To quote Peter Finch from the iconic 1970's film "Network": I'm
mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!
There are so many lies, half-truths, and misguided misinformation
out there about online marketing that it's driving me crazy!
I just finished reading yet another ebook by yet another
"successful" Internet marketing guru. It kills me because the
only thing most of these gurus are successful at is selling
themselves and their "snake oil" to unsuspecting business people.
They don't know squat about marketing a business on the Internet.
But they do know how to push buttons. So these self-proclaimed
"experts" LIE to you just to sell you their latest crap… books,
tapes, and seminars or whatever it is they think they can get
people to buy.
(Hell, I wouldn't be surprised is someone out there isn't selling
the "Color by Number Marketing Kit" that comes with its own
crayons!)
These gurus make it sound sooooo easy to make money online. They
say stuff like, "You don’t need a computer connection" or "You
don’t need any experience," or "You don’t need a lot of money."
According to them, you don’t even need a brain! You just need to
BUY THEIR PRODUCT and you'll make a gazillion dollars online in
30 days… or less.
If you believe in that crap, you need to have your head examined!
I got news for you, Bucko. Marketing is work… and successful,
bring-home-the-big-profits marketing is HARD work.
That's because marketing isn't a crapshoot or a game of chance.
It's a business. And just like any other LEGITIMATE business, you
need to invest time, effort and energy to make it grow into a
successful enterprise.
And it even takes even MORE ENERGY to maintain that growth and
manage your success for the long term.
Now it's definitely true that the "wonders" of technology make it
easier to succeed with an online business than a retail store.
And even a one-person operation can utilize email,
autoresponders, and the Internet's global marketing capabilities
to grow rich.
But although it's easier online, it’s still work.
I know it's work because it's the work I do! I am the mentor for
the some of the most super-successful websites/internet business
people on the planet. I'm the behind-the-scene the guy, helping
"little" businesses that are generating $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 a
month and "big" businesses with annual revenue figures of
$1,000,000.00 and MORE.
There's one thing they have in common: they all agree with me
that it takes dedication, commitment, and hard work to reap the
benefits of selling online.
Simply put: you get out what you put it. My clients aren't at the
top of their industries by just pure dumb luck. Their upwardly
mobile climb takes ongoing dedication, forward-thinking, and
careful planning. Their success demands creativity, persistence,
specialized knowledge, a quality product or service… plus good
old-fashioned, shoulder to the wheel and nose to the grindstone,
hard work.
Of course, having a mentor helps, too!
So right now, I'm going to mentor you and tell you the facts
behind the big lies told across the Internet by the gurus of
"make believe," not marketing.
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Big Lie #1: You don’t need ANY money to get started.
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That’s just complete B.S. If you're flat broke and one paycheck
from homeless, you’re gonna have a very tough time making it. Of
course you need money to get started. Whaddya think… your smile
is gonna pay the rent?
Now you don’t need a lot of money to succeed online, it's true…
certainly less than it would take to build and open your own
Widget Shop on Main Street. But you do need some operating
capital… and it stands to reason that having a large bankroll
couldn't hurt.
When your pockets are fat and your budget can include more money
for "smart" marketing, you'll be able to see (and enjoy) the
results of your efforts even faster.
In short, it takes money to make money.
It takes money to educate yourself… to research the
marketplace... and to develop your product or service.
It takes money to get a domain name, it takes money to host your
site. It takes cold-hard cash to hire a designer to program your
site and a copywriter to write a killer sales letter for you. You
even need money in order to get a merchant account so you can
accept the money your website generates.
And most importantly, it takes money to DRIVE traffic to your
site.
Yeah… I know… I know! There are all those "free" traffic-
generating ideas that you can pursue. I do a lot of them myself…
but I don't trust my success to traffic I can't control.
Most of the time, it costs me money to drive quality traffic to
my site, and it will cost you, too. Could be Pay-Per-Click, could
be running an ezine ad, could be doing some sort of offline
promotion….
But the bottom line is -- you need to have a bottom line.
Especially in the beginning, your cash-flow will be in one
direction: OUT.
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Big Lie #2: You don’t need a list.
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This is almost as ridiculous as "you don't need money." Give me a
break. Sales aren't made to the man in the moon… they're made to
people on your list. People you have carefully cultivated and
"primed."
You need to build a list because your money is IN the list!
You need to build a "herd" as quickly as humanly possible… but
don’t purchase one of those deals where you "GET A MILLION EMAILS
ON ONE CD." (That's not a list -- that's spam-in-the-making.)
And don’t do the co-registration deal. With this approach, where
people go to a site to subscribe to a particular newsletter that
they want, they find a checkbox (or other response mechanism)
"advertising" your offer. If they're interested, they check the
box to agree to receive mailings from you.
This sounds like a good way to get traffic because unlike spam,
you've been given permission to make contact. The problem is
these people don’t know you from squat. To them, the checkbox is
just an invitation for another form of spam.
The online sales game -- any successful sale, in fact -- is about
connecting with the right buyer and make the right offer. The
right buyer comes from the right list.
The best approach to list-building is strictly OLD SCHOOL: build
it from scratch. That way, your list people are "pre-qualified"
from the start. They KNOW you right from the beginning. They want
to hear from you. They want to learn more from you. They want to
listen to what you have to say.
And with a list of people like that, it doesn't take long before
they'll want to BUY from you
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Big Lie #3: You don’t need a product or service.
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Crap. Crap. Crap.
Let's try a little role-playing game. Pretend you and I were
thinking about starting an offline business together. What if I
said to you, "Oh, don't worry… all we need to do to succeed is
open our store. We don’t need any products or services. But we'll
still make oodles of money!"
You'd think I was crazy, right?
Well, then why in the world would you believe the same line of
crap when it's being fed to you on the Internet by some expert
whose credentials can't be verified?
Commerce is all about products and services and if you want to do
business, you NEED a quality product or service to sell.
Preferably multiple products and services so that you can back-
end sell your existing customers and increase their value to you
exponentially by turning them into customers for life.
Do I hear you asking, "Dan, what about those super-affiliates who
are making a lot of money promoting other’s products and
services?"
That's a good question because yes, there are some exceptions to
this rule. But the list of exceptions who do well with someone
else's product or service is very short. Plus there are a lot of
potential risks to being the middleman.
For example, let me ask you this: what if that company you’re
promoting products for go out of business? What if they change
their products? Where does that leave you?
The answer: High and dry.
And I can’t even begin to tell you how many affiliate "horror
stories" I've heard. It's common to hear about vendors not paying
affiliates on-time. Or to learn that customers may bypass the
affiliate link, so you don’t get paid.
Vendors tracking software screws up, there are "technical
difficulties" so you don’t get credited for the sale… and on, and
on, and on.
And here's a killer: more often than not, you don’t get to keep
the customer, they do. Many affiliate programs are set up so
that you only get credit for the first sale a consumer makes.
After that, all the profits stay with the vendor.
They keep all the back-end profits.
And when they back-end sell their products and services, you
don’t get a dime. It doesn't matter that your links are making
the vendor rich. The effort is yours, but the profit is theirs.
When it comes to my income… I'm a control freak! But affiliate
programs are out of your control. Your financial well-being is in
someone else's hands… and there's nothing you can do to manage
your success.
You can't test different things on your site because it’s NOT
your site. You can't change what's not working because it's not
yours to change. All you can do is cross your fingers and hope
for the best…
Hardly a recipe for success, I think you'll agree.
I am not saying you can’t promote other peoples products, but
very often you should do it as a back-end, not front-end. You
front-end your own stuff, and you can back-end other products and
services.
There's still one more problem with promoting other people's
stuff: when you stop promoting, your income also stops. You have
to constantly be on the lookout to find the NEXT red-hot product
and constantly be inking the next great deal.
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Big Lie #4: You don’t need any experience.
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Of course, you need experience to succeed online! The only job in
the world that doesn't need experience is "virgin."
If you want to make money, you need to get hip as quickly as
humanly possible. You need to figure out what works, what
doesn't, and how you can use all the "tricks of the trade" to
build your success.
That’s why having a mentor works. Working with someone who's
"been there and done that" can save you time and money.
Your income can only grow to the extent that you do. You must
educate yourself… and you must be open to the process.
Be prepared to make mistakes, try new things, and push yourself
beyond your safe, secure comfort level. Do whatever it takes to
earn your Masters at the School of Hard Knocks. Learn your
lessons and develop the skill sets you need to make the kind of
money you want to make.
On this season's The Apprentice, Donald Trump put two teams in a
head-to-head competition: book smarts and street smarts. You
don't have to play for one team or another, you can take the best
of both worlds for your success strategy.
It pays to be educated and street-wise. Knowledge comes from
books… and experience.
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Big Lie #5: You don’t need any technical knowledge
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This really is more of a medium-sized lie. It's definitely true
that you can be a master online marketer even if you don't
programming, HTML codes… and all that stuff. (Hey, you can watch
television without understanding how it works!)
However… while you don’t need to know the how-to, you DO need to
know what needs to be done and what YOU need for your site. If
you don't, you're as "at risk" for being had as a 17-year old car
owner who visits the Bad Guys Auto shop.
I'm the first to admit that before I got smart, I was screwed-
over and taken advantage of by several dishonest webmasters. They
did a lot of unnecessary programming and sent me a hefty bill.
They charged me a lot of money and gave me crap.
I definitely overpaid… but I didn't know any better. But you can
be damn sure I rectified that situation with a little "quick
study."
I found out for myself that it doesn’t hurt to have a little of
technical knowledge. If you're familiar with basic HTML -- at
least when you want make changes to your site, you can do so
instantly.
There are many things that only a programming professional will
be able to do for you. But it's nice when you don’t have to go
to your webmaster and pay them per hour for a fix that could
easily be a do-it-yourselfer.
If you're the "exception that proves the rule" and are making
money hand-over-fist as a super-marketer, you may disagree that
the four big lies are lies at all. Congratulations on your
success… but take it from me.
For the average… even the above-average person… online marketing
is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a business and you have to
treat it like a business. So if you're not yet rolling in dough,
but would like to be part of the Internet moneymaking machine…
Don’t buy into all the hype. Think it through. Use your common
sense. Don't try and get rich quick or you may find yourself in
the poor house! BUT… you CAN and you WILL make money if you’re
willing to do what it takes.
Dan Lok
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