Software

067: Proof of Concept: Use the Minimum Viable Product, Prototyping and Version 1.0 to Leapfrog Your Competitors and Get Everything Done

The only way you're going to make any kind of consistent progress is to break it up into milestones.

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The expert in anything was once a beginner.

Wise Words...

• The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -- Winston Churchill
• When people say mean things about you, it's a reflection on themselves.
• You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. -- John C. Maxwell

INTERNET MARKETER OF THE WEEK: Marlon Sanders

He's from TheTrafficDashboard.com and the best piece of "strategic" advice I ever heard from him is to: Absorb the changes. This means, if you put out a great product, service, app, etc. and someone copies you, adding a few features, then copy them right back and make it even better. Use their copying of your idea to make your idea one step ahead of theirs.

People give "cliched" advice like: just serve one person, imagine a customer avatar, success leaves clues. Model successful people.
What do you do when you're burnt out? Someone "steals" your idea? (No, they copied. Stealing suggests you don't have it anymore.) The best ideas are combinations of 2-3 things. iPhone, Facebook.

Most people have too many ideas, too scatterbrained, pulled in different directions. Most people can't tell the forest from the trees.

Successful FUNDAMENTALS to Model from Other Marketers

1. High ticket course (profit margin)
2. Low ticket solution or software (list)
3. Warm up: free blog posts, YouTube videos, autoresponder sequence with a blend of pitch and content. A short book couldn't hurt.
4. Platinum coaching program: easy money
5. Be a thought leader, speaker, innovator, teacher, even if it doesn't come "naturally"

Knock these out one at a time (series) and not all at once (parallel)

Things Angering Me This Week

1. No real mailing address on your websites? What are you afraid of?
2. Linking directly to an order form from an email? At least show the "contract" of what I'm getting.
3. Trying to piece together a solution (i.e. podcasting) when you should have just bought a damn course (Podcast Crusher, uDemy)

Get it working now and connect the pieces later, so you can whip up the interface when you're in that frame of mind. You don't want to over-engineer software OR your business.

8-Step Software Iteration Process (That Also Works for Non-Software Membership Sites)

1. psuedocode / "ugly" basic interface (text and buttons)
2. proof of concept
3. mock-up interface
4. test cases
5. working interface
6. connect it all together
7. debugging
8. interface again based on use-cases (iterate)

You might have to do 10-20% more "work" in the long run, but you'll have a more stable product, make the money faster. You sometimes have to "see" a design or interface in action.

Non-software example: first get the results. Show how you can get consistent AdWords traffic. Keep a swipe file. Develop a checklist. Make it easily do-able and easily relatable.

Resources

• WP Notepad (Checklists and Fill in The Blank Forms for Your Membership Site)
• Membership Cube (Create Your Membership Site in WordPress)
• Software Secrets Explained (Create Software Without Coding)

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063: Website Remote: Get Out More, Grow Your Internet Business, Make More Money, Have More Fun, and Increase Your Productivity Without Burning Out or Creating a New “Job” For Yourself

We recently launched our Website Remote service. It allows you to centrally manage and update your WordPress sites.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:48 — 41.0MB) | Embed

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We created it because there was no good way to manage all our WordPress sites from one location. The other solutions that "tried" to do it, sucked!

Solve a real problem. It doesn't matter if "a" solution already exists. It probably sucks. Yours will be better.

When we put Website Remote together, and had our new affiliates sell and market our existing Backup Creator plugin, I had a few realizations...

Realization #1: Get Out More

You don't have to confine yourself to little sites like the Warrior Forum. You can use other peoples' land to build a list, but don't live there.

This is true when it comes not just to pricing and positioning your products, but also what advice or training you listen to.

Your business is your business. You're free to charge whatever price you want, limit the number of sales, email as often as you want. Update your blog or submit podcasts as frequently as you feel like, because you can. You don't need any reason for why you're doing what you're doing in your online business, other than because you can.

Realization #2: Eat Your Own Dog Food

If you actually use the products you create and sell, then you can't use because it's something that helps your business regardless of how slow or quickly it sells.

The programming term "eating your own dog food" means that if you use the thing you sell every day, then you'll transform it to a piece of crap into something that's useful.

To make our tool useful, we iterated. I created a simple version of our tool, and had Lance login sight unseen and show me how he was using it, and where he got stuck, to see his thought process. This is called hallway testing.

Because of "dog-fooding", we added SSL support for our Paper Template, Member Genius, and Video Player plugins this month, and made them all compatible with WordPress caching plugins, because we needed those things in place for our launch.

This past couple of weeks, we launched our new version of Backup Creator (3.0) and had an army of affiliates make us a bunch of sales, without us using our list at all. We gave away 100% commissions, and the point wasn't to make money but to recruit some new affiliates and build a list of buyers.

Realization #3: Treat Your Business Like a Real Business

We created the minimum viable product (version 1.0) and the launch deadline pushed us into gear and got our priorities in order.

Get that first version out there, and market the hell out of it. Don't make any rash moves like offering discounts or lifetime access which shouldn't be on your radar for a long time until you can "run the numbers."

Price your offers where there's buying resistance. Don't give into the mob. You might just need better marketing.

We need to do a little better with the positioning on Website Remote to compete against free, inferior, and generally worse "similar" products (not necessarily competitors).

Realization #4: Follow the "Four Daily Tasks" in Order to Get Everything Done

Four Daily Tasks means you should complete four business-related tasks, each in one sitting (three 45 minute sessions and one 10 minute session). Every day, complete the four tasks that get you closer to making more money.

I'm at my best when I alternate days between proactive business-building tasks (traffic and product creation), and on alternate days, business-maintenance tasks like answering support desk tickets.

Automate your business as much as you can, for example, queue up autoresponder emails for the week so there are no distractions.

Simple Words of Advice

It takes the same amount of energy to feed your dreams as it does your fears.
Make a list of things that make you happy. Make a list of things you do every day. Compare the lists. Adjust accordingly.

12 things successful people do differently:

1. They Create and Pursue FOCUSED Goals
2. They Take Decisive and Immediate ACTION
3. They Focus On Being PRODUCTIVE, Not Just "Busy"
4. They Make Logical and Informed Decisions
5. They Avoid The Trap Of Trying To Make Everything "Perfect"
6. They Are Willing To Work Outside Of Their Comfort Zone
7. They Keep Things SIMPLE
8. They Focus On Making Small, Continuous Improvements
9. They Measure and TRACK Their Results and Progress
10. They Maintain a Positive Attitude and LEARN From Mistakes
11. They Spend Time With Successful and Motivational People
12. They Always Maintain a Balance In Their Life

And finally, be sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (link below) and grab your Website Remote account to remotely manage and control your WordPress sites.

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