Desire, Faith and Action

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Desire, faith and action.  At the core of any success story, whether it be, someone who is a CEO of a major company - to the stay at home mom, who is successfully raising her children.  You are sure to find these three core necessities.

We can all achieve success in life, it's just a matter of doing it.  I heard somewhere once (can't remember where or when, but I'm not clever enough to think this up) that "we all know what to do to achieve success in our lives...it's just a matter of doing it".

Those are pretty powerful words.  Say them aloud again - "we all know what to do to achieve success in our lives...it's just a matter of doing it".  You might be saying to yourself that if this were true, everyone would be successful in life, it was just as simple as doing what you know needed to be done.

This is very true...however what happens is, most people don't...ACT.  Action is the key.  You need to have the desire, you need to have faith that it will work - but if you never take action you will never see results.

You must take action.  Even if you are unsure of yourself, even if you think..."well maybe this is the right way to do it" you need to get your butt in gear and just do it!  Nike was on to something with that slogan in the 1990's...to bad I was too young and foolish to realize just how powerful that slogan was...I'm sure they knew it however.

Alright, its Saturday and I'm sure you have better things to do then read a blog by some dude - I just wanted to get this information out there and let people know that having the desire - faith and then taking the action are the three keys to success...notice not once did I mention money.  You don't NEED money to be successful.  I started my online career with literally nothing - and now I am working full time from home, setting my own hours and taking control of my life - how I want to do it.  All because I took action!

If you haven't already, I would love to have you sign up to the right of this blog and get your copy of my free report...Time Management Myths...Busted.  In this report I bust four of the major myths of time management, and being able to break down these mental barriers will help you take the action you need to achieve success.

What do you plan to get accomplished this weekend?  Leave a comment and let me know!

If you like what you have read - please visit my facebook fanpage (box to the right of this post - must be logged into facebook) and click the like button so you can be assured to get constant updates, as well as free content daily - Cheers!

Time Management = Freedom!

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Freedom!  Contrary to popular belief, I am not writing this so I have an excuse to include the always entertaining Mel Gibson into a blog post (ok, that may play a small part), but the real reason I'm writing this post is to outline how proper time management can give us freedom.


Time is a crucial part of our lives.  Now, I know that seems like a "duh" statement to say, but it needs to be said, because as a society we waste a large amount of time every day.  Below, I'm going to list a few time management techniques that, if applied will help you with your day to day activities...

1. Make a plan - Make sure that you have a clear and concise plan for what you are going to do, before you do it...this way when it's time to take action there will be no hesitation and you can accomplish your goal in the most efficient manner.
2. Try not to overwork yourself - I know this can seem tough, with our busy lives, but it is important to only schedule time to do, what we can.  In other words don't schedule 11 hours worth of work in a 4 hour time frame, you will just get stressed, and the work that will be completed will more than likely be sub-par.
3. Do not start a new project until your current one is finished - This one is a biggie.  Make sure you complete a project before starting a new one...again, make sure you complete your current project before beginning a new one...this is incredibly important, and you will find, that when you do this you will not seem over-worked and you will loads more free time.
4. Try not to duplicate your work - Don't cover the same ground twice, this is a waste of time, so make sure that what you do is correct the first time.  Also, this will give you a great sense of accomplishment knowing that you are always doing quality work!
5. Do not be afraid to delegate - This is perhaps one of the biggest time savers of all!  If you do not have time to finish everything...delegate.  This will give you a tremendous amount of free time, and you can still feel good knowing that your project or errand still got completed.

These are just a few time management techniques that you can start to implement into your life to help you create more free time or...FREEDOM!

I also have a free report where I bust the four major myths of time management...if you are interested just fill out the blue form on the side of this page and you will get it delivered to your email inbox...free of charge!

Thank you for reading - and I promise that tomorrow's post will have zero Mel Gibson references in it...maybe.

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Giving Awesome Value to Your Readers

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Value - everyone says it, but what does it actually mean?  Let's break it down shall we?

Basically, value is when person "B" sells something to person "A" that is worth more to person "A" than the money they paid for it (I know, complicated economics being learned here today right)?

Alright, your probably saying to yourself - Steve, you are an idiot.  Everybody knows that, but what truly is value?  Well, as internet marketers our job is to deliver value to our readers, not just sell them stuff - whether that be on facebook, our mailing list or newsletter, or in an awesome, fancy, cool looking blog like this one :)

First, lets look at some internet marketing techniques that don't deliver value to our readers (and at the same time make you look like an a-hole):

• Spamming links - I can speak for almost everyone (and I say this because this method does not work - at least not long term in this business).  Posting something on twitter or your facebook wall like - Dude, this guy made $123,456,789 dollars in one weekend using this free traffic method - get on board now!
• Scamming people - this one should seem obvious, but how many emails do you get in your inbox that say something like "work from home and make $90,000 before Christmas!  These guys are assholes and are taking advantage of people who are in a bad place by selling the dream, not the product - if you do something like this you will be ruining your good name, and good luck making anything in this business if you have a bad name.
• Selling BEFORE you provide value - As marketers, by definition we sell shit.  However, we need to give people a reason to want to buy from us, as well as give them good value before we try to sell them...build a relationship first.

Here a few marketing techniques to help you deliver value to your readers - and in the long run help you sell to them, and feel good about it.

• Build a relationship and trust.  Get to know them, and allow them to get to know you.  I give everyone on my mailing list my home - personal email address.  They gave me theirs, so it's only right to give them mine.
• Make friends.  Know your readers personally.  Visit, and comment on their blog - fanpage etc.  
• When it is time to sell them (either your product or someone else's) make sure it is a GREAT product that provides them value (remember the person a and b above).  You can ruin your reputation by selling them some crap, and there is a good chance they will never buy from you again - make darn sure what you are selling them works, and is worth their time and money.
• Be true to yourself.  This is important in life, just as it is in online marketing.  Be yourself.  I created this blog as a reflection of me, I'm not trying to be someone I'm not - this blog is me, if you like it great!  If not, well then we probably wouldn't work well together anyway.  
• Give free stuff to your loyal readers.  I give away some good information here on my public blog, however the real crown jewels are in my newsletter.  I do this because the people took the time to sign up for the newsletter - therefore they are loyal to me, and I OWE it to them, to deliver good value and free products and information to help them...help you readers, don't sell to your readers...this will pay huge dividends.

Obviously, there are more tactics than this.  I just came up with these off of the top of my head (I know, I should be more organized) however my morning coffee hasn't kicked in yet - so there is a good chance that I'll be adding to this later on (I'll let you know when I do).

Become a newsletter subscriber and get free, valuable stuff...woohoo!!!

As stated above, I pride myself on delivering value to my loyal readers - especially those on my email newsletter.  If ya sign up before this weekend, not only do you get an awesome eBook written by Chris Farrell (Voted the internet's #1 Internet Marketing Provider) but a cool 26 Video Course - All of this is free and there is absolutely no catch - Just click and play.  So if you want to be given some great, valuable information, I suggest you check these out before I am forced to remove them.

Thank you very, very much for reading, and have a great day!  (Also, I drew the picture above...just like that Da Vinci guy huh)?

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The new name in search engines...facebook?

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Those of you who subscribe to my newsletter - I have already touched on this slightly, but I decided that I will  go ahead and make a full fledged post on the subject...facebook internet search.

Alright, show of hands, who here has heard of Google?  Alright, show of hands, who here has heard of facebook?  That's what I thought...everybody - unless your reading this in a coffee house or something, then you might look like you want to ask your computer a question if you raise your hand for apparently no reason...and you may be escorted out of the coffee house for "being weird".

Well, are you aware that there is talk in the facebook camp of putting an internet search feature on their site?  I mean heck, they already own the most traffic in the world...and they were the fastest ever to 50 million users (they had 50 million users faster than the internet did).

The talk is, that facebook wants to put an internet search feature on their site.  Facebook has recently revamped the look and interface of their site, with new profile and fan page settings.  In case you are unfamiliar with a fan page - or the new layout you can view mine here.

What makes this upcoming change so unique, is that it will incorporate a "like" feature in the search engine results.

Let's say for example you search for...the best kind of deodorant.  You plug that into Goo...sorry facebook and it will show the results - but next to the results it will have "56783 people like this" helping you choose which site is best.

Now, for the common browser and internet user, this is great!  However, for us internet marketers and seo experts, it is one more thing we have to worry about...in other words you can expect almost every page/article/blog post to say something to the order of..."please like this page" or "like me" or "if you don't like this page I will stab you with a butter knife and cause an infection in your arm"...I can see all of these being possibilities.

So folks, change is coming.  It may not be today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not 7/15/2013...but mark my words the internet is changing and they way we use it is changing right along with it.

Thanks for reading...oh and "please like this page" - hey at least I didn't say I was going to stab you with a butter knife!

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The power of FREE...

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In today's post I am going to discuss something that's pretty cool...the power of free.

We all know about free stuff don't we.  You know that if you sign up to someone's email list, you usually get some pretty cool stuff, which is free and that's great (by the way I offer some of this radical cool free stuff too in case you were wondering) however this is not what I am talking about in my post today.

What I am talking about is how "free" is taking over business...not just internet marketing, but business as a whole.

I do however, want to give credit where credit is due.  I read a post about this on Chris Farrell's membership site where I am a member and thought...hey this is pretty cool, I think I should share this...thank you Chris.

Anyway, did you know that movie theaters are considering lowering the ticket costs for movies...yep, that's right.  How low you say?  You probably guessed it, FREE!  Movie theaters are actually considering making their movies free to get into, and just raise the heck out of the costs of the concessions...so now your $7.00 tub o' popcorn will cost like $25.00 (just guessing, but probably close).

So now if you sneak your own snacks into the theater (you would never do that right)?  You can go and watch the latest Vin Diesel flick with you and your significant other...for free!

Look at companies like Google and facebook.  You have probably heard of at least one of them right ;) they don't charge you one thin dime to use their service.

However, if you want quick, targeted traffic to your blog post or website...you can buy ads, which is how they are worth Billions...that's illions with a B.

The power of free is really starting to take over, and I think that it is something that needs to be recognized so we can all take advantage of it

Oh yeah, and get free stuff by signing up to my newsletter ;)...sorry for the plug, but I am an internet marketer after all.

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Free Stuff...Score!

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I don't usually write more than one blog post per day...time just doesn't allow it.

However I was given access to some cool stuff today and distributed it amongst the subscribers to the Niche Notes newsletter.

Among that free stuff is an internet marketing eBook, and a complete (free and sales pitch free) webinar by Chris Farrell.  If you don't know who Chris is, he is one of the top internet marketers today, and a friend of mine (sorry for the name drop).

Anyway, I have been getting good reviews from my subscribers and I feel I should let everyone that reads this blog know that if they want this free stuff they should sign up for the Niche Notes newsletter and they will be directed to a download page where they can get the free eBook and free webinar.

Also of note, I will say that this webinar has no sales pitch to it whatsoever...not even a small one :)

Alright, I'll shut up for today, I just figured I'd give everyone a chance to get these free items while they last...just don't tell any of my current newsletter subscribers ;)

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Creating Viral Videos

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The story caught my attention on Yahoo News Headlines. I saw this video clip on YouTube when it was freshly featured. The views were barely less than a thousand then. I showed it to my kids using my iPhone. They loved it.

5 days later, the Yahoo news reported 7 million views. I then checked out the video again and saw 15 million views. As I write this article, the video is now 17 million views. That means it's getting 2 million views a day!

The YouTube video is called "Volkswagon Commercial: The Force".

First, let's understand what this video is all about:

-- The video is a TV commercial for a new VolksWagon model.

-- It is obviously produced professionally with talents and props.

-- No mention of product benefits or features at all, just branding.

-- Definitely not a high budget production. No Special effects. (It can be easily recreated in your bedroom, kitchen and garage)

-- The VolksWagon Channel has 130 videos, all less than half a million views. (except for one recent video which is riding on its current popularity)

So now the BIG question is... what made it viral?

Let's analyze 3 points from my video marketing notes.

1. Is the video entertaining, informative or educational?

The video is entertaining, a little informative and not educational. At least I am informed this car starts with a remote control. The small Darth Vader is certainly entertaining. Without facial expression, the body language tells the whole story.

2. Is the video riding on a hot trend?

Is there a trend on "Darth Vader" and "Star Wars"? No trends found on Google Trend and Yahoo Buzz. However, there are 135,000 global Google monthly searches for "Darth Vader". 1,220,000 for "Star Wars". The video is targeting a huge market.

3. Is It featured on YouTube Home Page?

The video WAS featured on the front page as part of a Super Bowl Campaign. I doesn't matter if VW paid for it because the other ads did not get 15 million views. I had one video featured before and I know how it feels to get a million views. Getting featured or spotlighted on YouTube is great exposure.

Personal View

I am one of the contributors to the success of this VW viral video. Volkswagon did not pay me to do it nor told me to pass it on. The moment I saw it, I showed it to others because I "liked" it. THAT's the essence of a true viral video... a life of its own.

There's one other thing I suspect though. This video is highly targeted at Star Wars fans. Star Wars fans who once were boys. I admittedly am one of them.

1. Original Star Wars Music

The music sounds original to me. Even if it was remade, it still sounds exactly like the movie. It triggered pleasant memories as a fan of Star Wars. It would not be the same if it was some other soundtrack.

2. A Star Wars Fan Will Always Be a Star Wars Fan

I became a Star Wars fan as a kid. I still watch replays of Star Wars movies. I have Star Wars games on my iPhone. Of course I like the light saber sound effects.

3. Did the Same Thing as a Boy

When I was a kid, I did what the boy did in the commercial. That made a strong connection with me. I waved my hands and things never moved, to my disappointment. Today, I will please my kids using some remote control.

So that's my analysis of a successful viral video. Remember, you cannot make a viral video till it becomes one. Volkswagon posted 130 YouTube videos before one made it.

Aspire to make a viral video with more than a million hits? Start shooting and posting quality YouTube videos daily.

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