What Do You Remember After Christmas?

Christmas morning comes, the kids open tons of presents and what then? The excitement is over, the mess is big, and the credit card is maxed out.

What do I remember today of yesterday's holiday? The people. My kids. The realization that my 5-year-old is very nurturing. She was very concerned that her new baby only came with one diaper--not because she wanted more toys, because the baby needed to be cared for.

Like many families of today, we are an Internet family. Much of our time is spent in the same house each on our separate computers, sometimes talking on MSN even though we are in the same home. The key is still to connect with people, especially family.

My oldest son gets this deep down in his soul. His present to me was one of time with him--online. Two years ago he got me hooked on playing an MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game). The one he plays is Final Fantasy XI. Now I have my own character again (I had left playing the game to spend more time Internet Marketing).

The two years since I last played has taught me the importance of relationships. One of my favorite marketing slogans is: People Buy People, not Stuff.

How is marketing related to playing an MMORPG? Relationships. In Final Fantasy XI, your character is out in the wilderness fighting monsters. At a certain point, you must band together with other characters (operated by other players around the world) in order to kill the monsters. This requires meeting people and working well in small groups. The connections my son has made over the last few years he has played this game have impressed me. He has gotten some business, yes, but of course that isn't the reason he plays. Still, I see playing this MMORPG will help my Internet Marketing in at least two ways: 1) It will increase my experience building relationships, and 2) It will increase my awareness of the cyber world. We live in a time where a significant percentage of our customer's time is spent online, we need to understand that culture by living it.

One last thing: Playing computer games can drain your time very easily. In fact, the makers of Final Fantasy IX have placed this warning as one enters the game.

I told myself I would not play until I got my blogging done for today. I have several blogs I write in, some I have neglected to the detriment of one of my own goals: to post 4 times per week on each blog. Well, with this motivation I've posted on each one. Now off to fight monsters!

Commenting On Blogs

One of the primary tasks of Internet Marketing is commenting on other people's blogs. Find blogs that match your niche and comment on them regularly. This should be a weekly thing. This is one of those things that is easy to do. The caveat is that it is also easy not to do. Just like posting new blog posts (which I struggle with), commenting on blogs is one of those things that you ought to do regularly, following the philosophy of The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life.

How to Comment on Blogs
When you find a blog post that matches your niche, read it. This may seem obvious, but a common faux pas in blogging is a commenter who obviously has not read the post. Read the post. At the bottom of the post there is usually a link that says how many comments there are or to leave a comment. The etiquette is that your comment must add value to the conversation. You do not want to simply put in a plug for your website. If you are commenting on a blog that allows you to enter your URL along with your name, then your name will become a link to the URL you enter. There is no need to plug your website. Simply write a sincere, valuable comment and let the link do its work.

In a college class about the literature of the Renaissance, the professor pointed out that at the beginning of this period, the world was changing so rapidly that people could choose whether to live the new way or the old. This is where the term, Renaissance Man came from, to describe someone who was embracing the ideas of the Renaissance: the importance of learning, the ideas of progress, and the improvement of life through education and innovation.

Professor Lee said that we live in such a time today, at the beginning of "The Information Age." People could choose whether to use computers, the Internet, and other technology ... or not.

This ability of choice is going away. Whether because eventually those of us born before the 1980's or 90's will pass on, or because The Information Age will permeate everything to such a degree that such a choice is impossible.

Here is an example of how today's world is very different, but at the same time, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

This statement is attributed to Boyd K. Packer, a leader in my faith. I mention it here because I want to share his description of "The Great Depression" of the 1930's:

We live in troubled times. There is great financial crisis
and we've seen something that hasn't happened in the last 60 years:
the world's financial markets are collapsing. I was six years old
when the Great Depression began: the 10th of 11 children. My father
was a mechanic and times were difficult for all of us. Many families
were suddenly out of work all at once. There were large public
projects to try and provide employment.

We today may or may not be on the brink of another great depression. No matter what you call it, things are tough. Here is another statement. This one is of one of the Internet Marketing gurus I follow, Ken Evoy of SiteSell Services:

Bailouts only delay the pain for as long as we live in a world where people (and companies) depend upon governments to bail them out and we are all encouraged to live beyond our means. SBI! is a tremendous way to set yourself apart from this mess and build a life and future that you own.

Of course Ken is promoting his product, SBI. Go beyond an answer that would make me or you money, and think about what's different now versus 1929:

• With the Internet, there is a global marketplace. I primarily mean it's big.
• We can reach customers wherever they are.
• In troubled times, people will be looking for ways to make extra money.
• Things change more rapidly than they did in the 1930's.
• Technology is introduced more quickly and adopted by the planet more quickly. Exponentially more quickly.

So what does this all mean for Internet Marketers? I say it means we have a fighting chance to put and keep our financial houses in order, and we have a huge responsibility to help others do the same.

Let me point, yet again, to the words of Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich:

The business depression started in 1929, and continued on to an all time
record of destruction, until sometime after President Roosevelt entered office.
Then the depression began to fade into nothingness. Just as an electrician in a
theatre raises the lights so gradually that darkness is transmuted into light
before you realize it, so did the spell of fear in the minds of the people
gradually fade away and become faith.

***

The business depression marked the death of one age, and the birth of another.
This changed world requires practical dreamers who can, and will put their
dreams into action. The practical dreamers have always been, and always will
be the pattern-makers of civilization.

Do not give into the fear. Riches begin with thoughts, desires, plans, and action. Whether you are seeking riches via Internet Marketing or some other vocation, believe, dream, pray, and work. You will find your reward.

Network Marketing

I used to think Multi-Level Marketing was bad. All of it. All the companies. My parents joined one and had a terrible experience, and several people pitched me over the years. Very pushy. I joined one a few years ago, and was told to be pushy.

I'm not pushy. I don't believe in pushy.

As you might read in my blog, I am an Instructional Designer by trade. I was given the assignment to develop a course of instruction that would teach people how to be successful in Multi-Level Marketing companies, so off I went to do research. I found an organization, Mentoring -for-Free, that convinced me that Multi-Level Marketing is by itself not bad or evil. There are scams and unscrupulous people, but if you have the right information you can choose a good company to join and you can find success. I joined Mentoring-for-Free, and promote it.

Mentoring-for-Free is not an MLM. It is a teaching organization that will train anyone from any company. There are even parts of the training that are relevant and open to people who want to succeed in other industries - not MLM at all. If you are interested, click the image to the right and download the eBook, Success in Ten Steps.

If you do, you will learn that only 15% of the general population likes pushy and thinks a pushy salesman is a good one.

My mentor, Michael Puskas, has as his "day job" a sales job. He has been in traditional sales full time for over 15 years. He has been very successful. He taught me yesterday that his success comes from not being pushy, but by finding the true need of potential clients and offering a sincere, valuable solution to their need. "They sell themselves," he says.

The same goes for Internet Marketing. You see a lot of hype on the Internet. Hype must work, because like spam, it would cease to exist if it didn't work. But I couldn't sleep at night if I used hype in promoting my network marketing (MLM) business or on my websites. Not only do I not like pushy, I think it is wrong. At least when it results in a customer buying something they don't really want, that isn't what is promised, or isn't what they really need.

It is possible, and in my opinion more lucrative in the long run, to present what you have to offer and let people sell themselves. If your product or service is of value, it will happen value is always rewarded. Your marketing purpose is to get potential customers to see you. You need them to see you often enough to remember you. This way, in the moment when they realize they need what you offer they will then buy you. This is the source my pen-name for this blog. I say buy "you" because people buy people, not stuff. If they are going to buy stuff they will go to Wal-Mart or Amazon.

You can get people to see you, remember you, and buy you without being pushy. Here are some sound tips to sponsoring.

Thinking Outside the Box

Some of the most profitable marketing comes from thinking outside the box. For a long time, I have not considered any Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising other than Google Adwords. However, in the Fall 2008 issue of Search Marketing Standard, they suggest that there can be advantages of using CPC services of the other popular search engines.

Speaking of MSN, Yahoo!, and Ask, they say,

"A substantial number of people out there are fiercely loyal to one of the engines and never use Google, so avoiding these traffic sources means you are missing some potential clients."

The artist in me says to only rely on traffic from natural searches via the search engines. This is because I know that valuable, original content is what the search engines reward with high rankings.

The pragmatist in me says I should also use CPC to increase targeted traffic. By targeted traffic, I am thinking that someone if more likely to click on a sponsored ad if they are shopping.

Cleaning House

One of the barriers to effective productivity is mess. At least for me. I'm known as one of those people with piles of paper around their desk. I used to find this effective because I would spend an extra day, maybe come into the office on a Saturday once a month, and go through the piles.

Those days are long gone. My desk at the office is clean compared to my old habits. There is one small pile of papers, and it's gone by the end of each week.

There is also a spiral notebook. If I need to take hand-written notes, it goes in the notebook. Usually, though, my notes go into our company's software for keeping track of our interactions with clients.

But working at home has taught me that I truly need to make a place for everything and keep everything in it's place. I need a filing system for hard copies of papers and files.

I use software to keep track of my contacts. I use Highrise from 37 Signals. This tool is for keeping track of people, entering notes of each communication, and even has tasks so you can tell it to remind you when to follow up with the person next.

I also use Basecamp from 37 Signals. This is a project management tool that is suited for a small business like mine or a large business with many projects. You can track time, show clients your progress, and upload files related to many projects.

For scheduling my home business meetings and events, I use Backpack. Backpack is a calendar that allows you to share your schedule, your ideas, and files.

With these three tools, my piles of paper and the need to go through them are a thing of the past. There are other tools out there, but these are inexpensive, and scalable. As your business grows, you can upgrade to the next level of each tool.

If you are serious about working from home, you need a place to work. This place needs to be just as formal or informal as needed to get you to actually work. With Basecamp, for example, I keep myself focused by tracking my time. Tracking my time also helps me know if I am charging the correct prices for my services.

Whether you use these tools or not, get organized, so that unlike me, you don't waste time looking for things when you need them. From today on out, I'm staying organized, using these tools and The Slight Edge.

You read a lot of hype about what it takes to make money online. Here is a gem of a description of "What Google Wants" from Super Affiliate Mindset

"The bottom line is that Google is looking for advertisers that are building a long term business & a real site off of one or a handful of domains. Google does NOT want advertisers that are launching one thin site after another, just to make a quick buck."

I think Amit hit the point squarely. Long term. Business. Not quick buck efforts. Original Content.

Period.