Mindset

Apr 09 2016

Born For This

Last night was the fourth stop on the book launch tour for Chris Guillebeau and his new book “Born for This” at the Eureka Building in Irvine. I’ve. been following Chris for a while and bought his program on maximizing your frequent flyer miles. I guess because I bought one of his programs, I got put on the gift list for a pre-publication copy of “Born For This”, with typos and poorly phrased sentences included at no extra charge. (That’s what the letter said. I just thought it was cool to get a pre-publication copy.)

Then, to my surprise, on the release date I received a free copy of the released book. I wasn’t about about to miss someone a chance to go see somone who works that hard to keep their raving fans raving, So, when he was in town, I was there.

The Main Presentation

Harry Campbell of theRideshareGuy.com (see page 149 of the book) lives nearby in Huntington Beach, and he showed up too. Harry looked a little surprised that someone in the audience actually applauded when his name was mentioned. I’ve been following his blog for a while and am quite impressed with how he has actually turned it into a full time business. And, I am especially impressed since he only started it about two years ago. So, yeah, when his name was mentioned, I thought some polite applause was appropriate.

Chris did a nice slideshow presentation that summarized and complemented the book nicely. I can’t really do it justice here. Just try to catch him on the tour.

In the question and answer session, I commented to Chris that “The nice thing about being in a cage is that you get fed regularly.” a metaphor for being trapped in a job by the fear of losing your steady income. I felt very proud of it and Chris even mentioned that he would like to use it at some point in the future. (You’re welcome to it Chris, just credit it please) But he pointed out that you can start with a side hustle – it might even turn in to full time business like Harry’s did. He also pointed out that entrepreneurship may be more secure than a job. Frankly, I know hes right about that. I’ve been there before. I crashed and burned and have been afraid to fly ever since. But the reality is that I was more secure with multiple sources of income through my business that I am with a single employer. To be fair, I have several side hustles going on now and my real problem is that its really hard to grow them while having another job that takes up most of my time.

Chris, being the author of “The $100 Startup” and the founder of “The World Domination Summit” is a superstar in the blogging and entrepreneurial communities, but Harry is more approachable. He’s doing well, but not so well that he is swarmed by people when he shows up to an event. There was a ring around the table as Chris was signing copies of his book, but only five or six of us around Harry. For me, Harry’s talk about what he did to get his blog going was more valuable that Chris’ talk. (Ok, Chris, you created the whole thing and you brought Harry. Its not that I don’t love you and the book, its that my problem right now is TRAFFIC.)

The Rideshare Guy and Traffic Tips

Funny thing, when it was Harry’s turn to talk, he stood on the floor rather than getting up on the stage. He said he preferred the “baby stage.” When you can drive 500,000 page views a month, its time to step up to the big stage.

Now, Harry picked an opportune time to start his blog. He said he searched the internet and didn’t find anything like it, but there were already about 100,000 drivers on the road. My guess is that somebody out there somewhere HAD started something, but hadn’t taken the action to really get it going. Regardless, rideshare was still young, and its good to get on the train before it leaves the station. But massive action is crucial, and Harry clearly took action. This wasn’t the first blog that Harry had done, he had maybe six projects before that had not succeeded, but at least they honed his writing skills.

The key to building traffic, he said, was thinking about where his target audience hung out and going there. So, for example, Lyft and Uber had online forums for their drivers. Harry also found that the customer support wasn’t very good, so he made a point of finding the right answers to the most common questions and posting them in his blog. Then when people would ask about it, he would give an answer that he had written about it in his blog and include a link.

I had an opportunity at the end of the event to get a picture with Chris and/or Harry. For some reason, I was taking pictures instead of getting them taken. I think I have a fear of looking like a groveling groupie, but a picture or two would be better for the blog.

Takeaways

1) Life is too short to be doing work you hate. Search for a combination of Flow, Joy and Money in your occupation. Persistence is important, but don’t be afraid to change course if it isn’t working. (I think this really should be persist in taking action, but don’t be afraid to adjust your course) Buy Chris’ book for more details.

2) If you’re starting a blog, you need to put some boots on the ground to get traffic. Don’t expect it to start flowing from Google. Write regularly, but promote more regularly. Go where your potential fans will be and help them. Let them know where to find you. They will start to follow you.

3) Get over your stupid fears and take action. Get pictures with all the people you meet. Get video for that matter. Don’t let the risk of appearing awkward stop you. In the future, when you become hugely successful, they will appreciate being able to say they knew you when…and having photographic proof.

4) Go to events. Meet people. Network. You will be inspired and it will help you create more. Plus, the connections you make will be crucial to help you in whatever you do.

Dec 09 2015

There’s No Easy Money

I get email all the time asking me” “How can I make money fast on the internet?” The answer is: “You Can’t.”

Yes, You Can Make Money Fast

No, you can’t. Well, you can, but you can’t. Let me explain.

I have a friend that came up with a system for generating leads from YouTube. It doesn’t really matter what the system was because it does’t work anymore. The first time they put it up, they brought in 40,000+ new leads to their email list in just a couple of days. So many leads that their auto-responder service provide called them up and was going to suspend their account because of fake signups. Fortunately, they managed to convince them that they were trying something new and legitimate.

A list of genuine email addresses collected in an organic way and properly followed up with is worth between 50 cents and $1 each per month on the average. And they properly followed up and made the money that can be expected from a list of that size. So, that’s $20,000 per month, starting to come in a few days after they started.

Easy Money, Right?

Wrong.

They didn’t start out on day one, come up with this idea and start making money. They built a number of other lists first. They already know all the basics of how to build a website, a landing page, a lead magnet, a good auto-responder followup sequence. They know how all the systems work. They knew how to followup and build a relationship with the leads they got. They had a good relationship with their email provider. That took years to build.

They were an overnight success, after 4 years of hard work.

They didn’t buy the technique from anyone. They sat down, thought outside of the box and came up with something they thought would work and then tested it. And this one happened to work spectacularly. Many don’t, but this one did.

“But, I see people all over offering their systems…..”

Ok. My friend had a great system. What do you think he did with it? Do you think he immediately turned it into a product for sale to tell others how to do it? Would you?

Of course not!!

He used it and used it and used it. He cranked the handle of his money making machine until the handle wore off. Then, when it started to get harder to make money with it, THEN he decided to make a product. And of course, he pitched that product to the appropriate list and made a bunch of money with it. He had great proof that it worked because he had made a ton of money with it. The trouble is that by then, the system was getting burned out and didn’t work like it did in the beginning. It might work well enough for a buyer to feel they didn’t waste their money (If they were one of the few that actually implemented it after they bought it. Most don’t.) And that is assuming, of course, that the person who bought it already knew how to do the technical stuff that I talked about above. It certainly wasn’t going to work anywhere near as well or as easy for anyone who bought it as it did for my friend.

You might consider buying some systems to see how the work, And to think about how they might have worked at an earlier time. The most important thing is to help you learn to thing up ideas that will work before everyone else gets to them. But if you think someone is going to sell you a money printing machine, you’re just wrong.

Conclusion

Here’s what you need to remember:

If someone has a system that is making easy money, they aren’t going to sell it to you.
It takes experience and work to put a system together, even if someone gives you the framework.
Easy money comes only after a lot of hard work.

So, stop chasing easy money and start working to build your niche. Try to understand how to think up clever ideas. When you come up with one, test it out quickly. If it works, milk it for all its worth until it runs out. Its not easy money, but it can be big money if you put in the work.

P.S. There IS easy money in Las Vegas

Here is the system: Play roulette. Put $1,000 on the green “00” Let them spin once. If it hits, you’ll have $36,000. It probably won’t hit, but if it does, you’ll have made a lot of money fast. It’s easy. it doesn’t take any knowledge. Just remember to bet it all and on a single spin. The more times you bet, the closer you will come to the average payout of 94.7368%

And look, I gave it too you for free.

Oct 18 2015

Kata

In Japanese, Kata is a series of moves practiced over and over in attempt to achieve perfect form. They are often used when teaching Karate, with the student being counseled to visualize the potential enemy attacks and their responses.

Kata provides a discipline to changing your habits. That’s important, because changing our habits is one of the hardest things to do. No matter how hard we try, we often quickly fall back on old ways. And it is the old way that keep us stuck.

Kata manifests itself in Toyota Motor Corporation as a two-week improvement cycle in which every work center supervisor must improve something every two weeks. The continual practice creates a pattern that is second nature.

The need for daily repetition to create habits and change outcomes is well established in many domains. Repetition and practice are prerequisites to mastery.

You can’t go to a motivational seminar once a year and expect it to make a difference. You can’t write whenever you feel like it and expect to write the next great novel. Construct a Kata for the changes you want to make in your life and in your business and then, by repetition and practice, turn them into habits.

I believe the biggest problem most of us have in making our business grow isn’t lack of knowledge about what to do, it the inability to commit fully and pattern ourselves to make it happen.

What things do you need to do to make your business successful? What will your Kata be to make them happen?

Oct 17 2015

What’s the one big thing?

Its so easy to become comfortable. Maybe you haven’t really started your internet business. You’ve got a day job and you drag yourself through it every day. Then you come home and tweak your website layout a little bit or work on another graphic. But its the stuff you already know how to do.

Stop.

You’re keeping yourself busy. But you’re in a rut. You’re doing the easy comfortable thing. You’re sleepwalking. Success doesn’t come from inside your comfort zone. Success comes from testing your boundaries; from pushing the limits. It comes from doing “”the one big thing”. What’s the one big thing that you could do, right now, that would make a big difference in your business.

If you’ve been trying to make money on the internet for a while, you probably have a good sense of that the one big thing is for you right now.

The problem most people have is that they do something easier; something more comfortable;

For some people, they get their website setup then never ever start creating the content to fill it. For other, they won’t start doing the social media promotions they know they should be doing. For still others, its the failure to put together a product; or setup an email list; or start advertising. They may be working but they are just working in their comfort zone.

Whats’s the one big thing you need to do? Between this and other websites, you’ve probably figured out what you need to do. You probably know what the one big thing is you need to do to get to the next level.

What bit of work is the most uncomfortable? What thing that you could do to grow your business scares you the most? The answer to those questions is probably the thing you need to do. Fear and discomfort are the universe’s way of telling you what work is the most important. The things you are afraid of are the things you know are important and must be done, but that cause you the most discomfort. If they weren’t important, you wouldn’t even be thinking about them.

Figure out what the “one big thing” is for you. Then attack it with all your energy. Attack it fearlessly. Once you’ve made it routine, there will be another big thing.

The more you break down those barriers, the greater your success will be.

So start now!!

Oct 16 2015

Change your habits. Change your life.

What do you do everyday? Get up. Have coffee or breakfast. Drive the kids to school and yourself to work. Drag yourself through the day. Pick up the kids. Have dinner. Sleep. Repeat until the weekend. Then spend the two days that you own getting ready to do it all again.

Then you wonder where you’re going to find the time to get anything done that will really make a difference in your life.

Your habits control you. The environment that you let form around you, controls you.

You have to take control of it. You need to change your habits and shake up your routine.

Clean up. Get rid of the stuff you don’t need. The clutter clutters your mind. Maybe that’s the first habit you need to create.

Or write. Make sure you write for an hour ever day. Just find a corner and write. Maybe publish them on your blog. Maybe just save them up so you can use them later.

Take stock of your life. Make a decision about what you want to change. Make one small thing happen and then stick with it. Stick with it until it becomes a new habit.

For 99% of people, the thing that keeps them from becoming great is not lack of knowledge. Its the failure to start and stick with it. If you chose a direction and stick with it long enough something will happen. As I wrote yesterday, “You don’t have to start to be great, you have to be great to start” Make sure you are taking a step towards you goal every day. Even if its a tiny step.

There are days that I feel totally frustrated. It seems as if nothing that I’m doing is working. It seems as if I will never find the success that I want. But I follow Steven Pressfield’s advice from “The War of Art” – which in summary says “A professional shows up and does the work”. Well, its says a lot more that that – and you should just read it – but showing up and doing the work is a key point. And as I keep showing up and doing the work, inspiration arrives. And then strangely, little successes start arriving.

But it comes from making a habit of what you need to do.

What are your habits? What do you need them to be in order for you to achieve the success that you want?

As my friend, Claude Viens says in the title of his book, “The Most Powerful Weight Loss Device Ever Invented; The Human Brain”. He could go a lot further. Its the most powerful business building system ever invented. You won’t find it in all the programs you can buy online or all the books you can read. Its in you and you have to program it with the habits you need to succeed.