Author Archive | Joseph

I mentioned in a previous article that you don’t want to become one of those many one hit wonders that make a big splash on the Internet and then vanish – but how do you make sure that you’re not? Because it’s really easy to say you won’t be, but the fact is that no one PLANS to be a one hit wonder; in fact it happens when you DON’T plan.

I’m going to offer some tips here for ensuring that your success is not the flash in the pan variety, but rather the type of success that continues to pay off day in and day out for years to come.

Really what we are talking about is becoming what you might call a “repeat success.” Because isn’t that the opposite of being a one hit wonder? There is nothing at all wrong with that initial success – it’s repeating that success over and over that gets you the outcome you’re seeking. Sort of like being a one hit wonder a hundred or even several hundred times. And when you view it like this, you see that it becomes easier.

The first thing I’m going to recommend will sound too easy, perhaps, but it’s extremely important that you try it out for the next 21 days. I say 21 days, because psychologists say it takes that long to make a new habit. Plus, it gives you the proper chance to evaluate the results and see that what I’m telling you is profound, to say the least.

Okay, are you ready? The first thing you need to do to ensure you have ongoing success is to pick a number from 2 to 5, and then do that many things in your business everyday.

Let’s say you are a super busy person with a full time job and a young family, so you don’t have much time to devote to your online business. Your number is going to be 2, because you’re only going to have time to do 2 things a day. If you’re working online full time, your number is 5. And if you’re in between, you can determine the right number for you.

Now then, every evening you’re going to make a list of the most important things you need to accomplish the following day in your business. If your number is 2, then write down the 2 things you want to do. If your number is 5, then you’ll list the 5 things.

Obviously, you’re not going to choose 5 really big things like “build a new website,” “create a new product,” etc. Instead, you’ll break down your tasks so that they’re manageable and doable in the time allotted. And then you’re going to do those things, no matter what. As in, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

Doing the things on your list takes priority over your favorite TV shows, eating out, etc. These things are as important as brushing your teeth and sleeping, and once you realize that then you’re not arguing with yourself on whether or not to do them, you’re simply DOING them.

I told you this would seem too simple – does it? Because this one technique will do more for you than almost anything else. Certainly it will allow you to accomplish more than any self-help seminar you could attend, or any time management tool you could use. The list technique is not new, it’s old and it’s proven and you know what else? It flat out WORKS. So if you’re not already doing it, then I encourage you with all my heart to start using this method now, today, right this very moment.

A word of caution – I see students of Internet Marketing get very excited and say something like, “I am going to do TEN things every day!” But this is a trap. What happens is you get burned out and in less than 21 days you’re not doing ANYTHING in your business because it just became too overwhelming, too time consuming and too much like WORK. And isn’t that what so many of us are trying to escape, the drudgery of WORK?

So don’t fall into that trap. If you have lots of hours in your day then choose the number 5, do those 5 things in the morning and early afternoon, and then TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY OFF. That’s right – do not allow yourself to get burned out because you will find that your biggest asset in your business is actually your enthusiasm for the business.

Also, do take a day off. Not 2 days, at least not in the beginning, because if you take 2 days off those 2 days often become 3, and then 4, and then you’re not doing anything. But you can take one day off and go do something totally unrelated to your online business, and come back refreshed and re-energized the next day.

My second tip for ensuring you have long term success is so simple, and yet few people understand the power of it. Ready? It’s to FINISH WHAT YOU START. If you start creating a product, finish it and then promote it. It’s not finished until you get it out there and promote it. If you’re writing a blog, set a schedule and keep to it. True, your blog will never be “finished,” but if you stop writing then it’s as good as an unfinished project.

Look, I probably sound like your parents on this one. “Son, you’ve got to learn to finish what you start.” Why do you suppose your parents said that? Frankly, they probably said it because their parents said it, but there is a terrific amount of wisdom behind that thought.

First of all, if you don’t finish what you start then you have wasted your time and energy on that project. Second, you receive nothing in return for your effort – you can’t make sales and earn money on a product you didn’t finish.

Third, unfinished work breaks you down psychologically. Having unfinished tasks in your life is like having pesky little green goblins sitting on your shoulders tapping you on the side of your head and telling you that you’re a failure. Why? Because an unfinished project is a failure. It’s a constant reminder of something you intended to do but didn’t follow through on.

One note: If you’re in the middle of a project and you realize that it’s the WRONG thing for you to be doing (for whatever reason) then by all means bail out. There is no sense wasting more time on something once you’ve realized your project has little hope of success.

Careful planning and research should minimize the instances of this happening, but there are times when things aren’t in our control. For example, you’re writing a series of promotional emails for an affiliate product that suddenly gets pulled from the market. Best case scenario – re-adapt the emails to another product and move on.

Which brings me to my next tip for ensuring you are not a one hit wonder – success loves SPEED. If you are quick to move from idea to implementation, you’ll seldom have a project that goes unfinished or doesn’t pan out.

For example, if you’re writing code for a plug-in on a piece of software today and you get it finished next week, you can start selling it. If it takes you 6 months to write that code, and the software is obsolete in 5 months, you’ve wasted your time.

Not to mention the fact that speed also reduces competition, at least initially. Using the plug-in example, if you’re fast you can get that plug-in on the market 2 weeks ahead of any competitor, rather than weeks behind the competition. Again, success loves speed so when you get a great idea, don’t sit on it, ACT on it. NOW.

Next is your mailing list. Yes, you need to be building a list. I don’t care what kind of marketing you’re doing or want to do, what your product or service is, etc. It doesn’t matter, because everyone who enjoys long term success online is growing a list.

In fact they have TWO lists – a list of buyers and a list of interested prospects. And whatever else you are doing, you need to be building that list and sending them offers. This is KEY to long term online success. I know you’ve heard this before, but if you’re not aggressively building your list then you’re just not “getting” it and it’s high time you start.

I don’t mean to sound like a drill sergeant on this, but it’s simply not negotiable. Unless you want to be some flash in the pan marketer who creates a product, sells a few hundred copies and disappears off the Internet, you MUST build a list and never stop building that list.

The reason you can never stop is because some people on your list will lose interest in your niche, or they change email addresses and don’t tell you, or any of a number of reasons they are no longer a viable prospect, and so you always need to be adding new prospects in order to continue to grow your business.

Now some folks will say that you don’t need a list because of social media, to which I’ll vehemently disagree. Social media is an awesome tool to help you build your list, and I highly recommend you spend time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube if it’s helping you build your list. But you still need a LIST of people who know you and like you so that you can send them emails and yes, SELL them stuff.

You’ll find that the majority of your income comes from emailing your list and either letting them know about your own products or suggesting an affiliate product on which you earn a commission.

The best thing you can do when it comes to list building? Build quickly, aggressively and without hesitation. What I’m saying is, find all the best ways that work for you to build your email list and then be relentless in using those methods to build your list even bigger and stronger.

Look at it this way – if you add 10 subscribers a day to your list, in a year you will have 3,650 subscribers. But if you really focus your time and resources on list building and instead of adding 10 subscribers a day you add 100 subscribers a day, in a year you will have over 30 THOUSAND subscribers.

This is a profound difference in just a year. Multiply it out over 3, 5 or 10 years, and you can see how worthwhile it is to be aggressive in your list building.

Of course quality matters as well. A list of buyers is worth far, far more than a list of prospects.

I’ll tell you my secret for quickly building a list of buyers: Create a product that sells for $5 to $10, and then give away 100% of the commission to your affiliates, paid immediately via PayPal. You’ll find software that automates this if you look for it. By paying your affiliates 100% commission that goes straight to them, they have a huge incentive to promote your product. And YOU get to keep the prospects and market to them time and time again.

The marketers who DON’T build a list? Those would be the one-hit wonder people. They do something, make some money, but don’t stay in touch with their customers and prospects. And the funny thing is, they left the lion’s share of the money on the table because it’s in the FOLLOW UP that you make the REAL money.

Think about this – you sell a $17 product, get a list of buyers and prospects, and then do nothing. Or you never bothered to gather the list in the first place. So whatever you made on your $17 product is ALL you are going to earn.

But if you captured the email addresses, you can continue to market to these folks for days, weeks, months and even years to come, earning thousands of dollars more in affiliate commissions and by selling your own products.

And the last bit of advice on how NOT to be a one hit wonder? Focus. That is, choose a niche and focus on that niche at least until it’s earning you a steady stream of income. Once you hit that level, if you think you want to try a second niche, go for it. But using a scattergun approach from the beginning to enter 2, 5 or 10 niches all at once is only going to yield you minimal results at best because your energies are so dispersed.

In other words, you can get a tiny bit of success in several niches simultaneously, or a whole lot of success in one niche – your choice. Personally I prefer to devote all of my time and energy to just one niche, and I’ve found it pays off quite well.

And by niche, I do mean NICHE. Weight loss is not a niche. Weight loss for women over 50 in the Dallas area is a niche. Or weight loss for work at home moms. Or weight loss for diabetics. The more narrow your focus, the easier it can be to reach your target audience and to get them to purchase because they feel you are speaking directly to them.

So don’t choose the “make money” niche because you’ll discover it’s too vast and too broad. Instead, choose the; “part time work for high schoolers” niche or the “supplement your social security with a profitable hobby” niche. See the difference?

I know I’ve given you a lot of tips here. You might want to go back and review (then implement aggressively), because it’s equivalent to rocket fuel for your business growth.

So you slaved over your latest blogpost – and nobody tweeted it or shared it on Facebook? Or perhaps you wrote a dozen new articles – and all you hear are the sounds of tumbleweeds drifting across your screen?

It’s harder and harder these days to capture attention – namely because attention spans are getting shorter as people are deluged with more and more things to watch/read/do.

Here are some fast tips to make your writing – shall we say – more readable.

Forget your honors English class and write like people speak. Not sure if you are? Try reading your writing out loud. If it’s awkward or stilted, work on it.

Break it up. Seriously. Ever get an email that’s a one page paragraph? Could you read it? DID you read it?

Hit the enter key like this.

Often.

Use subheads. People like to scan what they’re reading, and if something captures their attention they dig deeper. That’s why you want to add subheads to your blog posts and articles.

Not Sure What A Subhead Is?

It’s like a mini headline inside your article or blog post. See the line above.

Bold your important points. If you make your key concepts bold, the scanning eye will see them and often stop to read the complete sentence.

Use photos. Photos catch the eye like nothing else. Better yet, use photos that have at least one face in them. Studies show the eyes will linger longer on a photo of a face.

Caption your photos. The second most read copy on a page is the photo caption, so make it count. Don’t just write one or two words – think of it as a headline to generate interest. If you need two or three lines, go for it.

Use bullets and numbered lists. What’s typically the third most read part of a sales letter? The bullets. (No surprise – headline and photo captions are the first 2.)

Use links. Link to relevant info on your own website and to your research on external websites. Internal links keep your readers on your website longer, while external links show that you’ve done your research and know what you’re talking about.

Implement these simple tips and you’ll get more people paying attention to your content. With a little bit of practice, you might even give late night television a run for their money.

Has anyone ever told you to set goals? I know, silly question. People are always telling you to set goals because goal setting can and does work. But has anyone told you there is a right way and a wrong way to choose those goals?

For example, you want to earn $10,000 a month so you set a goal to reach that $10,000 mark. So far so good, right? Actually, no, because this is what’s known as a “static” goal rather than an action goal. Static goals sap your motivation because they’re focused on outcomes that are, for the most part, outside of your control.

Bottom line – they seldom work.

Imagine you’re in your living room and the house is a mess. You set a goal to have a clean, straightened, neat house in the next 2 hours. You visualize your house being clean, you look at pictures of your house taken when it was clean, you write down your goal, and 2 hours later? Your house looks exactly the same.

Why?

Because you didn’t DO anything. You took no action because it was a static goal, not an action goal. “Have a clean house” has no action tied to it.

But what if you reword that goal to the following:

“Straighten, vacuum and clean the living room, kitchen and dining room.”

Do you see how you are firmly in control of whether or not this goal is achieved? And now you’ve got a goal with ACTION in it. You could even break this goal down into several smaller, action oriented goals to make it even easier to achieve.

So let’s look at how action goals can help you in your business:

Instead of setting that, “I earn $10,000 a month” goal, how about…

Week 1: I create my first product on ____ (subject)
Week 2: I set up the website, sales letter and emails to promote this product.
Week 3: I contact my list to offer them my new product, I write 3 guest blog posts on this topic to promote my product, and I contact 25 potential affiliates and joint venture partners and ask them to promote my product.
Week 4: I create my second product.

If you’re using static goals you’re going to get frustrated. Still using the $10,000 a month goal as an example, it’s going to take you an investment of time and effort to reach that goal. In fact it could take months to get there, and if you’re not seeing results in the meantime, you’re likely to get frustrated and quit. Not to mention the fact that the goal has no action tied to it, and so you’re likely to “wait” for it to happen – which it never will if you’re not taking the right actions to achieve it.

By setting action goals that take you to where you want to go, you are always achieving, you’re always making progress, and you’re constantly being revitalized by the achievement of each action goal.

You might want to set some action goals right now, before you forget. I think you’ll find it becomes an addictive habit that pays off often and exponentially.

We didn’t start online businesses to make 10 bucks an hour, right? Our goals are obviously much bigger. But here’s what newcomers need to know that only seasoned online pros can tell you – you’ve got to start somewhere.

There are three key components to that sentence – “You have got to start somewhere.”

First of course is “you,” because nobody is going to do it for you.

Second is “have got to start” – if you haven’t started to make money online, now is the time. Not tomorrow. Not next month. NOW.

And third is “somewhere.” Meaning you’re not going to start out making a thousand dollars an hour or a million dollars a year. It’s not going to happen. You start out making maybe 10 dollars an hour, and you move up from there.

I’m not saying you can’t move up fast – you can. But you have to START wherever it is that you’re able to start, and for nearly everybody it’s making a few dollars an hour and working from there.

For those who don’t want to work your way up, that’s no problem. Close this site and go find a get rich quick scheme or 2 or 20. Then get back to me when you’re rich (should be next week sometime, right?)

You might even get lucky and find yourself a one hit wonder. You know, like those musicians who get a song on the charts – and then can never duplicate their success so they just fade away. It’s almost worse then never getting success at all because then people say,

“I know that song, who did that?”

“Oh yeah, that was Jo Blo and the Tweektonics.”

“Whatever happened to them?”

“They were one of those one hit wonder bands. I think they’re playing airport lounges now, and the lead singer is the cook at Ma’s Take-in-Bake.”

Whoop-de-do. 5 minutes of fame and the rest of their life is a punchline.

I see that happen in online marketing. Some newbie makes a product that sells a few hundred copies, they get some money in their pocket, and then they just fade away, never to be heard from again.

Who the heck needs that? But it’s the get rich quick mentality that makes failure like that happen.

For the rest of us who have the common sense to know you don’t win a marathon by starting on the finish line, let’s get started.

And one more thing: As you begin making money online, a funny thing happens. You get addicted. You get to where you want to make more, and you do. You want to find ways to leverage yourself and your work, and you do. You want to find methods to make a lot more money in a shorter amount of time, and you do. But it all starts at the beginning – making a few dollars an hour and then working up from there.

Method #1 for making $10 an hour online – freelancing.

Maybe it’s freelancing writing articles or blog posts. Or building backlinks, or putting up websites, or whatever. Pick out that thing you do the best, and offer it as a service to others who either don’t do it as well as you, or would rather hire you than do it themselves.

What’s that? You don’t have a skill worthy of hiring out your services? Then get one. You’re going to need to master these skills to get good at online marketing anyway, so pick something that really appeals to you, then research the heck out of it for 10 hours. In 10 hours you can learn more about any topic than 99.9% of people know.

Then advertise your service on sites that let you sell services like Fiverr. Start out working for cheap, get some clients and some testimonials, and gradually increase your pricing.

Find faster ways to perform your service, and even hire out the work to someone else. In other words, LEVERAGE what you’re doing to increase your hourly rate.

For example, if you’re getting paid $5 an article and you write 2 articles an hour, you’re making $10 an hour. Get faster to where you can write 4 articles an hour and you’re earning $20 an hour. Hire someone overseas to write the articles for you for $2 apiece, and you’re earning $3 an article for simply reading them over and doing light editing. If you can edit 10 articles an hour, you’re earning $30 an hour. And so forth.

Of course what is the problem with all of this? You are trading time for money – something that by itself will generally not get you to that magical six figure per year income.

Unless, of course, you not only hire out the work – you also hire someone to take the orders, edit the articles and fill the orders. Now you have a completely hands free system for making money, and it all started with you earning $10 an hour and working your way up from there.

Method #2 for making $10 an hour online – writing and selling PLR.

In our previous example we were writing articles for others. Of course in freelancing you can choose to offer any service people are willing to pay for – writing articles was simply one example.

But what if, instead of writing articles for one person, we write a packet of 10 to 15 articles on one specific topic using the best keywords for that niche, and then SELL that packet of articles to fellow marketers for their own private use?

Now you can sell the same articles over and over again. If you sell that packet of 15 articles for $10, and you sell 15 packets, you’ve earned $150. If it took you 5 hours to write the articles, you’ve now earned $30 an hour. Of course, if it takes you less time, you earn more per hour. And if you sell more packets, you’ve again made more per hour.

There are PLR writers who do exactly this. They write packets of articles, offer those articles either on their own websites or a popular internet marketing forum, and do quite well.

Can you outsource the writing of the articles? Of course you can. And with PLR, you are not limited to just articles – you can write blog posts, reports, ebooks, make recordings, videos, etc. You are also not limited by how many times you can sell each PLR product you create, unless you choose to set a limit so as to create scarcity.

So now you’re naming your own price, and you’re creating a bank of products you can continue to sell for as long as you choose. And you’re also creating a loyal following of buyers because once your buyers see that you offer good quality at a good price, they will come back time and time again.

Maybe your first PLR product only sells 10 copies, but then your next one sells to 10 new buyers and 5 of your previous buyers, and your next one sells to 10 new buyers and 10 of your previous buyers, and so forth. Every time you offer a new PLR product you’ll have more customers who already know that you put out great stuff, and so they’ll snap it up in a heartbeat.

Plus, as new customers arrive they’ll see your previous PLR products and purchase some of those as well. So that packet of 15 articles you wrote 3 months ago is still selling a couple of copies a week, and if you’re putting out new products every week, you’ve got more and more to offer and thus more and more to sell.

Leverage this by outsourcing some or all of the writing, and you’ve not only created a method to earn $10 or more per hour – you’ve actually got yourself a nice little business where you are in control, you set the hours and you set the prices.

Do you see how you are progressing from a freelancer to a service provider? And it really is that easy, but the first step is you have to actually START. And that’s the step that trips most people up. The second step of course is that once you start, you keep going. You’ll find the more you do, the more you want to do, and it just gets easier as you go because you’re building momentum and you’re seeing success. Plus as you go you’ll get more and more testimonials, which will make it all that easier to make more and more sales and even to charge more money for your work.

Again, getting started is the hard part, yet it can be easy if you get started right now before you have a chance to put it off. There is nothing stopping you because if you have time to read this, then you have time to start your freelancing business or even jump straight into your PLR writing business.

Method #3 for making $10 an hour online – Write an Info Product on How You Did It.

Did you get started? Are you now making $10+ per hour freelancing? Or writing and selling PLR? Then your next step is to write your own case study on how you did it, and sell that. For example, you might title your report, “How I went from $0 to $10 an hour in one day, and now earn $30 an hour doing simple work online.” Or something like that (perhaps a bit shorter.) Then sell your report in a niche forum or on your website, ClickBank or wherever you choose.

In fact, no matter what you’re doing online to succeed, once you get good at this you can always write a report detailing what you did and sell it to make easy, extra money.

In our example, if you price your report at $7 and sell 50 copies, you’ve made $350. The cost to run a special offer in a popular niche forum is normally less than $100 so you could net $250 for something that probably took you 3-5 hours worth of work. That’s $50+ per hour, PLUS you now have 50 additional buyers on your list that you can sell to again and again.

More tips – whatever service you’re offering, be sure to offer it with a twist. If you’re writing articles, use a spinner to give them multiple versions of each article, or use a program to transfer them into video, or blast the articles to article directories. If you’re doing backlinking, don’t just offer a standard package of one type of backlink – offer a package that includes multiple types of backlinks so it looks far more natural to the search engines. And so forth.

Your service could be something as simple as creating videos using any of the video programs out there. There are programs that make videos that look like Hollywood trailers, and others that make videos that look like home movies. Do your research, find a program you like, and offer the service. Sure you might spend some money on software or access to a special website that produces these videos, but then it’s as easy as ‘plug in and create’ to fulfill your video orders.

Now I know a lot of people are going to want me to outline a detailed step-by-step plan on exactly what you should do to earn your $10 an hour and work up from there, and I’m not going to do it.

First, I’d have a hundred people all competing against each other and complaining of the competition. Second, it’s not about me telling you what to do – it’s about you finding what you’re best suited for and following that path.

More to the point, this is where you do your research and you find something that resonates with you, and then you learn everything you can about it. Set aside 10 hours and just learn, learn, learn. Then you’ll know more about your topic than most people, and you’ll be ready to offer your service. And it will truly be YOUR service, not something you copycatted from a step-by-step action plan like a hundred other automatons.

This isn’t just about earning $10 an hour – this is about you stepping out of your comfort zone and stretching yourself just a bit. This is about you taking your first steps without the aid of a hand railing, and it’s the best way to get started and realize just how simple all of this is if you’ll only just DO IT.

How can you create a product in less than a week that has a high perceived value and is almost guaranteed to bring its own traffic and sales? One word: Interviews.

Here’s how to do it…

First, choose a niche if you don’t already have one. Preferably you want to find a niche with experts who have their own email lists.

Second, choose a hook. If your niche is vegetable gardening, your hook might be, “How to grow an entire year’s worth of veggies for less than $50.” If your niche is classic cars, your hook might be, “How to buy classic cars for half their real value.” If your niche is Internet Marketing, your hook might be, “How to drive tons of traffic to your website without spending a dime.”

Third, once you have your hook you’ll want to find your experts. Book authors are great for this, as are bloggers and any fairly well-known experts in your niche. Don’t be afraid to approach well known people because you’re going to offer them something they want – exposure. Everyone has something they want to plug, whether it’s their latest book, their website, their new product or whatever – and you’re going to use this to your advantage.

Fourth, contact your experts. You can do this through phone or email, whichever you’re more comfortable with. Ask them if you can interview them, and be sure to mention that you want to plug their latest product or book for several minutes at the end of the interview. Everyone loves a chance to not only expand their audience, but to also make some sales of their latest product.

Fifth, if their product has an affiliate program you’ll want to sign up as an affiliate, do a redirect and give that link at the end of the interview to promote the product. This way both you and your interview subject will make money.

Sixth, conduct the interview. Sign up for a trial at Instant Teleseminar. You’ll get your own conference number and access code. Set the interview up to be recorded, and once the interview is over you can download the mp3 recording. Simple!

Keep the interview fun and relaxed, and ask questions along the lines of your hook. You might want to let your interview subject know ahead of time what you will be asking so they can be properly prepared. They might also have suggestions for you on what they would like you to ask them.

Seventh, ask your interview subjects to promote your new interview product for you. Because they are one of the featured speakers they will likely not only promote it, but promote it heavily. In addition to sales for you and commissions for them; it also means subscriber sign ups for you and back end sales as well (remember, you’re promoting a product at the end of each interview and receiving affiliate commissions on those as well.)

And there you have it – an easy, fast way to create your own product with a high perceived value. If you do a dozen or so interviews, you can easily charge $47 to $97 for the package. And since you’ve chosen experts who have their own mailing lists, you’ll also have a way to promote your product for immediate sales while simultaneously growing your list!

I don’t need to tell you how important the conversion rate on your squeeze page is. The better it converts, the more prospects you get. The more prospects you get, the more sales you can eventually make. So how do you get your squeeze pages converting like gangbusters? Here are 13 things you should be doing on every landing page you create to ensure you’re capturing every prospect possible:

Know who you’re talking to. On your squeeze page you are speaking directly to your prospective customer. So who are they and what do they want? You’ve got to know your customer and use the words and images that will appeal directly to them.

Keep it simple. Really. I’ve seen squeeze pages that are cluttered with so much stuff you don’t know what to look at first. So what happens? Rather than try to sort it all out, many people will simply close it. Remember, you’ve got about 3 seconds to capture attention and hold it. Keep the clutter out and only share enough to get them to take action right now. Any more than that and you’re confusing them – and losing sign-ups.

Split-test. Everything. Repeatedly. Use a good split test program to test your headlines, your colors, your fonts, graphics, form, opt-in button, EVERYTHING.

Use one strong focal point only. You can and should use different font colors and sizes, but you only want one focal point to draw the eye in and capture attention, and that should be your headline. Everything else should flow from the headline.

Your entire message should be consistent. In other words, don’t use a headline extolling the benefits of weight loss and then use bullet points about the benefits of exercise unless it’s in direct relation to weight loss. Keep it consistent or you’ll confuse and lose your prospects.

Match your landing page to your sales page. If your sales page is for a product that teaches traffic generation strategies, then your squeeze page should refer to traffic generation strategies, not Internet Marketing in general. This might sound basic, but it’s surprising how many times I’ve gone from a squeeze page on one topic to a sales page on something different.

Sell the benefits. Remember, you’re not selling a drill, you’re selling holes. You’re not selling steak, you’re selling the aroma, the taste and the satisfaction.

Forget what you think. So you think you’ve found the perfect headline? The magic bullets? Just the right color scheme? It doesn’t matter what you think – it matters what converts the best. See #3.

Think “above the fold.” Yes, your squeeze page might extend beyond the fold – that is, below the area that shows in the computer screen without scrolling. But the area above the fold should stand on its own. It should show the headline, the bullets and the opt-in form. The below-the-fold-area is for those prospects who haven’t quite decided to opt in yet and want more info.

Tell them what to do. Your visitors landed on your squeeze page because they’re looking for something. Don’t be coy or clever – make it clear what they will get and what they need to do to get it.

Color matters. Use opposing colors on the color wheel to create contrast, and then test, test, test. Yes, some colors really will convert better than others but it depends on your offer and your audience, so you’ve got to test it for yourself.

Be trustworthy. Use short, 1 sentence testimonials that rock. Display your logo, certification, etc. Place your contact info at the bottom of the page. If you’ve been in business for years, state how many. If you’ve won awards, place those on there as well. Don’t clutter your page with this info, but do make it available.

Ask. Perhaps the best squeeze page trick, outside of testing, is to ASK them a question that they must answer with a YES! “Do You Want to Look 10 years Younger?” “Are You Ready to Build Your List 10 Times Faster?” “Do You Want To Be Irresistible to Women?” Strategically placing these on your website puts them in a “YES!” frame of mind, making them more likely to opt into your list.

Implement these conversion hacks to increase your opt-in rates and grow your sales!

There’s always a lot of talk on how to recruit affiliates to promote your products, right? But what if instead of recruiting affiliates, you TRAIN affiliates?

homebusinessideas.com/images/affiliatemarketingtraining.jpg” alt=”How To Build Your Own Army of Affiliates”>

That is, announce you’re offering affiliate training once or twice a month, live on a webinar. The training is free, come one and come all. You put out the call, and then using your own products as examples, you train them in how to make money by promoting affiliate products, especially yours.

This reminds your list month after month that they can make money promoting your stuff. It also builds loyalty, since you’re giving free training on how to make money doing this. And it forges partnerships between you and your affiliates. When they can speak to you on the webinar, or at least ask their questions and hear your voice, you’re building rapport. At the very least you will most certainly sell more products to those who attend your training because they now know, like and trust you.

And in addition you will begin building your own army of affiliates to promote for you all over the web and reach people you could never reach on your own. It’s a win-win all the way around, and it will only take you a couple of hours a month to do this.

I’ve seen this time and again.

Someone builds a nice little site, or product, or some sort of residual income stream.

Then they spend their time tweaking it and trying to increase the income from it. They’re good at SEO and so they tweak and tweak and tweak to make the most money possible from that asset. 

Good so far, right?

But there comes a point of diminishing returns. The site or product or whatever is making $1,000 a month. 

And after hours and days and weeks of tweaking, the site is now making $1,100.

But here come the monthly bills (mortgage, car, insurance, etc.) and the bills are far more than $1,100. So, what’s a marketer to do?

Sell the asset, of course. You might get $3,000 to $5,000 for this asset, depending on what it is and so forth.

Now they have the bills paid and maybe go on a bit of a spending spree, but no asset and no residual monthly income.

Of course now they have to do it all again – build an asset, tweak it and wind up having to sell it to pay bills.

Did you spot the mistake? It’s hard to miss.

If the marketer had spent just enough time testing and tweaking…

…And then moved on and REPLICATED the process…

S/he would then have TWO assets each creating $1,000 a month in residual income.

Then rinse and repeat. Building one asset a month, that’s $6,000 a month in residual income after six months, along with assets totaling maybe $18,000 or a lot more.

As you’ve already guessed, the point is that while you do want to test and tweak whatever it is that you’re doing online, you don’t want to make a career out of it. 

Optimize it the best you can as quickly as you can, and then replicate the process and build another one, and another one, and another one…

In the above example, our marketer could have started selling one asset (product, site, etc.) per month after six months or a year, to again greatly increase their monthly income. 

Selling these assets before their life cycle ends can be a great idea. After all, it’s hard to sell a product or site once it’s no longer making money.

Do what you need to do, but don’t make a career out of making a few extra dollars while leaving loads of money on the table.

Did you enjoy the Olympics? Every four years we get to see the best of the best and their gold medals, but sometimes the best inspiration comes from those who don’t win – or even someone who came in dead last.

In 1988, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards became the first competitor since 1928 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping.

How did Eddie do? He came in #58 out of 58.

But it didn’t matter. His fans loved him for other reasons. He had no trainer, no money, no practice facilities – and some called him the great British loser.

He had a cheerful air of bumbling incompetence, epitomized by the big pink goggles he wore.

Says Eddie, “I got my letter saying, ‘Congratulations, you can represent Great Britain in the Olympic games’ when I was in a mental hospital in Finland. I wasn’t a patient. I was there because it was the cheapest place for me to stay.”

On getting ready to do his jump, Eddie says, “There were about 85 or 90 thousand people in the ski jump area, and I thought this is going to be really good, I’m really going to go for this. The Germans and the Swiss and the Italians were going down jumping, but the crowd were ignoring them and chanting, ‘Eddie! Eddie!’”

“And I got out and sat on the bar and they started cheering and cheering and it was great!”

“When you sit at the top of the ski jump, you look down, and you’re probably about 500 or 600 feet up from where you’re actually going to finish. You can see a million and one different reasons why you shouldn’t really go down. So you do have to be not a little crazy, but probably a lot.”

“You’re traveling at 65 or 75 miles per hour. Within about a second you’ll be 250 feet up from where you’re going to be landing. And you just try to relax and let your skis carry you to the bottom of the hill.”

“It’s the most exciting, exhilarating feeling in the world.”

Eddie’s British record jump of 71 meters landed him in 58^th place – out of 58 competitors, 19 meters behind the jumper who placed 57^th.

And if you ask anyone in Great Britain, “Who won the Olympic ski jump in 1988?” Almost no one could tell you.

But if you ask, “Who is Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards?” They’ll tell you all about the crazy ski jump guy who they still remember and love to this day.

Eddie stood on the top of the precipice and said, “Geronimo!”

The British people were so proud of him for just trying, that winning didn’t matter a bit.

He dared to go where most of us won’t. Yes, he came in dead last, but he will be forever and fondly remembered by his country for doing what no one else had done in 60 years.

So what daring thing are you afraid to do? Whether it’s something online or in real life, take Eddie’s example and just go for it.

You might just become a legend.

You don’t need a humongous budget when you begin outsourcing, but what you do need is the knowledge of HOW to get the best online workers possible. After all, no matter how much work you outsource, it’s still your business and your reputation on the line. Not to mention the fact that better work equates to better profits, both short and long term. Doesn’t it just make sense to find the very best people possible to work in your business?

Whether you are a seasoned pro at outsourcing or you’ve never hired anyone to do anything before, here are some proven tips to get you moving with the least amount of hassle and the highest return for your money.

1. Be absolutely clear on what you want done. Whether you are posting a job or giving instructions to someone you’ve already hired, tell them step by step exactly what you want them to do. This will save you time, aggravation, and usually get the job done faster. Plus the bids you receive will tend to be lower, since the people doing the bidding can easily envision exactly what they’re doing and how long it will take. Lastly, if you are paying by the hour then this will save you money, as your worker doesn’t need to take the time to figure out how to accomplish what you want done.

2. In being clear, consider either writing out what needs to be done in a step by step fashion, or make a video showing them exactly what to do. This way you are not only showing your present worker what to do, you’re also creating a blueprint for future workers to follow. In addition, if there is a hole in your plan it will become quite clear when you’re going through the steps necessary to achieve your goal.

3. Have an agreement or contract between you and the worker. Things you might include are:

– Work to be done (Detailed description of what is expected)
– Deadline for the work to be done
– Payment arrangement (Amount to be paid, terms, method of payment, etc.)
– Copyright (You’ll want it to be crystal clear that you own all copyrights)
– Non-disclosure (Your worker is not to reveal anything that goes on inside your business, etc.)

4. Check out your worker prior to hiring them. Check their portfolio, references, feedback, etc. You might also Google them. Try to get an idea of the kind of work this person does and whether or not they meet deadlines. Also important: How well they communicate with you.

5. Start with something small and work up from there. If you’ve never hired someone before, choose a small job first. It makes it easier for you to get your feet wet, minimizes your risk, and allows you to experience how wonderful it is to have someone else handling that small chore that you don’t enjoy doing anyway.

6. Find the workers who do well with the small jobs and then give them bigger tasks to do. Rather than hiring someone for a large project, let them show you what they can do with a small one first. They’re testing the waters with you, finding that you do indeed pay on time and you’re someone they can work with. And you’re finding out what kind of work they do, if they meet deadlines and if their style meshes with yours. If it’s a good fit, offer them more work and bigger jobs. If not, move on.

7. For any big job, don’t pay all at once. For example, rather than paying all up front or all when the job is done, you might pay 25% up front, 25% when the job is half done, and 50% when the job is finished. This provides them with plenty of incentive to keep working, since they know you pay and there is more money to come. Plus, if the work isn’t to your satisfaction, you can stop the work before you’ve shelled out too much money.

8. Let them know to contact you if they have questions they can’t find the answer to. It’s important that they and your project not get stalled simply because they’re missing a key piece of information.

9. Have them keep in touch daily. You might ask them to send you a report at the end of the day detailing what they accomplished on the project, any challenges they’re facing and of course any questions they might have.

10. Keep your relationships professional. That is, don’t hire your best buddy because he needs the work – you’ll only end up with problems. Also, if someone you hire is really nice but not performing, you’ve got to set aside your feelings and deal with the situation from a business standpoint. This is, after all, your livelihood.

11. Let your workers know exactly what you expect and give lots of feedback. Don’t make them wonder if they’re doing a good job, tell them. Don’t just pick out the one mistake they made in the 100 articles they wrote for you, also tell them what they did right and let them know you appreciate their work. The more positive feedback you can give, the harder they will work for you, and the easier it will be for them to take constructive criticism as well.

12. If you think you might change your mind, let them know ahead of time. For example, you decide to take a project in a certain direction, all the while wondering if you shouldn’t be doing it differently. Let them know you might be changing things halfway through, and if it comes to pass they’ll be ready for it.

13. Always treat your workers with the utmost respect. It goes without saying, but I will anyway: Just because they’re working for you doesn’t mean they are less than you. Being respectful of your workers will yield you 10–fold in goodwill and hard work. Think back to when you had a boss – who did you go the extra mile for? The boss who yelled and screamed and put you down? Or the boss who was positive, treated you with respect and brought out the best in you? Be the good boss and you will have workers who are loyal and ready to set aside their other work to get yours done faster and better.

Apply some of these hard-earned tips working in the trenches of outsourcing and you’ll save yourself lots of frustration and find faster success getting others to help you grow your business online.