Monthly Archives: July 2008

Expand Your Mind And Expand Your Wallet By Reading These…

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In between working on the impending launch of my new product SecretBlogWeapon, I’ve taken some time out to re-engineer and optimize my business.

I’ve the fortune to be a member of a business-focused mastermind from whom I’ve got great advice, and have a number of established marketers on my skype list that I can consult regularly.

I’m not one to stand still, however, and have also enrolled the help of some of the greatest business minds to give me some advice in the next step of my internet marketing journey.

How To Get RichDonald Trump “How To Get Rich”

Property magnate and business owner Donald Trump has been a great help.

I haven’t had the chance to talk to “The Donald” on the phone yet, but I have been reading his bestseller “How To Get Rich“.

It’s not so much a “How to Get Rich” book, but it does give you insight into how Donald Trump runs his business, his business strategies, negotiation techniques, views on beautiful women and how some of his seminal projects, including his golf resorts and business operating procedures are decided.

For fans of the Apprentice, there’s great insight into how Mark Burnett and The Donald came together to work on the project.

And if you think you have a busy day, you also get a rundown of one of Donald’s typical days. It might leave you feeling like an underachiever, even if you are already a Type-A personality.

As soon as I make my way through this volume, I’m planning to check out the other 10 bestsellers he’s penned.

gene simmonsGene Simmons “Sex Money Kiss”

The “Demon” in rock band Kiss might seem a strange choice for a business biography. But look beneath the makeup and you’ll discover an astute businessman.

Going back to his childhood entrepreneurial pursuits, you’ll discover that Gene has had a hand in starting up profitable businesses since his early childhood days.

His prime motivation for becoming a rock star (getting lots of hot women and making lots of money) are a living example of how passion and income generation can be combined successfully.

My interest was piqued about Gene after reading rave reviews about his presentation at Dan Kennedy’s SuperConference a couple of months ago.

I’m going through Sex Money Kiss now and Gene candidly shares his philosophies (and suggested action plans) on making money, relationships with women and ideas for kickstarting your business.

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Both these books have been helpful and given me new ideas to implement in my business not only because I have picked up new techniques and strategies to apply, but also because the books penned by Gene himself and with the assistance of a copyeditor in the case of Trump shift my thinking a couple of notches upwards in terms of what’s possible.

This “brain food” might just be the spark to set you off to a higher level in your business and personal life.

Check them out:
* How To Get Rich
* Sex Money Kiss

Friday Podcast: Web Design That Increases Conversions With Ryan Jackson

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ryan jacksonOne of my resources that I’ve mainly been keeping to myself over the past 2 years is a talent web designer who lives in a small (population 10,000) Australian town of Maryborough.

Ryan Jackson AKA DesignGuruRyan, developed the template for this blog and designed and created almost all my product and affiliate sites too. (I take credit for the ugly ones…)

Besides my sites, Ryan’s also been involved with the site design for Mike Filsaime’s 7FigureSecrets and Chris McNeeney’s DayJobKiller product websites.

During our discussion, we talked about:

  • Offline design vs online web design
  • Incorporating direct response marketing elements into your web design
  • The rise of “Web 2.0” design elements in websites (and how to incoporate them)
  • Bootstrapping design resources for marketers on a budget

You can find out more about Ryan at:

The resources he mentioned during the call:

Check out the Friday Podcast below:

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Do You Have Adequate Risk Management Policies In Your Internet Marketing Business?

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thinkingOne of the takeaways from my friend, Tyler Project managing partner Leonard Lin’s experience of having his Facebook account suspended this past week, has been to manage your risk, especially in the area of technology risk management.

Failure to do so could mean a disruption in your business activities and in a worst case scenario, a stop in your income generation capability.

What’s Risk Management?

It’s a means to control the uncertainty and unknown elements in your business (typically referring to the negative elements). This could range from dealing with the latest Google slap, having a website get hacked into, being at the receiving end of unethical business practices by service providers or even partners.

Let’s be realistic, it’s not possible to totally eliminate risk, but you can take a leaf out of Wikipedia’s stub on Risk Management and look at the 4 options:

  • Risk Avoidance: actively avoiding all risk doesn’t do much for me, because the risk-reward maxim dictates that great reward is usually accompanied by greater risk. Go too far to avoid risk and you significantly reduce the potential returns from your business venture.
  • Risk Transfer: typically done through insurance. In the tech arena, even if insurance was available, it’s likely to be prohibitively expensive. If anything, being able to outwit, outlast and out-innovate your competition might be a stronger solution.
  • Risk Retention: Part of your market research process and due diligence should involve being ‘market aware’. Knowing your competitors and their web presence can help you better develop countermeasures and devise your business strategies accordingly. Operating in an information vacuum where you’re unaware of the business environment is a surefire recipe for disaster.
  • Risk Reduction: This is probably the best solution provided you reduce your risk in an intelligent manner. Call it having a “Plan B”. A comprehensive strategy where you’re continually being proactive in your market space is going to provide better results than being reactive (ie seeing what others do then following or improving on what they’re doing). Diversification, building up multiple streams of income works, provided you have generated critical mass in your business. (critical mass = reaching a comfortable income target). Diversification if you’re only generating a couple of hundred bucks in a niche is silly, you should instead focus on achieving critical mass.

Overall, being “market aware” is probably the best solution for dealing with risk in your business.

And yes, I have activiated “Plan B” on more than one occasion.

Is Facebook The New Phantom Menace?

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There was some buzz last week as the managing partner of Facebook application developer Tyler Projects, Leonard Lin, had his Facebook account suspended.

In a post on Facebook, Leonard reproduced the suspension notice:

Hi Leonard,

As you may know, one of your posts in a Facebook group was removed because it was considered to be an advertisement or spam (specifically, an advertisement for an external application). Content that promotes a product, service, or group is always removed from the site. Your account was suspended for these reasons.

However, after a review of your situation, we have decided to allow you a second chance on the site and have since reactivated your account. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, please refrain from posting any such material and remove all outstanding content that violates our Terms of Use. For more information on conduct prohibited by Facebook, please read our Terms of Use, which can be accessed through the “terms” link at the bottom of any Facebook page.

Thanks for your understanding,

Brett
User Operations
Facebook

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This doubtless caused on uproar on Tyler’s facebook application BattleStations where Leonard is active in game development and on the discussion boards (as well as being the public face of BattleStations).

His “infraction”?

Posting a link (accompanying a movie review) to a trailer for “Wanted” on a discussion board.

Apparently, Facebook is getting pretty serious with it’s ‘walled garden’ concept – that you should do all your stuff within the Facebook.com domain.

If you haven’t had a chance to look at the Facebook “terms of service” that Brett was refering to, click on the “Terms” link at the bottom of each Facebook page.

A number of the terms look pretty nefarious. Continue reading →