Friday Podcast Episode 19: Information As A Weapon
In this Friday podcast, I answer questions about “having too much email to read” and dealing with Internet Marketing information overload.
Notes follow after clicking on the “more” tab.
Question: Too much email to read.
Internet Marketer: information marketer – info products are info packaged into products and sold for a price. Customers don’t buy PDFs or DVDs, they buy information contained in those products.
When an eBay customer goes there and bids and purchases an item, they do so because of a better price or bundled goodies which make the eBay item attractive, compared to their offline counterparts. In this case, you’re arbitraging or benefitting from your customer’s lack of market knowledge of where the best suppliers or dropshippers are located.
If you’ve got too much information and you’re unsubscribing yourself, you’re cutting yourself off from the very source that will make you a living!
Do I suffer from information overload?
Tech Reporter, deal with 10 different news sources.
Reuters, Bloomberg, news archives, might print up to 100 old articles for research.
Information is your weapon.
Let’s take another example:
Just imagine buying a new car.
If knew dealer’s price, and offered $50 above dealer’s price, rather than pay list price, how much better would you be?
If paying $4 for a car buyer’s guide or a $20 access fee to find out the manufacturer’s price to a dealer, would that be a worthwhile to spend that to save a couple of hundred dollars or a thousand dollars on your next car?
If that doesn’t make sense to you, you should stop listening now.
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Info is your friend, not your enemy.
Deal with information overload:
1) Automate/Sort (Using one email for everything? That’s the problem! Set up different email accounts, one for mailing lists, one for prospects, one for customers. one for VIP customers. Use mail filters. Set up POP3 access for gmail accounts.)
2) Discipline (Time. Not more than 15mins once or twice a day. Take the most important, get assistant to handle the rest.)
3) Prioritize (Priority – 24 hours, Intermediate: radar screen, KIV: no fixed time limit)
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Filing/archiving info:
copy and paste into text file. label that file: blogging.doc or i prefer blogging.txt
affiliate marketing.doc
keep files.
info lets you do trendspotting.
“History Repeats Itself”
What happened last Christmas is likely to repeat again
What happened before the launch of Harry Potter book 6 is likely to repeat during the launch of book 7.
Ability to spot trends, and more importantly forecast what’s coming up is going to play a key role in your ability to operate and more importantly, grow your business.
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So if you feel you need to unsubscribe yourself from a mailing list today, or stop reading blogs and forums, go ahead, especially if you have a higher value and more profitable activity to focus on, like closing a sale.
If not, you could be leaving a very potent source of information which you can then convert into profits easily.
Vido
September 2, 2007 at 1:14 am (17 years ago)Hey Andrew,
very interesting topic!
To fight information overload, I consume a lot of audio content. Audio content allows you to multi-task (ex. I can drive while listening to my mp3 player)
I am also planning to take a speed reading course in October, and I hope that will help me consume text content much faster! 🙂
Andrew Wee
September 3, 2007 at 1:58 pm (17 years ago)Good to hear you’re being proactive in digesting info.
For the bang for your buck, the speed reading course will give you biggest leverage.
Vido
September 3, 2007 at 3:28 pm (17 years ago)Thanks Andrew.
I am also trying a software called Rapid Reader, to help me read faster on screen.
Have you ever tried it?
Andrew Wee
September 3, 2007 at 3:41 pm (17 years ago)When I was doing the speed reading thing, I used a ruler or a folded piece of paper to guide my eyes.
If you feel that investing in software will help you learn faster, by all means…
IMO, there’re only so many words which fit onscreen, so you should be able to read it quickly, wouldn’t you?
For stuff I mark up, I’d usually print it out.
Vido
September 3, 2007 at 3:52 pm (17 years ago)The Rapid Reader software actually takes the text you want to read and shows it one word at a time. You can set the speed you want the words to be displayed. I am using the trial version to help me read blog articles faster.
For longer documents, I prefer to print them out and use the marker, as you said.
Anonymous
September 5, 2007 at 11:46 pm (17 years ago)Andrew, regarding information overload, can I ask you a question?
Have you ever thought that with the computer taking up so much of our time nowadays, many people who are now their early twenties or early thirties may suffer from stroke later on in life due to the sedentary computing lifestyle that they lead now?
I mean, honestly, Andrew, have you ever thought about the health trade-offs? I happened to come across that photo you took with Ewen Chia, and you do not look very fit at all, to be very honest.
I mean, just take a look at some of the ‘famous’ Internet money makers in Singapore and you notice that they pay a certain price in terms of health trade-offs. Look at Johan Mok, he does not look like he exercises. Ewen Chia is not much better, he seems to be quite haggard-looking and skinny.
I’m sure as someone who is treading the same career path as them, you should be quite aware of this trade-off?
Andrew Wee
September 6, 2007 at 8:58 am (17 years ago)Valid feedback, although there’s an entire gamut of Internet Marketers ranging from the thin to the morbidly obese (their words, not mine!).
It’s a lifestyle choice and whether you’re working for yourself or someone else, taking time out to exercise and relax has nothing to do with the computer.