You ever visited a forum to get a review on a particluar method or product before you buy it or start using it in your business?

And you read the following comment:

‘It didn’t work for me’

(I’m told it’s one of the most common refund reasons too).

Five little words that are possibly the most frequently muttered in IM circles.

‘It didn’t work for me’

But those five little words provoke some quite revealing and unanswered questions that are extremely valuable when it comes to getting to know yourself in terms of being an entrepreneur AND possibly explains why you’ve made bugger all money so far.

Think about this:

What’s YOUR definition of something that ‘works’?

It’s very subjective.

Suppose you try a method a technique from a pdf you bought as a WSO and implement the method.

Exactly WHEN does it ‘not work’?

Do you try it for a day?

A week?

A month?

What exactly constitutes failure?

What if it only brings in $15 and the product creator made $100 from the method?

Is that failure?

What if it DOES bring in the $100 but the product creator does it in a week and it takes you two months?

Is THAT failure?

Here’s my hypothesis on how this works. Me included.

I think once you’ve been involved in internet marketing for even a few weeks you create your own ‘ideal magic money machine’ in your head.

It’s your own personal ideal of how much money you’d like to be earning, how long it should take to come in, how much work you’d like to do, and an image of the lifestyle you’re living while doing it.

I had my ideal when I first started in IM.

I knew what I liked doing, how much work I liked to do in a day, how much money I wanted to earn, and how I wanted my lifestyle to be.

Have I acheived that?

Does my reality match up to my dream?

No it most certainly does NOT.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m not happy with what’s going on in my business, or that I don’t feel fulfilled. I am both. EXTREMELY.

It’s just that your dreams rarely live up to reality.

I’m typing this while in the middle of a summer cold. Blocked up nose, piles of papers, folders and books on my desk. Total mess.

The car needs the brakes checking over, my T-shirt is ever so slightly streteched over my belly because I’ve just had a big breakfast and a small project I worked on last week in another niche has BOMBED big time.

Compare that with the reality of wandering across the beach in your bare feet launching your latest product and watching the sales roll in. I’ve done that too as I manage to remind you every chance I get.

But it ain’t the day to day reality of things going wrong, feeling like chucking the PC out of the window because Dreamweaver is being a total tosser or spilling a coffee over your keyboard.

Easy for me to say when the money is coming in eh?

Well think about this –

You think your dream is JUST to be able to make money online?

If you had the green stuff flowing in you wouldn’t care HOW it arrived?

You’re wrong if you think that, trust me.

There are things you just WILL not do.

If you don’t believe me then wny aren’t you making 30 videos for your first product right now?

Or writing 30 articles per DAY to start your own PLR article site?

Because no matter what you (or I) believe, in the western world we’re lucky enough NOT to have our backs against the wall that much. (not yet anyway)

We’re not watching our children go hungry. I don’t know about you but if I was in that situation and it could be cured by writing 30 articles a day I’d be typing through the night.

And I was the same when I got into IM

I knew exactly what would bring me the money I needed.

HARD WORK.

STUFF I DIDN’T WANT TO DO.

BORING REPETITIVE TASKS

UNCOMFORTABLE, OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE SITUATIONS.

And I just didn’t want to do ANY of them.

So did I heroically struggle through all of the above to break through into the warm sunlight of success?

Did I balls. No way.

I found every excuse under the sun not to do anything I didn’t want to do.

Instead I watched what other people were doing and bought products BUT ONLY IN THE AREAS I WAS INTERESTED IN.

I don’t particularly like article marketing even though it was really big at the time. I love writing but only if it’s what I like to write. Writing 400 words on genital herpes is NOT how I want to spend my sunday.

So I mostly ignored article marketing.

Blogging however, and newsletter based products were DEFINITELY high up on my interest level, so I investigated this area, bought products on it and worked at it.

And I worked my ARSE off without actually realising it. I really enjoyed it so it was a totally natural thing when money started rolling in from it.

Now to be fair to anyone who’s just starting out today, there wasn’t the constant ‘noise’ that there is today. I’m talking about information overload.

There are new products and techniques and methods and WSO’s coming out every single day, and unless you’re some sort of willpower guru you’re going to buy and try some of them. Maybe a lot of them.

I do.

It’s human nature and while you can’t fight it all the time, there are things you can do to help your business along.

So here’s what you need to do to create a successful online business in my view.

And it IS this simple.

You need to go back to basics and look at the stuff that works:

Blogging

Creating and selling your own products

Affiliate marketing

Buying traffic to put into your funnel (most definitely the fastest)

Developing software

There are more of course, but I focus on the above because that’s where my interest and expertise lies.

The other thing you need to do is to be honest with yourself.

Instead of saying ‘It didn’t work for me’

Try saying to yourself:

‘Well I HATED every minute of that, couldn’t really be arsed to put the work in and I’m not altogether convinced it was right for me’

Don’t do stuff you hate just because other people have had success with it, if it;s something you’re likely to dislike doing. You just won’t get anywhere.

Also consider this.

The internet marketing dream is like your ideal woman or man.

How often does anyone marry the ideal image you had at 16 or 17?

You meet someone who BECOMES your ideal (if you’re lucky)

Things change, and in IM that’s a good thing.

The stuff you initially fancied doing, like perhaps those big six and seven figure clickbank launches we had a few years back could now seem like WAY too much hassle.

Instead you might discover you’re happy bringing in a few thousand a month just writing a newsletter about hand-made model soldiers because it’s where your interest lies.

Whatever it is, you need to figure out what constitues ‘it’s working’ for you.

How fast do you want to see results, how much money, in what areas, and doing what sorts of tasks?

Work out the above, and you can select the latest new shiny products and wso’s to try – but ONLY if they fit the bill of how YOU want to work.

You’ll find success much quicker doing that because you’ll filter out all the stuff that works for other people but isn’t right for you. Dump it. Even if it does work for you it’ll seem like pulling teeth in the long run.

No matter how much other people say a technique works, if it’s not something you want to do then you’re gonna fail.

Comments welcome – what do YOU think?

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> Continuity programs
> Recurring payments
> Membership site
> Subscribers

Whatever you want to call it, in my opinion having regular monthly payments come in for a product or service you provide is the BIGGEST SINGLE ADVANCE you’ll ever have in your online business.

You already know all the stuff about only having to make the sale once, having some security to your business etc

The fact is this.

If you know that on the 17th of the month, $9,756 is going to drop into your account as your members are rebilled you feel SAFER.

My first major continuity site added $10,000 to my monthly income in a little over 24 hours.

It feels good.

I now have multiple continuity programs at different pricepoints in the IM niche, and some not in the IM niche.

So let’s cut down to the gristle and ask the awkward question:

‘So why doesn’t everyone have a continuity program or membership site?’

The answer is because your approach to continuity is plain old DUMB

Mine was too.

If I told you to set up a continuity program your dumb old mind would come up with a dozen reasons why you couldn’t.

It’s like sexual fetishes.

We each have our own particular dark secret.

Mine was the technology behind it. Still is to an extent.

Yours might be not having a product, or being scared that nobody will subscribe, or being left having to create a monthly product when only three people have subscribed.

All the above are BOLLOCKS.

They are NOT valid reasons for not setting up your own continuity site and therefore starting out on a successful business.

I know all the above are about being SCARED.

That’s fine too if you want to be a feathery clucker all your life.

I was bloody terrified when I pressed the ‘send’ button on my frst big continuity. I was bricking it.

Remember I had no problem with the idea for the product but I was extremely anal about the mechanics behind it all.

Passwords, logins, forgotten login details, membership ‘levels’ and areas, support, product delivery, php, coding….

I was really uncomfortable with it all.

Then I realised one thing.

This tiny realisation has probably made me more money online than any other single thing.#

Ready for this?

ALL YOU NEED TO SET UP A SUCCESSFUL MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM IS A SUBSCRIPTION BUTTON!

Honestly.

If you create a payment button in Paypal or Clickbank for (for example) $9 that is set to rebill every month, you’ve got a continuity program that will have a MASSIVE effect on your income.

The rest doesn’t bloody matter.

My first major success in continuity was delivered by a link to a pdf in an autoresponder message sent out every month.

There were no logins or anything. No members area.

Just good honest info delivered by autoresponder follow up message. As they joined they got message one. I’d only actually created message one at this point 🙂

Then at regular intervals set by me in Aweber they recieved the next message giving them a link to the next part of the course. Same thing the next month…

When people unsubscribed I had to manually remove them from the autoresponder list.

But I was making $10,000 from this program alone so what do you think I did?

Yep – hired someone to do the admin and support for me. It only took me 30 minutes a day anyway.

I made around a quarter of a million from that clunky membership.

So set up your subscription button.

Get your first month (or week or whatever) of content ready and deliver it in the easiest way possible.

I wasted MONTHS fannying around with various scripts and plugins trying to get the perfect membership area going.

I should have realised it’s all about giving people what they want. They don’t actually CARE that you’re running the lastest version of whatever plugin to ‘handle the back end’

I know people who have paid thousands for ‘hand coded solutions’ for their membership areas who then make $40 a month from them. These are the same arseholes who email me to say I’d be ‘better off delivering my content in a different way. Here’s what THEY use…’

Come back when you’re making five figs a month from your fancy plugin mate eh?

I’m being snotty of course. But my point is the one I made earlier…

You ONLY need a subscription button that is going to rebill your customer the same time next month to have a continuity program. Figure the rest out as you go along.

It’s easy to make a password protected directory. Sure all your members will have the same password and username but they don’t sit around talking to each other. They’re too busy reading your excellent content.

Change it monthly and you’re 90% secure.

Don’t obsess about theft.

YES some people will nick your stuff. It WILL get stolen and published on the web.

If Time Warner and EMI can’t stop it then you’ve bugger all chance sunshine.

So concentrate on making the sale and giving good value.

AND getting those recurring billings in every month.

Deliver it by autoresponder, or updating a ‘secret’ website every month. It doesn’t have to be high-tech.

Will other marketers laugh at your clunky delivery. Probably. Do you really care what other marketers think about you? If you do, get out now.

Flee.

When you get your membership site going you will see the biggest difference EVER in your online business and finances.

I promise you.

Not only will 90% of your financial pressure vanish overnight, but you’ll have more focus. Instead of having to create and promote new products all the time, ALL you’ll need to do is promote your membership site.

When you get each new subscriber in there you’ve got recurring payments coming in every month.

Affiliates will promote continuity much more too.

And think on this…

If you get just 180 subscribers (6 a day for a month) you’ll be earning a recurring $3,060 a month.

Keep on doing that and, well I can’t do the maths but you’ll end up with $20,000 a month in a very short time.

All you need to do is keep more in than leave.

Seriously, honestly, genuinely, sincerely…..if you do just ONE thing this year for your business, work on a membership site.

It’ll change your life.

Comments welcome

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When I lost my virginity – my promo virginity I should say…

It was one wet and rainy Saturday afternoon, about 4pm.

We had just launched our first totally online ebook and to be honest with you I can’t even remember what it was called.

It was the first EVER promo we sent and we sent it via an AOL personal account. Didn’t even know what an autoresponder service was at that time. We had simply been adding email addresses to the AOL account. There were no permissions asked, no unsubscribe links. It was all very amateur and dodgy.

We had 4,000 people on the list. Or crammed into the address book of the AOL account is probably a better description.

We sent out details of the new ebook, giving the URL to the salespage.

After 500 had gone out AOL limited the account because they thought we were sending spam.

We got round this by sending 100 emails at a time. It took quite a while.

Once the last batch was sent we went back into the inbox to look for Paypal notifications to see if anyone had bought the ebook.

It was priced at $27.

I’l never forget the feeling as I saw ‘Notification of Payment’ emails FILLING UP the entire screen of my inbox. The inbox screen displayed just 20 emails at a time but it still impressed me.

As I refreshed the screen I could see NEW SALES dropping in every few minutes.

I couldn’t quite pinpoint the emotions I was feeling.

Obviously ‘Bloody Hell!’ and ‘Oh My God’ came into it…

But mainly I knew I had opened a door I could never, ever close.

I knew there was no going back to any other way of making a living. I forgot the work I’d put into writing the book, creating the salespage, making a (seriously crap) website to show it all off…

…and just concentrated on the warm fuzzy feeling of watching money drop into my Paypal account from nowhere.

In 24 hours we’d made a little over $4,000

That’s around $1 per person on the list.

Fast forward to this week.

I saw a product I really liked and was pretty sure it would help my subscribers. I signed up as an affiliate, wrote a brief email designed to grab interest and get the reader to the salepage for more details.

It took me 10 minutes.

I pressed send and 24 hours later I had around $600 in my account.

Now do the sums for that.

If a marketer getting an average result like that sends two promos a week (that’s 8 a month) for a whole year he’ll make $57,600 a year JUST from sending promo emails to a list.

Over the years I’ve built lists of over a million people. Now hang on that’s nowhere NEAR my list size now because most unsubscribe after a certain time. That’s the nature of IM

My list is less than 40,000 people now because I regularly ‘prune’ the dead wood from it (people who haven’t bought for a certain amount of time etc)

How I do things isn’t to everyone’s taste either. I’m not a ‘vanilla’ marketer that everyone thinks is ‘OK’

Rather I’m a liquorice and blackberry flavour that you either love or hate.

But you can see that my list isn’t huge. It’s responsive but not huge. Most of my IM mates have lists WAYYYY bigger than this. Maybe not as responsive tho.

Speaking from experience, if you build a list of 10,000 people – which if you work at it can take just a couple of months, you can generate an income of $40,000 a year if you’re willing to mail three times a week. That’s from just blasting the buggers with promos.

We have a list (different business) where all we do is mail a list of about 5,000 people three times a week with related promos. That’s it. That brought in just under $20,000 last year. The work took about an hour a day, for just three days a week. Finding related promos, writing an email and sending it.

More if you’re willing to do blog posts and build a relationship with them.

I enjoy having a relationship with my list. This is why there’s great interaction on my blog posts and my ticket desk.

Some marketers think building a relationship is like trying to befriend your lobster just before you have him for supper.

It’s like a circumscised man. Pointless.

And to be honest it’s EASIER not to build a relationship.

A mate of mine – an American marketer – is a GENIUS at this. I won’t name names but you’d know him. He constantly list builds and constantly mails it. That’s his business.

He loves it. I don’t know for sure what he earns but high six, low seven figures a year sounds right.

You getting this?

What I’m saying is that YOU CAN CUT OUT ALL THE OTHER CRAP THAT YOU HATE IN INTERNET MARKETING…

IF you build a list.

It’s GENUINE money on tap.

It WILL change your life.

Come a little closer to the screen and listen up:

“What the f*ck are you doing messing about with article marketing, or fannying about building a tropical fish Adsense site?”

You don’t need to create products, ‘establish a brand’ or anything like that. You may want to do that later with money in your pocket.

Many prospects actively DISLIKE it when you try to make friends with them. They simply want recommendations that they wouldn’t otherwise know about.

You want to make money in Internet Marketing?

HERE’S what you need to do to make money.

1. Build a list as big and as fast as you can in the IM niche. This will help with the ‘how’

2. Find products to recommend to it

3. Press ‘send’

Once you’re earning $4,000 a month from doing this, THEN you can start a blog about ‘Flower Pressing For Conspiracy Theorists’

Yesterday I recommended an easy to follow, very effective course that will show you how to build a list and become an email marketer.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

Honestly guys, there IS a magic button out there where you just press a button and it pushes money into your account. It’s called email marketing.

It’ll involve some work but it’s worth it more than ANYTHING I’ve ever come across in IM

Comments most DEFINITELY welcome.

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