Pretty soon we were so fed up with the Viagra messages and home loan pitches that the US congress got involved. They wanted all of us to comply with the new USA federal law that went into effect on January 1, 2002 - 2007 referred to as the "Can Spam" law. By the way the law has not stopped the spammers from doing what they do best. It has however stopped a lot of folks who could ethically market online, to reconsider their options.

If you follow a few simple guidelines it's pretty easy to comply with the new law. Bulk email isn't illegal. As a matter of fact, most anti-spam organizations have complained that it actually legalizes unsolicited bulk email and hasn't stopped the spam problem at all.

The "Can Spam" law provides a new set of guidelines to prevent practices such as using fraudulent or deceptive subject lines, forged return email addresses or hijacked mail server relays.

By law, an email marketer has to to provide a valid unsubscribe option for “remove requests” (requests to have an email address removed from a mailing list).

For those like my client who are ethical and sensitive to the issue, there is a right way and a wrong way to conduct a bulk email campaign. If you have a computer, an Internet connection and a willingness to learn, you can achieve the same results for your business or organization that the big Fortune 500 online companies are getting from bulk email marketing. You just have to do it according to the rules.

One of the most important factors in email etiquette is courtesy. You really should not try to sell strangers products or services with unsolicited email; it's rude. Use the first round of emails to introduce yourself and find out if the strangers you approached are friendly and open enough to let you know if they have a problem that you can fix.

Do this by offering them a reason to "opt-in". Opt-in is the phrase marketers use for what they call "permission marketing". Opt-In E-Mail Lists

Opt-in e-mail lists include only those people who have specifically asked to receive information. You can create your own opt-in list by adding a section to your Web site asking interested visitors to leave their e-mail address. This is done with an "ethical bribe". You let the visitor know that you're willing to give them something for the effort of filling out a few lines on your website.

You can drive traffic to your website using Google Adwords (Online ad promotion service by Google)and then offer those who click to your site an opportunity to get your newsletter or special deal for giving you their name and email info.

There's nothing to be ashamed of. You can ask for what you want, it's up to them to get in or get out. Always be courteous online. This process can be done by direct mail as well. You can mail out an offer to people who then go online to sign up for the free gift or report.

People who opt in are sent a confirmation e-mail that they have to reply to. This ensures that the people who are on your list really asked to be there, and weren't put there by someone else." This option is vital in order to stay compliant with the law. A service such as aweber (www.aweber.com) or constant contact (www.constantcontact.com) can be a great service for this kind of marketing because they stay one step ahead of the legal changes regarding email.

Another option is to use a bulk opt-in email service such as Return Path (www.returnpath.net), will send your ad to a list of people who have opted-in to your category of advertisement. They fit your target market.

My chiropractor client wants to make friends over the Internet with local business people. He can send an introductory email letting them know that there is problem with workplace injuries and repetitive stress injuries that's been affecting local business profits.

He is willing to include the business owner on his e-newsletter if he has experienced problems in the workplace. He'll also include a free evaluation as part of the free subscription to the e-newsletter.

A short solicitation with a free giveaway and "no selling" goes a long way to making a stranger into a friend. The idea is to offer targeted lists something that they all could see as a benefit. Reference the major hopes and challenges that are specific to that target market. Give something free to them for the act of filling out a form.

Here are a few rules to follow to make sure you are in compliance with the law:

Always honor remove requests from your recipients.

Never use forged or fraudulent return email addresses.

Never use fraudulent or deceptive subject lines.

Do not redirect email through hijacked mail server relays.

Include a postal mail address in your emails.

Identify emails of an adult nature with the appropriate subject line.

That's pretty much it. So now you just need to get a list.
Here's the link to the CAN-SPAM details. http://www.marketing-2000.net/canspam.htm

I'll cover the issue of creating lists and more in another article.

The Most Frustrating Experience in Business Today.

2007-11-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

I've been working with businesses for most of my life. After working on the phone, in person and on the web, I've come to the conclusion that the Internet is the most frustrating experience in business today.

I love it- I hate it - no, I think I love again. Most of my contemporaries are afraid of the darn thing. I get calls from clients who tell me that they can't access their email properly how in the world can they expect to make money off this thing!

The best way to navigate and work on the Web is to treat it the way you do paper. If you treat it like paper you will gain control of the beast.

I found that out when I got started in Internet marketing a while back. I used to toss all the spam in the virtual garbage can and ignore the popups and banners. Now I've been in sales and marketing all my life and I watch commercials for the construction not the content or the message. I patiently sort through all my junk mail to see how the marketing department constructed the offer and the payoff.

When I first realized that the Web was paper, it was like my wife telling me the obvious and waiting patiently for me to think it was my own idea. No matter, I got control of the medium.

I finally began to learn how to use the darn thing for making a living. I no longer became intimidated by the young guys making bank off a 30 page sales letter. I no longer fell for the folks who took the tools of offline marketing gurus from the 50's and 60's then pretended that it was the newest whizbang theory of making online millions.

Selling is about finding the right people who realize their needs can be fulfilled by what you can do for them, after they trust you to do what you promised. Once I realized that the same principles operate online as they do offline, I got it.

If you're like my "50 something" friends and clients who are still struggling with the "new medium", take heart. If I can come to terms with the medium by finding my personal analogy, I think you will too.