Author Archive | Richard

There are times in our lives where we are compelled to stop and take a look at ourselves and ask the question: Who am I?

Obviously there are several follow up questions to that one, most often: Am I happy? Or What do I want now? But really all the follow-up questions we might ask are simply extensions of the first: Who am I?

We might ask that question on the eve of graduation from high school, or university, just before we start that first job, as we enter that first or last relationship, begin a family, buy a house, or start a business.

How do you answer that question? What would you identify yourself as?

Each of us is unique in the world, but we also each try to conform to a type. A mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a professional, an employee, an employer, an entrepreneur. You tell yourself that you are the role you are in.

Whatever you think fits you most comfortably is what you conform to. That is what you think you owe to yourself and others to be. And of course, you want to be that to the best of your ability.

In the case of building an online business, we are entrepreneurs.

So let us look at that word and honor what it really means to fit into that role. Our goal isn’t the financial gains, since for the entrepreneur that is simply a scorecard. Our role is to gain independence and freedom, to follow our passions and to dream bigger than a normal 9-5 job would allow you to.

It is to see gaps in the market that others don’t and to not be afraid to take risks and leaps in investment. Being an entrepreneur is often to follow your gut feelings and to want more: to see the bigger picture.

You have to be who you are in this world, in accordance with how you define yourself no matter what, and as always – remember that money is not the only goal – the journey is!

What happens when you combine the latest scientific evidence with everyday simple habits? You start to feel like you can do, be and accomplish anything.

First, a little background to set the stage…

According to Dr. Andrew Huberman, neuromodulators such as dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine and others modulate and enhance the activity of particular brain circuits and suppress the activity of others. For example, when dopamine is released, it makes certain brain areas work better and others work less. Dopamine improves energy and motivation and causes us to focus on things outside ourselves. It enhances our well-being inside while putting us in an outward, goal-orientated mode.

Dopamine works with epinephrine in the brain and adrenaline in the body. When dopamine is released, epinephrine tends to be released, too. And when epinephrine is released, dopamine may or may not be released. This is important because epinephrine is involved in generating a sense of agitation, urgency, desire and willingness to move. You’re feeling like, “Let’s get up and do this!”

You’ve got energy but you’ve also got agitation. If dopamine is present with epinephrine, you’ve got the perfect combination for getting things done. But if you’ve got epinephrine without dopamine, now you feel agitation and stress without motivation. Dopamine is released when something good happens and it’s also released in anticipation of things that make us excited such as reaching a milestone in our goal.

Then there are the serotonin and oxytocin systems that work together not for goal achievement, but to make you feel good for where you are and what you have in the moment. When the serotonin system is engaged, we feel rewards for what we have in our immediate environment or for what we already possess.

Think about when you hug your family members or your pet at the end of the day. You think about how much you love them and that hug and those thoughts release serotonin. Serotonin gives you ‘here and now’ rewards for what is good in your life right now, whereas dopamine makes you feel good about the rewards that are out there in the world waiting for you.

The serotonin system can be accessed anytime by feeling love and gratitude. It promotes quiescence and calm and gives the warm soothing feeling that you’re good with everything that you have. If you think in terms of primitive man, then dopamine sends people out to hunt, forage and take risks; while serotonin brings them back home again where they feel warm and safe with their family.

Serotonin and oxytocin, along with dopamine and epinephrine, have to be balanced. Certain “A” type personalities who run 24/7 on dopamine and epinephrine burn out. They become not just unhappy but miserable because they can no longer access serotonin and oxytocin. That’s why there has to be a balance.

The question is, how do you align your serotonin, dopamine and epinephrine reward mechanisms in a way that allows you to get as much work done as quickly as possible and with as little stress as possible? That’s where it gets tricky if you don’t know what I’m about to reveal.

These 17.5 simple habits you can perform every day will enable you to enhance the effect of these neuromodulators and become almost super-human in your ability to get things done. I know that 17.5 seems like a big number, but you’ll see that most of these things are simply little tweaks to your day that can make a big difference in how you feel and perform.

These are habits to incorporate into your everyday living that will make you not just more productive, but also happier, have less stress with more energy and generally feel better about yourself and life. Tall order for a few new habits, right? But this is scientifically proven, so let’s dive in:

1: Get enough sleep. If possible, be in bed no later than midnight. Get up at the same time every morning. Reduce or eliminate overhead lights in the evening before going to bed. Make your bedroom as dark as possible.

2: When you get up, move your body and get some sun in your eyes. You don’t have to do your full-blown exercise regimen, but at least do something like yoga, jumping rope or walking for 15 minutes right after getting out of bed.

If possible, get this movement outdoors where you can get some sunshine into your eyes, telling your body it’s a new day and time to release dopamine. Moving for fifteen minutes is going to get the norepinephrine system primed because you have the adrenal glands which sit above your kidneys and they kick out norepinephrine and cortisol and get your system awake.

3: Have real, tangible, written goals. Not, “I’m going to make more money.” That’s too vague. “I’m going to increase my income by $2,000 a month by June 12th” is a better goal.

4: Have a goal for what you will accomplish before noon. The dopamine system works best when you pick a goal and have a target you want to hit. This is why it’s so crucial to identify what you’re going to accomplish before noon or even in the first hour or two of your day.

5: When anything other than your goal leaps to mind in those first hours of the day, push it aside and stay focused on your goal. Why is it crucial that you not get distracted? Because if you stay focused, you’re going to get the dopamine reward.

Moving forward might feel a little tough if you didn’t get enough sleep but if you can reach that goal then you’re going to feel a dopamine release. This in turn will make it easier to accomplish your next goal of the day, as well as improving your ability to focus on singular goals.

6: Stay off of social media in the morning. You can also get your dopamine by flipping through Facebook or Instagram but this won’t help you to achieve your goals.

You want dopamine. You’re going to get dopamine. But the method you choose will determine if you get stuff done or if you waste your time. Identify what you want to accomplish in those first hours and then laser focus on that.

7: Make accomplishing an early morning goal a daily habit. By getting something done right after you wake up that NEEDS to be done, and by doing this nearly every single day, you are priming your dopamine system to work with you in goal achievement.

8: Exercise daily. Physical movement is a key component of achieving any large goal. Stress will stop you from moving forward on your goals, and the best way to combat stress is to exercise.

When there’s even a low level of stress in the system, exercise will quiet the activity of the threat detection center (amygdala) in the brain and allow you to be more creative and get more done.

9: Write out your daily goals the night before. When some people wake up, they are raring to go. But for others, they feel groggy and it takes them time to transition out of sleep and clear their head. That’s another reason why the fifteen minutes of movement is helpful when you first get out of bed. This amplifies the epinephrine and dopamine system.

And having your goals already written means you don’t waste time trying to figure out what to do that day; you simply get busy and do it.

10: Try morning fasting. Not eating when you first get up will stimulate the release of norepinephrine. It also slightly increases the amount of dopamine because it puts you in a kind of anticipation of a goal, which in this case is food.

There’s this ancient mechanism whereby when our blood glucose is low even though we might be a little hungry and a little bit agitated, it tends to focus us on things outside ourselves. And because we need something outside of ourselves, we’re less content to just sit on the couch.

Contrast this with how you feel after eating a big meal. All you want to do then is sit down and relax. This is why by not eating in the first hours you’re awake, you’ll likely get more done.

11: Overcome stress by focusing on an immediate goal. If stress is stopping you from acting, you can get focused by setting your sights on an immediate goal and a horizon that you know you can accomplish.

It can even be a trivial goal, like you’re going to make coffee, sit at the computer, open a file and read 3 pages. Fixating on the large goal can be paralyzing but focusing on what you can accomplish right now is incredibly freeing and helpful in releasing dopamine.

Even accomplishing a tiny goal couples the neural circuits for focus with the neural circuits for goal directed behavior with the neural circuits for energy and agitation. You’re getting those aligned and they’re coherent.

Conversely, when you look at the news and Instagram and your email and Reddit, your neurochemical systems are split. They’re incoherent. And it’s no wonder that by noon you haven’t accomplished much.

12: Chunk your efforts. You have something called ultradian cycles, not to be confused with circadian cycles, where the brain works well for a time and then needs a break. For many people this is 90 minutes.

You might set a timer for 90 minutes and then take a break to do something entirely different such as a bit of exercise, reading something unrelated or whatever you choose to rest your brain. Some people prefer the pomodoro technique which is bouts of just 20 minutes, but if you’re like most people you can effectively work longer than that.

13: Write down your pop-ups. When distractions pop into your mind “I should check email” or “I need to put soap on the shopping list” just write it down on a pad you keep next to your work. This frees your mind to continue focusing on the project at hand while training it that mind chatter can be dismissed rather than acted upon.

14: Get a second dose of sunlight. Cortisol and norepinephrine naturally start dropping through the afternoon, which is why it’s a good idea to get a little bit of sunlight towards the afternoon hours. This might also be a good time to get your exercise, too.

15: Abstain from caffeine later in the day. Unless you need to pull an all-nighter, it’s best to stay away from caffeine starting mid-afternoon. Caffeine later in the day will negatively impact your dopamine and norepinephrine system.

16: Eat complex carbs later in the day. There’s a naturally occurring amino acid called l-tryptophan that’s present in turkey and in complex carbohydrates like pasta, rice and things like that. L-tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin, which is why many people find it useful to eat the majority of their complex carbohydrates late in the day to promote the secretion of L-tryptophan and help them transition to more relaxation and sleep.

17: Eat low carb during the day. Since you can have complex carbs for your last meal, it’s a good idea skip them during the day to keep your energy levels and focus levels high.

17.5: If you want to, take a short afternoon nap. Many people (but not all) benefit from a short nap in the afternoon to recharge their batteries. If you find that a short nap is better for you than a long one, you might set an alarm or sleep in a semi-reclined position to prevent over-sleeping. This can also be a great time to do a little meditation, listening to something that puts you in a trance or even lulls you to sleep for a few minutes.

People who are truly effective in both their work and their home lives have found a way to toggle back and forth between these two systems and control their dopamine system rather than having it control them. If you can learn to go from full performance to full relaxation, you’ll get so much done it may shock you. Mastering the transitions between these systems gives you an outsized effect on performance and relationships in your life.

Try adding as many of these habits as you can and pretty soon when you get up in the morning you’ll find yourself automatically in forward motion and naturally and joyfully achieving more of your goals in life.

A chicken egg is a chicken egg and all chicken eggs of the world are the same, right? If that’s true, then how do you go about marketing YOUR eggs as being better or different than those other guys’ eggs?

For one thing, there is some differentiation between factory eggs, organic eggs, free range eggs, pasture-raised eggs and more. Personally, I like the pasture-raised eggs. It means the chickens get to roam outside like they’re supposed to, unlike “free range” which just means they’re free to walk around inside an overcrowded building full of chickens.

In my grocery store I have several options for pasture-raised eggs, and yet I always choose the same brand without even considering the rest. Is it because these eggs are cheaper? Nope. Is the egg carton better looking? Maybe, but that’s not why…

Marketers, this is where you might want to pay close attention…

The one and only reason I choose this particular brand of pasture-raised eggs over all the others is because in each carton they enclose a tiny 2 page newsletter. This is a single piece of paper approximately 4.25” x 3” or 10.5cm x 8cm. This miniature newsletter is called the “Vital Times” complete with Volume # and Issue #.

The headline on the issue I’m looking at right now reads, “Girls on Grass – and Gratitude.” The article is about ‘the girls’, with girls being chickens, and how they get to spend their day. Here are excerpts…

For Vital Farms hens, this year has been awesome. Sunshine? Check. Pastures? Check. Dust bathing with friends? Check, check, check. Our girls wake up ready to explore… What are we thankful for in this crazy, crazy year? It’s pretty simple. You.

You wrote thank yous – more than 5,000! – to celebrate the work of farmers and crew. You invested in our company and our vision. You inspired our front line to keep working through the long days and nights…

The newsletter goes on to praise their customers for the many things they are doing during the pandemic and then brings it back to how the customers make it possible for the ‘girls’ (chickens) to enjoy the simple pleasures.

Finally, it closes with a brief message of home and gratitude along with a photo of several chickens against a blue sky with green grass and the words “thank you”.

On the opposite side of the newsletter are…

•     A chicken cartoon in which one chicken is painting the barn wall and a second chicken asks, “Is that beige?” To which the first chicken replies, “Don’t be silly, it’s eggshell.”

Ugghh.

The lesson here is humor doesn’t have to be stellar to still be appreciated, since finding almost any chicken cartoon in your carton of eggs is better than finding none.

•     A bird of the month complete with photo and caption. This month showcases “Tiffany,” a beautiful red chicken with the caption, “Talented Tiffany dances in the shade, making the most of a beautiful day.”

Corny? Maybe.

Cute? Yes.

Fun? Absolutely.

•     100 words on why gratitude is healthy and how to start a gratitude practice. This is bringing honest to goodness real value to the customer.

•     The company’s mission statement is in a box with the first words in red all caps, “OUR MISSION is to bring ethically produced food to the table by coordinating a collection of family farms to operate with a well-defined set of agricultural practices that accentuates the humane treatment of farm animals as the central tenet.”

Too long perhaps, but it does give the customer a real sense of what this company stands for. Customers believing you share the same values they share can earn you a customer for life.

Just be sure to never do anything to go against these values, because these are also the customers who will tear you limb from limb on social media if you let them down.

Think of someone who just learned their mate is cheating on them – customers who love your brand will want a swift divorce if you’re ‘cheating’ on them by going against what you stand for.

•     And finally there is an invitation to show off your egg cooking skills while tagging the company on social media. This is an extremely ‘non-pushy’ way to bring people to social media and get some good mentions.

Now in case you’ve forgotten why I brought up this tiny little egg newsletter in the first place, it’s for these 3 marketing lessons:

1. People love marketing they can touch. When you see something online, it’s there and then it’s gone and usually forgotten in less than a minute.

But something they can hold in their hand? It’s right there in their home or office. It’s real. In this case it’s sitting on their kitchen counter while they make breakfast, carried to the table with the coffee and read while eating. Or at least that’s how it works for me.

2. People love things that are out of the ordinary. Is any other egg producer putting newsletters in their egg cartons? I don’t think so.

3. People love companies that align with their values. When you read the mission statement above, you either agreed with it or you didn’t. If you didn’t agree, then it might not matter to you how your eggs are produced, in which case you’re likely not the right fit for a company that goes out of their way to be humane to their animals.

And if you did agree with the mission statement, you’re much more likely to reach for that same egg brand when you go back to the store because it aligns with your beliefs and values. It says something about who you are, who you want to be and the legacy you want to leave behind for this planet.

Not bad for a tiny little newsletter. Does this inspire any ideas for your own business?

Thanks to Covid-19, businesses have been pushed from the offline to the online world at record speed, making digital marketing more competitive than ever. How can you compete in 2021?

1: If you haven’t already, it’s time to get serious about putting out plenty of great content. Whether it’s one sentence on social media or an entire white paper, you need lots of content continually flooding the internet on a daily basis.

2: Change the size of your content. Instead of making super long authority-type posts of maybe 3,000 words that comprehensively cover a topic, consider going smaller. Short articles that cover just one thing well are ranking high these days, perhaps because of people’s shorter attention spans and less time to read a long article.

Consider breaking up an authority post into small ones, each with a title matching what people are searching for. For example, instead of an article that outlines in detail all the steps to take when starting an online business, break it up into a series of short articles, one on each aspect of the topic (niche selection, branding, game plan, website creation, etc.)

3: While your written content should probably be shorter, your video and audio content needs to be longer. 10-minute videos are performing better than 2, 3 or 5 minute videos in the search results.

If you think about it, it makes sense that if someone is searching for answers, they’re more likely to click on the 10-minute video than the 2-minute video. But expanding your video or audio lengths only work to a point. Videos of 20 and 30 minutes are not doing as well as the 10-minute versions. People want the whole story but they want it quickly.

4: Speed up your pages. It’s more important than ever to have pages that load quickly. When you improve your page speed you’ll also increase your rankings and traffic. There are multiple methods and tricks to decreasing page loading times. Research what’s right for your site or hire someone to do it for you.

5: It’s more important than ever to rank high on page one. Google is going to be looking for additional ways to increase their income, which will likely mean increased paid ads, changes to algorithms and who knows what else. If you rely on free traffic from Google then don’t get lazy or you’ll lose it.

6: Repurpose your content. Turn that article into a video and a podcast. Take several small articles and make them into one big one and take a big one and turn it into several small ones. Remove the best bits and use it on social media, and then package it all up for a whopping comprehensive lead magnet.

7: Update your content. Take that blog post from 6 months ago or even 6 years ago, make it fresh and republish it.

8: Do some podcasting. If the time is right, start your own. If not, be a guest on other people’s podcasts. Compared to blogging, podcasting is still wide open and far less competitive. Plus, you can convey things like emotion and passion via voice that sometimes get lost with writing.

9: Backlinks probably aren’t going to matter as much. Focus on great content built on what people are searching for. Relevancy is king.

10: You better be branding. Brands are already dominating the internet because people know them and TRUST them. It’s easier to get followers, to reach people and get sales when you have an established brand.

Conversely, people out to make a quick buck and run don’t have a brand – they’re just somebody making promises into the void.

10.5: And this is a big one: Forget the, “HELLO – BUY – GOODBYE” of yesterday where you tried to sell someone the first time they saw your offer, and if they didn’t buy, you gave up.

Instead, find ways to interact with people at least 7 times. It might be through email, push notifications, messenger bots, social media, etc. I once knew a guy who was launching a brand new business. He guest posted on a hundred blogs and appeared on 30 podcasts all in the space of 6 weeks. While no one had heard of him in the beginning, by the sixth week everyone in the niche felt like they’d known him for years. His list exploded, he got JV offers daily, bloggers and podcasters asked him back repeatedly and promoted him for free… in the online world, that’s about as close as you’ll get to overnight success.

It may sound like a lot of work, but it can really pay off big if you apply yourself. Aren’t you and your business worth it?

You already know that the better your funnel converts, the more money you can make. You can spend more on advertising or pay more in affiliate commissions and still make tons of money. The trick, of course, is getting your sales funnel to convert well. And to do that, you need to test… well… everything.

You need to test the sales copy that brings someone to your squeeze page, the copy on the page, the look of the page, the title of the freebie you’re giving away, the cover of that freebie, the offer they see when they subscribe, the upsell offer after that (if there is one) and so forth.

You. Must. Test. Everything.

Which is time consuming and costly. Because it could be days or weeks before you even manage to break even, much less start earning a profit – if you ever do at all.

But there is a massive shortcut that some people are taking, and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least tell you about it.

We could debate the ethics on this but we won’t. I leave that up to you. The fact is, people do this sort of thing in every single industry all the time, so it is nothing new. What is new is that the average Joe or Jane marketer doesn’t think to do this.

And if you haven’t guessed yet, I’m talking about modeling another marketer’s business. That is, replicating someone else’s sales techniques and processes. You’d be surprised how many people already do this in one form or another.

I’ve even seen marketers take pride when their own funnels have been modeled. And no, it’s not copying. At least, not if it’s done correctly.

The idea isn’t to copy the text or even use the same products. Rather, it’s to model in terms of design, options presented, layout, pricing, number of upsells and downsells and so forth.

Your headlines might be the same color, size and font. But it’s YOUR headline. Your video might be in the same location on the page, but it’s YOUR video. You’re selling your own products, not theirs.

Your sales copy will be different. Your bullet points will be different. Your key benefits and so forth will be different. But things like the layout of sales pages, colors, fonts, and so forth aren’t copyrighted.

Does a green ‘buy now’ button work better than a red one?

Does a centered black headline in Verdana that asks a provocative question do better than a red headline on the right in Tacoma that makes a bold statement?

Does having the opt in box above the fold convert better than having a long list of bullets and the opt in box beneath the fold?

There are 1,001 decisions to be made when creating a new sales funnel. But emulating a funnel that is already proven to work can make the process a whole lot easier. And faster, too.

Big time marketers can literally spend tens of thousands of dollars on traffic to test what converts best. But by emulating their funnels (not copying) you can get a leg up on what’s working.

How do you know which funnels are working the best in your niche? If you’re in the IM field, you can check their stats in JVZoo, Warrior Plus and ClickBank. In other niches, ClickBank can be a reliable indicator, as well as paying attention to which products you see promoted via paid ads time and time again. If they weren’t making sales, they wouldn’t be paying to promote these products.

One last thing… this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still test. Since this is your own funnel with your own copy and your own products, testing will give you a ton of info on how to raise your conversions as much as possible. But by emulating a proven funnel as the foundation to your system, you get to take a massive shortcut that will have you in profit that much faster.

While this isn’t something I’ve tried, I’ve seen others doing it for years so it must be working like gangbusters. You’re likely already aware of the concept of building a full website with sales funnel, sending traffic to it, making sales to show it works and then selling the website as a proven money maker, right? This is something simpler than that.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised this works so well. But I’ve been watching people do this over and over again, so I know it’s working.

They’re building one page websites (one page!!) and selling them at auction for $100 to $300 or more. Sometimes they’re building several of these in a week or even in a day.

Here’s how it works, or at least how I think it works. Mind you, I’ve never done this myself, but you don’t have to be a detective to figure this one out:

First you find a paid service geared towards online marketers. It could be a website offering to write packages of articles, do SEO, build websites or whatever. Ideally you want a service that is extremely reasonable in price, and frankly these aren’t hard to find.

It can be any service that is bought and paid for online, using basic info and contact details. For example, if the service writes packages of 50 articles, the details collected would be the niche for the articles and where to send them when they’re finished.

Let’s say the article writing service offers 3 packages: $35 for 10 articles, $70 for 25 articles and $120 for 50 articles. You would then create your own one page website which might even look quite similar to the original page. Insert three buttons for the three options, but increase the prices to perhaps $55, $100 and $175. The buttons don’t actually link to anything at this point.

Buy a domain name, make the site look professional with a nice layout and good headline and bullet points, and then put it up for sale on Flippa or some place similar. Remember there is no need to show stats, sales, traffic hits, SEO and so forth with these because none of that applies.

Instead, you talk about – and this is the important bit – the potential of the website to make sales. Explain that all the buyer needs to do is make the buttons active to pay into their account, take the payments and customer details, and pass the information on to the real service for fulfillment. They get to keep the difference in price.

The buyers are likely newbies looking for a way to get started online. And the sites most definitely do have the potential to make money if the buyers send the right traffic to them. You don’t reveal the real service until they’ve purchased the site. The site buyer then acts like a middleman, much like Amazon or Walmart on a much smaller scale and earns money from every sale.

You can make multiples of these sites, using basically the same website template and the same copy to sell the site. Choose a different URL each time and sell the sites one at a time on each of the website flipping sites. Do this with one vendor or several, build one website a day or 5 a day or whatever.

This can be a great part time income for not much work, and it can act as a stepping-stone to building complete, proven sales sites that fetch four and five figures, too. Or just stick with these small sites if you’re more comfortable – either way, it’s a nifty idea that can bring in reliable income when you apply it.

This is truly old school and yet most marketers never do this. In fact, it can add several hundred dollars or more to your bottom line each and every month. And all it takes is a line or two of text in your emails.

What is it?

The signature line.

Place a simple signature line with a link to an offer as a footer in every one of your emails you send out to your list. This can be to one of your flagship products, such as your coaching program or a high-end course.

Yes, it sounds almost too simple, doesn’t it?

You probably won’t get a lot of clicks on this link for a couple of reasons: They’ve already clicked on the main link higher up in the email. Or your list goes ‘ad blind’ because they keep seeing this same line over and over again.

This is why you want to promote a flagship product with a fairly high price tag. For example, if you have a $500 coaching program and you only get one sale that month from your signature line, that’s still $500 profit. And it’s even more if it’s monthly billing.

You can change the line from time to time to keep it fresh.

Frankly, you don’t need to spend a lot of time on this. Just write your line, add it to your footer and forget about it for a couple of weeks until you change it.

And then see what happens. It could add thousands to your bottom line each year.

What’s the easiest way to make money online, without having to create a product or a sales page? Affiliate marketing, of course. 🙂

So, why is it that most affiliate marketers never make nearly what they could make? Anyone has the potential to make HUGE money in affiliate marketing, yet 90% or more of affiliates make a pittance (I’ll wager the number is closer to 98%, in fact.)

Think about this: If you earn an average of $50 on each sale in a sales funnel you promote, and you make 6 sales, you’ve made $300. Sounds good, right?

But guaranteed, there is someone else who made 600 sales and walked away with $30,000.

Why did they make 600 sales when you made just 6?

There are reasons why a handful of affiliate marketers do amazingly well, and everyone else barely makes a profit.

And marketers who understand this will always have a tremendous advantage over marketers who don’t.

1: Build a Relationship

I know you’ve heard it before, but are you doing it? People buy people, not products.

If you want them to open your email and click your link, or visit your Facebook Group and click a link, you’ve got to have a RELATIONSHIP with your people.

This is so simple to do, yet few marketers take the time.

Start with a blog post that is all about you, and then send new opt-ins to the post so they can get to know you. Make the post silly, funny and most of all REAL. Talk about the stupid stuff you’ve done, the mistakes you’ve made, where you live and so forth.

Do you have a strange hobby or unusual taste in food? Include that. Do you have 17 pets? Talk about them. Do you work until 3 in the morning and sleep until noon? Mention that.

Reveal the real you. Not the details people don’t want, but the ones that amuse and interest. You’re looking to make a real connection, not give a resume.

And above all else, don’t make your life seem like a series of magnificent accomplishments. No one is going to relate to someone who turns everything they touch into gold.

But they are going to relate to the time you bought Bitcoin when it was worthless and sold it just before it took off, or the time you thought you could fly and jumped off your uncle’s barn into the manure pile.

And don’t stop with your ‘about me’ page, either. Use this relationship building in your lead magnet, your emails, your other blog posts and so forth.

Always inject a little bit about yourself. Not so much that you bore people, of course, or make everything seem about you. But just enough to keep it real.

Think about relating an event to a friend. Aren’t you going to give your own perceptions of what happened, as well as tell about how you got out of your car and stepped in the mud puddle just before your big presentation?

Use this same method of personal, one-on-one friend communication with your readers as well.

Post on your blog as often as possible, and we’re talking every day or two. Encourage your list to subscribe to Feedburner or the equivalent so they know when you add a new post.

Your readers will realize you’re a real person who isn’t out to pitch them a new product every 5 minutes. And they’ll gladly read your sales emails much more readily when they know there is a real live human being who is sending them these messages.

2: Use Your Own Voice

How many emails do you receive that say something along the lines of, “Buy this product – this product is the greatest product ever – you will be sorry if you miss this – so rush right over and buy it now.”

Yeah. Same old stuff, over and over again.

There is a marketer (or maybe several, but I’m thinking of one in particular) who sells MASSIVE quantities of this exact type of emails as a swipe file to new marketers.

Like a brand-new marketer couldn’t write their own 25 word email that basically says, “GO BUY THIS NOW!”

People are TIRED of getting these emails. You’re tired of getting these emails. I’m tired of getting these emails.

Same phrases, same message, same B.S.

If you’re not going to stand apart from the crowd, then you’re going to have to share the same crumbs they’re getting.

Instead, take 30 minutes and write your own promotional email in your own voice.

Forget hype. Be sincere. Be honest. “Hey, this product isn’t for everyone. I don’t even know if it’s for you. But if you have this problem, then maybe this is your solution. Check it out and decide if it’s right for you, because I know it’s worked like crazy for some people. And it’s on sale right now, too.”

I’ve written emails where I basically tell people not to buy something unless they really really want it or need it. “Don’t buy this if you already know how to do xyz.” “Don’t buy this if you’re not going to be doing this type of marketing.” This is only for people who want (fill in the blank.) It’s like I’m trying to talk them out of it, which paradoxically often results in more sales, not fewer.

But the point isn’t tricking them into buying; it’s to be honest. Because you know what? That latest, greatest product you’re promoting ISN’T what everyone on your list needs. Some of them, sure. The rest of them, no.

Do you have any idea how refreshing it is to open an email that says, “Here’s a new product, thought you might want to know, but please don’t buy it if you’re not going to use it.”

The first time I got an email like that, I bought the product without even reading the sales letter. True story. I was just so happy that someone wasn’t ramming a sale down my throat, that I jumped at the chance to buy it.

Weird but true.

My point is, be you. Be honest. Talk to your readers as though they are your best friends and you don’t want to lose your best friends by acting like a carnival barker who is here today and pulled up stakes (vanished) tomorrow with their money.

3: Email a LOT

This is the one where people like to argue with me, and I understand that.

You’ve heard over and over again that you shouldn’t email too often, or you’ll upset your subscribers, right?

After all, every time you email, there is the potential that a subscriber will hit the unsubscribe button.

Do you know what the potential is when you DON’T email? Nothing. No opens, no clicks, no sales… not even any relationship building.

Do you want people to open and read your emails? Then send out those emails EVERY DAY.

Here’s why:

First, almost no one will see every email you send out. Let’s say you’ve got a sale on one of your products. Don’t you think your readers might like to know about it? But if they miss the one and only email you send that lets them know, then they’ve missed out on the discount and you LOST a sale.

Second, send emails at different times. I opened someone’s email just yesterday, decided I was VERY interested in the new membership he was selling, clicked the link and discovered it was no longer available.

What happened? This particular marketer only sends out emails at 1:00 a.m. my time, so I don’t even see most of his emails in the avalanche of mail I get before I wake up.

Third, if you’re sending email once a week or once a month, your readers are forgetting who the heck you are. And when you finally do send an email, they think it’s spam.

Fourth, if you mail more often, you will make more money. Don’t take my word on this, just do it for one month. Send out one email per day, every day, for 30 days. Put a promotion in each one. See if you haven’t made more – a LOT more – money during that time period than during the previous month.

And by the way, I’m not saying JUST send out a promotion in each email. Make sure you have some content in there as well, even if it’s just an amusing anecdote.

4: Think of affiliate marketing as a BUSINESS

This isn’t a hobby, nor is it an add-on for an additional income stream.

Even if you go on vacation, be prepared to send out an email every day. Schedule them in advance or write them on vacation. Either way, affiliate marketing to your list is a business that you can’t just jump into when you need cash and forget about the rest of the time.

You don’t have many support issues, since the product owners handle this. You don’t have to worry about creating products, sales pages and so forth. You don’t have to drive traffic, unless it’s to build your list bigger.

With so much you don’t have to do, there’s no reason not to focus your time and energy into building relationships with your list and promoting to them every single day.

Affiliate marketing can be some of the easiest money you’ve ever made, if you put in the time and effort to make it a real business.

Hi, it’s Richard and this is my new website. Stay tuned… I’ll have great things to share!

For starters, here’s an article I think you’ll enjoy…

It’s called: “Make the Leap to Home Business Success”

If you are going to build a successful home business, you need 3 “intangibles.” These are things that must come from WITHIN you.

===> Intangible 1 <===

First, you must have a strong WHY.

Why must you make a home business work? What’s driving you? What is it that you CAN’T have in your life anymore and/or what is it that you absolutely MUST HAVE now?

For me, I couldn’t stand working 12+ hours a day anymore and missing the experience of my children growing up. I also absolutely HAD TO HAVE the freedom of being able to control my life and finances through a little box that I could carry with me anywhere in the world and not be tied to anyone’s time pressures or demands but my own. That was my carrot and my stick. I felt a great pain deep in my gut of missing out on my children’s lives and the incredible freedom that succeeding in this business would provide for me. I found my why. You MUST find yours.

===> Intangible 2 <===

You must BELIEVE that it is possible.

If you don’t believe that it’s POSSIBLE for you to succeed in a home business or make your living on the Internet, you won’t. It’s that simple.

For me, figuring out that it was possible was just a matter of realizing that many other people were ALREADY making great money with a home business online. If they could do it, I could too. It would just be a matter of figuring out what those people were doing and then adapting it to my situation.

There is no shortage of undeniable PROOF that people (millions of them) are making money online in many different ways. Just get online and do some research and you’ll find countless testimonials and stories of REAL PEOPLE making real money on the Internet. Or head to your local bookstore and you’ll find the same documented evidence of this fact. Truth is, it’s getting easier and easier to start and succeed in a home based business. This is primarily because of the Internet and affiliate marketing.

I’ve always said that “affiliate marketing” is the job of the future. In the “old” days, you had to go to a potential employer, apply for the position and hope for the best. Now you can simply go to any company you want, fill out their affiliate application and start work immediately. Affiliates are the new working class. Believe me, making money with affiliate programs or making your living on the Internet is WAY MORE than possible. It is pretty much (or will be soon enough) unavoidable now. Affiliate marketing is the “job” of the future that’s here TODAY.

===> Intangible 3 <===

You must be willing to MAKE THE LEAP.

Ready, FIRE, then aim… This is the operating philosophy you MUST adopt to succeed with an Internet home business.

That’s backwards for most people who like to aim before they fire. The fact is the Internet is a moving target… The only thing constant about it is change. You need to stop analyzing the game and simply jump into it. You can’t learn from the outside… You have to be IN THE RING to truly understand it.

The lesson here is that you will never really be READY to start a home based business. You simply have to start one. This is what I call “Making the Leap.”

The good news is that the cost of failure on the Internet is very small. In the “brick and mortar” world you need to evaluate things very carefully before you decide to open up a business. It’s almost always necessary to invest thousands of dollars to get an offline business off the ground. However, on the Internet you can often start a successful business for less than $100. In fact, Plug-In Profit Site is a really good example of this.

You simply need get IN THE GAME… Each moment that you stay “out there,” you’re wasting valuable time that you could be learning and skills necessary to become a successful affiliate marketer. In fact, if you’re not in the game yet, you’re ALREADY behind the times. Come on… You can do it! Make the leap to becoming a successful home based business owner today!

About the author: Stone Evans was a washed up restaurant worker desperately searching for a way to save his family when he discovered the internet and affiliate marketing… 24 months later he finally cracked the code and started earning over $10,000 per month. Now the same system that saved him is available to you here >>