Archive 1: 2012-2016
Waiting Years And Years For “Them” To Add A Contact Form?
The good news is that 2016 (and 2017) is the best possible time to setup your web pages because it's easier than ever... and web pages have never looked better than ever!
You used to have to learn HTML, CSS, uploading FTP files, maybe even a little scripting and then you'd have to test things with Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers until you had it right...
Now, many things are point and click, such as with Paper Template.
(click to see a quick video demo)
- WordPress (click a button and you have a blog)
- Paper Template plugin (install and now you can create sales letters and landing pages within WordPress)
- add any other plugins you want to add a contact form, legal pages, pop-ups, caching, security, SEO...
So, it's a great way to get started fast and do all the things you want... BUT...
I honestly don't believe that the "hosted platforms" are really up to snuff. If you use some sort of hosted service that runs it all for you:
- you are now tied to their business (if their sites are down for 2 hours, your site is down for 2 hours)
- they don't do everything (maybe they're missing an autoresponder)
- you have to take a bunch of extra steps anyway to host your own .com domain and make it look like it runs on your own websites (sometimes you have to install your own WordPress blog, and their WordPress plugin on your site, just to run their service... weird)
- they might not do all the cool stuff that you want. For example, with WordPress you can just grab a quiz plugin if you want that. Grab a contact form plugin if you want that. On a hosted service, you have to wait for them to "get around to it"...
I honestly believe this is the best of both worlds... easy to setup, uses WordPress, create landing pages in addition to your blog or let it take over your site... and then add plugins or tweaks as you wish. The Paper Template WordPress plugin lets you have your cake and eat it too.
211: Conquer Stress, Make Milestones and Get Those Easy Wins with Kathy Gruver
Dr. Kathy Gruver from The Alternative Medicine Cabinet wants you to focus, be healthy, reduce stress, delegate, and make decisions early.
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210: What Is Your What? Get It Done, Express, Immerse and Revinent Yourself with Steve Olsher
Steve Olsher, author of What Is Your WHAT?, wants you to impact the maximum number of lives possible by discovering, sharing, and monetizing your WHAT: the thing you were made to do. It's done in these three steps:
- clarity on your core gift (i.e. healing, entertaining, communicating)
- create a vehicle to share that gift
- people compelled to share
Get it done, surround yourself with the right people and immerse yourself in that world. Tune up your Attributes, Beliefs and Perspectives.
Resources
- Reinvention Radio (Podcast)
- What is Your WHAT (Book)
- Steve Olsher (Official Site)
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People Don’t Buy During The Holidays?
I don't lose any sleep over this, but I roll my eyes when someone says...
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- November and December are slower months!
- No one is online during holiday time...
- Don't even bother marketing or sending emails until January...
- Don't you want to take some time off?
And my answers are:
Of course I take time off -- that's what scheduled blog posts and scheduled autoresponder emails put in the queue in advance are all about (bonus if people can't really tell if they're live or pre-scheduled)...
Many people (not you personally, but others) are working too hard and not working smart enough. They could get a lot more done in less time AND possibly use these few days off to plan their next move or squeeze in an hour here and there...
What about eBay? Amazon? Retail stores? There are tons of people buying. And if you say that's apples and oranges because I run an online business... well... aren't there some people out there who are using this end of the year time to look into running their own online business?
Sure, grandma won't buy an e-book or course but grandma might give those grandkids gift cards or money that they'll use to build their business
This is the last chance for many business owners to lock-in their purchases (business write-offs) for tax time -- for example, I bought myself Google Glass (now discontinued) during the holidays one year...
And most importantly, what's the difference if you setup a web page in late December 2016 that gets sales in January 2017? February or March 2017? You have to set it up in the first place...
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." -- Zig Ziglar
What's the easy answer? You need to setup, at the very least, an opt-in page and a sales letter using Paper Template.
Of course take a bunch of time off to get that perspective, recharge your batteries and figure out your next move... but what counts is not so much thinking or planning, but ACTION...
Setting up a web page that sells something is the best ACTION you can take this holiday season, and using WordPress plus Paper Template is the best way to do it quickly while also having all the little features you need.
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Why Are You Emailing Me On Christmas?
"Why are you emailing me on a weekend / holiday?"
That's the response I get every now and then and I hope that's a response you get in your business -- why is that I hope you get it?
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Because if people are unsubscribing from your list, if you have (a small percentage) of refunds, if (a few) people have some nasty things to say about you and your values...
Then it means you've actually done some things in your business and you've built a big list of buyers...
Very few people treat their online business like the machine that it can be and should be and it's some wasted potential.
For example: what if you spent about 20 minutes and grabbed 12 interesting YouTube videos? Maybe yours or maybe you found them... either way... schedule one in your blog for the first Friday in January 2017, another for February 2017, etc.
Those are 12 touches you've just made with you and your subscribers...
And how about this: go into your email autoresponder (you do have one and you are building a list, right?) and schedule a message for that Saturday sending people to your blog post, and maybe even a quick Sunday one reminding them to check it out if they missed it.
If you have a product or membership site for sale, or heck, even a 2.99 Kindle book... I'm guessing that you haven't promoted it for a solid 5 days in a row lately!
Look at the second week in January. Think of four pretty good reasons or interesting things about your Kindle book. Schedule a quick email for Monday with a subject line and about 5 sentences saying... you probably have this problem... here's the solution and it's in my book...
Tuesday... you might have problem #2 and here's solution #2 and the details of that solution are also in my book... repeat for Wednesday and Thursday...
On Friday, don't worry about piling on even more information... just say... I've been giving you these solutions all week, it's shit or get off the pot time, here's my book.
That right there is a whole week you can take off your business in 2017 and no one will ever have to know. Come back and see how many sales you brought in...
Very few people take advantage of scheduled emails and they're available in every email autoresponder service. Schedule some emails to help fill out the calendar and keep "touching" those customers (but not in a weird way)...
You can get content cranked out easily (I have a system for writing blog posts called R.A.T.G.U.M. and one for email marketing called P.A.I.N.T.) if you follow some sort of a template or system... and then let the machine (that autoresponder sending emails on a schedule) do the rest...
And there's even better news: every autoresponder also has a "sent" folder... so... you can take the greatest hits of your email marketing and pile them into a follow-up sequence so that any new subscriber to your list gets your best stuff...
I happen to think that MY best stuff is contained inside this course:
Time Management on Crack
More than a few people have told me that this is the guide they re-visit every year when they want to refresh and renew the important marketing stuff. I hope that's not too braggy and I also want you to check it out as soon as you see this, even though it's hoilday time.
(The holidays are great time for me to go through a course, read some stuff, or watch some videos so that I get a little bit of a break from all the "usual" stuff.)
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Online Business Success: Why Some People “Make It” With Internet Marketing (And Others Don’t)
This scares the heck out of me and maybe you can relate...
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I'm not sure how long you've been building your online business, buying courses and plugins, how long you've been on different marketers list and seen the affiliate contests and big launches...
I ask myself these sorts of super scary questions all the time:
"If such and such had a million dollar launch back in 2014, why haven't I heard anything from them since?"
"If this other marketer made 2 million dollars in a day back in 2012, why are all their websites dead and gone just 5 years later?"
The short answer is that they didn't systematize and checklist-ify their business using a something like this:
Time Management on Crack
Tons of internet marketing names have completely disappeared from the face of the planet and I don't think they were abducted by aliens... so why do some people seem to:
Have made money back in the day but seem to be struggling now (not really mailing or promoting)...
OR: Been super successful back then but now I can't find any websites or even what I bought from them...
What's the difference? Here's what I think it is...
1. they actually have a way to make consistent money over time (as opposed to the huge launch where 30% goes to refunds and 60% to affiliates)...
... A launch of any kind with affiliates is a great way to build a list, but if you don't monetize that list into some recurring passive income within a few months, you'll find that the list goes cold/stale and you'll have to rebuild it every year...
2. they have fun with this internet marketing thing (hint: seeing money come in every day from your efforts is a huge way to have fun with your business)
There are going to be up's and down's in your business and what's frustrating sometimes is that you DON'T get paid while you're building something (sales letter, product, membership site) but then you DO get paid after it's done -- so you have to "have faith" and enjoy the adventure, be an entrepreneur and rise to the challenge to overcome whatever obstacle is in front of you
3. they reinvent themselves every few years: I see some people trying to teach article marketing and "how to make an e-book" using the same stuff they taught 10 years ago...
It's perfectly ok to sell your best and classic stuff, and if it's still selling, keep promoting it! It would be a waste to just throw away old products and websites if they still deliver great value... BUT...
I believe that you and your business are screwed if you aren't looking to reinvent yourself every 3-5 years or so.
- I used to be known as just a PHP programmer
- Then a WordPress person
- I sold low priced plugins for a while
- Then transitioned into high ticket courses
- Then built software into our courses
- And now we're building some software-as-a-service tools such as Website Remote
4. and finally, successful people use systems, templates, and checklists so they can get those daily repetitive tasks (writing content, creating videos, running webinars) completed (those add up to a lot over time) AND have fun doing what pays the bills and get to the creative and weird stuff...
I take tons of time off in my business and you don't even know it because everything still runs... emails still go out, membership sites take orders and the help desk tickets are still answered. All those recurring payments come in every morning, and I want that for you too.
If you feel like in 2016 you could have done more, you were burned out every once in a while and didn't know why or how to avoid it (or shorten the burnout length of time) next time, if you weren't having fun, if you felt like you started more things than you finished... and you want to CHANGE THAT in 2017, then I believe this is the guide for you:
Time Management on Crack
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209: The New Brand You: Work with Your Ideal Clients and Discover What You Were Made to Do with Julie Broad
Julie Broad from Have More Influence asks, "If money wasn't a factor, what would you do?"
She wants to help you serve instead of sell and think about how you can help others. As a result, you can become the name people know about a given subject. She also tell us about her adventures in real estate, book publishing, online training, and more.
Resources
- Have More Influence (Blog)
- The New Brand You (Book)
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208: Authority Selling: Win the “Zero Moment of Truth” Game and Use Your Authority Positioning Assets to Get More Business with Mike Saunders
Mike Saunders from MarketingHuddle.com (author of the book Authority Selling) tells us about the Zero Moment of Truth.
Every business has a "Moment of Truth" where a customer discovers if that business delivers on their promises or not. These days, the "Zero" Moment of Truth exists -- where your future customers check the online breadcrumbs of your business before they even interact with you. Mike tells us how to educate those customers and provide a consultation as opposed to an outdated presentation or sales pitch.
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207: Publish a Book and Discover Your Ideal Audience with Jan Bear
Jan Bear from Author Impact Publishing has three simple questions for you:
- Who's your audience
- What do you want to accomplish with your book?
- What does this book have to do with your career over a lifetime?
By having a clear plan for your book, and knowing your goals, you can avoid many of the usual author mistakes such as trying to "writing for everybody" AND you can publish something with consistency that matches the mood of your reader.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:10 — 27.6MB) | Embed
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206: Overcome Adversity: Find Centeredness, Calm and Focus with Heather Choate
Heather Choate was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 29 while ten weeks pregnant.
By overcoming this unexpected adversity (as well as other up's and down's) Heather was tested to the max. During this time, she mastered using deep meditation (and visualization) for focus (and strength), anchoring (for confidence), and quiet focused times during the day (for calmness and clarity). Tune in to discover how to listen to your own voice, do what you love, and follow your passion.
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