This last weekend I attended The Instant Profit Seminar in London as a VIP guest of co-hosts Alex Jeffreys and Dean Holland.

I was told many years ago that seminars are where millionaires are made and I really believe it’s true. The networking opportunities are great, I always make some good friends at a seminar and this one was no exception. If you’ve not come across Alex or Dean before you should check them out, they are a refreshing change from all of the hype peddlers we see these days.

You can check out Alex over at Marketing With You. Alex covered some real in-depth marketing tactics during a packed weekend of training, too much to do justice to today so I’ll be reviewing some of his stuff in the future.

Dean Holland is just one of Alex’s many successful students and he’s proved that making money on the Internet is still very possible in a relatively short time. Dean has gone from over $60,000 in debt to over $600,000 in revenue in just 2 1/2 years.

What is interesting about this is the way that he did it. Dean attended one of Alex’s seminars just like this one and decided that he wanted to follow in Alex’s footsteps and make money online, big problem was he didn’t know how to get started. That’s how we all start so if you’re thinking the same thing, this is what Alex advised Dean to do … Start a blog about how he was getting started. So he did, he created a blog and told people that he was just getting started online and he was going to write about everything he did everyday as he progressed on his journey.

At first he didn’t have a hosting account so he created his blog on WordPress.org. He admits that was a mistake because it meant that his blog wasn’t under his control, if anything happened to wordpress.org he would lose his blog so he quickly rectified that by getting his own hosting account.

Hosting is very cheap now so whether you host with someone like Hostgator or use our hosting services you can get started for very little cost. If you can’t afford to buy hosting at the moment then definitely use a free service until you can.

Dean outlined his simple formula for success as;

• Start a blog
• Post regularly to it (something I need to do – thank you Dean)
• Build interaction with your readers
• Create a free product for readers to download
• Build a list from giving away the free product
• Make money from marketing other products to your list

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Sounds very simple and it is – but I hope people don’t dismiss it because it is. Making money on the Internet doesn’t have to be complicated, it just takes action. Once you get some money coming in regularly and want to move on to the next stage of building a business then there are more things involved but for most people getting some money coming in is important right now.

Chatting to lots of people over the weekend, I found that there are still lots of you who want help with the basics so I’ve decided that over the coming weeks I’m going to create some tutorials covering every step for you. I’ll try to not leave anything out but if I don’t cover the bit that’s holding you back, post a comment about it so I can go back and add it.

Leave me a comment below and let me know if you think this will help you out. I’ll start with creating your blog and move on from there.

Dean’s blog is located at Dean Holland

Until next time,

Remember, “Nothing happens until you take ACTION”

Trevor

Are You Caught in the Headlights?

I was talking to one of my subscribers the other day and he was describing how he was finding it difficult to make any progress with his Internet business.

Like lots of people today he was finding it harder to make ends meet as the economic recession continues to bite and getting more desparate than ever to generate some extra money online.

As he described to me his frustration I could feel his pain, the sort of pain that lots of people are feeling now. It took me back to the time when I was in that situation and I was surprised that I  started to feel those feelings of stress, anxiety, worry and internal turmoil that he was feeling and I felt back then.

It reminded me how I got to the point where I didn’t know what to do next. I’d been online for a long time already trying all sorts of things that were supposed to be sure-fire winners but weren’t. I also remembered the stages that I went through as things got worse. I started off full of hope that in no time flat I would be enjoying the life I dreamed of, with no money worries, able to work when I wanted, take the vacations I wanted – when I wanted, you know – everything we are told to expect.

At first I worked through things thoroughly telling myself that if anything was worth doing, it was worth doing properly. It didn’t work, so I bought into another plan and started to work that one. That didn’t work either and so it went on.

The only thing that I seemed able to achieve was get deeper in debt. Working on the Internet can be a very lonely life, you lock yourself away in your back bedroom or the corner of a room somewhere and end up having less and less contact with your friends or family. You don’t discuss what you’re doing or ask for help from them because they don’t understand why you don’t just get a better job.

It is also very addictive, before you know it you can’t bear to be away from your computer in case you miss an opportunity.

I started to get desparate, I found myself buying program after program, each one guaranteed to generate quick cash. You see I was now at the stage where I needed cash quick to pay the mounting credit card bills. When you need an instant cash generator, all of your sense of reason goes out of the window.

Let’s face it, if there really was a ‘press this button, sit back and watch the money come in’ system wouldn’t the person that developed it just keep it to himself/herself? I mean, why share the secret to unlimited wealth with anyone if it took no effort to generate? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there aren’t any people in the world who genuinely want to help others, but think about it for a moment.

How long would any system like this remain effective if everybody online got to know about it? Not long is the answer and then the original owner would lose his goldmine – and that’s not going to happen.

But back to my experience. The crazy thing was that looking back, even though a lot of what I bought into was junk, a lot of them would have worked if I’d given them time. But at the time I wasn’t thinking that way, I was blinkered, I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights, paralysed, frightened to move in any direction.

It finally struck home to me that I needed to sort myself out when I experienced a total burn out. I’d been working at this thing for so long that I didn’t have the energy or willpower to do anything anymore. I stopped reading my emails, I didn’t trust anyone anymore anyway so why bother.

I decided that I had to do something and that the Internet wasn’t going to give me the immediate answer. So I started looking for the dreaded job again. Although I didn’t want or like working for anyone else I knew I had to do something. I also knew that I wasn’t going to give up on my dreams for good. Just for a while to sort things out.

The first thing I did was to get a contract in my field of work, IT, that paid my immediate bills and removed the pressure a bit. That’s not as possible today as it used to be I know, and not an option for everyone anyway, but there is usually  work of some sort if we look for it. One of the biggest difficulties when you’re in this situation is to face up to where you are.

I remembered reading one time about how John Paul Getty approached things. Apparently whenever he was facing a potentially worry or stress situation regarding a business venture, he would ask himself what was the worst possible outcome that could happen. Having done that he would accept that if the worst happened he would be prepared to live with it but would then do everything possible to make sure that it didn’t happen.

I used the same principle and it really helped me. I had to accept that I had debts to pay off and that the only way to do that was find something that was guaranteed to get me some money, and that was a job of some sort. I also faced up to the fact that if the worst happened and I went bankrupt I would live with it.

The biggest tragedy of the Internet in my opinion is that it is being peddled by lots of unscrupulous people as a way to make quick easy money. And they prey on vulnerable people to do it.

The Internet is potentially the best invention of all time, when used properly. It has made many, many millionaires. In fact there are Internet millionaires created everyday, but not overnight.

What this did for me was allow me to go back to basics. To read some of the material I had accumulated and put together a plan of what I needed and wanted to do. I chose affiliate marketing in lots of different niches. This time I worked on one project at a time and stuck with it until I had it all working properly before moving on to another niche to start again.

It’s easy and cheap to host as many sites as you want now. I use Hostgator. I purchased one of their reseller accounts and host all of my sites there using WordPress.

The key lesson for me was that any business, offline or online, requires time to build. There are virtually no overnight successes despite what any of the Guru’s tell you. If you dig into their past you almost always find that they have been very successful at something else before.

My advice to anyone in this situation is to pick one coaching program that you can reasonably afford and work all the way through it. Do every single step that you are asked to do, don’t skip through anything.

If after you’ve done everything, worked all of the way through the course and you have not started to experience the outcomes that you were promised, tell the product owners, demand your money back. It’s time more people stood up and said this stuff doesn’t work. Most people online now are so quick to move on to the next best thing that they don’t know if a program works or not because they don’t actually try them.

I’m putting together the finishing touches to a new coaching program aimed at complete beginners. Although suitable for people of all ages, I’m particularly passionate about helping retired people, or rather people who should be retired. Unfortunately, too many people now can’t afford to retire and face having to work for the rest of their life and I find that really upsetting.

To make sure I cover everything that you guys are having difficulty with, I want you to post your comments down below this post. I will acknowledge all of you that contribute by either referencing your business or website in it or providing you with something special. I need to hear from you if I’m to help you overcome your difficulties like I did my own.

So take a few minutes and post a comment now while you’re here.

until next time,

“Remember nothing happens until you take the Right action”

regards,

Trevor

I’m surprised by how many of my subscribers write to me saying how overworked they are getting and when I ask them they aren’t using an autoresponder in their business. If you’ve reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, it’s time to learn about autoresponders.

The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they’re eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news is an autoresponder is an inexpensive – or even free – method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as they are received.

Emails are essential to your business for many different reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices give you their feedback about your website – for free! However, if you spend all your working hours answering these emails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your emails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.

There are a number of good reasons why you need an autoresponder besides just answering your email. For
example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to send information about your services or products, price lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your business and then build stable relationships with your customers by using autoresponders.

Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with your email program to a specialized script that runs on your web hosting company’s server. This kind of script may use a web page form or simply operate with your email account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a standardized message whenever an email is received. The message is sent to a particular script or email address.

Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to send out a new message every day for as long a period as you desire.

There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free of charge. Your website hosting company often provides autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge, providing you attach an advertisement for their company to your emails.

To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact numbers and addresses, and a brief message.

It’s a good idea to attach a signature to every email that is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your business identity every time a customer sees it. The more they look at your signature, the more likely your company will spring to mind when your particular service or product is needed.

You can create a standardized signature that every employee in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every staff member create their own personal signature. Of course, like everything in life, there are some rules and guidelines to creating a personal signature.

Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line. Make sure that your email program does not cut off your text! The content should include your name, your company name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a short personal message about your company. It should be a subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly your company’s reliability and longevity.

Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create courses that you can then offer your site visitors for
free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert and that precisely targets your potential customers.

Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation about what is to follow. Your explanation should be enticing, getting the point across that you are offering free, quality information that your target audience will find of great value.

With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the topic title, information about your company and its
services or products. At the end, include a few lines about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue on.

Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more. Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.

Of course, you have to write up your course before you can offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the material carefully, employing a professional writer or editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your autoresponder.

There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or go onto Google and you will find a long list of free autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions as to how to set it up and transfer your text.

Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing your email address carefully. Your website should contain different email addresses for different contact requests.

For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about sales. It’s a good idea to set up one for the owner, such as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in a personal, approachable light and insures that direct contact is provided.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of potential customers. This is an invaluable asset considering how many potential customers you usually have contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially, an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your marketing campaign.

Do you use WordPress for your blog or website like lots of us marketers do? More and more people are discovering the power of WordPress for quick and easy website creation now with hundreds of new sites cropping up every day. According to WordPress.org over 25 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home”.

There are blogs on just about every topic you can think of and tons more on topics that you would never think of in your wildest dreams. I come from a web development background and in the past I developed all of my websites using either free hand coding or more recently with a web editor like Dreamweaver. How times have changed, like many of my web development colleagues I now use WordPress for just about everything I do.

There are so many plugins and widgets for wordpress now and more being developed all of the time that you can do just about anything with WordPress that would have taken some serious programming not that long ago.

Everyday, more and more people are earning their living online using a WordPress site, finally able to break free of that dreaded JOB to take control of their own income, their own life.

But, unfortunately as is often the case it’s not all good news. As with anything in life that is successful, there is always a section of society that seeks to capitalise on that success. Some people get a wierd sense of pleasure by just screwing up things when they see someone doing well. And WordPress is no exception. The more popular it becomes the more prone it is to hacking. Because WordPress is a standard piece of software open to anyone to develop plugins and widgets for it, it seems it isn’t too difficult for an expert programmer to hack into.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen to everyone every day but it can and does happen. So while WordPress is great when everything is going well, you don’t need to be an expert programmer to use it, it is a different matter if it gets corrupted and you need to get it back online somehow.

If you are one of the many people that have come to rely on your site for some or all of your income, any amount of downtime can be devastating. Your income could disappear overnight.

I have had to re-create some of my sites in the past and even with my programming background it wasn’t a 5 minute job. That’s why I was very interested in a new WordPress backup software that I received details of this week. EZWpBackup has been designed specifically for WordPress and provides a very quick backup of your entire site. EZWpBackup is a plugin so installation is very easy from your dashboard. Once installed you will see a new link on your dashboard ‘Generate Backup’. All you have to do is click the link and wait a few seconds for the software to backup everything. You then download your backup file to somewhere safe ready to upload if you ever need to. You will need to take regular backups as you make changes to your site to ensure that you have the latest changes backed up but it only takes a few seconds.

Check out EZWpBackup for yourself and see how easy it is to use.

What I particularly like about this plugin is the many other things it provides for you. Ever wanted to move to another web host but didn’t know how to move your blog without starting from scratch. EZWpBackup solves this problem for you. Simply take a backup of your site and upload it to your new host account. What about creating a master blog and using it to clone multiple other blogs from it. Again, EZWpBackup makes it easy. You can upload your backup as many times as you want creating clone sites that you can sell on to other people.

The creators of EZWpBackup have an offer on currently where they are throwing in with the deal their EZWpRestore software that makes the restore process just as easy as the backup. There are also including a few cool bonuses which made the offer a no brainer for me. As you know, I rarely do product pitches but this one is a real help to Internet Marketers using WordPress. I bought it and have already used it. I have to say it is very easy to use and will save me a lot of heartache should I have to re-create any of my WordPress sites again in the future.

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Until next time remember,

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

kind regards,

Trevor

I’m conscious of the fact that I haven’t written anything lately so want to start to remedy that fact. I’ve been building an offline business this year in an area that I’m passionate about, education in schools, and that has taken up all of my time and I apologise for that.

As those of you that have received contact from me in the past will know I get regular correspondence from Marlon Sanders, who I’ve known for many years now. Marlon always has something useful and interesting to say when he contacts me and a recent item from him was particularly interesting. So much so that I decided to include it in this post, I hope you like it and it helps you with some issues that you may be experiencing right now.

“Create Something”
I have a theme for you that will serve you well. It’s something you can apply TODAY. This week. You can take it with you through all of next year. That theme is “create something.”

Why? Why create something:
1. If you don’t create, you don’t have anything to trade to other people for money.
2. If you don’t create something to trade for money then you have to trade your own time. That sucks.
3. Creating is fun. We are all born creators. It’s fun to create something.

There’s an old legend that God created the world because he was bored and was in the mood to create something, so it might as well be a world.

So he created people who like him could create. This way his creation became a viral marketing project. If you’re gonna create, why not create something that creates something that creates that creates in perpetuity?

How to Get Over Your Fears of Creating

Everyone has fears.

Fears that their creation won’t be valued.

Fears it won’t be good enough.

Fears it’ll be criticized.

Fears it won’t get any attention.

Fears it will be ignored.

Fears that it’ll be too much work.

Fears it won’t be worth it.

What’s the Answer To Fears?

The answer to fear is to look it in the eye and laugh.

Laugh hard.

Then laugh harder.

Then laugh really hard.

Laughter drives away fear.

You and fear

A partnership of sorts.See, fear isn’t going anywhere.You can’t drive it away. It’s inside of you. The more you push against it, the more it grows. So the answer to fear is to CREATE a NEW thought pattern. Which is what’s so funny about it really. The answer to fear of creating is to create new thoughts.

It’s funny. When you’re young the fingers strike the keys on a keyboard at lightning speeds and with great clarity and energy. At older ages, that doesn’t always happen. Not because of arthritis but because of the scars of time that eat away at the impetus to creativity. The answer is to laugh at your fears and move on.

MOVE.

Nike had it right.

Just do it.

ALL excuses are FEAR driven.

I can’t do it because I procrastinate too much.

I don’t have any focus. I’m not organized enough.

I don’t have enough money. I don’t know enough.

I know too much.

I feel overwhelmed.

I don’t have any employees.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know how to do.

I don’t know how to do it.

I feel overwhelmed.

I don’t have enough confidence.

I’m over confident.

I kint talk good.

I kint write gud.

They all somehow have their basis in FEAR. Fear of being a success. Fear of failure. Fear of mental or emotional pain. Here’s the weird thing about FEAR. It’s just a feeling. It’s NOT something in the real world. Fear of the kind that stifles creativity, robs you of productivity, steals your future, smashes your dreams – it’s JUST a feeling. We’ll do ANYTHING to avoid that feeling. Some people make things up rather than to face the fear. They make up physical ailments that are EXCUSES for fear of not being good enough, doing enough, working enough. They make up problems and drama because THOSE are easier to deal with (since they’re made up) than the reality of feeling like a klutz, a failure, a zero.

Some people will blame gurus. Some will blame their family. Some will blame anything or anyone other than themselves. And it’s ALL fear. 100% of it. And fear is just a feeling inside of you. So at the end of the day, it’s you and your fear. Really, at the end of your life. And you look back at the life you lived. And you look ahead to the unknown and you feel fear.

So from the day we enter this world till the day we leave it, we deal with fear. And you either succumb to it and let it stop your actions, serve as your crutch, be your excuse, rob you of your future, steal your dreams. Or you find that other feeling inside of you somewhere, no matter how deep. The need and desire to CREATE. That desire, that need, that feeling is stronger than fear. Love is stronger than fear. We create because we love. A creation is love expressed and in action. So today, you have a moment of clarity. A rare moment.

Today you can succumb to fear.

And make excuses. And get distracted. And lose focus. And get overwhelmed with fear and the 1000 variations and colors of it.

Or you can simply choose to create and be a creator in the certainty that the act of creation is stronger than your fears.

What will it be? Fear? Procrastination? Excuses? Reasons you can’t? Reasons the gurus aren’t treating you right. Reasons it can’t work for you because…. Because you are new. Because you don’t have a list. Because you don’t have money.

Because, because, because.

None of which have to do with a …. Simple…. Solitary….. Powerful…… Act of creation.

At then end of your life someday, you’re going to walk out that door. And never walk back through it. One day you’ll read the last ezine I ever write…. And you’ll look back at your life. You will have succumbed to your fears. All your life. And made excuses.

Or you will have chosen to create.

But what? What do you create?

Whatever is inside of you to create. Whatever wants to be expressed. Not all those things can be traded for money. But they all have value. And with a little luck…. And if life has been kind to you…. There IS something inside of you that you can create. That others will value. And be willing to give you money for. And thus you go on a new road. The road of being a creator.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

http://www.poemhunter.com/

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Marlon Sanders helps people with hopes and dreams figure out how to turn those into reality by selling stuff on the Internet.

http://marlonsanders.com/levelone

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Until next time remember,

“Nothing Happens Until You Take ACTION”

kind regards,

Trevor