The Silent Avatar Speaks

Listen up…

Mark this date in your diary… Apil 21-24 now.

Why? Read on (you’ll be glad you did)

Well I guess it would take one of the best in the Internet marketing business to take up the challenge and offer to show you, me, and any one else interested in making money online by putting his talent where his mount is and PROVE it’s possible to start a money making online business in ONE WEEK OR LESS.

Seems Derek has taken up the challenge after an angry blog post throwing down the challenge to prove it is possible to make money online and do it all within a week.

True to form Derek accepted the guy’s challenge!

How is he going to prove to you and me that anyone can build a profitable business in such a short time?

Simple: He’s going to do it himself — on camera!

Yep, that’s right… Derek is going to start a brand-new business totally from scratch in less than ONE WEEK and he’s going to film the entire process and turn it into a FREE video course, so you can see how easily
it can be done!

Derek will release the complete “X-Treme Challenge” video course over a four-day period: April 21-24th.

These videos will be absolutely FREE, but will only be made available to people who sign up for Derek’s notification list.

So if you want to learn how to build a money-making online business in ONE WEEK OR LESS, then I urge you to go to: Marketing Tips X-Treme Challenge and get on the notification list.

Remember: Set aside at least one hour each day on April 21-24th, so you can watch Derek’s FREE training
videos and implement the lessons you learn right away.

… Who knows? You could be making good money online by the 1st week in May!

And by the way… more than 34,000 people have already registered to watch Derek’s free video series — he’s concerned that bandwidth may become an issue, so he’s LIMITING the number of people who can register to watch these videos.

Click here to learn more

Tags: Hot Off The Press, Tools For Your Business by the silent avatar
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Did you know your mailing list is the lifeblood of your online business?

Well hell yeah! you say

The old adage “the money is in the list” cannot be true enough. If you had a targeted list of prospects to contact each time you have a new product, you’ll be able to save a lot of effort by marketing it to your existing list of targeted prospects.

Statistically, you have a better chance of making a sale to an existing customer, than trying to sell to someone who hasn’t brought before.

You can build a targeted list of prospects who are interested in your products by offering them a relevant download on your website.

To give you an example, let’s take a look at apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can purchase via — guess where — iTunes!

In reality, you don’t need to offer such a “heavyweight” downloads such as full-feature software like iTunes – you can attract prospects just as well with some quality freebies such as a simple report, a free wallpaper, and so on. The important thing is that your download offers enough value for the prospect to be willing to give away his/her own email address to get it.

However, slapping together a simple download and putting a link on your website won’t be enough to attract qualified prospects. You’ll have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

First, place your download form prominently on your website. Preferably, dedicate a page to it and link to that page from every other page of your website. That way, there is no way your visitors cannot find the download page, and when they do, you’ll get some of them converted into your prospects!

You’ll need to put some effort into promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the benefits of the download, and why your visitors should download it. You might think why would anyone want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors would be too lazy to take the effort to download it because most of their downloads just sit on the hard disk collecting virtual dust. It is hence important to show your visitors why they should download your freebie.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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Just like most people these days we all have an opinion. Opinions are are agreed on, and at other times they are de-bunked as a load of hogwash.

Irrespective of whether you agree or don’t it’s irrelevant, because opinions are based on knowledge (or lack thereof).

I’ve been watching the Internet marketing circles for some time now. Watching people like:

Mike Filsaime
Rich Schefren
Eric Houmlund
Derek Gehl
Keith Wellman
Michael Rassmussen
Dave Guindon
Tim Brocklehurt
Craig Haywood
Joe Vitale
Tim Brocklehurst
Jeremy Gislason
Jim Cockrum
and a plethora of other marketers sending email after email touting their latest launch of products, systems, software, e-books (you name it).

Just yesterday I received 15 emails from various marketers. Some advising their newsletters are ready to read. Some talking about “old pizzas”(?), updating their affiliates, and others launching new products.

The truth is internet marketing relies on people like you and me to BUY. After all that’s what internet marketing is all about. Using strategies like good sales copy, good products that solve problems, video “how to’s”, revealing “secrets”, and all the while shelling out our money to support the “gurus” raking in the money.

What few tell you is it has taken years of increasing their knowledge, getting the right people to mentor them and researching their respective niche to get where they are.

I watched a video today from a guy called Joshua Shafran telling me how he will spend around $100K this year on his education alone (just to keep an edge on the market).

Sheesh! I don’t know about you, but spending $100K when you are paying the mortgage and feeding yourself or your kids just isn’t in the same ball park as what most of us have to spend. I would be more inclined to BUY a successful website with that sort of money!

The success of Internet marketing relies squarely on the shoulders of other internet marketers feeding the cash cow (aka you and me).

No doubt all of us are guilty of buying ebooks, software, systems, and signing up as affiliates to earn some extra cash, but.. have you noticed how you ended up with LESS money than you started with? (just look at your credit card statement if you think not).

And no doubt there ARE Internet marketers who have made their fortunes. People like Mike Filsaime who came out with Butterfly Marketing (yep I brought that one). Stompernet SMARTS (Dan Crowther), Affiliate Project X by Chris X (Yep brought that one too).

I could go on and on about how many product launches there has been, and how many gazillions each of these marketers has made. But I won’t. You already know they are successful. You helped them.

But who’s helping you?

If you have lots of money to splash around, sure you can buy the latest, greatest product to hit your inbox. Problem is there are new products coming out every other day, and they all scream “my product’s the best.. forget the rest”. Their sales copy will be so convincing, you start to get agitated thinking about the potential of the offer, and the difference the extra money will make.

So what do you do?

Well.. here’s my opinion from having been knee deep in internet marketing long enough to know what works and what doesn’t.

Read on and I’ll tell you my humble opinion…

1. Don’t keep buying e-books, software, joining membership sites (ad nauseum).
2. Pick ONE subject you want to explore and become an authority on.
3. Make sure your subject is in a niche.
4. Look for a problem which needs solving within the niche and brainstorm a way to fix the it. It might be an e-book with info, software, a series of videos (though some of the videos I have seen are like MGM productions and must have cost a bomb to put together).
5. Find mentors (people you can bounce ideas off, play devil’s advocate, encourage you.
6. Write out what your plan is for your niche and stick it on your monitor where you can be reminded of it every day.
7. Don’t so much as look at anything which is not related to your niche (trust me.. you wil be tempted to click a link, be taken off track and curse yourself when hours have passed and you haven’t done a thing that day to move you towards your goals).
8. Keep focused on your niche.. keep looking for a problem to solve.
9. Rinse and repeat with a different niche (but only if you can be as enthusiastic about the niche as you were the first time around).
   

Along the way you are going to have to learn a lot. A hell of a lot. It’s not a simple as executing the the steps above and money will roll on in. They are just guidelines to success.

You will need to learn how to put up a mini site. You will need to learn how to write good sales copy. You will need to know about social bookmarking, web 2, SEO, Keywords… the list just goes on and on.

What’s wrong withInternet marketing?

Well nothing really. It’s working very well (testimony to the millions that exchange hands each year).

The problem is the with the people feeding the cash cow. They are the ones who need to change their focus from “I’ll try anything”, to “I am going to focus all of my energies on XYZ and become an authority (aka Maven). I’m going to stick with it, forsake all the other tempting offers which come my way and remain focused”.

Making a success of your online business is about doing something better than anyone else. You cannot be all things to all people. Find your niche. Let it consume you until you are such an authority that you become known for your expertise.
Then you will have a real business. Not just a mini site flogging an e-book.

The choice is yours.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing by the silent avatar
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Those readers who subscribe to my blog (and BIG thank you to you all) will know I have been reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.

I wouldn’t say the book is full of “aha!” moments. In fact if you’re on the Internet Marketing road you will already have some parts of Timothy’s blueprint to being one of the NR (New Rich).

Today I would like to give you a snapshot on the mistakes the NR can make.

If you’ve been in the working world for any length of time, you are going to have to go against your (learnt) impulses to get out from where you are. It’s recognising these impulses, and where they fit into the scheme of the New Rich that will best serve you to keep yourself on track.

Here’s the impulses you will be working against to become one of the NR (New Rich). If you continue to do these you are doomed to fail in your quest for being one of the New Rich.

1. Getting bogged down in the day to day dealings of life you lose sight of your goal to become one of the NR and end up working for work’s sake.
2. You love to micromanage and just love your emails.  You like to keep control of situations, rarely delegate responsibility (after all – no one does the job as well as you do), and insist that all decisions are passed by you for your approval.
3. You tend to tackle things that others (who are more knowledgeable, and better equipped to handle) can do. You thrive on problem solving and get a “kick” from being the one that “handled the problem or task”.
4. On the rare occasions you do allow others to handle a task, you are constantly inputting your ideas or opinions on how the task should be handled.
5. You use your time on pursuing unqualified customers, or international prospects when you have enough cash flow to finance your non financial pursuits.
6. You answer emails that won’t result in a sale when a comprehensive FAQ or an auto-responder to do the job instead.
7. You work where you live. Work and home have become one – there is no escape.
8. You know the 80/20 rule but have forgotten to apply it to your business and personal life every two to four weeks.
9. Your a perfectionist. You fail to recognise this is another “work for works sake” excuse. You are never satisfied with good or good enough.
10. You are a drama queen. Small problems get blown out of proportion as an excuse to work.
11. You upscale non urgent issues to urgent in order to justify work.
12. You know that you are in a rut, know that what you are doing is not the be all and end all of your existence, but you just don’t know how to get out of it. You cannot find meaning to your life.
13. You have few friends, no hobbies, and rarely go out. You live for your work. Social life? What social life?

Do you have any of these impulses which are keeping you from being one of the New Rich(NR)?

Tags: Business Tips, Hot Off The Press by the silent avatar
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