Nate Rifkin is one of the most prolific and successful young Copywriters of his generation.

His clients include publishing behemoth Agora, as well as starting his own nutritional supplement company.

But, unless you have a large budget it is almost impossible to hire him!

So we are very fortunate that Nate agreed to do a Skype Interview for us.

In this interview, Nate reveals his…

# 5-step Formula For Writing Sales Copy.

# How he researches a product,

# How he makes sure he is speaking his customers language

# Why sometimes too much knowledge can be a hindrance.

Enjoy!

Barry Dunlop

PS: We are including a very detailed edited transcript which we recommend you print off and read. There is also an audio recording for those that prefer to listen. This was a Skype Interview so in places the quality of recording is a little crackly – but this should not distract from your enjoyment too much;

Nate Rifkin Copywriter | Secrets To Writing Better Copy and Making More Sales

We started our interview by asking Nate how he got involved in being a copywriter?

Nate Rifkin: 5 Step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

1) Who should get this product? In one sentence, tell me who they are and what their problem is.

2) What’s the story behind your product or service?

3) What problems does it solve? Big and small, tell me all of them.

4) What’s your offer? What are you charging, why is it a bargain, and why should I buy it right now?

5) In one, short sentence, tell me what’s so great about this product.

** Edited Transcription – Nate Rifkin Interview **

We started our interview by asking Nate how he got involved in being a copywriter?

Nate Rifkin: …when I was around college age, in fact just entering my first year, I’d be surfing the Web. I’d find these odd, really long letters. They were sales letters. I didn’t know what they were.They just read like these letters where someone who had just written a book or put together a DVD course, let’s say it was on fitness or health or something, they would describe this amazing story of the struggles they went through, what they did to overcome them, all the things they learned, and talked about this product that they self-published and that they’re offering.

I would buy these courses. They were pretty cool. That’s when I start to actually discover this is a whole business. It was a way of bypassing a traditional publishing house or even just lucking out and getting involved with a massive business that creates products and being your own business owner and creating your own products.

I always loved writing, so I decided I was going to scour the Internet and search around, and study, and buy everything I could on how to write these kinds of letters, because I wanted to be in business for myself, and I was just some little guy. I didn’t have any connections.

I figured this was the best, and maybe the only way someone like me could do that. That was about 12 years ago, and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since.

Barry Dunlop: Thanks, Nate. The most important thing, probably, is the last thing you said. You’ve “been obsessed with it ever since.”

You mentioned you bought some books or you read something? Was there any particular mentor you wanted to give a shout out to? Is there anybody’s writing who, in particular, influenced you?

Nate Rifkin: Yeah. There’s a big one. The one that changed my life, that one is Gary Halbert. He’s pretty easy to find online. Unfortunately, he’s passed away now, but he did leave behind a legacy called the “Gary Halbert Letter. This is someone who got started in direct mail.

Gary Halbert is someone who generated millions and millions of dollars in a plethora of different businesses, who in time went on to teach how he did it. The Gary Halbert Letter is essential reading for anyone serious about about becoming a copywriter.

Barry: It’s remarkable how many people tell me Gary Halbert was the big influence. As you say, he’s no longer with us, but his influence lives on.

Nate, your 5-Question Formula For Writing Copy is a huge help for any copywriter, but are there any specific steps you may suggest for a first time copywriter?

Nate: One of the biggest problems I hear is overwhelm.

There are a million different ways to talk about something that you want to sell.

# Before you write any copy you need to know exactly where your audience is at in terms of the problem they’re facing?

# Do they know what options / solutions they have available?

# What solutions have they already tried?

For example, let’s say your potential customer has heart disease.

In addition, perhaps they have high blood pressure.

And they have already been to see their doctor.

Before you write any copy you must do your research.

If available, survey existing customers – what issues did they experience? What persuaded them to buy your product?

Another place to look is on social media sites – they are particularly good for identifying the PAIN your prospect has.

It is this PAIN you address in your sales copy!

I also recommend Amazon.com for doing research – reading the reviews is another great place to identify pain.

The best copywriters are human data-gathering machines

Coming back to a prospect who has heart disease…

Are they aware of the various prescription options?

Have they considered natural health supplements?

What have they tried, and what are they trying right now?

Then – and this is personal to everyone – you have to take stock of your solution and figure out if they’re even aware of its existence, if they’ve tried it before, and if they were satisfied (or not) with it the first go around.

Barry: That is very interesting Nate:

You need to know what they’ve used already and what happened when they used this previous solution.

Nate Rifkin: Yes, either way, you have to know.

I prefer ‘speaking’ to audiences that already have tried some standard solutions that didn’t work out. That’s when copywriting can be at its most powerful!

At its best, copywriting is education-based marketing.

However there can be some pitfalls…

Let’s say you’re offering a solution for heart health that has to do with lowering levels of homocysteine.

You could write a headline being like:

“New breakthrough solution cuts your levels of homocysteine in half. Read all about it,”

But there is a problem…

Hardly anyone knows about homocysteine!

Barry: I don’t know what it is, Nate.

Nate: Exactly. I have failed to research the awareness of my audience, and as a result, everyone will ignore my message.

On the other hand, contrast that with say blood pressure, where I write a headline saying,

“Amazing natural breakthrough lowers your systolic blood pressure 20 points overnight.”

Someone who has just been to their doctor, and discovered they have an issue with high blood pressure will want to read more.

Indeed, anyone with high blood pressure will want to read more!

You must speak your prospect’s language – no matter what the product or service. This is why the research is so important.

Imagine that instead of saying the above I had said…

“New threat to heart health that has to do with the pressure to your veins and your arteries”

It would have nowhere near the same impact!

People understand blood pressure – Like I said, you must speak your prospects language.

What’s funny about all this is I haven’t even really talked about writing yet.

The phrase is copywriting, but all I’m talking about it getting familiar with your audience and knowing where they’re at.

From there on, your sales message continues in the form of education.

You figure out where they’re at. You figure out what they know, what they’ve already tried, and then you educate them on what the pitfalls were and what they should do next.

For instance, in the blood pressure example, they already know about it, so you basically educate them on why other solutions are not as good. You may say, “You’ve probably heard of these prescription drugs. Sure, they might lower your blood pressure, but here is the problems with the side effects,” and then you continue from there.

In the case with, like you said, you’ve never heard of homocysteine. Right off the bat, even before I mentioned the term, if I’m writing to prospects interested in heart health, I would describe how there is a certain threat to your heart that you have not heard of, and here’s why you haven’t heard of it.

“Let me tell you the story. Let me tell you about this threat and what the science is behind it,” and then I would say, “OK, it’s called homocysteine,” and then — and only then — will I get to the part of the formula where I actually describe the solution, because I can’t describe the solution unless people know what the issue is.

Barry: That sounds amazing. I think actually the key takeaway for me is “education-based marketing.”

Nate: Yeah, but I do need to give credit. This is commonly referred to as “the state of awareness of the market”, and it was the book “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene M. Schwartz , who really broke this down.

That book is out of print, decades old. You can find copies on Amazon selling for over 350 bucks per copy, but the secret juice of that book is pretty much what I just revealed, knowing where the state of your market is.

Barry: That’s a good way of putting it, again, “the state of your market,”

Nate: I think that’s good for now, because the rest will be revealed as we go along. That’s kind of what I really wanted to hammer home, that first part of the state of awareness, so please fire away with what else you’ve got.

Barry: You’ve semi-answered some of this question already, but just for clarification, what do you do first when you are asked to write copy about a product or service you have no personal experience off?

Nate: The first thing I do is I stay away from that blank page, and I stay away from any heavy writing.

As in the example above I dive deep into researching the background of the product, researching how it works, researching the problem it addresses, and researching the folks who are most in need of the product, because they’re the ones experiencing the problem.

The market, the problem, and the solution, I research all that stuff.

I’m looking for how does it work, and what is the news story I can tell in my education-based marketing?

I’m learning about the folks who need it, because I want to make sure that I don’t, basically, say something stupid that they’re just reading it and going, “What? You obviously don’t know me. This obviously doesn’t apply to me, and it’s kind of a turn off.”

I’m also researching the problem itself, because I want to make sure that I understand it properly, for basically the same reason I understand the market. I want to make sure everything matches and aligned.

I guess I might as well go with the same example.

I will research what high blood pressure actually is, the science behind it, why it’s a problem, and in doing so I will find out some interesting things that I can reference in my education-based marketing.

For instance, with High Blood Pressure I’m going to look pretty terrible if I wrote a piece of copy that says…

“Have you felt the strain of high blood pressure when you suddenly get up, and it really hurts?”

You see that is not how high blood pressure manifests itself and I will almost certainly break rapport with my audience, because they see that I don’t know what I am talking about.

However, if on the other hand I said:

You may feel fine right now, and not know you have a serious blood pressure issue.

Then that is more likely to grab attention.

Then I want to research the mechanism behind the product, what makes it work, because I want to find out what makes it superior. I’m going to find out if there’s an herbal solution for blood pressure, I’m going to find out it actually brings levels, keeps it to the normal range, keeps them in the normal range, and it does this without any side effects.

I need to know all these facts because people are so jaded today.

You can’t just scream bigger and bigger benefits at them.

In copywriting you have to address customer skepticism and given them a reason why something is going to work.

I have to do my research, because if I don’t know my stuff, I’m going to be a terrible educator and then the entire sales message becomes a deck of cards and someone kicked at it like it’s a soccer ball. It’s all going to fall apart.

That is the first thing I do. If I’m entering a new market with a new product, it’s even more important than ever.

Someone asked me recently, how much of what you do is research compared to actual writing? Unless I know my stuff, it’s going to be like 80 percent research.

Barry: 80% research! That is remarkable.

Another big takeaway here is saying something that’s not correct.

I mean, if that’s not what they’re experiencing, they’re catch you out and say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” and close the page, and go somewhere else.

Nate: That’s crucial, and it’s very tricky, because kind of by definition it’s not something you can 100 percent watch out for, yourself.

You may be working the project alone locked up in your room, but eventually, this is going to go out to other people and they are different people from you. It’s very helpful if you have someone you can share your writing with and get feedback. Someone who perhaps knows the product and industry better than you.

You are not requesting a marketing opinion – rather you want to know:

“Am I addressing you properly? Am I speaking to you, what your experiences are?”

And most importantly, “Am I saying something where you’re like, ‘No, that’s not how I feel. That’s not something I’m going through'”? That one little extra step can kind of save you from tripping over yourself with your words.

Barry: Excellent, I like that a lot.

I have been told that when writing copy, the headline’s the most important thing, and if you don’t get that right, you might as well not write at all. Do you have any particular hacks or secrets for coming up with great headlines? What is a good headline?

Nate: I agree with what you say, because a headline…just think of it this way, it’s like a first impression when someone walks up to you and shakes your hand. In that five seconds, there is a lot going on. There is a lot of impressions being made, and a lot of them will never be unmade, even if you hang around that person for the next year. It’s kind of similar with headlines, even more so because if your headline isn’t going to grab the reader’s attention, they’re not going to hang around at all, much less for a year.

When you’re aware of your audience’s awareness, when you know what they know, and you know where they’re at, you can craft a great headline that speaks to them exactly where they are, and introduces them to a new idea.

Your headline’s job is simple. You want to grab their attention in a way that’s relevant to the issue they’ve got, and then presents them with kind of an inkling, a curiosity, where they realize, “You know, I gotta pay attention to this.”

Just as important as what a headline does is what it does not have to do. I didn’t say you had to sell your product. I didn’t say you had to get them to bust out the credit card and buy anything, or even believe you, or even necessarily trust you, not yet.

You just want to get them to say, “OK, I’m gonna check this out.” That’s it.

It’s kind of like a newspaper. People are aware of a current event going on. That newspaper headline grabs their attention because it speaks to what they already know, that something’s going on. It’s sort of an implied promise that they’re going to learn more information that’s very valuable to them.

Barry: That’s perfect. I like that a lot.

Do you have a best-ever headline that you’re particularly proud of, that you’d like to share with us? And if you have one, why did it work so well for you?

Nate: Let me think. There is one that, not only, it’s very successful and I think could be a great example, here.

The headline is:

“Toss Your Alkaline Water Down the Drain.”

Barry: Nice.

Nate: There’s a number of reasons why it works pretty well.

The audience that sees that headline is an audience that is interested in their health.

If you walk into a Whole Foods, or a store like that, there are rows and rows of these premium-priced waters boasting of their alkalinity, so it’s on people’s minds.

They’ve seen it. It’s something they can reference and it’s something they traditionally view as healthy, or positive, or certainly socially acceptable.

A headline saying toss it down the drain, it’s going to make them go, “What?

Why would I want to do that? As far as I know it’s good for me.

Is it dangerous? Is it bad? Is it just stupid? Why?

Is it wrong in some way that I should be even keeping this alkaline water in my home?”

There’s only one answer and that is to keep reading to discover this reason why.

Barry Dunlop: You’re really on fire, my friend. I appreciate your time.

I was wondering do you have and ideas or thoughts on creating lead magnets or offers that gets people to opt into your sales funnel?

Nate Rifkin: Sure. I’m not as involved in that as I am in the longer copy that sells the actual product, so I’ll be quick about it. I do have my ear to the floor of what’s working very well.

Answering one bit of curiosity is always what works best with lead magnets.

Just today, I saw a headline for a lead magnet that read:

“What oatmeal does to your body”

That got my curiosity. Made me ask:

Is oatmeal good for me? Or is it bad for me?

Naturally I want a copy of the report so I can discover whether or not oatmeal is good for me.

One little thing is all it takes.

One is infinitely better than two, three, four, five, or six.

When creating a Lead Magnet pick one thing that sparks folks so much they just need to know the answer to it.

Barry Dunlop: Yeah, that’s great. Now that all makes sense, my friend.

You’ve been a copywriter for a little while now and things change. Is there anything in particular that used to work and doesn’t work now, or vice versa, for example? What’s working right now that people really should know about that is relatively new on your scene?

Nate Rifkin: There’s two things that come to mind:

First is what’s not working well.

In terms of the state of awareness of the market people have increasingly already tried a lot of different solutions for their problem and have not been satisfied with those solutions. This is quite a different scenario from say a few decades ago.

People and prospects generally are a lot more jaded these days.

When you’re writing an ad and you’re not addressing the facts that people have tried other things and they did not work, you’re going to have a real tough time selling them.

You need to address their previous disappointments in your sales copy. (Again all part of your detailed research)

I mean, how are they not to know that what you offer them will not FAIL them also?

The second thing I would mention is that your marketing should match the media that the buyer is consuming on a regular basis.

Let me break that down.

30 + years ago, when Gary Halbert was in direct mail, he would send out sales letters that looked like letters because that’s what the person wants to read, a letter. It didn’t need to be a fancy catalog with amazing graphics.

However, when Gary ran ads in magazines, he made sure to format them like magazine articles because that’s just the easiest, most convenient thing for people to consume. Their defenses are down and they’re open to your message.

It’s the same thing with television when infomercials came out, they would often be in a format of news programs and interviews. That is what I mean by matching your message / sales copy with the media format that your buyer is used to watching / reading.

Then this funny thing called the Internet came along and marketers for a while struggled like, “What are people wanting to see on the Internet, and how do we align our sales messages with that? What’s the format?”

Today we’ve kind of figured that out in terms of presenting things with video, and also presenting things with pages that have pretty nice graphics that make it look like a nice WordPress blog.

Those are the two things — making sure that you’re up-to-date with just how many solutions your audience has tried and failed with, and also making sure that your sales message matches what people are used to seeing on the Internet.

By the way, an easy hack for that is to just look at the most popular media blogs and publications and social media sites. If you can mimic the look and feel and experience of them, you’re going to be delivering your content in a way that your audience will appreciate and consume better.

Barry Dunlop: That’s a very strong tip, Nate.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share with us that you feel would be valuable to our audience?

Nate Rifkin: Sure. My last little warning to entrepreneurs and would-be copywriters is a simple one:

Beware of the curse of knowledge.

It’s an advantage that you know your stuff, you have your product line, and you have your facts down cold. The curse of knowledge is you might be speaking to your audience in a way that’s a little bit too in-depth or fast for them.

My words of wisdom would be, take a step back. Make sure, even before you’re selling or asking for an order, make sure your audience gets it. Make sure you understand where they’re at.

Make sure that they get why your solution is better.

If you can show them that you know where they’re at and why your solution is better, they’ll credit you with knowing your stuff and more importantly, buy from you!

Provided the above is applied then the selling part will be a very easy, natural, and mutually-beneficial process from all!

Barry: Thanks Nate, that is an awesome summary. A great deal of value for here, for both the apprentice copywriter and the seasoned pro!

=> Nate Rifkin is one of the busiest and most in demand copywriters on the planet. Contact Nate via his website at NateRifkin.com

Nate Rifkin – 5-step Formula For Writing Sales Copy

Copywriting Related Posts On IncomeDiary:

Ted Nicholas Interview – Master Copywriter Reveals His Billion Dollar Secrets, Creating Killer Copy That Sells

Ray Edwards Copywriter – Interview

The post Nate Rifkin | How To Write Better Copy and Make More Sales appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, To More Customers, More Often

When asked who impresses me most in selling and persuasion…

I don’t mention a great statesman or politician or business leader or even a top sale closer…

No, for me, the greatest salespeople are the writers of persuasive sales copy!

One such person is Ray Edwards.

Lets face it, sales often gets a bad name – but not with Ray Edwards.

He is a master at taking the sleaze out of sales.

Earlier this month I was fortunate to have some time with Ray and interview him for our new series of Podcasts.

Two things in particular stood out for me…

1. The P.A.S.T.O.R Formula (a very easy to understand way to write persuasive sales copy)
2. Plus Ray has some very wise words about SEO Copywriting – top advice for all serious bloggers (19.55 min)

=> Listen to this Podcast several times. It really is that GOOD!

Free Ebook Reveals… The $2 BILLION Sales Letter You’ve Never Heard Of…
PLUS
A Free Copywriting Course

Ray Edwards – 5 Recommended Books on Writing and Copywriting

=> How to Write Copy that Sells By Ray Edwards (Get it!)

=> The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. (fantastic book)

=> Deep Work by Cal Newport. (highly recommended)

=> Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott,

=> On Writing by Stephen King

Ray Edwards Podcast Transcript…

Barry Dunlop: First things first, Ray, and the most importantly, how did you get started as a copywriter?

Ray Edwards: It’s an interesting question to me, because I didn’t know that I was getting started.I was about eight or nine years old. I used to go to my grandparents’ house on the weekends, and they had this newspaper that they got every week.

It had the most fascinating articles in it, the most fantastic articles about how you could use certain pressure points on your body to relieve pain, and how you could absorb books in just a few minutes that other people spent weeks reading.

Only later did I discover, Barry, that these were not articles. These were long-form, direct-response copy advertisements, and they were written by Eugene Schwartz, the great copywriter from the ’50s and ’60s.

The newspaper was the “Weekly World News.” It was a tabloid, kind of fantastical, the newspaper that had stories about UFOs, the boy who eats his own head, and stuff like that.

Barry: [laughs] We had them in Ireland as well, by the way.

Ray: People love that kind of stuff. That’s why it’s at the checkout stand in the US at the grocery stores, because people buy them on impulse.Later, I got into the radio broadcasting business, and I began studying copywriting to help small business owners that we were working with — they were our clients — to help them bring dollars in the door.

Those kind of business people did not care about building their image or building a brand. What they cared about was getting the cash registers to ring so they could pay the bills every month. That was really the beginning of it for me.

Barry: Got you. I like it, actually, because if I look at my own life, quite often people ask me how I did this. I often answer, “Well, it was really an accident.”I’m sure that it isn’t really an accident, but you didn’t know you were becoming a copywriter then – but you where.

Possibly maybe the question I should have started off with then is, “How do you define copywriting? What is copywriting, and why is it so important to us entrepreneurs and small business people?”

Ray: That’s such a good question, because usually with half the people I talk to, I have to clear up the confusion about the word copywriting. Most people, many people, think that it refers to that little symbol after the title of a book, a piece of music, or a work of art that protects your intellectual property.

That’s not the kind of copywrite that we’re talking about. We’re talking about writing the words that sell products or services or ideas. That is writing copy.

It is really salesmanship or persuasion in print.

Barry: : I like that. “Salemanship or persuasion in print.”I always prided myself in being very good at face-to-face selling, and over the years, I always said to people who might congratulate me on my sales ability, that “The salespeople I really admire are the salespeople who can move you from far, far away by something they’ve written.”

Those are always the most impressive sales people to me.

In your book, “How to Write Copy that Sells,” which is a great book, you refer to the magic building blocks of sales copy. Would you mind giving a little bit of information on what are those blocks and how we use them?

Ray: Sure, I’d be happy to walk through the basics of that.What I discovered pretty early on is that there is an underlying formula to how to construct a persuasive sales message. The building blocks of a sales letter, the perfect sales letter…I’ll give you the basic outline of the sales letter. It starts…

Actually, with your permission, I’d like to back up. I think there’s a better place for us to go with this.

The building blocks are a little lengthy to describe, but there’s something I can give your listeners that I think they could start using five minutes from now to be more persuasive, not just in their sales copy, but in their emails and their conversations with people. Do you think that would useful?

Barry: That would be spot on. We’d absolutely love it. That’s what we like at IncomeSup, real actionable stuff we can take away today.

Ray: Good, because this formula that I’m about to give you, this framework, is really the foundation of the building blocks. If people want more information about the building blocks, they can refer to my book, which I think they can get on Amazon for eight bucks or something like that. Obviously, I’m going to get rich if I sell enough of those books.

[laughter]

Ray: Here’s the foundation. I call it the PASTOR framework. People look at me sometimes with the raised eyebrow when I say, “I’m going to give you the sales copy.” They’re like, “Do you want me to be a preacher? “My answer is, “No, this is about you thinking of yourself in the original meaning, context, of that word, which was to shepherd. The shepherd is in charge of caring for the flock, protecting them, feeding them, making sure they have water, keeping the predators away.”

I tell people, “If you will take that approach, if you will think of yourself as a shepherd to your customers, then you will never come across as pushy or salesy, because you’ll always be working in their best interests, to protect them.”

That’s the attitude that the word pastor is designed to invoke. The letters of the word pastor, P-A-S-T-O-R, actually stand for the outline of any persuasive messaging.

It starts like this.

The P stands for the person, the problem, and the pain.

You need to identify the person you’re writing to, the problem that your product or service is intended to solve, and you need to be able to express very clearly the pain that your person is experiencing, and you need to be able to express it in their terms, not in your terms.

What I mean by that — just a quick example — someone who is struggling to get into physical condition, into physical shape. Maybe they’re overweight, and they want to lose some pounds.

You might see their problem in the pain that they’re experiencing in terms of their cardiovascular health, the risk of diabetes, and so forth. You may see those as the big reasons they need to make this change.

They, on the other hand, don’t perceive that pain. That’s not what’s most real to them most of the time. What’s most real to them is the way they look, the way they feel about the way they look.

You need to talk about the pain the way it’s meaningful to your person. It’s a case of that old adage, that is, we sell people what they want, but we have to make sure we give them what they need.

Barry: Got you. That’s great.

Ray: The A of pastor stands for amplify, and this is where you stress the consequences of what will happen if they don’t solve the problem.

Barry, we are great creatures of denial. We are able to deny so many things.

I was a smoker for quite some time. I smoked a lot of cigarettes, about two packs a day, I was able to deny that that was really bad for me. That was creating a terrible risk for my heart. It was creating a terrible risk of cancer.

As I saw more and more people fall victim to those problems, I realized, “I need to stop this,” because the consequences of not stopping that behavior became more real to me.

That’s part of our job in the sales copy , to amplify the cost of not solving the problem.

The S in pastor stands for story and solution.

This is where you tell the story of someone who has solved that same problem using your solution, or even a solution like yours.

The T stands for transformation and testimony.

This is where you articulate the results that your product or service will bring, and you provide real, live testimonials to strengthen your case.

It’s really important to understand here that you need to talk about the transformation and not about the methodology.

The example I often like to give is if people buy the P90x weight loss and exercise fitness program, they are not buying the box of DVDs, the wall chart, and chin-up bar. That’s not what they’re buying.

What they’re buying is the six-pack abs, the muscular physique, the great-looking body that they really feel like they should have, the great-looking body that most people feel like they have, until they look in the mirror, and then they realize, “Oh, I look like that?”

They’re looking for that transformation. That’s also what you need to talk about in the offer, which is the next part of the framework.

The O is the offer.

This is where you describe exactly what you’re offering for sale. 80 percent of your offer talk, where you say, “Here’s exactly what you get,” 80 percent of what you say there is also about the transformation. This is where I see people mess this up a lot of time.

They talk about the methodology, the DVDs, the 800 pages of coursework, or the three-day seminar. That stuff, the deliverables, the vehicle that gets people to the transformation, should only be about 20 percent of your offer talk.

Finally, the R stands for response, and that just means you ask for one.

You ask for the sale.

Using those letters of the word pastor to build out the framework of your persuasive message works with any kind of messaging that you’re doing, including an interview like the one we’re doing right now.

Barry: I was almost going to say at the beginning, “Do you have a formula?” and here you give us one. I didn’t even ask you did you have a formula, and you’ve come right out with it. So many people try to make out that somehow you have to be some sort of special clever, if you like, or something like this. When you lay it out like this, it gives people like myself who, obviously, I’m fairly confident as a salesperson, but was never very confident as a copywriter. I think, “OK, well, I can follow a formula like that. That’s really quite straightforward.”

I know our audience would love that, Ray, and it’s really good.

If I may, I keep coming back to your book, How to Write Copy that Sells, but there’s something in particular that got my attention, which I think I know where it goes with this, but I wanted to get your clarification on it.

You mentioned in the book the secrets of writing blockbuster copy by watching movies. Can you elaborate? Can you go a little further into that? How in the world can I write really great copy by watching movies?

Ray: This is like the best news ever, right? You’re like this too good to be true.[laughter]

Barry: Something like that.

Ray: “I can watch “The Avengers,” and I can learn how to write copy?”

Barry: Yes.

Ray: There’s a Native American proverb that says,

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

I’ve written some blockbuster promotions. Some of my sales letters have brought in multimillion-dollar paydays for my clients and for me. Something that I recognized early on is that as I compared the successful pieces of copy that I had created, I began to identify the single biggest difference between copy that rocks, that really gets the job done and sells stuff like nobody’s business, is stories.

The way I came across this idea — which I’m not the first person to come across this, but I think my particular view of it is a little bit different.

I figured it out watching moves, and more specifically, watching movie trailers. You know, when you go to the theater, and they show the coming attraction previews, they have these super compelling preview reels that often more compelling than the actual movie itself?

Barry: I know I’ve gone to the movie and been disappointed. [laughs]

Ray: Yes, you walk out of the movie and say to yourself, “They put all the best stuff in the trailer.”

Barry: Sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.

Ray: Yes. I think that the secret of great movie trailers, and of great sales copy is something that I call the dominant story idea, or I call it the DSI for short. The formula — I’m into breaking things down into processes and formulae, and the formula that I see happening with the best, most successful movie trailers is they do three things without fail. There are other elements they may bring into it, but they do these three things without fail.

Number one, they give you the dominant story idea.

Number two a sample of the feelings you will get from the movie itself.

Number three, they provide proof that the movie delivers . I’ve selected a couple. In the book, I give a couple of examples. They’re older examples, and I do that because most people will recognize these films. If they don’t immediately recognize them, they were made so long ago that nobody will get mad at me for giving away the spoilers.

The first example I love to share is the movie “21,” which starred Kevin Spacey. The dominant story idea of this movie was a college math whiz professor uses his skills to beat the Vegas casinos, gets seduced by the dark side, and gets in trouble with some very, very bad guys.

The sample feelings are we see Ben Campbell and his innocent face. We see him start winning. We see him getting seduced by money, power, and very hot women, and then we see him getting into some really scary situations.

We’re already kind of tense, and thinking, “I want this guy to win, I don’t want bad things to happen to him.” The proof that the movie works is really social proof, because we see Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishburne.

These are proven actors that we love, and some very compelling scenes. They’re tightly edited, only the best parts are shown, and in the background, we’re anchored to the sound of The Doors playing “Break on Through to the Other Side.”

We get all these feelings delivered to us, proof that the movie works, and we instantly get the dominant story idea. We could walk out of the theater and say, “Well, I’ll tell you what that movie is about. It’s about this guy who learned how to beat the casinos, and then they start chasing him down.

“He’s in trouble with the mob.” It’s very easy to describe the dominant story idea. When we’re writing our copy, we need to first of all, showcase our dominant story idea, “What’s the big idea of our copy?”

Number two, give sample feelings. If we look at movie trailer examples, in your copy, you need to show some scenes that will help the reader feel the feelings they want to get from your product .

To go back to the P90x DVD product, if you watch their ads on television, their infomercials, what you see is transformation after transformation after transformation. You see people who look maybe like you do now, and then you see those people transformed into what you want to look like in the near future.

That’s not an accident. If you look at those commercials very carefully, Barry, you will see that the Beach Body people have selected an assortment of individuals who pretty much look like anybody.

Anybody in the audience who’s watching this is going to find somebody that looks sort of like them. That’s not an accident. Then proof the product works are the before and after shots.

That’s an example of how to use this framework that movie producers use to pull people in and get their attention, and get them interested in the story.

Barry: Wonderful. This is absolute gold dust, this is. Assuming that I’m a rookie copywriter, or I’m a business owner, which is most of our audience, who might be writing a sales letter or a sales copy for the first time in their life, in your experience, what’s the biggest mistake people make when they first start writing copy?

Ray: There’s absolutely one biggest mistake that wrecks and destroys most copy, and that is writing the copy for the benefit of the marketer instead of writing it for the benefit of the customer. We have such a hard time getting out of our own heads, and into the heads of the people we’re selling to. This is almost impossible to do without interacting with customers in some way.

Maybe it’s reading emails from customers. Maybe it’s reading your customer support desk tickets. The best way is to do it through talking with actual customers and listening to their language, the way they describe their problems, their situation, their life, and writing from their perspective.

One way to gauge this is to go through your copy and see how much of the time you spend focused on you, your awesomeness, your good product, your good reputation, your good track record.

These are all things that are important for people to know, but really, 80 percent of the copy should be about the problem that your customer has, how you’re going to help them solve it, and the pain that they experience.

Jay Abraham is the one who made the observation that if you can describe your customer’s problem in so much detail that you can describe it better than they can, they automatically assume you know how to fix the problem.

Barry: That’s wonderful. I get that, that’s clever.

Something that’s always fascinated me, Ray, about copy, and you will know the stats a whole lot better than me, is the difference between writing copy and also the headline.

In your experience, which comes first, the headline or the copy, or is there no right or wrong way for doing it?

Ray: Well, it’s like any art form, and copy is part science and part art. Sometimes the headline comes to me first, but usually that’s not how it works. I’d say 90 percent of the time I write the copy first, and the headline emerges. My experience is that the more time you spend in research, preparation, and writing drafts, the more discovery you do about the right language to use to express your main idea.

You need to have a big idea.

A corollary to not writing from the perspective of the consumer is not having a big idea that you can quickly sum up for people.

P90x, I don’t know that they would approve of how I’m going to describe their big idea, but I think their big idea is, “Spend 90 days working out so hard you will puke in a bucket, and you’ll look great.”

[laughter]

Ray: The unique thing about them is they were the pioneers of going the opposite direction of the whole market, which was to say, “This device, this exercise machine, this diet program is easy. It makes you burn pounds while you sleep.” The P90x people made their mark by saying, “This is really hard, but it’s worth it.”To get back to your question about which comes first, the headline or the copy, I think most of the time it’s writing the copy first, and the headline emerges, but as I said, sometimes it works the other way around.

I think every person has to find their own process, but that’s my process.

Barry: That’s very interesting, because a lot of our audience is bloggers. Generally speaking — this is not always the case — but bloggers quite often are into SEO, so quite often, they’ll write a title first, because they’ll have to include whatever term they’re going after for search engine optimization. They work backwards, which I know…It’s interesting, that your way seems much more genuine and sincere. It seems the right way. That’s why the question came up, because I wondered if there was a right or wrong.

What you’re really saying is there is no right or wrong, but you personally start with the copy, and then you go to the headline.

Ray: Yes.

Barry: Talking of the headline…Go on. Sorry, Ray.

Ray: I’m going to jump in for just a moment, because you just brought up something that I’m a little bothered by, that is this idea of SEO copywriting. I understand how important it is, but I believe that you have to focus on good writing first and SEO second. If you start by focusing on SEO, and you build your writing based on that, I think you end up with a lesser quality piece of writing.

It may not be true in every case, so I don’t want anybody to get angry with me, but I think if you start from figuring out, “What’s the message that I’m trying to deliver? What’s the change that I want to make with people?”

I have a concept I call your unique core thesis. I think for every piece of writing that you’re creating you need a unique core thesis. One way of describing it would be it’s the one idea that you want people to walk away from your presentation with. If they don’t buy anything, if they don’t remember anything else you said, this is the one thing you want them to take away.

If you can figure out what that thing is, it will shape the rest of your writing. After you do that, you can figure out the SEO part based on what you wrote. You’ll attract the people you actually are writing it for, which may be a different group than you started out thinking about.

Barry: That is brilliant, Ray. That is exactly the kind of information we need. You’ve put it better than I could have ever imagined putting it, so thank you for that. It really is good.You might well be able to get a theme here coming up, because I’ve got a bit of a fascination with headlines. [laughs] Maybe I should see a doctor about it.

Do you want to give us some ideas? Do you have any particular headlines that work really well for you, and maybe can you explain why they work so well? Why did you think they worked so well?

Ray: I said earlier this is part art and part science. The science part is learning from things that have worked in the past and being able to use those forms to guide your creation process, especially early in the game when you’re just getting started, either when you’re just getting started with copywriting in general, or maybe when you’re just starting on a project.You need to have a little bit of a kickstart. The headline is a really important piece of copy, because its job is to get people to stop and then read what comes next. That’s the job of the headline.

John Caples, who’s a legendary copywriter said:

“If you can come up with a good headline and lead” — the lead is the first part of the ad — “you’re almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest copywriter cannot save an ad without a good headline.”

I think the qualities that you are looking for in a good headline, there are five of them.

Number one, it grabs attention. It needs to make people stop and think. Here’s a couple of classic headlines that worked really well on this score, on the grabbing attention idea.

“Can you really be younger next year?” That’s a great headline for the people that it would appeal to. If you’re a 20-year-old, you’re probably not going to be interested in that, but if you’re of a certain age you might be interested in that headline.

“Which of these five mistakes do you make in English?” That’s another famous headline that was a real attention-getter and made a lot of money for the company that hired John Caples to write it.

The second quality of a headline that works is it screens and qualifies your readers. The third quality is it draws readers into the body copy. The fourth is it communicates the big idea, which we were just talking about a little bit earlier. The fifth is it establishes credibility.

You can’t always get a headline to meet all five of those criteria, but I usually try. I shoot for at least three.

You asked me, though, for some examples of headlines that work really well. I’m going to give you a couple that people can start with, and they can use them today.

The first one is the how-to headline. The key to making this particular headline work is you need to tie it to a benefit your reader cares about. You’ve seen these so often you may dismiss them, but they really work extremely well.

“How to write a blog post every day.”

That’s one of the best testing headlines that I’ve personally used myself.

“How to land more clients as a freelancer.”

You can see that those are directly tied to benefits that readers are going to care about. That’s the key to making that headline work.

I’ll give you three.

The second form of headline I would give you that would work really well is what I call the transactional headline. This is all about making a promise of a trade.

You say something like,

“Give me 30 minutes, and I’ll give you more blog traffic.”

You’re asking them for something, but you’re giving them something that is much more valuable.

“Try these five tactics for a week and be twice as productive.”

That’s a transactional headline.

Barry: Interestingly, when you’re coming with those headlines — again, maybe it’s because I’m focused on blogging — those are great, also, for SEO, actually. Those are terms that people might use or want to use when searching for the information that you’re providing. It’s actually brilliant. I have, obviously, got a big fascination with headlines. We’re going to change the subjects, just for a little bit, because I do know that you personally do a lot of, have in the past, done a lot of writing for print.

Would you say there’s a big difference between writing for a printed material rather than the Web, or is there no difference between the two? What would you say the difference was?

Ray: There is some difference, but I think there’s less than most people believe. The main difference is you can click on things on the web and go somewhere else and explore further.If you’ve been using a tablet or a touch device long enough, you’ll find yourself in a restaurant trying to tap things on the menu and realize, “Oh, that doesn’t work on a paper menu.”

That’s the biggest difference, is the clickability, and the fact that you can incorporate videos and things like that into your copy.

The actual writing of the text is not all that different, especially when you consider that I believe one of the main principles we need to remember is we need to think about, “What’s the context in which people are coming to our copy?”

If people are coming to the copy that represents your product, your company, or your service, and they’re coming to it online after having read an ad, say on Facebook, that’s much different than people coming to your copy because a friend of theirs sent them an email and said, “Hey, you’ve got to go check this site out.”

They have a whole different attitude , or they have a whole different set of desires, and so, you have to think about, “How are most people coming to my copy online?” and having to write in a way that responds to that context.

If you think about it, the same is true of something in print. If you’re sending a letter in the mail, you know certain things about what’s going to happen. They’re going to get the letter out of the mailbox, out of the post. They’re going to open it, or maybe they’re going to throw it away.

What makes them throw it away? You need to think about what the envelope looks like. It comes down — again, I know I sound like a broken record, if anybody remembers what those are, but…

Barry: I do. [laughs]

Ray: Thank you. Bless you, my friend. It comes back to understanding the life, the worldview, the context of the people you’re writing to, and delivering content to them in a way that’s relevant to them and their situation.

Barry: Got you. We’re going to go slightly off at a tangent now, just because the question’s come into my head. There’s a question which I ask a lot of entrepreneurs when I meet them, so I don’t see why I can’t ask it of a copywriter, as well. If it doesn’t stack up and doesn’t make sense, obviously, you’ll tell me so.

But if you could go get in a time machine, and you could go back in time 5 years, 10 years, 20 years — it doesn’t matter how far you go back, is there anything you personally…This is a very personal question.

Is there anything, not necessarily that you would do personally differently, but anything that you think, “We should have done this,” or maybe, “This would have been something to have done then.” Is there anything that you would like to add there?

Ray: In the context of my business, I would have started much earlier building an email list that I sent email to regularly. A lot of people will say, “The money’s in the list.” No, it’s not.

The money is in the relationship you have to the list. You can have an email subscriber base of 100,000 subscribers, but if none of them open your emails, guess how much that list is worth?

Barry: Nothing.

Ray: Exactly. Then again, you could have a list of 1,000 subscribers, and if all of them are rabidly waiting and paying attention for your next email, that is an extraordinarily valuable asset, so I wish, a lot earlier.

Barry: You seem to have done very well with the catching up, put it that way, Ray. I’ve been aware of you for quite some time. One thing I’ve been primarily aware of about is your very good reputation, because you know that we’re in a world today where bad reputations get around really fast. Your integrity and your honorability is something that most…

They’ll say, “Ray, a good guy. A good guy.” I congratulate you on that, because that’s the kind of thing that I’d like to think most people would say about me. Whether they do or not, I don’t know. I think I would like to acknowledge that, Ray, because I think it’s very important.

Also, and this is where we’re going to come back to something you and I are involved in in a moment, is product launches. People have different opinions about it.

Actually, can I just make a recommendation to everybody here? I think most of the IncomeDiary people will have heard of you now.

If you’ve not heard of Ray, I would seriously suggest you get on his list. Go to his blog. It doesn’t even matter if you get a link from IncomeDiary telling you about Ray, just make sure you’re getting email from Ray Edwards, because it’s an education. It really is.

Today I had an email from you. I want to pick this one up in particular, Ray, because I thought it was great. It relates to a product launch. It’s a launch for your product, The Copywriting Academy Online Coaching Program. Your subject line for it was, “My Clever Scam.”

It related to me, because quite often, doing what I do in business and did all my life, you quite often find somebody who tries to see the worst in you, and tries to assume that you’re a nasty person. Maybe you’re just there to take money off people, and maybe not even deliver any value.

I know that’s not the case for you, and hopefully people know that’s not the case with me. I loved your email, and how you went about it.

How do you handle, may I ask ? I’m sure you don’t get a lot of it, but you get the odd negative person. Does it ever get to you? Does it get you down? How do you handle it? Do you let it go in one ear, out the other?

Ray: Obviously, I would be lying if I said it didn’t get to me. It bothers me, because none of us likes to hear that people don’t like us for whatever reason. In this case, I think it was for no real good reason at all.My wife sometimes will say to me, “Honey, don’t burn down their newspaper stand.” What she’s referring to is there was a television show in America called “Frasier.” I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it.

Barry: Oh, indeed, yes.

Ray: There’s an episode in Frasier where — for those who don’t know, in the series he had a radio show. They were doing a focus group where they brought in all these listeners to talk about what they liked about the Frasier show, and what they didn’t.Everybody loved his show except this one guy, who just didn’t like it, and Frasier became obsessed with making that guy like him.

He started following him around and stalking him, and in the end of this comedic sketch, Frasier ends up accidentally setting fire to the guy’s newspaper stand. That’s what my wife is referring. She’s basically saying, “Let go.”

Barry: I’ll use that next time, because that’s a good explanation, actually. I’ve seen this a lot in life. You could have a hundred really happy customers, one customer who really doesn’t have anything to be unhappy about, but just is a miserable person, if you like, and you worry about them. Terrific. Thank you, Ray. That’s a great answer.

Coming back to the product launches, I think most people now are familiar with what I would call a product launch formula, if you like, of how they work. In your opinion, do these still work, or if they don’t, what needs to be done to them these days to adapt them to work in 2017? What’s your view currently?

Ray: They still work. They work better than ever, in fact, when you do them correctly. I think the problem that happens is people have seen product launches from the outside, and they think they know how to do one, and what’s involved.What they’re missing is the fact they’re looking at the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the water, there’s much more substance than there is above the water line. They don’t really see the internal workings.

Often, they’re watching a person do a product launch who copied what they’re doing from a person who copied what they were doing from another person, who copied it from another person.

None of them actually went to the source, who is Jeff Walker, who created a thing called Product Launch Formula. He’s the guy who really has the latest data, because he’s at the center of this particular form of marketing.

The short answer is, I think you need to do product launches with intelligence, with grace, and for those who don’t know, it’s simply a matter of releasing a sequence of free, useful material that people can use and benefit from, whether they ever buy anything from you or not.

For me this is modern marketing.

You need to make your marketing valuable in and of itself, whether people buy from you or not.

I have a philosophy that if people don’t get something from my marketing that they can use, that benefits them, if they walk away from it saying, “Well, that was a waste of time,” then I haven’t done my job, because I believe that marketing is something we do for people, not something we do to them.

Barry: I love that. I think that’s the point, which I emphasize to people. In fact, I’ve said it to many people, because occasionally people will say to me — I actually would get emails, because people often just reply to the list email when we send it out, and say, “What’s he selling, and how much does it cost?” I would say, “Obviously, eventually Mr. X or whoever is going to probably try to sell you something, and that’s wonderful. However, that’s not what you need to worry about right now. Right now, he’s giving you a 30 minute video. There is a price to the 30 minute video.

“It’s 30 minutes of your time to watch it. It isn’t entirely free if you look at it that way. From the point of view that you’re going to have 30 minutes, and if you get some value out of it, it’ll be worth your 30 minutes investment.”

That’s what I like about product launches. In fact, I actually tell everybody to get on as many lists as possible, certainly of all the high quality guys, because there’s so much wonderful information that they’ll give away at no cost to you, except investing your time to watch it, or listen to it.

That’s something that I have really got from you, Ray. Sometimes, I look at what — and don’t take this the wrong way — at what you’re giving away, and I think, “Is the man really thinking right? [laughs] It’s almost too much.”

Like earlier on, you’ve given us this PASTOR formula, which is an amazing formula. If nobody does anything but just implement that PASTOR formula, they’re going to make money from it. They’re going to have value from it. All they’ve done is listen to two guys talking on a Skype call across the world, and they’ve got phenomenal value out of it.

I’m really grateful for you making the time to do this for the IncomeDiary audience, Ray. It’s really kind of you.

Ray: It’s my pleasure. If I may take just a moment, I want to button up this topic a little bit, because I think it’s important to understand that everything that happens to you in your business is an opportunity, if you’ll take the time to see it that way. The email that you referred to, the opportunity arose with me being really, honestly, Barry, I was upset with this person who made these comments about me online. Then I took a moment to calm down, and think about my spiritual practices, and thinking, “Well, this is not really the right way to respond to this. What’s the opportunity in this?”

I didn’t name this person by name, and I didn’t point out anything that would make them feel belittled. They’re not reading my email, because I made sure they were unsubscribed from my list.

I titled it My Clever Scam, and then I said in the email, “Every time we open the doors for the Copy Writing Academy, this happens. It’s just like it’s a full moon. The crazies come out.”

Then I said, “We had thousands of people go through my all-new free training. 99.9 percent of the people loved it, but there’s always a few jokers who just don’t get it, or maybe they do, they just like stirring things up, like the guy who posted, “Very clever scam, teasing before selling us something.”

Then he wrote in all caps, “SCAMMER.” I wrote — and I did get a little sarcastic here — I said, “How doth cluelessness show itself? Let me count the ways.

“Number one, if you think selling something is evil, then why are you watching a video about how to sell stuff?

Number two, did you not read the thousands of messages from other people who got great value from the series?

“Number three, well, you figured out my clever scam, which is to give away free stuff that’s so good, people want to buy my paid training.”

My message was, to my subscribers, if you become successful at all, you’re going to have these people show up.

These trolls are going to show up. I made the observation, “It doesn’t matter how good you are. I bet even Mr. Rogers had trolls. Take it as a sign that you’re on the track.”

Barry: That’s very good. I always say that to people as well. If you don’t occasionally sort of — I hate to use the word — “upset” somebody, or somebody says something negative to you, you’re really not trying hard enough. You’ve nailed it there. I, obviously, like everybody, see a lot of email, but I printed this one off.

Actually, I realized I only printed off the first page of it. I’m pretty sure you had a very clever PS on it. Did you have a clever PS, something about commies, or something like that in it?

Ray: I said, “I suppose I should be flattered to have a troll or two. This will happen to you. Want to see the free training that has Tommy Troll so upset? Go grab it soon. We’ll be taking it down in a few days.”

The PS said, “Yes, I might eventually sell you something, so if you hate capitalism, bunnies, and babies, you won’t be interested in this.” I made “be interested in this” into a link.

Barry: Indeed. That was actually, to me, the best part of the email.

As I said earlier, people, get on Ray’s list. If you don’t…Listen, you can hear the guy’s as genuine as he ever could be.

Look, the man’s saying, “Look, you don’t even have to buy.” He’s going to try reasonably hard to sell you something, but he hasn’t yet worked out a way to get the credit card out of your pocket and make it work.

Ray: If I could work that out, I wouldn’t do it, because that’s not a good thing to do.

Barry: Indeed, that’s not a good thing to do.

Many, many years ago, I remember a story I was told by somebody when I was starting out. Believe it or not, my entrepreneurial career started out as an Amway distributor. I remember my upline gave me this advice.

I had somebody, a family member, that was really laughing at me, and saying I was being silly to do this AMWAY thing”

My up-line explained, “These are the people you’re going to succeed in spite of.”

I found it a way to great way to turn it around. It was in spite of that person writing that really nasty email, or that person saying that nasty comment on Facebook. “You’re going to succeed anyway.”

They’re always going to live the life that they’re going to live, but the life they’re living isn’t going to impact on your life. Whatever they say, you’ve always got the opportunity to turn it around, and make it into something positive.

Ray: I love that. There’s a book I would recommend that talks about this, not just about emails or online trolls, but it’s about any obstacle that you run into in your life. The book is called “The Obstacle is the Way.” It’s by Ryan Holiday. It’s a fantastic book.

Barry: We will put a link to that in the show notes. That’s really, really good. In fact, actually, you raced ahead again there, Ray. I was going to ask you, apart from your own fantastic books, and I know you’ve got a number, is there a particular business book that you would say right now, “This is a book I’ve read recently. I really like it,” or even one maybe 20 years ago. Would you want to recommend a book?

Ray: I’m going to give you the one that is having the most impact on my life and my business right now. I’ve read this book three times, and I’m getting ready to do a fourth read through. It’s called “Deep Work,” and it’s by Cal Newport. The subtitle is “Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World.”

Barry: Wow. Is it a big book, a small book? Is it a scientific book, or is it more of a…?

Ray: It’s not a boring academic book, but it is not small. It’s about 250 pages or so.

Barry: I think most of us can cope with that, just about.

Ray: In the notes to his book, he says, “One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you’ll achieve extraordinary results. Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.“Now, first of all, that’s great copy. Secondly, I think this is an important book for us, just as people, because the world is full of so many distractions these days, I think it would be easy for most of us to miss our real calling in life.

Your calling, it may be to be an Amway distributor. Whatever it is, if you get distracted by too many video games, too much Candy Crush, too much Facebook, whatever the case may be, you may miss what you’re really put here to do.

This book is really powerful. It’s had a big impact on my business. Many of my colleagues and friends whose names most people would know who are listening to this, they’re all loving this book. It’s something we’re all sharing with one another. I would really recommend this book.

Barry: Thank you. I’ll be on Amazon as soon as this call’s over and ordering it. I look forward to reading it. I really appreciate the recommendation. Ray, just a summary, actually, I was going to ask you. You’ve given us so much, I’m thinking, “How do I describe this particular interview? [laughs]

Some closing thoughts, if you like. Thinking again, our audience, a lot of bloggers, a lot of small business people, a lot of people who, or want to be, I would actually say they’re wannabe copy writers. What’s your pieces of advice you would possibly give us, if you like, as your parting thoughts?

Ray: I’ll give you a couple of things. For those who want to write, or want to be copy writers, Stephen King in his book, “On Writing,” which is another book I highly recommend — even though it’s about writing fiction, it’s still a wonderful instructional guide for how to write anything really successfully. He says, ” to write good stuff, you have to write a lot of bad stuff,” and that the one thing writers who become good have in common is they write a lot, so I would encourage you to write a lot.

The second piece of advice I would give you comes from Anne Lamott, who wrote a book called “Bird by Bird,” another strong recommendation for reading. This is kind of colorful language, so I have to clean this up a little bit. She says,

“Give yourself permission to write crappy first drafts.”

When you do that, when you tell yourself, “OK, this is my first draft, and it’s going to be horrible, and I’m OK with that.” It relieves so much pressure that you can pour out the creativity that’s inside of you, knowing, “I’m going to edit this later. I’m not going to edit it right now.”

Then the final thought that I would offer is something that is a powerful, formative belief that I picked up from a legend in the field of motivational speaking. He’s really the guy who invented, I believe, motivational speaking, Earl Nightingale.

Earl Nightingale said something that I heard him say when I was probably 19 years old, and it’s had a huge influence on the rest of my life. He said, “The best definition of success I have ever encountered is this.

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

If you think about that sentence, it means that you can become successful today if you made a little progress toward a worthy ideal today.

=> Check out Rays website

The post Ray Edwards Copywriter – How to Write Copy That Sells appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Mike is I believe the Ultimate Internet Lifestyle Entrepreneur – generating a substantial 7 Figure Income each year while hanging out on the Ski Slopes or sailing in the Caribbean.

But it was not always this way – as Mike reveals in this interview (Podcast, Video or Transcript) it took him over 2 years to break through, quit the day job and make that 7 figure income.

In a way I find Mike’s story even more inspiring than the so called ‘over night successes” that went from nothing to Millionaires in 90 days.

Mike is now a best selling author -selling circ 500000 copies of an eBook about ABS – in English, Spanish, German and French – but as you will see in this interview, Mike was almost ready to give up not so long ago.

Props to my Dad (Barry Dunlop) for grabbing this interview with Mike when they were both in the Banff Gondola taking a ride to the top of the Canadian Rockies for the best views in Banff National Park Alberta Canada. Also I note that Mike Geary gives my friend Ryan Lee a nice thumbs up and word of thanks in the video.

Enjoy – I look forward to your comments.

To Our Success

Michael

PS: Make sure to watch the Bonus Video at the end, only 40 seconds, but it sums up rather neatly I think, what Mike Geary and the Internet Lifestyle is all about

Click Here To Listen To Mike Geary Podcast

Confessions Of An Internet Marketing Superstar

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Transcript:
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Barry Dunlop: How did you get online? What was your first effort online in business?

Mike Geary: I had a fitness background; I was a personal trainer. I was researching just some training articles online back in 2004, and I saw an advertisement on how to make money on the Internet as a fitness professional, and publishing online and doing all this Internet marketing.

So I thought about it for a while and finally bought the product. It was about a $300 product. And I’ve got to give props, it was a Ryan Lee product. Ryan Lee is a great guy, I’m good friends with him now. That’s what started it all.

That was the basic stuff of learning how to publish online and make websites and info products and build newsletter lists. All that stuff. That’s what started it, that’s what got the wheels spinning. And I immediately started writing my first product, “The Truth About Six-Pack Abs, ” which I just knew there was a demand for that because I was a personal trainer and that was 90% of the questions I would get would be about abs and weight loss.

So it didn’t work for a couple of years. I got the product done, and that was the easiest part. It took a couple of years to learn the marketing; that was the challenging part. But then it was definitely once you get over this hump and learn the marketing, then it gets easier, and that’s when my business exploded a few years ago.

Barry: So the key there, Mike, was not to give up.

Mike: Exactly.

Barry: You still had a day job then, I assume?

Mike: I had a day job for about two or three years while I was trying to build up the Internet business, and I was finally able to quit that day job when the Internet business sort of exploded.

Barry: If you were to go back to where you were at the beginning, what was the thing that made the big difference from year two to three? What was the thing that eventually made the big breakthrough? What item of knowledge did it take?

Mike: I can be honest and say that I was about to give up, after about a year. I had made the product, made the website, and I kind of had these false hopes that I would just build it and they would come. I had built the website and I would just start getting these massive amounts of sale and everything would take off.

I didn’t realize that actually you had to work really hard to drive traffic and get exposure for your site. So it took a while to learn that. And because I didn’t give up, a couple of years later things started taking off.

I think the biggest shift for me was changing my mindset. I’d love to say that is was a specific miracle technique that I learned that just exploded everything. To be honest, there were a few things, like search engine optimization, pay-per-click. There were some individual tactics that I learned, that really did take things to the next level.

But what started all that was changing my mindset about I can do this, and really thinking a lot bigger and getting that shift from thinking small and thinking about exchanging dollars for hours and thinking big and selling my product to the entire world.

Barry: And as we said earlier, something like a half a million copies have been downloaded?

Mike: Yeah. Between my English version, probably 300,000 copies. And now I have Spanish, German, and French versions too. I haven’t kept exact tabs on it, but probably close to 500,000 copies now of my product. For a self-published product.

Barry: Wow. And an important distinction to make there is – and it’s very gracious of you to say – you were almost ready to give up.

Mike: Yeah. It’s a little frustrating after a year and you’ve only made like two sales. [laughs]

Zach Johnson: How many things did you try that didn’t work? How many products did you learn about search engine optimization and you’re trying to get out there and things didn’t work? Probably took some perseverance to go through.

Mike: For that first year, year and a half, I was trying article marketing and trying a little bit of pay-per-click, and I couldn’t get it to work. Trying to get some search engine optimization. But that takes time, especially search engine optimization. And it just took some time to really learn how to get it to all come together. Make the sales copy work, get the traffic, and make it all come together and make it a success.

Because you’ve got to have every piece of the puzzle. If you can get traffic but you can’t convert it, then you’re missing a piece. If you have great conversions but you don’t know how to get traffic, you’re missing a piece. Partnerships.

Barry: Was there anybody in particular who taught you what you needed to do? Was there any material that you bought, or mentors or masterminds?

Mike: Well, for me, for the first few years, to be honest, I never went to any high-priced events, I never bought any high-priced products. I bought dozens of individual low-priced e-books to learn a lot of different skills. And a lot of those $37 or $47 e-books, I learned a lot of really cool marketing techniques. And eventually I was able to kind of put them all together and start driving a lot of traffic.

Barry: It’s a good one, Mike, because so many people talk about the Internet lifestyle and they say things like, “Hey, six weeks later I’m a millionaire!” Or this happened or that happened. So I think it’s great.

And obviously, I think there’s more encouragement for people realizing that it took longer than a few weeks to get this to work. Because sometimes it does take a year or two. But the important to persevere.

And one very important distinction that I make to people is that having a day job is still a good bet. You don’t give that up until you’re ready to give it up, because it’s important as well.

Mike: But I can say that probably the best thing I ever did was quitting my day job.

[laughter]

Mike: Once I was confident enough that I was pretty consistent and making a good income online, the day that I quit my day job was probably the best day of my life. And I can say that the next month after I quit my day job was when I finally exploded my business. My business doubled the next month after I quit.

Barry: So some people, when they’re just at that point, getting both to work. If really want to take the Internet work further, they have to give up their day job.

Mike: That’s the point. I have a friend right now who started a website and has started to do pretty well with it in the water filter business. He told me he was finally at the point where he was making as much with the website and he was with his day job.

And I told him the best thing I ever did was when I got to that point was quitting my day job, because now you’re going to have 100% mental energy on what you want to do.

Barry: And focus.

Mike: And focus. So he’s doing that right now, he’s quitting his day job and going to focus on the online business.

Zach: Tell them now much money you invested in yourself the first year, two years, in failed attempts and failed pay-per-click campaigns before you made it.

Mike: I didn’t have much money to invest.

Zach: Most people don’t.

Mike: But like I say, I did make a small investments at a time, buying a lot of $50 e-books. I wanted to keep learning. And I can say there probably wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t learning more, that I didn’t buy a book or….

Barry: That is an important point, which often is – you have to keep learning. The biggest and best Internet marketers that I know – you think about Mike Koenigs, Frank Kern etc – those guys are learning all the time.

Mike: They’re still learning.

Barry: They don’t give up. And that’s why they’re at the top of what they’re doing.

Mike: Even though my business does well now, I haven’t stopped and just trying to ride the coattails and never work. I’m still learning every day.

More about Mike Geary at TruthAboutAbs.com

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BONUS VIDEO
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Mike Geary – enjoying the Internet Lifestyle and a Powder Day in the Canadian Rockies (Banff)

The post Mike Geary Interview – Confessions Of An Internet Marketing Superstar appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

At the point of conducting this interview Ted has earned himself and his clients in excess of 7 billion dollars but it wouldn’t surprise me if by the time you see this interview, its a lot more! If you want to find out more about Ted and his products generally, you can visit his site: http://www.tednicholas.com

Free Ebook Reveals… The $2 BILLION Sales Letter You’ve Never Heard Of…
PLUS
A Free Copywriting Course

** Copywriting Secrets That Have Sold Billions – An Interview with Ted Nicholas **

Ted Nicholas Interview Transcript:

Michael Dunlop I understand you got into your first business at just 21 years of age and nearly 100 grand in debt. Your first business was a fudge shop, and I love the story of how your shop became a success. Can you share with us some of this story and what you learned from your first business?

Ted Nicholas: Oh, I’d be happy to. Well first of all, I always wanted to be in my own business, as I’m sure a lot people listening to this interview have in their hearts. The heart of an entrepreneur has to be there for a quite awhile before it actually takes root, I would think.

That was certainly the case with me. I always wanted to be in my own business. I grew up in a small family business. I learned how, among other things, to make candy, because in my father’s restaurant, he also had a candy and ice cream shop. I was always intrigued with the process of confectionery manufacturing and ice cream manufacturing. So, I started my own business.

But I had just one obstacle that most entrepreneurs have. I didn’t have any money. Basically, I had $800 in savings. In order to start the business, I needed about $100,000.00 So, I basically put together a plan to develop $100,000.00 without starting from scratch.

Basically what I did was convince a real estate owner of property that I could buy his property for no money down. And I remember my payment was $308.74 a month on a 20-year mortgage. So, I bought the property. And I bought equipment on the basis that I would like to buy this equipment from confectionery manufacturers, and if I’m successful, I’ll pay for it. If I’m not, I’ll return the used equipment. Well, you can imagine what some of the people told me when I made that proposition.

But fortunately, one company by the name of WC Smith in Philadelphia went along with me and put equipment in my place. Then with raw materials, I went through the same sort of thing. By the day that I opened, I was actually $96, 000 in debt, and I thought this is great. I have this shop. It was actually a “see candy made” sort of a fudge shop called Peterson’s House of Fudge. But I had one problem, no customers and no money for promotion to gain customers.

But I had one problem, no customers and no money for promotion to gain customers.

So, I didn’t know exactly what to do. But I was reading the paper one morning, and I saw that there was a young woman who won a national skating – it happened to be roller skating – and she was training in a rink about a mile or so away from my shop. So I went to see her.

I thought there are just a couple of things that turn people on… See, I had this roadside location where 25, 000 cars passed my property every day. The only problem was nobody was stopping, and three people had previously gone bankrupt in the location where I was. So, it wasn’t exactly a hot property.

But I wanted to figure out a way to get people stop, and I thought there are two things that turn people on: women and cars. Because, most of the drivers driving by were male drivers. A lot of times male drivers are more turned on by cars than they are by women, but I thought a certain percentage would be excited if I had an attractive woman outside my shop stirring a kettle of fudge.

So, I convinced this young woman that she’d start working for me that following Saturday. I’d build a platform. We’d put a copper kettle outside. And she would stand there in a rather brief outfit with a big chef’s cap, stirring this big kettle of fudge. And when she did that, we had an absolute traffic jam, because the people wanted to know what the heck’s going on this attractive woman stirring this fudge.

A local newspaper came out and did an article on my business. I told the newspaper reporter that I wanted to create a whole chain of stores eventually; that was my dream. The guy thought that was pretty funny, because there I was without any money, with my first shop, with this girl stirring the fudge.

But one thing lead to another, and the business became enormously successful. Several things so happened that affected the rest of my career. Because I noticed that when I changed the sign – I had some signs like 15 miles away from my shop, 14 miles away, 12 miles away, and they would say basically: “Go to Peterson’s House of Fudge”. And when I changed a few words on the sign more or less people stopped, depending on what I had on the sign.

I thought that was fascinating, and then I put certain words like “free samples” on the sign. I put on “see candy made” and certain key words like “perfect Sunday ride destination for the family.” When I put on these words on the sign, my business just started to thrive more and more and more. So, I became intrigued with the power of words. I thought gee, words. I could just put words on signs, and I’d get people to stop at my shop. What a marvelous thing.

And then a second thing happened. I created a catalog for all my candy products. I had 77 flavors of fudge plus about 100 other products that I was marketing, selling and manufacturing there. I would put this catalog inside the shopping bag when people bought whatever they bought. Or even if they bought ice cream, I’d put in this catalog. And I got a large response from the catalog. People would go home and they would start ordering my confectionery products.

Well a couple of months later, I created a new catalog. Same products, different copy, and I noticed that I had different results on each one of the products that I’d described. So I thought: Why don’t people talk about this? Because if you change the words, you’re going to change the response

Because if you change the words, you’re going to change the response.

I talked with other business people that I knew, restaurateurs and the like, and their eyes would glaze over. They didn’t seem interested at all in the idea of the power of words. I thought these people are missing the boat, because with the proper words, you can really create business.

because with the proper words, you can really create business.

So, another very instrumental thing to me at that time was I would write letters to the editor. And when I got my letters in newspapers and magazines – local papers, national papers, national magazines – when I got my letters and articles that I had written published, I thought this is just so great. If I could ever figure out a way how to make a living writing words, I’m going to do it. It would be such a pleasure for me to do, and I kind of filed that. This was at age 21.

By the time I was 30, 29 actually, I had 30 shops of my own. I was invited to the White House as one of the two outstanding small businessmen in America and invited to meet the president at that time. I’d never even been to the White House as a tourist. It was a great experience.

So, I wrote my first book in my mid-thirties called, “How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $75.” I realized that by the time I was 35, I had set up something like 17 companies of my own. And my lawyer’s secretary was doing the work and sending me invoices for like $1, 500, $2, 000.

I thought the best-kept secret in America, and in the United Kingdom, and in Europe, is that entrepreneurs have no money and they can’t raise any money. I thought if I could make it cheaper, easier, and quicker for people to set up a company, I would be doing a real service for people.

So, I set up this little business. Well basically, I took my book then to nine publishers, they all turned me down. I said, look I have got this idea. I am going to revolutionize incorporating in America. They thought, yeah, sure you are. They all turned me down. Of course their lawyer, the legal departments in all these publishing companies, they didn’t like the idea at all, of having a book with the tear-out forms right in the book, to form a company. So I basically set up my publishing company in the corner of my house, called Enterprise Publishing.

At the same time, I set up an incorporation company called The Company Corporation, which has since become, by the way, the largest incorporating company in the world, which incorporates companies in all fifty of the U.S. states. At the time I set up the company, all the competing registered agents would only deal with other lawyers, where I would deal with entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants, whoever wanted to use our services.

When I started that company, I wrote my first classified ad and ran it in the Wall Street Journal. It cost me ninety dollars. I ran this ad. I sent out my first sales letter in 1973 and I got back in close to five hundred dollars worth of sales.

I thought, this is fantastic. Ninety dollar ad, five hundred dollars worth of sales, I will just run that ad in every newspaper and magazine that I can in America and in Europe as well, and I will make a fortune. Besides that, the people are sending me cash with their orders.

In many cases they would send a twenty dollar bill with cash to buy the book, and I am just going to create a great business. Within six months the postman was bringing bags full of orders to my door. Remember I was still operating out of my house, in this little suburban house that I lived in at the time.

I was getting in, at that time, I was spending about fifty thousand U.S. dollars a month on ads. Mind you, I started with ninety dollars. I am now spending, six months later, fifty thousand dollars in ads, but I was getting back in two hundred thousand dollars in orders.

Well, this business just started growing and growing and growing, and pretty soon I had people sending me their books and manuscripts in order to publish their books and manuscripts. They figured, I must be the worlds largest publisher because I am running, by that time, I was running full-page ads, whereas my competitive publishers never ran an ad in their lives.

Most publishers are good at distributing books but they are very bad at marketing books. So I devoted all my energy on marketing the book, because you can easily get people to print the book, the problem is marketing the book and selling the book, as it is with virtually any product.

Your problem is not creating the product. The problem is always marketing the product. That is what I devoted my time since 1973 until now, in how to market my products and products of my hundreds – I have got hundreds of people who are my mentoring clients, on how they can market their products.

If you have got an Internet business, or for that matter, a non-Internet business, a business that does business offline, or if you have a retail shop, your problem is not opening the shop, your problem is not manufacturing the goods, you can always get people to do that.

The problem is getting people into your shop and getting people to buy your products, and that is what I became focused on, and a specialist in. That is what I have been doing ever since. That is kind of a longer answer then you were looking for, but a kind of a complete answer as to how I began in the business.

Michael Dunlop: That was an incredible answer and exactly what I wanted to hear. Anyone listening to this can apply something of what you said to their business. That was great. So right now, and in your past, you have been a successful international speaker, an author, marketing consultant, and one of the most successfully, highest paid copywriters in the world. When you started out, who was your mentor and who inspired you?

Ted Nicholas: That is a darn good question. I was looking for mentors because everybody does better when they have a mentor. When I started I didn’t know anybody. There wasn’t anybody that was teaching marketing, teaching copywriting, that I knew about and that I had any respect for. Well perhaps, there were a couple of university professors that I had gone to their seminars. To be very honest, I have nothing against university professors, I love them when they are good.

Professors when they are teaching marketing, when they have never spent a dime on their own on marketing their own products, and they are making statements that are just erroneous. I remember I went to one and he was saying, “Never have a question mark in a headline.”

I am thinking, I have made millions with headlines that have question marks, and this poor audience, is listening to this professor tell them not to have a headline with a question mark in it. So I didn’t know any mentor. The closest I came to mentors is some really great books.

Books have been my friend ever since I started my adult life, really and my marketing career, my business career. So I read books by John Caples, and by Robert Collier, and by David Ogilvy, three names. Russ Arrives, and these people inspired me so much because while the books are written perhaps forty or fifty years prior to my career start, they had more information, more knowledge, then any of the current books at that time that existed on the market. I became very intrigued.

So, my best mentors were really authors of books. In fact, every since then, I think the two best ways to learn in life, of course, I have written 15 best selling books so admittedly I have a bias that is part of my profession. But basically, I think the two best ways to learn are in reading books and traveling. I like to do a lot of both because it is a terrific way of arming yourself. So, that is as close as I came to mentors.

Michael I know you have got some incredible stats throughout your business. Do you want to share with us some of the stats on your achievements, Ted? For example, What have you spent on testing marketing and how much have you made in revenue?

Ted: Oh, well I have spent at least a hundred million dollars on tests, which is probably a conservative figure. The only way I really could learn anything, and the way that I did it, was through a lot of trial and error. This is what I tried to save my readers and entrepreneurs now. Trial and error is a very good way to learn, but it is a slow way and it is an expensive way.

What I do now with clients and with attendees at my seminars, and with readers, is try as much as I can to shortcut the process so they don’t have to spend twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five years learning, because if they did trial and error for twenty-five, or thirty, thirty-five years, they could learn as much, possibly more, then I have learned.

I thought if I could shortcut the process, it would be great. So, I have done a lot of… In fact you could say that out of, I have sold nearly seven billion dollars worth of products and services with my own ads, for my own products and also for clients. And virtually every time I run an ad, I’m also running a test. And so virtually I’m testing and testing all the time, because I’m testing my most frequent…

The thing that I do more frequently is test headlines, because headlines are responsible for arguably about 73% of the success of any ad, be it online or offline. And most copywriters and most entrepreneurs will spend most of their time on the body copy, and almost no time on a headline. And I did the reserve.

For example, if I’m running an ad campaign for a product, I’ll write 250 headlines before I choose. Your headline has to be a killer, and when it is you have a chance that people are going to read your copy. And then each word in the copy has to be very persuasive, very good. So this is the way I look at it.

Michael Can you share with us some of the most successful headlines and explain why they worked?

Ted: Oh, sure. Well, one thing that comes to mind immediately is one of my clients – his name is Bill Fisher – came to me with a failed book. And in fact the title of the book, I re-titled it, is now called, “How to Fight Cancer and Win.” Book titles, by the way, are headlines for books.

The product name – anybody listening to me today, I want you to understand that your product name is crucially important because that’s in effect like a headline for your product. And your book title is crucially important, if you happen to be an author or someone who is marketing booking and information, you’re title is very important.

So he came to me with a book called something like, “The Cancer Encyclopedia.” I read the book and I thought, “This book is fantastic.” It dealt with a cancer approach based a lot on diet, and was a Dr. Joanna Budwig who was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times.

What a lot of copywriters don’t do, they don’t do their homework. I read the book very carefully before I decided I was going to get involved in marketing the book. I read it very carefully. And on page 117, I think it was, I found what turned out to be my headline because on that page, it’s quoted as how she found the combination of these two natural foods.

I thought, when I read that in the book, I thought, “That’s my headline, ” because then I wrote this headline down on my 3×5 card. I use 3×5 cards as I’m going through the book writing down benefits. The headline that I came up with was, “How to prevent and even cure cancer with these two natural foods.” The sub-headline said something like, “Seven time Nobel prize winning doctor shows.” Why did I have that in the sub-headline? Because I have to build credibility, because you make a statement like that in a headline…

Here’s another thing that I found out, another secret of marketing. A headline not only has to be absolutely true, it has to seem absolutely true, because if you just have a headline that is true but unbelievable, nobody will read the rest of the copy because of what I call a BS detector. All of us read copy. If it sounds false, you don’t continue reading it. And so I had that sub-headline to establish the credibility of this seven-time Nobel doctor, who would not make a statement like that without having a scientific basis for it.

That’s an example of a headline and how I came about getting the headline. Another example is, “The Ultimate Tax Shelter” and this is from my book “How to Form your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $75.” Interestingly, there’s not a word in the book about how a corporation could be a tax shelter for you, but it’s what I call a hidden benefit for a reader of the book because one of the reasons people set up corporations for themselves is to legally reduce their taxes.

That headline is so powerful, just four words, that that’s been ripped off by more people, because I’ve sent more cease and desist letters. See, when people rip off my copy, I send a cease and desist letter. And 95% of the time, they stop using the copy. And the 5% of the time they don’t, I simply sue them for taking my intellectual property and trying to make money with my own ideas.

So basically, those are just a couple of examples. I could give you hundreds more, but those are just a couple of examples. When you write a great headline, you can run it forever. You can run it forever, because the same things that motivated people the first time, 10 years later, 20 years later because the same principles apply.

The headline is crucial. When there’s so much marketing on the Internet, I’m intrigued by the fact that the headlines on the Internet are worse than the headlines offline, because it’s less expensive to operate on the Internet, so you have a lot of technical people writing headlines. The headlines are so bad. It’s atrocious. And it’s no wonder that 99.9% of websites lose money, because among other things, the headlines are so bad.

Michael Do you have a formula or specific strategy you use for creating headlines you can share with us?

Ted: Well, I do. Actually, I have 12 different approaches to creating headlines. They’re so darn important. It would be kind of difficult to go through all 12 here. But I can tell you the ones I use the most, and a couple of headline ideas that are just so powerful that are very infrequently used, that I could share with you and the audience here today.

One of the ones that I like best, whenever I can use it, is what I call the testimonial headline. If you’re really good at what you’re doing, and your product – people love it – you’re going to get a lot of letters, unsolicited about how people love your product, love using your product, benefited from your product. And very often, those letters that you get about your product are terrific fuel to create headlines with.

And so very often, when I get a letter from the mind and heart of a reader, or somebody who has bought one of my products, or for that matter who has bought one of the products of my clients that I write copy for…Very often my clients have drawers full of letters, for example, and they don’t use them because they don’t realize how powerful testimonials are.

So one of the great things is to use testimonials as the basis of your headline, because you can create a headline written in such a way that it doesn’t sound like a headline. For example, one of the letters that I got that I used: I created a multimillion dollar campaign for a company that I write copy with. Actually, I own 20% of the company. It’s a company called Green Power, headquartered in the Netherlands. It’s a nutritional company.

And one of the readers sent a letter to the founder of the company, whose name happens to be Dr. Reinhard Hittich. Here’s the letter basically. Again, I don’t have it right in front of me, but here’s the gist of it. It said, “Dr. Hittich, my father and grandfather both died of heart attacks before age 50. And I’m age 48, and I’m scared to death of dieing of a heart attack myself. Can you help me?”

Well, when I saw that letter, I thought, “That’s a letter from the heart of the reader.” Now, would an advertising agency, Michael, ever write a headline like that? What do you think?

Michael: No.

Ted: Absolutely not. But I used that basically as the headline for this multi-page sales letter, quoting this reader, which is one great way to create a headline. Just to give you and particularly your audience of subscribers and listeners and viewers one of the ways to do it.

The other thing that I use a lot of, in fact when I run out of headline ideas, I simply start with the words “how to”. How to write better copy? How to write stronger headlines? I mean, whatever the subject it is that you want to market, starting with the words “how to” is always a very, very powerful way. So, it’s one of the ways that I use to write headline.

Another tip that I’d like to give to the readers is I’ve noticed over the years that fear of loss attracts a lot more people to reading the copy than hope of reward. See when I first began, I thought hope of reward is much more positive, much more powerful. And I’m attracted by hope of reward personally.

Another tip that I’d like to give to the readers is I’ve noticed over the years that fear of loss attracts a lot more people to reading the copy than hope of reward.

I’m also attracted by and intrigued by fear of loss because I don’t want to lose, but I found I don’t want to lose money, time, assets and other things. But I’ve noticed over the years when I have written headlines with hope of reward and fear of loss, the fear of loss wants to out-pull.

For example, one headline that had sold millions of dollars worth of products, information products says, “How to avoid losing your home, your cash, your cars, the education fund for your children – how to avoid losing them in a lawsuit, how to avoid losing those assets in a lawsuit?”

And using that headline helped me sell lots of products by making yourself judgment proof. So, those are just a few quick tips on what you can do and how some of the structures I use to write headlines and some of the basis that I use to write headlines.

Michael: Ted that was an incredible share. That’s something I will even apply more to my businesses. That was great.

Ted: I’m sure you can Michael; you will get a lot of more interest in your services using those tips.

You have lots of experience in direct mail, how does this differ or even if it does differ from writing sales copy for your website?

Ted: It doesn’t differ, it’s more like than it is different, doesn’t differ very much. The only thing I do differently on the website and on emails is I give the reader the prospective chance to go to the order form earlier than I do in a sales letter, because in a sales letter when you have a letter and if someone’s opened the envelope, it’s kind of easier to guide the prospect to the end of the letter, through the copy than it is when you have the copy and the electronic version of the copy.

So in the early stage of the letter, I say something like “If you are ready to go to the order form click here.” So that it enables the impatient reader to go to the order form earlier than it does in something that’s sent through the mail. But the basic concept of the headlines, the intriguing copy, the story, the personality that you have to have in your copy, you have to have a good persona in the copy.

I just finished a critique from one of my mentoring members just a couple of hours ago and the letter sounds like – mind you, the mentoring member is paying me a small amount of money per month. We have a mentoring program that we have a special at only $47 per month. People can get my personal attention up to one time a month to critique their letters and so on.

And it creates its value probably on the Internet. And the guy writes this letter and he sounds in the letter like he is giving a college lecture and I said basically in my reply to him, my member, I said “Dear, are you ready for some tough love? Because what I gave a lot of is tough love, because I love my member, I want to help them as much as I can. And of course all the members are ready for tough love, that’s what they want from me.

So, I basically tell them about how he can create his own persona that is much different, in other words I want him to sound more like he is having a conversation at the bar over a beer or over a mixed drink if he likes than he is giving a college lecture. See a lot of people when they write copy, they say to themselves “I’m going to sit down and write copy. I have to sound like a college…”

They don’t say it is exactly, but I have to sound very learned, so they sound like college professors and people don’t like to be talked at like a college professor will often do. They want to be talked with; they want somebody who understands them, who knows what keeps them awake at night, who talks the same language, who is very informal.

So, I teach my mentees the concept of being as casual and informal using short words, using easy to understand copy. And this is what people really respond to and being a lot more emotional with their copy than they normally are. Now, as I’m sure you are aware, it takes a lot more courage to be emotional in copy than it does to be intellectual in copy.

In other words, I teach right brain copywriting which works. Left brain copy-writing gets you an “A” in English, but an “F” in marketing. I teach right brain copy which might get you a “D” in English, but an “A” in marketing. Because people are not responding to the grammar, they are responding to the emotional content of the copy. So, does that answer your question?

Michael When starting any business or website, I believe you have to have passion and lots of it if possible for the subject that your business is about and I understand the same applies for you on what you promote. Can you share with us why it’s really important?

Ted: Well, first of all, life is too short to get involved in anything that you don’t love and have passion for. They are your number one because you are going to find soon that those long hours that you – I don’t believe in workaholism, but if you are starting a business and selling products, there are going to be times when you are going to work long days and long hours.

And if you don’t have that passion for that business to fuel your energy, you are going to run out of energy and it’s going to show in your copy, in your marketing and your whole approach to the business. So, you need to have passion for the product, plus when you have passion for the product or service, you are going to be more inclined to want to study, want to learn, want to keep educating yourself about that.

For example, I do a lot of work in the nutritional area. I get up in the morning; I take 72 vitamins and minerals every morning. I lift weights three days a week. I play tournament tennis. I keep myself in shape. Why? A) Because I know that it is good for me, but B) Because I love it, I love to be in shape, I love to do all that.

So, that when I’m writing copy about nutrition and exercise, that’s where I’m starting from. I have the passion for it. I love it. And I’m willing to read these dull and boring research results about nutritional products and vitamins and minerals and how they effect on a human body because I’m curious about it.

I want to know is there anything I can do to improve my own health because you can always do a little – now they used to say when I first started 30-some years ago writing copy for the nutritional area, it used to be like 80% was genetic. Now they are talking about 15 to 20 percentage genetic, 80% is lifestyle.

So, it’s your lifestyle and what you read and what you drink. So you’ve got to have that passion. And if you don’t have it, get out. My advice to you is to just simply get out of it. I’ve given that advice to some of my mentees that tell me, “Well, look Ted, I’m thinking about going into this business or this business.” I say, “Listen, which one do you have the most interest in?”

“Oh, I’m more interested in this one.” Well, that’s the business, because there’s no one business that’s perfect for everybody. The best business for you, anybody listening to us today, is the one that you love the most, that you’re passionate about. And you’re going to do a better job, and you’re going to write better copy, and your marketing is going to be more inspired. This is the direction you want to go. Critical.

Michael: Brilliant, brilliant. Top advice for everybody out there; how people want to take this and do something they want to do and not just to make money.

Ted: Yeah, that’s right. Money is a byproduct. Money is OK, but it’s a byproduct. It comes after. I think one good formula is: find something you love and have passion for, and the money will follow, assuming you’re not in some field where there’s absolutely no market for it.

I mean, obviously, if you have a lot of passion and there’s no market for a particular product or service, you’re not going to be able to make a lot of money. But if there’s a market for it, and you have passion for it, and you become good at it and you understand it, and you can differentiate yourself from all other people that are marketing similar products, you’re going to be successful.

Michael: Brilliant, brilliant. I was actually going to say something along those lines myself, so that’s top advice.

So as you mentioned earlier in the interview, you spent nearly $100 million, even more, on advertising over the years. And, what sort of top tips for getting advertising cheaper – because obviously the cheaper the better?

Ted: Yes, well, I have a whole segment that I teach at my longer seminars, where basically you get advertising at up to 80% discount. But basically, I can just tell you particularly these days, if you’re talking in print media, print media is having a lot of problems now. It’s no secret. You read the financial papers, and magazines and newspapers are having difficulty competing with the electronic Internet media, all that’s happening on the Internet.

So you can make really good deals. So just a few quick tips. When you are looking at potentially advertising in a print media of any kind, be it a newspaper or a magazine, assume that you’re going to be able to get a good deal on the advertising in that publication. And assume that what is called the rate card, or the rates that the magazine or newspaper quotes, are simply a wish list on the part of the magazine or newspaper.

See, when the magazines or newspapers deal with big companies and their advertising agencies, they love to spend money. But entrepreneurs like you and me and the listeners today want to get as much advertising as possible for the lowest amount of money.

So all of the sudden, you have a different power, different motivation for your advertising purchase, than let’s say an advertising agency does. So you’ve got to make it clear, that when you’re talking to a magazine that you are looking for a very good test rate for your advertising.

And basically, simply by asking questions of that publication, assuming that it’s right for you, assuming that it is to your audience and to your market, assuming that it has other ads in it – because a magazine without any ads in it, you want to avoid like the plague. Because if it doesn’t have any ads in it, it means it’s not a good direct response medium. But if it has direct response ads in it, that’s a good sign.

Assume that you can get a good deal if you just simply ask questions. Simple questions to ask are, “What’s the best deal you can give me to test your publication, Mr. Advertising Owner? Because if our ad works in your publication, we’re going to run it on a regular basis and we’ll be a regular advertiser.” And of course, the larger your ad, the better deal you’ll be able to make.

Particularly, if you’re a full page advertiser, you’re going to be able to make a really good deal because the best deals come from those that buy full page space in a magazine or newspaper. Full page in a magazine, or quarter page in a newspaper.

What are your top tips for getting people to take action, and actually buy something from you?

Ted: What you’ve got to do to get people to take action, no matter what you are selling, no matter what market you are in, no matter what media you are using – people have to feel they are buying dollars for pennies. By that I mean you’ve got to make your deal so attractive that the person would rather have what you’re offering than they would to keep the money they have in their pocket. If you want a challenge, that’s it.

Because people that have never sold anything by direct marketing think it’s easy. You just write this beautiful letter, with flowery language, with a great headline, and people just reach in their pockets and send you checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. If it were that easy, there’d be a lot more millionaires then there are. The ones that are millionaires have realized – and a lot of them are my students – you’ve got to sell dollars for pennies.

One way to do that is with great copy. You’ve got to have great headlines, great sub-headlines, great body copy, and a great offer. What I mean by a great offer is this: You’ve got to have, these days, at least three and usually five or six free bonuses that are worth more, actually worth more than the value of the total deal that you are selling. That’s what I mean selling dollars for pennies.

Let’s say you’re selling a $100 deal of any kind, whatever it is, some widget for $100. If you have free bonuses worth $149 or $198 or $197, and you’re selling for $97, the whole deal, the deal then becomes… But this is where your copy has to be strong: You’ve got to convince your prospect that you’re selling dollars for pennies.

People do not want to send you $100 and get a dollar’s worth of value. Then you are selling pennies for dollars, and if you’re selling pennies for dollars you’re going to go bankrupt. It’s only a question of time. The only way you’re going to avoid bankruptcy is sell dollars for pennies. When you are sitting down and writing copy, I’m not just sitting down and writing copy that’s powerful. How can I make a deal that’s so attractive that the person can’t help but order the deals?

Now, if people don’t know you, people have no knowledge of you, you have no reputation, you’re a complete stranger to them, there’s a bigger challenge to get somebody to part with their money. One way to do it is you sell dollars for pennies.

And then this is your offer:

“Look, I’m willing to take the risk on this offer. Not you. You don’t have to take any risk. I’ll take all the risk. I’ll send you the product, and you try it for a month.

You send me no money; I’ll send you the product. At the end of a 30 day period, if you aren’t thrilled with the product, simply send it back and you’ll owe me nothing. I didn’t charge you anything; you’ll still owe me nothing. If you love the product and wouldn’t part with it for anything, I’ll bill you $97 for that product.”

See, you’re selling dollars for pennies, and you’re just reducing the risk to nothing. This is one way to get a lot of sales from people who are complete strangers to you.

Another way that we use to do it a lot offline – and some of my clients still do it because they follow my earlier models – is, look, send us your check or money order or credit card information to buy this product. We won’t cash your check or money order or charge your credit card for a 30 day period.

You have to be thrilled and satisfied with the product. At the end of 30 days, we’ll deposit your check in the bank or we’ll charge your credit card. And if you’re not satisfied with the product, just simply send it back and you’ll owe nothing and the matter’s closed. What could be fairer than that? Is that a good deal or not, Michael? What do you think?

Michael: That’s a great deal.

Ted: Great deal. So anybody listening today, we’re in what a lot of people think are tough times. I noticed that with my clients, some are making more money than they ever have. My business is booming because people need more marketing help than they ever did in so-called tough times than they do in regular times.

But there are some businesses that are being affected these days by the economy. One way to get sales is to do these dramatic and radical things to get sales, because you have to convince the person.

Some people say to me, “But Ted, a lot of people may send back the product.” Well, if you don’t believe in the product enough to let people try it before they pay for it, improve the product. Spend your time improving the product. If your product is so weak and so flimsy and so lousy that you’re unwilling to do that, you ought to close your shop anyway. You’re in the wrong business.

The only way that you’re going to stay in business is a good established product you’re proud of. Plus, will you sleep better at night if you know your product is just second to none – fantastic. This is what I teach my people to do. The easiest thing, in a way, is improve your product.

The hardest thing is to get customers to buy the product. So spend your time mostly in getting people to buy the product, and partly in improving the product so that it’s so darn good, nobody would ever want to return it if they’re in their right mind. Now, that’s how you want to look at your business.

Michael So, you spoke at Yanik Silver’s Underground Seminar. You actually spoke at two of his events, but the first time I saw you was in London. I see you talk on videos, and you just have so much energy and presence about you. What is your secret for this? How do you keep that energy level up?

Ted: Well, that’s a good question. I’ve never been asked that exactly, but that’s a great question. I like that, Michael.

Well, basically, I love what I do, so I have passion for what I do. I’m also committed, personally, to help as many entrepreneurs to succeed in this world as I possibly can. I have a figure in my mind of two million minimum.

Now, I’m working on a plan to help young entrepreneurs that are below age 21, that I haven’t focused on. Most of my readers and clients, let’s say, are over 20, 21. I like the idea of helping teen-aged entrepreneurs, because when I was a teenager I would have liked it if a Ted Nicholas type of teacher was in my life.

I love what I do, so I have passion for what I do. I’m also committed, personally, to help as many entrepreneurs to succeed in this world as I possibly can. I have a figure in my mind of two million minimum.

So what keeps me going is my love for what I do, my interest in entrepreneurship, and my inner core belief that the secret to individual freedom – I’m a libertarian politically – that the secret to individual freedom is more people being free, more people being entrepreneurs.

They’re the hardest people to control because they think for themselves. Governments have a harder time controlling entrepreneurs. In other words, free society has more entrepreneurs than an un-free society. Even un-free societies need some entrepreneurs, but they have to black marketeers.

I like the idea of just helping people being free, being successful, being entrepreneurs, and it just turns me on. I love doing it. And don’t tell anybody, Michael, but I would even do it for free.

But I have found out when I do it for free – when I first started I did it for free because I sold out for more money than I could ever spend in 1991. But I found out when you don’t charge people for your services…

Michael: They don’t value it.

Ted: …even a small amount, they don’t value it. I was helping my friends build successful businesses and they weren’t valuing. So I thought, I’m going to have a seminar, and I’m going to charge more money than anybody charges in the US, because those people are going to value what I say at the seminar.

I had the Olympic champions of business at my first seminar in Florida. I found out that people will value when you charge them an appropriate amount. In other words, all my seminars have a money back guarantee. You come to the seminar; if you’re not thrilled with the results the first day of that seminar, we’re happy to give your money back. We don’t want you in the seminar.

If we’re not delivering value, we don’t want you in the seminar. But people tell me, in one day they get more value – it’s very flattering – than they’ve ever gotten at any other seminar than they ever have, the whole length of the seminar, the whole time of the seminar.

It turns me on. Again, this is a little longer answer then you were probably looking for or probably expected, but this is what keeps me going, keeps me excited. And I’m just excited about what I’m doing. I can’t wait for my next seminar.

Michael: Oh, I’ve heard you speak twice and it was incredible. I think the first time you spoke was for about four hours. It was only expected to be 45 minutes, and not one person left the room I think. It was like 9:00 or 10:00 at night when you finished. It was incredible. OK Ted, where you can people find out more about you and your services?

Ted: People are welcome to look at the website at http://www.tednicholas.com. And on that website, you’ll find out all about a lot of great products that can help you, some that are very inexpensive. They’re all actually inexpensive depending on what you’re really looking for, and will teach you everything from how to write great copy to create great marketing programs and create products.

Also, I have several home study courses, and as I mentioned before briefly during the interview, you could become a mentoring member. I’m going to be cutting this off very soon. But basically I have a $97 a month program that now you can still get in at $47 per month. $47 per month. You have access to me personally, where people have paid me as much as $120, 000 a year minimum, you have access to me as a member to run by your copy, get better ideas on headlines, better ideas on structure.

You get $680 some dollars… Again, I don’t have this in front of me. Over $600 worth of free bonuses if you join that mentoring program. If you’re not thrilled with it, you can cancel it at any time.

So, http://www.tednicholas.com. And we’d be happy to work with you. We’re always, again, looking to help the kind of people that really respect and appreciate the kind of information that we publish.

The post Ted Nicholas Interview – Master Copywriter Reveals His Billion Dollar Secrets, Creating Killer Copy That Sells appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Originally published: Oct 12, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of being in New York and getting to meet Gary Vaynerchuk and interview him about his new book: Crush It

Meeting a hero is always a slightly awkward situation (or at least it is for me) — but never in my life have I met an individual who made you feel so comfortable and at ease, so quickly as Gary did.

Today I am pleased to release not only a Podcast (Player is above) of that interview plus a transcript. Gary delivers and Gary delivers quickly – this interview is literally riddled with Wisdom and Inspiration. I am just going to high-lite a couple of points that grabbed my attention personally:

1) There are a lot of social media experts out there that talk about making money, but have never made money outside of talking about making money

2) If you are playing Wii (XBOX etc) for four hours a day, or if you are watching football for 10 hours a day, you’re not entitled to complain about your job. You’re not.

Maybe my biggest “take away” from Gary was his work rate — no one can out work me says Gary, no one can out-hustle Gary.

The other bit Take Away was how passionate Gary is about Caring for his website visitors and how important it is for all of us to CARE about our customers.

Michael’s Strongest Recommendation:

Now occasionally on this blog I recommend a product – some of them can even cost $100’s of Dollars and I am fully aware that not everyone can afford that kind of investment – so today I want to give my strongest recommendation ever of a “Must Buy” product if you are serious about becoming a successful blogger / website owner — Gary’s new Book: Crush It Right now I am seeing CRUSH IT available to pre-order on Amazon.com for $10.79 and on Amazon.co.uk for lb8.44. All this information for around the cost of registering a Domain Name — Amazing Value! Official release date is: October 13, 2009 – so BUY IT today.

Also, if you would like to have a bit more of a Crush It Experience, check out: Crush It! – The Experience — options include: Buy 250 Books and you get to meet Gary on December 2nd for a full day of business advice followed by a wine tasting on the top of the Roger Smith Hotel in NYC, but there are also options like getting Crush It Wrist Bands or getting a personal video from Gary.

I know you will enjoy this interview – and I look forward to reading your comments

To Our Success

Michael

Podcast / Audio Version of this interview below:

Click Here To Listen To The Gary Vaynerchuk Interview

Gary Vaynerchuk Interview – CASH In On Your Passion

Interview Transcript:

Michael Dunlop: Today I’m with Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s from “Wine Library TV” and we’re doing an interview today about his new book and passion. Welcome, Gary.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Thanks for having me.

Michael: Great. Would you like firstly just to tell everyone who are you are and describe yourself?

Gary: Sure. I’m going to assume the far majority of people here don’t know who I am. My name’s Gary Vaynerchuk. I was born in Belarus in the former Soviet Union. I immigrated to the U.S. in ’78.

I’m a serial entrepreneur, not the kind that you eat, just like lemonade stands, baseball cards. I was making thousands of dollars a weekend selling baseball cards when I was 13.

I got involved in my family business when I was 15, a liquor store, Shopper’s Discount Liquors, and re-branded it to Wine Library in my college years.

I took over the family business in 1998 and renamed it to Wine Library. From ’98 to 2005, I grew sales from a couple million dollars a year to 45, which was a big deal. It made everybody in my family very happy.

In 2006, what’s probably led to a lot of people, the few that do know me on this video, is a show called “Wine Library TV,” a show where I taste wine five days a week, three or four wines in front of me.

It became really big here in the States. I’m actually going to the UK and taping the “Paul O’Grady Show,” so it’s made a lot of attention throughout the whole…

Michael: You’ll enjoy that.

Gary: Well, I’m excited about it. I saw some clips on YouTube. I think it’s going to be pretty radical.

Anyway, in 2007 I started talking about business on GaryVaynerchuk.com, which really led to an explosion of my brand – 850,000 followers on Twitter.

I get tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of views on my business videos. I’ve spoken at tons of conferences. I’m in the UK once every year to speak at FOWA, the Future of Web Apps.

Now I’m now writing this book called “Crush It” – CrushItBook.com, check it – because I really think that for $14, I have something to say and something that people can get out of it.

I like that I’m not full of baloney. There are a lot of social media experts out there that talk about making money, but have never made money outside of talking about making money, and I think that separates me in a lot of ways.

I think it’s powerful, and I think it changes the dynamic a little bit. It doesn’t come from the intellectual standpoint. It comes from – not that I’m a dummy, but maybe I am. It comes from actually feeling it.

It comes from this: 15 hours a day, grinding, hustling, understanding that this new media is about listening and not talking. That’s been able to separate myself.

Michael: Wicked. Thanks. All right, so you have the “Crush It” book, which is about cashing in on your passion, is that right? Do you want to just tell us a little bit more about the book and why people should check it out?

Gary: It’s my thesis. It’s my thesis on, hey, everything has changed. I mean, look what we’re doing right now.

Let me tell you something. If 10 years ago, you would go up to somebody – 10 years is not a long time – and said there’s going to be a computer that’s movable, that’s connected to the Internet, that’s fast, there are going to be two little devices that are more powerful than the thing that’s like this, and costs $5,000, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people have the chance to see it, and you don’t have to spend any money to buy commercials or newspaper ads to get them to see it.

Do you know what that means?

Michael: That would be great.

Gary: It would not be understood two decades ago. That is what I’m excited about. People back then thought CDs were the greatest invention ever, and they changed the world, right?

Michael: Yes.

Gary: Well, now they’re obsolete, and one day this will be too. I talk about why there’s a lot of money involved in that, why there’s a trillion dollars in play for people to get a little piece of their action.

So if they’re passionate about what you guys call, rightfully so, football, if they’re passionate about that, or they’re passionate about something I’m passionate about, boxing, if you like Ricky Hatton, for example, if you love boxing, or if you like soccer – or football, sorry – or gardening, or yoga, or wine.

The fact that you can use WordPress, or Tumblr, or Movable Type, or anything to build a platform for free, and the fact that you can then go use Twitter, and Tumblr, and Facebook, and leave comments on blogs and forums for free, and build a business that allows you to make $10,000, or $20,000, or $100,000, or $400,000 a year instead of doing that job that you hate – well, that’s game changing, and to me, I’m going to scream loud about that.

Michael: Brilliant. What would you actually say, because so many people don’t have passion? What would you say to them?

Gary: What do you do when you have free time? What do you do? What do you do when you’re not sleeping and working? Are you watching television? Fine. What are you watching about? Are you watching a cooking channel, or are you watching a sports channel, or a music channel?

Are you outside climbing rocks? Are you painting? What are you doing? That is your passion, because that’s when you have a choice to do anything, and you decided to do this.

Are you going to movies with your husband or wife every night? If that’s what you’re doing, maybe you need to start a movie review site.

It’s all there, but people don’t want to work as hard as I do. I’m going to always win, and I’m going to give away all my information for free because nobody watching, none of you guys, are going to out work me – not one of you.

That’s the defining moment that people need to understand. Who’s going to hustle the hardest? The only way you can hustle that hard is if you love it. Do you know what I mean?

Michael: Yes.

Gary: So you’ve got to really love it, and then you can work that hard. I think that that’s what I want to get people to understand. You’ve got to find a way to love that much.

Michael: All right. You brought up a really good point about working hard. You’ve got to crush it and hustle.

I remember I read some chapter, and it mentions the Wii. You shouldn’t be playing. You shouldn’t waste all your time. You’ve got to get on it, and hustle, and do what you have to do.

What would you say to those people, myself included, who play too much and are not on the ball all the time?

Gary: I have no problem with you playing, because you probably need a balance. I needed to play a quick game of Ping-Pong in the office today because AJ was talking trash and I had to beat him.

We need escapes, but I want you to understand this. If you are playing Wii for four hours a day, or if you are watching football for 10 hours a day, you’re not entitled to complain about your job. You’re not.

Everything has a price. I’m jealous that you get to play the Wii so much. I’m jealous that I’m not fishing all day today or laying on a beach, but there’s a price to be paid for success.

People that are looking for shortcuts, which a lot of you right now watching are. SEO, affiliate, all this stuff – they’re shortcuts. If you want to build a real business, it takes years, and years, and years, and it takes lots of passion and lots of hard work.

There’s no one-hour [snaps fingers] quick. There are no four-hour work weeks. I love Tim Ferriss because Tim Ferriss works about 44 hours a day.

The fact of the matter is this: find what you love, because then you could work that hard. I have no problem with people playing the Wii or doing that mainly because that means I’m out-hustling them and I’m getting their cash. So keep playing.

Michael: I love that. All right. OK, on to running your own entrepreneur site. Does it have a big readership with lots of young people? What would you say to young people at school and college that want to do something big in business?

Gary: Don’t listen to your parents, or your teachers, or anybody else besides yourself. If you’re entrepreneurial enough to be watching this man, to be part of this community, or listening, that already means that you have something different.

Why did you seek out to be with me in the first place? That means you’ve already got it. You’ve already wanted my opinion. What you’re not doing now, the next piece is to understand how right you are.

Don’t listen to your elders because they’ve been around longer. Listen to yourself only, and if you do that, you have a far greater opportunity to cash in because too many people think they’re too young.

“Well, I don’t get it. Let me listen to Mom and Dad, or let me listen to the professor. They’ve been successful.” Be more successful. Just listen to yourself.

Since you’re part of this community already, you’ve already got that interest, that taste, that hunger for entrepreneurial success. Don’t listen to anybody. Listen to yourself. Work extremely hard.

Don’t get discouraged, because entrepreneurs like us, we fall, but we get up. It’s like the best boxers are the ones that get knocked down. Those are the best guys.

How can guys like Roy Jones, Jr., who never gets knocked down, and the first time he gets punched hard in the jaw, he falls and he never gets up. Sorry, Roy Jones.

Not Calzaghe. I know he’s undefeated and all that. I want to see him go – well, actually that’s not true. I’m on it, because Calzaghe got dropped in the first round against Bernard Hopkins and got up. Those are the guys I like.

Entrepreneurs get knocked down because we’re taking chances. We’re taking risks. But we love the game, don’t we? Just keep loving the game.

Michael: Brilliant. We’ve got lots of older people people on the site as well. For example, one reader has just started his first blog about how he wants to climb Everest at age 75.

Gary: I love him.

Michael: What would you tell those older people that think they can’t get on the Internet, can’t deal with the things that they can do to make money, and just have fun with their passion?

Gary: Yeah, I think that age is irrelevant. I think it’s DNA. I know a lot of 25-year-olds that have no clue what the hell is going on. It’s barriers, it’s barriers of listening to your… Last question, parents and professors, it’s barriers of listening to society say you can’t because you should be done.

Nobody is putting me into retirement. I’m going to retirement when God says I’m going into retirement, that’s about it. No society or case study or survey that you should be 68, I’m not listening to anybody but my heart and my soul that I want to do this. So, that’s it.

Michael: Brilliant. And you’ve had so much advice. You’ve given out so much great advice, what in the tape would you say to anyone? What advice would you give out if you had to give one thing?

Gary: Care.

Michael: Brilliant.

Gary: I think that people care about themselves too much. I promise you, if you care about your audience – how many people leave comments on a post of yours?

Michael: Sometimes hundreds.

Gary: OK. How many of those people – do you use WordPress?

Michael: Yeah.

Gary: How often do you do this? Because this is what I do. The first thing, my top bookmark, is this. And what I do is this.

Michael: I completely agree with you.

Gary: If you emailed every person that leaves a comment, and read it, and left a comment thanking them or added your two cents every day, you would be even more successful than you are now, which is wildly successful.

Michael: Yeah, you’re right. So many people will forget about inviting anyone, caring about everyone who comes to their site and to visit.

Gary: The fact that anybody is watching us right now is insane. People take it for granted, they completely over estimate who they are. They think they’re big shit – you’re nothing. You need to remember that. And neither am I or you or anybody else who are lucky that other human beings respect our thoughts and ideas enough to spend time in our communities, and we need to cherish that gift and that opportunity.

As big as – and listen, I’m going to be big ass – but as big ass as I’m going to be, I’m going to be – and sometimes people think I’m a big ass, too. But as big as I’m going to be, I’m never, ever going to forget where I came from, and that’s a very big differentiator. The reason I’m winning is because I care more than my competitors.

Michael: Exactly. All right, so we’ve mentioned WordPress and your blogging, so what would you say to those people out there who want to do their own video? Because you’re at the top of the video growing market right now.

Gary: Make sure you’re good enough to do video. Do what you’re good at. If you don’t like video, then don’t video. If you like writing better, great. If you like audio better, great. Do what you’re good at. I think a lot of people – when you’re a turtle, don’t try to be an elephant.

So first, decide. Just because you hear video is working and Flip-cams are cheap and people like me are doing well, this is my domain. I’m cozy with the camera. I want to make love to that little Flip-cam. It’s my environment. You put a pen and paper in front of me… The reason I was able to do my book was because I dictated the whole thing. That’s why the book is doing so well to the long lead magazine writers, because they’re like, “Holy crap, that sounds exactly like you.”

Hell, yeah! Because that’s exactly how I talk. The ghost writer just fixed the grammar, right? So I think it’s imperative for people to understand if they’re good enough to do it, and if they are, they need to understand it’s not about the lighting or the makeup or the camera. It’s about what you give.

And it’s not even so much about what you give here, in the content, it’s what you give them there for the community. It’s very obvious to me that I lead out those principles in the book.

Michael: Brilliant, and actually, you’ve touched on another good point. You started with blogging when you came online, and we recently featured Gary in a list we did about 20 people who started with blogging and are now doing so much more. You’re releasing your first book next month, I believe. What would you say – because that’s one thing so many people want to do is they want to write a book – what would you actually say to those people out there?

Gary: Don’t try to write a book.

Michael: OK.

Gary: If you focus on your community, and you focus on building your brand, the books will come to you, books will come to you.

Michael: Brilliant, and what about Jets and branding? Because you’re pretty much the guy.

Gary: That’s the game, to me. To me, that’s the game, because look, I was a wine guy. But it was about Gary Vaynerchuk, right? And then when I segued into talking about business, people were like, “huh?” Plenty of people were like, “Stick to wine, douche bag.”

But, the fact of the matter is many more came with me and I think that’s very powerful to understand. You can’t call your thing twitterhouse.com or thefacebookconnectworld.net, because you’re associating with something else. It needs to be about you. My last name was impossible. My name is Gary Vaynerchuk, that’s no present.

But, the fact of the matter is because I own it and it’s about me, people know I love business, and I love wine, and I love the Jets, and I love root beer, and I love WFF wrestling and boxing. It allows you to show multiple tunnels to your personality. If I go now and start a Jets website, it’s not going to seem weird to people, because they already know what I’m passionate about.

Michael: I think everyone who follows you – that’s actually a question I was going to ask is you love the Jets, and you also love wine. If you had choose…

Gary: Oh, the Jets. I’d give up wine in 30 seconds and I love wine. But the Jets are my religion.

Michael: Yeah, brilliant.

Gary: Honestly, I wish I was more like you guys. I was born in Europe, my parents screwed up. I am, by DNA, a football, a real football, a soccer fan. My DNA, the way I am, I’m an anomaly in the U.S., fanatical. I fit right in in Europe when it comes to soccer, because I would punch somebody in the face. I get crazy, I lose my mind.

Michael: All right, and if you could jump in a time machine, go back and change something. I know there’s so many things.

Gary: That’s a great question.

Michael: I know there’s so many things like, it makes us who we are, our mistakes. But if you could actually change one mistake or one thing, what would it be?

Gary: Yeah, I would approach Sergei and Larry and try to invest in Google, because I know I’d make money and I could buy the Jets. The funny thing is I live very non regrettable. I don’t do bad things, because my parents raised me well. I’ve made mistakes, but I’m not sure I like that. My mistakes are the things I didn’t do, not what I’ve done, because when I choose to do something – and this is big.

If you’ve stuck around long enough to hear this or watch this, here’s going to be probably the best thing I’m going to tell you. If I’ve ever decided to do anything, Corked, Vayner Media, this gourmet food center is one, I did it with the purpose of enjoying and learning about the process, not how much money it made at the end.

I made the decision to do it, and the second I made the decision to do it, I had already won. I wanted to do this because I wanted to learn. And it’s never been the best financial decision, it’s the education decision. I need to learn this, let me take my bruises, but at the end of the day I’ll be better off for it. And most people are too thin skinned to take bruises in our society today. Love the process, and the results won’t matter.

Michael: Exactly. One of the things I always think about when I’m doing the sites and doing new projects is that the money is just a byproduct. The main thing is doing it and having fun.

Gary: The challenge.

Michael: Oh, the challenge.

Gary: The challenge is the game, it’s a game. Money is shit, except I like the fact that it allows me to count points. It’s points to me. I agree with you, that’s why you’re successful. If you love the game, you’re going to win. If you’re chasing cash, you’ve lost.

Michael: Exactly. All right, just to end the interview, you’ve been asked so many questions, what would you want to add? One question you haven’t been asked before. What question would that be and the answer?

Gary: I probably would want to be asked something that would allow me to elaborate on the fact that I know I got really lucky with my DNA in liking people. It makes me feel good when people, after six months of knowing me, are like, “Oh, crap. You’re like a really good guy, huh?” That’s what I live for. That’s what I wrote this book for.

I wrote this book for one reason, for February 2010. You know what’s going to happen in February 2010? I’m going to start getting emails from people saying, “Dude, I read your book in October, and this winter I’ve been doing what I’ve loved and been hustling, and I’m making 10K. But I’m not ready to quit my lawyer job, but my ski blog or my skateboard site is on its way and I think I’m going to be quitting by this summer because I’m making enough money. Thank you, you’ve changed my life.” That is the only thing I did this for.

Michael: So it’s a legacy.

Gary: Legacy is greater than currency. My favorite video I’ve ever done for myself.

Michael: All right, brilliant. Thanks, Gary.

Gary: Thank you.

Michael: This is Mike and Gary for incomediary.com. Work it.

Gary: Great job.

Michael: Thanks very much, man.

More On Gary Vaynerchuk at:
http://garyvaynerchuk.com
http://crushitbook.com

Buy Crush It at Amazon.com

Buy Crush It at Amazon.co.uk

Gary’s Websites:
http://garyvaynerchuk.com
http://tv.winelibrary.com

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The post Gary Vaynerchuk Interview – CASH In On Your Passion appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Last week I was on Skype with a new friend of mine Adam Horwitz brainstorming, masterminding and generally picking each others brains. Since doing this interview, Adam has launched a brand new site about how he makes $100,000’s from Mobile, visit Mobile Monopoly to find out more!

What was cool for me is that Adam is even younger than me and I was thinking I just don’t interview enough really young internet entrepreneurs. This interview partially corrects that. The thing I love about the Internet is the lack of Age Discrimination – no matter if you are a teenager (or even younger) or someone who is long retired the Internet provides opportunity for all.

There are quite a number of highlights in this Podcast interview (Transcript also below) – information on Video Marketing, Squeeze Pages, Pay Per Click, Adwords, CPA offers, Affiliate Marketing, Clickbank and Google Trends to name just some – but I think Adam’s reply to my last question (Any last little bit of advice?) is in fact the biggest take-away in this interview. One of the main reasons people don’t become successful online is because they never start, a lot of what we do is a system that anyone can and should copy!

If someone says, “There’s no way, you’ll never make money online, everything’s a scam online, blah blah blah, they’re lying. You don’t have to listen to what other people says – trust me, I went through that day in and day out with my friends and stuff. They did not believe that I could make money online, and then as soon as I did, I think their jaws dropped to the ground. So JUST GO FOR IT!

OK, I know that has been said so many times before here – but really it cannot be said enough. I was fortunate, my family was very supportive of my online career and being self employed, but I just like you had plenty of people sneer at me, try to poke fun of me – especially when I set up my RetireAt21.com website.

Have the ultimate revenge – Laugh All The Way To The Bank!

On a very personal aside – I was anything but an A-Grade Student at School but my Mom recently bumped into one of my former school teachers who apparently is now following my online career. I think to be fair, I frustrated that teacher and there must have been days when she teared her hair out over me – but she did tell my mom she always knew I would be an entrepreneur. For those that don’t know, I was the School Tycoon – selling Pokemon cards amongst other things.

So as you can see – Success is not only about laughing all the way to the bank.

Like myself Adam has been a little naughty in this Internet Career (ask him about Dirty Laundry) – but the amazing thing I find about so many successful Internet Entrepreneurs is how they just keep trying – until something eventually works! Adam is one of those – plus he has had a fair amount of fun along the way – as you might expect from a Californian Teenager.

There are lessons here for everyone – not matter what your age or what level of success you have had up to now.

This Podcast is a great listen – I just listened to a play back and I am quite proud of what we managed to cover here.

Enjoy and as always, I look forward to your comments.

To Our Success

Michael

PS: I have used this quote before – but it is one definitely worth repeating — and especially worth noting for those of us who are afraid to TAKE ACTION:

Action Diminishes Fear, Action Creates Success

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Adam Horwitz Interview Transcript

Michael Dunlop: Michael Dunlop from IncomeDiary.com, and today I’m with Adam Horwitz, and he’s an 18-year-old young entrepreneur who runs two six-figure businesses and has a great story. And hopefully today we’re going to share some great tips with you guys about how you can be online and start making money. So welcome, Adam.

Adam Horwitz: Hey, what’s up?

Michael: Hey. So all right, I first want to just quickly touch on your first online business, because it was really entertaining listening to you the other night. Let’s quickly run over your parties Website and how that one went.

Adam: All right. Well, when I first started, I was about 15, and there was actually this Website that started up at school about – it was called “Dirty Laundry,” and it talked about all the gossip of the kids around the school. It got banned pretty much within three days of starting, but all the kids went to it, and they loved it. It was like a blog setup. And so I thought that I had – when it went and stopped – I have no idea why it stopped – of course it was the legal purposes. But I decided to start up my own one that was kind of a twist, but the legal version. And I started putting up parties, when parties were going to be in Los Angeles, because that’s where I’m from, and just telling people stuff about events and all that.

But it kind of got out of hand eventually because I’d have 800 people show up to a house where it would be like a closed party for only like 20 friends, and then another 400 people would show up at another house where the parents would only be there because the party was supposedly canceled two hours before, and I would get all these phone calls and just go crazy from that. So I had to stop that pretty quickly, but it was fun while it lasted.

Michael: Sounds wicked. So after that, you did another Website and you played around with a couple of other ideas for making money. But I understand you started making some real money when you played with PPC, pay-per-click, and affiliate marketing. And one thing is you started selling chicken coops, I believe.

Adam: Yeah. Well, when I first started with affiliate marketing, I was just researching… well, originally I went to StomperNet with my father as a guest, and that kind of opened the doors to me to see that there is potential out there for making money online. I hadn’t really learned much when I was there, because I was kind of just like listening to what everyone had to say and I was just kind of absorbing everything into my head, because this was all new to me. So then I came home and I tried to set up some PPC campaigns, and I tried about four or five and I failed miserably. For the first ones, I lost a few hundred bucks. But then I came across chicken coops, and I went to Google Trends, and I saw that for some reason, people were looking for chicken coops at the time. And I was like, “Who would buy that?” But anyway, I just went for it. I set up a campaign, and i was able to start making money from that from the day I set it up. So that was kind of an eye-opener to me.

Michael: And so is that where you’d recommend anyone looking to find their hot market, is to go to Google Trends?

Adam: Well, when I first started – yeah, I went to Google Trends. Well, I first went to keywords, the Google Adwords keyword thing, and then I would just look up different keywords and see if there were a lot of advertisers in that market or whatever. Pretty much the basics, what any newbie does. From there I would just type it in on Google Trends, and it’s like a little graph thing, and if it’s going up, I assumed that more people were searching for it, which means more buyers. And that’s how I kind of thought, “Well, maybe I should give this one a try.” And it actually worked. So that was quite a good little secret I learned there.

Michael: Great. And what should – so many people are really looking into pay-per-click and affiliate marketing. What’s your biggest tip for anybody who is new and starting and sort of at the same position that you were when you were starting?

Adam: I think a lot of people’s struggle is they set up like eight different campaigns and they let each campaign get around 20 clicks. And then they say, “Well, I haven’t made any money or anything.” But I always say to myself that you ought to at least get one campaign going before you start other ones, and the one campaign, you have to at least get it to 100 clicks, because most products will receive about a one percent conversion. So if you just do a bunch of different products and they’re only getting 20 clicks, you’re not going to make a sale for any of them.

You have to just focus on one and get that up to 100 clicks, and then hopefully you’ll make a sale around there, and then you can expand it as long as you’re breaking even and making a profit. And then if you’re not you should stop that one and try a different one.

Michael: And because you have to buy so many clicks, do you recommend that you go to the higher-priced type product because… If it’s so low and you’re spending all the money on clicks, it wouldn’t work out, yes?

Adam: Yeah. Well, when I promote products and it’s actually funny because first started, the first product that I promoted was $10 commission, and I had no idea at the time that you really did need a higher product. I thought you could just make sales instantly off AdWords and all that, and that was not true. And I lost a lot of money there. So you really need to look for products that are – I love to think of products that are over $30 commission, so they can at least cover it, because I – and also, I don’t really spend that much on keywords. I try to spend as little as possible. So I maybe spend around 23 cents, 25 cents per click, and even though you’re not at the top, you’re still going to get the same amount of clicks as getting at the top, but it’s just going to be over a slower time period. But you always still make the same amount of money. I mean, it’s just going to be slower and you’re not wasting as much. And if it doesn’t work, then you’re not wasting as much money at all. So…

Michael: All right. Great. So, like a lot of people, once you learn how to do something, there’s a great opportunity then to teach it and make a lot of money. All right. I know you’ve set up a Website called Tycoon Cash Flow where you pretty much take everyone through how you’ve gone with pay-per-click and affiliate marketing. I really want to go through what you did then, how you’re having such great success. So firstly, what would you recommend to people, anyone who wants to create a product, and preferably quickly?

Adam: Well, I think to create a quick product, the best way to do it is through video. You just buy a program that you can record the screen and you can talk into it just like you’re talking, and I’m talking into the computer right now. And you just talk and record the screen and show them what you did to be successful, pretty much. That’s all people want to see. They want to see step-by-step how you did it. They don’t want to read a lot, they want to watch you talk about how you did it, and they can pause it and follow your steps and all that. That’s definitely the quickest way, I think, too.

Rather than writing out pages and pages and pages of an e-book, I think it’s much quicker to just do a quick video tutorial

Michael: Do you think people don’t mind? Typically a lot of products are just text and images. Do you think they don’t mind that it can be all covered in a few videos, or do you think they even prefer to have a few videos instead of a big, long e-book?

Adam: For my market, I kind of go for the younger crowd, my age. I’m trying to help a lot of kids my age so they don’t have to work at fast food places or they don’t have to go get minimum wage. I want to show them that it is possible to make money online. So, for them, I know they don’t want to sit in front of the computer and just read an eBook. I wouldn’t want to do that. I think of them like me. I would want to watch something. Just like you watch TV, or just like you watch YouTube videos. You watch it and then it’s just much easier to implement things. And it gets your attention. If you’re fun and laid back and stuff, they can relate better to you and it’s just a better connection. And it actually gets them motivated to make a change and start something.

Michael: All right, that’s cool.

Adam: Yeah, well when I first started we weren’t getting much traffic. What I did with my Tycoon Cashflow Website, I did with a partner of mine actually, who is also a little older, he’s 21. His name is Derrick. But we actually didn’t really have much traffic when we first started it. And we couldn’t figure out ways to get traffic. And then, all of a sudden, I was like let’s try to figure out if we could get traffic through going into contact logs and stuff, and seeing if they want to put an affiliate link up on their banner on their Website. From there, that resulted in getting 10 gravity. And then they all got up to 20 gravity. Then when that happened, we started to get people from ClickBank starting to pick us up. And inside of the course, and I think this is important for any course, you should have some viral thing going on.

Derrick and I actually gave away a free course, which is called the Enigma Marketing Method, which we still offer now. And it teaches people how to make money through affiliate marketing, through articles, through SEO’s, search engine optimization, and all that. And inside we used our product as an example.

So a lot of people took our product and re-promoted it. And that upped the gravity of two. And from there it was just a snowball effect and then more people started promoting it.

Michael: Nice. And for those who are listening and don’t understand what gravity is and Clickbank. Would you like to quickly explain that to them?

Adam: Clickbank is an online digital outlet with over 10,000 products that are all digital. So that means you just download them to your computer or you just get access to members area. But you can promote any product that gets accepted onto Clickbank. Which means you can become an affiliate to any of them. And they all offer, I don’t know one Clickbank for audit, that doesn’t offer 50 percent or more commission for the affiliates. Because they’re digital. There is no other money that the owners have to pay for. It’s all done automatically. So they can afford to give out that high of a commission.

But it’s actually interesting, because there’s like 9,000 or 10,000 products on ClickBank, and within those three months of getting Tycoon Cashflow up, we were able to get in the top 100 products on Clickbank.

Michael: Wow!

Adam: Just from Gravity wise. Just from that viral side of it where people would re-promote us inside the product. And just the snowball effect. It was very cool. It went quickly.

Michael: Presumably that’s because you had a great sales pitch or a great product to sell. What do you ultimately put down to the success of the product?

Adam: The thing is, the sales page isn’t like super advanced. It isn’t super crazy and modern looking. It’s just very simple. I think with any sale page now, people are so used to watching video that you need to have some sort of video on there. My sales page is all based around video. So when someone comes they watch. They see me talking to them. I kind of get them through the whole process. It’s me showing them things through video. It’s all video on my sales page. There is just very little writing. I think the video helps the conversion. It helps people feel more comfortable to buy. Because they feel like they can connect to you and that you’re a real person. Unlike if they just see writing, they’re like: “How do I don’t know this person is really real” and all that. So I think the video is a big help.

Michael: We have a lot of young readers, especially from RetireAt21.com, and they always send this into me. What would you say to them regarding being young in Internet marketing? Because I know when I started, a lot of people didn’t really want to listen to us because we’re young.

Adam: Yeah, I know.

Michael: What do you say to other young entrepreneurs who may be faced with that problem?

Adam: It’s changing. I mean the young people are going to just keep getting more and more into the whole Internet world. The older people are going to eventually fade out. And now all of a sudden the younger ones are going to come into the picture. I think it’s only going to get better for us. Trust me, I went through it too. Even as it went on and on, if you could deliver good content, and you really know what you’re talking about and they can see it in you and you’re passionate about it and all that, then they’ll believe you.

They also like it when you’re young. They think it’s interesting how a young person was able to pull it off. And you can even use it as a marketing advantage for yourself. “I’m this age and I was able to do this.” I think that’s also a benefit of being young.

Michael: Yeah I have seen change in the recent years. I think especially being young went from a negative to now a positive, I believe. You mentioned earlier that you actually have a business partner. What would you say to other people out there who may want to have business partner? Should they? How to go about it?

Adam: Well I actually met him at Stompernet. We were the two youngest people there so we kind of mixed from that. I think if you find someone that you really think knows what they’re talking about and if you like them as a person, then go for it. Because when you have a business partner, it’s much easier to separate. You don’t have everything on your shoulders. It’s a lot easier to just get things pumping. It’s a lot faster to get a course going and stuff like that. I enjoy having a business partner.

Michael: And you never cool out? You never worry that they won’t pick up the slack?

Adam: I mean there are times but you just have to talk to them. They’re normal people just like you. You just have to speak to them and say: “Look this is what’s going on. We have to do this, we have to do that. If you’re not into it, then maybe we should go our different ways.” But you really should figure out before you even get started with that partner, if that’s going to happen. Because you can tell with people. If you guys don’t mix from the beginning then it’s not going to work.

Michael: All right. Cool. Since launching Tycoon Cashflow, you’ve also bought a new product: CellPhone Treasure. A long time, people being one hit wonder. They’ve done it once but they haven’t done it again. I understand that site is another successful Website where you sell another product. Does it get easier with your second product?

Adam: Oh, yeah. It was 20 times easier, because first of all you’ve done it before, so you kind of can look back at what you did on the first one and say, “All right, I did that, I did that. How did it work out?” You answer questions. People ask emails, you answer them. You say, “All right.” And then you have more insight and you have a better understanding of what to do next. And then on top of that you have a huge email list – or a pretty big email list, at least – and then you have all your affiliates that have all opted in. So then you just say, “I’m sending this product out on this day. This is what it is. Go check it out, and if you mind, blasting it to your list as well.” It’s all about, really, networking. If you can get a good list of affiliates, you’re pretty much set for the next product you do, because they do the work for you.

Michael: All right. So your main sales page isn’t really – it’s a squeeze page, I believe. You don’t see the sales page until you opt-in, is that right?

Adam: Yeah, you first opt in. And then you go to the next page where there’s another video of me speaking to you and talking to you a little bit more. And then it says you can get in, you can buy now and get access to the members’ area. So that’s – I just like that whole thing, because I feel like when people come straight to the page and they see a price. Especially if it’s one of those longs sales pages which I’m not into, that’s one thing. But I wouldn’t even go that way from when I started because I like everything to be small and to the point, and so everyone can see one thing on the one page they’ve looked at instead of having to scroll down, like hours and hours of scrolling down.

So I just give them two steps: a video, opt-in, another video, talk a little bit more about it, and then buy now, then get access to the members’ area, and then I come up, back right up with another video of me. Once I’m in the members area and I’m walking through it, it’s pretty much me the whole way through helping them out. That’s what I try to go for.

Michael: And what if they don’t buy once they’ve opted in? Do you do anything after that to try and convince them to buy?

Adam: Yeah. Well, what I do is I actually send them – follow-up them or autorespond to them with a 50 percent off – because I’m like, “Look, times are tough right now. I know that not everyone can afford something, but you should definitely give it a try because I don’t want you to be backing out because you don’t have enough money to make money, you know what I mean? So I try to cut them the best deal as possible so that they can actually get started in finding change for themselves, and I also send them some free courses with the Enigma marketing method, and also I have something called Boot Camp, which is a seven day course that gets sent to them as well. And I try to help them make money there, and then once they make money there, then they’ll go for the course and they’ll have money to purchase it.

So it’s kind of a… Then if they don’t purchase it inside of those two or three courses I give them, that’s the viral effect. So even if I don’t make money out of them or they don’t take action and buy the course, then at least they’re just making money in other ways by promoting our course.

Michael: That’s very clever.

Adam: Yeah.

Michael: So apart from your two products, you also have a blog. Something I’m a huge fan of, having blogs. How do you find having a blog as – do you use it for promoting a product, building a personal brand? How do you use it, and what’s your top tip for readers?

Adam: I really think that a blog is very, very important, especially if you’re trying to build a relationship and you’re trying to brand yourself to your readers or to your customers or whatever. Because by them seeing you and your sales page, if you have a video there, you’re pretty much talking about- I mean, you’re trying to make them buy the product, so you can’t really be that personal and that laid back and stuff. I try to be the best that I can in my videos because I don’t want to be, like, an up-front, pushy salesman, but on your blog I feel like you can really let loose and be yourself and just share what you really are all about and all of what you do on a daily basis, and I think it’s a good place to just have be like your home where you can really be yourself to everyone and where they can communicate with you and comment. It’s just a fun place to have, you know?

Michael: Yes. I understand you’re still at college, but making money online sort of gives a lifestyle that most don’t – what would you describe your Internet lifestyle like?

Adam: Well, compared to a lot of my friends, they are also – they’re all in college, too, and maybe they do babysitting jobs or they work at a fast food place. They work, somewhere they make minimum wage, and I make a lot more than that. So I’m able to buy a lot more things. Like, I don’t waste my money. I’m trying to save up because I want to build equity for myself, and I have a lot of plans to- my goal eventually is to come out with a service, kind of like a social networking service, that- I have a few ideas in my head but I need the money to get started, and that’s what I am striving towards, because it is- I am looking for investors and all that.

So I’m saving as much money as possible, but I do spend on computers and stuff to help my business grow and all that kind of thing. And then TVs and my video games, and I just bought a car recently, a hybrid so I don’t waste gas. So I’m not, like, super spendy, but I do buy a certain amount of things that my friends wouldn’t necessarily be able to buy themselves, you know?

Michael: Naturally. What if it was possible there was actually such a things as a time machine and you could travel back? What would you do differently?

Adam: Well, if I could travel back, I’d travel back and start Facebook. No, but if I could travel back, I don’t think I would do anything differently, because I think I’ve learned a lot on the way, and if I didn’t do what I did and I didn’t start all my Websites and I didn’t fail all those times. I wouldn’t be who I am now. And I think with failing and getting back up and trying it again, failing and trying it again, it kind of builds up something inside of you that you’re not scared of failing anymore, and I think that’s huge. I don’t think people should assume that they’re going to make money within the first thing they do. I think you have to try a few things, like I had to try a few things, and eventually I hit it. I made it through. But you just don’t want to give up – I mean, that’s the main thing – and I was very close to giving up, but I just kept going for because I really – it was a goal of mine to be able to make money online. So you just have to find it out for yourself, give yourself a goal and go for it, and you’ll make it eventually. You’ve just got to go for it.

Michael: Hmm. That’s really cool. What’s the best advice you’ve been given while being an Internet entrepreneur?

Adam: Do what you love. I think that’s very important. You can come out with a bunch of products and stuff. You can come out with products that you don’t know anything about, and you can get writers and stuff. You can get outsourcing, get writers to do it, or get people making videos. But at the end of the day, do you really want to own a product, do you really want to sell something that you don’t like? That you don’t really believe in? I feel like if you’re passionate about something, you should start up something on that and start up a course on that. Something you’re passionate – start up a blog on that. And I think doing what you love is very, very important with anything, but I think especially online.

There’s a saying, “You’re the worst boss.” You could go work for someone else, but then if you’re – you can come back and work for yourself, but if you’re still not doing anything that you like, then you’re the worst boss of yourself. Then you’re just back to working. So I don’t think of this as work. This is fun, this is what I’m doing. And I like to get on a computer and set things up and set up new Websites and all that. So that’s my thing.

Michael: That’s great. So many people have probably failed because they just don’t enjoy what they’re doing. Everyone should probably do what they enjoy, then.

Adam: Yeah. And with the opportunities out there now, there’s no reason that with the Internet the way it is and with social media and with YouTube and Twitter and ways to create Websites for free and blogging, there’s no way that anyone should do something that they don’t enjoy. The opportunity is out there, you just have to to for it and really hustle and if you do that, you’ll make it and you’ll be above the game with what you love. That will be the best thing.

Michael: All right. Well I’m sure everyone who is listening to this who hasn’t yet created a product is dying to know how they can go off today and at least start. Could you just briefly break down what you’d tell them to do right now? What should they be doing straightaway to get this ball rolling?

Adam: Well, first of all figure out what you want to create your product on, and hopefully it’s something that you enjoy, after what I just said. From there you just start- if you want to go the screen recording way, you just get a screen recorder, which is Camtasia, and there’s ScreenFlow for Mac. Camtasia also just came up with one for Mac which I really like. And you just start it: start your course. Start teaching people what you love to do. Once you package it all up, once you make all the videos, then you just set up a simple Web page of you talking, maybe in a video. And say, “Here, opt in,” or whatever, and you send them to the same layout that I have – and that was successful for me, so I don’t know why it wouldn’t be successful for anyone else – and then you just go from there. Go contact some blogs, ask them to put advertisements up from your product that you’ve created. Then put it onto ClickBank so that other people can promote it.

I mean, it’s pretty simple. You’ve just got to start. I mean, the thing is that people feel overwhelmed because they just think about it: “Oh, my, that sounds like so much work.” But when you just do it and when you just start it, then it’ll just go, and once you start it running – well for me, at least, once you start going and once you start really pumping things out, it just goes very quickly. And that’s how I feel it goes. [laughs]

Michael: Wicked. I’ve got a five quick questions to end this interview.

Michael: Firstly, what do you like most about the Internet?

Adam: I like how easy it is to earn a passive income, and how I can be sleeping and I can be playing video games and I can be sitting in math class – which is dreadful, and I hate math so much. But I’m sitting in math class, and I can be making money. I think that’s why I like the Internet so much. It’s also so easy to get your opinion and to get your ideas out to the world, unlike having to hand out business cards and having to go talk people personally. With the Internet, you can put up a video on YouTube and potentially everyone in the world can watch that video if they decided to watch it and if they had Internet access. So I mean the opportunity is just insane. 10 years ago that wouldn’t have been possible, but now we’re right in the time which – the gold rush time, I like to say – and everyone’s rushing to get their spot, and everyone’s trying to really figure out what they want to do online, because anyone can do anything. No matter what age you are, no matter how old you are, or if you’re older, if you’re younger, if you’re 10. I mean, even a 10 year-old can pull something off. It’s just – the opportunity is huge.

Michael: And what do you like least about the Internet?

Adam: Hmm. That’s interesting. What do I like least? I don’t think I dislike anything that much. Well, once you get out there, you’re out there. You can’t really hide with the Internet. You’re kind of like a lifetime documentary of yourself. Once you put something out, once you put a Facebook picture up, once you put your own Twitter up, it’s kind of all adding to a documentary of your life, and that’s going to pretty much be there forever. Even if you delete it, it will still somehow be out there. So just thinking about that, it’s kind of – it’s not scary, but it’s kind of just something that you need to just keep in mind, that you’re always kind of leaving something behind you, and you need to make sure that you do the right things and not pull off something wrong. Because if you do something wrong, then it’s a little hard to pull yourself out of something like that.

Michael: All right, I completely agree. And you’re actually the first person to ever mention that, and it’s a really good point.

Adam: [laughs]

Michael: If the Internet hadn’t existed, what do you think you’d be doing right now?

Adam: I have no idea. I think I was just born at the right time. That’s it. I don’t know. I started out with the home business thing at my school, selling gum to make some extra money, and I was kicked out a few times of classrooms and stuff because you’re not allowed to have gum at school because it gets stuck on the ground and all that. So I don’t know, maybe I’d still be selling gum. I hope not, but… I was just here, I just found the Internet at the right time, and I’m just glad that I’m able to be here right now while things are really exploding. That’s that.

Michael: And who do you look up to? Do you model yourself on anybody?

Adam: I really like Gary Vaynerchuk. I watch his stuff all the time. Even though I’m 18, I watch him on library TV, the wine Website, and I just like – not for the wine part, but I just watch it to see how he does it, and I really aspire to how he is able to pull that off and really build a community on that. And he’s one of them. I also like Frank Curran. When I first started, I was watching Frank learn videos and all that. So I mean, there are a few marketers out there that I watch. That’s really who I look up to, and I’m like, “That’s what I want to be like when I’m older. That’s what I want to do.” So that’s that, I guess.

Michael: That’s really cool. So, any last little bit of advice before you go?

Adam: Yeah. I guess just go for it. No one should be holding you back. If someone says, “There’s no way, you’ll never make money online, everything’s a scam online, blah blah blah, they’re just saying lies to you,” or whatever, this is for you. You don’t have to listen to what other people are – trust me, I went through that day in and day out with my friends and stuff. They did not believe that I could make money online, and then as soon as I did, I think their jaws dropped to the ground. So I think just go for it. Do what you believe is best, and just have fun with it. To me, that’s pretty much all. Just really have fun with it.

Michael: Great advice. All right, thank you very much, Adam.

Adam: Any time.

ADAMS WEBSITES:
http://www.tycooncashflow.com (Watch the Introduction Video – look how Adam connects with people, builds rapport)
http://www.DudeIHateMyJob.com – a Course on making money blogging.
– Brand New Way To Make Money With Mobile!

The post Adam Horwitz Interview, 6 Figure Secrets Of A Teenage Affiliate Marketer appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

But first I have to admit, I have struggled a bit with this post – to come up with a Title that truly reflects the remarkable person that Matt Wadsworth is.

I mean, this is a guy who:

1) Is Blind and who is now doing 7 Figures after only being actively online for less than 2 years
2) An Internationally Acclaimed Muscician
3) Lives life to the FULL – example – Matt has just taken up Downhill Skiing!

I first met Matt at Yanik Silvers Underground Online Seminar last year. I was impressed, but frankly at that time, I did not fully appreciate just how impressed I should have been!

My Dad (Barry Dunlop) and I had the pleasure to hand out with Matt a couple of weeks ago (and enjoy a Steak at the Ruth Chris restaurant) when we were in Washington DC attending Yanik Silvers Mastermind Meeting. When I heard what Matt is doing now, I just knew we had to interview him for this site. I mean anyone who goes to 7 Figures (in a most unusual marketplace) in less than 2 years would get your attention, wouldn’t it?

Indeed, Yanik Silver is so impressed that Matt is one of his Underground Speakers at this years: Underground Online Seminar

There are lots of Gold Nuggets in this interview – but the one that really made me perk up and listen was when Matt said:

Never wait for anyone else to give you a solution

Enjoy the interview (Podcast and Transcript) — I look forward to your comments

To Our Success

Michael

PS: I am also grateful to Barry Dunlop for popping on the call last week when I was not available to do this interview with Matt. Thanks Matt, Thanks Dad.

** Click Here To Hear Matt Wadsworth Podcast ** – Be Inspired!

Matt Wadsworth Interview

Barry Dunlop: Hi there, folks. This is Barry Dunlop at incomediary.com. Today I have a very special and unique individual on the call with me, possibly one of the most interesting Internet marketers I’ve ever come across in my life. The name of the gentleman is Matthew Wadsworth.

Matthew, is an internationally acclaimed lute player. You’d better Google “lute” like I had to in order to know what a lute is. But he’s at the top of the game. But not only that, he is at the top of that Internet Marketing game. In fact, Yanik Silver has got Matthew as one of his Underground people that’s going to be presenting at this year’s Underground Online Seminar in Washington, DC.

In addition Matthew also happens to be blind. So I have got a blind, internationally acclaimed lute player who’s at the top of the Internet marketing industry. A remarkable individual who it’s been my pleasure to get to know, especially over the last 12 months.

And I believe you’re on the line there, Matthew. Are you there, Matthew?

Matthew Wadsworth: I am, indeed. Hey, Barry. How are you?

Barry: I’m very well, Matthew. Listen, I know you’re a busy guy, and I really appreciate you taking the time out to have a little chat with us. I know that people ask all the usual questions first, about your professional career and obviously about the fact that you’re blind. I understand you were blind from birth, is that correct?

Matthew: Yeah, that’s right. I’m 35, and I was born blind. So, in a way, I’ve never had to get used to anything else. I suppose one could see these things as an obstacle in life, but I would really attribute being blind to a lot of my success, both as a musician and in Internet marketing. And I guess we’ll come on to some of the reasons why, but I do think, if you have to make more of an effort and you have to struggle a bit more, and you’re prepared to go through those struggles, then that’s really one of the things that takes you far, in whatever you might put that to.

Barry: Spot on, Matthew. Absolutely. In fact, actually, I think it was Yanik Silver who said to me something like, “Well, I’m working on the basis, if Matthew gets up on the stage and says:

Look, this is me. I’m blind, and I’m making money online. Why aren’t you?

And I know from having spoken to you that the blind, that’s not really a big issue to you. It’s to us, the people who can see, that it’s a big issue, but to you, it was normal for you from day one. And because of that, you’ve obviously had to do things other people haven’t had to do. But in actual fact, you see that as a benefit, or as a plus. [laughs] Every time I speak to you, I used to think I was a positive guy till I met you,
Matthew. You’re a very positive individual.

Matthew: Oh. That’s very kind of you. I don’t see obstacles as a problem. I see them as challenges. And we all have challenges that we’ve got to, first of all, face, and then overcome.

And I think one of the amazing things about the world, bringing it back to the Internet marketing space, is that there are many, many ways to do things. I think people, they make things too complicated sometimes, and they won’t do something until they’ve got the perfect way, or what they think is the perfect way. And the fact is that there is no perfect way. It’s a question of just having the courage to get out there and do things.

I did a similar thing. We were chatting about this before we started recording, but I’ve been doing some skiing lately, and doing some downhill skiing. And I was rubbish. I mean, I’m falling over, going the wrong way, couldn’t turn. But I just kept doing it, kept trying and trying different ways. And I had someone skiing with me, and we tried different things: having someone ski behind me, someone ski beside me.

So I’ve never waited for someone to give me a solution because, as I was growing up, people were just always saying, “Oh, well, you’re blind. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” I suppose I’ve always been strong minded, but I was like, “Hold on a minute. I will call the shots. I’ll tell you what I can and can’t do. Don’t impose that on me.” And I’ve sort of taken that with me all the way through life.
So, basically, I never listen to anybody unless they’re telling me I can do something which I didn’t think I could do. But if it’s the other way around, it’s like, “Well, sorry, but leave me alone.”

Barry: Matthew, well, you haven’t stolen, but this is one of the things I was going to talk about, the fact that when I heard that you were learning to ski, I thought, “This is a joke. Somebody’s trying to take advantage of Barry here.” But in actual fact, I know it’s a fact that you are learning to ski, and it’s really just a sign of my own ignorance that I didn’t think that that was something you could do.

But when I spoke to you, I love that, when you say you never wait for anyone else to give you a solution. So you’ve been experimenting with somebody beside you, somebody behind you, somebody in front. [laughs] I just think that’s so remarkable.

I will ask one question which I do know people will ask. You’re blind. You’re on the Internet. Just briefly explain, how can you read the page? Because I know how you do it. This is how technology’s moved on and how software works these days. But just briefly tell us how you’re able to make sense of what’s on a web page.

Matthew: I use a normal PC computer. And I have one particular piece of software. It’s known as a screen reader. Basically, it takes the information, which goes to the video card, which then sends the information to your screen. It takes that information and it turns it into speech, into an audio representation.

And so I don’t use the mouse. I move around with the tab and the arrow keys and keyboard shortcuts. And it’s an incredible thing. Probably, if I’m reading a document or an ebook or something, I can read about 200 pages an hour. And no one can understand what this thing says. It just says [makes garbled sounds]. But I get the information.

And in a way, the Internet has leveled the playing field. It’s opened so many doors and given me access to so many possibilities, and that’s what really kind of got me into doing business and using the Internet as the medium of delivery, if you like. I mean, business is business, and it’s been that way for hundreds of years. So the Internet is just a medium which we use.

I think what I see as an advantage, and I perhaps wouldn’t have seen this a couple of years ago when I started, it is that there are many things that I can’t do. There’s software programs I can’t access. There are websites I can’t access for doing research.

So, basically, what I do is I research processes and I understand that process and I get it very clear in my head, and then I’ve built up a team of people around me who can implement it for me. So I say, “Right, this is what we’re going to do. This is the aim. This is the end result. Here’s where we’re starting a problem. Here are all the pieces.” And then we put it together.

So, in a sense, that is outsourcing, but that’s a much?misunderstood term, because people say, “Oh yeah, I’ve got to outsource everything.” But you’ve really got to know what you want people to do. You can’t expect someone to build a business for you. You’ve got to have that inner vision and drive to see it through. And in order to have that, you’ve got to understand the process. It forced me to look at what I was good at. And I think everyone needs to do this. You mustn’t be trying to do everything.

So, basically, I can strike off things like graphic design. I mean, no chance. I can’t see it. So someone else is doing that. Someone building websites, I don’t want to do that. I outsource all the things that I either can’t do or I’m bad at or I don’t want to do, and then I concentrate on being creative, coming up with ideas, and forging joint venture relationships and all that stuff that I can do.

And this is what I do. I’ve got a few people who I coach now. And straight away, I sit down with them and say, “Right, what are you good at?” And if you’re good at something, and most people are, I say, “Well, how did you get good at thing? What did you do? If you were teaching someone how to do it, what would you teach them?” And then you kind of reverse engineer that process and just apply it to something different, like building a business.

Barry: Absolutely. That’s very impressive, Matthew. Actually, I think it’s something everybody should be doing. You were forced into doing it, in some respects, this outsourcing, as you described it, because you were blind. But of course, it’s a fact for everybody. You do what you’re good at, and you outsource the rest. Something which I happen to know, actually, Matthew, is that you’re a relatively newcomer, actually, to Internet marketing. Did you tell me it was something like late 2007 you first started online? Or maybe I think it was even 2008 before you got serious. So why don’t you sort of take us through the time line there and tell us, actually? Because I think this is something else that’s going to be interesting to people, the marketplace you went into, because I know it’s a very competitive marketplace you went into, and what kind of money you’ve been able to make and so on and so forth. That would be great.

Matthew: Sure. The reason I went into that market is because I’d reached a sort of point in my music career and I can’t remember how many CDs I had out at that time. It was definitely about four or five. Played all over the world and yet was still making 20,000, 25,000 UK Pounds a year, which is about what you can make as a musician, really.

And I saw it becoming more difficult to sell CD’s, and budgets were being cut with concert venues and, you know, I really predicted that well because now it’s quite a mess, really, the music industry. And I still do what I love, which is going around playing the lute and doing all sorts of other things. So my motivation was, “OK, I want to find a way of earning money, which I can manage from anywhere in the world, ” so as long as I’ve got a laptop, you know, I can keep on top of things. And you know, I saw that people were making money online and I never thought, really… I never thought of myself as running a business, but I just started looking at things and it kind of made sense.

And so it was in November of 2007, so just over two years ago, I went to the World Internet Summit in London. I’d already, prior to that, just a month before, I’d bought this course, it’s called the 20/20 Challenge, and I’m really happy to credit that course for getting me started. And I just followed it through, just get some PLR (Private label rights), then write material and put a website together. Find some JV partners and research a market. And I did it, just followed it, and I didn’t care if I made any money or not, I just wanted to see what I could do, what I was good at, how difficult it was. Didn’t care if I failed or not. And then I went to the World Internet Summit and I just thought, “This is so possible, it’s unbelievable, ” and again it really cemented it in my head that I was going to do whatever it took to make this happen. I could feel it.

And I’m fortunate that I’ve got an amazing girlfriend who’s very trusting and supportive and she was like, “Well, yeah, go for it. Nothing to lose.” And so that was then, that was sort of November 2007. And I invented a system for horse racing, and I will pre-qualify that by saying that I have no interest in horse racing itself. But I do have an interest in numbers. I’m pretty good with numbers and I was actually primarily wanting to go into the FOREX market, but it’s a pretty visual environment with the charts and panel sticks and all that kind of thing. So again, I just thought, right, “What am I good at? How can I use what I’ve got?”

And there were a couple of websites that were very accessible, full of statistics, and I’d already seen people kind of losing the horse racing and I looked at why that was and coming back to this thing of not waiting for someone to give you a solution, I just thought, “Well, I’ll try and invent my own system.” And so I did and then I got some people, six or seven beta testers, to try it out. And this is a strategy now that I’ve used over and over again in totally different markets. But firstly I approached the top authority site in the UK horse racing niche and I wrote an article for them and just built up the relationship
.
And then I said, “Look, you know, I’ve got this system. Can we get some people testing this?” So we got some of their members testing it out.
And then they interviewed me so we already kind of had a buzz going. This was in February 2008. And I launched the system, I brought it to the market in May 2008 and I gave them an exclusive, this authority site, for three weeks. And so I had nothing, I had no list. Yeah, I had my product that I’d created. And I just gave them this interview….I did an interview, gave them the exclusive and you know, did over $10, 000 in that first month. And then because I’d given them an exclusive, all the JV people, all the other system sellers heard about it, so they were kind of knocking on my door, saying, “Hey, can we promote your system? We’ve heard really good things about it.” So I don’t know how many clients I’ve got now. It’s probably over 150.

Barry Dunlop: Wow.

Matthew: And a few months ago, I launched another system and that’s going amazingly.
And I automate these things, so I haven’t got someone… Or rather, my customers asked me if it could be automated, so I found someone who writes what are called ‘bots’, like robots, like a computer program that does everything for you.

And it’s… You know, I’ve just surveyed my list over and over again, asking them what they want, what they struggle with, and then I solve those problems, because it’s something I love to do. I mean, I’ve solved my own problems all my life and it’s really nice to do that for other people, and make some money out of it.

Barry Dunlop: Yes. I think the angle there is you say never wait for anybody to give you a solution, but you go out and provide a solution to the marketplace.

Matthew: Yeah, and I love doing that and the money doesn’t come first. It’s like, right, what problems can I solve? If I keep bringing value to the marketplace then, I mean, you have to try quite hard not to make money, if you’re really bringing something that people need or want. So then I’ve done that in other markets and it’s spread my risk and portfolio. And you asked how much money I’ve made and I’ve done OK. I’m kind of up to the seven figure a year mark now.

Barry Dunlop: Wow. Wow, wow.

Matthew: That’s dollars. That’s dollars.

Barry Dunlop: I’d take it, Matthew. I’d take it. When you say seven figures, that is amazing. Well done. I mean, I was going to suggest it was six figures, because I already knew last year you were heading high six figures, so that’s a remarkable achievement.

Matthew: Yeah, it’s… I mean, I’ve really learnt where the leverage points are and you know, obviously, trying to earn more money for certain things and learning that it’s OK to do that. And yeah, I’m quite shocked at how fast it’s gone. But I think of it, not just from a financial point of view, but it’s… I don’t know, just trying to do something good and I like helping other people out, providing that they want to help themselves.

Barry Dunlop: OK, well, well done. Well done. I want to… I know your time is precious, Matthew, so I just wanted to ask, because I know what a lot of people would be asking is, well, you know, probably like me, they’re a bit dumbstruck at the moment. They’re thinking, “Wow, this guy, he speaks such a lot of sense.” But imagine that there’s a first?timer, an absolute newbie, or a new person starting online for the first time. And it isn’t that long ago that you started. I mean, is there any particular strategies that you’d advise, or indeed, is there anything in particular you’d advise them not to do you know, that they could take away today maybe would help them on their journey?

Because one of the things I’ve discovered is that there’s a tremendous amount of frustration. In other words, people, they buy this course or they try this or they do the other thing, and somehow it doesn’t work out, so any rock solid things you can hang your sort of hat on there, Matthew?

Matthew: Well, I think a huge thing is mindset, and it’s something that people are starting to talk about a little bit in the IM game, and you’ve got to remember the Internet, and Internet marketing is a very young business.

And you know, it’s such a huge thing, just the way you think. And I’d attribute that to…I don’t know what percentage of where I’ve got in my journey. It’s always started with having this idea of believing that I can do it. And so I think a really big thing. I mean, if you can take this and understand it and apply it, then this is going to be really huge. It’s that you have to put the responsibility for what you want to do and what you want to achieve, you’ve got to put that responsibility on your own shoulders. So you have say to yourself, “Right, this what I want to do. I am going to make it happen. I am going to do whatever it takes to make this happen and it’s my responsibility. It’s not the responsibility of the course that I just paid $500 for.”

I mean, yes, you buy a course, it should deliver what it’s promised, but it’s up to you to make it happen and if you don’t know how it works, find someone, ask them. Never be afraid to ask, and ask good questions. And the other thing I would say is, I mean, I just do this all the time, you know, if you want to learn something, find someone who’s doing it and see if they’ll teach you or see if you can pay them or whatever. You know, if you wanted to learn skiing, you’d go and find a teacher, probably, and you might try it, and then, you think, well, I’ll go and learn some lessons. And why should that be different in a business?

And I mean, you know, people don’t often say this, but I will say it because I think it’s better to say the truth: you know, you read sales pages, and it’s, anyone can do this, and blah, blah, blah. Well, I don’t think anyone can do it. And I think, you know, in the western world and in the society we live, I think we have the opportunity to do it, you know, we’re free to do what we want and forge our own path, but can anyone do it, well, I’m not sure because it is hard. It takes a huge amount of determination and, you know, you’ve got to not give up. So I’m not saying, it’s nothing to do with education or having a kind of rocket science degree or anything like that, I mean, there’s so many different kinds of people making money online, but it’s definitely, you know, a certain type of person. It’s a bit like saying can anyone be an athlete or a musician? I mean, probably not. So yeah, I’m not trying to be negative in that, but you know, if you’re determined and you won’t give up and you’ve got a vision, then great, then that’s that, that’s what it takes.

Barry: OK. I think that is the key to it, actually. If you’ve got a vision and you won’t give up, it’s like a recipe, really. It’s really almost impossible to fail. The challenges, of course, are most people give up, which is why, of course, as you say, not everybody can, because if you’re somebody who’s going to give up, it’s like you’re learning to ski and you fall down and keep falling down, and you might eventually give up, but you’re never going to learn to ski without falling down. And you’re never going to learn to have any kind of business that’s successful without making some mistakes along the way as well.

Matthew: Yeah. I think, you know, at school we’re sort of taught that it’s wrong and very bad to fail. And, I mean, basically if you allow yourself to fail, then you can’t fail, because you’ve allowed yourself to do it. And, you know, you just keep going, do something, learn from it, carry on, and eventually you get there.

You know, it’s a bit like learning to cook. I mean, you might read the recipe and then try and it’s all burnt and horrible, but then you try again and then it’s a bit better, and eventually, you get there. I think people over complicate this whole thing, and it doesn’t need to be that way. Just focus a bit. Here’s my great advice, is focus on one thing.

Decide what you’re going to do and then forget whether it works or not, just do it, see it through. And, you know, that’s going to get you further than waiting to buy the right course and the right tools and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Barry: This is very, very impressive, Matthew. I am, and I know the people listening to this or reading the transcript will be equally impressed, because you’re living proof that if you focus and you really do do that, then, you know, just look what’s possible, you know, it’s a seven?figure income after 12 months or, sorry, just after two years. It’s an amazing achievement, and you’ve obviously, you know, you richly deserve it. I’m going to have to ask the question, because I’m a big fan of Mindset and I recognized how important that has been in my own life. I suspect with you, you’ve probably, you’ve just evolved into this mindset, but did you have any teachers? Did you have any mentors along the way, or anybody in particular that influenced you, a schoolteacher or a book you read or anything like that? Not that you, you know…

Matthew: Yeah, interesting.

Barry: Anything in particular you want to give credit to?

Matthew: Yeah, probably lots of people. I mean, I think a lot of it has come, I hesitate to use the word naturally, you know. A lot of people follow Tony Robbins, that kind of stuff, and he is amazing, I haven’t read his stuff, to be honest, but I… Let’s see, I mean, my father definitely had a huge influence on me as I was growing up. And you know, like I said, the big people saying, well, he can’t do this, and he can’t do that, and before I could fight my own battles, he was like, well, yes he can, and you’re going to watch him do it. I learned that from a very young age, that people project their fears onto you. So if you’re trying to start a business and your partner says oh, don’t do that, you know, it’s dangerous, and someone will rip you off, and I’ve heard bad things about it. And I mean, it’s usually because people care about us, and they’re scared, and they don’t want any harm to come to us, you know. So yeah, definitely my dad, and then another great person is the headmaster of my secondary school who’s called Mike Evans. And you know, just these are all things you learn afterwards. He was such a brilliant leader and I, you know, remember so much of how he ran that school. It’s a multiracial school with every religion and race under the sun in Moss Side in Manchester. And it was just such an impressive operation. And I really learned at that school to communicate with people and to get the best out of people and realized that, you know, everyone’s different and everyone’s got qualities.

And then probably in the Internet marketing space, there’s been all sorts of people that I really have had the privilege to get to know, but I got to know them because I took action. And I didn’t ask them to give me anything, I kind of brought value to the table. And so, you know, definitely yeah, Matt Bacak, definitely Yanik Silver, Ryan Deiss, I mean, yeah, loads of people, really, just have been an inspiration.

Barry: Wonderful. Indeed. I mean, well, I think you’re the inspiration today, Matthew, and I think it’s a tremendous lesson here. I mean, I’ve just been looking at the timer and we’ve actually done 25 minutes, which I think we allocated around 20 minutes. I mean, I would like to ask you a couple more quick questions, with your permission. First – do you have any predictions for the future of the Internet? How do you, you know, you’ve obviously benefited tremendously from technology yourself, if… A lot of people say to me, well, Barry, that’s already been done, you know, like somebody said to you, well, UK horse racing has already been done, but you found a different way to do UK horse racing and make money out of it. Do you have any predictions for the future or anything like that you’d want to make? I mean, Mindset is everything, so I imagine as long as Mindset’s fine, the future’s always fine.

Matthew: Yeah.

Barry: But do you have anything to add to that?

Matthew: Well, I think it will just become more and more mature, you know, formal. People will buy things online. And I just see the Internet as a medium. You know, before we had this, I mean, people still did business, you know, it’s not suddenly started in the last 10 years. So it’s just knowing how to use this fantastic tool that we’ve got and this thing that gets better and better all the time.
I mean, the markets I go into, it’s really very simple, I go into evergreen markets. So that’s the ones that are not going to go anywhere, you know, that I think will be around for a long time.

Barry: That’s a good tip, that’s a good tip.

Matthew: They kind of, you know, there is more effort to get into those markets, but I go for longevity, so I don’t mind if I have to work like a dog for 12 months to be in there for 10 years. So I go for evergreen markets, I go for things that can be automated and systemized, and I usually go for things that have an element of continuity to them, you know, like monthly memberships or software that I can charge monthly stuff for. So because I’m in the business to, you know, I don’t want to be working 15 hours a day, I wanted freedom, I wanted to be able to go around and still play the loops and do skiing and have a nice life, and now I’ve got that, yeah, I’m trying to kind of teach a lot of people how to do it and just, you know, bring some value to the marketplace.

I go for evergreen markets, I go for things that can be automated and systemized

I don’t actually have an IM product of my own, I mean, there are hands outstretched from, you know, all sorts of people saying that we’ll promote for you that I first want to find out what people want, and I’ll see if I’ve got something useful to bring to the table. I don’t just want to come in and crank something out and make money, I’d rather, you know, bring some value to the market.

Barry: My prediction, I will make one, Matt, is when you bring something to the market, it will answer a lot of questions for a lot of people and it will be the must have product, because I know just in my… your brain things so differently to so many of us, you know, that it’s about, you know, evergreen, I love that, can be automated, I love that, has an element of continuity to it. These are just sound business practices, and there’s a tremendous amount to be learned there.

Thank you Matt — we really appreciate your time and your wisdom.

Matt’s Websites:
The Phenomenon Horse Race Betting System
Matt Wadsworth Marketing Blog
Matthew Wadsworth – Lutenist

The post Matt Wadsworth Interview, Blind Internet Marketer Doing 7 Figures! appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Prosperity Thinking & Personal Power

Here a gift from our good friend – Jerry Gillies.

Some of you will be familiar Jerry with from his podcast and interview

In this post we have another recording from Jerry – one of his best!

It is a live recording from a seminar presentation Jerry did some time ago.

The principles and the insights Jerry shares here are the ageless principles of success!

Click Here To Listen – Personal Power – Universal and Ageless Principles of Success!

I first got to know of Jerry and his best selling book Moneylove (2 million copies sold) around 1984.

Jerry Gillies changed how I thought about money and wealth!

My sincere belief is he can do the same for you!

A transcript is also included below.

Listen and Enjoy!

Click Here To Listen – Personal Power – Universal and Ageless Principles of Success!

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Jerry Gillies – Personal Power – Edited Transcript

Edited Transcript – for the full presentation please listen to the Free Audio

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Now personal power is not manipulating or controlling other people.

A lot of us have held onto a belief, and it has been programmed into us from a lot of sources, that power is, in fact, the ability to get other people to do what you want them to do.

That is not what power is about.

Power is love, and power is energy.

And power, the first secret about power, is that it ‘s the ability to act. It’s the ability to create. It’s the ability to do whatever you want to do. Not to get someone else to do it, but the ability to do it, to create, and to act.

And perhaps an ideal definition, or example, or analogy of that comes from my friend Michael Coleman, who is obviously a very appropriate friend for me to have, because he is not only a professor of philosophy, but he happens also to be a financial planner.

And Michael told me a story, a Zen story, and Zen stories are those stories that you can ponder on for days and you always have new insights in looking at them from every possible direction. And this is a very simple Zen story about the man who goes to a Zen master, and he says, “Oh Zen master, I would like to study with you, and I am not sure if you are the person I should study with. There is another Zen master I visited and he can perform miracles. He can set up a canvas on an easel on one side of a river and be on the other side and paint a picture on that canvas from the other side of the river. That is a miracle. What can you do?”

And the Zen master said, “Well that is indeed a miracle, and I also perform miracles. I eat when I am hungry and I sleep when I am tired.” Now that might sound like a facetious response, but that, in fact, is what personal power is about. It is about the ability to do whatever you want when you want to do it. It is about the ability to eat when you are hungry and sleep when you are tired.

Now you may think you already do that. But, in fact, there’s probably a very good chance that you eat when it is lunchtime whether you are hungry or not, or you eat when people put food in front of you whether you are hungry or not. And there is probably a good chance that you sleep because it is midnight and it is time to go to sleep.

My good friend Leo Buscaglia tells a story about a country he visited in Asia where everybody was gathered around having a wonderful time. And we’ve all been in gatherings like that. You are all having a wonderful time, and everybody’s excited, and everybody’s up, and everybody’s energized. And what happens in this country, it may be 12:30 or one o’clock and someone will turn to their mate and say, “Oh, it is one o’clock! Better go home and go to bed!” No matter what else is going on. No matter how excited they are, how alive they are.

And Leo says that in this country that he visited, they don’t do that. When they’re having a good time, they just continue the good time. They all climb into bed together!

[laughter]

So, we don’t always sleep when we are tired, and we don’t always eat just when we are hungry. And personal power is the ability to start creating, in your life, the awareness that you are totally in charge of your life. You are totally in charge of your time.

Part of the secret of personal power is realizing that anything that is going on in your life, can enrich your life.

Any moment that is happening can be a power moment for you, a moment of realization, a moment of understanding, a moment of connection.

One of the strategies that I would like to suggest to you is that you make a list of 100 of the most powerful moments in your life. What have they been throughout your life? If you look back and start to catalogue powerful moments, those instances in which you had realization, in which someone said something to you that totally transformed your life or your perception of some aspect of your life.

For example, a friend of mine, Ilana Rubenfeld, who’s a world famous psychotherapist and body worker, and one of the wisest people I know in New York. We were talking several years ago, and she said something to me, one sentence to me, that forever changed my perception of relationships between men and women. She said that the biggest problem in relationships is that people keep falling in love with potential. Does that ring any bells? And that when you fall in love with potential, it means you are not yet ready to receive. That you are ready, instead, to be a teacher, or a therapist, or a parent, but you are not ready to receive when you are falling in love with potential.

Because the truth is, when you fall in love with potential, the potential may very well be there, but there is a good chance, when it is realized, you won’t be. There is a good chance that when that person reaches their full potential, they will want to hang out with new people at this new level of potential and not with the person who supported them as they were struggling to get there.

And you have seen this in patterns time and time again in relationships. One of the most notorious, of course, is the doctor whose wife worked to send him through school, and then, when he finally reaches his pinnacle of success, he tosses her aside for some cute nurse who has something in common with him because they are sharing their work.

So falling in love with potential was a whole new idea for me. In that instant, that powerful moment, it transformed the way I looked at my relationships. And we will see if we can create some power moments together over the next few minutes.

Now, the first secret of personal power, being the fact that power is the ability to act, is something that we can all accept intellectually. But, I will let you on a sub-secret about all of that, and that is that if you are holding onto a belief that power is the ability to manipulate or control or to influence other people, then you’re going to be preventing yourself from reaching your full level of personal power.

And one way to check this out is to think about who you picture when I say, “Picture some very powerful people.” Are you picturing, in fact, people who are political figures, or industrialists, or people who have made a mark in the world by being in charge of some large enterprise? What do you picture when people say, “That is a powerful person”? Do you picture artists and musicians as powerful?

Because no matter what you tell yourself about power being the ability to act, if at a deep level in your subconscious awareness you are picturing powerful people as being people who manipulate or control then it is going to be impossible for you to realize your full level of personal power in the ability to act, the ability to create.

And it’s going to be impossible for you to do something that’s absolutely essential if you are to realize your full level of personal power and that’s to really love being powerful. To love it. To honor it. To trust it. It is part of your divine essence. Personal power at a very deep level is part of your divine essence.

And the second secret about personal power is that you already have all that you will ever need to do whatever you want. No one can give you personal power and no one can take it away. No one can give you personal power and no one can take it away. You can choose to give some of it up, temporarily, to others.

And in fact to some extent you are doing that right now by listening to me temporarily. Some people give up their personal power longer than temporarily, sometimes to a guru or a master where they are doing what that person tells them to do. And that is leaving your own divine essence for whatever period of time you do that.

It is not realizing the full majesty of your personal power. Anytime you temporarily give up your personal power it’s very important that you make an inner commitment to get it back, and get it back soon.

Personal power is exciting. And excitement is part of the secret of personal power.

Norman Cousins is a man who has a lot of personal power. A very powerful being on this planet. And when I interviewed Norman for a book I did called “Psychological Immortality” about using your mind to extend your life, I asked him a question.

And it was an obvious question for somebody who has supped with kings and the great scientists and the great spiritual leaders on the planet.

I said, “What, for you, designates a successful human being? What sets apart someone who is very successful from someone who may not be? What is the one thing that you noticed that successful people have in common?”

And he said,

“There is one overriding factor, there is one thing I’ve noticed, that every successful person I’ve ever interviewed or visited with seems to have and that is that they wake up every morning with robust expectations.”

And I have adopted that term as one of my own personal favorites – as something that indicates for me personal power. Robust expectations.

To wake up in the morning and say,

“What exciting and new and wonderful is going to happen to me today? Who exciting and new and wonderful is going to happen to me today?”

One of my basic affirmations is,

“Something or someone new and exciting will happen to me today.” And as long as I remember to say that to myself it always happens.

Today is just more proof of that with all of you gathered here. Many new and exciting someones happening to me today and for you also.

So personal power is the ability to ask for what you want. To give yourself power messages that then will manifest themselves.

In fact, one of my power messages that I give to myself and I invite you to adopt is that anything worth having is worth having fun getting. Anything worth having is worth having fun getting. Whatever it may be.

You deserve more prosperity and more love and more recognition for your creative efforts and more of everything wonderful in your life, that’s part of what personal power is all about. And you’ve already created it in your life.

Now everybody has a lot of personal power and not everybody feels comfortable using it.

The third secret of personal power, power is the ability to act; First secret. You already have all the power you need; the second secret. And the third secret I want to share with you is that each of us has an inner saboteur that will get in the way of you using your personal power. A little voice inside that says “Neh-neh-neh-neh, you can’t do that.”

My voice is called Stanley. Stanley is small and rotund and has a very big mouth. And Stanley gets activated quite often when I’m involved in new and exciting things on the leading edge of discovery. And Stanley will say, “That won’t work. You can’t do that. You don’t deserve this. Your life is too easy. You’re not working hard enough. You’re a lazy bum.”

Whatever Stanley says to tear away at my personal power. And we all have that little voice, whatever you want to name it.

And I’ll tell you a secret, you will never get rid of it entirely. Too many years of programming. Too many years of messages telling you that this wasn’t possible and that wasn’t possible and you don’t deserve this and you don’t deserve that.

You never get perfect where Stanley totally disappears.

And the secret of dealing with Stanley is what I call my “Lose Stanley in the Crowd” theory. You lose that inner voice in a sea, in a crowd of positive voices so that he drowns.

And I literally picture Stanley being inundated by all the positive messages I feed into my subconscious mind. By all the positive people I surround myself with. By all the positive energy that’s around me. By the positive music I listen to. By the positive way in which I live my life.

And I listen to positive tapes and CD’s. And I listen to positive messages. And I read positive books. And I am aware that I never lose the need to feed the positive energy in to lose Stanley in the crowd. Because, he’ll bubble up to the surface when I let go of that.

To give you an example: there was a period in my life, 1982, one of those periods in all of our lives that everything seems to be working in exactly the opposite way that you would like it to work.

I was traveling cross country in my motor home. I had recently met a beautiful woman who was a mystery writer and I had these fantasies of us writing mystery novels together. And perhaps spending the rest of our lives together. And she had the same fantasies and we shared them. And I was driving cross country and our relationship had just started, and she had a realization that she really was in love with the man she had just left. And so, I got a “Dear Jerry” letter.

[laughter]

And at that moment, when I got the “Dear Jerry” letter, my motor home fell apart.

[laughter]

In a little town in New Jersey, I turned my motor home over to Guido, a mechanic.

[laughter]

And I gave my power up to Guido, who said that he could absolutely put a brand new engine in that motor home. And I literally lived in the parking lot of his garage for 10 days while he fumbled around with that engine.

Several projects I was working on did not turn out the way I expected them to. I drove down to Florida a week and a half late, so the people I was attempting to visit in Florida had left town.

[laughter]

And I was feeling totally deprived and depressed. Nothing seemed to be working. And I got mail forwarded from Malibu to me in Florida, a batch of mail from several weeks. And people were writing me: “Jerry, I listened to your tapes. I made $300,000 last month.”

[laughter]

“I met my soul mate. I’m in love!”

[laughter]

“My whole life has changed. I read your book or I attended your seminar.” And dozens of these letters. And it was a very humbling experience to realize that all of these people were doing my stuff better than me.

[laughter]

So I decided to read “MoneyLove”.

[laughter]

And I took out my tapes and I started playing them. And I must confess, I was impressed.

[laughter]

I heard powerful messages directly aimed at my subconscious mind that I don’t remember even recording. I was driving along listening to my tapes and saying, “That’s the most wonderful thing I have ever heard! Who is this person? I gotta go hear him!”

And there was a great truth for me in that moment, that power moment. And that truth relates to all of us; that we, in fact, have powerful messages to deliver ourselves and to listen to; that we, in fact, have a lot to teach ourselves if we only listen. And sometimes, you can go back and listen to your messages, which is why it is so important to keep a journal or some record of the ideas that come into your mind when they come in; to keep a record of your successes, because one of the other powerful things you can do for yourself is to celebrate your success at the moment it occurs.

A lot of you are familiar with one of my strategies I talk about in seminars and on my tapes called “The Joyful and Triumphant Fund”, in which I suggest that whenever you have a joyful and triumphant event in your life, that just makes you bubble over with excitement, and enthusiasm, and joy, and pleasure–you go to the bank and you get a hundred dollar bill out to celebrate that event, and you start carrying it around with you. And you had a hundred dollar bill every time you have a new joyful and triumphant event. And people have reported back to me it has transformed their awareness of how many successes they have in their lives.

Because too often, we celebrate the obstacles. We celebrate the failures. Too often, we celebrate our mistakes by remembering them and commemorating them, and playing them over and over again.

And we’re taught, at a very early age, that we learn from our mistakes; that adversity is a great teacher. And perhaps the most provocative thing I will say to you is that that’s not true. That isn’t true. It is a big lie. At the best, what you learn from a mistake is not to do that mistake again. It just gets you to ground zero.

In order to be successful, you have to study success. And the best place to start is with your own. And we’ve all had successes. So I’ll suggest that you make a list of 100 of your greatest successes. These are power lists, one hundred being a very significant number. One hundred powerful moments in your life. One hundred of your greatest successes. And it is all right if some of the items on your list overlap. You cannot pay too much attention to your successes, to the wonderful moments in your life.

And to celebrate each of those moments as they happen with a hundred dollar bill is a very majestic way to do that. And when you get up to a significant pile of hundred dollar bills, where there is an unseemly bulge on your person, then you can just do whatever you choose to do with them. You can buy something wonderful for yourself, or you can start a power vacation fund.

And the way you do this is when you get enough money to have two wonderful days somewhere, a very exotic, exciting, expensive, luxurious resort, perhaps. You get enough money to spend two days in that resort and you spend one day there, instead. And you take the other half of that money and that is your power vacation fund.

And when you get enough money in that fund to spend two weeks somewhere wonderful, you spend a week somewhere wonderful. And that money left over is the seed money for your next power vacation, which is two months somewhere wonderful.

When you have enough money to spend two months somewhere wonderful, you, instead, spend one month somewhere wonderful, and that one month’s worth of money that is left over is for the two year power vacation fund.

And when you get to that level and take one year somewhere wonderful, whatever you want to do with a year, you will be at such a level of prosperity and producing and personal power that you probably will never again have to work to produce the money you want. You will be able to play and produce whatever you want.

And part, for me, of personal power is the ability to not see clearly the difference between work and play. Now in most other aspects of life, I really stress the importance of clarity of vision. And having a clear vision of what you want is one of the essentials if you want to get somewhere.

But in terms of work and play, it is very advisable, if you want to have a life filled with personal power and prosperity, to not see so clearly the differences, to not say, “This is work and this is play. This is what I do to earn my daily bread and this is what I do to spend my daily bread, or to play with it, or to have fun with it.” Because that is a very poor bargain.

One of the secrets I’ve learned over the years, and you’ve learned it too, even if you haven’t articulated it, is that it is a very poor bargain to exchange current time for something in the future. To say that I am going to work 40 years so I can retire is a very poor exchange, even if you make it.

The average person in this country lives six and a half years after retirement. That is not a very long time, and you hardly get your money’s worth if you’ve been working for 40 years, no matter how wonderful retirement is. And it is not for most people. Why? Because they have struggled with that very clear distinction: “This is my work, and when I finish my work, I can relax and play in retirement.” The truly successful people on this planet wouldn’t think of retiring; they are having too much fun to retire.

And you look at the people who pass the statistical averages on longevity. When I did a book on longevity, I studied a lot of these people. Who are these people? They are the artists and the musicians. They are people who are totally involved in what they do and totally excited about it, and in love with it.

So, one of the signs of personal power is to love the work you do. And you can check out, in fact, whether you love the work you do. One way to check it out is to ask yourself a very simple question.

“If I had all the money I needed to live in whatever style I wanted to live for the rest of my life, would I, in fact, still be doing this work?”

Another question to ask yourself about work is, “If I suddenly discovered I only had five years to live, would I still want to do this work?” Another question, and perhaps one of the most searching ones to ask about work, is that very simple question: “Do I allow the petty and trivial things connected with my work to upset me?” Because, in fact, if you are even aware of the trivial and petty aspects of your work, then your work is not exciting you at the level and not engaging you at the level that truly releases your personal power. Because when you’re really involved in your work, you don’t even notice those trivial little things that might get in the way.

What are the aspects of your work that enliven and enrich you? And, in fact, one of the secrets of personal power is to see how much of yourself is present in the work you do. How much of you is visible in the work you do?

Someone watching you work, would they know how wonderful a human being you are? Would they know how loving you are, how adventurous you are, how exciting you are, how powerful you are by watching you at work? Does that part of you manifest itself in the work you do, or are you shortchanging yourself?

Are you doing work that doesn’t totally realize all the magic you possess? Are you doing work that doesn’t totally fulfill you? Now, when you have personal power, when you manifest that divine essence within you, you get to find your true vocation. You don’t have to go searching for it. You get to find it, and you get to realize, also, that life is a constant series of moving into true vocations.

Most of us, and when I talk to college audiences and to students about the careers they’re going to choose, I tell them that you may not suspect this right now, but there is a very good chance that whatever you choose, 10 years from now, you will not be it any longer.

And most of us have been in several careers. I started out as a broadcast journalist; a newsman, and commentator, and business reporter. And at the tender age of 30, I reached New York, which was supposedly the pinnacle of success in NBC, and I looked around and I said, “Well, is this all there is?”

And I looked around and I saw people who had been at NBC for 30 years and were still doing what they had done 30 years before; very successful, lots of money, a nice lifestyle. And I said, “30 years from now, is this what I want to be doing? Do I even want to know what I’ll be doing 30 years from now?” And I said, “No. Part of the excitement was getting here. Most of the excitement was getting here. So where am I going next?” I decided I wanted to write and, in some way, teach, and so that is what I chose to do. What are you going to choose when this vocation no longer is fulfilling you? It is important to know that.

Some of my most powerful moments, as I make a list out of powerful moments, one hundred of them in my life, some of those moments occurred in green rooms. Green rooms are those rooms that you sit in while you are waiting to go on a television talk show. And there are fascinating people there. All the other guests are there, and you get to meet them. And some are amazing, and some are very strange. I mean I have been in green rooms with prize winning hogs.

[laughter]

And at Christmastime once with two reindeer.

[laughter]

And with sexual surrogates. And with a Tiddlywinks champion. I mean as you travel the talk show circuit, you will meet amazing people. One of the amazing people I met was Wally Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts. And Wally Schirra was talking about the fact that he was in business, in Denver, Colorado this happened to be. And he said the first questions people asked him is, “How can you stand it? How can you stand just being in business after having soared above the earth? Isn’t that a comedown? Isn’t that a big letdown for you?”

And Wally Schirra said, “No. No, I always wanted to be in business. The idea of business always excited me. In fact, when I was flying, before I even knew I was going to be an astronaut, I thought that when I retired, I wanted to be in business, and I was looking forward to that, because my daddy told me something. He said that whenever you start approaching a goal, you had better have another goal or you will stall out. You will get stuck.” And we have seen this happen time and time again in many people’s lives, and perhaps in your life at some point. You stall out. You don’t know what you are going to do next when you reach that magical goal.

And there are plenty of things that each of us could choose to do when we reach that goal. We all have unrealized dreams. Now part of realizing more of your personal power is to start realizing some of those unrealized dreams.

I have an unrealized dream: to someday play the piano and sing in a little bar in New York City; a romantic little bar. I would play and sing George Gershwin and Cole Porter, Jerome Kern.

Now I don’t sing or play the piano. But I refuse to let that stand in the way of that dream. And I really believe that if I chose to, I could create that dream happening for myself. If that is a true priority of mine, I would start to take piano lessons and voice lessons, and I, in fact, could accomplish that.

A workshop I took… Living in Southern California, almost anything you are interested in, you will find a workshop addressing that subject. There was a workshop called “The Joy of Singing” and I participated in that workshop.

Now, I want you to know that I have never sung in public to that point. In fact, when I would sing…my strongest memory of singing was being in the backseat of the car, my mother and father in the front seat, and I would start singing, and my father would say something about, “Will you stop making that strange noise?” And I was told from a very early age that I could not carry a tune.

And “The Joy of Singing” was a workshop in which you got to work on a musical piece with a pianist. And at the end of the workshop, on Sunday night, you stood up in front of a hundred people and sang a song. And I did this. And despite the reaction of the audience, I would probably do it some other time.

[laughter]

It was the single scariest moment. I mean I had been in encounter groups, and I had been in workshops where you revealed the real truth about yourself. Standing up in front of a hundred people and singing was the scariest single thing I had ever done, and it was worth it.

Another secret about personal power is that you get more of it when you confront those things that frighten you. One of my power statements is, “Action diminishes fear.” We have all experienced this in our lives. How many times have we been afraid of something and we have done it, and the fear has disappeared, has dissipated?

The willingness to take action in your life, the willingness to allow that action to diminish your fear will realize more of your personal power. Personal power is also all about letting go of the old programming, and old messages, and old beliefs, and old ideas that are no longer serving you. For, if the truth be known, if you are not now financially independent, which means you do not have to work for a living, you have money rolling in in ever increasing amounts, and if you are not now totally in love with someone very special in your life, or several someones very special in your life, or if you are not now totally recognized for what you do in the world, applauded and appreciated to a large measure, by the people you want to appreciate and applaud you. If you are not totally fulfilled in your work, doing work that you really love and really believe is important, and if you are not in total wonderful health and vitality. If you are not all of these things to the utmost level of perfection then your belief system is not working for you in the ideal way that you deserve to have your belief system working for you.

One of the things you have to do to have a belief system work for you is you need to toss aside all your preconceived notions. One of my favorite statements is by Thomas Huxley, who said, “Sit down before fact as a child. Toss aside all your preconceived notions. Follow humbly wherever nature leads or you will learn nothing.”

To sit down before fact as a child means to have that sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, about life that a child has, before you were programmed that it was not permissible to have that. Before you were told, “Don’t touch”, or “Grow up and act your age.” Which meant, be serious, take life seriously. To toss aside all preconceived notions, they will get in your way. They will rigidify your belief system.

There are a number of statements that you could make for yourself and to yourself if you are really living to the highest level of personal power and expressing that in your life. I would like to share some of these statements with you, and have you identify whether they are, in fact, true right now.

The first statement, “I feel successful in my life.” At a very feeling level of awareness is this true for you? “I feel successful in my life.” When you walk into a room do you feel that you have arrived? And do you sense that other people know you have arrived? Or do you sometimes get the feeling that when you walk into a room everybody else thinks somebody just left? Do you feel successful?

Another statement, “I can easily produce all the money I want.” Is this a belief system you are holding right now? “I can easily produce all the money I want.” When I teach prosperity consciousness what I am trying to teach is not that you accumulate large amounts of money and have them sit in vaults somewhere.

But that you in fact have an awareness and a belief, supported by your action, that you can easily produce all the money you want, for whatever you want. That you use money well. You can easily produce it, you use it well, you enjoy it and you can produce more whenever you want it. This is personal power. This is what being a prosperous person is about.

Now, sometimes you’ll read an article and it will say, “This famous person earned 18 million dollars in their life and they died broke.” And people say, “Isn’t that a shame? Isn’t that terrible? Isn’t that a sign that they were a failure?” And I say, “That’s ridiculous.” As far as I am concerned that is an indication of perfect timing.

[laughter]

To take it a step further, to be able to die owing American Express three million dollars might really exemplify prosperity consciousness.

[laughter]

Another statement for you, and see whether it is true, “There is a lot of love in my life. There is a lot of love in my life.” Is this something you can feel? Is this something you can identify with?

“I am in charge of my time and can use it however I choose. I am in charge of my time and can use it however I choose.” Is this a belief you have about yourself? Or, in fact, are you a slave to your time? So that if someone came up to you and said, “Something wonderful is happening, I know you are going to be excited about it, it is happening tomorrow.” And you look at your schedule and say, “No way, I’m already scheduled. I’m booked solid.”

A lot of people go through life thinking that the secret of success is to be booked solid. To have a large book to schedule yourself in and have it filled up from cover to cover with appointments and meetings, and even your vacation scheduled to the minute detail. That is not, as far as I am concerned, a sign of being in charge of your time.

Being in charge of your time is being able, if someone came up to you and said, “Tomorrow, I want to invite you on a wonderful trip to Tahiti for one month, can you come?” And you being so in charge of your time and saying, “Absolutely, everything else can get taken care of. I can go. I’ll be there.” That’s being in charge of your time.

I remember talking to a fellow speaker when I was first going to do a seminar in England, the first of several I did over there. I had arranged, because the person calling me up had asked me something that no one else had ever asked me before, and what she asked was, “What do you want? We want to make your trip over as exciting and wonderful as possible. Anything you want, just ask for it.” And I had to really scratch my head because no one had ever really asked me that before.

And I said, finally, “I want to go over on the Queen Elizabeth II. I want to travel and arrive in style.” She said, “No problem.” And I said, “I want a check in advance for a large amount of money, up front.” I had never asked for that before. She said, “No problem.”

I said, “I would like to, every day of my seminar, get a total body massage. She said, “No problem.” Of course, I must admit, while this was going on I was saying to myself, “You fool, why didn’t you ever ask for this stuff before?”

[laughter]

And also I was scratching my head, internally, and trying to come up with new things to ask for, because she was saying no problem to everything. It is sometimes a very scary thing when someone will say to you, “You can have whatever you want.”

You start to say, “What in the world can I ask for?” I mentioned this to a fellow speaker. And I said, “Have you ever gone over on the Queen Elizabeth II?” He is very successful; he makes more money than I do speaking because he speaks more than I do. His schedule is very full. He speaks perhaps 200 dates a year.

I knew he had been over in England, and I said, “Did you take the Queen Elizabeth II, either to England or back?” And he said, “I can’t afford five days. I can’t afford five days out of my schedule to be on a boat.” Now, in the world, he might appear to be very successful. But in terms of personal power, I do not see this as someone who is in charge of his time.

Another statement to make to yourself, “I am in touch with my creative imagination and feel free to express my ideas.” Do you know how precious this is, to be able to express your ideas freely and easily? To realize that you have a forum in which people will accept your creativity. Whether it be in book form, or music, or the work you do, or in working with people as a physician, or as a psychiatrist, or psychologist, or management consultant, or time consultant. That you have a forum for your creativity.

Another aspect of your work to look at. Does your work allow you to express your creativity?

Another statement, “I receive recognition and acclaim for what I do.” Do you receive recognition and acclaim for what you do, in the world, in your work?

“My life is filled with new and exciting events and people.” Remember that statement. “I wake up every morning with robust expectations.” What are your expectations each morning?

Another statement, “I am excited about new opportunities to learn and grow. I’m excited about new opportunities to learn and grow.” We never lose the need to learn and grow. And I’ll suggest something outrageous to you, and for some of you it isn’t because you are already doing it.

But I suggest that you make what I call the 10 percent personal growth commitment. That is to devote 10 percent of your time and your money to personal growth and self-development. In the next year you will see a profound change in your life if you are willing to do this. And you will see so much more of your personal power manifested.

Another statement that will express personal power for you,

My life is filled with pleasure. My life is filled with pleasure

If you are not happy; you are not successful. You may be driving a Rolls Royce and you may live in Beverly Hills and you may have a lot of recognition and success in your work, and if you are not filling your life with pleasure and joy, you are not successful. You are not expressing your personal power.

And perhaps the key phrase of all, in terms of personal power is:

I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want

I’d like to share an experience with you, and this is a simple strategy that you can use anytime in your life. You can use this strategy before any negotiation, on anything, with anybody. Before any meeting you have with another human being, be it social or business, before any project that you begin. It is a strategy designed to increase your personal power awareness and the ability to manifest that personal power.

You can do it with your eyes open, driving along; you can do it in a very relaxed position with your eyes closed. You can do it whenever your mind is not otherwise engaged. It just takes a moment and it will build, as you continue to do it, it will get stronger.

With me, I would like for you to image now that in the very center of your body is a core of energy and power. You can visualize that anyway you want, perhaps a huge sun, fiery with energy, or some mechanical wonderful machine filled with power. Whatever you want to picture in the very core of your being, as a source of energy.

And as you breathe in, picture that energy and power increasing. It is getting more powerful with every breath you take in. “Every breath I take increases my energy and my power.” And with each exhalation, with each breath you let out you are joyfully sharing your power with others. You are joyfully sharing your power with others.

So, practice this for a moment, breathing in and feeling the power increase, and breathing out and sharing it. Breathing in and feeling your energy moving up, breathing out and sharing that loving energy with others.

As you continue to breathe I want to say several things to you that are absolutely true. You are more powerful than you have ever believed possible. You are a beautiful, wonderful, exciting, magical human being. You are prosperous beyond your wildest dreams. You easily create all the money you desire. You easily and effortlessly create all the love you want in your life.

People want to be near you. People are excited about what you are offering. People want to support and honor and love you. People love to give you money for whatever you are doing. People are attracted to you. You are a successful, exciting, powerful person. You attract everything you want into your life, easily, beautifully, successfully. You are a very special person and you deserve special things happening in your life.

Feel the energy as you breathe in increasing, the power increasing. And as you breathe out share it with others. And say the statement to yourself right now, “I am powerful and I love it. I am powerful and I love it.” Say it to yourself over and over again. “I am powerful and I love it.”

And now say it out loud, with energy and power to express that highest level of personal power that is you. “I am powerful and I love it.”

Audience: “I am powerful and I love it.”

Jerry: “I am powerful and I love it.”

Audience: “I am powerful and I love it.”

Jerry: And one final time with all the power that you possess.

Jerry & Audience:

I am powerful and I love it

[laughter]

Jerry: I have been so blessed to be with you this morning, and I just want to say in closing, more power to you.

For more about Jerry and his message check out:

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