Entrepreneurs-Journey.com Down-To-Earth Advice For Bloggers and Internet Marketers

I remember a year or so ago I was trawling a popular Internet marketing forum. This particular forum has some successful marketers, but mostly the members are opportunity seeking newbies, including lots of young guys who are looking to make money online quick and care little for hard work.

I did an “ego” search in this particular forum for my name (market feedback I swear!), and came across a thread from some people discussing my Blog Profits Blueprint free report. Someone had asked how to make money blogging and my report was referenced by another member.

Some of the feedback was positive, but there was also a few replies that were along the lines of…

“It’s full of too much fluff”
“Just show me how to make money”
etc…

My report talked too much about things you control with your mind, like being consistent and persistent, finding passion and then narrowing down to a focus, and not enough about specific techniques that just make money flow like mana from heaven.

Put in other terms, these particular people wanted to know the “how” without really knowing the “why”. Unfortunately, you can make a little money by implementing certain techniques, but if you don’t know why you are doing something and how it fits into the big picture, and most importantly, how you as the owner of your business impact your results, then any success you have will be short lived.

I wasn’t really upset about these comments, rather I felt bad for people who wanted a quick fix and weren’t seeing what they were doing online as building a long term sustainable asset. They preferred to flutter from technique to technique hoping to strike it rich one day, just like miners digging for gold.

Impatient people rarely have time for “mindset” lessons, thus they will stop reading an article like this after the first few paragraphs. Discussing things like the inner game seems useless to them. In their opinion all you need to do is figure out what works and do it, there’s no need to worry about much more than that. That might work if we were all robots, but we’re not, so you do need to pay attention to your fallible human characteristics, like your thoughts and your feelings.

The Inner Game of Business

What the people in the forums were neglecting is the importance of your “inner game”. The concept of the inner game is widely used in fields like personal development, in the seduction community and is talked about in business circles as well, yet I find people often have trouble grasping exactly what the inner game is, since it’s such an intangible aspect of life.

Some people, particularly men of course, don’t like to talk about things like feelings and thoughts, when they consider what really matters are actions and outcomes. That’s true, but behind every action and the resulting outcome is a thought and a feeling. Doesn’t it make sense to track back all the way to the origin of something to make sure we have all aspects of the process congruent? Of course it does if we want success, and that’s exactly what the inner game is about.

Are You Tired Of Failure?

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Perry Marshall is the first true Internet marketing expert I ever came across. I can’t remember how I found Perry, but he was one of the very early influences on my work online, in particular his email newsletter style.

In this interview you will hear Perry explain how he became an Internet marketing expert, his thoughts on affiliate marketing, why content is so important to success online, why Perry says no to most joint venture requests and lots more wisdom about direct marketing online.

Perry Was The First Marketer I Gave My Money To

Perry’s Renaissance Club membership was the first internet marketing information product I ever purchased. Many of the lessons I learned from that package stimulated some of the very early and most successful pillar articles I have ever written, including my two part series on search engine optimization, which was partially inspired by lessons learned from Brad Fallon on the CDs I got from Perry.

I then went on and promoted Perry’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords as the very first affiliate product I marketed on this blog, way back in 2005.

Although that first affiliate promotion didn’t do so well, a few months later I promoted an event Perry was running which was offering a 50% commission on a $1500 sale, and I managed to make two sales netting my first ever four figure affiliate income payday. That was a momentous achievement for me and enough encouragement to continue down the affiliate marketing path, leading to where I am today.

What I like about Perry is that he rarely does any affiliate promotions and most of his emails are 99% content with a link to one of his products, if any promotion at all. This style of very soft selling, content-driven email marketing was a heavy influence on my own style of email marketing and I recommend you join Perry’s email course just to see how he promotes his products and delivers value through email.

Show Notes

• Perry explains how he entered the Internet marketing industry
• How Perry landed his first speaking gig at an Internet marketing seminar
• Why Perry was able to convince so many affiliates to promote his products
• Perry’s two key elements of an effective online sales process
• Why Perry doesn’t participate in big product launches
• What Perry considers the two most important variables to track in your online business
• Why email list segmentation is so important to maintain list integrity
• How learning in slow chunks is the key to success
• Why content is critical if you want to become an online expert

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 57 Minutes - 26 MB]

Let me state an obvious fact about Internet marketing:

Joint ventures (JVs) are the quickest and most effective way to make a lot of sales and/or bring in a ton of targeted leads.

The reason this is the case is fairly obvious. You get someone who already has access to and a relationship with a large audience, who then recommend your product. The combination of distribution and trust, two of the most critical factors for online success, makes this marketing method hard to beat.

The only thing that beats a good JV is an internal promotion where you personally have distribution and trust, in which case the connection between you and the product itself is seamless – because it’s your product you are recommending – there is no disconnect in the mind of the audience, like there is with a JV or affiliate promotion.

Unfortunately building your own audience and establishing trust with them takes time, so if you are in a hurry, going the JV route is the best option. It’s also the quickest method to expand reach, so this is a technique you simply have to get on top of if you want to really explode your business online.

How Not To Approach People

I’m approached every week by people looking for me to promote their products. I’ve also been rejected more often than I’ve had success with my own JV approaches, so I know what works and what doesn’t from both sides of the relationship.

I often receive template emails suggesting I promote a product, which I delete before reading beyond the first paragraph. Other approaches come from genuine people, who appear on the surface to have a great product and are sincere in their intentions, yet unfortunately this approach usually fails too.

So what exactly does it take to convince someone to promote for you? Let’s take a look at the dos and don’ts of seeking joint ventures.

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Those of you on my newsletter received an email last week where I talked about a subject related to the movie The Secret.

The responses I received to that email where quite polarized, which should not be surprising since subject matter that can be interpreted as spiritual or religious tends to elicit hard-line opinions. Yet I have to admit I was surprised by some of the emails I received in reply to the newsletter, which was a little naive on my part.

I received messages from my readers from both ends of the spectrum. Everything from I love what you are saying and totally agree, to that movie is a bunch of hogwash — just thinking about what you want won’t get it, all the way to the movie is against my religion and you shouldn’t be promoting it.

I’m happy whenever people engage with my content, and I never take one person’s feedback too strongly unless I’m receiving many responses along the same line. It was certainly interesting to read the different places people were coming from and thank you to everyone who wrote to me – it was an enlightening experience to read your point of view.

I don’t adhere specifically to a branch of religion, nor am I an atheist. If a label must be applied, I’m closest to agnostic, believing in a higher power but not looking to lock that power into a rigid framework like doctrine can do. I like to take on board concepts and ideas from all religions and belief systems, but I never became so restricted by them that I can’t at least listen to other people’s ideas without labeling them blasphemous.

You might call me a perpetual fence sitter, which in itself has problems. The wonderful thing about taking on board and truly feeling a specific religious calling is that you no longer suffer from being “lost”. You now have a framework to follow, a way to live and a community of people who share your beliefs. That is a wonderful thing.

Of course I have a moral compass, as we all do, which gives me some sense of rules and structure that govern my life. I’m going to draw the line on certain actions and label them wrong or right. Some things fall into a grey area, which once again is where having a strong religious belief has “benefits” – you have less greys and more black and whites – although I don’t think that’s always a good thing. Unwavering absolutes can be very dangerous – religious fundamentalism has certainly taught us that.

Do I Believe In The Law Of Attraction?

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Download the MP3 [ 42 Minutes - 19 MB]

If you missed part one of this series, make sure you listen to it first here -

How To Profit From Niche Websites By Adam Short – Part 1

Complete The System

This audio is the conclusion to my two-part interview with Adam Short, who is an expert at building profitable niche websites.

During this portion of the interview Adam explains the second half of his system, including how Adam builds traffic to his niche sites, how he then makes money from that traffic, how he uses email autoresponders to increase his profits (which can be templated to fit almost any niche) and how he increases his income by adding back-end products.

I love Adam’s system because it’s simple and I also find Adam, as a teacher, easy to learn from. If you appreciate my style of blogging I think you will also find Adam a helpful resource and someone you can learn from too.

This is definitely one of the best interviews I’ve featured on this blog, so make sure you listen to both parts one and two carefully. There are TONS of great ideas to be taken away from what Adam talked about, including several things you can begin applying immediately (like outsourcing to the Philippines and using Amazon.com to find profitable niches).

Show Notes

• Adam explains how his article marketing system works and why it can be so effective at bringing in free traffic from google
• Next we look at how Adam has made money from his niche sites once the traffic is in place
• Adam talks about one of his live sites on the topic of a favorite pet fish, and how the site continues to make over $1000 a month on autopilot
• Adam discusses his follow-up email marketing system which is used to convert more visitors into buyers
• We talk about adding back-end offers to increase the profit coming from niche sites
• Adam explains what his coaching program contains and offers a link to more free content

Part 2 Mp3 Download

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 42 Minutes - 19 MB]