Do you know about Zoho CRM?

For the last few months, I’ve been looking for a good CRM system to help me manage customer contacts, sales processes, and all the other tasks related to gathering prospects and converting some of them into paying clients.

I’ve looked at quite a few systems such as SalesForce and InfusionSoft and could not find one that was really a good fit for a solo entrepreneur and/or microbusiness.

I had just about decided to buy a new relational database app and create my own system (which would have taken months), but did not want the diversion from my current business goals. I have a background in developing these types of systems, but then I’d get tied up in all the maintenance and upgrading and just didn’t want to go there.

Yet, at this stage of my business, I could not find an affordable CRM solution that I could grow into as my business expands.

Then, yesterday, I found Zoho CRM and it looks like it may be what I’ve been looking for.

(That is not an affiliate link, but they do have a nice affiliate program. If Zoho CRM turns out to be a good solution for my business, I’ll join their affilate program. But, not until I know it is a good, reliable solution to my sales management needs.)

They offer a free account for up to three users and their paid plans are very affordable: Professional for $12/user/month; and Enterprise for $25/user/month.

About the only thing that the Enterprise Edition offers that the Professional Edition doesn’t (for my particular needs) is autoresponders, and I already have SBI and Aweber for that.

So, if it proves to be useful for helping me manage my sales process, then it will be easily worth $12/user/month. One new client and it would more than pay for itself for a whole year. That’s the kind of ROI I look for.

I don’t know why it took me so long to find Zoho CRM, but I’m happy that I did.

Now, it’s just a matter of putting it to use and seeing how it works for my business.

It has to be comprehensive enough to help me organize everything and to easily see where each prospect is in my marketing funnel, without being so feature-laden that it becomes too complex to use every day.

I’ll let you know in a month or two how it’s going.

If it works for me, it’s going to be a relief. I’m tired of flying by the seat of my pants, and my main goals for this year are to build systems to organize and manage the sales process for myself and my clients.

Act on your dream!

JD

WordPress or SBI revisited

First, let’s get this point out of the way: Yes, this blog is powered by WordPress.

I enjoy blogging, even though I make little money from it. As I’ve said many times before, I make more money from a couple of websites than I do from all my other sites and blogs. Since I do this to earn a living, it’s the profit that’s important to me.

Yes, it’s easier to write pages on WordPress than using SBI. I throw up ad hoc pages on my blogs all the time about topics in which I’m interested at the moment, with very little pre-planning. I come here to share what I’ve learned and to recommend dependable products and services that produce results month after month.

It’s a fact that I’ve closed most of my WordPress-powered blogs and I rarely post on any of my blogs, any more. I’ve left a wasteland of abandoned blogs in my past. Why were they abandoned? Because they were not profitable.

As I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I am going back to focusing almost all of my attention on two things: local marketing for a select group of small business owners and a very limited amount of consulting. It is going to be very hard to become one of my clients. I’m getting pickier as I get older.

I’ll be using SBI for most of my marketing in 2012 and beyond.

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool WordPress fan and have no intention of changing your mind, then, the show’s over. There’s nothing to see here. Move along. Don’t waste your time on this blog.

If you’re a marketing wannabee, but you’re not willing to invest money for the tools that do a reliable job of earning profit, I’m not for you, either. If you invest all your time and energy in using only the free tools you can find, I’m going to argue that you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.

That’s my position. Agree or disagree, it’s your choice.

On the other hand, if you are a business owner and you want to grow your business, serve more clients and customers, and earn more, then you may want to take a few minutes and read some of the things I have to say.

No, I’m no “Internet Guru.” In fact, I tend to avoid anyone who refers to himself as a guru.

I’m a guy who’s been in the marketing trenches, off and on, for over three decades and I’ve learned some things that work well and some that don’t.

Am I right all the time? I doubt it, but I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and have learned what to avoid and what to do. That’s part of the learning process. Maybe I can help you avoid some errors along the way.

Okay, now that the preamble to the post is out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the subject at hand: building a business by marketing online.

Whether you sell a product or service, online or offline, I think you’ll agree that marketing is a very important part of the process.

If you don’t have a steady stream of interested prospects, it’s going to be hard to have a steady stream of happy customers who buy from you over and over, and that’s a business. Not one time, here and there, sales. Multiple sales to the same person, over and over, year in and year out.

That’s my goal for 2012. To build a marketing system that does just that: attracts thousands of prospects, tells them how to scratch an itch or avoid a pain, and then recommend products and services and processes that work.

Most of this system, I’ll be building for my clients and myself and I’ll never talk about it here, but I’ll be using the tools that I write about in this blog. If you look in the right column of almost any page on this site, you’ll see the tools I recommend and use all the time to attract prospects and turn them into customers.

(Note: I’m basically starting over after a long illness, so most of the systems I’ll be building are not yet in place, but I’m working on them every day. They will be.)

So, I’ve said all of that to say this:

Do not confuse busy-ness with business. They are not the same.

A business is based on results and that usually means profit. The goal of a business is to increase wealth. I would add this, “while providing the best services and products that are available to your customers.”

I know from experience that I’ve been busy with blogging and it has been a distraction. It has taken my attention away from building a real business and has cost a lot in terms of missed income, because I didn’t keep my eye on my goals.

I was enjoying the process of playing with the technology, rather than focusing on achieving specific business goals.

Blogging — for me, at least — has been a huge shiny object that diverted me from my business for several years. Yes, it was a valuable lesson, but I’m happy that I learned the lesson and have time to rectify the problem.

Harsh words? Maybe.

But, they’re true.

I can look at my own stats and accounting reports and I know that I earn far more money from several websites than I do from all the blogs I’ve built.

I’m thinking, and have no proof, that the main reason is that people come to blogs with a different mindset and different intentions than they do when going to an information rich, niche-focused, hierarchically organized, traditional website.

People bounce into a blog, scan the latest article, and bounce right back out — mostly. That’s why bounce rates tend to be higher on blogs than websites.

At least, that’s what my stats tell me.

I’m not saying that blogs are bad. For some specific niches, they are great. If you serve a niche where the latest news and developments is important and you focus on covering those topics day in and day out, then a blog may be the best approach for you.

If you want to write about a wide range of topics and don’t want to try to organize those topics as you would have to do with a website, then a blog may work, but I’m betting you won’t get very good results from it.

What are you selling?

You have to sell something to have a business. Your income has to exceed your expenses if you’re going to have a real business.

Over a decade ago, I quit computer consulting. I became an artist blacksmith and specialized in making roses that never wilt. I was enjoying that business until Mom became ill. Following her battle with cancer, she could not care for herself, so I brought her home and cared for her for the next several years. Since I could leave her alone for no more than an hour or two at a time, I took up affiliate marketing as a way to earn a living while staying home to care for her.

It worked.

But, the main problem was this: I had no customers nor clients. I had no products to sell. None.

I earned a pretty good living by writing about things that people were interested in and then recommending products via affiliate links. I’m still doing that. I love that business.

The problem, however, is that the people who purchase (or click on the Google Adsense ads) are not my customers — they’re someone else’s customers.

So, my job has been to attract hundreds of thousands of readers and hope that enough of them would purchase so that I’d earn enough to live well.

I did all the work up front and hoped for an income. It’s been great for me, but I know a lot of people who have tried it and have not done nearly as well as they want.

Part of the problem is that it’s a flawed business plan.

We do all the work of promotion and building interest and then pass the customers off to the merchants.

We’re helping the merchants increase their herds, but we’re not building and nurturing a herd of our own.

(If you’re wondering, that’s the term Dan Kennedy uses to help remind us that a good business has a group of satisfied customers and it’s our job to provide what those customers want so that they’ll buy from us over and over. He calls it building a fence around our herd. Then, he advises that we market to our herd over and over, every month, in a way that helps them get what they want.)

That whole process has been perverted, to a degree, in the “internet marketing” business, where people who don’t have a herd of their own, are always selling, selling, selling to anyone who wanders by, and that just does not work.

Someone visits your website or blog, clicks a link, and then they’re gone, possibly never to return. Next!

You may be able to earn a few hundred dollars per month with this approach, but you can’t live on a few hundred dollars per month. At least, I can’t, and I enjoy living a relatively simple life.

So, not only do you not have a herd of your own, you don’t have anything to sell to them. All most bloggers do is try to get visitors to click on affiliate links or click the ads.

Some bloggers offer a lot of quality content; some don’t. Most don’t earn much. Most don’t attract many readers and even fewer buyers.

So, they become enamored with the process and the technology and don’t invest the time, energy, and money to build systems to corral and nurture a herd of their own.

In fact, I know a few bloggers (myself included for a few years) who actively avoid building a herd and nurturing them, even if we know better. It’s a trap that is easy to fall into.

What do you sell? To whom do you sell it?

If you have a traditional business, you have regular customers and clients.

If you own a restaurant, you have regular customers who enjoy your food and they tell their friends. They eat there off and on. If you do a good job of marketing, you can get them to eat more often and to bring their friends along, too. This increases the number of purchases and also increases the amount of the transactions, and that means more income. If your marketing costs less than the increase in revenue, it means that you have higher profits — and that’s the goal. (At least, it’s one of the goals.)

When I was a computer consultant, it was easy to focus on my business. I wanted people to find me, hire me, pay me, and call me back the next time they needed my services. This was before the Internet, so most of my marketing consisted of giving free presentations to groups of potential clients and publishing a newsletter every month.

(I wish I had one of those old newsletters to look at. They were produced with a typewriter and were cut and pasted with real scissors and glue, before cutting and pasting meant clicking a button.)

They weren’t nearly as pretty as the newsletters I’ll create this year, but they were effective.

When I was a blacksmith, the Internet was just starting to flourish, and I used one tiny section of one website and was able to sell all the steel roses I was able to forge.

But, when I closed my blacksmithing business and started caring for Mom, I lost my direction. My main interest was caring for her and my secondary interest was earning enough money to continue caring for her at home. Affiliate marketing served that purpose, well.

So, during the time I cared for her and then fought my own battle with cancer, it means that I’ve spent almost exactly a decade of selling to random people who were attracted to my various websites.

Since I had no clear target markets and no clear business goals, I drifted and experimented with the technology. I was fascinated and I enjoyed it and I learned a lot.

But, now, for the first time in a decade, I’m able to work full-time at what I enjoy doing and I have a couple of products of my own that I can sell.

That makes it much easier to define the target market and to create ways to communicate with those people. As time goes by, I’ll attract them into my pasture, feed and nourish them, and tell them, over and over, how I can help them get what they want.

Since I have some highly-developed skills in this area and enough experience to know what to do and what not to do, I can sell my services in several ways. Each of those will have its own herd and I will nurture and care for them month after month after month, until I can do it no longer.

That makes it much, much easier to focus.

It’s also why it has become so obvious to me that I need to decrease my blogging activities and focus on other means of marketing and attracting clients and customers.

Yes, I still enjoy blogging, or I would not take the time to write this post.

I don’t know if you enjoy reading it. That’s for you to decide.

Affiliate marketing will always be a part of my business, but it has moved into second place this year. It will move into third place in 2013.

Even so, I intend to earn more from affiliate marketing in the coming years than I ever did in the past, because I’ve stopped promoting anything that doesn’t work very well. I’ve narrowed my focus on tools I use and I’m promoting only the best of breed in each category.

I’ve taken that philosophy and adapted it to one of my service businesses, and I’ll only work with one person in each category — and that person will be the best I can find. Life is too short to waste it on working with people who aren’t focused on doing the best they can.

Why build a website instead of a blog?

This brings us back to the original topic: WordPress and SBI, revisited.

Here’s an interesting page you may want to read:

I think the conclusions that are drawn are valid — but it is a limited data set.

I suspect, but have no proof, that the majority of self-hosted WordPress blogs attract many more readers than the average number reported by WordPress blogs that are hosted by WordPress.com.

I have a blog there that I rarely write to, and I doubt it gets any visitors.

I post a lot more frequently to this blog and put a lot more work into each post.

So, I believe that the actual average number of viewers for WordPress-powered blogs is higher than shown, but there’s no way to know for sure.

The numbers for SBI sites, however, are valid and true. SBI keeps these stats for all sites hosted on their system, so we can be sure that they are accurate.

And, as with any “average” number of anything, there will be sites with far fewer visitors and a few sites with many, many more.

I believe one of the key differences is that SBI has a process that includes an education and set of steps that we follow to make our sites as good as they can be — if we take the time to follow those steps properly.

I admit that I have not done a good job of that, so I’m basically starting over with both my sites and will systematically rebuild them using the plan I created over the last few months.

Even though I’ve mostly ignored my two SBI sites for the last couple of years, they still outperform my blogs — including this one.

Now, will that be true for you? Honestly, I don’t know, but I think the odds are in your favor.

I also want to quibble with one point on that page. It says, “The more traffic you receive, the more income you earn, whether you’re selling ads or aardvarks.”

All things being equal, that may be true. It probably is.

However, I don’t think things are equal between blogs and websites. I think people have a different mindset when they visit a blog and bounce back out than when they visit a website and read several pages before leaving.

I think that gives a well-organized website that is full of high-quality information a real edge over most blogs.

I’m not positive about it, but I think it’s true

Building an online business is not for everyone. It requires a number of skills, and two that are very important are being able to research a topic and then write what you know about it. I don’t mean paraphrasing someone else’s work, I mean truly original writing. That takes work and talent.

Not everyone can or will do that.

It’s a little easier if you have your own business with your own products and services and you want to promote them online. A well-planned and organized website will outperform a blog.

While I can’t conclusively prove that statement, I think it is accurate.

Do you have to use SBI to build such a website?

Of course not.

There are many ways to build a website and there is a lot of information scattered all over the Web on how to do it. Without any doubt, that is true.

But, none of those includes all you need to know to build your online business in the way that SBI does, all in one place.

Will SBI work well for every site? No. SBI does not offer things like PHP scripting and database access. If you need those features, or even if you just want them, SBI is not for you.

However, for the majority of people who don’t want or need such things, SBI puts the technology in the background and lets you focus more of your attention on attracting and nurturing your herd.

No matter what system you use, however, if you’re new to building websites, there is a LOT to learn. But, with SBI, you don’t have to figure it all out, all you have to do is follow the time-proven method to identify, research, and build your site. That makes it a lot easier.

Especially if you’re a busy business owner who isn’t interested in learning a lot of technobabble.

You want to tend your herd and have them buy from you again and again. That’s the goal. SBI makes it easier. Not easy, but definitely easier.

What kinds of businesses are people building with SBI? Find your business.

If you’re not sure if SBI is right for you, you can ask your questions for free. No obligation.

When you’re ready to start, SBI offers a 90-day full-money-back guarantee, if you decide it isn’t what you need.

Why am I so insistent?

Is it because I earn a commission if you subscribe to SBI through one of my links?

Yes, that’s partly true.

However, I’m also an affiliate for HostGator, 1&1, and others, and you don’t see me promoting them. I’m also an affiliate for several domain registrars and I’ve stopped promoting them.

I like, use, and recommend Weebly to some people for building some kinds of websites, but not if your primary method of attracting prospects is via your website. For that purpose, I recommend SBI.

Weebly does make it easy, however, if you want to build a website and blog that provides some information about your existing business and you promote it mainly by links from other places, rather than relying on attracting lots of visitors through the search engines. You can do it and it works well for some people, but it is not my top recommendation.

By the same token, I could join the affiliate programs to recommend premium WordPress blog themes and even promote WordPress consultants and specialists.

You don’t see me doing that, either. (Although I’m sure I could earn a lot of money, if I did.)

Why?

Because, for most business owners, and people who want to own their own business, SBI is the right choice.

Act on your dream!

JD

Dilbeck Marketing – back to business in 2012

Lots of fun things to do, today.

I’m finally free to update some of the websites related to my marketing business.

For the last several months, I’ve been pulling out my hair and chewing my fingernails trying to decide exactly what kinds of consulting services I’ll be offering. I settled that issue pretty quickly.

The hard part was deciding how I wanted to proceed and what I was going to charge for my time and effort.

Deciding what I WILL DO was much easier than deciding what I WILL NOT DO.

As I get older, I’m getting pickier about the people, products, and services I promote.

In the affiliate marketing side of my business, I’m dropping several companies this week, because I only promote the very best I can find in a particular category.

When it comes to business services, quality and dependability trumps price — every time. Some of the services I’ll be promoting cost more than their competitors, but they are worth it. Some, surprisingly, actually cost less.

In each case, I made my decisions based on quality and dependability, rather than price.

And, I did NOT make my decisions based on how much they are willing to pay me to promote them. I’m dropping several businesses that pay rather high commissions, but I don’t want to earn those commissions by recommending something that isn’t the best in its category.

Yes, it’s possible that I may make a bad decision now and then, but I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars using and testing these products and services. I know — first hand — if they deliver what they promise.

In a couple of cases, there really are two or three businesses that all deliver outstanding quality and return on investment. In one case, it has been very difficult to decide between them. I’m confident, however, that I made good choices for myself, my clients, and people like my clients.

If I won’t recommend something to my brother, daughter, best friend, or most-valued client, I won’t recommend it to you. If I won’t use it myself, I won’t recommend it, either.

That decision may cost me thousands of dollars, but if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

I only promote businesses, and their owners, whose products and services I use and with which I am very satisfied — and that applies equally to affiliate marketing and also to promoting local brick and mortar businesses in Murphy, NC.

I’ll be stepping up my efforts to a higher notch in just a couple of weeks and I’ve been wrestling with several decisions for a long time.

When I started MurphyGold.com a couple of years ago, I planned to offer my marketing services to only one business in each category. Then, I’ve had inquiries from competitors of the folks I’m already promoting, and it’s been hard to turn them down.

And, in several cases, there are multiple business owners in a particular category who all qualify as top-notch and deserve to be promoted, so it’s been hard to make a decision about how I’ll handle this. In one category, off the top of my head, there are at least four business owners who I’d be proud to recommend to my readers. That is what has made it such a difficult decision.

If I were selling advertising, it would be simple. I’d let all of them buy ads, but that’s not what I’m building with Murphy Gold.

After wrestling with myself about this for months, I’ve come full circle back to my original thoughts. I’ll promote only one business in each category. That way, I can offer ideas for marketing and advertising without having to deal with helping people directly compete against each other.

I feel better about that. It was an ethical, as well as a business, dilemma. I do my best to be open, honest, and ethical and I felt it was wrong to promote two businesses offering the same kinds of services, because I would have inside knowledge of their goals and plans. My gut has known all along that it would open a can of worms, but my head has been arguing that I could deal with it and not do anything unethical or unfair.

I’ve learned — over many years — to pay attention to my gut feelings and finally my big ol’ brain came to the same conclusion.

Looking back on it, I knew all along that it would not be the right thing to do, and, as a result, I haven’t proceeded with inviting new businesses.

Now, that I have locked this “one business per category” policy in place (and have thrown away the key), it frees up a lot of energy to get to work.

Then, this week, I resolved my conflicts about pricing. That’s always a hard thing to set. There are many models and ways of calculating prices, but I tossed them all aside and went with my gut. It has been a good counselor over the years.

Now, I know what I’ll be doing, what I’ll be charging, and a few of the people I’ll accept as new clients. What a relief. Now, I can jump into doing the work — and that’s the part I love.

Normally, in the last two weeks of December, I fire the bottom 10% of my clients. I don’t work with people who are hard to deal with, who don’t do what they say they’ll do, who don’t pay on time, or who are just difficult to deal with.

If I don’t enjoy working with someone, there isn’t enough money on this quaint little planet to convince me to work with them. Life’s too short to deal with difficult people.

The only people I’ll work with are honest, reliable, helpful, friendly, cooperative, happy to see their customers, and very good at what they do.

I’m kind of a strange bird. In a world where most people will work with anyone who has some money and a pulse, I turn away more prospects than I accept.

I’ve been told I don’t have a firm grasp on reality and that I don’t understand business. That may be true.

However, I’d rather work with a few outstanding clients I truly love working with than have hundreds or thousands of clients I don’t like.

Some things transcend money.

This year, I’m happy to say that I don’t have any clients who need firing. I think that’s a first. I love working with great people.

I’ll be sending out invoices for next year, and we’ll see if any of my clients decide to fire me. It’s possible.

It’s gonna be an outstanding 2012! I’m going to have a lot of fun with my business.

Act on your dream!

JD

Rebuilding my business with SBI in 2012!

Several important currents are coming together to make 2012 a much more productive year for me. Sitesell is going to play a very big part.

1. I am recovering from a very serious illness and I finally feel like working on my sites again. It has been a difficult period (almost three years), but I’m ready to go. (I’m getting tired of talking about being sick. I’m looking forward to it becoming a distant memory.)

(If you’re interested, I wrote about my battle with cancer on my other blog. It’s a good thing I wrote it down, because I have no memory of writing those posts. Fortunately, my memory is improving, this year.)

2. I have closed over 50 websites that I built over the last decade (non-SBI). I started about half of them before SBI was introduced and the other half to test ideas and to see if I could put together a system that was better than SBI (for my own use, only, not to sell to others). I tested many different ways of building websites and blogs, and some of them were successful, but all of them had problems. Problems that I’ve never experienced on either of my SBI sites.

As an example, I spent a whole day last week fighting a security issue on one of my non-SBI sites. It took several hours with that company’s support staff, a supervisor, an administrator, and their security team to find one PHP malware file hiding on the site. I have no idea how it got there. Additionally, I spent several hours reprogramming the webserver on that site, so that it would block a group of people from around the world who were using my server for their purposes (to the tune of over 20 GB of bandwidth per month, and nearly 200,000 page views). I devised an elegant solution to block them, and still let everyone else see the site.

At one time in my life, I would have enjoyed that. I used to enjoy devising fast, elegant solutions to tech problems. Now, it’s just a hassle. A major hassle. This is one of the reasons that I fully support Sitesell for not allowing scripts (other than javascript) on our sites. Every non-SBI site I’ve ever built has been hacked more than once. Neither of my SBI sites have been.

Why did I build so many websites? I am a firm believer in testing to see how well something works. I don’t believe what people say, until I test it for myself. That’s probably a character defect and it has caused me a lot of unnecessary work, but I’ve reached my conclusions based on my own experience, not from someone’s claims.

3. The release of BB2 is coming at just the right time. I’ve spent the last three or four months brainstorming, planning, and thinking. I’m going to rebuild both of my sites and I’m going to take the time to do it the right way.

When I built my first SBI-powered site in April 2004, it was basically to learn how SBI worked so I would be better as a 5P affiliate. At the time, I was building a couple of large (1,500+ page) sites using a database created by Dave Winer (one of the inventors of RSS and an early blogger, as well as a very talented programmer and application developer). His product was called Frontier and later became Radio Userland and Manila, before he moved on to other things a few years ago. Over a period of several years, I modified that system heavily by tweaking the programming and adding my own modules. (Even with all my work and thousands of hours invested, it did not do all that I can do with SBI.)

It did, however, offer an easy way to build templated sites from a database. I could modify the template and rebuild the entire site, any time I wanted to, with ease. It made it easy to manage large sites. It made it easy to manage sub-sections of a site.

I’m looking forward to seeing how well I can do similar things using BB2. Reusable blocks open up a new way of approaching a block-built SBI site.

At their peak, each of my largest sites was getting about a million page views per year and earning enough income for me to be able to stay at home and be my mother’s sole caretaker for the last years of her life.

4. My income from affiliate marketing took a nose-dive in 2009. It has not recovered, yet.

The sites I built were very successful until the North Carolina legislature passed the nexus tax law in 2009 and Amazon.com cancelled my affiliation, and all the other affiliates in the state. Several other large merchants also dropped me at the same time. I had been an Amazon.com affiliate for 13 years and all of my sites were heavily monetized through their affiliate program. *poof* *gone*

For the last 2 years, my income has been decimated, so I’m basically starting over. I’ve managed to hang on and not close my business, but it was touch and go last year. Last spring, I showed my daughter how to close the business, if necessary, and gave her my power of attorney to do so.

This happened just as I was getting so sick that I had a very difficult time thinking straight and trying to make the necessary changes. I was able to update one large site by deleting several hundred pages and removing most of the Amazon affiliate links, and I removed most of the Amazon links on my smaller sites. I never got around to updating the other large site, so it’s been sending thousands of people to Amazon.com to purchase products we recommended, for more than two years — and we’re earning nothing from it. (Even after two years of total neglect, that site still gets more than 50,000 visitors and about 300,000 page views per year.)

Do I feel bitter about this and resent Amazon.com? I did, at first. Now, I recognize that our state legislature made a decision, Amazon.com responded to that decision, and I (and many others) took the hit. That’s business. There are always ups and downs and obstacles in our path to success.

For most of 2009 and 2010, I was so sick that I could not work, at all. I wrote a few blog posts and played on Facebook, but most of the time I slept. Fortunately, the surgeries were successful and chemotherapy did its job. I’m getting stronger every month and I’m back up to about half-speed.

5. After nearly 15 years of building websites and earning a living with my marketing business, I’m turning my attention from all the other ways I know of building websites and blogs and focusing on SBI.

My first SBI site was something I built because it was a subject that is important to me, not because I thought it was something that would make a lot of money. I liked how SBI made it easy to build and manage the site and how it did so much for me behind the scenes. I made some mistakes with that site, and some of those mistakes are evident in my choice of keywords. I did not choose very well. I’ll be testing the bottom-up approach to building that site over the next couple of years.

I was heavily focused on other ways of building money-making sites, at the time. I’ve built social communities, forums, websites, blogs, and even an article directory. I wanted to know, from the inside, how these various sites worked and performed — and I wanted to discover their benefits and problems. I think I spent more time modifying and writing PHP code over the last few years than doing any other activity.

I was a Sitesell 5P affiliate before there was an SBI. So, I had the chance to watch as SBI grew and expanded. It continued to improve and offer more features, year after year. And, the price has not increased, even though the product is many times better than it was all those years ago.

Despite inflation and all the new and improved modules, the price for SBI remains at $299 per year.

I spend more than that for coffee. (…and Reece’s Pieces…)

I’ve also observed, for about 13 or 14 years, the high levels of intelligence, honesty, ethics, integrity, innovation, and good-judgement that are possessed by the people who make up the Sitesell team. I’ve observed how the company has adapted to a changing world, not by following every fad, but by evaluating each new innovation from a business standpoint and then deciding whether or not it would have a long-term beneficial or detrimental effect on all of Sitesell’s subscribers.

I have observed how deeply focused the Sitesell team is on helping us succeed. They don’t just say it. They do it. Much of it for free.

The private, members-only Sitesell Forums are dedicated to helping and being helped, and I have observed more times than I can count or remember how SBIers help each other. Individuals on the Sitesell team offer their help, too, above and beyond their official duties.

This has been true, day in and day out, for years.

When I built my first SBI-powered site, in early 2004, things were very different from what they are, now. (I also have to admit that I thought I was something of an expert in building websites and I didn’t pay as close attention to the advice I got as I should have.)

The brainstormer was impressive and was a FileMaker runtime database that actually ran on our own computers, before being rebuilt to run entirely on Sitesell’s servers. That was a big change. It’s even better now, and the improvements that are planned for next year will be important improvements, also.

I don’t remember there being an Action Guide, although there probably was. I know, if it existed, it was nothing like what’s available now.

Until last year, I lived where there was no high speed Internet and I had a very, very slow dial-up connection. Last year, while I was too sick to work, I moved about four miles away to live with my daughter and her family, and jumped into the 21st century, complete with high-speed broadband. For the first time, I was introduced to video on the Internet and it changed my whole approach to using the ‘net. I discovered the video Action Guide and watched all of them, but remember almost none of it. My illness left me with some real memory problems, but that’s getting better, too.

I’ll be re-reading the Action Guide and re-watching the videos as I work though my site redesigns and expansion, next year. I’ll also use the action steps gleaned from a (recent members-only research) report to help guide me to making my sites as good as I can. It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of time. It feels almost overwhelming when I look at the big picture, but I’ll take the tortoise path. One keyword, one page, one topic at a time — over a period of months and years. Each individual task is relatively simple.

I am more of a technogeek propellerhead than I am a businessman. I’ve been self-employed as a computer consultant, analyst, programmer, and SysAdmin since the late 1970s. I also taught people how to use and program computers at a couple of colleges along the way.

Over the last ten years, I mostly built websites for the fun of it. I did it for the achievement of overcoming the technical hurdles and creating sites that worked as I wanted. In most cases, the goal was not to earn more money, it was to revel in the joy of learning and doing.

As I said, I closed most of my websites and blogs and I’m changing my focus. Now, I’m more focused on business. I’ve gotten the joy of testing and tweaking out of my system and now I intend to earn a good living from the income produced by my sites.

6. I am moving from being wide and shallow to being narrow and deep.

For a decade or so, I was wide and shallow — lots of websites with not too much depth to any of them, except for a couple. I spent a lot of time on various forums and commenting on other people’s blogs. Although I enjoyed those activities, and they gave me something to do when I wasn’t able to focus on work, I was not building a business in the process. That was not an investment in my business.

It is important not to confuse busy-ness with business.

I actually believed the nonsense about having 100 sites producing $1 a day being a good way to earn $100 per day. Now, I know that this is ridiculous. That’s a whole lot of work to earn very little money. Now, I know that it’s much, much better to focus on a few sites and build them so that they attract thousands of readers and earn much more money.

7. Success is a process.

Of course, as all SBIers know, it takes a lot of thought and work to build an income-producing, niche-focused, original-content website. The Action Guide is a tremendous help, but important parts of building a successful online business can only be learned by doing what you think is best, and then adapting and improving the things that don’t work as well as expected.

I did not focus on my own business as much as I should have, but I will in 2012.

The planning is mostly done. The mind maps are created, the site blueprints are completed, copious notes have been written, and now I’m waiting on BB2 before I completely revamp my two SBI sites.

Even though I made some mistakes when I chose the niche for the first site, I’m going to work through the Action Guide and do my best to correct some of those mistakes and then proceed forward with a patched foundation.

My second SBI-powered site will be much easier to build and monetize.

8. I’m going to quit focusing on what SBI doesn’t do, and focus more on all that it offers.

This time, I’m going to stop fighting the things I didn’t like about SBI (the main one being no integrated blog module with commenting) and start fully using all the tools that ARE available.

It turns out that blogging is fun for me (busyness), but doesn’t produce any real income (business), so the lack of an integrated blog or forum module in SBI no longer bothers me. I’ve learned, after a decade of blogging, that I don’t make my money on my blogs or forums. I enjoy writing them, and sometimes enjoy the conversations in the comments, but the money is made on my websites, and that’s what I am going to focus upon next year.

I should also mention that it has seemed to me that it was easier to write a blog post using WordPress, Radio Userland, or Blogger than it was to write a comparable page using SBI.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

A. WordPress comes with an almost-WYSIWYG editor for writing the posts. It’s easier to write an ad hoc blog post. That’s more of a perception than a reality, however.

B. I put a lot more thought, research, and planning into writing a page on one of my SBI sites, because I knew more people would see it. That may be partly self-fulfilling prophesy, and it may be partly due to all the things that SBI does behind the scenes to make it easier for people to find a page.

When I first started using WordPress, it pretty much required knowledge of PHP in order to get anything done. Now, it’s much easier, but still takes more technical knowledge.

SBI templates offered fewer options with the basic block builder, but, a few years ago, they introduced the ability to upload pages built using any site design software. However, those of us who preferred using the block builder tool had fewer options. The introduction of block builder 2 (BB2) this month will make a huge difference in how we design and build our sites. It’ll still be easy for beginners, but will offer more options as SBIers learn more.

In reality, however, I believe this is mostly perception. What we gain in ease of use in modifying a blog, we lose in spending additional time researching plug-ins and dealing with other technical details.

Ease or difficulty aside, however, I have proof that my blogs did not earn as much and took much more time than my SBI sites — even though I largely neglected my SBI sites for over two years.

I’ve also quit focusing on wanting comments and conversations on my website pages. That’s been a sticking point for me for a long time. When I started focusing on the lack of this feature, I really believed that all the commenting and discussions I was having on multiple blogs (my own and others) was helping my business. Earlier this year, I stopped most of that, and neither my income nor the number of visitors to my sites dropped.

It turns out that commenting is not that important, after all. It is a fun social activity that I enjoy, but it does not produce more income. Maybe I should qualify that by saying that it didn’t produce more income for me. Your mileage may vary.

Now that I have Facebook commenting on my SBI sites, it has become a non-issue.

Once again, I was confusing busyness with business. They are not the same.

Also, by focusing on the lack of a feature I wanted, it dimished the usefulness of all the features that SBI provides. I learned that lesson a long time ago. I’m surprised that I had to re-learn it.

So, this old dog is going to learn some new tricks.

I’m going to forget about using PHP and PERL to accomplish things and I’ll adapt to the tools that SBI offers. The new reusable blocks feature of BB2, that makes server side includes available to people who use the block builder editor, will make it possible for me to do some things I’ve long wanted to do.

My first SBI site may never be a real moneymaker. It’s always paid its way and made a profit, however. My second SBI site is the one around which I’m rebuilding my marketing business.

9. It has taken me a long time, but I have finally proven to myself that SBI is the right choice for me. Not just another choice in my bag of tricks and tools — the best choice.

I feel comfortable in stating that I’ve tried most of the alternatives and they are all lacking — especially in performance.

If you hear that SBI is only for beginners who don’t know how to do the technical stuff, part of that is true. It is perfect for beginners, but it is also perfect for us old propellerheads who have been slinging computer code for decades and building websites for almost as long as there have been websites.

(I was building websites before the introduction of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Before javascript. Before Google. Before websites could show graphics. When I still had to compile source code to build tools. When websites were listed in printed books. When I had to write CGI code in Perl or C to do any kind of animation or process forms. When I had to write my own program for building autoresponders. Before most people had even heard of the World Wide Web. I may not be great at it, but I’ve been doing it for quite some time.)

I admit that I am not a great business-person. I don’t have the knack for making big profits. I’m trying to learn how to do it. I think it’s probably a skill like any other, and even those of us who don’t have a natural talent can learn how to do better.

Ken Evoy has been a great mentor and I have learned a great deal from him. I haven’t implemented all that I learned as well as I could have and I’m going to remedy at least some of that.

He has also been a great inspiration. I admire his dedication, work ethic, intelligence, and ability to cut through the fog and keep things real. I look forward to learning more from him and putting that knowledge to work.

Unfortunately, it seems that I have learned how to write incredibly long posts from him, too. (grin)

10. SBI is a bargain.

Some of us have proven to ourselves that SBI offers a better way of building the kinds of sites we want to develop. Many of you have done much better with this than I have, but I intend to do better next year.

I won’t waste thousands of (more) hours on trying to prove to myself that SBI is the real deal. I’ve already done that. Yes, I learned a lot. Yes, I tested and proved to myself what works and what doesn’t. Yes, I learned all about the high cost of “free” websites.

And the price? $300 per year, per site?

That’s a bargain.

I know.

You have to look at the big picture. Sitesell is much more than a webhosting company.

SBI is not magic. It is not a magical Internet money machine on steroids.

SBI is an online business success toolkit, complete with detailed instructions that you can adapt to the niche of your choice. It comes complete with a set of tools that are unmatched in one service — anywhere. (Remember that there were no challengers in the recent $50,000 Sitesell challenge!) SBI offers a forum with a friendly, helpful atmosphere where fellow subscribers enjoy helping each other succeed.

Only for beginners? Not true.

Too expensive. Not true.

I still spend several hundred dollars every month for webhosting, email mailing services, domain names, and other expenses related to my online marketing business. Only $60 of that is for my two SBI sites. By comparison, they are a bargain. (In fact, I’m saving enough every year (by not renewing a lot of non-producing domain names) to pay the inexpensive cost of both SBI sites.

Later in 2012, I am seriously considering building two more websites powered by SBI. Both are profitable sites, currently, but I know I can create more revenue by taking the content off of those sites and building new sites using the tools that SBI provides. All I need is more time and energy.

I have a dream and I’ll act on achieving it in 2012 and beyond.

Act on your dream!

JD

Choosing an email service provider for newsletters and autoresponders

The last month has been interesting. It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been interesting.

Newsletter marketing is smart and cost-effective

Part of my business plan for next year is to publish at least three newsletters and maybe more. One will be printed in color and sent by snail mail to my marketing clients to keep them informed of the services I provide and to introduce ideas for marketing to their customers and clients.

The other newsletters will be sent via email every month.

I may make one or more of them also available to paying subscribers via snail mail.

As more and more people use email to manage their mailing lists, I am seeing an opportunity to go back to using printed newsletters that are delivered by snail mail to make some of my newsletters stand out and to increase the likelihood that they will be welcomed and read.

This is especially a good way to reach paying clients and our best customers.

Since I’ll be doing several newsletters every month, I thought I’d better spend some time closely examining the services that are available and comparing them to see which will serve my needs so that I can choose the one service that offers the best mix of features that fit my plans.

I want to choose one service so I can concentrate my efforts and focus on getting as much as possible from the features they provide.

Why send newsletters?

I’ve used newsletters (and autoresponder series) in the past to good advantage.

When I was a computer consultant, I basically built my business with a newsletter that I gave to everyone who wanted it. It was printed on paper, of course, since there was no Internet and no email, back then.

In the early 1990s, I wanted to build an email mailing list, and there were no professional services available, so I spent some time and wrote some scripts in PERL that let me maintain a mailing list and deliver the messages via email. It was a pain to use and, when I quit consulting, I dumped it.

In 2008, I built a number of mailing lists for affiliate and network marketing, using Aweber. It did everything I needed and wanted, and the price was right. When I quit network marketing (MLM), I deleted the lists and haven’t used it for much since then, but I’ve continued paying the monthly fees to keep my account alive.

These newsletters, mailing lists, and autoresponders were helpful in bringing in new prospects and clients, especially when a satisfied client would pass along one of the newsletters to a friend who might be interested in what I offered. It’s a good, easy way to help clients make referrals.

Newsletters are also effective in reminding current and past clients the reasons why they chose me to help them in the first place, and to keep my name in their recent memory, should they need help in the future.

Dan Kennedy, in his book, No B.S. Direct Marketing: The Ultimate, No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Direct Marketing for Non-direct Marketing Businesses, talks about customers and clients from a perspective I’d never before considered.

With no disrespect for the customers intended, he refers to customers as a business owner’s herd and he says that a business owner should focus his efforts on cultivating, nourishing, and caring for his herd. A herd of responsive customers is the single biggest asset that most businesses can have.

One important thing to do is to build a fence around your herd and to constantly maintain and improve that fence.

Dan Kennedy says, on page 172 of the book,

I try to teach business owners to think of themselves as I do, as ranchers putting together and taking care of herds of good, responsive customers. That’s the only real asset of a business…

Most marketers do a truly terrible job of keeping the fence around their customers in tip-top shape. Just like the farmer, they view it as an “expense of operations,” whereas I view it as “marketing.”

I believe you should spend at least as much, if not more, per year on the fence as you did on acquiring the customer in the first place.

Further, you should remember there are poachers and rustlers trying to steal your customers every single day. If you leave your customers alone for very long, if they feel ignored or underappreciated, they are more easily lured away.

He then goes on to describe how to build the fence and how to maintain it, using repetition, frequency, and quality of communications. He prescribes from 25 to 52 “touches” per year per customer. With virtually free email, the number of touches can increase dramatically.

If you think that is too expensive, he says,

If you can’t or won’t invest about $25.00 to $30.00 per year per customer in keeping your fence in tip-top shape, I suggest you get out of the ranching business altogether. Bluntly, frankly, either you’re a financial nitwit or you’ve managed to round up a spectacularly worthless herd.

Mr. Kennedy ends the chapter with this advice…

If you change nothing about your business as a result of this book, you would still have been well served if it succeeds at getting you to send a good monthly newsletter to your customers!

So, when one of the most successful marketers in the country gives time-proven, hard-won advice, I pay attention.

That’s especially true when my own past experiences validate the worth of the recommendations.

(In addition to reading his books and studying his marketing methods and advice, I am a member of the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle and look forward to receiving his newsletter, CDs, marketing examples, and more every month. I took advantage of his Most Incredible Free Gift Ever special offer and I’ve never looked back. The membership costs me less every year than one hour of his consulting time would cost — if I could even get the appointment. If you’re a business owner and are serious about marketing and increasing your profits, this is almost a no-brainer.)

So, it’s important to send a monthly newsletter. What’s the best way to do it?

I have put a lot of work into answering that question this month, and I reached a final decision this morning — and, frankly, I was a bit surprised at the outcome.

This may be an example of “the grass is greener,” until you examine it.

I will be sending monthly newsletters — at least three of them, two via email and one via snail mail. I’ll also be building mailing lists with sequential autoresponders for my clients, and for their major products and services.

The snail mail newsletter for my clients will be printed in color, double-sided on tabloid-sized paper (11×17 inches). A few years ago, I would have used PageMaker to create it. However, I haven’t used PageMaker on the last three Macs I’ve owned, so it is lost to me. Sometime next year, I’ll purchase InDesign and learn to use it.

In the mean-time, I’ll use Apple’s Pages application to create the PDF files that I’ll take to Jonathan and Tammy at Digital Creations USA, in my adopted home town. I looked at a number of national printing services and compared them with what Jonathan and Tammy offer, and they came out best in the comparison.

So, other than writing it every month, all the work on that is done.

On to the others…

I’ve had an account with Aweber for years and I’ve always been happy with their service, but I’ve been thinking that maybe they don’t offer the tools I need to integrate my marketing with the social networks I prefer.

Among other things, I use Aweber to make it easy for you to subscribe to this blog and to receive each new blog post directly in your email inbox.

If you’d like to subscribe, just fill out the form near the top of the right column.

I’ve also used Aweber, in the past, for creating sequential autoresponder messages and for broadcasts. However, I closed several lists in 2009, when I changed the focus of my business, and I was too sick the last couple of years to build new systems. Now that I’m feeling a lot better, I’ll be building a number of mailing lists and autoresponder series for myself and for my clients.

2012 is going to be a very busy year!

Let’s compare…

So, Aweber was the reigning champ, but I spent a lot of time comparing them to several other services. Since it had been so long since I’d done any of this, I invested the time to rethink the entire process and what I wanted to accomplish.

Let’s see what Constant Contact offers…

I’d been hearing a lot of good things about Constant Contact, so I signed up with them. They were looking really good, until I realized that each of their accounts can host only one mailing list. That won’t work for me, because I’ll be sending newsletters to different lists, from different companies, using different contact information and logos.

So, that eliminated Constant Contact.

Next, I looked at MailChimp.

I opened an account with them last year while I was undergoing chemotherapy, but never did anything with it. This month, I delved seriously into their system. I set up a new list, designed a new newsletter template, and started writing the first issue.

I read their multiple PDF reports that explain how to use their system and I watched a number of their video tutorials. The more I learned, the better I liked their service.

I was within an inch of selecting them for my needs, when I was cautioned by a friend to read their terms of service very closely. I had read them last year, but didn’t remember what they said, so this morning, I read the entire document and everything was going great until I read that Affiliate Marketers are prohibited from using their service.

There it was, in black and white, they think of affiliate marketers the same way they think of people who promote hate, porn, gambling, and other things.

What?!?

Ok, I must have read that wrong.

So, I re-read the list of prohibited uses of the MailChimp service and there it is. It was not my imagination nor sleep-deprived mis-reading of their terms. No affiliate marketers.

Hey, I’m one of those guys!

Affiliate marketing generates a nice percentage of my total income every year and I intend for it to generate more in the future.

So, scratch MailChimp.

I won’t bother to talk about the other services I looked into; none of them passed the first looks.

Aweber is the only contender still standing…

Aweber has a lot going for it. I like their service. Their prices are reasonable. Their support is superlative. They have outstanding delivery rates. They offer lots of features I need.

But, aren’t they behind on how they work with social networking sites?

That’s the question I had to answer to my own satisfaction.

(So, I’ve been gone for a couple of hours since I wrote that last sentence and I’ve been delving into how Aweber can work with my social marketing.)

Here’s some of what I’ve learned.

I can automate notices on Facebook and Twitter when a newsletter is published. That’s good.

I can generate subscribe forms for the appropriate mailing list for each of my Facebook pages (but not for my profile). That’s good.

I can generate subscribe forms for people who comment on my blogs using an Aweber plug-in. I don’t know if I want to use that, or not.

One that I had no idea I could do: I can automate subscriptions to mailing lists when someone purchases something via PayPal. This can be used to subscribe someone to a list based on the product they purchased. That’s good.

It can also be used to set up paid subscriptions to certain mailing lists. That’s better than good. That’s awesome. I’m going to look into this a lot more and test it.

There’s more, but I’ve confirmed that I can do everything I need with Aweber, everything I want, and a couple of things I didn’t know I could do (or even that I might want to do).

Aweber is the winner and still the champ!

Yes, I’ve been out of touch for the last couple of years, and I’ve been listening a lot to people who use MailChimp because most of the services are free and their paid services cost less than Aweber.

That’s what I meant earlier, when I said the grass was greener. I was thinking that the MailChimp service could do more than I could do with Aweber, and that may be true.

However, I can do everything I want to do with Aweber, and a couple of nice bonuses I didn’t know were available.

So, as it is in many cases, even though the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be no better than what is right in front of my face.

(How’s that for a mixed metaphor and for tying it back into Dan Kennedy’s metaphor of building a good fence around your herd?)

My decision is made. It’s final. I didn’t have to give up anything I really want to do, and I already know how to use Aweber.

In the past, I’ve sent only text emails, so the next task on my list of things to do is to learn how to create HTML emails and newsletters using their service.

If you’re interested in knowing more about their service, you may want to watch this short video and try their service for yourself. I’ll be using it — a lot!

Send Your First Email Newsletter Today – AWeber Communications

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a new newsletter to design.

It’s time to invest the next few days into re-learning what I used to know about Aweber and their service, and to learn all the new things they’ve added over the last couple of years, while I was not paying attention.

I have made arrangements with an independent editor to work with me next year, and she is patiently waiting for me to design the template, decide on the regular contents of each issue, and get it to her so she can have the first issue ready to mail out when the second week of January, 2012 arrives. It’ll be here before I know it.

Back to work! (grin)

So, what do you think?

Do you do regular mailings to your customers? Do you make use of autoresponders to teach your customers how to use the services you offer? Do you keep in touch with them every month via newsletters and other contacts?

You know I’m always interested in your story and your approach.

Whatcha think?

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. Here’s another good book recommendation. I’m about half-way through studying it and I’m finding it to be a good read and it’s helpful: The Magic of Newsletter Marketing, by Jim Palmer.

(Those book links aren’t affiliate links, but they would have been if Amazon had not dropped all their affiliates in North Carolina two years ago.)

Promote your business with Lulu

I first learned about Lulu several years ago and had big plans for writing and selling at least one book, there. Then, life intervened. Now that I’m recovering my health, I’m slowly getting back on track and I’ve started outlining some possible books that I’ll write and sell.

Primarily, I’m doing this in order to establish my expertise in specific areas and I’m in the process of moving my consulting business in those directions.

(Sometimes this can be frustrating, because I want to do it now, but I know the value in planning. So, I’ll outline the books and think about the contents, but I’m working on my new business plans and marketing plans, first. Plan first. Implement second.)

What is Lulu?

Here’s how they describe themselves on their homepage:

Lulu.com brings the world of online book publishing and book printing to you. Looking to self-publish? Lulu’s print on demand (POD) solutions make publishing your own book quick and easy. Create a book in minutes, publish with the click of a mouse, distribute, sell and print books to order. It’s that simple. Trying to make a photo book? Want to make your own calendar? Our easy-to-use online publishing tool allows you to publish and print your own high-quality photo book or calendar in minutes. Want to convert your book into an eBook? We’ve got you covered with our easy to use eBook publishing tools. With Lulu you can self publish and distribute your eBook in EPUB format making it compatible with the Apple iPad, Sony Reader, Stanza and more. Not looking to make a book or print a book? Lulu has a great selection of books, photo books and eBooks for you to buy. With our great prices and large selection, shopping for books at Lulu is an easy choice!

I’ve been doing some researching, and I believe that Lulu is the best, one-stop place to publish physical books, ebooks, and epub books for iPad and Nook (and similar devices).

Not only can you publish your book there, but you can sell them in their store and earn commissions.

I am not interested in fiction books. Now and then, I enjoy reading a good well-written science fiction or epic fantasy novel, but I am interested mainly in business and promoting my business and helping my clients promote their businesses.

I believe that Lulu is going to play a big part in that.

Establish your expertise

It’s a well-known tactic for information marketers to write and sell books about their topics of interest. Sometimes, these books are sold. Sometimes, they’re given to prospects as part of the marketing mix. Sometimes, they’re used as free bonuses when you purchase something else.

Here’s an outstanding example of that, in action: This is an offer for Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, a place for prosperity without all the bull.

I not only read what Bill Glazer and Dan Kennedy write, I study their videos, special offers, wording of their promotions, and the upsells, cross-sells, follow-ups, and delivery methods. They know what they are doing and have lots of experience.

And, if you’ll purchase what they offer and study it, they’ll teach you how to do a much better job of promoting your business, too.

I’m in the process of adapting their methods for my own business and for my clients’ businesses.

No, most of my clients will not write a book, so maybe I’ll include part of their story in a chapter of a book I’ll write.

I believe that books can be used to demonstrate your understanding of a particular topic and also can show your ability to organize and present that information in a way that is valuable to your prospective customers and clients.

For example, Audrey Owen has a manuscript editing business. In addition to her Writer’s Helper website, she has also written an ebook on the subject. When you subscribe to her free Editor’s Notes newsletter, you get a Tip Sheet as a bonus.

Here’s a short video about Audrey and her editing business…

If you’re going to write a book for publication, you really need a good editor to help you whip it into shape before you publish. Lulu has editing services and I’m happy to recommend Audrey.

Promote your business and help a non-profit organization, too

I also think books can be used to market your business and promote a worthwhile cause, at the same time.

For example, I know a professional photographer who specializes in photographic portraits of newborns and babies. She’s very good at what she does.

She’s also one of the photographers who volunteers her time and service for a non-profit organization. The organization has strict rules about using their name in any marketing promotions, and I don’t know those rules. So, to make sure I don’t cause any problems, I won’t mention her name, her business’ name, nor the name of the organization.

However, it is an organization whose mission she supports, and, in addition to volunteering, she want to raise some money to donate.

She asked me a simple question last week. Did I know anywhere she could get custom calendars printed with photos she had taken over the last year, so that she could sell those calendars and raise money to donate to the organization?

I sell promotional products to help my clients, but I did not know a company that would do what she wanted to do, in short runs, at reasonable prices. So, I spent a day or two looking for an answer to this question.

I found two companies. One of them is Lulu.

To tell the truth, while I was so sick, I forgot all about Lulu, even though it was high on my radar a few years ago.

I learned that they have added photo books and customized calendars into the services they offer. It looks like she can create the calendar and then have two options for selling them. She can buy as many as she wants and have them shipped to her, so she can sell them to her clients, or she can sell them in the Lulu marketplace and then donate the commissions she receives. Or, she could do both.

By the way, here’s a link to their calendar page: Great Gift – Create a Calendar for $12.49 at Lulu.com!

I have not talked to her about this, yet. I still have a couple of things to compare, before I give her my recommendation.

One consideration is price.

The other company I’m considering offers what looks to be a similar product and the cost is less. They do not do all the things that Lulu does and they do not have a marketplace in which she could sell her calendars. But, she could save money in the production of the calendars, purchase more of them for the same cost, sell them at the same price, and raise more money to donate to the foundation.

Both companies offer volume discounts on purchases, and they both will sell as few as one calendar. So, to me, it makes sense to create the same calendar at both companies, order a copy, compare them for quality, and then decide which way to go.

Again, I’m ahead of myself here, because I haven’t talked to her about this, and she may decide not to do it. But, I still think it is a good way to raise money for anyone with great photos and people who would like to buy them.

(If you have people in the shots, be sure to get a model release before doing this — even if they are good friends. Do the paperwork.)

As a promotional products dealer, I can get some very nice calendars with a variety of themes in units of hundreds or more for much lower prices. For example, I can supply Norman Rockwell calendars in units of 150 for about $1.20 each. That’s a lot less than the price of a similar calendar from Lulu.

But, that’s an apple-to-oranges comparison. Price is not the only issue, here. In fact, price is not the main issue here, but it is a factor that needs to be considered.

The second consideration is quality and the ability to customize the product.

This photographer wants a custom calendar with the portraits she created, not something Norman Rockwell created.

She’s going to sell a few dozen calendars, not thousands of them. (At least, not at first.)

Her primary goal is to raise money and donate the proceeds to the foundation. In addition to donating her time and services, she wants to donate more money.

So, it’s going to cost more to produce the custom calendars she wants to sell.

In this case, the price of the calendar probably won’t matter to the people that buy it, either. There is no other calendar, anywhere, that will compare with hers, especially for the families of the babies who will be featured in the portraits.

So, what does that have to do with promoting my business by writing a book?

Hold your horses, partner. I’m getting to that.

In her case, her expertise is in creating beautiful portraits. So, a calendar makes a great way for her to show her expertise and raise money for the organization she wants to support.

Since she has demonstrable expertise and talent in her niche — creating photographic portraits of babies — she could probably also demonstrate her expertise by writing some short books about the subject. It would give her a good chance to educate her clients in advance of the sessions, would serve to differentiate her from her competition, and also would help other photographers improve their skills, too.

To me, that sounds like something that is worth doing.

Any time you can educate your prospects and clients and differentiate yourself from your competition, you are increasing the odds of earning more profit.

If she does decide to write and sell those books, I think Lulu is a good choice for publishing them as real, physical books, downloadable ebooks, and epubs that can be sold or given for free for people to read on their phones, iPods, iPads, Kindles, Nooks, etc.

I think it would be good marketing on her part — provided that she writes really good books! That’s the key to this. She has to establish her expertise. She does that, already, by showing her portraits on her website, blog, and Facebook. The books would extend her “exposure” (pardon the pun) by showing her attitude and thought processes, and by helping readers do a better job in their own portrait photography.

And — don’t discount this — it never hurts to be “the guy that wrote the book” on a particular topic.

Expertise Sells.

Did you know that about 80% of people don’t consider price as the most important factor when making their decision to purchase, and from whom?

Establishing expertise is one way you can “rise above the pack” of your competitors and sell your own services at a higher price, and many of your prospects will willingly purchase at the higher price.

But, to do that, you have to demonstrate that there is a difference between you and your competitors. That’s where writing a book can be important.

(Of course, there is a small danger that you’ll educate your competition, too, but that’s probably not much of a problem as long as you continue to develop your skills and stay ahead of them.)

Plan ahead

If you’re going to write a book and you’re going to publish it at Lulu, then be sure to write it so that it will fit one of their formats! It makes sense to establish the format of your book before you write it, rather than having to go back and change it when you find that you’d rather it be a different size.

If you’re going to create an epub, the same thinking applies. Learn about the final product before you start writing.

Already have a book?

If you already have written a book, then you’ll need to modify it to match the format that Lulu requires. You’ll have to do some reworking, most likely.

Promote your business — and yourself

If you really do have expertise in a particular niche or subculture, then spread the word! Let your clients and prospects know about it! Don’t just tell them you know it, show them.

Write a pamphlet or a full book on the subject. Demonstrate what you know and educate your prospects before they become your clients.

One caveat: Make sure the contents, format, and look of the book reflect and enhance your expertise in your niche. If the book comes across as boring, unorganized, or unprofessional, do not publish it! Either rewrite it or scrap the idea.

The same holds true for the appearance of the book. The same information can be presented in some sheets of paper stapled together, as sheets of paper in a customized 3-ring binder, as a wire-wrapped book, or as a paperback or hardback bound book. They can have a simple or a professional cover. They can have a table of contents and an index, or not.

Make sure that the format in which you present the information matches the style and feelings for which you strive in your business.

If you’re going to do it, do it right. Make sure the tone of the presentation is as close to what you’d say if you were talking in person with your best customer or client. Make sure the quality and presentation of the book matches the style of the products and services you deliver to that best client, too.

Make the book an asset, not a liability.

Open a free account at Lulu

It’s free to open an account at Lulu and to learn how their services work. Some of their services are free and others are reasonably priced — and you can choose which ones you need, based on what you want to do with your book, calendar, or whatever you create.

To get started, click the Lulu logo, below…

They have a community of members and lots of services that can help you create and publish your work.

You can experience their sales process by buying a book from their marketplace and/or downloading an ebook.

Lulu receives on average 1,000 new independent book titles every week. Their authors can be found on the world’s largest book marketplaces, such as Lulu, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, eBay, and Google Book Search.

With some work, you can be one of those authors.

My projects

Over three years ago, I was starting to get serious about publishing on Lulu, and I uploaded a free ebook (actually a newsletter from one of my sites) as a test. I never got around to taking it down. If you’re interested, (why would you be?), here’s the Spring 2008 edition of my Act On Your Dream! newsletter.

I planned on writing more — and better — newsletters and books, but life and death got in the way. Now that I’m back on track, I’m looking forward to putting more items, of better quality, in my lonely little store!

By the way, I have completely forgotten everything I learned about self-publishing on Lulu, so when I finish my new business plan and marketing plans, I’ll start relearning how to use Lulu. I may even ask you for advice!

A year from now, I plan to have a few more newsletters and maybe a short book or two.

(My cousin challenged me to write a romance novel and she keeps prodding me to get to work on it. It’s going to be interesting to see if a guy who knows practically nothing about romance can write a novel that won’t make you cringe when you read it. The working title is, “The man with no clue.” That pretty much describes me when it comes to romance novels. I happen to think that writing is writing and it’s not that much different to write a romance as it is to write a persuasive marketing piece, and somehow — I don’t remember the details — I found myself challenged to put up or shut up. Who knows? I may even finish it. It’ll be a very short novel! If I do finish it, I’m then going to see if I can sell it. See, Jacque, I haven’t forgotten! Love ya. Hugs.)

There’s lots to do. It’s going to be a very busy year!

Lulu affiliate program

Lulu’s affiliate program is administered through the Google Ad Network.

What do you think?

If you’re an affiliate marketer, you may be interested in their affiliate program.

If you’re an author or business owner, you may be interested in publishing your work through them.

I’m interested in both.

Act on your dream!

JD

Focus on small business owners

In the past, I’ve written mostly for people who are thinking about making more money from home. I think I’ve offered some good advice over the years.

Now, however, I’m changing my focus and will address most of my writing on this blog and other websites towards people who have already made a commitment to owning, running, and profiting from a small business — whether it is a brick and mortar business, a service business, or an online business.

Business owners know that they don’t have time to waste. They know that it often makes more sense to hire an expert than to spend months learning new skills that are not crucial to the success of their main business. They know that investing in appropriate tools is better and more effective that using the cheapest available option. That having a good marketing system is better than one that performs poorly, or having no marketing system, at all.

You know that it makes sense to invest in tools and systems that help you make more profit.

You know that it takes a lot of time, effort, work, creativity, and sheer dogged determination to succeed in owning and profiting from a business of your own. It’s not easy, but when things come together, it can be very rewarding, both financially and personally.

It is an achievement to build a business that survives and it is a thrill to build a business that thrives.

Tire kickers vs. Business owners

I like offering advice to people who are just thinking about getting started, but I’ve lost patience with the majority of you.

So, I’m going to spend the great bulk of my time working with people who have already made the commitment to achievement and success.

You get it. You understand the challenges and the rewards.

You are my target market. You are the person I can help the most.

And, frankly, you are the person who is most likely to invest in what I’m recommending. You’re willing to spend money and to invest your time and effort — if — if it will increase your profit.

I’ve already decided that I’m going to build my marketing systems and I’m going to focus on helping business owners. Right now, I plan to close my blogs no later than December 31, 2012 and possibly sooner.

At some point within the next 15 months, I will stop giving away my best advice and will offer it only to paying clients.

There are people who are happy to pay good money for what I know. I’m going to stop giving it away for free.

I freely admit that I’m not a marketing expert.

Surprise!

But, one of the things I do best is to seek out and find people who are marketing experts and then I adapt their marketing methods using online tools and help business owners do it, too.

Sometimes I don’t even have to do any adapting, because these experts have already built the tools and all I have to do is learn how to use them, prove to myself that they work as advertised, and then help you find them so you can use them in your business.

I have come to realize that the majority of my readers are not looking for serious business tools, techniques, and experts. They’re looking for free keys to the imaginary magic Internet money maker. I’m going to ignore the tire kickers and talk to the business owners.

I’m not sure why it has taken me this long to make this change. It’s something I knew when I was a computer consultant for all those years. I think part of the reason that it has taken me so long to focus on the right group of people was because I was so distracted by caring for Mom and by fighting my own health battles that I just wasn’t able to really focus on my goals and the best way to reach them.

Over the last several months, I’ve done a lot of thinking, strategizing, and refocusing and have a clearer destination for where I want to be in a couple of years.

It’s all about offering the right products and services to the people who want them, are motivated to use them, and can afford to buy them right now. When the right person finds the right product and it will produce the results they want, they are ready, willing, and able to make a decision and go for it. They know how to commit to achieving their goals and are ready to do the work.

When we try to sell to everyone, we end up selling to nobody.

Why?

Because our message is scattered and unfocused.

When you come to this blog — however you find your way here — I want you to know that I’m focused on marketing and business success, and I want you to know that I know about some tools that can help you. I’ve spent years comparing and testing, and I promote only the best.

Now, maybe I’ve missed some, and I am always open to suggestions, but I’m not interested in second-rate. Life is short. I want to use the best tools and techniques to market my business.

Free is expensive!

I don’t care how many times someone tells me that there is a free way to do something, I have learned through experience that we always pay — in one way or the other — when we use free tools.

Free tools change without warning. Free tools disappear. Free tools are unreliable.

I am willing to debate this point with anyone, as long as you’re earning at least $500 per month, consistently, using your free tools.

Free tools often waste the one thing that is irreplaceable — time.

But, just because we pay for something does not mean it is worth our time, effort, and money.

I’ve bought and tried things that did not work as advertised. In some cases the tool was great, but not what I needed for the way I like to work. In other cases, the tool just didn’t live up to its claims.

Sometimes I got a refund. Sometimes the guarantee was worthless and a refund never materialized. I wrote it off to experience and moved on. I can replace money. It’s all around us.

Losing a little money now and then doesn’t bother me. Losing months of wasted effort bothers me. A lot!

Almost as bad as free is the lowest priced service or product.

Although this is not always true, I generally find that the least expensive product or service is also the least effective. When someone only markets on the basis of price, it means they have no unique selling proposition that makes the value of their offer greater than their competitors. Without a good USP, they can only compete on price.

I prefer to find the company, product, service, and/or person that can help me increase my profit and be reliable over the long term. I’m more than willing to pay more for that.

Ken Evoy told me that over ten years ago, and I didn’t pay as close attention as I should have. I’ll be talking more about him in my next post, later today.

I can’t replace time.

And neither can you. No matter who you are, time is finite.

No matter how successful you are, or how much money you have, time marches on. Therefore, I think it is important to do the best we can with the talents we have and to invest in improving our knowledge and skills, in whatever time we have.

Success and failure

In my next post, I’m going to announce a challenge, but in this one, I want to make a point.

Some people drift through life with no real goals or directions. They try this and that, but never really commit to one or two big goals in life.

Others — perhaps you — set goals and work hard to achieve them.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” — Thomas Edison

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” — John Maxwell

Some of us decide what we want and we commit to working hard until we achieve it. If you’re still reading this, I bet you work hard to achieve your goals.

Another thing we get when we work hard to achieve our goals is experience. Over time, through trial and error, we learn what works for us — and what doesn’t.

Sometimes, if we’re willing to test new things and learn new techniques, we find that the things that didn’t work for us in the past do work for us, now.

Why?

Because we have learned more and we’ve found better ways to apply the tools and methods to our business.

I spent years looking for the best tools to help me build my online marketing business.

I’ve been building websites and blogs since shortly after the invention of the World Wide Web, before there was an Internet Explorer, or FireFox, or Google, or lots of the other things we use every day and sometimes take for granted.

Over all those years, I have tested and re-tested lots of ways to build websites and to market more effectively. A lot of systems have come and gone. A lot have proven that they did not have the stamina to continue. A lot of them were a big flash in the pan — they made a racket and got our attention, but went away just as quickly.

However, a few have grown and gotten better. You can see some of them in the right column of this blog. Some of these tools I have been using for years and plan to continue using them for many more years. Slowly, but surely, I’m devising and building marketing systems that use those tools. I depend upon them.

Along the way, I have re-discovered some things I learned many years ago. Once I got past all the technology, the bells and whistles, the shiny new paint, and all the fireworks, I realized that the basics of buying and selling have not changed.

The procedures, venues, media, and tools have evolved, but basic business really hasn’t changed as much as we like to think it has. The products and services we sell have changed, but people haven’t changed all that much.

If anything, the willingness to buy something on credit has made it easier to sell to them.

I’m still one of those old curmudgeons who actually saves up to buy something and pays for it with cash. I don’t use credit cards (but I do appreciate the convenience of debit cards). I have no debt. I would take out a loan for a house or car or possibly for some business tools, but I’d much rather sell more, earn a profit, and pay cash.

I’m a hard sell. I think long and hard before buying anything. I’m not influenced by celebrities.

(That’s not entirely true. To me, Steve Jobs was a celebrity, and I have bought many things he and Apple have produced over the years, but every single one of them earned a profit for me. They were investments in quality tools.)

But, the great majority of people live in a world where debt does not carry a stigma and is not something to be avoided. Perhaps you are one of those people. Whether YOU are, or not, isn’t the important thing. Most of your customers are.

So, if you can get your message to your target market — past all the noise and confusion — you can sell what you offer. It’s a matter of matching the right product to the right person and presenting it in ways that make them want to buy it.

Once you learn good ways to do that, your business will grow.

Am I saying that I have all these answers? Certainly not.

However, now that I’ve gotten past my search for tools, I’m researching and applying methods created and tested by past and current marketing masters.

So, not only will I recommend the tools you need for marketing your business, I’ll be recommending the people and methods that have worked for others.

I do not recommend everyone who offers to give me money to tell you about them. I don’t even recommend most of them. I do recommend a few, but only if I know for sure that what they are selling actually works — if you take the time and do the work to implement their methods.

There are challenges in running a business.

Success is not a nice straight always climbing line. There are ups, downs, blind alleys, bad choices, broken promises, unexpected obstacles, and more things and people that slow our advance towards achieving the success for which we strive.

Sometimes, they beat us — temporarily.

As long as we don’t quit, we can usually find a way over, around, under, or through most of these problems.

Now and then, we get smacked down and it takes all the effort we can muster to get back up and take the next step on our chosen path. As long as we get back up and take one more step, we’re not defeated.

Sometimes we choose badly and have to face a decision at some point that we’re sidetracked and not getting any closer to our major goals in life. So, we change. We stop what we’re doing, re-orient ourselves, get back on track, and move forward.

It takes a commitment.

One of the surest ways to fail in building a business is “giving it a try.” That’s exactly the wrong approach. That’s starting with a built in excuse for failure.

If that’s how you’re going to build a business, don’t bother.

Now, it’s true that you may have unexpected luck and do really well. It happens, but it is not something that I’d depend upon.

It’s true that I might win the lottery one day, but I’m not going to base my financial future on that happening. If it does, great! If not, no problem.

A lot of people think that building an online business is like winning the lottery. It’s not. There is no magic in an online business. It’s just a different way to get your sales pitches out to people who are looking for what you offer. Sometimes, it’s a great way to do that. Other times, not so much.

It depends upon what you’re selling and to whom you are directing your offer. In many cases, you may do better by promoting your offer offline.

But, I like working on the Internet, so I look for ways to build revenue streams that I can promote online to people just like you. And the beauty of this approach is that I like recommending things you can use in your business that make more profits for you, too.

As Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

You already own a business. You know the work and commitment that it takes to succeed and to persevere. You know it’s a long haul and not a short sprint.

What you may not know, is that there are many ways to promote your business and some of them are much better than others.

One thing that all of the best tools require is up-front work. You have to be willing to learn how to use that tool, apply it to your particular business, and adapt it to work for you, your offers, and your customers and clients.

Specific focus on your goals, the people whom you want to reach, and the products and/or services you’ll sell are required.

There are many different types of people.

The great majority of them are NOT in your target market. Most of them have no interest in you and what you offer.

I know that’s true for the tools I offer.

Building a great marketing system is not nearly as fun as watching a movie or reading a novel, for the great majority of people.

However, for some of us — a small minority — maybe you — it’s what we love doing.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you own. There are lots of ways to reach out to those people who want to buy what you offer. The better you build your system and the more tightly you focus it on your target market, the more prospects and customers you’ll reach.

If I were a good little Internet marketer, at this point, I’d tell you that I will give you a free book, ebook, video, or CD if you give me your name, email address, and permission to contact you.

That’s what Dan Kennedy calls baiting the trap. The free offer is the bait to get you to trade your contact information, so that I can then contact you regularly with offers that I think you will want to buy. Dan is a master of that strategy and I really do recommend paying attention to what he says — and how he and his partner, Bill Glazer, implement those techniques.

I’m going to smack my little paw right now, because I don’t have that system built for the new direction I’m taking my marketing business. I will get it done, but not yet.

So, what do I want you to do, right now?

Ideally, I want you to buy something! The sooner, the better. (grin)

But — and this is a big but — only if it is something that you will really use to increase your profit from marketing your business. If it won’t help you make money, don’t buy it.

If you decide not to purchase something, right now, then I’d like for us to stay in touch.

So, all I can ask you to do is to subscribe to my RSS feed or to subscribe to the mailing list or like my page on Facebook. The links are towards the top of the right column.

I’m asking you to do one or all of those things.

I welcome your comments.

I enjoy discussions with real people. If you are a first-time commenter, please see my Comments Policy.

In order to succeed with your business, you have to market it effectively.

I have a friend who is a master violin maker, talented musician, and experienced business owner. About 12 years ago, he gave me some good advice that I will remember for the rest of my life.

I was telling him that I’d been hand-forging and selling my Steel Roses That Never Wilt over the Internet to people all over North America. (I no longer do that.)

He said that was the difference between being an artist and a professional artist. I don’t remember the exact quote, but he said something to the effect of: Anyone can learn to make stuff, but you’ll never have a business until you learn to sell it. Every business, no matter the product, is a marketing business.

He’s right.

I hope you have great success with your business.

Act on your dream!

JD

Dan Kennedy GameChanger DNA – Last Day

As I said yesterday, I am doing something I almost never do. In this post, I am promoting something that I have not bought, studied, used, and tested for myself prior to recommending it to you.

There is a simple reason. I know Dan’s reputation for quality and his ability to teach effective marketing techniques that have worked for thousands of people. So, although I have not seen this particular product of his, I have studied other books he has written over the years, and GameChanger DNA is a collection of what he has learned about marketing over the last nearly four decades — all presented in one place. It’s not everything he knows, but it should be enough to change your marketing game, if you study it and implement what you learn.

If you know in your heart that you won’t spend the time to learn and use the valuable knowledge in this product — Do Not Buy It!

To be perfectly frank, it’s not worth an affiliate commission if I have to listen to you bellyache and whine about it being a waste of money.

First, it can’t be a waste of money, because you have a 30-day money back guarantee. If you buy it and don’t like it, follow the refund procedures and get your money back.

If you learn from it, implement it, and reap the rewards, I’d love for you to come back here and tell us about your experience.

It’s time for you to decide.

Would you like an easy to use, step-by-step, take-you-by-the-hand, done-for-you, proven system that will change your game immediately?

Dan’s closing the cart for his GameChanger DNA tonight at 12 MIDNIGHT CST, on Saturday October 1st.

Simply click the Add to Cart Button on the following page to get access…

Click on my GameChanger DNA link or on the image above to see for yourself!

But there is more, much more than just the cart closing. Your chances of becoming a Game Changer are slipping away.

This science of influential communication has been of more value to professional marketers than a thousand techniques or gadgets or gimmicks. Now it can be yours for a small investment, fully guaranteed.

If you haven’t made a decision yet I urge you to finalize your plans, weigh the pros and cons, and make your commitment to achieve.

Go now, and see for yourself.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. As I said yesterday, Dan’s GameChanger DNA offer is not for everyone. It’s for business owners — and people who intend to own a business — who realize that effective marketing is the most important pathway to success, and who are willing to invest in themselves by studying and then implementing what you learn. Only with a steady stream of paying customers, will your business thrive.

If you do nothing else, get a copy of his Outrageous Advertising book. How much does it cost? If you go now, you can get a copy of Outrageous Advertising for free, and you’ll have to pay for shipping only.

Dan Kennedy – GameChanger DNA Webinar Videos

Today, I’m going to do something I almost never do. I am going to suggest something to you that I have not purchased and tested for myself.

It takes a lot to get me to do this, so let me tell you the back story…

Dan Kennedy is a marketing expert and is rapidly approaching the status of marketing legend.

I have read several of his books and I’m right in the middle of reading his “No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent” book, as part of my planning on rebuilding my marketing business, now that I’m recovering from my illness and I’m getting back to work.

I trust his advice and I know some of the back-story of how he has helped a lot of people over the years to build very nice incomes.

Yesterday afternoon, while doing some research for my new marketing plan, I took a short break and was playing on Facebook. That was a lucky thing for me.

Here’s why…

I have been following Dan Kennedy on Facebook and he sent out a very short status with a link. Out of curiosity, I clicked that link, and it changed the rest of my afternoon.

(Dan is known for not liking, nor using, modern technology, even though he understands it, so I doubt that he was the one that published the status update. Most likely it was an employee or someone he influenced to do it for him.)

That link took me to a video about the launch of his new GameChanger DNA product. As far as I know, this is the first time he’s used a big product launch like this for his own products, but he has been involved behind the scenes helping with others. (I’m almost, but not quite, positive that I have my facts straight here.)

Anyway, to cut a long story shorter, I dropped what I was doing and watched those videos. It was the first time I’d seen Dan on video and I enjoyed watching it. I also enjoyed observing how they were doing the marketing for the new product.

Note: This product is not the normal kind of product I promote. I don’t think it’s right for most of my readers. If you balk at paying a few hundred dollars for using a tool for a year, you’re going to cringe when you see the price of this product.

However, if you are already a business owner and you want to learn how to distance yourself from the herd of competitors in which you are surrounded and you want to learn how to raise your prices and earn more profit, then this is an indispensable and very valuable collection of information, techniques, and expert tips that Dan has spent 38 years learning and developing.

I’m almost sure that you could not afford a single hour of Dan’s consulting time, but you can get this package for a fraction of his consulting fee — a small fraction, at that.

So, since I know Dan by reputation and I know him from reading his books, I did some checking and applied for his affiliate program this morning. A couple of hours later, I was accepted, and an hour later, I’m writing this.

Again, this is not cheap, but it is very valuable information.

Now, even if you have no plans to purchase it, set aside a couple of hours (I’m not sure how long it is, because I wasn’t watching the clock yesterday while I was watching the videos), and open your mind and pay attention.

Even if you know a lot about marketing, I bet you’ll learn some new tips or look at some of what you think you know with a different viewpoint.

If you don’t know a lot about marketing, stop what you’re doing and watch these videos.

There are a lot of people out there who claim to be experts. Dan Kennedy is the real deal. He’s the one the experts hire when they need a consultant to help them.

I am not under any illusion here. I don’t think you’re going to buy this. But, if by some wild outside chance, you do, make sure you take the time to study it, absorb it and then implement it!

I have not tried this product.

I just wanted to reiterate that. This is one of the few times I’ll recommend something to you that I have not already bought, used, tested, and proven that it works for me.

Even if you’re not interested in buying. Watch the videos.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the last day for this promotion, and I don’t know if the videos will remain online, or not. If you want to watch them, don’t delay.

(That is not me trying to build artificial urgency. I honestly don’t know how long they will be available. They may be there from now on, they may disappear at the end of this promotion tomorrow night.)

Here’s a prewritten letter that affiliates can use to promote this. Normally, I would not send it, since I prefer to write my own copy, but I’m passing it along to you because I have to leave, and my driver is tapping his foot as he impatiently waits for me to post this.

So, any typos are mine. I just wanted to get this out before I leave.

Subject: Early Warning: The “GameChanger DNA” Finale is here

It made me sad to see Dan Kennedy’s last “GameChanger DNA” video today.

Here it is:

Click on my link or on the image above to see for yourself!

In case you missed it last week, Dan’s released 3 free videos so far – revealing the exact fundamental principles you need to SEE the profit potential for your business.

Tens of thousands of people have watched Dan’s tutorials and learned how to apply these fundamental principles to CHANGE the GAME of their business.

And those tutorials are PLENTY if all you want is understand the basics. But if you’re like me, the “basics” aren’t enough…

I see too much potential.

If you want to stop scratching the surface and become a REAL GameChanger, Dan has a LOT more to share with you in today’s video.

Watch the FINAL public “GameChanger DNA” release here.

And listen, this is a special EARLY notice from me to you (Dan told me it’s okay). You’re seeing this BEFORE the rest of the public.

For you, it could be just a start.

For EVERYONE ELSE, this really IS the END of GameChanger DNA.

Don’t miss it,

JD

P.S. Be sure you register for the “Early Gamechangers” list, they can close registration at any time, so if you want first dibs, get on that list.

Again, Dan Kennedy is someone I highly recommend. If you do nothing else, buy his books and study them.

Success is not in the tools and tricks, it is in the mindset and how you approach it. When you change your attitude, then you can start using the tools to great advantage.

Act on your dream!

JD

Is free information really free?

Over the last 15 years, I have bought and studied lots of things related to marketing on the Internet. Some of those products purported to help me sell real physical products. Some said they’d teach me how to be a better affiliate marketer. Some taught the “secrets” to “massive results” and “exploding my downline.”

Some were worth the read, a few were worth a month or two of studying and implementing the ideas, and the others were mostly a waste of time, effort, and money — and served as a distraction to pull me off course and proved to be obstacles in my path to reaching my goals.

It is amazing to me how many people read a website or a book or take a “course” and then proclaim that they are an expert or a consultant. I am dismayed sometimes when I see the quality of the information many of them foist off on an unsuspecting public — especially when they are deliberately targeting people who are new to online marketing and who have a sincere desire to learn the ropes and promote quality goods and services.

So many times, they are sucked into a whirlpool of endless introductions and launches and the latest, greatest, must-have-right-now, secrets of the universe. Sigh.

But, that’s just one viewpoint.

There is some outstandingly good free information on the Web that will help you become a successful webmaster and marketer. Without a doubt, some of it is terrifically good.

The trouble is this.

When you don’t know your way around the wild and mostly-untamed Internet, how do you know what is good information and what is going to waste your time, effort, and money.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind wasting a little money here and there. I can recoup those losses in the future.

I absolutely loathe wasting time. Once it is gone, it’s gone forever. I don’t know of any way to recoup lost time.

Life is short enough, as it is.

I’ve subscribed to lots of mailing lists and newsletters. I’ve bought ebooks and courses. I’ve paid my dues and found a few nuggets in the wasteland.

As I’ve said many times, Sitesell and SBI are not for everyone, and they are not the only high-quality products that are available. Ken Evoy is not the only reputable marketer.

There are others. Feel free to go out and find them. You may find someone or a service that fits you better. Seriously. There are many ways to build a successful online business and even more ways to earn some extra income in your spare time.

I’ll never say that isn’t true.

For me, and hundreds of people I know, SBI is the best set of tools and training that is available, at any price. They have thousands of happy customers, most of whom are busily following the action guide and getting more visitors to their sites every month, and watching their income as it climbs.

Some, however, aren’t doing as well as they want to do.

And some, a small minority, don’t like the company or the service, at all.

One thing that is true about Sitesell and SBI, and which is generally not true about others, is the level of transparency and communications we — the customers — get. They talk to us regularly in newsletters, in the subscribers-only forum, and on their Facebook page.

I get a lot of communications from other companies, and some of it is really helpful, but much of it is mainly sales pitches so they can upsell me to other backend products that earn their real profits.

Sitesell isn’t like that. SBI is their primary product. They offer some additional services for people who want specific help in specific parts of their business, but it isn’t required nor are we constantly bombarded with sales pitches. (SBI is mainly for people who want to learn to build an online business ourselves. On the other hand, there are people who already have a business and they don’t have the time or interest in doing it themselves. They want to hire someone who already knows the SBI methodology for building a website that attracts paying customers. Sitesell offers that as a service for those who want someone to do it for them.)

How many ebooks and courses have you downloaded? How much of it has been useful? How much of it has offered conflicting opinions and untested suggestions? How much of it has helped you grow your business? How much has left you confused? How much is sitting on your computer — unread? Who do you listen to? Who do you trust?

Those are a few questions we should all consider periodically in our quest to build our businesses.

Free information may not cost you money — and it may help you make money.

Most free information, including what I’m writing in this blog and on my other sites, has at least two purposes.

1. To be helpful and to share what we’ve learned with you. Thanks for reading!

2. To sell you something and/or to get your contact information so we can sell you something, later.

Yes, it’s true.

I want you to subscribe to SBI.

I have two reasons for wanting you to do that.

1. I honestly believe it is the best value for your money and time, if you sincerely want to build a niche-focused online business that earns real income. (I’m not talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars with no effort. I’m talking about a few hundred dollars a month for part-time effort and maybe a few thousand dollars a month for full-time effort after you’ve spent a few months or years building the site and attracting readers.)

2. I am an affiliate for Sitesell, and I earn a commission if you purchase and don’t cancel your subscription. I put a lot of work into telling you about SBI, and I put a lot of work into building my websites that are powered by SBI. Frankly, I earn more from the websites than I do as a Sitesell affiliate.

Most of the free information you’ll find on the Internet is not free at all. It costs you a lot in terms of distracting you from your goals and in time and effort wasted.

Agree or disagree? I’m listening.

Here’s a quick video on this topic…

I think the free ticket for a test drive is a bit of hyperbole. I don’t know of any such thing.

However, I do know that you can get started for only $30. Try it for a month. Read the action guide. Watch the videos, learn as much as you can — and there is a lot to learn. Visit the forums, read what interests you. Ask questions — or answer some, if you really know what they are.

You will find that there is no pressure for upsells or buying expensive add-ons or any of the things you may have experienced elsewhere.

You’ll find that all the people in the forums are using the same tools and “speaking a common language.” No affiliate links are permitted in the forums. Nobody is there to pitch their products. (Well, it does happen now and then, but they are quickly discovered, fired as customers, and banned from the forums.)

The forums are the friendliest and most helpful I’ve found anywhere, and I’d pay the full price of SBI just to get access to the forum and the brainstorming and keyword research tools. All the rest, in my opinion, is a huge free bonus.

So, have you heard bad things about SBI? Do you think $30 is too much to spend to see for yourself?

What’s the risk?

Invest a month and learn as much as you can. Read the entire action guide and watch the videos. Read the subscriber-only articles and tips. Scan the subscriber-only forums.

If you don’t agree that it is what you want to use to build your e-business, just send a ticket to support and ask for your money back.

You have up to 90 days for a complete 100% refund.

You may find it really isn’t for you. Maybe you need or want to do some things that Sitesell doesn’t offer with SBI. Ask for your money back. No questions asked.

There is no risk in trying it.

On the other hand, there is a risk in not trying it…

Have you just heard opportunity knocking at your door and decided to ignore it?

Remember SBI.

Click the link and bookmark that page. Write it in your journal. Put it on your calendar to look into a few months from now.

If you don’t like what you see, go elsewhere and try other approaches.

When you decide to come back and try it, again, you’ll find that it has gotten better in the interim.

Act on your dream!

JD

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