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

 

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

 

 

How long is it taking you to get your internet marketing business off the ground?

3 months?

3 years?

More?

Odd, then, that so many "systems" promise us riches after just a few weeks of following "easy step-by-step instructions".

My introduction to IM was a LONG time ago - longer than I care to admit, because it took me YEARS before I settled down to set up a proper business.

But it wasn't for lack of first-class advice from a proven master: I went to conference in the UK, presented by the legendary Corey Rudl. Many of you won't have heard of him because, sadly, he died in a racing car accident in 2005. Google his name, and find out more.

However, great though he was as a marketer, and first-rate though his internet marketing guidance was - he didn't set me on the road to riches in the way I expected.

Corey was no different from other IM guru's then or now in that he (and they - well, some of them anyway) did his best to provide excellent internet marketing advice and guidance.

The problem for so many people trying to make a go of internet marketing, is that the IM gurus are working very hard to solve the WRONG PROBLEM!

The problems they try to help us with are:

• Finding a profitable niche
• Getting more traffic to our site
• Improving conversions
• Figuring out how to use cPanel
• Using the right plugins for our blog
• ... and thousands of other details

But think about it: if it is taking us YEARS to get our business off the ground, is that because we can't use FTP or because we don't know how to convert traffic?

Obviously - NO!

So what IS the problem?

Firstly - you need to look at it from a much higher level than the sorts of issues which most IM gurus talk about. It's a matter of PERSPECTIVE.

Secondly - as with all such problems, there is no single issue, but to figure out what the problem is for YOU - again, you need to have the right PERSPECTIVE.

What I mean by PERSPECTIVE is some "model" of the process of setting up an online business. This is what I use as the basis of my low-cost mentoring program. I call it the Internet Professionals Master Agenda

• Stage 1: Asserting
  Getting rid of distractions and asserting your OWN agenda
• Stage 2: Visioning
  Stating what it is you want to achieve from your online business
• Stage 3: Understanding
  Learning what you need to know about the world IM in order to be able to do the next stage
• Stage 4: Choosing & Defining
  Picking your Business Model and Operating Model, and fully Defining your business, keeping in mind your Vision
• Stage 5: Planning
  Working out and scheduling everything that needs to be done to launch your business
• Stage 6: Implementing
  Carrying out your Plan and Launching your business
• Stage 7: Operating
  Running your business

Of course, all the other issues I mentioned above (finding a niche, getting traffic etc.) are critically important - but with the above Master Agenda, we can put them into context. For example, we know:

• WHEN to even think about each of them
• WHEN to do anything about them - if ever
• WHO should do something about them (based on our Operating Model)
• etc.

What I do with the Master Agenda and the mentoring program around it is provide the sort of help that I know would have signficantly shortened the time it took me to get off the ground in the online world.

When you sign up, the first thing you'll get is a detailed analysis - by me - of your current situation using the Master Agenda framework. This has proved to be hugely effective for my current mentees.

Try it out!

What is your agenda?

As an internet marketer it is most important to have a firm agenda, and to be always aware of what it is.

But an agenda for one time-frame is not enough. We need....

• An agenda for today.
• An agenda for this week.
• An agenda for this month.
• An agenda for this quarter.
• An agenda for this year.
• An agenda for five years.

Obviously, this is true for any endeavour, but in the internet marketing world, it is more important that in almost any other environment.

There are various reasons for this, but the most powerful reason is that, in the internet marketing world, there are thieves about! These thieves are not out to steal your money - although getting some of your money is part of their plan. No - these thieves are out to steal your agenda!

Usually they try to steal your short-term agendas.

But don't think that they want them. Obsolutely not! In fact, quite the reverse. They want to give you an agenda! But whilst you have your own, they can't do that. So they go about stealing it, and replacing it with the one they give you.

And that is how they make their money - because once you are following their agenda, they can sell you their systems that help fulfil those agendas.

Don't get me wrong. It could well be that that is exactly what you need at that time.

But also, quite possibly, it is exactly what you don't need.

That is why you need to have a crystal clear agenda at all times - so you can tell the difference!

The nature of your agenda changes depending on where you are in your internet marketing journey, but whether you are just investigating, creating a business or operating a business - you MUST know your agendas. Certainly for the short and medium term.

In my opinion, this is one of the most important  things for internet marketers to get right - which is why I'm making it the subject of the next Group Session for my low-cost Internet Professionals Mentoring Program (2.00pm Eastern on 31st December 2009).

I'll be talking about how people try to steal your agenda, how to defend yourself against it, what sort of agenda you should have (depending on the stage of your business development)... and more.

Here's the top level of a MindMap I created for the basis of the presentation:

 

If think you'd like to attend the session, there's still time. Find out more about the Mentoring Program by filling in the form below. If you decide to join, I'll send you an invitation to the session.

Send me a message

1. Your Name(required)
2. Email(valid email required)
3. (Optional) Website
4. Message

 

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Alex.

 

Far too many internet marketers decide on how they will make their online fortune based on slick sales copy and a promotional campaign that just happens to catch their attention.

Rather blinkered, don't you think?

If this internet marketing stuff really IS the way to online wealth, don't you think it's worth spending a bit of time understanding the bigger picture?

Figuring out what all your options really are?

Getting a broad perspective of the field?

And by that, I don't mean choosing your niche! Niche marketing is just one of many options.

That's why, for my first Group Session topic on my new low-cost mentoring program, I will be talking about:

The Real "Big Picture" of Internet Marketing: Understanding All Your Options

Most guidance systems on internet marketing close off 95% of your options right from the word go. The good ones do serve a purpose - but usually it's best to treat them as training exercises rather than blueprints for your business.

So how do you choose your actual business?

There are a lot of inputs into that - but the first step is to know what your options are.

There are two strands to that:

• Choosing a Business Model and
• Choosing an Operating Model.

I'll cover both of those during this session.

If you'd like to learn more about the mentoring program, and how you can join in time to attend this session, just send me your details using the form below.

The session above will be on Wed 23rd December 2009 at 2.00pm Eastern (7.00pm GMT)

Send me a message

1. Your Name(required)
2. Email(valid email required)
3. (Optional) Website
4. Message

 

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Alex.

 

If you’ve ever wondered exactly what it takes to put together a non-trivial Internet business – here’s a rare opportunity to see up-close how it’s done. This is a chance to fully understand what is really involved – the challenges and issues and setbacks - as opposed to the story you’re normally told about how easy everything is.

I am in the process of setting up Twitter Professionals, which will provide a range of Twitter related products and services and memberships. This is not a single-product website, but a family of products and services and multiple related websites. (That's why it's a 'non-trivial' business.)

Recently, it has become obvious to me that the model I am creating is one that I will certainly want to replicate for future online business ventures: it has taken – and is still taking – a lot of effort to define and set up the required infrastructure, and I fully plan on re-using all that effort, as well as refining the process. And then it occurred to me that others could benefit from seeing not only the end result, but more importantly, the process I am following to get there.

And so I got the idea of forming a Club where I would share all my learning with the members. As a member, this is what you will get:

• Invitations to attend weekly webcasts covering a variety of topics (see below)
• Q&A sessions after the webcasts
• The ability to download recordings of past webcasts and Q&A sessions
• Access to a private forum where you can ask further questions and have discussions with each other
• Access to whatever materials could be of value, such as planning templates and examples of request for bids
• Access to my “Online Internet Marketing k-Map”.
  
  Some while ago I started storing my useful links and learnings about Internet Marketing in a sharable Mind Map format (like my Twitter Resources k-Map http://twitter.k-maps.com). I’ve toyed with making this available to others online for a fee, but it’s a long way from being complete enough. However, I’ll give you access anyway as part of the Club membership.

PLUS:

• If you are still a member when the first information product is launched – the Twitter Tools Report - you will get that for free.
• If you are still a member when the second information product is launched – the Twitter Master System – you will get that at 50% discount
• Access to the script as a beta user (I don’t want to say more about this yet.)

The topics I cover in the seminars will be based on the following activities that I have done/am doing/plan to do

• Defining and creating a number of information products using Mind Maps, PDFs and Spreadsheets
  
  
• Identifying the need for Twitter related services
  
• Getting a script written for that service:

• Specifying the requirements for a script,
• Finding developers
• Working with them
• Testing the script
• Integrating it

• Creating a suitable infrastructure and integrating all the components which include

• Choosing suitable domain names for multiple sites
• Setting up and configuring one of the most advanced e-commerce platforms (Delavo)
• Using one of the most advanced content management sites (Drupal)
• Installing and configuring a WordPress blog
• Setting up and using a number of Twitter Accounts
• Researching and identifying an advanced auto-responder with the required facilities
• Defining an inter-linked network of auto-responder sequences

• Getting graphics created

• Defining the needs for graphics across all the products
• Identifying a graphic designer
• Choosing a suitable "tone" and "style"
• Providing the right degree of "control"

• Defining and putting into practice a plan for traffic generation
  
• Defining and putting into practice a plan for finding affiliates
  
• Working out how to handle metrics and measurement
  
• Creating ways to record how all the components of the business relate to each other
  
• Recording the business requirements, plans and schedules
  
• Using online collaboration systems for working with outsourcers and other collaborators
  
• Finding resources to help run the business
  
• The bigger picture: defining how the Twitter Professionals business fits into my overall online business strategy
  
• .... and probably others…

Let me clear about what this is NOT and what you will NOT be getting:

• This will not be a comprehensive blueprint with detailed instructions that you can simply copy and paste. However if you are a reasonably experienced Internet marketer, and you wanted to create a similar business model, this will save you a great deal of time.
• This will not be a properly planned course with a published timetable of topics. This will be much more fluid, and the topics I cover will be influenced by the voice of the members.
• You will not learn everything there is about Internet Marketing. I will only be talking about what is related to creating and setting up this business.
• This will not be suitable for Internet Marketing beginners; the business model being discussed is not one I would recommend for the beginner. However, getting the infrastructure right is key to any business, and the ideas here will help new people understand the foundations they will need to put in place for the longer term.

At this point I can't predict for how long the club will exist. My current intention would be to keep it going until I run out of interesting things to talk about. Of course you'd be able to cancel whenever you felt you had learnt enough.

To begin with I'm going to limit membership of this club to 50 people, and the charge will be $47 per month. If you are unhappy after the first two webcasts, you can leave the Club and receive a full refund.

Finally, not everyone will be allowed to join.

For reasons of commercial sensitivity, and to ensure that people without a suitable background are not wasting their money. I wish to vet everyone who wishes to join.

So, if you are interested, please contact me via my helpdesk (select Behind The Scenes Business Club for the department) and tell me the following:

• A little about yourself (unless I already know you)
• How sure you are that you wish to join to the club
• Your email address
• Your Twitter ID

I will respond within 48 hours and if appropriate, I’ll let you know the planned start date and give you instructions for joining.

Please remember that I am limiting membership (for now) to the first 50 who qualify. Confirming your commitment now reserves your spot.

Also, unless I get 20 committed members, I will not go ahead. Fewer than that will not warrant the distraction from me actually putting the business together!

I hope this interests you and that I’ll be able to welcome you to the club shortly.

Kind regards
 

Alex Goodall

Time sensitive - essential tool available Free - TODAY ONLY - 24 May 2009. I don't do that much promotion of other people's products, but here is one of the exceptions. John Delavera's new Delavo. I could the say that the big attraction is that it's free - but that would be misleading. The big attraction is that it constitues a major piece of software that everyone involved in internet sales needs - an ecommerce platform. Specifically, a tool for managing sales, membership site subscriptions and affiliates. You're going to need something like that sooner or later. And you are going to need to use the most feature-rich tool you can afford because, as your business grows, so will your needs. Even though it's free (TODAY ONLY!) Delavo is as feature-rich as you'll need - for now. But you'll also have the option to purchase enhancements as you need them. So this really is an opportunity not to be missed. I expect to be upgrading from my current JV Manager 1 tool (also created by John) to Delavo over time for exactly those reasons. I'll not say more about Delavo here, but strongly encourage you to get it NOW. You need to register on John's list immediately in order to get it because at some time today, this opportunity will disappear. Get eCommerce Tool for FREE There are other things John is selling at the same time - of course - with the same deadline that may or may not be relevant to you, but I'll mention briefly because there a connection with me. 1. Turbo Membership with huge bonuses You can join John's Turbo Membership and get a huge collection of bonuses. Check what's on offer. Despite what John would like to believe, his membership is NOT suitable for everyone. But there is so much on offer, it's quite likely you'll find enough that's relevant to your operation to make it very good value. I should also mention the link between Turbo Membership and the IM Index. John provides his Turbo Members with a DAO Installer each month that contains his core products. This allows IM Index Mind Map owners to download and install those products automatically into the correct locations in their IM Index Mind Map - AND creates a log of what was stored where. If you've ever been a member of a site that provides large quantities of content to be downloaded each month, you'll understand how valuable that is! (P.S. For now at least, I'm the person who creates those DAO Installers, so you can be sure everything is being organized correctly!) 2. Delaverian Marketing Course John also has, what he believes to be, a revolutionary new course coming in June (delayed for various reasons). As a Turbo Member, you'll get 50% discount off of that. I know nothing about that, so I cannot comment on it, other than to say that John is a very smart person and you should expect something out of the ordinary. (Mark Joyner has given John an endorsement, which should count for something!) But whatever you do - get on the list to get Delavo for free! Get eCommerce Tool for FREE Alex

Many fortunes have been made selling business blueprints on how to make money through internet marketing. I know, because I have personally contributed to those fortunes! But I have a big problem with these business blueprints. In fact, I have many issues with business blueprints. Here is just ONE of them. The whole marketing approach for selling a business blueprint is to convince the site visitor that "this is THE fastest, easiest way to make money: no-one in their right minds would do anything different". Of course, that's what the person promoting the product is supposed to do. I don't expect them to have an impartial, dispationate viewpoint. But the fact is - it's their job to keep your mind closed and to stop you thinking for yourself! The very LAST thing they want is for you to look at the bigger picture and examine all the options available to you. Whereas, that is, in fact, the very FIRST thing that you DO need to do! There are many, many ways to make an income online, and it's just foolish to jump into anything without really examining your options. Sure, it's great to have a "take action!" attitude and we all understand about the dangers of paralysis by analysis. But too many people jump in, take action, then decide against it, then take other action, then decide against that, and on and on. So step back and understand the bigger picture. Examine all the ways to make an online income and then match them to what YOU are capable of, what YOU are interested in. It's important to NOT be suckered in by a slick sales pitch that fulfills someone else's agenda, but to define and stick to YOUR agenda. And when you look at the options available to you, be creative! By which, I don't just mean "look at many niches". "Niche marketing" itself is just ONE approach to making money online. Affiliate marketing, PPC, Adsense, blogging, product development, eBay, .... the list of options is huge, and actually it's much bigger than you probably realise. In the rather introverted, self-referential world of "internet marketing", we are constantly having the same few ideas re-cyled and re-hashed. Just look around the Web and see what's going on from a businessperson's perspective, and you'll begin to see many new ideas that aren't on the radar for most people. So, my advice is to take a step back, and:

• Understand the context - all the options available to you
• Understand yourself - you goals, abilities, strengths, weaknesses
• ... then put them together and choose your path carefully!

I hope that's helpful. This is one of themes that I'll be expanding on in a forthcoming service / site about being an "online professional". If this topic interests you, please register here to stay informed of how our ideas develop. (You won't get lots of extraneous promotions by doing this, so please make sure you use your primary email address!)

Also, I Twitter a lot! Follow me there: http://AlexGoodall.com/twitter

The question: What is stopping you from creating and operating a profitable internet marketing business? A deceptively simple question - but the the answer could be transforming to your business if you are honest enough with yourself, and act on the answer! I have some ideas about what the most common answer will be - but rather than presume and assume, I'd like to ask and inquire!

If this topic interests you, please register here to stay informed of how our ideas develop. (You won't get lots of extraneous promotions by doing this, so please make sure you use your primary email address!)

This last week I had some exchanges with two subscribers, and without any prompting from me, they revealed that their biggest issues was.... Not traffic... Not lack of know-how... Not product development... Not social marketing... Not traffic conversions; not tracking; not launching a product; not website design ... not ANY of the things about which we all get promoted to multiple times a day. And it wasn't even "how to organize my hard drive"!! No. The common theme was FOCUS. Just sticking to one thing and seeing it through to completion: that was what these two subscribers found the hardest. Now, you probably know that I've already identified this as a huge problem for just about every internet marketer, and I created a small, low-cost product to help in this area - the Laser-Focus Shield But it's clear that the problem is far too big to be solved by a single, small product. In fact, Focus is just one of a range of related issues that can't be picked out and solved in isolation. I've spent some hours sketching out my ideas on this, and I have some (in my opinion) very exciting options. But before saying anything about them, I'd really like to hear from YOU. Put aside issues around traffic and conversion and product development and so on. Just focussing on strategy and planning and operations - what are YOUR biggest issues? Please post your answers below. Here are the sort of things to think about:

• Defining your personal goals
• Defining your business goals
• Deciding on a business model
• Learning new skills
• Building a team
• Finding a "master mind" group
• Not having anyone to be accountable to
• Feeling isolated
• Having to do everything yourself
• Not being able to collaborate online (e.g. in a shared team space)
• Not having a mentor
• Having no deadlines
• Having no-one to brainstorm with / bounce ideas off
• Not being able to create a project plan
• Perfectionism
• Time management
• Distractions from email etc.
• Staying focussed on one project
• Having a disorganized filing system
• anything else!!

So - give me your thoughts on this below: tell me your top THREE issues - either from those above, or anything else. I am VERY interested in what you have to say. (But please - DON'T put down "finding JV partners", "getting traffic", "finding a niche" etc. : you can get information about that in many different places.) Regards Alex

If this topic interests you, please register here to stay informed of how our ideas develop. (You won't get lots of extraneous promotions by doing this, so please make sure you use your primary email address!)

What's the most important issue with running an Internet Marketing Business?

Some would say have a great product and an irresistible offer, because with nothing to sell, no-one's going to buy!

Others would say Traffic Generation, because without traffic, no-one sees your offer.

Others would say its Traffic Conversion, because all the traffic in the world is useless if no-one is taking any action.

Getting more sophisticated, you might say it's getting sufficient Income Per Visitor (i.e. the total amount you earn, on average, for every visitor to your site - taking account the lifetime income you get from each customer).

And so on.

But, of course, ALL of those issues are important. You obviously need something to sell (somewhere along the line), and you won't have a viable business unless you have traffic, and that traffic has to convert well, and your income per visitor is sufficient for you to be able to spend enough on generating MORE traffic so your business grows.

So what's the problem for Internet Marketers? The formula is pretty straightforward, isn't it?

Perhaps it's a shortage of advice? Perhaps people don't know how to generate traffic or convert it or create a product (or find an affiliate product)? But I don't think that is the case. I suspect if you could search on the hard drive of any internet marketer who's been in the business for a few months, you'd find eBooks and videos and audios and links to membership sites that are full of advice about all those topics.

So on that basis, I would suggest that none of those issues is the a critical issue. I would say that the two most critical issues for Internet Marketers are:

• Being Organized

and

• Staying Focused

Staying focused means having a plan or an agenda and sticking to it: not being distracted.

Being organized means having processes and organizational systems (such a folder structures) so you know where to store all your information and records, and where to find them again rapidly.

I believe these are such important points that I created a seminar for Internet Marketers on just these two issue.

It's on Monday 1st September, at 7.00 pm Easter - and it's free!

(Find the time in your time-zone)