I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a wealthy entrepreneur admit their rise to success did not begin until they stopped listening to all the people in their lives who were giving them bad advice.

Sure, it’s difficult to grasp that your parents or uncle or your big brother might be a big reason why you’re struggling. It’s not their fault though. It was in their upbringing, too. It’s the way most of us are programmed.

You probably already know what I’m talking about. Question is, are you ready to listen? Are you ready and willing to make some tough life choices and decisions so you can finally make that big ball & chain that’s been holding you back disappear forever? Because if you can’t, then you will never be able to climb the ladder of success.

Let me clarify. If you are truly hungry for the money and the lifestyle that comes along with it, you have got to burn some bridges. You need to break ties with people who will never understand the entrepreneurial spirit. Those are all the people in your life who think the only good option is to get an education and then work for someone else for 40+ years.

You know what? There are no billionaire employees. None. Not anywhere. I doubt there are any millionaire employees either.

That’s one group of balls and chains. The other group is all the people you’re surrounding yourself with, online or offline, who don’t make anywhere near what you want to make but you’re still listening to them. Some of them anyway. You’re taking advice from the wrong people.

Take a few minutes to watch this short video that my good friend Frank made recently as a live-stream on Facebook. Listen to what he’s saying. Let it sink in real good because this is life-changing stuff right here.

Let me tell you a little story real quick. Way back when I first started dabbling in affiliate and network marketing, I had recently been laid off from my I.T. job as I was middle management and the company was cutting back big time. This was back in early 2001 when the economy really started taking a dump.

I won’t get into all the details because it would take too long so I’m going to skip ahead a little bit. I had become an Ebay Power Seller and I had a business partner. This partner still worked for the company that laid me off and he was working with me during the evenings.

I knew this guy my whole life because he was my Dad’s best friend growing up. Kind of like an uncle but not blood related. I had an enormous amount of respect for this guy for years because of the stories my Dad used to tell me about what a magical sales person he was. How he was constantly breaking company records, winning exotic trips and even had a big beautiful home paid for by his company because that’s how valuable he was to them.

So here I am one day, sitting at my computer, working on some new Ebay product pages and I have this other window open where I’m reading up on some kind of affiliate thing called Clickbank. This guy calls me about something business related but I can’t remember what it was. I broke topic and told him how I was reading up on this guy who was making over $300 a day selling affiliate products a couple hours a day between dinner time and bedtime. I told him how I was going to do that, too, but I was going to make double that amount.

You know what he said to me? He said, “Clay, you really need to stop messing with that get rich quick crap. Nobody ever really gets rich doing that stuff.”

In that instant, I lost any and all respect I ever had for the guy. I made an emotional decision to start trying to separate myself from him. This was long before I ever made any money online. But I knew even then that I was going to do this. I was going to make bank with Internet Marketing. I knew I would become a 7 figure earner and nobody was going to tell me otherwise. Not my family, not my friends, not my peers… nobody.

It took me about 3 years from that time before I had finally learned enough to earn more than I did with my I.T. job. Then 2 years after that I had my first $80,000 month.

Can you guess what it was that started turning things around for me?

I refused to listen to anyone who wasn’t supportive and I never did anything for my business growth that didn’t come from some 6, 7 or 8 figure earner. The more success I had, the more wealthy marketers I went after. Not like stalking or anything like that. I sought out connections with people who made a lot more than I did. I listened to them and did my best to copy everything I saw them doing.

If that last part sounds familiar to you, it should. That’s exactly what Tony Robbins says to do. He’s a smart guy and at least an 8 figure earner so listen to him, too.

Look, my own Dad didn’t believe in me so I can definitely understand how difficult it can be to not listen to family members or allow them to sway you. I’m telling you, if you’re hungry for it, that’s what it takes.

You can learn a lot from me with MasterMarketer.com. I’ll teach you as much as I can so keep coming back to see what’s new. I’m one 7 figure earner. Find a couple more and start modeling after them. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You don’t know better until you’re doing better than they are.

I hope this blog post gets your engine running! Let me know in the comments below if you liked this one.

I have seen literally thousands of squeeze pages, also known as lead capture pages. Sometimes it still amazes me which ones convert the best. Like when I see one that has very little content and is so ugly! For some reason, ugly works.

Something that always remains true, though, is that there are certain mistakes people make with their squeeze pages that will lower your opt in rate every time. Today I’m going to talk about 3 of the more common mistakes that I see and how to correct them or avoid them.

CTA Is Below The Fold

On a squeeze page, your CTA (Call To Action) is your opt in box and the button under it. Or with a 2-Step squeeze page it’s a big button that opens up a popup opt in form.

If you have too much content or your headline and sub-headline are way too big, it can push your opt in box down so far that your prospect has to scroll down to bring it into view. If your prospect has to scroll down then you run the risk of losing them before they have a chance to opt in.

Anything low enough that people have to scroll to see it is called Below The Fold. Hence, everything within view is called Above The Fold.

You always want your main content and your CTA to be above the fold. Your main content includes your headline, sub-headline, bullet points or short video, and your CTA. If you want to include more, like testimonials for example, put them below the fold because they are nice to have but aren’t necessarily going to increase your opt in rate.

Lack Of Incentive To Opt In

This is basic Marketing 101. The sole purpose of a squeeze page is to get people to give you their contact information so you have a way to follow up with them and so you’re building your email list. The goal of a squeeze page is not to make the sale. That’s what the sales page or presentation page is for. If the visitor never opts in then they would never see your sales page.

Your squeeze page should clearly state what you are giving them if they opt in. It should be something of great perceived value, targeted at your niche audience of course. That can be any number of things. A free report, a video, a checklist, or a free product sample, to name a few good options.

The incentive does not have to be in the main headline. It can be in the sub-headline or in a short sentence just above the opt in box. Or you can put it in the headline if you want. I see a lot of people start off their headline with FREE REPORT or FREE VIDEO REVEALS…

An example of what not to do, what I see far too often, is having a main headline with no sub-headline and it’s too vague. Like, “Make Money Online Like A Boss.” And nowhere on the squeeze page does it tell your visitor why they should give you their contact information.

If whatever you’re offering is extremely valuable then it’s okay to state that 2 or 3 times on your squeeze page. Either way, just make sure the offer is very clear so you’re giving your visitors plenty of incentive to opt in.

Social Share Buttons On Your Squeeze Page

This is one that’s never really made sense to me. Why people think it’s a good idea to put social share buttons on a squeeze page. I can only guess that they simply haven’t thought it through. So let’s do that right now. Let’s think about it.

If someone is looking at your squeeze page for the first time, even if they read all the content or watched the video, they don’t really know much yet. I mean, like I said before, your goal with a squeeze page is to give them something AFTER they opt in. Why would anyone want to share your squeeze page when at this point they really don’t know exactly what they would be sharing?

Another way to look at it is, if it’s affiliate or network marketing related, and they share your squeeze page on Facebook, then wouldn’t they be potentially sending you a bunch of their Facebook friends and followers? If they opt in afterwards and then decide to get involved then they might have just lost quite a few referrals or sales to you that could have been theirs.

Lastly, it’s a distraction that doesn’t need to be there. Again, your goal is to get people to opt in, right? The last thing you want is some button or link that takes them away from your squeeze page or a window that covers it up before they have a chance to opt in.

Conclusion

Make these 3 things your top 3 rules to follow when designing a new squeeze page and you will improve your opt in rate tremendously. If you are using a shared funnel or squeeze page that includes some or all of these deadly mistakes then make a copy so you can edit them. You will get much better results than the person who originally designed the page.

Always make sure you test your own squeeze pages thoroughly before sending any traffic to them. View them in a full browser window, opt in with a valid email address, and only when you know everything is the way it should be, then start sending the traffic.

Recently I was on a Zoom mastermind webinar and one of the hosts asked me to speak about some of the things that have helped me become successful.

This was spontaneous so I was in no way prepared. Turns out it didn’t matter because it’s easy for me to remember some of the things that made the biggest difference in my online career and my bank account.

Number one was deciding to start building my subscriber list. [Hint Hint!]  I ignored everyone who told me that during my first 3 years online. Not sure why but eventually I came to my senses and started focusing a big portion of my time, effort and budget on building my list.

The second thing is somewhat related to list building, in a way, but I wasn’t thinking that when I mentioned it during the webinar. I talked about how I’d been following some of the industry’s top producers and how I noticed they all had something in common. Every one of their emails was written so well that they were super compelling and almost forced people to take action. Not just any action but the exact action intended by the author of those emails.

I decided then that I had to learn how to do that, too. Back then I had no idea how much writing was an art form and how much science was behind it. And by science, I mean psychology. It’s all about connecting with your audience, grabbing their attention and keeping it, and using specific words or phrases that act as psychological triggers. Even the placement of such words or phrases can make a huge difference.

What I learned was so intriguing that I wanted more. It was like the more courses or books I bought and went through, the more I wanted to buy. I started noticing a difference in my marketing efforts immediately.

The engagement, opt in and sales conversions doubled and then tripled when I emailed my list or because of the way I wrote the ad copy on my squeeze pages.

One of the webinar attendees asked me how and where I learned how to write better ad copy. It wasn’t really one place or one product. It was several. I started searching online for things like “Writing High Converting Ad Copy” or “How To Write Emails That Sell” and found a few eBooks or courses that I snatched up and dove into right away. You could also insert the word Psychology or Psychological into your searches to get different types of results but most copy-writing books or courses are always going to talk about that anyway.

To save you some time and give you a good starting point, I did some searching on my own. I was specifically looking for certain names. People I learned from myself.

The first product I recommend is a course by none other than long-standing super affiliate Aurelius Tjin appropriately called Email Copy That Sells. Don’t let the low cost fool you. It may be less than $15 for this course but what you learn can easily quadruple your monthly income.

One of the bonuses you get if you buy this is, in my opinion, worth as much or more that the course itself. It’s a swipe file with hundreds of Power Words & Phrases.

You certainly cannot go wrong with this as your first ever copy-writing mastery course. Even if it’s the only product you ever buy on the subject. I have a feeling though that once you go through this one, you’ll want to learn more just like I did.

The second product is an eBook by multi-millionaire copy-writing genius Richard G. Lewis titled PsychoProfits. Obviously, by the name, I’m sure you can tell this one is all about the psychological aspect of copy-writing and getting people to take action. PsychoProfits is only $27. A drop in the bucket considering how much more you will earn after going through it.

What Richard teaches can be applied to any type of ad copy. Not just emails. Things like sales videos or sales pages or squeeze pages. Anything that requires content that you need people to who read it to take some form of action like opting in, joining, or whipping out their credit card to buy something.

Every top producer in this industry has mastered at least one main skill. And for many of them, writing high converting ad copy is at the top of that list. Some people only ever master this one skill and outsource everything else.

With these two products you can learn things that you will use daily. And if you really want to help your followers out, you can recommend both of these products to them. They are each sold through JVZoo so you can look them up and request approval to sell them and they both pay 100% commissions. Now that’s a win-win deal if I ever did see one. You learn a ton, you help your followers or subscribers to learn something that they will use and make money from for years, and you get paid to share it with them.

For more than 17 years now, my favorite method for generating highly targeted traffic and leads has been with solo ads.

Back in the day, solo ads were only available as Safelist solo ads or Ezine (online digital magazines or newsletters) solo ads. It was so much cheaper back then, too. You could get a solo ad to 30,000 people for $15 to $30. Or a solo ad to 100,000+ people for $50 or $60.

Nowadays everyone charges per click. Meaning every time someone clicks on the link in the email ad and visits your website, typically a lead capture page, that counts as a “Click.” When we buy solo ad traffic, we are buying a guaranteed number of unique clicks. That means every click has to be a different person and duplicate or triple clicks don’t count. This is actually a good thing. People should not be clicking on the link if they haven’t read the email and are interested in what they read. Enough so that they want more information. Hence, they click on the link.

This little trick I learned from Matt Bacak, a genius email marketer and incredibly talented copywriter, and it has increased both my opt in and my sales conversions by as much as 30%.

The idea behind this trick is that any solo ad seller you buy traffic from has to guarantee a number of unique clicks so we are going to do something that will ensure that those clicks are always going to be from people who are highly interested and know what to expect after they click.

The way we do that is by inserting a statement in our ad copy that says something like, “Click on the link below and opt in to learn more.”

Wait! We are going to tell them ahead of time that they are about to visit a lead capture page? You bet we are!

Think about it. If the seller has to guarantee you get 200 unique clicks then we are going to do our best to make sure all 200 clicks we get are much more likely to opt in and then keep going through our sales funnel because they only would have clicked if they were interested in what they read in the email (solo) ad.

You don’t have to worry as much about getting clicks from tire kickers and the seller has to work harder to make sure you get what you paid for.

Now obviously this trick only works if you are able to submit your own solo ad copy. In most cases you can. Like with Udimi for example.

While we’re on the subject, I’ll let you in on another cool secret. I’ve been selling solo ad traffic for more than 2 years and have a perfect reputation for delivering exceptional quality traffic. One of the things that has made my traffic so popular and makes my clients keep coming back for more is because I write the ad copy for them. And one of the many reasons why my traffic converts better than my competition is because of this trick I just taught you and several more that I have learned from 17 years of practice and training and purchasing products and courses from people like Matt Bacak and always incorporate into my ad copy for the benefit of my clients. That’s why I named my company Done For You Solos. Because I do most of the work for you. All I need is the link to your capture page.

Most people either don’t like to or don’t know how to write good ad copy. I’ve known that for a long time. That’s what gave me the idea for DFYsolos.com. I have spent years and thousands of dollars on products and courses that taught me how to write compelling ad copy with little tricks like this one I’m teaching you today and using psychological triggers that virtually force people to take action.

Anyway, getting a bit off topic here. If you use solo ads or want to and you write your own ad copy then try this trick and I guarantee your results will be much better than if you did not use it. If you want to check out my Done For You Solos, you can do so at DFYsolos.com.