Okay, crazy question, right?

How are you going to put tires on a car you don’t even have?

For that matter, How could you add a room onto a house you haven’t even built yet?

Or give a frog an enema if you don’t have the frog?

Here’s the thing… if you’re like soooo many marketers, that’s basically what you’re doing.

I’m guilty of it, too.

We buy program after program on how to do a certain technique that’s supposed to make us
moolah by Sunday…

But we don’t even have a proper business up and running yet.

I’m talking about a business that will take care of us for the rest of our lives no matter what the economy does or what bone-headed mistake we make or whatever.

No matter what. Rock solid, steady income for years.

I think maybe we’ve forgotten what it is we truly want. It’s not a quick buck today and then broke again tomorrow.

It’s permanent long term no-one-can-take-it-away-from-us SECURITY.

I know a man, ONE man, who scoured the earth for the info that would provide him with EXACTLY that kind of business.

This isn’t how to build a site or write a salesletter or do SEO kind of stuff. Heck, you can get that for FREE on the net.

This is covert ops, only the rich KNOW this stuff, secretive HUSH HUSH knowledge that YOU and I need to be successful today, tomorrow and forever, no matter what we decide to do.

And this is the SAME info MARK JOYNER, the Godfather of Internet Marketing recommends you get your hands on ASAP…

…along with the secret TOOL that will take you further, faster than you ever thought possible.

How do I know that?

It’s been PROVEN time and time again by people who have already used it and gone from small incomes to five, six and seven figure incomes.

Be sure to become part of the team - until July 6, 2009 / and save money.

Find out how to finally start making consistent money here

until next time,

Trevor

“Remember, NOTHING happens until we take ACTION”

In the second part of our series I’m going to move on to display ads and building the close.

DISPLAY ADVERTISEMENTS

A display or space ad differs from a classified ad because it has headline, layout, and because the style is not telegraphic, i.e. short and to the point.

However, the fundamentals of writing the display ad or space are exactly the same as for a classified ad. The basic difference is that you have more room in which to emphasize the “master formula”.

Successful copywriters rate the headline and/or the lead sentence of an ad as the most important part of the ad, and you should do the same. After all, when your ad is surrounded by hundreds of other ads, and information or entertainment, what makes you think anyone is going to see your ad?

The truth is, they’re not going to see your ad unless you can “grab” their attention and entice them to real all of what your have to say. Your headline or lead sentence when no headline is used, has to make it MORE DIFFICULT for your prospect to ignore, or pass over, than to stop and read your ad. If you don’t capture
the attention of your reader with your headline, anything beyond is useless effort and wasted money.

Successful advertising headlines–in classified ads, your first three to five words serve as your headline–are written as promises or warnings, either implied or direct. You may promise to show them how to save money, make money, or attain a desired goal. Alternatively you may use a warning against something undesirable if they don’t have your product.

Example OF A PROMISE; Are You Ready To Become A Millionaire–In
Just 18 Months?

EXAMPLE OF A WARNING; Do You Make These Mistakes In English?

In both examples. I have posed a question as the headline. Headlines that ask a question seem to attract the reader’s attention almost as surely as a moth is drawn to a flame. Once he has seen the question, he just can’t seem to keep himself from reading the rest of the ad to find out the answer. The human mind can’t stand anything that is incomplete, it has to find the answer to complete the interaction.

The best headline questions are those that challenge the reader; that involve his self esteem, and do not allow him to dismiss you question with a simple yes or no.

You’ll be the envy of your friends is another kind of “reader appeal” to incorporate into your headline whenever appropriate.

The appeal has to do with basic psychology; everyone wants to be well thought of and consequently, will read into the body of your ad and find out how he can gain the respect and accolades of her friends.

Wherever and whenever possible, use expressions or words that are usually found in advertisements. The idea is to shock or shake the reader out of his comfort zone and cause her to take notice of your ad. Most of the headlines you see today have a certain sameness with just the words rearranged. The reader may see these headlines with his eyes, but his brain fails to focus on any of them because there is nothing different or out of the ordinary to arrest his attention.

Example of what I mean here; Are You Developing A POT BELLY?

Another attention-grabber kind of headline is the comparative price headline;
Three For only $3, Regularly $3 Each!

And another of the “tried and proven” kind of headlines is the specific question;
Do You Suffer From These Symptoms?

And of course, if you offer a strong guarantee, you should say so in your headline;
Your Money Refunded, If You Don’t Make $100,000 Your First Year.

‘How To’ headlines have a very strong basic appeal, but in some instances, they are better used as book titles than advertising headlines. Who else wants in on the finer things, which your
product or service presumably offers, is another approach with a strong reader appeal. The psychology here being the need of everyone to belong to a group–complete with status and prestige motivations.

Whenever you can possibly work it in, you should use the word “you” in your headline, and throughout your copy.

After all, your ad should be directed to “one” person, and the person reading your ad wants to feel that you’re talking to him personally, not everyone who lives on his street.

Personalize, and be specific! You can throw the teachings of your English teachers out the window, and the rules of “third person, singular” or whatever else tends to inhibit your writing.

Whenever you sit down to write advertising copy intended to pull the orders–sell the product–you should picture yourself in a one-on-one situation and “talk” to your reader just as if you are sitting across from him at your dining room table. Say what you mean, and sell HIM on the product your offering. Be specific and
ask him if these are the things that bother him–are these the things he wants–and he is the one you want to buy the product…

The layout you devise for your ad, or the frame you build around it, should also command attention. either make it so spectacular that it stands out like top roast of beef at a vegetarian dinner, or so uncommonly simple that it catches the reader’s eye because of its very simplicity.

It’s also important that you don’t get cute with a lot of unrelated graphics and artwork. Your ad should convey the feeling of excitement and movement, but should not strain the eyes or disrupt the flow the message you are trying to present.

Any graphics or artwork you use should be relevant to your product, its use and/ or the copy you’ve written about it.

Graphics should not be used as artistic touches, or to create an atmosphere. Any illustrations with your ad should compliment the selling of your product, and prove or substantiate specific points in your copy.

A word of warning here for when you are using a graphic designer for your work. It is vital that you retain control of the project. You’re the sales copy specialist, they just want to show off their graphic skills. If you don’t keep them under control you will end up with something so over-the-top that your sales message will get completely taken over by the graphics.

Once you have your reader’s attention, the only way you’re going to keep it, is by quickly and emphatically telling him what your product will do for him.

Your potential buyer doesn’t care in the least how long it’s taken you to produce the product, how long you have been in business, nor how many years you have spent learning your craft. She wants to know specifically how she’s going to benefit from the purchase of your product.

Generally, his wants will fall into one of the following categories: Better health, more comfort, more money, more leisure time, more popularity, greater beauty, success and/or security.

Even though you have your reader’s attention, you must follow through with an explanation of the benefits your reader can gain. In essence, you must reiterate the advantages, comfort and happiness he or she will enjoy–as you have implied in your headline.

Mentally picture your prospect, determine their wants and emotional needs–put yourself in their shoes, and ask yourself: If I were reading this ad, what are the things that would appeal to me? Write your copy to appeal to your reader’s wants and emotional needs or ego cravings.

Remember, it’s not the “safety features” that have sold cars for the past 50 years–nor has it been the need of transportation–it has been, and almost certainly always will be the advertising writer’s recognition of the people’s wants and emotional needs and ego cravings.

Visualize your prospect, recognize what he wants: and satisfy them. Writing good advertising copy is nothing
more or less than knowing “who” your buyers are; recognizing what she wants; and telling her how your product will fulfill each of those wants. Remember this because it’s one of the “vitally important” keys to writing advertising copy that does the job you intend for it to do.

The “desire” portion of your ad is where you present the facts of your product; create and justify your prospect’s conviction, and cause them to demand “a piece of the action” for themselves.

It’s vitally necessary that you present “proven facts” about your product because survey results show that at least 80% of the people reading your ad–especially those reading it for the first time–will tend to question its authenticity.

So, the more facts you can present in the ad, the more credible your offer. As you write this part of your ad, always remember that the more facts about the product you present, the more product you’ll sell.

People want facts as the reason, and/or excuse for buying a product–to justify to themselves and others, that they haven’t been “taken” by a slick copywriter. It is good to remember that we almost always buy for emotional reasons and the seek to justify our decision logically afterwards - usually to our spouse!

It’s like the girl who wants to marry the guy her father calls a “no good bum”. Her heart–her emotions–tell her yes, but she needs facts to justify the seed of doubt lingering in her mind–to rationalize her decision to go on with the wedding and convince her father that she should.

In other words, the “desire” portion of your ad has to build belief and credibility in the mind of your prospect. It has to assure them of their good judgement in their final decision to buy- furnish evidence of the benefits you’ve promised–and afford him a “safety net” in case anyone should question his decision to buy.

People tend to believe the things that appeal to their individual desires, fears and other emotions. Once you’ve established a belief in this manner, logic and reasoning are used to support it. People believe what they “want to believe. Your reader “wants” to believe your ad if they have read through this far–it’s
up to you to support their initial desire.

It’s also a fact that people buy what they want, NOT what they need. So they require facts to justify satisfying that want when it is initially obvious that they don’t need it, and inside they know it.

Study your product and everything about it–visualize the wants of your prospective buyers–dig up the facts, and you’ll almost always find plenty of facts to support the buyer’s reason for buying.

Here is where you use the results of tests conducted, growing sales figures to prove increasing popularity, and “user” testimonials or endorsements. It’s also important that you present these facts-test results, sales figures and/or testimonials-from the consumer point of view, and not that of the manufacturer.

Before you end this portion of your ad and get into you demand for action, summarize everything you’ve presented thus far. Draw a mental picture for your potential buyer. Let him imagine owning the product. Cause him to visualize all the benefits you’ve promised. Give him the keys to seeing himself richer, enjoying
luxury, having time to do whatever he’d like to do, and with all of his dreams fulfilled.

This can be handled in one or two sentences, or spelled out in a paragraph or more, but it’s the absolute ingredient you must include prior to closing the sale. Study all the sales presentations you’ve ever heard, look at every winning ad, identify the element included in all of them that actually makes the sale
for you. Remember it, use it, and don’t try to sell anything without it.

As Victor Schwab puts it so succinctly in his best selling book, ‘How To Write a Good Advertisement’: “Every one of the fundamentals in the “master formula” is necessary. Those people who are “easy” to sell may perhaps be sold even if some of these factors are left out, but it’s wiser to plan your advertisement so that it will have a powerful impact upon those who are the “hardest” to sell.

For, unlike face-to-face selling, we cannot come to a “trail close” in our sales talk in printed advertising in order to see if those who are easier to sell will welcome the dotted line without further persuasion. We must assume that we are talking to the hardest ones and that the more thoroughly our copy sells both the
hard and the easy, the better chance we have against the competition for the consumer’s dollar-and also the less dependent we will be upon the usual completely ineffective follow-through on our advertising effort which later takes place at the sales counter itself”.

ASK FOR ACTION! DEMAND THE MONEY!

Lots of ads are beautiful, almost perfectly written, and quite convincing-yet they fail to ask for or demand action from the reader. If you want the reader to have your product, then tell them and demand that they spend their money now. Unless you enjoy entertaining your prospects with your beautiful writing skills, always demand that they complete the sale now, by taking action now-by clicking your ‘buy now’ button.

If you are running the one-page mailshot ads you should be demanding that they go to your squeeze page now to check out this fantastic product.

Once you’ve got them on the hook, land them! Don’t let them get away!

Probably, one of the most common and best methods of moving the reader to act now, is written in some of the following:

All of this can be yours! You can start enjoying this new way of life immediately, simply by clicking the button now! don’t put it off, then regret it later when the limited number we have available at this price are gone! Click that button now, and be one of the lucky few to get in! Act now, and as an “early bird” buyer, we’ll include a big bonus package-absolutely free, simply for acting immediately! You win all the way! We take all the risk! If you’re not satisfied simply return the product and we’ll quickly refund your money! Do it
now! Click the big red ‘Buy Now’ button, and receive the big bonus package! When the first 250 are gone, we won’t be able to include the bonus as a part of this fantastic deal, so act now! The sooner
you act, the more you win!

Offering a sweetener of some kind will almost always stimulate the prospect to take action. However, in mentioning the sweetener or bonus, be very careful that you don’t end up receiving primarily requests for the bonus with mountains of request for refunds on the product to follow. The bonus should be mentioned only casually if you’re asking for product orders; and with lots of fanfare only when you’re seeking inquiries.

Too often the copywriter, in his enthusiasm to pull in a record number of responses, confuse the reader by “forgetting about the product” and devoting his entire space allotted for the “demand for action” to sending for the bonus. Any bonus offered should be closely related to the product, and a bonus offered only for
immediate action on the part of the potential buyer.

Specify a time limit. Tell your prospect that he must act within a certain time limit or lose out on the bonus, face probably higher prices, or even the withdraw of your offer. This is always a good hook to get action.

Any kind of guarantee you offer always helps to produce action from the prospect. And the more liberal you can make your guarantee, the more product orders you’ll receive. Be sure you state the guarantee clearly and simply. Make it so easy to understand that even a child would not misinterpret what you’re saying.

The action you want your prospect to take should be easy-clearly stated-and devoid of any complicated procedural steps on his part, or numerous directions for him to follow.

Picture your prospect, very comfortable in front of the computer, casually flipping through her email or she maybe just picked up the mail and is casually opening up the envelopes. She notices your ad, reads through it, and is sold on your product.

Now what does she do?

Remember, she is very comfortable, she’s going about her business, you’ve “grabbed” her attention,
sparked her interest, painted a picture of her enjoying a new kind of satisfaction, a new life, and she is ready to buy…

Anything and everything you ask or cause her to do is going to disrupt this aura of comfort, excitement and contentment. Whatever she must do had better be simple, quick and easy!

Tell her without any ifs, ands or buts, what to do-go to the web address in your letter and read more, click the big red ‘Buy Now’ button! Make it as easy for her as you possibly can-simple and direct. And whatever you do, make sure your squeeze page captures her name and email address.

Incidentally if you are selling through the post make sure that your name and address is on the order form, and just above it on your sales letter. People sometimes fill out the coupon, tear it off, seal it in an
envelope and don’t know where to send it. The easier you make it for her to respond, the more responses you’ll get!

There you have it, a complete short course on how to write ads that will pull more orders for you, sell more of your product for you. It’s important to learn “why” ads are written as they are to understand and use the “master formula” in your own ad writing endeavors.

By conscientiously studying good advertising copy, and practice in writing ads of your own, now that you have the knowledge and understand what makes advertising copy work, you should be able to quickly develop your copywriting abilities to produce order pulling ads for your own products.

However, once you do become proficient in writing ads for your own products, you must never stop “noticing” how ads are written, designed and put together by other people. To stop learning would be comparable to shutting yourself off from the rest of the world.

The best ad writers are people in touch with the world in which they live. Every time they see a good ad, they clip it out and save it in what is known as a swipe file. The best copywriters have cabinets full of swipe files. Regularly, they pull out these files of good ads and study them, always analyzing what makes them good, and why they work.

There is no school in the world that can give you the same kind of education and expertise so necessary in the field of ad writing. You must keep yourself up-to-date, aware of, and in-the-know about the other guy-his innovations, style changes, and the methods he is using to sell his product. On-the-job
training-study and practice-that’s what it takes- and if you’ve got that burning ambition to succeed, you can do it too!

In the final part of this series I’ll be covering some of the common questions I get and answering them for you.

Until next time,

Trevor

Remember, It’s not the knowledge you have that brings success but whatyo do with that knowledge.
“Nothing happens until you take Action”

The most important aspect of any business is selling the product or service. Without sales, no business can exist for very long.

All sales begin with some form of advertising. To build sales, this advertising must be seen or heard by potential buyers, and cause them to react to the advertising in some way. The credit for the success, or the blame for the failure of almost all ads, reverts back to the ad itself.

Generally, the “ad writer” wants the prospect to do one of the following:

Visit the website to see and judge the product for themselves and immediately pull out their credit card and buy the product being advertised.

Fill out a capture form to join an email list in exchange for some gift or other freebie.

The bottom line in any ad is quite simple:

To make the visitor buy the product or service. Any ad that causes the visitor to only pause in her thinking, to just admire the product, or to simply believe what is written about the product–is not doing it’s job completely.

The “ad writer” must know exactly what he wants his reader to do, and any ad that does not elicit the desired action is an absolute waste of time and money.

In order to elicit the desired action from the prospect, all ads are written according to a very old but simple “master formula” which is:

1) Attract the ATTENTION of your prospect
2) INTEREST your prospect in the product
3) Cause your prospect to DESIRE the product
4) Demand ACTION from the prospect

Never forget the basic rule of advertising copywriting; If the ad is not read, it won’t stimulate any sales, if it is not seen, it cannot be read; and if it does not command or grab the attention of the reader, it will not be seen!

Most successful advertising copywriters know these fundamentals backwards and forwards. Whether you know them already or you’re just now being exposed to them, your knowledge and practice of these fundamentals will determine the extent of your success as an advertising copywriter.

CLASSIFIED ADS:

Classified ads were always the ads from which successful businesses were started. These small, relatively inexpensive ads, give the beginner an opportunity to advertise his or her product or service without losing their shirt if the ad didn’t pull or the people didn’t break down their door with demand for the product.

Classified ads started way back in the newspaper only days but are just as applicable today offline as well as online. Many people that run online businesses have forgotten or just don’t consider placing classified offline ads for their online business.

Whatever country you are in there will be list brokers that sell names of opportunity seekers. Often these names can be rented quite cheaply and prove to very well targeted. I have had great success sending out one-page sales letters to these lists sending them to a squeeze page on a website.

The sales letter serves to warm up the prospects so that when they get to your squeeze page they are more likely to take the action you want. However, don’t forget that you can also place classified ads online in lots of places. Do a search on Google for classified ads and you will get literally millions of results.

So what are the basics of good classified ads?

Classified ads are written according to all the advertising rules. What is said in a classified ad is the same that is said in an larger, more elaborate type of ad, except in condensed form.

To start learning how to write good classified ads, clip ten classified ads from ten different mail order type
publications–ads that you think are pretty good. Paste each of these ads onto a separate sheet of paper.

Analyze each of these ads; How has the ‘ad-writer’ attracted your attention–what about the ads keeps your interest–are you stimulated to want to know more about the product being advertised–and finally, what action must you take? Are all of these points covered in the ad? How strongly are you “turned on”
by each of these ads?

Rate these ads on a scale form one to ten, with ten being the best according to the formula I’ve given you. Now, just for practice, without, clipping the ads, do the same thing with ten different ads from Sears, Wards, or The Penny’s catalog. In fact, every ad you see from now on, quickly analyze it, and rate it
somewhere on your scale.

If you’ll practice this exercise on a regular basis, you’ll soon be able to quickly recognize the “Power Points” of any ad you see, and know within your own mind whether an ad is good, bad, or otherwise, and what makes it so.

Practice for an hour each day, write the ads you’ve rated 8, 9, and 10 exactly as they have been written. This will give you the “feel” of the fundamentals and style necessary in writing classified ads.

Your next project will be to pick out what you consider to be the ten ‘worst’ ads you can find in the classified section. Clip these out and paste them onto a sheet of paper so you can work with them.

Read these ads over a couple of times, and then beside each of them, write a short comment why you think it is bad; Lost in the crowd, doesn’t attract attention–doesn’t hold the readers interest–nothing special to make the reader want to own the product–no demand for action.

You probably already know what is coming next, … that’s right. Break out those pencils, erasers and scratch paper– and start rewriting these ads to include the missing elements.

Each day for the next month, practice writing the ten best ads for an hour, just the way the were originally written. Pick out the ten worst ads, analyze those ads, and then practice rewriting those until they measure up to doing the job they were intended to do.

Once you’re satisfied that the ads you’ve rewritten are perfect, go back into each ad and cross out the words that can be eliminated without detracting from the ad. Classified ads are almost always “finalized” in the style of a telegram.

EXAMPLE; I’ll arrive at 2-o’clock tomorrow afternoon, the 15th. Meet me at Sardi’s. All my love, Jim.

EDITED FOR SENDING; Arrive at 2-pm-15th Sardi’s. Love, Jim.

CLASSIFIED AD; Save on your food bills! Reduced prices on every shelf in the store! Stock up now while supplies are complete! Come in today, Jerrys’ Family Supermarket!

EDITED FOR PUBLICATION; Save on Food! Everything bargain priced! Limited supplies! Hurry! Jerry’s Markets!

It takes dedicated and regular practice, but you want to become a good copywriter you can do it. Simply recognize and understand the basic formula–practice reading and writing the good ones–and rewriting the bad ones to make them better. Practice, and keep at it, over and over, every day–until the formula, the idea, and the feel of this kind of ad writing becomes second nature to you. This is the ONLY WAY to gain expertise writing good classified ads.

In the next part of this series we’ll look at display ads and closing the sale.

Until next time,

Trevor

Remember, It’s not the knowledge you have that brings success but whatyo do with that knowledge.
“Nothing happens until you take Action”

Despite the massive amount of information and advice available online these days, there are still far more people who fail at Information Marketing than succeed. Actually, the volume of information is one of the main causes. There is so much information being directed at us these days that it is becoming increasingly difficult to focus our attention.

It is also becoming harder to sort out the good stuff from all of the hype, thinly veiled sales pitches and rehashed PLRs that we get.

A short while ago, my friend Ewen Chia, sent me a very useful report that he had created that may end up becoming the start of a regular newsletter, where he provides his thoughts on some of the most frequently asked Internet Marketing questions.

I think you may find it useful so I’ve provided a copy of it here for you. As a refreshing change there are no sales pitches here, just good solid advice.

http://www.trevor-greenfield.com/ewen/ewenletter.zip

Incidentally, if you arrived here other than being one of my valued subscribers, then why not sign up in the box over on the right and get my exclusive interview with Ewen.

Staying on the subject of newbies getting started making some money online, I got some good news from Mike Filsaime today that will also be good news for you.

Mike has taken one of his original products and with the help of colleague Omar Martin brought it right up to date to take account of the major changes that have taken place affecting marketing online. Now, rather than sell this product he has decided to give it away to a few lucky people. All you pay is post and packing. There aren’t going to be many of these available which is why I’ve got this out to you right away. I’ve ordered one, I always respect anything that Mike puts out and always learn something from him too. Mike is one of my mentors, I have a lot of time for him.

The product is now called ‘Internet Selling for Newbies’. To be honest for just the cost of post and packing I’d just go for it.

http://www.trevor-greenfield.com/mf

That’s all for this time,

To your online success,

Trevor,

Remember, nothing happens until we take action.

I said I would put up some photographs of my recent visit to Singapore so here goes.

I stayed at The Park Hotel on Clarke Quay. The Park Hotel is a new hotel, only open for 3 weeks when I got there, and a really nice hotel at that. The service and facilities were excellent. Since it was new it didn’t seem to be too crowded making my stay so much better.
	Singapore is a very picturesque island and one of the best ways to see the main city area is by taking a river boat cruise along the Singapore river. The cost of the cruise is very reasonable at around S$15 and it takes you from where you get on out to the harbour where it turns round and travels back up through the city past Robertson Quay and back again in a seemingly endless circuit. At various points along it’s journey it stops at landing stages to put down and pick up passengers.
There a many boats like this plying their way back and forth along the river. The river winds its way through the city back and forth and while most of the passengers are tourists their are a few locals getting a lift to another part of the city.
You can see a whole gallery of photographs on my Facebook page here

Entrance to Singapore harbour viewed from a river cruise boat

When I was in Singapore I met up with a new Internet marketing friend, Alvin Phang. Alvin has been working online since only June 2006 and now generates a 5 figure monthly income working full-time online. I did an exclusive interview with him for a new coaching product that I am launching soon and during that interview I got Alvin to share some hints and tips that are not generally discussed.

Alvin has had a lot of success with his first product Atomic Blogging which is now up to version 3.0 Atomic Blogging is a real newbie to full-time blogging course that covers all you need to know to become a successful blogger in the shortest time. What I really like about it is that Alvin is a very down-to-earth sincere sort of guy and this comes through in his course content.

I had the original version of this system and liked it but actually purchased version 3 so that I could test it out myself. There is a lot more in version 3 than 1 or 2, it is very comprehensive and extremely easy to follow. This latest version, which was released earlier this year, contains a 150 page step-by-step manual, his own keyword research tool, a wordpress theme, video tutorials, a specially created plugin and depending on your level of membership lots of PLR articles every month plus lots more that I don’t have room to list here.

If you are still wondering what you need to do to get started online, actually making some money from blogging, this tutorial will guide you there provided you focus on it and nothing else until you have completed all of the steps and begun generating money. The biggest difficulty facing us all these days is the inability to focus laser-like on one thing at a time.

Check out Atomic Blogging here

As I mentioned above, Alvin has a new product, Twitter Online System, which he is launching tomorrow, 9th June at 10.00 EST. This system is designed to create increasing numbers of Twitter followers quickly and easily without having to follow thousands yourself to get them. The current way of getting lots of followers is to follow the maximum allowed by Twitter yourself and hopefully about half of them will follow you in return. You then need to go through the ones you are following and ‘unfollow’ all those that are not following you.

You then top up those you are following to the maximum and again wait for as many of those as possible to follow you. This process certainly works, I’ve used it myself, but it is a very laborious process to say the least. Alvin’s Twitter Online System gets you lots of followers without all this hassle. It has been in beta for the last couple of weeks and those testing it have reported getting 150 and more followers per day using it.

I’ve just got to start testing it out myself. Knowing Alvin as I do now I think this little tool will revolutionize how we work with Twitter. In my interview with Alvin he describes how he considers Twitter to be very similar to an autoresponder. He creates a separate Twitter account for each niche that he is working in and considers his followers as nothing more that people on his list. He has already gathered 0ver 7500 followers on his main Internet Marketing account using this system and his testers have generated considerably more between them.

Thinking of Twitter as just another autoresponder has opened up all sorts of possibilities in my view. For newbies just starting out who don’t have a lot of money to invest in the likes of aweber, Twitter provides a very good free alternative.

Alvin is planning an early bird discount at launch time, which he won’t tell me what it is, so if you are using Twitter this is one to look out for. Those of you that do decide to give Twitter Online System a try, if you buy it from my link here, I’ll send you a copy of my exclusive interview with Alvin. Just send me a copy of your receipt and I’ll send you a download link for it.

Take a look at Twitter Online System here

Tomorrow I’ll put up more pictures of my Singapore trip.

Remember, nothing happens until we take action,

regards,

Trevor

For those of you who have been wondering where my site disappeared to, it’s back. Or, at least getting back. Like many of you, I’m sure, a couple of weeks ago I suddenly found myself the target of a malicious attack. Someone managed to hack into this site and start using it for their own purposes.

Since then I’ve been attempting to re-instate it back to where it was. Unfortunately they appear to have deleted all my previous content in the process so I’m starting back from scratch. This time I’m doing all I can to ensure that I have all of the loopholes plugged and daily back-ups of the database to go back to.

This has been a very interesting exercise for me and has demonstrated how easy it is for people to gain access to your site and really screw it up if you are not careful. So much so, that I’m going to create a section on here all about protecting your blog so that other people don’t suffer the same fate.

Tomorrow I’ll update you all on my recent visit to Singapore.

Take care & keep blogging,

Trevor

Hello,

To start this week I need to apologize for the gap between the last issue and this one. Quite surprisingly for me I managed to contract a dose of flu that knocked me off my feet for about a week.

I say quite surprisingly because I don’t normally get colds or flu. I try to keep myself very positive in everything that I do, see myself as healthy and tend to stay healthy. This time something obviously went wrong.

Since the last issue Neil Shearing has launched his latest product ’10 Day Cash Secret’ and since I’m into niche marketing myself I’ve decided to evaluate it. I’ll let you know how I get on in a future issue.

It’s amazing how something like a dose of flu can really screw up your week. Now that I’m back on my feet again I’m running around to get back to where I wanted to be in the first place.

It also brings home how important our health is and how we need to look after it. I think it’s very important to take as much regular exercise as possible and to get away whenever possible to re-charge our batteries.

Although I walk for 30 minutes to an hour each day I’ve not taken a real holiday for getting on for a year so maybe my body is telling me it’s time to book some time off.

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Thought for the Day
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”.

In my view there are 2 key elements that decide whether you achieve your objectives or not. One of them is Focus and the other is Action

I’ve proved to myself in my business that had I focused on one thing at a time rather than trying to work on many projects at the same time I would have made much quicker progress and achieved a lot more.

It’s too easy to think that this extra little activity won’t have any real impact on whatever else I’m doing. I can run this alongside my main goal without much effort. This is the sort of thinking that winners don’t entertain.

The only way to achieve what you want and more is to work on one thing through to its conclusion, get it running on autopilot so that it takes little effort to keep it going and only then move on to something else.

Focus is the one area that more and more people are falling down on these days because of the growing amount of opportunities coming our way on a daily basis. Many of these opportunities are capable of making us a fortune, if we just stick to any one of them and see it through to a conclusion.

Having decided which opportunity is for you then it’s time to take action. It’s time to do whatever you have to do to make it a success or decide that it isn’t for you and move on. But only move on when you have got it to the point of running on autopilot or you’ve proved that it doesn’t have the potential to produce the results you expected or were promised.

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Why Information Marketing?

Well there are a number of reasons but the key reason is it provides the potential for residual income. If you think about it the plan that we are all sold when we are at school, the one where you get good grades at college or University, get a good job and work at it until retirement, is all based on exchanging time for money.

You give the boss some of your time (usually a lot of your time!) and he or she gives you some money in exchange for it. If you are unable to continue giving your time for whatever reason, they stop giving you their money.

Even if you see through that plan and decide to work for yourself, if you are in any type of service business you only get paid when you provide the service. Let’s suppose you run a carpet cleaning business you get paid when you clean a carpet, just once. You clean the carpet, get paid end of story. Until there is another carpet to clean you get no money.

The same thing applies to all service businesses. It doesn’t matter whether you are a web designer, accountant or even a coach/mentor. You tend to exchange time for money, either directly by the hour or by the price of the job which still equates to so much time when you analyze it.

The problem with this type of earnings model is that there are only so many hours in the day to exchange. Once you’ve exchanged all of the hours you can your earnings potential is capped.

With the information business you can create a piece of work once and sell it over and over again. You are not restricted by the time/money trap. With the Internet it gets even better because you are able to supply your information digitally and do not even have to be around to supply it yourself.

If you create the information products yourself you also eliminate any competition. You decide who can sell it and who can’t. If anyone copies your work you are protected by law and can sue them. You also have the option to create your own affiliate program and build an army of affiliates selling your product. This is the real key to the information business.

You can start with little or no up-front capital and if you are struggling to get started with your own product you can start by selling someone else’s product for a commission and don’t even need to have any of the products in your possession.

You can sell digital products through Clickbank or physical products through Kunaki.com or Commission Junction (cj.com).

Creating your own product

The key to creating your own product is in identifying a hungry market first. The biggest mistake that people make in all areas of business is to start with the product first. Having created the product they then have to try and sell it to someone, someone who may not actually want what you have.

All product creation starts with research. You need to brainstorm ideas, markets, to find one that is desperate for a solution to their problems. Once you find a good sized market of buyers that are rabid for a solution that they are prepared to pay for you have the basis of a successful product.

Research ideas

The first step in the product creation process is to research ideas. What hobbies do you or your friends and family have? Are you an expert on a particular subject?

If you are an expert at something that has an active buying community you could do very well with it. Having a good level of knowledge on a subject will make it easier for you to write articles, press releases and content on the subject.

This will put you light years ahead of the competition if they know a lot less than you do. You can find niche ideas everywhere you look. What magazines sell well, what topics have popular newsgroups? Do a Google search for subject forum or subject discussion group.

I find it useful to carry a small shopping notebook with me at all times and jot down ideas as they come to mind. You will always say you are going to remember that one when you get home but you don’t, at least I don’t and I’m not on my own.

Develop a habit of being on the lookout wherever you are. Ideas can come to mind all of the time. Once you get into the habit of doing this you will see niche ideas everywhere.

Spend some time browsing around Clickbank.com/marketplace to find products in every niche you can think of. When looking at products in Clickbank the gravity score is what’s important. This tells you haow influential their product is in the overall market.

Another good place to look is eBay. eBay is the biggest online marketplace. Look at the top selling products on there. This could give you an idea for a product for you to sell on a niche site. The places to look are ‘Popular Now’ and eBay Pulse (pulse.ebay.com).

Yet another place to look is PayPal shops. If you look at https://www.paypal.com/shops PayPal will show you how popular the businesses are in each category and they will also let you know how many PayPal transactions the company has. While the company will almost certainly accept other methods of payment this will give you an idea of how popular the product line is.

Look for classified ads in places like Exchange and Mart. Ads that run week after week are paying and indicate a profitable niche. I think you get the idea by now. Look everywhere for potential niches. At this stage you are just making a list of possible niches. Make your list as long as possible initially and keep it growing for the future.

Next time I’ll cover the next stage of our research, identifying the potential of our niches.

I cover the whole process of creating niche income in my book “The Easy Internet Start-up Guide”. Find out more at http://www.getstartedonlinenow.com

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Your Mental Muscle Workout

What’s holding you back?

Maybe you are just getting started online or maybe you’ve been online for some time. If you aren’t where you want to be with your life, your business or your income then chances are that something somewhere is holding you back.

I used to think that I had a pretty good handle on goal setting, where I wanted to go and that I would get there but couldn’t understand why some people get there faster than others and why so many people never get there at all.

I think one of the difficulties is that we often read a book or listen to an audio recording on a topic, say goal setting, and we will read or listen to it once and think we have understood the topic. However, what usually happens is that as we work our way through our mind picks up on some trigger somewhere and off we go on a tangent into thoughts of our own.

Then after a while we return, meanwhile the recording has continued or your eyes have continued to scan the lines, and we have missed the content of quite a section of the piece. We follow along with the content again for a while and then off we go again on another trip.

It’s for this reason that I feel it’s important to work through something that we want to learn everything we can from more than once, preferably many more times. Whenever I’ve done this I have always gained so much more the second, third, fourth time and more than that in many cases.

I’ve found in my own case that it is very difficult to look objectively at my own behaviour and identify if I am falling foul of some of the situations that I’m reading about. I tend to think that once I’ve read about it I am then aware of it from then on and will make the necessary adjustments in my life.

Fortunately I keep reading and analysing and have been able to identify that all is not what it often seems to be. I’ll give you an example.

I read many years ago about our self-image, the fact that we have many mini self-images about every area of our life that combine to form an overall self-image. One of these mini self-images is concerned with the level of income we see ourselves as earning.

As with all of our concepts about ourselves, we build up our concept about our earnings bracket from our parents, people we grow up with, the economic climate during our formative years etc.

Eventually we arrive at an income level that we feel comfortable with and most people rarely move far away from this figure. I mentioned last time that it is known that many commission sales people who reach their earnings concept figure before the end of year go completely off the boil until the start of the next year.

This situation is a lot more common, I believe, than we think. We attract into our lives the people and circumstances that harmonise with our dominant thoughts and this applies to our earnings level, our level of debt and every other aspect of our financial life (along with the rest of our life in general).

I’m more convinced than ever, the more I study this subject, that we can attract whatever level of income we desire simply by raising our ceiling, visualizing a new level of income and through the power of attraction based on our dominant thoughts bring that level of income into our reality.

The problem is that when we first try to do this our old self-image tries to knock us back, saying that this isn’t really you and you should get back to where you belong. It takes some persistence at first but the more you do it, the better you become.

Take a close look at what your self-images are. Where do you really see yourself on the earnings scale? Do you honestly see yourself earning two or three times what you are now or does it need some work

Until next time….

Trevor

Hello,

I hope you are all keeping well. I spend a good bit of my time working on my niche sites. Niche marketing is being talked about all over the internet these days and for good reason.

Some of the niches that I operate in are related to my hobbies and while it isn’t essential that you enjoy the niches that you decide to do business in I believe it certainly makes a big difference.

Operating any business online or offline requires a lot of determination, persistence and hard work. When the going gets tough, maybe you have things going on in your life that need urgent attention or you may be feeling off color physically, if you don’t have a real interest in your niche it will be a lot easier to let things slip.

One of the keys to success in internet marketing is putting regular effort into your business. A little regular activity beats going mad for a day or two and then doing nothing for weeks every time.

There was a time when for me the biggest obstacle I had to grapple with was time management. We all have the same amount of time in the day and yet it seemed to me that some people were just able to do so much more with their time than me.

I realised that I needed to get to grips with how they did this and set out to put a routine in place that I could work to. I found a coach to help with it and together we identified where the time was going to and put a schedule in place to correct it.

The biggest time stealer for most people is email, and it was for me. I just couldn’t resist checking my emails every few minutes. Now I spend 30 minutes at the start of the day, 15 minutes around midday and don’t look again until the end of the day just before I finish to sort out any urgent issues that I need to attend to.

This one simple change has really opened up my day and made such a difference. My second biggest time waster was not being able to find things because I hadn’t filed them away properly.

In the rush to get on with the next project it’s too easy to stack things up in a pile until ‘later’, especially when you are starting out and need to make some money. Doing something that might generate some money always seems so much more important than filing.

Over the years I’ve discovered that this attitude is actually doing us more harm than we realise. You see, although we maybe don’t think consciously about the piles of filing, it works away on our sub-conscious holding us back. In the back of our mind we know we still have that clutter to sort.

Worse still often when we need something to refer to, yes you’ve guessed it, it’s in one of those piles and we have to spend even more time finding it.

Incidentally I mentioned there that I got myself a coach. I coach lots of people myself now but still work with a coach myself. I think it is very important to work with someone else that can stretch you and help you grow no matter how good you are at what you do.

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Thought for the Day
“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line”.

How often do you start to do some work on your current project, maybe some keyword research, accidentally stumble across something way off topic and before you know it are going off in a completely different direction to the one you wanted to go.

The fact is that all of the time you are following this tread you are away from your straight line and adding time to the day when you will reach your goal. Successful people keep as close to the straight line as possible and reach their goals in double quick time.

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Making money online, isn’t it too late now?

The Internet Marketing niche is one of the most competitive online. When I started online over 10 years now there were very few people sending out newsletters, a lot less offers arriving in your inbox, no mega launches like Mass Control that you will have received from every corner of the net over the last few weeks.

It is little wonder then that many of the new people starting out say to me that it was fine for me back then but it’s too late now. The Internet is too crowded, the big boys have been there a long time and have it all sown up so there is no point starting now.

It is a big mistake to think that just because you may have been made aware of the potential of making money online from someone selling Internet Marketing tools and books that you have to work in that marketplace too.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are millions of small niche markets that can each bring in $200 - $300 (£100 - £200) a month. On their own they may be nothing to write home about but you don’t have to stop at one.

Imagine having 10, 20, 100 of these. It wouldn’t be difficult to have 20 of these small niche ‘sites’ set up and running on auto-pilot in the course of a year each bringing you in an average of $250 (£125) a month.

By the end of the year that could easily be $5000 (£2500) a month and much more. There are profitable niches everywhere when you learn how to look. Check out the magazines in newsagents or at the airport if you are going away. It is very difficult to make a magazine pay. Those that appear regularly on the shelves must be satisfying a hungry niche otherwise they would go broke.

A good start when looking for a possible niche opportunity is to think ‘How to…’. People are always looking how to do something. Topics like How to speed read, How to write a book, How to manage your time better, How to be more romantic, How to attract the opposite sex … the list is endless.

Remember people buy what they want not what they need so concentrate on wants, that’s why gadgets are so popular. Nobody needs a gadget, they think it would be nice to have it.

Too many people make the mistake of thinking that making money online is a get rich quick business. It is get rich, but get rich more slowly. Having said that 12 months isn’t that slow if you take action.

Action really is the key here. You could just read all about this stuff, feel positive about it, imagine it but not get up off the sofa and in 12 months you will be right where you started. Or you could do a little bit each day for 12 months and may be able to say goodbye to your boss for ever.

Long term thinking and planning is the key to success but long term thinking is hard for many people. We are emotional beings, we want things fast and when someone sends us an email promising that they can get us there fast the temptation is very strong to abandon what we are doing and jump on the new opportunity.

I can speak from experience when I say that all that will get you is broke, disillusioned and way off your straight line. If you can change the perception of thinking short term and instant gratification great things will start to happen.

Look at it this way, if you put aside 2 – 3 hours a day to work on your business you would have spent around 1000 hours by the end of the year. We could learn another language in 1000 hours, just think how your business will benefit from 1000 hours.

Think about doctors and lawyers. They study for years and hardly earn a penny along the way. But when they qualify, they really start to earn. You only have to spend 12 months, even less if you have more spare time and you would be there.

To go back to my earlier point about the Internet being too crowded now, let’s think about that. There are still millions and millions of people who are not online yet. There are billions of people on the planet and more being born every second, there are only millions online, not billions.

Out of the millions online how many are involved with Internet Marketing, in fact, how many are just surfers and not marketing online at all? By just being online and starting to learn your trade, reading newsletters like this one, you are already way ahead of the game.

Think and plan long term, do something everyday and you’ll stay ahead of the game and before you know it you will be financially independent.

I cover a lot of information about getting started online in my book (http://www.easyinternetstartupguide.co.uk) The Easy Internet Start-up Guide and am working on a new coaching course specifically about niche marketing which I will let you know about as soon as it is ready.

If you asked me what the ‘key’ to success was I would say one word – Action. It is no coincidence that this newsletter is called Action Today. Without action we stay where we are. It doesn’t have to be massive action, although that helps a lot.

It is a bit like keeping fit. Doctors tell us that just 30 minutes walking everyday will do it. It’s the same with our business. Plan long term and schedule something to do everyday. Make it a habit and you’ll get there.

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Your Mental Muscle Workout

Are you sabotaging yourself?

I have believed for many years that we are spiritual beings inhabiting a physical body. Now I’m not talking about religion here, it doesn’t matter in my view whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim or whatever we are all working with the same laws, the laws of the Universe.

Wallace Wattles, Napoleon Hill and others discovered over 100 years ago that we become what we think about and do it by attracting to ourselves results that coincide with our dominant thoughts. We are energy fields in a larger energy field, the Universe and thought energy is the strongest form of energy. As spiritual beings we send out that thought energy which in turn attracts matching vibrations to us.

It is easy to forget what the implication of this is if we are not careful. You see from what I’ve said above it is easy to see that if we think we want a certain level of income hard enough and consistently enough we will attract it to us. We think positively and it will happen.

The problem is the same thing works with negative thoughts. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by more negative vibrations than positive, it’s everywhere. Just listen to the news or read a newspaper and you’ll see good news doesn’t sell.

Fortunately it is said that research has shown that a positive thought is 100’s of times more powerful than a negative thought. So being positive most of the time will overcome the negative times. It is normal to have some negative thoughts, things happen, we just learn to spend less time with them.

As I said I have worked with these principles for many years and for a long time couldn’t understand why, when I was thinking of earning a certain income level, my income didn’t go up.

Despite listening to the material over and over again it just didn’t seem to happen. I remember Brian Tracy telling a story about a salesman who if he hit his target in September would kick back until January when he felt he could start again.

He had an income concept that was fixed in his subconscious and he couldn’t seem to break through it. Like me he probably didn’t realise that he did have a concept about his earnings.

It’s very difficult to analyse ourselves, we think we know ourselves pretty well and don’t have such things as self concepts that may be holding us back. Then one day it suddenly struck me, I did have an income/financial ceiling and was sabotaging myself.

I looked more closely at myself and finally saw that when I made some extra money over and above what I would normally earn, I spent it. I didn’t save it or invest it or just let it build up in the bank, I spent it.

I normally just dismissed this habit as wanting to treat myself but I was really sabotaging myself. Successful people take that money, see a bigger horizon and use it to make more money.

They raise their game, aim higher and achieve more. I have an old cassette tape (many of you possibly don’t know what a cassette tape is) by Charles F Abbott entitled the Millionaire Mindset. He talks about millionaires who if their businesses collapse and they end up bankrupt start again and become millionaires again in very quick time.

Some of them, like Donald Trump, have a billionaire mindset. He would probably think he was broke if he got down to being just a millionaire.

It’s really down to changing our thinking, raising our ceiling and attracting higher and higher incomes to us. When we start to replace can I with why not me, should I with I will, I couldn’t do that with who can I get to do that for me we lift the roof off and see a very different horizon.

Winston Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of all time was asked to address a graduating class as the keynote speaker. The students assembled, eager to hear what the great man had to say.

Finally, Winston Churchill moved up to the rostrum, paused for a few moments and said, “Never give up, Never give up, Never, Never, Never”, and then he sat down.

Maybe some of the audience felt let down, I’m sure some sat completely blown away by the profoundness of his words. There are times when a few words speak volumes, for me that was one of those times.

Until next time….

Trevor

Welcome to your new issue of Action Today.

In this issue:

Lead Article – Beware Burn-Out

Also including;

Thought for the day

Exercise your mental muscle

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Hello,

I hope you are all keeping well. This time of year, especially in the UK, is considered to be the most difficult time for many people. We are coming to the end of the dark winter months and even though winters here aren’t as cold as they used to be we long to feel the warmth of the sun.

It is also that time, after the expenses of the festive season, when the need to earn extra income or finally get out of the rat race becomes a more urgent requirement.

My eldest Son has just joined a US organization to head up their European operation and needed to form a new company. He told me that there was a longer than normal delay in getting it set up because more people are registering new companies at this time of year than at any other time.

As information marketers that is interesting news. It reinforces the view that the first few weeks and months of the year can be the most profitable. This is the time of year when more people are open to opportunities than at any other time.

Of course, experienced marketers both offline and online have known this for years but it is good to get some supporting evidence. It is also a timely reminder that if you weren’t ready to catch the tide this year to put a date in your diary for early autumn (or fall for our US friends) to begin putting a new year campaign together for next year.

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Thought for the Day

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.

Having a clear focus of where you want your business to go will mean that you avoid the many tempting offers that come your way and take you off course.

Beware Burn-Out

Although in many ways running a business on the internet is not too different to running a traditional brick and mortar business, there are some differences, some of them quite significant.

I’ve been marketing online now for a over 10 years and during that time I’ve seen many changes. The internet is a very different place now to what it was when I started out. The most significant difference is in the number of people online now.

As the internet has matured it has become much harder to get people to join your list, and the activities of a few mindless spammers has made doing business much more difficult.

On the plus side we now have the whole new world of Web 2.0 with the growth of the community sites and the tremendous marketing potential that they offer.

There is one thing that I have seen happening over the years that we all need to beware of and that is what I’ll call burn-out.

Doing business on the Internet is generally a very solitary business. One of the bonuses is that we don’t need large premises and lots of staff to run an Internet business. What that tends to mean though is that we spend a lot of time on our own staring at our computer screens.

This can mean that life can become a very lonely existence. In the early days when you are just getting going, not making any money and working long hours at your business to hopefully speed up the time when the money comes rolling in, you can become so obsessed with your business that you block out everything else.

It is not obvious to you most of the time because you have your head down working away. However, over time the constant struggle to make your business work begins to wear you down. You get tired, frustrated and before you know where you are you begin to lose faith that this thing will ever work.

That is one instance of the burn-out that I’ve seen. There is another variant that I have seen that happens when you finally become successful.

You’ve stuck to your goal and worked hard on your business and at last you do start making some money and life starts to come together. So you ‘rinse and repeat’ if you will. In other words you get one thing working and repeat it over and over. You get a good list of subscribers, put a newsletter together and start sending it out regular as clockwork.

Everything is great – right? Not always. After a while if you are still spending most of your time on your business at the exclusion of a private life you start to feel the need to slacken off. You just need a break from it. You may have been doing it for years by now and again you’re getting tired.

Then if you aren’t careful the frequency of your newsletters drops off, you start to neglect your loyal subscribers and they go away.

I’ve seen this happen to quite a few people, even some of the top people. It can happen to anyone, it’s happened to me on a couple of occasions. I’ve been a subscriber to some newsletters for the whole of the time I’ve been online.

Over that time I’ve noticed that the same thing has happened to them. There have been long gaps between issues at one stage then after a break they have come back stronger than ever.

One of the reasons for this can be lack of focus and I’m going to write about that in a future issue but mainly it is because we just keep going at our business so full on that we don’t allow time for rest and relaxation.

The key lesson here is to build a lifestyle, not just a business. It is vital to have outside interests, a full and happy family life and special time to relax and just think of where you are going with your life.

If you think of nothing but your business and spend all of your time working at it you become too blinkered, your thinking and vision become too narrow and you become much less productive in the process.

If you get out and ‘smell the roses’ now and again, go to the movies or have a nice meal with your partner or family you’ll maintain your enthusiasm and keep your edge and your business will grow faster.

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Your Mental Muscle Workout

What is your passion?

I listen to Bob Proctor a lot. Some of you may have come across him on the Secret – the DVD that is breaking all records for a non-fiction DVD all around the world. However, Bob has been teaching success principles for many years now and when I saw him at the end of last year he looked fitter and more enthusiastic than ever.

For those of you who haven’t come across Bob, he is in his 70’s now and has more energy than many people half his age. I find listening to Bob keeps me on track when life decides to throw you an awkward catch as it does very regularly.

I was listening to one of his messages recently where he was talking about what we wanted to achieve in life. You have no doubt been told that you need to set goals if you want to achieve anything in life. That you need to identify every detail of your goal whether it be a new car, house or wealth.

The problem I have found with this type of goal setting is that it is very difficult to get really excited about these things sometimes. It becomes easier if you put yourself in a feeling place for these things, like test driving the car or looking round the house for example. These experiences go a long way to helping you feel what it would be like to actually have these things.

Something Bob said on the CD really brought home to me where the difficulty really lies. You see, goals are great and we should have them but they can only take you so far. What is far more important is your passion, what Napolean Hill described as your worthy ideal.

As Bob put it a new car is great but would you be prepared to give your life for it? Now if that shocked you as much as it did me listen to his explanation for saying it. Whether we realise it or not we are already giving our life for what we are doing now.

Time doesn’t stand still for any of us and we all have the same 24 hours in every day. The question we should be asking ourselves is what do we ‘really’ want? Deep down inside what do we ‘really’ want? When people look back at your life what would you like them to say about you and your achievements.

If you think about it for even a short while I’d guess it wouldn’t be that you drove nice cars or had a nice house would it?

Think about your passion. Think past making money and get to what your real passion is. Start putting your effort into achieving that and the cars, houses and everything else will arrive as a by product.

I think it was Zig Ziglar who said that if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want as a result.

Until next time….

Trevor