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Saying yes to the 10X test

November 15, 2011 By

I started reading a book last week that totally and completely changed my mindset about the way I’ve been running my business.

It’s THE reason why I started my accountability group and why I decided to stop BS-ing and move forward with my new affiliate sites. It’s THE reason why I’ve started getting eight hours of sleep a night instead of my usual six. I’m 100% sure it’s also the reason why I’ve been picking up some good high end press release clients lately.

Honestly, I’ve been more productive in the past week than I’ve been in a LONG time. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve always been a mover and shaker because I like being self-employed. But I normally work to the point of comfortable-ness, and then I chill, telling myself that I’m enjoying the fruits of my labor.

I could’ve been a millionaire many times over, but I always stop short of taking it all the way. I make it just so I don’t have to worry about finances, and then I coast.

That’s just NOT sexy anymore

Time waits for no man or woman. You can sit around dreaming up ways to get out of the stuff you really need to do, or you can push your ego face down in the dirt.

The latter is very difficult for most people because the ego is very accommodating when it comes to justifying reasons why you’re time wasting. It’ll allow you to keep mindlessly surfing when you should be writing an article or starting that ebook.

With a chipper little voice it says, “It’s okay to start that project tomorrow. Yes, yes… bright and early tomorrow!” But as you know ‘tomorrow’ usually means NEVER.

You really have to decide what you want in your life and just start moving towards it. Not slowly because you’re trying to anticipate or avoid every pitfall. (That ain’t gonna happen anyway.) And definitely not tip-toeing like you’re terrified of waking your greatness out of its comatose state.

Greatness is rewarded to people who work hard, make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and keep moving forward

That’s the secret to a successful business, in a nutshell.

You can’t honestly say you’re working hard unless you’re coming up against obstacles and dropping the ball a few times. You won’t ever feel truly confident if you’re not busting down a few walls like the Incredible Hulk.

And you won’t ever move beyond the current financial scenery in your life if you’re doing the same thing day after day.

You need rocket fuel induced momentum. And that’s where The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone comes into play.

Normal work = Working class wealth (and that’s not anything to cheer about)

That’s exactly where I am right now.

I didn’t get hit by the recession because fortunately I’ve always had the smarts to live slightly below my means. I taught my kiddo to always treasure experiences more than physical things, so we live pretty light.

But if I ever got hit with an illness, I’d be screwed after maybe eight months. My finances as an entrepreneur are only slightly stronger than those of my friends who go to work every day.

To become a millionaire in internet marketing you have to work 10x harder than you think you need to and you need to do it consistently.

According to The 10X Rule, you must also set outrageous goals. If you have a financial goal of making $10,000 a month, then you really should be aiming for $100,000 a month. Why?

Because if you set average goals, then you’re setting yourself up to do average work. If you set outrageous goals then you’re going to work 10X harder to make those goals a reality. You may not hit the mark, but would you rather fall short on a $10,000 a month goal, or a $100,000 a month?

Will you say yes to the 10X test?

The new year is coming, but you don’t have to wait until January 1st to draw the line in the sand. Today is that day.

I sat down this weekend and revised my strategies for reaching some pretty lofty income goals.

In doing so I realized that my apprehension to trying out new marketing strategies holds me in a little box. That box ultimately limits my financial growth.

A perfect example is my press release writing business. When I started doing press releases I never anticipated that it would be so freaking awesome. I’ve always heard other marketers say they’re a total waste of time, so that’s what I believed too.

And now look… I love them AND I write them for other people. I was S-T-U-P-I-D to assume that because they didn’t work for others that they couldn’t work for me.

Anytime you take someone else’s experiences and make them your own, you’re not living your own life anymore. Unless you’re avoiding physical death or a loss of moral integrity, then your mind should be open to ALL options and possibilities. Screw what anybody else says.

You can’t expect a 10X increase when you’re operating on someone else’s 1X mentality. For all you know, you could be bypassing the very thing that could take you to the next level financially.

That trap is always sitting in front of us. And so many times we blindly fall into it, and then wonder why we can’t get ahead.

Where will you begin?

I’ve been avoiding YouTube like the plague. But this week I’m going to get Leo Vidal over at Media Marketing Company to do a free video commercial for my press release writing service. (He’s offering free YouTube videos in exchange for testimonials, so click on over if you’re interested.)

Then I’ll work on growing my YouTube video base. If it works, fantastic. If not, well at least I know that it doesn’t work instead of assuming that it’ll never work.

This week I’ll also be putting together a second accountability group for those of you who are interested in flexing your goal achievement muscles with me.

I’m beginning to see that it’s not enough just to say you have goals, if you’re not putting them out there in the public eye. Verbalizing it in front of a group makes you want to do what you said you’d do.

The second group will be small… 5 people or less. We’ll meet for an hour a week to express our goals and help keep one another on track. Take the first step and email me or leave a comment if you’re interested.

In the meantime, get a copy of The 10X Rule and commit to living its tenets starting immediately.

I can’t tell you what direction to take. But I do know that if you start working 10X harder, you will start seeing some extremely positive results in your life.

Filed Under: Strategy Tagged With: , ,

Are your internet marketing expectations in line with the truth?

October 28, 2011 By

For those of you who don’t know, I’m an on again-off again online dater. I work a lot at home… not into the club scene… don’t do blind dates… yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s a diversion for me – now.

But when I first started doing it, I was really into finding “the one.” My sister had just gotten re-married (le sigh), my ex was on his way to the altar (ciao!) and I just felt like I wanted to be in the hand holding club too (awww). I put on my very best law of attraction demeanor and went on an official soul mate quest.

Yes, I met someone great and we dated for a while. But the truth is that he was great for someone else, not for me. I’m a talkative foodie who loves to try new things. He loved to try new things, but wasn’t very talkative nor was he a foodie.

At the end of that spell I came to a simple conclusion.

Sometimes you either have to alter your expectations or you have to move on. In that situation I chose to move on.

Expectations can you have barking up the wrong tree when you should be running down the mountain

Yesterday I noticed I was getting some traffic from the Warrior Forum so I stopped in for a brief visit. Apparently one of my readers had mentioned me as a press release writer. A good press release writer.

I popped over to say thanks and to explain how my service worked.

The person looking for a press release writer had previously hired someone else on the Warrior Forum. He wasn’t all that ecstatic about the work provided and was on the prowl again for someone new.

I explained that I write press releases for people who are looking for website traffic through Google News and other assorted websites. I don’t write them to catch the attention of an editor at The Wall Street Journal.

I relayed that if the person wanted true media attention they should ditch the press release strategy, build a list of journalists who covered his type of story and pitch them individually. That’s the most efficient way to get right to the source… and it works way better than sending out a press releases.

This is, in fact, what a lot of super expensive PR companies do. If they have a really good story, they don’t let a press release do the job of a well tailored pitch. If I want bloggers to review a product, I don’t send out a press release, I email them personally.

Are your expectations leading you down the wrong path?

When I write press releases, it’s for traffic. Not for backlinks. Not for media attention. I want some honest-to-goodness click throughs. I want ebook sales. I want subscribers.

Do I get the backlink effect? Yes. As I relayed in the Warrior post, I have an affiliate marketing client I did 8 press releases for – 2 for each of his sites.

When the dust cleared, 2 of those sites had gained significant backlink juice from the press releases. Enough where they jumped to the first page in Google and in some cases to a top 3 position for a fairly competitive term. So indeed, press releases can be used for backlink power.

But to me, backlinks are a beneficial byproduct of the release, not the main reason why I write them. I don’t find them to be as reliable for backlinks as I do for actual traffic.

I made it a point to stress these things when I wrote the sales copy at my new press release website. I wanted to avoid clients feeling like their expectations for backlinks or media attention weren’t met.

And that’s the purpose of today’s post.

Expectations in internet marketing often have a serious disconnect from the truth

In internet marketing it seems like every tactic is usable for at least 2-3 different purposes. Take forums, for instance.

You can do research on them. You can ask and answer questions. Include your signature and you’ve turned your posts into an advertisement. You can get 1,000 forum profile links in hopes of spiking your backlink juice.

Yes, forums are used for several different purposes. But if you’re using them for marketing purposes, they usually work the best when:

(a) You participate on them, by helpfully answering other peoples questions;

(b) You include a signature.

Everything else (research, backlinks) is a beneficial byproduct.

So when I see people get disappointed because they don’t get the positive backlink effect from forum profile links, I cringe a little. Their expectations are off kilter. Forum profiles, can be used for backlinks. But that’s really not their intended purpose. If you use them for that purpose then you really can’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out as planned.

No more than I can be disappointed in a guy who’s nice, but not a talkative foodie like me.

Understand the true purpose of the tools/services you’re using. If you’re using a tool for a secondary benefit, plan for the best possible results, but don’t expect miracles.

It’s a harsh, yet a very reliable metric for expectation joy in this business.

Have a good weekend my lovelies!

 

Filed Under: Strategy Tagged With:

Google Analytics will no longer report keywords visitors used to find your site

October 19, 2011 By

According to the Google Analytics blog, Google Analytics will no longer show you what queries people are using to find your site if that user is signed in to any of Google’s services.

So let’s say I’m logged in to Gmail and sometime during the day I click through to your site after searching Google for a “purple sofa.” Your Analytics account will only show that you’ve gotten a visitor through organic search. It won’t show that I arrived through the phrase “purple sofa.”

This doesn’t affect AdWords traffic, by the way. (Shocking, I know.)

You wanna know how I see it? I’ll tell you anyway…I think Google is setting up the coffins for lazy site owners to start falling in.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but have you noticed how woefully outdated the Google Keyword Tool is? I recently did some press releases for a client based on the upcoming Halloween holiday, and almost all the keywords in Google Keyword Tool gave me 2010 themed keywords.

Halloween 2010
Popular costumes Halloween 2010

Wha??? You’re — SHOCKED?

This is EXACTLY why in previous posts I’ve said that you cannot bet your business on that Google Keyword Tool. This is also EXACTLY why I just said on Monday that I wanted to improve my quality backlinks.

With all this Panda-licious stuff going on, you can only expect that Google is going to spring these kinds of changes on webmasters.

Besides that, they significantly exceeded their last quarterly earnings report. They can’t keep this momentum by doling out all kinds of free data to non-paying advertisers. Welcome to the new reality of freebie search marketing, my friends.

3 Things I suggest you start doing today

Get to know your site visitors – a lot better.
In Creating E-books that are Impulse Buyer Magnets, I stress that if you’re writing an ebook you absolutely, positively must know your buyer. I don’t even recommend that you use keyword tools until you’ve done some serious research on who your potential buyers are, what troubles them, what they love and what they want.

Keyword tools are short sighted because they’re mechanical. Neither the Google Keyword Tool nor data obtained through Google Analytics can beat having 5 potential customers sitting right in front of you.

If you can’t get 5 potential customers to sit down and talk to you, then you need to be consistently hanging out in the places where they are. Forums… blogs… associations. These unobvious ‘keyword tools’ are going to give you a ton of valuable data about what you should be putting on to your site.

(By the way, if you don’t have a copy of Creating E-books That are Impulse Buyer Magnets, then get a copy. The research methods I teach are no-nonsense and can be used outside of the ebook arena.)

Sign up for Google’s Webmaster Tools.
Although Google hath taken away the ability to see keywords used in real-time, they will send you a list of the top 1,000 keywords visitors used to find your site IF you’re using their Webmaster Tools service.

So if you’re not using Webmaster Tools, now’s the time to sign up for the service. And if you are getting more than 1,000 keyword visits a month from Google… oh well.

Create more content that ISN’T search engine friendly.
Bloggers and webmasters have a tendency to think that keywords are the driving force behind everything traffic related. Yes… they are awfully important, but there are other many other factors that drive traffic to your site.

I get quite a bit of traffic to my directional keywords post, even though I don’t use any recognizably popular keywords. None of that traffic, by the way, comes from Google.

Someone on LinkedIn must’ve talked it up because I get a lot of traffic to that post from LinkedIn. And that’s just one of a few quality backlinks I’ve received to it.

If you don’t have linkworthy content like this on your site, then yes… you are essentially at the mercy of Google’s many moods. And that sucks. Big time. Especially if this internet marketing thing is how you make a living.

Don’t always be predictable for the sake of getting into Google. Be predictable for creating great content that people will want to link to. As easy as that sounds, it always eliminates the have’s from the have not’s.

How do you feel about this new attitude adjuster from Google? Love it, hate it, indifferent? Give me your opinion in the comments section…

Filed Under: Strategy Tagged With: , ,
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