The Secret about The Secret

James Arthur Ray was featured on Nightline this week. It seems that some of the participants of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat, held in Sedona in early October, died in a sweat lodge exercise at the end of a grueling week of motivational activities. The sweat lodge exercise was mandated after the people had spent days in the beautiful canyons of Sedona, without food or adequate rest, to connect with their inner truth … supposedly.

Human physiology is fragile. It didn’t seem at all odd that some people might have been dehydrated and unfit to go into a sweat lodge for hours on the heels of their Sedona experience. I’ve wandered through the trails of Sedona. The trails to the vortexes are not paved and most of them involve a climb. As I listened to the statements on Nightline, made by survivors of this experience, as well as from family members whose loved ones had died, I pondered the huge industry that has grown around The Law of Attraction and The Secret over the past couple of years. If you are operating in this niche, you are well advised to monitor the progress of this story!

Don’t get me wrong, I watched The Secret, in the fall of 2007, and the movie was nothing other than inspirational. The underlying message of this movie, and others like it, is that you have the ability to change your viewpoint, and in so doing, have an opportunity to change your life’s course. If you are under the tutelage of a charismatic leader, like James Arthur Ray must be, it’s probably easy to get swept into a belief system that causes you to want the success he says is so easily attainable. And, to his credit, he has a large following.

The fact that our mental approach to a problem can either resolve it or lead us further astray isn’t new information. In the United States, this was discovered by a couple of drunks as they commiserated with each other over a cup of coffee, so the story goes. The relief these two men felt led them to start a movement called Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that has helped millions of people all over the world for nearly a century. AA text suggests “stinking thinking” is the source of emotional problems that lead people to make bad decisions, in this case, drinking. In fact, AA could possibly be the very first Law of Attraction program!

The big difference between AA and programs like James Arthur Ray’s is that AA doesn’t define its membership by the amount of money they have to spend to join. This is written into their 12 Traditions at article six, which is a spiritual tradition recognizing that money, property and prestige can distract an AA group from its primary purpose … to help people.

James Arthur Ray’s Spiritual Warrior Retreat was selling for a whopping fee of $9,695! This adventure built on a previous product offering called Practical Mysticism which sold for $5,295. The funny thing about reading Ray’s promotional materials is that they are merely sales letters, no different in psychology than the sales letters that compel one to purchase anything they’ve never heard about before. Personally, I doubt that Ray is any different than any other person who knows the truth about mindset; he’s just used his connection to The Secret to create a multi-million dollar enterprise.

One person might say this is clever. Another might say it is opportunistic. In the end, only James Arthur Ray knows his motivations and, in light of civil suits already filed against his organization after the Spiritual Warrior debacle, with the strong possibility of forthcoming criminal charges, the law will intervene to make judgment. This judgment could lead to a need to regulate the industry which will wash out a lot of self-help charlatans.

What disturbs me most about Law of Attraction practitioners-for-profit is the disparity of their words against their self-serving style. Last year, I observed this in a “joint venture” where the time I spent developing technology wasn’t recognized as having value and my “partner” asked me to pay for an EFT session. Without exception, every client that I’ve worked with who practices a “wealth attraction” coaching or information business has seemed to be the most tight-fisted and demanding client on my list for, when it comes to completing a project paying the final bill, they will always manufacture excuse after excuse for not producing a final payment when the terms of our contract have been fulfilled.

Is this indicative of the industry at large? One can only hope it isn’t…

Speaking in Tongue

Have you ever been repelled by communication with people or stopped reading content due to the overuse of acronyms which mean nothing to you? In a former life, when I took a position in a Honeywell division that had a lot of specialized language, I was impressed, and will never forget, the pamphlet that they gave me at employee orientation to help me expand their frequently used acronyms. It wasn’t like I was going on vacation in a foreign country or anything!

It is true that instant messaging and technology have introduced a lot of new words and acronyms into our vocabularies over the course of the last few decades. When email was new, I recall how spell checkers challenged my usage of the word messaging. (Their suggested revision was massaging, which always caused me to chuckle and think of a Pink Panther movie skit with Peter Sellers.) Being at the forefront of early email adoption, I was involved with think-tank groups who explored the casual nature of email communications in business. People like me, who are moderately obsessed with proper language, railed at the prevelence of shorthand that seemed to be “dumbing down” written communications but, in a recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast, a panelist remarked that language shorthand used in written communication was centuries old and provided several examples.

In this instance, the business person and prospective client are communicating well but the point is that your written and spoken communications should not leave your audience struggling to understand. I’ve learned that NOT understanding something can cause people to stop listening or reading because their minds wander off as they try to imagine what what they don’t know. That isn’t the effect you want to create, is it?

I’d like to provide an example for you. If you are writing an atricle about online marketing and use the abbreviation CPA, you should immediately expand the acronym by either putting the phrase Cost Per Action in parentheses or vice-versa. This will keep their attention from getting stuck on what they may not know.

During these days of short-attention span, information overload, and constrained time, isn’t it important that you make things easier for your followers to understand? Statistically, you have less than 30 seconds for them to make up their mind whether or not they are interested enough to stay on your website. Thus, there is no sense in communicating in a way that might be frustrating for them because you are speaking in a foreign language. As the communicator, you know what the acronym means. If you don’t, you really ought to.

And while I’m pondering one of my favorite subjects, launguage and words, I have another question. Why in the world would anyone feel compelled to abbreviate the word June to Jun? Sheesh!

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Stretching Your Mind Can Change Your Life

Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read:

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. Our eager minds pursue the idea and follow it through permutations and twists in the road. Through every turn, the core substance of the idea remains solid and the starting point to which you always will return, should you find a need to adjust your strategy.

Take Internet Marketing, for example. A few years ago, I decided that I would get income through online means. In pursuit of that vision, I began subscribing to newsletters and purchasing products that would teach me more about what people were doing online. Some of the methods that I evaluated are not ones that I use or would recommend but knowing what not to do is almost as important as knowing what to do, isn’t it? Due to my interest and attention, I am able to spot trends and, when it comes to opportunity offers, I have a pretty good system for separating the wheat from the chaff.

As I put my own business plan into motion, it became obvious that my time spent learning about internet marketing was extremely helpful to people who retained my services for Online Branding and wanted to get income online. Although my primary source of income is still from my consulting services, the fact that I am personally involved with my customers doesn’t imply that I am not an internet marketer. I source all of my business through Web 2.0 methods and enjoy working with people.  And, the best part is that my business is totally portable!

My mind was stretched by this self-induced learning. When I approach a potential business liaison or client, it is nearly impossible for me to talk merely about traditional means of sourcing new business. When I set up ecommerce websites, for instance, I make recommendations beyond layout, technology, and graphics. My degree is in business and that knowledge, coupled with the education I’ve received through personal learning, are assets to any project that I undertake and I’ve heard this repeatedly from my customers.

All things being equal, anyone who has a business website is an internet marketer. Here is the caveat; The prettiest site in the world cannot manufacture new business and cash flow. If you haven’t done so already, it would serve you well to either learn about, or retain the services of someone who knows about techniques that will improve your website’s visibility through Web 2.0 techniques that drive targeted traffic, as well as performing the time-consuming SEO methods that will get it listed and ranked by search engines. If you are in business and have no website, you are missing an incredible opportunity. Personally, I feel that it is sheer folly to be in business without a website. It is statistically proven that people look online prior to making any purchase decision.

Even though this is not business related, our minds can also be stretched by ideas that present themselves in everyday life. The ingenuity of a child who is working out a difficult “engineering” problem related to the sand castle they are building at the beach is a good example. It is not an unimportant side note to remind you to take time to relax your mind so as to re-charge your creative juices.  If we are fortunate, we retain our sense of awe about things that are remarkable and have nothing to do with making money, like watching swallows soaring high above us or witnessing the oceans that undulate through forces unseen. At times when you need to restore yourself, it is good to have easy access to those things that opened your mind as a child.

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Is Television Really Bad for the Mind?

At a recent networking meeting, the presenter included bullet items of methods they used to enhance their business lead generation on their slide presentation. One of the items on the list was to watch TV. This is a tactic they use to become part of the social conversation.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, watching television during prime time hours is not strictly a waste of productive time. Your prospects and customers watch TV. While they are going about their daily lives, they chat with others about what they’ve seen. Some even look up information on the internet during or following a program. Why not leverage these facts to build your business?

Established companies in all vertical markets are able to invest in television advertising and those ads can give budding entrepreneurs great information about consumer interests, and possibly new ideas for how they might create a product for their own business. Most of us are aware that prime time advertising comes at a premium price. If you have already identified your niche market, tune in when those programs are airing to find out what is being advertised and how those campaigns are structured. If you haven’t identified your niche, sample prime time programs on various stations to gain an understanding about what is being marketed to various segments.

Let’s take some obvious examples. Identity theft is perceived as a huge problem with the expansion of the internet for shopping and record keeping. Banks and credit unions advertise their security while also promoting their ease of use. Credit repair affects younger people. The clever ads with the minstrels at the Renaissance Fair, on a roller coaster, or leaving the car lot in a clunker make this crystal clear. With the growing population of Baby Boomers in their 50s, who are trying to avoid aging or pain, advertisements for potions and pills which answer these concerns are prevalent during dramas and documentaries.

To become part of “the conversation” for your market niche, your content could leverage titles for popular television shows, either in your product name or articles you are publishing. About a year ago, this theory was validated by writing an article about Big Foot when the creature was a hot topic in the news. It works.

Maybe you really hate the thought of watching television. If so, you can visit your local magazine rack and buy periodicals targeting various niches to see what is advertised within. From inserts to smaller text ads, clues about the interests of that niche will come clearer. You can also take a stab at finding websites which target market segments but the relevance of Google Ads is based upon on page content and not actually a good predictor of visitor interests, especially if the content is free.

The upshot of this post is no revelation to some but it may be the missing puzzle piece the causes things to come together for another. As always, I conclude with a friendly remainder to perform due diligence on any business decision you make and, if this bears out, have some sort of market plan to guide your movement forward into the fast lane.

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Flash Forward with Business

Flash forwards are used in movies to interrupt the continuity of the story line through the narration or portrayal of some future episode.  If we liken our mental gymnastics to a movie or play, our daydreams are nothing other than flash forwards.

Similar to the great new TV series on ABC, some of our imagined scripts are pleasant and some are less so.  Either way, the film director in our minds has set the stage and played out events that are expected, projected or imagined to occur in the future.  The polar opposite of a flash forward is a flashback, which are the stories that have occurred in our pasts that we use to guide our judgments.

Finding success takes much more than positive thinking and watching training videos.  All that we take in is supposed to be applied.  Measuring our success against another person’s can cause us to stall in our forward progress.  For example, if one of our colleagues has tried out a program and made good income in a minimal amount of time and our attempts do not produce a similar or greater amount as quickly using their same methods, we can easily talk ourselves out of proceeding with our plans.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t work.  It means that those methods used by your colleague do not work for you.

In the movie Hitch, perseverance is defined as continuing with a course of action without regard to discouragement, opposition, or previous disappointment.  Man!  Does that ever describe the mindset needed to effect change in your business or in your life but let’s stick to business.  Like kissing frogs to find a prince, programs that we try can manifest what we are looking for … or not.  Using the proverbial “cup is half full” viewpoint, we must be adaptable and take things in stride, fully aware that each one has taught us something that we can leverage down the road.  Eventually one will be “the answer” or spark a brand new idea that cannot be quashed by anyone or anything.

So what if your idea isn’t unique?  If the information or product isn’t readily available for free, you have found something you can monetize.  Pining over worries that your new idea will not be as popular as a similar one you have heard of or tried is a flash forward can keep you from innovating something even better.  Clairfy your thoughts, jot down your idea, conduct your market research and, if the results of your findings reveal a niche market that you can go after and hope to dominate, continue by defining your market strategy and business plan.  Once you know where you’re going and how you will get there, it is full steam ahead!

Frequently, our ideas are born from personal needs.  As the old adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention.  It is the truth that there were no wheels, once upon a time.  There are literally millions of examples just like that in your everyday life, once you stop to think about them.  Each of those inventors and entrepreneurs may have sounded like lunatics when their ideas were new but they didn’t let that stop them, thank goodness.

Brilliance is everyone’s birthright, isn’t it?  Whether or not we made the Dean’s List at school, we all come up with amazing ideas which seem mundane to us and others view as being strokes of genius.  You will know when you have latched onto one of these.  When your light bulb moment consumes your waking thoughts and is exciting enough to keep you from hitting the snooze button in the morning, promote it to a passion.  You know it is right, you know people need it, and you must do what is necessary to bring it to them.

Your Flash Forward doesn’t have to be a flash in the pan.  You know what you must do.  Quit thinking and talking about it and get to work!

The Most Successful Entrepreneur

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my new life in the place that I’ve always wanted to live … San Diego, California.  This transition would not have been possible if I had not decided to become an internet entrepreneur and learned what it takes to get income online.

The year has been personally exciting.  It was delightful to experience a winter without sub-zero temperatures, far too much snow, and long, dark, gray days.  Enjoying bright and sunny 80 degree days for the Holidays, without the temperature being an anomaly, put a smile on my face too.  I haven’t tired of driving through the marvelous mountains while traveling around the area on business and roaming along the shores of the Pacific Ocean whenever I choose to is nothing other than magical.

From a business perspective, San Diego has opened new doors of opportunity.  For example, I was privileged to attend a local chapter meeting of Glazer-Kennedy’s Insider Circle this evening.  After some power networking and a few business card trades, I gazed around the room to see what sorts of people were also interested in moving their business beyond mediocrity.  Attendees came from all walks of life.  There were lawyers, doctors, building contractors, mechanics, holistic practitioners, artists, and, of course, non-pretentious internet millionaires in baseball caps.  What was most important was one common thread.  Each person in that room was there because they knew that there is always something more to learn.

Equally interesting to me was one of the motivational posters taped to the wall which read:

The most successful entrepreneur is the loneliest person in the world

I’ve experienced some entrepreneurial success and I totally  understand that statement from personal experience…

It isn’t that entrepreneurs are aloof or choose to walk alone but the road we are on is certainly a road less traveled.  When the scent which will lead to success is found, it requires fastidious and incisive intellect to hone in upon the source and follow the trail.

Sometimes discovery leads to changing strategies or tactics but the rewards are great when things begin to come together.  The path might not be straight forward and seeing around the bend requires occasional leaps of faith, at times.  One of the most important skills you must have is to stay the course and believe in your vision.

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Striving for Mediocrity

In my ongoing study of internet based businesses, I’ve subscribed to many newsletters and met online acquaintances through Skype. Occasionally, I will receive a Skype broadcast or email message inviting me to something like this:

Subject: Up to $15 per hour

This is something to get excited about! Here is a way that you can make $15.00 per HOUR by simply clicking on ads. I just did this tonight.

This is not your standard fly by night, run of the mill, surf site where your money gets tied up for weeks or even months so please hear me out and read this carefully.

I’m not excited. Are you?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful if this sort of offer is exciting to you, as each of us has different strengths and interests, but each time something like this is introduced, I wonder what would motivate someone to want to spend their time in this way. Equally pointless is taking online surveys “for cash.” These sorts of programs are aimless and, in my opinion, tend to stunt your creativity.

When I began my online journey and was more naive, I followed the recommendations of my “mentor” and tried ad surf sites. My takeaway from that short-lived cycle was that it was BORING! All of the ads seemed to make similar wild claims of instant riches without effort, suggested they were “the best ever” fill-in-the blank, and some even claimed to be the last stop in a quest to get income online. Pictures of fancy cars, palacial homes, and luxury vacations endeavored to lure in unsuspecting people who were trying to find a method to augment or replace income earned through traditional means.

The payoff at most ad surf sites is a point based compensation allowing the user to post their own ads at the same site which possibly will result to capturing a lead and/or new customer who might be surfing ads for similar reasons. Sadly, what passes for compelling landing page copy is nothing more than hype, in most cases.

An article posted today at the Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Interactive Advertising is down 5.3% from last year. The statistic is sourced from a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP study and includes both display ads and digital video advertising. However, when digital video advertising is separated into its own category it is on the rise by 38%.

In fairness and most likely, the drop in interactive ad agency revenue, which would be interesting to a firm like PricewaterhouseCoopers, has a lot to do with our ability to leverage free resources to get our marketing message out there. The risk of using free advertising sites is relevant to one’s niche and presentation skills, especially using video.

Although the Law of Attraction suggests that new business will find us if our intentions are clear, any business person will agree that advertising makes their business more visible. As business owners, we need to make wise choices, especially when it comes to advertising an marketing expenses.  If you are on a slim budget, putting your content up on YouTube fulfills the digital video marketing need.  The challenge is to get your video noticed, viewed, commented and recommended.  In a best case scenario, it will be interesting enough to go viral.

It is somewhat of a conundrum determining how to effectively advertise our business online and ways to make our advertisement stand out. Consumers don’t want to be “sold” anything and we are bombarded by advertisements everywhere we go so something about your video needs to be special enough to make it stick in the minds of your target market.

Using social networks give us a potential audience. However, making friends merely to push ads about your business idea can get you labeled as a spammer and your account could be shut down.Social Media Mavens, claiming to know the best ways to leverage those venues, have had their Facebook accounts shut down without notice, which must have been just a little embarrassing since this was their claim to fame.  Additionally, your new online friends will learn to ignore you if all you are doing is sending ads.  It is highly recommended that you develop relationships with your social networking connections and send advertisements to them ONLY if they express an interest in learning more about what you’re doing.

Print advertising can be expensive but it is a way to reach people who you may not encounter online.  Using free online advertising sources like Craig’s List is another way to get out your good news but there are  restrictions which you need to understand and comply with or you ad will be taken down at those sorts of sites too.

Having your own website, hosted on your own hosting account, is an essential tool for anyone in business. Up front evaluation of your niche and target market is necessary. People shop online first so knowing what your market is searching for is critical. If you aren’t good at copywriting, hire someone to do this for you so you have effective content on your page which will resonate with your market niche.

When you have your new website finished, don’t forget to use PRWeb to announce yourself and your business site to the world.  At no cost, you can notify a wider audience.  For a nominal fee, the reach becomes wider.  PRWeb ads convert to print advertising, in some cases and the wider the reach, the better are your chances to draw in suspects … er … prospects.