Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

2010-04-30T09:27:00.003-05:00

A New Location -- a New Look
For the past few months I've tried to move Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall blog to another directory on my own One Stop Web Support website before Blogger stopped supporting FTP blogs like mine. Attempt after attempt failed and my frustration grew ever greater.

I finally decided to simplify my life and not try to recreate the entire blog on my site. So I opted for something else. I decided to be a good little boy and move all my old posts over to Blogspot, just like Google wanted me to do. At least that way I continue to have access to my old posts.

I'm starting fresh on the new "Fly on the eCommerce Cyberwall" over on my site. That way I can retain those, more recent posts that I had managed to copy manually before I finally got fed up and chose this option. And I can move forward from there with my blog still hosted on my domain.

Check out the new blog. I've posted a more detailed explanation of what led to this point and where I plan to go with this blog on the new blog.
Jeff

2010-02-21T05:12:00.000-06:00

The Key to Getting Finished
Here's a favorite quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow."

This quote falls into the category of Captain Obvious. Yet as obvious as it is, it reminds us of something many of us too often overlook. If you want to finish something, you first have to start it.

Too often we prefer to daydream about how nice things will be once we're able to see some big project in our rear view mirror. We hesitate, though, to start it.

When we daydream about it, we envision it as having turned out absolutely perfect. The results that come from it are perfect. Our whole world is perfect because of it.

When we actually start, that dream of perfection gives way to reality. Things don't go exactly as planned. The results become not so much a final destination as another step along the journey toward the life we want. It can be more attractive to hang onto the dream of perfect results than it is to actually achieve the positive results that doing the project will bring.

So how can you break out of this rut and get a much-needed (and much-procrastinated) project done? Treat yourself like a little kid.

Have you ever had to guide a small child through picking up a floor full of toys? What's the best way to get results?

Saying, "Pick them all up, right now," will likely get you either refusal or tears. That child, looking at the mess, will feel overwhelmed. That child will likely feel much the same way that you feel as you look at a massive project.

What if you say to that child, "Let's pick up all the dolls/action figures," though? By isolating one piece of the bigger project, it seems more doable. The child will do it willingly.

Once those are put away, you can say, "Now let's pick up the blocks," or "Now let's pick up the..." one group at a time until the whole job is done and you can say, "Great job! I'm proud of you for making the room look so nice!"

You can do the same thing with yourself. Break down the larger task into individual parts. Commit yourself to doing just one part. Then, when you finish that, pick out one other part. Again, tell yourself that you need to do only that one part.

It's easier to commit to one small task at a time than to commit to the whole thing. It's easier, too, to move from one completed task to the next one when you have momentum working with you instead of against you.

What Goethe says may be obvious, but true. You can't finish something you haven't started.

Get started. If you need to play mind games with yourself to get started, play whatever ones you need to play. Whatever it takes, though, get started.
Jeff

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2010-02-20T05:23:00.001-06:00

Perfectionism and Your "Happily Ever After"
Throughout the week, I've shared with you thoughts about perfectionism. Perfectionism has both a bright side and a dark side.

Approaching it from the bright side focuses on achieving positive results. This approach may start with a plan of how to obtain those results. The plan remains adaptable, though.

As setbacks block certain routes to the desired goal, this kind of perfectionism seeks new routes instead of agonizing over the one that is blocked. Similarly, as moving forward with the plan reveals even better routes to the desired goal, this kind of perfectionism gladly embraces those better routes instead of feeling tied to the original plan.

In short, the good side of perfectionism focuses on the results instead of on how to reach them. Because my experience with perfectionism has largely been with the dark side of it, I prefer to define the good side of perfectionism as pursuing excellence. I like to keep the two very different mindsets distinct.

The dark side of perfectionism views tasks from an all-or-nothing, one-shot viewpoint. Either everything goes exactly as originally planned, or the whole thing is a failure, no matter how positive the results may be. Each task is viewed as a final destination instead of as a step along a larger journey.

I've found this fragmented way of looking at life harmful. Furthermore, it's based on a fallacy. The rest of our lives is not a destination we arrive at. It is something we have the privilege of creating every day. The joy is in the journey, not in some mythical destination we never reach.

Sometimes, we'll make missteps. Sometimes we'll have to retrace our steps and try again. But if you focus on making the most of the journey instead of on the missteps, you'll get a lot more out of it.

You'll discover things you would have been too busy beating yourself up to see. You'll turn missteps into learning opportunities. You'll gain new insights from overcoming obstacles instead of merely bemoaning them.

You'll enjoy the journey more. And you'll likely will end up with far better results than you originally envisioned.

That brings us around to the antidote for the dark side of perfectionism: gratitude. The dark side of perfectionism is fueled by fear. The dark side of perfectionism is fueled by a feeling of lack. It is fueled by the feeling that if we don't get everything absolutely perfect, we'll remain stuck in that position of lack. We'll remain vulnerable.

Living our lives with gratitude for what we already have and for the discoveries we make along the way drives out that fear. Even obstacles become positives that help us grow.

Living with a viewpoint of gratitude for what we have lets us build our lives. Each resource we already have, each discovery we make, each obstacle we overcome becomes another brick with which we build a happier, more secure life.

Living with a viewpoint of fear and lack actually causes whatever feeble structure we already have to crumble. It robs us of seeing the building materials that lie all around us. It chips away the mortar that holds together the bricks we have already put in place.

When we pursue the dark side of perfectionism, we do it in the hope that one, big push will rescue us from our lack and give us a "happily ever after." We want a "happily ever after" to our lives. We should seek the courage to live our lives "gratefully ever after," no matter the circumstances. Only when we live "gratefully ever after" will we see all that we have to be grateful for.
Jeff

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2010-02-19T05:44:00.002-06:00

You Might Have Trouble with Perfectionism If...
... whenever your plan hits a bump, you immediately assume that something is wrong with YOU.

... when something positive happens from something you didn't expect, you are tempted to reject it in favor sticking with the original plan.

... when you have to change your original plan and the results end up positive, you focus on what went wrong instead of on what went right or what you can learn from the experience.

What do you think? What other examples of problematic perfectionism can you add to the list?
Jeff

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2010-02-18T06:37:00.001-06:00

Does Perfectionism Sometimes Need to Be "Perfect?"
Yesterday I described how a positive approach to perfectionism often is pursued best by adapting to changing circumstances and resetting expectations to produce the best possible outcome under those circumstances. Resetting expectations isn't always possible, though.

Sometimes, you don't control the expectations. Sometimes you have to conform to an external, preestablished standard that somebody else sets.

An Olympic figure skater can't reset expectations and accept missed jumps or changes in routine as acceptable. They're being judged on the basis of set requirements for their performance. Does that mean that perfection is an absolute after all?

It certainly is in the eyes of the judges. They judge on established guidelines. The "good" and "bad" perfectionism still comes into play in the way they approach their performance.

The figure skater who approaches the performance focused on fear of mistakes won't get far. By focusing on possible mistakes, they will find themselves making them.

The figure skater who falls will lose some points. If they get up and focus on making the rest of the performance the best it possibly can be, they will salvage something out of that opportunity, even if they can't get a perfect score. If they get up, though, and focus on thinking, "how many points will I lose?" or, "I'd better not make any more mistakes," they will make even more and lose more points.

You might say that the victim of "bad" perfectionistic thinking replaces the preestablished standard with their own, even higher standard. Agonizing over every minor glitch along the way overrules any more constructive approaches that would let them fix the current effort and improve future results. They settle for a dead end instead of a deeper exploration.

The "bad perfectionist" figure skater never even makes it to the Olympics. They give up before they can achieve their actual potential. They give up before they get the chance to compete at that level because they were discouraged over not being "perfect" immediately and always.

Meanwhile, "good perfectionist" figure skaters become masters of their craft because they focus on what it takes to excel rather than focusing on their mistakes.

What do you think? Is there such a thing as absolute perfection? How have you approached situations where you were expected to perform to someone else's standards?
Jeff

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2010-02-17T06:09:00.002-06:00

When Being a Perfectionist Means Settling for Other than "Perfect"

Like I've said the past couple of days, I'm a perfectionist in the bad sense. I'm a perfectionist who agonizes over getting everything to match my preconceived idea of "perfect" even when the results I've gotten are more perfect for the current situation than my preconceived one is.

So it threw me for a loop in the discussion about perfectionism I was in a couple of weeks ago when others brought up examples of "good perfectionism." Perfectionism, in its good sense, has to be ready to accept results that, ironically, are less than perfect.

One person brought up an example of preparing a three-course dinner and finding that he didn't have the time to prepare everything exactly the way he had planned. His solution was to adapt.

He said he would most likely eliminate one of the courses so he could have the dinner ready at the time he had told his guests. He said his wife, on the other hand, would be more likely to prepare all three courses, but explain to the guests that the dinner would be slightly delayed.

In both cases, they sought to prepare the meal they had promised as well as possible. They sought excellence. They sought perfection. But both of them sought the best possible results for the circumstances rather than bemoaning the fact that they had "failed" to produce the exact results they had originally intended.

They adapted to the circumstances. They redefined their expectations on the fly to still produce a favorable outcome.

Not only that, but they likely would take away from the experience some ideas of how to improve the next time. They enjoy what they accomplished and use the setbacks to make the next time even better.

The self-destructive side of perfectionism would try to present the full three courses at the appointed time. That kind of perfectionist considers nothing more than the fear of losing face if everything is not exactly as planned.

Unfortunately, that leads to shoddy work. The dinner gets done poorly and probably a little late anyway. Then the cook spends the whole meal either apologizing or eying the guests for any sign of displeasure.

The self-destructive perfectionist finds no enjoyment in what they accomplished and learns nothing that can lead to future improvement because they are totally focused on themselves.

Positive perfectionism can view any experience as part of a learning process that leads to ever improving results.

Striving for perfection in a good way has to be divorced from self-worth. It has to focus on results. And it has to be willing to see each effort as a step on the journey to perfection instead of as one effort that needs to lead to the final destination. Seeking perfection has to be a habit, not a one-time shot.

Let me know what you think. What role does adaptation play in perfectionism, whether in the positive form of perfectionism or the self-destructive form? How have you found yourself adapting your expectations? How have you gotten yourself out of negative forms of perfectionism into good ones?
Jeff

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2010-02-16T06:33:00.001-06:00

The Sure Sign that Perfectionism Is Hurting You
Yesterday, I told you about a discussion I was in a couple of weeks ago about perfectionism. Many in that discussion saw themselves as perfectionists. And they saw their perfectionism as something that helped them get things done and done well.

As someone who has struggled all my life with the destructive aspects of perfectionism, I see a very dark side to it. That dark side is fear based.

I see it in myself and I see it in many others with whom I have worked. I see it used as an excuse for procrastination: "Oh, I can't let anyone see this until it's perfect." Or I see it used to justify inaction: "I just can't get this perfect, so I won't even try."

I've seen it affect self-worth: "If I don't get this perfect, people won't accept me." And this dark perfectionism is often the doorway into self-destructive behavior and even addiction: "I don't measure up. I can't measure up. I can't stand the pain of not measuring up. I need something to dull that pain."

Whether that dark side of perfectionism is limited merely to fear of trying something new or goes to the extreme of being the root of behavior that destroys lives, fear is the clearest sign that the kind of perfectionism you experiencing is destructive rather than constructive.

Fearful perfectionism, ironically, keeps you from getting results that come anywhere near perfection. It locks you into predetermined ideas of what the results should be. Those predetermined ideas prevent you from finding true excellence. They focus you so much on making everything turn out exactly the way you envisioned it at first that you overlook opportunities that could lead to even better outcomes.

And those predetermined ideas are almost never attainable. They rely on everything turning out exactly as you originally envisioned, every step of the way. And anyone who has tackled any kind of project knows that nothing ever turns out exactly as planned in every detail. Adapting to what happens along the way is essential to any endeavor.

So what do you think? Have you seen this kind of destructive perfectionism in yourself? In others? What have you or others done to overcome it? I'd like to hear your insights on this.

Tomorrow, we'll look at being a perfectionist and still adapting to changing situations.

Jeff

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2010-02-15T06:05:00.000-06:00

Is Perfectionism Helping or Hurting Your Business?
I've long been aware of the self-destructive effect of perfectionism. I've seen it lead to tremendous damage in my life and in the lives of many others.

I've written about the difference between perfectionism and pursuing excellence in the past. And if you scroll through my tweets on Twitter, you'll see plenty more insights into this often misunderstood difference sprinkled throughout my other insights on running a business.

So when I spotted a discussion of this subject a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't resist chiming in. Throughout this week, I'll bring you some of the insights on that subject from that discussion, as well as expanding on it further.

First off, the discussion surprised me with how many people saw perfectionism as a good thing. As someone who has long struggled with the destructive aspect of perfectionism, that floored me.

I had trouble seeing anything good to perfectionism. The positive aspects that others described I would define as pursuing excellence or displaying admirable focus on obtaining the best possible results.

The fact remains, though, that a lot of people see perfectionism as an admirable thing. What do you think? Is perfectionism good or bad? Beneficial or destructive?
Jeff

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2010-02-14T05:03:00.000-06:00

The Only Way You Can Ever Be "Whipped"
Here's a favorite quote from Napoleon Hill:

"No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind."

What's the difference between a setback and a complete failure? With a setback, you pick yourself up and start moving forward again. With a complete failure, you stay right where you were knocked down.

When you pick yourself up, you haven't been stopped. When you try again, you haven't been whipped.

As Napoleon Hill points out, what stops us isn't the setback. It's how we respond to it.
Jeff

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2010-02-13T05:48:00.001-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: Best Resources for PPC Advertising
I promised yesterday that I'd share my favorite AdWords resources. I'll start with the free ones:

Dr.Glenn Livingston free training package -- I haven't met many people I would unhesitatingly call a genius. Dr. Glenn Livingston is one of those few. I met Glenn at a seminar and he wowwed me with his grasp of how to discover your market's hot buttons.

He is also a whiz at AdWords, and he combines his knowledge of both on a free giveaway that he agreed to let me offer you. He provides 17 free AdWords cheat sheets, MP3s, and videos to show how to find and convert the customers who have the greatest value to you.

It's a whale of an offer and one you don't want to pass up.

Perry Marshall free adwords cheet sheet and ecourse -- I met Perry at the same seminar. He was hosting it, and he is considered by many the leading expert on Google AdWords.

His Definitive Guide to Google AdWords is pretty much what the title says: the most complete training you'll find on the ins and outs of succeeding with AdWords.

I'll tell you more about "The Definitive Guide" later, but first I want to point your attention to what he gives away for free. He has a 1-page cheat sheet on AdWords that he gives away as part of his free "5 Days to Success with Google AdWords" ecourse.

Sign up for his ecourse and you'll get his five-day course and his cheat sheet.

Perry Marshall Definitive Guide to Google AdWords -- If you like what you see with Perry's free training, don't hesitate to get "The Definitive Guide." Like I said before, it's the most complete treatment of AdWords I've ever seen. And Perry has kept it right up to date, so it never contains any outdated material.

As a matter of fact, he has expanded it to provide more specific tips to marketers with special needs when it comes to AdWords. These extra modules are available on a buffet basis. Pick and choose which modules you want and pay only for them.

It's a great approach that I wish more online marketing teachers would use. If you like what he offers with his free ecourse, check out "The Definitive Guide." You won't find a more complete resource for learning PPC.

PPC Kahuna -- Finally, I'll recommend a resource that gives you a hands-on approach to learning. PPC Kahuna helps you learn how to do AdWords as you actually do it, using some pretty effective proprietary tools.

This has the advantage of getting you going the fastest of any the resources I recommended. Instead of learning and then doing, you learn while doing.

The software you get helps remove the risk of AdWords draining your bank account while you learn how to find the sweet spots in your market. The tools find the sweet spots for you.

It helps you select the best keywords. It helps you optimize your ads. It actually can help you in more stages of your business than just AdWords.

It's geared mainly for affiliate marketers, so if you don't do affiliate marketing, you might find some of its tools don't apply to you. You'll find plenty that do apply, though, to make PPC Kahuna worth your while.

PPC Kahuna is not without downside, though. It isn't always open for new members. It operates under a strict membership limit and, when they reach that limit, they close the doors until space is available again.

On the bright side, they do have a waiting list. You can sign up and be notified as soon as they have space for you. It's worth waiting for.

Perry Marshall 3-Day Maui AdWords Workshop -- For some comprehensive AdWords training, AdWords master Perry Marshall plans to open a big window into his AdWords skills at the beginning of next month. He is preparing an intensive 3-day workshop in Maui with some of his best students. He will go into depth with all his strategies for winning the AdWords wars. And he plans to stream and record the vast majority of it.

He's offering a stream of the entire workshop and the DVD recordings for a limited time discount. You won't get the sunny beaches and the surfers, but you'll get pretty much everything else. If peeking over the shoulder of the best AdWords guy in the business for an entire workshop appeals to you, I encourage you to check out Perry's Maui AdWords Workshop.
Jeff

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2010-02-12T05:17:00.003-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: Deciding What to Do with PPC Advertising
Before you decide to venture into PPC marketing, consider these questions carefully:

Are you confident enough of your sales funnel to commit hundreds of dollars a month to PPC ads? Or, can you absorb a short-term loss while you get your ads, and your site, performing profitably?
Do you have enough time to invest on testing and tracking and tweaking your ads so they bring you a profit?

If you answer "yes" to both questions, start learning PPC marketing. Don't go into it cold. This is NOT something for you to learn by trial and error while money is pouring out of your bank account.

Check back tomorrow for my recommended resources to help you avoid the mistakes that cost you dearly. Or check out some of the PPC resources on my website. Start knowledgeably right from the start and you'll take most of the risk out of PPC.

And for some comprehensive AdWords training, AdWords master Perry Marshall plans to open a big window into his AdWords skills at the beginning of next month. He is preparing an intensive 3-day workshop in Maui with some of his best students. He will go into depth with all his strategies for winning the AdWords wars. And he plans to stream and record the vast majority of it.

He's offering a stream of the entire workshop and the DVD recordings for a limited time discount. You won't get the sunny beaches and the surfers, but you'll get pretty much everything else. If peeking over the shoulder of the best AdWords guy in the business for an entire workshop appeals to you, I encourage you to check out Perry's Maui AdWords Workshop, too.
Jeff

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2010-02-11T06:09:00.005-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: Avoiding the Killer Mistake that Most Advertisers Make
Always keep track of your results when you do any type of PPC advertising. All good PPC sites offer tools that help you track visitors from your ads and determine how many buy.

It's also a good idea to add a bit of tracking code to the end of the URL that you send your PPC visitors to. This involves adding a little tag that allows you to identify your PPC traffic from the rest of your traffic.

Adding tracking code to the end of your URL is as simple as adding six characters to the end of the URL that you tell your PPC provider to send that ad's traffic to. I suggest adding "?ref=g" (without the quotation marks) to identify Google ads, "?ref=y" (again, without the quotation marks) to identify Yahoo! ads, and "?ref=b" (without quotation marks) to identify Bing ads.

You can actually go well beyond just a single letter to create even more specific referrer codes. For now, though, we'll stick to simply identifying the PPC provider who sends a particular visitor.

Don't worry, either, about the referrer code "breaking" your link. The code has no effect on people being able to find your page. It merely enables your tracking software to identify which ad referred that visitor.

If you're interested in some advanced tips on Google AdWords, AdWords master Perry Marshall is holding a free teleseminar Thursday, February 11, at 3 PM EST, 2 PM CST, and noon PST. He plans to unveil a new, "Bionic" method writing AdWords ads that he says has dramatically boosted AdWords traffic while cutting the cost per click for everyone he has had use it.

This is a great opportunity to learn from the best and to do it for free. I encourage you to check it out!

Perry plans to open another window into his AdWords skills, too. He is preparing an intensive 3-day workshop in Maui with some of his best students. He will go into depth with all his strategies for winning the AdWords wars. And he plans to stream and record the vast majority of it.

He's offering a stream of the entire workshop and the DVD recordings for a limited time discount. You won't get the sunny beaches and the surfers, but you'll get pretty much everything else. If you think peeking over the shoulder of the best AdWords guy in the business for an entire workshop appeals to you, I encourage you to check out Perry's Maui AdWords Workshop, too.
Jeff

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2010-02-10T06:59:00.003-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: Three Basic Rules for PPC Advertising
Here are three basic rules to follow when writing PPC ads.

Put the specific keyword you are targeting in the title of your ad
You want your ad to jump out at the people who see it. The best way is to have your keyword in the title. When your ad appears for a search, any keywords the searcher used will appear in bold. This draws more attention to your ad than to other ads that don't have those exact keywords.

Take the searcher to the exact page that deals with the topic of her search
Most marketers, amazingly, don't follow this simple, but essential, rule.

They funnel ALL traffic to their home page and expect their searchers to hunt their way through the site to find what they're looking for. WRONG!

All you accomplish by dumping everyone on your home page is to irritate your searcher into clicking back to the search page to find another site.

Despite the fact that you lost the customer, you still pay for the click. In other words, you get charged for ticking a potential customer off and sending them to your competition. Not smart.

So how to you avoid this costly mistake? Link directly to the page that continues the conversation that your ad started.

Always lead your searcher DIRECTLY to the page that their search term demonstrates that they want to find.

Bid only on keywords that directly apply to your site
It does you no good to bid on slightly related terms in the hope that someone, when they see your product, will be so smitten by it that he will abandon what he was searching for and buy.

That isn't realistic. Sure, some circumstances exist where you want to expose your product to people who don't necessarily know about it. When you're paying for each click is not the time to reach out to the curious, though.

Follow these simple rules and you can have potential buyers to your site within hours.

If you're interested in some advanced tips on Google AdWords, AdWords master Perry Marshall is holding a free teleseminar Thursday, February 11, at 3 PM EST, 2 PM CST, and noon PST. He plans to unveil a new, "Bionic" method writing AdWords ads that he says has dramatically boosted AdWords traffic while cutting the cost per click for everyone he has had use it.

This is a great opportunity to learn from the best and to do it for free. I encourage you to check it out!
Jeff

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2010-02-09T06:35:00.003-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: Best Sources of PPC Traffic
I'll focus mainly on Google AdWords. Most of my experience with PPC has come on AdWords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search.

The third of the Big 3 advertising sites is Bing. I've found AdWords more profitable, for me, than Yahoo! Sponsored Search. I've also found it much easier to use. Although Bing is intriguing, I'll have to admit I still haven't tried it for PPC. I just haven't gotten around to it.

I've tried some of the smaller PPC providers. I won't even mention them because, in my opinion, they aren't worth the effort. They've never produced anywhere near what AdWords, or even Yahoo!, have.

So, as I said, I'll focus mainly on the one with which I am most familiar, Google AdWords. Google Adwords is set up to let you split-test ads for each set of keywords you target. That lets you run two, slightly different, ads for the same keyword. Google then splits the number of times each one appears so you can see which one does better.

That way you can learn as you go how to make your ads more effective. As a matter of fact, don't run PPC ads unless you're tracking and testing them. Setting up ads by guesswork and then letting them draw money out of your account has been the downfall of many new PPC marketers.

I can't stress enough. Always keep testing your ads. Always keep improving them. That's the formula for PPC success.

If you're interested in some advanced tips on Google AdWords, AdWords master Perry Marshall is holding a free teleseminar Thursday, February 11, at 3 PM EST, 2 PM CST, and noon PST. He plans to unveil a new, "Bionic" method writing AdWords ads that he says has dramatically boosted AdWords traffic while cutting the cost per click for everyone he has had use it.

This is a great opportunity to learn from the best and to do it for free. I encourage you to check it out!
Jeff

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2010-02-08T05:59:00.003-06:00

Google AdWords Tips: When You Want Traffic FAST!
Getting targeted traffic is always on every business owner's mind. So we'll take this week to look at the absolute quickest way of bringing visitors to your site, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Of course, that speed in attracting visitors comes at a price. You can't do PPC marketing without spending any money. You pay for every visitor you receive through these ads.

This strategy, therefore, is not for you if you have no money to invest in promotion. It is not for you if you're starting your business on a shoestring and need strategies that rely on investing your time instead of your money.

That said, though, it is almost impossible to beat when it comes to how quickly it can generate traffic. Set up an account in the morning and you can be seeing visitors from it by noon.

That's why it's the strategy of choice for many established marketers when they enter a new market. I'll give this warning, though. It can also be an enormous money drain if you go into it blind and don't consistently track and improve your ads. You have to approach AdWord intelligently.

Over the rest of the week, I'll share tips about using PPC profitably. I'll share:

The best sources of PPC traffic
The three key rules for keeping your PPC advertising profitable
An absolute must for PPC advertising that almost all beginners overlook
The essential questions to ask yourself before starting PPC advertising
My favorite resources for PPC marketing

Admittedly, this week will be a basic-to-intermediate look at PPC advertising in general and Google AdWords specifically. I won't go all the way back to ground zero and explain, "This is what Google is," or "This is what an ad is."

I'll assume you know enough to set up your ads without me walking you through the basic steps. This will be more along the lines of what to do to keep your bank account from being drained by common AdWords mistakes.

I won't go into advanced strategies, though. If you're already fairly advanced in Google AdWords and want to step up to play with the AdWords big boys, you might want to check out a very special event that is starting soon.

One of my mentors, Perry Marshall, is teaming with copywriting legend John Carlton to hold an eight-week, online workshop called Adwords Copywriting Intensive that starts next week.

This workshop will apply all of John Carlton's copywriting genius to Google ads, opt-in pages, sales letters and email followup (the killer "sales funnel" developed by Perry that STILL is the top producing formula online).

WARNING: this workshop is NOT for beginners. But if you think you have what it takes to boost your AdWords skills to the upper echelon, by all means check it out!
Jeff

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2010-02-07T07:18:00.003-06:00

Are You Giving Up Too Soon?
Here's a favorite quote from H. Ross Perot:

"Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown."

How true this is! We've grown up with instant this and instant that. We've come to expect instant success.

If we don't achieve business success on the first try, we give up. We complain about our "bad luck." We complain that the "system" is holding us back.

Or we assume that the fault lies with us. Something is lacking in us that "successful people" have.

In reality, most of our "failures" are simply a case of giving up too soon. We try something to promote our business and don't get instant results. So we abandon that and try something else.

Or we wait until our backs are against the wall and we need that success RIGHT NOW just to survive. We look for the easy switch to turn on success. Then when we find that there's no switch for us to turn on, we find ourselves with no resources left to keep us going what we get our business going.

The key is to choose a direction and then follow it through to success. Build momentum. Give it time to grow.

You don't plant an acorn in the ground and expect a 40 foot oak tree to be there the next morning. You watch it grow at its own rate.

The same thing goes with businesses. You don't cut them off because they're only shoot and haven't grown into a tree yet.

Hang in there! Keep moving forward. Learn from your mistakes when momentum slows. But DON'T GIVE UP!
Jeff

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2010-02-06T06:20:00.001-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Being Observant
This is one of my favorite ways of finding a topic for articles -- and an absolute staple of my blog. I love to find connections to new business insights in such mundane things as watching a bridge being built, walking past an unrented storefront, passing a business sign that someone has covered with a tarp, or the change in household duties required by my wife's broken wrist.

If you can keep track of the ideas that unconnected events trigger in your mind, you can have an almost unlimited supply of engaging article ideas that you can share with others.

The problem is not that no ideas exist about which you can write an article. The problem usually is that we simply haven't trained our minds to recognize the multitude of article ideas that bombard us every day.

Train your eyes to see those ideas. Then, go out and write some articles.
Jeff

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2010-02-05T06:24:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from PLR Content
If you have trouble coming up with ideas for articles, Private Label Rights (PLR) content is a great way to get ideas. Most people feel more comfortable editing content rather than writing it from scratch. PLR content gives you prewritten content that you can edit to make it uniquely your own.

The temptation with PLR content is to take the prewritten articles and submit them -- as is -- to article sites. The problem with that is that many other people buy those same articles and submit them to the same directories.

It doesn't take much for the article directories to catch on that article A is identical to article B. Once they find that, you can forget about them accepting that article. You could even find yourself banned from submitting to that directory ever again.

Use PLR articles to get you started. Get your idea from the PLR article and then take it from there to make your article unique. I'm not talking about changing a word here or there. I'm talking about making your article completely UNIQUE.

Most PLR articles I've seen are pretty lame, anyway. Most are pretty generic. They desperately need better writing and more useful content.

Take the PLR articles you buy and make them your own. You're much more likely to get them accepted that way.

By the way, if you'd just as soon outsource your article writing to someone else, check out Spin Ready PLR. You work with writers who write specifically for your niche (as opposed to most PLR sites who write articles for a variety of niches that might not always be a good fit for you). And they present your finished articles to you in a way that makes it extremely simple to "spin" them into a completely unique article.
Jeff

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2010-02-04T06:09:00.000-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Old Books on Your Market
Unless your niche came into existence yesterday, you can step back into the past for an article topic. Look at older books about your niche. Consider what has changed and what hasn't.

Those changes (or lack of them) give you several angles to use in approaching your topic.

What has changed and how those changes affect your readers
Why things have changed
What those changes suggest about the future of your niche
What hasn't changed and remains as a timeless value to you and your readers
What things that have dropped out of favor are ripe to be rediscovered

Does this work only if your niche has been around for 3,000 years? Absolutely not. Any niche that has changed over any period of time is ripe for this approach.

Consider the Internet. It has been commonly used only for the past 15 years. Yet look at how much it has changed over that time!

Any niche that has grown and developed gives you a chance to use this approach. Things DO change in virtually every niche. Take advantage of that fact.
Jeff

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2010-02-03T07:15:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Classic Stories
Another good source for articles is by taking a universally known story, like a fairy tale, and drawing a connection between it and your area of expertise.

Classic stories resonate with people because they touch a familiar chord in their own experience, even if they've never stepped through a looking glass, or done a taste test of porridge in a house built by three bears, or accompanied a Jedi knight on a quest to save the universe.

Tap into the shared experience that cause people to connect with those stories. Tie those shared experiences in those stories to your topic and you'll engage people's curiosity to see what new insights you're leading them toward.
Jeff

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2010-02-02T07:12:00.000-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Quotes, Products, and News
Another place to get article ideas is from quotes that strike you. You can use an insightful statement from someone in your industry and create an entire article off of your reaction to it. What emotional response does it trigger? What further insights does it generate in you?

If your industry isn't one in which insightful quotes abound, you can write about your reaction to news, to products, to trends. If you have a good pulse on your industry, you should find no end of topics to write about.
Jeff

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2010-02-01T07:07:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Other People's Lists
Look for a topic you'd like to write about. Find an article that is written in list format - " Five Ways to...," "Seven Best Tips for...," "Three Little-Known Ways to..."

Look at the items in the list. Chances are that each of those list items could be fleshed into a solid article all on its own.

Focus on whatever items you can cover in more depth than the original list did. Write a complete article on that one item.

As I've said in other article idea tips, don't copy. Don't even paraphrase. Use what you found in the other writer's article strictly as an idea from which you provide your own, unique viewpoint on the issue.

By hunting for these list-type articles, you'll get ideas for not just one, but multiple articles that you can write.
Jeff

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2010-01-31T07:14:00.000-06:00

From Opposite Points of View
Here's a favorite quote from Winston Churchill:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

I'm not sure what I can add to this one. Its blessed simplicity says it all. Two people looking at the exact same situation can see two different things based on their point of view.

In reality, I'm not sure there even is a difference between difficult and opportunity. They are two sides of the same coin. They always come joined as one.

The key is to look at the side of the coin that serves you best. And by that, I mean to see the opportunity. I am firmly convinced that all difficulties are just a kind of school bell ringing to tell you it's time to learn something.

Train yourself to look for that lesson when you experience difficulty. Train yourself to look for the opportunity. It's all there. You just have to look for it.
Jeff

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2010-01-30T06:53:00.000-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas by Creating a List
Take a topic that you can easily break down into a list – " Five Ways to…," "Seven Best Tips for…," "Three Little-Known Ways to…"

Readers love this kind of articles. It suggests to them that the subject is simple to understand and easy to break down.

It doesn't even matter if you know that more list items could appear on your list. As a matter of fact, being able to come up with more is even better.

Include in your article the number of tips you chose in your title to cover. The fact that you know of even more that could have been included in your list gives you an opportunity to encourage readers to visit your site to find out the rest.

Put more tips in a special report. Then, in your resource box, tell readers that they can get however many more tips in your special report that they can get from your site. This gives them an incentive to visit your site and sign up for "the rest of the story."
Jeff

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2010-01-29T06:46:00.000-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Other Writers
You can get ideas for your own articles from other people's articles. Don't get me wrong on this. I'm not suggesting you plagiarize other people's work. You can, however, take an IDEA from somebody else's article and take that idea in your own direction.

Don't copy their words. Don't even paraphrase them. Take the idea and use your own experience with the subject to give it a completely different perspective.

I find that doing this not only gives me a lot of article ideas that I wouldn't have identified on my own, but it keeps me from beating to death a lot of the pet subjects that jump into my brain when I try to generate an article idea off the top of my head.
Jeff

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2010-01-28T06:53:00.002-06:00

Time to Set Sail
Here's a favorite quote from Mark Twain:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, dream, discover."

This one has a lot more meaning for me as I grow older. Some things have already passed me by. I always wanted to rock climb. I always wanted to explore caves. I never did either, and the chances of doing that now are pretty much gone.

With my wife now being limited by a bad knee, athletic activities like those are not likely, unless I choose to do them on my own. Frankly, starting hobbies that would exclude her don't interest me. But I sometimes wish I would have done them when I had a chance -- and when I could have shared them with my children.

Even if some of the things you once wanted to do have passed you by, there are still things that haven't. You have things right now that are ripe for you to do. But the time may come when those things pass out of possibility for you. Don't make the mistake of letting that pass by, too!

Throw off the bowlines! Sail away from the safe harbor! Catch the trade winds in your sails! Explore, dream, discover!

There's still time. And that time is now!
Jeff

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2010-01-27T07:28:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas Turning Your Knowledge into Multiple Articles
Do you have knowledge in your subject area about a topic that is too broad to work for a single article? Break it down into multiple articles.

Many tasks or processes lend themselves quite well to this approach. Many times the parts of a process can stand alone as complete articles. For example, you can do separate articles on various tasks involved in setting up a website:

How to buy a domain name
What to look for in hosting
What technical steps to take with your hosting once you have it
What site building tools to use
And so on...

(Or, ahem, you could do a series of articles on different ideas for getting ideas for articles. Oh, wait. Somebody has already done that.)

The point is, you have a lot of knowledge in your field that you can break down into bite-sized chunks from which you can create articles. Just take a process or an area of your expertise and break down how many different standalone articles you can create out of it.
Jeff

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2010-01-26T07:25:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Problems You Solve

As you do a task or tackle a problem that your target audience also experiences, write down what you do. As you answer a question that one of you target audience asks, write down the advice you give.

Stuff like that is a goldmine for articles. Not only does it give you a great idea, but as you write out your answer, you end up with a complete article that merely needs a little polishing in order to present as a quality article.

Jeff

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2010-01-25T06:55:00.002-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas by Repurposing Old Content
This week I'm sharing ways to come up with articles that you can syndicate to article directories or to content sites that agree to publish your articles. Yesterday I told you how the idea for this whole week's worth of blog posts came from commenting on someone else's blog post.

Plenty of other ways of getting ideas for articles exist as well. You can take things you have written for another audience and repurpose it for a new one. For example, many of this week's blog posts will come from articles I had already written for different audiences.

With a little bit of tweaking and updating, an old article becomes fresh and current and new. It's a fairly quick way of writing an article -- much quicker than most people's ordeal of sitting down, scratching their head about what to write, and slogging through a new article from scratch.

One thing, though, is essential for this approach. When you write something, keep track of it. Organize yourself. I know. "Organize" is a dirty word for some, but it's a remarkable time saver.

File it electronically in folders that let you easily find it when you choose your topic. That way, you'll always have content at your fingertips that you can quickly work into articles that you can submit.
Jeff

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2010-01-24T07:08:00.004-06:00

Keys to Article Marketing - Getting Great Article Ideas from Your Own Blog Comments
You've heard it many times before. Content is King when it comes to the Internet.

Good content draws people to your site. Good content keeps them there.

What if you draw a blank when you sit down to write all that great content, though? Throughout this week, I'll give you some tips to help you find ways to get past that dreaded "blank screen syndrome," so you can create the quality content you need. Here's the first.

Post comments on other people's blogs. I create a lot of my content that way. I add my insights to whatever topic the blogger discussed. Then I take my insights and flesh them out into a full article on the subject that is 100% unique.

I've found that the act of commenting triggers my creativity and gets me out of the "what should I write about" swamp. I rarely sit down and try to think of a topic anymore. Even when I need to write on a particular subject, I always get myself going by seeing what others have said about the same subject. Inspiration comes quickly and easily that way.

Incidentally, this blog post came directly from a comment I posted on someone else's blog. And once I had this post, it was only natural to see how I could create an entire week's worth of posts out of the subject, describing other tips that I use to spark ideas.

One blog comment = two weeks' worth of content. Not a bad technique for overcoming the blank screen syndrome!
Jeff

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2010-01-23T07:14:00.000-06:00

How to Find Out Exactly What Your Customers Want

Yesterday, I talked about the importance of listening to your potential customers. Today, I want to share an incredible free webinar on keyword research that lays out a killer way of finding out exactly what is on your customers' minds and tapping into it.

Grab a cup of coffee settle in. It's two hours, but it's well worth you time!

The first half is OK. It covers a lot of basics about the differences between market research versus keyword research.

The best part of the first half laid out the different goals that different people might have for their research and what types of tools were best for each type.

The second half is what really blew me away, though. Keyword research expert Jim Morris spent a full hour walking listeners through every step of finding a profitable niche.

He dealt with details that most people don't even think of. It is really a must-hear for anyone who is about to research a niche.

I'd even recommend it for anyone whose business is not as profitable as they hoped. Following the tips he gave can apply equally well to someone who wants to take their existing site and go back to make it more effective.

Check out how the master of niche research does it.

Jeff

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2010-01-22T07:27:00.001-06:00

The Magic of LISTENING to Your Customers
Throughout the early part of this week, I've talked about the importance of making connections with other business owners. They are not the only group of people with whom it is important for you to make connections, though.

It is crucial to make connections with your customers, as well. Yet many online marketers try to structure their business to limit their contact with customers to nothing more than handing over their money or, at most, a simple question or two in preparation for handing over their money.

You can make a lot more money, though, if you simply train yourself to listen to your customers. How do you do that? Here's something I shared with another group of marketers not so long ago about this subject.

+++++++++++

Ever dreamed of taking your $500 startup to the top of a multi-billion dollar industry? A man name Tom Monaghan did exactly that.

He did it in a way that industry analysts said was impossible. He did it by actually doing what his larger competitors only paid lip-service to.

And what he did serves as a lesson for anyone building a small business into something larger.

A story of improbable success

In 1973, Tom Monaghan ran a small, but growing pizza chain, Dominos. Ten years earlier, he and his brother had bought a single, failing pizza restaurant for $500. Monaghan had much higher ambitions, though, than running only one store.

He wanted to take Dominos into the top three pizza chains in the world. Experts dismissed his dreams. They said he didn't have nearly enough money to buy enough market share against larger brands.

Lacking the money to buy his way in the traditional way, he went at it from another direction. He listened to his customers.

What his competitors missed

His larger, fat-cat competitors paid lip-service to the idea of giving the customers what they wanted. They turned to "market experts" and their artificial market research decide on how to win the hearts of customers.

Dominos, though, developed ways to listen directly to customers and respond quickly to their needs and preferences. While the biggers chains guessed, Monaghan took action on what customers really wanted.

Dominos became and remains the fastest-growing pizza chain in the world. They did this mainly because they consistently are the first to adapt to changes in the market. They accomplish this because of the systems they developed for listening to customers and anticipating changes in market demand.

It serves as a graphic reminder of the value of listening to your customers.

Ways to find out what you're clients are thinking

Listen to your customers when you talk to them face to face. Pay attention to their questions. Note what they say they like or don't like.

Ask them questions. Even read between the lines to unearth things that they might not say about what they want or how they feel -- even things that they might not be consciously aware of themselves.

Do the same with emails or phone calls they send you. Keep a log of what you learn from their communications with you. Look through that log occasionally to spot patterns that can help you better respond to their needs.

If your business is in an area that people talk about online (such as health, decorating, beauty, etc.), follow those blogs and forums and take note of what's important to them.

What about using surveys?

You can even do surveys, either on paper or online. Be careful, though, not to bias the surveys by asking questions in ways that telegraph what you expect them to answer. Ask them in ways that encourage them to give more details.

Instead of, "Do you like...?" ask, "What do you like best about...?" Instead of, "Is there anything you don't like about...?" ask, "What could we do better about...?"

Keep it simple. Ask them at least three questions, but don't be disrespectful of their time. Don't expect them to devote an hour of their time to answering your questions unless you've offered them a nice gift for their effort.

As much as possible, ask questions that encourage them to give details. You don't want every question to request an essay, but stay away from simple Yes/No questions, too.

Instead of Yes/No questions, put them in the form of rating from one to five or one to ten on how much they agree or disagree with a statement.

Make sure that your most crucial questions get them to answer in their own words, as described above. While you may find those answers harder to categorize, they can reveal the greatest insights about your business.

Take action on what you discover

As you listen to your customers, make sure you take action on what you discover. Tom Monaghan didn't build his business so dramatically by listening to and then ignoring his customers.

He dug into their wants and needs so he could better fill them. Take action on what you learn from your customers so you can grow, too.

Final thoughts

Tom Monaghan built a massive franchise that nobody thought he had the money to build. He did it with a tenacious determination to listen to his customers and incorporate their greatest wants and needs into the services he offered them.

Listening to your customers is an absolutely free way to build your business. And, as Monaghan shows, it's a powerfully effective way, too.
Jeff

P.S. Did you find this article helpful? It is one of the chapters in an upcoming book I am writing. I've been giving weekly previews of that book -- and another book -- to interested readers. If you'd like to find out more about getting previews like this one on a weekly basis for FREE, check out the page where I explain what I'm doing and why. I'd love to have your feedback.

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2010-01-21T07:22:00.001-06:00

The Fastest Way to Succeed
Here's a favorite quote from Brian Tracy:

"The fastest way for you to succeed is by piggy-backing on the good advice and counsel of men and women who have already spent years learning how to succeed. When you do this on a regular and systematic basis, you will open up doors of opportunity and possibilities for you that today you cannot even imagine."

Starting your own business can be a intimidating task. There's so much to learn!

Most people slow up their progress by going at it the wrong way. They scramble all over the Internet, trying to piece together little bits of unrelated strategies. Then they pat themselves on the back for having "learned" Internet marketing.

Brian Tracy points out, however, that the fastest way to success is far different. Instead of learning the strategies successful marketers have learned, you can succeed more quickly by studying the Internet marketers themselves.

As I've said many times. The secret is not in the tools; it's in the way you use them. And the only way to learn to use the tools successfully is to see how those who succeed at using them use them.

Personally, I learn from several mentors. I have to say I've learned much more in this way (and had much greater success) than I ever had just trying to plug in one random strategy after another.

I'll mention just one of my mentors, Jim Edwards. My biggest breakthrough in marketing has come from what I've learned from observing him up close for the past several years.

I highly recommend Jim's "The Net Reporter" training site to anyone who wants to learn from a master. Jim freely shares all the details of his successes -- and his failures. And if you want proof that you can move from where you're at with your business to where you want to be, all you have to do is look at how he moved from bankruptcy and living as, as he calls it, "trailer trash" a few short years ago to running a multi-million dollar business.

Jim's mentoring has meant a lot to me and I continue to look to him primarily as my role-model and my teacher. I invite you to do the same. You won't regret it.
Jeff

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2010-01-20T07:40:00.002-06:00

Early-Bird Special on Yanik Silver's Underground Seminar
I've been talking about Yanik Silver's Underground seminar for the past couple of days. Maybe you've thought out it. Maybe it simply isn't in your plans.

Either way, that's cool. If you've been thinking about it, though, I suggest you check it out quickly if you want to save a bit of money on it. Their early-bird special ends soon.

The price will soon go up. So if you've been waiting on checking out the seminar, I suggest you check it now. You'll save money and you'll get a couple of cool bonuses.

I'd tell you what the bonuses are, but that would be going against the hush-hush, "secret agent" theme of the seminar. So, it you're thinking about going, check out information about the seminar before you have to have to wave bye-bye to the early-bird special prices and bonuses.
Jeff

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2010-01-19T06:16:00.000-06:00

About Yanik Silver's Underground Seminar
I've mentioned Yanik Silver's Underground seminar the last couple of days. It's time I shared a little more about it.

It's one of the premier learning seminars in the world. It features underground entrepreneurs who have each made millions in their niches.

You get NO marketing gurus and NO pitches for marketing products. These people have no marketing products to sell, so you get nothing but the strategies that made them rich.

On top of that, Yanik offers a $10,000 "prize" to the presenter whom attendees vote as having given the most nugget-packed presentation. Yanik donates $10,000 to that presenter's choice of charity. But presenters compete like crazy to win the money for their favorite charity.

On top of that, it's a great networking event. You'll meet other marketers from all over the world.

Don't underestimate the value of networking. Even if you've always planned for your business to be something you did all by yourself with no outside contact, having other marketers to whom you can turn can be a lifesaver -- and a business-saver.

Frankly, I wouldn't still have my business if it wasn't for the networking I did at a seminar much like this one. But I've told you that story the last two days.

This year's seminar features Web 2.0 visionary Gary Vaynerchuk as the keynote speaker. The second keynote speaker is Jessica Jackley, co-founder of KIVA.org, an organization that connects investors with business startups in developing nations. KIVA, in four years, has helped loan out over $100M and connected thousands of people across 120+ countries.

As usual, most of the other speakers are unannounced. It plays in with the cool "secret agent" theme of the entire seminar. And it also protects them from competitors signing up for the seminar just to gather competitive intelligence on the precise strategies these presenters have used to dominate their markets.

These presenters, remember, are not the usual crowd of Internet marketing gurus that go around from seminar to seminar to pitch their stuff. They are highly successful business owners who are largely unknown outside their niche, but big names within them.

At any rate, those are the key points about Yanik's seminar. Check it out. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I'm sure you'll get a lot out of it. Will it make the difference in your business that the seminar that I attended made in mine? I don't know. That's up to you.

But whether you go to Yanik's seminar or another one, if you haven't started making connections with fellow business owners, it's time you started looking for a way to start. You'd be surprised what a difference that making those connections can have.
Jeff

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2010-01-18T06:58:00.003-06:00

A Tale of Two Internet Marketing Seminars
I related a major turning point in my business in yesterday's post. I described how going to a live, Internet marketing seminar led me to change my mind about closing my business and returning to my old, 9-5 work world.

I want to stress one thing, though. Simply going to a marketing seminar is not a magic wand. You need to go into it with the right mindset. The seminar that turned me around was not the first one I ever attended.

I had gone to one a year earlier as well. I went there looking for information. I took copious notes. I pretty much ignored everyone around me, though. I struck up few conversations. And those conversations I had, were all brief and functional.

I gave out no business cards and got none in return. I used my meal breaks to get a table by myself and study my notes rather than meeting other business owners.

I went home from that first seminar with lots of notes that I've never put into action. I went home from that first seminar still carrying the weight of my business on my shoulders, and carrying it alone. It wasn't that the seminar wasn't any good. It was that my approach to it stunk.

I came home from the more productive seminar with ideas that I've put into action -- because those that I met there were carrying them out, too. Sharing where we all were at in integrating those strategies into our businesses kept me focused on making use of what I learned instead of filing it away.

I came back with people to bounce ideas off of and share my insights with in return. I came back from that more productive seminar feeling energized, rather than feeling even more overwhelmed.

Why would I get more out of a seminar that I went to as my "last hurrah" before closing my business? I suppose it was because I wasn't so focused on information at that seminar. I went to have fun than to cram every bit of knowledge I could into my head for future reference.

And in having fun and making connections, I was able to realize that making connections was the most important thing I needed in order to succeed at the business I was about to throw away.

Business is all about making connections. You make connections with customers. You make connections with other business owners whose businesses overlap yours. Without connections, you're toast.

Like I said yesterday, a golden opportunity is here for you to experience the same boost to your business that turned mine around. Yanik Silver's Underground seminar is open for registration. You'll get prime opportunities for learning, for fun (check out the "secret agent" theme Yanik weaves through the entire seminar experience), and, most importantly, for the connections you need to boost your passion and find like-minded individuals who can make a big difference in your business.

I encourage you to check Yanik's seminar out. And if not Yanik's seminar, find another one. I can't stress how much a good seminar can do for your business.
Jeff

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2010-01-17T07:28:00.002-06:00

How a Successful Online Business Nearly Drove Me Back to Work
In January of 2007, I made a decision. I was closing my business.

It wasn't because I wasn't making any money at it. For five years, I had made my full-time living online.

But I was willing to shut it down. It had become a burden to me. Going back to the 9-5 work world looked more attractive than working from home.

Doesn't that sound crazy? I'm sure it does to anyone stuck in a 9-5 job that they hate, anyone who longs for the freedom that running their own business would bring.

But I missed certain things about working for someone else. I missed being able to pop into the next cubicle and bounce ideas off of someone -- or just shoot the breeze. I missed having someone say, "Good job!" for a job done particularly well.

I missed people.

I had structured my business to have minimal contact with others. I had a few clients, but I reported to them on a limited basis. I had some customers online, but interaction with them was pretty limited as well.

I sat at my computer -- on my own schedule -- and did whatever tasks I wanted. I made all my own decisions and didn't have to deal with any diverging opinions. I was my own boss.

Many people would kill to be in the position I was in. But I had grown to hate it. I had grown to hate it so much that I had decided to shut it down.

I was already job-hunting. I had one, last hurrah as a self-employed person. Then I would wind things down.

See, before I had made my decision to shut my business down, I had signed up for a big Internet marketing seminar. I had already paid for it. I already had the plane tickets and the reservations.

Other than the hotel cost and incidentals, I wouldn't get that money back anyway. So my wife and I decided to go ahead with the trip. My daughters would fly there, too, and see the town with her, while I would go to through the motions at the seminar. Then I would come home and shut my business down.

A funny thing happened at that seminar, though. My fire returned.

I made new friends. I formed joint ventures. I ate lunch with business owners who had gone through the exact same feelings of isolation and found out how they dealt with them.

Don't get me wrong. My renewed excitement wasn't just about meeting people. I learned a lot from the speakers, too. I learned strategies that have served me very well in building my business since then.

I came out of there with with a lot of quality ideas. Still, all of that would have been meaningless if I hadn't solved that feeling of isolation. The most important thing with which I came out of that seminar was the realization that I was not alone.

I had people to bounce things off of. I had people to share experiences with. Some of us formed a mastermind group that still meets regularly to encourage each other and hold each other accountable.

I would not still have my own business today if it wasn't for that seminar.

That seminar comes to mind right now because one of the biggest -- and best -- seminars is approaching. Yanik Silver's Underground Seminar is open for registration now.

Whether you've reached the point in your business where you're starting to miss the camaraderie of the job site or not, I highly encourage you to look into this seminar -- or whatever others you can find.

You'll leave there with new ideas and new strategies that will be immensely valuable for your business. You'll leave there with new, human connections that will be absolutely priceless.

One thing about Yanik's Underground seminars: Yanik always makes sure his attendees have fun!

It's not your typical business seminar. He weaves a spy theme throughout his seminars. Check out the information page and you'll get an taste of the fun he weaves in.

Bottom line, if you're isolating yourself in your business, MAKE CONNECTIONS! Take some of weight of working alone off your shoulders. And even if you don't feel that weight yet, MAKE CONNECTIONS before you do.

Going to a seminar three years ago made the difference between me having my own business now and being stuck back in my old 9-5 world. Consider going to Yanik's seminar, or whatever other one you can find. I think it will make a huge difference in your business -- and your life -- too.
Jeff

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2010-01-16T16:00:00.001-06:00

Is Online Business Really an Escape from the World?
Lots of people go into business online with the idea of escaping the daily work world. Many picture a life where they don't have to deal with bosses or irritating co-workers.

They picture a life where they can wear what they want, work when they want, and do what they want without bosses telling them otherwise. They picture a life without having to wrestle with co-workers over how to do things. They picture a life that doesn't force them to pick up the slack from a lazy or incompetent co-workers in order to avoid having their joint tasks fail.

In other words, they picture a life where everybody leaves them alone.

Internet marketing doesn't work that way, though. In any business, there's this little thing called CUSTOMERS. If you try to cut yourself off from potential customers, they never become PAYING customers. And if you don't get any paying customers... well your refrigerator gets miiiiiighty empty.

If you're starting a business to get away from people, you're going to change that attitude -- or you're going to fail. It's that simple. If anything, starting a business puts you that much closer to a lot more people.

Your contact with them involves more than just sharing responsibility with them for getting tasks done. You have to be able to get into their heads. You have to be able to identify and fill their needs.

Starting a business is not an escape from people. It's a commitment to embrace people more than ever. If you can't -- or don't want to -- interact with others, starting a business isn't for you.

Over the next few days, we look at embracing others. I'll share with you some stories of how I went from isolation to socialization in my business and the differences that change made. And I'll share some ideas of how to get started making any shifts you need to make in your thinking to make your business more successful.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you how working at home nearly drove me back into the 9-5 work world. See you then!
Jeff

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2010-01-16T07:37:00.002-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- The Death of SEO
The SEO that we've all "grown up" with is dying. The days when you could check your ranking and know that everyone who searches for that keyword will see your site in the exact same position is long gone.

The search engines have long taken the location from which a search initiates into consideration. They boost listings that are geographically closer in cases where they believe that the searcher would prefer listings nearer to where he or she is.

The days are coming, though, where the results for someone a block away from you may have no resemblance to the results you get for the same search. Personalized search will make it much harder to state with any certainty what your rank is.

The search engines infer more and more about individual searcher intent from the way they see the searcher respond to their search results. They tweak future results to try to better anticipate each searcher's intent.

Sites on which a searcher stays longer before returning to their search results get a boost in rankings for that searcher in future searches. Sites from which a searcher immediately abandons gets downgraded for future searches. Sites that consistently keep their visitors engaged get a ranking boost for searchers who have given no prior preferences.

What does this mean for you? Increasingly in this new decade, it will be essential for you to engage your audience, increase stickiness, and increase conversions. The more useful your site proves to be for searchers, the greater your chances of ranking well in more people's individualized search results.

Does all this mean that the many major seo companies will die? Those who don't adapt will. The smart ones, though, will shift their focus from merely making simple onsite tweaks and gathering incoming links. The smart ones will add services that help clients engage and serve their visitors better.

Make sure you understand how to retain and convert your visitors better. This is fast becoming crucial in boosting your search engine rankings. And, even if it played no part in your rankings, it is still key to your bottom line.
Jeff

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2010-01-15T08:32:00.002-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Videos Disrupt the Value Equation
With video getting easier for anyone to do online, ebooks are becoming less and less valuable in the minds of your potential customers. This decrease in perceived value will continue throughout the new decade.

You can't charge the same price for a downloadable ebook as you can charge for that exact same information in a nicely packaged, physically shipped, video DVD. And with it becoming increasingly easy for any marketer to produce nicely packaged, physically shipped, video DVDs, those who stick strictly with PDF ebooks will get left in the dust.

The more technologically advanced way that information is packaged, the higher customers perceive its value. That means that as video becomes more common online, the more that people expect that valuable information will be packaged in that way.

Does that mean that ebooks are dead? By no means. They will still serve a valuable purpose as supporting materials. You will still be able to increase the value of your video product by including bonuses in written form:

Transcripts of your video
Fact sheets
Step-by-step process blueprints
Cheat sheets
Tip sheets
Resource lists

They will also serve a valuable purpose as low-end door-openers to introduce yourself to potential customers and get them into the sales funnel for your higher-end products. Ebooks won't go away. They simply won't be the core of selling information online.

The days of getting $97 for an ebook are fast disappearing though. (Although you still might be able to get $97 for the same information in a set of DVDs with assorted bonuses.)

It will become important as the decade progresses to master creating products in forms that customers perceive as requiring higher technological skill. As I said before, these skills are increasingly available to marketers, so there's not reason not to learn them.

If you're currently feeling a little behind the curve of Internet product creation, I suggest you check out Jim Edwards' "The Net Reporter" training site. Jim is at the forefront of teaching marketers how to create all of the product types that have the highest perceived values. And you'll get training not just on product creation, but on all aspects of promoting your products, too. TNR is the one business expense I would never cut unless I was closing my business forever.

Whether you're already comfortable with creating products in forms that have higher perceived value or looking to learn, it will be important to move your product creation into those higher perceived forms.
Jeff

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2010-01-14T07:09:00.000-06:00

What the World Needs from You
Here's a favorite quote from Gil Bailie:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

I talk a lot when it comes to finding a niche about finding a problem to solve. That's very true, but one thing should never be lost in that. The problem you want to solve for people needs to be something you have a passion for.

You can find a problem to solve that you have no interest in. For example, a lot of women love expensive, designer handbags. I could look for ways to get them the best designer handbags at the best prices. I have absolutely no interest in designer handbags, though.

Will I be more effective finding solutions for people in a market in which I have no interest? Or will I be more effective finding solutions for something I'm passionate about, like helping people start their own business online?

I'll be more effective where my passion lies. I'll be more effective at something I think about in my free time. I'll be more effective at something I naturally choose to learn more about. Following my passion leads me to be a better business owner. And that makes me a more profitable business owner, too.

Most people, when they start a business, feel they have to start it in an area that is totally divorced from what they know and love. They feel that success will come from something totally outside them.

It will come, though, from what's inside you. It will come from what you have available to share with the world.

Follow your passion. Come alive. That's where you'll find what the world really needs from you.
Jeff

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2010-01-13T07:54:00.003-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Creating Your Own Community
What does it take to succeed in business online? A lot of people start their own business because they don't want to have some boss making their decisions for them. They don't want to deal with irritating co-workers. They want to be left alone.

If you went into business online because you hoped it would insulate you from people, you've probably already reached that fork in the road where you needed to make a decision. You had to decide either to continue your isolation and fail in your business, or open up to others in order to succeed.

Even if you run a sole proprietorship, business is never a solitary task. You have to interact with people. You need to learn what your potential customers really want, what needs they have, what buttons lead them to buy.

You have to work with others to get your business moving forward. Looking back on my career both in Fortune 100 and in self-employment, I can't see a single major step in my career that didn't involve help from someone else.

Working with others is an integral part even of a one-person business. I almost closed my business three years ago when I grew too frustrated with being totally isolated. It wasn't until I started partnering with other business owners and bouncing ideas back and forth between us that I had the social engagement I needed to be able to work alone.

The beauty of this is that this need to connect can benefit your business. People want connections, especially as life in general gets more disconnected. You can capitalize on that need by finding ways to build your target customers into a community.

You can find ways to help people through a membership site. Build a community around your area of expertise. They will get the connection they need. And you will get recurring, monthly income instead of one-time sales.

Not sure how to start a membership site? Become part of Jim Edwards' "The Net Reporter" training site and you'll find both community for you and a wealth of training in his Vault on how to set up a profitable membership site.

Or check out Jim Cockrum's "My Silent Team" training site. It has great training on a lot of different marketing strategies and is a great community of marketers in which to kick around ideas and get lots of new ones.

Look for ways to build community into your business. It will benefit both your customers and you.

And make sure you get your needs for community filled. It will make you a happier, healthier, and more successful business owner.
Jeff

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2010-01-12T07:50:00.004-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Make a Living Consulting for Small Businesses
Remember the OLD way to job security? It went something like this: get a job with some big corporation, work your way up the corporate ladder, and never have to worry about looking for a job ever again.

Didn't quite work out that way, did it?

This career model used to leave you set for life. That's not the case anymore.

If you still hope that career model will reappear anytime soon, I have bad news for you: things won't go back to the way they were.

The big companies find they must get leaner and more nimble in the face of the 21st century's volatile economy. And what created it? That's right. It's the ability of smaller, more nimble competitors to take a bite out of them.

More and more people will dabble in starting their own businesses. More and more small brick-and-mortar businesses will try to get up to speed with the rapidly-changing online world.

This is good news for anyone who has a basic knowledge of Internet marketing. New business owners will need help getting started. Established small brick-and-mortar business owners will need knowledgeable consultants to whom they can outsource their online marketing.

What does that mean? The marketing knowledge you've already gained in your own business puts you in demand. It gives you job security even if you don't have anything remotely like the kind of big-company job that used to bring it.

How can you benefit from this trend? You can feel out the local businesses in your community to assess their online marketing needs. Talk casually with the owners of businesses where you do business personally.

Chances are you'll find several who could use a hand. Chances are you'll be surprised to see how much they're ready to pay for your help.

What if you feel uneasy talking consulting with local business owners? Check out Jim Cockrum's OfflineBiz training site for those who are getting started at doing exactly that. Jim has the tools and strategies to get you ready to set up a profitable consultancy.

He shows how to approach small business owners, how to set your rates, even how to handle requests in areas of marketing that you don't feel comfortable handling yourself.

Whether you take Jim's training or jump right in on your own, though, don't overlook this profitable trend. It's your job security for the new economy.
Jeff

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2010-01-11T07:48:00.001-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- The Rise of the Little Guy in Blogging
It used to take years of working your way up the corporate ladder and developing serious social connections to achieve a position of influence in whatever field you wanted to influence. Today, all you need is an Internet connection and a solid understanding of how to market yourself there.

Many bloggers have risen from obscurity to positions of great influence in their market. That only stands to increase in the next decade.

News bloggers whom the big media companies once considered eccentric cranks now erode listeners away from the big behemoths. Similarly, big companies outside the news industry have felt the effect of a negative comment from popular bloggers. "Little guys" have shown themselves fully capable of bypassing the old power structures to have massive influence through their blogs.

That's not to say that anyone and everyone who starts a blog will automatically exert great influence on the world around them. You still need a solid understanding of how to find, attract, and engage an interested market to have any chance to rise to a position of influence in whatever field you have a passion for.

Even getting that understanding of marketing no longer is a big obstacle anymore, though. You don't have to go through the old power structures to get it. You just need to get it online and put it to work for you in building your business.

How can you take advantage of this opportunity? A quirky little blog called John Cow.com offers a free ebook that walks you, step by step, through the process that they have used to build their profits and their influence as bloggers in a number of different niches.

They walk you through all the steps from how to determine whether the niche you're eyeing even has potential for profit, through building your site, through promoting it successfully. It helps you build a profitable blog and an influential position for yourself. And it does all this for free.

In short, you don't have to be one of the "big guys" to have influence in whatever niche you have a passion for. All you have to do is use your passion -- and a bit of marketing know-how -- to build your own audience and become a recognizable name to them. In doing so, you can become a mover and shaker in that field.

I won't lie to you. You don't reach a position of influence overnight. You'll need your passion to motivate you to make the effort it will take to build that position of influence. If you're willing to make that effort, though, the opportunity is there.

Many people bemoan the fact that they didn't get in on the Internet riches when it first started. Those people miss an important fact. The opportunities are still right there.

In many ways, the opportunities are even greater than they were fifteen years ago. The Internet has spurred the development of many tools that didn't exist back then.

Those tools now give anyone the chance to leap past the gatekeepers that used to hold "the little guy" out of any chance of grabbing the limelight. You can use tools, like blogging and the print-on-demand capabilities that I described yesterday, to do things that would have been impossible for you to do in the "Wild West" days of the Internet.

Take advantage of the opportunities that this upcoming decade offers. Those opportunities make it possible for you rise to a real position of influence in the decade to come.
Jeff

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2010-01-10T07:24:00.001-06:00

Internet Marketing in the 2010s -- Authors, Authors Everywhere
Ever thought about becoming a published author? I'm not talking about just writing an ebook. I'm talking about writing a physical, softcover-bound book like you would buy in a bookstore.

If you've ever dreamed of being an author, you've probably slapped yourself back to reality with the many horror stories of writers spending months and years to write their book, only to be turned down again and again by the big New York publishing houses. The vast majority of books that people write never get published because they die in the hands of those traditional middlemen.

Or you may have heard horror stories about people who spent vast amounts of money self-publishing their books. Instead of counting on the big publishing houses to promote their books, they tried to sell them to bookstores themselves. More often than not, though, without the clout of a big publishing house to get their books into bookstores, those authors have ended up with cases and cases of unsold books in their basement.

Neither one of those horror stories is necessarily the case anymore, though. You can write a book and set it up to print on demand. In other words, instead of printing vast quantities and HOPING you can sell them, you can have them printed one at a time, only when someone orders one.

Print-on-demand sites like Lulu.com give you this option with bound-books. So does Amazon's Create Space publishing unit. And Amazon's Create Space also brings you an immediate visibility as they add it to the listings on their massively popular website.

Don't get me wrong. You still need to promote your books. It's not like all you do is submit a manuscript and wait for the money to roll in.

Amazon will list your books, but they won't conduct a marketing campaign to find and attract your audience to it.

If you have material to write a book and decent knowledge of how to find and market to your target audience on the Internet, though, you should have no trouble selling your books online. What this opportunity gives you is a way around the traditional gatekeepers that have made it hard for new writers to get published.

What can you do to take advantage of this trend? The best training I've found for getting yourself ready for the print-on-demand future is Jim Edwards' "The Net Reporter" training site.

Jim's specialty is teaching people how to develop and promote profitable information products. You'll find lots of training in his training vault about breaking into print-on-demand and multimedia product development. Not only that, but he'll show you how to get some of the most heavily visited sites on the Internet to sell them for you.

The next decade holds unprecedented opportunity to become a published author and an authority in whatever field you have a passion for. Position yourself to take advantage of these opportunities and the next decade can bring you unprecedented success.
Jeff

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2010-01-09T07:08:00.000-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Jim Cockrum
For the last marketer I feature on this year's list of "The Good Guys of Internet Marketing," I'll feature Jim Cockrum.

Jim started with a simple little ebook "The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay," which detailed the strategies he had used to build a HIGHLY profitable business through eBay. Note, I said "through eBay," not "on eBay."

Jim's ingenious methods made it possible for him and his readers to build relationships with and make sales to people who hadn't even bid on any of his eBay listings. That book has become one of the biggest selling ebooks in history.

Jim followed up with a couple of other very successful books as well: "Turn Auction Traffic into Cash" and "A Part-Time Plan for Massive Success Using eBay and the Internet." Both of them offer the same unique blending of eBay strategies and website strategies to leverage both eBay's huge traffic stream and a website's freedom from the restrictions that eBay places on sales done on their site.

With all the attention his methods have received, he could easily have raised his prices to five or even ten times what he started out charging. But he has held his prices down to their original level that he sold them at five years ago.

In addition, he has developed two training sites that offer some of the best value for the cost around. Jim's My Silent Team site offers dozens of successful marketers as experts sharing their expertise in various areas every day in site forums.

It features a HUGE library of free training materials. Each of the books that you are free to download from the site generally are books that the experts who share them there sell for more than the monthly membership cost of My Silent Team. So you get tremendous value there.

He also has a second membership site, Offline Biz.com. Offline Biz helps marketers who have developed marketing knowledge from working on their own sites to learn how to start profitable consulting businesses for small local businesses in their area.

Both sites are among the most economical training sites I've ever seen. Yet they offer value that outshines many training sites that are far more expensive.

Perhaps that's why Jim has consistently been rated as the most trusted Internet marketing teacher online. Personally, I think you can't go wrong learning from any of the marketers I've featured in this past week.

I urge you to check them out, as well as their free content and their paid products. You will always get far more than you pay for anything that they offer.
Jeff

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2010-01-08T08:26:00.001-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Ken Evoy
When I made my first "Good Guys of Internet Marketing" list four years ago, Ken was one of the guys I featured. Ken is the founder of SiteBuildIt!, a full featured business-building tool unlike anything else I've seen.

You notice I didn't merely say "site-building tool." I said "business-building tool." That's because SiteBuildIt! (or SBI! for short) doesn't just give you the ability to build a website. It walks you through the process of building a business.

SBI! isn't what I'm featuring here, though. I'm featuring Ken. What makes him someone I classify as one of the "Good Guys of Internet Marketing?"

Quite simply, when Ken developed SBI! he developed something that had never been seen before. Its site-building capability was equal to any site-building tool on the market.

What set it apart was that it didn't merely help you build your site. It walked you through finding a profitable niche for your business. It helped you understand the inner workings of creating a profitable business. It even helped you promote your business once your site was built.

If you went out and bought, separately, all the tools that SBI! contained, it would cost you 10 times the cost of SiteBuildIt! itself. Seriously, it's a huge bargain for all you get.

Four years ago, it was the huge giveaway of value that convinced me that Ken belonged among the Good Guys of Internet Marketing. And although Ken has now stepped back from actively running the company to semi-retirement as the public face of it, that focus on overdelivering value (one of his favorite phrases) continues.

This fall, SBI! added powerful new functionality that lets site owners tap into hot Web 2.0 technologies that most other site-building tools wouldn't even dream of adding. An addition like this could easily have boosted the price of SBI! by 30%, 40%, 50% or more.

What did they do, though? They left the price exactly the same. Not only that, but they also added more flexible payment options to make it even more accessible to anyone starting a business.

That's the philosophy that Ken Evoy instilled in SiteBuildIt! back then. It's the same philosophy of overdelivering that drives SBI! today. And it's why I keep Ken on my list of the Good Guys of Internet Marketing.

I encourage you to check out Ken's SiteBuildIt! Check out also the library of free marketing ebooks that he and his people have created:

Each one of these books range from 50 pages to over 800. You get the picture, though. He has provided A LOT of free content.

I encourage you, like I have with the others I've featured on this list, to check Ken Evoy out. You'll find lots of free and valuable content that he has provided, as well as a business-building tool that just keeps adding more and more value to the money that you spend on it.
Jeff

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2010-01-07T08:30:00.000-06:00

Living the Adventure of Life
Here's a favorite quote from John Eldredge:

"Life is not a problem to be solved, it is an adventure to live."

This quote brings me back to my screenwriting days, just like last week's did. It reminds me of it from a different angle, though.

The movies are all about adventure. Whether it's an adventure lived out in epic scale or the quiet little adventure of connecting with the love of your life, movies revolve around adventure.

The reason that movies are so popular is because we hunger for adventure. We seek to experience adventure by identifying with the adventures of those people on the screen.

Sadly enough, we often recoil from the adventures that our own lives could be. We shrink back because, with adventure, comes risk.

We want our adventures to excite us without exposing us to risk. We want our adventures to inspire us without them forcing us to face the potential problems they include.

Each of us is capable of living out our own adventure. Each of us is capable of experiencing the excitement of exploring -- and conquering -- new worlds.

When we shrink back from the adventure that lies before us, we only diminish ourselves. Not only that, but we rob the world of what we could have added to it.

Don't satisfy yourself with living out vicariously some fictional character's adventures. Create your own. Yes, you'll face problems. But you'll have the ride of your life.
Jeff

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2010-01-06T08:03:00.000-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Clayton Makepeace
There's a good reason I didn't list Clayton in my "Good Guys of Internet Marketing" list four years ago. I didn't know the guy existed back then. Clayton is a multi-million dollar copywriting master -- one of the best around.

I wasn't into copywriting all that much back then, so I didn't pay much attention to copywriting experts. As my awareness grew, however, about how important good copywriting is to selling, I kept hearing one name over and over again when I talked to colleagues about copywriting.

They'd tell me, "If you want to learn copywriting, you've got to read Clayton Makepeace's daily blog! He gives away so much great information for free every day."

Their advice was 100% accurate. Like I said about Jim Edwards the other day, the tips and strategies he gives away for free is better than what was in almost any copywriting course I've paid for.

The minute the email arrives that alerts me that his next blog post is up, I go to Clayton Makepeace's "The Total Package" copywriting blog to read it. If you want to improve your copywriting, I suggest you do the same.

You can get all you need to get you started in copywriting from his free info. And you can get a master class in copywriting from any of his paid courses that bring his best tips and strategies together in a well-structured format where each lesson builds directly on the last.

The following two paid products are especially helpful for those who want to learn to write more profitable copy in a hurry: Double Your Profits in 12 Months or Less and Steal These Secrets!

Granted, those two aren't free. They will, however, give you the structured learning that will get you writing more persuasive copy a lot faster.

If you're interested in improving your copywriting (and increasing your sales in the process), I think that the best person to check out is Clayton Makepeace. And just about every marketer I've ever talked to about copywriting agrees.

Start with his free blog. You'll learn a lot from that. Then move on to his more structured training. You won't regret it.
Jeff

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2010-01-05T08:04:00.000-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Perry Marshall
Perry, like Jim Edwards, is another guy I missed in my original "Good Guys of Internet Marketing" series four years ago. Time to correct that mistake.

As with Jim, Perry was not all that high profile back then. He was emerging as a leading Google AdWords expert, but I hadn't really seen enough of him to class him among those who overdeliver on their promises to a degree that makes them really stand out.

Now, four years later, I've followed him for years. It's clear that he's a lot more than a one-trick pony when it comes to marketing. And he stands out when it comes to sharing what he knows.

Perry started out with one, excellent product, his "Definitive Guide to Google AdWords." He quickly became recognized as the the top expert in that field.

In fact, most of the other top AdWords guys were themselves trained by Perry. Not only is he the best, but he has also trained most of the other guys who are considered the best.

He didn't stop there, though. He quickly moved on to other strategies as well. And he's given out plenty of free content along the way.

Unlike Jim Edwards, you won't see his articles all over the Web. His philosophy isn't to make himself highly visible through articles. He opts, instead, to give away his content in lengthy autoresponder series that engages fence-sitters until they buy.

I encourage you to sign up for his free newsletters -- as many of them as you can. You'll get lots of information and lots of inspiration as you study his way of setting up his series. Sign up for his free adwords course. Also consider joining his Renaissance Club.

Be aware that the Renaissance Club is a paid newsletter that Perry sends via snail mail. He sends a ridiculous amount free content just for trying it, though. And I doubt that once you get the first issue you'll want to give it up.

Each month, Perry gives tips, describes his recent marketing tests, and basically looks at marketing from different angles that will really open your eyes about marketing.

As I've said with other marketers I've profiled, check Perry out. You'll be happy you did.
Jeff

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2010-01-04T09:06:00.000-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Jim Edwards
I don't think I included Jim Edwards in my original "Good Guys of Internet Marketing" series four years ago. That was a foolish omission.

Granted, at that time all I knew about Jim was that he gave out a lot of excellent free content, but I don't know whether I had bought anything from him yet. I ravenously consumed all the tips and strategies that he offered for free and pretty much took for granted all that he was giving.

Basically, even with all the great tips I got from him, I had no idea what all he had to offer.

Over the years, Jim has turned into my most valued mentor. I've talked with other marketers that he has mentored and discovered a curious fact about his approach.

With other marketing teachers, the marketers with whom I've discussed them could always trace our knowledge of them back to some product or other. We would hear of the product, feel that the product was worth buying, be pleased with it, and then grow to be fans of these marketers through the followup information they provided.

Yet, when I talk to people about Jim, none of them can remember what the first product they bought from him was. His free content was spread over the Internet so widely that we all got to know him from that. He was simply everywhere.

He built his credibility through free content. We became aware of his paid products gradually, as he sprinkled information about them into his free articles. Buying from him was not a leap of faith, as it was with other marketing teachers; it was a matter of, "If Jim's free content is this good, his paid content has got to be even better!"

It definitely was. Right now, I'm a charter member of his The Net Reporter training site, and the strategies he teaches there are well beyond anything I've ever seen any other teacher share.

I've seen paid training sites whose material wasn't even as good as Jim's free materials. And the strategies he shares on The Net Reporter are simply amazing.

He takes us step-by-step through strategies that most other marketers -- even big-name marketers -- haven't discovered yet. If you carry out what Jim teaches, there's no way NOT to succeed!

As I've said before, the only way I'd ever cancel my membership at The Net Reporter is if I decided to close my business forever. It is the one and only business expense that I would never cut.

I've described his free content (syndicated across the web as well as on his free IGottaTellYou blog) and on The Net Reporter because they are the clearest examples of why I consider him a Good Guy of Internet Marketing. These are not the only examples of his work, though.

His Mini-Site Creator is an excellent and easy-to-use site building tool for building just about any kind of site you want in a way that helps it bring in profits. His book, "Turn Words into Traffic," is a blueprint into how to achieve the kind of success that Jim has achieved through creating free content.

And he has another, personal growth, membership site of which I have been a member for the past year. That site has proved priceless in helping me overcome obstacles and increase my effectiveness. I can't give you a name or link for it right now. It's currently under wraps until Jim is ready to open it to the general public.

I'll be sure to let you know, though, when that happens. It's the best personal growth course I've ever seen. That seems to be the pattern, though, with any market in which he offers training.

As I did with the marketers I've identified previously in this series, I encourage you to check out Jim's products that I've mentioned, or anything else connected with Jim. He's one teacher I am convinced you can't go wrong with.
Jeff

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2010-01-03T08:12:00.000-06:00

The Good Guys of Internet Marketing -- Jason Potash and Jason Katzenbach
A few years ago, I listed some people I considered to be the "good guys" of Internet marketing. This list identified marketing teachers who excel at helping new business owners get started. All those I listed gave exceptional value to their students along the way.

It dawned on me the other day that it is high time for me to update that list. It's time to add a couple more and to update what those who made the list four years ago have done to solidify their position on the list.

I'll cover each of them in some upcoming posts. Today I'll cover two of them: Jason Potash and Jason Katzenbach. Jason Potash made my original list way back when. He's no less deserving of that praise today.

I praised him back then for a lineup of products that HE NEVER STOPPED UPGRADING FOR FREE.

Most marketers either stop upgrading their products after you buy them or charge you for each little tweak that they call a "new version." Jason impressed me by adding fantastic new functionality to products for which I paid a one-time fee. I never paid a cent for them after that, but the improvements just keep coming.

He has done that repeatedly with products like Article Announcer article syndication software and Content Composer content development software. He's always improving them. And he never charges for all the extra features he puts into them.

He since has gone on to partner with Jason Katzenbach on some even bigger projects, like Portal Feeder (a complete site-building and traffic generating tool), Traffic Kahuna (for those who want only the traffic-generating parts of Portal Feeder), PPC Kahuna (to help you find sweet spots for your Google AdWords campaigns), and Web 2.0 Mayhem (more traffic-generating tools).

These are all monthly membership tools, but the same applies to them when it comes to constantly adding more features. They never stop pushing more value on you.

They have also come up with lots of totally free tools that are extremely useful. Comment Kahuna helps you find dofollow blogs and get valuable backlinks from them. Keyword Corral helps you find profitable keywords to bring in more traffic. Article Assistant drastically cuts your research time for writing articles and helps you write them much faster as well.

And Jason Katzenbach's John Cow blog not only provides great content for Internet marketers, but also offers a the best book I've seen on how to make money by blogging -- and he offers it completely for free. (You can get it in the upper right corner of each blog page.)

I heartily recommend any of the products I mentioned and anything else connected with these two Jasons. They truly are good guys of Internet marketing.
Jeff

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2009-12-31T08:28:00.000-06:00

Einstein's Three Rules for Succeeding at Whatever You Do
Here's a favorite quote from Albert Einstein:

"Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

In my days trying to breaking into the movie business as a screenwriter, one thing I was told repeatedly by other screenwriters was that stories revolved around conflict. The more I worked at perfecting my writing, though, the more I found that that particular truism only scratched the surface.

I found that simple conflict wasn't always interesting enough to carry a story. Seeing two people mad at each other might catch our attention, but it won't hold it.

What held people's interest in any good story was a compelling contrast underneath the conflict. A good story always has the main character thrust into a situation that was the exact opposite of what he or she was equipped to handle. A contrast existed between what the hero felt comfortable with and what the hero needed to do.

That contrast makes the story compelling -- much more compelling than the conflict itself that emerged from the contrast.

Einstein, here, hits on that same point. Succeeding at whatever you do involves contrasts: bringing simplicity out of clutter, bringing harmony out of discord, bringing opportunity out of difficulty.

Success doesn't involve avoiding those negatives. It involves finding the positives that lie hidden inside of them.

Don't shrink back from those negatives. Tackle them. Explore them. Only by doing that will you find the ways that they can bring you success.
Jeff

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2009-12-30T16:59:00.003-06:00

Easy Backlinks at 50 Percent Off?
A colleague of mine has developed a pretty ingenious way to get A LOT of backlinks to your site pretty easily. And she's letting me give my readers a special, end-of-year discount. Order through my link and you get 50% off.

You get the discount only through Friday, though. And you get it only through my link. Go and check out her backlinking method. If it looks good to you, order it. Make sure, though, that you put the code NEWYEAR in the coupon code box as you complete your order.

Just so there's no confusion, the coupon code box is not on the information page. It's on the page where you enter your purchase information, just above the button that completes your order.

Check out her linking strategy. I think you'll be impressed.
Jeff

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2009-12-28T08:09:00.000-06:00

Advice for a Brand New Business Owner
A mentor, Jim Cockrum, showed me an email he just got from someone who had bought his ebook and wanted some extra advice.

The email said that the buyer had just become disabled, but didn't want his new disability to be the end of his productive life. He felt he could still do things online and wanted to start a business, but his medical bills put a definite constraint on what he was able to spend on starting a business.

My mentor showed me his response to the guy and asked if I wanted to add anything to it.

Let's face it, many of you face similar financial constraints, whether or not you're physically disabled as the writer of the email was. And with a lot of people making resolutions at this time of year to finally get serious about starting that business they've always dreamed of, I thought I would share my response also with you.

"Don't give up!

"Focus on what you know and what you love. Lots of people, when they think of starting a business online, think they have to sell something they know nothing about. They completely overlook the things they know about.

"Starting a business is enough of a learning curve without also needing to learn about something you know nothing about as well! With the things you know and love, you've already had experience with them. You know the ins and outs of them. You know the problems you've encountered and how to overcome them.

"Feel that what you know isn't enough to help anyone else? Then consider this, whatever you know anything about, many people know even less about it than you do. The level of knowledge you already have can help them immeasurably!

"If you're reading Jim's book, you're already getting some great ideas on how to use the resources you already have at your disposal to help others find what they need -- and make money in the process.

"Don't be afraid to take the step. Whatever you already have is enough to get started with. As you build momentum (and revenues) with what comes out of your initial efforts, you can always grow what you're doing larger and more profitable.

"Just get started. Don't sit back and feel that you have to learn absolutely everything before you take that first step. Trust me, you'll learn more by taking action than you will from simply trying to absorb everything before you start.

"Good luck!"

Wherever you are in your dream of starting a business, leverage what you already have. You DO have knowledge of things that could help others. You DO have solutions that they will gladly pay for you to provide.

That's what business is all about, providing solutions to people who are looking for them. So start your business in areas of experience you already have. That's the best -- and most profitable -- place for you to start.
Jeff

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2009-12-25T08:36:00.001-06:00

A Blessed Christmas to You!
I wish you joy today in the Gift that was given that you might know true joy! May your celebration of Christmas strengthen you with the knowledge that Someone came into the world specifically that you might know Him and enjoy His presence.
Jeff

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2009-12-24T08:04:00.000-06:00

Is It Time You Traded in Your Eyes?
Here's a favorite quote from Marcel Proust:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Many times, the difference between success and failure is not so much what you see in front of you, but how you see it.

For example, let's say you face an obstacle in your business, or in your life. Your eyes see no way around it, no way over it, no way through it. Your eyes see only how imposing it.

So you stop. You don't go any further because all you can see is how impassible the obstacle is.

I can't tell you how many times I've done this. A task seemed too big, too daunting, too overwhelming. So I stopped, thinking, "How am I ever going to make this work for me?"

Not surprisingly, those are the tasks that ended unsuccessfully. I went in looking for something that would make what I was doing fail. Invariably, I found exactly what I was looking for.

I've had plenty of tasks, though, where I faced obstacles that I did, indeed, overcome. What did those have in common? I looked for ways to overcome the obstalces instead of looking for how they would stop me. I found ways to succeed.

Often, that's all it takes to overcome obstacles: eyes that look for the ways around them instead of staring motionless at them. How are your eyes lately? Are you finding only obstacles in your path? If so, it might be time to trade your old eyes in for some new ones.
Jeff

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2009-12-22T19:47:00.003-06:00

Paving Materials for Your Success
I just finished watching a webinar in Jim Edwards' The Net Reporter site. I can't tell you the exact topic because members have a confidentiality agreement not to reveal the topics he covers.

Suffice it to say, though, that this topic was a very detailed breakdown of a very profitable process. He broke down all the steps brilliantly and in great detail. There's no way that anyone who followed those steps could avoid succeeding.

The webinar struck me as having a lot of "tough love" in it, though. Jim didn't sugar coat things. The process is brilliant, but it's not some "push a button and wait for money to fall in your lap" hype. It will take a lot of work.

Something struck me, though, as he laid out this process and the effort required in it. There are no shortcuts to excellence. There are no shortcuts to the kind of success that Jim has demonstrated is possible. The road to success is paved with hard work and determination, but those paving materials are something we all have available to us.
Jeff

P.S. If you've gotten tired of all the hypesters who sell you on pixie dust instead of real, honest answers on how to make your Internet business succeed, I know of no better place to look than at Jim's The Net Reporter training site. I'm proud to call Jim my mentor and consider his site the one Internet marketing tool or training that I absolutely would never give up, unless I was closing my business forever. I encourage you to check it out.

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2009-12-17T08:56:00.001-06:00

The Brilliance of Simply Getting Started
Here's a favorite quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

You have a dream. Unfortunately, most people are willing to let their dreams simply remain dreams.

They cherish them. They spend as much time with them as they possibly can. But they never let them lose into the world outside their heads.

It's like we're afraid that if we let them go outside their carefully confined captivity, they'll run off and be lost to us forever. They don't have to remain dreams, though. You can make your dream reality.

Goethe reminds us in today's success quote what has to be to make that happen. Do it.

Let that dream out into the real world. Will it run away from you? Not if you train it properly.

Take the dream and train it to go in the direction you want it to go. Take action. Even if your dream doesn't grow immediately into what you envisioned, you're still much closer to that full-grown vision of what you want it to be.

Even if you have to step back once and a while and try new ways to move forward, you're still closer to where you want to be than if you simply leave your dream curled up safely inside your mind.

As Goethe says, "Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

Don't delay in putting off your dreams. Don't delay in getting started. Even if you don't get their right away, you will be moving every closer to it.
Jeff

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2009-12-10T08:41:00.000-06:00

What You Win by Losing
Here's a favorite quote from Hugh Laurie:

"Winning doesn't teach you anything. You win. End of story. But the losing and what you take from it -- that's the interesting bit."

We all like happy endings. We all like the story where the character for which we're rooting wins in the end. We especially like the idea of us enjoying that happy ending, us enjoying that final victory.

It's easy for us, thus, to overlook what we win by losing. That's right. I said it's easy for us to overlook what we win by losing.

How can that be, though? How can anything good come out of losing?

Every victory is built on the back of numerous small defeats. Think of a sports team on a quest for a championship. Is that victory won solely on the field in that championship game? Or is it built on the back of all those months and years of practice?

Those many, many practices identified weaknesses. Those many, many practices involved struggle to overcome those weaknesses. Those many, many practices equipped the players to play the kind of game they needed to play in order to win in the end.

Discovering, and correcting, those small failures was the foundation of that final success, that happy ending.

That's why you never see a sports team rest on their laurels after winning a championship. They turn their minds immediately to defending their title and winning it again, the next season.

That's why you don't see many successful business owner take it easy once they reach success. There's always a new challenge to face, new losses to uncover and correct.

If you satisfy yourself with small victories, it's end of story, nothing more to gain, nothing more to enjoy. It's what you take from the losses that can drive you to even bigger successes.

Don't give in to the temptation to give up when you experience defeat. That's the point where real winners get started.
Jeff

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2009-12-09T19:16:00.000-06:00

Are You Starting a Business or Just Throwing Mud?
A fellow marketer told me the other day about a friend of his who did something scary. Years ago, he sold office and school supplies.

He took the usual approach. Whenever he had a chance, he added more products to his store.

It seemed, though, that the more products he added, the harder he worked. Yet his profits remained roughly the same.

Finally, he took a good look at his business -- what was working and what wasn't. What he found surprised him.

His hottest sellers were maps. And not just any maps, either. People were buying those little dashboard map books at a rate that he could barely keep them in stock.

So he did a very counter-intuitive thing. He dropped all of his products other than those map books. Instead of adding more products to give customers more choices, he cut back on products and focused on finding more customers who were looking for that one line of products.

His results were just the opposite of what he was used to. Instead of working harder and harder to keep profits the same, he found himself working no harder, but reaping far greater profits.

A lot of business owners wouldn't think of taking such a step. They take the same attitude that this business owner had started with. They think, "The more mud I throw against the wall, the more of it will stick." And I think the reason that we fall into that thinking is because, deep down, we don't believe that anything we focus on will work.

We figure that we need something outside of ourselves to "save us." We need some outside tool or strategy that will attract and win customers. If it relies on what we put into it of ourselves, we fear it will fail and we'll be to blame.

But, hey, if all we're doing is throwing mud against the wall and it doesn't stick, at least our failure isn't our fault. We tried, it's the mud that failed.

In reality, though, the only way to succeed is through the unique effort, knowledge, and passion that we bring to it. Those maps did well for him, but cutting back to just maps was probably pretty scary for that marketer.

He probably heard more than one person tell him he was crazy to move away from being a nice, generic store to a tight niche. He knew he would have to bring his whole knowledge, passion, and perseverance to making it take off. His success would all be on him -- not on the product.

But by making the choice to move away from throwing mud at a wall and bringing all those dabs of mud together and shaping it into a single, artistic sculpture, he finally had something that others would really want.
Jeff

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2009-12-04T16:54:00.003-06:00

Why Marketers Should Embrace the New FTC Rules
If you're either a marketer who's been living in a cave, or someone for whom marketing is on the outer borders of your awareness, you may have missed the new rules about marketing from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I won't go into detail on the rules here. You can find detailed analysis on just about any marketing blog. Just google "FTC rules, December 1, 2009" and you should find plenty of analysis -- and plenty of hand-wringing.

Basically, the new rules cover two things.

Disclosure of any relationship between anyone who recommends a product and the product seller
Disclosure of AVERAGE results obtained by buyers

Disclosing relationships
The disclosure of relationship means that anyone who writes reviews or otherwise recommends a product to readers has to inform them of any connection between them and seller. In other words, when I recommend a product to my readers and I receive any kind of payment from the seller, I must disclose that.

For me, that's no big deal. I've done it sporadically in my reviews already. I simply have to make sure that disclosure is visible on any page where I recommend any affiliate product.

Disclosing average results
With the other rule about disclosing average results, marketers now must find another way to excite potential customers about their product other than boasting about the absolute best result anyone has ever gotten with it. Just putting the phrase "Results not typical" in small print is no longer enough.

Marketers now must clearly describe the AVERAGE results that buyers get instead of the best. This is what's causing the most hand-wringing. Considering that most people who buy a weight-loss product or an Internet-marketing product do absolutely nothing with it once they've bought it, that brings the average results waaaay down.

The rules' purpose
The idea behind these rules is to make sure that buyers have a clear picture of exactly what they're getting. They're designed to make it harder for scammers to mislead.

In the process, the rules are making it harder for legitimate marketers to dance around the edges of honesty by making statements that don't provide the full picture to buyers. I don't share the sky-is-falling attitude of many of the marketers I hear complaining about these new rules, though.

My thoughts on the rules
The scammers will continue to mislead. A few of them might even suffer consequences for their scamming. In other words, not much will change for the hard-core scammers.

Rather than playing victim about this ruling, though, marketers can look at the positive side. Following the rules gives marketers a chance to differentiate ourselves from the scammers.

I suspect that many publishers will ignore the ruling and do business as usual. That means that by simply following the rules and being upfront about our relationships and the results buyers can expect, we will come across as different from what people expect. We will stand out, especially at first.

Disclose what needs to be disclosed in connection with a personal statement of your business philosophy -- a philosophy founded on honesty and genuine value. I've done that on my site.

Customers are hungry for someone they can trust.

Yes, it will take some creativity to generate the same kind of desire to buy that sprang from using exceptional results that we knew that most people wouldn't achieve.

Marketers, though, are a resourceful bunch. I'm confident we'll find ways to tap into people's emotions with honesty and transparency -- and maybe, in the process, find ways that help raise the average results of our customers. That would be a big improvement over resigning ourselves to collecting money from customers who never use our products to their fullest potential. It would be a big improvement over shrugging off buyers' lack of results as being beyond our control.

Maybe we'll put more effort into following up with our customers to help them achieve better results and raise the average. I don't know what exactly will come out of this, but I expect that once marketers put the Kleenex away, some of us will find ways to bring their customers more value. And those new approaches will become best practices that other legitimate marketers will adopt.

That would be great for buyers. It would be great for marketers, too.

All obstacles contain in them hidden opportunities. I have no doubt that, as we get used to the new rules, we'll find opportunities that this obstacle conceals.
Jeff

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2009-12-03T08:53:00.001-06:00

On the Brink
Here's a favorite quote from Napoleon Hill:

"No man ever achieved worthwhile success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure."

One time when I was traveling in Colorado, I detoured to take a scenic highway. I had no idea what I was in for!

The road was a one-way, one-lane road for several miles along the top of a razor-back ridge. At least they called it one lane. At some places it felt more like three-quarters of a lane or even half.

It was just a narrow ribbon of pavement that ran along the crest of that ridge, dipping and weaving along with the rocks. I've never seen anything like it.

The road was barely wider than my car. Both sides of it featured a steep drop of a couple hundred feet. I don't know who's idea it was to pave that narrow ribbon or rock, but the experience of driving it was indescribable.

I had already driven a number of mountain roads along steep cliffs. This one, though, was truly scary.

With most mountain roads, one edge of it ends in a cliff that goes straight down; the other side hugs a cliff that goes straight up. As you drive, you find yourself edging toward the side of the road that offers the security of that nice, safe, rock wall that you can huddle against.

Where do you find safety, though, when BOTH edges of the road have a steep dropoff? If you take that road, you simply keep going forward and put your fears on hold.

That's what comes to mind with Napoleon Hill's quote. There's no escaping that scary cliff when you try to achieve worthwhile success. You just have to keep taking that road forward to get where you're trying to go.

It's all part of achieving success.
Jeff

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2009-11-26T08:18:00.001-06:00

Try One More Time
Here's a favorite quote from A.J. Kitt:

"You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do."

How many people today live lives of perpetual victimhood? How many people stop cold at going after what they want because things didn't fall into place perfectly?

The answer to both questions probably is in the millions -- if not in the billions! Hopefully it doesn't include you!

With so much of our lives wrapped up in waiting for others to take care of our needs -- parents, teachers, bosses, government, etc. -- it's easy to slip into a mindset that somebody is responsible for making things work out the way we want it.

And when it doesn't, we go all victim-y.

"It's not fair! I didn't get the advantages I needed! The deck was stacked against me!"

Know what to do when the deck is stacked against you, though? Cut the cards. Or get a new deck. Or switch to a different game.

Your options are endless. You just have to choose something that you actually DO to try to change the situation.

That's what it takes. Take action and you take control. And when you take control, good things happen.
Jeff

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2009-11-19T07:49:00.000-06:00

Try One More Time
Here's a favorite quote from Thomas Edison:

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

Thomas Edison was the greatest failure who ever lived. That is, he's the greatest failure who ever lived if you define failure by the number of times someone tried something and didn't get the results he sought.

Depending on which account you read, Edison tried hundreds -- or even thousands -- of different materials before he found the one that made it possible for a light bulb to give light. If he had given up one time sooner, he would have left nothing but that long line of failures as his legacy.

It only took one that worked, though, to turn those attempts into a smashing success.

How many of us have the persistence of Edison? How many of us are willing to keep trying until we get the results we seek?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advising that you try the same failed plan over and over. Nor do I urge you to try things randomly with no plan. I'm urging you to do like Edison did.

He went into his experiments intent on learning. With each material that didn't work, he assessed why it fell short. Then he looked for another material that could overcome that shortcoming.

On another occasion, Edison said that the secret to his success with the light bulb was that he ultimately found so many materials that didn't work that it was finally easy to narrow it down to the one that would.

That's the path to take. Try. Test. Learn. Then put what you've learned into action as you try, test, and learn again. Keep doing that and you're sure to succeed.
Jeff

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2009-11-12T07:48:00.001-06:00

What Makes Us Who We Really Are
Here's a favorite quote from J.K. Rowling:

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"

The story has repeated itself so many times. A promising athlete, entertainer, or governmental leader looks like a cinch for greatness. They have all the talent and charisma to succeed.

Then they implode. They get within inches of what they worked for only to lose it all when bad choices that they make -- horrible choices -- destroy everything.

But wait! There's another side to the story, too.

After all, we've also seen an almost equal number of stories where someone whose position or resources should have resulted in disaster overcame impossible obstacles to do great things.

What's the common thread in these stories? Choices. In each of those stories, the choices the people made ultimately determined their outcome.

It was choices to risk everything for nothing that has destroyed the dreams of people who had everything going for them. And it was choices to persevere despite overwhelming odds that made dreams come true for those who should have had no hope.

It's not luck. It's choices.

Choices play a bigger role than talent. They play a bigger role than resources. They play a bigger role than whatever initial advantage or disadvantage someone might have.

The choices we make show what we really are. What kind of choices are you making today?
Jeff

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2009-11-05T09:38:00.000-06:00

Making Decisions Means Abandoning Options
Here's a favorite quote from Paul Myers:

"Does this move me closer to what I want, faster than whatever else I could be doing?"

As business owners, a world of options stare us in the face every day. "How can I best promote this product?" Well, there are dozens of excellent options. "Which course of action should I pursue to get where I want to go?" Again, dozens, if not hundreds of ways face us.

That sheer number of options sometimes holds us back, doesn't it? They call it analysis paralysis. And it's magnified by the nagging fear that whichever option we choose MIGHT not be the absolute best option.

The reality is that we don't need to look for the perfect option, the option that will get us past whatever unseen obstacles we might encounter along the way. Nor do we need to stew over how we're going to carry out all the options that lay before us at once.

All we have to do is choose one option, based on what we can see, not on what we can't.

Choose what looks like it will take you where you want to go the fastest. Not sure precisely which one that is? Then choose one of those that came in tied for first, run with it, and don't look back at the others.

Whether it indeed was the best or not, it will still get you farther ahead faster than you would get by sitting around wondering.
Jeff

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2009-11-03T21:17:00.002-06:00

New Website Directory Submission List: Which Are Worth Submitting To?
Are you using website directories as a source of incoming links? You remember website directories, don't you? Those are those quaint little things that people used to search for the information they wanted back before Google gobbled up the Internet.

They're still around, and they're still authoritative sources of inbound links. Many of them now are paid, but some of them are still free. I just posted a new article assessing which web directories are the best to submit your website to. Check out this website directory submission list here.
Jeff

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2009-10-08T07:36:00.001-05:00

Are You Taking that Most Important First Step?
Here's a favorite quote from J. Pierpont Morgan:

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to to decide that you are not going to stay where you are."

Obvious, but insightful. How many times have you daydreamed about taking your life somewhere else, somewhere better, only to find that you got stuck -- because getting wherever you wanted to be meant that you couldn't stay right where you were?

Parting with where you are doesn't mean simply parting with that place's unpleasant aspects. It also means parting ways with that familiar old security blanket we wrap ourselves inside.

It means exposing ourselves to the unfamiliar and growing beyond what we now are. The only way to have a better future is to be willing to give up the comfortable security of a stagnant now.

There is no gain without risk.

Only those who take the risk stand a chance of gaining the reward.

Here's hoping you make the decision to pursue that journey to the "somewhere" you envision -- despite the cost.
Jeff

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2009-10-01T09:14:00.002-05:00

What to Do with Obstacles
Here's a favorite quote from Michael Jordan:

"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

It's easy to wish that obstacles would just go away. They're inconvenient. They're troublesome. Life would be so much easier if we didn't have to deal with them.

They are also, though, the key to success. Nobody ever succeeded without enduring obstacles. Those obstacles, in fact, provides the fuel that gets us where we wanted to go.

Without obstacles, we would never do anything more than meander toward some vague goal. Obstacles force us to focus our attention on the key lessons we have to learn in order to succeed. That focus helps us set a straight path toward goals and resources we might never have even identified without their help.

Michael Jordan truly epitomized this quote. When I think back on seeing him play, he was a man who found ways to overcome whatever obstacles lay between him and victory.

Certainly, he had developed an unusual degree of perseverance and tenacity over his lifetime. But that doesn't mean you can't do the same.

Treat your obstacles as a challenge rather than as a dead-end. Learn from them. Develop perseverance from them.

You'll find them to be surprisingly helpful.
Jeff

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2009-09-24T06:28:00.000-05:00

The Best Kind of Good Luck to Have
Here's a favorite quote from Channing Pollock:

"The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck."

It's easy to sit back and look at those who have obtained what we want with envy. "If only I had had their advantages! If only I hadn't been cursed with bad luck!"

Bad luck? It's a crutch we use to explain why we haven't accomplished what others have.

Yes, some of us have had starts that put us at a disadvantage. Some of us have faced setbacks that were crushing in nature.

The fact is, though, that MANY OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED GREAT THINGS HAVE FACED THE SAME THINGS WE HAVE. Some of them have faced even worse.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not pointing fingers and saying, "The only reason you don't have everything you want is because you're flawed."

Hey, we're all flawed. I'm flawed. You're flawed. People who have succeeded dramatically are flawed.

What's the difference, then, between them and us? It's in them working hard to overcome whatever bad luck beset them instead of hunkering down and beamoaning it.

The wonderful news about this is that opportunity is open not just to them. It's open also to each of us.

So what are you going to do about whatever "bad luck" has been holding you back?
Jeff

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2009-09-17T06:35:00.003-05:00

The Will to Excel
Here's a favorite quote from Vince Lombardi:

"The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur."

What is it that leads to success? It's not luck. It's not events falling perfectly into place. It is determination and persistence.

I've admired Vince Lombardi since childhood. Rarely have I seen a person with greater will to succeed than Lombardi -- a will that he put into action by doing whatever was necessary to reach the goals he envisioned.

His demand for excellence was legendary -- both the excellence he expected of his players and the excellence he expected of himself. No, there was no sitting back and waiting for the right moment. He didn't wait for luck. He made his own luck by hard work and sacrifice.

He's someone I always strive to be more like in my business. He's a good model for any business owner.

Focus on your vision for how you can use your business to make a better world for yourself and for others. Then pursue that vision tenaciously. It's a much surer way of getting to your goals than any other way I know.
Jeff

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2009-09-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

The Role of Adversity
Here's a favorite quote from Lou Holtz:

"Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity."

Why do people (including me, at times) look for some magic wand that will bend everything around them to providing them with an effort-free life? We buy into the fantasy that life is supposed to be easy and that the path to finding that easy life boils down to one little secret that unlocks the door -- without us having to exert any effort to attain it.

I've learned differently. I've come to the conclusion that the way we learn is through adversity.

When I was studying theatrical lighting in college, my professor and mentor told me a story of a lesson he once taught some other lighting students. They were doing lights for a suspenseful play in which one crucial scene involved one of the characters struggling to find and turn on a lamp in a darkened room.

The professor looked over their plans. One thing caught his eye.

"I notice here that you're plugging the lamp direction into a live outlet on the stage. Why didn't you connect it to the same circuit as the stage lights that will come on when the lamp goes on?"

Their eyes lit up. "We figured it would be much simpler that way than running all the extra cabling to do it the way you suggested."

"But how are you going to control it so the lamp and the lights come on at the same time?" he asked.

"Oh, that'll be no problem. We'll simply turn up the lights the same instant the actor turns on the lamp. There's really no reason to go to all that extra work of running all that cable."

He was about to tell them to do it the way he had told them, but they seemed so proud of themselves for figuring out a better way of doing it than "the old man" had told them, that he decided to let them see for themselves.

As they got into the dress rehearsals, they had no end of trouble trying to sync up the actor onstage turning on the lamp and them in the booth turning up the lighting. Either the single light bulb went on first, followed by the stage growing lighter a second later, or the stage grew lighter a couple of seconds before the light bulb went on.

They tried all manner of plans to ensure the lights went on a precisely the same time, but nothing worked. Finally, they decided to run the necessary cable so they could control the lamp from the booth, along with the other lights.

Afterwards, they came to the professor and asked why he hadn't insisted they do it his way. "If I had," he said, "you would have figured I was just set in my ways. The next time you got the chance, you'd do it your way. Maybe then you'd be on a tighter schedule and wouldn't have time to fix your mistake. This way, you'll never even consider making that mistake ever again."

We learn most clearly from our mistakes. That's why it's a mistake to look for a path that promises us an easy, obstacle-free way to success.

We actually need obstacles in order to succeed. We need mistakes in order to learn.

It's been said time and again that they way for us to succeed is not for us to wait until we have every potential problem solved so we can proceed, obstacle-free. That situation never occurs.

The solution is to take action, encounter whatever problems we're going to encounter, learn from them, and move forward from there. That's the realistic route to success.
Jeff

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2009-09-03T10:25:00.001-05:00

What Goes into Achievement
Here's a favorite quote from Jack Nicklaus:

"Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's levels of aspiration and expectation."

I used to look at success as a destination. I used to expect that there would be some big moment when suddenly I realized, "I made it!"

I don't look at it that way any more. I've come to see it more like Jack Nicklaus said: steadily raising my level of aspiration and expectation.

Success is a gradual journey. You don't arrive there. You journey through there in an ongoing journey of life. The more you achieve, the higher you raise your goals.

I don't think, though, that raising our aspirations is even the key to success. I think the key is the expectation part.

It's not enough to WANT more. It's when you recognize that you can bring those higher goals into reality by what you do that you really start to achieve success.

Waiting for success to come to you doesn't work. You have to work for it. You take those goals that you want and figure out how to bring them about. And once you start seeing that you can do that, it becomes that much easier.

Rather than trusting to luck or fate or whatever, you see that you can take the next step, and the next one, and the next one, in bringing those goals about.

Take that journey, even if you don't feel you're quite ready for it. Take that journey and discover what you can come to expect from yourself. Take that journey and discover that you're finding success long before you reach any destination.
Jeff

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2009-08-27T10:02:00.002-05:00

Resources, or Resourcefulness?
Here's a favorite quote from Dan Kennedy:

"Success is all about resourcefulness, not waiting until you have resources."

This one really hits home with me.

I've struggled with this one for many years. It's tempting to put business starting in a perpetual "wait" mode.

We look at ourselves and see our own faults. We're painfully aware of what we don't know yet.

We figure that if we just wait a little longer, we'll have a chance to overcome those weaknesses. We'll have a chance to learn what we don't yet know.

Maybe we'll even stumble upon THE ANSWER that will release our business from having to depend on our imperfect abilities. Maybe that ANSWER will cause our business to succeed despite us instead of having succeed because of us.

This doesn't happen. There is no ANSWER.

Our businesses succeed or fail based on what we do, not on what we hope will happen on its own. Scary, huh?

That's why it's better not to wait for that perfect answer. As Dan Kennedy wisely reminds us, it's our resourcefulness, about ability to find answers on our own even when no ANSWER materializes outside of us, that will ultimately be the deciding factor in our business.

Don't wait! Get moving! Be willing to learn as you go instead waiting futilely for some time that never comes when you finally have all the resources you need to ensure your success. The only way you'll ever have all the resources you need is if you build them as you go.
Jeff

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2009-08-22T20:49:00.003-05:00

Where Do I Start Getting Traffic?
I got a question today that struck me as a good one to share with others. It's a common position that many new business owners have. It's one of "Help, I have a business but I don't know how to get customers."

Since the questioner seemed to be pretty much at ground zero in his business, that's where I answered it from. Hope it helps

"This may sound like a cop-out, but the best place to market what you have to offer is to go where the people who are most likely to want it are.

"What problem does what you're selling solve for people? Figure that out and you can start narrowing down where to find them.

"Oh, and saying, "Well, everybody could probably use what I'm selling." Figure out who would benefit from it most and then start looking for places that they would go looking for answers.

"Craigslist is good for selling physical products, but it has its limitations for things that are less tangible. And it limits you severely when it comes to where on the site you can post your ad. But I've had success with some things on there.

"For physical products, eBay can be a good way to start. You have plenty of traffic coming there looking for solutions. That means you don't have to go look for them. It's cheap to set up, your risk is a lot lower than going out and buying advertising for a website. I have a few tips for auction selling on my website if you're interested: http://www.onestopwebsupport.com/dir-auctions.htm

"If you have a website already and are looking for ways to drive traffic to it for free, you might also want to look at forums. Find the forums that people who are most likely to be interested in your solutions are looking for answers. Don't go in there spamming the threads with nothing but "Buy my stuff!"

"Be genuinely helpful to people. Answer their questions, even if they don't apply to your solutions. When you get a question where your product is related to the question, drop in a link to your site with a comment that they might find what you have there useful. Be careful, though, that you don't violate any forum terms of service about links. Check that out before you start posting on a forum.

"If you build a reputation on the forums for being helpful (and not just pushing your product). You'll start getting traffic from there. No, it's not going to send you millions of visitors a day. And it will take some effort on your part. But once you start getting income, you can start reinvesting it back into your business with strategies that cost a little.

"Business never works as a big explosion -- from no income to riches immediately. It's a matter of building momentum, slowly at first, but if you keep building it steadily, it will eventually become an avalanche."
Jeff

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2009-08-20T08:42:00.003-05:00

Are You Building the Right Traps?
Here's a favorite quote from Gil Bailie:

"No lions are ever caught in mousetraps. To catch lions you must think in terms of lions, not in terms of mice. Your mind is always creating traps of one kind or another, and what you catch depends on the thinking you do. It is your thinking that attracts to you what you receive."

It's easy to think too small. Oh, sure, we all have big dreams of what we WISH we could accomplish. But we find those dreams challenging and never get around to WORKING for them.

What work we do toward them is usually on a pretty small scale. We may set out to build financial security for ourselves, but we content ourselves working toward something that, at best, will bring us a little extra side income.

It's easier to build a mousetrap than a lion trap. It takes more time, more effort, more materials to catch lions.

If we never venture beyond the easy little things on which we focus our time, though, we never accomplish the big ones.

That's where I find myself right now. I've been in Internet marketing for over seven years now. I've made enough to pay the bills regularly -- until the recession hit and I experienced some major bumps in revenues.

I was satisfied with getting by. Now, simply getting by was never the big dream I started my business to accomplish. That dream was much broader, much wider, much grander.

Along the way, though, I became willing to settle for trapping mice instead of lions. I'm back to where I was before the recession. I'm getting by well enough.

But I'm a bit shaken by how vulnerable "just getting by" can make me. The dreams of something grander are still there, and perhaps more tangible than ever. I'm far better equipped to reach those dreams now than I was when I first started.

I'm going to have to focus, though, on building bigger than I have in the past. As I consider how to build beyond my present position, I see many things I'll have to do that I have never done before.

In many ways, I'll need to abandon the familiarity of my present business and build it in new and different directions. It seems like every direction I turn, I find something new and unfamiliar facing me, challenging me to master it.

That's all part of what Bailie is saying, though. The bigger and more dangerous the dreams you're trying to catch, the more effort it will take to pursue them.

Where are you right now in pursuing the big dreams that started you on your present journey? Are you still pursuing the lions? Or have you settled for simply catching mice?
Jeff

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2009-08-18T18:43:00.002-05:00

A New Blog
I've been experimenting, the past month with something a little different. I've set up my first WordPress blog for Marketing Secrets Decoded, on which I'll focus specifically on Internet marketing strategies.

I'll also be opening that one up to some specially invited guest bloggers. I've worked with Blogger for five years now, but it's time to also familiarize myself with "the competition."

So check it out for some more of my marketing tips, as well as tips from other marketing writers.
Jeff

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2009-08-15T08:08:00.001-05:00

A New Focus for My Newsletter
I haven't said much about my newsletter over the last few months. It hasn't gone away, though.

On the contrary, it has turned in some exciting new directions. After a brief experiment with running short series of more in-depth explorations of various topics, subscribers encouraged me to do more of the same.

I'm currently expanding some of my previous series to sell on Amazon. And, as I do so, I am focusing my current newsletter on writing two long-term series, chosen by subscribers to meet their current needs. These, too, I plan to work into book form for Amazon when they conclude.

Until then, my subscribers are serving as beta testers, so to speak, of these upcoming books. Because of that, I no longer offer access to my archives to the public. (I certainly can't sell on Amazon what people can access for free on my site!) The only way to see these series (before you have to pay for them) is by subscribing to my weekly newsletter.

You can do this on the following page: http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com/newsletter-signup.htm.

Right now, the two books I'm previewing in this manner are:

An in-depth exploration of how to build an opt-in list and market to them profitably
Profitable strategies for marketing your service business

Want to get in on this sneak-peek preview? Come, be one of the select few to preview these future books!
Jeff

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2009-08-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

Are You Being Persistent in the Right Things?
Here's a favorite quote from Friedrich Nietzsche:

"Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal"

All of us are capable of great persistence. The problem is that we often choose the wrong things to be persistent about. We set our minds about a certain way of doing things and then set about doing them in the most ineffective way possible.

The other day, I took my wife and son out to one of his favorite restaurants before he left from his brief stay home between ending his time in the Marines and heading back to college. The restaurant had two locations, on opposite ends of the metro area.

We went to the closer one and found that their computer was down. They could accept only cash. I immediately turned us around and had us set off for the other location, all the way across town.

Why? Because I've been trying to track my spending more precisely and have found it helpful to put certain categories on spending on my check card. That way I can see those expenditures all in one handy report each month.

I could have easily gone one block, gotten approximately as much cash out as I expected to pay for the meal, and listed the withdrawal as Dining. But, instead, I drove them nearly 20 miles (surprisingly without complaint from either of them) just to go to the other restaurant that would accept plastic.

I have to say, this is not the first time I have been this persistently inefficient in pursuing a course of action instead of the goal behind it. I've held onto unprofitable business strategies for too long because I fell in love with them. I've continued to pursue failed opportunities long after I should have abandoned them.

Examples of being persistent about courses of action rather than the end results are many in my life, as I suspect they are in just about anyone. We get emotionally attached to the means and forget about the ends.

I invite you today to take a look at your business and life right now. Are you pursuing your goals? Or just the path you hope will take you there?
Jeff

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2009-08-10T16:29:00.004-05:00

Paying Attention to the Short-Term, Too
You've heard it many times. "Forget the short term. Focus on your long term plans." It's important advice, but it can also be misleading.

Granted, if you ignore your long-term goals, you'll never get where you want to go. But if you put all your energy into working toward the distant future, you'll never get started toward it.

I'm very much guilty of this. I can't look at my business goals without seeing all the elements of what they could grow into in their full-fledged form.

The problem is, though, is that it's never possible to go right to that full-fledged form. It takes time to build there.

So I've often fallen into a pattern of putting all my energy into building for the future. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in my post about building castles instead of bridges.

One of the problems with that approach, though, is that it becomes very easy to neglect the present. That sometimes puts me into a cash-flow bind. I work determinedly toward long-term profits and suddenly find that my current cash flow is sluggish.

So, for the past couple of weeks, I've forced myself to spend time on quick cash-generating ideas as well as long-term goals. The results have been outstanding!

Not only did I have a sudden burst of income to finish up one of my best July's ever, but I did it without compromising future goals. I identified ways I could fit some of the short-term cash generation into my long term goals and build immediate assets as well as long-term ones.

The result of it all has been more peace of mind (no unexpected cash-flow problems) and, actually, additional progress toward my long-term goals. I encourage you to look at the way you've pursued your goals. Are you focusing too much on either long-term thinking or short-term thinking?

Look for ways to balance them both and make them work together. I've found a balanced approach to be far more effective.
Jeff

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2009-08-08T22:42:00.003-05:00

All Sorts of Value on the Hot Offers Page!
You may have noticed I've been kind of quiet about my Hot Offers page lately. It's not that I haven't been updating it. It's just that I haven't been terribly excited about the quality of the deals that I've been hearing about lately.

That has changed drastically this past week. Maybe it's a signal of people coming out the recession. Maybe not. But I've been unearthing all sorts of real bargains this week.

If you're into AdWords or pay-per-click marketing in general, I've found two offers for you:

17 Free Adwords cheatsheets MP3s and more from one of the premier authorities on AdWords and one of the most brilliant men I know
A chance to try out a SUITE of killer AdWords tools for only $1

And AdWords isn't the only place I'm finding some great values this week.

A key component of a $297 article writing software is being spun off as a standalone product. Instead of charging $67, $97, or even more for this tool that drops into your lap all the research you need to write powerful, authoritative articles, they're GIVING IT AWAY for FREE.

Can't beat that price, can you? So if you've been putting off writing articles because you hate to write, this will make writing 100 times easier for you -- and won't cost you a cent.

There's a $97 keywords research webinar that's available for free. And two offers for business-building training, each for under $5.

In all, there's a lot of value on the Hot Offers page right now and nothing goes for over $3.95.

So I invite you to check out these hot offers while they're still available.
Jeff

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2009-08-06T12:43:00.000-05:00

Stretching Your Way to Success
Here's a favorite quote from C.S. Lewis:

"Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither"

In the post I did a couple of days ago, I expanded on an excellent post I had read on another blog. One thing I didn't mention, though, was that the first comment made about that blog was a rather skeptical one.

The topic was about ensuring that whatever you presented to potential customers had great value in it. It broke down the different aspects of giving value and what you could accomplish by it in the long run.

That comment that stuck in my mind, though, heaped a healthy dose of skepticism on the whole subject. The person said something along the lines of, "Yeah, sure, but I can't see just giving and giving and giving away everything for free and then crossing my fingers and hoping that something good comes out of it."

That's the way that many business owners look at it. "Giving is bad; getting is good. If I can get with as little giving as possible, I've won and they've lost."

Marketing is not a zero-sum game, though, any more than Lewis viewed faith -- and God. Our world is set up -- created, if I may use that term in this context -- as something where the more you focus strictly on getting for yourself, the more you lose out on what you could have gotten.

It's a paradox, but I've seen it over and over again. Sure, those who focus strictly on what they get may seem to be ahead for a time. But in the end, they always lose. And those who focus the most firmly on themselves, lose the biggest.

It may engender skepticism from some, but giving value is indeed the best route to getting -- many times getting far more than you could have imagined -- sometimes in surprising ways.
Jeff

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2009-08-04T12:35:00.002-05:00

The Exchange of Value
I read an excellent post today about one of my favorite subjects, value. It got me thinking about the subject from some different angles, so I thought I'd share my response to it with you.

Marketing is not about coercing unwitting dupes to give you their money. Marketing is about solving people's problems.

Many business owners approach the exchange of value with the viewpoint of, "I've got a whole bunch of stuff that is absolutely worthless to me. I can't buy groceries with it; I can't pay the mortgage with it. I've got way too much of it and I need to get rid of it! What do I need to do to get rid of all this stuff and get people to give me more money than it's worth to me?"

If you walked into a store and someone said that to you, would you want to buy from them? Not a chance! You'd go flying out the door to find someone who isn't trying to rip you off.

When you look at it, though, from the perspective of your potential buyer's needs, you see a far different picture. They have a pressing need that you have a solution for. It's worth far more to them than it is to you. Focus on the value it has to them rather than on your eagerness to get rid of it and you'll get far more than it's worth to you while they feel they're getting a real bargain.

There's a lot more to it than just giving random stuff away and hoping you eventually make something out of your generosity. It's a matter of infusing what you give them with as much value as you possibly can so they're eager to do exchange their money for the value you offer.

Business transactions exist only when both sides feel they got more value than they're giving up.
Jeff

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2009-07-30T07:42:00.001-05:00

Stretching Your Way to Success
Here's a favorite quote from Tom Hopkins:

"You cannot rest until you set goals that make you stretch"

We all want to get somewhere better than where we're at. We never get there, though, if we refuse to move.

Getting from where we don't want to be to where we want to be requires us to stretch. It requires us to move beyond our comfort zone.

Change requires risk. It may require trying things that are unfamiliar, trusting things that seem mysterious, stretching ourselves beyond where we'd really like to go.

In one sense, it's a paradox; to get where you want to go, you have to go where you'd rather not. In another sense, it's so obvious as to inspire a giant "Duh;" you can't get where you want to go, if you stay exactly where you are.

Take your choice. Then stretch yourself.
Jeff

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