Internet Business Blog By James Schramko

Paul Smithson is the founder and CEO of intellimon (Creator of XSitePro). He created the website building software I used to get started online. Intellimon have moved more into the education side to help marketers get better at marketing. Marketers need more than tools. (I have been teaching people this with It's not about the website ). There is a lot of information and people get overloaded. In order to locate the key areas of frustration Paul surveyed the market. We discuss the main findings here. Focus is essential Paul Smithson says people tend to jump from one thing to another and they should FOCUS more on the things that matter. This makes perfect sense. Doing the right things There is a real need for good solid well thought out training. The first course Intellimon published was the Complete guide to building websites. The next problem they tackled was the issue of Traffic. Traffic is essential for websites When preparing their latest traffic product they researched the market extensively with a 4000 response survey.  After analysis the results showed some very interesting trends. People are doing a LOT themselves SEO, PPC, Advertising designs and other manual tasks are mostly being done by people in-house. Budgetary constraints are the main cause. Paul argues that doing these things first can give you the context needed to outsource effectively. There is a natural progression from DIY to outsourcing for most new marketers. Do it as fast as you can! Lack of Success breeds lack of success More marketers are struggling than succeeding. Most people on the recent survey Paul conducted (almost half) make less than $10,000 per your from the online business. The low income means they cannot invest in the outsourcing to get the profits. The missing component of decent traffic is critical in breaking this cycle. Highly educated but not making money Many people who are doing Internet Marketing are not really getting the results they could even though on average they are very smart.  Most are probably successful in 'offline' business or a job but the skill of traffic eludes most. An education outside of Internet Marketing is no guarantee of success online. You need specific online training. Hardly anyone has an affiliate program Less than 15% of people who completed the survey have an affiliate program in place. Affiliate marketing is like a commission only program that turbo charges most online businesses. I use Nanacast to manage my affiliate program and they send my sites tens of thousands of visits each month. Leveraged traffic strategies are very rare Less than 7% of marketers are using teleseminars or webinars. Considering how effective online events are (both live and automated) there is a huge jump in profitability available for most online businesses. Start using these as soon as you can to build lists. Mixed results for social media A lot of people who use them have no clue whether these techniques are effective or not. Not all business are suited to social media however being able to manage the social media channels effectively can be a really big tipping point for others. Email traffic is more measurable List marketing is one of the most effective and measurable marketing devices. You can track open rates, click rates, conversions and daily opt-ins. This should be a foundation to any online business because it is an asset that continues to work well. A solid responsive database is the surest way to generate profit when used correctly. Ideal Training solution Rather than just watching other marketers or trying things out yourself blind, you can now get straight to the point with the new training Paul Smithson and team have put together. The Complete Guide To Traffic The way this product is put together makes sense for most marketers. For new marketers it is the fastest and easiest way to cruise through everything you SHOULD know about internet marketing traffic.

Imagine discovering a new method of selling Internet Marketing to local businesses where you don't have to 'sell' face to face or even over the phone. When I watched the video Kevin Mckillop made I knew it was something special. Two years ago this technique generated me some very handy six figure deals and the technique works better than ever now. I even blog posted about it on this very blog! Somebody was paying attention. "higher than 60% conversions..." Kevin Mckillop is a reserved 'below the radar' marketer from Canada who is absolutely crushing it in the local business market. Using his stealthy video marketing methods he is achieving higher than 60% conversions at high price points. I discovered what Kevin was doing because we are in a strategy mastermind together. Clients LOVE this unobtrusive sales method One client loved Kevins video so much they immediately sacked their current web agent and hired Kevin for $20,000. Listen to the call to discover how the client was thrilled at being approached. Kevin was the hero who came to rescue them from the jaws of failure. ZERO competition Very rarely do we get a genuine opportunity to attack a market that is HOT yet has almost no competition. Using Kevins Local Video Methods you can step in front of all other contenders and DOMINATE. The big agencies are asleep on this and right now is the best time to take advantage of this. Local business marketing is THE place to be as all businesses adjust to the 'web' and it becomes a '100% required' non negotiable  marketing medium. How To Use Video In Local Business Marketing The approach is simple: locate a good prospective business make a personalized 'seo' marketing critique send it to them wait until they call you  (happens more than 60% of the time) complete an agreement bank the cheque perform the work (HINT: outsource this) repeat with next client How Technical is This? Can you really do this? Absolutely says Kevin. Nobody needs to struggle again since he has documented all the software you need, the scripts, the approach, the system and the instructional step-by-step videos.  The method requires a Mac or PC and some extra software for screen recording. You can do this at home without any fancy pants gear. Table Of Contents How to get Started? Visit Kevins site using my link just below.  If you like what you see as much as I did (seriously for the price versus income potential it is a no brainer) invest in this value laden information package: -> MY LINK Coaching & Templates Bonus Included Inside the membership area is a special bonus 14 day trial for *SuperFastResults coaching membership (massive value) where Kevin and I are waiting to help you with your Internet Marketing. The forum contains my now famous 'six figure' proposal template and two full webinars on the topic of local business marketing. Kyle Tully and I present 'FAST CASH' and also "Local Business Formula". With this support you will be able to put together the deals that will make this year very different from last year. Watch The Video Method Here (*14 day trial does not apply to current members of SFR) Got questions about this technique? - Post them below:

It seems whenever I go to a BBQ or a friends place I get into a conversation about Internet Marketing. It makes sense since friends know I quit working for a boss a few years ago and I now live at the beach. They want to know how. This is what I usually tell them to get started... In my conversations I usually end up giving them the short version of Fast Web Formula (my own formula for building a 7 figure business from scratch). This is the back of the beer coaster outline: Step 1 - Mindshift Prepare to bend your mind and move beyond the standard thinking that so many people suffer. Amazing things can be done online only if you accept that there are different rules (especially when it comes to leverage). Many office workers are conditioned into 9-5 thinking. You HAVE to break out of that mindset to make it online. Step 2 - Plan Have a strategy. Most people approach internet marketing with a product in mind and then try and figure out how to sell it. Wait, there is a better way! Often nobody is interested. I prefer to start with the audience in mind. The starving crowd we often hear about in marketing speak. Usually I suggest the basic strategy of being an affiliate (I liken this to being a commission only sales person). As an affiliate we still build a list and create an authority blog where we will eventually sell our own products as well. Step 3 - Research Time to do some keyword research. The easiest way to do this is use Market Samurai. If not, the Google keyword tool will suffice. We look for search terms that have some traffic, advertiser competition and less than say 60,000 results in 'quotes' in the search listing. In this example I ended up finding the key phrase: 'How to start an internet business' from my seed search. This should be a buying phrase with commercial intent. Words like 'how to' or 'buy' are always useful! Next we type that into Google and pull the keyword lists from the top few ranked sites using the alexa 'search analytics' data. We will use these phrases in our content and as tags for blog posts and videos to help Google understand what our site is all about. Step 4 - Money Link Now we join a program where we can sell an offer relating to the keyword. We search for our keyword + affiliate. Often we will find a clickbank product or a CPA (cost per action) offer from somewhere like Neverblue. There are also some cool offers at CJ.com. Once we have signed up for an offer we now read the sales page and get into the mind of the buyer. Note if you already have a site that makes money you can use this technique to get yourself more traffic and links by pointing the campaign to your own site. Step 5 - Content Now we create or buy some content to use as a lead magnet. Ideally this can be a video (you can transcribe it later into a PDF report, MP3 podcast and blog post). This means we can use a youtube strategy of posting video content with a view to attracting clicks to a URL (web site address) displayed as a watermark in the video and in the description link next to the video. If we have no content we can rent or buy a youtube video by contacting the owner of an already existing video. If you are creating a video it can be a slideshow made with powerpoint. You can film yourself with a digital camera set to movie mode. Alternatively use screenflow or camtasia software just to make a screen video of you talking on the sales offer page whilst scrolling. See an example here. Step 6 - Traffic Time to get some traffic. We post our video and place links in the description to either the offer directly or your own blog. For affiliate links I suggest you use a re-directed domain. Buy a domain from namecheap and then re-direct it to the affiliate link using the built in free feature. Later when you scale up you should host the re-directed domain on your own server so you can track traffic. Here is the 301 re-direct index.php code I use:

This is the second time I have interviewed John Carlton and I am really pleased with the information John generously revealed. We covered off the topic of long versus short and video versus text once and for all! John Carlton Interview Summary notes: Q: Is John the greatest living copywriter? John refuses to be called the world’s greatest living copywriter. He would rather that he was referred to as the most ripped off and respected writer online. John also thinks that the highest form of praise is to see people mimicking his work, and following him and really keeping an eye out for everything he does. Q: What is your most ripped off ad? The one legged golfer ad was one of the most famous things he’s written. It’s been recycled and reused countless times since he first wrote it about fifteen years ago. It became a very powerful example of how to do a ‘hook’. He spent more than a decade perfecting his craft and has now spent another decade teaching people what he learned. John feels most rewarded when he sees people come up with good ideas as a result of his teaching. Its all about Bullets! One of the greatest learnings I have learnt from John is how important it is to write punchy bullets. Listen in as he drops a HUGE hint about the way he writes copy! John hops on the ‘Hot Seat' On my last post I asked ‘What’s the biggest question you would like to ask John Carlton?’ and got hundreds of replies. My plan was to run through many of these questions and have John answer with the first thing that comes to mind. (In the call you will see how hard this is!!!) Q: What’s more important, injecting character, storytelling, or learning the ways of the NLP ninja? John says storytelling and personality are way up the list of important things and go together because it’s hard to have a good personality without telling stories. Although NLP can be powerful, he thinks that personality and storytelling are your first choice weapons and NLP is way down the list. Q: What are your thoughts on long sales letters versus videos? Videos are sales letters in a different form. If you asked the question, ‘how long will it take me to get my point across?’ If you can deliver the hook, make them listen to you and get them to give you their money, whether it’s a long or short letter or a long or short video, it doesn’t matter as long as you accomplish your goal which is to make that sale. The proven winner? What’s been proven to be most effective now is a combination of a video and written text at the bottom. The reason this strategy is so effective is because you engage your customers in a multi-sensory level. The goal is..... Bottom line is whether you use videos or sales letters, you have to be able to make your audience in an ‘active state’ and moved enough for you to make the sale. Use videos correctly Videos can be vital only if we use it in the best way possible. This means delivering the right kind of sales letter in conjunction with the other basic sales process that always includes text in some way. Start out with text? You’re always going to start out with text, on emails for example, it’s always faster and easier to send a text email with a URL for people to go to instead of them waiting for your video or audio to load before they can understand your message and we’re almost certain that very few will stay waiting long enough. Q: What tips do you have when it comes to writing squeeze pages? Every step of the way in a sales process and in any kind of human interaction where you are trying to influence the behavior, so try to cut your sales process into little chunks of progressive pitches that get people’s attraction incrementally. Move in small steps Where your heading sells the sub heading, your sub heading sells the video, the first few seconds of the video sells the next few seconds of it and so on. On squeeze pages,

When you start out online it is easy to get sucked into the 'noise'. Every week there is a huge 'must have' info product and your inbox is overflowing like crazy. I thought you would really appreciate this podcast and free report compiled by three very different internet marketers. Dean Hunt, Peter Parks and myself! Biggest Mistakes Dean Hunt suggests you should avoid being a perfectionist. I recommend outsourcing as the cure for 'doing everything yourself', and Peter says 'get a mentor. In the report we develop these further. Best Advice? Dean says you mus

Fellow Australian Marketer Kyle Tully is back for another interview. Kyle and I have been discussing internet marketing for a few years because we share the same views on most topics. This time we talk about offline business consulting and who is qualified to do this model. Both of us have been pursuing this lucrative internet marketing business model for several years. Early start Kyle got into marketing at an early age. He came through the traditional Dan Kennedy style of direct response marketing. This is the same sort of material I would recommend all serious marketers get access to. I own every one of Dan Kennedy's NO B.S books. Do offline business internet marketers need to be technical? We discuss technical versus marketing skills. Putting together a business is going to involve some basic technical learning. If you can learn these things even a little you can put your self into a position where you can outsource later anyway. When you outsource the technical stuff you can know what to expect from outsourcing and you can fix things on the spot if you have to. Being able to talk about these things confidently will give you a boost when it comes to talking to offline clients. Professional web clients (corporates) will happily pay you to make small changes. You can outsource this and charge the client. We discussed the 'done for you' with a maintenance service model. Kyle says clients want this and I agree. One time fee or recurring income? Both Kyle and I were selling one time payment jobs when we started and now we both offer maintenance packages. Maintenance programs are something you should educate clients to have and also something that is very good for them. There are different things you can sell at various price points. (Kyle runs a membership site called Consulting Tycoon) Typical services clients of Kyle will learn are how to sell packages of websites, traffic, SEO (Search Engine Optimization, newsletters, article writing, PPC (Pay Per Click) , followup marketing with auto-responders. You can work within your strengths and clients will happily pay you to learn on the job. Once you learn a skill for a client you can use it for other clients and your own business. Just do it for yourself or do it for others? Kyle and I discussed the dream goal of sitting at the beach making money. (Ironic given that I am typing this from the beach house!). We agreed that providing a service for others is a great way to start cash flow and get great experience. We both still serve clients through services and personal content because we can hone our skills. Kyle gets a lot of enjoyment from helping business owners. The average business owner has a very low level of knowledge about Internet Marketing. Even with a small exposure to internet marketing and solid offline consulting strategies you will be able to impress. Success stories Some of Kyles students have started out with a good mindset and created a very good business within a short period of time. One of my own Business Internet Formula students (Jock Purtle) pursuing this model generated a six figure contract within a few weeks! We both have seen people do this fast when they apply the methods we teach. I have some templates in my SuperFastResults forum and Kyle has massive content in his membership. Warning: Not so ethical Internet Marketers Kyle and I have seen a lot of trashy products coming out in this niche (the 'offline gold local business' niche). Many of these were put together by students in dorm rooms with nothing but a taste for opportunity. For example any product that puts a heavy bias on cold calling is missing the point. Many traditional internet marketing experts have cobbled together products (often with a no-name business partner) to serve this hot niche. What you should be looking for is a solid business plan that involves creating a 'pull marketing' system (where the client will come to you).

Dan Thies can be counted on for a controversial SEO perspective and he is qualified too. He is one half of the SEO Brain Trust, a new project for dedicated Search Engine Optimization enthusiasts and students. The other half is Leslie Rohde. Internet Marketing all-rounder Dan Thies is a very capable SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) and PPC (Pay Per Click) marketer. He has a very good business mind honed from being in the market for such a long time. If you can get good at both SEO and PPC then you have a great combination for making money online. I respect him very much and he is the man I ran my latest SEO product past before publishing because he knows a lot about this topic. He has a real business mind. We got to catch up and share some fresh information in this interview. Keyword Strategy When looking for the right words to use on the site you should use both the obvious ones AND the ones you dig up later through research. You will find they break into general relevance and specific relevance. (Ignore wishful thinking keywords!). Every page is a marketing channel. Traffic to the site will typically be coming to the site through multiple pages so you want to cater to as many relevant key phrases as possible. Google Changes Now with the way Google displays results there is a premium on the top few listings in Google. The top few spots are super sought after. The top three listings carry the greatest click through rates. Google are now trialling triple listings in the search results pages (SERPS). This is especially important since explorer browser uses tabbed browsing and this takes up more space. CTR (Click Through Rate) Statistics Statistically (over 800 domains) Dan has gathered private data that shows the click through rates of the top three listings. 50% of the clicks go to the top three results. 60% of those clicks go to the top position. In other words, Dan recommends trying to get number one listings for less competitive terms than lower page one rankings for difficult terms. Google are also inserting shopping listings and video listings in the middle of page one on a frequent basis. SEO is a resources game Try to do the on-site stuff at once but work on the link building as quickly as you can to get the site making money. Put the profits back into the site and build the amount of links for every possible relevant phrase. Keep using the resources you have to get top rankings for as many phrases as you can. ACT ACT stands for Analytics and Conversion Testing. Working on persuasion elements (paying off on the promise) is a deep science that gets huge yields. This is an area Dan is passionate about and deeply specialized. When doing SEO consider that conversions are a HUGE part of the equation because that is the ultimate purpose for a site.Profit comes from traffic multiplied by conversions. Strategy and tactics You need to do a lot to stay ranked because the competitors with the deeper pockets will out spend you in maintaining a top SEO listing. The competition moves down to lower and lower competition keywords. You will need to get savvy with SEO because the game is getting beyond article spinning and made for adsense sites. As time goes on more webmasters will be getting smarter. Short v long Sometimes the choice keywords are the short ones however not always. Often the longer tail phrases are more profitable. Revenue per click for pay per click ads show that the highest ranked keywords get more clicks and make more money per click. This means you should be aiming high for PPC and SEO using the RIGHT keyphrases. Using PPC? Use exact match because broad match sucks. Recently the live quality score has meant that a lot of exact match phrase match ads no longer display. Dan will be releasing a PPC course to cater for these changes. These are being rolled out in brainstrust. PPC and SEO go very well together. Use SEO to locate the traffic for PPC campaigns.

Matt Wadsworth is not (yet) a big player teaching IM however he runs a great niche online business. I met Matt in Dubai where we were both speaking to a new emerging market of Internet marketing students. Strategy Matts success in the niche markets...

Bob Howells (officially Robert Earle Howells) gets paid to travel the world and experience things normal desk job types don't. Bob is an award winning travel journalist and his latest info product reveals his 30 years tricks of the trade for getting published. More than meets the eye You may be wondering what this has to do with internet marketing? That is a fair question and let me answer this. I met Bob on a travel junket. He was paid to go and I paid to go. On this trip I taught him how to leverage his skills online. He taught me how to leverage my skills offline. I thought YOU might like to know more about how Bob does this! Becoming an Authority When you publish work 'offline' in traditional media you build your authority. Bob is an EXPERT at this. After reading his e-book you will know exactly how to get a publisher to favor you over other submissions. When your name goes in print you can now leverage your credibility as a published author. I'll be doing it more and I encourage you to do the same. The RIGHT approach When you want to get your material published there is the 'traditional' way and then there is 'Bob's way'. Bob has identified some very sneaky 'stealth' methods for dramatically improving the 'yes' rate for publishing. Once you get this right you can expect to be paid more than $1 per word you write. Profitable passion Yes you can make money from your passion. Using these techniques you can add extra income to your existing job or amplify your authority for Internet Marketing. Bob has made a living by getting paid to travel around the world! Now he is combining these skills with blogging and information products.. Questions? In this interview we cover all the major questions you probably have such as dealing with rejection, what license to sell, how to get paid multiple times per content submission. In all we have more than 30 minutes of amazing mind exploding opportunity. Bob will help me answer any questions you have right here: (Download "Write Where The Money Is" here)

As I am putting together a product teaching people how to make money as affiliate marketers, I just conducted a detailed survey. The point of the survey is to make sure my product addresses the core concerns of my client base. In this case I got all the data back and compiled it into the most common questions. The survey sample was large and accurate so here are the survey results: The Top 7 Questions Affiliate Marketers Asked 1) How do I get sales without a list? 2) How do I build a responsive list of buyers? 3) How do I get sales without a powerful Blog? 4) How do I make a bonus that is attractive when the super affiliates and gurus are competiing over product launches? 5) How do I get traffic? 6) How do I manage the technical stuff? 7) Whats your biggest tip for affiliate marketers? Rather than answer these myself I thought it would be beneficial to get another affiliate marketer on the phone and brainstorm some ideas. Jay Deiboldt is a bright marketer I met at underground seminar and I have been watching his handywork over the last year. His new product Google Slapper covers many of these topics so I thought he would be perfect to get on the line. Here for your benefit is a 40 minute conversation between Jay Deiboldt and James Schramko discussing various aspects of affiliate marketing as we uncover some secrets and address each of the burning questions. We hope you enjoy it. Topics revealed in the MP3 - Why new people are caught in the the vicious cycle of thinking they need to be building a list before they start. - How to build traffic directly from Google and takeover the buying keywords searched for. - How to start with zero customers on list and how you can make sales even without a list. - Why you should target buyers and make a list of buyers - How to collect names of people who are looking to purchase - How to build a list of responsive buyers - How to get ultra high open rates - How to have a high quality client - Factors for building trust, getting high stick rates and keeping people on your list - Creative ways to come up with extra bonuses people value - A tip about subject lines for excellent open rates - Why you should tell people when they should not buy something - Tips on how to avoid the reciprocation pressure - How you should review things and if you should truly believe in anything you promote - blog review model for established rankings - Tips to get traffic if you do not have a powerful blog - Hot new resource Jay has noticed that is getting great rankings - Details on how to construct a killer bonus offer. - Examples of bonuses and launch results - What bonus formats work best and why - The one bonus that is a huge mistake (and people still do this!!!) - How to create a three way win:win:win with value bonuses - How to partner and leverage others when you have no bonus - Why helping others will get you ahead faster Plus we cover more tips for getting traffic including: - web 2.0 - blogs - forums - ppc tactics - wordpress - forum marketing mistakes - testing techniques to determine where the best results come from - how to maximize the result Small wins early on can get you in the right mindset We end the chat with Jay's big tip - the one thing you must learn. I also offer a tip - how to set up in the beginning to end up ahead. We close discussing how to stay organized by doing one thing at a time, eliminating onfo overload and taking massive action... If you like this check out TrafficGrab

If you only use Google for traffic then you are only going to reach a fraction of the available market (possibly less than 20%). Most serious Internet Marketers are using paid traffic WAY beyond Ad Words. In Jonathan Mizels course Traffic Evolution you...

Mindset and personal habits will make or break your outcomes regardless of the business model you choose. For this reason I went to Toronto to visit New York Times Top 10 best selling author Raymond Aaron a world leading success coach. Success Author Raymond is an authority in this field. Check out the books he has published: While we were there I got to meet his amazing support team, share some ideas and learn all about his mentoring program. He lives the lifestyle he teaches Raymond Aaron has life designed the exact same way he encourages his students to live. He has a lovely wife, luxury car and a business that allows him to travel. While I was there we went to dinner at the CN tower. The most effective technique for getting things done... I insisted Raymond share his top goal achievement tip with you on Video so here is the good information directly from the legend himself: var playerhost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://www.ezs3.com/secure/" : "http://www.ezs3.com/players/"); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + playerhost + "flv/securelinkdirect/FBADD658-C5BF-0D66-57A92654370F886E.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); I encourage you to post your comments or share your story below!

When you really want to scale up your Internet Marketing business you will have to outsource at some point. Most entreprenuers know this however not all of us are able to do it as well as others. This is when you look to others and see how they do it and get some ideas.. I've built a great team over the last year or two I now have helpers in Australia, the Philippines and also India, USA and London. Categorize Break down the online outsourcing into your main categories. (Design, Content, Traffic, Programming). Each of these elements need to be managed as a separate business unit. By setting up team managers the team can be managed effectively with cutting edge software. Where to start? Once you decide to outsource you can either use an outsourcing management company or you can learn the more advanced outsourcing techniques and do it yourself through a talent aggregation website. How much should you pay? You should avoid dealing with the lowest bidder. Also you should be avoiding automatic bidding companies (people who reply to every job without even reading the brief). Look for people with experience in the exact field you are requiring. Check feedback and ratings to make sure they were rated for the same type of work you are requiring. Make sure they are responsive prior to getting the job. Advanced tip Post small jobs first to select a few people to do it and then scale up with the winning supplier. If you get a few people to complete the same small job you will be minimizing the risk over the long term. How do you pay outsources? Keep the money in the system you are using. So if the network you use (like RentaCoder) uses escrow then continue to use that. If you branch out to friends and referrals from your original designer you may wish to use Paypal or a direct debit / International Bank transfer. What mistakes should you avoid? Software is one of the hardest things to get done for you. Hence the rule of 3 to 6. Software usually costs 3 times more than quoted and 6 times longer than quoted! The other common mistake is to delay outsourcing too long. If you value your time then you really need to outsource as soon as possible. Start out small and start early. On a limited budget? Pay a little bit more and do your diligence. Spend a little bit more and make sure you have a chance of getting the job back. Post the small jobs to a few people at first and then run with the winners. Measure the results early and go with the most effective supplier. Write great descriptions for your jobs. What things should you do your self and what should you outsource? Strategic stuff and relationships should be done by you. If it is tactical stuff like FTP, design, content, traffic, programming, help desk can all be outsourced. Spend your time on your marketing. Look for ways to use system. Anything you hate should be outsourced!. Is it bad to do things your self? In the beginning it is ok to do stuff yourself. The trick is to get your outsourcing in motion as soon as you can re-invest in your business. Make sure you record the processes so that you can give the recordings to your outsource worker. This leverages your time. Daniel steps us through his action plan as if he was starting from scratch. Within a week he would be bringing in affiliate commission to re-invest in content. The next investment he would make would be design. Look to your personal life first to free yourself up for your business One key to building your business is to outsource the stuff you do at home. Here is a list of some of the things you might look to get others to do for you both at home and in your business: - lawn mowing - dry cleaning - driver (hire car) - food preparation - event management - personal assistant - help desk - link building - keyword research - spying (research tools) - ppc management - design - recruitment - management - backup - call centre - copywriting - newsletters

Many of you already guessed from the headline this post is clearly about Dean Hunt the famous Buzz Marketer. I admit it is a blatant ploy to attract your attention. In this case it is very appropriate because my interview guest is a specialist in these matters... Thing 1 - Be outrageous Dean Hunt reckons it is ok to go against the norm a little with your marketing and who am I to argue. He is known for outrageous marketing stunts such as selling himself for $1,000,000! (Advertising space on his T-Shirt that is). Thing 2 - Innovate In the interview with Dean we learn about creativity and innovation. Basically you can steal other peoples creative genius and use it as your own by giving it a little twist. (Be sure to take full credit Dean mentions!). Take the most popular beliefs and poke fun at them. Bend and stretch norms into creative hooks to compel your audience. Thing 3 - Always / Never Dean mentioned a great technique to discover the way to stand out from the crowd in your industry (even if you are a plain old accountant). The method he uses can be applied in minutes and has proven to be a big winner for many others. It is called the Always / Never comparison. (Listen to the interview for more details...). Thing 4 - Market Research Dean mentions his top three resources for getting a window into viral traffic. These three sites are Digg.com, Delicious.com and Stumble.com. You can take the leading stories from there and craft your own version of that. Thing 5 - How to write killer content Dean writes for himself instead of search engines. If the content speaks from his heart he feels as though it will be more compelling to others. Thing 6 - The sneaky little headline writing secret The great technique for getting a really awesome headline is to write the content FIRST then do the headline last. You should have a strong feeling for the theme of the content by the end of the writing phase.This makes perfect sense and allows you to weave a good hook for the story. Thing 7 - The world is your swipe file Everything you observe as you conduct your life can provide 'blueprints' for effective buzz marketing. The key is to see everything as a technique you can repeat for yourself. Hence the world provides examples for you to model from. If something sparks your imagination then you have to ask how and why. Put that element into your own marketing and watch the results! More about this marketing lunatic... Dean Hunt runs a very personalized private buzz marketing coaching service. Dean is also a contributor to the FastWebFormula program of mine...

How To Write Killer Copywriting People Will Try And Steal From You (Even If You Can't Spell)... Revealing interview with living legend John Carlton While John Carlton has been visiting Australia I have been learning more about Copywriting than ever before. John is touted as the greatest living copywriter and he studied under Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert. In this revealing interview we discussed some great sales copy themes... John Carlton and James Schramko People often get stuck when it comes to copywriting. Sitting there in front of a blank page can be intimidating for new marketers, especially when it is the most essential part of the 'money getting' process. Push them over the fence!!! John Carlton revealed some great insider tips regarding how to motivate people to make a purchase. In this revealing interview we discussed buyer motivation and various techniques marketers use when writing sales letters. Nothing gets done until the copy is done You really don't have much happening until the sales copy gets written. Doubling conversion has the same effect as doubling traffic. If you combine them both you have an intensively profitable situation. Hard hitting questions I asked John about his thoughts on automated sales tools, long copy versus short copy, how to hire a copywriter and more. The answers may shock you. Last minute advice I love Johns advice to Frank Kern just prior to the worlds most successful Internet Marketing launch (Stompernet). John was able to clearly set Frank on track, solving the challenge he was having at the time. This snippet is something everyone should be aware of and is simple to apply. I wish I had know this several years ago. Motivation It was really great to learn what motivated John to go from 'slacker' to success story. His story is inspiring and he also recommends some resources you can look up. Two things every sales letter should contain Did you know there are two things every sales letter should contain? Once you embed these into the sales process you can expect an increase in sales. 'Lizard brain' is one of them. This triggering of ancient mind patterns is so powerful it causes fully grown adults to move into a buying frenzy beyond their own control! Common sales writing mistakes In the interview you can get an insight into mistakes you really need to avoid. Once you steer clear of them your results should improve. Applying just a few of these tips can shift your mindset forever. Putting words into a codec of proven sales persuasion is one of the best ways to crank up profits in an already established website. Fast gains for YOU When you combine scarcity tactics, bullet points and several other secrets John mentions, you will be in the elite category. Perhaps you will double your sales too! Discover the simple writing sales system course John Carlton invented and improve your profits today >>> CLICK HERE