You know it’s a bloody weird thing…

The more things I offer for sale, the more money I
make.

It’s as though there’s some kind of crazy
connection between offering a product via a
salespage with a huge sweaty payment button on
it…

…and me seeing more numbers in my bank account.

Almost like selling things and making money are
somehow RELATED?

YET rumour has it that there ARE some people who
think the green stuff will magically appear in
their accounts if they leave forum posts under
their pillow for the sales fairy

Read More…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Get some personal coaching or get a mentor

You need to be able to work with someone on a one
to one basis.

Group coaching, no matter how good or expensive
will NOT give you the same results as working
with a mentor who can look at your individual
business and tell you how to make more money from
it

I’ve worked with mentors and coaches and it’s
made a BIG difference to my business

Sometimes you just need a short sharp kick in the
arse to motivate you…

Read More…

Popularity: 3% [?]

This is short and sweet.

As soon as you’ve created your own product or found
a product you’d like to promote…

STOP EVERYTHING ELSE YOU’RE DOING AND THROW SOME
TRAFFIC AT IT TO MAKE SOME MOOLAH

The big guys in the industry don’t mess around with
SEO and fr-ee traffic

That’s for newbies

They’re fine with selling you shedloads of PRODUCTS
about how to drive traffic for fr-ee but they don’t
do it themselves

…because it doesn’t work.

Not in a cost effective way anyhow

Read More…

Popularity: 3% [?]

You’re always told to ‘select your target audience’
right?

Doesn’t work.

Oh sure if you’re producing an ebook or product
aimed at a niche market such as the much exampled
‘people with acne’ or ‘tropical fish lovers’ then
that’s definitely possible

What ISN’T possible is to try to create your online
personality to get a certain demographic of people
to follow you

(otherwise I’d be targeting female naturist
volleyball players who send out pictures)

I have a good IM mate who PERFECTLY appeals to the
demographic of 25-35 year old males who like fast
cars and flash lifestyles…

Read More…

Popularity: 3% [?]

Well it’s weird…

Most marketers don’t know exactly where their sales come from and if sales are coming in OK they think they don’t really NEED to know

Which is utter balls as I found out to my dismay

See the screenshot below?

It’s just ONE of a load of tracking ‘things’ I do to find out where my sales come from. So for example my newsletter sales…

I know they come in every single day and it would be easy to sit back and be happy about that.

But most payment processors don’t tell you exactly which link a sale has come unless you really know what you’re doing with tracking links.

When a new subscriber comes onto my list they go through an eight or nine follow-up message sequence.

I’s assumed that the first TWO follow-ups were responsible for most of my autoresponder sales for my newsletter

Nope

You can see from the screenshot that it was actually follow-ups FOUR and FIVE that did the best.

What a bugger!

Because I’d been focusing on the first TWO emails and I dumped the ones that were actually working because I wanted a short sequence.

I THREW AWAY the links that were bringing me the most sales in the AR sequence purely because I didn’t know where the sales came from and what was (and wasn’t) converting.

Which is why I wrote ‘The Missing Link’

You can get more details by clicking on the link below or the pic of the hairy bloke at the top of the post (not me), and seeing if it’s something that wiggles your woggle.

Get ‘The Missing Link’ HERE

Comments welcome as always

Tony

Popularity: 3% [?]

(Here’s a post from my newsletter of about a year ago – I was reading it this morning and thought it made a lot of sense so published it here for you…)

We’re internet marketers right?

We’re in it to make money.

Those of use that are in the ‘make money online’ niche actually teach other people how to make money online.

So why the Hell do 95% of all marketers spend 95% of their time doing things that DON’T make them money?

It’s time to get harsh with yourselves people!

The recession is not going to go away for years.

Which means that more people are going to want to make money online to supplement their incomes or go full-time.

Some of those people will be your customers.

But some of them will be your competitors, and guess what?

Some of them will be smarter, more creative and more motivated than you (and me)

And they’re coming into YOUR niche right now!

At the moment you have the advantage of experience and knowledge over them, but that won’t last long.

So this is the time to take a long hard look at your business and DUMP everything that isn’t making you money, and instead focus and expand on the things that ARE.

You no longer have the time to fanny around with that authority site you ‘really want’ to build.

It’s no good bunging an odd post on it every month and a half.

Instead force yourself to make one post every single day for 30 days, and to slap some banner ads, AdSense and other forms of monetization on it right now!

If it’s not making you money, or working toward that goal then it’s just mental masturbation.

(Told you this would be harsh, but what a great phrase though!!)

Ah! You say…

‘But most of my sites ARE working towards making me some money’

What I would say to that is, if you’ve not seen any results from your efforts in a month then dump it.

Unless you’re working on a huge software product or other project that going to take a lot of time, you need to limit yourself to 30 days’ worth of action then you need to see results.
Creating a product and launching it does NOT take more than 30 days unless you’re playing at it.

You can’t make excuses for yourself any longer guys. You need to get established in IM as quickly as you can.

The longer you leave it the harder it gets.

And people who are RIGHT NOW seeing their first IM site will be working hard to establish themselves.

And it could only take a matter of WEEKS before they get to your level then surpass you.

You see yourself in any of the following scenarios? I did.

See if you use any of these excuses (I’ve used them ALL before I started kicking my own arse)

‘It’s taking me forever to create this content’

Outsource it.

‘I’m finding it really difficult to drive traffic to my site’

Buy some

‘I don’t have enough time to work on my IM business because I have a full-time job’

Get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour later

‘I don’t know which part of internet marketing I want to go into’

Go do some research and decide, or go do something else with your life

I don’t especially like ranting but I’ll be honest, it was a rant that kicked my arse in the early days and prompted me to do the one thing that has kept me going more than any other:

‘Just Find A Way!’

The old example is that you’d ‘find a way’ if someone was pointing a gun at your head.

They’re not now. Not literally of course, but give it another 12 months and the state of the US and Europe might get to the point where you need to rely on your IM income.

And by then it might be too late.

Like I said, I don’t like motivation through fear.

I much prefer help and encouragement. But it was someone ranting like this that actually got me going in the early days.

I hope you take it in the spirit it’s intended and start making the move today

Comments welcome below – what do you think?

=================================================================

Did you get into Dave Nicholson’s coaching program yet?

This $500 program is currently accepting members for a one-off $27 payment.

Get more details by clicking the link below:

http://www.tonyshepherd.info/limitedcoaching

The price returns to $500 in three days or when it’s full.

I think it’s well worth checking out.

There’s a flashing banner thingy below that you can click to find out more details too:

=================================================================

Popularity: 8% [?]

We had a problem with the business I set up with Tony Newton.

It hit us like a ton of bricks a few months back

(This was the business that we set up to create plugins, themes and apps if you remember)

We got hacked.

Pretty damn badly actually.

What made it worse was because many of our sites
were ‘set and forget’ and we didn’t notice them
until sales stopped dropping in…

…AND they lost their search engine rankings.

All due to the fact that Google noticed the sodding
hack before we did

It took a while to fix and we lost revenue,
rankings and time to get it mended.

I still have little idea what the invaders were
doing on our sites but I have heard horror stories
of innocent site owners getting (real-life) visits
from the authorities…

…because their sites had been used in phishing
scams to collect Paypal and bank details

And just to make your Monday even grimmer than
usual, it seems things are going to get worse
because a major hacking sh*tstorm could be on route

In October just gone, security agencies such as
FBI, CIA & GCHQ have issued warnings of
“unprecedented levels of attack” so if you haven’t
already been hacked there’s a fair old chance you
will be soon

Yes It’s scaremongering, and yes I’m telling you
about this because I’m going to recommend a product
that can help…

…but I can’t tell you enough what an almighty,
stressful and expensive PAIN IN THE ARSE getting
hacked was

Protecting your sites is definitely the BORING side
of internet marketing.

Although trust me if you DO get hacked you will NOT
be bored

I was sweating like a fat girl in a pie shop when I
realised the damage that had been caused and the
time and expense it was going to take to put right

So lock down your sites – especially your WordPress
sites (this is where we got hit) while you still
can

If you want to know from an expert what to do to
protect your sites (and this bloke is the first
person I called when I saw our mangled sites)…

…the check out BlogDefender by Matt Garrett

Click the link below for full details:

http://gojvz.com/c/7617/20094

The guys behind these videos have over a decade of
experience in running HUNDREDS of high traffic
blogs, blogs that are often attacked, but are NO
LONGER HACKED

It’s not rockstar and it’s not sexy…

…but if you don’t put this in place you ARE in
for a shock at some point

Remember I’ve been doing this a long time and we
still got badly hit.

Click on the link below for more details

http://gojvz.com/c/7617/20094

Popularity: 6% [?]

Here’s one of the major reasons I use Safe-Swaps.com to buy my solos.

Here are the stats from just ONE day’s solos a week or so ago.

It doesn’t always happen like this but around 80% of the time it DOES.

Let’s dive straight in with this method:

DON’T buy all your clicks from one seller because the over-delivers (the green + numbers in the screenshot) won’t be as high. Typically sellers only over-deliver around 10%

If you buy from seperate sellers they’ll ALL usually over-deliver and you’ll end up with more clicks for your money.

You can see from the screenshot that I ordered 400 clicks.

Cost me $125

The ACTUAL number of clicks I got to my landing page was 508

That’s an extra 108 clicks.

Worth $30-$50

I’ve mentioned this in an email to you recently but I just wanted to show you the actual PROOF when the stats had updated.

So if you’re looking for the best possible value when buying your solos, join safe-swaps.com, don’t buy more than 100 clicks from each individual seller (you can see the biggest solo in the screenshot with 200 clicks over-delivered the LEAST pro rata)

Getting the best value possible for your clicks means you can get away with a much lower conversion rate and still remain in profit.

Comments / questions welcome

Popularity: 10% [?]

Obvious eh?

It seems not…

I’ve touched on this before but I reckon that you have to be around internet marketing fro a while before you actually REALISE the truth of it.

It’s also the reason why many newcomers never EVER make decent money online.

I’ll give you an example.

If all I do in a certain day is send a promo out to my list – just a single promotion for another marketer’s product with my affiliate link in it – I might earn between two hundred to two thousand dollars from it. Perhaps a little more if it’s a total killer.

But that’s it.

I’m not complaining of course, but it’s important to understand that it’s the MAXIMUM reward I can earn from that amount of effort.

If all I do is that one mailing, that’s ALL I will earn.

Follow?

You only earn what you allow people to pay you.

So if I want to add another $100,000 to my bottom line I might spend some time creating a new continuity program.

If I want to add a million dollars to my bottom line I might build up a new stand alone business for a year or so then sell it.

So my point is that the money you make is CAPPED – it’s limited – by the things you do.

If you have a $17 product and you get a mailing out to 1000 people you might make in the region of $2,000 based on a decent conversion rate.

But no more than that.

To earn more than that you either have to keep promoting it – maybe by buying solo ads, doing adswaps or getting jv partners or affiliates….

….OR you have to so something else that brings in money.

Think about this:

If you want to make $10,000 you might have to (for example) take on 10 coaching clients paying you $1,000 each per month.

Not that hard to do if you have skills to sell, BUT you have to put the work in because that 10k isn’t going to drop out of the sky OR by putting a link to a $7 ebook on your blog.

Putting that $7 link on your blog AIN’T worth ten grand a month, yet some people expect it to

You following me?

You have to do the RIGHT things to make the sort of money you require.

So start from the money?

Let’s say you want an income of that $10,000 a month.

You could do the mentoring thing as I mentioned above.

Or you could start a conintuity program for $17 and get 600 members.

Again (surprisingly) not that hard if you keep promoting it.

Or you could sell 1428 ebooks a month at $7

Bloody hard work. Won’t happen unless you’re very lucky.

Let’s look at $5k a month

You’d only need 185 members paying $27 to join your PLR club or your group coaching.

You’re following this by now right?

SO many people just don’t get this.

So look at your setup

Look at what you’re offering.

If you’ve created your first product and it sells for $9 and your target income is $3,000 a month then you need to sell 334 of them every single month to hit your 3k target.

That’s over 10 a day.

That’s no easy task, even though it sounds like it is.

You could make it easier for yourself by offering a $17 continuity as the upsell – an extension of the information in the ebook.

Or a ‘done for you’ service could work too.

It might involves outsourcing but get your figures right and you could have a hefty profit after paying your workers.

So here’s what I’m saying.

If you find yourself saying ‘I’m not making any sodding money!!’

Then look at what you’re selling.

If you’re putting half-hearted afiliate links to other people’s products on a blog that gets visited by 47 people a month then that’s WHY you’re not making any money.

Donald Trump would have trouble making money under those circumstances.

You need to have a viable system to support the income you want.

Selling $7 ebooks alone will NOT bring you $10k a month. Not unless you’re VERY VERY lucky.

But adding some continuity, a bit of mentoring and an offline ‘arm’ to your business might…and probably WILL.

There’s a very REAL relationship between what you’re offering for sale and how much money you make. Money, even in internet marketing does NOT leap up and say hello.

And surprisigly not a lot of people understand that. Esecpially when they get started in internet marketing with all it’s dingly dangly riches and sexy promises.

I didn’t understand it myself when I just started out.

It was probably only when I first dabbled in continuity I thought ‘bugger me my bank balance has shot up a bit there’ that it started to really dawn on me.

Have a think about it….

Comments welcome as usual – how’s YOUR setup?

Popularity: 13% [?]

I’ll explain the picture halfway down this post

So if you’ve been in internet marketing for any length of time you probably know what you should be doing to make money online right?

Find a niche – go through the research thing, desperate buyers and all that, have some graphics made, produce some content, bung some Adsense on there and all the rest.

You know the score.

Or maybe you prefer affiliate marketing.

You start an authority blog that you post to daily, or maybe some smaller blogs that you optimize for SEO then put Clickbank ads on there, or Commission Junction ads.

Or maybe you just build a bloody big list and send them emails every other day recommending products through your affiliate link.

That’s how it works right?

NO!

It’s all big a pile of steaming cow crap, complete with grass poking out the top.

I’ve got a fair idea of what I’m doing with this internet marketing game, and there’s not a chance in HELL that I would ‘do some niche resaerch to find desperate buyers….’ and all that rubbish.

At least not unless I added something of my own.

Because everything EVERYTHING you’ve been taught by 99% of the marketers you listen to is WRONG.

Not intentionally of course – they know what they’re doing and more importantly it’s working for them.

It just won’t work for you very well.

Here’s why.

You’re missing out a vital ingredient.

and that’s YOU.

Your personality.

Let’s back up a second and imagine I have piles. Huge throbbing dangly great hemorrhoids that give me grief day and night.

I snap at the kids, can’t sleep properly and would rather throw myself off a cliff than even THINK about going on a bike ride.

And it’s 3am and I want a cure.

I’ve had enough and I want one now.

I start googling and I come across a handful of sites, one of which is yours.

They all have affiliate links to Clickbank ebooks about how to cure your piles with a wire brush, a 12 year old single malt and a clothes peg (to bite down on)

(I’m being silly of course but there is a point to this)

Which site do I buy from?

Well which site would YOU buy from?

Well personally I would check out at least a couple of these competing sites to see what they had to offer.

And I’d buy from the one that resonated with me the most

The one I related to.

Liked.

Now you don’t have to agree with me (net yet anyway) because there’s more…

Think about the last 5 products you’ve bought online. I’m doing the same while sitting here writing this on a sunny morning at about 7.30am

I bought one of them because I had wanted it for a while but never gotten around to grabbing it.

The other FOUR I bought from links in email from marketers who I like and trust.

I read their blogs, I open their emails.

Now when was the last time you bought something from a random site you visited from a Google search?

Quite a while ago I’d guess.

Oh sure I go Googling for stuff that I need. I get the results and read through a few sites.

I probably type in the word ‘review’ after the product name to get a few opinions on it.

But then when it comes to buying I’ll mostly buy either from the main link (Amazon or Ebay) if it’s a physical thing that needs posting to me, OR if it’s en e-product, course or membership I’ll buy through the guy I’ve either heard of or like the sound of the most.

Why do you think perfume manufacturers, car companies, insurance companies and shedloads of other pay Hollywood stars, sports stars and pop stars to advertise or endorse their products.

Yep that’s right – it’s because we know who they are and the companies assume we’re more likely to buy because of that.

You open my emails right?

Who are your top three favourite marketers (apart from me of course ?

Why do you like them?

They tell the truth, you like their way of imparting information, you trust them

Whatever your reasons just look at WHO you follow and WHAT you buy

How much of that is anonymous – just a random visit to a site or an email from someone you don’t know?

Probably not so much eh?

So why the f*ck are we taught that internet marketing. niche marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing is all about anonymous, sterile, non personality marketing?

Because it ISN’T guys – if you’re doing it like that you’ve got a long hard struggle in front of you to get anywhere.

Several years ago I got an email from a young school teacher who was trying to get into internet marketing. He (flatteringly) called for advice and to ask for a JV which we subsequently did.

We met up for lunch in a pub, had a few pints and chatted about internet marketing.

He was Lee McIntyre, and he’s one of the biggest marketers around now. He’s a great bloke and an outstanding marketer.

And look at the amount of personality he puts into his marketing. ‘Blimey’ and crisp butties.

Little things but they make him real.

It would fall flat on it’s arse if his marketing was crap of course, but it isn’t.

And neither is yours.

If you’ve not hit the success you want at this moment in time try putting your personality into your marketing more. A LOT more.

Look at the ‘new’ marketers who have come through in recent years – Garry Sayer, Simon Greenhalgh, Oz, Mark Lyford, Dean Holland

They’re all personality-driven businesses.

You don’t have to put yourself out in video all the time – I don’t – or be as flamboyant as a gay gypsy, all lyour have to know is let people know your opinions.

Which is what most new marketers are scared of.

I tend to let my opinions loose on my blog and it loses me readers and subscribers.

But it also gets me rabid fans.

If you share your opinions and values it WILL upset some people.

That’s their loss.

You CANNOT please everyone no matter how hard you try…

…so DON’T try.

Be true to yourself and put your personality into your marketing.

Safe is boring.

Reading someone who can see ‘everyone’s side of the argument’ is mind-numbing.

I want to read someone who knows their own mind.

I do quite often get emails from people who say a particular post offended them.

Welcome to real life!

No-one has ever exploded because they read someting that ‘offended’ them.

It’s not being offenseive either, it’s just expressing what you think. If another person CHOOSES to be offended by that well that’s their problem.

Heh I’m waffling – let’s get back on track.

It’s just as important whern you’re marketing to tell people what you DON’T like as well as what you do.

I tried article marketing for quite a few years.

Now I have the honest opinion that anyone who follows advice to ‘write and submit 20 articles a day for two weeks’ needs locking up for their own safety REGARDLESS of the results it brings.

You may disagree

But I think that the internet has changed, and it’s no longer a place where cold hard information is king.

It was, which is why people were making a hundred grand from AdSense ads each month.

But now information is COMMON on the net.

There’s shedloads of it.

What counts now is how it’s presented and who presents it.

We’ve followed how TV works, and now the easiest way to get rich online is to use the marketing skills you’ve acquired since you started – the email marketing, the SEO, the list-building, the blogging, the LOT…

...and inject your own personality into it.

Start a blog.

Find your own style and use it in your emails

You don’t need to pretend to be something you’re not.

You just need your honest opinions, your beliefs and your personality.

Without that you’re just another website.

Let me know what you think – comments below!

Popularity: 15% [?]