Hi everyone,

This post is a dedication to my fellow Alex Jeffreys students and friends of theIMQuest.

You may be wondering what I’ve been up to the past month or so as I’ve not been blog hopping or keeping up with social media updates as often.

Well I’ve got some good news……….and some even better news……….

Which do you want first?

Ok.  Lets start of with the good news!  Good is always good!

I’ve just been over at Sally’s blog and she shared a heart to heart about what she’s been through the past few weeks.  Kudos to her – being real and open.  Much respect.

Sally talks about fear setting in.  She’s been working with Alex in his million dollar business and feelings of self doubt started to creep in.  It was much more comfortable in her old job and the inner “chatterbox” starts talking giving one feelings of uncertainty about being in this new position.

For myself, I shared with you a few months ago too that I woke up some days with fear!  Infact, I still have those mornings now, but they are getting less frequent and I’ve found a way to deal with them head on.

I have two internet businesses:

One is pretty much automated and I outsource most of the work.  I just coordinate the projects.  I’m comfortable with that business and I know what I’m doing.

The second one is still in it’s infancy and this is the one that causes the feelings of fear and self doubt to appear!  I’ll give you more information on what I’m doing exactly further down in this post.

So you might be thinking – How is this good news?

Well if you’ve been having feelings of fear, self doubt or uncertainty it’s most probably because you are doing something right.

Yes, it’s because you’re moving forwards towards building your business, doing something new, going places you’ve never been before, making progress.

When we move from where we are – and head towards our goal, for most of us that is having a successful internet business, we are effectively moving from something we are used to, to something that is new.

No matter how much it makes sense that we want a successful business, actually going towards it creates uncertainty.

Right now, I’m creating my first full product (which I’m really excited about and more on it later) but during the process I’ve been through all sorts of emotions and challenges and have had to tackle them head on.

For example these are just some of the things my inner chatterbox have been saying to myself:

“But I don’t know enough about this subject”

“other people have already done it already and they’ve already done a great job on it”

” what if I get stuck when someone asks me a question I don’t have an answer to on a live call”

“What if if my product sucks and nobody wants to be a JV partner?”

Worse still, the excuses start coming along

“Maybe this internet thing isn’t for me, maybe I should do something else like real estate or share trading”

“This takes too much time, I’m better off investing my time in other ventures….”

and the list goes on.

But if you are experiencing these things, its all good!

It’s just your brain’s way to deal with CHANGE.

Your brain wants to protect you because uncertainty creates stress.  So how does the brain reduce stress?  By “helping” you be somewhere where there is certainty, somewhere you know i.e. the way you’ve always been before!

Having some fear is a good thing.  It helps you realise things you need to bear in mind.  For example that producing a good quality product is important.  However, knowing how to use it in the most productive way is what differentiates successful people and the ones who settle for second best.

“Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life I find.”  John F Kennedy

See the example of a man I respect alot, my mentor Alex Jeffreys.  He learns how to build a great business from his mentors, applies the knowledge and against all odds he doesn’t allow any fears to rationalize or hold him back.

He uses the inner drive to keep him moving forwards and break through hurdles with ease.

So here are a couple of tips to move you forwards when you find yourself procrastinating or have feelings of fear:

• Realise it’s because you’re making progress and it’s because you’ve decided to go for the challenge.  If you didn’t progress, you wouldn’t have these fears.  So well done and don’t give up.
• Use the reframe technique to find the solution.  If you come across a statement that is holding you back, change it into a question.
  For example “I can’t write e books well enough” change it to “How can I write an e book well?”Changing the problem into a “how” question allows your brain to think of solutions rather than make excuses.

  In the above example, I came up with solutions like “I can study some ebooks I have on my hard drive downloaded from great communicators and see how they structure their books.”

  It’s amazing how many different ways you have the solutions inside of you when you search for it.  Try it, write down all you fears and change them into a “how” question.  You’ll be motivated right away to get on with it.

A final note on this:

“Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary line and adding to one’s liberty.”

Henri Frederic Amiel

So keep pressing on guys, don’t let the fear hold you back.  You know deep down you want to make it and it’s only yourself that is holding you back.  Believe in yourself.

Also if there’s anyone who would like some help in this area, please contact me and I would be happy to give you a helping hand.

The great news…………….

The great news is that while I’ve been “offline” for the past couple of months, I’ve been working on my new site and product.

So why is this great news?  It’s because it’s designed specially for online entrepreneurs like yourself with lots of excellent resources from experts that help you “Excel yourself, excel your business, excel your profits”

Here’s the thing.  You are the CEO of your online business, even if it’s only you at this point in time.  You can learn all the best strategies and systems available to make money online, but that doesn’t guarantee any success.

Your business can only be as successful as you are.  Meaning if you want a six figure business, you need a six figure CEO.  If you want a million dollar business, you need a million dollar CEO.

Unless you develop yourself to be a person who makes it happen, your business isn’t going to happen.  Your business success is down to you.  It’s down to your mindset, it’s down to your decisions, it’s down to your management of yourself and your team, it’s down to your actions.

So as you can tell, I’m very excited about the new site and the potential it has to help everyone excel in their online businesses!

Not only that – my fellow MWA students and readers of the IMQuest will be the first to get access to “The 30 Day Excel Method” – FREE.

I’ve been working hard on creating the 30 day excel method that gives online entrepreneurs a step by step fool proof method to boosting your productivity, helping you keep focus and helping you to big profits faster.

I believe that motivation is a good thing.  It gets you going and gives you the little push we all need sometimes, but it doesn’t last.  What we need is a solid framework that allows you to keep productive consistently. That’s what the 30 day excel method is all about.

If you have any thoughts on areas you would like help on, please leave them in the comments, I’ll see if I can include it in the course.

It’s coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s live!

For now, keep pushing on and have a good week

Bailey

This week I had the privilege to interview Celestine Chua, the author of “The Personal Excellence Book”, personal excellence coach and founder of the school of personal excellence.

I really wanted to interview her because her advice had helped me grow my business recently but also because she’s achieved massive growth in her business both offline and online aswell, with a blog following of over 8500 readers.  I always have a lot of respect for individuals who “practice what they preach”.

This is the first interview on The Internet Marketers Quest and I was really excited to have the opportunity to speak to the personal development expert herself.

I really enjoyed the experience and Celes is an absolutely lovely person and a true professional.  It was evident that she lives and breathes her passion and gives the best in all that she does.  It’s no wonder that she’s has grown her coaching business and reader base so fast.

This is an overview of what Celes shared with me during the interview:

- The 4 key things you must do to accelerate your success in your online business.

- Unlock the power of her highly effective goal setting technique that ensures you hit your goals every time.

- Learn how Celes grew her list from 1700 to 8000 subscribers in the space of just 4 months.

- Know what to do if you’re frustrated and disappointed with the lack of progress of your business.

- 2 Simple ways you can keep motivated and focussed when you lose momentum.

- How to manage your time for maximum productivity.

Download the audio interview and read the transcript here

I gained alot in doing the the interview with Celes and I know you will too.  I highly recommend you take your time to take some notes during the interview because she reveals the exact steps she used herself to create her blog and business success in just a year and a half. 

In hind sight, I realised there were many more questions I wanted to ask Celes.  If you have any things you would like to ask or know more about, why not suggest your questions in the comments section below.  Maybe she would be happy to do a second interview……… ;P

Every once in a while you come across someone who makes a significant impression on you.

This opportunity is increased via the internet with the power of social media and web 2.0:  During my experiment with blog hopping, I came to meet many amazing people and their blogs and websites.

In fact, I’ve come across such a diverse and talented group of people that they each deserve a blog post in their own right (and I hope to get round to it soon).  For you who are reading this, I think you already know who you are.  For this particular post, I’d like to share with you my review of an ebook written by Celestine Chua entitled “The Personal Excellence Book:  Your Handbook to live your best life”.

This isn’t a regular review or critique as such, but more an insight on how this book has helped me increase my productivity, overcome barriers and gaining confidence thus boosting my personal and business performance.  In fact, I’ve increased my turnover by 30% in the past two weeks.  By the way, I’m not an affiliate of the book just in case you were wondering…….

So who is Celestine Chua?

Celestine or Celes as she prefers to be called is the founder of The School Of Personal Excellence based in Singapore.  I came across her blog after reading her guest post on a productivity related blog.  What really stood out for me was that I discovered that she had left a high flying career and became self employed and established herself in a personal development business to help others:  Something that I’m aspiring to also.  Not only that, but in a short space of time, she has been able to achieve massive success too, appearing in top media coverage such as CNN as well as building a loyal list of subscribers, taking public speaking appearances, running workshops and doing 1 to 1 coaching.

The Personal Excellence Book

This is her first ebook that she launched at the end of July.  The response was way over her expectation and filled her pre launch quota in an hour.
The book consists of 120 articles in nine categories of personal development:  Purpose & Meaning, Awareness & Growth, Passion & Dreams, Goals & Success, Cultivating Life Transforming Habits, Emotional Mastery, People Skills/Relationships, Maximizing Productivity and Inspirational Quotes.

The content is really for people who are working on improving themselves in matters relating to personal development.  Of course the information can be used in all areas of life and can be applied to your own specific situation or goals.  In fact, I’m going to share with you how I used the information specifically to make improvements in my own business.

Four Key Article Learnings I Used To Boost My Business

“How to break out of recurring patterns in life”

After spending some time to think about my business pursuits in the past few years, I realised that I was falling into a pattern.  I had a tendency to get excited about new opportunities and latest ways to make some money.  These included trading in shares, real estate and many internet courses I purchased and followed.  In the beginning I would always be very motivated about the new course or information I had learned and was committed to working on it.  However, I would often carry it out for a while, see either no results or some results and give up on it when another new opportunity came along.

I knew something had to be done about it.  I had to stop this pattern as it was getting me nowhere and I had to find a way to stick to a plan and complete it.  So I followed Celes’ advice and got to the root cause of this issue and found the solution to address it.  There are seven steps involved and without going into too much detail, these are the steps she recommended:

1. Identify a problem you want to work with
2. List down the 5-10 times you have been in such an incident
3. List down the factors for each incident that lead to the outcome
4. Identify the commonalities across the factors
5. Dig into the cause of the factors
6. Identify steps to address the cause
7. Take action on the steps

In my case I followed the steps and found that the root cause of the problem with me jumping from project to project was due to not having a clear enough plan.  The vague direction I had lead me to become overwhelmed with information overload and caused me to procrastinate.  I therefore made it an imperative part of my business to have a detailed clear plan both short, mid and long term.  I’ve been sticking to this as also advised by my mentor Alex Jeffreys since the launch of my business since April and I’ve accomplished more work in the past few months than in the whole of last year.

Are you a perfectionist?

Celes talks about the problem of perfectionism and has a detailed three part series on how to overcome perfectionism in 8 steps.  I certainly have had this tendency all my life and there were lots of points that made a lot of sense, but in particular these two points helped me tremendously:

1. If you’re spending a lot of time on a particular tasks to make it “perfect”, Ask yourself:  “Does this matter in the bigger scheme of things?”  If not chuck it.  A good way to quickly evaluate if you’re wasting your time and energy on something that isn’t going to give you the most results.
2. Delegate and let go.  I used to have a mindset that made it hard to delegate tasks to other people because I always had the thought: “if you want something done well, do it yourself”.I found it hard to let go because I believed it’s hard for someone to do a task to my exacting requirements.  However I learned that you can’t possibly do everything yourself if you are to grow a successful business you need to learn to delegate so that you’re spend your effort working “on” the business rather than “in” the business. Therefore I’ve been focussing my energy on training an outsourcer I’ve hired rather than spending my energy on doing tasks.  This shift has allowed me to get twice the amount of work done and for this reason alone, I’ve increased my turnover by 30% this month – and that’s just the beginning.

“7 Reasons why you are not getting what you want (and how to address them)”

It’s almost clichéd that the answer to reaching your goals is to have a proper plan.  You may be familiar with the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timeframe) goal setting method.  However, I found that in the past this only helped to a certain degree.  This was because I was missing two more crucial elements which Celes brought my attention to:

• “Do you know clearly what you have to do next to get this moving along?”

This was where I was getting stuck in the past.  I wanted to achieve a goal but I would hit some barriers and not have a clear idea of how to tackle the issue.  Just knowing I just need to spend time to find a solution in a clear manner helps reduce wasting time randomly hoping for the answer.

• “Do you have a review session every week to check on your progress?”

As simple as this seems, I neglected to review the plan I had done!  It’s so obvious now but having a plan without reviewing it is pointless.  Yes, a plan can be measurable but you actually have to make sure you take the time to check on the progress.  Now that I’ve been doing that, it’s been a way to leverage myself in making myself accountable for the week’s work.

Celes uses the ESPER framework for goal setting.

I won’t go into detail here, but if you’re serious about having a powerful plan, go check it out.  I’m a testimony to the success of it.

Some points that the ESPER framework highlighted in knowing how to review your goals and what to do in certain scenarios:

• If you’re not meeting your goal (the desired result) that you’ve set out or the tasks needed to reach the goal despite having a plan = Need to improve your execution.
• If you’re not meeting your goal but meeting the tasks you’ve set = Wrong strategy/plan.  You need to revise the strategy then execute.
• If you meet both your goal and task targets = Remember to reward yourself!

A little reminder for all of us that Seth Goddin talks about is something called “the dip”.  There are times you feel you are doing everything you think should be right but you don’t see the results.  This is known as the dip, but if you can hang on through that phase, the results suddenly come thick and fast.

“Focus on the What, then the How”

Finally, this particular article made a big impact on me because In the past, I held myself back on my goals due to a lack in confidence on the how.  Celes gives a great example on her experience applying for an internship during university.  To make the story brief, Celes managed to gain a place for an internship at a highly sought after company.  There were lots of competition and lots of barriers in the way including being younger and less qualified than other applicants.  Many people would look at the situation and not bother applying freezing up with the thoughts of “how could I do it?”  Instead, Celes used the power of focussing on the what.  i.e Getting the job and letting the “how” take care of itself, not allowing the doubts and fears seep in and stopping her trying.

What a lesson for us all.  I often find this happens when looking at my own internet business.  There seems to be so many other people who are already doing such a good job, how am I going be able to add value in this marketplace?  But I now know that this thinking is limiting myself.  Focussing on the how too much is stopping me going out there and just doing it.

Conclusion

If you haven’t come across Celestine Chua’s blog, I highly recommend you go and check it out.  It’s perfect for those who are looking to grow and develop yourself whether it be in business, personal life and relationships.  The blog itself has a ton of excellent posts that are so useful.

If you’re like me and like to have a handy resource you can keep and use at anytime, then I highly recommend you getting a copy of “The Personal Excellence Book”.  It’s helped me massively and I’m sure it will do the same for you too.

Have a great day!

Create Killer Products that sell themselves and attracts affiliates to sell more for you.  Read on……

This is a known fact in marketing and psychology:

People buy on emotion and justify with logic

It’s true isn’t it.  Why do people go to the supermarket to buy a branded product over the supermarket own brand product when the content is exactly the same?

Even more interesting.  The new Apple iphone 4 was released recently and sales are going strong, despite the well known problems it has including a dodgy antenna!  Yet if another company had released a phone with problems publicized would it’s sales continue to be as strong?

It’s simple.  People are emotionally driven when it comes to consumption.  The combination of appeal, marketing, social proof creates the emotional pre sell already in people’s minds.

So in order to become a better internet marketer, we need to understand the psychology of our customers.  But of course, we want to be ethical aswell and don’t want to exploit this knowledge.  After all, if you use tactics to sell someone a piece of trash, it will come back to you in the future.

Quick aside:  Some people may have been wondering where I have been for the past few weeks.  I was away in Japan having a blast.  But it’s great to be back here and posting again too

Japan is an amazing place.  It’s a melting pot of tradition and technology, dichotomy of consumerism and zen, fast pace and peacefulness.

I experienced both Tokyo and the countyside in Hakone and I was immersed into the culture and living of the people.  What I could see and enjoy allowed me to realize how our business as internet marketers come together.  You see, Japan is famous for it’s many sub cultures with many people being part of a “tribe” or doing what they love.  Some kids love playing Baseball, some girls love Cosplay where they dress up as their favourite Anime characters, my father in law goes to pottery lesssons……and so on.

This allowed me to see many parallels to internet marketing as it is all about niches and groups of people with certain interests.  Real or online groups are still real people, and marketing online of offline is essentially the same thing even if the medium is different.

So back to creating killer products that sell like hot cakes…………………

1. Be a solution

People want to avoid pain.  People want to get a problem solved.  People want a way to do something easier.

So you want to create a solution to people’s problems.  Think:  Pain, Problems, Agitations.

Look deep into your niche market.  What are the pains, problems and agitations that people are going through?  If can create the solution to that, then you have a winner.

As an example, look at the weight loss niche.  What are the pain, problems and agitations?  Well just off the top of my head I can already think of these:

Disappointed as tried to take a diet doesn’t work;  Sad because they can’t fit into the jeans they used to wear before;  self conscious about their appearance when they meet old relative and friends;  Suffering with poor health because of their obesity……….and the list goes on.

Key point:  Be a solution to their pain, problems and agitations and you’ll have a hot product.

p.s  It’s much easier to sell a product that removes a  pain than a product that just gives benefits.

2.  Understand Your Customers By Research

O.k, so you know that you need to create solution.  But how can you find out what their problems are in the first place?

This is a tip I learned from Jay Abraham and something that Rich Schefren (big gurus) do too.  So listen up.  If they think it’s worth doing, it must be worth doing!

They advise going into Amazon and researching the books and products related to you market.  Then read the reviews of the books.  The reviews will tell you a lot about the market you are in.  What language they use, what they like, what they don’t like, what they are looking for.  This piece of advice seems so simple yet it is so effective, so make sure you try it.

Also, another way you can find out more abour your market is by going into the niche forums.  Spend some time just reading the posts and you’ll soon get a picture of what the frustrations are of the people, what their needs are, what their goals are and the inside language they use too.

For example in the internet marketing niche, you can find such forums by typing into google “internet marketing + forum” and you’ll find a list of them such as Warrior, Digital point, Marketing scoop.

If you’re new, just join in and introduce yourself and slowly build relationships.  Don’t go in there and spam the place.  Like my mentor Alex Jeffreys advised:  Don’t pimp your s***!

What’s Next?

So now you’ve done the ground work, you know what direction to head in, you now need to create the actual product.

You have a choice of different modalities i.e. ebooks, videos, audios.  Also, you need to know what content you’re going to put it.  This is a whole topic in itself so stay tuned to my next post where I’ll give you a hand on these things………………

Have a great day!

Bailey

p.s.  If you haven’t already got your copy of the “Behind the scenes of his six figure business” by Alex jeffreys, just enter you email on the right hand side of the blog to learn how it’s done.

I will be taking it off soon and I’m not just saying this as a “hype”.  Seriously.  So grab it before it goes!

Well well, it’s been one hell of a ride so far.

I’ve been absorbing so much information lately it’s like jamming 8 cream crackers into your mouth in one go – without drinking any water.  Not only have I been chewing a lot, I’ve been digesting a lot too.  After digesting a lot, I’ve been………….lets not get into too much detail eh?

It has been a busy time and I’ve had to take a little time out to restructure my business plan now that I’ve got a new team member on board (More on that in another post).

So last week, something quite peculiar happened.

I woke up three days on the run with this weird feeling of fear.

I’m usually quite a good sleeper and get up most mornings quite neutral, so this was quite an interesting experience.

Whilst I got up and made my way to the bathroom, thoughts of self doubt started to creep in my head.  I didn’t know why at the time.  Maybe it was the pressure I’ve been putting on myself with the targets I have set, maybe it was the sheer amount of work I told myself I had to do.

Next thing you know, analysis paralysis kicks in.

I was thinking to myself:  “should I be concentrating on article marketing, or should I create a product now?”   “No, no, I should do some forum posting first and drive some traffic……no, I should email potential JV partners……”

So many things to do, so many routes I could take.  Worst of all, I’m one of those people who always thinks about the pros and cons about everything which makes decision making a hard task.

Thankfully I recognised what was going on here and I knew what I had to do to fix it.  Applying what I’d learned over the years in personal development was the true test of putting a skill into action.

My journey so far

One of the things I have achieved so far in my internet marketing quest is the Alexa ranking of this blog.

I started this blog from scratch in May and now just a little over a month, my ranking is 564,050.  Not bad considering how new this blog is.  There are over 13 million other sites out there in the ranks and I don’t even post that frequently either.

Some of my fellow students have had even better results, so hats off to them.  It’s awesome to see the kind of things that are happening before our eyes.

So I knew I was heading in the right direction and had made good progress, so why the self doubt?  What’s happening?

Comfort zones

One major shift that has happened is that I’ve been writing my plans and taking action to hit the targets.

I’ve probably achieved more in the past two months than I have the past year.  This means CHANGE.

The funny thing about change is that it takes you outside of what you know.  You’re moving from one position to another.  Whether this change is a good thing or not, it doesn’t matter.  You’ve changed positions and are now outside of the comfort zone.

That’s why I was waking up with those feelings of fear.

I’ve been progressing so much in the past month, doing so many new things I didn’t used to do, becoming a more organised and focused business owner that my brain still needed to catch up!  It’s my brain trying to cope with all this change.

Growing your internet business is also growing yourself.  Every time you reach a milestone, you’ve taken a “risk” to get there.  Your brain resists “risks” as a defence mechanism, but it can’t differentiate between actual dangerous risk and perceived risk.

So now I understood what was happening and I needed to deal with this fear and self doubt………..

What Can You Do To Overcome Self Doubt?

These are the three things I did to get rid of those negative thoughts and this is how you can too:

1)       Everyday when you wake up, start the day with gratitude and thanksgiving.  Get up, put your feet on the floor and say thank you!  Give thanks for every little thing you can think of even for the nice underpants you’re wearing if you want.  Do this continuously for at least 5 minutes whilst brushing your teeth, you’ll be amazed at how it helps your whole day.

2)      See how far you’ve come and not how far the gap is between your goal and your reality.  This is how super successful people think.

For example, if your target is to have a list of 10,000 people, and you have 500 people so far, don’t keep thinking that you’re 9,500 short of your target.  Look back and see how far you’ve come from zero to 500, and use that small success to build your confidence to move forward.

3)       If you’re doubting yourself because you don’t have faith in the method that you are going to use, you need to believe first.  I know this seems a little bit “out there” but trust me, this is how the successful people think.  I can understand this dilemma as many people try something a little and don’t get the results they expected and get discouraged.

You’ve heard the phrase “seeing is believing” right?  No, no no.  It’s so wrong.

Believing is seeing. That’s what you need to believe.

For example, if you are doubting that blog commenting can give you a lot of traffic, your mind will give you what you want to see.  Therefore some how you will find ways to justify that your theory is correct, therefore you’ll not attempt to do any blog commenting, get no traffic and reinforce your belief that it doesn’t work.

On the other hand, by believing first, you go out there and try to give it a go, then you see some results.  The results reinforce your belief and you get encouraged to do more and it keeps going up and up!

A tip on believing in a method:  Sometimes it’s good to question whether you should believe in a certain course of action before you do it.  It’s very sensible.  Don’t just follow something blindly.

But if you’re dithering, what I’d like to remind you of here is that if your mentor has told you that something works and he did it with good results which got him to where he is today,  just go ahead and trust that it will work for you too.  Too many questions will make you seize up with analysis paralysis.  Just get out there and do it.  Believe in it, and believe in yourself.

Ok, so that’s that folks.  I know this post sounds a little bit weird for internet marketing, but sometimes it’s so important to get your head round these little things so you can concentrate and put your strategies into action.

Whatever you’re working on now, be it article marketing, blogging, forum posting, product creation, niche marketing, affiliate promotions etc don’t let self doubt stop you.  Nip it in the bud with these three little tips.

Please share with us your experiences, your challenges too!  Love to hear your stories and see if we can help one another.

To your success

Bailey

Last night, I had one of those “a ha!” moments.

One of those times when it all makes sense and something clicks:  I realised exactly how powerful and important it is to belong to my internet marketing community.

Have you ever watched Gladiator the movie?

Well there’s a scene in that film where Maximus (played by Russell Crowe) leads a group of amateur fighters into their first battle into the Collesium.  Obviously those fighters were inexperienced and scared, but he kept telling them something throughout the battle:

“Stick Together!”

Those who did what he said, eventually fought off the enemies.  But those who wondered off by themselves ended up getting slaughtered or eaten by a Lion.

Yes I know it’s a dramatic illustration, but in many ways it reflects real life:  Those internet marketers who try to do it alone very often end up stuck (luckily there are no Lions on the internet), but those who harness the power of “sticking together” have a greater chance of succeeding.

* Now I’ve got a picture of Alex Jeffreys in my head as General Maximus dressed up in gladiator gear with sandals telling his students to “Stick Together!” * LOL.

I’m not sure if my mentor Alex Jeffreys will ever come across this post or blog, but either way, I’d like to thank him because he gave me a whole new perspective on the way I’ve been looking at internet marketing which has allowed me to advance massively.

When I first joined his coaching program, I did so to learn the nuts and bolts of building an online business.  He talked a lot about the power of the forum and the community of other students but I never really gave it much attention.  Little did I know that it was to  become the powerhouse to my progress and success………………

This is what makes a community so powerful:

Community = Common  Unity

People in a community are so called because they have a Common Unity.  They share a common goal or vision that brings them together.

Here are just some of the benefits to belonging to a community:

1. Focus
   When you’re a lone wolf, it can be easy to lose focus on your goals and you can drift off on a tangent.  A community helps you to keep your focus.
2. Understanding
   As an internet marketer, I’ve had times where I’ve found it difficult to talk to people outside of the circle, such as my friends and family about it.
   When they ask me what I do, I try to explain to them but they often have suspicions of this “business” and wonder if it’s some kind of MLM or scam I’m involved in as they’re not accustomed to the idea that you can produce a lot of revenue in a very short space of time.
   The fellow community know specifically what you’re talking about and understand the struggles you face too.  That in itself is a massive help already.
3. Comradery
   You’re on the same journey but we are human and we can have “off” days or lose track.  Sometimes that little bit of a push or encouragement from a friend to say “come on, get yo butt moving faster!” is so needed.
4. Accountability
   Holding one another accountable is a great way to get results fast.  Knowing you said you’d do something to someone makes it harder for you to go back on your word.  Now that’s leveraging your own promises.

You’ll have noticed that the top guys who have massive success in the internet marketing business or any business for that matter understand the power of community and you realise that they are always meeting up and interacting with their community.

That’s how relationships are built and potential joint venture partners created to help each other make money, but that’s another topic in itself.

“So how can you join  a like minded community if you don’t already have one?”

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Read blogs related to your niche.  Just type in “niche keywords” + blog in Google and start joining in the conversations in the blog post comments.  Blog commenting is a way to join that community.
  Infact, Sally Neill has a great post on her blog on how blog comment.  You should check it out.
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• Join forums in your niche.  Just type in “niche keywords” + forum in Google and you’ll find them there.  Go in and be helpful.  Try to share your expertise and join in threads.  Soon you’ll find that people are interested in who you are and they check out your signature link and also talk to you too.
  -
• Get yourself noticed by being genuine and appreciating other people.  Mirko Gosch has a natural gift for appreciating people and encouraging them with his comments.  I recommend you check out his blog, see how he comments to see for yourself.
  -
  Tweet other people’s posts, talk about them in your tweets and blog, you’ll soon get spotted on their radar and it’s the start of a relationship there.

My Personal Experience

The value of a community as I’ve explained above is incredible.

One month ago, this blog didn’t even exist, I didn’t know anybody here.

One month on, you can see in my previous posts how this community has grown and now I’m building relationships, helping each other along in our journeys.

So…………………

I want to give a special thank you for everyone who has contributed to this blog and allowed me the pleasure of getting to know you.  You know who you are ;p and it’s a great honour for me to be part of your community too.

I really appreciate each and everyone of your comments and at the same time learning more about you and what your journey is.

Please share your thoughts about how a community has helped you and anything else related, we’d all love to hear from ya.

Till next time,

Bailey

Want to know the answer?  Well you’re going to have to wait for a minute!  I’ll reveal at the end of the post.  I promise I won’t make this too long……

Sorry if the title seemed like a lame joke.

This post isn’t really about jokes, nor is it about chickens crossing the road being substituted by a person.

What I really want to talk about is something that is quite important for anyone marketing on the internet:

How to write compelling titles for your blog posts, webpages, articles, emails and just about everything else.

Clearly, the internet is an information medium.  If your business is based on the internet, you’re going to have to embrace how this medium works and one thing is very obvious:

It’s all about communication.

People are reading words, watching videos, listening to audio.  It’s all about information being communicated to the reader, and also back the other way as with social media.  So this in itself creates what I call noise.

Everyone is talking about their thing, everyone is blogging, twittering, youtubing, facebook statusing……..it’s noise, noise, noise everywhere!

I don’t know about you, but with all this noise, it’s impossible to have the time to read everything you come across so I do a lot of quick sifting through information.  After all there are literally millions webpages out there in cyberspace.

If the title of a webpage, article or post sounds dull, it’s not going to catch your attention, and if it can’t attract attention, you won’t get much traffic.

Ultimately, if you want more traffic, you’ll want people to be reading your posts, so you need to catch their attention first!

Just before I dive into “how” to create titles that attract attention, I’ll let you into a little secret.

You may not have even noticed this reading this post or my other blog posts.  Or maybe you have!  But…….

I’ve never been a good writer.

I’m still a slow writer and I’m no expert by any means.  I’ve had to learn this skill.  I’m getting better, but learning everyday.

Infact, at school I used to try to avoid subjects that included doing a lot of writing, so I excelled at Maths and Sciences, regularly getting top grades for those subjects.

In college where I could choose what to study, so I chose Maths, further maths, Chemistry and Physics.  I really wanted to avoid writing essays!

But no matter how much I wanted to avoid writing, I knew I had to develop this part of me because it’s obvious that to be successful in an online business, you’re gonna have to learn to communicate well!  There’s no way round it.  Even if you outsource all your writing, you still need to communicate well with your outsourcer to tell them how to write good headlines!

So without  any more noise from me about the importance of good headlines, here are some tips to get your creative juices going and allow you to grab ATTENTION to your work!

Headline Attention Tips

• Use something surprising in your header.  People always love an underdog story.
  For example, My business mentor Alex Jeffreys told me last night how he used a headline similar to this to promote himself:

  “A dyslexic unemployed construction worker becomes world known business coach building several million dollar companies”

• Create curiosity like this blog post title.  You could ask a question, write a cliche and turn it upside down;  Use current events and link it with what you want to say.For example:  “Why the world cup is crap and how I made a million dollars from this rap….”

  And that just came off the top of my head!  (I impressed myself there!…….I know, how sad.)  But you know what I’m getting at right?

• How to’s are always good, but add some emotion and excitement into it and try to add some major benefit at the end.E.g  “How to write  incredibily compelling blog titles in twenty seconds or less”
  “How to drive insane amounts of traffic to your blog in three easy steps.”

Here are some structure tips

• Use lists: E.g 10 easy ways to cook chicken, 5 quick methods to cook chicken, 4 killer strategies to catch wild chicken, etc.
• Use negative lists: E.g 5 mistakes every chess player should avoid, Top ten things to avoid saying on your first date, etc.
• Use Quiz style: “How much of a Trekkie are you?  Take the test and find out.”
  
• Use story style: “Parrot trainer reveals his secrets methods to getting Polly talking like Ben Stiller.”

Here are some Development tips

• Get ideas by reading headlines from social bookmarks like Digg and Stumbleupon.  Check out Ezinearticles too.  You’ll get to see many cool headlines there.
• Read headlines from emails you get from the gurus.  See how they write their subject lines and which ones make you click on them.
• Practise, practise, practise.  Don’t worry about being crazy.  Just mix everything and anything up and see what happens.  Do it when you’re waiting for the bus or on the toilet……you’ll be surprised how time flies when you’re having fun!

Some blogs that have great titles

• Brandon Connell @brandonconnell.com He has so many posts in so many different categories you’ll learn how to write for different topics.
• Alex Whalley @Alexwhalley.com His writing style is so natural and effortless, learn how to grace compelling titles and engage your personality in the whole post too.
• Hector J Cuevas @hectorjcuevas.com Simple titles, yet informative and lets you know exactly what to expect with the curiosity factor.

The ideas mentioned above are by no means exhaustive, but it’ll give you some ideas to get you going if you ever get stuck.

If you have any ideas on writing good headlines and titles, please share your good stuff in the comments below!  It’s great so share ideas

Ok………………………………….

So back to the very first question.  Do you want to find out why the internet marketer crossed the road?

Answer:

“Because he opted in to see what was free report was on the other side!”

Next Question For You

“Why did the internet marketer then cross back to the other side of the road again?”

If you want to find out, just put your email address in the form below and I’ll send you the answer straight away

You’re curious aren’t ya?  Go on, enter your email and I’ll tell ya!

Lets succeed together,

Bailey

Hey there,

I’ve had the privilege to meet so many great people so far on this internet marketing quest it’s been amazing.

Infact, when I first started out, I never expected to be able to connect and join such a cool community of people.  It’s been more than a bonus, it’s turned into something much much more than just business.  It’s a complete blessing!

So please feel free to use this space to let the community know about who you are, what you do, where you’re heading and please share something you think can inspire, encourage or help others too.  It’s great to connect with you.

Lets succeed together,

Bailey

Not to these guys here by the way!

If you want to increase traffic to your blog, make sure you read on because I just discovered what brilliant blog commenting is about.

You see, for the past 5 days, I haven’t had a night where I’ve been to bed before 2am.

I’m not an insomniac and no, I haven’t been staying up watching any “late night movies” either!  Its all because I’ve been thrown into the deep end and trying to master the art of blog commenting (or oil rig hopping as Alex Jeffreys calls it).

I’m a sucker for being a perfectionist and this has lead me down the path of discovering and learning a lot fast.  My curiosity has made me stay up late into the night reading blog after blog, opening my eyes to this new world, whilst sipping my favourite night time drink: Ovaltine.  Infact, its still a favourite even in the day time!

Last week, I wrote a post entitled “Hidden pitfalls of blog commenting and why you need a SLAP” which gives an overview on how to plan your blog commenting sessions.  Today we look into the actual commenting itself and how the best guys do it.

Most people know that blog commenting is a way to get more visitors to your blog.  But it has other advantages too.

For example, people often overlook that it is a way to build relationships with the blog owner and readers alike; it gets your personality, your “brand” out there; Even more cool, the seed of future JV partners can start from some simple blog comments, which is priceless.

Here’s an important note before I get into the details.  It’s important because so many people get this wrong from the start and wonder why they don’t have any results.

Blog commenting only works if you start from the place of giving.

If you don’t remember anything else you read of this post, remember that point and you’re gonna do great things.  Its all about giving guys!

Here goes, pay attention to these points and these guys and you’ll be a brilliant blog comment star:

1. Dont be a comment sucker.  By that, I mean don’t be one of those classic one liner posters that say “great post.  see ya.” which in blogosphere speak stands for “please click my link to my site with no content cos I want traffic to my site pretty please!”.  No, not cool.Instead, post things that are useful, add your experience, your angle, ask questions, give feedback.

   You need to learn how to do it the right way.  I’d recommend you read “Blog commenting battle axe style” an excellent post by Alex Whalley.  He gives an excellent analogy of a blog being a house.  I couldn’t put it any better myself, so just read his post and learn how to blog comment the best way.

2. Comment from a genuine heart and give freely.  Do it consistently and it will come back to you in abundance.  If you only comment on someone’s blog if they did it for you, you’re really limiting yourself in a big way.  Go out there and be the first to give to someone’s blog but don’t expect that they will return the favour, as that is against the value of giving.A person who is a great example of genuine giving first and consistent action is Sally Neill.  She also wrote a great post entitled “Increasing Blog Traffic By Planting seeds” that demonstrates the power and potential in our efforts to drive traffic, and how we should not despair if you don’t see “instant” results from your efforts.  I know that I learned a lot from her attitude, so go check out her post.
3. Be personal when writing comments.  Don’t be afraid to show you’re human.  Interact with the person you are commenting on and don’t put up a mask.  A person who engages effortlessly and so naturally is Nathan Rufus.  Go see his blog and learn from a natural.  You’ll see why this guy puts a smile on so many people’s faces.

A little tip for you is this.  Keep an eye out for up and coming blogs.  Infact, Alex Whalley shared this with me.  the top blogs out there may have lots of traffic, but there’s so many people comment on each post that you can get lost in the swarm of comments.  Up and coming blogs have owners who are usually more responsive and you can get your voice heard easier.

My final thought before letting you go wild blog commenting:

Think of blog commenting as “blog asseting”.  Whilst you are reading a post and commenting, think about blog asseting.

Why?  Because an asset is something that has value, something that generates more.

When you go blog asseting, you do something that’s of worth for:

1. The readers
2. The blog owner
3. For you

So everyone is a winner!  The readers read something useful, the blog owner can increase their interactivity and make friends, you get more traffic and make more friends too.

Happy blog asseting!

p.s.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and what kind of results you have had from blog commenting.  Any tips you’d  give to improve the experience too?

Lets succeed together,

Bailey

I’m going to let you into a secret.  I’ve never shared anything so personal for people to know on the internet before.  So as you read this, you’re getting a glimpse into my life and what I went through the past two days.

This isn’t about my crappy spelling.  Yes, last time I played scrabble I thought I had got a great word up on the board “Loney”.  I was immediately corrected by my fellow players that infact it is spelt “Lonely”.  They were so amused they took a photo of it and posted it on facebook!

The past month has been a big buzz of excitement being on Alex’s coaching program.  Soaking up teachings, feeling the energy and enthusiasm of heading into a new direction and planning ahead for the future dreams.  Then two days ago, I hit a barrier.  As I read other blogs, spent the time catching up on the whole weeks worth of training on traffic methods, I got completely overwhelmed and had a sense of losing control of this plan I had created of making it big online.

A mix of different thoughts entered my head.  I felt a big pressure on myself that I wasn’t able to do what I set out to do, I felt lonely, so much to do yet so little time, maybe I’m just not cut out to have an online business, I can’t seem to meet the goals I set out for myself, maybe I’m aiming too high…………..

So finally, I decided enough is enough and used what I have learned in my life to sort this out!

The following is what I started doing yesterday and its been working a treat.  Hope it helps you too.

1.  Don’t try to do everything at once

Yes, we sometimes learn a lot of information and feel we should be using it as the guru tells us it’s a “must do” thing.  For example, we learned at least nine different ways to generate traffic to our blogs.  How do we do everything?

Let me ask you a question.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.  Thats what they say right?

(One time, I had to ask myself “How do you eat a Japanese breakfast?” when I was over there a few months back.  The answer is the same.  One bite at a time)

You know about planning.  You know about the need to chunk everything down.  So if you learn a ton of things you want to implement, simply organise and chunk them into your schedule.  Don’t think about doing it all in one go, it will only cause you to be counterproductive.

I know, I know you wish you could type at the speed of a bullet and do 200 forum postings in one session and still have time to catch the latest episode of Lost on TV, but in reality it ain’t going to happen.  So spread it out and do a more realistic target per day.

2.  Don’t compare.  Learn and gain inspiration.

When you see other people’s blogs and the work they are doing, it can inspire you and you really want to congratulate them, so you give them a cool comment.

On the other hand, you may feel some inadequacy about your own blog or site.

Therefore remember this.  Everyone is unique.  Some people have more experience than you to start with.  They might have more technical know how, they might have already been on Twitter years before you, that’s why they have 10,000 followers and you have 20.

Whatever the differences, don’t compare.  Get inspired and be thankful for the cool things you have learned from others and use it to help you improve on your site for the future.  If you want 800 comments on your blog post like Alex, keep up the work and you’ll get there eventually.

3.  Believe in yourself.

Trust me, you have a lot to give.  People have so much potential inside of them they don’t even realise.

I remember when I was young, I had swimming lessons and my instructor told me I was ready to do my 25 meter award.  This is basically one length of the big swimming pool.  Now all this time, I had had lessons in the small pool, but had never ventured in the big pool.  The big pool was so scary to me that the instructor had to throw me in as I was clinging onto her as I was too afraid to go in.  Eventually, I got the big pool and swam my first full length and got my 25 meter award.

I really didn’t think I could do it at the time, but in reality I had the potential to do it.

If you believe you can do it, you can!

Use this little exercise to help you. This is what I learned from my NLP training.

If you think of a sentence that goes:  “I can’t do xxxxxxx” (For example “I can’t seem to get traffic to my blog”)

Reframe the question to:  “How can I xxxxxxxx” (For example “How can I get traffic to my blog?”)

You can reframe any question that limits yourself to a how question.  If you think “can’t”, remember to think “how”.

Ok so there goes.  Three simple strategies to get you back on track on your internet marketing quest whenever you feel overwhelmed.

P.s anybody out there who wants to connect if you are finding it hard, just let me know.  It’s good to help each other out