How Are Internet Marketing Strategies Like Fad Diets?

I’m starting to look at marketing plans like diet plans.  Before you tell me that I’m mad, hear me out.  Within the last two days, I have heard another two revolutionary methods of marketing your businesses online that supposedly was a new way to do it.  While I must admit, there are different styles of marketing your business, there pretty much isn't anything new under the sun.

Consider diet plans for a second.  If you watch any daytime TV at all, one of the popular Doctor talk shows that permeate the airwaves have a different diet plan almost on a continual basis.  Of course, this is marketing in itself, because women, which are the target market, are always looking for ways to look younger and thinner.

So, the shows are geared for this.  The products and plans they have on those programs talk about books and equipment dedicated to this industry.  Not only that, these shows are interrupted by obligatory commercials that have all of the low- calorie foods and plans dedicated to this market as well.

And the diet plans are endless:

The Mediterranean Diet
Low Carb Diet
South Beach Diet
Chocolate Diet
The Spartan Diet
The Paleo Diet
The Diet Diet
The funniest one I heard was the Peter Pan Diet.  (I wonder if it involves peanut butter.)


I once had a book given to me that was produced by Men’sHealth magazine.  It was a real interesting book because it had huge, luscious, full-color pictures of food in it that YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO EAT.  I took one look at that book and shouted, “Finally a book that tells me what I want to hear, eat all of this incredible food!” 

The part of the book that stood out the most, was a section at the beginning of the book.  It went through all of the most popular diets, and described what you were supposed to eat or not eat on them and the editors and nutrition experts at Men’s Health dispensed their 2 cents worth on what they thought of each of these diets.  At the end of the day, they said that all of them were not realistic ways to lose weight and that each one of these strategies of losing weight was not sustainable over the long term. 

However, the real kicker came at the end of that particular chapter.  Men’s Health decided to tell you the one and only method of losing weight that would actually work over time. Yup, according to them, there was one diet that worked, and it was so complex and hard to do you just wouldn’t believe it. 

However, because I have worked out an exclusive deal with this top of the line magazine, they have signed a massive 500 page release allowing me (and me alone) to unveil this ultra-secret diet plan.  And now for the first time anywhere, I am going to unleash its awesome power to you so you can use it.

Here, now, for the first time, is the Ultimate Diet Program by Men’s Health Magazine, exactly as appeared in their book:

(Uh-hem…Sorry, I get nervous revealing such incredible information.)

Burn more calories than you take in.

Yep, there’s no arguing the logic or the science behind that plan. 

Marketing Strategies are like Fad Diets

As I mentioned above, I recently heard two new marketing …I guess you’d call them philosophies that I had not really heard before.  However, when I got past the fancy titles, (I think one of them was “Ninja Marketing Tricks for Businesses on Steroids” or something like that.) and the double speak, it was the same marketing ideas I’ve heard a million times before.

One was a sure fire method of making millions on the Web, but when I got deep into the eBook, I looked at the blue print which really wasn’t much different than one I had sketched out for myself years ago.  Although, I’ll have to hand it to the guy that wrote it, it was a pretty massive eBook that the blueprint was in, even though it had quite a few advertisements that tried to upsell you to bigger and more expensive ideas.

The other marketing idea was from a lady that was into “Natural Marketing”.  In other words, her approach was predicated on trying to relate to people, get to know them, and then sell them.  The video that played, as well as the copy that went with it on the page, kept telling you that you were struggling in life and that there was a natural way to market via relating to likeminded people.  Right underneath the skillfully made video was a button telling you to “find yourself” by paying around $10.00.

Just Like Losing Weight 50 Years Ago…

If you study the principals that were used 50 or so years ago, you’d notice that the basics of sales and marketing don’t really change, even though the vehicles they’re delivered from do change, like the Internet.  

However, many marketers and businesses are starting to realize that people are getting savvier to their marketing techniques and are beginning to adjust.  Perhaps in the future new marketers will have to actually get to know their clients and prospects instead of going for the quick and easy. 
It may actually be a breath of fresh air.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis
"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"
www.MarkEllisCopy.com
(859) 797-9560
elmo033057@gmail.com

Use eBooks to Cheaply Drive Free Traffic to Your Website or Blog

I have written eBooks, and as a marketing tool, they work pretty well.  There are two schools of thought on how to create them.  One is to sit your butt down and knock it off and the other is to hire a ghost writer to make one for you. 

Since most of you are like me (lazy), in this post I’ll tell you how to hire a ghost writer to create an eBook. In the next post, we’ll explore how to write your own and some of the pitfalls to avoid, but for this episode we’ll go the ghost writer route.

What Are eBooks and Why Does Everyone like Them So Much?

Just in case you’re brand new to Internet marketing, here’s a brief description of electronic books or eBooks. You can easily become a publisher without having to print up books the traditional way.

These are electronic books that you can get online and read on your computer.  These are sometimes called .PDF files. (PDF is the file extension that means that the file is basically text and graphics in book format.) You can have great pictures, and text laid out in such a way that makes the book look great, and the book can be as big or small as you want it.

One of the best thing about eBooks is that you could really load one up with pictures and graphics and you’d save a lot of money over traditional publishing because using traditional methods, you’d have to spend butt – loads on money getting full color pictures into a book.

Not only that, but distribution costs are super cheap.  They can be downloaded as file from one place on the Internet to the other, and they can also be sent as an email attachment from one place to another.  You can also sell them from a variety of places online such as Clickbank, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.   

Another super-plus benefit to eBooks is that they can also be Interactive.  Just like the Internet, you can place links to websites and products you’re trying to sell, and you can even embed video into them.  However, the computer that you are reading them on needs to be connected to the Internet for the links and video to work. 

The main benefit of creating an eBook is that no longer will you need to go through a publisher and all of the traditional routes to become an established author.  You can call yourself an author without needing anyone’s backing or permission and you can do all of this for next to nothing.  Amazing!

The Downside of eBooks and How to Overcome It

As I see it, there are two main setbacks to using an eBook.  First, everyone is making them and giving them away.  Some of the best eBooks I have read were eBooks I’ve gotten online for free.  (I’ll leave links to these at the end of this post.) 

However, a lot of the eBooks that are given away SUCK.  Plain and simple. We’re not going to go that route.

The other drawback is taking the time to sit down and write them.  The two disadvantages go hand in hand when overcoming them, as you’ll see in a moment.

 So, let’s tackle both problems at the same time in steps.

Step 1: Identify the Niche You’re Operating In.  If you don’t know what your business is all about, you are in an extreme disadvantage.  You’ll need to figure out where you are and how you’re going to get there.  If you haven’t taken the time to read the post I’ve already written on exploring niches, check it out here: Ways to Find Niches

  

Another method of finding out what your niche is, as well as your unique selling proposition (USP) is to actually sit down and write out a business plan.  The way I wrote mine was I got a copy of Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing Workbook.  This book is not only a great marketing book, but it will help you write out a fairly decent marketing and business plan.

Step 2:  Gather Resources.  Once you’ve identified your niche, go online and

peruse books and courses in your niche from Amazon, eBay and other book – type resources.  Find out what’s really hot in your niche and start buying and gathering information from them.  If you have to buy books from Amazon, you can get them cheap by buying them used.  You are looking for the absolute best information you can find in your niche.  The best way to determine this is by looking at the Amazon ratings as well as the number of comments that are on the site. 

TIP: Another awesome place to get this type of information from is forums.  Start reading and copying and pasting the best posts, questions and answers you can find from them.  Some of the most incredible advice I've gotten is from forums, so copy and paste your favorite readings into a word processor and keep them.

You’re going to need quite a stack of resources on your subject.

Step 3: Start Reading and Highlighting Your Resources.  Now, take the resources that you’ve been gathering and start reading.  Whenever you find something in them that you think is dynamite or useful, highlight it with a highlighter.  Do this to all of your resources. After doing this, you should have quite a pile of information.

Step 4:  Get reasonably priced writer and have theme write your material.  There are many places on the Internet to find writers that will do your ghost writing for you.  Here’s a partial list of places you can go to on the Internet to outsource writing:

Moving AheadCommunications 

Ghosts R Us – Specializes in outsourcing eBooks     

Fiverr - A unique site that vendors can only charge $5.00 a gig.  

oDesk 

eLance 

Freelancer 

99designs 

Hire the World  

There are loads of outsourcing sites and you’ll need to get used to using the one or two that you’ll feel most comfortable with in order to get your eBook or eBook written.

Step 5: Send your highlighted material to your ghostwriter and have them rewrite it.  Once you have your ghostwriter hired, send them your highlighted books and have them rewrite the material for you.  You are not plagiarizing, but rewriting the material into someone else’s words.  Not only that, but you are picking material from a variety of resources.  So, you are not copying, but using the material you highlighted as source material. 

Step 6:  Brand your eBook.  Make sure all of your marketing information is in the eBook before you give it away or sell it.  Make sure that your Web address, email, business number and any other contact information that you have is in the eBook.

Pretty much, that’s all there is to it.  One thing to keep in mind, you’ll need to check and read the material sent back to you by your ghostwriter.  You don’t want to have your name on anything substandard because you’re trying to build an excellent brand and reputation, here.

To Your Success!

Mark "Elmo" Ellis

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

Free eBooks that are just outstanding:

How to Make MoneySitting on Your A** by T.J. Rohleder

Magnetic Marketing by Dan Kennedy 

Web Savvy Content Creation to Generate FREE Traffic to Your Website

If you are going to use free content to drive traffic to your website, then you need to pay close attention to this one important tip I’m going to throw at you in a second.  Free content online is huge, and there is a lot of competition. 

However, for those of you out there in the vast Internet heartland, reading this message might be just what you need to push you to greater heights of Internet marketing glory.

The Giant Failure-Filter…Don’t Quit Your Day Job

If the statistics are close to accurate, Internet based businesses have a 90%+ rate of failure within the first 120 days.  There are many reasons for this that have been cited:  Lack of business experience, very limited technical skills, poor understanding of starting and running a business, no capital at all, unrealistic expectations. 

Should I go on?

This is why my blog is dedicated to teaching you how to work the Internet as cheaply as possible.  If you've never had a business before, start and learn as cheap as you can.  The most beautiful thing about the Internet is you don’t need to spend a wad of money to get started, and therefore, if you don’t succeed, you’ll financially live to fight another day. 

But don’t quit your day job, no matter what the gurus tell you.  Every stinking’ one of them had failures along the way.  Rarely, (emphasis on rarely) are the ideas, economic conditions, and your personal life so perfectly in sync that you’ll hit a homer on the first swing.

If you are persistent in business, you’ll bounce back from your failures.  You will find, especially on the Internet, that you’ll fail more times than you succeed. 

Writing Content for Free Online Traffic

Writing content in order to get free, organic traffic to your site or blog is

probably the cheapest way to get Internet traffic.

Just think of these benefits:

• If you wrote a post or added a webpage every single day of the year to your site, at the end of the year you’d have 365 pages of content out there on the Internet working hard for you, every day of the week.  Over two years you’d have 730 pages of content over three years that would give you over 1000 pages.  Those pages work 24/7/365 for you and the charge will be almost nothing. 

• If you did keyword research correctly for those pages, they would definitely bring in some traffic.  

• You could also post short notices to social media sites about those posts, generating a flood of traffic, and you can use the same post on social networking sites months later to generate interest in it again.

• If you organized those posts, and put them into a .pdf file, you could also brand it as an eBook and either sell it online or give it away free as an incentive for giving you their email address.

• Not only will you get comments from people visiting your site, but your website or blog will definitely draw attention from Google and other search engines.  People contributing to your blog by commenting on it will help it generate more attention from Google, and therefore, move you further up the search engine results pages.

The Downside to Using Free Content

I present to you now, the downside to this strategy:

• Most of us are lazy, let’s just face it.  In order to pull this off, you are going to have to write and actually enjoy it.   The only way out of this is to hire a ghost writer, but that costs money and the good ones don’t come cheap.

• You’re going to have to set a part of your busy day away to write and post.  This requires discipline as well as commitment.

• Quality is the order of the day.  In order to pull this strategy off, you’re going to have to give people the highest quality content you can muster.  It doesn’t matter what your services or products are, if you aren't producing excellent information and content about them people will ignore you.

• You need to know how to write.  If you write posts or pages that people can’t easily understand, then chances are they will click and go elsewhere.  Yes, this blog is about using the Internet as cheap as you can to make money, but don’t think for a second you can give out used Volkswagen efforts and get Rolls Royce results.  

• This is time consuming.  You’ll need to spend at least an hour or more writing every day.  Anything less is ludicrous.

• You need to know what you are talking about.  If you have no clue about your area of, ahem…”expertise”, then it will definitely stick out like a sore thumb. 

• You’ll need to know how to post to the Internet and do Keyword research.  You can use WordPress, Blogger or a website editor like Dreamweaver.  If you are going to build an actual website, you should learn how to hard code HTML so you can create the pages that you’ll post your writing to. 

  Blogging the “Easier” Solution

If you want my two cents about the easiest way to get content onto the Internet, I’d say Blogging is the way to go.  Both WordPress and Google’s Blogger are very easy to use and you can get free versions of both to cut your teeth on.  I personally use Blogger, both the free version and I also have a .com I pay for on another Blogger blog as well. (www.markelliscopy.com) 

Blogger is the cheapest way to go because even if you get a .com (URL) for that blog, all you have to pay for is the .com.  To have a URL with WordPress, you’ll have to have a hosting package from a company like HostGator and know how to set up the blog through the control panel. 

Here are some resources for you to consider:

Dreamweaver : Web Design Software

Learn HTML and how to build websites online...FREE!

Blogger

WordPress

In my next post, we’re going to explore how to organize your subject matter and research it in order to be able to write blog posts that people are actually going to WANT to read about.

Until then…

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Web Savvy List Building Story That's 100% True and SHOCKING!

NOTICE:  I am not, nor will I ever be involved with Network or Multilevel Marketing.  It's just not my thing.  If that's the type of business you're into, then God Bless you and keep on trucking. I'm not going to voice my opinion on it one way or the other.  It's just not for me, and I'm not into it.  I have seen some people make a wad on this type of business and I've seen people lose their shirts on it. In my opinion and experience, you have to be an excellent salesperson with a very thick hide to work it. But that's all I have to say about it.  So, there.

Years ago, I worked for an Internet and information marketer; it was a very interesting experience.  He called me from a number on a bulletin board, where I had placed a flyer advertising my Web Design services.  Turns out he had hundreds of websites and couldn't keep track of them all, so he hired me to help him out.   

To this day, I still scratch my head at how disorganized his operation was, yet he was pulling in well over a million dollars.  One day, I went in to his place of business to work on some things he asked me to take care of while he was out of town. 

As a matter of fact, he was always out of town, because he was constantly doing seminars of one sort or another.  So, I got to this building he had rented, and the thing was left wide open.  I didn’t have a key, I just walked in looked around and nobody was there.  He had left family members in charge while he was gone and apparently they had left it open. 

I called him to let him know that his building was left unsecured all night and that the lights and everything else were running full blast.  Since I had no way of knowing how much equipment he had in there, I didn't know if he had some of his stuff ripped off or not.  He had loads of computers, packing machines, machines for silk screening DVD’s, a lot of high-end video equipment, etc.   

When I got him on the phone, finally, he sheepishly said, “Oh, Dad must have left the building unlocked again.”  Turns out this happened all of the time.  

Since I was left alone in his building, I decided to check out the material he was making money on.  His operation was all handled at his shop, and it looked like he didn’t outsource anything. Every part of his business was right inside the building, and he printed on demand.  In other words he wasn’t publishing his books and pamphlets the traditional way.  He was the publisher.  Whenever an order came in, he’d print it up himself, box it up and send it out.

So, being an information marketer – wannabe, I decided to peruse some of his material to see what an actual full-sledged info-marketer was selling.

I was shocked at what I saw. 

Most of the stuff was... how I can put this delicately….Rubbish!

A lot of what I saw were flimsy pamphlets he had printed by copying stuff he had thrown together from his websites and websites from friends who had given him permission.  He would basically print up the actual webpages, put them into a spiral bound machine and send them out.  And the websites themselves were rubbish.  There really wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the material he was peddling.

But, his phones were ringing off the hook.  People were only too eager to buy what he was selling. (Just imagine if he actually sold a world-class product what kind of business he’d do!)  Turns out that he was an EXCELLENT salesman.  He had gotten into the multilevel marketing business and done very well with it.  Now, he not only was running that operation, but he was selling courses on how to make it big in the world of MLM and networking.

I didn’t stay working for this man very long, even though he and his family were very nice to me.  He was on the road so much, he was never home.  I could never get ahold of him to find out what he wanted me to do with his websites, and he also had other gatekeepers that were running some of those sites, so I just faded out of the picture. 

However, I did get one important lesson from this man.  I asked him what he considered to be the most important aspect of an Internet business or an information marketing business was.

THE LIST.  

That’s what he emphatically told me.  “The list is absolute gold.”

He was an expert at this, because his list was so massive he couldn’t keep track of it all.   However, he had a faster way in than many Internet marketing newbies would have.  Because he had made a major landing in a diet product related MLM business, he would go on the road for this business to their seminars.  He was an excellent salesman, so he’d not only promote his business, but he’d also promote his course. 

So, he was in an enviable position to promote his wares to large, hungry

groups of people that were eager to plunk down their money at the event as well as get on one of his hundreds of sites and order when they got home.  

This concept never left my mind.  When I was still building websites for people, I started noticing that people that were doing lousy in their businesses had no concept of list building or keeping in contact with their past clients.

If you have people that liked your business and liked you, these are the easiest prospects you could ever get?  Why wouldn’t you keep them in your business loop?

So, if you want to build an online business, or an offline bricks and mortar business then keep a good database of your clients and prospects. Always stay in touch with them, and strive to build it, because this is the fuel that’ll drive your business.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

You've Made Your Web Savvy Traffic Generating Video, Now What?

Ok, the next thing you’ll want to do is save your video so that you can easily upload it to YouTube, Vimeo or any other Video site.  Before you do that, you’ll need a basic understanding of how to compress video. 

If you haven’t been keeping up on how to create traffic generating videos, here are the links to previous posts that you’ll find very helpful: (These are in the order of how you should read them.)

1.  Use Web SavvyYouTube Traffic Generation to Get Prospects to Your Site 

2.  How NOT to CreateYouTube Videos That Will Get Traffic to Your Site 

3.  What Type ofSoftware and Hardware Should I Use to Make YouTube Videos With? 

4.  How to Make Web Savvy YouTube Videos That Will Generate Traffic

  

Compressing your video files --- The Basics

It would be a good idea to understand how video file conversion works when getting ready to upload them to different sites.  Basically, whenever you are compressing a file of any type, it is basically reducing it in some manner.  The smaller the file, the faster it will load. 

If you have ever reduced a typical photograph file for a website, you’ll notice that when you reduce the size of that file, the picture becomes a little less clear and sort of grainy looking.  That’s because you are taking out some of the pixels in the picture. In a nutshell that’s basically what you’re doing to a video.  

In video however, the camera stores or records anywhere from 23 to 30 STILL images which somehow makes the movement more clear and fluid. So, within the frames, the compression function stores the changes there instead of storing more frames.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS: Whenever you compress a video or picture, it will be less clear because the file is smaller!

Here is a video compression chart to help you understand a little about it:

My recommendation to you is if this is the first time you’re compressing a video file and placing it on the Internet, is to compress it into a standard mp 4 format and upload it to YouTube.  That is the easiest way to get your first video online.

How to Compress the Video File

If you read my article on which video editing software to buy, you’ll know that I’m partial to Camtasia and Sony Vegas.  These programs have video compression built into the programs, so just like any other video program, you can pick the type of compression or file extension that you want.  My recommendation is to:

A.)  Use either Sony Vegas or Camtasia for video editing

B.) Compress the video file into MP4 format

C.)  Upload to YouTube because it is very easy and YouTube will give you step by step directions on how to do it.

Why I’m Not Recommending HD format.

There is an area of Internet users caught in an area called The Digital Divide.  These are people that because of where they live, their economic situation or they may not be computer savvy enough keeps them from getting the fastest and best Internet service. 

I live in a rural community where the only way I can get Internet is by way of a “Hotspot”.  I am only allowed 10 gigs a month on my Internet service. So, watching videos at home is totally out of the question, so I only use static pages. 

I’m in an extreme situation, however.  Usually, most people can get regular full-blown Internet but, there’s an awful lot of people that can’t get the best Internet service.  Either they are living in an area where they can’t get it or they can’t afford the best.  So, for them to wait for a HD High-Definition video to load on a slower bandwidth is unrealistic. 

And if you are trying to market your services, you could be cutting a whole segment of people out of your sales funnel.  So go with a medium range MP4 compression if you can.

If you still don't understand how to compress video files, watch this:

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

(859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com

Web Savvy Success Principles That Can Propel Your Internet Venture

Yesterday, I wrote a rather extensive post about gaining traffic by creating EBooks.  If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to write about all of the free ways that you can generate traffic to your website. That way, if you are new to Internet marketing (IM) you won’t waste a lot of money. 

Even though I can’t quote an exact figure, I read a recent article that stated 90% of the people that start Internet businesses fail within the first 90 days.

Personally, I believe the figure is even bigger than that, so let’s face it, many of you are tire kickers.  You’ll get on the IM bandwagon all wide eyed and enthusiastic, and then over a relatively short period of time, you’ll give it up thinking that this dog won’t hunt.

 

Just get on any good IM forum like the Warrior Forum, and you’ll see posts with headings similar to this:

“Frustrated…Don’t know what to do.”

“I quit my job to pursue IM, now I’m broke…What do I do?”

“I created a product, wrote my sales page, and nobody is buying it…”

You know, stuff like that. 

There’s probably a lot of reasons for this, but I think you have to look at IM just like most other endeavors in life; many shall come but few will be chosen.  Or, as I like to phrase it, “Many shall come but few will be committed.”   That’s probably closer to the truth.

After listening to motivational speakers, reading books on success, and trial and error over the last 25 years, I’ve come to my own personal conclusions.  These may help you or work for you, or perhaps not.  The main factor in the scheme of things is that the ball is in YOUR court, and it doesn’t matter how many success principles I throw at you or anyone else, it’s what YOU do that counts.

Dieting and Success, What’s the Diff?

Which brings me to another point.  I’m writing this post in January, right after the start of the new year.  Being fascinated with marketing of all kinds, I notice things like what kind of magazine articles and books that are published.  Now unless you’re living under a rock, you've no doubt noticed all of the diet and success books that come out this time of the year.

I’m always amazed at the seemingly all of the seemingly new angles that diet plan hawkers come out with.  Just take a look at this “short” list of diets. (I’m saying “short” in jest, because it is rather long, but in the scheme of dieting it merely scratches the surface of the names and types there are.)

DIET TIP:  I can save you a whole ton of money on diet books right now.  Years ago, I got a book from Men’s Health that was about all the great foods you should be eating. It had wonderful full color pictures of all sorts of hamburgers, steaks, huge salads, etc., and the recipes for them.   This book had all the stuff I love to eat, and the pictures were so enticing, I wanted to lick the page. 

I remember thinking, “Now, THIS is ME! This is the type of diet I want to be on. Where men with six pack abs are telling me to eat juicy hamburgers, spaghetti and all the crap I love! Yeah, I can do this!”

Inside the first chapter, Men’s Health went over the top 10 or so fad diets that people dive into.  Their conclusion:  These diets don’t work because they are not sustainable over a long period of time.  They are ineffective, and sometimes dangerous.

Then, Men’s Health gave you THEIR diet plan:

(Drum roll please…ahem…)

Burn more calories than you consume.

That’s it.  That was the whole plan.  And guess what?  I tried it, and it works perfectly! 

So, there ya go.  I already saved you a crap-load of moola on diet books.  You should never have to buy one again. Actually, the Men’s Health book advocated eating the right way, to preserve and optimize your health, so that book is a great buy, and you can get it used on Amazon cheap here:

Men’s Health Diet That Has Guys With Incredible Abs Of SteelTelling You To Eat Spaghetti And Hamburgers

Success Formulas Are Like Diet Plans

Success books and ideas are the same way.  Just another endless parade of books that promise if you follow the plans they have for you, the world will be your oyster.  Many, many people have made loads of money from that scheme, and just like diet plans, theirs will work for you. 

So here’s what works for me, and bear in mind, I’m telling you all this for free. 

#1 You need a passion, business, vocation or direction to pursue like a laser guided missile.  Without any direction, you are just like a ship without a destination.  You won’t go anywhere.  It’s the same thing with Internet marketing, if you don’t have a specific niche in mind, you won’t get very far. 

(Personally, I think it’s crazy to start a full 4 year degree without having a clue as to what you’re going to be doing after college.  If you are going to be a master chef, don’t you think it would be better to work in the restaurant business for a while BEFORE committing massive amounts of time and money in college?)

So, figuring out what you want to do at the onset, is very important.

#2 You need to be committed.  You need to stick with it. You need to be like Rudy Ruettiger.  You don’t want to bounce all over the place, planning and re-planning your destination.  You want to be committed to your passion through thick and thin.  Once again, I’ll bring up a few case studies to remind you of the importance of this:

Colonel Sanders went to 1000 restaurants with his chicken recipe before one of them tried it.

Edison tried over 10,000 experiments to get his light bulb to work.

Commitment is paramount.

#3 You need to take ACTION.  Yeah, you can decide on where you want to go and how much you want to get there, but without taking a ton of action, you’ll never even get close.  The best way to do this is to plan out what you’re going to do and execute it.  Many of the world’s most successful people plan out where they want to be years in advance and how they’re going to get there.  Then they take action based on those plans. 

#4 Your attitude needs to be conducive to the goals you are trying to achieve.  As Zig Zigglar once said, “It doesn’t matter how great of an attitude I have, I can’t run as fast as Roger Bannister or box as good as Joe Louis, but I could do those things a lot better than someone with a BAD attitude!”

Translation:  Having a good attitude may not get you all of the way to your destination (especially if you have an unrealistic one) but you’ll get much closer to achieving your dreams if you have a good attitude.

The Place You Wind Up In May Not Be Kansas

One thing I want to add to this.  If you are pursuing a dream…a really big dream, like becoming an NBA superstar, or a top-drawer studio musician, you more than likely set yourself up for failure.  I’m not telling you to give up on your dream, but I’m saying that you may wind up close to or in a great position that you didn’t imagine.  I’m NOT saying that is bad, as a matter of fact, you may be better off. 

I’ve personally known people that were trying to become NFL players and wound up being athletic coaches at prominent universities.  Did they make it to achieve their lofty dreams?  No, but they wound up doing something they liked in a great job that they love.

So, my advice for anyone with a goal or ambition is to put your back into your vocation or passion, you may be surprised at where you wind up.

To Your Success!

Mark “Elmo” Ellis

"When it Comes to High-Response Copy - I've Got Your Back!"

www.MarkEllisCopy.com

 (859) 797-9560

elmo033057@gmail.com