Author Archive | John Aleer

At the risk of stating the obvious, the better your headlines grab eyeballs, the more money you can make. Even a tiny improvement can add significant money if your sales funnel set up with a high-priced product. For example, getting 5% more people to opt into your list, open an email, or buy a $7 product could result in another 1/2 to 1 percent buying your more expensive and profitable product over a year, which could easily add thousands to your bottom line.

One way marketers used to test headlines was through Adwords, back in the day when they were super cheap. A marketer would try out two or more headlines to see which pulled the best. Seasoned marketers still test headlines with Google and Facebook ads, but if you’re on a small budget, there is a less expensive way.

These days Twitter is the easiest and cheapest method for testing headlines, so long as you have a following. Choose what you think are your two best headlines, tweet them both, and track the results.

First, the tweeting: To be fair, you’d want to tweet both simultaneously, but that’s probably not the best way. Instead, tweet them both in the morning and again in the afternoon, about 20 to 30 minutes apart. So, for example, in the morning, you might tweet headline A at 9:00 and headline B at 9:30. Then do the same in the afternoon but reverse the order.

Track your results with excellent click-tracking software like Click Magick or your favorite tracker. When you’ve got a winner, test it against another headline, and so forth.

Now then… why use this method instead of split testing? I prefer split testing for something like a squeeze page or a sales letter, but sometimes this Twitter method comes in especially handy.

Are you sending an essential series of emails for a big promotion? Are you getting ready to launch a product and want a good idea in advance of which headline will work best? Using Twitter to test your subject lines up front can put you ahead of the game and into profit faster.

Anthony Burgess was just 40 when his doctor told him that he only had less than a year to live because of a brain tumor. It was 1960, and he was broke and worried because he had nothing to leave his wife, Lynne.

But for as long as he could remember, a nagging little voice in his head said he could be a great writer.

Unfortunately, Anthony had never listened to that voice before. But now that he was dying, he hoped to write a book to create royalties for his wife.

So for the next nine months, Anthony wrote day and night, finishing five and a half novels. That’s more than many professional writers create in 10 years or for some in a lifetime. And that isn’t even the exciting part.

While he was busy doing what he had known he was meant to do for his whole life – while he was busy being creative and productive, his cancer quietly disappeared.

In his long and prolific life as a novelist, Anthony Burgess wrote more than 70 books, including the famous “A Clockwork Orange.”

But without his death sentence, he may never have written at all.

Just imagine that you have less than a year to live. What will you do with it? Whether it’s one year or a lot more, if you are not doing what you were born to do, isn’t it time for a shift in that direction?

We’re taught from early on that success is everything. Win the game or ace the test and get the grown-up’s approval. Then we get older, and succeeding becomes even more critical. Did you get into a hotshot college? Congrats! Did you win the contract? Great! Did you build a multi-million dollar business? Super!

But here’s what nobody tells you – before you can win, you’ve almost always got to lose, lose big, and lose often. You’ve heard the expression, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” right? Well, when you venture, you don’t always gain. Many times you lose, and you lose big.

And when that happens, your confidence takes a nosedive. The next time you hedge your bets, you pull your punches and don’t try as hard. Why? Because that way, if you fail again, you can tell yourself that you didn’t lose as big. It’s funny, but it’s also human nature.

People fail a time or two, and then what do they do? Sadly, many quit. They give up. Failure hurts too much. It’s humiliating and embarrassing; they’d rather play it “safe.” This means they don’t want to play; they want to sit in their cozy cotton-lined box and never venture outside into the cruel world again.

Those people don’t know that the only way to indeed, absolutely, permanently fail is to quit. Everything else is simply a step on the way to success.

Did you know…

– The average millionaire goes bankrupt 3.5 times.

– There is a new millionaire created every 58 hours.

– The average millionaire doesn’t realize their dream until age 45 and becomes a millionaire at 54.

– The average millionaire dabbles in 17 different businesses, concepts, schemes, and enterprises but doesn’t hit it big until the 18th try.

Entrepreneurship is the quickest way to become a millionaire. 74% of all millionaires in America became millionaires through entrepreneurship.

The average millionaire goes bankrupt, and what does s/he do? Dusts themselves off and tries again. And again. And again. Failure is a temporary detour, not a roadblock. I promise you that if you’re still breathing, you can still succeed and succeed BIG, regardless of how many times you’ve failed.

Remember those Chicken Soup for the Soul guys, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen? Their manuscript got rejected 140 times by 140 different publishers. Most people would have quit after the 10th or 20th rejection, but they kept sending that manuscript until the 141st publisher took a chance. Result? Both of them are millionaires many times over.

Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade and was defeated in every public office role he ran for. Then he became the British Prime Minister at the age of 62 and led his country to victory in WWII.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

R. H. Macy had a long and undistinguished history of failing businesses, including the first Macy’s in NYC. No one would have bet on him, but he went on to create the biggest department store in the world.

Marilyn Monroe’s first contract with Columbia Pictures expired because they decided she wasn’t pretty or talented enough to be an actress. But Monroe kept plugging away; even today’s audiences know and love her decades after her untimely death.

Toyota passed over Soichiro Honda for an engineering job. He could have quit on his dreams. Instead, he went on to make motorcycles and cars and became a billionaire in the process.

Thomas Edison’s teachers told him he was “too stupid to learn anything.” Imagine how that could impact a child, hearing from the ‘experts’ that you’re too stupid to learn. Most kids would stop trying. Not Edison.

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

Vera Wang failed to make the U.S. Olympic figure-skating team. Then she got passed over for the editor-in-chief position at Vogue. Time to realize she was a failure, right? Wrong. At age 40, she began designing wedding gowns, and today, she’s one of the hottest designers in the business and a self-made billionaire.

You’ve probably heard that a newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” But did you know that he had several failed businesses before the premiere of Snow White?

The difference in winning and losing is most often…not quitting. – Walt Disney

Albert Einstein’s teachers labeled him “slow” and “mentally handicapped.” What if Einstein had believed the people who made these proclamations? For one thing, he never would have won the Nobel prize in physics.

Henry Ford’s first auto company went out of business. He abandoned a second because of a fight and lost a third to declining sales. Yet he became one of the most outstanding American entrepreneurs ever.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right. – Henry Ford

J. K. Rowling was unemployed and living on social security while writing her first Harry Potter novel. It was rejected by 12 different publishers and finally picked up with a little advance of just 1,500 pounds, but now she became the first person to become a billionaire through writing.

Hundreds of thousands of others are out there for every failure-to-success example I’ve given here. And you are the only thing stopping you from becoming the subsequent failure to the success story. So what are you waiting for?

Hurry up and get your failures out of the way so you can go on to create big success for yourself too. And maybe someday your story will be featured along with Einstein’s, Ford’s, Disney’s, and all the other great people who refused to let a little thing like failure get in their way.

You’ve either got a blog already or are about to start one. Congratulations! You are one of only 500 million. Now, knowing that your blog is (statistically speaking) less than a needle in a haystack, how will you get it NOTICED and read?

 

In a word, the answer is BRANDING. You can either throw together a blog and hope it somehow gets found, or you can carefully craft a brand that captures readers’ attention and keeps them returning for more.

To throw one together, do what 99.9% of other bloggers do – wing it. Fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best. In six months (or sooner), you’ll likely be so discouraged you’ll give up.

Building a brand is the way to go. Think Google, Coke, Apple, and Nike to understand the vast potential branding holds for your blog. Brands stand for something, mean something and create loyalty in their customers. They stand apart and often far, far above the competition. And best of all, excellent brands get remembered and are sought out by consumers.

Here then are ten tips for building your blogging brand:

Who are you writing to? Exactly who is your blog meant for? Create a clear picture of your ideal reader, including age, profession, family, worries, problems, hobbies, etc. You’ll write to this person rather than try to talk to everyone. Remember, when you target everyone, you interest no one. But when a particular segment of the population believes you’re writing just for them, you’ll build a loyal following.

Why are you writing to your specific readers? What is your goal? It might be to educate, persuade, motivate, etc. Keep your plan in mind at all times.

What are you writing about? This is your topic. It might be physical fitness, marketing, dating, etc. Decide in advance what your message is going to be.

Choose a brandable name. For example, if you’re creating a fitness blog, you might choose a one- or two-word brand name that people are likely to remember rather than a keyword-laden name.

HowToGetHealthyAndLoseWeight.com isn’t brandable – it’s too generic and keyword rich. Think in terms of “Google” – now that’s a brand. You might try things like FitMonkey.com or SkinnyCakes.com – those are brandable and memorable.

Create a snappy tagline. A name generally isn’t enough – you also want a saying to help brand yourself, clarify what you do, and make your blog more memorable. If your blog is on bacon recipes, your URL might be DeadPiggy.com, and your tagline might be “Bacon lover’s recipes for the non-chef.” See how the tagline not only defines that the site is about bacon recipes but also narrows the niche to those who don’t consider themselves good cooks. This is a prime example of using a tagline to define what you do and WHO you do it for.

Get a logo. Can you picture the Apple logo? Nike? Coke? A logo is an integral part of your brand. Make it clean, simple, eye-catching, and unique. It’s worth the extra money to get your logo just right.

Adapt your logo into a favicon. Again, this is an essential part of branding your blog.

Use a website design that matches your topic. A header full of balloons and clowns on a website about grieving generally isn’t work. Dull colors on a children’s website or a lack of photos of gardens on a gardening website won’t work. Ensure all of your site’s visual elements correspond with your topic.

Choose a writing style and stick with it. Take a lesson from McDonald’s here and give your readers what they’ve come to expect from you. If you’re writing to a technical crowd, you might write like an engineer. Or perhaps you’re taking on a persona like the Rich Jerk. Oddly, you’ll write like yourself, maybe best of all because you won’t have any trouble maintaining that style. Consistency is critical because if one day you’re writing like the guy next door and the next day you’re writing like an English professor, your readers are going to get confused and likely won’t return.

Promote your blog’s name through social media. Consistently use your blog’s name everywhere. Don’t use “Law Enforcement Weight Loss” on Twitter and “Muscle Cops” on Facebook – no one will realize it’s the same blog you’re referring to. Again, this is another reason to choose a unique, short, brandable name that no one else uses anywhere.

If your blog is going to stand apart from the crowd, you’ve got to do a bit extra work, but that work will likely pay off handsomely in the end.

Not only will you stand apart from the crowd, but you’ll also discover that if you ever decide to sell your blog, you’ll also be able to charge a great deal more because you took the time to brand it.

Building your business gradually is fine, a step here and a step there. But it’s much better, faster, and just plain more FUN to make it by leaps and bounds.

Below you’ll find the magic words that will help you to do just that. Forget taking the long, slow, painful route and resolve to achieve a quantum leap or true metamorphosis in your business.

1 Magic Word That Quadruples Productivity And Profits

There are myriad tasks any online marketer needs to perform, and the faster and better those tasks are completed, the more profitable the business can be. But struggling marketers who are trying to balance administrative duties, product creation, social media, customer service, formatting and uploading books to Kindle, writing blog posts, setting up JV’s, recruiting affiliates, writing emails, setting up autoresponders, doing research, writing sales copy, answering emails, forum posting, and all their many other marketing tasks might be better off doing less, not more.

If you’ve ever been on a ship, you probably noticed the captain doesn’t cook the meals or swab the deck. Nor does he maintain the engines, hoist the sails, plot the navigation, or perform the other 101 duties aboard a ship. Instead, he is the pilot of the entire operation, instructing everyone else on what to do.

Perhaps it’s time you think of yourself as the pilot of your own business. Do those tasks you are extremely good at, and OUTSOURCE the rest to professionals who excel in those areas. You will not only get far more done, but odds are the work will be completed faster and more professionally. And when you can quadruple your efforts by adding a few part-time outsourcers, you can also quadruple your results and profits.

Don’t kid yourself – you cannot do it all and make the money you want as soon as you can afford to; start outsourcing. It’s not only one of the most profitable things you can do, but it also gets you away from the grindstone and able to see the big picture so you can better navigate the waters of your business.

2 Magic Words To Make You A Marketing Rockstar

If you want your content to be seen and shared, and if you want it to make a lasting impression on prospects, then the written word is seldom enough anymore. Let’s do a test: Tell me everything you can about the person who wrote the blog post you read yesterday—drawing a blank. Now tell me everything you can about a video you saw yesterday. Different story, right?

What if someone calls you on the phone to sell you something you’re interested in versus someone that shows up at your door? Which one are you more likely to buy from? Assuming you’ve not freaked out that a salesman appeared out of nowhere with the product that adequately fits your needs, you will buy from him, not the faceless person on the phone.

You can’t visit your prospects in person, but you can do something almost as good – USE VIDEO. People remember video over the written word because it engages more senses. If you only use the written word, you won’t make nearly the same level of connection that you could have with video.

Now, you might be afraid to get in front of the camera. If so, you can start with slideshow, animated, or screencast videos. Then move up to videos of yourself because this is the payoff. This is where people feel like they can connect with and know you. Remember, content is more important than quality. You don’t have to be the next Steven Spielberg to make this work; you have to be authentic with something to say that people want to hear.

3 Magic Words That Can DOUBLE Your Sales

Doing this every time you sell a product or service would be best because it will invariably increase your bottom line. Marketers have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to their sales funnels by incorporating these three words into every sales system they create.

What are the three magic words? ALWAYS BE UPSELLING. Every time you sell anything, offer an upsell / down-sell sequence because it can turn your original $47 sale into a $300 deal or more by providing the customer with additional options.

Offer something complementary to the original offer. It might make the original provide easier or faster to implement, go into more depth, offer more options, or even perform a service for them. It could be coaching, an additional information product, software, a membership program, or anything else that helps the customer achieve the desired result.

What if you don’t offer a product or service as an upsell? Then find an appropriate affiliate product that matches your original offer. And here’s a secret: When customers turn down an upsell, they are typically more open to buying a lower-cost (downsell) product. It’s almost as though the higher ticket item warms them up to the down-sell offer. This is why car dealers and real estate brokers like to show cars and properties that are too expensive for the client. Once they establish the client something more affordable, they are more likely to make an offer than if they’d been shown the lower-cost model in the first place.

4 Magic Words To Get You More Clients

If you’re selling oversized ticket items or services, I’m about to utter the four words 9 out of 10 marketers dread: PICK UP THE PHONE. Nothing sells as well as face-to-face contact except perhaps the phone. Let’s face it – your prospects are inundated with emails and shout-outs on social media. You must pick up that 500-pound phone and establish a real one-on-one relationship to connect and make the sale.

If you’re phone-a-phobic, start with existing customers. Find out how they’re doing with their purchased product(s) and what you can do to help them (coaching, perhaps?) Next, move on to your lowest-hanging fruit – those prospects you deem most likely to bite. Make it a rule to call five people daily, and within three weeks, you’ll notice two things: First, being on the phone isn’t so scary anymore. And second, business is picking up.

5 Magic Words That Virtually Eliminate Any Competition

Whatever your niche, others are doing nearly the same thing, better known as your direct competition. For example, if you’re a weight loss coach, there are thousands of other weight loss coaches you’re competing against to gain clients.

That’s why you’ve got to find a way to stand entirely apart from the crowd, and the best way to do this is to CREATE A UNIQUE POSITIONING POINT for yourself and your business. Find that one thing that makes you different from all the other weight loss coaches out there, that thing that draws customers to you like flies. And mind you, saying that you’re better, that your work is higher quality, that you’ve got more experience, etc., isn’t unique. Everybody says those things.

Can’t think of anything? Try this: “I will show you how to lose weight while NEVER feeling deprived and still eating the foods you love.”

Sign me up!

Here’s one from a carpet cleaner: “If I don’t remove your stain and get you sparkling clean carpets, I’ll pay you $50 for your time.”

You’re hired!

I wouldn’t need to hear another word to choose this carpet cleaner over all the others – would you?

A Chiropractor might advertise: “I’ll get you immediate relief from your back pain, or your visit is completely free.”

That’s what I want to hear – make an appointment now!

6 Magic Words That Double Subscribers

You already know how crucial it is to build your list continually. But are you being aggressive enough? Most websites are missing opportunities to grab more subscribers because they don’t PLACE OPT-IN BOXES ON EVERY PAGE of their website. Yet this simple step can double the number of subscribers you get from your site.

Most websites have an opt-in box on the homepage or none at all. But very few have an opt-in box on every single page. And fewer still place opt-in boxes on both the right sidebar above the fold and again at the bottom of each post. But adding these boxes along with a great incentive to sign up will increase the number of subscribers you get. And make sure your opt-in box stands out with clean lines and no clutter.

Go ahead and place opt-in boxes in unexpected places as well. Do you have sales pages? Place an opt-in box on each one. Do you have more than one sign-up incentive? You might place one incentive in the right sidebar and the other at the bottom of the page. This way, if one incentive doesn’t interest them the other night. You can then position your follow-ups according to the motivation they chose.

You might even place a video with your opt-in boxes, instructing the reader to fill in their email address and press the button to get the incentive. By telling people what to do, you increase their chances of doing it.

Can you make a short, snappy, and powerful quiz people can take? This is another way to capture email addresses. Once they finish the quiz, you request their email address so you can email them their confidential results.

7 Magic Words To Build Your Visibility And Reach a Larger Audience

You’re missing the boat if you’re not doing Google Hangouts yet. Google Hangouts will increase your visibility, help you boost traffic to your site, improve your search engine ranking, improve your authority, increase the distribution of your content, and connect you to your potential customers, affiliates, and joint venture partners. Therefore, HOST REGULAR GOOGLE PLUS HANGOUTS ON AIR. Hangouts are multi-participant video chats. When you host a hangout, you can carry on training or conversation.

Your Hangouts might be informal chats, scripted, or anything in between. You can keep the Hangout private or live stream and broadcast your Hangouts on Hangouts On Air. By publicly streaming your show, it’s automatically recorded and added to your YouTube account. You can also embed it on your website.

If you don’t want it to go live, you can make it private, download it when you’re finished, and edit it before posting.

This is a great way to reach a vast audience and strengthen your reputation. Make a plan on how and when you will use Hangouts on Air, and set up a regular schedule for broadcasting. Use Google Hangouts for teaching, lecturing, coaching, consulting, interviews, webinars, product demonstrations, holding question-and-answer sessions, etc. The possibilities are exciting and nearly endless.

8 Magic Words That Increase The Money In Your List 10 Fold

A list of buyers is worth at least ten times more than a list of people who haven’t purchased anything from you. In fact, in most cases, a buyers list is often worth closer to 100 times more than a list of prospects, and here’s why: When someone purchases anything from you, even if they only spend $1, they are now in a vastly different mindset concerning their relationship with you and your products. They now have an OWNERSHIP mindset because they own one of your products, and because of this, they are far, far more likely to purchase from you repeatedly and at higher and higher price points.

So what are the eight magic words that increase the money in your list tenfold or more? TURN PROSPECTS INTO BUYERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Initially, it doesn’t matter if they spend $1 or $100. The important thing is they have crossed that threshold from prospect to buyer.

How do you get prospects to buy immediately? The easiest way is to get them pre-sold by people they already know and trust. This means having affiliates refer people to you. If your cookie the affiliates in so that they receive commissions on anything prospects purchase for an extended period, such as a year or even a lifetime, fellows will be more than happy to send you referrals.

Other ways to get people pre-sold on you before they even hit your site are to guest blog, to do joint ventures, and to create products that others in your niche can give away as a bonus to their development. Whatever it takes, turn your prospects into happy customers as quickly as possible, and you’ll be able to continue to sell to them for a long time.

I could have sent you a fruitcake this Holiday season to thank you for being a loyal subscriber and reader, but I think you’d appreciate something with more enduring value. So instead, I’m giving you the gift that keeps giving – your money-generating system.

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As you (hopefully) have already discovered, making money online isn’t difficult, but it does take some knowledge and the ability to put that knowledge to work.

I will outline a relatively simple system anyone can use to make income. It can be scaled up as large as you like, depending on how much time you want to put into it and what you want. And it’s easy enough for even new marketers to do.

This is not my invention but a system that has worked for many marketers for years. It’s not a shiny new bauble – instead, it’s a proven method that brings home the paycheck week in and week out – if you put in the time and effort required.

Ready? Let’s get started.

1. Choose your niche. I will make it easy for you here by recommending that you choose one of the three niches: Money and finance, health and fitness, or relationships and dating. All three are evergreen and bring in a ton of money.

We will focus on this for this training because it’s the easiest of its three niches to make money. There’s plenty of cThere’sion, but that won’t affect us won’t. People despwe’re a heThat’salth-related solution, such as alleviating pain or losing weight, are ready to purchase now.

Google “most common illnesses,” and you’ll find acne, “llergyou’llDHD, arthritis, asthma, back pain, bad breath, bursitis, etc. And that’s just a few from that’s and B’s. Each year, A’s0 bilB’sn is spent on prescription drugs in the U.S. alone, which doesn’t include over-the-counter medications and remedies.

This is a HUGE market full of desperate buyers. So forget selling granny square patterns or children’s bedtime stories – focus on where the money is.

And if you want to focus on money or relationships, those are also hot, hungry markets.

2. Choose a product to sell. This will be your Time Offer after they opt into your squeeze page. Most people will tell you to create your free report, then make your squeeze page, and then find an OTO to offer after they opt-in.

This is good advice. After all, they found your squeeze page, filled out the form, and pressed the button – they are eager for a solution to their problem! Logically this is the time to offer it to them.

But I do things just a bit differently. I find the product I will be promoting as my OTO first. Preferably I also see a second, similar product to use as my backup in case the owner of the first product pulls it (yes, it happens.) I find the product first because I want to tailor my squeeze page and my free report to that EXACT topic.

For example, if my OTO is how to cure adult acne, I will write my report on ADULT acne, not teenage acne. But if I had done things the way most people do, I could have had an account on adolescent acne and an OTO on adult acne. Sure, it’s the same problem; bit’st’s two entirely different markets and my conversion rate on the OTO would have been terrible. That’s why you want that product you will promote as your OTO first.

What product should you choose? Here are the criteria to look for:

* Low price – something under $15 is ideal because it becomes an impulse purchase. And that’s precisely what that’s here because you haven’t yet established hasn’t edibility with your new list member.

* Excellent product – you must buy the product and make sure it delivers on whatever it promises. This is no time to be selling junk. There is never a time to be selling junk.

* High conversion rate – okay, this is a no-brainer. You want a product that converts well so that you’re making money.

Creyou’reyour product is the ADVANCED ALTERNATIVE to promoting an affiliate product. The drawback is you need to make it or hire someone else to do it for you, which takes time. The benefit is you keep 100% of your sales rather than splitting them with a product owner.

The CHEAT METHOD to creating your product is using high-grade PLR.

If you are using your product, here’s a trick I like there’s the top of the sales page, let them know that their free report is on its way to their inbox. This builds consistency and credibility and shows them they’re on the right path. Next, you will create something to give away to your new niche. Here’s the key – you wonHere’sp together and won’t report or re-purpose some PLR. Instead, you will create something you’re credible people would PAY YOU to get it. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel or develop some brilliant insight to do this. Instead, you’re going to let others research for you.

Head over to Amazon and search for your niche in the book section. Write down titles that grab your attention. Search inside the books and look at the table of contents. Take notes.

Now do the same with magazines in your niche. Look at the headlines on the magazine covers – these can be a goldmine. You will change to accommodate your exact place (and not plagiarize), but that’s easy. You want attention to the hot topics and what headlines are used to sell those topics.

Next, visit other websites to pick up more ideas and information. This entire research process should take about an hour or two, depending on how much time you want to put into it.

Outline the information you will present, and then write your report or record it, your choice. Don’t want to write it, don’t? Then outsource it. It only needs 10 to 20 pages of solid, helpful information – don’t write a book.

As I don’t go through this process, remember what you’ll be promoting for you’ll so that your freebie is 100% consistent with that product. This will give you the highest conversions on your OTO.

4. Make your squeeze page. Hopefully, you garnered 1-5 smoking hot headlines during your research. Use these on your squeeze page as the main headline and bullets, let them know they get the report for free for opting in, and that’s it. Don’t make ththat’splicaDon’t think less is more. Create excitement and curiosity. Again, if you don’t want to make you don’t page, you can outsource it.

A word to the wise: Once you begin using your squeeze page, test it. Test headlines, try colors, try the call to action – just TEST. The more you test, the better conversions your page will get, and the more you make. Doesn’t testing seem borDoesn’tt me ask you: does doubling your conversions and thus doubling what you earn seem boring? Don’t think about it; doDon’tIMPORTANT: If you’re using double opt-you rebuild your list and customize the page they land on after confirming their subscription. At the top of that page, let them know their report is on its way. Then direct them to your affiliate page if you’re promoting an affiliate of your product or place your sales letter on this page. This gives them a second opportunity to purchase your offer.

5. Get some professional articles written. These articles have got to be outstanding, so unless you’re a brilliant writer, you’d suggest hiring this professional.

Remember when you did your research in magazines and books? These are your very best clues about what to write about and even how the title should be read. Keep in mind: If you see something on the cover of a current magazine, that likely means it’s a hot topic and an excellent case for one of your articles.

Several articles to write: At least 2, although 30+ is better. If you’re on a budget, star you and get more written later. The articles should be magazine quality. They should immediately capture attention and rivet the reader to the end of the article.

Add your resource box to each article. This is your call to action, where you promise readers your shiny new report if they visit your awesome (squeeze) page.

An alternative to sending them to your squeeze page is to send them to your blog or website. Be sure to have a sign-up form on every site page, offering your free report.

Variation: If you send your news straight to your blog or website, make it for “members only.” This means”s they must o”t to get to your website and read the content. Yes, this is also a great way to list build. I recommend testing between the squeeze page, straight to the website with opt-in forms, and making your website members only to see which one converts the best.

6. Find blogs in your niche. You’re looking for blogsYou’rematch your place well, get lots of traffic (bare minimum – 10,000 hits a month), and are open to guest-written articles. If a blog doesn’t meet all 3 of the criteria, then take a pass.

[One note: The higher-traffic blogs might be harder to break into, but they’re well worth the ethey’reIf you are more comfortable starting with blogs of 10,000 visitors a month and working your way up, do it. After all, those 10,000 hit blogs may be getting 100,000 visitors or more soon, and if you’re already established, you’re much better.]

Also, visit each blog you are considering bylining. Are all of the articles written by one author? Or does this blog accept submissions from others? While it’s not impossible to get our paper on a blog that is generally only written by one person, publishing it on a blog that regularly uses guest authors is far more accessible.

7. Rubber meets the road. Remember the articles you wrote? You’re going to contact You’reblog owners and give them your articles. Give each blog owner 2-3 pieces, and only give each article away once so that each blog owner gets unique material from you.

Why give each blog owner 2-3 articles instead of just 1? Because you’re proving that you insistently write great essays. Also, what if the one article you send them is on a topic they don’t want to cover? Or don’t they do an article on it? By sending more than one article, you give them a choice and significantly increase the odds that they will publish at least one article for you.

Here’s how you give the Here’ses away: Contact these people. Do it through email, Facebook, Skype, or whatever. Better yet, contact them through all of those methods at the same time. No, you’re not spamming them. You’re HELPING them. Send them a very friendly, upbeat message that includes the following points:

– You’ve been reading, then you’ve

– You love what they write

– You’ve written exclusiveYou’veles just for them

– The articles are free – they can do whatever they want with them

– No strings attached

– You would like (LOVE!) to be a guest writer on their blog

– If they would publish one of your articles on their blog with your author’s box to help you be recognized, that would be awesome

– Thank you

What you’ve just done:

* You’you’vee contact and you’ve GIVEN them some you’ve off the bat, no strings attached. What happens when 99 out of 100 people contact a blog owner? They WANT something. But you are GIVING something, and it’s something cool, too. It’ll be written articles that are perfect for their blog.

* You’ve got a new contactYou’veur field. Do you think s/he might want more articles? And maybe they will even promote one of your products? It could happen, and it starts with this initial contact.

* You’ve solved a problem You’veis new contact – you’ve given them high-you content. If you’re a blog owner,  how hard it can be to create unique content week after week. Having help is always much appreciated.

* You’ve got some severe lYou’veice going. You’re contacting BIG blYou’reth significant traffic, many of which will post your articles. Think Google will notice? Absolutely!

* You’ve got traffic. FREEYou’veic. Highly TARGETED, raving fanatical traffic visiting your website.

* You are building a LIST out of this traffic. A list of highly targeted people who think you must be an expert because you write articles on influential blogs. Traffic that reads your stuff. Traffic that BUYS your property.

* You are making money immediately with your OTO. Remember, you’ve got a low-priced and highly-targeted OTO after your squeeze page. This product is directly related to the issue you wrote about in the article and the report.

Total cost for this list building/product selling business? If you do everything yourself, it costs you nothing but time. If you outsource the squeeze page and articles, it might run you a couple of hundred dollars, more or less.

What do you do now? Rinse and repeat. Continue writing articles (or having someone write essays for you) and contacting new blogs. Write more pieces for the blogs on which you’ve already been publyou’ve

This works. Please don’t reinvent the wheel.

The downside is that you will find a few blog owners who won’t publish your stuffwon’tt’s okay. They usually that’s you they won’t; you can take the articles and offer them to a different blog.

Power Tip: A variation to sending them 2-3 articles is to send one 3-part series. It’s got to be researcheIt’selevant and on a hot topic. If you get them to publish this (generally over 3-5 days), you will see even more traffic than you would from getting one regular article published.

Let’s talk numbers hypothetically ‘to get a feel for what this system can do: You contact one blog with 250,000 visitors monthly. 25% of them read your article (that’s a low number – you, that’s more.) Of those who read your article, 40% click your link, and 50% of those get your free report (meaning they joined your list.)

That’s 250,000 times .25 62That’seople who read your article. How cool is that?? Just imagine for a second that 62,500 people read your article and see your byline – you’re already an expert and haven’t even clicked on your haven’t’s resource box yet.

Oauthor’s62,500 people, 40% clicked your link. That’s 25,000 people going. That’s a squeeze page. I don’t know about you, but think about getting 25,000 HIGHLY targeted people to my squeeze page, my heart beats a little faster, and you can’t wipe the grin off my fcan’tOf those, we’re hypothetically saying we’re half join your list. I know some of you think that number is high, and it is high for the typical squeeze page. But in this case, they’ve just read your article. They have a high-authority website and liked it. They already know why they are coming to your page (to get your super-duper hot report on a topic they’re interested in), so a courteous squeeze page is awful; you can expect a higher-than-average conversion.

Half of 25,000 is 12,500 new people on your list. People who have read your article. People who think you’re pretty hot stuff. Peoyou’reo will now read your report and KNOW you are pretty hot stuff. People are far more likely than average to open and read your emails.

Twelve thousand five hundred people from one article. Okay, true; you wrote several articles and probably sent 3 of those to the blog owner, who maybe only published one. Still – is that a good return on your time and money or what???

And if you only do 1/10th as well as our example? Then you still have 1,250 highly targeted new subscribers. Not bad.

To those skeptics who think that only the “big dogs” can make money on” in, I h”pe I have just given you something to think about and, more importantly – a plan of ACTION.

It’s the New Year. What bettIt’s time to roll up your sleeves and put this to work?

One more number I want to throw out here: Suppose you got 12,500 new subscribers per month. Maybe you did it with one article; perhaps it took 20 pieces. Whatever. Each month you do what it takes to get 12,500 new subscribers. Assuming a high attrition rate of 20%, how many subscribers would you have by the next holiday season?

I’ll leave you to do your maI’lln this one.

Happy New Year!!!

There’s a standard theory that you’ve got to warm up your list for a few days or even a few weeks before you try to sell them anything. But if someone came to your website looking for answers and opted into your list – then they are a hot prospect right NOW.

 

That’s why you should go ahead and make them an offer within the first seven days. Make them 2 or 3 bids.

Yes, you still need to provide some great content, whether telling captivating stories or giving them hot tips. But at the end of each email, make them an offer they can’t refuse. You may be surprised how many prospects become customers in that first week. And as you know, once they buy from you, they are far more likely to buy repeatedly, as long as you continue to make them happy.

But we’re not done yet. In addition to making them offers via email in the first week, you also want to provide them IMMEDIATELY.

Let’s say they sign up for your free report on ten ways to banish acne. If you’re using single opt-in, they’re now on your list. So instead of sending them to a page that tells them to check their email for their free report, please send them to a sales page that tells them the free account will be sent to their email shortly, and in the meantime, to check out the one-time fantastic offer you have for them.

Depending on your offer, there’s no reason why you can’t convert 10% or far more of these prospects into IMMEDIATE buyers with this simple technique. And best of all, it’s something you set up once, and then you can forget about it, earning yourself a nice little additional income while you continue to grow your list.

No matter how hard you try to prevent it, you’ll have prospects land on your 404 error page sooner or later. When they do, they have a choice – to find what they were looking for or give up. Care to guess what happens more often? They leave in frustration.

So instead of the usual “Whoops! We’re sorry, but what you’re looking for has moved” page, consider customizing your error pages to get these people to do something.

For example, you could allow them to opt into your list with an offer different from your landing page. This can be highly effective. For example…

“Congrats! You just found our secret page where we give away ___. Just tell us where to send it, and it’s yours.”

Or you might make them an offer they can’t refuse, such as a great deal on one of your most popular products or a combination offer for a super low price. Like this…

“Oops! You just landed on our error page, but we will make it up to you. Here’s $xx. xx off of our super hot selling ___.”

For one reason or another, if you have your website online long enough, you will start getting a stream of people who land on a page that does not exist, leading them to a 404 error. Plan for this hidden opportunity; you can turn some strayed visitors into subscribers and customers.

Popular thought says something about turning 40 that makes one think, “Holy ^%!*I could get old one day.” Then 50 starts approaching at warp light speed, and some begin to think new thoughts, like, “Where did I put my keys?” And, “What did I come into this room for?” And “What was I going to write in my blog post? Wait, what’s my password? Never mind the password; what’s my domain again?”

If you can’t relate yet, good for you, and I hope you never do! This article is meant to inspire you to avoid such mental collapse.

No matter what your age, you can benefit from a better brain. And I don’t mean trading your brain in for a new one, although that could be awesome. I mean growing your brain to function better, make new connections and think up creative new ideas constantly. Like there’s weight training and cardio for the body, there must be ways to improve how your brain functions so that everyday tasks like running your online business and finding new ways to make it profitable become like child’s play. At least, that’s what I was hoping to find.

So I started researching the brain, how it works, and what a person can do to improve it. And you know what? You have to be a brain scientist to understand all that stuff. So I took a shortcut – I bought a book by a brain researcher with 20+ years of experience in actively building or growing his brain. The book is called Whole Brain Power, and the exercises he recommends are not what I expected.

The first discovery I made – the brain does grow from nurturing and training it. Second discovery – left-handed people have more brain mass and a more flexible brain structure than right-handed people. You might wonder how they know that: UCLA did a study of 70 pairs of identical twins where one twin was right-handed, the other left-handed, with an average age of 70. The lefties almost invariably had better brains.

Put these two pieces of information together, along with a lot of scientific data I won’t get into, and you find that by using your non-dominant hand to do things like write and play sports, you are growing your brain. Plus, memorization can work wonders, too.

Here’s a tangible example of brain growth: London’s famous black-cab cabbie drivers must store a mental map of London, including 25,000 street names and the locations of all major tourist attractions. Passing the test takes three years of intensive study, and three-quarters of the applicants drop out. When they studied the brains of these cabbies, they found their hippocampus had grown. The longer they spend on the job, the bigger their brains. This and other studies prove you can physically improve your brain if you work at it.

Doing these exercises have side benefits as well. Within 3 to 4 weeks of consistent training, you’ll notice you’re more alert, have greater focus, and improve your attention span. Work will become more accessible, you’ll write blog posts faster, and you’ll begin seeing possibilities in your business that were invisible to you. Plus, your memory will get better; you’ll experience more energy, your chance of getting Alzheimer’s decreases, and other benefits.

So what are the prescribed exercises for growing your brain? I’ll go over some of them briefly.

For explanation, I’m going to assume you’re right-handed. If you’re left-handed, reverse what I say.

Anything that you usually do with your right hand, like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, eating with a fork, etc., try doing with your left hand every day.

Write with your left hand. Get a notebook and write something on the right page with your right hand. Then write that same thing on the left page with your left hand. Using this method, your right hand (left brain) is training your left hand (right brain). If you like, use mirror writing when writing with your left hand. Write from right to left, making the report legible when viewed in a mirror. Leonardo Da Vinci did this, and he was no intellectual slouch.

By the way, it’s no coincidence that Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth were all ambidextrous.

Memorize and recite things forwards and backward. For example, learn to say the alphabet as fastback as forwards. Memorize states or countries in reverse alphabetical order. Memorize long poems, speeches, or monologues. While you’re at it, learn a new language. And memorize number sequences such as the powers of 2 up to 30 or beyond (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, etc.)

Do hammer drills. To start, get a lightweight (1 pound or so) rubber mallet and bounce a tennis ball on it using your right hand. Bounce once and catch, bounce once and catch. When you get good, jump twice and see, then three times, working your way to jumping five times and catching the ball. Now transfer the mallet to your left hand and repeat. Be patient; your brain wants to learn this new skill. Move up to using a golf ball and increase the number of reps. When you can do 100-300 on either hand, place a mallet in both hands and bounce the ball from right to left and back again. Once you can do this successfully for 100 reps or more, get a heavier hammer. It sounds crazy, but the benefits – both to the brain and the body – are enormous. Here’s a helpful video on hammer drills:

Avoid passive stress from television and video games. Do you know how your mom said those things would rot your brain? It turns out she was right.

There’s a lot more, like games you can play and the science behind all of this. I highly recommend you get a copy of the book. It’s called Whole Brain Power: The Fountain of Youth for the Mind and Body by Michael Lavery.

If you’re wondering if all this stuff works, go to chapter 5 and look at the before and after photos of the artwork done by C. Ryan Walsh for the documentary film Brain Dead: The Resurrection of a Video Game Junkie. In 45 days, his artwork went from what I would describe as a 2nd or 3rd-grade level to a 12th-grade level, assuming the 12th-grader had practiced art for 12 years. Mind-boggling.

One last thing – what could you accomplish in your Internet business if you were more intelligent? If your memory was better? If you were more creative? If you had more energy? If you had more concentration and focus?

What couldn’t you accomplish??

I get a lot of questions about how to build a business online. Here are some of the top questions and answers to help you start your online business and become profitable.

 

Q. I keep hearing that I’ve got to get people to know me, like me, and trust me before they buy from me, but how do I do that?

A. You’ve got two choices, and I recommend you do both. First, position yourself as an expert in your field. If you’re not an expert, surround yourself with experts by interviewing them, letting their guest post to your blog, and working with them. Second, be generous. Give away great content that instills confidence in your abilities and expertise that builds your reputation. Offer free teleclasses or podcasts, guest posts on popular blogs with info-packed posts, and author a book or report.

The better your free content is, the more people will trust you and your content. As a bonus, they’ll be more likely to share your content with others, helping you build your reputation and following.

Q. Can I reach a wider audience while delivering more value to my current customers?

A. Consider lining up some partnerships or joint ventures in your niche. First, make a list of the areas your customers are interested in. You’re not looking for direct competition here but rather complimentary sub-niches. For example, suppose you teach how to do Forex with a particular method. In that case, your customers will likely be interested in how to trade on Forex with other methods and even how to invest in other areas besides the Forex market.

Once you list areas, choose an expert you’d like to partner with. Go online to get their contact information and then approach them with a win-win reason why they should partner with you. They should benefit, you should help, and your customers must also benefit.

Do something together that you can offer to both your customers and your partner’s customers, whether it’s a free webinar with an offer at the end, creating a series of videos together, or even starting a new membership with a free introductory period. This will add value to your customers and theirs and expand your reach to a broader audience.

Q. I’m just a newbie in my niche – how do I approach the “big dogs” and get their attention so they’ll partner with me?

A. Two words – help them. Comment on their posts, share their stuff through social media, ask if you can re-post their work to your blog, etc. Please find a way to be of service to them so that you can get on their radar and start building a relationship for the long haul.

Note that the bigger the person you’re targeting (IE: The more extensive their following and the greater their influence in your market), the longer it will take to attract their attention as someone they might want to work with. It’s recommended that you begin by targeting more accessible people and work your way up to the giants of your industry.

Also, consider writing a book, devoting one chapter to each “big dog” you target. In this manner, you can make friends with these players, and some of them will promote your book to their audience.

Q. I keep hearing that I must “have a story” to share with prospects. What does this mean?

A. In a marketing context, ‘your story’ led to you doing what you do today. For example, someone who teaches basketball techniques may have been a lousy basketball player themselves until they learned and mastered certain fundamentals and techniques that caused them to become an all-star player. In a nutshell, that’s their story. Of course, they’re going to want to embellish with details, such as how rotten they felt when they got laughed at for missing the easiest of shots.

The purpose of having your own story and sharing it with your readers is to make a connection. Someone having trouble making the junior varsity basketball team wants to know if you went through some of the same trials and tribulations they are experiencing. This bonds them to you and causes them to be far more receptive to your message. Remember, “birds of a feather flock together.” Once they realize you’ve been through the same struggles they’re currently going through and that you not only persevered but overcame, they’ll want to know exactly how you did it.

Q. But isn’t that manipulating them?

A. Not at all. You show that you have indeed walked in their shoes, experienced their problems, and found a solution.

I heard a story once that illustrates this beautifully. Imagine you’re in a foreign country and don’t speak the language. For days you’ve been struggling to understand and be understood. Then all of a sudden, someone says hello to you in your language and asks how you are. How would you react? No doubt you’d rush up to that person and start talking, feeling that you finally are making a connection with someone. Imagine the relief you would feel, finally being able to communicate, to understand, and most of all, to be understood.

Telling your story does the same – it creates a bonding connection that lets the prospect know you understand what they’re going through because you’ve experienced the same problems.

Q. If I want to create a product or success system based on my own experiences, how do I go about that?

A. If you’ve become successful at something, you have a ready-made product you can sell to others who want to master that same skill. Here’s how to get it into product form: Recall where you were at the beginning of your success. What was the first thing you did? The second? Write down everything that you did and put it into step-by-step form.

Now you’ve got the ___ number of steps to accomplishing ___. Name it something appropriate, contact the domain for that name, and start marketing it. You could do it as an ebook or audio/video course or offer it as a series of webinars or even one-on-one coaching. Each step will represent one chapter in your book, one webinar, or one coaching session.

HOT TIP: You can use this same process to partner with anyone who’s mastered a skill others want to learn. Interview them extensively to discover precisely how they succeeded and then create the product based on the interviews. Split the profits with the expert, rinse, and repeat with more experts or the same expert and different topics.

Q. I have a friend and fellow marketer who’s continually writing posts for other people’s blogs. I think she’s foolish because she’s giving away her valuable info on other blogs instead of using it to boost her standing in search engines. She says it’s worth it because she’s getting new prospects through her guest posts. Who’s right?

A. You both are correct, to a degree. While it’s true that placing her best content on her blog may help to get her site ranking in the search engines, SEO is always a gamble. On the other hand, guest posting on popular blogs practically guarantees exposure to new prospects and new alliances with the blog owners.

When your friend guest posts, she’s hopefully targeting blogs that already receive plenty of traffic interested in her particular niche. This will help her to gain exposure to new audiences and get her endorsed by leaders in her field (the blog owners).

Q. I’ve contacted blog owners about being a guest blogger for them, but I don’t get much response because I’m new in the niche. What can I do?

A. Begin by repeatedly posting in their comments section. Join the conversation, add relevant comments, ask good questions, and answer other people’s questions. Hyperlink your name to your website to get new visitors (this is automatic when you fill out the comment form – just be sure to fill out the website URL box and your name, and your name will become a hyperlink to your URL.)

Use a catchy, memorable photo on all of your posts. Register your email address along with your picture at: en.gravatar.com.

By participating in the community, the blog owner will likely notice you and be far more receptive the next time you offer to do a blog post. In addition, visitors to the blog will begin to recognize you and visit your blog.

Q. I write a newsletter, but lately, I get the feeling that no one is reading it. What am I doing wrong?

A. You may need to contact your market to find out what they want to know. Go to forums and watch social media to find out what they’re talking about, especially what they’re asking. Ideally, it would be best if you were answering their questions and helping to solve their problems because when you do that, they will read every word of your newsletter.

Q. I HATE writing headlines and subject lines, and I wouldn’t say I like using headline templates. Any ideas?

A. Interestingly, your best headline is often buried inside your copy or email. You already know all the best selling points about your product, how best to present it, your target market, and how to craft the best call to action. So forget the headline, write your copy or email, and then go back and reread what you just wrote. You’ll often find your jewel of a headline inside your document, just waiting for you to pluck it out and place it at the top.