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One of the biggest expenses for some businesses is advertising. Think about the auto repair shop, the kitchen cabinet maker, the plumber, etc. They can spend a small fortune each month running ads that might not even pay off. After all, what’s the reaction of most people to advertising? It’s disbelief. “Sure they say they’re great, but… They all say that!”

But what if you could show offline clients how to get all of their business from referrals, thereby saving the money they spend on advertising? What would that be worth to them? Frankly, it should be worth about 2-3 months of their current advertising budget, paid directly to you.

This won’t work for all businesses, so use your best judgement on which businesses to work with using this strategy. While every business will be different, you can quickly learn the basics on how to set up a referral system that brings in as much if not more business than their current advertising.

Let’s use an automotive repair shop for our example. First, what do most people think of when considering auto repair places? The shops are dirty, the mechanics try to take advantage of customers by doing work that doesn’t need to be done, they take too long to make repairs, you have to arrange for transportation while you don’t have your car, their waiting room is depressing, etc.

We want to change all of those things. Cleaning the shop up won’t cost a thing beyond labor and it can make a tremendous difference in how people perceive the shop when they arrive. If the outside of the shop needs a new coat of paint, some flowers planted in the bed out front or a fresh sign, it should be seen to. This alone can bring more business in off the street.

Next, unless the mechanics are really good at explaining what needs to be done to the mechanically illiterate, there should be a liaison between the mechanics and customers. This liaison will show the customer what the problem is, what might have caused it, why it needs to be fixed and what it will cost. A clear, thorough explanation without technical mumbo-jumbo can go a long way to putting the customer at ease and making them feel they’re not being taken advantage of.

If the work is going to take longer than, say, 90 minutes, the auto shop either provides a loaner car or offers to drive the customer to their home or place of work, picking them up when the car is ready. How many auto places do this? Almost none. Imagine the word of mouth this alone can create.

If the customer opts to wait for the car, they’re shown into a waiting room that looks more like a living room than a nasty waiting room. The chairs are plush and comfortable, there’s flat surfaces if they want to work on a laptop or do anything at a desk, and instead of the usual daytime television, there’s a DVD playing of a truly funny and non-offensive comedian. Who doesn’t feel better after laughing? Plus there’s beverages – not just coffee – and maybe even some bagels, fruit or danish.

After the repair is made, the car is washed and cleaned. The bigger the repair, the better the washing and cleaning. This could range from a quick exterior wash to a full wash and wax outside, vacuuming and wipe down inside. An alternative would be to set up an affiliation with a nearby car wash, getting car wash tokens in bulk at a discount. Then for every $x amount of money spent, the customer gets a token. If the amount is $50, then on a $300 repair job the customer would get 6 tokens which could be used for 6 car washes. This is hugely unexpected by the customer and something they’re likely to brag about to others for weeks.

If the customer doesn’t receive car wash tokens, she should be given something. It could be as simple as homemade looking cookies for the road or a cup of good coffee to go. As the customer is paying her bill and receiving her tokens, she gets a very brief questionnaire about her experience. The final question is, “Can we use your comments for marketing purposes?” Thanks to the law of reciprocity and the small gift she received, she’s almost certainly going to say ‘yes.’ These comments can be put on the business’ website, and after several months should number in the hundreds. If they ever do more advertising, all they’ll need is a list of these comments along with their hours and location to create a very effective ad.

The customer gets an actual thank you card in the mail within 2 days of her experience at the shop. On the card is a photo of the shop with all the employees out front, holding a giant blank sign. Only the sign isn’t blank, it only appears that way when the photo is taken. Before sending it out, “THANK YOU customer name!” is hand written onto that blank sign. If they have the technology they can do this in Photoshop, but hand writing it in is fine. In the card is a very warm thank you along with 2-3 magnets containing the business’ details and the suggestion she give one or two to friends.

Finally, 3 to 6 days later the customer gets a follow up phone call, inquiring if the car is still running fine and making sure everything is alright. If there should be any problem, being this proactive will keep the business in good favor with the customer. And if everything is fine, it leaves the customer with a very warm, cared-about feeling that they simply don’t get with the typical auto mechanic.

This has been just one example – how you set up a referral program will vary according to the type of business you’re working with. You probably noticed that nowhere in this sequence did we actually ask the customer for referrals. Typically the best way to get great word-of-mouth advertising isn’t to ask for it – it’s to give the customer such an amazing experience, they just have to brag to others about it.

“I Hereby Dub Thee, Super Duper Expert! Now Go Forth, Change the World & Prosper!” If only it were that easy to become an expert – just get someone to tap a sword on both your shoulders as you kneel and PRESTO! You are now the go-to person for your niche.

Wait – it actually can be almost that easy.

The first thing you need to know about becoming an expert is WHY you want to be one. When you are viewed as the expert, people want to buy your products and services. They also want to promote you. Whether it’s sharing your stuff via social media or interviewing you for the news, you become THE person in your niche that people gravitate to.

The second thing to know is HOW to be seen as an expert, and it works like this: You need to ACT like an expert, THINK like an expert, and SPEAK like an expert. And all three of these will become natural when you believe you are indeed the expert. But what if you don’t believe you’re an expert? Then start acting like you are and your actions will bring about the belief.

Of course, none of this is of any value if you don’t have a clue when it comes to your niche. That’s why constant study and practice in your field is essential. You’ve got to know what you’re talking about, and the best way to do that is to learn from others as well as from your own experience.

So how do you get others to view you as the go-to person, the expert they should do business with? Here are 12 methods:

1. Choose your niche carefully. It’s much easier to be a great big fish in a small pond than a whale in the ocean. For example, if you want to be a business coach, you’ve got a ton of competition. But if you coach massage therapists on how to grow their businesses, you can very quickly become a whale of a fish in that particular pond.

2. Act like you have a list of thousands, even when making your debut blog post. Be a professional from day one by imagining you have thousands of people depending on what you say and do. Sure, the only person reading your blog is your grandma, but keep in mind that’s going to change soon. The debut post you write today will eventually be read by hundreds or thousands of people, so make it good.

3. Use a great incentive to build your list from Day 1. Yes, offering to keep them updated on your blog posts will yield you some subscribers, but offering a coveted bribe will get you far more. And if your incentive isn’t ready yet, just tell them what it is and that by adding their email you’ll send them a copy the moment it’s ready.

4. Write a newsletter. Yes, an actual newsletter. And do it weekly. Put it in PDF form so readers can download it. Anything in PDF has a higher perceived value, probably because PDF’s are often paid for.

5. Interview experts for your newsletter. When you have an expert interview inside your PDF newsletter, it raises your own perceived stature considerably.

6. Hold webinars. This is less effective in the online marketing niche because it’s already done so extensively. But if you are in any other niche, offer to hold webinars and give free teaching. You can make these offers via social media and also to list owners. Your goal is to get in front of and help as many people as possible. Make sure they sign up for the webinar – this allows you to capture their email address. And if you don’t yet have a product of your own to promote, offer individual or group coaching at the end of the webinar. Split proceeds with the list owner (if there is one.)

7. Guest blog. The more high traffic websites you can appear on, the better. Always insert your short bio at the end and offer them your free incentive to click your link.

8. Pay attention to what people ask you – it’s important. The questions you receive are a great indication of what’s on the minds of your prospects. Find ways to answer those questions in a straightforward manner.

9. Skip the big words. You might think being an expert means using a lot of big words and fancy phrases, but what being an expert really means is have the capability to help others further their goals – no fancy lingo needed.

10. Find your voice and your message and stick to them. You don’t need to know everything about everything. What you do need to know is a whole lot about a whole little. Choose your stand on a topic and make your best case – don’t try to make everyone else’s case as well. For example, if your stand is that massage therapists can do 100% of their own marketing and do it completely through the Internet, don’t tell them how to hire a marketing agency or place a newspaper ad – tell them how to do their own online marketing. That’s it.

11. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel. You can if you want to, but you don’t have to. You might think that to be an expert you’ve got to be constantly thinking up new ways of doing things, but that’s not true. 99 times out of 100 it’s best to stick with what works. For that 100th time, make sure you test it yourself before advising anyone else to try it.

12. Recycle your content. A blog post can become an article in your newsletter, which can become the content for your latest video, etc.

Remember: When you think, act and speak like an expert and have the knowledge to back it up, you ARE the expert. It really is that simple.

You’ve just entered a niche that’s brand new for you and you’ve got zero contacts. But you’re creating a product to sell and you need joint venture partners. So how do you get those all important JV’s when you don’t even have any contacts in the niche? Like this…

First, make sure your product is something that gets people excited and wanting to promote it to their lists. You can do this by solving a BIG problem, preferably something that people are already spending time and money trying to solve.

Second, solve the problem with a step-by-step formula – sort of a blueprint to success. You don’t want to just give a bunch of info – they can find plenty of that on the Internet. Instead, it should be a system to solving the problem, such as “7 Steps to Getting 7 Hot Dates in 7 Days.”

Now that you’ve got your product, take a little time to set up a JV page and an About Me page on your website. The JV page should tell about your product and how it will help the potential JV partners’ customers, as well as how much commission they will earn, how you will run the JV, etc. Make it look professional but don’t obsess over this – just get it done.

The About Me page should give some personal and professional info on you – enough so that a potential JV partner learns something about you and gets comfortable with the idea of possibly working with you.

If you’ve already collected some testimonials for your product, create a separate testimonial page. If you haven’t yet collected any, skip this.

Now go find your potential JV partners. Let’s say your new niche is tennis. Go online and search for tennis newsletters and find all the results you can. Search for tennis e-courses and tennis products and anything tennis related – including blogs – where it’s pretty clear that someone has a list of tennis players. Because that’s the key – finding the people who own lists of people who play tennis.

It doesn’t even matter if they have a product of their own – what matters is they have a list of tennis players. Use a little creativity and you’ll find hundreds of people who own lists like these, some of which have never even monetized their lists – they just do it as a hobby.

Social media and Facebook are especially good avenues for finding these potential partners. Focus at first on finding the small to medium sized list owners to build your confidence. You can go after the really big players in your niche when you’ve done a few JV’s and you’ve begun to build a solid reputation in your field.

Ask yourself who is already talking to the audience you want to talk to? Where are the people you want to meet hanging out? This is where you need to be, both online and possibly offline as well.

When you find these tennis list owners, take down their name, URL and email address. If you like, get their phone number as well. Now email them individually, one by one. Don’t do more than a few in one day just in case you get several replies back at once.

When you email, you might tell them how you know them. “I read your book” or “I’m a fan of your blog.” Show them some admiration and respect, but don’t go too overboard. A little is great, a lot might make them uncomfortable. Be specific in your praise. Don’t say, “You are the greatest tennis blogger ever!” Say, “Your article on serving mistakes helped me tremendously, especially that point you made about ___.”

Next in your email, you’ve got two different avenues you could take – the direct and the indirect.

The direct goes something like this:

“Thought you might be interested in doing a joint venture. Here’s an opportunity we have, and if you’re interested, we’d like to get something scheduled with you very soon.” Then give them the link to your JV page, to your About Me page, to your testimonial page and even your sales page. Offer to send them a review copy of your product.

The indirect method is just that – more indirect. It takes a little longer, but it tends to work better, so you decide which is right for you. It goes something like this:

“I would like to support you by creating a mutually beneficial relationship.” Ask them for a quick phone conversation to discuss the possibilities. Include a link to your About Me page but include no other links. If they want, they can search your site and find the other pages, but you don’t want to be the one sending them there yet. Then get on the phone with them and discuss the possibilities, which of course could include promoting your product.

If after you send either of these emails you don’t hear back in a week, send the email again with a one line note that says something like, “Just wanted to be sure you saw this,” or “Gentle nudge,” or whatever is in keeping with your personal style.

Now I know some people will disagree with this method of getting JV partners and you’ll say that it’s best to spend some time establishing a relationship and doing favors for the potential JV partners before ever asking. And without a doubt that’s a great method, one I endorse wholeheartedly.

But if you need money now, this is the way to go. And if your product does indeed solve a big problem in a step-by-step fashion – in other words, it’s a great product – you will get JV partners this way. You might need to contact 10 to 20 people to get 3 JV’s, but it’s all a numbers game and it’s worth it.

Just don’t burn any bridges. If someone never gets back to you, it’s okay. If someone tells you to bugger off, it’s okay. Always be super polite and friendly, never take offense.

You might want to wait to contact the really big list owners until you’ve gotten a few JV’s under your belt. In fact it’s probably a good idea.

But there is a way you can contact the big dogs in your niche from Day 1, if you’re up to it. That is, if you’ve got the confidence.

You’re going to ask for an interview with them that you can add to your product. Most everyone is looking for more exposure and publicity, so this is a great way to get your foot in the door as well as making your product even better. And odds are if they grant you an interview, they’ll also promote your product because it contains their interview.

Here’s a trick: Find the big players in your niche who are doing something now or in the near future. Maybe they’re releasing a new book or a new product, something where they want publicity. This is the best time of all to ask to interview them, as they have their own reason for wanting to get as much exposure as possible.

Another benefit to having well-known names in your product package is you can leverage this to get more JV’s. Some potential partners will be all ears when you start name dropping because they’ll think that if these big names are in your product, then it’s something they want to be a part of, too.

Remember, if you have a great product that creates breakthroughs, you can get partners – you just have to be persistent in finding and asking these folks to JV with you.

Whether you’re solving a problem, writing a blog post, crafting a review or creating your next product, creativity is one of your best tools for getting the job done with finesse and style. With that in mind, here are 17 methods anyone can use to become more creative.

Free write – This is where you just start writing anything and continue to write as the words and ideas flow. At first it may be silly nonsense, but you’ll be surprised how fast your words and ideas can coalesce into something truly inspired.

Carry a notebook – By jotting down ideas as soon as they appear, two things happen. First, you don’t forget your ideas because you’ve got a written record. Second, the act of writing them down tells your subconscious that you want ideas, which will encourage it to give you even more.

Make lists – The very act of writing things down frees up your mind to be more creative.

Take breaks from your work – Get up, walk around, play 5 minutes of hopscotch – whatever. Just take a breather.

Get up and go – Leave your computer at home, take your notebook and get away from the office. Go anywhere – a park, the mall, a coffee shop, a museum – just get out, get away and soak up some different surroundings.

Get near water, especially if it’s moving – Studies show that being near moving water floods you with negative ions, which makes you feel good and can boost your creativity. Remember how you get some of your best ideas in the shower? That’s part of the reason why.

Talk nice to yourself – Positive self talk on how creative you are will produce more ideas. Beating yourself up for being a dummy won’t.

Have caffeine – If you don’t normally drink caffeine, one cup of coffee or tea can have remarkable effects on your thinking.

Clean off your desk – Nothing stifles creativity like a messy, cluttered desk.

Read something different – Read an article on a topic you know nothing about, a page out of the dictionary, a chapter out of a random book, etc. Learning outside the box can trigger many new ideas for you.

Practice writing or bouncing a ball with your non-dominant hand – This can help activate the connection between the two sides of your brain.

Be open to new ideas – All too often we dismiss an idea before giving it a real chance. Even if you think it’s a bad idea, try playing devil’s advocate and find all the reasons why it’s a good idea – you might be surprised.

Collaborate and mastermind – Two heads are better than one, and 5 are better than 2. Form a mastermind group, present a problem, and then let the ideas flow. The only rule: No one shoots down an idea.

Sleep on it – Give your subconscious your problem or need: “I need 3 new blog post ideas by tomorrow morning.” Then let it go and see what your subconscious finds for you.

Make friends with mistakes – When you goof up or make the wrong decision, realize it’s not the end of the world. It’s simply something that didn’t work at the moment. This allows your creativity to continue to flow.

Purposely break rules – Don’t break the big ones like “do not steal,” but do break the little ones like “this is what a blog post / new product / video should look like.”

Be you – Don’t worry about what others might think because no great idea is without naysayers anyway. In fact, if everyone thinks your idea is great, then it’s probably not.

One last tip: Ask “Why?” and “Why not?” a lot. Oftentimes we just accept things as they are, when there could be a whopper of an idea just staring us in the face the whole time.

Well over 5.5 million gigabytes of content is currently being shared daily through social media and email. Want to grab a piece of that viral pie? Here are 5 tips to help get your content moving into new hands and seen by many new people every day.

Use Great Headlines. This one’s a no brainer, yet it’s the biggest mistake marketers tend to make. Your headline should be short enough to be readable, long enough to be interesting, interesting enough to instantly grab attention, and the more curiosity it provokes, the better.

Use a Story. “Buy this great product” is never going to get shared as often as, “The Customer Service Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Redhead Finds Bliss in a Bottle.”

Use Visuals. Relevant, interesting visuals grab attention, heighten interest, tell a story, make content stand out in social media… do I need to go on?

Use Humor. Nothing gets shared as much as something that makes people chuckle – or better yet – laugh out loud. Find ways to insert humor into your content, both in the words and the visuals, and your shares will immediately go up.

Make It Easy to Share. Add buttons for each of the main social networks. The idea here is to keep the sharing process as easy and simple as possible. Even one extra click can result in no shares.

You’ve written a truly terrific blog post. In fact, you’ve written dozens of them – yet your traffic still looks more like a ghost town than the bustling metropolis you were hoping for. Here are 15 ways to drive traffic to your blog posts without monetary cost.

1. Add social sharing buttons to your posts. The easier it is for your readers to share your posts, the more likely they will do so.

2. ASK your readers to share your content. At the end of your post, you might write something simple like, “If you found this helpful, please share.”

3. Build up your own contacts. Make list building a priority so you can capture as many visitors as possible. Encourage people to join your list, follow you on social media, etc. Use bribes and offer great info to get them on board, then take good care of them to ensure they stay with you. When you write a new post, ask them to not only read it, but share it liberally with their own networks.

4. Email your list each time you post great content. This one seems too obvious, but it’s surprising how many bloggers don’t do it. Make sure your email is optimized for all sizes of screens. And rethink the timing of your email. It used to be that first thing in the morning was best, but now that people are deluged with marketing emails, later in the day when they’re not so rushed might be better.

5. Build up your V.I.P. Contact list. Make friends with those in your niche. Promote their blog posts and their work. Build relationships. When you write posts, they’ll want to reciprocate and promote you as well.

6. Link to websites, blogs and authors who have large social media followings. In your blog post, find ways to mention these folks in a positive way. Maybe you reference one of their posts, or a technique they’re using. When your blog post goes live, send them a message letting them know you mentioned them. Often they will tell their followers and you could get a nice flood of traffic along with a new contact.

7. Do a case study on someone successful. This could be one of those bloggers in your niche with a large following. Analyze what makes them so successful, do an interview with them, get quotes from their followers, etc. Again, you’ll get a big surge of traffic when they promote your post to their followers, plus you’ll have a new friend.

8. Target a specific blogger. In this case, you’re choosing a topic that you know is near and dear to a particular blogger. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to look at their recent posts, find one that was emotionally driven, and write your own post about the topic. You might point out in your post how this blogger was right about the topic, but use a slightly different angle on the story. You’re not copying what they did, you’re taking it up a notch or moving it in a different direction.

9. Get influential opinions. When you’re writing a post, email a pertinent question to several influential people and ask their opinion. Everyone loves to give an opinion, and unlike a full-fledged interview, it only takes a couple of minutes to answer. Then quote these people in your post and let them know when you post it. Odds are they’ll share it with others. Added bonus: Placing movers and shakers in your posts also increases the chances of your post being shared by readers.

10. Use quotes from personalities in your niche. This one is really easy to do and it doesn’t even have to affect the flow of your post. Simply find appropriate quotes from leaders and shakers in your niche and insert them between sections of your post where appropriate. It’s a great way to visually break up the copy and you can link the quotes back to the original author. Be sure to let the authors know you quoted them.

11. Write lists. You might list the “10 most influential people in your niche,” for example, and link to all ten influencers. Posts like these tend to get shared a great deal.

12. Use infographics in your posts. Yes, it takes extra effort and / or money to generate an infographic, but the results can be powerful. People love infographics and are more likely to share them with others. And if you’re on Pinterest, you’ve already seen how viral infographics can be.

13. Go negative. Write a blogpost on the things you’re doing or have done wrong, or the mistakes people are making. Fear of loss is greater than desire for gain. People are more likely to read and share “10 things you’re doing wrong” than “10 things you’re doing right.” Just don’t go too negative or you’ll turn people off.

14. Be contrarian. If everyone else thinks one way, make an argument the other way. Be polite, be nice, but clearly state your case, your evidence, and why you think the way you do. If it’s a topic people care about, your post is very likely to go viral. Be ready for a major traffic surge as well as many heated comments on both sides of the issue.

15. Present one post in several different ways via social media. Let’s say you have a post on how to raise pigs. Different sections of the post might include: Choosing the piglets (or birthing the piglets, if you own the sow), feeding them when they’re young, housing, feeding when they’re older, exercise, training, things to watch out for, health issues, etc. Each of these topics can be individually highlighted in social media, so that you have several different ways to promote your post instead of just one.

If you spend as much time promoting your post as you took writing it, you should see a dramatic upturn in your traffic. One good rule is to do 5 things every day that promotes a post on your blog. Make this a habit and traffic will never again be an issue for you.

Staying focused is quickly becoming one of the greatest challenges online marketers face today. For example, you sit down to write an article and end up surfing the net for the rest of the morning… Or you’ve got an information product that you need to finish, but you check your email which leads to a news site, a sports site, a few entertainment sites, some social media sites and before you know it, it’s already 3 hours later and you’ve accomplished nothing except making yourself feel guilty. Does this sound familiar?

According to Dr. B. J. Fogg, Director of Stanford Persuasive Lab, “There’s just one way to radically change your behavior, and that’s to radically change your environment.”

Students who transfer to a new university are much more likely to change their habits than students who remain at the same university. This is true for workers as well. People who change jobs or change job locations are much more likely to also change their habits.

It makes sense. Let’s say that at your previous job you were in the habit of going to a fast food restaurant with your coworkers for lunch. At your new job, your coworkers eat lunch at a healthy restaurant and invite you along. Soon you are eating healthy lunches every day, even on those days when you don’t go to that restaurant, because you’re now in the habit of eating healthful lunches. Enough time goes by, and fast food can even become repulsive to you.

So what happened? Your environment changed and so did the triggers. This made it easy to effect a change.

People who have trouble falling asleep are told to only use their bed for sleeping and for nothing else. If they lay down but they can’t fall asleep, they’re supposed to get up and go to another room. After treating their bed as only a sleep location (and not a reading location, a daydreaming location, etc.) for several weeks, they are generally able to fall asleep within minutes of their head hitting the pillow.

The bed is now a trigger for just one thing – sleeping.

This is why having one location to just work and another location to play is important. If you are mixing your ‘play’ time with your work time in the same home office, you’re asking to get constantly distracted.

If you use a laptop or a tablet for work, this is easily remedied. Simply designate one place in your home where you will do nothing but work – no exceptions.

If you work on a desktop computer, you might consider getting a laptop or tablet for your Internet ‘play’ time.

Another technique is to designate certain times of the day when you are working, no exceptions. This will get you in the habit of always doing work during those times, and it will make it much more difficult to get distracted. Your work times then become routine, eliminating the need to decide each time if you’re going to work. And when you automatically go to work instead of ‘deciding’ to go to work, you eliminate the possibility that you will decide NOT to work.

A third technique is to use triggers. For example, if you always start work right after finishing breakfast, it will become a habit to eat and go to work. You don’t have to think about it, you just do it.

In one study, knowing exactly when and where participants were going to exercise caused them to follow through a whopping 91% of the time. Those who simply exercised when they felt motivated to do so exercised 35% of the time.

Bottom line: If you’re having trouble staying focused, designate an area where you will do nothing but work, combine it with a strict schedule, and you should experience a dramatic increase in your productivity.

When you get more done with less distractions, you’ll not only accomplish your goals faster – researchers tell us you’ll also enjoy increased self-esteem, greater happiness and larger overall satisfaction with your life.

These are all super quick and fairly easy. In fact, there’s not a tactic here that will take more than an hour, and some can be done in just a few minutes. Some can get you traffic pretty quickly and others take time. My suggestion: Do one a day every day until you’ve done all the ones that interest you. Some you will continue to do daily, such as using Twitter, but of course you can also use automation to lighten the workload a bit…

Do product reviews. For driving traffic? You bet. Product reviews are easy to get ranked, especially if you do them in video. Here’s the trick: Don’t make it like every other product review out there. Instead, be real. Use your personality. Have fun with it. And ask the reader/viewer to subscribe to get more product reviews.

One more thing: TELL THE TRUTH about what you think of the product. I once landed on a product review that said, quite frankly, the product wasn’t worth the money. I didn’t buy that product, but I subscribed to the author’s list and have since purchased several hundred dollars of products from him because he earned my trust.

Create a keyword list. Then use it to write your articles and blog posts. It’s fine to write about whatever you want, but it’s even better to write about what people are actually searching for. By using a keyword list, you not only get new ideas, you are also better tuned into the market and what might get your articles ranked on Google. Once you write a new article, promote it on social media.

Find questions on forums and answer them in articles. If someone is asking something on a forum, there’s a good chance others are asking the same question. Go ahead and write an article, post it, then post your article link on the forum “for more information” after your answer.

Blogger.com is a high authority site, owned by Google (hint, hint). When you join, find the “about me” section and add your website URL along with your keywords in the anchor text which will contribute to better SEO for your primary website. Do the same with other popular sites online that allow you to create your own profile and backlink to your website.

Register with forums in your niche. Fill out the details on your profile, including your name and website. If the forum allows it, add your website or blog to your signature. Make several useful posts in each forum. What you’re shooting for here is quality backlinks, but if you find you enjoy posting to forums, keep at it. Your posts can drive traffic back to your site for years to come.

Join Twitter. Use Twitter. Seriously. Make several tweets, find people to follow in your niche, and each time you write an article, tweet about it. It’s amazing to me how many marketers still aren’t fully utilizing Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Set up an account at HubPages.com. This is another high authority site which can help with your rankings. Plus the content you post here can also rank high for your keywords. Remember to update your account with new content from time to time. And be sure to include a bio of what you do along with your URL.

All of these are pretty simple and can help to drive traffic to your website. So next time you’ve got a few extra minutes, pick one and get busy. It will be time well invested.

Personal question: Is it possible that you already know everything you need to know to be successful online – but something other than knowledge is holding you back?

If it’s as simple as the mechanics of online marketing – setting up websites and so forth – you can always hire someone to do that part for you.

But if it’s a lack of confidence, or fear of failing that’s holding you back – then it’s up to you to squash that particular bug, or at least quarantine it to the furthest corner of your house.

And if the thought of failing is enough to keep you from starting your online empire, then welcome to the club. Fear of failure is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to success. Fear of failing is so oppressive and destructive, it can cause you to willingly set aside your dreams – forever.

So why do we fear failure so much? It goes back to life experiences that inadvertently taught us it’s better not to risk, than to risk and lose. When you fail at something, it’s natural to worry what other people will think about you and if they will lose interest in you. You worry about how smart and capable you are, and whether you can effectively pursue future endeavors. In fact, when you fear failure you’re actually worried about an entire host of possible outcomes, most of which will never come to pass no matter how many times you fail.

But the mind isn’t rational, and simply talking yourself out of being afraid doesn’t work any better than trying to manifest an iron will.

The secret to overcoming fear of failure? There are several, but I’ll give you one here that you can use right away.

Experiments in the 1970’s showed that there are two distinct groups of children when it comes to learning new skills. There are the “ego oriented” children whose main concern is to not lose face in front of their friends. Some of these children fear failure so much they invent ways to get out of the activity, do the activity in such a way that they cannot fail, or make it impossible to succeed so that failing doesn’t hold a stigma.

The second group of children is what they term “mastery oriented.” These kids don’t care as much about losing face as they do about acquiring a new skill. In fact, they realize that initially failing is simply a part of the process of learning and take it in stride. These kids are happier and succeed much faster than those who fear failing.

Thus, if you can change your focus to acquiring a new skill and deciding that no matter what happens along the way, you’re going to enjoy the process – you are on the way to overcoming your fear of failure.

Gradually Overcoming Your Fear of Failure

You might start small with something that doesn’t hold a great deal of significance, such as learning a new game. Let’s say you’re going to take up billiards for the first time in your life. Your focus would be on learning how to hold and shoot the cue, the angles to use, the rules of the game and so forth. When you miss a shot or scratch, it’s no big deal because you know that’s part of the process and you’re just learning.

You might be astonished at the difference it makes. You’ll be happier, you’ll have less stress, and you’ll learn your new skill much faster.

From here you might stretch yourself further by doing things that scare you. For example, if you’re a shy person you might ask 15 strangers a simple question (“Do you have the time?”) in the space of 30 minutes. Note how you feel after the exercise. Odds are you’ll not only have conquered a fear of talking to strangers, you’ll also get a boost of confidence, which leads us to our next point…

Are You Lacking in Confidence?

You’ve got a great idea for a new business, but frankly you just don’t have the guts to go for it. Or maybe you do decide to go ahead with your idea, but then someone says it’ll never work and you chuck the whole thing. Why? Low self confidence. This goes hand in hand with the fear of failure.

So why doesn’t someone have enough confidence in themselves? Usually it’s because they judge themselves unworthy, or they see major disconnects between what they think they’re capable of and what they’re actually doing.

Growing Unshakable Self-Confidence, Step by Step

The good news is, self confidence can be raised with every new challenge met, no matter how small. Remember the exercise to talk to 15 strangers? I can almost guarantee your self-confidence to talk with strangers will be significantly raised after you do this.

In fact, if you will make it a habit to do one thing every single day that is out of your current comfort zone, you will find that your confidence improves immensely within just a few short weeks.

Make yourself a list of all things you’d like to do that you’re not doing. Maybe you’ve wanted to join a group, take up a new hobby, try a different sport or go to a fancy nightclub. Maybe you want to get better at talking with the opposite sex, or at making friends, or get better at making online contacts. Maybe you’ve wished you could get 5 minutes with the big guns in your niche, or regularly post to forums and blogs.

Whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t, put it on the list. Even small stuff like taking a walk around your neighborhood and ringing doorbells of neighbors you haven’t yet met can go on the list, as well as chatting up that stud or beautiful woman who works in the supermarket. Write down everything you can think of that you’ve been holding back on. Add in skydiving if you’re inspired to do that kind of thing, and keep adding to this list daily as you think of new things.

Now that you’ve got your list, pick one thing and do it right now. That’s right – do it now, or at least before you go to bed tonight.

Notice a difference in how you feel about yourself? You should.

When we don’t do the things we wish we would do – for whatever reason – we lose self-esteem. But when we finally do those things, not only do we become more self-confident, we also find we’re happier, more fulfilled and more ready to take on even bigger challenges.

You’ll notice that most of the examples I’ve given haven’t been IM related. That’s because raising your confidence in any one area can help you in all other areas as well. When you have success learning tennis, you can use that boost in confidence to tackle website building or product creation. And when you overcome your fear of talking to strangers, it gets easier to network on Facebook with people you don’t know.

One last thing – it’s far better to take multiple baby steps than try to overcome the world in a day. Making slow, steady progress anchors your triumphs and makes it that much easier to achieve a little bit more tomorrow.

At the risk of stating the ridiculously obvious, Internet Marketing is changing. Just because you’re making money today won’t guarantee you’ll still be making money tomorrow. There are the obvious examples: Possum, Penguin, Fred and what not. But then there’s new regulations, new technologies, changing interests and priorities of consumers, more competition (sometimes bad, sometimes good) and so forth.

Without a doubt, the money is still there to be made – but you might have to get creative and expand your horizons to find it. And when you do find it, don’t rest on our laurels. Don’t think you can set a funnel up and just ignore it and it will continue to deliver forever. You might wake up in a month or two and be shocked to find your account balance hovering near zero if you do.

That’s why you’ve got to always be on the lookout for great ideas, and even mediocre ideas that are profitable. Make it a daily practice to write down at least 3 or 4 new ideas for making money and growing your business.

What happens if you don’t walk for a week? Your legs atrophy. And your brain works the same way. Either work your brain relentlessly and it will get stronger, or don’t use it and it’ll harden into something useless.

The economy has been having it’s own set of challenges for years and while it’s better now for many people, there are still millions of people who are out of work or not making the money they used to make. So what are they doing? Many are turning to Internet Marketing. You might think this is bad because of increased competition, and it can be. But if you make a list of ideas on how you can capitalize on this, what will you discover?

First, these people will need training on how to do online marketing. That covers an entire realm of possibilities, including step-by-step courses and coaching.

Next, these folks will need help. They’re not going to be experts at everything from building websites to creating products to getting backlinks to designing product covers. So if you’re willing to perform services, there’s money to be made.

Remember the TV detective Columbo? He would be asking the suspect questions, always very polite, very nice, acting like he needed help in figuring out what happened. Only he was smart – he was playing the suspect right until the end. My favorite part is when he would be leaving the room, and the suspect would be breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Whew! Dodged that bullet’ the suspect is thinking. But then Columbo pauses at the door, or even walks out the door and then comes back in, and he puts his hand to his head like he just remembered something, and he says, “Oh, you know, I almost forgot, one more thing…” And then he’d nail the suspect with the real question, the one the suspect just didn’t have a good answer for.

This should be you. You’re a detective, always on the lookout for that “one more thing” that will make your campaign more profitable, that will increase your subscriber rate, that will double your conversions and so forth. Always be searching for the questions your prospects ask that lead to a breakthrough product. Always be asking, asking, asking “What do people want? What problem is keeping them up at night? What would they pay to fix, improve or eliminate?”

Get in the mindset of a detective and you’ll view the world differently. You’ll see things you missed a hundred times before. People will start to think you’re psychic or something. You’re not. You’re just asking questions and paying very close attention to the answers. And you’re using your brain – something a lot of people are too lazy to do.

Bottom line: Things are changing and they’re going to change a whole lot more. Fall asleep at the wheel and your business will crash. Rely on what worked before and you will go broke. Continue to provide the same old products and the same old solutions and you’ll find yourself standing still in the middle of a very fast race.

Be a detective like Columbo and you’ll always get your paydays.