Friday, August 15, 2008

A Gem from Napoleon Hill

"You have a brain and mind of your own. USE IT, and reach your
own decisions. If you need facts or information from other
people, to enable you to reach decisions, as you probably will in
many instances; acquire these facts or secure the information
you need quietly, without disclosing your purpose.
It is characteristic of people who have but a smattering or a
veneer of knowledge to try to give the impression that they have
much knowledge. Such people generally do TOO MUCH talking,
and TOO LITTLE listening. Keep your eyes and ears wide open
and your mouth CLOSED, if you wish to acquire the habit
of prompt DECISION. Those who talk too much do little else.
If you talk more than you listen, you not only deprive yourself
of many opportunities to accumulate useful knowledge, but
you also disclose your PLANS and PURPOSES to people who
will take great delight in defeating you, because they envy
you. "

"Remember, also, that every time you open your mouth in the
presence of a person who has an abundance of knowledge, you
display to that person, your exact stock of knowledge, or your
LACK of it!"

"Genuine wisdom is usually conspicuous through modesty and
silence."

Monday, August 4, 2008

Nothing Happens Until Something Moves

I realize that the biggest mistake I make is OVERTHINKING everything. That seemed important when I practiced medicine, but it is a huge mistake in marketing. Until you actually DO SOMETHING, nothing happens. Few mistakes and few omissions are fatal to you business. A few mistakes will slow things down for a short time, but DOING NOTHING and just planning will keep you business at a standstill until you break out of your planning.

Consider a runner at the Olympics. The start is very important. If the runner does not get into motion as soon after the gun as possible, she will have to catch up before taking any lead. ANY start is better than waiting. Take action, make some mistakes and your and I will get to our goals instead of watching other people win.

What to say when they ask, "How much do YOU make?"

How well your prospect will do does not depend
on how well you are doing. Of course you can
have a positive effect on their success by inspiring
and guiding him or her.

Experience has shown that what follows is
a good way to answer when a prospect asks
you how much money you make in your business.

Tell them that what you make at any moment
is not a factor in their success. The answer might
inspire them, but the answer is not important to
their success. Ask them how much they want to
earn and what other benefits they hope for. Ask
if they believe they are ready to do what it takes
to achieve that goal.

Give reassurance that you will do everything
you can to guide them toward their goal; that
you will teach them how to get there as
efficiently as possible. Remind your prospect
that reaching their personal goal is more
important than what they earn at any given
time.

Let him or her know that it is important to
focus on meeting goals rather than anyone
else's current income and that leading the
people in their organization is what matters.

Monday, July 28, 2008

It Flies Even Faster When You Stay Focused

I realized a bit after writing about my recent
distraction, that time flies EVEN FASTER
when you are on track. I remembered times
when I was very focused and kept my "eye
on the ball" for a month. It seemed like a
week. It seemed like there was more to do
than I could accomplish.

AND, I felt a whole lot better when I reviewed
that time well spent than I did writing my
earlier post !
Stephen

Time Flies When You Get Distracted

Time Flies When You Let It

No kidding. I have not posted here for far too long. What
happened to me? I lost focus. I had enthusiasm. I had too
many things on the plate at once. I Accomplished more is
some other areas and I lost focus on what really matters.

I did put together a lead capture page, an I only put it
on one page. No excuse, just gotta get back on the wagon.

I am hoping to join with Daegan and a team of other
folks, who like me, need some community to keep the spirit
up. Obvously, Relationships Become Markets applies
to me, as much as to anyone else.

Stephen

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

3 Things I "GROCKED" Today

On a 2 hour business drive today,
I listened to my mentor for most of the way.
3 things I've heard before, that I really
grocked only today. Duhhh !
What you need to make money on the internet:

1. A lead capture page
2. An automated response system
3. A well written, direct marketing
sales page.

How hard can that be? So... Here goes.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

What have been doing ( or not doing )

What have I been doing the last week?

The truth is, I sort of bogged down this week. I just didn't do

the productive things. I reviewed what to do. I read some
inspirational tapes and books, but those things in themselves
I don't count as productive actions. They don't lead directly
to earning.

I came across an audio CD in the process that was
titled, "ACTION! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves" .
That said it all. So here goes. Next steps:
** Put lead capture on every page and every email where it
appropriate.
** Set up tracking on the target of everything.
** Start a PPC campaign.

That ought to do it for now. I will make a couple of moves.
Stephen

Monday, June 16, 2008

Daegan Smith on Being Brave (Pt 3 of 3)

Great, inspirational thoughts from
Daegan ==== Part Three

For instance the first time I paid a
consultant $10,000 for a day of his time I almost
thought I was crazy and anyone I told what I had
done surely did.

I know a lot more today than before that day and
it's added up to many multiples of that original
asking price.

A life lesson learned by me, and one I hope you
have the chance to experience one day.

The one and only thing that stops you from getting
to where you want to go is that little voice in your
head that says "I don't know if this is good idea
and it's so much money or so little certainty.
Maybe I should pass on this one."


Saturday, June 14, 2008

Daegan Smith on Being Brave (Pt 2 of 3)

Great, inspirational thoughts from
Daegan ==== Part TWO


If you get up and go to work today you know at
the end of the week you will receive a paycheck
for the hours you work. You did it last week and
the week before and the resultis always
the same so why would you think anything
different would happen this week?

It most likely won't.

Step out of that boring existence and push
your limits and start your own business
and what happens? Who knows? Its
uncharted territory as far as
your mind is concerned.

The result is a constant feeling of fear and anxiety
about what's to come next. And what Perry
argued in his final words at this conference is that
means your right on track.

I can't tell you how many times in the past two
years I've been less than sure of the outcome
of my actions and yet proceeded forward with
marvelous results.

[ Final Part 3 tomorrow ]

Friday, June 13, 2008

Great, inspirational thoughts from
Daegan ==== Part ONE



Perry Marshal was on stage and said one of THE
most straight forward yet poignant statements I've
ever heard.

"The more on track you are in your
entrepreneurial pursuits the more afraid
you'll be."


Simply genius.

He went on to explain that we all
grow up trained for a live as a worker bee, a life
full of security and marginal increases in pay.
A life where you trade your hours for dollars
for much less than they're worth.

But once you get into business for yourself
the paradigm shifts and unless you're aware of it,
just this alone can result in you running back
to the J.O.B. shaking with fear never
to be heard of again.



As an entrepreneur you're life is literally defined
by doing things that the other guy doesn't have
the guts to do and so it's a constant battle within
yourself to push past your limits.

And well your limits are what make you
"feel" safe because you're always working
within a framework of cause and effect
where the effect of what you do is so regular
that you know the outcome. ( Part 2 tomorrow )

Friday, May 30, 2008

I guess it's past time I introduce myself.

You probably wonder who is writing all this stuff.

My name is Stephen. I'm not a guru. I'm a retired physician who has been doing traditional network marketing since 1996. What a ride! My first experience was with a nutrition company that looked very strong. It had a 7 year history, member of the Direct Marketing Association, publicly traded, lots of very successful members... looked good to me. I did pretty much what I was told to do by some very successful people. I bought expensive leads. I called them. I hated doing that, but I did personally sponsor 15 people. Only one of them ever sponsored anyone else. They ran into the same thing I did.... lots of work and no money coming in.

My upline encouraged me to go to meetings, including national conventions. I did that. I loved the excitement and always came home with a new charge of enthusiasm and ideas. I have to admit that I didn't make any where near as much money as I spent.

It seemed to me that you could use the Internet to promote the business, but the company discouraged doing that in many ways. They wanted me to use only the corporate site. They prohibited almost every other Internet activity.

That company ultimately failed and I went shopping for something else. After about 4 years I gave up network marketing and swore I would never do it again.

I started doing internet marketing for several products and monetizing my old site, imagine-hawaii.com with Adsense and a few other ads. These things have brought me some profits through a LOT of work.

Somehow, I asked for and started receiving email from Daegan Smith ( Free CD ) about using the internet, and email in particular, to form relationships with like-minded people and generate leads in a way that payed for itself. One of the things he suggested was creating a blog and sharing my experience.

So, here I am, letting it all hang out. I'm being as truthful as I can without incriminating the innocent and intend to chronicle my journey from these beginnings to success. I hope some of you, my readers, will chime in and contribute some wisdom.

Stephen

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Over-enthusiastic purchasing

There was something in my brain, trying to get my attention. It turns out it was that I have lost track of what my periodic payments are for subscriptions, hosting and so on. I finally sat down, pulled it all together, and cancelled some things that I have no time for. FOCUS ! I trimmed away about $200 dollars.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

A slow day and some changes

As you undoubtedly know, the Pacific Northwest is beautiful, but pretty grey a lot of the year. The sun is out today, so I limited my work time to get out in the yard.

What I DID was:

· Make some changes to a few of my webpages , hoping to boost the click-through rate on the Adsense.

· Answer a few emails

· Sell an airline ticket

· Read my mentor’s latest 2 emails

Now, back to the sun.
Stephen



Friday, May 23, 2008

Business Building Web Log -- The first day.


7:00 – 7:15 Am
I read all my email after chucking out all the spam.

I made a new box for stuff related to this blog.

I smiled as I read my mentor, Daegan’s , morning email. He has not just told me,
but shown me, how effective it is to be consistent with emails to your list.
I am notorious for being a lousy letter writer, but emails are seldom letters, so I intend to escape through that semantic hole and build mutually beneficial relationships the way he does.

7:20 Somebody in my quiet neighborhood wants a bunch of variances to chop up small property into micro lots and build on it. I’m writing to the city to do something about that.

8:00 I am rapidly emerging from an information overload. Over the past 6 months, I have been taking a look at the growing heap of information I’ve collected and dabbled with about internet and network marketing. Yesterday, I tried to summarize it in a single sort of outline … you know,some sort of title for each e-book, traffic program, audio book….. That I’ve taken at least a cursory look at.

Overwhelming, but not nearly so formidable when organized into a loose outline. I am using a word processor that allows hyperlinks, so now I have a handy way to jump to documents and websites. As I have been doing this, I am filling in the outline with details.

My goal is to thin down the candidates for useful action, and to make a tentative to-do list, putting tasks in chronological order. I have a tendency to over plan and remind myself of that as I do this. I’m asking myself if I’m overplanning by doing this activity.

I’m spending the next hour or so on this. I’ll re-ask the above question when I am done.
The "outline", minus some details looks like this now. It looks more likea to-do list than an outline. Item’s in [parentheses] replace actual entries for the sake of privacy.

Traffic Kahuna http://traffickahuna.org/
Marketing Makeover
[ member id ] [password] http://members.marketingmakeovergenerator.com/specialinfo.asp?x=1740555


Blogs
Web2.0Squidoo Dashboard

Twitter Sign in

YouTube Sign in [ID password ]

Facebook

MySpace Sign in [ ID ]

Newsletter Marketing

My Mentor’s affiliate program
Tracking on free CD affiliate ( how do I do this? )
This program pays commissions on all of the products found at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=777762.

The first offer is for the "True MLM Wealth" free CD and commission is $20 per free CD request. Then as I will follow up with your leads via email and they purchase any other product from the same vendor, will receive commissions in the following dollar amounts per product:
Email MLM Formula $200,
Email MLM Formula One Time Offer $100,
Email MLM Swipe File $150,
Email MLM Swipe File OTO $75,
Advanced Profit Loop System $75,
Copywriting Seminar In A Box $150, MLM Big Money $15,
Magnetic Marketing $150,
MLM Mastery Course $75 after 30 day free trial,
Power Prospecting Secrets $60,
Squeeze Page Pro $50,
You Can Make A Living Online $150
Private Wealth Consult $50.


So I see there is huge profit potential over the long term to earn a lot off passive income with this program. All I have to do is drive traffic through my affiliate link and collect my commission. "The King Of Never Calling A Single Lead" will do all the rest!I will promote this link: http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SYS/?m=81142&c=l

Ezine searches recommended by mentor:
Top Ezine Ads (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks)http://www.topezineads.com/

Lifestyles Pub (this one is really good but it costs a few bucks) http://www.lifestylespub.com/


EzineSeekhttp://www.ezineseek.com/


eZINESearchhttp://www.ezinesearch.com/


E-ZineZhttp://www.e-zinez.com/


Best Ezines.comhttp://www.bestezines.com/


John Labovitz's Ezine List (this one is good but it may not be updated past March 2000 )http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/



YTB Travel



Power Prospecting System
Email MLM Formula
[ Below this are many pages of proprietary information… A summary of one of Daegan’s amazing e-books. I can’t give it away here, but for a free look at this stuff, click here.]


8:55 AM
I thinned that out a bit. I realized, while reviewing this, that
You have to be a bit careful when posting personal notesto a blog that you respect the privacy and the copyrightsof people when you do this.
That there are abundant opportunities in a blog about mymarketing efforts, to share links to affiliate programs that are already part of the note! You will find a few in what I just posted. You might even click on some!
There are opportunities to share even more non-affiliate links to useful tools with blog readers

9:00 Am in need of some Java.

9:20 OK. We Seattle area folks need a coffee fix to keep going.
As I was sipping mine, it occurred to me that this blog is not monetized.No Adsense. No nothing…. Monetizing blogs is a piece of the formulafor funding the advertising to promote an MLM business.

How many times have I heard that? I do it on my Imagine Hawaii website, and now that I think about it, it’s paying for a pretty good chunk of ads every week.