News From The Archives
I'm a great hoarder of stuff. I can't help it, I just don't like throwing things away in case they come in useful at some point in the future.
Do you relate to that, or are you one of those people that can keep clutter down to a manageable level?
Anyway, I'm a hoarder and sometimes it does pay off - for me at least.
From time to time I get all fired up and decide to have a clear out and I'm going through one of those phases at the moment. I'm planning to move house later this year and need to reduce the amount of baggage that I will have to pack and ship to the new house.
Among the piles of items that I keep are newsletters that I receive from the few people that I feel are worth listening to. It's surprising how useful it is to read some of this archive material and how it is very often still relevant many years later.
I started online in 1996, the same year that the late Corey Rudl got started. His newsletters are still in my archive today and I just came across one that I had to take time to sit and read again.
Corey was a pioneer in this industry and we have him to thank for some of the basic things we take for granted today. Thanks to him we have autoresponders and affiliate programs and probably lots of other things too. His was the first affiliate program I joined and the first money I made online came as a result of it.
One of the many things he created was a membership site called 'Secrets To Their Success' where he showcased people online entrepreneurs were making $30,000 to $2 million online with their businesses.
This particular newsletter was from July 2003 and showcased a young man (19 years old at the time) who had earned $200,000 from his hearandplay.com website. I just did a quick check and Jermaine is still running that site today. He is now a grown up man, happily married with three lovely children.
It's quite an extensive interview so rather than typing it out in full here I've created a PDF of the entire interview for you to download. Click the link below to get your copy.
The Internet Marketing Center is sadly now long gone so some of the references to their software no longer work. That aside, there are some key lessons we can learn from this interview with Jermaine.
It it is to be, it's up to me
The first thing that comes across very strongly is that Jermaine was a participant in his own rescue. By that I mean that he didn't let his lack of knowledge stop him from forging ahead with his goal.
Back in those days, very few of us knew anything and we didn't have any of the software and resources that we have today. When he came across something that he didn't know how to do he put the time in to teach himself how to do it. He stayed up nights studying everything he could find on the topic and solved the problem for himself.
He also didn't let the fact that he came from a poor background and had little or no money to invest in his business stop him.
We didn't have WordPress then so creating a website meant learning how to code in HTML. Not an easy task if you don't come from a programming background.
Build a List
Right from the start he had learned the power of building a mailing list. It wasn't anywhere as easy then as it is now but he found a way to do it. Corey created the first autoresponder that I was aware of and probably the first one anywhere.
He had learned the power of a follow-up series for his subscribers which made a massive difference to his business.
Embrace new techniques
Popups were new then and working well so he incorporated that technology into his site. Although there are a multitude of what we now call bright shiny objects around now (that should be avoided like the plague) there are advances in technology that help our businesses that we should be prepared to learn and make best use of.
Marketing
Marketing our business is one of the key activities now and it was then. We should be constantly testing new marketing channels to drive visitors to our sites. Testing and tweaking is often seen as a boring, time-consuming activity and because of that is skipped by most people trying to make money online. That's a big mistake because often a very small change can make a massive difference to our bottom line.
Affiliate Program
An active affiliate program can drive thousands of extra visitors to our businesses. Today it is relatively easy to build a large network of affiliates very quickly with services like JVZoo and Warrior Plus. Affiliates are your army of commission only sales people and shouldn't be ignored.
There are lots of golden nuggets in this interview.
That's all for this time. I hope you enjoy this journey through my archives with me. As always I look forward to reading your comments down below.
Until next time,
Take care,
Trevor
