It wasn’t a hard sell, as his Bio speaks for himself.

When he arrived, I spent a good deal of time with him both at the convention, but mostly post the convention for a few days in Jerusalem. The advantage to being in close proximity to successful people, is being able to soak up their good habits… sort of like osmosis, as you watch them in the process. So, while we spoke, a lot more was going on while we worked in silence side by side, as I just kept an ear and eye open, silently WATCHING his moves.

I learned a lot from Dr. Kilstein, as did a lot of people attending his speeches, and generous freebie events he held in Jerusalem.

I learned a LOT MORE about benefits (it really will change the way I write copy from now on), I learned about having a business instead of a website (it really will change the way I operate from now on), and I learned about aggressive outsourcing to fill those specific needs that turn ideas into cash (it really will change the way I outsource from now on)….

but if I had to single out what is the #1 secret to Kilstein’s success?

He is FAST. He is QUICK. He is DECISIVE.

For a woman, who can sometimes be overly analytical, and definitely indecisive, it was scary, but also extremely liberating to see.

I decided that I would write this blog post and not worry about how I could have said it much better, or do I have the perfect image to complement the text, or should I run it by a friend first for edits as I often do.

Nope. I am just writing and publishing, and that, yes that too… will really change the way I make things happen from now on.

Thanks Harlan (also for the balance bars!)

Let’s Network the Virtual Way!

Have you ALWAYS wanted to know what it is I do? Well watch this video, and you may know a LITTLE more than you did before. And well, that’s a start.

Please tell me what YOU do. This will help you practice it for future reference, and also help me get to know YOU better. And well, that’s also a start .

This POST is for YOU. I may express my personal thoughts, but it is because I feel your pain, and I want to allow you more opportunities to share YOURS.

For as many searches to my blog for ‘make money online’ stuff, there are equal amounts for ‘Meir’ or ‘Mikey Volk’. I don’t know if this mean my blog sucks or that Meir had an impact on MANY. I’m going with the latter.

The point is, I want YOU to leave comments. Anonymous, or with names, just say hello, and let us know you are still thinking of him. You are not alone. All your comments on previous posts have been very touching.

Last night I attended a ‘Siyum’ in memory of Meir (Mikey) Volk. This is a completion of a significant amount of Torah Study done in honor of his memory. It wasn’t hard to find scholars willing to do this, as Meir had supported so much of their learning with his generosity.

Today I will go to the gravesite.

Someone posed a question last night. How has your life changed in this past year since his passing?

It is not the first, second, or third time I have thought this. It is on my mind quite often.

Everything Meir did was BIG.

His presence was BIG (well over 6 feet tall)

When he spoke about business, it was with a LOT of passion, and excitement

When he spoke on intellectual subjects, your head would swim

When he made money, he made it BIG

When he gave charity, he gave 75 cents to every dollar earned.

The list could go on, but I will allow his family to share the rest as they desire.

The impact he had on my life, my career, my outlook has been just as BIG.

In fact, when I ask how my life has changed… my thought is

“what has stayed the same?”

If you are driving towards a destination (albeit unknown) and suddenly you take a right turn, instead of a left turn, your entire future has changed in that small move.

Thank you Mikey for thrusting my life into the unknown, making me work by butt off, and allowing me to draw from your passion for living to embrace what the future brings.

My sister is getting married in a few weeks.

I wont steal the limelight from those female bloggers who specialize in whining about too many parties and family obligations.

I pretty much have to just show up (6000 miles away) and find something to wear.

The showing up part will begin as my flight is this Saturday night.. first to LA to visit family, and finally arriving in Atlanta for the wedding.

So naturally I waited until this week to start looking for a dress.

In my attempts to avoid wrestling my way through miles and miles of American prom chinze and tafetta to find the perfect dress, I went to a local rental place. I ran into a good friend there who directed me to another place in another area of town. I maneuvered my way through this literal maze and thankfully squeezed my car into some corner. The store has nothing in Navy. Waste of my time. Ok, I didnt want to mention NAVY and why I need to find navy, so don’t get me started.

I noticed another store when I was parking and make my way over there.

It’s around a corner and up stairs. I walk in. The woman working there gives me the once over. Then she says

“we have nothing in your style here”

There is nowhere to go from there except exit. Here I was desperate to get rid of my money and own a dress, and instead I left her alone in her hard to find empty store, with no customers.

With economic times being so tough, can you really afford to sum me up because today I am not dressed like YOU?

You didn’t see me yesterday and you don’t know what I am capable of tomorrow.

Reminds me of the famous scene in Pretty Woman: (its the first minute of this clip)

Q: So I have 2 questions for you:

1. Where can I find a nice long slinky navy dress that doesn’t have rhinestones and flowery yuck all over it?
2. Can you tell me some more Big. Huge. marketing mistakes?

If I asked you to do work for me, but only hinted at a possibility of financial reward…

say a year or two down the road….

what would be your response?

WAIT! Dont answer yet. There is more to the question.

I would require that you give me your best quality labor! Which means not physical work, but to share with me your MIND, perhaps a nice chunk of HEART & SOUL.

And Time.. oh yes, it would require lots and lots of time.

Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

The truth!!!! Not only would you think I am insane, you would probably think me rude, and an assortment of other unmentionables.

and… now you know why sooo many blogs go silent.

There is a HUGE distinction between Blogging for Dollars and Blogging for Impact. In fact, I may start a little controversy here,… and even though I had planned future posts on blogging for ‘money’, I think it is the rare blog that is able to support even ONE individual in a comfortable fashion.

However, let me jump to the Punch Line.

“Good things come to those who wait”

Not too funny, but I will be laughing all the way to the bank.

By Blogging for IMPACT, or SUCCESS, with passion, with YOU in mind, NOT my wallet, many opportunities have come my way.

Israel is hosting it’s first International Affiliate Convention. It is well known to me, not from locals, but from being told the world over, that Israel boasts some of the top Affiliate earners across the board. In fact, I had the great honor of working extremely close with one of them (May he rest in peace).

I will be speaking about ‘Making more money from your traffic’, focusing specifically on List Building and Membership Sites. Come witness live a sexy powerpoint. This 2 day convention is thorough and filled with powerful speakers on an incredibly wide range of topics. I look forward to meeting others. Maybe you?

If you CANT just somehow make it over to the Holy Land, I may figure out a way to get a video clip, images, and well, I can at least share with you some highlights from the event.

Interested in attending? Visit the Affilicon – Affiliate Marketing Conference Now!

To summarize, don’t neglect looking at the BIG PICTURE. Often times We spend so much of our time in our daily microscopic lives, we fail to see the potential in well… in just potential.

I urge you to SEE the potential in the potential.

Have you ever experienced a “Big Picture moment?

As you know I am delivering a series on how to make money online. I was in the middle of composing a post (well now it’s this one) with an accompanying audio podcast (see below) on How to Focus and selecting a target market. I had a previous post on the subject, but I receive SOO much traffic to that page on focusing, I wanted to offer MORE. (here is link to that post)

What happened? I am approached out of the blue by a marketer I admire. His skills are vast. Lets just leave it as that since it’s still an understatement. He is in the mood to do something ‘different’ this week, so he bestows upon me an offer to take advantage of his services for the week for x amount of $. An offer that is very hard to refuse.

I ask him – “How much you can accomplish in a week?”

He responds – “Depends on your leadership.”

Reasonable. But that meant my input would directly affect his output.

However, I had a problem. My Blog! My unpublished posts just waiting…

This is where I come clean. Blogging is NOT my focus, as I am not really a ‘blogger’.

Here is what creates a ‘blogger’:

They start blogging out of passion, interest, online journaling, what have you – working off momentum – 95% QUIT!! or write too infrequently to call it any more than a hobby.

The remaining 5% figure out how to Blog correctly. How? You write good content, engage other bloggers, you include links to other blogs on your site, comment on their site. You WORK IT.

Suddenly those in the last category start earning money! Wow! Then they become ‘bloggers’ aka those who earn from their passion! A great place to be. They also have a responsibility to their readers, and their advertisers to maintain their blog. It may be their main source of income.

I am a blogger who aims to add value but frankly, it’s just a smart move for an online marketer. It’s something we coach people to do. It allows people to locate you, feel your personality out a bit, an ongoing business card.

I love it, and I love your comments, but when given the opportunity to spend a week FOCUSING, while I was composing THIS VERY text, I decided to take immediate action. It will only make me a more valuable blogger in the future.

What IS My Focus:

To Create / Improve revenue producing projects.

And that’s exactly what happened. (Thank you genius!)

I know this may sound a little vague. Isn’t that EVERYONE’s focus? Yes, but most dont actually focus ON IT. They focus on wanting a certain outcome, but dont commit to the steps needed to realize it. You get the difference? Therefore, to focus on something that seems so common actually makes me very unique.

Now I am sharing with you a conversation with Kelly Mccausey, an online marketer after my own heart! All over the place and overqualified, she had her hands in all pots.. but then PULLED the PLUG, and Finally started to earn money.

Watch this video, and listen to the podcast below it for the long version! Enjoy.

Listen to the call here:

Read between the lines and find opportunities where you may not even expect them. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Airplanes!

Here is mine:

‘About Last Night’

I had heard about a local Blogger convention (aka – an evening affair) and understood it to be more of a ‘cultural’ event, then ‘marketing’ event. Hence, I decided not to go.

Last minute I was thinking that right in my backyard are going to be over 100 people who spend a lot of their time doing what I do – staring at this screen I am typing on, and probably at all hours of the day (and night). There has to be some overall chemistry, who knows what can happen.?? Oh, and free food.

I did peg the evening correctly, and therefore am not sure why I was surprised at the lack of conversation about promoting your blog + monetization (which drew laughs from the crowd when it was even suggested). Clearly these people dont know what I know and will be sharing with YOU soon about earning from BLOGGING..

Did you watch my video yet? Well, the funny thing is that I did want to be a little of both ‘wallflower’ and ‘hard to get’.. First of all, I have a long history of thinking that works for me. Not too boisterous, a little mysterious, perhaps even intimidating.. However as a DIRECT response to my OWN video, I shmoozed, I met fellow twitterati, I met other bloggers, other Atlantans, and yes..

I even met..

what could become..

the beginning of a beautiful (business) relationship.

The possibilities are ENDLESS..

I didn’t have a 4 year plan, anticipate my next move, or really… have any choice. I was under a spell.

It started out very innocently. In 1999 I learned some HTML. In 2000 I was hired to work on some websites, and their affiliate links (whatever the heck that meant). A short while after that (and a lot of riduculously interesting information that I am omitting for effect) :

I joined an email list.
Then another.
Then another.
Then I bought an ebook. or two. or three. or ten.
Then I signed up with Site Build it.
Then I stayed awake for 8 pm Eastern time (3 am here) to listen to a teleseminar. again. and again. and again.
Then I was on 30 mailing lists.
Then I bought a coaching program. or two
Then I joined a membership or four.

I witnessed more urgency in a stream of ‘if you dont buy / use this / know this then you will NOT be able to succeed online’ pitches than an Emergency Room MD. Trauma care patients don’t know copywriting like these guys. I wonder if the survival rate would increase if John Carlton was pitching each patients case.

The IM’er (as it is labeled for short) Experience.

Lately I have been ‘hanging around’ (in the Social Media sense) a different online crowd. These people may refer to themselves as Internet Marketers, but many don’t know who Mike Filsaime is, or perhaps even John Reese!

While we are always reinventing ourselves, the IM path may sound something like this.. rich jerk, niche marketing, resale rights, PLR, Warrior Forum, Earn $100 a day, list building secrets, social media domination, adsense is not dead, blah blah blah. A more traditional marketer may have their success tied more to scalability, building relationships, and clients. Their means to an end is to create a self sustaining line of work, and yes, a nice revenue stream. (which could actual happen accidentally rather then intentionally – almost never in the IM’er space)

Life is a series of experiences that mold us into who we are. We are the products of our own ‘choose your own adventure’. I dont mean to sound so holistic here, but I feel I owe respect to the experience I had, even if I am prepared to question the fuel that drives it. I also have more leeway to do such since I am partially responsible for supporting it.

Last week I wrote about the surprise I had attending the Mashable Tel Aviv Event to discover so few marketers were aware of web concepts I have been embracing for so long. I also wrote that I had a half written post to dust off about the subject. Here is that post. Partially.. some of the work was done for me in the meantime:

A few days ago the debate was on full steam, ironically, starring.. John Reese and Mark Hopkins from Mashable..

I don’t see that John has anything he needs to defend. Its like a local musician being accused of ‘selling out’ since he wrote a song that became a top 10 single and made him famous. Yes, you owe a lot to your fans, but it helps to have a lot more of them, and it helps to be able to afford to keep doing what they like you for .

Next the advent of the e-book, while not making many people at home millionaires, due to it’s ‘mass production’ is able to share golden nuggets of how to take advantage of the web for a much lower price tag than hiring consultants. I haven’t earned from each e-book, but I have learned from each one.

Mark – it is simply that as an outsider to an experience you didn’t have, the vision from where you are sitting allows you to see this for what it actually is. Well, what it is to YOU. A survival of the fittest, MLM style society. Hey I hear you – when my friends start pitching AGEL and NuSkin to me (actual network marketing companies) I laugh and roll my eyes in ridicule – and think they are on crack. However, to them its a very real adventure, they love the products, and its potentially lucrative, so who are we to judge? Maybe more people are losing money than earning, but the same 80/20 rule applies to this as with any other industry. Or the more realistic 95/5 – it CAN be done. You CAN become famous in Hollywood. You can get rich online. Just not many will. Should they stop making movies since it fuels others desires to have what they most likely can’t?

For me? It is directly as a result of this experience, one that caused me to part with so much of my hard earned money, and take time away from my family, that I am able to claim what I can today. I may not be able to drink Pina Coladas all day while the money racks up in my account, no Ferrari in the garage, or a house in the Hamptons (as we have been so frequently pitched).. but I most certainly could get a sick paying job in a big firm, could consult with the best.

How?

Because I DIDN’T learn what they teach new college graduates, because I DIDN’T learn traditional marketing. I learned how to market in a way that turns the web into our own personal ATM’s. I learned marketing the Rich Dad way. I am too wise to go back and relive it, but I cant change what I know, and yes.. I actually make money online.

Internet Marketing is definitely poised for a ‘face lift’, I expect a lot more crossover between the two different arenas. However, as long as people wake up and type in ‘make money online from home’ on Google, there will be products created to cater to them.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.