Youtube.com video contest winners announced

Posted by admin in Creative Ideas, inspiration, video on Nov 30th, 2009 | 4 comments

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Here are five links to the five winning videos:

video 1  -  video 2  – video 3 -  video 4  -  video 5

What a bunch of cool AND VERY SMART readers my newsletter has. Want to meet a few of them in video?

Watch these short videos for some great SIMPLE marketing ideas!

I put out a call a few weeks ago for you, my faithful newsletter/blog readers to put up a simple youtube.com video that expresses how you feel about my blog, newsletter, books, training sites etc.

…and WOW…was my wife rolling her eyes as she watched these!

Seriously though – thanks guys. Great work.

Here are the prize winners in no particular order (click the title to see the vid):

1. No video camera needed to be cool on youtube!

If the goal was to give the judge a big head you did quite nicely on this one Mr. Robert Chic.

The first 30 seconds of this submission was made using animoto.com. Animoto is free and it’s point and click simple. Check it out.

LESSON: Notice how Robert left the final phrase on screen for several seconds at the end of the video. This is a great youtube strategy because the website link is seen longer that way.

OBSERVATION: I wish I was half as cool as the soundtrack Robert picked for me.

2. short-n-sweet like buffalo meat

If you only have time to watch one make it this one.

Watch this 35 second gem put together by Thomas using ZERO video skills. He also chose to upload a few (VERY CREATIVE) digital pics to animoto.com and made a killer little video that deserve major props.

This is how simple and powerful video can be WITHOUT A VIDEO CAMERA. Along with his video he sent a heartfelt thank you note for the $12K he’s earned so far from an idea he recently learned on MySilentTeam.com.

You are welcome Thomas…and you are also a winner in the video contest!

3. Press record & start talkn’

Around here we calls guys like Jeff “good ‘ol boys” and they don’t mind it.

I really appreciate when someone is brave enough to stand in front of a camera and just talk. Thanks for the good word Jeff. Congrats on your FIRST EVER youtube video…and congrats on the prize it won you!

4. Never metcha, but I love ya!

What an honor. Dmitry Vilchitsky is a native Russian speaker now living in New York. He’s one of those guys that you’ll probably like instantly (and he has a very cool accent)…and it doesn’t hurt that he had a lot of nice things to say about me… and my book… and our membership websites!

Congrats Dmitry. Great work.

TIP FOR ALL OF US: Although I REALLY enjoy hearing long videos about how great you think my stuff is, it would actually serve YOU better to keep it shorter. The average length of time that a youtube.com video will keep a viewers attention is far less than 8 minutes. The only exception is when the topic is of great interest to the viewer.

5. “I’ll be there in a minute…”

Just an honest, specific, heartfelt review. Stay for the ending on this one.  This is powerful in its simplicity and will make you laugh with the ‘outtakes’ at the end including when Mike is interrupted by being called away from the camera while “working”…funny, and real. Thanks for this one.

Leave your comments and questions here…or go give these guys a five star ranking on youtube!

The Pre Thanksgiving Newsletter is Online

Posted by admin in Creative Ideas on Nov 25th, 2009 | 1 comment

Click here to read
In this newsletter:
===============
1. Selling info on eBay as a long term business
2. The magic button that ALWAYS leads to success
3. Quick tips:
- Honesty is very self serving
- College degree or MySilentTeam.com membership?

The magic button that ALWAYS leads to success

Posted by admin in inspiration on Nov 23rd, 2009 | 8 comments

Please click the green retweet to the right if you use twitter

If there is one common characteristic among those that I see succeeding vs. those that I see failing it’s this…

Attitude

Don’t mistake this article for a lame “rah rah” session.

It’s gut check time.  I’ve got some hard questions for you and some pretty specific observations too.

I literally don’t know ANY people that consider themselves successful in business, personal life, spiritual matters, parenting, marriage or any other area of life that are characterized by having a bad attitude.

Before you start thinking that success in these areas leads to a ‘good attitude’ consider this…

Try to think of ANYONE in your personal history of friends, family, or business associates that started out with a generally BAD ATTITUDE towards life in general and then somehow had some success and ONLY THEN started displaying an overall good attitude. I’ll bet you can’t think of many (if any).

On the other hand I can think of DOZENS of examples of people that, in spite of bad circumstances and obstacles REFUSED VICTIM-HOOD and instead CHOSE to have a good attitude about life and the opportunities in front of them and they went on to do great things and have what anyone watching could easily consider SUCCESS.

Once you’ve been in any sort of business that deals with people day in and day out it becomes second nature to identify people as having a “good attitude” or a “bad attitude”. It’s pretty obvious most of the time.

What makes a “bad attitude” so apparent?

A victim mentality, instant refund seekers, magic button seekers, quick fix short term thinkers and lifelong tire kickers really stand out after awhile.

Daily I hear from people that are MAKING GREAT THINGS HAPPEN and I also hear from victims, complainers, whiners etc. that aren’t doing much except being victimized, complaining and whining.

Which are you?

Is is POSSIBLE that your attitude might be holding you back?

What do you think? Am I on to something? Please leave a comment below…and read the comments left by others.  We can all learn something here.

You can’t afford NOT to buy a MAC as your next computer

Posted by admin in General on Nov 18th, 2009 | 21 comments

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I have a theory to share and I think you’ll thank me later.

There is a good chance that your next computer MUST BE A MAC.

This is coming from a die hard PC guy.

For me 90% of what I do on my computer involves internet access. I need a reliable computer that turns on quickly, switches from screen to screen quickly, and doesn’t lock up. It needs to be fast and stay fast. That’s all I ask.

I’ve ALWAYS been a PC guy…until recently. My last real job was selling Microsoft software to 90% PC guys and we always scoffed at the Mac crowd as being artsy fartsy.

CONFESSION: A few weeks ago I bought an iMac and I LOVE IT. No going back.

Here’s how the mac trend sneaked into our home…

I won a mac notebook about a year and a half ago (in an affiliate contest where I was so close to beating Frank Kern for the top spot) and I quickly gave it to my wife so she could blog and do her social thing online with it.  I started noticing something though…when I would borrow her 6 month, 1 year and even 18 month old MAC to jump online and do something ‘quick’ it ALWAYS worked and was ALWAYS fast.

I’m not a mac geek by any means, but fast and dependable internet access are a must. I was so impressed that I bought my own iMac.

It took me about one hour to transition over…I’ve hardly touched my old PC notebook since.

It’s nice to be able to hop into my office to check something on my iMac and hop out 30 seconds later having completed the task. That was never possible with my windows machines except for the first few days out of the box.

At some point the few hundred more dollars you need to buy a mac really makes sense especially if it means taking back control of minutes or even hours of your day. I can get so much more done in a day now that a MAC would have been worth it even if it would have costs me three times more than it did.

What do you think? Let’s chat it out in the comments…please leave your thoughts below. Am I nuts? Are you thinking about a mac? Have I convinced you?

Ten things you can do in ten minutes to make things happen

Posted by admin in Creative Ideas, Email Marketing tips, inspiration on Nov 16th, 2009 | 2 comments

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Do you ever feel like you are wasting time online? Commit 10 minutes to any of these ideas and just watch what happens next…

(Can’t see the play button above? Use the below link to the MP3 file.)
Ten ideas that take ten minutes

Links mentioned in audio:

•  blogger.com / wordpress.com
•  ezinearticles.com
•  facebook.com or twitter.com
  (if you join either be sure to follow me using either facebook.com/jimcockrum and twitter.com/jim_cockrum)
•  MySilentTeam.com (talk about this stuff with other people here!)
•  OfflineBiz.com
• eBay.com classifieds (link to my video about ebay classified ads)
• Don’t forget about craigslist.com – it’s 100% free!
•  aweber.com