Interview with an eCommerce expert – Mark Mathis

Posted by Jim in Creative Ideas, Hot Niche Markets, inspiration 29 comments

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Mark has dozens of successful eCommerce sites in a bunch of “inch wide / mile deep” niche markets and I just spent over an hour with him on the phone as he spilled the beans on how he does it. The full interview and more details are at this link.

You’ll love how stable and easy to get into this biz model is. He uses drop shipping for product delivery, and he’s not the expert on the products he sells. He does virtually NO customer support himself either. His model is very slick and very scalable.

If you have any questions about eCommerce sites please leave a comment! You can ask questions here on my blog and Mark will help answer them (use the comment button at the top of this article)!

“Results”: The scary word gurus never use

Posted by Jim in Creative Ideas, inspiration 3 comments

Spread the painful truth ->

Among the experts in my industry claiming to teach “internet business success” there are a lot of games being played and I’m ticked off about it today.

Here’s how to cut through the insanity and decide who to listen to (and who you really should ignore). Even some of the “good guys” are wasting your time while cashing in. It’s a sad fact. You can decide if you think I’m wasting your time as well – I hope not, but I’m about to give you some pretty stiff standards to use to measure ANYONE in this industry.

Some (note: many or most) of the really popular internet business experts out there have amazing personalities, and know how to get your wallet open,  keep your attention and sell you stuff…but they lack one important thing: RESULTS.

It’s a stubborn fact that they don’t want you to know. With that in mind…

Here’s how to pick an expert online business teacher (hold me to the SAME standard please!):

• Do they actively allow and encourage their customers to interact with each other? I can name only a handful of online experts that do this. It’s a big career risk that few of us are willing to take. Most “experts” keep their customers away from each other (unless they all gather at a big “Rah-Rah” rally where the message is tightly controlled).  FACT: I have two very active forums with thousands of members saying ANYTHING THEY WANT TO SAY about my products, my training, and me. My blog comments are further evidence of this.
  

• Does your “online business expert” supply you a steady stream of RESULTS BASED success stories? I personally don’t care how much someone “likes” their expert or how “helpful”, “kind”, “patient”, or “thorough” they are. I could have THOUSANDS more testimonials if those counted.   There’s only ONE way to measure how good the expert is.  How many people are putting dollars in the bank because of what they are being taught? Make your expert prove it. After they PROVE IT then start paying attention to what they are trying to teach.  You want a coach that gets results, not one that makes you feel warm and fuzzy just for being in the room. Don’t be a sucker. Learn to read testimonials with a VERY critical eye. If an expert sold their last business program to 2,500 people (that’s a SMALL launch) a few months ago and now they only have 4 or 5 quality RESULTS BASED testimonials what does that tell you? USE YOUR BRAIN!  (I don’t do big launches and yet I have hundreds of testimonials on this blog, on offlinebiz.com, and on mysilentteam.com. I have more links I could give you as well, but you could spend HOURS reviewing just the pages I’ve just given you. Often we have to imply results because of FTC rules, but you can see that it’s no accident that I’m the most trusted marketer online by reading through these stories.)
• Are they doing this stuff or just teaching it? Trust me, most of them are just selling it…not doing it. The rare few that are “doing it” often have such a tightly run business with so many working parts and advantages that it’s nearly impossible to duplicate their results. (I only teach what I’m doing or have done successfully. It’s how I’ve built my reputation.)
• Are they consistently promoting big launches? If so, you should know that 90% of these launches are totally useless from a results standpoint.  Demand to see the success stories from the LAST BIG LAUNCH before you open your wallet. (You’ve seen my take on “big launches”. It’s actually quite a popular blog post if you are interested in reading it. “How to be a rich Internet Guru in 4 simple steps“)
• Have you been duped by a sense of accomplishment? This last one is only for really smart people.  Put on your thinking cap and be honest.  Is your expert’s step-by-step system aimed at GETTING RESULTS, or just at avoiding refunds? It’s human nature that we feel good and enjoy a sense of accomplishment when we complete a series of steps…but how much money is going into YOUR bank account as a result of your effort? The ONLY measure of success after applying business training is one simple word… PROFIT. If you lack self esteem or need a new sense of accomplishment or need some lessons in reality then please leave your wallet at home and set about helping people less fortunate than you…don’t spin your wheels and spend your money following a step-by-step business system that builds nice looking websites while getting REAL results for only 3 out of 1,000 people.

Sometimes truth looks and feels like a rant, but I value you enough to give it to you straight. If this article turns you off from working with me then it has done its job – saving us both the heartache of a clash of worldviews that would have come eventually and wasted time for both of us. Please go buy the next big launch you see hit your inbox and write me when you’ve made your millions so you can tell me that I’m the real fool here. I look forward to it.

In the land of reality however…

I’m hearing RESULTS BASED success stories almost daily from readers of my books and blog and members of  the two membership sites I run at MySilentTeam.com and OfflineBiz.com. That is without me even asking for it – they just pop in constantly.  It’s not my brilliance that is doing it either…it’s the amazing teams we’ve built and the helpful community associated with anything I do online.

Sure, I run my sites with a profit seeking motive, but I’m learning just as much as I’m teaching.  In my heart I know I’m here to teach other parents how to be able to earn money from home doing what they love so that they can be parents first and not J-O-B slaves. That’s my big “why”.

Your action step:

I’ve decided to make a focused effort to get even more success stories posted where they can inspire and motivate my casual readers to jump in and take purposeful action.

I need your help.

Are you succeeding in any way with my “stuff”?

If my blog, membership sites, books, coaching etc.  have helped you and you have a RESULTS based success story to share with me I’d love to personally talk to you about it AND I’ll help coach you to the next level LIVE ON THE PHONE! Drop me a note in the blog comments (link at the top of this page) and I’ll contact you at the email address or phone number you leave me. Don’t worry -  I won’t publish your personal info – it will just be between us until we have something you are willing to share publicly.

If you have feedback about this blog post please leave it as a comment, but I must warn you…I’m not in the mood for B.S. today.

I have the urge to share my official FTC disclaimer today as well as a nice way of wrapping this one up…

Your comments and feedback appreciated as always.

A 3 year old teaches business lessons!

Posted by Jim in Creative Ideas, Finding Cutomers, inspiration, reputation and influence, Traffic Generation 6 comments

Care to retweet? ->

Have you ever watched a young kid play with a door? Most kids find doors (the bigger the better) fascinating.

Open, close, open, close, open, close…

What makes them so fascinating?

I have a theory – see if you agree:

Even as kids we love to see big things move with only a tiny effort required. There’s a powerful feeling that comes from it.

That business principle can make you rich.

“Leverage” is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite words in business.

Leverage (my definition): Gaining significant advantage by creatively choosing the right tool, strategy or partner for the job and then applying minimal effort to achieve substantial results.

Kids just get it…minimal effort…big results (that’s why they whine).

I’ve come to realize that the greatest business opportunities available to me are NOT the opportunities that I strive to pursue on my own by brute force and individual effort. That approach is like chopping down a tree with my bare hands.

Instead I seek out opportunities to apply a small effort to the right tool (or idea) at the right time in order to propel my business forward exponentially. Better yet, I find other people that have the skills that I lack and then put them to work (in partnership) building something that benefits everyone involved.

A story is told about the legendary entrepreneur Henry Ford that drives home this lesson VERY well. While being interviewed, a reporter was attempting to corner Mr. Ford by asking him a series of highly technical questions. Mr. Ford quickly found his answers to each question by picking up the phone and asking his most qualified partners and employees for assistance. He told the reporter, “I don’t need to know all of the answers to run a successful company. I have people around me to answer these questions so I can concentrate on steering the ship.”

I would argue that the best leaders (presidents, CEOs, pastors, Mayors etc.) are not the people that are full of vast amounts of education, training and personal knowledge that they continually draw from to make decisions. Instead, it’s the leader that has the best “team” that is best suited to lead.

Want some modern examples of leverage from my business?

• A very recent example. OfflineBizCards.com just launched. It’s a new website of mine that didn’t cost me a dime to build or a minute of my time to launch…but it’s providing a great service to my customers, and it’s making me money. David Frey built the site entirely for me and GAVE it to me. Why? Because my large customer base at OfflineBiz.com NEEDED a service like this to help them grow their businesses. David is leveraging his relationship with me and offering a valuable service to my large OfflineBiz.com customer base. I benefit by getting a percentage, and my customers benefit by getting a great leverage tool of their own. All parties involved are applying leverage in this scenario.
• Any given day I can drop an email to any or all of the tens of thousands of people that have opted to receive my educational and informational email messages. I sell things too – but only things that I fully stand behind because I know they are potent, relevant, and fairly priced. I’m using email as an email powertool (perhaps the BEST business leverage tool ever invented)
• If my newsletter and membership websites were based entirely on MY personal knowledge of business they’d be far less useful (borderline useless), but instead I pull in partners and customers that “get it” and together we build a community based on relationships and combined knowledge. Now that’s something worth paying attention to!
• I love “ebooks” because of how easy they are to leverage. Customers can order (with the push of a button) and instantly get access to the book – even if it’s something I wrote a couple years ago. I applied effort once, and achieved massive ongoing results. That’s leverage.
• This blog article (writing ANYTHING online actually) is a tool of leverage. Years after I’ve written it, it will still be working for me…drawing people to my site, my brand, my products etc.

How are you using “leverage” in your business? How else have you observed others using it? Have a question or comment about any of this? Click the comment button above to see what others have to say, and leave your own ideas as well.

Working from home starting to make sense?

Posted by Jim in Creative Ideas, inspiration 48 comments

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I’ve been encouraging people to find “home based” income streams for years now. I used to be in the “crazy minority” on this topic, but now more than ever there are great reasons to seek out home based income streams.

What questions do you have about leaving behind a “real job” and trading it in for home based income?

Insurance, benefits, risks, opportunities, discipline etc. What concerns do you have?

Let’s have a discussion. You’ll find the readers of this blog are quite helpful and creative. This is your chance to ask your questions and get good answers. Use the “comments” button to post your questions or replies to others.

Ask or answer any of these types of questions:

• What opportunities are out there?
• When do you go from “Part time” to “Full time”?
• What are the benefits of working from home or starting your own business that you’ve discovered or look forward to?
• What are the disadvantages (if any)?
• What questions do you have about it?
• What’s keeping you from working from home?
• Where you surprised by any aspect of the change when you left the “real work force” for a home based job?

UPDATE: Two days after this article was posted the comments and discussion are fantastic! Be sure to check it out by clicking the comment button at the top.

A “free marketing” success story: Wampler Pedals

Posted by Jim in Creative Ideas, Finding Cutomers, Information Marketing, inspiration, Leadership & Influence, reputation and influence 2 comments

Yep – that’s a video of Brad Paisley talking about my partner/friend Brian Wampler’s guitar pedal.

Brian’s stuff is worldwide, and he is now “big time” with what started out as a small passion. Here’s our story as it appears in my 101FreeMarketing.com book:

“For several years my guitar playing buddy Brian and I worked on houses together fixing up junkers using loans and investment money from our parents. He had serious construction skills. I mainly did “grunt” work.

Neither of us enjoyed this type of work, but we were trying to supplement our income so that we could each work on our true passions online. Luckily for us we stopped buying houses and started focusing online!

His true passion was guitars and more specifically, the tiny niche market of “guitar pedal mods” (if you’ve never heard of “guitar pedal mods” don’t worry – it will all make sense in a minute). Working together on houses gave us time to talk…and those talks helped each of us establish what can now easily be considered “online empires”.

The theme in many of our talks was “the power of the word free” – and it wound up working out great for both of us!

Ten years ago, bands in the Indianapolis area all knew that there was one guy locally that was “the man” when it came to making a guitar pedal produce sounds way cooler than they were supposed to produce. Musicians call these guitar pedal “mods” and Brian was “the man”.

Brian would tediously work weekends and evenings on one guitar pedal at a time for band buddies and local musician friends. He made a decent side income charging for his services, but he was “trading a few dollars for a few hours” and neither of us would ever settle for that.

As my Internet career began to take off slightly ahead of his, Brian and I had several conversations about how he could use his unique skill to grow a real business around his passion driven niche.

Enter the “free content”.

Brian began taking digital pictures and documenting the process he used to modify various guitar pedals and turn them into the valuable “mods” that his local fans were enjoying. He turned these “digital courses” into PDF files that could be easily downloaded or printed and mailed to his increasingly eager fan base. Inevitably, each course that he produced and distributed would lead to more questions, more followers, and more fans of what he was trying to do. The more he distributed this free and inexpensive content online, the more his fan base grew. The demand for his guitar pedal “mods” and manuals and other related instructional material began to steadily increase to the point where he had to hire help to meet demand.

Although I’m sure Brian isn’t the only guy in the world that can crack open a guitar pedal and modify it with a soldering tool, I am sure he’s the only one that took the time to document the process and then give the information away in order to grow a raving fan base of people that “get it”.

His reward?

Dozens of the top musicians in the world now use and rave about “Wampler Pedals”. He has his own brand on store shelves around the world, and has worked with some of the most talented musicians on the planet that now rave about his custom equipment.

You can now get the full story at WamplerPedals.com and see where Brian’s passion and the word “free” have taken him lately.”

Leave me any questions or comments!