I feel I have to share it here as I’ve followed the link and had a look at Karen’s blog and was totally inspired by it.  I’ve also sat in many internet marketing ‘free’ seminars – given up my time and avoided being lured into buying (mainly as I’m broke!) but always come away with something of value.

Karen, however, has come away and is taking action – I would say, MASSIVE action.  Read about it in Nicola’s email here:

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01 October 2009

Dear Sarah

Can I tell you Karen’s story?

When talking to people who want to get started in Internet Marketing, there are two fundamental problems that come over:

1.  I don’t know where to start, or the right thing to do first

2.  I’m overwhelmed, too much info, too much to do, too far to go, so can’t even get started

So I’m always on the lookout for tools, tips and even tricks that might help get people moving. Because once moving, they get the most important thing working for them, and that’s momentum.

Once you get some momentum working with you, you can improve things on the move, work out what’s working and what’s not, change things, test things, and keep it all going.

I was lucky enough to be sent this powerful value statement that really resonated with me. It came from the rather wonderful Gratitude Log website that I’m using now as part of my Social Networking activities (connects with your Twitter account).

** Aim for a 1% improvement every single day **

That’s it!  I think all of us could agree that a 1% improvement is something we are capable of.

Well, the power of this is that if you do this every single day, then you will completely transform yourself and your life in less than 1 year.

In fact, if you will be 3,700 times better by the end of this year.  This is also why Einstein used to say that “the power of compounding is one of the most powerful forces in the world.”

Now, please don’t take this example literally.  Why?

Because a 3,700 % improvement is impossible!  If I could do that, perhaps I could fly. 

The key idea that I am trying to communicate is this:

* Aim to be better today than you were yesterday

QUOTE ENDS

But one thing’s for sure.  If you don’t start, you won’t get any momentum going.

I always say to our clients, please just do one thing, one thing each day to move your business forward.

So I want to share with you the story of inspirational story of Karen, someone who was on Mark Anastasi’s Speed Cash Workshop at the weekend.

She’s very, very young.  She knows nothing about the internet.

But she sat in the audience just this last weekend gone and now she’s taking action, just one step, one day at a time.  Three days in, she’s got a blog, a YouTube channel, a Twitter account and she’s only bloomin’ doing it!

(I tell you, I wish I could bottle what Karen’s got and give it to some of our Money Gym members, still procrastinating about domain names and which blog platform to use months later!)

Watch her three short videos and get inspired.  Here s the first one.

http://msinternetmarketing.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/hello-world/

She’s not trying to get it all right first time, or get it perfect before she goes live but every day she s doing one thing   making a video and uploading it to YouTube, and then posting it on her blog too.  She s also signing up as an affiliate to one programme every day, and posting the product link on her blog.

Karen is also not worrying about what her blog looks like, or whether it s configured properly, or what plugins she s got installed or finding the perfect theme.

But she has put herself in danger of making her first $10 online!

And do you know what?

She s just actually made her 1st $10 online, but maybe she doesn t know it yet.

Because I’ve just invested in the EXCELLENT Subliminal Power software again (I used to use it in 2001 but many computers later…)

I did it via her affiliate link.

How cool is that?

Please either subscribe to her RSS feed, or go to YouTube, set up an account and subscribe to her videos so you see them as she does them   I m sure you will find it inspiring.  And let’s encourage her with positive comments, shall we?

If she can just DO IT, so can you.

And if you really, really want to learn how to harness the power of 1 billion people online right NOW….

If you really, really want to learn how to create products that market your business and add to your bottom line….

If you really, really want to create a second income, small or large, to add to what you earn from your day job….

Well, you just HAVE to come to our “Really Useful Internet Day” on Saturday 10th October in Central London

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/internetday/booking.htm

And we can help you get moving, like Karen.

Cheers

Nicola

p.s. All ticket proceeds to The Big Issue, who help the homeless help themselves

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End of email.

I hope it’s given you pause for thought too.  And remember to check out the The Money Gym internet day which will be raising money for The Big Issue again -  I’m going to be there on the 10 October in London, so come along and say hi

Basically he talks about the phenomena of people with a HUGE number of Twitter followers, coming to their senses and un-following people they’ve subscribed to merely as a way of building up their own fans.  A trick people have used and one I’ve never really subscribed to.

I mean, WHY bother?  These people must be completely dumb if they think you really are following them back… and if they are following several hundred or even thousands, they are obviously not reading what you’ve got to say anyway.

I only ever follow people I’m interested in hearing from.  I don’t expect them to follow me back.. unless they are my sister of course *grin* and that way, with the help of the very handy Seesmic desktop application, I can stay on top of what interests me and share it with people who are interested in hearing about it.  And well, if they’re not, they can always unfollow me – I’m not going to die in a ditch about it.

Because my interests are varied, I have created separate Twitter accounts so people can choose what they want to hear about from me.  I have my general one:  @sarahcairncross which shows ALL my tweets and includes some personal stuff occasionally.  Then there is my @rawrrrlife for my RawRRR.com blog about eating more raw food and generally getting ‘out there’ more.  My @classicminiclub which is not used much at the moment as it is another of my good ideas which will get attention at a later date… but will revolve around classic mini cars. And last but not least, @virtualhammock to support this blog which is based around my interest in the internet, social media marketing and making money online (hopefully sooner than later).

The people I follow on each of those is very tightly niched to each specific interest so I’m not overwhelmed and can choose to focus on one thing at a time.. this in theory will stop me getting distracted but I’ve still got to work on this

So if you’re just starting out on Twitter, my advice to you is to build up your following by using the application regularly and tweeting stuff that is relevant, fun and informative with the odd random curve ball in there. Add links in your email signatures, on your blogs, websites, other social media apps and stick with it.  A good guideline is to ask yourself, ‘would I be interested in reading this?’ and remember, your @ replies appear in your timeline too – so use direct messaging if it will annoy your readers or cause you to blush *grin*

Well of course, nowadays every internet marketing bod on the planet is waxing lyrical about using video as a more dynamic method of capturing your visitor’s eye, imagination and if you’re offering something half decent, their cash too.

And of course, as someone who gets suckered into reading a whole load of fantastic – and errrm not so great – sales letters/pages I have to agree with it. It’s like the Big Brother thing – people love having a sneak peak at the person behind the screen and it DOESN’T MATTER if they are sitting there being critical of your big nose or tragic hairstyle that day, they are still sitting there engaging with you.

So I’ve finally bitten the bullet and ordered a great webcam and a digital camera – my friend Flugel will fall off his chair at hearing that as I’ve been procrastinating about it for ummm a year or more. My sister Nicola is constantly frustrated at me for taking NO action as I start researching things and either take forever or give up as there’s just too much choice.

So how did I overcome my complete overwhelm at looking for ‘the right one’ for the job?

Well first of all I made the decision that I was going to do it and THEN I wrote it down in my notepad that I was going to do it.

Now that may seem a bit woo woo but for some reason if I actually WRITE a list I tend to get a load more stuff done – try it sometime. (By the way don’t tell my soon-to-be-ex-husband that I am writing lists now ‘cos he’d be too smug for words having tried to make me do them throughout our marriage).

So what about the actual action then Sarah? You’re probably asking…or getting bored of reading this post and thinking ffs woman get on with it.

Well I did my usual thing of wasting time looking in eBay, faced with a myriad of ‘fantastic’ products at ‘best ever’ prices and mostly waiting to be shipped from Hong Kong. So after half an hour of looking at fecking ugly webcams I thought to myself – hang on, lemme look at Skype.com and see what they recommend – they must have done some research! So off I went and sure enough they have a list of products and even tell you what the most popular ones are that people are buying.

So I narrowed it down to the one with the sexy sounding Carl Zeiss optic and after comparing prices between Skype and eBay I clicked the buy now button via Skype and was taken to… Amazon who are currently doing an amazing deal on Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 Webcam. Why this one? Well it promises great visual clarity and clear sound and having looked at the reviews – paying special attention to the video testimonials – I have to agree. It also promises to be simple to use

As I was there and in a buying mood, I then thought, SOD IT, I need a digital camera I’ll have a look while I’m here. I don’t have a clue about cameras – all I knew is I wanted one that had a clear display image on the back, was simple to use, good zoom and could take video too – essential for when I’m out and about and want to do on the spot interviews with people or record an event I come across.

So I clicked on the Deals Of The Week link in Amazon and voila! A Canon Digital IXUS 970 IS camera jumped out at me – 40% off, did everything I wanted plus in the blurb it promised I’d be able to take amazing sunset shots which is a must for recording the ones we get off the coast here. I of course read the reviews which confirmed that this was going to be good for me and hit buy… and also got sucked into the very clever upsell that Amazon now does too for a case and spare battery.

I haven’t shopped at Amazon for a while actually and was seriously impressed at how slick their sales process is nowadays with all the suggestions, different ways of reviewing products and how they’ve managed to take the pain out of the decision process – if you have an online shop make sure you go take a look and adopt their business model!

So, now I’m armed with two essential tools that I’ve been missing from my arsenal it’ll be interesting to see how, where, when and why I use them and what affect it will have on my feeble business attempts.

I will of course keep you updated here *smile*

I’m being ruthless and to be honest, it’s not been THAT hard to do.  One of the few people I’ve decided to continue to follow is Yaro Starak, an awesome blogger who resides in Australia when he is not travelling around the world doing whatever he fancies.

Why Yaro?  Well he is doing what I want to do – living his dream lifestyle and profitably and it hasn’t taken him an eternity to get there which gives me hope that if I could just stay focussed and stop procrastinating I too can get there.

The other biggy of course, is that he DELIVERS VALUE.  He shares what he learns, his viewpoints and has made himself an expert in his chosen field.  He is INTERESTING to read, talks in simple, plain English and is not feeling so scarce that he can’t divulge his opinions, tools and ’secrets’.

Looking through his site, this paragraph from the following article he wrote, really struck home to me:

“Bear in mind I’m saying this from the mindset of running a business of a certain size and living a certain kind of lifestyle. I’m not looking to take on full time employees, get an office and grow to the point where I’m committed to certain things simply because the size of the machine has become more than I can handle.”

And that’s the thing – I just have to get clear on what my ideal lifestyle IS, what it looks like, how my days will be structured and what kind of income it will take to cover that without working my guts out .. ie. become financially free.. and then some.

There are of course a mass of other little gems packed in it too and I hope something kicks you up the bum too x

How To Work Less and Earn More By Leveraging The Synergy Between People And Technology by Yaro Starak

Several years ago when I was…

…managing BetterEdit, my proofreading company that I sold in 2007, I was knee deep learning from Rich Schefren, taking his Business Growth System course.

Rich launched that program on the back of his most successful report to date, the Internet Business Manifesto, which featured the now famous flow chart of what an Internet entrepreneur is supposed to do if he or she wants to succeed online. If you haven’t read the Manifesto, I strongly recommend you do so as soon as possible, it’s still one of the most crucial reports on Internet marketing as an entrepreneur ever written.

After reading the Manifesto it was clear I needed to make some changes, so I joined Rich’s coaching program and began going through it. The premise of what Rich teaches is the idea that no person can realistically ever get to the point where their business looks after them, rather than they look after their business, if you do everything by yourself. Rich took this idea a lot further than just outsourcing, and sees business as a machine that can be completely automated.

At that point in time BetterEdit was doing well and I did have Angela, my admin/customer service person looking after most of the day to day emailing for the business, which is the main workload to keep it going. This was great, but as a result of thinking so much about automation and studying Rich’s course, I was interested in possibly using technology to further systematize the operations and gain more leverage.

Using Software To Automate

BetterEdit has a very simple job flow process. A client submits a paper and makes payment, the admin person assigns the job and forwards the document to an editor. The editor completes the job and returns to the document to both the admin and the client. Various emails flow back and forth if there are problems, but generally that’s the basic process.

One of the key weaknesses of the system I had was no affiliate program. I saw huge potential if I could find a way to pay a commission out to websites that referred jobs to the business. Besides manually tracking things, which would be a nightmare, I just couldn’t do it.

The answer to the affiliate issue was to..

continue reading at Yaro’s website here: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/1052/leverage-technology-people/#more-1052

Websites That Write Your Salesletter For You?  by Robert Plank

When you sell anything on the internet… whether you do it using e-mail marketing, forum marketing, blog posting… if you sell e-books, physical products, e-classes, even a newsletter… the best way to sell anything is using direct response sales copy.

But not all of us can be world-class copywriters like Michel Fortin. I consider myself a pretty sloppy copywriter, and althought I can whip up a headline, quick story, bullet point list of benefits, testmonials, feature list, guarantee and a call-to-action… I will never be a great copywriter.  Gary Halbert can’t hold my attention for longer than a few minutes, I’ve never read Scientific Advertising, so how do I scrape by writing average sales copy?

The answer is: practice and resources. I’ve written enough sales letters that I know what my audience wants and how I can present it to them to maximize sales.  I rarely spend more than a couple of hours writing even 5 or 10 page sales letters, and some have converted as high as 19 percent for me.

Even if you don’t have the skill or the practice, you can still hit the following sites to produce an average sales letter, enough for a copywriter to rewrite it or critique it.

Site #1: Digg.com
As far as I’m concerned, Digg is THE best place to find…

…niche headlines from popular, specific and benefit-oriented, but funny news items.  Go to Digg.com, type in your niche keyword and click Search.  Then refine the search to search by the title only (so your keyword is in the title), show all stories (not just front page stories), and sort by most diggs (so the news items “the people” like float right to the top).  Using the Digg technique, I helped a copywriter come up with this headline: “Man Wins Divorce Without a Lawyer In Sight!”  Makes you want to find out more, right?

Site #2:

continue reading this article at http://www.marketersboard.com/6-sites-practically-write-sales-letter/

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However, it was still the norm to use html tables to control the layout of the content of the page but I was very good and made sure I didn’t nest tables within tables within tables as it slows the download of the web page and completely screws up things for people trying to view things with special readers if they have impaired vision, for example.

Well, although I’ve stopped writing my own code I still like to see what the geeks talk about and subscribe to newsletters from Sitepoint. In the one I received today, they included a YouTube video discussing their latest book about using CSS tables, which will be compatible with Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).

Personally I agree with them that this is something that developers should be paying attention to – what do you think?