Confidence, Purpose and Marketing: Ingredients for Success

Ariel — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:52:57 +0000

I had the privilege of listening to a thoughtful free webinar by “conscious” entrepreneur Max Simon in which he interviewed Vishen Lakhiani on the concepts of creating a wealthy mind. He also spoke about how to turn a business from performing so-so to really reaching a ‘turning point’.

Some of the most insightful points of the audio (available for free below) were the following:

The biggest mistake that most marketers make is that they have a lack of understanding of what Eugene Schwartz says is called “Market Sophistication”. Market Sophistication is the not the same as the buyers life cycle. The traditional marketing concepts that I was taught in my marketing undergraduate work was regarding reaching your customers at certain stages in the buyer life cycle: awareness, interest, preference, adoption. Instead, Market Sophistication refers to the stage that the buyer is at in terms of their awareness of the types of messages already available for a particular product. If it is a relatively new product, your message needs to be much different than a message for an much more saturated market. For a saturated market, you will have to offer much more to differentiate yourself. I love this concept and it gives me a lot to ponder in my marketing efforts.
Succeeding in life, whether it be in wealth, health, relationships, etc is really all about your MINDSET. We all know this, yet it is entirely different to consciously, day in and day out, make sure our mind is in the right place. It is so easy to let it veer off in the direction of doubt, uncertainty and loss of focus.
By setting a clear purpose and vision for what you want to do with your business, you will be able to focus your efforts and achieve much better results. Seems obvious? Large businesses do this, but you can apply this concept to your small business OR your personal life, and achieve great results as well. (Goal tracking tools help with this)

No matter what business you are in, if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you can’t avoid needing to also learn the tricks of the trade of marketing. Personally, I love the ever changing dynamic of the marketing world, and the endless possibilities that are presented by the concept of reaching your market in the best, fastest and most efficient ways.

In my opinion, much of the laws of attraction and success can be boiled down to these 3 things: Confidence, Purpose & Marketing.

1) Confidence: Free your mind from doubt, fear and worry. Doubt is the #1 thing getting in your way towards success. Hold true to your intuition, but do not let doubt cloud your belief in yourself.
2) Purpose: Define and hold true to your purpose and vision for yourself and your business efforts
3) Marketing: Brand yourself first, your business second. Your personal brand will get you farther than all the efforts you can put into your business. Start with yourself, then build from there.

Listen to the recorded webinar, and let me know your thoughts.
The audio is also available here: http://www.getselfcentered.com/turningpoint/replay.html

photo by juliannehide

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January 12, 2010 -- Does Opportunity Come to You or Do You Have to Create It?

Online MLM Recurring Passive Income Stream Techniques: Trust Busted

Ariel — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:36:23 +0000

The Trump Network. Jonathan Budd. What do both of these have in common?

Both of these guys focus on 1 MAIN thing: Recurring Income Streams.

Budd says its about leads and conversions, but at the end of the day, I believe its not about that as much as it is recurring income (or residual income). From what I’ve found, these guys are a few hot names in today’s Multi- Level Marketing (MLM) world. The Trump Network just launched a few months back, but already MLM marketers are spreading the word in hopes to convert more representatives. Jonathan Budd has been very influential with using a lead generation and automation system. They don’t care as much about the initial cost to sign you up, they want an ongoing, recurring payment that you have to pay because you depend on the system they have set up for you. And they want to leverage lots of other people to go to work for them to spread the word. That’s where affiliate partnering comes into place.

Automatic Approach

So far in my journey, I have added a few affiliate links and ads to my site for things that I have personally found a lot of value in. At the end of the day however, there is something cold, detached and missing from the automatic approach that Jonathan Budd and others sell. So many sales landing pages all look the same, their messages are all similar, and it seems so apparent to me that they are trying to sell me something as the first priority. They only ask for your name and email as the first lead, but its SO obvious they are going to sell you. However, they think that capturing your email on a list means that they will get a CHANCE to get you to purchase whatever it is they sell. And I understand that’s the way of the business world, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

As far as the Trump Network is concerned, I’m glad that so many MLM marketers like it, but to me the site is too highly focused on Trump himself, and there isn’t nearly enough information about the PRODUCTS they are selling. Its all about getting people to sell under you, not about the product. If I am going to sell something I better be able to find out a lot about the product before I commit to anything.

Now, I’ve talked about just 2 of the most hyped up options for MLM that I have found so far. There are many, and I have no idea how to sift through them all because of the simple fact that they ALL want to sell you as that is the very nature of what they do, so its very difficult to get any real and impartial information on any of them.

A Note on Automation in Email vs Twitter

Automation has its place such as in email, but at the end of the day, if over used, its just plain cold and a big Trust Buster alert to the tuned in crowd.

I have a hunch that the majority of my followers on Twitter only found me through an automated system. They are only following me with the hopes that I will follow them, be interested, click on their link, and buy what ever it is they are promoting. I have personally resisted purchasing such a system. Firstly, I have not decided on anything to sell and secondly, I want to interact with humans, not machines on Twitter. I understand the concept that if you get thousands and thousands of leads, chances are you can get some sales, but I believe these types of Twitter accounts are the one’s cluttering up the true usefulness behind Twitter and making that tool full of more fluff than something trust worthy.

As Seen on TV: Misleading, Pushy Sales Techniques

Its certainly tempting to try to grow something online, but I am still reluctant because of the misleading and pushy tactics that are being used by so many of the popular and famous business leaders. I equate it to the As Seen on TV approach that has been used for years on certain TV Commercials. Tactics like timeliness: “if you buy in the next 10 Minutes, we’ll throw in this!” or inflated reduced pricing: “A $490 value, yours today for only $30!”.

My gut instincts are telling me that something big is missing from the way these big names are doing business online.

It may work now, but it won’t forever. People will eventually catch on to misleading sales techniques like HURRY this is only available to the VIP top 500 people for the next 20 hours! I personally just can’t give into something like that. It feels too much like selling out. As Seen on TV commercials still make money, but quite often its because the product itself truly is unique and ads value. Even still, I choose not to sell my products that way. Ever.

I believe it has to be done differently than some of these top names are doing it. I get that you have to sell, but I just don’t like the way its being done, the old Made for TV sales techniques applied to the web. Its not trust worthy. Though it can covert some, or even many, I certainly hope that consumer’s grow wary of these techniques and look for better alternatives to do business with. And when I get to the point where I’m doing more selling online or in whatever means, I plan to apply sales techniques that are transparent, honest and straight-forward.

What are your thoughts?