Tough Love from the Big Guns

Two of the best marketing trainers online ever (and since the early days of marketing online) also published some tough love this week (just like my rant a few days back):

“…there’s something a little wrong with some of the wanna be entrepreneurs landing on my doorstep this month. More wrong than just believing the lie that a million can be made overnight. More wrong than thinking a $5 ebook written 5 years ago is going to teach the strategy that is required to make a business flourish today…full text – Laura Childs

I wondered if it wasn’t too tough to read for some people, too discouraging for newbies, or too judgemental…but then I clicked over to a favorite trainer’s site a few days later…

Perry Marshall Attacks Stupidity and Suggest Ways to Protect Yourself

“You know what’s wrong with the Internet? Smart people and stupid people get equal airtime. And since stupid people tend to shout longer and louder than people who have acquired wisdom and judgment, ignorance generally prevails…”

and this:

“The point is, stupidity is cheap and plentiful. With stupidity, your options appear to be endlessly open. Enticing possibilities, immediate, apparent, as though you could just…”

Perry has some great points in his article on becoming wise, learning discernment in the modern (online) world, and the difference between a fool’s thinking and a wise man’s accomplishments…(enough food for thought there to make me consider getting out of the publicity path). I advise anyone who stops here to take 3-5 and read his article and digest his suggestions. You’ll want to look for the hidden lessons, the points behind the prose (click here to open Perry’s rants and answers in a new window)

“Okay,” said I, “I’m not so lonely ranting about authenticity, and unqualified marketing trainers teaching, and dream-chasers not thinking clearly about who they’re following and what they’re perpetuating…”

And Then Came Marlon’s “Wise Up!”

As you might know it was Marlon Sanders who first introduced me into this business back in 1995 (ish). Marlon paid me to run his pay per click campaigns and to make small text and graphic changes to his web pages. I was too stupid to stick around and learn all I could from this marketing genius back then, but I hang on most of his words today – and it’s all served me incredibly well.

I owe a large part of my work-at-home, vacation-when-you-want, lifestyle today to Marlon’s teachings.

Marlon told me I could re-publish the content here for you (since he doesn’t have an online version to link to) and I think he’ll be shocked that I actually did it, since it’s not an easy read. UPDATE – September 5/07: Marlon has entered the blogging world! Marlon’s Marketing Minute.

If you’re looking for some happy thoughts or dreams of millions overnight, Marlon’s latest rant is NOT for you. This is a tough love, wake up call.

I thought of editing, but decided if you don’t know Marlon, reading this from the start is an education into itself. Marlon is Texan so read it in a drawl…

How to Get the Traffic You Need to Make Your ‘Money Machine’ Hum and Purr or What I Learned about Affiliate Programs by Drinking Coffee in a New Shop and How it Can Help YOU Get More People to Your WebSite

‘Bout two miles away from me is the new place in town. You walk in the doors and there are plenty of nice, cushiony chairs to sit down in as well as a table for larger groups. The earth tones help you relax and settle down to enjoy your coffee.

And then….then there is the ‘humming machine’ over on the left side. It’s the largest coffee roasting machine I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many. But it has this gigantic cylinder with big ol’ hoses runnin’ from it up through the ceiling.

And it has some knobs on the front and a crank you use to make it hum.

A middle-aged man goes over to it and pours coffee beans in and cranks it up. As you sit drinking your cappuccino, there’s a hum as the machine does its magic.

I don’t know what magic there is in the beans it spits out after its done with ‘em. But they sure do brew up a tasty cup o’ joe.

As I sit drinking my cappuccino and reading a book (marketing, of course), I notice the dull hum in the background. Yet, reliably, predictably, the machine spits out perfectly roasted coffee beans.

Such is your web site.

It is your money machine that spits out orders. And done right, it makes a beautiful hum as it works on your behalf.

For that machine to grind out roasted beans, you have to input raw beans….the raw materials. The same goes for your web site. You need traffic. That is your raw material.

This summer, the number of new, highly touted Internet marketing products is going to match last summer’s. It’ll be somewhere between a fireworks show and a freak show. He who has the most dazzling fireworks show and best illustrated affiliate action with the largest prizes wins.

Last summer it was the BMW car for the first place winner. This year, maybe it’ll be the Lambo. So if you want to crank up your affiliate program, there’s no doubt that a good offer and sizzling prizes works.

But how much do these offers have to do with you?

So you buy the program. You learn the deep, dark secrets. Then what?

Where does that leave YOU? You’ve got $1,000 to $5,000 less in your bank. That’s for certain. But are you any better off?

I’m an advocate of education. I DO believe buying programs that FIT your model. I do NOT believe in buying things just because a lot of people sell them “so they must be good.”

If you don’t already know this, the BIG SECRET behind massive launches with many affiliates simultaneously promoting is NOT the quality or usefulness of the product to ANYONE. It boils down to how much preparation went into it (sometimes months of work). And how big the affiliate prizes are. (Like I said:) Last year, the big prize was a BMW car.

So far this year, it’s a Rolex. But I think a Lambo car may be in the mix. You know, the next gigantic launch has to have affiliate prizes that trump the prior one.

None of this is BAD or wrong. I happen to like the people involved in these launches. The problem comes when people buy something based on the social proof of everyone and their dog promoting it EVEN IF it has nothing to do with your model for making money.

I don’t care if a chorus of 100,000 angels sing in unison (motivated by the desire to win crazy prizes) that you should buy an info product. That does NOT in one iota make it more VALID or useful to you.

It’s all about the model. What’s the model? Is it relevant to you?

The prizes are good. I have no problem with them. It’s a great deal for affiliates. But YOU need to be an educated consumer. Because I’m telling you right now. Between now and the end of September, it’s going to get crazy with launches.

OK. So I’m assuming you’ve bought some “secrets.” Maybe a lot of “secrets.” Where do you go NEXT?

If you take away all the smoke and mirrors (which is what I help people do), in spite of all the hype, there are only a FEW ways you make money in this market:

1. Products: Most people sell info products. You have ebooks, CD’s and courses, coaching, teleseminars, membership sites and so forth.
2. Traffic: You get that from organic seo, pay per click, and associate programs. You can also buy banners. Most viral marketing that works is a derivation of an affiliate or associate program.
3. Sales conversion: You have webinars, teleseminars and sales letters. A lot of people have gone to verbal selling because they suck at writing sales letters.

Products + Traffic + Sales Conversion = Cash

Here are my NINE LAWS of Internet marketing:

Law one: At the end of the day, you still have to IMPLEMENT. You have to do.
Law two: Learning secrets is more fun and sexy than doing.
Law three: The money is in the doing.
Law four: Doing is frustrating because you will always run into snags and things that don’t work as simple or easy as you wish they would.
Law five: The people who win DO. They implement. The people who don’t DO, don’t make money.
Law six: You can get so stuck in “learning secrets” that you never do.
Law seven: If it’s dirt simple with no brain required, if all you do is push a button and money comes in — then all the opportunity has already been sucked out. You will NOT make money long term because there IS no barrier to entry and everyone will jump on board.
Law eight: When everyone jumps on board, the opportunity is often gone. Blue Ocean book was right.
Law nine: Problems are good. They provide barriers to entry for competitors. It’s the most basic law of supply and demand.

I believe in buying secrets. I believe in specialized knowledge and know how. I also believe the most important part of the whole equation is what you DO.

What you DO is as important as what you KNOW.

Doing requires confronting what is NOT comfortable to you. Watching DVD’s and going to seminars is comfortable. DOING is not.

Why? It’s a learning curve. Things don’t work. Things aren’t as simple as you wish. That’s part of life.

But if you really wanna make it happen, you gotta focus on DOING.

And the main reason I bring up this uncomfortable and unpopular truth is because I want you to succeed.

My products for the most part are NOT about secrets. They’re about DOING. Yeah, that isn’t as sexy and interesting and fun.

But do you wanna be entertained? Or do you wanna make money?

Honestly.

If you wanna be entertained by the biggest fireworks show and dazzling simultaneous blitzkriegs of promotions by affiliates, then have a good time.

Enjoy the show.

Personally, for entertainment I recommend movies, comedy shows and magic shows. But it’s whatever floats your boat.

If you wanna make money, then buy your know-how carefully and focus on DOING. You don’t HAVE unless you DO.

If you’re STUCK and just can’t get it going, I recommend: Anthony Robbins 30-day personal power program.

You gotta confront ACTION. You gotta do things you are NOT comfortable with. You gotta pick up the phone and call people or do interviews. You gotta write things like sales letters that are new learning curves.

And yes, you can outsource some or all of the above – IF you have the money to do it. And confront SPENDING the money to hire people to do things. And confront the idea you probably will end up spending money on some things that are junk or done wrong.

QUESTIONS:

The basic questions are “Who are you selling to?”, “What you selling them?”, and “How are you finding them?”

But I’ll spell them out:

1. Do you have your target market or target audience yet? That for a lot of people is the point at which they stop or get stuck. All things being equal, you’re best off selling something you can at least get passionate about. If I wasn’t doing the Internet marketing thing, I’d be doing info products on magic or chess or public speaking. Or perhaps something about coffee.
2. Have you done your 12 product survey? Gimme My Money Now has my system for this.
3. Do you have your sales letter written? My best tool for this is Push Button Sales Letters, but you get best results if you combine it with basic know how about Sales Copy
4. Do you have your affiliate program? Even if you use organic seo and/or pay-per-click, it ONLY makes sense to drop your customers into an affiliate program and get them promoting for you. That’s what my Affiliate Dashboard will help you DO. Affiliate Dashboard – there aren’t a lot of SEXY secrets in it. It’s a DOINGness product to help make it faster, simpler, easier and cheaper to set up your affiliate program.
5. Design Dashboard – Helps you design your site or at least tweak what a designer does for you. Helps you save a lot on autoresponders, hosting and pictures. A to Z. My most thorough Dashboard to date. It’s another DOING product. And yeah, it isn’t perfect or flawless or all EASY. I’ve tried to make it that way.

But if you can’t CONFRONT something that isn’t perfectly easy…honestly, keep your day job.

You can either confront action. Confront doing. Confront problems that have to be solved. Confront things that aren’t perfect.

Or you can’t.

If it was all a piece of cake, we would all be rich now, wouldn’t we?

In the past, I talked about the seduction of “easy” methods. If you look back at the things I talked about, you’ll see most of the money you spent buying them was totally wasted.

Yet, it was an unpopular truth when I told you the truth. I actually got some of the most vicious emails when I wrote those things. Because a LOT of players had vested interest in teaching those methods we ALL knew wouldn’t work a year or two down the road.

But darnit, they sure were SEXY and easy to sell.

The people who sold those programs made millions in some cases.

So how did those methods work out for you?

They didn’t, did they?

I’ve been preaching and teaching about the songs of the sirens for HOW long now?

OK. So a nice gentleman writes me that he avoided the songs of the sirens, created a product and it didn’t make money.

And he blamed me more or less. That’s part of marketing. NOT all products work. I don’t care WHO you are. You pick yourself up. Do a new survey. And move on. You look at what the market IS buying.

Are you gonna DO?

Are you gonna CONFRONT?

Are you gonna have a clear model and stick to it? Or get sidetracked every week but a blitzkrieg of fireworks, flash and dash?

Do a million angels on a pinhead singing praises for a model that doesn’t fit what your doing or won’t work a year from now make it any more valid for YOU?

Engage your brain.

Best wishes,

Marlon Sanders

Well that’s all from me today! Not much really from me, other than sharing two great trainers and top online marketer’s latest tough love, get busy, posts!

We’ll chat again soon,

Laura Childs

p.s. Remember, business takes work and time and authenticity!

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Tags: markteting training, newbie, Website Traffic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Marketing Mentors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.