This sort of thing gets me annoyed, so this qualifies as a rant.

There seems to be a trend of internet marketing guru's inviting would-be internet marketers to "work with them" in a sort of partnership. It works something like this (there are variations on the theme):

• YOU act as a lead-generator for them. Get the traffic and convert it to a lead. (You are given a website, a back-end system etc.)
  
• You can earn in initial income by selling the entry-level product and keeping 100% of the profit.
• THEY convert the lead who buys a high-ticket product - usually some form of 'coaching'.
• YOU get a good commission on those sales.

In itself that is all fine, and in the "real world" it could be a great business venture. But the internet marketing world is all too often one step removed from the real world.

In the real world, you would be selected to be a partner on the basis of your skills, experience and track record etc. Here, you're selected to be a partner based on your ability to pay for the privilege (e.g. $497).

In the real world, you would expect to be shown something of the product being upsold so that you can be comfortable with and confident about what is being promoted to the lead which YOU generated and with whom you now have a business relationship. In the internet marketing world, you're not expected to be interested in that - or you simply assume the IM guru is above reproach.

Here are some things to think about with this business model.

Firstly - the upsell product costs several thousand dollars (perhaps $3,000-$5,000), which means that the client is going to expect to be coached by an expert in the field and to receive personal attention.

Secondly - because there is no limit on the number of leads which each partner can generate, the whole operation needs to be able to scale up potentially quite significantly. The only way to achieve that on the sales side is to employ hard-pressure telephone sales agencies. And these agencies charge a hefty commission on each sale: which is on TOP of the commission paid to you.

So - where does that leave the client?

Screwed.

For one thing, although you can relatively easily scale up the sales operation (you don't need a lot of training to switch from selling product A to product B), how can you scale up the delivery of the coaching if you are going to use people who are true experts in the field? You wouldn't expect there to be an unlimited supply of people who are true experts in a field that justifies charging $5,000 to learn about?

And for another, how are you going to be able to afford to pay those coaches given the two lots of commissions you've paid out AND make a profit yourself?

It seems to me that the only way this works is to minimise the cost of delivery. On other words, don't use experts for coaches, and minimise the personal interactions.

So the client gets nowhere near $3K - $5K of value.

I know that in the past, high-cost internet marketing coaching - sold through telesales - has been delivered by "coaches" who simply read to the client from a manual. That is certainly a way to keep the costs down and allow indefinite scale-up of delivery. I thought that practice had ended, but perhaps not.

The chess player here is the owner of the whole operation. He/she has two collection of pawns dancing to his/her tune: the lead generators and the clients.

Don't be either of them.

Be your OWN chess player (but play with a different strategy!).

Or, as I would usually put it: work to your OWN Agenda - not to someone else's.

Alex

I logged in to my link/click tracking system the other day and discovered that another new feature has just been added.

And that has inspired me to talk about this earlier than I'd planned.

This is a tool which has been working for me for almost 4 years. If you know about it, it's likely you also use it, because there has been almost zero promotion of it by anyone for about three years.

It is GoTryThis, from John Reel.

There's not much of a sales page there - but don't let the lack of hype fool you. If there's a product that justifies hype, it's this one!

GoTryThis was launched in 2006 with a massive promotion, especially for the more expensive "Black Hat" version that did clever (but slightly naughty) things.

It was such a huge launch that John was not prepared for the impact and the whole thing nearly knocked him out!

After some time, John started talking about GoTryThis-2 - and how great it would be... but the promises of the launch were never fulfilled, and the date kept slipping and slipping. After a while I seriously considered switching tool because for such a critical piece of my business, I needed a system that was being enhanced and properly supported (not that I ever needed any support or had any problems - but still...).

Eventually, my patience paid off and GTT-2 was launched, but only as an alpha version. Then quite some time later, as a beta version. That was months ago - perhaps a year ago (I can't quite recall). And STILL John does not have a fixed date for the official launch: the product is still in beta.

Think about it: this sort of software manages the pathways between your customers and your websites, so it is critically important that it works smoothly and correctly.

So I'm very happy that John is not rushing into anything: unlike far too many marketers, he is putting 95% of his effort into the product and (for now) 5% into the marketing, rather than the other way round.

I've watched as he has:

• Adjusted his business model twice,
• Handled the horrendous task of migrating everyone from GTT-1 to GTT-2 without losing any historical data (he's helped me out with this and I can attest to his professionalism),
• Pioneered new auto-installation technology that can handle all sorts of standard and non-standard hosting accounts (if you understand about hosting accounts, you'll be impressed by that)- and
• Developed a backend server that talks to and coordinates with the software that gets installed on your all your domains,

He's had to do all that just to get to the point where he can start enhancing the product functionality in his new business and technical environment. Impressive thought that is, though, it doesn't do anything to enhance his customers' business.

But he's underway on that as well.

Over the last month or two he's added some cool new features (including a link shortener that mirrors your cloaked links) and he's in the process of adding a "scarecity" link which redirects to a different destination after X clicks or Y period of time.

That is so neat, I'll be using it soon for sure!

For me, the two scripts that form the mainstay of my business are Delavo and GoTryThis. Although there are tools which you might consider as alternatives to Delavo (but not as good in my opinion), I don't know of any tool that stands comparison with GoTryThis-2 in its new incarnation.

I like this so much, I asked John to present it at a future Internet Professionals Webinars event. He has agreed - but only after he gets some more functionality in!

However, I can't wait till then to promote it to you, because I don't want him to run out of half-price subscriptions!

He has 19 slots left for this month (down from 50) at the time of writing, so GoTryThis right away! I know you won't be disappointed.

Oh - and I nearly forgot the whole point (and why using one of the hundreds of free link shortening services is NOT the answer)

Firstly - you can cloak links based on YOUR domain (see the above for an example), and

Secondly - you can use ANY domain that you own, and manage everything from one control panel.

There are stacks of other cool and clever features as well - but THAT is nub of the whole thing.

Alex

The internet marketing world is choc full of guidance and blueprints and advice and step-by-step how-tos.

Ignoring the 90% that is almost content-free search-engine fodder or list-building reports whose purpose is to withhold the valuable information, that still leaves a substantial amount of material that genuinely aims to help the reader in some way.

Nearly all of this material is created by people who (hopefully) are experts in the domain, but who have very little understanding about how best to provide such guidance in a way that properly meets the users' needs. And sadly, it is often the case that such guidance is created in a form that is the most convenient and easy to create; the author decides that his or her convenience is more important than the user's real needs.

But let's start with an optimistic scenario where the author takes care to structure and organize the guidance properly, and to ensure it is complete, consistent, clear and logically organized.

Unfortunately, that is not enough.

To fully address the needs of the user, the guidance need to have the same shape as the user's problem.

The following example will explain what I mean by "shape".

Suppose there are 10 steps to follow in the blueprint or how-to guide. Most likely the careful author will have created a guide with 10 sections - one for each step. The 'shape'  of the guidance is simply "10 steps" and the user is going to assume that all steps are more-or-less equal to each other in complexity and importance.

In reality, however, the 'shape' of the problem is very different. There are concepts to learn and become familiar with; skills to acquire and become proficient at; and probably a lot of simple procedural actions to take where there is very little learning or conceptual understanding needed.

For example, guidance on using PPC for affiliate marketing could be put together as a 10-day course (say): that is the implied 'shape' of the guidance. But actually, the REAL issues, where the REAL guidance is needed, are something like:

• Choosing a niche (a skill that requires judgement - needs practice to get it right)
• Selecting appropriaqte keywords (a skill that requires judgement - needs practice to get it right)
• Crafting an effective ad (a skill that requires judgement - needs practice to get it right)
• Understanding the relationship of all the concepts - Ad Groups, Campaigns, CPC, Ad positioning etc. (a conceptual model - needs to be carefully explained, needs time to absorb it, needs to be seen in practice several times to consolidate it).

Those four issues need to take up most of the time during the course. It needs to be made clear that they need to be practiced; that getting it right will take time; that you should EXPECT to lose money and make mistakes whilst you are developing those skills.

AND - there are ALSO many other steps which are very different in nature. Probably they can be explained simply by giving step-by-step instructions (e.g. opening a Paypal account, setting up an autoresponder account, registering a domain name, getting hosting, creating a squeeze page based on a given template, etc.). Those steps should not be put alongside the others which are of a different order of complexity.

So - the 'shape' of the problem is:

- Three issues that need skill and practice to get right

- One issue of conceptual understanding that needs a diagram, examples and time to be absorbed

- Many small administrative tasks that can be performed by following simple instructions (no learning or skills development needed)

And the 'shape' of the guidance should reflect that.

I know I'm asking for a much higher standard than most people can provide, and authors are going to question the business case for taking that much care about the structure of the material in their guidance.

What do YOU think?

• Am I asking too much? Am I setting too high a standard?
• Do you actually find that most guides DO fulfill their purpose - even without the idea of having the right 'shape'?
• Do have any examples of guidance whose 'shape' clearly fits the shape of the problem?
• ... and examples where there is a serious miss-match?

I know that the route to maximum profits comes from having a better-converting website than better-quality guidance, so that's where most marketers will focus their efforts. So perhaps this idea has to remain a longer-term wish!

Many business advisors talk about the importance of "systems" and how you should use them to reduce the effort you need to achieve your business (and personal) goals.

People who you have probably heard of who talk explicitly about the importance of systems include:

• Rich Schefren (StrategicProfits.com)
• Robert Kiyosaka ("Rich Dad, Poor Dad")
• Tim Ferris ("The 4 Hour Work Week")

But someone who you may be less familiar with is Sam Carpenter.

The term "4 hour work week" has become a by-word for the ultimate in systematizing your business, based on the huge popularity of Tim Ferris's book. But Sam Carpenter claims he works only half as hard as that!

Watch this interview with Sam where he describes how he turned a 100-hour work week into a 2-hour work week....

....then go get the pdf version of his book....

http://www.workthesystem.com/

I think Sam explains the ideas better than most in terms of mind-set and  practical methods to use. I've just finished re-reading his book, and I have made a very good start on following his recommendations for documentation.

I recommend this book to my mentees as background reading and guidance for both the Visioning and Planning stages of the Internet Professionals Master Agenda.

A word of warning, however. Sam's presentation suggests that his ideas can solve just about any problem. But there are no magic bullets in life, and his ideas do have their limits.

BUT that's not a reason to ignore his approach. Personally, I find it very helpful.

Alex