As this video shows, people like to do things together in groups. It’s built right into our DNA.

That’s why the flash mob concept works so well. It’s fun. And the thing that makes flash mobs possible is social media

Well, I’m not into flash mobs (yet), but a bunch of us have cooked up an Internet marketing flash mob of sorts – and it’s taking place on incredibly short notice.

I know, I know…people say this all the time and it means nothing.

But here’s the situation…

System grad and master marketer Lloyd Irvin is bringing Team Lloyd Irvin to compete in the UFC Championships at Manchester Arena.

His man Brandon “The Truth” Vera is fighting in the main bout. That’s what’s bringing Lloyd to town.

Greg Davis, Lloyd’s friend, colleague and student – and the sharpest affiliate marketer I know – is coming along to support Lloyd and the team.

With the likes of Greg and Lloyd in town, Ben Hunt, master web designer, is making the trip up from London.

When Drayton Bird heard, he wanted to get in on it too.

Ben Moskel, the affiliate wizard from New York, decided that he couldn’t miss it either

And there’s one other participant, who prefers to remain anonymous, who’s coming as well. (Hint: Lives in London. Keyword research genius. Maybe the best in the world.)

What we have here is a once-in-a-lifetime, never to be repeated Internet marketing expert flash mob.

I hope you can see that this group of people is never likely to be together in Manchester, UK in a small group setting ever again.

I don’t like to say “never” but I just can’t imagine how all these elements could ever fall into place like this again.

The whole shebang is being hosted by Mark Attwood…former RAF pilot-turned-poet-turned-Internet-marketing-expert…who is going to lead us into a deep exploration of the practical side of social marketing and SEO.

Oh, and I’m going to be there too.

Yes, it’s short notice…

But if you’re serious about Internet marketing, this will be an experience that you’ll be remembering for a long, long time. (Hopefully because you were there, not because you’re kicking yourself until the end of time for missing it.)

Details:

Flash Mob Flash Seminar

Ken

P.S. As always, even if you already know you can’t come, you can follow me as I travel to the UK for this wild weekend of blood, gore, clean fun and super-charged Internet marketing insight. Click here for more.

As soon as people see numbers, a few things happen to their brains.

1. They marvel at people with REALLY BIG NUMBERS
2. They look at their own puny numbers and despair
3. They look for ways to get more numbers

Ask me how I know this is true?

How people get really big numbers on Twitter…the secret “they” don’t want you to know

I’ve done an exhaustive study on the subject. (OK. I went to twitterholic.com and looked at the Top 1000.)

It seems like there are a few tried and true ways to get big numbers on Twitter.

1. Be on TV (or be an already fantastically well known brand.)
2. Have a big list from some other source and relentlessly ask your list members to follow you
3. Be a Twitter, social media and/or tech expert who spends a big chunk of his or her time in front of audiences that have super high densities of Twitter users flashing their Twitter address and relentlessly ask your list members to follow you.

There may be some exceptions to this rule, but I don’t see them in the to upper listings.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

Why people follow

People seem to follow for five reasons:

1. They’re collectors (a nice word for “pack rats”) and if it’s free, they want a lot of them
2. They’re followers and like having icons of their favorite celebrities on their profile page
3. They’re status seekers and want to be seen following “cool” people
4. They’ve been guilt tripped into following a friend or acquaintance (usually by their own minds)
5. They’d like to guilt-trip someone else into following them (to increase their own number of followers.)

It’s these last two that I find really interesting: “Please follow me.” “Thanks for following me.”

We’ve left the land of the rational and gone deep into the social brain on this one (i.e. back to high school.)

There’s a bit of the old MLM mentality in play too:

“You follow me and I’ll follow you and we’ll both have one more follower and that will make us more attractive so we’ll both be more likely to get more followers who will do the same…and somehow this will all end up with all of us making money.”

Am I being overly cynical, skeptical, and critical here? Or am I nailing this right on the head?

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

What are lots of follower good for anyway?

I wonder.

Do the 3,711,359 people who “follow” Britney Spears on Twitter really follow her? Do they actually go to Britney’s profile page and see what Britney had to say today?

I’m sure that some do, but I doubt it’s 3,711,359 or anywhere near close to that number. And this is probably the same for every Twitter Big Shot.

So what does it really mean when someone is “following” you on Twitter?

It means that at one point:

1. They were on your profile page
2. They felt an impulse to “follow” – so they pushed one button ONE TIME
3. They haven’t yet felt the need to push the “unfollow” button yet.

If we were thinking accurately about this whole thing, we would call Twitter followers, Twitter “one-time button pushers.”

Jesus had followers guys. We have people who pushed a button – once – and may or may not ever to anything related to us again.

Let’s get real – and while you’re at it…

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

The real game – as I see it

The real game in text – and that’s what Twitter is, isn’t it? – is to get people to read what you’ve written.

(I know there’s a two-way communications aspect to Twitter, but realistically, how many people can you interact with, even in a superficial way at a time?)

It’s not how big your list is…

It’s how many people go to your profile and read your twee… God I hate the word…let’s just call them posts?

Yeah, I know that posts can go viral (blah, blah, blah), but how often does that happen in the real world?

And when you go to most people’s profile pages, how much do you see that you actually want to read, much less re-tweet? (See, I’m down with the lingo.)

Do I really want to read four score and twenty absolutely incomprehensible personal communications? Do you?

Clearly I’m dissing the foundations of Twitter civilization here, but I’m doing it for a good reason. To re-focus us all on what really matters.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

How to get read

It’s not about number of “followers” (unless number of followers is something you want to use a bragging right, a “credential.” Fair enough I guess.)

But the real prize I have to think is about having quality people want to read what you have to say.

By quality people, I mean people who someday may have a reason to become a customer, a colleague, a collaborator. Someone you can do something with – off of bloody Twitter.

As I described earlier, lots of people will still jump on board and become your “follower” – the collectors, the followers, the status seekers, the “Twitterticians” (those who trade favors for mutual advantage, a word I just made up) – and bulk your numbers up for you.

But if you don’t have a core of people who actually seek you out and want to read what you have to say, I’m not sure I understand what the point all of this is.

But even if there is no point to it, why not go ahead and…

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

How to create readers

The surest way to be read is to…(drum roll please)…have something interesting to say at least one in five posts (though, here’s a novel idea. Why not shoot for 100%?)

Why?

Because realistically, who on earth loves you enough to go to your profile and wade through a ton of crap to find something, anything, worthwhile – and do it more than once?

Not everything has to be profound or useful or entertaining, but how about comprehensible? That would be a good place to start, wouldn’t it?

For example, slices of life are fine, but ten bits of odd personal trivia in a row? Do you really want to attract the kind of people who would be attracted by that? In the old days, we used to call those people “stalkers” and we tried not to encourage them.

Maybe I’m too critical (don’t all agree at once), but who has the time for this? In the long run?

Conversely, we’ll always have time for something that makes us chuckle, or makes us think, or uplifts, or inspires or shares news or tells you something you didn’t know.

Quality guys and gals, quality. It will help make sure you’re still standing when the fad aspects of this fade.

Follow me on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy .

But I recommend you test my channel and see if you like it anyway: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

Out from the jungle

Right through the 1980s, every now and then a Japanese soldier would be discovered in some remote part of Asia (usually Indonesia or Papua New Guinea) “holding down the fort.”

These guys were told to hold their positions until the bitter end, and they did – for forty years after the war was over!

I’ve been kind of that way with Twitter.

Today, I wandered out of the jungle into the bright lights of Twitter Land.

Why did I do it?

Largely because my friend Mark Attwood has been pestering me about it.

“You’ve got to do this.”

But pestering alone is never enough – for me at least. I’m the stubborn sort.

My tipping point

Recently, I heard the term “micro-blogging.”

I know, I know. People have been using it for years already. Mark even wrote about it in a report he was kind enough to send me.

But, I didn’t really HEAR it until now.

I “get” blogging (which is really just writing a column and publishing it online yourself.)

And I get “micro.” I mean who has time to read long stuff anymore (unless it’s one of my e-mails).

Short and punchy is good and you can say a lot in 140 characters. (That took 75 characters)

See?

I just did – and I had 65 characters to spare.

Another thing that lured me from my vine-covered cave was talking to one of my System Eagles who has a serious marketing problem:

He created a product without asking the market if it wanted it – and it doesn’t. Actually, it doesn’t know it wants it and it doesn’t have time to do the homework to find out that it does.

When you find yourself in a situation like this…

You have two choices

1. Throw in the towel, or

2. Establish yourself as a celebrity expert in the niche in the minds of people who are candidates for your product and then use that position to get a hearing.

(There’s a million dollars in marketing advice in that last sentence. Someone could create a $5,000 a seat seminar around it – but not me. I just gave it to you.)

Being an expert is a matter of studying a subject to the point that you actually have something interesting, useful and maybe even entertaining to say about it.

It’s a very straightforward process

You can become a “talking” expert in ANYTHING in six months or less, six weeks if you’re good, and six days if you’re really good. But regardless of the time frame, it’s doable.

But what about the celebrity part?

How the heck do you do that?

And really, what sane person would actually want to become a celebrity?

I mean…Paris Hilton. WTF is that all about?

The not-so-secret secret

Master copywriter and educator Ben Settle recently reminded me of why being a celebrity is a good thing while I was reading his excellent new book, “Crackerjack Selling Secrets.”

Here’s the punch line: You want to become a celebrity because becoming a celebrity is valuable.

And here’s why

People are exponentially more interested in what a celebrity has to say than what anyone else has to say, even an expert.

To prove this to yourself, do this simple mental experiment:

Imagine two people on stage. The first knows a ton, but no one has ever heard of him. The other is someone they’ve seen and heard from over and over again -so much so that the audience feels they “know” him and like him.

Assuming both speakers have about the same skill in presenting, who is going to be listened to with more attention? The guy who knows a lot or the guy everyone has been trained to listen to?

This, strangely enough, is “celebrity”

It’s the result of training, or conditioning, to use a term from the psychology lab.

Celebrity also means attention and attention means M-O-N-E-Y.

Consult the old AIDA formula if you’re confused about this.

Selling starts – and ends – with attention

There is no selling without attention. Period. End of story.

Once you “get” this definition of celebrity, you’ll know what you need to do. You need to become one – in the eyes of your prospects and customers.

That’s right. In the eyes of your prospects and customers.

You don’t have to worry about taking on Paris Hilton in the super celebrity sweepstakes. You just have to become a “celebrity” to the people you want to listen to your pitch.

Why?

Because people listen to celebrities. Strange but true.

So how do you become a celebrity, someone people listen to and talk about?

Seems hard, right? It must involve some kind of magical powers -some kind of inborn charisma.

Well, charm doesn’t hurt. And everyone can become more charming. But charm and charisma are not the issue.

What’s the “secret” then?

Exposure.

Are people seeing you? Are they hearing you? Is this happening over and over again?

That, my friends, is what builds celebrity. At the end of the day, there really isn’t that much more to it than that.

So if repeated exposures are the building blocks to celebrity, how do you get them?

Here are the three methods people use – one works

Method #1: Wait for it to happen “naturally.” You know, be discovered. People will see how great you are and then devote their lives to making you famous.

Actually this can happen.

The problem is the odds. How about 500 million to 1? That’s how likely it is that you’ll be “discovered.”

Method #2: Beg people and institutions that have celebrity to let you have some of theirs by writing about you, interviewing you, and inviting you to present at their events.

Begging can work, but it too has a very low probability of success. Besides, you need lots and lots of exposures to become a celebrity and begging just doesn’t produce opportunity fast enough.

Method #3: Create your own celebrity

Elsom Eldridge, marketing wizard and author of “The Obvious Expert” has a great saying about this:

“Build your structure to build your stature.’

In other words, your “celebrity” – call it stature, call it profile, call it visibility – is entirely in your hands.

You CREATE it

No one can give it to you.

How do you create it?

By talking and writing and appearing. In short by being visible and making sure that every appearance you make (in text, in audio, in video, in person) produces a worthwhile experience for your readers, listeners, viewers and audience.

Dollars and common sense

Whatever business you’re in, if you want maximum results, you have to also be in the celebrity business and to be in the celebrity business you have to be in the media business.

Pre-Internet, it used to be bloody hard to be in the celebrity building media business.

Printing was expensive, postage was expensive, audio and video production was expensive and outlets were very limited.

For example, when I was a little kid, if you wanted to appear on the TV set in someone’s home, you had three options: ABC, CBS, and NBC – and that was it.

Then cable appeared and that was an improvement. You could actually buy 30 minute slots fairly cheap late at night. But that didn’t last too long.

Then the VCR came along.

Fantastic!

Now, if you could just produce a video cassette, convince someone to buy or ask for it, and then actually sit down and watch it, you too could appear on someone’s television set.

Great, but look at all the things you had to do – and all the money you had to spend – to make that blessed event occur.

The reason our time is the “age of marketing miracles” – and it is – is that you can now put text, audio and video in front of your prospects faces for nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Once you produce your message, all the old world costs of duplication, packaging, and shipping are gone.

But there’s always a catch and I did leave something out of this equation.

You need something for all this to work

You need a list

You need a list of people who want to hear from you, who want to know what you have to say and who want to know what you’re up to on a regular basis.

In the old days, it was a direct mail mailing list (still a very good thing to have, by the way).

Then along came e-mail. Magical, marvelous, magnificent e-mail. People can sign up for your list without leaving their keyboard and you can mail to them over and over and over again for nothing.

I LOVE e-mail.

In the past seven days, I did a little promotion that brought me a very nice chunk of change (more than I used to make in a whole year) all thanks entirely to the magic of e-mail. My risk? ZERO. My investment: my time and ingenuity.

What made it work is that I had a list…which is why I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to build my lists and make the people on my lists happy – and working my tail off to make those things happen.

Out of my cave

As I said at the very beginning of this article, I am a traditionalist. I’m conservative. I like new things, but I generally don’t like things that make me work or think too hard.

Twitter (and Facebook, which I’m only just starting to see the light on) seemed like work to me. And worse than that, they seemed like work without a pay off.

I mean who wants to spend all day typing away little Tweets to people on the off chance that someone might actually find what you have to say, read it and do something about it.

Just give me a mailing list and I’ll write a proper sales letter, thank you very much.

Then it dawned on me…

The folks who follow you on Twitter ARE a mailing list.

What’s more, they’re people who, for whatever odd reason, want to hear from you a lot, as in several times a day, as long as…

…as long as you have something interesting, entertaining, useful, and/or helpful to say.

Hey! I can do that.

And I can write worthwhile stuff in bursts of 140 characters or less.

(At first, I didn’t think I could, but then I just jumped in and tried. Lo and behold, it’s not hard at all…if you can write.)

Also – and this is very important – there’s a lot of stuff that will not work in an e-mail that works great in Twitter and will make a positive impression on your prospects and customers….which at the end of the day is what it’s all about.

To recap

If celebrity is money because celebrity generates attention and attention generates sales…

And celebrity is built by exposure and exposure is built by media…

And it’s YOUR job as the entrepreneur to use media to raise your profile, increase your visibility, build your stature and create your celebrity…

If all this is true, then you and I need to go where ever the people are and communicate with them using the channels that they want to communicate with.

And Twitter, this new-fangled thing with the silly name is how a lot people like to consume media these days…and, amazingly enough, now that I’ve crawled out of the cave, I’m now one of them.

The truth about Twitter

If Twitter is new to you – or if you’ve been taught how to abuse Twitter by one of the slime ball Internet gurus who strive mightily to poison everything in their path – let me explain what Twitter is and how to be entertained and informed by it.

Step #1. Open an account at Twitter.com It’s free and truly easy. Took me about 60 seconds once I got down to it.

Step #2. Pick a user name you’re going to be happy living with a long, long time. If your own name is available, grab it. God bless the person who did this for me a year or more ago. If your name is taken, come up with a relevant handle.

Step #3. Fill out your profile. Again, simple and easy. 60 seconds maybe, even for me.

OK, now you have an account and a profile.

It’s time to play…

Here’s how you play Twitter

1. Go to “Find People” and search for friends, colleagues, “celebrities,” news outlets, media, businesses and institutions who are Twitter publishers that you may want to hear from on a regular basis

2. When you see someone you want to hear from, just push the “Follow” button.

When you open your Twitter page, you’ll see SHORT messages from these folks, sometimes self-contained, sometimes pointing to other web resources (articles, videos, interviews) for you to check out.

3. Choosing friends and colleagues to follow is easy. I have friends who I LOVE and don’t get to see anywhere near much as I’d like. What could be better than hearing from them more often? On any subject really.

Celebrities are pretty easy too. You know who you like. You want to hear from Shaquille O’Neil? He’ll drop you a line or two or more every day. Paris Hilton? Ditto. (Though please tell me there’s no one reading this who actually wants to hear from Paris Hilton.)

News outlets?

Personally, I “follow” the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC. All stuff that I follow every day anyway.

I also follow entertainment publications like the Village Voice, Offbeat Magazine (from New Orleans), and the Onion (humor.)

Now instead of going TO this stuff, it comes to me.

“Hmmm…that looks interesting.” Click.

You know what Twitter really is?

It’s an RSS reader that you actually want to use.

(If you don’t know what an RSS reader is, don’t worry. Just use Twitter. For everyone else, I’ve always said that RSS readers were the greatest idea in the world with the worst name ever invented. The Twitter folks, god bless, didn’t make the same mistake.)

OK, now you’re getting all this great entertainment – news items, jokes, notes from your buddies, pointers to interesting articles, now what?

“Now what?” is you start publishing which on Twitter is called “tweeting.”

Tweeting is a stupid name and it’s 90% of the reason I wrongly assumed Twitter was ridiculous

But Twitter is not ridiculous.

It’s a tool for sending good stuff – in short bursts – to people who want to hear from you.

What to say?

Now that you’re ready to start writing, the million dollar question is “what do you write?”

This is the tricky part which is why I suggest that you become a Twitter reader first, before you start writing (or tweeting) anything.

The best way to get good at anything is to find people whose style you like, “follow” them and take the parts of what they do that you like and mash them together into a style you’re comfortable with.

As I write this, I’ve been a Twitter user for less than 12 hours and I can already see what I like and don’t like.

What NOT to do

The thing that I loathe – and it’s a fatal turn off – is people who tell me about their latest product all breathless-like with exclamation points.

Even more offensive is people who recommend something they’re obviously earning an affiliate commission on.

I don’t begrudge anyone earning a commission, but don’t clutter up my Twitter channel with spam so you can play the law of large numbers and grind out a few bucks.

I know there’s already a flock of thieves charging people a fortune to “learn” how to do this. Don’t you be one of them.

On Twitter you’re a publisher – that’s what you are, a micro-publisher, but a publisher nonetheless. Your job is to inform, educate, entertain and amuse and point people to resources that do the same.

If you do this people will read you and they will tell others about you.

This is better than the alternative which is they click “unfollow” and make you disappear forever.

If you’ve got a business, let your prospects and customers know you have a Twitter channel and what your address is. (My personal Twitter channel is: http://www.Twitter.com/kenmccarthy

The question is if you tweet will anyone even care?

Here’s the answer:

It’s the old SW4 rule.

Some will, some won’t, so what? Someone’s waiting.

There’s no accounting for taste and some folks are just plain going to like you. Take the ball when they give it to you and run with it.

If anything I’ve said has struck your fancy, give Twitter a whirl – as a normal user, not as some super slick “social marketer.”

Personally, I already see Twitter as invaluable.

I’m a reader. I’m a news follower. Nothing is more attractive to me than having a steady stream of interesting new stuff cross my desk all day long. Especially since I can read as much of it or as little of it as I want.

As you actually use Twitter (as opposed to cooking up schemes to exploit it), watch and see who is doing it right. Doing it right to YOUR standards. Using the medium in a way YOU enjoy – and then use it the same way.

Guaranteed, you can make millions without ever opening a Twitter account…

But you might LIKE what Twitter does and if you like it, you might figure how to become a contributor to it and if you’re a contributor to it, this will contribute to you raising your profile, increasing your visibility, and adding to the celebrity structure you’re creating. A virtuous cycle.

Bottom line

Twitter is a medium.

It’s a medium some people like – just as some people like newspapers, while others like radio, and still others like TV.

It’s a medium some folks pay close attention to throughout their day.

It costs nothing.

If you personally like the medium and use it – and use it the way you would like it used on you – then odds are you’ll have a good experience with it.

It will never replace sales letters and “old fashioned” offers. No way.

And don’t even dream of starting a business without the “back end” of having things to sell and sales systems to sell them with.

But Twitter will ultimately help you create more readers for your sales letters and deliver them to you in a state of mind in which they’re receptive to what you have to say.

Start by enjoying it.

If you enjoy it you’ll figure out what you need to know to make it work for you.

Ken

P.S. If you can get yourself to Manchester, UK on November 16 (it’s a Monday), a bunch of the smartest Internet folks I know will be meeting for a seminar that’s going to be hosted by Mark Attwood.

It will feature a talk by Ben Hunt, the web designer, and a lot of “peanut gallery” comments from people like yours truly, Lloyd Irvin, Greg Davis, and Ben Moskel. We’re going to talk about blogs and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and how they can be used to create and leverage celebrity for any business.

Mark’s a good case study because he markets dumpsters (UK: skips), chemical toilets, and fence rentals. If you can bring celebrity and glamor to those industries, you can make the magic happen anywhere.

If you can’t make it, we share all sorts of useful stuff with you for free here:

http://www.systemintensive.com/mark

It doesn't really look like this…it's 1,000 times better

There’s always one day that stands out from all the rest. I think this Sunday was the day.

If you wonder why I live in Tivoli, NY in the summer and fall, this picture is my answer.

How did you spend your summer vacation?

What I thought was going to be “kick back and relax” summer turned into a travel and study marathon:

Vancouver, New York City, Maryland, London, Manchester…over 10,000 miles traveled and at long last…home.

Who benefits?

You do.

Here’s some freebies to get your fall season off to a strong start:

1. Free Google AdWords course

Three-time System faculty member Timoth Seward is giving away a complete basic training in Google AdWords.

http://www.smartbeginners.com/adwords/

2. Remembering Ken Giddens

Ken Giddens passed away four years ago this month and he is still sorely missed.

He was one of the bona fide pioneers of our industry and an inspired and generous teacher. For those who knew him, and those who didn’t…

Lessons and recollections from his friends and colleagues: http://thesystemseminar.com/kengiddens/audio.html

This was Ken’s first seminar talk. It was at the System Seminar in 2004.

Videos from System Seminar TV.com

Yes it is.

I define cool as: 1) deep. 2) lasting influence, and 3) setting the standard that all others follow.

On the science front, 1959 was the first year primates went into space. It was the year of the announcement of the first microchip.

But that’s just scratching the surface.

If you’ve ever tapped your foot to music, odds are 1959 was involved.

If the only thing that happened musically in 1959 was the creation of the coolest of rock guitars, the Les Paul 1959 sunburst that would be pretty significant.

But there’s more.

One day in 1959, jazz giant Miles Davis met some of the best jazz musicians of all time in a studio in New York City. Instead of handing them fixed scripts, he gave them “sketches” of the sound he wanted.

No preparation. No rehearsal. Just the magic that takes place when people who know what they’re doing get together under the leadership of a master.

The resulting album “Kind of Blue” is, to this day, the best selling jazz album of all time.

Here’s what it sounds like:

Ken McCarthy, Greg Davis and Lloyd Irvin at Lloyd’s private gym

If you stick with anything long enough, life takes all kinds of fascinating twists and turns.

I was planning on a “kick back”, hang loose summer, but when you’re in the Internet marketing world you have to be prepared for pleasant surprises.

A couple of months ago Lloyd Irvin sent me a long text.

Lloyd is twice world champion in Brazilian Jujitsu and twice US champion in Judo and Russian Sambo. He’s also a heck of an entrepreneur and has interests in a number of areas including publishing, Internet marketing, and real estate. With a small, highly effective team he’s built a very successful business.

I’m proud to say that the System helped get Lloyd off on the right foot on the Internet, a fact he graciously shares with everyone who asks. In turn, he’s been an inspiration to me – and when Lloyd talks, I listen.

So when Lloyd sent me a long text raving about the breakthrough work of his colleague Greg Davis, I decided to waste no time, get on a plane and get myself to Maryland to see first hand what had gotten him so excited.

Long story, short version

Greg’s one of those guys who’s been working diligently for years on cracking the Internet marketing code. You know the routine…endless experiments. Some of them bomb. Some work, but not well enough to get excited about. Two steps forward and sometimes three steps back.

But he stuck with it and along the way he accumulated experience and KNOWLEDGE.

Greg was one of the early pioneers who bought clicks from GoTo when you could get keywords for a penny because no one else was smart enough to recognize their value.

Bit by bit, things started to click for him (pardon the double pun) and he watched his income grow until he got to the point that keeping his 9 to 5 job was not only no longer necessary, it was absurd.

Then through a combination of his own deep study and a few critical insights from Perry Marshall, Glenn Livingston, and Gauher Chaudhry plus mentoring from Lloyd (not-so-coincidentally all these guys have been System faculty members), Greg made a truly big breakthrough.

How big?

Wealth beyond your wildest dreams

Greg’s numbers are so big that I hesitate to say because a lot of people are going to have trouble wrapping their minds around them.

Let’s just say Greg nets in a week what a lot of people would be very happy to make in a good year – and he does it with bare bones overhead. And most importantly, it’s based on a formula that works over and over again. As long as there’s an Internet and people are spending money on it, this system will work.

Though you may be aware of some of the elements (PPC, CPA, affiliate marketing, tracking and testing conversion), I guarantee you’ve never seen this system before.

To help me keep up with all the info that Greg was willing to share with me, I brought System grad Ben Moskel who does over $1,000,000 a year in affiliate sales generated by pay-per-click.  The whole weekend we visited with Greg and Lloyd, Ben never put his pen down.  I swear at times I thought it was going to start smoking he was writing so long and hard.

The Internet marketing brain trust: Where killer Internet marketing ideas are born. If past is prologue, months, even years from now, the hot air “gurus” will be trying to peddle the leftover scraps from this weekend for thousands of dollars a pop.  If you were part of the System, you’d be getting it whole while it’s still fresh.  Left to right: Lloyd Irvin, Ken McCarthy, Greg Davis, Chris Chico, Ben Moskel

Chris Chico, another very savvy Internet marketer, was also invited to sit on in this very private two day session. Here’s a picture of the five of us together at the end of the weekend. We were visiting Lloyd’s training facility in Camp Springs, Maryland  just around the corner from Andrews Air Force base, right outside of Washington DC.

When he’s not running his chain of martial arts schools, publishing, training entrepreneurs, dealing in real estate, starting and growing Internet businesses, Lloyd trains UFC fighters.  It’s been a mystery to me how this one guy gets so much done. Then I met his team.  Sharp, smart and tight. If Lloyd ever gives a seminar on how to build and manage a world class team, all I can say is “Go!” I’ll be sitting in the front row.

OK, how does Greg make all this money?

I know what you’re thinking…”Glad you had a great time in Maryland Ken, but get to the money. The money.”

There are three levels to what Greg does:

Level One: Good, solid, old school affiliate marketing, the kind that can get anyone who applies themselves to the $500 to $5,000 a month level.

Level Two: Greg is a master of the tools, strategies, tricks and techniques of affiliate marketing.  No one knows everything – and Greg was wide open to learn from everyone at our private meeting – but when it comes to high level, deep KNOWLEDGE of how to shake the affiliate money tree, he’s got it – and that’s what got him to $500 to $5,000 a day.

Level Three: This is where Greg is at now. Again, for the reason I gave earlier, I’m not going to even talk about his current numbers, other than to say they make Level Two look sad and forlorn.

His years of effort, study and testing paid off and gave Greg a profound insight that “flipped” regular affiliate marketing upside down and turned it on its head.

Bottom line: A whole lot of what you’ve heard about the “right” way to do affiliate marketing is backwards. Yeah, it will work and it will make pretty good money, but if you want rock star money, crazy money that makes even Internet gurus gasp, you’ve got to enter into what I can only call Planet Greg, an alternate – and very profitable – universe.

And I’ll tell you straight up, most people are not ready for it.

They don’t have the necessary foundation of experience and knowledge to be able to execute what Greg is doing, let alone understand it.

Besides that, after looking at Greg’s system for two solid days, my advice to him was to put a padlock on it. No amount of money he could ever make teaching would ever compensate him for letting the cat out of the bag.

He asked me for my honest advice and that’s what I told him.

But the door is not closed…

Greg can definitely help you if you’re at the beginning of your affiliate marketing path (seeking to make $500 to $5,000 a month) or if you’re a pro who wants to leverage your current know-how into a lot more revenue ($500 to $5,000 a day.)

I can tell you from working with him for two days, he’s a masterful and generous teacher. It would be great to have someone like him inside the System circle teaching.

So, I took a shot and asked him if he’d like to come to London and present at our upcoming UK Intensive.

Think about how significant this is. I created the UK Intensive specifically to highlight UK Internet marketing wizards, but Greg is so extraordinary I decided to throw out my playbook out and ask him, a Yank, to teach.

After thinking about it a bit, he said “sure” so I’m happy to report that the first live public training given by Greg Davis in advanced affiliate marketing (traffic + conversion) will in London this September at the System UK Intensive. Will there be another? Who knows? I know the fact that this event is in London was a big hook for Greg and his wife.

The last I checked registrations are already a hair over 2/3 sold out and as you know, I’ve barely even advertised the thing. As the date gets closer and I get on the job, we’re be closing the doors on this one pretty quick.

I don’t care where you live. If you’re in Internet marketing and you’ve got a chance to spend some time with this guy: take it.

This development has been so sudden, we haven’t had time to include Greg in the description of the course, but here’s how to get all the info about the rest of the program.

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk

Best,

Ken

Ken McCarthy and Lloyd Irvin

P.S. The thing I’ve always admired about martial arts (real martial arts) is that it’s the ultimate No BS discipline. You can’t fake your way into it. You can’t rip off someone else’s work and present it as your own. You’ve got to personally stand and deliver and you can’t coast on last year’s or even last week’s accomplishments.

Lloyd just turned 40 this year. I’m going to be 50 in September, but I can still take him (in my dreams!) LOL

But seriously, the greatest satisfaction from teaching Internet marketing (real teaching, not “guru” prancing and posturing) is all the System grads who go out and do amazing stuff with what they learn and the many like Lloyd, who are gracious enough to turn around and give back.

That’s why there’s 1001 “dog and pony” Internet seminars and a million and one “flash in the pan” gurus, but only one System Seminar.

You see, we actually TRAIN our students to accomplish great things and many do and with this formula our circle and knowledge base just gets bigger and bigger, year after year.

You know the difference

If you’ve been to a System Seminar, you know what I mean. If you haven’t been and you’re in Internet marketing for real, you’ve really been depriving yourself.

The UK Intensive in London, England this September 26 & 27th is a great opportunity for you to get involved with real world,  high level Internet marketing, the kind that;s only dreamed about by most Internet marketers.  We’re limiting the group to just 79 attendees to keep it manageable and well more the half of the seats have already been claimed.

Participants at the UK Intensive will not only get the live training, they’ll also get the complete recordings of last year’s UK Intensive featuring direct marketing legend Drayton Bird (we’re still working to digest all the wisdom he shared with us last year) Plus they’ll also get the complete DVDs of System 2009 in Chicago (which alone sell for over $1,495.00 US.)

I want smart people at this event. If you’re smart, join us. We’d love to have you add to the power of our Master Mind.

Details:

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk

Yes, it really looks like this

Jaw dropping scenery; fantastic food; clean, fresh air so cool you don’t need an air conditioner in the summer…and one of the biggest collections of super-savvy Internet marketing pros on earth.

But as much as I like the scenery and the fact the weather’s so nice, I really came to spend time with the Internet folks who live here…

Why Vancouver rocks

Vancouver is such a rich source of Internet know-how that I brought a group of my best students here for a very small, very private invitation-only meeting so that they could experience them first hand.

One Day One, James Martell joined us. For my money, James is the best educator on earth on how to create high quality content for the web. And he just gets better and better.

James showed us how he combines blogging with article marketing and forums to create “magnet” sites that attract masses of high quality traffic.

Most impressive of all, he showed us how he recruits top quality writers to work for him for extremely reasonable fees.

The real SEO secret

On Day Two, the legendary Michael Campbell joined us.

There are two kinds of people in the SEO world: 1) Internet marketers who don’t know Michael’s work and 2)  Internet marketers who keep Michael as their “secret weapon.”

Michael’s been involved in Internet marketing at a high level since 1994 and before that he worked in publishing and advertising. If there’s a sharper guy in our field, I haven’t met him yet. A huge portion of what I know that works in SEO originated with him. Honest SEO experts will tell you the same thing.

Entrepreneurs and educators

In addition to building their own low overhead/high profit small businesses, James and Michael are superb educators. It’s a big part of the reason why Vancouver is chock full of super Internet marketers today. The city is so rich in talent it could very well be the #1 city on earth for entrepreneurial Internet marketing smarts.

One city that gives Vancouver a run for its money is London. It’s another place where you find deeply experienced, highly knowledgeable Internet marketers who share what they know without hype.

If you missed Vancouver…

I’m going to be in London in late September working with some of my favorite Internet marketers there:

• Ben Jesson and Karl Blanks of Conversion Rate Experts, one of the only Google-certified consulting groups in Europe, and
• Mark Attwood, a former RAF pilot, who used the Internet to grow his business to over eight million pounds a year (that’s over $10 million US) in a few short years.

Unlike the Vancouver meeting which was private and by invitation only, the upcoming London event is open to the public (however, attendance is limited to 79 participants.)

In my ideal world, I’d rearrange the earth to put Vancouver, London, and New York (where I live) right next to each other, but when I want to hang out with top Internet talent I’m happy to jump on a plane and get myself there.

Big Internet marketing secret: Smart Internet marketers go where the talent is…

Here’s how you can get involved with the London meeting:

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk

This is better than being a channel-surfing coach potato, but not much.

This year, I made a vague plan to take advantage of some of the amazing hiking near my New York state home – and did nothing about it.

Then I looked at the calendar and realized the summer was more than half gone.

Coincidentally, I just read about a place called the Blue Hole which Backpacker Magazine called one of the 10 best swimming holes in America.

It’s at the trail head of the Peekamose Mountain trail so I thought I’d kill two bird with one stone, get some swimming in and do a “little” hiking.

The swimming hole turned out to be everything Backpacker Magazine said it was – and more. This picture barely does it justice, but the water was cold!

Being right on the trail to the top of Peekamoose Mountain (3,843 feet) I thought I’d hike part way up to a point where I had a view.

I’m not much of a mountain climber but 3,843 didn’t sound very high.

Mount Everest in the Himalayas is 29,035 feet high and Pikes Peak in Colorado is 14,115 feet so what’s a little 3,843 foot mountain in comparison?

Where’s the top?

About 15 minutes into the hike, I thought, this is enough. I don’t really want to climb a mountain today so I’ll just hike a little more, get a view and turn around.Then something happened.

The forward momentum took on a life of its own and then I decided to climb “as high as I could.”

An hour or so later, I was still climbing and I was beginning to wonder, where’s the top of this thing? Am I getting close?

There were no vistas a long the way, just dense forest, so the idea of climbing a little bit of the way up, catching a nice view and climbing down wasn’t working.

Finally, I came across a couple hiking down. Information from people who know. Great!

“You’re about half way there.”

Half way, I thought. I can make it the rest of the way.

Then about five minutes later, the trail started to get harder, a lot harder. Instead of a gradual climb, it started to go straight up.

Can’t stop now

Inertia is an amazing thing.

If you sit around, it traps you, but if you put yourself if motion, motion itself become inertia and it feels right to keep going.

And keep going I did.

But still no vistas and still no feel for how far I was from the top…and the path got even steeper. Crawling steep.

After much climbing, I heard voices.

A man and a woman were resting on a big flat rock enjoying the first view through the trees. And they had a map!

For the first time in over two hours, I knew where I was.

“You’re only about 500 feet from the top.”

It sounded good, but the trail from there on got ever steeper.

“You don’t want to climb 3,000 feet or so and then bail out, just 500 feet from the top do you?” I asked myself. So on I went.

Being there

When I got to the top of the mountain, a man and his son were enjoying the view. These were only the fifth and sixth people I saw all day, but I knew the guy! He runs a picture framing shop in town.

They each had a backpack with water, food, maps and rain gear. I had come up with the clothes on my back and sneakers. Note to self for next time.

I also noticed that no one else was climbing this mountain alone. Second note to self.

The view was stunning. I didn’t bring a camera – because I didn’t expect to be on the top of a mountain that day! – so I grabbed this October photo off the Internet. Imagine this being about 10% of the total panorama and make it all a vivid green.

Was it worth the effort? Yes, in every way.

The beauty, the fresh air, the quiet.

Then the little flies came out. Clouds of them. How they got to the top of the mountain I don’t know, but they did. One of the prices of success.

Getting back

Climbing down turned out to be a little bit harder than I thought.

Actually, make that a lot harder.

One thing I failed to calculate is that if you climb a 3,843 feet mountain that means you have to climb DOWN a 3,843 feet mountain too…Preferably the same day – which was a good idea since I had no tent, no food, no water and it was a bit chilly up there in just a t-shirt.

Rock faces that were hard to climb up were REALLY hard to climb down. Plus I hadn’t really paced myself charging up the mountain and I wasn’t quite as strong.

The trail which seemed pretty friendly coming up was strewn with ankle twisting rocks making it necessary to literally watch every step. These were the same rocks I walked around coming up, but when you come down an incline you come down with a lot more force than when you’re going up.

I had a few hours of this ahead of me so I did the only thing you can do when you find yourself in circumstances you didn’t plan for – or want – I made a game out of it.

I knew if I did make a misstep, it was not going to be fun so I got really sharp. Last fall, I twisted my ankle badly walking on some cobblestone streets in Italy so the consequences of being far from home and unable to walk were fresh in my mind.

When I finally got down several hours later and with both ankles intact, I headed straight to the swimming home and dove straight in. Freezing cold water never felt so good. (This is not me. It’s a picture I grabbed off the web.)

What was I thinking?

What was I thinking about on the way up? Business, of course. Specifically, the process of guiding people in business.

I actually do think about this stuff all the time – when I’m not researching it, experimenting with things, seeking out experts, or working with people.

FIRST, it’s good NOT to know how much hard climbing is ahead of you when you start a project. It’s always more than you imagine it will be with lots of challenges along the way that you could have never predicted before you got on the trail.

Rather than worry about what’s ahead, just start moving forward. Get momentum going and then ride it. Remember the old principle from physics class; “A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.”Be a body in motion – and stay on a forward course.

SECOND, you can go a long way through the woods with no clear landmarks and find yourself wondering if you’ll ever get there. A “hike without vistas” can last a long time, often a lot longer than you imagine. That’s why it was so helpful for me when I ran into people who knew the way and could tell me where I was in the process.

A few years ago, I started a small Internet video project on the side to test some ideas I had. For the longest time, it seemed to be limping along in the woods. A small trickle of revenue barely worth the effort. Then, suddenly things broke and I had a $23,000 + net month. Not a fortune, but not bad for 20 to 30 minutes of work per day. (The legendary “four hour work week” realized!)

It would have been so easy to stop along the way and just chuck it, but past experience told me that anything that actually makes money and is growing is worth sticking with, especially if there are no big financial risks involved and the time commitment is modest. Why not stick with it, even if the outcome was not yet clear?

THIRD, it helps a lot to get info from people who’ve actually made it to the top.

There weren’t a lot of people on the trail. I counted six all day, but there all shared one thing: They were on the mountain that day and had made it to the top.

This beat any book or any armchair expert. I’m sure many people who had never made it to the top of this mountain would have told me to “be careful” or “try an easier climb.”

But my advisors were ON the mountain and their unspoken attitude was if they could do it, I could too. No big deal.

The right kind of guidance

There’s all kind of “guidance” available these days in the Internet marketing world.

It seems every time you turn around, a new silver-tongued celebrity guru has emerged with a sure fire method for making massive amounts of money while doing next to nothing.

Their emphasis is on making it sound easy and glamorous, as if all you have to do is learn a few “insiders secrets” and you’ll be there overnight .

Insiders secrets definitely help, but only as a SUPPLEMENT to work.

To use a mountain climbing analogy, you can read all the books, attend all the seminars, and acquire all the mountain-climbing equipment you want, but not of that will get you to the top of a mountain.

Only putting your own two feet on the trail and climbing will get you there.

I’ve been pretty strict about the kind of people I allow to get in front of my audiences.

I’m not interested in the platform entertainers and their carefully crafted “subliminal” product pitches. I’m also not interested in the “we’re so cool” Las Vegas rat pack BS.

Business is about getting things done, not acquiring expensive treasure maps or rubbing elbows with “the great.”

Lately, I’ve been limiting the System faculty not only to real do-ers, but also to people who’ve been through our program and know our philosophy about teaching.

This fall, I’m going back to London for a second System UK Intensive. This is like the System Seminar but with a much smaller group and therefore more intense.

After much persuasion, I’ve convinced one of my most successful students to join the faculty for this one. His name is Mark Attwood and in just a few short years he’s brought his business to over 8 million pounds a year.

That’s over $12,000,000 US a year – and he does it by selling real stuff to real people, not selling “gee whiz” how to Internet stuff to newbies.

I’ll also be joined by two Google-certified traffic and conversion experts Ben Jesson and Karl Blanks.

That’s our core faculty and we might have a few surprise guests.

I brought the Intensive to nine cities in 2007 and 2008 and London happened to be the one where it worked best. Several smart Americans made the trip over to catch last year’s event.

The opportunity

I’m approaching my sixteenth year of teaching Internet marketing and with every passing year we get a little better at showing people the way to the top.

At the same time, I’m starting to cut my teaching schedule way back.

The upcoming Intensive will almost certainly be the last one I offer in the UK. (I’ve found that travel is a lot more fun when you just travel vs. traveling and working.)

I’m going to be 50 years old in two months and I’m getting a little less interested in working and lot more interested in all the other things I can do with my time.

If you live in the UK or Europe, this upcoming training is your best opportunity to work directly with real Internet marketers who’ve made it to the top in numerous real-world business ventures.

Though different from the System Seminar we hold in America each year, this format in some ways better because the audience is much smaller and we can therefore cover a lot more ground.

It’s also a lot less expensive and easier to get to Heathrow than it is to fly to Chicago and back.

If you’re in America, or elsewhere in the world, this particular event is one your best chances to work with top Internet business people in a no nonsense, real world learning environment. The quality of the attendees and the expert faculty will be sky high and you’re unlikely to get a shot like this at these guys anywhere else but their home turf.

If you’re interested in more details, click the link below and we’ll send you all the where, when and how much info.

http://www.systemintensive.com/uk/

Best,

Ken McCarthy

Every worthwhile advance in human history that I’m aware of has come from a small group of passionate people – and that trend continues.

Just when you think there’s nothing new under the sun, creative human beings come along and change the world with amazing new ideas. The personal computer, the web browser, broadcasting – all these huge industries started with a handful of passionate tinkering.

I have no idea where this particular idea will lead, but is this amazing or what?

Check it out:

More: http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Why I’m heading to England this fall

There’s a lot of innovation in the UK and it’s not just limited to the RepRap.

I’m finding that some of the sharpest, most innovative Internet marketers today are based in the UK.

They’re too busy making money to be on the seminar circuit. That’s why I go to them.

This September 26-27, we’ll be doing a System Intensive together in London.

Last year, we had several American Internet entrepreneurs make the trip to join us as students. It was well worth the trip for them and this year’s meeting will be even richer.

Details here: http://www.SystemIntensive.com

Some of it’s good, some of it’s not so good, and some of it is so bad it’s dangerous.

Finding good advice in these areas is a big challenge, but there’s even a bigger structural problem.

#1 – There are three essential steps you should take after you start making money and before you start investing that no one talks about.

These three steps are not sexy so you can’t build a sexy “get rich quick” course around them, but they are as fundamental to wealth building as eating, breathing and drinking water.

#2 – Investing money is not an easy way to make money, certainly not as easy as the “get rich quick” by investing courses make it out to be

I know this flies in the face of popular beliefs, but here’s the fact:

Among the world’s top gun money managers, a 15% annual return on your money is considered a home run. Stringing several years like this together is considered a god-like performance.

The lucky money managers who reach these heights WORK with world class resources at their disposal along with good sized staffs of razor sharp people who clock in at least 9 to 5 every day (usually a lot more)

Is it really likely that you’re going to do as well as them or better than them in getting a return on your money?

That being said, it is possible, but infomercial BS aside, it’s not going to happen without a ton of work on your part. And here’s the kicker: even if you are really, really good and work really, really hard, the markets are hazardous places and you can get blown up. It happens to the best of traders.

A better way…

This is why I advise people to focus on creating businesses with customers who come back over and over again to buy.

First, starting a business the smart way (the System way) is extremely low risk. If your first idea doesn’t fly, you can live to try again and again and again until you get it right.

Second, when you get something that works – a body of customers, a solid product, a compelling offer – you’ve got a System that makes money week in and week out.

Third, a business that works can be safely leveraged through excellent marketing. So-so money makers can be tweaked to become cash cows. Cash cows can be tweaked to be Godzillas.

In contrast, traders have to re-invent the wheel every day as markets shift and can make big mistakes in the process. Business owners push product over the counter to regular buyers and count their daily receipts. Having done both, I can tell you owning a solid business is a much better deal.

There’s a another big problem with the “get rich quick” investment courses.

Generally, I don’t believe in the “it takes money to make money” philosophy. There are all kinds of way to get started making money with just the spare change in your pocket and if you can’t do it at that level, you probably won’t be able to do it with a lot of capital either.

However, I do believe there is one exception to this rule: trading.

You need ample money to trade and that money needs to be calm and patient money in order for it to get the best results. Taking too small a stake to the market and trying to make your rent with this week’s trading opportunities is a recipe for disaster.

When I was a young guy with no money just getting started I really didn’t want to hear this. It seemed downright un-American. How come only guys who already have money have all the odds stacked in their favor when it comes to trading? Shouldn’t the little guy be able to make smart moves and leverage his $1,000 into a million?

It might happen, but more people win the lottery than pull that off.

The correct sequence is make money – save money – save even more money – put the bulk of your savings in bullet-proof, bomb-proof instruments (like short term Treasuries) – and then take a small piece of your net worth to the markets and make small bets with it.

None of this prevents you from studying investing, paper trading, and maybe even taking micro-positions now to learn how things really work while you’re building your stake, but the idea of “on the job” training in the markets with thin capitalization and no other serious source of income is just not optimal.

And yet, all the “get rich quick” through trading courses are essentially recommending this approach. Great for the course sellers, not so great for the course buyers.

Better idea:

Build a business. Make that business great. Take cash off the table on a regular basis and stack it up in Treasuries. Then take a small piece of that and roll the dice – if you must.

Get rich slow.

Follow the sequence that’s worked over and over again for the people who’ve actually gotten there.

It works.

If you really think it through and talk to lots of people who have “made” it, you’ll see that that’s the way it’s done.

If it’s still July 4, 2009, you can get the complete Blueprint here for free:

http://www.TheSystemSeminar.com/july4/download.html