Building Your Value Proposition

Marketing is really nothing more than communicating the value of you, your products and services, and your company to your prospects in the most effective (and efficient) way you can so that they will take the action you want them to take.

Usually there is a series, maybe a long series, of actions you need your prospect to take to get to how you are defining “success”.

Each of those actions requires your prospects to (consciously or subconsciously) decide whether or not to take the action and each decision (and hence each action) requires you to provide them with a reason to continue, this reason is a value proposition (“do this and you’ll get that.”)

There are 4 levels and questions you need to answer to define your value propositions and each are more specific to a particular situation than the last; these are levels of the value proposition, let’s look at each in turn…

Primary Value Proposition

Your company needs a primary value proposition, The first and core question you need to answer is: “Why should someone (an ‘ideal prospect’) buy from you rather than any of your competitors?”

Answers can be any number of things depending upon the industry, location, target audience, etc., some of the things you may include in your answer are:

• You’re better thought of in your industry (won awards, many positive press mentions, etc.)
• You are the low cost provider
• You are the premium price provider
• You have better “references” (like a prestigious list of customers)
• Your company provides superior benefits to your customers (more effective results, superior user experience, etc.)

Find the core value proposition and explicitly use it in your messages.

Prospect Level Value Proposition

Each Prospect Type Needs a Value Proposition

Many marketers stop with the primary value proposition but that’s a big mistake.

You see, you need to dig deeper and ask “Why should a specific (one being targeted in a campaign) buy from you rather than any of your competitors?”

This is the prospect value proposition.

Rarely does a successful marketing campaign target all the different prospects you may have unless you are very narrowly focused.

Therefore, for each campaign you find the answer(s) to the above question; this is generally focused on benefits that prospect will receive.

But don’t stop there.

Product Level Value Proposition

Unless you are a very small company with only one product or service you need to drill down even more and answer the question “Why should the identified prospect buy this specific product rather than any other product?”

This is the product value proposition.

Like with prospects, the vast majority of really successful marketing campaigns target a single product — don’t believe it, just look closely at TV ads, magazines ads, billboards, direct mail, online banner ads, etc.

That means that you need to know why your specific product should be what they buy and, of course, communicate that in your message.

This is usually also focused on benefits but you can communicate that in a number of ways: demonstration videos, free trials, etc.

You’re not done yet!

Yes, you’ve gotten your primary value proposition and aligned your prospects and product value propositions with it but there is one final step and question to answer.

Process Level Value Proposition

Every Action You Want You Prospect to Take Needs a Compelling Reason

As I said above, every time you want a prospect to take and action you need to give them a reason to take it, that is, provide them with a value proposition.

Since you’ve gone through the above, you will have identified your primary, prospect and product value propositions and now you have to come up with a value proposition for each action in the process from first touch to successful completion; these are the conversion steps to get a specific prospect to buy (or whatever the goal is) a specific product.

To do that you need to answer the question for each step, here are some example questions:

• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product open the e-mail rather than another e-mail?”
• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product click this PPC (or other) ad rather than any other ad?”
• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product enter their e-mail address?”
• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product read your sales letter rather than someone else’s?”
• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product click the ‘buy’ button?”
• “Why should the specific prospect for the specific product register for your webinar?”

Conclusion

Once you’ve been able to come up with your value propositions you should be able to create much more effective marketing campaigns.

Are you explicitly using value propositions? What have been your results (positive or negative)? Do you think I’m totally crazy ? Let me know below.

Value Propositions are the Key to Success is a post from: From The Desk of David

Speedy Profit Creator

Speedy Profit Creator 2.0, a product of Omar Martin is a combination of training on how to build a profitable online business as well as training and software on how to create digital products, particularly digital books.

What follows is an extensive review of the entire Speedy Profit Creator system based upon me reading every word, watching every video, and using the product creation software.

At the end, I will also summarize the recommendations I’ve made so if that’s all you want you can jump to there but if you want to know why I like something or why I don’t then you’ll need to read the detail.

You’ll also see a link to get my bonuses if you decide Speedy Profit Creator is for you.

Before I start though I want to be fully transparent and upfront.

I’ve known Omar for a while now, about 2 years, and have become very friendly with him; I’ve also learned a lot from him during that time and he might have even learned a thing or two from me

In addition, also created a very (VERY) small part of the Speedy Profit Creator system, barely enough to mention, but I felt I should mention it to be open and honest.

Speedy Profit Creator’s purpose is, as you might have realized from its name, to get an online business going and making profits quickly.

While it focuses on quick profits, it isn’t a “get rich quick” type of product, it’s for people looking to build a real, long term business but to have that business get profits quickly.

Speedy Profit Creator is organized in sections inside the member’s area and I will be reviewing each section one by one, giving recommendations as I go along.

Speedy Profit Creator Menu Bar

Okay, let me tell what Speedy Profit Creator is and what it is not. What I like and what I do…

Jump Start

Jump Start Report

The Jump Start section covers the first 2 steps of the creating an online business: (1) researching and selecting a profitable niche and (2) creating a lead magnet.

The paragraphs in the report are a bit dense and long and it could have used another round of editing but the information is good.

I believe the problem is the report is a not that good transcription of the video course, but again the information is worth it.

In the video, the first thing is researching and selecting a profitable niche.

When explaining the importance, Omar sums it up nicely with this quote: “If you screw this part up and you don’t truly understand the needs of your customer then you have a snowballs chance in hell of actually meeting those needs or even attracting the right customers. You’ll end up not making sales and wondering where you went wrong.”

That is so true.

Omar does an interesting thing in that he explains this in the context of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

He then goes through doing niche research from step one, using Google’s keyword tool along with other resources.

Along with a nicely detailed discussion there are strategically placed screen shots so you get a visual on key points he discusses.

After picking a niche, Omar shows how to quickly and easily create a professional report to use as a lead magnet; he uses PLR and the Speedy Profit Creator software.

He shows some good, free resources to get and create graphic images and icons, including one I’ve added to my personal list of resources.

He even shows how to easily create a header image using the free program Gimp.

By the end of the Jump Start, if you’ve been following along, you should have a niche picked out and a lead magnet created.

Only one of the 3 videos are available for immediate download but you can easily get the other 2 videos by making a Tweet, posting to Facebook, or putting a link in one of various places.

Speedy Profit Creator Digital Book

This is the foundation course in the Speedy Profit Creator system and is made up of 8 sections, they are:

1. Create the Plan
2. Selecting the Product
3. Domain and Hosting
4. Modifying an Existing Product (PLR)
5. Creating a Product from Scratch
6. Creating Graphics
7. Creating a Sales Page
8. Driving Traffic

As you can see, it’s a fairly complete look at product creation and, while it won’t tell you everything about everything, it does reveal those things you absolutely need to know; after all, it would be near impossible for Omar to distill years of knowledge into a single, inexpensive digital book.

1. Create the Plan

I like the way this starts, the first paragraph is:

“The first thing I am going to show you to do, is how to start creating your products so you can make some quick profits… something that is going to generate speedy profits for you that you can do rather quickly without a whole bunch of technical know how.”

Then, without further ado, he gets right into it.

He starts with the 3 things that make up a good plan and spends the rest of the chapter detailing how to create the plan.

While doing that he doesn’t just tell you what to do but explains why you need to do it and some of the choices you can make along the way.

He also has a section on some free and paid resources you can use as you execute the plan.

A thing I like is that he tells you that you need a plan, so many people miss this step, and I also like that his plan isn’t like the old Soviet 5-year plan and kills half a forest making it.

He shows what you need to create a bare-bones plan that contains the necessary things without all the puffery and distraction that some plans contain.

2. Selecting the Product

Again, he starts with a truism: “The unnecessary fear around the whole “selecting a product” dilemma never ceases to amaze me.”

He then shows you why this fear is unfounded and is caused by a lack of knowledge and understanding.

The rest of the chapter then gives you the knowledge and understanding you need to lose that fear.

He reveals things like:

• Why having a great idea may be your first step to disaster.
• What the most important thing you need to do when selecting a product.
• What focus you MUST HAVE to make sure you don’t end up broke and despondent.

Let me put in another quote:

“My point is that selecting a product is more important than creating a website or driving traffic.”

That is so true because, as Omar shows you in the book, having lots of people coming to the most beautiful Web site is worthless if they aren’t interested in your product.

The thing I like about this section is that it provides a foundation of what to do rather than using a step-by-step “do this, do that” methods that may be easy to follow but you really have no idea what you’re doing or why.

Don’t worry though; the step-by-step comes later in the videos.

3. Domain & Hosting

This is frequently a boring and confusing thing for most people.

But, it is important to have a domain and hosting and not just any old thing… Omar tells you why you shouldn’t necessarily go with the cheapest or the easiest options.

He does this by revealing the mistakes he made and how it cost him a lot more time and money… so, remember don’t be “penny wise and pound foolish”

Again, Omar focuses on what and why and leaves the how to the videos.

4. Product Creation

There are essentially 2 ways to create a product, either build it from scratch or take an existing product and modify it to be unique to you and Speedy Profit Creator shows you how to do both

Modifying an Existing Product

Omar focuses on taking private label rights (PLR) products and the why and what you need to do to turn them into unique, sellable products.

In fact, he gives you 11 ways you can take PLR products and modify and enhance it to be unique to you and superior to the original.

He provides some free and paid resources to help you along.

Let me end with a quote from the book: “Always, always, always, make changes.” Indeed.

Creating a Product from Scratch

In this section, unlike many, you do get a high level look at the steps you need to take to create a product from scratch, starting with research and an outline through creating the finished product — both with and without the Speedy Profit Creator software.

He ends the section with a list of resources that will help you to write the book yourself or to get it written for you.

5. Creating Graphics

This section shows you why you need graphics and where you’ll need them including the minimum graphics you’ll need: a web site template; a product image; a page header and footer; buttons.

There are two options for graphics: pay for them or make them yourself; he covers both options but spends more time on the second one because there is more to say.

One bit of great advice he gives is “You’ll want to brand your product image through consistency.”

6. Creating a Sales Page

He starts by showing why this is a very important part of the creation process.

He also tells you some of the best things to do and not do and looks at both traditional sales pages and the newer video sales pages.

He goes through to advantages and disadvantages of each and how to go about creating them so they will convince your prospects to buy.

In essence, he gives you the “formula” you need to make a good sales page.

Now, writing a good sales letter isn’t easy but if you follow his guidelines then you’ll do better than 99% of other people who follow no guidelines or rules; don’t ignore this, if you don’t believe it then it’s because you don’t understand, it’s been true for millennia.

7. Driving Traffic

The first paragraph points out something very important about the different methods of getting people to your Web site — that is, driving traffic. Let me quote the entire paragraph:

“There are hundreds of ways to drive traffic to your website and I’m not going to pretend to know them all. As a matter of fact I can probably name only about a dozen or so, but more importantly, I really only use a few. In all sincerely, that’s all I need. As a matter of fact to be 100% truthful, these days I spend very little time driving traffic. I don’t really have to anymore. The reason I am able to do that is because when I first started I invested hours and hours in driving traffic and it built up like a snowball turning into an avalanche.”

There are actually several very important points in there but the one I am talking about is one that some many people don’t get.

You don’t need a lots of different was to get traffic, you need to find a few ways that work well for you and for your prospects and do A LOT of that.

Another really important thing he emphasizes in this section is that there is no such thing as “free traffic”.

“Free traffic” sounds very enticing, particularly to people who are trying to sell “free traffic” products to the unsuspecting, but it just doesn’t exist; nothing comes free.

If you are someone who is not sure about this or thinks I’m wrong, I can tell you that it will cost you a lot of time or money or both to get free traffic.

Sure, if you do all the work then no money leaves your pocket but you’ve paid in time and, most people don’t think of this, you’ve paid in lost opportunity.

By that I mean the money you could have been making otherwise if that time had been spent elsewhere.

I’m not saying it may not have been worth it to do all the free traffic generation work yourself, I’ve done it and Omar did it, and it can be very worth it but don’t kid yourself that free traffic is free.

Anyway, in the rest of the section Omar talks about the “free traffic” methods he’s used and the best ways he’s found to use them for your success.

These are things like Article Marketing, Video Marketing, even safe lists.

“Over-the-Shoulder” How-To Videos

The next section follows up the what and why book with 13 “how-to” videos where Omar goes through each specific topic he talked about in the book and shows you on screen just how to accomplish what you need to do.

This is a place where Omar really shines, he is a gifted speaker and video maker and his videos are direct, entertaining, and actually useful (unlike many videos); sometimes he talks too fast though so be ready to hit the pause button

There are 11 primary videos:

1. Create the Plan
2. Select the Product
3. Get Domain & Hosting
4. Edit/Modify/Create A Product
5. Create a Product Graphic
6. Create a Top Banner
7. Create a Sales Page
8. Create a Sales Video
9. Create a Payment Button
10. Drive Traffic – Free Traffic
11. Drive Traffic – Paid Traffic

There are also these 2 bonus videos:

1. Create A Physical Product (Part 1)
2. Create a Physical Product (Part 2)

Many of the videos start with a goal that you will achieve in the video.

The “Create the Plan” video runs 28 minutes and goes through all the things you’re going to need to do, the order you need to do them, resources you’ll need, creating milestones and task lists, etc. — all parts of the plan you should create before you begin.

The “Select the Product” video runs 37 and a half minutes and immediately starts with the 4 key factors you need to look at when you are looking for a profitable niche and product; includes tools and Web sites to help you do this quickly and confidently.

Then he talks about where to find sources of content for your products.

He goes online and shows you exactly how to find ideas and content you can use to create your product and how to quickly verify that the things you find are something that people are interested in and who are willing to buy products.

The “Domain & Hosting” video runs 23 minutes and in it Omar shows how to get a domain (which is essentially the online name of you business, your Web address) and a hosting account (which is like your online store front.)

He shows how to access your new hosting account, create e-mail addresses, add multiple Web site domains to your account, and how to get your Web pages onto your new Web site.

The “Edit/Modify/Create the Product” video was bad when I previewed it but Omar was notified and I’ll update this review when it’s fixed.

The “Create a Product Graphic” video runs 55 and a half minutes and reveals the 4 core principles to creating/getting graphics including your product graphics; he takes you online to show you his favorite resource.

Omar shows you what are the key images you need as well as tools to use.

He then opens the free graphics creation program GIMP and shows you how to quickly create the basic “flat” product graphic; you can follow along with him to create your own product graphic!

He also goes online to show you how to find: ideas; matching color palettes; free graphics and icons you can use as part of your product graphic, how to create the 3D cover.

Again, you can just follow along with the video and make your own product image.

The “Create a Top Banner” video runs 31 minutes shows you how to use the product graphic created in the previous video to create a banner for the top of your Web site.

Omar also goes online and shows you some other Web sites where you can create or get banners, even animated banners.

He ends this video by using GIMP to create a page header for your digital book.

This video, along with the previous one, I found very fascinating because I rarely use GIMP and didn’t realize how much it could do; I literally sat there saying “wow, I didn’t know you could do that so easily” over and over again.

The “Create A Sales Page” video runs 35 and a half minutes and he uses a free Web page creating tool to show how to quickly create a sales page and the download page and how to copy them to the Internet.

He does a good job and if you follow along with him you should be able to create a Web page yourself. However, it looks like an old video and out of place with the others.

What I would have liked to have seen were 2 things:

1. Creating a new video using the top banner created in the previous video.
2. Use the Chunk Copy “Speedy Sales Site Templates” included with Speedy Profit Creator (see below).

The “Create a Sales Video” runs 33 and a half minutes and begins by looking at various tools that will help you create your sales video — tools like Audacity, Vox Flair and others; he gives you a quick demo of using each tool.

The video ends with Omar showing how to upload the video to YouTube and to put it on the sales page that was created in the previous video.

Like the previous video, this video has good information but it appears to be an older video from Speedy Profit Creator 1.0 and isn’t really integrated well with the first 6 videos.

The “Create A Payment Button” runs 43 and a half minutes and Omar goes online and shows, step-by-step, how to create a PayPal button and shows how to put on the sales page.

Omar then goes beyond a basic PayPal button and shows, again step-by-step, how to create a PayDotCom button instead; this let’s you have a button on your page that lets other people promote your product for you and earn a commission or referral fee.

After you have the button created and put on your sales page, the next thing Omar does is show how to create a “Johnson Box” around the button and add call to action text to improve the number of people who’ll click the button; he also shows how to add a second one at the bottom of the page.

The next thing Omar shows is how to finish the download page with the creation and insertion of a linked download button as well as how to add advertisements to get some back end income also.

This was also an older version video and, as the other ones, had a lot of good information I would have liked to have seen it updated and integrate with the rest of the videos.

The “Drive Traffic – Free Traffic” video runs 28 minutes and starts with an overview of how to get traffic and what to do with that traffic when you get it.

Then Omar points out that you have to use Google properly to ensure you are getting enough of the right traffic while showing why “free traffic” isn’t free and it isn’t instant traffic.

After that foundation Omar shows you 12 good ways to get traffic and shows you, in detail, how to do 5 of those methods; including how to streamline Article Marketing so it isn’t so time intensive.

This video has some good information and isn’t meant to be an all inclusive course on getting free traffic but I would have liked to have seen a little more depth here.

The “Drive Traffic – Paid Traffic” video runs 29 minutes starts with giving you a quick foundation of what paid traffic is and how to buy it; this includes the most common types of paid traffic.

Then Omar goes into more detail of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising both search engine PPC and Social Networking PPC (like Facebook Ads); one good thing is Omar doesn’t limit himself to Google AdWords but broadens to other search engines like Bing and Yahoo!

Focusing on Facebook Ads, Omar shows specifics on how to optimize Facebook Ads to most profitable; he goes through how to create the ads.

He ends with the advantages and disadvantages of paid traffic and points out some of the key points of paid traffic.

Like the “free traffic” video there is a lot of good information in it but it doesn’t go too deeply so is more useful for less knowledgeable online business owners.

The “Create A Physical Product Part 1” video runs 44 and a half minutes and in it Omar goes into an in depth look at the powerful advantages of creating physical products; note the physical products could just be taking your digital book and putting it on a CD/DVD to sell.

He also shows the main disadvantages, these are primary additional costs you don’t have with digital products.

He then goes into what you can put on a CD/DVD and how to link to other files on the CD or to files on the Internet.

Omar ends with what you need to do to physical create the master CD/DVD.

This is a nice overview and foundation with some good ideas and directly actionable tips. I thought it was well does with one editing glitch towards the beginning.

The “Create A Physical Product Part 2” video runs 41 and a half minutes and follows up the previous focusing on how to fulfill your orders of the physical disks.

He looks at the two ways of handling orders: (1) doing it all yourself, including creating and mailing the DVD/CDs and (2) having someone else do it.

He goes through the advantages and disadvantages of each.

During this, Omar goes to eBay and shows you how to get the supplies you’ll need to create professional DVD/CDs and package them up.

After that he shows some recommended fulfillment companies and what services they provide.

Omar ends looking at marketing channels for selling physical products as well as some ideas of ways to sell physical products.

Library

Along with all the information and training, Speedy Profit Creator now comes with 40 private label rights (PLR) products that you can use to start making money right away; this is a great way to “Earn While You Learn.”

You can use them as the basis for creating your products and put your name as the author.

These are standard PLR products and it’s possible you already have some of them, I know I do, but you probably don’t have all of them and one of the things Omar tells you to do is to quickly create a product and release it and do it again and again, so have 40 quick options available to you which is very valuable.

Those 40 products are spread around 15-20 different niches including Dating/Relationship, Making Money, Dogs, Health/Fitness, Weight Loss, Finance, etc.

The library includes 2 bonuses to help you get the most out of the products.

The first is the keyword research spreadsheets, one for each product; these were actually created by me using output from Market Samurai which I organized and prettied up.

You get all the information Market Samurai spits out related to keywords and to the SEO competition for a keyword. Information like:

• The average number of searches each day for the keyword
• The estimated number of visitors you would get to your Web site if you were the #1 ranked site
• The number of Web pages competing for that keyword
• Indicators about the strength of the competition
• The estimated cost of paid traffic
• The Google Page Rank of the top 10 sites
• The number of back links those 10 sites have, both to the Web site as a whole and to the specific page that is ranked in the top 10.
• etc.

Along with the spreadsheet is a short guide to help you understand keyword analysis, SEO competition and the individual columns in the spreadsheets.

The second bonus is the “Speedy Sales Site Templates” which are 4 Chunk Copy sales letter templates to help you create your own sales pages using methods that have proven to have worked very well in the past; they are basically the same template in 4 colors schemes.

The library is very useful to you to quickly kick start your Speedy Profit Creators even though you can get the included products elsewhere (now you don’t have to!)

The 40 products along with the matching spreadsheets and the sales page templates are a good complement to Speedy Profit Creator even if they are more like a nice side dish and not the main dish.

Software Tools

The software tools section is the main addition to Speedy Profit Creator 2.0 and is made of 5 parts: the digital book creator software, tutorial videos and a written manual to use the software, a “text cleaner” tool to use to remove all the extraneous formatting word processing file contain, and a range of graphic tools and resources.

Let me go through them…

The main software tool is the digital book creator online software (it runs right from the Speedy Profit Creator member’s area so it works no matter what type of computer you are using (Windows, Mac, Unix, etc.)

Here is a screen shot of the top part of the creator software. As you can see you enter some information, check some boxes, and upload your front cover and page header images to be included in the book.

Book Creator Part 1

It’s all pretty easy and things I particular like about it are:

1. You can edit existing file, many times this type of software can create files but not edit ones previously created

2. It has standard disclaimer text available that you can include in your book if you want but then they went further and let you edit the text.

3. You can choose to have Speedy Profit Creator create a clickable table of contents.

Here’s another screen shot of the next part of the software, where you can put in the author’s information so a page about the author can be included if you wish (including a picture) and where the chapters of the book are enter.

Book Creator Part 2 (Updated)

As you can see, you just copy and paste the chapters into the boxes including inserting of images.

This is also where I think the weakest part of the software is.

Some of the things that I’d like to see changed here are:

1. The formatting capabilities are minimal at best — just bold, italics, and underlining are supported — which don’t give you much latitude. I’d like to see highlighting, section headers, choosing different fonts and sizes, alignment (like centering) and other things. (Update: Omar has already added many of these capabilities, and you have the ability to add to put in HTML which gives you some additional flexibility)

2. You have to paste in plain text so any of the original formatting done in the original must be removed before you paste your text into the chapter boxes.

3. You can have up to 3 images which is nice but I’d like to see that restriction removed and the method of insertion made easier.

4. You’re limited to 10 chapters, I understand some of the reasons this was done, but I’d like to see this restriction removed.

5. Ability to add links with in the text of the book. (Update: Omar has already added this ability)

6. Having a spell checker would be nice although not absolutely necessary. (Update: Omar has already added a spell checker and also a thesaurus)

Since Speedy Profit Creator is built on the WordPress platform I am surprised they didn’t use the TinyMCE editor that WordPress uses which has a lot more formatting options and doesn’t require plain text pasting (it comes with a text cleaner which doesn’t lose formatting) all of which you can see from this screen shot of the top of the TinyMCE editor.

The last section of the software is where you can add an optional (but recommended) resources page as well as save the file and create the finished PDF book ready for use; here what it looks like:

Book Creator Part 3

All in all, the book creation software works well and easily creates high quality PDF with little work.

I just wish it had better formatting options so I could recommend the software completely; it will definitely restrict how often I would use it despite the ease and quality of the finished book.

The text cleaner software is simple and necessary because of the plain text restriction I mentioned above. There are other easy ways to do this but it’s handy to have it in the same place as the creation software.

The graphic tools come in 3 parts: 2 online tools right on the page; 2 collections of graphics for you to download and use; and 2 resources (1 free and 1 paid) where you can get graphics and icons).

The online tools are color related and the first lets you easily find just the right color you are looking for while the second lets you easily come up with pleasing color palettes (which Omar explains the need for in the graphics video above).

The downloadable graphics are 100 textures you can use for the backgrounds of your graphics (or parts of your graphics) and 90 different seals to use on you book and sales pages.

The resources are both previous mentioned in the videos but a quick link is provided for you ion the resources page.

There are other sections but they are where you can download the resell licenses if you became a Mac Daddy member, some resources, to access support and to become and affiliate of Speedy Profit Creator.

Affiliate Program

Sample Banner Ad

The “Earn Money” section is where you will find marketing material you can use to market Speedy Profit Creator and earn a 50% commission or referral fee.

Omar provides 5 different types of marketing materials:

1. E-mails you can use to send to you subscribers
2. Product review/blog post template
3. Signature blocks
4. A number of different product images in different sizes.
5. Lots of banner ads (a sample is to the right)

These are all of excellent quality and very useful for your marketing, and he provides a way to just enter your ClickBank ID and it will automatically put it in the embedded links in all the material.

There is one thing I’d like to see done and that is you need to do this every time you want some of the marketing materials and if it retained the ID and reused it then you’d only need to enter it once.

A small thing I know but a nice touch and easy to add.

Resell Rights License

Sample Resell Rights License

If you get the Mac Daddy membership then you “can resell the BASIC & PRO membership for 100% profit.”

This is actually a little misleading in that you aren’t selling the memberships you are given a license, a sales page and the actual Speedy Profit Creator PDF, MP3, and Videos files, and the Library that you put on your Web site and sell it like you would your own products; the only thing missing is the Speedy Sales Site Templates.

A minor point but one I thought was worth mentioning because some people will assume they didn’t need to worry about the web site or getting the product to the customers because they were just selling memberships.

The other sections are Resources and Support Access,.

Conclusion

Speedy Profit Creator is a good product and very nice value for the money.

It surprised me that it had things for more advanced online entrepreneurs but I would say the greatest value would be gotten but newer or less successful people.

Let me summarize for you here:

Jump Start

The videos are very good but the PDF transcription isn’t so good.

My recommendation: watch the videos but only read the PDF report if you wanted to refer back to something in the video, it would be a quicker way of finding it than searching through the videos.

Speedy Profit Creator Digital Book

Fairly complete and, while not very deep, it reveals the things that are absolutely necessary.

I don’t find this a negative because the expectations are that an inexpensive digital book can’t be comprehensive and all-inclusive in a topic as large as this and what is shown — the what and why — is done very well and will provide a solid foundation.

My recommendation: Read it at least once and reread until you build a solid foundation of knowledge.

“Over-the-Shoulder” How-To Videos

Most of these videos are new and very good while a few of them are older versions but the information is still good and valid.

They build upon the foundation of the book and show you how to do many of the different things you must do to be successful online with digital books and beyond.

My recommendation: definitely watch the videos at least once and refer back to them as necessary. I’d also recommend that you put in a formal request to have the older videos updated although I want to reiterate, the information is still there, it’s good and it’s relevant.

Library

This is 40 private label rights (PLR) products which you can use as the basis for products you create to quickly create profitable streams of income.

While they aren’t new or unique that really doesn’t matter much because you should be modifying and updating them anyway.

The keyword research spreadsheets and the proven sales page bonuses are very nice and useful additions.

My recommendation: use the PLR books to make products to sell and use the spreadsheets to help you focus on what the best and most profitable keywords are (which should help you decide how to focus the product). Many of the PLR products come with sales pages but move them over to the “Chunk Copy” versions.

Software Tools

This consists of the digital book creation software (and accompanying training) as well as some graphics resources.

The software creates very good quality digital books but I’d like to see some additional features that take it from adequate to good then to must have and the software is now more than adequate (although it still needs some updating).

The graphics are definitely useful but there aren’t as many as I’d like to see.

My recommendation: use the software if you don’t have complex needs or you want to do everything with the same tool. And certainly put in a request to have the improvements I’ve mentioned above added to the software.

Affiliate Program

Omar has provided a good selection of high quality marketing material for you to use and he’s certainly made it easy because he’s using ClickBank to manage the affiliate program for Speedy Profit Creator.

My recommendation: if it fits into you business and business model to be an affiliate of Speedy Profit Creator then definitely use what he has for you.

Resell Rights License

Mac Daddy members of Speedy Profit Creator get a license to resell what is essentially the Basic and Pro versions of Speedy Profit Creator; the only thing missing is the

I’ll again note that you are not selling actual memberships because you are provided with the actual documents and audio and video files that are included in those memberships and it is up to you to make a Web site for them, to create a sales page for them (a sample is included), and to deliver the products from your Web site (either streaming or as a download).

My recommendation: again, if it fits into you business and business model then this is a nice additional way for you to get some speedy profits. If it had been me though I would have let you sell the actual memberships without having to worry about product delivery, although I understand why it wasn’t done this way.

Who Should Get It?

Speedy Profit Creator isn’t for everyone and it may not be right for you at this point in time.

This is my opinion of who would benefit most:

• You are very new to online business and are looking for something to give you a good starting foundation so you can quickly be earning some money.
• You have struggled to be successful in your online business, you sell digital products, and feel you need some additional guidance to get you to the next level.
• You’ve been an affiliate marketer and would like to dip your toe into creating your own digital products to sell.
• You are more advanced and more successful and understand the value of just one good idea; most people will find something of good value here.
• You’ll looking to supplement your existing income relatively easily (you’ll need to work but it won’t be excessive unless you want faster results).

Don’t get this if:

• You are looking for a “get rich quick” method (there isn’t one) this isn’t what you want and Omar doesn’t even suggest that it is.
• You need to make a lot of money quickly. Yes, it’s called Speedy Profit Creator and you can be making some money relatively quickly but there is work to be done and you should expect the amount of money you will make would be small at first and build over time.
• You’re a very advanced and successful marketer.
• You’re someone who just buys things without ever actually using them.

Which Membership to Get?

If you are relatively new to having an online business or haven’t been able to successfully sell products then I can wholeheartedly recommend Speedy Profit Creator.

If you are completely new I would recommend starting with the Basic version to see if it’s something you really would like to do and would be able to do. The basic version gives you some fundamental knowledge on being successful online.

However, in general, anything less that the Pro version won’t be very satisfactory because you’ll only know the basic of what and why (very important indeed but not enough) whereas will the Pro version you’ll build upon that foundation with the how-to videos and you’ll have access to the Library which alone is worth more than the investment Omar is asking for.

What the Mac Daddy version adds is the software and graphics along with the rights to sell what the other 2 versions contain.

Despite the quality of the digital books being created I have trouble unconditionally recommending the software because of the restriction I mentioned above. (Update: with the additions already added to the software during the product launch I now feel good recommending it without qualifiction; I hope they continue to improve the software to make it exceptional)

However, if your immediate needs are simple (or selling the other versions has immediate value) then get the Mac Daddy version because Omar has told me that enhancements to the book creation software are currently being made and will be available soon already made significant improvements in the software.

Otherwise, stick with the lower memberships and upgrade later.

My Bonuses

If you do decide to get Speedy Profit Creator, I am providing some additional bonuses worth $750 that are specifically picked to to enhance Speedy Profit Creator; you can review them at http://GetYourBonusesNow.com/SpeedyProfitCreator

Speedy Profit Creator Review is a post from: From The Desk of David

You want to build a relationship with your subscribers and engage them so they will remain a subscriber and come to know, like and trust you.

Sounds good but it also sounds like a lot of work.

Well, it can be a LOT of work unless you use the right tools and that’s where an e-mail management and autoresponder service like Aweber or GetResponse comes in.

You see, these services let you put in a sequence of e-mails ahead of time and then the service send them out not only in the proper sequence but at the proper time you decide upon.

It does this with what’s called and “autoresponder sequence.” These are pre-created e-mails where you tell the service when to send the e-mail — this next thing is important here — in relationship to when the person subscribed.

I go into that a little more down below but wanted you to understand the basic concept of the service.

But, even with a service like Aweber, the question is, what do you say in the autoresponder sequence to build that relationship and engage your subscribers so they can know, like and trust you?

That is very most important question and what we’re going to look at…

What is an Autoresponder Sequence?

Before I get into what a sequence is let me explain how an autoresponder sequence works because it’s important to understand that to be able to create a sequence that is successful; if you know this you can skip this section.

As I mentioned above, an autoresponder sequence is a series of e-mails that go out in a specific sequence at a specific time.

The time is based upon when the person subscribed and is a simple concept; let me show you an example.

Say you have a 5 e-mail sequence and you’ve set it up like this:

1. E-mail 1: Send to the subscriber immediately upon subscribing
2. E-mail 2: Send to the subscriber one day after the previous e-mail
3. E-mail 3: Send to the subscriber two days after the previous e-mail
4. E-mail 4: Send to the subscriber one day after the previous e-mail
5. E-mail 5: Send to the subscriber three days after the previous e-mail

When a person subscribed and then 2 people subscribed the next day and another did on the third day this would be when the e-mails would be sent and received:

When Emails in a Sequence are Received

And so on and so forth.

This works for any number of e-mails in the sequence (I know people who have many hundreds in their sequence), no matter how many people are subscribers because the service manages everything and sends everything out at the right time.

Creating a Winning Sequence

There is no maximum number of e-mails that should be in a sequence and you don’t need to put them all in at the same time.

However, there are a minimum number of e-mails you should send out. What is that number?

Well, different people say different number but the lowest anyone ever goes in my experience is to have at least 5 e-mails in the sequence, with most people in the 7-12 range for a minimum; I like to have no less than 10.

So, when you’re first planning your sequence keep these minimums in mind — and remember they are just minimums, you can do as many as you like although different market niches have different needs so you need to watch your results and adjust accordingly.

The next thing to decide is how to space out the e-mail.

Do you send them every day? Will that be too much and you need to send them one every 3 days or every week?

Like most things, the spacing of the e-mail depends upon various factors. Some of those factors are:

• Your position in the industry, the more known and the better liked the more frequently you can send e-mail.
• Your market niche, some niches tolerate frequent e-mails and others don’t
• The value of the gift the person received when they subscribed, in general, the higher the value the more frequently you can send them e-mail
• The quality of the e-mail including how well it matches what the subscribers have expressed an interest in.

In general, you want to provide a mix of e-mail types — each e-mail will be focused on one of the types but the group of e-mails won’t be all the same type.

Here are some of the most common types of e-mail you would put in an autoresponder sequence:

• Educational
• Promote a product
• Quick Tip/Resource
• Give something away
• Present a case study
• Promote a connection (like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
• There are other types also…

Before this turns into another very long post let me stop here and continue next time with which types of e-mail you should use in your autoresponder sequence, where they should appear in the autoresponder sequence and why.

Resources Mentioned in the Article

A Winning Autoresponder Sequence is a post from: From The Desk of David

To start it off I have a resource where you can create your own banners for free (well, they do ask for your name and e-mail address).

Usually when you get something for free there are restrictions but you’d be hard pressed to find any real restrictions here, there are some, but most people won’t care and if you care you probably are making enough money to pay someone to make a custom banner for you

The upside is that you can quickly get good looking banners in 24 preset sizes or you can create a custom sized banner.

You can also start with a blank slate or you can start with any of hundreds of pre-made starter templates in dozens of different categories.

It’s an easy 5 step process:

1. Select your banner size or pick from one of their templates.

2. Choose then banner colors and background (here’s where you can upload a custom background if you have one)

3. Put in your frames and text (text is the words on your banner but frames let you create text animation!).

You get up to 3 lines of text and can set the color of each line of the text, the position of each line (and it’s much more than left, center, right), and any “rotation” of the text (if you want to angle your text — from 1 to 90 degress — instead of it being horizontal)

4. Put a border around your banner (up to 10 pixels wide), if you want one

5. Enter you name and e-maill address and generate your banner

A great thing is you can see a real-time preview of the banner as you create it so thatyou can try out things easily and make immediate changes if you don’t like the results.

Another great thing is that you can go back to previous steps, something many free (and paid) online resources don’t let you do.

One side (sad) note, frequently the banner generation doesn’t work and you have to start over.

Try it out, it’s a handy tool to get free banners/header graphics to use for Web sites, ads, affiliate material, or anywhere else you want to use them.

I guess I should tell you the Web address of the site It’s…

==> http://BannerSketch.com

Get Free Banners is a post from: From The Desk of David

It’s called If-This-Then-That and the concept is very simple, if some event happens then do something.

So there is a trigger event — the THIS portion — and a action event — the THAT portion.

If you’re still having trouble with why this is so good let me give you some examples…

1. IF a new blog post is made to my blog (maybe with a specific tag) THEN Tweet it.
2. IF it’s a certain time on a certain date THEN e-mail me (or text me or even call me!)
3. IF a new video is added to my YouTube channel THEN create a blog post with the video on it.
4. IF it’s 2 weeks after the end of the month THEN remind me to download my financials.
5. IF I star a Gmail message THEN add it to my Evernote account
6. IF my virtual assistant adds something to my Dropbox account THEN text me
7. Somebody even has one that is IF it’s supposed to rain tomorrow THEN send me an e-mail!

Some of the “channels” that can trigger event are:

• Blogger
• Cragslist
• Date & Time
• Dropbox
• E-mail
• Facebbok
• Flickr
• Google Calendar
• Google Talk
• Posterous
• Stocks
• Timble
• Twitter
• Weather
• WordPress
• YouTube
• And a whole lot more and they are constantly adding channels

Each of those channels can trigger events that are unique to the channel and most of them can also accept the action events.

Create a Workflow by Chaining Events

One nice thing is that you can chain the events, admittedly this is a manual process but still it’s not more difficult and the simplicity of the tool is fantastic.

You can use this to create small workflow processes, for example:

1. IF a new appointment is added to my Google Calendar THEN let me and my virtual assistant know,  send a work order e-mail to my outsourer, and add a notification to remind us in 1 week.
2. IF my outsourcer adds a file (the completed project) to my Dropbox THEN let me and my reviewer know and add a notification for 3 days from then.
3. IF my reviewer adds a file to my client-ready Dropbox THEN let me know and e-mail (or text or call) my client to pick up their project.

You could have this set of events as a mini-social media domination machine:

1. IF a video is added to my YouTube channel THEN add a blog post to my blog
2. IF a blog post is added to my blog THEN tweet it
3. IF I have a new Tweet THEN update my Facebook
4. IF a blog post is added to my blog THEN create a Posterous post
5. etc.

I hope you get the idea now and that all your creative juices are now raging on just how this can help you automate simple task, keep you updated with important information and events, and remind you of things you need to do (either as a one time event or something you need to doing over and over like “IF it’s 4pm on Thursday THEN go watch my daughter’s soccer match”)

I almost forgot, you can sign up for a free account at: http://ifttt.com.

Use it, it will really help you!

Let me know of ways you can think of to automate and manage your business and your tasks in the comments below. Go on, I’m sure you can think of something

Free Resource to Help Automate and Manage Your Business Tasks is a post from: From The Desk of David

Is This What Your Business Is Like?

Ryan Lee created a blog post titled “Your Online Business “Spring Cleaning” Checklist” where he gave 7 different things you should clean up in your business.

I liked it so much that I thought I’d share it with you along with some of my own comments.

Ryan says he is “slightly obsessed with finding out how to make everything in life more simple.”

I agree with Ryan completely, I’ve also been obsessed with simplifying and optimizing my entire life and understand the importance and power of what he recommends.

I know it sounds very Zen but cluttering up your life and your business makes it harder to get that laser focus necessary to be successful; after all, why make things harder than they are.

Here is what you need to de-clutter…

Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe

Ryan calls this “guru cleanse” and it means to unsubscribe from all the lists that aren’t providing you with value.

Of course, not every e-mail will be of great value to you but most of them should be and those that are all sell-sell-pitch aren’t just trying to entice you to fill their bank account (you know who I mean!) so “just say no!”

Ryan mentions a common excuse, people frequently say “I use it for swipe copy, shoot, I’ve done that myself, but the truth is there are better ways to get better swipes so dump them.

If you find yourself not opening someone’s e-mail at least 2 out of 3 times then unsubscribe (and I mean me too if I don’t provide you value).

Dump Your Library

Is This What Your Library's Like?

This is the hardest one for me because I’ve been collecting books since I was a boy and I have thousands of them.

I have actually started doing a little of this in the last couple of years but I still find it very difficult, but I do understand why he recommends it.

His point is that after you’ve read them and kept important notes you don’t need them because, to paraphrase him, “it not the size of your library it the action you take on the information that does.”

So give them to other aspiring entrepreneurs, or your local library, or if money is tight, sell them and… take action!

Clean Out Your Inbox

I don’t think this needs explanation about what to do or why.

Put e-mail in folders and use rules to categorize and sort your e-mail.

Archive older e-mail that you still want to retain and delete old e-mail that you don’t want.

Don’t Stop With Your Inbox

Yep, clear off your desktop getting rid of old files off your desktop and organize everything else in a handful of folders.

Don’t Stop With Your Computer

Don't You Want a Desk Like This?

Don’t clutter up your workspace; just keep what you need on the desk.

Sure, you’ll need things on your desk as you do various projects but don’t leave them cluttering your desk when you’re done with them.

I have a wraparound desk with a desk surface on 3 sides and I love desktop organizers, trays, sorters and things like that.

I have over 30 slots within arms reach all of which I can store papers, folders, etc. in. I also have another 30 or so in my office and this doesn’t count the 3 filing cabinets and other organizing and storage things I have in my office.

Without this my desk and my office would be a complete mess

You don’t need to be as anal as I am but Ryan’s point is important so clean your desk of everything but your essentials — like your computer and telephone.

Don’t Stop With Your Physical Environment

Keep your mind clutter free also.

Don’t multi-task; don’t work on multiple things, just focus on one thing at a time. Keep your mind clear and free of other distraction and your productivity will soar.

Don’t Stop With Your Mind

Don't You Want to Be Healthy?

This is how Ryan puts it “Get Your Ass in Shape” and being healthy and physically fit is, in my opinion, the very best thing you can do for your business, for yourself and for your family.

Don’t make it into a chore and start with just 5 minutes a day if you have to but when you get into really (I mean really) good shape you will have a feeling of confidence, power and capability that will astonish you.

And, there you have it, the 7 things you need to do to de-clutter your live and your productivity, success and happiness will follow along.

1. Unsubscribe from lists you don’t read
2. Giveaway or sell books you’ve read
3. Clear out your inbox
4. Clean up you computer desktop
5. Clean up your work area
6. Focus on one thing at a time
7. Get fit and healthy

Tell me what YOU think below… which way is your hardest one (and easiest one)?

The Road to Success is Not Cluttered is a post from: From The Desk of David

I needed to get the original size of some images on a Web page but I didn’t have control over the page so couldn’t guarantee that all images were the actual size.

To get the height and width displayed, potentially scaled, sizes of images use this code:

But, if you need to guarantee that you get the actual image height and width then the above code won’t work.

After a bunch of messing around I created this function that worked, at least in all the cases I tried (do you own testing):

This should save you some time if you need to get this information.

Please note that if you could all use a load event instead of the loop but I didn’t because it appears that the loop is very fast (instantaneous) even on large images, I assume that it’s because the Web browser has already cached it and doesn’t have to download it; but this method is more “old school” although it works on the 5 Web browsers I tried it on.

Click here to download a file with the above code in it.

Finding the Actual Size of Web Page Images is a post from: From The Desk of David

Facebook Timeline

Facebook is making a major change to their default landing page starting on March 30, 2012 and the online business community is flooded with commentary about how this will ruin online businesses that have been relying on Facebook.

That is just plain ridiculous.

Of course, there are also floods of marketers rushing out new products to market to all these scared businesses.

That is equally ridiculous and dangerous for you.

While it’s still very early and nobody truly understands what will be happening and what impact it may have, we can look at what we know and make some educated guesses on the advantages and disadvantages of what Facebook has told us so far.

I’ve also created a free 32-page report, Timelines for Facebook Pages Will Ruin Your Business… Not!, which you can download below, on what these changes are, what is causing concerns, what is bringing delight and what you need to do to use Facebook to their best advantage; at least as far as I can tell now, look for an update in the future.

Because of that, this blog post will just touch on the basics; you’ll get extra depth in the report.

In addition, I’m going to tell you why I think it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

So, let’s get started…

What Has Facebook Told Us

On February 29, 2012, Facebook announced that they will remove the ability to define a default landing page, in its place they will start using the profile Timeline look.

In some ways, you get a lot more control of how your page will look and, in other ways, you have a lot less control but one thing that’s changed is that the new page layout lets your fans interact more easily with you and to send direct private messages back and forth.

According to Facebook designer Sam Lessin, Facebook has “seen that most businesses have a core group of loyalists, but those loyalists also have friends.” He also said. “We’ve made it easier for people to connect with a business through the lens of their friends… It’s a much more personalized experience.”

Among other things, the new Facebook Timeline design gives you the ability to:

• Add a unique Cover Photo to the top of your Timeline
• “Star” or highlight stories to make them more prominent
• “Pin” posts to the top of your Timeline
• Add milestones to mark key events
• Arrange views and apps right below your Cover Photo

In the report, which you can download below, I look at each of these in more depth.

Major Page Design Changes

As I mentioned, the default Facebook page will now have the profile Timeline look; this is a dramatic change but not necessarily a bad one.

It organizes updates on a time-based vertical “timeline”, grouping posts by month and year; that makes for a more visual experience than the current pages and allows for larger photos.

Facebook Photos

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo and Profile Picture

This will allow you to put a large (851 by 315 pixels), public banner at the top of your page but there are strict guidelines about what this Timeline header image, called a Cover Photo, can and cannot have in it.

I go into this more in the report but a few examples are that the Timeline (header) Cover Photo cannot have promotions or discounts or anything that encourages people to “like” your page; you can also see more at the Facebook FAQ page on cover photos.

There is also a smaller (180 by 180, scaled down to 125 by 125) Profile Photo image that appears beside your status updates — it sits in a box within the Timeline cover photo.

Facebook Tabs

Facebook Timeline Tabs

In addition, custom tabs are moving to a new location, right below the Timeline Cover Photo. Make sure you order your custom apps so the most important ones are first because when the new Timeline Facebook page is loaded it looks like only the first 3 of them will be displayed.

You can define the order of your tabs so make the 3 most important ones be the top priority.

Facebook will only show up to 12 tabs, their Photos tab (in the #1 position) and 11 you define, so prioritizing them is important here are well so the one you want to highlight are shown first and, if you have more than 11 pages, the top 11 are always shown; note that you can reorder the tabs easily, any time you wish.

Fortunately, one commonly requested feature that Facebook has added is the ability to change the page tab icons; it’s as easy as hovering over the icon to see the choices appear and editing the settings.

At the top of the Timeline, on the right side, people who visit your default page will be able to see their friends’ interactions with your company.

This gives a more personal feel to those visiting your page, and builds trust in your brand; the only downside is that a negative mention from a visitor’s Facebook friend is also likely to show up here.

Pinning Facebook Posts

Facebook Pinned Post

You will have the ability to “pin” one post (at a time) which means that you decide the very first post anyone sees on your Timeline; it can be a new post that’s sticky or one from years back that you want to feature.

This lets you highlight a post you want people to see for a longer period of time than they might normally, particularly on an active page where things can quickly get pushed down.

Note that the post will only be pinned for, at most, 7 days (you can change it at any time) after which they will return to their “proper” location — the date of the post.

You can, however, change the date of a post which will let you keep a post at the top of the Timeline longer than 7 days.

Highlighting or Starring Facebook Posts

Facebook Starred Post

Besides pinning, you can control the look and importance of a post by “starring” it.

What that does is let you feature it more prominently by having the post take up the full width of your Page; you can “star” as many Facebook posts as you like and they will stayed highlighted until you manually unstar them.

Facebook Milestones

Facebook Milestone

You’ll also have the ability to create “milestones” on your Timeline.

These give you an easy way to highlight notable feature events that happen in your business — maybe the release of a new product, a positive mention in the press, the opening of a new location or Web site, or whatever; they should be important moments and events in the history of your company although I can think of some other creative uses

Like starred posts, Facebook Milestones are shown at the full screen width so they are highly visible in your Timeline.

Facebook About Section

Facebook About Section

The “About” section, that used to be almost hidden in the “Info” tab is now along the top, right under the Profile Photo.

You should rewrite it to better highlight your company but keep it short and on point; it shouldn’t be the entire bio of your country but it is the place Facebook expects you to put ALL of your contact information that you want to be made public.

New Administration Capabilities

Facebook Admin Panel

You’ll find 2 new ways to manage and administer your pages including the new administration panel at the top of all the pages; these give you the capability to:

1. See all your notifications about likes and comments in one place.
2. Send and receive direct private messages to other Facebook users. This is a major new feature that was highly requested and a great way to communicate with your prospects and customers.
3. See a snapshot on all the latest activity on the page
4. Get more idea of what’s happening on your Timeline. Facebook Insights is Facebook’s analytics tool and, while not something new, most people don’t even know about it. In short, it lets you know information like whom and how many people are talking about your company pages.
5. Manage your posts… Hide and show posts, “star” posts, change the post dates, etc.

What People Are Concerned About

Different people are concerned about different things but there are a few that standout as potential concerns and that are causing all the doomsday talk; I’ll go into the top 2 I hear about.

Can’t Set the Default Landing Page

This may be the biggest complaint I’ve heard of and, I’ll admit, when I heard it I was turned off by it also.

In the past, you could define what page that people saw when they came to your Facebook pages; this was the default landing page or tab.

Now the Timeline view is the default and cannot be changed.

You can still link directly to other pages and even put a link to your old default page in a pinned post at the top of your Timeline.

Cover Photo Restrictions

As I mentioned above, Facebook has put a lot of restrictions on what you can and cannot do, here’s a quote right from Facebook itself on Cover Photos:

“Note: This space is not meant for promotions, coupons, or advertisements. Your cover photo should not be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.”

I’m not sure how Facebook will enforce this but don’t risk getting banned by trying to go against their terms of service.

What People Are Delighted About

Large Cover Photo

While people don’t like the Facebook Cover Photo restrictions they love having the large photo to be able to make a greater visible impact at the top of the page.

Make it dynamic and exciting, just don’t break the rules; one tip is to integrate the Cover Photo with the Profile picture.

Better Customer Engagement

The Timeline itself, the Friends Activity section, the direct messaging, and other things let your default page be a place where you will be able to engage your prospects and customer like you couldn’t do so before.

You will have to admit that this is more exciting and engaging for the visitor than a page that just said “Like me to see more”!

Facebook Activity Log

Better Post Management

The new administration features make it easier to review, respond, control, highlight and manage your posts than you could ever do before.

This can definitely be used to your advantage and benefit.

Wider Facebook Pages

Facebook pages used to be only 520 pixels wide which is narrow for today’s larger, widescreen style computer displays.

Difference Between 810 Pixels and 520 Pixels

The new pages can be up to 810 pixels wide and this is a significant 56% increase in the amount of things your visitor can see without scrolling or without scrolling so much; this is a very nice addition.

You should be able to use this addition space to better get your marketing messages out.

What You Should Do — Now!

Set Up Your Facebook Timeline

If you don’t Facebook will automatically create one for you and I can guarantee that their software program won’t care at all about making it look to your best advantage; it’s best to craft it yourself

You need to do these things:

1. Create a sensational cover photo and upload it

2. Create (or update) your profile photo

3. Update your “About” information to make sure your contact information and other key information is in it

4. Organize your tabs/pages so that the top 3 are on shown at all times and the most important 11 are always available. This would be a good time to review and replace your tab icons to something more visually exciting; note, you can have promotions and calls to action in your tab icons.

5. Build you Facebook Timeline post by post, creating milestones, highlighting (starring) important posts, updating images, ordering the posts on the page in the best way for your situation, etc.

6. Finally, because the Facebook pages are now much wider you will want to look at your pages and redo them to take advantage of the extra space and to make sure they look fine.

Conclusion

The removing of the default landing page isn’t really all that bad and there are some benefits to it, plus Facebook has added a number of really nice things.

Ignore all the scare tactics and don’t rush out and buy any products purporting to help you because it’s still too early and too many unethical marketers just want your money (and do care how it harms you).

An example of this is a product I heard of that creates animated GIF for tab icons and other uses.

While that may seem like an attractive product, Facebook has specifically said they don’t want automation in the Timeline including animation (and you can’t auto play video and a lot more things either).

So, you could buy this product and make the vendor a lot of money while you just put yourself at risk of completely losing your Facebook account!

You can view or download (just right click) my report Timeline for Facebook Pages Will Ruin Your Business – Not! here.

There are some free Facebook resources on the last page, including Facebook training on the Facebook Timeline and a link to their terms and conditions page.

More on the changes in Facebook and the Facebook Timeline after I’ve done more investigation; if you have any information, thoughts and opinions, or questions on this, please leave them in the comments section below.

Timelines for Facebook Pages Will Ruin Your Business… Not! is a post from: From The Desk of David

Basic Affiliate Tools

One question that everyone always has is “how do I attract affiliates and get them to promote my products for me?”

If you have products then traffic from affiliates is some of the best traffic you can get.

As you’ve probably found out, it’s not easy getting good affiliates to promote for you because affiliates are all about making as much money as quickly and easily as possible.

Affiliates are busy, have lots of choices and, let me be honest with you, they are lazy; they don’t want to do a lot of work; this attitude, while understandable, makes them very picky.

What does that mean to you though?

It means a lot of things but one thing it means is that you need to do more work.

There are a lot of things you need to do but one of the best is to provide them with tools.

Let’s look at what those tools are…

Affiliate Marketing Material: What Everyone Does

Everyone does a minimum set of things and, if you want affiliates to even think of promoting for you, you’ve got to do at least that minimum.

To be honest, this won’t be nearly enough and if you’re not willing to go above and beyond your competitors then you’re going to have a very tough road to success.

But, you need to do this minimum so you need to know what it is.

Affiliate Tools - Email Swipes

E-mail Swipes

E-mail swipes are promotional e-mail that you write that for your affiliates to use.

Don’t skimp here because if the e-mail you write doesn’t get sales for the affiliates they won’t promote any of your other products.

So, if you want to do this right, you can’t just write e-mail and hope and pray, you need to give them tested e-mail, ones that have proven to get clicks.

Now you may wonder how to do that for a new product with no track record.

The hard truth is that you need to do some work and test your e-mail by:

1. Sending the e-mail to your own list if you have one

Write a few e-mails and send each to a portion of your list and track how each one does.

Tweak and improve and use the best ones for your e-mail swipes and you’ll also have proof of conversions which hardly anyone

does so you’ll stand out from everyone else.

2. Buy access to other e-mail lists

You can pay to have your e-mail sent to other people’s list so take your test e-mails and buy access to the list other

people you know of; just be sure that the list is one that your offer though would appeal to or the test won’t tell you

anything.

3. Use safe lists

This is similar to number 2 in that your send e-mail to other peoples list and, although not one of my favorites, some people swear by them so I felt I should mention them.

You can join free and paid safe lists and get your e-mail sent out to the subscribers of the list; just Google “safe lists” to find a number of choices for safe lists.

Affiliate Tools - Graphic Images

Graphic Images

A given is providing affiliates with graphic images. You should have graphics of the all primary sizes.

The current approved list of approved IAB sizes is (maximum size, maximum animation length):

1. Medium Rectangle: 300×250 (40KB, 0:15)
2. Rectangle: 180×150 (40KB, 0:15)
3. Leaderboard: 728×90 (40KB, 0:15)
4. Wide Skyscraper: 160×600 (40KB, 0:15)
5. Half Page Ad: 300×600 (40KB, 0:15)
6. Button 2: 120×60 (20KB, 0:15)
7. Micro Bar: 88×31 (10KB, 0:15)

Previously approved sizes are still used sometime so consider them for some situations:

1. Square Pop-Up: 250×250 (40KB, 0:15)
2. Vertical Rectangle: 240×400 (40KB, 0:15)
3. Large Rectangle: 336×280 (40KB, 0:15)
4. 3:1 Rectangle: 300×100 (40KB, 0:15)
5. Pop-Under: 720×300 (40KB, 0:15)
6. Full Banner: 468×60 (40KB, 0:15)
7. Half Banner: 234×60 (30KB, 0:15)
8. Button 1: 120×90 (20KB, 0:15)
9. Vertical Banner: 120×240 (30KB, 0:15)
10. Square Button: 125×125 (30KB, 0:15)
11. Skyscraper: 120×600 (40KB, 0:15)

Here’s what they look like (this is no actual size but will give you a sense of shape and relative size)

Standard Web Banner Ad Sizes

For more on the above sizes visit the IAB Web site.

Sample Banner Ad

You also should have various product images for affiliates to use and include both animated and non-animated banner ads so your affiliates can chose the right one for their situation.

Don’t skimp here either, if the graphics look bad or don’t stand out then you’ll turn off affiliates and the leads they might attract.

Get a professional to do your graphics, it will more than pay for itself; there are many good ones, I always use Woei Yu Choo, you can check her out at her marketing graphics membership site http://MarketingGraphicsMonthly.com and her marketing graphics design site
http://MarketingGraphicsDesign.com.

Affiliate Tools - Blog Posts

Blog Posts

Create some articles that affiliates could use for blog posts.

Don’t make them sales-y at all; the best thing to do is to write about some aspect of your product that would be very useful and informative to your prospects.

Take each of the main benefits of your product and write an article about each benefit.

As I said, don’t sell in the articles but you can prepare the prospects to eventually buy your product; you can even put a lead in and links to your product.

Affiliate Tools - Product Reviews

Product Reviews

You also need to write some product reviewsthat your affiliates can use to promote your products.

These should be fair, honest reviews of your product and not one that just raves about your product.

Those will be unbelievable to prospects and just turn them off.

Be sure to point out perceived weaknesses in your product, even if you show why they aren’t really weaknesses.

Affiliate Tools - Solo Ads

Solo Ads

Write some text ads for your affiliates that they can use. Create some short ones to be used in pay-per-click ads, for example, for AdWords ads and some longer ones for larger solo ads.

Remember that these need to be powerful ads that have a big benefit headline and reinforce that in the body of the ad to get the reader to click through.

If you don’t know how to write compelling ads it will pay for you to get a professional ad writer.

Affiliate Tools - Forum Signatures

Forum Signatures

Forum signatures are one or two paragraphs of text that affiliates can use in forums (and elsewhere) in their signature block for subtle, soft-sell promotions.

Notice I said subtle and soft sell, if you don’t do it that way the affiliate may get banned from the forum which won’t endear you to them.

Some forums in some niches will accept harder sells but don’t chance ruining relationships with potential partners and, nowadays, soft sell works better in most cases.

Don’t Stop There!

The above are just the minimum amount you must do to even play the game if you are looking to attract affiliates to promote products for you.

But you must start by providing each of these:

1. E-mail Swipes
2. Graphic Images
3. Blog Posts
4. Product Reviews
5. Solo Ads
6. Forum Signatures

That’s just the beginning though and, in part 2, you’ll discover what additional tools you need to provide to standout and make affiliates more likely to promote you than someone else.

Until then… take action and get started with the above and provide your affiliates with some awesome promotional material to help them help you.

To your success,

David Husnian

Standard Web Banner Ad Sizes image is from Wikipedia.

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WOW and Delight Your Affiliates with Powerful Promotional Material is a post from: From The Desk of David

Plan! Don't Leave Things to Chance.

Go to Facebook or Twitter and you’ll see it.

Heck, look at your hard disk and you’ll see it.

As an entrepreneur and small business owner you know what I’m talking about, it’s been the bane of most of us (believe me, including myself).

It wastes your hard-earned money, it’s distracts your focus, and, worst of all, it wastes the most precious resource, your time.

I’m talking about the non-stop buying of products.

There’s always the “Good Reason” but I’ll say it again, there is no one product or service that will make or break you.

But you can stop and you can start making proper, strategic investments that will help you in your business without distract you or suck up all your money.

Let look at how to do that…

Start with a Plan and Goals

The first thing you need to do is make sure you have strategic plans, goals, and initiatives; review my post on strategic thinking.

Without that, you’ll probably fail no matter what else you do; even if you succeed it will be a much harder job.

This plan will direct and guide you as well as keep you focused on what you’ve defined as important to be able to succeed.

This “road map” is what you must follow and base your decisions on, so without it you’re just stuck in the rut you’ve been in.

How to Use Your Plan

With your plan you’ll be able to make appropriate investments and here’s a way to do that.

Typically, you get dozens if not hundreds of e-mails a day promoting a myriad of different products by some very knowledgeable and talented marketers.

They know all the best ways to get you to part with your cash, which is generally their sole goal.

And it works very well — look again at all the “stuff” on your hard disk if you think it doesn’t

But you can take back control.

First of all, you need to just quickly ignore most of the products no matter how “good” they seem to be.

This is where you can easily use your plan.

If something, no matter what or how attractive, doesn’t fit in to what you are currently doing — what specific project or initiative you are CURRENTLY working on — you immediately reject it and forget about it.

At first it takes some getting used to and may take you some time but you’ll quickly get the hang of it as you internalize your goals and plans and as you get used to holding everything up to the light of those goals and plans.

I can go through 100 e-mails in literally seconds because I know where I am in my business and what’s of critical important to me at the specific time; I also know who consistently gives me things that I never want and I remove them.

This should immediately weed out 99% of your temptations; and that is no exaggeration.

Deciding When to Invest

Now that you have weeded out what is essential “junk” to you, even if it is gold to someone else, all you need to do is decide if something is right for you at the current time.

First thing to do is carefully read the sales letter to get a sense of whether it fits your current goals; just be sure you don’t get into the fine copywriting of the letter.

You can also search for reviews with 2 cautions: (1) most products don’t have any reviews and (2) most reviews are done by marketers who want to convince you to buy the product through their link.

The key is to get a sense of what the product or service is and what benefits it can provide you.

Don’t spend a lot of time on this, enough to get a good sense of the product or service but you don’t need to know everything; after all, almost everything has a trial and/or a refund period which I encourage you to use if you need to.

After you’ve done that then you need to compare the product to your plan and goals but that’s not all.

Until you’re really successful you need to limit your view to no more than 3 months.

By that I mean that if you won’t actively use and profit from the product or service in the next 3 months then you need to bypass it for now; you can always revisit it in the future.

If it fits and you’re absolutely sure you’ll be using it immediately or in the near future then look at the cost and see if it is cost effective for you to invest in it at this time.

Assuming it does – and actually calculate it, how much would you save or how much would you earn – then it looks like an investment you should seriously consider.

You Aren’t Finished

When you decide to invest in something you can’t stop after you’ve finished paying.

You need to document the purchase, when you made it, why you made it, how you’re planning to use it and when you’re going to use it (remember it must be within 3 months)

You can use Google Docs, which is good particularly if you are outsourcing or want to be able to access the information from everywhere, or a spreadsheet on your computer.

Click here for a spreadsheet you can use to keep track of your products and your commitment to use them; here’s what the spreadsheet looks like.

Track Your Investments and Meet You Goals

1. Date Bought: the date you brought the product or service.
2. Product/Service: the name of the product or service.
3. Specific Goal/Initiative: the specific goal and/or initiative that this will be used for, it might be a product you’re creating or some traffic you’re trying to get or whatever.
4. How to Use: how you plan to use the product or service to help you achieve your goal.
5. Usage Deadline: this is calculated from the Date Bought (it’s 3 months from the date)
6. When Used: this is the date you start using the product or service
7. Met Deadline: this is calculated and will be green and say “Yes” if the product or service was used by the deadline and white and “No” if it wasn’t.

Conclusion

Understanding how to make strategic investments will allow you to save money, keep your focus, and improve your business in a number of ways.

This article should help you be able to do just that and with the including spreadsheet you’ll be able make and track strategic investments.

After you’ve done it for a while you’ll be able to see how well or poorly you’re doing and make adjustments so that you’ll only be making good, informed decisions that you’ll actually use.
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To Get Business Success You Need to Do This is a post from: From The Desk of David

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