Perhaps I am the exception but it perturbs me that the long and predictable sales letter page is being replaced by an optin form leading to a long-winded video which has no details about its length and takes way too long to arrive at a point. 

This trend reminds me of a desert character that I met recently on an outing.  Although the dialogue was entertaining, this person spent an hour telling my friend and I what he was going to tell us AFTER he told us why he was going to tell us what he was going to tell us.  Of course, we were free to leave at anytime but he seemed to have a need to tell his story, and I wanted to give him a chance.  In the end, it was a circular and one-sided discussion and he never really told us anything.  :D

But it was interesting to behold… 

Time is a non-renewable resource

How we spend our time each day is one of our more important decisions.  An email or link sent through Skype sometimes elevates my interest .  When the destination turns out to be a video landing page that provides no text to scan, the journey is predictable.  Someone is going to try to sell me something. 

While it is entirely possible that what they have to sell is something that I want or need, what is the benefit of biding my time through more than 30 minutes of self-aggrandizing dialogue, waiting to hear the price and being forced to endure so much “ but wait … there’s more” yammering? 

deep discount or inventory liquidation?

People don’t like to be convinced of something’s worth.  Idle curiosity led me to computing the discount of the bonus items for the most recent Video Sales Letter so I could report it to you.  The add-ons for this particular Video Sales Letter offer were “conservatively” valued at $38,731.  Yet, this internet marketer was willing to “give” them to me for $1,997.  That’s nice, but is it believable?   

If you are quick with a calculator, you’ve already determined that this is a 94.8% discount.  I’m fairly certain that opting into this offer would have led multiple upsells and an offer to have a trial membership with on-going fees of $97 a month, or more.  I’ve seen it before. 

But here is my point:  Liquidation sales are not a new idea.   In fact, Russell Brunson just had one and he didn’t pretend it was anything other than it was.  I truly admired that. 

ambiguity, logic and the law of averages

During the dialogue, the marketer informed us that his secrets had only been released to a handful of people who had proven to him, during 8 months of trialing his methods, that what he had found was not a fluke. 

What is a handful to an internet marketing millionaire with a huge list?  If the handful of people privy to the software and techniques have an 8-month head start, is there a prayer that these “hand selected niches” can be still penetrated and leveraged? 

Even though I’m basically an optimist, this sort of talk makes me skeptical.  I learned in the racquetball court that timing and position are everything in life.  In other words, creating the money-making idea or being part of the cadre of founders is the place to be if you really want to be if you want to cash in on something. 

If you are invited through a mass mailing, you are not in that group.  Applying their techniques to your current tactics has potential to improve your sales but please stick with your own niches.  Those “hand selected” niches are highly likely to be saturated. 

Passionate Pursuits

My viewpoint is that wealth will follow the pursuit of something that you already are interested in and will enjoy working with every day.  Using that base formula, your marketing, whether or not it is a Video Sales Letter, will genuinely convey your enthusiasm and have greater potential to become viral.  Your time spent researching the niche is time that you would be spending anyway because it is interesting to you.  Your targeted list is easy to acquire and grow because you are interacting with people naturally already, through Twitter, Facebook,LinkedIn and your blog. 

Identify those things that you truly enjoy and focus on what you like to do anyway and don’t invest yourself in the outcome.  It will come to you without a struggle if you maintain focus and don’t allow yourself to become distracted by the noise around you and frivilos get rich quick schemes.

Recently, a newsletter arrived from a self growth website which explained dysfunctional personal productivity personalities.  Because productivity styles can mean the difference between entrepreneurial success and failure, I’ve taken some time to analyze this topic and provided some tips and techniques that have worked for me in overcoming some of these productivity inhibitors.

Scrappers are people whose offices and desktops look like modern art with a collage of post-its and paper scraps. While conventional wisdom accepts that a cluttered desk is an indication of a cluttered mind, disorganization can result in missed deliverables and over-commitment.

Personal Styles and Business Productivity

If this is your style, whether you are working solo or in a partnership, adopting a method that serves to remind you of what you have to get done can be useful. If you have a partner, ask them to send you email reminders prior to important deadlines. Using a website like Airset allows you to set up a system that will allow you to put your projects online with automated reminders about deliverables sent to your email. Face it, a little up-front planning is needed for any endeavor.

Pilers don’t throw anything away and file nothing. They can sometimes find what they’re looking for quickly but watching them sift through their piles of books and papers can be unnerving. Many years ago, I adopted the tactic of dating a hard copy document if I decided I needed to keep it after reading it. These days, most of my files are kept on my hard drives and I still tend to precede the document name with a date, year first, if I’ve taken notes using notepad.

My work entails writing business proposals, marketing plans, project plans, website code, creating website artwork, and researching business niches for good keywords. For obvious reasons, these sorts of files must be saved for a period of time, even if the project has ended.

At the end of 2008, after a cross country move, I spent several hours moving client folders off of removable storage and onto a secure location within my network. Using a standard folder hierarchy allows me to go directly to a client folder to locate content related to those projects immediately. My clients seem grateful for my organizational skills when they call to ask for a password that they’ve lost!

At the beginning of each month, I set aside a few hours to sift through file folders in my inbox and in the folders related to my clients. It takes time but the time is well spent.

Multi-taskers have millions of things they hope to get done simultaneously and seem to take great pride in talking about their long lists. A downside for some can be that a lot of things get started but none get finished.

If you are an entrepreneur with clients or own multiple websites multi-tasking is essential, but if you’ve begun to notice that you are feeling frazzled or overwhelmed by your work, it is time to take a serious look at your short and long-term goals. Document all the things you have committed to do and organize it into do-able chunks that are prioritized by relevance. Aside from family commitments, your most important things to do ought to be money making activities.

Interrupters are people who do not respect the fact that, just because they have time to talk about something now doesn’t mean that you do. Because I am sensitive to this myself, I’ve always allowed the person whom I think I need to talk with know why I’d like to talk with them right away and never fail to ask if it is a good time for them.  If not, I negotiate a more agreeable time for them.

When someone unexpectedly requests my time, I’ve found that my best defense is to be honest with them and, if I don’t have time for the interruption, I force myself to refuse and also let them know when I’ll be free. If I feel that I can take a few minutes at the time of their request, I inform them up-front about my time constraints and hold to that schedule by curtailing the conversation or text chat when the boundary is reached.

Procrastinators claim to work well under pressure and use this an excuse for putting things off to the last minute.  Their real crime is that they work on things that they would prefer to work on, which pushes the less desirable, and often more complicated tasks, back and puts them at risk.  Sure, we all are guilty of this sometimes but the pursuit of business success doesn’t guarantee that everything you will work on will be easy to do or fun.

Unmanaged, a procrastinator on a project can create havoc for other members of that group. While their creativity and talents might be welcomed, they require firm guidance and follow-up from a more focused team member.

Socializers waste incredible amounts of time communicating in frivolous ways. With the advent of social networking, people I was fascinated by and lost a lot of time on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook profile updates and responses. In an effort to recover my productivity, I established an hour or so at the end of each day to research topics that I wanted to post to Twitter and set up those transmissions using one of the many tools available for timing them. Many of these sites allow you to update multiple social networking profiles at once, and always include the highest quality sites.

I use a very similar tactic with both phones and Skype. Turning off the ringer during times of the day that I need to focus avoids phone interruptions. Similarly, putting Skype on “do not disturb” allows me to see when someone is trying to contact me and choose whether or not an immediate response is required.

Meeting addicts are obsessed with convening to talk about what needs to be done. So much time can be spent talking about such things that forward progress is hindered, however. If you’re invited to attend a meeting, ensure that the organizer has a clear purpose and that an agenda is issued in advance. If the topics on the agenda do not mesh with what is critical to your immediate needs, take care of yourself and decline the meeting.

If you are in a meeting and have something to say, make sure to apply the “So What?” rule before opening your mouth. This may sound like a statement from a belligerent child but it does force you to evaluate, in advance, whether what you have to say is relevant or useful to the group at the meeting.

E-mailers never use the phone to deliver a short update and love to broadcast their news to everyone on their list. It’s easy to ignore superfluous emails but, IM broadcasting software has opened up a new arena for pointless intrusions. Without exception, everyone who uses a Skype broadcast tool to communicate useless BizOp updates has been blocked from my list.

Although it is “polite” to acknowledge communications, not all emails or IMs require a response, especially if it is an uninvited solicitation.

Crisis creators dwell in a state of anxiety and everything is critical to them. The slightest problems can be exaggerated and their alarmist mentality can draw you in, if you are close to them.

Fire-fighting is a part of my business, at times, but keeping a cool head is what my clients seem to appreciate. If I cannot see an immediate way to help them with their problem, I will get offline with them and decide or do what needs to be done.  If I am able to resolve the issue without another conversation, I will provide a real-time or email update apprising them of the cause and the solution.  If not, I get back to them with a strategy, at the very least.

Packrats have never thrown away anything in their lives. This obsession has become a matter of public interest but not all packrats are obsessive. Like clearing your desk on a regular basis, making sure that you are eliminating clutter from your office or household is important. If you are looking over stored items and realize you haven’t opened the box or envelope in years, then you might want to honestly evaluate whether or not you need to hang onto it.  Heirlooms and sentimental keepsakes are excluded from this, of course.

As a funny aside, I once dated a fellow like this. The first time I visited his apartment, the ancient computer equipment and stacks of printouts astounded me. There was but a narrow path between spaces to a chair in the living room, his bedroom, and the kitchen. When he moved to a new place, all of these things wound up in his garage too.

Perfectionists are so interested in doing things perfectly that they often neglect to get them done. Impressively long lists and generous offers to contribute are part of their style. I have known people whose lists were so lengthy that their lack of completion caused them distress. I recommended that they write shorter so things could be checked off quicker.

This actually could related to the multi-tasker style and the suggestions that were made there are certainly applicable here. Organizing and prioritizing “to-do” items into chunks that are easily accomplished not only gives a sense of personal satisfaction but also demonstrates to your clients that you are capable of getting things done.

Workaholics can’t seem to think of anything but work and also can’t seem to avoid reminding people about how much they work. As an entrepreneur working from my home, it has sometimes been difficult for me to separate my work and personal life but assuming dual expenses for internet, phones, utilities, and rent is not desirable to me.

I’ve learned to schedule “free time” for family, play, and personal projects figuring that, as human beings, we were given life so we could experience pleasure and fun too. I like to call these things mini-vacations, for all work and no play can make one dull and this is the last thing any of us wants.

This is a fairly complete list of things that could be hindering your entrepreneurial output but I’m sure that those of you reading this post can think of others. Any thoughts that you have and want to leave as comments are welcomed.

During holiday seasons, when stress levels are higher, make sure to take care of yourself.  Business success may be critical to your survival but so is your emotional health.

Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project.

Wordpress Wins 2009 Open Source CMS Award

Many of you who know me understand my deep appreciation for Wordpress. I began using the software as a blogger in late 2004 when I set up my first self-hosted blog. Since that time, my interest in blogging has become a way of life for me.  My Wordpress development skills have been a good source of income for me and I love being a self-employed entrepreneur.

In fact, entrepreneurship is a frequent topic on my blog. An important attribute of being an entrepreneur is having a willingness to take measured risks but crucial to entrepreneurial survival, regardless of one’s niche, is resilience. Ideas bloom, excitement builds, partnerships are formed, and there are many ups and downs along the way.

This amazing interview with Matt Mullenweg, the father of Wordpress, really gives a lot of great insights into a smart way to start and grow a company. Other participants in this show are Jason Calacanis and Joel Spolsky. All are visionaries and well respected in the internet arena. The interview is nearly 2 hours long but it is well worth your time to listen, at the very least. I must caution you that Jason uses some colorful language while telling some of his stories.

It is too bad that most Internet Marketers don’t understand the mechanics of a human-to-human sales relationship. If they actually had to talk to their prospects and customers, rather than dwelling in a two-dimensional world, would this improve their income potential or diminish it?

Building relationships takes time and attention, no matter which way you spin things. Developing rapport and gaining an understanding of each other ought to be a mutual effort or the equity of the relationship becomes uneven. Just as an expert should not condescend to a customer who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of their area of expertise, a customer should not condescend to the expert and treat them as a servant.

It is quite satisfying when there is cooperation and mutual respect in a business relationship. In this scenario, the customer appreciates the expertise that the professional is bringing to the table and respects the fact that such expertise has a value for which they are being paid. The professional appreciates the fact that the customer has chosen to work with them, in spite of the fact that they had other choices, and values their customer through responsiveness and, most importantly, through listening to the customer’s concerns and ideas. To that end, the most important tool that any entrepreneur has at their disposal is their ability to listen.

Listen, Learn and Earn

Listening is an active skill. People who are communicating with you need to know that they have been heard so it is important to acknowledge them, whether or not you agree with what they’ve said. In addition, if you are not clear about what you’ve heard, asking questions that explore the issue in such a way that no conclusions are assumed can lead your customers to telling you much more about their needs. This has potential to grant you further sales, if your products and services are aligned with those needs. If not, you may be able to refer them to a colleague of yours who specializes in that niche.

Today, while conferring with a new client, they were expressing discontent about another person in my same field who came to her expecting a retainer payment to commence work. When the prospect informed this website designer that they had questions, the designer’s response was: “I know all your questions and I have all the answers.” It didn’t surprise me that this prospect has continued to look for a website designer. That sort of reply totally invalidated this nice lady, making her feel as if her feelings and questions were completely irrelevant.

Communication is an art, and the most important aspect of communicating with anyone is listening to what they are saying. While a college degree isn’t required to enter any entrepreneurial arena, effective business people will educate themselves in the things that will further their business and increase their referrals.

It’s true; I came of age during the 60s. While this places me in some people’s stratospheric age groups, my age is merely a number to me and I’m thrilled to have grown up in such interesting times. Being a Baby Boomer surrounded by Hippies and other sorts of rebels brought many ideals to my purview … some more palatable than others but each of them born from a cry for freedom by my generation.

After recently re-theming my GetIncomeBlog.com, my interest in writing to it has been renewed, along with the traffic that comes to my site. I use several tools to determine how you all get here and, during the past month, the viewership statistics that I’ve been monitoring inform me that there are folks out there who appreciate my articles. Seeing what keywords you’re using is also fascinating.

I don’t write any of my articles to obtain your admiration, however. I write them because of a conversation I’ve had with newer online marketers or offline business owners has reminded me of something that will help them and want to pass along this information to you too. Whether or not you are a grizzled veteran, reminders about how things work in business and the entrepreneurial world is helpful.

I read such an article myself today at Yaro Starak’s blog. This young man is brilliant in his writing and has really done well for himself by blogging. I was unaware of this site until today when I was evaluating a competitor’s backlinks. Even though the article I read at Yaro’s blog wasn’t brand new, it spoke to many things that I’ve been writing about lately.

A colleague recently opined that a blog was nothing more than an online diary. Network marketers, BizOp chasers, and another group of business people whom I will lovingly refer to as “Elitists” tend to say that blogging is not important. But people like Yaro convince me and others who are determined to establish an Online Brand image that having a blog with high-quality content is essential. I can’t think of one reputable top gun marketer who isn’t using a blog as a component of their branding strategy.

But let’s get back to the statistics on my blog. On a “bad day” here at GetIncomeBlog.com, I am getting about 5 – 10 times more traffic that I used to get on a “good” day and I’m just beginning to ramp up. On a “bad” day, I spend very little time thinking about the “low” traffic volume. I merely smile and tell myself that everything is relative … a canon of my youth.

The other day I overheard an actor in a movie say that it was necessary to earn a viewpoint before speaking about something with authority.  The truth in that statement felt profound. 

As an internet entrepreneur, encounters with people who purport themselves to be experts at something they haven’t experienced can be amusing to expose in a private conversation but it is alarming to imagine that people who aren’t savvy enough to ask the same questions might be seduced into believing that they’ve found an individual who can lead them to success.  Allowing for the benefit of a doubt, it could be that these people who claim to know what they don’t are operating within the guidelines of The Law of Attraction.

Although the BE-DO-HAVE philosophy was known to me years before The Law of Attraction gained popularity, the mindset is powerful and should not be overlooked.  It has everything to do with self-belief and that is on the critical path to finding success in anything! 

Our culture has largely omitted the part about Being leading to Having and it is so clearly important.  One has to BE what they envision themselves to be so they will be motivated to DO what is necessary to HAVE what they’ve envisioned having. 

Entrepreneurs are independent by definition.   Usually, we have analyzed our interests and passions, as well as our capabilities, before choosing a new direction.  The pursuit of income should be a secondary consideration because building a business takes time and, if we don’t enjoy spending the time we must invest, our business will not flourish.  We also should conduct market research to assure ourselves that our niche is wide enough to allow for long-term growth. 

Internet entrepreneurs can conduct market research by investigating what people are searching for, using keyword research, and determining whether or not what we have to offer will fill their needs.  We also must evaluate competition in our niche so we can enter the market at a price point where our offers seem valuable, especially in an economic climate where discretionary income is being squeezed by the rising costs of necessities. 

Broaden your Viewpoint

Regardless of your business model, I encourage you to ask yourself this important question.  Do you feel that anyone can be in business today without having a website that is more than a replicated page?  I admit to having a bias but I feel the answer is a resolute no! 

Many people fail to understand that their website needs to convey information that their audience will use when they decide whether or not they want to spend their hard earned cash.  Since people do business with people, your website needs to inform your visitors why they should trust you more than anyone else offering an equal or similar product or service. 

Returning to the original idea of this post, I’d like to come back to the importance of earning a viewpoint before speaking with authority.  Each of us has accumulated experiences in our lives and we all have opinions too.  It isn’t imperative that maturity makes anyone’s opinions more qualified but having real-life experience is essential.  Thus, BEing what you envision yourself to be will force you to DO things that will create experiences allowing you to HAVE what you desire.

The other day a pal of mine indicated that people in my generation would not survive long enough for me to pursue an idea unrelated to business that I had imagined. We got a good laugh about that but their feedback caused me to reflect on other matters that baby boomers are facing, specifically reduced income caused by long-term unemployment.

People born between 1946 and 1955 are referred to as baby boomers, or more specifically older baby boomers. Demographically, I fall into that group. Ours is largely a generation of rebels who cast aside social norms during our development years. We challenged the need to wear underwear, the values of our government, the teachings of our educators and parents, the Viet Nam War, and the establishment in general. It was a fun time to come of age and a time of social enlightenment, even for our folks.

At some point in time, each of us who were rebels in the 60s grew weary of taking books from orange crate shelving, eating ramen noodles, and dusting wooden utility spindles so we gave into materialism. Working for Honeywell during the tail end of the Viet Nam War was difficult. The hippie inside cringed each time a large government contract was announced on the over head speakers but, as part of that machine, it was common.

Having the ability to enjoy a lifestyle sustained by the trappings that regular paychecks afforded propelled me forward toward corporate ladder climbing aspirations. I gained good altitude but it didn’t lead to a feeling of freedom. The responsibilities associated with leadership positions caused me to have to obfuscate facts that staff needed to have to make informed decisions for their own futures and this caused discomfort. Generally, I am a straight forward individual and had difficulty hiding my incredulousness at directions given from corner offices.

When a lucrative severance package was offered during a merger in 1999, there was no other decision for me. Management complained about my not pursuing the position they expected me to want but, to me, it seemed like another turn on a faulty wheel with no potential for growth. Floating gleefully out the door on that beautiful fall afternoon with my paperwork and confidence, I knew the rest of my life would be very different. I was finally free to choose whatever I wanted to do.

My former colleagues pursued interviews and regular jobs while I considered entrepreneurial options. Technology was still interesting but with IT outsourcing being trendy at that time, my motivation to remain independent led me to a Real Estate career and has since guided me toward my present role as an Online Branding Consultant and Website Designer.

Daily, I converse with people who are confronting changes they never could have imagined. When I sense their trepidation about the future, I can’t help but advise them to remain open to possibility and to introspect about the source of their real passions. This sort of coaching is not a service that I offer but my colleagues and clients do seem to appreciate it. Many of them are near or beyond my age and don’t know how to make themselves over again.

Starting over in one’s 50s is a common theme these days. Many baby boomers are turning to the internet for alternatives to traditional employment because, whether or not employers admit it, discrimination occurs when the qualifications are equal but salary expectations are weighted by age and experience. In all matters, perseverance is the key to getting what you want but it never hurts to have a Plan B.

If we don’t permit fear to cloud our judgment, we know we are never out of options. When considering yours, try listing all of the expertise that you have accumulated, no matter how trivial they seem, and juxtapose that with a second list of things that you most enjoy doing. While you do this, ensure that you are in a place where you cannot be distracted by family or phones. Although it is important to be realistic when you do this, try to not restrict yourself with arbitrary limits or well-meaning negativity you may have been forced to endure.

Another tactic to choosing a new direction is to connect with and talk to others who are in the industry that you want to pursue. Projected income is a secondary consideration at this phase. Ask these people about the nature of their work and try to imagine yourself in that role. If this person seems hypey in their responses, re-direct them with specific questions that will help you gain clarity as to whether or not you would look forward to getting up in the morning to do the things they are doing to be successful in their business. This is a very important consideration for an entrepreneur. If they will not answer your direct questions directly, you may not want to pursue what they are promoting.

Generally speaking, here are some guidelines associated with different business models:

Network Marketing includes talking and recruiting. Good MLM sponsors also provide tools for their downline teams that will help them differentiate themselves and grow their businesses. There are many Network Marketing companies to choose from and it is prudent to investigate MLM Watchdog for information about the opportunity. It also is important that you connect with the product that you will be asked to promote on some level because you’ll need to know about it in order to sell it, or the business opportunity that surrounds it. If you can casually bring up the benefits about your company’s products and business opportunity during conversation, it will seem less like a pitch.

Affiliate Marketing entails knowing where to find information about the affiliate product you are promoting and building a list so you can advance new offers to your responsive list members. Credibility is important in any business so don’t worry if they visit your page and don’t buy. If they have opted into your list, you will have a chance to impress them with your generosity and expertise through email over the course of time. There are other ways to promote an affiliate product and I always recommend having an optin site in front of the replicated sales page.

Perhaps you have niche expertise that others would like to know more about. In this instance, you may have an e-product that you could create and sell. There are many forms of media and you can package audio/video with a PDF file to increase the sales price. Creating a product is not as daunting a task as it might sound. It merely takes time and attention, as well as a venue for promotion and sales. Normally, this is a website.

Each of the business models available online could be posts, or books, in their own right. Thus, there is not a good way to provide all the details about each business type in a single blog post.

For those of you confronting changes caused by external forces outside your control, never stop believing in the power you have to create something new, regardless of your numerical age. As a thriving baby boomer, I have recreated my career path several times. If my dreams come true, there is another change on the horizon.

I’d like to invite you to subscribe to my blog via feedburner or contact me directly if you want to converse with me further. As always, your readership and comments are always appreciated.

Although this is a lengthy video, Seth Godin is a grizzled and respected internet veteran with immense influence. If you have not visited his blog, you could benefit from acquainting yourself with him there.

My friend, Zeb Olsen is a Twitter Wizard. He has helped me tremendously, over time, and I am sure you can benefit from learning more from him as well. I am sharing a video he produced recently that describes tactics and tools you can use immediately to get a handle on different ways to use Twitter in your business.