Testing, testing 1,2,3

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.