Archive | June, 2023

Are you stressed by online marketing? The majority of you are, even when earning what could be seen as ‘decent’ money for relatively little work by comparison. But you are still frustrated. Why is this? Why do you want more and why can’t you get it?

There are two very basic and overlooked reasons for this:

1. You are overwhelming yourself with too many tasks and not breaking it down into manageable chunks – therefore giving up altogether on the main goals.

2. You are comparing yourself to the guru ‘ideal’. That is, you are asking – “Why am I not making millions NOW? Like Frank or Bill or Super Marketing man?! They said it was easy and to just follow!’

Let me explain the traps of both these reasons.

Firstly – don’t take too much on. You’ll say to me now – ‘But then I’ll not do it fast enough’. Trust me, if you don’t take it in pieces you can manage, steps that are realistic, you’ll not do it fast enough anyway – because you’ll throw in the towel, get frustrated, say it’s all a big scam and GIVE UP before you know it. If this wasn’t true, there’d be billionaires made online all day, every day.

No one really wants to give up. It’s just they’re not chunking. Nothing can become too hard or too much to do if you just break it down.

For example:

Are you stressed by the idea of running your online business as it stands? Is it a drag? Are you afraid to scale up?

Well, the best way to deal with a stressful situation like this is to break it down into hours. Not days or weeks or your year plan.

Don’t focus on tomorrow or what happened last night, be here in this HOUR.

What do you have to do in just this next hour? Are there any problems in this moment right now?

Stay present. Don’t worry and don’t get caught up in all the things along the line you have to still do to make it work best.

Everything -once you segment- is doable. Easy. It’s the self-created mental overwhelm that harms you. And harms your potential success. Everyone has the exact same resources… You must break it down into chunks.

List the things you can do in this one day, this one evening or morning that will move you a step closer to your goals. That’s it. Even if it’s not much, it’s far more productive than a fruitless frustration that may last the week, achieving nothing.

The second reason, as suggested is – your need to compare your progress with that of the millionaire. The guru.

You must understand that you are making progress. Always. If you’re reading this now, you are making progress. But you will not notice how much you are doing and self-sabotage by accident because you’re too busy asking:

“Why am I not where he is? Why does she earn more money when I’m doing the same thing?”

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a vision to be like your guru or idol – this is helpful and gives you a future aim. But wouldn’t it be smarter to compare your progress with those around you, your peers… ones that started at the same time as you. Not guys that are full-scale experts on this bandwagon for decades or the ones who have gotten lucky in their timing, approach or product. This is not you. Stop comparing yourself with the stars. It will harm you because you will be blinded to your own progress because you will be constantly frustrated by your level of results compared to the guru’s results.

If you need some healthy competition to keep you going and keep you on target, your best bet is to compare yourself with friends and peers on YOUR LEVEL.

Yes, the guru should always be in your mind but it must be maintained as the vision, the ultimate aim – and not as the crutch that’s holding you back by frustrated comparison with your current progress. This will get you nowhere.

My advice? If you want to beat anyone at the IM game… Beat yourself from yesterday.

Be your own personal best, every day, and one day you will be the “guru” that others aspire toward.

The only way you can fail is to give up. If you don’t give up, you can never fail, and it is only a matter of time before your perseverance pays off. Trust me, it’s true.

For example:

Have you heard of Theodor Seuss Geisel? Or perhaps you’ve heard of Dr. Seuss?

Theodor studied at Dartmouth College and Oxford University because he planned to become a series writer. But the Great Depression saw him working as a cartoonist and advertising illustrator just to get by.

Deciding to launch his writing career with a children’s book, Theodor wrote, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Unfortunately the manuscript was rejected 27 times. 27! Imagine going to 27 different publishers and having every single one of them say, “NO!” No doubt you’d want to throw the manuscript out, which is exactly what Theodore planned to do.

As chance would have it, he ran into an old college friend who happened to be working for a children’s publisher. Yes, the book was published, and Dr. Seuss went on to write over 40 books that have sold over 200 million copies. He won Emmy and Peabody Awards and even a Pulitzer Prize.

So what would have happened if Theodore had thrown out his manuscript after his 27th rejection? He wouldn’t have had it to give to his friend. And likely he would have given up and stayed in cartooning and advertising.

Never give up.

One more story…

You’ve probably never heard of Paul Rokich. He was born in Utah, near a sulfur dioxide belching refinery that destroyed everything around it. The place looked awful, so Paul vowed he would bring back the trees that had been destroyed by the sulfur.

But the refinery refused to give him permission to replant the trees. So Paul went off to college to study Botany, where his professor told him nothing would ever grow in such a wasteland.

But Paul didn’t give up. Years later he began sneaking back onto the refinery grounds and planting seedlings week after week. Most of his seedlings died, but he kept planting. Drought killed many, some were destroyed by fire, others were dug up by workers, and most just wouldn’t grow in the poor soil. But then, some of them started to grow. And animals began returning to the area.

Eventually Paul got permission to be on the land. He got machines and a crew to help him, and today the area is 14,000 acres of trees, bushes, plants and wildlife.

Even when things seem impossible and beyond your control, and even when your efforts prove futile time and time again, just keep planting.

Because sooner or later, persistence always pays off.

You’ve got a terrific offer that’s converting at 10% with earnings per click of $1.50. Anyone who mails for you is bound to make money. So why is it when you email potential JV partners, you don’t hear back from them?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the JV partner. They probably get 2-5 emails a day just like yours. They already have a lot going on. They already have a lot of income coming in. They’re not desperate to mail, but they know if they do they will make money. So they need to get around to it, and they will, but it’s probably not going to be with your product unless you make it super easy for them.

Yes, you’re going to have email swipes in place and everything ready to go, but that’s not exactly what we’re talking about.

When someone gets your JV request, she has to review your product to see if it’s any good. That alone is generally going to take an hour or more. If she likes it, she’ll want to form her own opinion of it so she can tell her list. More time. Then she’s got the whole autoresponder thing to deal with. It’s an investment of time for her, for sure. Frankly, she’d rather be doing something else.

So to help push her in the direction of choosing to do this work for your product, here’s what you can do:

Don’t ask for the promotion because that’s what everyone else does. Instead, let her know you’ve got a ‘ready to go promotion’ for her mailing schedule next week if she hasn’t already filled it.

Provide a swipe email or two with her affiliate link already inserted into it. Provide a review copy. Provide all the details, like: Earnings per click, conversion rate, commission, who has promoted it, etc.

By saying it’s a ready to go promo and giving all the details up front, you are standing apart from every other product owner who is saying, “My product is great and I’m great and you should promote me.”

You’re focusing on what the JV partner needs and wants, and what’s in it for HER, not for you. Yes, it doesn’t seem like a big difference. But like anything else, it’s not just what you have but how you present what you have that can make all the difference.

Are you getting something expensive done for your business? For example, are you having some special software made just for you? That might set you back a couple of thousand dollars, but not if you’re smart.

When you tell your coder what you want, ask him to create a stand alone version that you can sell to others. It might be a blank version with no graphics or banners that you can then sell at a premium rate to other marketers, who can then brand the software and sell it under their own name.

This might cost a little more money up front, but the money you earn on selling the software will likely pay for the whole deal, and maybe even put you in profit.

What if you’re having your lawyer draw up legal forms for your website? Same thing. Ask your lawyer to make generic versions you can then sell to other marketers who can’t afford a lawyer. Make it clear that they need to do their own due diligence, and that you are not offering legal advice.

Anytime you are paying for anything pricey, ask yourself how you can turn the expense into a profit stream. It’s a simple shift in your mindset that can greatly reduce your overhead and even put some extra money in your pocket.

I know a marketer who subscribes to a PLR membership. He gets good stuff, usually video courses that are quite extensive. When he finds a course he likes, he renames it and gets new graphics for it so it looks like it’s his.

So far so normal, right?

But this is where it gets good. Instead of just selling it like you would any other course, he offers it as a personal mentoring course that lasts for 30 or 45 days. And he sells it for $297 to $497, depending on the contents of the course and the duration he chooses for the course length.

Then he simply makes himself available via email and twice a week via Skype to answer any questions. Of course he makes sure he knows the topic well, but anyone who’s been marketing for any length of time will know the basics well enough to do this.

He also limits the number of people who can join to somewhere between 10 and 25, depending again on the course. This creates urgency, and it’s not uncommon for him to completely fill a class. But even if he only sold a couple of mentoring courses, he would still be plenty in profit since his monthly membership is only $49.

The real work is done by the students as they progress through the course. He just answers questions. It’s a great deal for both him and the students, since they are learning by doing and they have someone to go to with questions. And he doesn’t put in much work to make the profit he gets.

If you’ve got a decent amount of Internet Marketing experience yourself, you may consider this for an additional income stream.