“I get business by word of mouth. I don’t have money to spend on EXTRA stuff like a website.” – Misconception #1

This is where I choose to start because I find this one the funniest as well as the most contradictory. For the most part, the people I talk to know the value of having a website. I really ran into this misconception when I was cold calling business owners without really knowing if they were in the market or not. If you happen to be one of these people, LISTEN UP because this may be the most important article you ever read.

Word of mouth has evolved over the last 10 years. The idea of a marketing plan simply based on word of mouth is a good one. I mean, it’s free and if it works well you know it is because you are doing a good job servicing people. Who wouldn’t want free marketing based on performance? Now, I am not here preaching that word of mouth is dead. It is NOT dead by any means, but it has evolved into something much more complex and only when you realize that, will you be able to take advantage.

The dinosaur version of word of mouth goes something like this: I tell my friend Molly about the pizza place on Colorado Ave. She goes to the pizza place and has a great meal. In turn, Molly tells 3 friends about her positive experience. They go on to do the same and the cycle HOPEFULLY continues. Soon enough you have a great reputation and everyone in the city knows about your awesome pizza. Wouldn’t it be nice if that was still the case? It’s not and if you are getting business this way, then you are sorely mistaken. Word of mouth is now on STEROIDS. Due to the growth of the internet and social media, word of mouth has evolved into a different monster. Now when I tell Molly about the pizza place, she goes to her computer first and looks you up on Google. Hmmm, no website huh? Well maybe Molly will give them one more chance… do they have a Google Places page or Yelp reviews? No… Pizza Hut sounds good. Your word of mouth just slammed into a wall and unless you have some content online, there is no way up or around it. That branch of has broken and you are doing to have to start from square 1 with a new set of people. You may be thinking “Well if my friend told me about a place I would trust them”…You are trusting them! You wouldn’t bother searching the place at all if you didn’t trust your friend, but why would you just go off what your friend says when you can find out yourself in seconds. Most people are “show me” people and they trust what their own eyes see. So, your friend tells you about a place and you simply slap out the cell phone to do a quick search. A good business will have information right there and that “word of mouth” is now VALIDATED by something everyone has access too.

Still don’t see it?

Ask yourself, how many people do you know that don’t have a computer or a mobile device? Of the people who have those, how many have both a mobile device and a computer? Very few of you will be able to name 1 or 2 people that don’t have these devices. Take into account that there are 6 billion people living on this planet right now and you can get a good Idea of the scale that the internet can reach. Another interesting number is 34,000. This being the number of search quarries Google gets per second. People search information, information is normally contained within a …website. We live in age where we have been groomed to feel like we can find anything we want online. Suck rebuilding that engine? Nope just search for it on YouTube instead of stewing over the problem for 3 hours. Having your own website only increases your chances of being the answer to a search. Having anything up there that tells people who you are and what you do is a step in the right direction. There is something there that will answer that “searcher’s” question. It only makes sense that a person is more likely to get the customer by being visible to them when they are looking for your specific services. You can’t do that without a website.

With all this new knowledge can you still say that a website is an EXTRA? Can you still compare it to the 60 inch Flat Screen you got instead of the 50″ because you won some extra money in a poker game? A website is not an extra. If everyone has the internet then every business should have a website. Why would you spend a few grand monthly to rent a building that can be seen from the street by maybe 1000 cars a day when you can spend a grand or two on a website that is accessible to over 6 billion people? Keep in mind that those 1000 cars on the street aren’t necessarily searching for anything, but I can tell you that 34,000 people per second are sitting at their desk searching for something, so why can’t your business be the result?

Summary:
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban neighborhood, but when it comes to the truth as to why they’re living there, they don’t exactly come clean with their neighbors.

A Bummy Review of The Joneses:

I want to say that this is an absolute must for everyone in our business. Going into the movie, I had no clue what it was actually about since I had “acquired it from a site” only because I saw a few actors I really like… *cough* Demi Moore *cough* Amber Heard *cough* David Duchovny… I meeeean .. Lets move on.  So, the movie is basically about a “family” living the grand life in a wealthy community. The twist is that they are really a group of sales people who pretend to be a family while showing off all their great stuff in order to make their neighbors envious of all the glitz and glam they have. In turn they are selling their neighbors on buying everything from frozen sushi plates to high end cars. It’s incredible to see how they are able to use everyday things and make them seem like must have items. As you can guess, there are obvious problems that lie within a “sale” like this and the movie definitely shows a worst case scenario of what a game like this can cause. I kind of want you to watch the movie, so I won’t go too much into the twist at the end and ruin the movie for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. All-in-all, this is a must see movie for us Affiliate Marketers. The acting was good, the plot kept you interest in the movie, it’s an interesting movie subject to start with, and Amanda Heard does what she does best in all her movies by giving us a few seconds of “fine viewing”.

How it Relates to Affiliate Marketing:

I am not going to be obvious and say “well they are salesmen and that’s what we basically are”. There was actually a more interesting lesson I got from this movie. Demi Moore’s character is the “head” of the family and wants to see more production out of her “husband”, David Duchovny. Before this gig he was a car salesman, so he was basically a direct seller. Now he was selling a life or a lifestyle. He had to reach a whole community which is sort of impossible to do one by one. He needed a new plan of attack, which is something all of us can say we have realized once or twice in our careers. Basically, what he came up with was to stop focusing on selling people and work on forming relationships with people of influence. He targeted a young golf course employee / pro and kind of made him a believer in what he was trying to sell. Now he new that through the day, this employee would talk to more people than he ever could. Plus it was this kids JOB to sell since he worked in the golf course’s Pro Shop. In time when the kid saw how well Mr. Jones was using this club or this putter, he would tell other club members about how it improved Mr. Jones’ performance. Basically he planted seeds with targeted people and had them be an extension of his sale.  It’s a great way to look at referrals and selling. You always want to make friends and you always want to put your best foot forward when meeting new people because they are an extension of your business. You may not sell them on an idea, but they know people and those are the people you can sell without even meeting them. Its the same with websites.  The way you set up a website can effect how your word of mouth goes.  For instance, a Facebook “Like” button is a tool or an extension of your sale.  A person who likes what you have can press a button and now you have been broadcasted to 500 new people.  Its just a thought of mine and something that really stuck out to me while I watched this movie.  So in summation, watch the movie and see how Mr. Jones uses the people around him to do the work for him.  It’s a cool concept and it may open your eyes a little bit.

My Rating:
7.5 (I’m harsh on my scale. anything above a 7 is a must see)

1. We admit we are lazy and have our minds constantly thinking about the quick buck.  Our theology is making us poor and living with our mothers.
2. We have come to believe there is a Power greater than ourselves that can put us in our place.  Lets just hope Mom will still make us dinner.
3. We have made a decision to change our ways, to stop the endless night of e-whoring and other black hat methods that have no future promise.
4. We have sat down and searched for the reasons we are lazy and have come up with answers besides “waking up at 2pm keeps me refreshed”.
5. We have admitted aloud that we are lazy and have not done ENOUGH to reach our goals of being a successful Affiliate Marketer.
6. We are entirely ready to have our mothers pick on us for being lazy and making us realize that these are all defects we can be rid of… by nagging us further.
7. We humbly ask others for help and actually LISTEN to the answers instead of looking for the shortcut in their answer.
8. We have made a list of all the things we have done incorrectly over the years and are taking the necessary steps to learn from them as well as fix them.
9. We have correctly identified and fixed all shortcuts we have taken over the years.
10. We never stop evaluating and  learning about ourselves so that we do not start to fall back into old lazy habits.
11. We take the necessary trips to the golf course, casino, or bathroom to take a little time away from the computer to really think about what we are doing.  Using the time to really be creative without the answer right there in front of you and a few keystrokes away.
12. We  receive our first honest check and realize that these steps have given use a base to start from.  Something solid and long lasting that you can build around…..and we also see our mother’s hand out to collect her monthly living fees :-/

I’m pretty sure I am at step 7.  Definitely had my mother give me enough “encouragement” to change the way I have been over the last 2 years.  Can’t wait to get my first real check so i can give her some cash from it….. ugh

So what brought me back? Well 2 things really got me back into the marketing mood. First, the incredible amount of readers who have signed up to my blog over the passed 7 months. Seems like every day I am getting a new member to the site which makes me feel like a real ass since I have done nothing to earn it for the past few months. Second, I am looking for something else to do to make money. I’m not active on the net with the job I have now. I want to be the one designing or blogging. All I do is talk and I know I didn’t get into this to talk for a living. I belong on the computer and not the phone. This is why I am going to do my absolute best to bring you more and more content every week. I have some plans in the next few weeks where I will be doing some PPV advertising so that will be great and I’ll make sure to share everything I think will help.

I cant write a blog and not share something with you, so I am going to give you a helpful link that I found tonight. I was looking at some jobs that were out there and I submitted a few resumes to SEO Expert listings. I know I have done a lot with SEO in my life, but what is considered an “Expert”. Well in my search for this answer, I looked up some tips pages where I could kind of brush up on the basics since I have been out of the game for a little bit. I came up on this one site with 54 tips. I wanted to share it because I went to about 4 other websites previous and all of them gave me 10 tips and pay for the other 47. Don’t you just love it. Thank god I haven’t been out of the game too long and know to KEEP SEARCHING. I did so and found this http://www.searchenginejournal.com . Take a look if you are kind of unsure about how SEO works. This will help you A LOT with PPC campaigns and relevancy. A lot of it is pretty standard stuff and if you are well versed in SEO then you can skip it, but it was a nice little refresher for me.

ALSO!!!

Seriously take a look… amazing read.

     Like I said, this is a free pdf. All you have to do is give your name and email address and the site will send you an activation link, then an e-mail with the pdf link. I would just directly link you to the pdf, but He did a lot of work and should get some credit for it. I hope you guys benefit from it like I think I will. I am going to set up some campaigns later today, so watch out for a V-Log later for an update.

Insideaffiliate.net – PPV 101 – Everything You Need By: Josh Todd

I been up and thinking about why I am still trying so hard to make it big on my own. I have about $100 bucks to my name at the moment and big things look like they are on the horizon. Yea I said big things, but how big? I don’t know to be honest. I personally don’t even know if It will turn into anything big at all. That’s the thing though. I have heard myself say that sort of thing before and then nothing came of it. Things that I thought i planned out perfectly and had all intentions of going through with, but just never had pan out the way I thought they would. So, why is it that I am continuing to do this to myself when I know that in 2 months I will have to find a real job and become a working adult? Well I am a little crazy for one thing. Besides a little bit of lunacy, I think I am conditioned better than others for this type of disappointment. I played baseball for 17 years of my life and if there is anything baseball players are exceptional at is failing. Who do you know is happy with succeeding 30% of the time. We feel one day and we get back up the next and try again. I think that’s why I know I am right for this field of work. Affiliate marketing is exactly like baseball. First of all, it takes a lot of practice and attention to detail to be successful. Secondly, You will never bat 1.000. You will fail a lot trying new stances and new techniques, but when it all comes together you will be able to see the ball coming at you like a huge watermelon. I have failed so fair in my journey to becoming a self made marketing superstar. My coach has sat me on the pine, but I know that my time is better spent thinking about the next adjustment I need to make rather than picking splinters out of my ass and feeling sorry for myself. All it takes is one idea and one solid method to get back into the lineup. Find that grove… get into that zone… and see a watermelon sized wad of cash flying towards your wallet.

I guess the lesson here is to figure out if you can handle the stress and the failure. It can last for a week or years, but you will get to a point where everything comes together and you just click. It’s all green from there baby!!