TRUE Results To REPLACE YOUR JOB

Archive for the ‘Traits You Should Possess’ Category

In the last post, I mentioned that you should become a likeable person so that your audience like, know, and trust you - and the end result is that they’d want to buy from you. In this post I want to share 5 ways on how to be a likeable person.

1. Admit Your FEARS And WEAKNESSES

2. Admit Your Mistakes

3. Empathize With Your Audience

4. Stop Boasting About How Great You Are

5. Entertain And Educate

1. Admit your FEARS and WEAKNESSES

Too many people don’t want to admit their fears and weaknesses. I’m NOT talking only about gurus and experts. Everybody (even those who are not gurus and experts in their respective industries) does NOT want to admit his or her fears and weaknesses.

To admit and actually acknowledge to OURSELVES that we possess fears and weaknesses is already not easy, let alone admitting to OTHER PEOPLE (ESPECIALLY our audience to whom we must look “cool” and “be the know-it-all” guy).

Most people (and marketers) do NOT want to admit their fears and weaknesses.

This is a FACT.

Look around you. How many times do you actually have someone confess their fears and weaknesses to you?

Especially if you’re a well-known guru in your marketplace - do you want to admit your fears and weaknesses to your audience?

Of course not!

Even your family members and close friends sometimes do not really want to admit their DEEPEST fears to you unless you really drill them down.

By admitting your fears and weaknesses, your audience will feel that you are like them; and people like those people who are like them.

2. Admit your mistakes

Similar to admitting your fears and weaknesses, most people do NOT want to admit their mistakes to themselves and to others. You don’t want to admit your mistake and so do I.

Let’s talk about admitting mistakes to OURSELVES first.

When something goes wrong because of a mistake we committed, don’t you think it’s better (even though it’s hard for us to take deep down in our hearts) to admit and acknowledge that we’ve made a mistake, learn from it and get better, so that we don’t make the SAME mistake again in the future?

After all, we humans LEARN from mistakes. It’s not like we’re foolish enough to commit the same mistakes over and over again. This is especially true if the mistake we made causes SEVERE pain and discomfort. We definitely don’t want to make the same mistake again.

Now let’s talk about admitting mistakes to OTHER PEOPLE (including your audience).

Most of the time your audience (at least your TARGETED audience anyway) are NORMAL, AVERAGE people who are going to make the SAME mistakes (related to your niche) that you’ve made in the past.

If you tell them HONESTLY and DIRECTLY about this - that you’re just another normal person like them and that you’ve made the same mistakes in the past - and then you provide them with tips and solutions on how to overcome these mistakes, then they’re going to CONNECT with you.

And when you CONNECT with them, it’s SO MUCH EASIER to sell to them.

3. Empathize with your audience

When I FAIL to achieve what I wanted to achieve (not just in my online business), I feel down and depressed, like the whole world is going to come down on me.

Till this day, I still “fail” from time to time.

Okay, maybe “fail” is not an appropriate word to use in this case. A more accurate word to use is: till this day, I still do things wrongly from time to time.

Let me be honest with you…

NO expert or guru knows EVERYTHING about their field! If they claim they do, it’s because they’re embarrassed and they want to look cool in front of you.

Instead of becoming the “you-know-it-all-guy” like all your competitors, why not do the EXACT OPPOSITE and empathize with your audience and tell them that you also face the same problems when you’re starting out. Tell them you understand where they’re coming from. EMPATHIZE with them to CONNECT with them.

STOP telling them how cool you are and that you know everything!

4. Stop boasting about how great you are

I’ve said before in my last post that you need to STOP boasting how great you are.

Though it’s important that you need to stamp your authority as an expert in your marketplace, the way to do it is NOT to BOAST about how great a person you are.

To stamp your authority, you let your audience know what you’re doing - how you failed when you first got started, and then move on to how you eventually found solutions to overcome the problems, and how they can do the same.

Stamp your authority in a way that lets them know that you’ve been where they are now, that you have the skills and expertise necessary to help them overcome their problems.

Boasting about your Ferrari, million dollar yacht, and how you go the playboy mansion is not the way to do it. People don’t like arrogant creatures.

If I get into a conversation with someone who keeps boasting to me ALL THE TIME how cool he is with his Ferrari and big mansion, I FEEL like punching him in the face.

Don’t you?

5. Entertain and educate

While most marketers talk about the importance of educating your audience with useful tips and tricks that they can use, there is another important “aspect” that is even of an equal or higher importance.

And that is - Entertaining your audience.

No matter who you are, no matter what your background is, and no matter what business you’re in, you LIKE and LOVE to be entertained.

This is why entertainers get paid a lot of money for what they do. Look at singers, actors, actresses, comedians, and TV reality shows. These people earn insane money.

Compare them with educators (teachers and professors).

I’m not saying that you want to entertain your audience all the time. After all, we’re in the business of teaching and selling information products.

What I’m implying is that you should ENTARTAIN AND EDUCATE instead of just educating all the time. Mix in your PERSONAL stories (even those that are not related to your industry) so that people can get to know you better.

Stories are very POWERFUL elements that you can and should use in your business to attract your audience’s attention and build a CONNECTION with them.

I’ve shared 5 ways on how you can become a LIKEABLE person in the eyes of your audience. Remember to apply them in your business and in your personal life so that you become likeable.

When you’ve learned how to be a likeable person, you can sell your products and services MUCH EASIER. I’d like to hear your thoughts about what other LIKEABLE characteristics that one should possess (that I haven’t covered above). Do leave them in a comment below…

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A lot of beginner and intermediate marketers make the HUGE mistake of trying to create NEW business ideas or concepts to work from because they think that by creating NEW things, they will attain ADDITIONAL revenue. It’s like “multiple streams of income”, so they say.

(my Internet business school tip though, as you’ll see below, is the TOTAL OPPOSITE…)

For instance, it’s very common to see people jumping from one business opportunity to another, or hopping from one niche to another, BEFORE they actually achieve any kind of decent results in their current business or current niche.

The reasons why people do this are three-fold.

First, like mentioned above, they “think” that by entering multiple businesses and niches, they are going to have multiple streams of income.

Second, they CONCLUDE that the niche or business they are currently in is not profitable since they’ve “tried everything” for 2 WEEKS and they haven’t seen any results yet. They BLAME and find EXCUSES that the problems lie in the business or niche, rather than admitting they themselves are the REAL problems.

Third, they are bombarded with emails and social media messages about the “killer” power of the new info product that’s just been released by some guru. The overly-hyped sales letter motivates and inspires them to believe that by getting this info product, they will ALL OF A SUDDEN discover the “secret magic button”, and all their problems will be solved and they will start making money instantly.

The above reasons are why A LOT of people fail to earn any money online.

As entrepreneurs, we like experimenting with new ideas and concepts.

Doing the same thing over and over again every day is just plain BORING, and we don’t like that at all. We want to get out there and discover NEW ideas to implement. We don’t want to go through the same old, boring cycle. We want NEW concepts to work from. This is our entrepreneurial spirit and it’s hard to change and suppress it.

However, if you take a look around at most of the successful people - since we’re all in the Internet business field, let’s just talk about that for now - most, if not all, are very FOCUSED on what they’re doing.

They do NOT create NEW concepts or ideas to work from. They monitor and tweak EXISITING things that they currently have.

When you create new concepts or ideas to work from, you do NOT have LIVE, REAL data. You start from SCRATCH (a complete standing start). You might have a little direct response marketing skills or copywriting skills or any other business skills, but you still do NOT have live, real data regarding how your new concept or idea is going to perform.

In other words, you are literally BLIND when you start something new.

When you track and tweak EXISTING things or metrics, you have LIVE, REAL data of how you are currently performing.

How many visitors are there per day?

Where do these visitors come from? (so that you can better focus your time and effort on those traffic generation methods that work the best)

What is the squeeze page conversion?

What is the sales conversion?

What is the stick rate of the continuity program? Why are people leaving?

These are questions that can be answered when you monitor and tweak your EXISTING business so that your business INCREMENTALLY improves on a CONSISTENT basis.

(YES! You should not expect your business to become successful overnight…)

Can you start to see why tweaking and improving an EXISTING business that you currently have is MUCH MORE POWERFUL than creating a NEW business from scratch?

The SAD thing is: even after people know about this very important principle, they still try to create NEW things instead of improving EXISTING metrics.

It’s really weird.

They know that action A will produce BETTER results than action B, yet they still CHOOSE to do action B.

And there’s a good reason for that which I’ve mentioned above.

The reason is that tweaking existing metrics in their current business is plain BORING, and creating new things to work from is EXCITING. Entrepreneurs like exciting, new things and hate boring routines!

So how do you solve this problem?

To solve this problem, you must FOCUS on your END GOAL and let is suppress your entrepreneurial spirit!

Think about the wonderful and cool things that are going to happen to you when you have a successful business. Imagine in your head the financial freedom you’ll enjoy, or the thoughts of not having to answer to your boss anymore, or about the red Ferrari you’ve been dreaming of driving, or that posh house that you’ve always wanted to live in, or maybe the feelings of envy and respect from your close friends and family members…

FOCUS on your END GOAL and always let it motivates and inspires you so that you do what you NEED to do instead of what you WANT to do.

Be BORING! This Internet business school tip has saved me from falling deeper into the rat race and helped me quit my day job.

(by the way, if you’re interested in learning more how you too can REPLACE YOUR JOB on the Internet, my Get Profits Fast GOLD Coaching teaches you how in a STEP BY STEP format…)

What do you have to say about my Internet business school tip? Let me know your thoughts below…

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There are 2 primary ways on how to motivate others, namely via pain and reward.

Pain means if you do NOT get the job done, or if you do NOT achieve the target, you’re going to get punished.

Reward means if you get the job done, or if you achieve the target, then you’re going to be rewarded with some kind of prize.

Which do you think is a more powerful force in motivating people to get the job done (or in other words get them to achieve their targets)?

The answer is PAIN, although there are some people who are going to be more motivated at the thought of receiving some kind of reward. Most people, however, FEAR pain more than they like receiving reward.

Let’s talk about reward

In general, humans can be divided into 3 categories:

1. People who MAKE things happen

2. People who WATCH things happen

3. People who SAY “what happened?”

Imagine you’re the sales manager for a large corporation. Sales have been slow for the last few months, and you want to motivate your sales team so that they can sell more products.

You say to them:

“Okay guys, sales have been slumping for the past few months and management is very unhappy about it. We need to drastically increase our performance by closing more sales and to do that they have come up with a very attractive compensation package.

If you can make 30 sales a month (that’s just 1 sale/day), then the company is going to give you an ADDITIONAL commission of $20/sale - that’s EXTRA money on top of what you’re currently already getting for each sale.”

For the first category (people who MAKE things happen)

They are optimistic and INTITIALLY they’re going to be excited about this extra commission and will probably go all out to make sure that they get the biggest commission possible.

I say initially because most of the time people can’t endure temporary setbacks and they expect to see instant results.

Even for this first category of people, who are deemed as possessing the best attitude compared to the other 2 categories of people, their perseverance and will is NOT strong enough and they’ll typically give up before achieving any results.

Only a very small minority of people can handle failures and setbacks well, and these are the people who will eventually achieve success.

For the second category of people (people who WATCH things happen)

They are FAR LESS optimistic as the first category. They are a LITTLE bit excited about the possibility of earning extra commissions, but not as excited as the first category of people.

They’re afraid that if they try to go all out they will fail, and/or they’re afraid that the company will not keep up its promise of giving extra commissions. They do NOT want to be the first one to go all out.

They must see and witness OTHER PEOPLE going all out, succeed, and receive the extra commissions first before they want to go all out themselves.

Their thinking is along the lines of:

“Rather than wasting my time on something that may not be achievable, let’s just wait if other people can achieve it. Even if they can achieve it, the company may not keep its promise by honoring the extra commissions. If someone can actually do it and get paid the extra money, then I’ll go all out. But until then, let’s just wait and see.”

For the third category of people (people who SAY “what happened”)

These people are oblivious to what’s happening around them. They don’t pay attention to what’s going on and they don’t really care.

Only when GOOD things start to happen to their co-workers (getting the extra commissions in this case) do they start to ask “what happened”?

Let’s talk about PAIN

Earlier I said that pain is a greater motivator than reward when you want to ask somebody to do something that he doesn’t want to do.

In the extra commission’s example, reward (the extra commissions) was used to motivate employees to work harder to increase sales.

If, instead of using a reward, you use PAIN to motivate them by saying:

“Okay guys, sales have been slumping for the past few months and management is very unhappy about it. We need to drastically increase our performance by closing more sales and to do that they have come up with a punishment system.

If you can’t make 30 sales a month (that’s just 1 sale/day), then the company has no choice but to fire you immediately.”

Now, how do you think your sales team will react?

Yup, they’re going to be both angry and scared at the same time. Angry with the company for setting such strict measures. Scared because they’re afraid that if they can’t achieve 30 sales/month, they’re going to lose their jobs.

(…this means no income - who is going to feed the family? Who is going to support them?)

In this case, all three categories of people - those who MAKE things happen, those who SEE things happen, and those who SAY “what happened” are going to be WORKING THEIR a** off! This I can guarantee!

BUT…

A better and greater motivator would be to use PAIN and REWARD together, like this:

“Okay guys, sales have been slumping for the past few months and management is very unhappy about it. We need to drastically increase our performance by closing more sales and to do that they have come up with a punishment system.

If you can make 30 sales a month (that’s just 1 sale/day), then the company is going to give you an ADDITIONAL commission of $20/sale - that’s EXTRA money on top of what you’re currently already getting for each sale.

However, if you can’t make 30 sales a month, then the company has no choice but to fire you immediately.”

Used together, PAIN and REWARD becomes a LETHAL combination to “force” someone to do something that he or she doesn’t like.

How can you use this in your internet business?

Set a pain and reward system in your Internet business. If you succeed in achieving your goal, give yourself a reward. If not, use SEVERE pain to punish yourself SEVERELY.

Example:

BOLDY tell your close friends and family members (especially those who have been ridiculing you that you should stop dreaming of making money online) that you’re going to achieve X amount of income from your Internet business.

If you succeed, of course you’ll be happy with all the extra income you’ve gotten - this is the REWARD.

If you fail, then you’ll be very embarrassed (especially with those who have been ridiculing you all this time) - this is the PAIN.

This is exactly how to motivate others and yourself.

What do you think? Have you ever used PAIN and REWARD to motivate yourself both in business or in life? Let me know in a comment below…

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We Internet marketers buy a lot of products to help us in our business. I’m talking about information products and software.

Let’s say I’m a beginner who wants to learn about building a profitable Internet business. I will go out there and buy an internet marketing product that teaches me how to do what I want to learn - and that is to build an online business.

(Sure I can get free information about building an Internet business by searching on Google, but this will take me A LOT more time and effort as I need to weed through the good and accurate information from the bad ones…)

If I want to do a monotonous task over and over again, I’ll buy software that will help me do this.

So buying information products and/or software that will help us in our business is definitely a good investment.

The point of this article is not to argue about this.

The point is to remind you that before you buy any products, make sure you take the following factors into consideration first:

1. Do You CURRENTLY Need It?

There is no point in buying a product that you CURRENTLY do not have a need for. You might say that you’re going to buy now because of the special one-time-offer discount or early bird discount, but trust me, you’re going to forget that you’ve actually bought the product when the time comes to actually use it.

I’ve been a victim to this a lot in the past and still fall victim up to this date (although the frequency is a lot less now).

Suppose you’re a beginner Internet marketer trying to learn what domain and hosting is, and how to use an FTP program to transfer files from and to your server. It’s useless to buy an information product that teaches you how to JV (joint venture) with other established marketers because these marketers are NOT going to JV with you.

FACE IT. It’s a FACT!

Come on, put yourself in these established marketers’ shoes. If you’re a respected marketer and a newbie comes along and proposes that you promote his new, unproven product, would you do it?

The answer is of course: NO!

Therefore, a beginner should NOT buy the product that teaches how to JV with other marketers because he does not need it NOW. It’s going to be useless for him NOW.

If, however, I’m an established marketer CURRENTLY looking for ways to extend my network and get as many JV partners as I can, then yes I CURRENTLY do need this product and could possibly buy it if other criteria explained below are met.

Always assess your current situation to determine whether you need the product now or not. If you don’t need the product NOW, then do NOT buy it now. Buy it later when you need it later.

2. Are You Buying Based On Your Emotions?

The answer to this is of course “YES”!

As bad as you don’t want to admit it, YOU buy based on your emotions. Me too. So is everyone else.

Remember that sales letters (especially sales letters for information products and Internet business related software) typically contain A LOT of HYPE.

This hype is designed to send your emotions through the roof so that you’ll be “hypnotized” to buy the product in question.

The point here is NOT to ask you to COMPLETELY avoid using your emotions when buying products, since it’s almost impossible to do that (because of the fact that we are humans).

The point is to LESSEN your emotions when you are making a buying decision. Realize and understand that the sales letter for the product you’re eager in buying most likely contains A LOT of HYPE and therefore you should control your excitement.

Face the fact that 99.99% of the time, the product is NOT going to be as good and amazing as the sales letter makes it out to be.

When you can tone down your emotions, your buying judgment becomes a lot better.

3. Who Created The Product?

This is also an important factor to consider.

Do a Google search on the product creator’s name in quotes. For example, if the product creator is Welly Mulia, you go to Google and type in “Welly Mulia” (in quotes).

If no results show up, then DO NOT buy the product because the product creator has no previous track record and do not have a reputation yet. It would be a lot better to buy from someone who has a proven track record, or at the very least has an online presence of some kind.

If Google results show up when you run his name, check out the websites that show up.

Does he have a blog? If yes, spend some time browsing his blog and find out if he really is the real deal. Check out the quality of the blog posts. Observe the comments on his blog posts. See the Alexa rank for the blog to get a general idea of how much traffic the blog is getting.

What are other websites saying about him? Use common sense and your own discretion to judge whether he really is the real deal or just another scammer.

The more results Google return the better, as this will allow you more references to do your research.

If your research indicates that he is an honest product creator who knows what he’s talking about, then his product is probably worth buying.

(…but do NOT buy the product just because he’s an honest product creator; remember to also use the other 2 criteria explained above when making buying decisions)

The Takeaway:

The next time you want to buy an information product or software, make sure that you go over the 3 criteria above first.

If the product passes ALL 3 criteria, then you may go ahead and buy the product in question.

Remember, the internet marketing product must pass ALL 3 criteria; if it fails to pass even one of them, then you should NOT buy it.

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In this post, we’re going to take a look at how to use reciprocity marketing in our business.

But before that, let’s take a look at what the word “reciprocity” means.

Reciprocity, taken from Wikipedia, means:

“The norm of reciprocity is the social expectation that people will respond to each other in kind-returning benefits for benefits…”

In simple English terms, it means that we, as human beings, have a tendency to respond to other people the same way how they treat us.

If Bob is kind and nice to you, you feel the need to be kind and nice to him. Barring some exceptional rare cases, it’s just human nature to react that way.

I say barring some exceptional cases because there are a few rare people out there who do not appreciate the kindness other people are showing them, and instead of returning the kindness back, they simply do nothing, or worse, they return back with ill intentions.

However, today’s post is about the former - which is to return one’s kindness back.

Let me give you an example of reciprocity in action in our everyday lives

Let’s say your birthday is around the corner, and today you accidentally meet your long-lost friend, John, whom you’ve never met in 10 years.

John still remembers your birthday, and on your birthday he gives you a birthday present.

What do you do?

If you’re like me or most people, you’ll most likely feel happy and have a sense of guilt at the same time. Happy because your friend still remembers your birthday even though you guys never met for 10 years. A sense of guilt because John has just given you a birthday present and you feel the need to reciprocate - you want to give John a present back to express your gratitude.

Reciprocity In Business

In our business, if we use the power of reciprocity correctly, we can attract more customers and hence make more sales as a result. The way to do this is to give away for FREE cool and high quality content that other people would normally charge.

Who do you give away to?

Your subscribers, prospects, customers, and blog readers.

Give away unconditionally and expect NOTHING in return.  Even though deep down inside you’re expecting them to reciprocate by buying your products in the future, now is NOT the time to think about: “What can I get from these people? Will they buy my products?”

Trust me, just give away UNCONDITIONALLY and the rest will take care of itself and everything will come NATURALLY.

During the initial stages when you’re giving away cool, high quality content all the time, you’ll most likely not see any results. Your efforts will SEEMINGLY go to waste. But I promise you, your efforts will not go down the drain.

(…even if it were to go down the drain, you can still repurpose the content in other ways so your precious time and effort in creating that content will not be wasted)

Give it time and be patient

All your efforts will pay off in the future when you start to gain momentum. It’s just like a snowball going down the mountain - initially the snowball is small and moves at a moderate speed.  As the snowball falls down the mountain slope, it picks up more snow and therefore falls faster. In the end, what started out as a small snowball turns into a GIANT snowball.

Your marketing efforts are the same. You need to give it time to pick up momentum. NEVER EVER expect instant results!

As a sidenote, the power of reciprocity can also be used “wrongly”. An example in the Internet marketing or Internet business world is where the marketing gurus scratch one another’s back by cross-promoting one another’s products.

I’ve talked about this before, which is called “Crazy Guru Promo Emails“.

Basically Guru A promote Guru B’s new product that has just launched on a massive scale; and the next time Guru A has a new product that is going to be released, Guru B will return the favor by promoting it.

Please note I’m not against promoting products. What I have a problem is these gurus promote products without even reviewing the product being promoted first - they just do it for one reason, and that is so that their next product can be promoted by the guru whose product they’re currently promoting.

So what’s the takeaway for today’s article?

Answer: Use reciprocity marketing in your business and give away for FREE high quality content that your competitors would normally charge. This will make your subscribers, prospects, customers, and blog readers feel indebted to you, which will in turn make it easier for you to ask something back from them in the future in the form of asking  them to buy your products.

Let me know your thoughts and comments below…

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