Keep Your Money – Top 5 Marketing Tactics To Avoid
February 27, 2009 by LBB Admin
Filed under Internet Marketing
I had some new people ask me – “What is with all this stuff on these sites selling stuff?” so I thought about it and you know what? That’s a valid question. I’ve been marketing for over 20 years and I like to think of myself as someone who knows a thing or two about sales and marketing (not to toot my own horn…ok, I’m going to do it anyway – I’ve always been one of the top 3 earners at every sales and marketing position I’ve held in the offline world) and I find it interesting to see some of the tactics used online.
So I put together this list of some things to look out for – the reality is these strategies work well but that doesn’t mean everyone should buy something just because they are used. An educated consumer means keeping more of your money.
Number One
Auto Pilot Anything – this is the first major red flag everyone should look out for. If you see any websites or programs talking about making money on autopilot, take a step back.
True, you can make money automatically or while you sleep – BUT that’s only after you have put in the time and effort and I can tell you from experience that it takes time.
If you notice, many of these programs promote their ‘autopilot’ systems but spend little time in telling you up front that you will have to put in the time (usually on average 18-24 months of solid work).
What happens is people believe they can pay for a program, do a little work and sit back and rake in the cash – which is what many of these programs look like you can do. Complete rubbish!
Number Two
Earn 6 Figures A Month (or insert any other 5 or 6 figure number) – again, this is another one of those claims solely designed to get you to buy into a program.
Yes, you can make 6 figures and yes some people do make that much each month – but it’s not necessarily from their program – rather it’s usually from selling you their programs (which, by the way 95% of people who go into business online do not make any money – think about it).
Like anything and I’ll keep hammering this point home, it takes time. The gurus selling these claims of extraordinary income did not buy a program and overnight start making that kind of cash. So this is another one that you should just be aware of.
Number Three
Hurry, Only 250, 175, 45, 17 Spots Left – I particularly like this one but not from the point that it’s awesome but rather it illustrates perfectly the psychological strategies used by many marketers.
Do you really think they are only limiting their product to 250 people? LoL. No, truthfully, in most cases you can still get their product even after they have ‘reached their number’ of customers. They aren’t going to turn down more money.
Number Four
ClickBank/PayPal Earnings Screenshots – I’m going to let you in on a little secret here. It’s very easy to setup a fake website and put whatever numbers you want in there. Shhh…don’t tell anyone.
No, I won’t share how it’s done but it is rampant in the online marketing arena among ’sharks’ looking to take your money. Ignore any claims of income that you see because truthfully, you have no way of really knowing that this guy actually made that much unless you are sitting right next to him looking at his bank statements – and that is something highly unlikely to happen.
Number Five
Testimonials – this one is especially interesting because there are a number of strategies used by marketers. One is to enlist other top marketing buddies to write a testimonial for their product and usually it’s done in exchange for a reciprocal testimonial for that marketer’s own product.
Another strategy is to use fake testimonials. I’ve seen the same guy’s picture on dozens of programs and found his picture on a stock photo site. I like to go back to old program sales pages and look up the websites from these ‘testimonials’. Guess what I find? Many of the sites are no longer active.
How much weight does that testimonial carry if the person giving it is no longer online? This is common so do not believe all the testimonials you read.
Conclusion
So the bottom line is there are plenty of products out there from marketers that do not rely on these tactics to separate you from your hard earned money. Keep an eye out, pay attention and before you whip out that credit card ask yourself – is this really something I need?
Make Money Online Lens Review
January 22, 2009 by LBB Admin
Filed under Internet Marketing
I was plodding around on squidoo tonight just checking out what lenses caught my eye and I wanted to give out props to supermom_in_ny for her awesome lens ‘Make Money Online’.
I’m a big fan of low or no cost ways to make money from home and while my focus is on internet marketing of either mlm or affiliate products, she has an amazing resource of websites that pay you for doing just about anything online. From writing articles to reading webistes to blogging – there is just a ton of info on her site and it’s well put together.
Many of the resources she recommends I was not aware of and I will be sending folks her way, particularly those that do not find my businesses to be their cup of tea.
I encourage you to head on over to her lens. Click HERE.
Viral Network Marketing with MLM Local
December 2, 2008 by LBB Admin
Filed under Featured, Internet Marketing
Officially launched today, MLMLocal is a new platform for free marketing of your network marketing business.
I was priveledged to be one of the beta testers which allowed my business to be one of the first included in their list of companies MLMLocal will promote.
How it works is like this: any distributor or network marketer that is part of the listed companies in MLMLocal can register for a free profile on the system.
Using social networking strategies, MLMLocal will advertise it’s platform to biz opportunity seekers and established marketers.
Those looking for a home based or network marketing business can see who is involved and where they are located. The goal is to position your company as a top contributor to MLMLocal which gives your business more prominence and exposure.
If somone searching for a business wants to connect with a local leader, they can contact directly via MLMLocal using the information displayed on the map – email, phone, social networking sites, blog, website, etc….
Check it out here.
From MLM Local:
What is MLM Local?
MLM Local is a system that allows home business professionals to network with prospective new affiliates in their local area, and around the world. We’ve found that we always experience more success in business when we can mastermind and work closely with other people. It’s the “two heads is better than one” principle.
It’s important to connect with other people in your region, in your specific company, and with others who share your passions.
MLM Local allows you to do all three effectively, and creates ultra-targeted exposure for you as a network marketing professional.
Benefits for Existing Home Business Professionals:
This website allows you to advertise your home business to people around the world, and allows local prospects looking for an opportunity to find you in their own area.
Your contact information will be featured on the map, and potentially in the “Top Contributors” section of our web site. Visitors looking for a home business will be able to connect with you using whatever contact methods you choose to show.
Available contact methods include email, phone, physical address, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and other social media websites. (limited contact options available to free users)
You can choose to hide any information you do not wish to make available to visitors, or that you do not use. For instance, if you don’t have a Facebook profile, you can simply turn that option off and visitors will not see it. You’ll only be contacted in the ways you wish to be contacted.
Of course, the more options you give prospects, the more ways they’ll have to learn about your business and the more likely they’ll be to contact you.
Create Prime Exposure for your company by letting others in your organization know that they can advertise on MLM Local for free.
Companies that have more affiliates creating a listing on MLM Local appear bigger in the tag cloud, and will be more prominent and visible to our visitors. Visitors can “filter” the map to only show distributors of the specific companies they are interested in, by clicking a company name in the tag cloud that appears under the map.
You can become a featured “Top Contributor” and gain additional exposure in various places on the website by referring your friends and business contacts to MLM Local. For each referral, you’ll get one “point”. Top Contributors are determined by their overall number of points.
It’s simple to refer people to MLM Local because all you have to do is show people how they can advertise their business free.
To get started, just click here to create your account.
It’s easy and free!
Benefits for People Looking for a Home Business:
If you’re looking for a home business, you’ve found a resource that’s going to give you the absolute best chance of succeeding. With MLM Local, not only can you review the opportunities that are available, you can actually connect with affiliates in your local area.
You can browse our map by location or by company name. Just click on a map marker to connect with home business professionals. You’ll be able to narrow down your choices and get a “fly-on-the-wall” look at the websites and social media profiles of affiliates so you can choose who you want to work with.
Many MLM Local users have videos, blogs and other content posted online that will help you determine if their company (and just as importantly, their personality) is a good fit with you.
When you find a great company to work with, and you find a great sponsor to work with in your local area — you have a true win/win situation. This gives you a wonderful chance at succeeding in the home business industry and making substantial income.
Also, we do NOT just list any company on this site. The list of included companies was obtained from an MLM watchdog organization and are believed to be reputable at the time of posting. Many of the companies have sales in the multi-millions, and even billions of dollars.
We encourage you to do your due diligence, browse around, and visit the websites and profiles of our members. We are confident that we can help you find a sponsor who is dedicated to your success.
Once you’ve found a business, you’re welcome to advertise yourself here free as well.
Law of Attraction or Law of Hard Work?
November 27, 2008 by LBB Admin
Filed under Featured, Internet Marketing, Rants
There is so much confusion around the law of attraction today and my personal opinion is this is because there are a whole slew of marketers our there using this concept to build a business around it for the sole purpose of making boatloads of cash and they are just muddying the water.
Now, there’s nothing wrong at all with making money and using ideas and concepts to do it. But what strikes me particularly odd about using this strategy with the Law of Attraction is if you are following the premise and spirit of this law, you would NOT be focusing on trying to use it to make money.
In fact, you would probably be doing the opposite which is helping people understand the law of attraction and providing value related to the law of attraction in order to attract people to you.
Which brings to the forefront the other side of the coin when it comes to the law of attraction – the Law of Reciprocity.
If your use of the Law of Attraction is from the perspective of selfishness and greed, you will manifest these characteristics either in yourself or in what you attract to you.
I found an enjoyable little article by Jeffrey Gitomer in the Eagle Tribune earlier this month about the Law of Attraction which had an interesting comment from a reader named Marlowe regarding James Allen’s classic titled ‘As A Man Thinketh’ and the misguided interpretation of the Law of Attraction.
To read more, head on over to the full article here.
Getting Started With Internet Marketing
November 18, 2008 by LBB Admin
Filed under Home Business, Internet Marketing
My method for marketing involves lots of free resources so you can minimize the amount of money you have to spend to get started. I teach you how and you execute so along the way, using free tools, we both generate wealth.
Not everything in life is free so where I feel it is important that you consider purchasing a tool, I will let you know and in most cases, I do not have a vested interest in the sale of those tools. In some instances, the paid tool is better than a free version as with some free tools, the creators or authors may be lax in updating or fixing bugs and in these cases, it is worth your time to avoid headaches by paying for the tool.
At a very basic level, I will begin with the steps you need to get yourself started. Your goal should be at mastering one program or income stream and then expanding into other programs or income streams. Why? Because in order to create consistent residual money, you need multiple programs or income streams. This allows you to spread your risk by not putting all your eggs in one basket.
If a program has hiccups or tanks for any reason, unless you have others you are working it can be a painful experience. I know as this happened to me when I first started out. Digging a hole is easy but if you fall in, it’s much harder to climb back out. So learn from my mistakes and I will help you develop strategies for your own ’safety net’.
One word of caution. Do not expect out the gate to hit a home run. Some programs, if things are aligned well and you have laid your groundwork properly, you can knock it out of the park. If that does happen, do not let yourself become comfortable and lax thinking “wow, that was easy, now I can relax”. For many programs, it takes consistent effort and persistence to build long term wealth but I will tell you that you will reach a point when it starts snowballing and runs into auto-pilot mode. This is what everyone should be striving for. For any venture, you will need to continually tweak and adjust what you do, especially to accommodate the changing climate of the internet landscape. Stay on top of your game and your chances of succeeding are high.
Here are the basics of what you need to get started:
A program of some kind. Preferably one that generates high dollar returns but programs with small returns are good too. Just keep in mind it takes the same amount of effort, time and resources to promote either type.
Resources to get your programs off the ground. This includes tools, software, ad copy, advertising sources, etc…
Advertising. There are many ways to go here and free stuff works great, especially Web 2.0 social networking which is totally free and a great way to build your ‘brand’ and recognition so that you attract people to you. Some form of paid advertising is a must and if you have a low budget, that’s fine as you can get a lot done with inexpensive solo-ads and various other vehicles.
Time. This is probably the biggest area people fail to consider when getting started. During your ramp up phase for any program or income stream, even if it’s a ready to go affiliate marketing program, you have to put in the time. Nothing runs on autopilot out the gate and even after you have established yourself, there is ongoing maintenance you have to account for which involves some of your time.
For me personally, my time is precious and valuable and everyone has their own perspective on what their time costs to them. I am raising my daughter alone so for me, it is important that I do not get caught up in unfocused “busy” work that takes away from the time I want to spend with her in helping her grow. So I look for programs that have an abundance of tools, have a great support team of mentors and will not take up tons of my time on an ongoing, daily basis.
I am at the point now where I work my programs about 4 hours a day. But I won’t lie to you – there were plenty of weeks and months where I pulled all nighters learning and working on getting things off the ground and the work I put in during this time is what allows me to spend a few hours a day on my income streams.
To start off, you will need to make sure you have some free tools. Here is what I use and I provide the links where you can download and install them.
Squeeze Page Creator – very simple squeeze page creator
Loaded Squeeze – this is an easy tool to quickly create base squeeze pages which you can easily modify in Kompozer.
http://cantstandmyboss.com/download/loadedsqueeze.rar – you will have to unzip this file and then run it to install on your computer.
UPDATE: For squeeze pages, I now provide tons of free templates to my team members and do not recommend using this tool as it did not work with well with my new Vista machine.
HTML/Website Editor – use this to edit HTML and website pages
Kompozer – in my opinion, the best tool for editing website pages. Simple to use, easy to understand.
http://kompozer.net/download.php
FTP Program – use this to upload files to your hosting account from your computer
FileZilla – awesome FTP software which is what you will use to upload files to your hosting account. You can also use the hosting company’s built in file uploader but an FTP program is best.
Zip File Archiver – use this to unzip and zip files
WinRar – my favorite and it’s free to use. You just have to close the pop up that appears every time you run it but you can also pay to remove that if you want.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/194276
In future posts I will cover ‘how to use these tools’ and provide an overview of my process for choosing programs to promote.
To Your Success!
-Eddie
aka Loaded Beach Bum
