A journey from Internet marketing stasis to business mastery and financial freedom (I hope)

I’ve been doing more thinking than writing these last few weeks and it’s high time I caught up with my Summit notes. So here we are with day 3…

1. Rick Raddatz

Rick spent the first hour (well, maybe not quite that long) telling us a story about how he drove up to the mountains in a clapped out car and all the mishaps along the way. I think there was probably a point to the story and I’m sure there was a punchline. It might even have been funny. I can’t really remember. I didn’t write it down.

So Rick Raddatz is an audio/video guy. I had high hopes for this session but I think Rick spent too much time demonstrating his own A/V and Web site generation products and too little time explaining all the different ways we could use A/V to our advantage.

A few tips he did share:

• Ship something now and fix it later (this is a difficult one for perfectionists like me).
• Make a 3-year plan every 6 months.
• Use a video newsletter to build relationships (not sell). This is where you send a short email newsletter that directs readers to a web page that shows your video.
• Video and audio have about the same conversion rate improvements on sales letters so use audio because it’s easier and may even convert better.

Rick described six Internet business models that could all (not surprisingly) benefit from the use of audio or video:

1. Own a product or service.
2. Own a list.
3. Own a membership site.
4. Own traffic (advertising).
5. Own relationships (MLM).
6. Own your time (consultancy).

We’re all different so the idea here is to figure out which business model is right for you and why.

Before the official part of the sales pitch (it was all one big pitch really), Rick suggested an exercise that I really liked:

1. Spend 3 minutes writing down all the reasons why you can’t take immediate action.
2. Hand these to a partner who then pretends they’re you.
3. As they read each reason, explain to them why they’re full of crap!

I thought that was excellent! Haven’t tried it yet though. Maybe I need to write my reasons for that down and hand it to a partner…

Pitch: Lifetime use of 4 products + some coaching.

Cost: $1500?

2. David Cavanagh

David is a very straight talking Australian and was quite entertaining. He went through many of the steps required to create a simple business from scratch, starting with picking a niche, finding a problem, finding a solution, and then building a web site to sell it.

He went through it very quickly and said we’d be sent a copy of the steps so I didn’t write many notes. I’m still waiting though.

It was a hugely popular presentation and he had no end of takers for his training package, coaching programme and workshop in Thailand (where he lives). I think a sensible choice for people starting out (most of the audience).

Pitch: Training package, coaching, workshop.

Cost: $5000

3. Ted Ciuba

Ted Ciuba acted as the main host for the event and he did a pretty good job of it.

His presentation was mostly about Napoleon Hill’s classic “Think and Grow Rich” book, how Ted knows more about it than anyone else and how much better (and not to mention valuable) the new version will be that he’s working on.

He was interesting to listen to but my lack of notes might be an indicator of how much useful info I got out of it. I think it was more about mindset than anything else.

Goal setting seemed to be a key factor (a familiar tune ringing in my ears) with the suggestion to:

1. Fix the exact amount you desire (we’re talking dollars here).
2. Determine exactly what you will give to get it.
3. Establish a definite date of possession.
4. Create a definite plan and jump into action.
5. Write it all out clearly in the PRESENT tense (”I have…”, “I am…”, etc).
6. Read aloud twice daily, enjoying your money!

It sounds great! I’ve done step 1 but I’m kind of struggling at step 2. I’m pretty good at making apple pie but I’m not sure if that will be quite enough to make my millions.

The other thing he said was to write down 1-year, 5-year, 10-year and lifetime goals. Then wrap it all up in some high denomination currency, like a 10,000 Japanese Yen note, so you can smell the money as you read your goals daily. Actually, I have some Iraqi Dinar that would be perfect but that’s another story…

Actually, there was a bunch of handouts from Ted about fortune principles and bringing products to market that looked very interesting but he didn’t actually go through any of that. Shame.

Pitch: “Think Rich” products, resale rights + workshop

Cost: $5000 + $45000 once $1m made (yeah, count the zeros)

4. Brett McFall

Poor Brett. He was supposed to take a morning slot but had to swap with David Cavanagh while he was in hospital having his arm seen to after falling down some stairs.

I like Brett. Maybe it’s because he’s a friendly faced Aussie. I first heard about him a couple of years ago from his involvement in Ed and Frank’s Underachiever system seminars. His BURPIES system for writing sales letter copy is very good and has worked well for me in the past.

Now Brett’s presentation was very curious. He started off by telling us to ‘be the general of the army and not a soldier’ (or something along those lines). In other words, we should leverage our time and direct operations while others do all the grunt work for us.

But then, he goes on to show us how to build a business where we do consultancy work building web sites for people and writing their sales copy. In other words, trading time for money and doing all the grunt work ourselves. Seems like a contradiction to me.

Maybe he was trying to show us how to start such a business and then hire other people and teach them how to do it for us. I’m not sure but I can’t see any other way to scale it up and not become a slave to the business.

In any case, apart from a really useful sheet full of ways to increase advertising response, here are a few things I took away from Brett’s talk:

• Take responsibility for your own success.
• Be different – have a USP.
• Once you’re successful with products, fill your ’spare time’ by offering services for even more cash.
• Find everything interesting!
• Never give up.
• Write 100 sales letter bullet points then choose just the best.
• If appropriate, offer holiday packages as bonuses (we can find these on Google for £20 – £30 apparently).
• Buy something as a bonus if you can still make a profit.
• Write testimonials for clients yourself and have them approve them; use the formula “Once I was lost, now I am found” (nice).
• To get better at something, teach it to someone else!
• Use of software turns beginners into professionals (use it to sell services).

Pitch: Web design business

Cost: $9100

5. Stephen Pierce

This time I was ready for Stephen Pierce. When I first saw him last November (on the same stage), his aggressive and arrogant presentational style really got by back up.

I understand where it comes from. He got in with the wrong crowd while growing up and has now completely turned his life around so he’s very passionate about helping other people achieve success. By all accounts, Stephen’s a really nice guy but, for some, his style takes some getting used to.

Stephen really does deliver the goods though. He talked a lot about mental attitude but also gave some specific techniques and advice for building a successful business.

On the mental front…

• Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself to others.
• Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart.
• Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living the past or the future.
• Don’t give up when you still have something to give (you can’t prove what you can’t do, you can only prove that you haven’t done it yet).
• Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect.
• Don’t be afraid to encounter risk.
• Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find.
• Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been but also where you’re going.
• Don’t be afraid to learn.
• Don’t use time or words carelessly.
• Life is a journey to be savoured every step of the way.

Stirring stuff that could probably be even more effective if re-framed in the positive.

There was further talk about setting goals but less in financial terms and more in the form of what that would bring. What is it that you really want? What are you really passionate about? That kind of thing.

There was a great example of a hypothetical car rolling down a hill, about to run over your child. Even if there were mounds of obstacles in the way, you’d do whatever it takes to save that child. No excuses! Compare that to the case of a shopping trolley instead of the child and that changes the situation entirely.

For some reason, this idea struck a chord with me. If I really, passionately want to achieve something then I should do whatever it takes to make it happen. But unless the passion and motivation is there, it’s easier to just sit back and watch while it all comes crashing to a halt. So what do I want? Answers on a postcard please…

Actually, Stephen got us to do a visualisation exercise (do we have to?) where we had to think about what it would mean to be successful and have financial freedom (if that is our goal).

I could have done without the cheesy background music but the effect on me was quite profound. If you don’t mind, I won’t share the details but suffice to say that I visualised some things I didn’t expect and mostly involving time with family and friends.

I had to write it all down immediately afterwards and even have “Wow” circled next to it in my notes. I’d never experienced the power of this kind of visualisation before and I must try it again.

Now my experience and emotions at the time may have been coloured by events of the day before (that I’ll reveal in another post) but it still made me rethink a few things about my life and where I’m going.

On the business side, there are two things worthy of note. The first is Stephen’s list of 12 ‘Strategic Degrees of Profit’ (SDP), or in plain English, different ways to make a profit from the same market:

1. Subscription profits (repeated, residual)
2. Post lead profits (follow up sales)
3. Direct sell profits (not recommended)
4. Lead selling profits (sell leads)
5. Pay per click profits (AdSense, banner ads, etc)
6. Advertising profits (show them a blog/site with traffic)
7. Pyramid profits (the funnel model)
8. Affiliate profits
9. Post sale profits (can break-even/lose money on front end)
10. License profits (intellectual property)
11. Blog profits (?)
12. Auction profits

The second thing is the advice to focus on and master one skill at a time. And the most important skill to master is Traffic:

• Amass traffic cheaply and use it, lend it or sell it at as high a price as possible.
• Getting traffic is the one key skill.
• Once you can get traffic you can send it wherever you want.
• Master this one thing, then build your business around it.
• A list is traffic in a holding pattern!

There’s other stuff Stephen talked about and even more I got from the seminar preview call he did with Ted Ciuba but I think that’s enough for now.

However, I will be writing another post about the way Stephen went about selling his coaching programme because it was quite amazing to watch and there are certainly lessons to learn from it.

Pitch: Coaching programme

Cost: $3994

So that was day 3 and after that lot, I think I deserve a nice cup of tea… Until next time!