The Way of the Warriors

The Way of the Warriors eBook that I started last week is almost finished – I have basically written 1 chapter a day to get this book written. We are up to 63 pages now and almost 16,000 words. I hope to complete the final chapter of the book today. This will be a front end product and I will then try to upsell my other products from this eBook.

I basically chunked the book down into chapters to get it done because I found that I was getting fatigued if I tried to keep writing beyond one chapter per day. I didn’t want to find that I couldn’t finish the book because I got fed-up with it. To motivate me to write the chapter each day I added a more pleasurable task into my timetable to do when I had finished the chapter – it was something to work towards.

I am using Google Calendar and a piece of software called Action Enforcer to time-box my work in to 60 minute chunks to increase productivity.

I have taken the same approach to recruiting affiliates. I have joined a load of JV Facebook groups this week – this is where my potential JV partners will be lurking. Thank you to Manie Amari, a fellow Marc Milburn student, for this list:

[features_box_light_green width=”75%” + border=”2px”]

List of JV Groups on Facebook

*MunchEye
*Secret Society of Super Villains
*Make Money Online – JV – WSO – Solo – Adswaps – Giveaways – IM – Warriors
*Warrior JV WSO Group (VERY ACTIVE HERE)
*JV Launch Calendar
*WSO Launch & JV Network
*JV ELITE LAUNCH GROUP
*Forum Offers
*Official JVZoo.com Facebook Group
*JV Zoo Product Launch
* Launch Superstars
*Affiliate Products PROVEN To Sell
*Daniel Lews Kickass JV Group
*WSO Elite Inner Circle
*Elite JV Group
*IM Secret Elite JV Launch

[/features_box_light_green]

I have been steadily adding affiliates to my affiliate spreadsheet but found I was getting distracted when I looked up some personal information on them. I therefore decided that I would set a goal of adding 5 affiliates a day to my spreadsheet before moving on to another task.

There was an incredibly good thread in the WSO JV Central Facebook Group – it was started by Kenster which then sparked a reaction from Andrew Fletcher of DigiResults and I am copying these comments below because they are highly instructive about how to recruit affiliates to sell your products. They also re-enforce Marc Milburn’s teaching:

[features_box_light_blue width=”75%” + border=”1px”]Kenster

Don’t you HATE when somebody messages you for the first time asking you to promote something. Don’t you hate when somebody you never know just pushes their offers on you…like they just want to use you. Don’t these people know how to market? Don’t they understand that they are being rude? Shouldn’t they respect you and your time!

Well…

I’ve griped about these people before and I’m sure you’ve seen my comments in this group at one point or another.

But to be honest, perhaps I’m getting soft at my old age of 28, but I’ve learned to give these new marketers a break. Let’s be honest, I think most of us successful marketers have done something along the those lines when we first started out…right? I know I certainly did.

I didn’t intend to be rude or approach the affiliate-getting process wrong – I was just doing what I thought was supposed to be done. People said, “create a product and get affiliates”. I created a product and now I was emailing random people to “get affiliates”. Was is a bad way to approach affiliates…absolutely. But I was a new little IM sprout with no experience or knowledge…I was just trying to hustle.

So I’ve learned to respect these marketers that approach me to promote their stuff and ask for advice. They are trying to hustle and over time, they’ll learn the right way to approach affiliates and the right way to build relationships. I think we should give these newbie marketers a bit more slack!

Now the experienced marketers who know how this industry works and know how they should be approaching affiliates and networking partners and who still bombard me asking for advice, referrals, traffic, promos, etc…no slack given to you 😉

Remember struggling when you first started? I do and I have a new-found respect for hustler newbie marketers…even if they are doing stupid and annoying stuff!!! [/features_box_light_blue]

Andrew Fletcher then posted 3 times:

[features_box_yellow width=”75%” + border=”2px”]

Andrew Fletcher – 1st Post

Kenster just made an awesome post all about his approach to handling newbie’s sucky cold approaches.

I replied how one of my top JV recruitment strategies has been helping new starters out. The best example being one guy who went from not knowing what an upsell was to topping my leader board less than a year later!

Needless to say I immediately got a deluge of friend adds and messages looking to take me up on that … predictable if nothing else!

OK, so I don’t have time right now to make good on that and I feel bad. So instead I’m writing this post to show you how to make less sucky cold approaches. They are, after all, one of the hardest parts of the JV game.

First of all, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. I own DigiResults and 90%+ of the big affiliates in the space know who I am. So my cold approaches carry rather more weight than most.

So please believe me when I say, this is the stuff I used to get here from nothing and it still works really effectively now.

First up, making cold approaches not so cold.

This is where your branding and exposure come into play. It doesn’t have to be some Madison Avenue branding exercise, just a few basics that will massively improve your results –

1. Pick a brand word and stick it on your products. For 3 years I was the Digi guy. Everything I put out was Digi Something Something. Doing that makes you seem a bigger deal than you really are, which ironically starts to make it true!

2. Get yourself out there in an appropriate way. If you’re a newbie, aim to ask smart questions and seek advice. If you’re experienced aim to give smart answers and provide it. Parroting marketing theory that you have no experience of isn’t going to help. This isn’t Warrior Forum 101. The JVs you want to work with KNOW THEIR STUFF and will see through you without a second thought.

3. Pay attention to who engages with your content. If you ask a smart question and someone answers or provide a smart answer and something ‘likes’ it. That lead stopped being a cold approach. Engage!

Next up. Make an approach but do it the right way.

This post has already got quite long so I’ll cover some approach strategies next time. If you want to speed that up make sure you like this post and say nice things about me 😀

Andrew Fletcher’s 2nd Post (- read his ‘why me’ page on the link below – it’s really impressive!)

Yesterday Ken Ster inspired me to start posting about JV recruitment.

If you haven’t read it yet, start here –

http://www.facebook.com/groups/wsojvcentral/permalink/376684269098151/

And if you’re new and wondering “Who is this windbag and why should I listen to him?”

http://www.digijv.com/why-me

It’s several months and quite a bit of money out of date but it illustrates the point 🙂

Now, as promised yesterday, a simple approach that’s about 1000 times more likely to get someone to engage with you than a copy/pasted “Will you promote my shitty product” email.

Make your approach specific to the person you’re approaching and don’t make them feel like they’re going to be trapped in a conversation with you. (Pro tip: This applies just as well to picking someone up in a bar 😉 )

How to make it specific –

Either do a group of approaches at the same time, or find a few other people you could approach if you’re just doing a single one.

Now ask yourself, “Is my question/flattery/whatever applicable to other people in this group?” Contrary to every approach email anyone has ever sent, if the answer is “Yes” DO NOT SEND IT.

If it’s specific to them, then by definition it doesn’t apply to many other people.

You also can’t cheat.

I’m emailing you because I really liked PRODUCT_NAME and I’m on your list.

PRODUCT_NAME makes it feel specific but it’s not. It’s a mail merge in Word. It’s lazy.

So also ask yourself, “Could I substitute another name into this and have it apply?” If you could, DO NOT SEND IT.

Instead, pay attention to what they are currently talking about in their emails, on FB, on their blog, wherever and match your approach to something going on in their lives. This will massively increase your chances of engagement.

How to keep it short –

Realise they don’t care who you are to start with. If they are worth engaging with they already have a bazillion FB friends, Twitter followers and Skype contacts. Your goal is to stand out. You do so by fighting the urge to talk endlessly about yourself.

Make your own life harder by engaging about something that doesn’t imply you will follow up a million times. You’re much more likely to get a response if the person doesn’t feel that doing so will open them up to a million more questions or hearing all about you.

Some of my best approach emails have simply been flattery about a product (again, in specific terms) and a note saying “Please feel free to publicly quote me on that. If you need anything like a headshot photo or whatever to go with it, just say the word.”

You think that gets a response? Of course it does!

I started writing up some real world examples and bonus points on how to get a response but this post is long enough already.

Andrew Fletcher’s 3rd Post

Following on the topic of making your JV approaches suck less I’ve compiled a list of the most basic mistakes people making.

Just fixing these things won’t guarantee you a reply but getting them wrong will pretty much guarantee you don’t.

1 – Generic subject line: “JV”, “Hello”, “Promotion” for a marketer with 100+ emails a day, is this going to get opened?

2 – Being overly deferential and apologetic: “Sorry for the interruption, I know you are a great man and probably don’t have time but could you spend 60 seconds looking at my JV proposal, I’d really appreciate it.”

3 – Being needy: “I have a great product, I just need your sales and marketing skills, advice and access to your list to make it happen.” Big affiliates promote people who have their shit together.

4 – Not getting to the point: Copy can never be too long, only too boring but I guarantee 99% of the drivel people write by way of an introduction is TOO BORING.

5 – Guarding your idea: “I have a fantastic product and I’d love you to promote, I just need you to sign an NDA so I can give you details.” Ahahahahaha, No.

6 – Having someone run the process on your behalf: I actually did this one for ages and it can definitely work once you’re established but when you’re starting out trying to abdicate responsibility for this just plain won’t work.

7 – Being too casual: We’re IMers but that doesn’t mean you can type like,,, ths and xpct me 2 rspnd. If you message me sounding like a retard, I’ll presume your copy will sound like a retard and bin it.

8 – Being vague: I have a software, would you like to promote it? I have a trash can, would you like to be in it?

9 – Sharing nothing in the email: It’s fine to have the details on a JV page that you link off to but you’ve got to give me enough to make it worth clicking the link. This isn’t some “You have to check this out: LINK: solo ad we’re writing.

With top JVs getting 1000s of these kind of pitches the success ratio is probably about 1000 to 1. Do yourself a favour and skew the odds, stop making these mistakes.

[/features_box_yellow]

I wanted to record the above comments because these are the opinions of someone with experience in the field and represent a great template for recruiting affiliates.

As a result of the ‘branding’ comments by Andy Fletcher, I added my business name (The Business Renegade) to my header on this blog to keep my business brand alive. I also added the ‘salmon’ graphic to the background of my site to spice it up a little – it looked a little dull and boring before.

As a result of Marc’s training, I also sent out a couple of promotional emails this week about Webinar Express – the new Google Hangouts plugin. I’ve got it and really like it so I felt comfortable about promoting it. Here’s a sample landing page I knocked up in a few minutes – http://mark-salmon.com/sample-webinar/. I’ll send out another email today about this post. I couldn’t reach my target of 5 emails this week – must try harder next week.

I also did a video testimonial for Marc Milburn and ‘exposed’ myself on webcam – good training for what I know must come in future. I don’t mind speaking in front of an audience but its not an activity that I rush towards doing. However, I must get out of my comfort zone a lot more in order to become a leader, so more videos and webinars are on my agenda. Here’s the testimonial vid:

I also recommended another potential student for Marc’s coaching programme.

I think I have another idea for a front end product that I can start next week when I have completed The Way of the Warriors – I would like to create a simple graphics site, mainly because I love making graphics. (That reminds me, I also completed a header image for Tsahai de Silva this week for her blog and I helped Terry Weatherill to start improving his website (but nothing has changed yet! i would like to do a ‘before’ and ‘after’ makeover of Terry’s site if he will let me! ) as suggested by Marc.)

Finally, Marc Milburn recommended that we set up a help desk using a piece of free software called Hesk – this video tutorial shows me setting up the Hesk Help Desk – it is a live recording including the mistakes I made but it should give you a good idea about how to set-up a Hesk Help Desk: http://renegade.evsuite.com/hesk-setup/

If you are interested in joining Marc Milburn’s coaching and want to talk to me about his coaching programme, then feel free to contact me for the inside story.

As you can see The Way of the Warriors is not about lying on the beach with a laptop but it involves hard work and application i.e. the willingness to pay the price in advance. I am… are you?

Please post a comment below and let me know what’s on your mind.

Google Hangouts on Air (and Other Animals)

In my last post I set out my agenda for June but I was diverted by the latest innovation in Google Hangouts on Air – namely a product called Webinar Express.

I have been very interested in starting to do my own Webinars but I have been put-off by the extortionate monthly fees of the leading webinar software which is of course GoToWebinar. For someone just starting out in Webinars, I think their fees, and the commitment to keep paying a monthly fee, have put me off taking action so far.

I have therefore been very interested in Google Hangouts on Air and I wrote a blog post on my Business Renegade blog that covered everything I had learnt about Google Hangouts on Air and even how to set it up all manually.

Recently I bought a plugin called the Hangout Plugin to automate the registration process but that back-fired when it conflicted with my blog and was totally unworkable. I was therefore delighted to see the Webinar Express launch yesterday and I bought that plugin and set it up on my blog- see this video that I have created to promote the plugin to my list – at the end it diverts to the Webinar Express offer:

I will definitely be using Google Hangouts on Air in the near future, even if I am initially talking to myself only as I want to get used to using this technology.

I also started creating another new product this week called ‘The Way of the Warriors’. This is an eBook recapping the main learning points from the Digital Millionaire Bootcamp run by Marc Milburn. I thought that by writing this eBook I would embed the main learning points in my own psyche and, at the same time, create a nice saleable product.

I was fortunate enough to pick up a review copy of the new Membersonic theme built on the Genesis framework and tested this new theme for The Way of the Warriors product so I could give Andrew Hunter a nice testimonial by way of thanking him for the review copy. I really like the theme and I will be using it for my non-core products to give a change of branding.

I also spoke to a friend about Marc’s coaching programme who enquired how I was getting on with the coaching. She is very interested in joining Marc if she can persuade her husband to make the investment. She is frustrated by her lack of progress and was bowled over when I told her what Marc was proposing to do for his coaching students over the next 12 months or indeed over our lifetime!

This week Marc Milburn gave us access to his Email Cash Siphon course so I have started to watch these videos too because I am not very good with this aspect of my business – I am too inconsistent and I don’t really like writing emails but I’ve got to discipline myself to do it daily as taught by Marc. I also need to get my traffic system going as well – I am spending too much time on product creation, simply because I enjoy the act of creation.

One of the learning points from Marc was that he initially created a list of over 10,000 people by offering free stuff and when he finally tried to promote his products to this list he found that nobody bought anything because he had conditioned them to expect free stuff. He had to write-off this list and start again and he now recommends that most emails should be promotional in nature but with a weekly email to link to the free content on your blog. (On the other hand Marc teaches not to use your blog for promotional purposes – this is completely different to how I was operating before!)

I also helped someone in the Membersonic Forum who was wrestling with their header image – it seems that graphics are a constant problem for new internet marketers and I am thinking of doing a training showing how to create simple header and logo graphics using a variety of free and paid tools. In this instance I just created the header for him.

I am also currently reading a book called ‘The Obvious Expert’, recommended by Alex Jeffreys. I have to say that much of the advice in the book is fairly obvious too – write a book, find speaking events to speak at, create your own newsletter and so forth! I have written a lot of eBooks so perhaps I ought to go the extra step and get them published on Kindle and Amazon. In fact, that might be a good step forward with ‘The Way of the Warriors’.

One of the other small things that I have set up this week is to create a separate email to sign up to marketers lists with – this diverts into a special folder that I have set up on Gmail- here’s exactly what I did and why:

Finally, I have done some modest planning for my recurring income membership site – Business Creation Mastery – which I would like to launch by the end of June if possible. Let me know what you think about what I am doing in the comments below – I would love to hear your feedback!

Mark’s Month 1 Progress Update

I started my coaching just over one month ago with Marc Milburn and set up this blog on the 1st May. I thought that I would just recap my progress to date in the first month.

We have now had 6 trainings within the bonus product called Digital Millionaires Bootcamp. This training was a basic overview of the kind of business we are going to create with Marc.

At the core of the business model is this website and the creation of a list. Surrounding the core of the business will be a series of info products on separate web domains.

Prior to Marc’s coaching starting, I almost had 3 of my core products already created. I have now ‘released’ these 3 products on JVZoo. I now need to drive traffic to each of the sales pages. The sales pages are here:

In addition to releasing these 3 products into the market, I have created this website to chronicle my journey with Marc.

I have been able to assist my fellow students by securing a discounted deal for Membersonic ($27 rather than the market price of $167) – this is a membership plugin that I use to protect my products and now 13 of my fellow students also have access to this plugin. When they discover how good this plugin is, hopefully I will win some friends as a result of this deal!

[features_box_light_blue width=”75%” + border=”1px”]

So the thrust of my business activity over the next month will now be as follows:

to continue creating products – I have at least 4 more planned – the next is Business Storyboards on business strategy and planning which I want to have finished by 19th June so I can revamp List Building Renegade for re-release at the beginning of July
to email my list 3 or 4 days a week with one promotion each week (including my own products)
to recruit affiliates for my products using the system Marc has given to us
to set up a recurring income membership site using BusinessCreationMastery.com (- I need to narrow my niche focus perhaps just targeting ‘beginners’). This will be the upsell on all products and I am starting the monthly fee at $9.95 per month.
to start building sales funnels for each product that I have released
a weekly blog post and email my list as I publish it.
consider trying some solo ads to start building my list
become more organised about finding products to promote by creating a JV email address and forwarding all promotional emails to a gmail account for review
set up Bonus Press on a directory of my site to offer bonus packages on big promotions.
make sure that I have joined all the affiliate networks recommended by Marc

[/features_box_light_blue]

I definitely need to create a good working routine. This includes using Alex Jeffreys time management system – particularly setting goals in advance of each month, week, day and reviewing progress through a ‘did’ sheet i.e. what I have accomplished each day.

I definitely need to concentrate on simplifying my business model as far as possible and increasing productivity. I attended Alex Jeffreys live event in London during May and this has helped to galvanise me as well. The realisation that I was over-complicating my business suddenly removed the blockages in mind about what it takes to make money online.

I also bought and read ‘Ready, Aim, Fire’ by Michael Masterson. I now know that I must spend the majority of my time in ‘selling’ activities – Marc is giving us the optimal model for selling our products – but I now need to focus on doing it which will be difficult for me as I have never liked this aspect of business.

Marc has also made it crystal clear that most of his activities have a promotional aspect to them, with the main free content being in the form of his blog posts. He says that the trouble with offering too much free stuff is that your prospects are conditioned to expect everything for free!

Also, I may try a launch of one of my products on the Warrior Forum just to start getting some traffic and affiliates to my sales letters to track conversions.

One idea that is circulating in my mind is to set up a graphics membership site providing graphics and tutorials on how to customise the graphics. I love creating graphics and I think there could be a market for showing marketers how to create simple web graphics. Whilst we are told to outsource this task, I definitely like to create my own graphics – it’s more convenient and it’s part of the creative process of creating a product.

The other big breakthrough this month has been my understanding of how to use Google Hangouts on Air. I have purchased a useful plugin called Hangout plugin to help me to set up live webinars on Google Hangouts. I would definitely like to test this out during June.

Also during June, I need to book another consultation with Marc to review progress and to get Marc’s guidance. One consultation per month and the opportunity to ask questions at each weekly webinar should enable me to keep moving forward.

On a point of detail, I am acquiring the new Membersonic membership theme in the next few days to use for my non-core products. Optimize Press will be used for my core products so that my branding is nice and crisp.

That concludes my month one update of Marc Milburn’s coaching. Altogether, some good progress has been made and it’s all shaping up well.

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!

Rubbing Shoulders With Some Internet Marketing Guru’s

I have been rubbing shoulders with some internet marketing gurus over the weekend. I attended Alex Jeffreys ‘Marketing With You – Live’ event in London.

The biggest revelation to me was that I did not learn much new about internet marketing! That may sound like a negative comment but it really isn’t.

Alex outlined his simple business model – it really is simple. I’ve heard him talk about it already in a number of his webinars, which is why there was no new content. I don’t mind that because, if this is his real business model that is earning him a lot of money, then why talk about anything else?

From this, I have come to the conclusion that I am over-complicating my business – so this is perhaps the biggest learning point for me. I am still looking for the magic secret and there really isn’t one.

This realisation alone is a massively important one because it means that I am well and truly beyond the ‘learning’ stage and the focus is now firmly on implementation.

I also met some really great people at the event:

Alex Jeffreys

Dean Holland

Rob Cornish

Rob Cornish is an internet marketer that I really admire – his content is real gold and he is building a really nice business for himself. He is one of the few internet marketers whose emails find their way into my inbox. It was a genuine pleasure to meet with him (as you can see from my face!).

I also met and had lunch with Devon Brown – didn’t get a picture damnit! Devon had travelled all the way from Atlanta to be at the event and was going on to tour France and Spain over the course of the next two weeks. His business is called Renegade Success (mine is called The Business Renegade) so we have that in common. I instantly liked Devon who was very open and easy to talk to despite his obvious success – no airs and graces.

I also met and chatted to a number of students who will be stars of the future – Richard Gledhill, Malcolm Simmonds, Sherry Bualy (from Oman!), Andy Lindsay (shortly launching Config WP – a piece of software to help to launch WordPress sites faster), Catherine Toops, Kevin Ashbridge and many more.

I feel re-energised and re-motivated to get some products out into the market place as quickly as possible and to start a fixed-term membership site. I need to make some money so I can attend every event that I can – it really is a life-affirming experience to meet with other people who are on the same journey that you are. They are all positive people who want to help each other realise their dreams.

As you can tell I am excited about this experience and only wish I had found the time to meet many more people at the event.

I have also ordered the following recommended books on my return home:

‘Ready, Aim, Fire’ by Michael Masterson
‘The Obvious Expert’ by E Eldridge
‘Abundance’ by Peter H Diamandis

These books were all recommended by Alex Jeffreys and I am ready and willing to learn from the best!

It has taken me a long time to attend my first live internet marketing event – I was put off from attending events when I attended a marketing event by Chris Cardell in around 2006 that was nothing but a pitch-fest. However, Alex’s event was quite different – he did promote his own coaching but it was not offensive and there are plenty of success stories in his coaching group.

I am currently being coached by two of Alex’s students – Marc Milburn and Dean Holland and in due course I may turn to Alex if necessary if I need help to get to another level. For the time-being I am well-satisfied with my current coaches.

If you have yet to rub shoulders with the internet marketing gurus by attending a live event, then it is an experience that I can thoroughly recommend because it is lonely trying to figure this stuff out by yourself!

My First Internet Marketing Seminar – My Golden Ticket

Before I bought Marc Milburn’s coaching course, I booked to attend Marketing With Alex – Live which is being held at Heathrow, London on the 18th and 19th May 2013. Hopefully, this will be my ‘Golden Ticket’!

I am writing this blog post just before I leave for the event.

Here’s what Alex has promised to cover over the weekend:

how to double, triple or even quadruple your business.
how to launch your first information product and make between $2,000 and $55,000 in your very first week (no experience needed)
how to get an endless stream of traffic so you never stop making money on the internet
how to make $8,000 in 90 minutes on the internet, without a website or a product
how to add 1,213 people into your membership in the first few days without any of the content created
how to make $9,587 per month working just 3 hours per week
how to launch your own software product (without even knowing a line of code) and still bank $3,431 in the first 7 days
how to create simple sales funnels (and bank as much as $75,321 per month) on complete auto-pilot
how to make $67,241 in the first month you launch a back-end coaching programme. even with no experience and while just working one afternoon a week.

In addition to this seminar content, Alex has invited some of his big affiliates – I am hoping to meet as many as possible in view of the products that I want to launch shortly.

Also, Dean Holland, another of my mentors, is attending so it will be great to meet him face to face for the first time.

Even The Oompaloompas Want My Ticket

I am really looking forward to this event because it will be great to get out from behind my computer and meet some of the major players in internet marketing.

Internet marketing is all about relationships and this is a golden opportunity to network with some like-minded people and who knows what will come of it in the future. In any event, whatever happens, I’m going to enjoy the experience.

I think I have probably been over-complicating my internet marketing – this was discussed on a coaching call with Dean Holland last night.

Michael Young, another internet marketer, was mentioned. I have followed Michael for a while now – most of his products are pretty sketchy and short but he has a very engaging and likeable manner. His strategy has changed from creating and launching his own products to re-launching other peoples products at a discount to their normal price. in 90 days he has generated $340k in sales with having to work very hard.

It’s all about working smart rather than working hard and Michael seems to have cracked the formula.

However, I listened to a webinar by Peter Garety yesterday, and it is quite evident that he is running his business using some sophisticated management information. He has a product called WP Campaign Manager that allows you to track and segment your customers buying behaviour which enables him to be very targeted with his email marketing.

So there’s the dichotomy, one marketer is saying that it is easy and you can do it with other peoples products , working just a few hours a day, and another marketer is working hard to manage his business using sophisticated management information systems.

Next week I am ringing John Robbins, a fellow student of Dean Holland’s to discuss Michael Young’s strategy in more detail. It will also be a chance to get to know John who is an expert in video marketing.

I am also interested in developing a relationship with Sergio Felix, a fellow student of Marc Milburn’s. I think Sergio will go far because he is not afraid to put himself out there on video and he seems to be well connected.

I am inclined to think that working hard is the only way but it is always beguiling to dream that there is an easier way. It will be interesting to see whether my opinion changes over the course of this weekend with Alex Jeffreys.

So wish me luck with my first internet marketing seminar and I’ll report back on how I got on next week and tell you if it really was one of life’s golden tickets.

The Power of Candid Feedback

Today I was on the receiving end of some candid feedback from David Walker. He basically told me that my design work was poor! 🙁

I volunteered to do a website header for Daniel Madeira, one of Marc Milburn’s coaching students to help him out and I produced 6 versions of the header just to see what he liked.

Of course, because Daniel wasn’t paying, he was too polite to tell me what he really thought and thanked me.

In a moment of madness, I posted the 6 headers on my Facebook profile and asked my Facebook ‘friends’ to tell me what they thought. David was the first to reply and this is what he said,

‘Number 1 is the best of a very bad bunch (sorry, but you did ask…)’

Initially I was a little hurt by his comment but then I thought that by giving me his unvarnished opinion, he was actually doing me a huge favour. It got me thinking hard about what I could do to improve my designs.

I had two further replies to my thread which both agreed with David that my first, very simple design was the best one. A clear case of ‘less is more’ (just like ladies make-up!)

I decided to look at David Walker’s blog and discovered that his header was simply a simple piece of ordinary text with a transparent background. No graphics or logo. His blog was also very minimalist. I then realised that clean and simple was his clear preference, so I immediately produced a similar header (version 7) for Daniel.

Now Daniel has 7 headers he can choose from. It will be interesting to see which he chooses because often the beauty of design is in the eye of the beholder. You only have to look at modern art to realise that!

If you are interested, this is Daniels existing blog http://dotcomlife.net/ – he is starting a new blog under his new domain name http://daniel-madeira.com

I am a complete self-taught amateur in the world of design and it made me realise that this is a very difficult field to enter because everyone has different tastes and opinions (thank god! – it would be very monochrome and boring if they didn’t.)

The problem with design is that it is easy to just mess around with ideas and to keep trying new stuff – it is also easy to pass into the realms of bad taste and poor aesthetics!

Also, I had very little guidance from Daniel on what he wanted (other than the text I put on the header). Without candid feedback from the ‘customer’ it is very difficult to design in isolation because, as I say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For example, Daniel might like seeing his handsome mugshot on the header! I just don’t know.

Here are the headers for you to see – let me know your opinions in the comment box below and if you can link to a site whose header you really like, that would be great because I like to see what designs others like, to inform my own work.

For example, do you think it is a mistake not to have his face on the header in order to make an instant connection with the blog-owner or is that a bit cheesy?

Oh, and don’t forget to be candid with your feedback because it is the only sort worth having!

#4 – this was just a piece of fun!

#7 – this has a transparent background to match the background of Daniel’s new site

Let’s really test the power of canidid feedback – please comment below with what you like dislike and prefer! (If you don’t like any of them that’s OK but it would help if you could give an example of a header you do like!)

Internet Marketing Strategies For a Sustainable Online Business – The First Post

This new website has been created to share my internet marketing strategies and my journey to creating a sustainable online business. In fact starting this site is part of that strategy.

I already have a well-established blog called The Business Renegade that I started 4 years ago in 2009. Initially that blog was about ‘how to grow a business’ and covered a lot of my consulting strategies and my interest in finance and bookkeeping. Gradually the site morphed into being almost exclusively about my interest in internet marketing and how to start an online business.

I also set myself up as an internet marketing consultant to help offline businesses do local internet marketing and created a number of websites for offline clients but did not find that terribly fulfilling even though local SEO is relatively easy. So I decided to change my strategy to concentrate on information marketing.

I realise that chopping and changing is destructive but at the end of the day I am on a quest to find work that is fulfilling to me and generates the most value for other people. I am passionate about starting and growing small businesses and I want to be able to show others how to do it. After all, I now have 37 years experience in business and that should count for something!

Starting a new blog in the same niche is a big step for me, so how will this one be different?

Firstly, it is branded to me personally in recognition that people do business with people rather than businesses.

Whilst I couldn’t get my first choice of domain i.e. marksalmon.com, I did secure my second choice domain! (My first choice is not currently in use as it diverts to another website so I wonder if it will be offered for sale?)

Second, this new site will document my progress with my new coach, Marc Milburn, who has recommended that all students start again anew and follow his coaching exactly. This time I will keep things very simple and follow a clear-cut strategy.

Marc is aiming to make $1.2m online this year and has promised to show all his coaching students exactly what he does to be successful.

My plan this year was to release 7 high-quality products about building an online business.

Four out of the 7 products are more or less ready and I am releasing the first one as a WSO any day now. It is all about how to acquire the right mindset and is called The Sky Inside. It includes information on Vision, Mindset and Time Management and I have included two interviews with other high-profile internet marketers as a bonus.

Whether or not these products are successful, they have been a valuable exercise in flexing my product creation muscles.

The other products include:

Business Storyboards – about business strategy and structure i.e. various internet marketing plans and strategies.
WP Website Wizard – over 100 short video tutorials about WordPress systems and processes
Product Creation Renegade – about how to create digital products
List Building Renegade 2.0 – I released this as a WSO last November but I am going to update it and release it. This is all about list building, sales funnels, email marketing, and traffic strategies. (A huge topic that I will probably breakdown into smaller products in future.)
Measure ‘n’ Manage – this product is all about the key performance indicators and numbers that you need to monitor and test in your online business. Also, how to get those numbers and what to do with them.
Outsourcing Renegade – this is about team building and outsourcing or delegating tasks within your business to enable you to scale up your business.

I have no doubt that these products will only be enhanced and improved as a result of Marc Milburn’s training.

Do you want to discover my internet marketing strategies for starting an online business?

I will be sharing my internet marketing strategy in my blog posts so, if you want me to keep you informed as I post new information on my blog, then sign up to my list below and I will send you an email when I post new information.

One of the mistakes on my last blog was to be too promotional with affiliate links and, on advice from Marc Milburn, I will just be sharing good information and keep the promotional stuff well in the background. Whilst I’ve made some money from affiliate marketing, I honestly don’t think it is a great business model for your primary business because it does not position you correctly with your customer.

I’ve learnt this lesson. Your relationship with your list is critically important and if you can gather a small band of happy followers then you are set for life. This is my goal – to over-deliver to a relatively small number of people who have the same interests that I do – creating a sustainable online business using an internet marketing plan that has integrity and authenticity.

I’m in this for the long-haul because I love it and I love working from home. I also like the creative process – websites, graphics, products, software, strategies – a wonderful intellectual challenge that keeps me rooted to my desk.

So join my list and let’s get to work together on designing our internet strategies for a sustainable online business – feel free to connect with me on Facebook and make yourself known to me if you want make this journey together.