Product Creation Mayhem

It has been product creation mayhem this week.

Not only have I been helping Mark Steer with his Pinterest product but I also helped Carl Picot to get over one or two glitches in setting up his product, which is a series of copywriting interviews.

Carl was having some problems in sorting out how his theme worked and we got him over the hump on this in 15 or 20 minutes, including sorting out the navigation. He was kind enough to say this:

I have also been help my sister, Saira, format (the copy isn’t mine!) her new weight-loss product – in particular to format her sales letter:

http://wakeuptohealth.org/programmes/weight-loss-offer/

I don’t expect I’ll get any thanks for that!

I also created an ecover for her Yeast ebook:

In addition, I have created this graphic for my ebooks offer wall:

Yesterday I created a whole new audio product entitled ‘Business By The Numbers’.

I basically created a mindmap with the major sub-headings that I wanted to cover. I then put around 10 points under each sub-topic. I then opened up Audacity and started talking.

I’ve added this product to my Measure n Manage product:

It was an easy product to create because it was based upon my own financial expertise gathered over 25 years in banking and more than 12 years in consulting.

On Saturday morning, I have scheduled a consultation with my friend and colleague Tsahai but I don’t know yet what she needs help with.

It will be interesting to see how she is progressing because Tsahai had to return to work to enable her to pay the bills. She has been very supportive to me and lifted me up when I was feeling down at one stage.

I am really hoping that I can help her because I want to see her keep moving forward with internet marketing so that one day she can leave her job.

Interim Report on Mark Steer Product Creation Consultation

This is an interim report on the Mark Steer Product Creation Consultation which was covered in a previous blog post.

Progress is being made, albeit slowly.

Mark has got bogged down in unnecessary detail and I therefore held another 0ne hour consultation with him during which we built out his entire Membership site (from fresh WordPress installation), including all the membership pages.

Mark has already created his eBook and has now added it to the page but I had to help him to improve the eBook cover so that it is presented nicely.

This eBook has simply been uploaded to his host server rather than to Amazon S3, but one step at a time is necessary.

Two Pinterest-related bonuses have been added by me to his Bonuses page so he doesn’t have to worry about that.

Mark wasted a lot of time in fiddling with his website header, making 11 changes to it, until I stepped in and sorted it out within 5 minutes.

The learning point here is not to waste time on things like this when someone else will do it for you for $5 on Fiverr!

As I said to Mark, your customers will not buy your banner from you – it is not adding value to the core information he is selling. (I do understand that he is trying to present his product nicely but in striving for perfection he is not working on his core content i.e. his videos which are the real value in the product.)

That brings me onto the fact that I have now given Mark just over 24 hours in which to create his 6 videos, because he has wasted so much time on unimportant matters. He has not focused on his product creation so we have now agreed a tight deadline. (I have told him that he must not strive for perfection but to get it done because he can go back later and improve it if he wants to.)

His mind is still playing games, trying to slow him up. I have demonstrated how easy it is to create a Screencast video, so he has no excuses.

Once he has his videos, he can strip the audio files from them if he wishes to create another modality for his content.

He also needs to finish off these details:

create a short video for the Dashboard page – do this last so you can tie up any loose ends for members
decide on which affiliate platform he wants to use and to create his affiliates page (Earn Money)
He has a Mastermind page – I don’t know what this is – coaching or Facebook Group I expect – this needs to be created.
He needs to add resources to his Resources page
Also a contact form or Help-desk to his Support page
Fine-tune the settings on his membership plugin and integrate with his autoresponder.
He needs to add the sales page (outsourced) and payment button.

We will hold the final consultation on Thursday to tie up these loose ends PROVIDED Mark gets the videos done by close of business tomorrow night.

The pressure is now on him and the ‘jury is definitely out’ on this one but, as he is accountable to me for taking action, I still have high hopes that he will do it!

It’s now crunch-time for him.

His mind will be playing tricks on him, trying to slow him up but the reality is that he has everything he needs to get this product done in time for his consultation with Marc Milburn on Friday.

Fail Fast, Fail Often

I expect that you’ve heard this quote ‘Fail Fast, Fail Often’!

I had a consulting call with Mark Steer, one of my fellow students in Online Wealth Blueprint after I offered a free consultation on Facebook.

I spoke to Mark on Skype for about one hour.

His problem was that he has been working on a product since September which he is planning to launch next March. Today is January 22nd 2014.

Mark’s product is about how to drive free traffic using Pinterest.

I can certainly empathise with Mark – getting your first product out onto the market is difficult. It took me at least 4 months to create WP Website Wizard.

I know of other members in our student group who have been labouring away for 15 months on their product and it has still not been launched.

Here are the barriers in their mind (- I know because I experienced them):

technical – things like how do I set up a members area? What theme should I use? I want transitions in my Powerpoint to make it look fancy. How do I record screencast videos? Where do I upload hem to?
mindset – I want it to be perfect. It’s not good enough yet. Fear of putting your stuff out there and receiving criticism. Fear of the unknown – what will people think, reputation, failing etc

The problem with all this ‘noise’ in your head is that the intrinsic value of the information being offered and consumed will not change all that much by adding all this fluff to your product.

Whilst you are messing around with all this stuff, you are not improving the lives of your potential customers who may need your information TODAY rather than in 3 or 6 months time when you have added in some fancy Powerpoint transitions.

Making money is about an exchange of value – at the moment Mark has nothing to exchange for money. As Marlon Sanders said, ‘half done, ain’t done!’

Also, if you spend 6 (or even 12 months) creating your product you have a significant portion of your life wrapped up in that product. If it flops, think how devastating that would be to you. All that time and money for little or no return.

In the worst case scenario, it could even make Mark throw in the towel.

So when I could see that Mark was in the process of possibly repeating the mistakes that I had made, I was anxious to bring forward his deadline for getting out version 1.0 of the product.

We’ve agreed on a period of 10 days i.e. a week on Friday (today is Wednesday).

Mark also has another coaching call with Marc Milburn scheduled for a week on Friday – I figured that it would be useful if both parties had something tangible to work on improving.

Frankly, he could get his product out today if he was familiar with the process.

But I wanted him to get familiar with the process of producing a product without putting him into a state of panic.

I want him to see how easy this can be.

We’ve discussed what needs to be done and Mark is reporting back to me on Friday with his progress and to deal with any sticking points in his mind. It is all 90% in his mind (as it was in mine!)

Will it be perfect? – Heck no! Nothing ever is.

Will it be the final version! Heck no – this is version 1.0 – the minimal viable product i.e. the bare bones of a product on which he can stick a payment button.

Version 2.0 might be made if Mark thinks it is worth the effort after testing it first in the marketplace.

This is vitally important because it gets him over the barrier of creating and launching his first product.

This is a huge barrier to get over in internet marketing – it’s a barrier made mainly in the mind.

It can only be removed by taking ACTION.

Once you discover how easy and quick it can be, your next product will be faster (and better) and the next one faster still until you get to be like Sean Mize who planned to launch 150 WSO’s in 2013, came up short with 80 and made $65,000 from WSO’s and a shed load more from his coaching programme.

Jason Fladlien advocates that you should create one problem/one solution products in one sitting.

When you first hear this you cannot believe this is possible.

Once you start creating products, you understand that this is very possible when you are familiar with the process.

The other vital points about getting your products out quickly is:

you can quickly gauge what the appetite is for your product in the market which will help you decide whether it is worth building upon or whether to move onto your next product
you can get feedback from beta testers and reviewers for improvement
you have something tangible to build upon and improve – I constantly add additional stuff to my existing products – if I hadn’t created them yet, I wouldn’t have the opportunity of improving them.
Only by taking action do you find out your strengths and weaknesses and start to make improvements – your first product is likely to be poor in comparison with subsequent products. It took Edison 10,000 attempts to create the light-bulb! It’s a process of testing and failing. Being part of a coaching group reduces the amount of testing and failure but you still need to learn the process.
the more products you have, the easier it is to create powerful sales funnels

So ‘fail fast, fail often’ is vitally important in business.

They say that money loves speed. I think that is true.

I am anticipating that by moving Mark’s deadline forward by more than two months, a lot of barriers will fall down for him in the next 10 days. It will be a steep learning curve for him.

On the other hand it would be tough for him to spend another 2 months on his product only to find out that no one is interested in his product idea.

At least by getting it out there quickly he can let the market decide. If there is a reasonable response then he can work on Version 2.0 with all the bells and whistles like adding nice Powerpoint transitions!

I’ve also offered him some technical short-cuts – I have developers rights to software that could make his journey much easier. I’ve offered this to him if he thinks he needs it.

The reality is that there are plenty of free options as well.

I will report back on how Mark progresses at the end of January. This is an actual person with an actual problem and maybe you can learn from Mark’s journey to creating his first product?

The other big thing that Mark may not realise, is that by consulting with me, he is now accountable to me for taking action. He perhaps doesn’t yet realise how this could really move him forward.

Fail fast, fail often – this is vitally important to remember in business if you really want to find success – they do say success is a 1,000 step process.

And Your Number One Burning Question Is?

‘What is your number one burning question?’ This is the question posed by one of the internet gurus on his blog and here is a snapshot of the comments he received back.

If you are looking for a product to create, then here is a list of potential projects for you – they are all real questions from people that need help.

I can answer most of them but which one to start with? Here are my quick answers… I hope they are not too flippant but brevity is required with this many questions!

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Q: How do you overcome procrastination & motivate yourself to do what you need to do for your business? A: I have monthly and daily goals and I prepare a ‘To-Do’ list each night for the next day with my prioritised tasks. These fit into a wider strategic framework.
Q: How about lean product development? A: My product creation process is set out in my product Product Creation Renegade
Q: What do you find is the most successful/reliable way of building a list? A: I have set out my list-building strategies in List Building Renegade
Q: Information overload that’s my main issue now. A: You need clarity on the exact strategy that you need to follow – in reality it is quite simple and is set out in my product The Way of The Warriors
Q: How to avoid the temptation of another shiny object A: Once you have decided that you are now a vendor, rather than a buyer, and you have a clear strategy, then it is important to only buy products that will help you to implement your strategy.
Q: Improving sales funnel conversions A: I have a free eBook called Sales Funnel Supremacy about sales funnels and a product called Measure n Manage about how to set up your management information systems
Q: A really simple explanation of how to create a facebook fan page in step by step portions A: Google it and you will find any number of videos showing you how to do this!
Q: How about how to create a sales page using whichever software you are using at the moment? A: I have 3 ways of producing squeeze pages and sales pages – Optimize Press Theme version 1.0, Instabuilder plugin and Paper Template plugin – they are all different and I use whichever one best fits my task. The most flexible one is Instabuilder. Each theme has tutorials about configuring them.
Q: How to decide what tasks you are going to do to build your online business, and how to plan them out for maximum productivity. A: You need a vision and strategic framework for your business – this is covered in my products The Sky Inside and Business Storyboards
Q: I’d love to hear about how you can forward plan financially when it comes to internet marketing – is it even possible? A: Yes, you can reverse engineer your goals to understand what you need to achieve on a daily basis and then create a plan – this is process covered in Business Storyboards
Q: Everybody needs traffic – perhaps you could advise/show what you consider to be the best way of getting free traffic, and the best source of paid for traffic. A: There is no such thing as ‘free’ traffic – time is money and free traffic methods therefore have a cost attached to them. After you have evaluated the true cost of ‘free’ traffic by assigning a value to your time, I recommend looking at traffic sources such as affiliate recruitment, Facebook Ads, Video Marketing (including promoted YouTube videos) and Webinars using Google Hangouts as good ways of driving traffic. Do what the gurus do (not what they say you should do).
Q: How do you make videos using camtasia and the system requirements? A: This is covered in Product Creation Renegade but Techsmith (the creators of Camtasia) have plenty of free tutorials as well
Q: Finding a profitable niche, thats one more of my problems… A: You want a niche (or preferably a sub-niche) where there are plenty of people looking to solve problems and there are people selling products to solve them – this proves that there is a viable market and there is no reason why you should not at least carve out a segment of the market. If you buy the top products in the mareket and study them you will quickly achieve a high level of expert knowledge in whatever niche you choose.
Q: How to get the best out of oDesk! A: Specify your project in as much detail as possible, get quotes and then pick your freelancer based on the feedback and ranking of the previous business owners who have used their services. Use common sense and tread with care.
Q: How to do screencast videos A: This is covered in a lot of detail in one of the bonuses in Product Creation Renegade . You will be shown all the options for this.
Q: 1.Identifying and producing a product 2. Producing the sales literature 3. Directing the product to the market A: See Product Creation Renegade above!
Q: How to stand out from the crowd? A: Be a prolific and high-quality product creator and market your content widely and with skill
Q: Having set up a website how to stay on the right side of the law ie what polices? A: Model your Disclaimer, Terms and Privacy pages on the top guys in your niche. There is a cookie law in Europe – you can get free ‘cookie’ plugins that will help you to cover this.
Q: How to keep personal details private for contact information i.e not giving home address A: You need to be transparent about who you are if you are selling products online but you could use an accommodation address like a Post Box address if you are worried about this or ideally set up a limited liability company.
Q: How to upload a file so that it can be downloaded (where and how) A: I upload my files Amason S3 and their Cloud – this is fully set out in my product WP Website Wizard together with all my knowledge and tutorials about using WordPress to deliver information and products.
Q: How to set up a Fanpage to link to own website to drive traffic. A: Just make a post in your Fan Page that links to a page or post on your website that makes an offer
Q: I need to learn how build 3 pages #1squeeze page #2 signup page and a way give something away for signing up#3 a landing page or capture page. A: Covered in my product List Building Renegade
Q: Top 10 SIMPLE ways to drive the right traffic to your site A: SEO blog posts, comments on other peoples blogs with link to your site, comments on forums with link in forum signature to your site, youtube videos with link to your site, Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, paid solo ads, Google Hangouts, Facebook posts, Warrior Special Offers.
Q: How to choose the right products to promote e.g. Affiliate products A: I only promote those products that I use and like – it lacks integrity if you promote a product without knowing much about it!
Q: A topic worth covering I think is advising people how to put a plan together. A: This is covered in Business Storyboards
Q: I would really love to know your TOP recommended ‘Must Do’ Marketing Tasks which you do weekly/or on a regular basis in order to move your business on and which also have a direct link towards improving your ‘bottom line’ …. Rather than those ‘housekeeping’ tasks which are a must do but don’t really affect how our business is performing. A: I have 3 core tasks that must be done daily – traffic generation, product/content creation and email marketing.
Q: How to set up a WordPress webpage for a Podcast. Where to find easy plug and play templates? A: I use a plugin called Blubrry Powerpress to play my podcasts with a feed to iTunes but Josh Bartlett of Easy Video Suite is launching a product for podcasting soon (called Audello) that will be well-worth looking at!
Q: I would appreciate if you wrote about how to choose a product that could serve as your freebie for collecting email addresses. A: Your freebie should preferably be a one problem/one solution product addressing a pressing general problem in your chosen niche
Q: What do you think is the best way to start an online business A: The exact strategy is set-out in The Way of the Warriors
Q: How to motivate yourself/myself and do stuff! How do you create good content when your’re in the doldrums A: You need a clear vision of how you want to improve the lives of other people and why this important to you on a personal level – see my product The Sky Inside
Q: I would like you to explain the whole blogging thing. I have set up a blog page on the website mentioned above, but how do I link that to a newsletter and list. And how to create traffic and what should I give it for free ? A: This question is a bit muddled but List Building Renegade would help to answer this question
Q: I think the biggest problem would be procrastination and focus A: Covered in detail by 2 eBooks in The Sky Inside product
Q: I have read that software is one of the best things to be in but how do you determine what is needed and be a good seller. A: Covered by an ebook written by a 7-figure marketer – one of the bonuses in Product Creation Renegade!
Q: Personally speaking I’d to know more on how to set a website up. A: I created WP Website Wizard to address this specific question!
Q: Seeing that we’re just past the first week of 2014, I’d be interested in hearing what sort of planning process you go through at the beginning of the year. How do you go about assessing what you’ve accomplished in the previous year, determining what your goals are for the upcoming year, and figure out how you’re going to accomplish them (and anything else that’s part of your planning process)? A: See Business Storyboards and one of the earlier posts on this blog
Q: I’d like to see a review of membership plugins for WordPress, particularly those that have it all: membership, affiliate program, shopping cart, A: I stand by the Membersonic plugin – this is covered by my product Membership Millionaires Bootcamp
Q: I need to know how best to set up a file to be downloaded by customers. I’ve tried one or two WordPress plugins and I cannot fathom how to use them properly. I’ve also signed up for Amazon S3 where I’m also struggling to know what to do. A: This is covered in WP Website Wizard
Q: How to stay motivated when things just don’t happen A: Get support from my colleagues online – they understand what you are going through and are often very supportive.
Q: I think I would like here you explain how to add pages to your website and talk about some tip on writing a BIO. A: See WP Website Wizard
Q: I would like to see a step by step tutorial on creating videos using camtasia. A: Answered above!
Q: Also tips on overcoming lack of self confidence in business which leads to procrastination and feelings of fear. A: This is all about having the right mindset – covered in The Sky Inside
Q: Can you please post a list of recommended reading? I’d love to know what’s on your bookshelf that you’ve really got lots out of when it comes to implementing into your business strategy.A: I will address this in a future post.
Q: I’d be surprised if there weren’t quite a few others who’d like to know more about developing software, in particular the research side and briefing developers. A: There is a great product called Plugin Creation Blueprint that covers this in massive detail.
Q: For me it would be choosing a WordPress theme, what to look for etc. A: It is important to get a premium Theme with a nice design and well-supported in my opinion – Optimize Press, themes by Studio Press and Woo themes fit this bill. Alternatively, try Themeforest.net and buy one of the popular themes there. For membership sites I favour the Membersonic Theme because it is flexible with plenty of navigation options amongst its features – it was built with membership sites in mind.
A: Personally I want to see more of: – how to add a product on clickbank (set up affiliate with member plugin) – How to specificly get in contact with influential people (joint venture) A: Covered by tutorials in MarkSalmon.info

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And your number one burning question is? Please comment below and let me know yours!

MarkSalmon.info – My New Resell Rights & PLR Vault

I have set up MarkSalmon.info as my new resell rights and PLR vault. I have acquired, and continue to acquire, the rights to a lot of internet marketing training and content but I have so far failed to leverage these products other than to use some of them as bonuses to my products.

I recently acquired rights to 60 video trainings and thought that it was high time to organise my PLR and Resell assets into a format that my customers could consume.

I am therefore organising, branding and putting the content into a new membership site where:

products can be bought individually, or
in bundles, or
in sales funnels, or
in a drip fed monthly recurring membership where customers will get at least one product per week

Because the content is mostly about internet marketing, it can be applied to any niche.

Rather than have pages and pages of videos – each training course has between 7 and 10 videos – I am arranging the training into video playlists i.e. just one video player accesses all the training videos for each particular course. where possible, I am adding in audio versions, powerpoint slides and transcriptions for each course.

In total, I am organising around 5 to 600 videos and creating 60 or more sales letters.

I’m also going to add in my PLR eBooks to this site and make it an all-round education on internet marketing.

As long as it doesn’t contravene the terms of my license, I will also be offering some of these products as relevant bonuses for affiliate or my own product promotions. I will also be offering discounted coupons from time-to-time to tempt my customers to sample these trainings.

I am arranging the videos by subject matter – for example, all ‘traffic’ videos will be available as a discounted bundle or individually.

This is all part of my build up to make 2014 my best year yet online – I will have a lot of products to deploy in many creative ways to meet the needs of my customers.

You can view the progress in setting up MarkSalmon.info as my new resell rights and PLR vault on my ‘Other Products‘ page which gives you a good idea on the large variety of topics covered by these trainings.

Digital Millionaires Bootcamp Review & Bonus

This is my Digital Millionaires Bootcamp Review & Bonus video presentation – I presented jointly with fellow student, Chris Cole.

We offered a massive new bonus package at the end of the video, if you purchase this important training through my link –

http://mark-salmon.com/likes/dmb

So what are the bonuses we are offering to you?

1 – Bonus Webinar Coaching – Product Creation Webinar Series

Chris Cole & Mark Salmon are offering a bonus coaching course that will span over 4 weeks. You will have the chance to ask your questions and have Mark & Chris answer these as well as offering some great additional training content.

2 – Fast Profits Formula – another of Marc Millburn’s brilliant courses

Yes you can also get access to Marc Millburn’s Fast Profits Formula as an exclusive bonus for Chris and Mark’s customers. We have twisted Marc’s arm to give you access to this standalone product that teaches you how to be a product creation monster within days.

3 – Mark Salmon’s Product Creation Renegade

In this complete course Mark Salmon teaches you how to successfully create your very own digital products. This is all contained within it’s own members area and you can drop in at any time to learn and enjoy even more bonus training.

4 – Chris Cole’s Unlock WordPress

Yes there are over 60 videos in the course from Chris Cole teaching you how to master WordPress. This course will turn you into a WordPress master within hours. Chris covers everything you need to get started right away with WordPress.

Click here to get Digital Millionaires Bootcamp

Please claim your bonus by sending me your paypal transaction ID through my Contact Form and put the subject as ‘DMB Bonus‘

If You want to take advantage of Digital Millionaires Bootcamp and our Bonus, you need to hurry because it will not be available for long – Marc could decide to take it down at any time.

The DEPOT Method

Chris Payne introduced the DEPOT Method at the KISS 2 Event held at Gatwick recently and I subsequently had a consultation with Chris which proved very enlightening.

Firstly let me tell you what the DEPOT Method is. It relates directly to product creation.

When you are planning the creation of a product you must ensure that it meets these criteria:

Desperate Problem – your product needs to solve a desperate problem – a problem that needs solving urgently. To do that, you need to understand what pain people in your niche are suffering.
Exactly – your product needs to be exactly what they are looking for. As soon as they see it, they say ‘that’s exactly what I want’.
Proof galore – show that people similar to your prospect are getting amazing results with your product
Offer is irresistible – when they see your offer, they will think ‘I thought it would cost more than that.’ Show them how they can get the solution within minutes and remove the risk of buying by offering a guarantee
Time is short – introduce urgency into their decision through scarcity e.g. the price is going up tomorrow/there are only 3 left in stock/ if you buy today you will get an extra bonus.

Chris Payne reviewed my product portfolio and said to me ‘your products are what your customers need but they are not what they want!‘

He said, ‘They won’t sell well because they do not address a desperate problem.’

Initially this came as an enormous shock to me. I have invested a lot of time and effort into creating my products because I believe that they are what everyone needs to create and grow an online business.

Upon considered reflection, I actually agree with him that they are not what people really WANT! Most people want the ‘easy button’ – a fast and easy way to make money online. That’s what most marketers are marketing but when you have purchased as many products as I have (see last post) then you realise that this is a big lie. There is no ‘easy’ way to build a business – it takes work and building your business around a proven model.

We actually need to build a list, create valuable products for your list, build a sales funnel with higher value products and then generate traffic (preferably by recruiting affiliates) – this is a solid way to build a sustainable online business.

So my strategy now is to build smaller front-end products that conform exactly to the DEPOT Method i.e. sell them what they WANT (on the basis of one problem/one solution) and then educate my customers into investing in my other products or coaching to build the kind of business they really NEED – one that is built on solid principles and foundations.

I Think I’m An Information Addict – Are You?

I think I’m an information addict – are you?

This week I filled out a questionnaire about my business – one of the questions was something like ‘what internet marketing products have you bought?’

My first reaction was that there are so many, where to I start with a question like that? Here’s a quick peak at my hard disc:

As you can see, I have either purchased or acquired a huge number of internet marketing products over a period of just under 5 years. Have a pretty good understanding of all aspects of the internet marketing niche.

The problem is that when I view the full extent of these purchases I realise that I am an addict for information about online business and internet marketing and there are plenty of other people who have similar stories to tell. This is what makes it a great niche to be in if you are an information marketer – buyers do not just buy one product, but multiple products, such is the breadth and extent of the skills and topics you need to master.

If I was starting out again, I would recommend that a beginner finds a good mentor. Selection of a mentor should be carried out very carefully because I have also made one or two bad choices in that regard too!

Expensive as a coach or mentor may seem, it will not be as expensive in terms of abortive products or wasted time as trying to go it alone, I can assure you of that having made this mistake myself.

Whilst internet marketing can seem very complicated, at the heart of the internet marketing model it is very simple.

You need to be able to drive targeted to an offer. Now I started out trying to master SEO and had some success with my blog at http;//businessrenegade.co.uk by getting it into the top 1% of websites in the world for traffic according to Alexa.com. But I was not really converting that traffic to sales.

So you also need to master the art of converting traffic to sales through list building and copy-writing and making offers that are irresistible. You also need to master the art of email marketing because following up with the people on your list is a vital part of creating a relationship of trust with your prospects and customers.

As part of this process, you also need to start making your own products so that you have something to offer or create a service based on any skills that you have. This is not difficult to do when you understand a simple process for doing so – I set all this out in my products such as Product Creation Renegade and Membership Millionaires Bootcamp.

Here is an image of some of my products or forthcoming products:

This Sunday I am having a consultation with Chris Payne, who is a highly successful product creator and consultant. He sold $3m dollars of one of his products and at one stage was sending out over 1m direct mail letters a year for his various products in the personal development niche.

Chris calculated that he has spent over $320,000 on his own education, so perhaps he’s an even bigger information junkie than I am!
Chris has a number of interesting ideas on product creation and after this Sunday, I will know more.

For example, he creates his products based on the DEPOT framework:

find a Desperate problem

give them Exactly what they are looking for

provide Proof galore

make an Offer that is irresistible

Time is short i.e. introduce some scarcity into the offer

I also like his ideas about generating products quickly – he produces a minimum viable product and then only if that is successful in the marketplace does he build out the product idea.

Anyway, I am hoping that we can produce a new product in collaboration together – hopefully, I will know more about this after Sunday. The meeting of two information addicts should be an interesting experience.

Money For Nothing (& Your Chicks For Free!)

Do you remember Dire Straits and their song ‘Money For Nothing ‘ – this sums up information marketing because all the information that people are looking for is out there on the internet for free.

So why do people buy info-products if they can get the information for free?

It mainly has to do with convenience and speed – if we can aggregate, sort and organise information for other people, who have busy lives, and provide a short-cut to the information they are seeking, this is valuable and well-worth paying for.

However, a lot of the work that we do online is essentially free in order to position ourselves as someone who our readers can ‘know, like and trust’ BEFORE they invest in a paid product.

However, the importance of charging for information cannot be under-estimated and I have therefore copied an extract from a very good article by Michael Hyatt that explains why it is important to charge for our products and services:

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This forced me to get very clear about why charging for my work is not only acceptable but essential. Rather than feel guilty, I’m convinced it’s important for at least three reasons.

Because of how it changes your mindset When you start charging for your services, you go from being an amateur to being a pro. You are suddenly more accountable.
- It matters if you show up. You don’t get paid if you don’t.
- It matters if you do quality work. People won’t buy if you don’t.
- It matters if you are consistent. You won’t get repeat customers or grow your business if you don’t.
In short, when you charge, you respect yourself and your own work more. It creates value in your own mind.
Because of how it improves your customers’ experience. People don’t respect what they get for free. There are exceptions, I’m sure, but not many. I have seen this time and time again.For example, I occasionally give away free tickets to one of my conferences. Often, the people who get them don’t come to half the sessions—or don’t pay attention when they do. Worse, they sometimes cancel at the last minute, not realizing I still incur costs.The truth is that until people make an investment, they are not invested in the outcome. This is why I now always make sure they pay something and have “skin in the game.”But charging also improves the user-experience. Recently, I bought a very high-end marketing course. It cost me almost $2,000.You can bet I just didn’t stick it on the shelf and forget about it. Instead, I rearranged my entire schedule, so I could get up an hour earlier and work through the material.Because I paid so much, I was more focused, more committed to working through every exercise, and more determined to apply the principles to my business.The author of the course promised that it would be life-changing. But it’s only true if the students follow-through on his teaching. The fact that he charged so much for the course improved the chances of that happening.
Because of how it impacts the world. This is the most compelling reason of all to me. Charging for your services is a necessity if you are going to support your family. If you don’t charge, you won’t be doing what you do for long.But even more importantly, making money provides you with the opportunity to share with those in need. The more you make, the bigger impact you can have.In fact, within the bounds of my calling and ethical practice, I believe I have the moral obligation to make as much money as I can. Why? Because there are people in need, and I have the opportunity to help them.

You can read the full article here: http://michaelhyatt.com/do-it-for-the-money.html[/content_box_light_green]

When I was in consulting, I was told that people will not value that which they get for free.

It is totally true.

If you’ve ever paid for information then you will know that you are much more motivated to take action on it and get a return on your investment.

I also think that many of us under-estimate just how much value we each have to offer – we are all unique with enormous potential for creativity. It’s just a question of honouring that potential by taking some action.

Whilst your first product might be slightly horrible, if you keep working on the skill of product creation you will quickly improve.

If you haven’t yet got a product or service that you can offer then you might like to take a quick peak at this video of Marlon Sanders about the need to complete your product – if you’ve got a lot of half-finished projects sitting on your hard-disc, then this could be the kick up the backside that you need:

http://renegade.evsuite.com/marlon-sanders-half-durn-aint-durn/

If you can complete you half-done projects then perhaps you too can start earning money for nothing from the ‘digital dust’ on your computer! On the other hand, you might like to invest in my product – Product Creation Renegade – if you don’t yet know where to start with this ‘Money For Nothing’ info-marketing model!

How Training Can Prevent You From Taking Action

Training can prevent us from taking action. This is one of my weaknesses – I love learning new things!

But it’s all completely useless unless you take action and pass on the value to others. Money does not flow until you do that.

It’s great to feed your intellect and be comfortable in the fact that you have skills but the real learning comes when you take action. You then find out how the theory translates into reality and you start improving your performance based on actual results.

Over the past week, I have indulged in too much training which prevented me from taking ACTION!

Webcamp with Armand Morin

I spent 2 days last weekend listening to Armand Morin at his Webcamp in Las Vegas – the topic was ‘residual income’.

I was completely gobsmacked when he revealed that, as an affiliate of Powerpay, he is receiving between $40,000 and $80,000 every month in affiliate commission for doing NOTHING. He has plans to boost that to $200,000 per month. He actually opened up his affiliate account and he has been receiving huge sums of money each and every month for many years.

That’s where I want to be!

He revealed a number of cool ways for making residual income, including newsletters, Facebook Groups, Google Plus Groups, Membership sites and recurring income affiliate programmes. I am eagerly awaiting the recordings of the event to to recap some of the material.

I paid $27 to attend the live broadcast and, whilst he pitched a lot of his products, there was incredible value given from time-to-time throughout the weekend. I admired the way that he actually demonstrated what he was teaching via a laptop on the stage – very authentic.

He is holding monthly or bi-monthly Webcamps and I will certainly be attending more.

KISS Event at Gatwick Airport on Product Creation

Next weekend I am going to the KISS Event at Gatwick Airport near London on 19th/20th October 2013. The theme is about product creation – I don’t feel that I need a lot more tuition in this area but I think the networking opportunity will be valuable. There are 6 speakers and I know 3 of them. I want to get myself known in the right circles for affiliate recruitment purposes!

The cost of this event is £127 (about $200) plus accommodation – I felt rather better about this when my sister sent me an email from Malaysia (stopping off on the way back from a speaking event in the US) saying she needed to raise £15,000 to get more training on how to improve her already good speaking skills. Apparently she was chosen to progress by the event organiser – lucky her!!!

The ‘Solo Ads Assassin’ Project Progresses

I have been helping Daniel Madeira to set up his membership site throughout the week – he is starting to create the content and we have sorted out the graphics , so that project is progressing nicely.

Coincidentally I bought my first WSO for a while called ‘31,525 in 59 days’ – this is about how a warrior built a list of 31,525 in 59 days – on the sales page he recorded it as it was happening on a video. I had to find out how he was doing it – it turns out that he was throwing solo ad traffic at the squeeze page! Matt Bacek was behind the product and he revealed that in his business (which was not the business in which this list was built) he spends $250,000 per month on solo ads!

Business Storyboards Progresses

I have also created more content for my strategy membership site called ‘Business Storyboards’ – I created 10 or 11 videos in a spurt of creativity last Monday morning and then ran out of energy! I have also managed to reorganise my thinking about this product on a mind map and I am reorganising the membership site as a result.

Photoshop Actions

I also discovered an incredible free resource of Photoshop Actions for marketers – I am now able to create all sorts of highly professional marketing graphics as a result.

Today I re-wrote a PLR eBook on Focus as a front-end free product leading into The Sky Inside membership product. The book is actually fairly high quality for a PLR product and I have formatted it nicely so it is now a very valuable product indeed. I am in the process of building a squeeze page here – http://mark-salmon.com/focus-offer/ .

Tony Robbins said this about ‘Focus’:

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.

Here is the eBook cover I created with Photoshop Actions:

As you can see, I am now very conscious of my branding and all my eCovers will reflect my brand from now on. I will be producing more front-end offers in order to start building my list faster and in order to create sales funnels into my paid products.

I also badly need to start promoting myself on weekly or even daily webinars. I see people with less talent making more money than me and I am getting annoyed with myself so I have to keep reminding myself that this is a marathon and not a sprint – I am building for the long-term, rather than the short-term, according to a strategic plan!!

YouTube Marketing

Finally, I bought a small product on YouTube marketing by a guy called Nick Breen – this too is an incredible traffic method. He shows you how to create short videos and get them ranked quickly using PPC to give the videos an initial push. Definitely a good traffic system.

So much to do and so little time to do it in! I just need to make sure that all this training does not prevent me from taking action i.e. to implement what I am learning. Ironic that my eBook above is about ‘focus’ – this is exactly what I need to do!

Shakespearean Copywriting

I’ve been indulging in a bit of Shakespearean Copywriting this week. I completed my eBook entitled ‘What You Can Measure You Can Manage’ and this in now on my site http://measurenmanage.com.

I will be completing this product with an Excel spreadsheet as I develop my own management information system. There is already a nice bonus on the site – 5 videos about mastering Google Analytics. This bonus is relevant because MeasureNManage is all about running your business by the critically important numbers.

I have written the sales page for this site but I now need to create the JV page, list the product on JVZoo and integrate JVZoo with my membership script.

The Ultimate Copywriting Swipe File

I have also created an eBook today on copywriting called The Ultimate Copywriting Swipe File – this is a combination of some PLR material I had about copywriting and a list of copywriting swipes that I obtained from The Warrior Forum. This book will be used for 3 purposes:

as a bonus on a fellow coaching colleague’s (Matthew Houghton) solo ad product
as a bonus on my next product which is called Email-ATM
as a free giveaway on a squeeze page to build my list.

Here is the eCover I designed:

I went with the Shakespearean Theme because of the fact that I live in the town where he was born and died – Stratford-upon-Avon!!

My Secret Copywriting Weapons

Advantage Bot

You can get more details about Advantage Bot here.

Paper Template Plugin

When writing my own sales letters, I mainly use the Paper Template plugin by Robert Plank. It does what it says on the tin – you follow a template for creating your sales letter.

Here is a demo on how this plugin works:

You can get more details about the Paper Template plugin here.

A Content Creation System by Omar Martin

This is a note that Omar wrote in one of the Facebook Groups I am a member of. I thought I would share it here as it looks like a good system. (I use Camtasia (or Easy Video Suite) and Powerpoint rather than Screenflow and Keynote to make my videos because I use a PC rather than a Mac.)

[features_box_light_blue width=”75%” + border=”1px”]The 5 5 5 Method of Content Creation

“I tend to use audacity quite a bit for narration but other than my brain, the most influential tools I use to create content are decisively Screenflow and Keynote.

I use the 5-5-5 method for drafting a quick outline on a particular topic. This means I create 5 subheadings and put them on Keynote slides then I add 5 bullets to each slide. I hit record on Screenflow and press play on Keynote then I talk for at least 5 minutes on each slide.

5 Slides + 5 Bullets + 5 Minutes = A 25 – 30 minute video.

I try to create 3 or 4 of these videos on the same general topic and then hand them over to a transcriptionist or ghost writer that converts the content into a 100+ page book.

Content creation is only as complicated as we chose to make it.”

[/features_box_light_blue]

Creating my Own WordPress Plugins

Creating my own WordPress plugins has long been a goal of mine but I have been reluctant to get involved in an area that I have little or no expertise in. I bought into Peter Garety’s Software Mechanics course about a year ago but Peter seems to have lost interest in this programme which was a bonus to another product.

However, on the recommendation of Andrew Hunter (who is himself a plugin creation expert), I bought Plugin Creation Blueprint for $37 when it was launched on 2nd September. This is an incredible product for the money and made by a coding expert called David Vandenburg. It has been made with meticulous care and the membership site is incredibly good too. This guy calls himself the CodeKing and I can see why.

If you have aspirations to get into the business of creating plugins then Plugin Creation Blueprint is definitely worth investing in.

G-Font Plugin

I also bought the developers license for the G-Font plugin – this plugin enables you to use around 600 Google Fonts on your WordPress sites – it works with most themes. As you can see from this page, I have played around with some of the Menu fonts.

I felt that this was a good investment as it means I can customise the fonts on any theme and make it my own!! I also love fonts – they just make your text so much more interesting to look at! I hope you agree!!!!

Thank You Tsahai

One of my colleagues, Tsahai de Silva, sent me a message this week – this is part of what she said – it means a lot to me:

[features_box_red width=”75%” + border=”2px”]You are quality and you deserve to be successful. Don’t give up I believe in you Mark. You can do it! What are you doing to get sales? Please let me know if I can help.[/features_box_red]

I have some superb friends online – this is vitally important to me as internet marketing can be lonely at times. With friends like this I am rich indeed!

Membership Millionaires Bootcamp Is Shaping Up Well

My new product ‘Membership Millionaires Bootcamp‘ is shaping up well. It is almost finished bar some tidying up of the navigation.

Here is the video on the sales page that sets out the offer:

Additionally, I need to sort out the following:

sales funnel construction – I still need a nice $7 front-end product but I have something in mind
I need to get some testimonials – hopefully my fellow students in my coaching group can help out with this if I give them a review copy
I need to consider making a coaching offer on the back-end to help students with any membership site or product creation issues.
I am also considering deploying WPCourseware on this product to test out this plugin and create additional value for the students.

I’m really happy with the overall offer although, if an affiliate sells the product, I only get $20 from the $97 sale price plus any back-end sales that I can make. In due course, I may increase the price-point if the product is well-received in the marketplace.

I’m going to send a review copy to the maker of the membership plugin after I have tidied up the above matters, on the basis that he might promote or endorse it as well.

Marketing Is The Big Elephant In The Room

I have now created a nice suite of products and I definitely need to concentrate on the marketing aspect i.e. driving traffic to my sales pages, primarily through affiliates.

The other aspect is building a list and getting my email marketing sorted out – there is no consistency or strategy in my approach to this. I think I know what I need to do, but I just need to execute.

I think I need to allocate time each day or at least each week to each of these aspects. So far, too much time has been allocated to product creation and not enough to marketing and selling.

Marc Milburn is creating a product called Profit Flare on the premise that you are saying to yourself ‘I’ve got a product, now what?’ That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I know what I need to do but I would like to follow along with Marc’s product if he get’s around to completing it!

I also need to set up a decent management information system for my business to track the key numbers in my business (and this will be documented in my Measure ‘n’ Manage’ product that I have planned for the future. The domain is set up and ready to go.)

Resisting Purchases

I’m really proud of the fact that the amount of product purchases I have made over the last few months have dried up to a mere trickle. I’ve realised at long last that salvation does NOT lie in buying more training but in taking action on the information already in my possession. The credit card bill is definitely lower than before – I hope I’m not angering the credit card gods by saying this!

I think I now have most of the tools I need (apart from a good click tracker.) I have a little plugin called Link Tracker that will have to do for the time being.

My To-Do List

I have tried a number of ways of organising my to do list in the past:

using a piece of paper but this often gets buried on my desk
using an online to-do list but I forget to login

I’m currently using a small bound notebook (about A5 size) and I am finding that this works better for me as it doesn’t get lost on my desk and it is easier to move unfinished items forward. This is a small but important improvement in my business where so much depends on focus and productivity.

I also, own a product called Action Enforcer – I don’t use this as much as I should do. It basically forces you to parcel up your work into time slots and then work to deadlines. It also helps you to take time-outs on a regular basis which is important in a sedentary job like internet marketing. It also helps you to work according to the Pomodoro Principle i.e. work according to your bodies natural rhythms.

A Productivity Tip

Here’s a good productivity tip. If you are promoting products via your email marketing, turn the emails into a product review on your blog i.e. recycle the content – it’s possible that you will also earn a commission from traffic coming to your blog. I will probably create my product reviews as posts, so I have created a new category called ‘Product Reviews’ to cover these types of posts.

The other tip I have is ‘don’t have a family’! My daughter started a new job earlier this month without having the necessary care sorted out for our grandchildren. The burden has fallen squarely on my wife during August with no likelihood of relief until September, when my granddaughter starts school for 5 mornings a week. Then in February, the nanny moves from 2 days a week to 3 days a week, meaning my wife can reduce her support to just 2 days a week.

This week my wife has been away for the whole week because the new nanny had booked a weeks holiday. When she is away, I realise just how much my wife supports and cares for me and life is not as sweet when she is away. I hope that she feels the same way!

In the meantime, I will take my consolation from finishing Membership Millionaires Bootcamp and improving my marketing activities.

Another Week In Internet Marketing Paradise!

Another week has gone by in internet marketing paradise as I crawl inexorably closer to my goal of earning a $120,000 per annum income online.

John Thornhill posed the awkward question on Facebook ‘How many buy buttons do you have?’ (because this will correlate with your ability to earn an income online.) I am pleased to say that I now have a number of products up on JVZoo, all with buy buttons and this week I added one more – List Building Renegade. Here is my updated list of products. I just need to get my backside in gear and market these.

I launched List Building Renegade as a WSO in November 2012 – whilst I only made around 26 sales, the experience of launching a WSO was invaluable. On reflection, it has taken far too long for me to launch my next WSO, so next week I am going to start the process of launching The Way of the Warriors as a WSO to get some traffic into my funnel and see how it converts. I will aim to do this by no later than the end of this month.

I did a mailing to my list about The Way of the Warriors about a month ago and had a 24% conversion rate and a $1.65 EPC – I hadn’t calculated these stats until Marc, my coach, asked me the $64million question about how my email had converted this week. It made me realise that until you test your product in the marketplace, you really have no clue about how it will sell and it is just important to get it out there and then monitor the stats closely.

My First Solo Ad

I ordered a 100 click solo ad from Daniel Madeira, my fellow coaching friend and colleague. I haven’t really ventured into paid traffic before but Daniel is someone I could trust to give me a fair shot.

As of last night I had 115 visits and 41 optins, which is a creditable performance on my first attempt – 36% conversion.

I split the traffic between 3 variations of my squeeze page and monitored results via Google Experiments (within Google Analytics – very easy to set up). I was surprised to see that my third variation was converting at a much higher rate than the other two – it was the version I spent the least amount of time on preparing. Again, it just goes to show how you can’t prejudge what the market will like.

Daniel is also offering a competitive rate for solo ads to his fellow coaching students and it is well worth a try if you want to get some solo ad experience in a safe environment. Daniel was helpful to me initially in sharpening up my squeeze pages.

Niche Cash Machine Blueprint

I also reviewed Niche Cash Machine Blueprint that has been created by Chris Ferrante, a fellow coaching student. Chris has already created a successful online business in the pigeon racing niche and Niche Cash Machine Blueprint sets out exactly how he created that business.

Altogether, I thought it was a great product based on his actual experience, so I will definitely promote it when he launches it in due course.

FB Cash Fuse

Fellow coaching student Manie Amarie launched his epic product, FB Cash Fuse, this week. This product is all about how businesses can leverage Facebook fan pages for profit. The product is also a business-in-a-box, because you could also provide a Facebook fan page service to other businesses.

Manie has been meticulous and focused in his approach to launching this product which should do well. It has been very useful for me working with Manie on this project – just seeing how professional he is in his approach was an education to me.

FB Cash Fuse is a highly polished jewel, whereas my products are perhaps rough diamonds in comparison!

Manie has paid to get his sales letter created and his graphics have also been purchased from a full-time graphics designer – nothing has been left to chance and he deserves to succeed.

I on the other hand have created everything myself which is not what my coach advocates and shows my reluctance to outsource any aspect! My strategy is to try to create multiple products as quickly as possible to see what works in the marketplace and then expand on that.

The Optimize Press 2.0 Launch

Optimize Press 2.0 launched last week. Frankly, I was disappointed by the price point and it gave me pause for thought.

I have loads of WordPress themes and forking out another large wad of cash on a theme (even though it is a very good one) seemed a little extravagant. Rob Cornish wrote an article about how he was not recommending Optimize Press 2.0 and it made my mind up NOT to purchase it.

I like and respect Rob – I met him at Alex Jeffreys Live Event earlier this year. He is definitely one of the good guys who offers his honest opinion and his content is always top notch.

I am amazed that I made this decision because I have been looking forward to OP2.0 for a long time. However, I feel James Dyson is being a little greedy with his price point.

I have been using the Membersonic Theme to create my latest membership sites – it is responsive, has 4 navigation features, and I have the developers license. (Plus I can plugin in 44 child themes to the Genesis Framework on which it is built!) All this for $20 compared to $297 plus VAT for OP 2.0 – I don’t think so!

I think this decision also reflects the fact that my mindset has moved from being a ‘buyer’ to a being a ‘seller’ of products.

Tony Shepherd – My New Anti-Hero

One of Rob Cornish’s emails alerted me to Tony Shepherds Newsletter – you can get 12 old copies for $9.95 (normally $17 p.m.). The bundle is entitled ‘87 Internet Marketing Strategies That I Use To Bring Money Into My Business Every Month‘. There are some real gems amongst his newsletters and it was well worth the small investment to get these.

I also love Tony Shepherd’s direct and earthy style – he is based in Burnley and I can almost hear his Northern accent in his writing. I am going to study his style and technique as it is something I would like to model myself (- although I also need to be true myself!)

Interestingly, most of his products have a price-point of only $9.95 and he appears to be doing very well with his business. (It also looks to be a lot of fun for him!!)

All Is NOT Well in Internet Marketing Paradise!

I took my wife to a doctors appointment as she is having blood pressure problems. Before her appointment, I quickly had a blood pressure check myself.

I was shocked to get a reading of 200 over 110!!

Oh SH1T!

My wife was pulling my leg about it but after her appointment she was not laughing because she had exactly the same reading as me!

Looks like a change of lifestyle is needed by us both because these are critical readings – the doctor told my wife that she should be signed off work with a reading like that.

Just shows that you must not neglect your health in favour of your business. I don’t want a golden coffin!

Membership Millionaires Bootcamp

This product is proceeding nicely – I hope to complete it next week. I am basically recording how I create this membership site so someone else can replicate my system for creating membership products.

This is how the site looks at present:

Packaged with the training will be the key pieces of software – the membership plugin and theme – that I use to create the site. As this software can be used to create unlimited personal products, I feel confident that it will be an attractive proposition – you can see my draft sales letter here.

So with that, I end another enjoyable week in internet marketing paradise. (Let’s hope I live long enough to see another one!)

Moving Forward With My Sales Funnel

After a weeks ‘holiday’ looking after my grandchildren, I am finally moving forward with my sales funnel. After 3 weeks of frustration, Bryan Zimmerman (joint owner of JVZoo) finally replied personally to my support query! I had to change a number of things in my funnel when I understood how it all works.

I decided to make a video about how I set my sales funnel up on JVZoo and the problems I encountered:

I have also improved my affiliate page and you can view it here http://wayofthewarriors.com/affiliates/ – Manie Amari’s feedback was very helpful in adding the finishing touches – a fresh pair of eyes is always helpful.

Now I have to move onto recruiting affiliates as I have already released this on JVZoo. If you would like to promote it, simply follow the steps on my Affiliate page and let’s make some money together.

In the meantime, I am going to throw some traffic at the page in order to get some conversion stats which will help when I approach affiliates. I got 5 sales from the initial mailing I made to my list before the funnel was fully set up.

I may also try a limited time launch on the Warrior Forum just to get some traffic and sales moving. My front-end product, entitled The Way of the Warriors, is perfectly positioned for enticing the Warriors on the Forum.

Membership Millionaires Bootcamp

This is the product I started (whilst I was waiting for JVZoo to reply to my support queries) on how I make membership sites quickly using Membersonic and a number of other useful plugins. This is coming along nicely and I am just working on the sales letter at the moment. This is how it currently looks – do you like the ‘Ferrari’ red colour?

I have realised that I can make a nice little funnel by packaging this product with Product Creation Renegade – I just need to decide on my front-end (FE) product so the progression will go:

$7 FE to
$27 for Product Creation Renegade and then
$97 for Membership Millionaires Bootcamp which includes $233 of software at retail prices and my training.

The logo ‘All For one And One For All’ is taken from ‘The Three Muskateers’ but it does encapsulate what membership sites are all about.

Business Storyboards

One of the products that I have had in the planning stages for sometime is Business Storyboards – I want to graphically represent some of the business strategies I have learnt over the last 4 years and indeed from my consulting days.

My ideas for this product have gelled over the last few days, and I think this will be my next product. We will see.

One of my problems is that I need to ‘pull the trigger’ by marketing my existing products rather than producing yet more products. But it is fair to say that I just love the product creation process. I would love to get into designing software soon i.e. WordPress plugins or themes.

Optimize Press 2.0 Launched this week

Optimize press 2.0 launched this week but the price is higher than I had hoped for – even with my discount as an existing user of Optimize Press 1.0, the price is double what I paid for the original version.

However, I am mighty tempted to buy OP2 because, if I was starting in internet marketing again, these are the 3 themes I would look at:

Low Price – the Membersonic Theme – this theme is a steal at $20 because it is highly flexible, is responsive, has 4 navigation menus (which makes it great for membership sites) and you get developers rights. I also love the look of this theme – not unlike Optimize Press (- I have used the Membersonic Theme on both The Way of the Warriors and Membership Millionaires Bootcamp.)
Medium Price – Instabuilder – for $77 this plugin is packed with features. Whilst the training videos suck a bit, this is a great mid-priced option for unlimited personal use.
Premium Price – Optimize Press 2.0 – at $297 this theme/plugin is the ‘Rolls Royce’ of themes in my opinion. Whilst, I don’t yet own this theme, from the promotional videos and my knowledge of OP1, this looks to be an incredibly good theme with a membership script built in to the package, a button creator, responsive and cutting edge design and a host of other great features.

Email Sequences

I am also setting my mind to creating a new sequence of follow up emails that I can plugin to all my lists.

I think I will devote the first few emails to be product specific but I will then create additional email sequences that can be plugged in to every list i.e. the automated cash machine that everyone talks about. I have a small, rather neglected list of subscribers which is growing inexorably. I really need to start treating them as I would wish to be treated myself.

Having started consuming Marc Milburn’s Email Cash Siphon product, I really have no excuses for not upping my email marketing game.

Personal Problems

As you know from my last post, last week I took a weeks holiday to look after my grandchildren to help my daughter who was starting a new job in London. We live about 85 miles from her. She has arranged for a nanny for her children for 2 days a week and my wife is travelling to their house to look after the children for 3 days a week. This is a huge commitment on my wife’s part and it now turns out that as the new nanny has pre-booked a weeks holiday later this month, my daughter needs help for another week.

This is simply too much for my wife to cope with on her own. Obviously, as I work at home, there is a perception that I am always available to help out. It is impossible to work with 2 young children under the age of 5 in the house and I cannot really afford to take yet another week off! Difficult conversation with my daughter coming up this weekend!

My primary concern is that I don’t want my grandchildren palmed off on strangers or my wife to be over-whelmed with the responsibility but at the same time I need to work on my business. Also, we want to support our much-loved daughter as much as we can. Sometimes life just gets in the way.

Here is my one year-old grandson, Daniel, enjoying my wife’s chicken curry – this picture alone was worth the week I spent with them and reminds me of when my son used to lick the plate clean!

My Plan is Coming Together

Thanks to my coach, my business plan is inexorably coming together and I feel confident that ultimate success is close now. It is great to have the support and assistance of my fellow coaching students, who all seem incredibly talented in one way or another. I am hoping that we will all start to see some incredible results shortly.

Collectively We Can Overcome Each Others Weaknesses!

One of the other students in Marc Milburn’s Coaching group, Daniel Madeira, wrote a blog post about the power of online relationships because he has had some help from the students to put together his product about how he created his solo ads business. It made me realise again just how many skills there are within the group of students and that if we just helped each other to implement Marc’s teaching then collectively we can overcome each others weaknesses.

Amongst the students we have people like Andrew Brackpool who has a talent for copywriting, Sergio Felix who is technically proficient with WordPress and a lot more because he has coding skills, Daniel Madeira knows all about solo ads, Chris Ferrante has just put together an amazing squeeze page, Mani Amari blew us away with his sales funnel strategy, Robert Watkins runs an internet marketing Facebook group with 2,700 fans (bet there is some nice traffic there!) and that’s just a few of the students I know about.

Then, of course, we are under the tutelage of Marc Milburn himself who is busily churning out incredible insights into internet marketing. I have to say that I am excited by how this coaching is shaping up – we have had two full trainings so far and the main coaching called Online Wealth Blueprint only starts TODAY!!! I think that means that the best is yet to come which is slightly unbelievable to me.

Last week I launched The Way of The Warriors eBook within a membership site and I have made my first sales without really promoting the product. I am holding back from promoting it because I want to get my sales funnel in place before I do that so here it is – you’ll have to click on the image to view it properly because it is too wide for the page:

This is not quite as daunting as it looks because I already have the OTO1 and OTO2 products created so I just need to create the upfront products. I have written Website Traffic Tornado already – I think I might move that to the Exit Pop and create a product on sales funnels as the front-end product because that will lead in better to The Way of the Warriors. My goal is to put this funnel into place this week.

Interestingly, it was Mani Amari’s funnel and than Daniel Madeira’s eBook that reminded me about the possibility of using an exit-pop to maximise conversions and this functionality is inbuilt into Optimize Press. It also made me realise that the more products you create, the more options you have for including your own products into a sales funnel.

There is one addition to the funnel that I want to shape up and that is a high-end coaching programme. I want to get that planned out very soon. I am working with Mani Amari on my sales funnel and recruiting affiliates and we intend to keep each other accountable.

Last week I also spent a day just proof reading Daniel Madeira’s Solo Ad Assassin product. I think it will sell really well because it is entirely authentic and it sets out a simple plan for creating a solo ads business. I am hoping that Daniel will teach me all about solo ads because it looks like a good business model for earning some cash and, failing that, a great way to drive traffic.

I have also started watching Marc’s Email Cash Siphon and I think I will create a product on email marketing just to consolidate Marc’s teaching – I created a logo for the product (Mercury, the winged messenger) which is the featured image on this post – probably not the right way to start a product by creating the logo first, but ‘hey’, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat!

Finally, let me leave you with two quotes from Alex Jeffrey’s:

There is no ‘push button’ without a list
It’s not what they sell, it’s how they sell to you

And my own thought for today ‘Collectively we can overcome each others weaknesses’ – an empowering thought for our coaching group.

Product Launched Within 3 Days of Attending Alex Jeffreys Live

I’ve just launched a product within 3 days of attending Alex Jeffreys Live – it’s called The Sky Inside and it’s about vision, mindset and time management.

This product is the first in a series of 7 integrated products designed to teach all I know about launching an online business. It’s a combination of material from my days as an offline consultant combined with what I have learned about internet marketing over the last 4 years.

Credit for this speedy launch is not entirely due to Alex, but attending his seminar has added urgency to my action. I already had the product and was going to launch it as a WSO but I missed the launch date and I was prevaricating about how to create an upsell to the product. Instead of wasting any further time, I have launched the product on JV Zoo after a coaching session from Marc Milburn last night which outlined his product launch strategy.

Marc does not ‘launch’ products, he simply ‘releases’ them, then drives some test traffic at his sales page to see how it converts – ideally around 1,000 clicks and then, when he knows how it is converting, he begins his traffic strategy of inviting affiliates to promote his product.

This strategy takes away all the stress of a launch and I can perhaps consider a WSO launch later at a discounted price point.

I have two further products to launch over the next couple of days, once I have completed a sales letter for each- suddenly the strategy is becoming clear. By launching on JV Zoo, I am able to offer affiliates lifetime commissions on all my products which is important bearing in mind that all the products are integrated into a single purpose of helping my buyers to create a sustainable online business – I therefore fully expect to cross-sell the other products to any buyer of a single product and I will set up my auto-responder to this end.

In addition I am setting up a fixed term membership site called ‘Business Creation Mastery’ to supplement my product range as an additional upsell. The purpose of this site is to bring all the products together at a higher level. Credit for this goes to Alex Jeffreys who set the challenge of setting up our recurring income membership site within 30 days – I fully intend to meet this deadline.

Once all this is set up and generating revenue, I will also be offering coaching but I think that it is important to show some results first!

Within the last few days, thanks to Alex and Marc, a number of road-blocks in my mind have been removed and the way ahead suddenly seems clear. I am sure that there will be further road-blocks along the way but with Alex Jeffreys, Marc Milburn and Dean Holland as my coaches I have someone to turn to if I get stuck.

One of the big realisations from Alex’s event was that I am over-complicating my business. One of the frustrations I had was that technically I have most of the information I need to succeed but I just couldn’t make progress as fast as I thought I should be because I was over-complicating the process.

An example of this was trying to get my sales funnel in place before a launch. However, by simply ‘releasing’ my product, I can add the sales funnel later as I ‘release’ further products. It takes all the stress and complication out of getting my products to market.

Also, JV Zoo is technically much simpler to set-up than a WSO which reduces the stress hoping your launch does not flop badly because of a technical problem.

Another example of how I am introducing simplicity to my business is through my resolution to use just one WordPress Theme for my products and sites – Optimize Press. Each WordPress theme has its own special features which take time to master. I’ve decided to use Optimize Press because it can be deployed in most situations – squeeze pages, sales letters, launch sequences, blog and membership sites.

Not only will this cut down the time taken for deployment but it also helps with branding your business if all sites and products look similar. Whilst many other internet marketers use Optimize Press, I intend to differentiate my site through the creative output of headers, graphics and using the creative features of Easy Video Suite to present my material so that my sites are visually interesting.

If The Sky Inside was launched within 3 days of returning from Alex Jeffreys Live Event then the question is, ‘how quickly can I release the other two products that I have developed’? Watch this space!