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Welcome to another episode of Mindset Monday - if you hadn’t guessed I’m very passionate about working with people to build the right mindset for them to succeed as the mind is often the only thing which stands between an individual and their success.  We often fall short of our goals, but fail to see the blockages which exist in our mind.

Long before Arnie was voted in a governor he said this:

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it-as long as you really believe 100 percent. ”

“I don’t mind.” - is a common phrase in society today, but there are too many people who don’t mind. As the scriptures say “A man who is double minded is unstable in all his ways.”

A person who ‘doesn’t mind’ doesn’t dream, and people who don’t dream will find themself drifting along with the crowd.  To follow the crowd may mean to miss the mark for your own life.  You cannot live out the dreams of another, and similarly no one else can live out the success of your life.  If you don’t, no one else will. No one else can be you, so be you to the best of your ability.

When you start believing in yourself then you will begin to hit your straps and find the groove in your own life success.  Your life wasn’t destined to be mediocre.  Mediocrity is accepted as the norm in society today and anyone who succeeds is considered special.  Let me tell you, ‘you are special.’  You were not created for a life of mediocrity, nor to simply sit back on the lilo of life floating on a river or mediocrity.  Your life was created with a purpose.  More than to be guided by society, but you have the opportunity to rise up and guide society.

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

-Vincent T. Lombardi

The mind is the powerhouse for success.

Your mind can be the difference between a potential success and a success.

Each and every person is unique.  Not another person who has, does or will live on this planet is the same.  Therefore you have unique dreams and desires, unique ideas that lead to a unique life.  However the extent to which your life is unique and inturn a success is determined by your mind.  While you are unique its still possible for you to choose to follow the crowd with your actions, the way you dress, the music you listen to, the words you speak, and the success you achieve in your life.  Alternatively should you choose to follow those desires and dreams, planted in your heart, you have the opportunity to be the causal factor of a dramatic change to the world.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way, but without a will, you wont!”

The Matrix - Break Free and Create Your Own Success

I love the movie ‘The Matrix’, you may have seen it, let’s look at the Matrix for a second as an analogy for you living out your life of succes.

In ‘The Matrix’, Artificial Intelligence created a computer construct (The Matrix) of OUR present day world and, through a hardwire directly into the brain, fed it to us humans who were, in reality, kept in incubators and used for their energy output as a power source for the Artificial Intelligence. In other words “reality” existed ONLY in our minds.  Everything we “experience”; everything we “do” - it’s all just a dream!

Neo was presented with the opportunity to break out of the Matrix.  An opportunity to reject what everyone knew as being normal, and step into his own reality, a destiny that was determined by his own desires and dreams.

As long as you believe in yourself, as long as you have faith in yourself, as long as you can dream the dream, then you have the ability to live out your dreams.

We are all faced with the exact same opportunity as we continue to ‘choose our own adventure.’  We all have the opportunity now to determine in our mind that we will no longer go along with the crowd.  No longer follow the ways of society and accept mediocrity as our level of life, but rise above, take the action that needs to be taken in order to see our dreams become a reality.

It all begins in the mind.  The piece of meat between your ears that has the ability to think, make decisions, and retain knowledge.  That’s where the rest of your life begins, in your mind!  Just as ‘Arnie’ so aptly put it, as long as you can ‘envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it-as long as you really believe 100 percent.’ As long as you believe in yourself, as long as you have faith in yourself, as long as you can dream the dream then you have the ability to live the dream.

Make A Conscious Decision

It takes a conscious decision.  Neo had to decide in his mind if he would continue to live in a world where no one questioned why things were the way they were, much like a world without dreams.  His other option was to break out of the matrix and live in a world where he was in control of his own destiny and the destiny of others around him.  He chose his ‘own adventure.’

Do you see things as they are and ask why?

Or;

Do you see things as they could be and ask why not?

The mind is where your dreams begin.  You must know and understand that your mind is the breeding ground for the adventure you choose to take on.  The ability to cultivate, feed and allow your dreams to grow is imperative.  A narrow mind will suffocate your dreams.  The dream is only the beginning, but the ability to dream is essential.

Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death.

Have you heard of the GIGO principle?  It’s a well-known principle in the IT world where programming is concerned.  It’s simple; the principle states “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”  It’s the same with your life.  To be successful, and to have a successful mind you must feed it with success.  Think successful thoughts, feeding the faith within you.

Your future is determined by … what you see it can be … what you want it to be … and what you make it to be.

Field of Dreams - Your Mind

Consider your mind to be like an empty field, where you have the opportunity to plant any seeds that you want.  Plant seeds of success and you will reap a harvest of success.  Plant seeds of failure, doubt and fear and that’s what you will reap.

Your mind is where you develop your beliefs and your world view.

Just for a minute do some soul searching, ask yourself a few questions:

• What do you believe about yourself?
• Do you believe that you deserve to be successful?
• Do you believe that you have what it takes to be successful?
• Do you believe that people around you are committed to your success?
• What do you believe about success?
• How will you know when you achieve success?
• What is your greatest fear?
• Where does that fear come from?

As we journey through life, often seeds which we have not planted ourselves take root and rather than producing a harvest which creates success, we end up growing weeds which attempt to choke out our success.  When we have negative words spoken over us which we take on and rather than ripping them out before they take root, we allow them to take hold by meditating on them, and giving them our attention.

Things such as fear, doubt and negativity are all examples of weeds which just have no place in our mind, but unless we understand that we have the ability to remove them and replace them with new positive beliefs and empowering thoughts we often just let them grow until they overpower the success we’re trying to harvest.

Really quickly as I finish, here are three simple steps to ensuring that your Mind, the breeding ground for success, is producing the right harvest:

1. Take Ownership Of Your Mind and Your Success

Mind your own business!  Your success is your business! Your attitude is your business!  Your life and where you take it is your business…

So take ownership of where you are at with your life and where you are headed.

If you are not where you want to be, identify the reasons you are where you are, and work out what you need to do to begin the journey to where you want to be.

If your field of dreams is full of weeds and not producing the desired harvest, begin some heavy digging, remove any undesirables and start over, but dont you dare play the blame game, you are in control, and although there may have been circumstances which were out of your control, which can be attributed to your current circumstances, its now up to you to take ownership, take control and begin to journey to your desired destination.

Take ownership!

2. Be Very Protective About The Seeds You Allow To Be Planted

You have the power to choose which seeds are planted and take root in your own mind.

While we dont have the power to stop certain seeds from being thrown out and scattered, such as other peoples opinions which they so graciously share with us, negative words spoken over us etc, we do not have to allow them to take root.  As simply as dismissing them from our mind and not dwelling on the thoughts, as well as replacing negative thoughts or words with positive thoughts and the opposite we can take control over the seeds which are planted in our mind.

Your voice is the most powerful voice in your life, so start using it.  Dont allow other people to have the most dominant voice in your world.

As well, be very careful about the seeds you allow to be sown in your mind through what you watch, and what you listen to… the media, newspapers, television, music etc.

Be deliberate about the seeds which are sown and take root in your mind.

3. Be Quick To Pull Out And Replace Disempowering Thoughts And Beliefs Which Try To Take Root

Just a you need to be careful abut the seeds you allow to be scattered or planted, if you have any disempowering beliefs or negative beliefs about yourself, about your ability to create success in your life, be very quick to remove them before they become hardwired into your belief system.

I have written about the power of confession and empowering thoughts before, but very breifly, your confession has the ability to create and cement beliefs in your mind and your heart.

On a physiological level, words you speak, must begin as a thought in your mind.  You cannot speak without first thinking about those words. And after you speak, you hear those words you have just spoken, therefor you again are forced to think about what you have just said. Double Whammy!

To create new empowering thoughts and beliefs begin to speak out positive confessions.

If you follow these 3 simple steps you will be well on your way to a harvest of success!

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This week I spent 2 hours consulting a not for profit on SEO basics and its amazing how just a small amount of knowledge in the basics of search engine optimization can go a long way.

This company is a reputable Australian company, with a Google Page Rank of 6 (which is very good for a company who knows nothing about SEO), yet they were only getting 1000 to 2000 unique visitors per month, for keywords which had quite low levels of competition.

The jury is still out as to the results they will get after just 2 hours of SEO basics but I would dare to commit to atleast double that traffic within a month or so after implementing some of the onsite search engine optmization techniques and strategies I taught them.

So for newbies to internet marketing, blogging and making money online, its really important to get a basic understanding of SEO in the early days as your build your website or blog.

What is SEO and How Does It Relate To Me?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is both an art form and a science which involves techniques and strategies in how you publish your website and web content to gain the attention of Search Engines (like Google) to assist with driving traffic to your website.

Now understand that SEO and search engine traffic should be just one source of traffic for your online business, never rely on one source of traffic to build your online business, as I’m sure you’ve all heard it said “Dont put all your eggs in one basket”.

Search engines can be quite temperamental, and if they make a change which takes you from #1 to completely disappearing from their radar and you’re totally reliant on Search Engine Traffic then your business could be in trouble, so while its important to focus on SEO and optimizing your website and content for Search Traffic, dont let it be your only source of traffic.

Google Search Engine is really the big daddy amongst a myriad of search engines, with over 80% of the world wide search traffic. So in most of what I’ll cover in this post, we’ll consider that we’re Optimizing for Google Search.

Other search engines include:

• Yahoo!
• MSN / Bing
• Ask.com
• Business.com

SEO Basics

There are essentially 4 elements to the basics of SEO:

1. Keyword Research
2. SEO Copywriting
3. Link Building
4. Onsite Search Engine Optimization

SEO Basics - Keyword Research

We have looked at the basics of Keyword Research in previous posts, when talking about optimizing blog posts for SEO and also optimizing for Google Adsense.

For general SEO, its important to do your keyword research as there’s no point guessing which keywords you think you should be targetting for Search Engine Traffic.

In conducting your Keyword Research start by creating a list of what I call Core or Root keywords.

Single keywords which you believe are relevant to your target market and the products or services you’re offering, and the topics your website covers.

Once you have a list of 10 to 20 core keywords open up Google Keyword Research Tool, make sure you have selected your targetted country - eg, Australia, United States, All countries and territories, and enter your core keywords into the keyword research tool one at a time and press “Get keyword ideas”.

This keyword research tool will then return results of which keywords and phrases people are actually searching for, when searching for topics related to your chosen keyword.

There is a drop down which is titled “Choose columns to be displayed:” Select the option “Show All”.

The keyword results will allow you to see the following:

• Estimated Ad Position
• Estimated Av. CPC
• Advertiser Competition
• Local Search Volume ‘month’
• Global Monthly Search Volume
• Search Volume Trends
• Highest Volume Occurred In

The main columns you will need to take notice of are:

Local Search Volume

This column will give you the figure for how many people searched for the specific keyword, in your targetted location in the previous month.

If the column returns “Not Enough Data” it simply means there has not been a significant enough amount of search traffic for that keyword to register.

Search Volume Trends

The search volume trends give an indication, month by month of the trend of that specific keyword.  For our research purposes we want to target uptrending and sideways trending keyword terms, as opposed to down trending keywords.

Keyword Research Tips

When identifying keywords to target for your SEO there are a number of elements you need to consider:

1. Develop a List of Long Tail Keywords

From the core keyword, the keyword research tool will list related keywords and keyword phrases.

The more specific a keyword, or keyword phrase is to your topic, business, service or product, the more effective your search traffic will be, and ultimately more profitable your business will be.

Its much better to rank well for a specific keyword phrase which has lower levels of search traffic, where the keyword is a ‘buying keyword’ or a much more specific keyword phrase eg ‘how to make chocolate cakes’ rather than ‘cakes’ - even if the core keyword has 100 times as much traffic.

2. Target Medium To High Traffic Volume Keywords

From the “Local Search Volume” column we can identify medium to high traffic volume keywords in your target market.

I personally consider medium traffic volume keywords anything over 1000 searches per month.

3. Research Competition For Search Terms In Google

Once you have your list of longer tail, keyword phrases with medium to high traffic volume, start to search on those terms in Google (make sure if you’re targetting google worldwide that you’re on google.com and searching the entire web, rather than just your country of residence).

When Google returns their search results, have a look and see how many other websites you would be competing with, on the top right of the search results page Google will tell you

“Results 1 - 10 of about 17,100,000 for keyword . (0.31 seconds)”

You ultimately want to identify medium to high traffic keyword phrases which have low to medium level competition.

I would consider low level competition anything under 100,000 websites, so aim for under 1,000,000 competing websites.

SEO Basics - Copywriting

The writing of your pages website copy should include a combined focus on writing relevant and informative copy, which making the use of the keyword phrases you have identified in your Keyword Research.

Its often good to write your website copy, or blog posts first and then go back over them to see how you can incorporate your identified keyword phrases.

DO NOT: stuff your copy with keywords, making your website copy obviously spammy and hard to read.

DO: Use plural, singular and ‘ing’ versions of your keywords and keyword phrases

DO: Mix up the locations of your keyword phrases - headings, paragraphcs, links etc

DO: Use semantically related words and phrases

A good format to use for SEO Basics Copywriting is:

• Tell the reader what you’re going to tell them - Introduction
• Tell them - body
• Tell them what you told them - overview/conclusion

SEO Basics - Link Building

Google sees links which come from other websites to yours as a recommendation for your website.

The more people you have recommending you, the more impressed Google will be with your website and believe that what you have to say is more valuable than websites which have less links.

There are a number of linking elements including:

• Page Rank of the linking website
• Link text used in the link
• Position of the link on the page of the linking website
• Reciprocal linking
• Paid Linking
• Subject Matter of Sites Linking To You

SEO Basics - On Page Optimization

SEO Copywriting is writing the body copy of your website pages to be optimized for Search Engine Traffic, for your selected keywords.

You should use the same optimization structure for your website pages as previously discussed in Optimizing for Adsense Ads.

To properly optimize a page for SEO using the long tail keywords you have identified you want to target you must position the keywords on each of your website pages in targetted positions.

Rather than religiously following percentages here’s a good method to follow for onsite or on page SEO basics:

• Use in first paragraph
• Use in last paragraph
• Use it every time you can naturally
• Bold it at least once (not everytime)
• Italicise it at least once (not everytime)
• Try to include it in headings
• Use related keywords and longtails throughout your content

Do that, ignore exact percents, and you’ll be fine.

Woah… this post escalated real quickly didn’t it… a lot longer than I first intended.

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Welcome back to mindset mondays - sorry its a little delayed and for some of you it will already be Tuesday.

Talk about busy… and at the same time I’m still reading and re-reading the ‘4 Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferris, on one hand I have a lot of activity going on in my life:

• Engagement Planning
• Wedding Planning
• Honeymoon Planning
• Building a new house
• Launching and Developing new projects
• Blogging
• Teaching and Training
• Exercise and Fitness
• Relaxation and Relationships

And I’m realising more and more how important it is to not allow some tasks, however urgent to take my focus from the important.

Segue - into today’s Mindset Monday…

What you focus on, you move towards!

This statement is not just a cliche, it’s a neurological reality.

I’m sure I’ve touched on this before but I’d like to bring you back to remind you.

If you allow yourself to dwell on the negative aspects of your life, you will only magnify them.

Let me give you a real world example:

You’ve decided you want to buy a new car… A Black Mercedes SLK convertible!

As you drive around town now, all of a sudden you see all of the Black Mercedes SLK convertibles?!

Were they not previously there and now because you’re thinking about buying one, they’ve all of a sudden appeared?

NO!

Because you’re focusing on that particular car in your mind, conscious and subconscious, both your attention and your physiology is drawn towards that car.  They were there before, but now because you have made a decision to focus your attention on them, you’re more aware of their existance and you’re drawn towards them.

So for our application in building a business, creating a lifestyle of success or achieving our goals, we must be sure to make a conscious decision to focus on where we would like to be, rather than focusing on the obstacles which are in our way.

Another real world example:

Have you ever seen something on the side of the road which caught your attention, while driving, and found yourself steering in that direction.  You found your car pulling to that side and had to correct to straighten up your vehicle before you hit the curb?

What you focus on, you move towards!

So what are you focussing on?

If your goal is to create a secondary income, which then can replace your primary income, and build a full time online business…

Are you focussing on your goals - make $100 per week, make 10 sales per week, write 5 paid blog posts per week, attract 5 backlinks to your blog per week…

Or

Are you focussing on the bills which are coming in and need to be paid, and how little time you have to conduct all the tasks you need to conduct in order to achieve the goals you’ve set?

Do you see the difference?

Its very easy to become distracted by the obstacles, and the struggles which are in play when we start to move towards our desired outcomes in life…  But when we start to focus on the obstacles and the negative, we give power to those things, by magnifying them in our view, and allowing them to have mindspace which they do not deserve.

3 Steps to Laser Focus

1. Write Your Goals and Keep Them In View Everyday

This isn’t about goal setting, but very quickly…

Goals should be:

Specific - You should be able to write down your goals in a very specific and concise manner.

The 6 W questions are often good for developing Specific Goals: Who, What, Where, When, Which and Why.

Measurable - You should be able to measure progress towards your goals very specifically, questions like - how much? how many? when will it be accomplished?

Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? “Someday” won’t work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, “by May 1st”, then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

The bible says “Without a vision the people perish” and I believe this to be so on an individual level, without a vision, or a specified desired outcome, people end up floundering, and when you’re not growing what are you doing? Dying!

So write down your goals, write down your vision (a vision is simply the articulation of a picture of your preferred future).

Break down your goals into 3 and 6 month blocks…

What do you want to achieve in 3 months?

What do you want to achieve in 6 months?

Then break those goals down into actions…

What activities do I need to do, to achieve those goals in that time frame?

Daily activities, weekly activities, monthly activities - be specific, write them down, add them to your daily ‘to do’ list.

2. Read Your Goals and Your Vision Statement Every Morning

Unless we keep our vision and our goals in front of our eyes each day, it is easy for us to get distracted by everyday information, and also the obstacles which will begin appearing as we move toward our goals.

Remember, what you focus on you move towards!

Continually focus on your goals, focus on your picture of a preferred future, keep them in the front of your mind.

As you real your goals and vision each morning, imagine your life when you have achieved those goals.  Picture yourself in that situation, driving the car you want to buy, living the lifestyle you want to live, marrying the girl of your dreams, earning the income you want to earn, impacting the lives of people in third world countries…

How do you feel? What emotions do you feel as you imagine yourself in that position…

Tap into those emotions, the happiness, the fulfillment, the satisfaction… and when you start to feel overwhelmed by the obstacles or struggles of life, remind yourself of these feelings.

3. Recap On Your Day At The End of The Day and Focus For The Next Day Coming

Its always good to reflect at the end of the day…

• What did you achieve?
• What did you do?
• What could have been improved?
• What opportunities did you seize?
• What opportunities were missed?

And after a time of reflection, turn your attention to the next day… develop your daily “to do” list the night before, as a way of downloading so you’re not thinking about all the things you need to remember the next day as you lie in bed.

If you follow these 3 simple steps to laser focus, you will find yourself becoming more focussed on your vision and your goals, and less distracted by the obstacles which try to steal our focus.

I was once told that to drive a car through a narrow space, dont look at the obstacles either side, simple select a spot infront of you and focus on it as you drive straight ahead.

Focus on your goals!

Focus on your desired outcomes!

and you will drive right past the obstacles without even a hint of diversion or distraction.

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Today I was at the supermarket buying the ingredients for my dinner, steak and vegetables… mmmmm!

Anyway, food will always get me off track, so I was in the vegetable section and something caught my attention, which is my inspiration for todays post.

Are You Just A Regular Carrot, Or Are You A Juicing Carrot?

So what the hell does that mean and what does it have anything to do with Internet Marketing or learning how to Make Money Online?

Well the story continues as I was buying carrots, and I saw a bag of carrots, pre packaged, with this label “Juicing Carrots”.

This new found revelation of pre packaged carrot specially grown for juicing started my mind ticking over and here’s my train of thought.

• Are they really any different from regular carrots?
• They look a little fatter than regular carrots.
• They’re more expensive than regular carrots.
• But are they just fatter regular carrots packaged together, and branded ‘Juicing Carrots’?

Now if you’re a grower of ‘Juicing Carrots‘ then maybe you can shed some light on this for me, but for the sake of this blog post let me walk out today’s lesson.

In the world of Internet Marketing and even business in general, if you do not stand out from the crowd, if you’re not ‘Remarkable’ as Seth Godin would say, you’re going to get left behind when the NBT (Next Big Thing) comes along.

So again let me ask you, Are you Just a Carrot or Are You A Juicing Carrot?

You may not really have anything that spectacularly different, unique or remarkable which can set you apart from the crowd initially, but what qualities or expertise do you have which you can capitalise on, brand, market and leverage to set you a part.

Back to these fat carrots…

They were nothing but fat carrots, which to me, would be the ones I would ‘not choose’ when selecting carrots for my dinner, I tend to go for the nice looking long carrots.

These were reject carrots, but someone had a fantastic idea, saw a need in the market, and capitalised with some clever marketing and packaging and created ‘Juicing Carrots’!

You might think that you’re nothing special, you might even think that you’re a reject, over weight, out of shape, left at the bottom of the pile, but I know you have a story, you have seeds of potential inside of you, but left to sit they remain seeds.

I have heard it said that “You can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the apples in a seed.”

Within you, you have seeds which need to be sown into the right soil, nurtured, watered, maybe fertilized a little, but given the right environment they will flourish to produce a fantastic harvest.

So the question remains, Are you Just A Carrot Or Are You A Juicing Carrot?

1. Identify Your Niche

• What are you passionate about?
• What keeps you awake at night?
• What can you talk about for hours?
• What expertise do you have?
• What problems can you solve?

Find your niche and begin to own it, dominate it, live it, breath it, as Gary Vaynerchuck would say Crush it!

Start a blog about it, start a facebook group about it, network with other like minded people.  Begin to ask questions which could identify potential markets in your niche.  Identify problems which need solutions and work out how you can turn your fat arsed carrot into a neatly packaged profit machine!

When you identify your niche - STICK TO IT!! Dance until it rains!

2. Brand Yourself, Your Product, Your Business

Branding is such a massive topic on its own, but it is in essence your style, your persona, your image, your language.  The brand elements are the unique qualities and elements which identify you as you, your product as your product and your company as your company.

Be remarkable, be unique, be quirky, be sexy, be appropriate to your target audience.

Develop your own tag line or call sign.

Develop some sayings which you can own and become known for.

If you have a bit of a budget, get a graphics guru like Design Guru Ryan to whip up some funky graphics and logos for you and use them everywhere!

Remember if the bag didn’t say “Juicing Carrots” they would simply be Fat Carrots, so if you dont brand yourself somebody else will.

3. Package Your Product

Whether your product is yourself as an expert/consultant, or whether you develop information products, sell affiliate products or build a mega successful internet marketing business teaching people how to do xyz, you need to learn how to package your product.

Take the Obese Carrots for example, they were nothing but Reject Carrots, sitting at the bottom of the pile until someone had an idea.

So you grab 15 of these Reject Carrots, put them together in a plastic bag, slap a name on them like “Juicing Carrots” and whala, you have a product, mind you the price for this product has now increased compared to if you bought those 15 Reject Carrots without the plastic bag and name.  Do you see the power of packaging your product?

Now i’m not necessarily talking about the plastic wrapping, I’m talking about the ‘Offer’.

How can you create a compelling offer by packaging 2 or more products together, or even shining one product up to make it appear more valuable (perceived value)?

Let’s take another real world example:

A Tie shop had silk hankerchiefs for sale in a discount box for $5 each, but they weren’t selling very well.  So a marketing specialist came along and thought, what if we spend $0.25 on a plastic hook and hang them on a nice hanger - I reckon we could sell them for $10 each.

The plan started to work, they were selling way more at $10 than they could at $5 sitting in a discount bin.

So they continued thinking, and this marketing specialist thought I wonder if we spent another $0.50 on a metal ring to put around these handkerchiefs whether we could sell them for $15 each hanging on our hanger.

And they did!

They increased the price by 300% ($10 per unit) by spending $0.75 and increased the perceived value to the customer.

How can you package your offer, yourself, your training, your expertise, so its perceived value is greater than it is now?

4. Dont Just Be An Everyday Carrot, Be Remarkable!

Everyone is trying to compete now in the ‘Make Money Online‘ Niche and whether or not they have any real world experience or scars to prove they’ve really been into battle, but now they’re just becoming another carrot.

There are now 171,000,000 websites which compete for the #1 spot on Google for the keyword phrase ‘Make Money Online‘, just another carrot in the pile.

So what are you going to do to stand out?  Whether your niche is teaching people how to make money online, or writing a make money blog or if you’re in the fitness niche or the weight loss niche, whathever it is, dont just be another blog on the pile, or website in the results of google, be remarkable.

Do something which will cause people to stand up and pay attention!

Be an innovator!

Do what no one else is prepared to do!

Go to Infinity and Beyond! (gotta love buzz light year).

And if you’re just here to make money, then you’re going to have a hard time, because money will not sustain you, only passion and purpose can sustain you.

So stop being a regular carrot, or you’ll just end up with all the other regular carrots, in a pot of boiling water.

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Whether you’re in denial and like to think that you’re not effected by this Magic Marketing Word, one of the most powerful marketing strategies which has even become a business model is the ‘Free’ marketing strategy.

For a long time marketers online and offline have used a Free offer as a hook to get people into the store, trying their product for a limited time, or subscribed to a list

I have noticed big trend in the Internet Marketing industry, with many of the big name Internet Marketing Gurus launching new products or 2nd versions of old products, and giving them away for FREE! These aren’t just digital downloads, these are full home study guide with 8 set dvd’s and 8 set cd’s and a set of printed work books.

One of the biggest brand names online, which is a household name worldwide, ‘Google’ operates under a ‘Free Business Model’ and will launch their very own computer operating system in the not too distant future, taking on the Microsoft giant with a FREE operating system.

So how can the every day Joe apply this same phylosophy to our own Online Business, blog or even MLM business?

1. Use a FREE Offer To Build Your List

Whether you have a website promoting your business, a blog which you want to build a subscriber list for or an MLM business, you can use this strategy to increase the conversion rate of visitors to becoming subscribers.

As you will see here on this blog, I offer 5 FREE Money Making Ebooks, for anyone who subscribes to my RSS Email feed.

Why bother?

Well as soon as I have someone subscribed to my RSS feed, I have their permission to contact them, and they have a much higher likelyhood of becoming a repeat reader and even a customer if I bring out my own products some day.

I have written before about the fact that the money is in the list, and how a friend of mine, talking to me about his online business, expressed that as long as he had his list to market to, he would have a business.

One of the hardest tasks online is driving traffic to your webite, blog or offer, so if you have a visitor on your site you should do everything you can to capture their details to increase the likelyhood that they will return again.

Some marketers will even tell you that with the right approach, your list should be worth anywhere from $1 to $10 per person/per month, so the money really is in the list if you work it right.

“But I dont have anything to giveaway…”

Rubbish! Can you write a 10 page report? A 6 steps to success? Can you buy some Private Label Rights Ebooks? No one has any excuse, it simply needs to be attractive enough for people to want to give you their name and email address to be able to download it knowing that they will also receive your newsletter or blog posts in the future.

2. A FREE plus Shipping Offer

To take the Free offer just one step further a lot of successful marketers have started using what I call a ‘FREE plus shipping offer’.

This simply means that they will give you their physical product for FREE, you just have to pay for it to be shipped.

On the surface this doesn’t appear all that clever, but if you understand the psychology behind it it is brilliant.

You see, while the customer is thinking about how they are getting such a great deal on this FREE offer, and the fact that they only have to pay for the shipping which might only be $9.95, they have got their credit card out, and the first barrier has been broken down.

After they’ve paid for the shipping, the marketer will then present them with a One Time Offer (OTO) or Upsell, while they still have their credit card out, and often marketers are seeing a 30%-60% uptake on these OTO’s and Upsells after presenting the client with a FREE plus shipping offer, while if they had simply pitched the product offered in the OTO or upsell they would usually get 20%-30% conversion.

3. A FREE Trial with Forced Continuity

Often the FREE plus shipping offer can include a FREE Trial with Forced Continuity and a FREE bonus.

An example of this would be a One Month FREE Trial to a print newsletter, with forced continuity, meaning that the customers credit card is billed automatically (because you already have their details from the FREE plus shipping offer) for the 2nd month of the newsletter.

This is where the big guys like Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern and Russell Brunson are making the big dollars (like 6 figures a month), giving away their products plus shipping, offering a free trial to a print newsletter or membership site with forced continuity for the future months.

The offer of something for nothing is just too good to pass up on, and if your content is valuable enough there is no reason that your clients shouldn’t remain faithful and not opt-out before you have the chance to make a dollar from them.

But when you have the ability to use the FREE hook to attract your prospect, then have them take out their credit card all in the one action, you’re in a position to capitalize on the opportunity with the right mix of products and value.

Now please dont start quoting me and saying that I’m promoting using trickery to get customers to give you their credit card details so you can profit from their naivity.

These are simply methods for honest marketers such as yourself to get through some of the barriers to converting your visitors into customers, and its up to you to have the depth of value in your offers to ensure that they remain happy and satissfied customers for years to come.

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Lets Make Money!