Monthly Archives: August 2007

The Making of An Internet Entrepreneur

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Intelligent, well-educated people typically have the biggest disadvantages when it comes to starting up online.

Among the most common reasons:

  • I don’t know enough about (niche)
  • I may not succeed
  • I have no idea how to begin

It’s this mental barrier/s which keep many from generating a decent income online.

Let’s look at a couple of the reasons.

“I don’t know enough“: There’s a state of mind referred to as “learned helplessness”.
You naturally will not know “everything” about debt consolidation or hair loss or cellphone ringtones starting out, but there’s nothing to stop you from doing something about it.

As an Internet entrepeneur, you simply cannot expect your business to be handed to you in an ebook or a business-in-a-box, not if you’re planning to create a long term, sustainable business.

There is some “brain grease” involved in all of this.
Squeezing a little time out of your day, maybe an hour before bed or when you wake, moves your business ahead by 30 to 60 hours a month, if you’re already holding down one or two jobs.

It feels that the “I don’t know” is code for “I don’t want to put in any effort and yet see my paypal account magically fill up”.
Maybe in an alternate dimension, but not this one.

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“I may not succeed“: That’s part of the “entrepreneur equation”.
You could fail, and there’s a great chance of that too.

On the other hand, there’s the opportunity to succeed spectacularly too.
A lot of it depends on your own effort.
For more information on this, refer to the point above.

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“I have no idea how to begin“: Although this sounds similar to “I don’t know enough” and might have a faint smattering of learned helplessness, knowing where to begin is a matter of being able to put the pieces together.

You might already know about list building, traffic generation, monetization, but unless you have a macro perspective of how the pieces fit together, you could be at a loss of “how to begin”.

The great thing about business is that Continue reading →

Affiliate Summit West 2008 Updates

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Missy Ward and Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Summit West 2008 from February 24-26, 2008 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, looks like it’s shaping up to be yet another successful conference.

They’ve secured Jim Kukral as the MC.

According to Shawn’s post “Speaker Submissions for ASW 08”:

The submission deadline is October 26, 2007. Read through all of the information on the speaker submission page. submissions failing to follow the instructions and/or adhere to the deadline will not be considered.

…Accepted speakers will be notified no later than November 16, 2007.

Due to the volume of submissions, we will not notify applicants if they have not been accepted. Therefore, if you have not been contacted by November 16, 2007, your proposal was not accepted.

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The speaking proposals are evaluated on the basis of:

How are speaker submissions selected?
The speaker submissions are reviewed by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board and selected on a number of factors, including speaking experience, industry reputation, and attention to detail (failure to follow instructions on the form will count against you), etc.

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Here’s an interesting idea from a year ago for ASW 07 (held in January this year)

If you are interested in speaking, one thing that would help evaluate your proposal is if you also send a video (just fire up a Web cam to shoot it) and talk about what you’ll be speaking about at the conference. (Potential Affiliate Summit Speakers – Send Us Your Videos)

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Although taking the effort to put together a video – scripting, shooting, editing – will take Continue reading →

Monday Question: What’s A Good Niche To Get Into?

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Starting this week, I’m kicking off a series of answers to readers questions which will appear every Monday (hence…the “Monday Question”).

Here’s this weeks question: “I’m a new Internet Marketer, which Internet Marketing product do you suggest I start promoting as an affiliate”

My answer: You should pick the area in which you have the greatest affinity.

Note that the most successful Internet Marketers will brand themself in a specific manner, with one identity, for example, you might have:

  • Joel “AdSense” Comm
  • Mike “Viral Marketing” Filsaime
  • Chris “Super Affiliate” McNeeley
  • John Carlton “The Marketing Rebel”
  • Michel Fortin “The Copywriting Doctor”
  • Darren “ProBlogger” Rowse
  • Gary Ambrose “Viral Listbuilder”

You hardly come across someone who brands themself as a adsense/PPC/eBay/super affiliate/seo/product creator for a reason. You lose credibility because most will not believe you can master so many specializations just a couple of months into the industry.

You might have a few Continue reading →

Friday Podcast Episode 17: Do What You Love, Love What You Do

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Does it make sense to slog for 40 years at a job that grinds you down from 9-to-5 every day, just to build a nice nest egg for retirement? And if you are an Internet Marketer, how do you continually fire yourself up? Find out in this week’s Friday Podcast.

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Notes follow after the “more”:

Continue reading →

Guerilla Social Networking on LinkedIn

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Each social networking site has a specific purpose and can help you achieve your business goals. Although LinkedIn seems fairly limited in terms of functions, it can be used to enhance your Internet Marketing efforts if you approach it with the right mindset.

Initially set up for the business community to network, share contacts and recommend acquaintances for open job positions, it appears the site has been attempting to expand its scope.

It is a presence on the Internet though, with an Alexa rank of 149 and Google PageRank 7.

Some negative points against it include: Adding Google AdSense ad blocks detracts from its corporate image, as has some discussions in its questions and answers section which seems to have devolved into a discussion of network marketing opportunities and online scams.

Add to that the seemingly limited interaction and communication functions and you might have the receipe for a social network which could be a “killer app” for corporate headhunters, but something that merely stumbles along for the rest of us.

Admittedly, LinkedIn has helped me connect with a couple of university mates, but to squeeze some networking juice out of your profile requires some “out of the box” thinking.

Let’s look at your profile:

linkedin andrew wee

The first thing you need to do is to change the hideous: http://www.linkedin/in/473YDSJ3U3 profile URL to something like: http://www.linkedin/in/andrewwee.

If you don’t already have a blog, submitted articles or press releases or have a Squidoo lens or Hubpage up, perhaps this will help you rank for your name.

Be sure to include your profile details, including specializations.

Instead of “content developer” or “writer”, here’s your chance to mention that you’re a “direct response copywriter” or “advertorial writer” or “technical writer”.

Besides making your profile more relevant to human readers, the keywords will help others searching for a specialist to find you more easily too.

So you might list your specialities and perhaps get a job offer direct from an employer. But more likely a headhunter will be farming LinkedIn’s userbase for specific profiles for their database, such as “Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) markeitng specialist”.

Where I think Internet Marketers will benefit more is to find joint venture partners or collaborators who might fill in the missing piece of the puzzle for a project they’re working on.

From the demographics I’ve seen, I’d expect that LinkedIn users would be Continue reading →

Business Lessons From Hong Kong Disneyland

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Fresh from our trip to Hong Kong, my family had a great time in Hong Kong Disneyland (especially my daughter Bianca). Internet marketers can take a few lessons out of Disney’s book in their online business.

The Art of the Pre-Sell: Stepping into the MTR (mass transit rapid) subway station at the Sunny Bay station, we got onto the train bound for Hong Kong Disneyland. The folks at Disney have decked the train out with small bronze statuettes of iconic Disney characters, and the regular plastic seats in the cabins have been replaced by plush velvet cushioned-seats.

As you step out of the station, the PA (public address) system starts playing tunes from various Disney cartoons like Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, and other cartoons.

Internet Marketing application: In your site design, strive to create an emotional experience for the visitor. Music can be highly evocative, as can be appropriate images. Since royalty-free music and low cost photo stock can be purchased inexpensively, there’s no reason why these tools shouldn’t be used.

Disclaimer: I hate “branding” type commercials and ads just as much as the next Internet Marketer. You should consider how music and image elements can be used in a “direct response” context, rather than in a pure corporate branding context.

hong kong disneyland golden mickeys

A Multi-sensory Experience: The theme park featured a number of live performances, and with the added zing provided by technology, featured 3D effects, smoke, confetti, fireworks and other pyrotechnics. These effects served to heighten the emotional experience and create memories that you can see, hear and feel (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) for months and perhaps years to come.

The best part is Continue reading →