Are you building your dreams? or Are you building someone else’s dreams. Watch the video below for an important message.
Pros and Cons of Giving Samples of Your Product to Online Prospects
May 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Have you tried giving away free samples of your product or products to online prospects or potential customers? As a home business owner for nearly 8 years, I’ve gone back and forth between giving away free samples online and not doing this. There are pros and cons to both ways of doing business. Offline, free samples convert very well and are one of the main ways that I get new business. However, I have recently decided not to give away free samples anymore online. Here are some of the pros and cons of giving away free samples of your product online.
Pros
It gives people who wouldn’t otherwise try your product the chance to try it for free.
You can potentially gain new customers that you won’t get without giving away free samples.
It is an effective method for generating more leads online.
Cons
Depending upon the product, free samples can get expensive
Postage costs can get expensive and the time spent going to the post office to mail them can cost you money as well
People who get something for free are do not always value what they get.
Conversion rates for people who get free samples into paying customers are not always the best.
With many kinds of products and especially health and wellness products like I currently sell, a free sample is not enough for anyone to get any real results. They really need to try a full bottle before they can see maximum results.
Questions? Comments?
7 Habits of Highly Effective Network Marketing Professionals
April 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Do you follow the seven habits of highly effective network marketing professionals? This is a book and CD series based on the much more popular and well-known book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by the late Stephen Covey. This is a great CD set and I have to say that they have done a great job.
While the habits in this book/CD are more or less the same ones in the original book, they are applied specifically to network marketers. Also included are exercises to help you with your network marketing business.
If you need help in changing your paradigms, making sure that you spend your time on the most important aspects of your business, or anything else, I highly recommend that you get this cd set or book and listen to it or read it today.
How to Choose a WordPress Theme
April 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
How do you choose a wordpress theme? If you are like many people this can be a challenge once you begin using wordpress. There are literally thousands to choose from both free and paid. When I first began using wordpress I spent way too much time loading different themes and changing my blog themes around. The biggest challenges I encountered are:
1. Not all themes allow you to upload a custom banner and while I don’t necessarily have to have one, it is a nice feature and on some of my blogs I really wanted one.
2. Not all themes allow you to use a different layout on pages as compared with your posts and I wanted to be able to do these.
3. Different themes have different color schemes and not all of them allow you to customize and change your theme colors.
4. Some themes have places where you can install pictures, or ads but if you choose not to put them in those spots then you have no way to remove the “ad goes here” image.
5. The layout and sizing of columns as well as the number of columns you can have varies from wordpress theme to wordpress theme.
6. You can’t use a custom menu with all wordpress themes. This means that some of them don’t give you the option of creating pages and then hiding them from the menu on the home page. Since I use my wordpress blogs to create capture pages and I don’t want them all appearing on my home page, I have to have a theme that does let me have a custom menu.
All things considered, how do you choose the right wordpress theme? I recommend two things.
1. I recommend that you buy a theme. I know you can use the free ones but from my experience either the Thesis themes or Genesis which both are paid, are the best. They fit all the requirements listed and have a lot of customization and flexibility options. You can get either of them at Studio Press.
2. You can also check out woothemes which has some great ones or take a look at the WordPress Gallery from WordPress.org
If you have a wordpress blog, how did you choose your wordpress theme?
Do you make these 9 online networking mistakes?
April 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Many people when they first get started make several online networking mistakes. Then they wonder why their online networking is not working. Here are nine of the most popular online networking mistakes.
1. They fail to plan. You’ve probably heard the statement- if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This applies to online networking too.
2. They don’t have a clear target market and a plan for how they will reach the people who are in that target market. This is a must. You can’t succeed by trying to network online with everyone.
3. They don’t focus on list building. Once you have met someone online, you need to have at least one way and preferably more ways for someone to join your list. Most people won’t buy right away so dripping on them over time with a list, is crucial.
4. A lack of focus. Successful online networking requires you to focus. Focus on marketing one product or service at a time, focus on mastering one social network at a time etc.
5. Failure to really build relationships. You must build relationships before you will make much money. Think people first. How can you serve them and give others referrals and business?
6. Spending too much money on online systems and other tools. While you do need some basic tools such as an autoresponder and some online training such as MLSP you want to avoid going overboard and spending too much money.
7. A lack of consistency. You must consistency network online in order for it to work. At least 1 update daily is really necessary and you must update your blog at least once a week. You also should email your list at least once a week as well.
8. Failure to use the phone, skype and other offline tools to really connect. You can’t rely exclusively on email and the internet to build real relationships.
9. Failure to do research to make sure that what you are offering is what people want.
What other online networking mistakes have you seen or experienced? Comment below and let me know.
50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be More Persuasive
March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Are you persuasive both in your online marketing and your offline marketing? I know I try to be but I sure could use an improvement in this area. The book- Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
Here are some of the tips included in this book:
How to make people believe everything they read
How to improve your influence
When and when not to offer a bonus for purchasing something
How to avoid messages that self destruct
How to use fear effectively
Lessons we can learn from the game of chess
and much much more.
I found this book to be very interesting as well as thought provoking and I certainly plan to use some of what I have learned in my marketing.
Buy the book here. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
72 Killer Resources for Online Network Marketers
March 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
1. MLSP Free Weekly Marketing Webinars and training for you and your business.
2. Magnetic Sponsoring Mike Dillard’s free email series on attraction marketing.
3. Tweetdeck The best way to organize and track your activity on twitter.
4. Hootsuite The best tool for planning and scheduling social media updates across multiple platforms.
5. Buffer App Another place to manage and schedule updates on multiple social media platforms. Does not work with Google Plus though.
6. MLM Traffic Formula The best comprehensive course for learning and mastering online network marketing. I have it and I think it is a must have for anyone who is serious.
7. Icontact The autoresponder I currently use and I think it is one of the best for the money.
8. JV Zoo A great place for finding affilate products to promote to make extra money.
9. e-junkie The best tool I’ve found for selling and offering free info products without hosting them on your website where they can be found by people.
10. Send Out Cards The best tool for managing contacts and sending real cards online.
11. Problogger.net- The best blog for learning about blogging.
12. Ann Sieg’s Attraction Marketer’s Manifesto
13. Photo Dropper Free images for bloggers.
14. Photo Pin
More free images for bloggers
15. Stumbleupon A great social network for finding and sharing content. I get a ton of my traffic and leads from this site.
16. list.ly Find and make lists to use on your blog or with other content.
18. Snapito Full length website screenshots
19. Google Plus Directory Find people to add to your circles on Google Plus.
20. Social Media Mastery E-book My social media ebook that helps you organize your social media marketing.
22. Youtube Keyword Tool Find the best keywords to use when uploading videos to youtube.
23. Google Adwords Keyword Tool
24. Social Oomph Vet new folowers on twitter, auto send direct messages, find and manage keywords on twitter and more.
25. Infogr.am Create your own infographics easily.
26. Ubersuggest Another tool for finding keywords to use.
27. 31 Days to a Better Blog E-book
28. Facebook Like Pages Box Plugin- find inside wordpress- use to get more facebook fans.
30. Kunaki Make and sell your own audio CDS and DVDS.
31. Ideal Life Vision Use this program to help you get what you really want in life.
32. Raffle Copter Run contests and give aways on your blog.
33. Tweet Chat Find and participate in tweet chats by hashtag.
34. fbprofilecovers.com Another tool to create facebook profile covers.
35. xheader.com Download this free tool to create banners for your blog. This is the tool I used to create the banner on this blog.
36. skype.com A must have for communicating via phone and internet with people from all over the world.
37. fivver Find cheap ads, graphic designs and more here.
38. txt180.com Use this system to market to people via text message.
39. The best and cheapest way to house large audio and video files.
40. Article Marketing Plus a Comprehnsive course to help you make money writing.
41. Renegade Professional Another must have for serious attraction marketers.
42. Todd Falcone’s Script Book A great tool for knowing what to say to people when you call them.
43. List Building for Bloggers
47. Blog Monetizer
48. Twitter Profit
49. Jackie Ulmer’s Power Recruiting
52. Add to Post Plugin- search for it inside wordpress
53. Flipboard- an ipad, iphone and android app
54. Alltop.com A great site to find new blogs and news sites to read and comment on.
55. Amazon- Send to Kindle Plugin- find inside wordpress.
56. Lucky Orange A great site for analyzing where your blog visitors are going.
57. Google Analytics for WordPress- plugin find inside wordpress.
58. WP Touch Plugin- a great plugin from inside wordpress that turns your site into a mobile site when someone is using a mobile device.
59. All in One Seo Plugin- Find inside wordpress
60. Comment Luv Plugin- find inside wordpress
61. Blog Talk Radio a great site for hosting a free online radio show.
62. Adsense Now Plugin- automatically ad adsense code to your blog like I have on this one.
63. Web 2.0 Badges
64. Digg Digg WordPress Plugin
65. WPGlus Plugin- automatically add your blog posts to Google Plus
66. Studio Press WordPress Theme Paid but well worth is wordpress themes.
67. Google Drive The best place to store your documents and ideas online.
68. Meetup.com Find local groups to attend.
69. Any.Do App- a mobile app for tracking your to do lists.
70. Anymeeting.com Host free webinars
71. Pages Manager App- a mobile app for managing your facebook fan pages.
72. Copywriters Guild
A great copywriting course.
Did I miss anything that is a must have?
The 5 Laws for Effective Attraction Marketing
March 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Attraction marketing has been all the rage for quite some time now and many people have tried it and found it to be harder than it seems and some have had great success and others not so much. While I personally am still working on increasing the effectiveness and power of my attraction marketing, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Here are five laws that when followed will greatly increase the effectiveness of your attraction marketing:
1. Have a clear target market. Make it well defined and know who is and isn’t a part of your target market. This makes it much easier for you to attract the right people and it will influence how you market, what you say etc.
2. Have a plan for how you will attract people. No plan equals no people and no attraction marketing. Make your plan as specific and as detailed as possible.
3. Avoid waiting for everyone to come to you and increase your success by finding people you want to connect with and reaching out and connecting with them. Diane Hochman who is one of my mentors and a master at the law of attraction has a goal to meet 10 new people per day. These are not people who come to her, she reaches out and connects with them.
4. Always be learning and reading about attraction marketing and ways that you can make it work better.
5. Realize that attraction marketing is not an end all be all and it does not mean that you do not need to do any work.
What other observations do you have about attraction marketing?
Can’t Keep Up? 11 Ways to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing
March 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Do you struggle to keep up with your social media marketing? It can be a challenge for sure. It seems there is a new hot social network appearing at least every week and it can be hard to keep up and get results.
Here are 11 ways I have found to simplify your social media marketing and get results.
1. Have a clear plan for how you are going to use social media. This includes knowing which networks are the best for your target market, how often you will use each one, general topic ideas for posts, contests you will run, and how you will grow your audience.
2. Create a daily, and weekly schedule. Know which networks you will use daily and which ones weekly. For example, I use twitter, pinterest and facebook daily for at least 10 minutes and sometimes for up to 30 minutes when I have the time. I only use linkedin weekly, although I do schedule updates automatically that post daily. I also only upload videos to youtube once a week, although I usually will create several at once.
3. Have a blogging calender. I’ve experminted in the past with scheduling posts a month or more in advance, and that doesn’t work super well since I find that I forget to effectively promote those posts when I do that, however, I will write several at once and then post them according to my blogging schedule and then promote each post as I publish them. I personally update this blog once a week and my other health and wellness blog two or three times per week.
I also have a list of sites where I promote each post after it is published.
4. Schedule some time once a month to write a large batch of blog posts, and articles, create videos, record audios and other content.
5. Avoid trying to use more than 3 social networks on a daily basis. For most people three is more than enough. You can have profiles on others and use them periodically but three is enough for regular use.
6. Use the Google Reader to follow blogs that you want to read and comment on in order to save time and track all of your blogs.
7. Use worksheets to track what you are doing and your progress. I offer mine for free when you subscribe to my list.
8. Set up Google Alerts for topics that you want to track.
9. Use Social Oomph to automate your direct messages, and following on twitter. You can also get emails from them with keywords that are being used on twitter.
10. Use an automatic updates scheduler such as Hootsuite or the Buffer App to schedule 1-2 updates per day. You don’t want to automate all of your updates though.
11. Use tweetdeck to organize the people you follow on twtiter into lists and to manage those lists for easier, following, tracking and interaction.
What other ideas have you used to simplify your social media marketing?
Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, or the Buffer App?
March 4, 2013 by 1 Comment
One question I get asked a lot is this- “Should I use tweetdeck, hootsuite or the buffer app to schedule posts and manage by social media accounts?” This is a great question and I thought I would answer it in this blog post.
Let me start by saying that I actually use all three of them but for different purposes. Tweetdeck is my favorite tool for managing and using twitter. In fact, I rarely access twitter at twitter.com It’s too big of a mess with too much to follow and tweetdeck as you can see in the photo above lets you manage your lists and follow key people as well as your retweets, @ messages, and more in a much more organized fashion. That said, I don’t like to use tweetdeck for scheduling my tweets or for managing and posting to facebook. It’s just too complicated and I prefer to use hootsuite or the buffer app for these. So when do I use hootsuite?
Hootsuite is the best for scheduling posts at a specific time. At this point the Bufferapp does not let you choose the date for each of your posts. You select instead the times you will post each day of the week and that is it. So you can’t skip days of the week or choose the exact date when something will post. Hootsuite also lets you add up to 5 social media accounts for free and you can choose to have all 5 accounts be on facebook if you want, whereas the Buffer app will only let you have 1 account per social media site up to a total of five. Hootsuite also lets you post to Google Plus pages whereas at this point the Bufferapp does not.
As far as reports and statistics go, Hootsuite let’s you create reports and they are then emailed to you automatically, the Bufferapp has stats that appear when you login to your account and then click on analytics. The Bufferapp also sends you email reminders when you run out of updates whereas Hootsuite does not.
So in short, I recommend that you try them both and see which one you prefer. I actually prefer them both for different reasons and I am an active user of both.
Do you have a preference?
Learn more about how to use twitter.
