This is where reputation management comes in. There is a HUGE market emerging as people go online to read reviews about local businesses, often comparing what they read about each business and making decision. Almost everyone has planned a vacation before and read reviews of hotels, restaurants, travel companies etc. People research every single purchasing decision becuase it’s quick fast and safe.

If there are a lot of negative reviews, or bad press it can literally bankrupt a business so your reptuation is everything.

People will pay big bucks to protect their ‘brand’. Just look what happened to Toni Bennet as reported by the BBC and MSNBC. In short, someone posted a Google review about his computer repair business making wild accusations (read for yourself).  He lost 80% of his local business because that review was up online.

There are countless other places people can leave reviews, comments, social media, everyone has a voice (and not always a good one). Imagine situations where you can help a local business save 80% of their business, that’s worth a lot of money to them and to you!

What is Rep Mogul

Here is my Repmogul review.  Rep Mogul is a step-by-step system that teaches you how to make over $300/hour (or more) as an online reputation manager.

In this training program is 8 individual modules. Each module has a video lesson, audio lesson, as well as PDF transcripts if you prefer reading to listening. The amount of templates and checklists provided is unreal. Actually some might say a bit too much, but others I’m sure would be thrilled at having the farm given to them.

• Module 1 – Overview of online reputation management
• Module 2 – Understanding SEO
• Module 3 – How reputation management works
• Module 4 – How to get high-paying clients and how to spot businesses you want to avoid
• Module 5 – Research and content creation + how to get others to do this work for you.
• Module 6 – Distribution Channels
• Module 7 – How to make money with this by “Going Local”
• Module 8 – Scaling up your growing reputation management business.

Also included is 4 weeks of coaching and Q&A sessions to help you go through the material and understand it. You won’t be left by yourself if you want the help.

Also available (optionally) is a killer suite of software for developed specifically for your Reptutation Management Business. Two of which I think are quite awesome. Gold Digger and Buzz Cut. Link bounder look good but it’s nothing revolutionary compared to some of the other link building tools on the market.

Gold Digger is to help you find potential clients. All you do is put markets you’re comfortable with into the tool and tell it whether you want local results (or global) and you get an entire list of potential clients back.

Buzz Cut is a business by itself. Companies charge $50 – $100 per month for simple reports that let a business know when they have been talked about online. This software automates the entire process for you and gives you a gorgeous report you can provide to any of your clients.

Pulling data from Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, Myspace, and blogs, you get truly complete information to provide to any of your customers. You can even add your own log into each report! Use Buzz Cut to give you the opportunity to upgrade your clients from a lower level of service to a more expensive package.

You can try Rep Mogul out RISK FREE for 60-days. That’s two months for you to see for yourself that you can become a highly paid reptuation manager.

What To Do Next

Click over and watch the video and see just for yourself the opportunity that exists and how you can with the help of repmogul become an online reputation manager.

Rep Mogul Bonus

You can also get a free copy of Local Video Method v2.0.  The number one client getting method for approaching local businesses offering your services, this can be your reputation management business.  It’s the perfect complimentary tool that gives  you a start to finish solution from research clients, approaching clients, helping clients and collecting checks!   Simply purchase RepMogul through the link below and submit your receipt to http://www.devcourthelp.com and you will receieve immediate access (for free) to Local Video Method v2.0.

Rep Mogul Review & Bonus is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. James Schramko’s Silver Circle Review + Bonus
2. Traffic Grab Review & Bonus
3. Mobile Local Fusion Review

There is a short list of core techniques that you can use to easily do SEO for local business websites in your town or city. Naturally the size of the city/town and ultimately market will determine how difficult or easy it will be but there are markets all over the place with easy pickings.

Don’t think you’re market is big enough?  There aren’t too many people that don’t have access to a computer to do research.  People research from their mobile, their house and if they don’t have either of those they have their place of business where so many people love to do non-business research.  :)

In this interview Samuel Junghenn is an SEO expert from Australia that focuses almost entirely on the local business market.  Learn some great tips about what to worry about, there are only about 4 things the majority of sites need to worry about in the local market in order to rank a site.

Sam covers some of the following:

• 4 Key points to worry about, focus on those 4 for 80% of your results
• The often overlooked links that play a big roll in your SEO (they’re free too)
• What a typical local business site misses out on that you can overcome and get a massive advantage on them.
• How to get backlinks without using an expensive monthly service (pay as you go!)
• What to avoid so you don’t get slapped by Google, yes it even happens to local businesses.

Want to learn all about SEO yourself without breaking the bank?  Sams amazing program SEO Mumbo will give you more than you can imagine.

Looking for ways to get links to your website and don’t know how?  Sam’s iGotLink Linkbuilding service is the perfect solution, no monthly commitments, fast, affordable, and powerful!

SEO For Local Business is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. Referral Business From Networking Events
2. Internet Marketing Tips For Facebook And Local Businesses
3. Link Building With Comment Luv

Google Maps

I’ve written up about Google Places/Maps before.  This is a huge market right now and Google is paying very close attention and putting a lot of resources into this particular area.  There has been a big shift in the way Google Places listings are displayed on the Google search results, but more importantly there is a massive social shift in the way people are finding local businesses.   The amount of people who using their mobile device and specifically Google maps to find a local business is rising at an alarming rate.  Local businesses are struggling without it and the ones who are in the ‘know’ are reaping the rewards.   Eric Schmidt the President of Google has this to say about the mobile landscape:

There are currently about 3.2 billion mobile subscribers in the world, and that number is expected to grow by at least a billion in the next few years. Today, mobile phones are more prevalent than cars (about 800 million registered vehicles in the world) and credit cards (only 1.4 billion of those). While it took 100 years for land-line phones to spread to more than 80% of the countries in the world, their wireless descendants did it in 16. …and fewer teens are wearing watches now because they use their phones to tell time instead. So it’s safe to say that the mobile phone may be the most prolific consumer product ever invented. – Eric Schmidt.

The iPhone, Blackberry, Android all allow easy searching on the spot to find local businesses through Google Maps (displaying Google Places listings).  Experts predict 80-90% of people will be DEPENDENT on mobile maps in the next 24 months.

QR Codes

Have you ever heard of a QR code (pictures on the right)?  Have you ever seen a QR code?  If you haven’t you will start seeing them in more and more places.  You’ll seem them on traditional advertising media (sides of buses, ads in bars, restaurants, business cards, boarding passes, flyers, brochures, etc.).  Soon almost every business and person will have one or more of these codes.

Go ahead and scan that code with your phone (iPhone, plenty of QR code readers) it will automatically take you to a URL I chose.

Places Listings

Google has created roughly 49 million+ Places listings for local businesses.  Almost 9 out of 10 of these go unclaimed.  Meaning they are not optimized nor have any information filled in besides the address (which could be incorrect) and the business name.  The Places listing allows you to go far beyond that information, providing detailed hours of operation, pictures, videos, services offered, coupons, reviews, citations, and much more.

Just like a regular Google search result these get ranked in Google when people do local searches (searches that include a locality identifier like “toronto” or someone uses the mobile maps application on Android, iPhone or Blackberrys).

This does not require high prices to develop new websites or redesign existing websites.  These are hosted by Google so these local businesses don’t even need an existing website, nor one in the future!   They can get on the front page of Google with an optimized Google Places listing during the most important searches, the local ones!

Mobile Local Fusion

Mobile Local Fusion is a complete training program to walk  you through and train you to become a ‘smart-agent’.  In 30 days or less you can become the smart agent that gets paid $500-$2500 upfront to educate and implement these mobile technologies.

This isn’t your typical “local” marketing, without mobile there is no local.  When you fuse the two together, magic happens for your local clients.  Suddenly they are head and shoulders above their competitors.   Imagine being able to say “I work to connect local businesses and Google together” cool huh?

MLF Review

Now enough about what it does, lets get to the details about what you’re going to get.  I’ve gone through the content and want to share exactly what you’re going to get with this program and whether I think it’s a valuable and worthwhile investment.  There are 9 modules plus a bonus module.  They have really covered everything in order for someone to get started from scratch, and provides all the resources you’ll need.

Laura and Ryan have put together a great package, showing examples of the work they have done in various modules, this isn’t just fluff and theory, this is factual stuff they have done and you can too!  Go watch the video sales letter at the 15:30 mark, it goes into great detail about each module and the topics covered.

MLF Downloads

I haven’t even mentioned yet the huge list of resources available to download for each individual module, with some nuggets such as:

• How to setup a client
• The client questionaire
• How to get reviews
• Lists of providers for things like SMS, call tracking etc.
• Daily report templates
• Example hiring agreements
• Sample job listings
• + more!!

Summary

I’d love to say I have something negative to say about it, just to keep this more authentic but I don’t really know what to say.  ONE thing I will say is the outsourcing module is nothing ground breaking or new.  All that is discussed is the current popular websites for finding outsource workers to do task based work and using project management like Basecamp to keep track of them.  No quick easy ways to get around outsourcing.  As well,  some of the videos are a little on the low quality side (visually; for my standards), but that’s about all.

This will work anywhere, people are searching for local businesses all over the world, and using mobile phones to do it.   This product covers everything you could ask from end to end.  I know they’ve tossed in some weekly coaching calls from Laura (limited availability).  This product should easily be $997 when I see what they offer and what others charge for similar stuff.   It’s packaged nicely laid out clearly, explained in detail with downloads and real samples.

The module on Getting New Clients is probably one of THE best modules in the course.  It also tackles the biggest problem people face while doing offline consulting.  Some great strategies (several) for going about getting your FIRST client, and how to manage their expectations.  The conversational sale, what not to say and how to close without closing.

Mobile Local  Fusion Bonus

As a small incentive (not that you should need one by now).  I’m offering my Local Video Method as a bonus to anyone who purchases Mobile Local Fusion through this link here.

Local Video Method v2.0 is a full solution to the BIGGEST problem in in the offline consulting niche and that’s GETTING clients.  This is literally the easiest method on the planet to get new clients.  Combine this method with all the training from Mobile Local Fusion and you are unstoppable.  That’s a $297 real value (not some made up “here is $2000 made up number bonus) bonus free to you if you purchase Mobile Local Fusion through my link below.

Simply submit your receipt to my support desk and you will receive access.  LVM is a great compliment to Mobile Local Fusion, incorporating as many methods as possible to acquire new clients will guarantee your success.

Local Video Method is a marketing method incorporating powerful videos to help sell your services to local businesses.  They are bombarded with direct mail, cold calls, and such and this new method is welcoming, to them and creates a great relationship before you even speak with them. Learn how to get clients who remember you even after 3 months go by, they give you referrals even if you haven’t worked with them, it’s unreal how powerful this method is and how well it will position you.

Don’t try and market your business the same way every other business on the planet does.  You’ll simply go ignored like all the rest, stand out from the crowd and have your marketing noticed!

Here is just a few things included in Local Video Method

1. Where to find prospects
2. What makes a good prospect
3. Step-By-Step (Mac & Windows) instructions to create POWERFUL videos to send them.
4. How to host your videos
5. How to get past the gate keeper!
6. Email templates, presentation templates, sample contracts
7. + more

Direct order link

If you’ve found this post helpful, please click one of the share buttons on the left, tweet it, like it, or +1 it, would very much appreciate it.

You may recognize the theme used on the Mobile Local  Fusion website, it’s the extremely popular OptimizePress

Read my RepMogul Review, maybe reputation management is your calling.

Mobile Local Fusion Review is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. Google’s Calling You!
2. Rep Mogul Review & Bonus
3. Traffic Grab Review & Bonus

In a recent interview The 6-Figure Offline Consulting Turning Point James Reynolds spoke very highly of the local business networking events he attends.  He gets a lot of referral business from them on a regular basis and has now become apart of the administration of the event!

Janna Jungclaus has become a real go to expert when it comes to business networking events.  So much so that at the moment she has to turn business away because she is too busy (and admits she needs to scale her business in order to take on more clients).

Janna was very shy at first, she had tried several different methods of trying to market her services but finally took the plunge and went to a networking event.

If you’ve ever gone to one, you’ll know  you can certainly waste time and do nothing but collect cards.  Maybe you’re at the wrong type of event, or maybe you have the wrong strategy while there.

Janna has pieced it all together and shares her tips for how to successful leverage business networking events as a lead source, an amazing lead source that once tapped just keeps pouring.

Janna explains:

• Why Janna decided to bite the bullet with networking.
• How to pick a good event and what to look for.
• How to overcome your fear of speaking, talking at networking events.
• How much work you will have to do in order to reap the rewards.
• What you need to prepare before you showup, don’t just think you can go and ‘wing’ it.

Janna is the author of Networking Goldmine, a thorough resource for anyone wanting to dive in and tap into a huge potential lead source.   If you’ve tried before and thought it was a waste of time, or if you’re a little nervous, listen to Janna in this interview, listen to James in the previous one, this is a huge source and you should NOT ignore it.

If you have any questions for Janna, please post them in the comments and she will be happy to answer them for you!

Referral Business From Networking Events is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. Referral Systems and Why You Need One
2. SEO For Local Business
3. 6-Figure Offline Consulting Turning Point

James had a ‘regular’ job in the photography business, made good money and was about to become partner in the company he was working for.  But he got the bug, the IM bug and turned down a lucrative offer and went his own way!

In this interview James outlines how he started out and some important questions answered:

• Why James chose this business model.
• How James got his first consulting client.
• What James started offering his consulting clients in the beginning.

There is a real key piece that James talks about, the turning point where his business really started to grow and his top source of where he gets business from!

Take a listen to see key change in his strategy that resulted in huge growth and onto his 6-figures in less than 1 year!

6-Figure Offline Consulting Turning Point is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. Referral Business From Networking Events
2. Website Video Reviews For Local Offline Businesses
3. [Interview] Facebook Ads (PPC) Strategies

I’ve done several of them now, where the webinar itself really was nothing but education (no selling) and then others where its a combination of education and something to sell.  Here is how you can literally make big cash using Webinars.

What Is A Webinar

Just to put everyone on a level playing field, lets talk about what a basic webinar is.  Most webinars I’ve seen (where it’s LIVE, not talking about these recorded ones) are all run through GotoWebinar.  They can host up to 1000 people on a webinar.

Several other companies exist offering similar services, but GotoWebinar seems to be one of the most popular.

Attendees are typically invited through an email invitation sent out by the host or promoters of the webinar.   You sign up, and will get reminders along with a link  to join the webinar during the scheduled time.

Most webinars are Voice over IP, meaning you will hear the host(s) speaking through your computer speakers, and you won’t have the ability to speak.  You will be able to communicate to the hosts and ask questions to the host through a ‘question’ panel within the gotowebinar application.  Now GotoWebinar does allow you to speak in your microphone but most webinars aren’t setup that way as there are too many people to have everyone talking.

The host will share their screen which will likely be a slide presentation, or sometimes doing live demonstrations from their screen, but it’s unlikely any video (of the hosts) is involved, just screen sharing.

Attendees get the opportunity to ask questions throughout if the hosts are going to be taking questions, or more often they’ll leave a Q&A session near the end to answer any questions.

How To Make Money With Webinars

Webinars are a great way to make money online, because you have the attendees attention and ability to connect with them as they’ve shown interest.  Most successful webinars that I’ve participated in involve educating the attendees on a particular topic.

Don’t kid yourself though, it’s all sellling, education too.  Careful planning goes into the slides, creating open loops and selling while educating at the same time.

You will find most people will arrange something special for the webinar attendees to purchase at the end, it could be a special ‘bonus’ to the first X amount of people or a discounted price too.  But whatever the additional benefit is, it’s only available to those on the webinar and when the webinar is over, if you choose to not take the hosts up on their offer, you won’t have access to it again.

It’s kind of like free coaching, it does depend on who is putting the webinar on.  I have been on plenty where they give almost nothing in terms of value, or education.  I prefer to go with providing value, so whomever attended, if they decided not to buy they still came out with some sort of additional knowledge they can use beyond what the ‘offer’ was about.

I’ve heard of people selling $100,000 of webinars, now that would be friggin amazing, but I haven’t reached such a level (yet).

Joint Venture Webinars

I’ve done approximately 7 or so webinars for Local Video Method over the last 8 months, which were purely presenting information, doing some Q&A, and I didn’t have a single thing to offer in terms of ‘selling’, just straght up information.

As part of the launch for Local Video Method v2.0 I wanted to reach out to some new audiences.   So what I did is put some time and effort into preparing a good webinar that educates and sells at the same time.  This webinar is about offline consulting, getting clients, marketing yourself etc, and also talks about the actual process of video reviews as a lead gen, which is what LVM is.

Now people who want to try it themselves, CAN, but if they want to learn how to do it the quicker way, they can purchase.  So the webinar provides great value and information, and an offer at the same time.

Now you can go around to people who have lists of what you would consider potential buyers.  So for me, I’m going to to try and reach out (via Skype, email, VIDEO!) and talk to people who are also in the same niche (offline consulting).

I’ve now got a prepared webinar, they just have to promote the webinar.  We’ll do it together (I do most of the talking) and then any sales from that webinar are split typically 50/50 (joint venture).

This has worked tremendously well, I’ve done two JV’s for LVM 2.0 in the last month or so totalling just over $17,000 and I have more to come!   That’s not a lot compared to some other big names, but it’s a great start and the numbers are outstanding.  1 webinar converting at 30% with an earnings per click of over $12.00!

So I can approach people now with numbers, a complete ‘package’ and all they have to do is promote it and cash in.   They get to provide a high quality product (if I do say so myself) which makes them look good for the recommendation, they have some money in their pocket as do I, and I now have some new clients.

They’re a fantastic way to quickly build a list and to get cash and build relationships as they bring a flood of traffic very quickly.  I have something to offer and the JV partner has the list!

Webinar Leverage

Most of the time webinars will be recorded and used later down the road which is a great leverage strategy for the webinar itself.  You can send out replays to your list to help drive more sales (for those that couldn’t make it, forgot, or never got the invite).   You can also use the video and cut it up, allowing you to create several videos from one.

I could upload those to Youtube and optimize those for some keywords I’d like to target, driving traffic back to my sales page.  I’ve personallly used it as part of the premium content within the Local Video Method membership as a value add.  Anyone who purchases Local Video Method has access to the webinar library.

I’ve also created a 6 part video series in my autoresponder, thats spread out over two weeks and provides free training to those on my list whom have never purchased Local Video Method.  It gives them a taste of what the full package is all about.

You can easily schedule several webinars in a week.  That will take some coordination but it’s more than possible, each webinar really takes about 2 or so hours to deliver and some admin work on the side to set it up, promote it, but it’s hardly a full days work.

I’m sure there are many more ways to leverage them, but this is how I’ve leveraged my webinar recordings.

Webinar Tips

Here are some tips for you if you’re deciding to run a webinar.

1. Schedule it out about 1 week out, with all the timezones, weekends etc.  give people the opportunity to read your invitation and sign up.
2. Schedule a 24 hour reminder and a 2 hour reminder email to go out (I use AWeber)
3. Close any programs that may pop-up or interfere with your screen, you’re going to be sharing it with hundreds of people!  :)
4. If you’re going to show your browser, please clear your history to avoid anything embarassing appearing in your recording and to your attendees.
5. Test everything 15 minutes before hand, then sit and wait.  You’d be surprised at the tiny things that’ll mess up right before you’re suppose to start.
6. Start on-time, respect the time of those who showed up on time!
7. Record every webinar, you can always get rid of it afterwards, but if you don’t record it and want it, you’ll be out of luck.  You can use Camtasia or Screenflow to record the webinar (including audio/video).
8. Try to keep the background noise to a minimum, interruptions can make it more ‘human’ but to a minimum.
9. You may say this goes without saying, but whatever you do, don’t say anything bad or derogatory about the attendees or anyone or anything while on the webinar, even if you think you’ve hit mute or it’s not on.   The only way to be certain it’s not on is Goto Webinar is closed!   Many people have been burned by thinking it’s off-air mean while they’re voice is still being heard by all the attendees.
10. I like to have nice presentations, that’s just me, some images and so on keep what is a semi-boring event (no video etc) a little more interested and engaging.
11. Like most presentations, keep your list of bullet points on your slides to a minimum (per slide).
12. You will not be given a list of email addresses of attendees to easily use.  I highly recommend implementing some tool (such as this one) to sign people up to your email list AND the webinar.  When you’re on the webinar, and you promise to send people something, if you don’t have them on a list, that will be very difficult if not impossible.  There is no easy way to get your webinar attendee email addresses to your auto-responder afterwards.
13. When speaking, speak slowly, and vary your tone, again helps keep it from sounding boring
14. Promote your registration page as much as possible and those of you who want to do JV’s, you can setup an affiliate link for an affiliate to land on the registration page.  That way any traffic they send to their affiliate link will go to the webinar registration page and track the purchase to them!  Gives them a great incentive to promote your webinar!
15. Don’t forget that you’re selling, so remember to show value, create open loops, close them, keep them enticed and when you’re ready don’t be afraid to make the pitch.  Some people say talk about the pitch early, others say wait till later, that will depend on your audience (from my experience).  Ask your JV partner how their list has been groomed with previous webinars.
16. Don’t panic if you forgot to hit record in the midset of starting your webinar.   Send out an email to those who attended and I bet you someone recorded it for themselves and would be happy to provide you with a copy.  (can you tell that happened to me?)
17. If you find this list useful, please hit the like button and share it on facebook for anyone else interesting in running their own webinars!

That should give you a good start.  The first one is always a little nerve racking, but just get it over with and move onto the next one, they only get better each time you do them, and you won’t even worry from that point.

Don’t worry about the questions that come through Q&A, you don’t have to answer everyones question, it’s up to you what you respond to (questions are only visible to the admins).

So if you have an offer, put together a great webinar and go find people who have the customers you would like to be in front of and propose something.  A mentor of mine once told me (when I was basically making excuses about not apporaching someone) “if you don’t ask, the answer is already no”.   So get out there!   I am actively working on this myself, it’s about relationships, asking for a little help, talking to people etc.   But you can make a lot of money doing JV webinars and getting to a wider audience, not to mention just doing your own webinars to your own list if you have one.

Happy Educating!

PS.  If you have any questions about webinars or, what I’ve done, please post a question in the comments below and I’d be happy to answer them.

How To Make Money With Webinars is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. How To Run A Webinar
2. Website Video Reviews For Local Offline Businesses
3. Password Protecting With 1Password

To make a simpler analogy, most people are familiar with Universal Product codes (known as UPC codes).  Everything you buy at the grocery store (and almost any store these days) has one of those that the cashier will scan.  The computer then immediately knows what the product is based on the code that it picked up.

Does anyone remember the days of grocery shopping and the cashier had to punch in the prices and codes for every single item you purchased.  They had to memorize most of these in their head and if they forgot?  They had to pickup the loud phone, make an announcement in the store asking for someone in that department to help them out.

Think of QR codes as UPC codes but instead they’re used in a much broader spectrum, not just to ‘identify’ products but to convey ‘information’ of some kind.

Basic QR Code Usage

The most basic (and popular use) of QR codes is to display website information (a website address).   Lets say you’re at a trade show and you’re walking by my booth.  You want to find out more information about my company, so you open up your phone and start fumbling away trying to type in some long URL (that is on my display) into your browser, and off you go.

The other option would be for me to display a QR code (on my display), you take your phone and scan it just like cashiers scan items at the grocery store, and your phone automatically starts loading my website, how is that for convenience?

What about billboards outside on the street, or bus shelters while waiting for public transportation.  You can place these little codes anywhere.  People with free scanners on their phones (iPhones, BlackBerrys, Androids, Nokia, etc.) can quickly scan the QR code and find out more information, like opening up a website.

Whole Foods Market (popular in the US/Canada) uses these in their stores.  I was recently sitting down to have a bite to eat at the one in Yorkville Toronto, and on the table where I was sitting was a table tent with two QR codes.

It was obvious where they would take me if I scanned them, one would take me to their twitter account, the other would take me to their facebook page.

If I was interested in checking out their twitter or facebook page, rather than opening up each respective app and going to the search function and typing in their name etc. (I likely wouldn’t, too much effort) I could pick up my phone, scan the QR code and automatically open each page!

You can find a lot of examples of QR codes online, here are a few more:

Airline Boarding Pass

This is an interesting one because you use your mobile to display the QR code rather than scan it.  :)  

In this case, the airline sends you a QR code that you display on the screen of your phone.  This allows the airline while at the airport to scan your unique QR code which represents your passenger information (your digital boarding pass).

Wine Bottles

A lot of vineyards are placing QR codes on their bottle labels.  When you’re out and try a bottle you like, you want to find out more information, or browsing in a wine shop, you may want more information.  So rather than writing a long URL out (which most people aren’t going to go type in for lack of convenience), you can scan the bottle just like the cashier will.  The only difference is your QR code scan is to give you more information on the wine/vineyard (sales stuff), and the UPC scan is to identify the item in stock and figure out how much of your money to take.

These QR codes are all over the place in Asia, and they’re becoming more and more common in Europe and North America.   Just walk around and you’ll start noticing these things.

Just the other day while doing a keynote presentation at a local college on social media, there was a big banner up for birth control, HUGE banner.  At the bottom of the banner was a ….. you guessed it, QR code:

Anyone with a QR scanner on their phone could quickly scan that QR code at the bottom and be on their website in a second or two.

What They’re NOT For

I’ve seen people put QR codes on their website and quite frankly that just defeats the purpose and nobody will ever scan it.  The point is to take people from the physical world to the online world.  If someone is already browsing your website, facebook page, twitter, some online ‘property’, they’re already there.  If I’m on my phone, I can exactly scan my screen of my phone with my phones camera now can I?

QR Code Generation

Creating your own QR code could not be any easier.  There are countless websites online that allow you to easily generate a QR code image.  You take the image they give you and print it on whatever you want, place it wherever you want, it’s a ‘label’ so to speak.   Here is one to get you started:

• http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

QR Content

Though typically QR codes identify URLs you can essentially represent any piece of information you like, here are some examples:

• Website URL
• Send a text message
• Send an email message
• Address Book record (vcard)
• Display some text on your screen
• Any bit of text you like

What determines the success of what you put there is how it’s read and consumed.  So that means the scanner has to know what to do with the ‘text’ it reveals after scanning the QR code.   So almost every scanner I’m aware of knows what a url is and will open it for you.  Most will allow you to ‘start’ a text message (it will not create/send one for you).  But when get into more complicated (not as popular) usage, they won’t always work.

I have an app on my iPhone that does not  handle address book entries, while the other one does.   So even though you can represent many things with a QR code, it’s ultimately up to the scanner to understand what to do with the text and that is why the URL is the most popular, as it’s the most widely used and supported by all QR code scanners.

Got an iPhone?  Try these free scanners (just two I’ve tried)

• “Scanner”
• Bakodo

Have you tried any yourself on your mobile?  Do you have any recommended scanner apps for iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry (any phone for that matter)?  Please post in the comments below, let us know some good apps for other devices, or maybe you’ve found better iPhone apps then the two I’ve used.

QR Code – How To Use QR Codes is a post from: Kevin McKillop

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1. Password Protecting With 1Password
2. Mobile Local Fusion Review
3. OptimizePress Review – Watch How Easy This Is

When I first started out online, I didn’t have any traffic, I didn’t have a list, I really didn’t even have an offer.  All I had was my time and energy to devote to learning.  I jumped around from ‘guru’ to ‘guru’ getting email after email but I connected with one in particular, James Schramko.

There are many reasons for that, but this one in particular is proof in the pouding.  James just like me and many of you, had a regular job, one that paid him well, but he wanted more.  He’s been able to leave his 9-5 job with a wife and family to support and been able sell millions online.

He over the last 5 years has built up his own teams, his own SEO company and through his ability to not only offer great products, but to more importantly drive targeted to his thousands of websites and sell millions himself, as well as his clients and students.

James has been working on Traffic Grab (indirectly) for 5 years, and is now ready to unleash to the world his 23 different traffic strategies to get targeted buyers.   This isn’t an ‘SEO’ course, this is 22 other ways beyond ‘SEO’ to get traffic.

See relying on Google and ‘ranking’ to get you traffic is extremely dangerous and will likely get you no where, or you’ll make a lot of money for a bit and then one day you’ll make zero.  Google can make changes anytime it wants and that could negatively impact you (to the point of broke).

PPC can be costly!  James goes through in great depth how he builds sustainable traffic from hundreds of different sources, and shows you some sites that bring in traffic from over 19,000+ different keywords!  Talk about a solid foundation!

I’ve had the pleasure of getting early access to this course as I’ve been a member of James’s SilverCircle mastermind for almost 1-year now and it’s been amazing.

Traffic Techniques

• Research
• Content
• Sites
• Article traffic
• Web 2.0 Traffic
• Video traffic
• Affiliate traffic
• bookmarking traffic
• Press release traffic
• Blog traffic
• RSS traffic
• Facebook traffic
• List traffic
• Twitter traffic
• PPC traffic
• CPV traffic
• Forum traffic
• Ezine traffic
• Media traffic
• Podcast traffic
• Classifieds traffic
• Webinar traffic
• Word Of Mouth traffic
• Ping traffic

Did he miss any?   I don’t think so.  You may not use every one of those traffic sources, but James has and does.   All of those combined creates the Spaghetti bowl, the term James has coined for his traffic system.

The Spaghetti Bowl - Thanks JD.

Now I could rave on it about it all day, but how about some proof to backup  the success of these strategies?

Diverse Traffic Sources (forget Google!)

Relying on search engines alone is dangerous, James doesn’t do that with the Spaghetti bowl.

Are you into the offline consulting niche?  It’s a very popular one and lucrative, my previous review of Mobile Local Fusion talks all about it.  So if this is your niche, would you like to be able to dominate the first page of Google for your clients?  Would you like something like this for a Mazda dealership?

First Page Ownage

I think this is one of the golden pieces of  Traffic Grab, is a case study where James goes into detail about how he generated over $20,000 from a blog post!   Yes a single blog post and traffic.  James has documented each detail and shows you exactly how he managed to do that!

I have been using SOME of these Traffic Grab strategies myself.  I actually promoted through a blog post the same thing James did in his case study.  The only difference is I didn’t have the Spaghetti bowl to drive as much traffic, I relied on a single source.  It wasn’t bad, I still managed to make $~4000 from a single blog post following some of James’ strategies.

Followup Support

This is where James stands out from the rest of the crowd.  He stands behind his products 100% in the public eye.  Through his coaching forum Super Fast Results, you have access to James himself and hundreds of other marketers to help you implement these strategies and launch your business!   I’ve (and still am) and active member of his forum since December 2009 and I have no intention of leaving.

As part of Traffic Grab, James is offering a full 30-days access to the forum and the priceless site building tools within it along with his support, that’s a $97 value (and in my eyes, a $1000 value).

Traffic Grab Bonus

Now most of the time people offer bonuses as an incentive to purchase a product through their affiliate link.  I’m not doing that and here is why.  There is so much amazing information in Traffic Grab for you to implement and use, I believe a bonus will simply offer more distractions from what you should be focusing on and that is absorbing, and learning from Traffic Grab.   It would be a disservice to you.

So if you think Traffic Grab is for you (I think it’s for everyone, as I’m sorry; no matter what you NEED traffic) then you can click on the link below and purchase a copy through my link.  I can offer a thank you, but I’m doing this more for you than I am me as that’s how bloody awesome this information is, or just go get it directly if that suits you better.

Traffic Grab Review & Bonus is a post from: Kevin McKillop

Related posts:

1. James Schramko’s Silver Circle Review + Bonus
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3. Getting Fast Video Results – Traffic & Authority In Record Time

Facebook advertising platform is like no other we have ever seen before, not even close.  The ability to do laser focused ads to people based on the piles of information users have willingly added to their profile makes it an advertisers dream!  With so many eyeballs GLUED to facebook on a daily basis, and the ability to laser focus your ads makes it a player you can’t ignore.

I didn’t always think so kindly of Facebook PPC.  Only a year ago I was singing a different tune, likely because it’s blown up so big in the last year, AND I’ll admit, I was a little green about it then too.  My opinion hasn’t changed completely, but I’m definitely more open to it.   It’s definitely a different beast than Adwords, and the best thing you can do is try and test, you’ll quickly find out whether it’s going to work for you or your offer as it stands.

So without diving head first with blinders on and ending up spending a lot of money on it, like any system you need to understand how it works before you can really leverage it, or even test it out thorougly.

I reached out to an expert, Jennifer Sheahan from www.FBAdsLab.com for some inside expert advice on how to navigate facebook advertising.

I met Jennifer in Sydney back in September and our paths have crossed several times since then. Jennifer has pulled over on the side of the road to take a Skype call from me once, as I was having a pain of a time getting ads approved and I was completely clueless as to what to try next (I had tried everything I know).  She gave me a couple good tips and away I went and got my ads approved!

I don’t want to spoil some of the great tips she has given away in this interview, so grab a pen and paper, load this up in your iPod for the car, whatever you do, listen and learn (just like I did!)   Whether you’re helping out a local business, or you’re advertising your own products or affiliate products, there is some great information in this interview for you.  Navigating some of the difficulties can be tricky, so listen to some of these awesome tips Jennifer has to get high performing, cheap click ads approved and running and CONVERTING!   She also outlines how to avoid wasting your money and giving it to facebook.

You can follow Jennfier @ FBAdsLab on Facebook

Have you tried any facebook ads?  Share your experiences below in the comments!  If you have any questions for Jennifer, post them below and I’m sure I can persuade her to stop by and answer them for everyone.

[Interview] Facebook Ads (PPC) Strategies is a post from: Kevin McKillop

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No tool or set of tools will make you succeed, but they can certainly help streamline and systemize things to assist you and allow more leverage. Lets get started (in no particular order)

(yes there are some affiliate links in here, not all of them though).

TeamWorkPM (Project Management)

I’m a little different in this aspect, almost everyone and anyone uses Basecamp but I found this newer alternative (after using Basecamp) and have made the switch.  I like their development team, very responsive.  I love the interface and tasks much more than in basecamp.  I’ve made several suggestions to them and get a response each time, either its in the pipeline, or being released in the next update!

I was able to import everything from basecamp and it integrates with  a lot of other services (like basecamp does).  They’re looking at Dropbox integration as the developer said “we need an autoresponder for that particular request, we get it daily”.  So that will be coming.  They have a great post on their site about TeamWorkPM vs. Basecamp, check it out if you’re a Basecamp user, you may (easily) make the switch.

I don’t like how you can’t move task items between task lists with drag and drop (you can move them, just more cumbersome), and I don’t like the messages display, takes up too much space for a single message.  Small complaints compared to the list things I like.   They have a great iPhone application supported and developed by them too.  Did I mention you get more for less money than Basecamp?

Zendesk (Help Desk)

I for a while ran osTicket, which is a free open source, self hosted ticketing solution.  It looks VERY dated and I would often not get notifications.   I then ran into problems with it, and simply didn’t have the patience or desire to try and trouble-shoot the application so I looked for alternatives.   There are plenty of self hosted solutions, but I much prefer hosted and let someone else worry about the ‘service’, I just want to use it.

Zendesk is great, very easy to setup, looks very clean/professional.  Has a great knowledgebase section with all sorts of customization options with widgets.  The widgets allow integration for other services, and custom html/scripts.  I love the Freshbooks integration.  I can answer paid support requests and quickly submit that time to Freshbooks for invoicing right from Zendesk.

They allow ticket submission through a web interface AND through email which was key for me.  I don’t like having to go and sign-up just to submit a support request, I want it easy for people to get help from me.

The ultimate tool that I found in Zendesk is their ‘dropbox’ widget.  A small piece of code that you place on any page (inside my Nanacast memberships) and it creates a ‘Support’ tab on the right or left of your browser window.  Instant access to your entire knowledge base through a lightbox, and you can submit a ticket right from there.   Ultimate in customer service!    Well worth the investment to me.

Freshbooks (Invoicing/Billing)

I’ve been using Freshbooks the longest.  It is a fantastic web based invoicing/billing service.  Creates great looking voices, easily input projects, time (hourly, project, or employee based).  There is a customer portal where they can log-in, view invoices to be paid, or payment history.  With a standard Paypal account you can even accept credit card payments for your invoices!

Create estimates and send them off to prospects, allows them to view and accept or amend them.  You can import time spent on customers from TeamWorkPM (right from TeamWorkPM) as well as input time spent from Zendesk.  There are several desktop widgets to input time on projects as well.  One time invoices and recurring invoices as well, truly an awesome service.

If your clients want the invoice sent in the mail, Freshbooks will print and post your invoices in the mail to your clients for you (postage not included in monthly fee).

They have a free version and then paid, depending on how many active clients you have, you can get away with the free version.

Nanacast (Shopping Cart/Affiliates/Delivery)

Nanacast is a powerhouse.  So much it can do, so much customization (can often be a downside as it comes across as terribly confusing).  Literally you can have a membership site setup with drip fed content delivered in multiple formats.  It’s a powerful affiliate tracking tool (one of the best).

The support behind Nanacast is great, the integration with auto-responders is huge, and I use it as my opt-in method even for AWeber (which normally has it’s own opt-in forms).  The easy affiliate center and memberships you can create make it a great tool and well worth it.  If I had to setup a system to replace Nanacast for Local Video Method, I’d have spent much more (time and services) and probably have a headache throughout.

MacBook Pro

This may be an odd item in this list but really it’s the hub of it all.  I can’t imagine doing what I do with a PC.  I used a PC for years and I’m a very computer literate person.   The thought of having to run my business and doing the things I do from a PC makes me cringe.  The number of people that migrate to Macs from PCs, FAR outweighs those who migrate from a Mac to a PC.  That has to say something!

It doesn’t have to be a laptop, the iMacs are fantastic as well, any Mac for that matter.   Go get one, you will never regret it!

Tungle.me (Scheduling)

Scheduling a Skype call, maybe some coaching or even a client.  Sending emails back and forth then waiting for a response, then proposing another time, soon enough you have a nightmare of email just for a single meeting.  Tungle.me is a great online service (free) that allows you to setup your availables times and people can schedule appointments with you.

The recipient does not need a Tungle.me account either!   Trouble with timezone conflicts?  No problem it will display it in your local timezone for you.   If you want to schedule an appointment, you can easily pick the duration and then suggest several times you could do it, allowing the recipient to pick one that is suitable, or they could in-turn, provide a list of times they’re available.

You get the idea, I found it very useful for even the light scheduling I do.  There is an iPhone app and they provide sync tools for things like iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar so the scheduling takes place automatically and then shows up in your existing calendars.

Market Samurai (Keyword/Market Research)

I’m sure this isn’t terribly new to many who are interested in this type of list.  People all over the world praise Market Samurai.  In fact when Ben from MS spoke at Fast Web Formula 2 in Sydney to over 250+ people.  When he asked “who doesn’t have a copy of MS”, very few hands went up!

It is probably one of my most used tools, I use it for showing clients potential, I use it to determine how competitive it would be to rank for keywords, I use it for rank tracking, I use it for reports for clients.  I’ve literally found no better tool, and it does so much more.  Highly highly recommend this if you haven’t got yourself a copy.

Firefox Plugins (Various)

Here is a list of some handy firefox plugins I regularly use.

1. GMail Manager – Keeps me posted on gmail in my status bar at the bottom, very unobtrusive and quick click and I’m logged in without having to type my name or password
2. Download Helper – Ever see videos you want to save but there is no download link?  Ever want to skip through a really long one but they disabled player controls?  This allows you to download and save to your computer literally any video that is being displayed in your browser.
3. Firebug – More of a geeky developer tool, but it allows you to browse the elements of a page, and display the code.  Ever wonder what the CSS or HTML is to make something look the way it does?  You can view it, and copy it very easily.   For someone like me, I’m not a great developer, but I can see something I like and copy/modify it if I have something to start with.
4. Firesizer – Shows you the dimensions of your browser window at the bottom.  If you want to do a screen record, you can set it to the proper size so you don’t have to resize it (eg. 1280×720 for 720p HD).  You can also see what things look like with different resolutions. (it shows you in the status bar the current dimensions).
5. Google Global – Allows me to see the search results for a particular search in the various countries (as they can all be different) with the click of a mouse
6. SEO Quake – All sorts of stats about the current URL, PR, Age, Backlinks, Alex, etc.  Very useful when viewing competitive search results.
7. S3Fox – Plugin that lets you easily manage your Amazon S3 account, manage permissions and more importantly, get distribution URLs for Amazon S3 and Amazon Cloudfront.
8. ColorZilla – Easily place the color picker anywhere on your browser and it will tell you what the color is in the status bar.  Easily figure out how to create matching colors when you’re asked to pick a color and you don’t know the numbers.

Jing

Jing is a screen capture/recording program that is very simplistic in nature and very easy to use.  That along with it’s companion screencast.com allow you to easily capture an image of your screen (or whatever area you select) and upload it.  Immedately after the upload the link is ready to be pasted anywhere for someone to view (or you can share it to twitter, save it to your disk etc.).

The other amazing feature is 5 min video recordings of whatever area you select.  It will record the screen and optionally audio.  A great use for this is trying to tell someone what is happening on your screen, or giving someone instructions.  You can easily record a quick video, hit ‘share’ and it’s automatically uploaded to screen cast and a link ready to be pasted.   1-2-3 and you’re done.

Fantastic for trouble shooting and explaining things, great for making training videos for your outsource team, you name it there is a use for making quick videos with a click of a button.

Mozy Home Backup

This application has literally saved me thousands.  I by accident (always is right?) deleted ALL my accounting data (deleted by Quickbooks files) by mistake.  I had no idea I did that until I went to see my accountant.  I raced home in a frantic sweat thinking about the horrors of what I’d have to do to rebuild that and the consequences of losing it.

I have a Apple Time Machine (1GB) as well, but I went straight to MozyHome (off-site backup) and was able to find my accounting files and restore them no problem.  Infact I could restore ANYTHING that it has backed up in the last year.   I HIGHLY recommend you implement ANY kind of backup.  The day you need it and you don’t have it, is the day you could loose THOUSANDS or more, memories gone forever.

OptimizePress

I’ve bought a lot of WordPress themes over the last year or two.  Thinking they’ll make it easy, just point and click but they all take time to customize and usually don’t hold up to the idea you had in your head.  OptimizePress is the first WordPress theme I’ve bought that I simply could not say enough great things about.

If you want to create membership sites, blogs, sales pages, squeeze pages, launch sequences, it’s truly amazing and the best part is the simplicity of using it.  Customization is very easy and the support center with training videos to show you how it works is incredible.  I you’re going to spend money on a theme, make sure OptimizePress is one of them.

Summary

So I’ve left off some obvious ones I think and wanted to try and contribute some new ones.  Those that I left off but are key to me are:

• Screenflow (Screen Recording, Demos, Product Creation)
• Dropbox (File synchronization across multiple computers; incl outsource team)
• 1Password (Password storage tool for Mac, syncs with iPhone)
• Things (Great organizer; task list for Mac.  Syncs with iPhone/iPad)
• GotoWebinar
• Skype

I’ve seen them mentioned many times over.   What are some of your favourite tools that aren’t so main stream?  Leave a comment below and share your tip!

Please share this if you found any of these tools useful, I know I love finding a new tool/service that I wasn’t aware of that can help my business.  :)

Essential Internet Marketing Services is a post from: Kevin McKillop

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