Internet Marketer, Graduate Student, Radical Dude.
Archive for November, 2008
Content Sites – Admitting My Weakness
Nov 26th
I feel like complete honesty is necessary – after all, if you can’t trust me to be honest then how can you trust me?
When I’m writing a sales letter, this would be the “damaging admission” section. The moment when you let down your guard and reveal yourself as human. You tell your lead, “Hey, I’m not perfect.” This psychological tactic lets your reader connect with you on a deeper level, and can win you a lot of business! But that’s not the lesson for today. You can learn more about damaging admissions later…
Today I’m here to admit my own weakness in this whole Internet business. When you get into Internet marketing, the first thing you realize is: wow, there’s a lot of ways to make money online. This realization either becomes your trap or your gateway to making real profits.
- If you see all those opportunities and start flailing your arms, swatting at them, trying to grab up as many money-making methods as possible – you will fail! You will spread yourself too thin trying to learn it all. And in the end, you won’t be good at any of the methods. Chances are you’ll end up that guy that knows a lot about marketing, but doesn’t have any results to show for it.
- If you see the variety of methods and settle on one (maybe two), you stand an excellent chance of becoming the master in that area. You can learn everything about your business model, dominate it, and apply it over and over again to different niches.
I found my method, and I’ve been dominating for a couple years now. But it’s time to expand. It’s time to look outside the box, and find ways to boost my existing income streams. Sure, I could always just create more products in more niches. But that gets old after a while. I know my strength is in ONE LITTLE TINY NICHE. And I make a killing there. So now I want to increase my market share in that niche.
My biggest weakness is content sites!
So what, you say? Who needs content sites when you can just put up a sales letter and forget it? Well, if you want to own your market, you need to provide value-add to your clients or customers. You gotta give them more than they ask for. And sometimes, providing that value to potential customers can win you new business.
Well I suck at creating and maintaining this kind of content. And that’s gotta change. For 2009, my plan is to put together a small network of content sites around my niche. These sites will act as a resource for existing customers, a place to gather opt-ins and build my list, and a portal for expanding the scope of my entire business.
There’s my early New Year’s resolution, and my damaging admission for the day. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in my comments. Any encouragement is welcome, too.
And maybe you can learn something from this post – what’s your biggest weakness? What’s stopping you from maximizing your profits? Identify and eliminate it. If you put down a road map, you will have an easier time getting from Point A to Point B.
Good luck, and happy early Thanksgiving!
Tough Love On A Monday Night
Nov 25th
Just a quickie tonight.
I get the feeling that some of my readers are cautious by nature. You know the type – very carefully thinking about every step before taking it, convincing themselves that every opportunity is really a disaster waiting to happen. Well, I thought it would be appropriate to speak directly to these readers for once.
If you think you fit the bill, you should know something: I was never like that. Not when it came to starting my Internet businesses. Why would I come right out and say this? Because I want to be totally up front and honest with my readers.
So here’s what I want you to do. It will only take a minute. Think about me – my business, how I live my life, the automatic income I have every single day, every single month. It didn’t take a leap of faith for me to get where I am today. All it took was the confidence that I make my own way in life. I make the rules. I make it happen. You see, that’s what it takes. You can’t wait around for someone to do everything for you. It just doesn’t happen – not in this world!
If you really want to build something great, you need to take a deep breath and take action. Just dive in. Arm yourself with enough knowledge to make one small step toward success, and then take that step.
You say you don’t have the knowledge to start making money online? Fine, here you go:
This Is Enough Knowledge To Get You Started
Now you have no excuses. Click that link, drop the thirty-nine bucks, and soak up a bit of know-how. It’s guaranteed, and it only takes 3 hours. Three hours to start your life over! After you’ve done that, take the step.
I can’t push you any harder than I just did. So now I’ll leave it up to you.
You can keep doing the same old things, but you’re just going to end up with the same old results.
I hope you make the right decision for you,
Reuben D. Rock
My Article Marketing Secret of the Day
Nov 24th
Some of you may know that part of my business is writing articles. In fact, if you do a little snooping, you can find dozens of articles authored by yours trulyfloating around. Why am I doing this? Articles submitted to article directories get backlinks! These backlinks are applied toward your Google search rankings. So you better believe this is important.
I thought I might share a little inside secret with everyone today. Any experienced article writers can probably skip over this posting, because you already know about this secret.
Check out this website:
JetSpinner.com – Your Article Spinning Resource
It should have openned in a new window, so you can continue reading here and checking out that page. Watch the video. See what JetSpinner has to say. You should quickly realize the benefits of using this tool.
So you spend a few minutes writing a quick article. How do you maximize the return on your work? Spin it! You’ll get multiple articles out of that one bit of work. These articles can be submitted to different article directories or posted on your blogs.
You might be wondering, “Why can’t I just submit the same article everywhere?” Because of duplicate content- the kiss of death from Google. If you post the same article in more than one place, Google sees through your ploy. They won’t count those backlinks toward your search ranking. That’s a waste of your time and effort.
So there you have it. That’s the secret of the day, and I’m glad to provide it. If you want to know more about article marketing (I know there are some new IMers here), check out UndercoverBum.com – my favorite little resource for learning about the basics.
Good luck, all! And go make some money.
Opportunity Presents Itself
Nov 24th
For the last few years, I have worked my butt off. Well, my wife would probably disagree. But I have worked. I ran a recording studio, started my business, got married, bought a house, finished undergraduate school, started grad school, etc. It just keeps going.
With all those things going on, I was always too busy to just lay back and relax for an extended time. I’m talking about 1-2 months of freedom. Several of my friends have done this nonstop for years now – but not me. I’ve been too busy building up to something. Waiting for an opportunity.
It’s about to hit me – the opportunity to float.
Next summer, my wife and I are off. No school, no work, no nothing. Just money coming in and nothing to do but enjoy it. So for the first time ever we can make plans to live like young people!
What do you think? Should we go nuts? For now, we’re thinking of Virginia Beach, D.C. for a Yanik Silver gathering, Boston, then maybe Europe. Just floating from place to place and sipping on some cocktails.
Here’s the funny part – even with all this kicking back and tipping back, I’ll probably keep working! Haha, maybe I’ll pick up a new macbook to take on the road and expand the business. That’s my life, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Take care!
Turning Up The Heat
Nov 15th
So the busy season is over for one of my big selling products. The fall months usually drive my sales up like crazy – and the money is awesome. But it’s dwindling now.
In the next month of two, my other busy season will kick in. The number of sales won’t be astronomical, but the profit margin for that product is huge. So $$$ will be flowing in.
With this seasonal pattern, I need to develop a plan for my business. How can I take advantage of the peak seasons? What ad-spending changes should I make to capitalize on it?
These are the kinds of questions I’m working through right now. And I’ll get back to you when my game plan is on paper. I probably won’t find out anything life-changing, but it might be the key to squeezing out extra profits.
If you have your own business going on, you should do the same. Put your numbers on paper, graph them, look at them carefully. If you have any patterns in there, you need to think about what the implications are. So many “business owners” like me fail to do this. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the “I don’t have to work” mentality, but you shouldn’t let that keep you from making the most of what you have.
So go do it.
