Internet Marketing Success Formula: Sharpen the Saw Daily

I try to learn something new to become a more effective Internet Marketer every day. Stephen Covey calls that "sharpening the saw" in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."

Now, I try to limit the time I spend on this activity because, being the perennial student type, I could easily spend all of my time learning and none of my time doing. If this flaw describes you and you are trying to make a living online, then I implore you to reallocate your time and start doing for more hours of the day.

Video is a particularly wonderful tool for "sharpening the saw." I watched three useful short video presentations today in the course of a few minutes today.

The most useful one to me was an interview that Brad Fallon did with video entrepreneur, Mike Stewart for Stompernet on creating a local video presence. Mike featured testimonials from several of his local brick and mortar customers from Georgia who vastly improved sales because of the more personal and personable presence that video gave to their websites. This caused me to add to the top of my "to do" list, to create a video blog for my local business as a fire safety consultant for a local home photoelectric smoke detector and heat detector distributor. I need to generate referrals for this business and having people self-select me through a video squeeze page is an ideal way to do this. Certainly, not many people from Southeast Iowa will search for fire safety or home fire safety or home fire safety tips, or fire safety distributors Iowa City, but the ones who do will find me just as soon as I have my video blog up. You can sign up to receive the Stompernet Going Natural 3.0 video series for free at the Stompernet site.

Another video series was really more for fun than to learn about Internet Marketing. It was BobtheTeacher's third episode of his trip to Poland. I learned several things form this video blog, as well as reading his regular print blog post: IM is all about relationship. Build a personal relationship with your reader and you have a reader for life. Bob is incredibly successful at building that relationship. He's also a great teacher, and he has lots of knowledge to share and quite a reasonable price on Web 2.0 media. I highly recommend his blog for an educational read each and every time: BobtheTeacher blog.

The third was Joel Comm's regular video blog. He is a highly polished video blogger. Of course, he has a full-blown studio and has even produced the world's first IM reality show, "The Next Internet Millionaire." We learned in his current series how he got into Adsense marketing and was just about to give up because of poor sales shortly after the dot com crash when he happened upon a marketer who showed him how to test out the elements of his Adsense websites to optimize. His average sales went up from $20 a day to $80 and eventually even $500 a day. You can pick up a copy of his latest book, the second edition of "Adsense Secrets" on Joel Comm's site.

This has be more determined than ever to get myself a decent digital video camera. The Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes (Black)"> is often recommended as a great starter camera. My little Olympus may be ok for 30 second spots, but not much more. I have begged my daughter to borrow her newer and more sophisticated camera, which will record up to 30 minutes of video. Next week I hope to produce my first video blogs using her camera.

Got to run.

Liz Nichols

Consistency and Focus: Essential to Entrepreneurs

As I start out my Sunday morning I'm going to initiate a new routine. Usually the drill is, I eat breakfast and then I sit down to at least two hours of mind-numbing emails before I accomplish anything useful.

Then I'll pay bills or put away files I got out the day before.

Then after lunch I get a couple hours of something useful done, and then I go do the errands like going to the bank, the post office and the library late in the afternoon.

I'll spend part of the evening listening to teleconferences, reading, writing, or doing phone calls to line up appointments for my fire safety job before dinner. After dinner I may crash and read or watch TV.

That's my day. When I look at it, there are only two or three productive hours in it one side or the other of the lunch hour, and another couple sometime between 4 and 8 p.m. That's it!

Well, the gurus may be able to cut their real work time to three or four hours a day and make a living. I don't know about you, but I can't!

Here's the newly designed schedule, designed to catch me doing my best work when I am freshest. That would be, right after I've had a good breakfast, so 9 a.m. to about 11:30, and again late afternoon and early evening when I get my second wind.

The new plan is (drum roll, please):

7 a.m.: read for 30 minutes to wake up the mind
7:30 a.m.: walk for 45 minutes (This is in recognition that the brain and the body need the oxygen produced by regular exercise. I am about to use my new diet product EasySlimRX, an African Hoodia based appetite suppessant, and I'll have more energy to burn as I lose weight.)
8:30-8:45: Shower and get dressed
8:45-9:15: Breakfast and newspaper
9:15-11:30: Blog and work on other writing projects; alternatively, highest priority project
11:30-12: Lunch
12-1:30: Emails, check on sales
1:30-3:15: Household chores, paying bills, cleaning, banking, groceries, library and coffee break
3:15-5: Highest priority project; marketing activities
5-6: Calls for fire safety systems in home demos; prepare postcards for safety system marketing; team calls
6-7: Dinner
7-10: Safety system demos, more safety system calling, teleconferences, emails, reading or TV

Now, every entrepreneur's schedule will look different. This one reflects some of the unique things I do, such as demonstrating fire safety equipment to families in the after dinner hours. It also takes advantage of my higher productivity periods for writing projects and other high priority activities, such as marketing.

Instead of frittering two or three hours at a time on email I'm putting it at a time that is normally less productive for me, the time right after lunch when I feel like curling up for a nap half the time. It will be limited to no more than 1 1/2 hours per day, at least during the more productive daytime hours. If I need more time, it can take place in the evening when I'm doing something else, such as listening to a teleconference or watching TV. I'm moving up my errand time to earlier in the afternoon. Normally there is less traffic and shorter lines at the bank, the post office or the grocery store before 3. If I stop for coffee I can get it done before the after school crowds come in. I'll be back home and productive again before the moms have picked up the little ones from the elementary schools on either side of our neighborhood.

This plan leaves time for me to concentrate on my marketing for my other job at a time when folks are normally home, before and after the dinner hour. Some evenings I'll be out giving demos, while others I can either concentrate on my education with teleconferences, team calls and info product reading, or I can occasionally afford to chill out with a good mystery or a mindless TV show.

My new plan also intentionally adds exercise to my day, a very necessary thing given my need to lose about 75 lbs. One of my intentions is to start a blog that will cover the weight loss story. I'll share the URL when I get it set up.

A Profitable Niche and Great Product

The health and wellness niche is growing by leaps and bounds and is among the most profitable Internet marketing niches around. It is already a multi-billion dollar industry and as the Baby Boomer generation gets older it will only get bigger.

There are a lot of great MLMs based around health and wellness products: Freelife, Usana, Mannetech to name a few.

I've formed a company with a few colleagues from around the world to market a brand new weight loss product called EasySlimRX that is going to take the diet market by storm. The product has all natural ingredients that act as an appetite suppressant and an energy booster. Check it out at our website.

I'll be the first to admit that I need to use this product, and I'm about to sign up for my own trial run. I'll set up a weight loss blog and a YouTube site to document my progress and will include the links here when I've got everything set up. This blog and YouTube combo will also be the place to come for related information on health issues that beset people-- women especially-- who are overweight.

In the past, the most effortless way for me to lose weight that would stay off was to take an appetite suppressant. This formula, which is based on pure African Hoodia, looks to be the best balanced formula out there, so I am really excited to try it for myself.

For a healthier YOU in 2008, join me in taking EasyslimRX.

Liz Nichols
ednenterprises@gmail.com

Understanding the Why of Mini-Site Creation

Michael Rasmussen is a highly effective Internet marketer who has developed a great autoresponder service with 99% plus uptime. Now he is moving the "fr ee" line a bit further by offering his mini-site creator video series, something easily worth $200, for no charge. There are many gurus out there who are charging up to $500 for the same information. Check out Mini-Site Profits Exposed here.

So far, I've reviewed the first three videos. He's got an easy style that is enjoyable to listen to and very clear, professional graphics. A couple of the things that are unique about this series-- besides the fact that it is free: He does not start at the VERY beginning of getting a domain name,a hosting account, or an autoreponder. Rather, if you need that stuff he refers you to a site that will cover all that for you. What a relief! I don't have to sit through another explanation of hosting and URLs. He also gives you the WHY behind what you are doing so that you understand why a squeeze page is important, as well as how it is set up.

Michael offers upsells (of course) but he doesn't beat you over the head with them and he tells you exactly what is in them. You do move on quickly to the product at just the level that is right for you, which for most, will be the free product. So, don't hesitate. Get yours here.

Liz Nichols

Suffering from Information Overload?

Are you feeling overwhelmed? I know I am. I seem to intentionally do it to myself.

As you know if you've been following myself I'm starting the battle of the automatic systems and that means I've got to work on each set-up just about each day. Mind you, I think all of the gurus-cum-trainers that I have paid to get me in the black quickly are all reputable and just will appeal to folks in different ways. We'll see how well each system ultimately works for me.

But in the process of setting up four different systems (Cheney, Wellman, Stafford and VanDyke) I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Like, can they invent a 48 hour day just for my benefit?

Well, my friend Erik Stafford apparently asked his buddies at JVAlert what each believes the number one cause of Internet marketer failure is. You guessed it: the answer is overload.

Erik has put together a 60 minute teleseminar called "The Law of Action: Overcoming Information Overload" on Thursday, June 12 at 9 p.m. EST. Thought you might like to listen in if you are even close to my present state of overload. Here's the link:

The Law of Action: Overcoming Information Overload
=========================
Date/Time: Thursday, June 12th at 9:00pm Eastern
Format: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast -- it's your choice)
Link:
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=MTVXe&m=1g8WVU502ezN5T&b=kLlpnW_4bsTRpM8xN9fRkA
Duration: Approx 60 minutes

Check out Erik's site at TheFasterWebmaster. He's one of the nicest and most genuinely caring guys in Internet marketing. I know he's been there with the overload stuff. He feels our pain!

Liz Nichols

Another Candidate for Automatic System Champ

Among my favorite marketing systems is Derrick VanDyke's "Affiliate Cash Secrets."

Derrick is working on a training system that takes you from the basics of setting up an online business, to details of developing your sales funnel, to creating an affiliate program, and on to more advanced studies.

Each lesson includes a written report and a series of Camtasia videos so that every learning style is covered.

Derrick drills down into the whys and the details of every step without ever boring you or losing you. He is the perfect antidote for overwhelm.

His style is more formal, detailed and polished than Michael Cheney's, who tends to use hastily drawn graphics. Derrick uses professionally prepared graphics throughout. Michael's style is more chatty and relaxed. Both get the job done for the newbie or slow learning marketer (like me)-- just with different styles and emphasis.

Both systems are plug and play. They both offer several private label products, though Derrick's short reports intended to be freebies to entice new optin signups. Cheney's reports are longer and are intended to be sold to new marketers.

Both do a great job of showing you how to set up private label products so they are outfitted with your own pay button and contact information, as well as your disclaimer and address so as to meet Paypal standards.

Derrick does a really good job of showing you how to set up a squeeze page with very little effort, and how to point the landing page, thank you page and every element of the product so it works seemlessly. Derrick's system has a cool split test tool so you can make changes to the squeeze page and see which modifications work the best.

Michael provides a huge amount of material on how and where to advertise so as to build the list quickly for little or no money.

I am looking forward to putting both of these systems head to head to see about the results. Both will appeal to similar folks-- newbie Internet marketers looking for complete solutions. One builds a list with free reports, and shows you how to use them in conjunction with strong-pulling paid Clickbank products as part of the sales funnel. The other concentrates on going after serious buyers with medium-priced information products that are effectively sold by very well-written sales copy.

Since more people will take a chance on free material, my guess is there will be more opt-ins with Derrick's system. But will we make as much money as with Cheney's product? We'll see.

Check out Derrick VanDyke's "Affiliate Cash Secrets" here.

Battle of the Automatic Systems

I've started working with three well known Internet marketers to set up their complete systems for beginning Internet marketers. They are Michael Cheney's Automatic Income system, Keith Wellman's VIP program, and Erik Stafford's I Build Your Business.

The Wellman and Cheney programs were just under $500 each, while Stafford's more hands on program is just under $1500. Cheney also has a VIP program where he gives more hands on support that costs an additional $1500.

Wellman's team has had problems getting up my website, even though they have had almost three weeks to get that done, so not much work has been done on that project. Once it is up, I'll be working with Wellman's Zezweb system to set up an e-book in the real estate area to market.

I've worked the last couple days on Cheney's system. I'm impressed with the quality and the detail of his videos. They are very easy to follow in downloading the 4 private resale right products he has included in this system. Once the sites are set up, he goes into detail on how to set up a blog to use in bringing in traffic to these sites, and all the different traffic pulling methods.

The process that Erik Stafford will use will set up my own products to sell, so this work will be completely original on his part and mine.

It will be interesting to see how well these products do in the marketplace, and how far the instructions go to teaching a new marketer how to make money online "from a standing start" as Michael Cheney says.

I'll keep you posted along the way.

Liz Nichols