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- Oct 5th, 2007
- 3 Comments
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My last post I wrote that Brad Fallon, of Stomping the Search Engines, had spoken on the Next Internet Millionaire Episode six, but I couldnt recall what he said.. yet I continued to go on and on about my plans for reaching my goals of online success. Hello! What Brad said is essentially THE MOST important piece of the puzzle for my new venture.
I understood Brad to be a search engine guy, so was not expecting to hear the following ideas (some verbatim) from him..
If you want to make a lot of money fast - you may be going after a really big hit without even getting in the game.. how do you get there faster? How can you make your business a success? Well by not doing stuff! The less YOU do, the more you will make. . money you can get back - time you can’t. If you are the only person getting things done, a lot less will get done. If you want to learn a business, it’s about leverage.
One of the issues I had with my past J.O.B was the refusal to follow that. To spend more to make more. To be many places in the same time. Even though the company tries to adopt many Rich Schefren business principles and attitudes, if you try to do it all yourself.. it wont get done.
Unless someone can locate an ebook or abridged version, I am on my way to purchase the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss, who outsources his life. I realize this is an elitist attitude, since it’s great advice for the people who buy his book, but we can only take advantage of this as long as there are others who dont
.
Lining up nicely with this is a new free report created by Russell Brunson, called the IM-Myth. Russell implemented
offline marketing into his marketing mix and has tripled his business every year since!
It was literally a 20 minute read, and VERY worthwhile. At first glance I was highly skeptical and not sure I would make the time for it.. why? Apparently, He and I had both purchased the same book by Vince James about how he earned a hundred million in a year. While I found the book overpriced, overwhelming and daunting, Russell was excited and contacted Mr James about putting it into action. Personally I felt that Mr James approach was for those with capital to lose and targeted a very small %age of the society of actual risk takers and doers. The IM-Myth, which I found to be a MUCH BETTER read, simplified it in a way that makes taking online to offline in such a simple, clear, precise way. Now, I too am excited! Russell provides you with examples, necessary resources, and even his staff to help you get it going! Check it out… for Free..
My Toshiba literally just totally DIED on me. My warranty, naturally, ended a month ago. It seems to be a motherboard problem. I am getting 12 flashing lights on the power when I press the on button - nothing else.. sooo sad about this. Just as I was planning my get up and go.. starting Sunday, I now have to find a reliable repairman - no Toshiba authorized service center here.. Thank g-d for the kid’s PC!
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- Sep 28th, 2007
- 1 Comments
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As mentioned, I have just been put in the in the position to leave a position I have held for 7 years. Even if you live a full 120, 7 years is a NICE chunk of time! Even more so when you are also busy making/raising a family, enjoying your youth, trying to save for the future, etc..
As a baseball fan, I find it ironic that this is my 2nd time in row leaving a position after 7 years. My 7th inning Stretch.
7 years is long enough to build relationships, loyalty, and get into a comfortable groove. It has to be meaningful. It just HAS to. Can you imagine if you look back and say “I cant believe I spent 7 years of my life devoted to this x and I am no where to show for it?” Our time is too short.
Other than building relationships with my employer, and others.. how can I look back at these years and attach meaning to them, so they dont just get jumbled up with another experience to move beyond.
In a nutshell, and as usual since I am in a rush, I would say that I gained - MY FUTURE! I had left a desk job to start working from home doing affiliate marketing. Whatever the heck that meant. It was the year 2000! Google didnt even exist.. Yes, I was ‘trained’ to do the simple tasks I had to do, but the rest.. and there is such a lot of rest - came from my interest, and need to devour all on the subject. Even though I was not responsible from my employer to go beyond our original terms, it quickly became evident that there was so much possibility on the web, and I spent my own funds and my own time to build myself an education.
Many IM’ers will tell you about how much they bought, how much money they spent, and how little they have to show for it. You can look at it that way. Or you can say look at how much you KNOW now that you didnt know. Didnt turn it into cash?? Thats unfortunate, but if you put it in perspective, every $67 ebook, every $247 course, every $29.95 membership has contributed to an education that puts you notches ahead of the regular population and how they view the Net. Dont ever forget that! Create a certificate if you must and hang it on your wall. I know I deserve it now.
THE DOCTOR IS IN.
Part 11 coming - have a good weekend!
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- Sep 21st, 2007
- 3 Comments
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Recently I was so overwhelmed that I had a visceral reaction.
What caused me to feel soooo overwhelmed, when I am usually pretty lacking in the emotional department?
THE POSSIBILITIES AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY!!!
When you see the Web as I do, it is one cash vault after another…. and regardless of which direction you choose, you cant possibly leverage the web to do it ALL..
With so many Web 2.0 Social Networking sites up..
How many of you are taking advantage of them ALL to their fullest possibilities?
How many are even scratching the surface?
So imagine if you were aware of not only the vastness of all the WAYS to promote your ideas, but the IDEAS themselves were in great numbers… Can YOU imagine the feeling???!!
It is IMPOSSIBLE to Hit all the POSSIBILITIES…
Unless you are in a great groove and doing extremely well in one market.. here is a possible solution:
If you have the capital to afford, you can hire several people to each specialize in a different area and hit as many areas as you can. Most people will work for a decent price since they will appreciate the education you are providing - you could possibly even get interns! Then if one area does particularly well, ramp it up a bit, and find which works for you. Now I know this is a focused persons nightmare, but I dont know if it works anymore to JUST be doing one thing or another.
Many potential employers will ask you where do you want to see yourself in 3 or 5 years from now? Yes, we have all answered that question.. but with the fast cash being made on the latest web trends, the ONLY answer will be .. “if done right, whatever terms we make today will seem SO ridiculous in a few years from now”…. and if you are working on the web, whether as an employee, moonlighter, or BOTH, and this is NOT the case for you.. then you will have to live with all the money lost, and all the millionaires that were created while you trudged along slowly.
So what is it YOU do?
*Rat Race worker who moonlights on the web hoping it will take you somewhere
*A WAHM doing some ecommerce site/service in order to be home with your children
*An affiliate marketer with either a list, or PPC arbitrage, etc.
*A niche marketer making money off your niche via affiliate sales, product creation, etc.
*A consultant helping others get started online via specific services - IM in general, copywriting, etc..
*A web person building sites, SEO, what have you
*An adventurous on the fringe player making money with whatever is the latest trend
*A Resale Rights marketer
*An employee for a marketing company work in or out of an office
or
OTHER -
I probably listed more options than there are people reading this blog .
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- Aug 29th, 2007
- 2 Comments
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Two days ago I was composing an email attempting to negotiate an ‘I am worth more than you want to pay me’ deal.
I was pretty pleased with the results. Therefore, when my brother Jaron, king of the one liners, negotiator par excellance, hollywood mega bachelor, signed on IM, (ok usually that means Internet Marketing, but now it means instant messenger), I was ready to show it off.
A word about my brother. There are very few people who you will meet in this life who possess his unique combination of talents. When he walks into a room, you NEED more oxygen, since his presence takes up so much of the space. No, he is NOT fat, he just commands attention. Yet he is also a best friend, generous, and very self aware. He can walk into well established companies , and without understanding their product, identify their weeknesees and how to improve. He is NOT a sounding board, rather a problem solver. Period.
I saved our IM conversation. You can see my minimal input in (paranthesis)
To start it off I told him I wrote an email I want him to take a look at….that I was trying to negotiate a better deal for myself..
He knows no details, situation, etc.. but takes off…
“rule one about negotiating”
“and theres only one”
“cant negotiate unless you can walk away”
“if you can and i think you can, do it”
(read this beauty of an email I wrote (not included here)).
“you want my opinion?”
“keep it in your journal and write something more appropriate”
“he’s not your friend”
“he sounds like a lover”
“too much info in here”
(but… we are friends)
“but this email is not about friends”
“its about biz”
“you need to separate the two”
“it has both sides in there”
“and i know you are friendly”
“but that doesnt make it sound professional”
“you need to trim the fat, take out the emotion, take out advising him on what to do, and make it streamlined…”
“here’s the deal etc”
“what I want”
“so just write one paragraph to him”
“he knows the deal”
(but he MAY not know..)
“doesnt matter”
“he doesn’t need to know”
“you don’t need to tell him anything”
“it sounds juvenile”
“i dont understand the pay structure”
(I write it one sentence)
“for starters that needs to change”
“listen”
“you need to be compensated on results + time”
“you need to be compensated on a sliding scale”
“depending on whether it’s your idea or you are doing his”
“if you come up with something your percentages are higher and your still paid your hourly wage to execute”
“and if its his, you execute at a less percentage and the same hourly wage”
“either way, you need to tell him what you want to make”
“that number should be about 25% higher than what you’ll accept”
(I say he is funny)
“its true”
“but lay it out in a few sentences”
“people who are curt are taken more seriously”
“tell him you’re out of there if these requests are not met”
“tell him you have money coming in from other places now and it doesnt pay to keep doing his work when you’re making more from other sources”
(I say lies. all lies (well mostly
))
“welcome to biz 101″
“the art of negotiating”
“thats why im great at it”
“be strong and short”
(arent you nervous to piss people off?)
“never. liars speak too much”
“i can always walk”
“i say it in 3 sentences or less”
“and tell them if this doesnt work out hopefully we can do business sometime when it does”
“no hard feelings”
“keep it simple”
“if you talk too much they know you need them”
“and its emotional”
“keep emotion out of it”
“otherwise your transparent”
“it shows youre hurt”
(you speak this way to women too?)
“honestly? im the most honest person”
“i truly never lie”
“i dont need to”
“and i tell them that”
“i tell girls and people in biz, im too fantastic to lie to you”
“you’re not worth me lying”
“think about how strong that statement is”
“i dont need to lie”
“i dont care enough”
“its such a strong position”
“i just dont wont to be in business/relationship with someone who doesnt get me/it”
(Yes.. the “I couldnt be bothered”.. my motto for over 2 decades)
“but its not apathy”
“its genuine”
“theres a fine line”
“its kindness”
“not rude”
“its strength”
(I interrupt to mention something benign like an analogy of how it’s nicer for a girl to reject a guy than string him along or some personal issue but here is FOCUS for you)
“lets not talk about that right now”
“tell me what you want”
“per hour and percentage”
“what you want to make for the year”
“and come in aggressive”
“get his attention or you’ll be ignored”
“then you want to own a piece of your ideas”
“compensated with a greater percentage when the idea comes from you”
(me: anyways I get what I get per hour if I am shining his shoes or giving him million $ ideas)
“exactly”
(approval! Score!)
“dont explain that to him, he knows it already”
“just tell him what you want”
“and when he plays dumb and asks then you can tell him”
“dont talk too much”
“keep it short”
“just stick to the facts and write it”
Well what do you think I did in the end?
… I sent my original email minus one line (it was 3:00 AM & I was not going to compose a new one)… … HOWEVER .. the lesson he offered has been heard loud and clear and as most lessons.. as you are educated and mature, you incorporate more of these tools for when you need them next and are better prepared.
What do you think of this negotiating style? How do you negotiate?
Here is a great quote from Liz Strauss from a comment on getting your worth
“If there was a problem on their end, we negotiated how we might make it work by adjusting the job, not the price.â€
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- Aug 14th, 2007
- 7 Comments
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What is an affiliate thief? Well it could be you and me.
2 categories:
1) Clickbank Thief. Deserves its own category. Most affiliate programs DO NOT allow you to purchase and earn for yourself a commission, or rather, spare yourself at least 50% of the expense. Clickbank does. If you notice affiliate marketers pining for your purchase with their amazing bonus offers, it is in large part due to this.
2 caveats:
a) In order to receive the money from clickbank which you accrue while buying items with your own affiliate link, you need to have made sales through several money mediums, 2 types of credit card, + paypal, so unless you are actually also selling to the public at large, you will have a hard time getting hold of your money… ( I speak from experience People!)
b) When it comes to Internet Marketing, once you are clued in enough to realize you can legally do this, it is usually since you have purchased so many IM products and still not found success or that which you find worthy of devoting enough time. Honestly, there should be some allowances for those people who are really interested in testing out a new product, but keep saying NO MORE BUYING, but cant help it every time a product launch is froth with irresistable copy, and underneath is really a sub par product, that you somehow already own something similar in your OWN NAME in a jumbled up collection of products you bought resell rights for!
2) Human Nature.
People do NOT like to see others succeed. I dont know why. If you knew that an item would cost the EXACT same if you were to click on their link and help them earn a few bucks, or if you were to clear your cookies, or open up another browser and NOT buy it through their link.. then WHY oh WHY would you NOT help the individual who sent you there? I find myself guilty of this if it’s a fellow IM’er who I know and I dont want them to know that I am yet again purchasing more products.
Human Nature is a funny thing. When I was auditioning for the NEXT Internet Millionaire Reality Show, I asked people in the Stomper forum (during my trial membership) to vote for me. One woman wrote.. I gave you a 9, since I wanted to reserve the right to give someone else a 10. Lady you can give us all 10’s, I mean GEE WHIZ… some people… none of those videos deserved even a 9 !!
Sorry for that little tangent…
I recently read a report that recommended using http://www.pinurl.com to mask your affiliate links and allow your link to be cookied and avoid people working HARD (yes, some people spend time on stealing your commissions, with NO benefit to them whatsoever).. You just paste the affiliate link and they supply you with a nice truncated code that is indiscernable.
For example. Lets say I wanted you to sign up to Clickbank, so you could sell the items from their marketplace and make tons and tons of money , but instead of mentioning the word Clickbank, I would refer to it as ‘a treasure trove of available affiliate products with skyrocketed commissions that will result in easy no brainer residual income for you’ (good copy on the fly eh? ). YOu may be intrigued to click. So which link would get you more:
http://pinurl.com/27i (What pinurl provided for me)
or
http://theresults.aff20.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BLOG (the actual affiliate link)
or
http://andreayager.com/recommends/clickbank.html (this is a very popular way to indirectly bring visitors to a site via an affiliate link)
or lets be honest… after seeing one of the last two choices, would you just click http://www.clickbank.com and cut out (at not cost to you) the affiliate marketer?
Are you an affiliate thief?
~~ andrea
P.S. I have been testing out different solutions to combat affiliate thief’s. The first Affiliate Cloner is really easy to use and creates really short and sweet links.
The second, Affiliate Link Cloaker is like the Ferrari Enzo of tools to fight the affiliate theif’s. I have been using it for nearly 1 year. It’s really good at creating professional links that don’t look like affiliate links. Go beat up the affiliate thief today and make them cry rivers and earn more cash!
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- Aug 9th, 2007
- 5 Comments
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As a professional blog imitator, I cant help but notice all the stuff happening on the side columns on many blogs. In my spare seconds, I check out these sidebar features to decide what I NEED to add to my site.
My coolest find? Ironically the one I rejected for a long time. I just didnt see the need to have a few faces of my recent visitors. Well dont judge a book by it’s cover!!
Check out the far right column of this blog - MyBlogLog. It may just appear to you as a list of people who have come round this blog, (all those links go to people whose faces I have seen visiting my site.. this is my thanks back!) but it turns out… it is SO much more. This baby is so neat, I feel like a voyeur on my own site! Once you add the code to your site, they offer crazy stats on your site. I realize Google Analytics probably offers what they offer + more, but it cannot be as simple and easy to understand. Even from Google.
With the stats, I can tell which links were clicked on, and how many times. I can tell which pages were viewed. I can also tell on which sites people clicked to find me, and what time of the day. EVERYDAY.
Here is just a handful of searches on Google that resulted in a click to my site. This means I either showed up in the top 10 (or very near it!) for that keyword:
Google Search: how to email course
Google Search: sales page copywriter
Google Search: rich schefren negative
Google Search: adwords still good ?
Google Search: some easy online steps to make gold in wow (World of Warcraft?? How did that happen!)
Google Search: andrea yager
Google Search: the attention age doctrine part ii
Google Search: next internet millionaire trailer
Google Search: mailing marketing glossary 1
Google Search: adwords salary
Google Search: next internet millionaire reality show videosThis information may not excite you, but with the correct blog and a nice amount of traffic. it could be very powerful.
Since I started writing this post, I realized that feedburner also started offering these stats for free. I just turned them on, so I cant speak for them yet.
What cool sidebar features have you discovered, benefited from, recommend highly, or advise to avoid?
~~andrea
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- Aug 6th, 2007
- 7 Comments
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Fortunately and Unfortunately I need your help. The last few days my blog had some server issues and now that I am able to post, my baby decided to sleep 8 hours in a row last night (yah!), leaving me on the verge of a breast infection today (blah!). I am in pain, and waiting for the tylenol to do what it can. The added bonus - my car has no a/c and I live in the Middle East and I was out all day in 100F, so I am just barely alive. Can you help me finish my thoughts today (or buy me a new car :)!)?
Over dinner a few nights ago, there was a conversation between myself and Others who DONT get ‘the whole web thing’.
They agreed that when starting any new business venture, online or offline, solid good advice is to look around at others in your field, either in your ‘niche’ or just generally successful, and imitate them.
This is not to suggest common practice where I live - that you open a ‘felafel store’ next door to another ‘felafel store’ since they appear to be raking it in.
However, if you visualize the internet as it is.. the biggest strip mall EVER.. (you know what I mean by strip right?? I am out of the USA so long I just want to make sure this is the proper term! ).. that means we may all be opening up stores right ‘next to each other’ but the ENTIRE WORLD is our potential customer. That leaves plenty to go around, and room for very healthy competition!
The conversation continued…
Fine!! Agreed. Free Market Economy. Enough to go around. Snoop on your competitors, interview their friends and friends of their friends and milk them for details, do what you have to, but…
Why link to someone who is your competitor??
(Disclaimer - I cant shine the shoes of those ’supposed competitors’ but a healthy self esteem cant hurt, eh?)
Reebok and Nike / Pepsi and Coke / Walmart and K-Mart - competitors for generations. Can you picture them helping the other out? That may have saved them a lot of Advertising money!
Naturally a Blog, with nothing to sell, except the persona behind it, cannot exist in a vacuum.
Are we reaching who we want/need to by reaching out to each other?
To be perfectly honest, I could be completely off here. As cathartic and enjoyable as I find blogging, it was (is?) intended to be another piece in the puzzle towards helping me reach my online goal$$. I am currently not in a position, with a young family, to be writing only for pleasure (of course it helps that it offers me pleasure). Are you?
How do YOU explain this unique online relationship?
P.S - as I was searching for my last link love…. check out this post (will open new window). How ironic to stumble across Garry’s post as I was writing mine..and frankly alittleLOT terrifying.
~~andrea
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- Jul 27th, 2007
- 3 Comments
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I want to write about something very important. I have split it into 2 parts.
One is practical and one is philisophical.
In order to not have one part get lost due to too much information, I am going to write the 2nd part in my next post.
First the practical:
In a post a few days ago, that was way too long, I mentioned the following attitude I developed after becoming aware of Internet Marketing, making money online, anything and everything to do with my newfound relationship between myself, my computer, and the impact it potentially had on my financial future:
“I would walk around very smug, looking at the regular rat-race crowd with pity that they were not clued into what I had discovered - like a hidden treasure….”
At the expense of everything else, with a full blown head, I slowly disappeared from my former life.
Ok, I said this was the practical post, so let me get to it. If it sounds cryptic it is because everything takes me much longer than I would like, and because I think most people will probably appreciate me just getting to the POINT!!
When I disappeared from my life, that included ignoring the local success I had built up for myself by opening a local ’service’ business. I was constantly being complimented for ‘what a great idea’ and ‘keep us up to date on everything you do’. Yet that pot of gold at the end of the internet rainbow was tugging on me and I could not fight it!!
I gave the locals the excuse that I was busy having babies, which is not untrue, but it was just that - an excuse for running in the ground something that had helped support my family for almost a decade!
Thankfully I have always kept someone on staff to keep us from losing our reputation, knowing somehow, somewhere that I would be an idiot to completely dump it.
CUT to this past week. I had a client who BEGGED me to work for him. He agreed to all my terms plus My mom is in town to help with the baby. I had NO excuse. So guess what happened???
I made $600 this week!!
I am holding myself back from saying ‘Instead of constantly sucking more money into my online ventures’, since I have faith in these and KNOW good will and has come from it, but to have walked away from the computer, helped a local in a way few can, hear tons of !!!! (exclaimations ) from the locals about me being back in biz, well I just felt compelled to remind you fellow marketers on a mission:
Dont BITE the hand that feeds YOU!
I would have been the first to tell you to quit your job, and jump in. I believe we can all succeed online, but in some ways it could be like a lottery, and that may be too big a gamble for some people, or take longer than you can afford to wait.
Too many marketers burn the midnite oil, lose other opportunities, and destroy relationships, and their REAL true sources of income, for this unknown, and are unprepared for the fierce competition…
Walk slowly and patiently towards your goal, acquire online friends and mentors, and
be careful.
~~andrea
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- Jul 25th, 2007
- 4 Comments
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Just last week I blogged about being spammed unnecessarily by some lists. I signed up for good content, and do not begrudge the product pitches since these guys deserve to make their living too, assuming that I will still receive the content I expect. However, most have turned into a pitch a minute. Hence the question you will see at that post.
Moving on to my next Email Marketing question. I was debating with a friend:
Do reminder emails in a NICHE market (not IM) work?
I complained that the more repeat emails:
“in case you missed it”
“only 4 more bonuses left”
“Andrea, did you see this?”
only left me feeling that each email carried with it less importance, less content, and that I could afford to miss out on them, since they were becoming repetitive. When this happened, I actually began to miss out on emails with real content, since I became ‘used’ to NOT opening the emails anymore.
My friend insists that what I am saying is possibly true, but NOT in a niche market. In those markets, your subscribers continue to read the emails with relish, take you seriously, regardless of repeat reminders (for which they actually THANK YOU).
I disagreed with him until tonight. Tonight I am sitting in his shoes. I am hosting an event tomorrow and most definitely will be sending out a reminder email tomorrow. Not only do I know that the email will NOT turn off my subscribers, many, as just mentioned, will appreciate the reminder email, and possibly even remember that they wanted to send it to friends as well..
Moral of the story??
DO NOT DELAY.. Start A NICHE MARKET WEBSITE and BE APPRECIATED, NOT HATED like in Internet Marketing!!!
~~ andrea
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