Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

I ran across a forum post today that really got me thinking? Actually, it was just the title of the thread that got me thinking. “Is it possible to make $1,500 a year?” Now think about that question for just a moment, especially if you’re a fairly successful Internet marketer and possibly making that much, or more, in a week. Think about this person’s idea of what reality is? He can’t even fathom making $1,500 in a year. How hard do you think it will be for him to actually earn that much if he’s wondering if it’s even possible.

Okay, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. Well, to make it a lot more clear, let’s take something a lot less probable, at least 100 years ago. Let’s take traveling to the moon and actually having a man walk on the moon. At the beginning of the 20th century, and even long after, this was pure science fiction. Think about how many movies were made of man going into space. Now, it’s something we take for granted. Back then, if somebody had asked “Is it possible to walk on the moon” they would have been laughed at.

Here is my point, and no this isn’t another power of positive thinking rah, rah, rah article. This has to do with man’s perception of what’s possible and what’s impossible or at least very unlikely. We all have our little barriers that we put up. I have mine just like everybody else. For me, it’s making millions per year, at least not with my current marketing model. It’s not going to happen. I’ll make a nice living with it, but millions? Not a prayer in the world…or so I believe. But the truth is, all I need is one truly unique idea to go viral and I can easily turn my business into seven figures. I just don’t believe it’s possible right now.

And that is ultimately what stops most people from reaching their full potential. They see a specific goal as being so far fetched that they don’t believe, even for a second, that it’s possible. So they shoot for something that they believe is attainable. That forum poster is hoping for at least $1,500 a year. Trust me…if he makes that much, it will be a miracle. The body can only achieve what the mind can comprehend. If you don’t believe can fly, you won’t fly.

So take a look at your goals. Are they realistic or conservative? You may not have enough knowledge to know the answer to that question. So ask others. Tell them what your marketing plan is. See what the experts think of it.

You may have more potential there than you realize.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

This article is addressing a very common problem that I am seeing way too often, especially in short reports that people are giving away in order to build their list. The problem I’m talking about is what I call the “Life Story Syndrome” and it’s one that can kill your marketing. Nobody cares about your life story. Keep reading and you’ll understand why.

First of all, the reason most marketers include their bio in short reports or even in full blown ebooks is because they think that by telling their life story, the prospect or customer is going to identify with them. They’ll be able to say, “Hey yeah…I did that too.” The problem is, these people are usually at a stage where they just want to get to the meat of what you’re offering so that they can get some knowledge that will get them out of the hole they’re in. Going on for pages and pages about how you lost your job and how your cat died on New Years Eve is NOT going to score any points with them.

Ultimately, what’s going to happen is this. The prospect is going to get through three or four pages of your boring story, get fed up with not receiving any useful information, and put the book away. They won’t make it to the end of the thing where you have your affiliate link to some great product that will solve their problem or your own product for that matter. The prospect is long gone because you bored them to tears with your life story. You may find your life interesting, but nobody else will.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a casual mention of something you did that is relevant to what you’re explaining in the report. I do this all the time. It reinforces the material that you’re trying to get across. But don’t turn the mention into the main thing. It has to be an addition, and a minor one at that. People have short attention spans these days and don’t want to do anymore reading than what is necessary. So make it short and to the point.

If you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up, it’s because somebody sent a report for me to look at the other day. It was only 7 pages, but the first 3 pages were a life story that, quite honestly, had nothing to do with the material that the person was trying to teach in the report itself. It was just background information leading up to why they did what they did. Guess what? Who cares? Just tell me what I need to know. This is something way too many marketers don’t get because they get wrapped up in their own egos. “My life is important and you better listen to it.” Um, news flash…no it’s not and I don’t have to listen to it.

So please, make it short and to the point. Tell me what I need to know and then get out.

You’ll keep more prospects that way if you do.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

If you mention the Off Topic section of any forum, especially the Warrior Forum where I hang out a lot, people will say that those sections are worthless because the members just talk about nonsense and thus don’t help with your marketing in any way. Well, this thinking is so wrong that I don’t even know where to begin. In fact, the Off Topic section of the Warrior Forum may be the best place to network and market. Why do I say that? Well, keep reading and you’ll find out.

For starters, off topic forums usually have few if any rules. You can talk about just about anything. At the Warrior Forum, the only subjects that are taboo are politics and religion. I won’t get into the reasons why but they make sense. But just about anything else goes from sex to dirty jokes. Okay, so why is this so important?

When you participate in a section of a forum where you can talk about anything, you get to see people for what they REALLY are. This is where the members let their hair down. You get them with all their warts. In the regular sections, you have rules and guidelines that make it more difficult to see what a person is really like. Plus, in those sections, because most people ARE essentially marketing their knowledge, you get a very distorted view of their personality. It’s all very business like. And that’s fine on the surface if all you’re trying to do is learn from these people.

But what if you’re thinking of doing a joint venture with a person? Trust me, you don’t want to base your decision just on how much knowledge they have. The most knowledgeable person in the world could be a total jackass as a human being. You don’t get to see that all too often in the more regulated sections of a forum, though some people don’t hide it even there. And most of those people end up getting banned anyway. But in off topic, many times you will see a person slip. Or, you’ll see a kinder, gentler side to them that you don’t see in the regular sections because they’re always busy being so professional.

This is why it can sometimes be beneficial to you to hang out in OT to see what some of the members are REALLY like. Plus, it gives YOU a chance to really be yourself as well. Trust me, you will find that you’ll act different there than anywhere else if for no other reason than because of the things you end up talking about.

So try hanging out at the Off Topic section of YOUR favorite forum. And stop by the Warrior OT as well.

You might actually have a good time.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of busting your behind for peanuts online? Go to my web site and find out how I earn a monthly income that exceeds 5 figures and how I can help YOU do the same. Get your free report at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/report.html

Well, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody, but Mark Zuckerberg was just named Time’s person of the year. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the founder of Facebook. If you don’t know what Facebook is, you need to come out of your cave at some point in your life. Facebook has only literally changed how we interact on the Internet. Even I use it, as ashamed as I am to admit it.

Okay, so what’s my opinion on this development? Does Mr. Zuckerberg deserve such an honor? Well, in my opinion, yes and no. While I can certainly appreciate what he has done for social interaction online, wasn’t there a time when person of the year was somebody who, oh I don’t know, did something really great like discovered a new treatment for a terrible disease or brought peace to a part of the world?

In 2001, right after 9/11, New York was in chaos. And then a man by the name of Rudolph Giuliani stepped up and literally healed a crippled city. The man went above and beyond what anybody could have expected from one human being during what was an impossible time. He was a shoe in for the award.

In 1983, the person of the year was Ronald Reagan. He was the guy who said to Mikhail Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall” who, by the way, turned out to be man of the year in 1989 and was also named man of the decade for his accomplishments. Now THAT was something to celebrate.

Yeah, I know…we’ve had some stinkers too. In 1972, Richard Nixon was named man of the year for some little thing, I think it was called Watergate. Yeah, that was quite a dark moment in US presidential history. And of course who can forget that in 1938, Adolph Hitler was named person of the year. No need to go into what HE did for this world.

But Mark Zuckerberg? I mean come on. The guy is responsible for a bunch of people sitting around in their underwear asking their virtual friends what they had for lunch and playing Farmville. Oh, and by the way…I just made it up to level 26 in Farmville. I’m waiting for my nursery to finally finish being built.

I don’t know…maybe there just wasn’t a better choice. But if you’re an Internet marketer, this has got to give you some hope. I mean, if you can think of something as great as Facebook, not only will you make a ton of money, you just might be named person of the year too.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim.

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

If you talk to many beginning, struggling marketers, they’ll tell you that their biggest problem is traffic…as in they can’t get enough of it. They truly believe that if they could get 10,000 visitors to their site every single day that they could make a fortune. But is the amount of traffic that these people are getting really the problem or is it something else? Maybe they need a traffic cop. Not sure what I mean? Well, keep reading and you’ll find out.

Okay, what exactly do traffic cops do in the REAL world? Well, they direct traffic, naturally. But it’s really more complicated than that. See, traffic cops have to be able to detect problems in the traffic flow and find the best solution for them. For example, let’s say you’re a traffic cop at an intersection where lots of kids are going to be crossing between 3 and 4 PM every single day except weekends. And it just so happens that during that period of time, there are a lot of cars in the area driving to the school where these kids are coming from to pick up the ones who DON’T walk home.

Because of this, the traffic cop can’t just give priority to the kids crossing. He understands that the cars have to be allowed to go as well or the kids waiting for them to pick them up will be waiting for a long time. So even though it would seem that the traffic cop’s main priority is to the kids crossing the street, he’s going to have to, at times, keep those kids on the corner to allow the cars to pass so that they can pick up THEIR children. Otherwise, we have a very unbalanced situation.

Okay, so how does this apply to Internet marketing? Well, with traffic, you have to understand that there are many different types of traffic. You have organic traffic that you get from people going through the SERPs, paid traffic, such as with Google AdWords, and even referral traffic from other customers or prospects who have been to your site and like what they saw there. YOUR traffic cop has to look at the conversions from each type of traffic and then, from those stats, decide WHERE to best concentrate his efforts. If your AdWords campaign is converting at an amazing clip but the rest of your traffic doesn’t do much of anything, it doesn’t make sense to concentrate your efforts on SEO, writing articles, social networking or whatever else it is you’re doing to get organic traffic. You’re better off simple spending more money on AdWords.

It isn’t how much traffic you get that matters. It’s how much traffic you get that CONVERTS that matters. I’d rather have 1,000 visitors a month that converts at 10% (100 sales) than 100,000 visitors a month that converts at 1 tenth of one percent (100 sales). Why? Because I probably have to put in less effort to get those 1,000 visitors than the 100,000. And less effort means I can start concentrating more of my time on other things besides generating traffic, such as product creation.

So, do you need more traffic or just a good traffic cop?

If your conversion percent is in the toilet, it may not be the amount of traffic but the quality of it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim.

Want to know what the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing are? Get my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/7deadlysins/7deadlysins.html and save your business from going down the tubes before it even has a chance.

You know, after 8 years of marketing online, you start to get kind of bored with things…especially forum posts. It seems people are saying the same things over and over. Well, I don’t get to go over to the SEO section of the Warrior Forum much, so maybe that’s why this post was so refreshing for me, and I wouldn’t have even read it if it weren’t posted by this really successful guy named Eric Louviere, but after reading it, I got the inspiration for this article. I think you will find this one interesting.

In a nutshell, what Eric said was that he didn’t know a lot of high income earners who made their money through SEO. Most of them used affiliates and paid advertising like AdWords. He also noted that most people who are struggling are focusing on SEO and backlinks. Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe it’s, as Eric put it, that he just doesn’t know the right people. And that got me thinking about my own situation.

See, in the 8 years that I’ve been marketing online (will be 8 years in January) I have never relied on SEO or backlinks. In fact, you’d have to go hunting for my sites in the SERPs. Trust me, you won’t find them. And yet, I do quite well. But even more strangely, I don’t use a lot of paid advertising either and you can count my affiliates on, um, zero hands. Yeah, I don’t even have affiliate programs for most of my products. Go figure.

So how do I do it? Well, I generate a lot of content that you’ll find all over the place. I participate in forums and I do a bit of social networking. So I guess there is a third way to generate your traffic and make some sales. Eric didn’t even think to address my particular marketing strategy, and yet…it exists and it works. And it has NOTHING to do with SEO, backlinks, paid ads or affiliates. Okay, maybe I do get a few backlinks from all the content I have, but not nearly enough to make a big difference in the SERPs. Like I said, you can’t FIND my sites anywhere.

What’s the point? Well, read the title of this article again and you’ll get the point. There IS more than one way to skin a cat or get traffic to your site. You don’t have to use paid ads or affiliates or do SEO or go out trolling for backlinks or any of those things. There are other alternatives. I know some people who make a living just from hanging out on Facebook. Go figure.

So the next time somebody tells you that you have to do this or that in order to generate traffic to your site and make a lot of money, please remember what I said in this article.

Yeah…it’s in the title.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim.

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

I hear it all the time. From going to forums, it’s a constant ringing in my ear. It goes something like this…

“I want to try article marketing but I don’t want to waste my time on something that doesn’t work. Is there anybody here who is doing article marketing and getting results from it?”

In essence, what the person is saying is this. “Prove to me that this works or I’m not doing it.”

Okay, I am now going to explain to you why this kind of thinking is not only dangerous but won’t give you what you’re looking for anyway.

Let’s for argument sake say that somebody can actually prove that they have success with article marketing, as an example. Let’s say that they can show all the articles they’ve written and all the money they’ve made by actually letting the person log into their PayPal account themselves during a Skype consultation so that there is no doubt that they’re making money from article marketing. Even if this were possible, it is still no guarantee that the person looking to get into article marketing will have any success. Why?

For starters, there is the talent level of the person writing the article. No offense, but some people can’t write their way out of a paper bag. Their articles are bland and boring and their grammar is horrible. Anybody who even attempted to read their articles would probably leave after a paragraph…if they even lasted that long.

But let’s say that the person can write well enough. It still doesn’t mean anything. After the writing comes the actual mechanics of the marketing itself. Are they picking the right keywords to target? If the keywords are all wrong, or aren’t what I call “buying” keywords, either the wrong people are going to read the articles or they’ll read them but won’t buy because they’re all freebie seekers.

What about the resource box? Just because somebody can write well doesn’t mean they can construct a resource box that gets somebody to their site. That’s copywriting, which is a lot different from writing an informative article.

Okay, let’s for argument sake say that all the above is in place and as good as it can be. There is still one last thing that can make or break the whole process…the market itself. What if this person is targeting a market that is extremely competitive? The chances of a few articles making any dent in it are probably slim. This person may have to write thousands of articles to get anywhere. Maybe the market has so LITTLE demand that all the articles on the planet won’t make a significant income.

So as you can see, article marketing, as one example, has so many areas where one can screw up, that it’s impossible to say with any certainty that any one person WILL be successful with it regardless of how much success another person has.

Conversely, just because somebody DOESN’T have success with something doesn’t mean that you can’t have some success.

So stop looking for proof from others that something works.

Try it for yourself. That’s the ONLY way you’re going to find out if that something works for YOU.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an article marketing failure? Get a copy of the ONLY article marketing guide you will EVER need at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/insidersecrets.html and become an article marketing expert TODAY!

Internet marketing kind of reminds me of the days of the old west, not that I was around to enjoy them. I can only go by what I’ve read. Everything was wild and crazy and you never knew what was coming next. I get that feeling sometimes when I see what people market online and how many different things they seem to get into. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but there are disadvantages to dipping your toe into too many ponds. In my opinion, if you want to give yourself the best chance with your marketing, you want to avoid the big free for all. This article will show you how.

First thing you want to do is avoid temptation. Yeah, I know…easier said than done. There are a lot of things that seem to come out almost daily that pretty much scream “buy me” or “try me.” I remember when the big craze was off line marketing…selling to people with brick and mortar businesses who are looking to establish an online presence. Can you imagine, with all that I’m doing already, what would have happened to MY business had I decided to branch off into that area? With no guarantee of success, I’m not only taking a risk on the new venture but risking my established business by neglecting it in order to work on my new toy. This is why it is SO important to avoid temptation.

Next thing you want to do is actually take a look at the model you’re using. Is it concentrated or is it spread out all over the place? I’m not talking about selling multiple products. There is nothing wrong with that. I do it. But all my products basically target one group…those looking to make money online in some form or another. My products range from article marketing to copywriting to coaching. But they all tie in, in some way. I’m not promoting basket weaving, debt relief and acne cures…not that there is anything wrong with doing that. But it does spread you a little thin when it comes to traffic sources. I can target many of my products with just one source. You can’t say that for acne and debt relief, though I am sure that there are some people with acne who are in debt.

As I said, there are disadvantages to spreading yourself all over the place. But there are advantages too. I won’t lie. The biggest advantage is that if one market doesn’t convert for you, another one might. You’re giving yourself more chances to have a successful campaign with something. Problem is, there is only so much you can do for each one. And until you can weed out the ones that have proven to have little chance, you’re going to be spreading yourself very thin.

It basically comes down to what you want and what you’re comfortable with. Me? I prefer to avoid the wild west days and concentrate on what I do best.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

You’re probably wondering where this article is going and what gave me the inspiration to write it. Well, before this thing is over and done with, you’ll have the answer to both of those questions. Truth is, with all there is to think about when it comes to Internet marketing, it’s usually the things that we DON’T think about that trip us up. Allow me to explain.

Okay, where did I get the inspiration for this article? Well, to be honest with you…I got it from playing Farmville. Yes, I admit it…I play that silly, little, addictive game. So sue me. Anyway, as I’m playing, I’m noticing some odd problems with the game in my browser. Then, I get this message saying that Farmville is only compatible with IE 7 and Firefox 3.6 and up browsers. I was using Google Chrome. When I went to my Firefox browser, the problem was solved.

So let me ask you a question. When you put up your site, do you test it for cross browser compatibility? Do you even think about such a thing? Maybe your site is simple enough that it’ll work in most if not all browser. But what if you’ve got things going on like videos and scripts? Are you sure they’ll work in all the major browsers? Did you even bother to test? This is one reason why I try to keep my sites as simple as possible, especially my sales pages. The last thing I want is to lose a sale because somebody can’t view my page correctly.

And this is just one of the MANY examples I could give you of how it’s things like these that we don’t think of (unless we’re actually web designers) that can trip us up. What about white-listing for your list building campaigns? Do you remind people to do it? Some people don’t bother. Others don’t even think of it, thinking that all email service providers are the same and that the email will get delivered eventually. If you really believe that, think again. I can’t tell you how many emails that I’d like to get that never get through to me.

Internet marketing, while simple in its basic function, is very complex when you get down to the little bits and pieces that put it all together. One thing, like a poorly designed site for compatibility purposes, or an autoresponder service or script that can’t get through to a Yahoo email address if its life depended on it, can literally destroy a marketing campaign. Again, if you think I’m kidding, try emailing a list of 1,000 AOL addresses and see how many get through. To avoid this, you should state on your squeeze page not to use an AOL address. Some sites have a whole list of email service providers they don’t accept because they DO think of these things.

Maybe YOU should too.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.

Let’s face it…I don’t care how much you love something. There is always going to be something about it that you hate. For example, I love to write songs. In fact, I’ve always wanted to be a professional songwriter. But I absolutely HATE the business end of it. There is so much butt kissing and palm greasing that it’s not how much talent you have but who you know. Point is, as much as I love songwriting, I could do without the BS that goes on in the business.

So sit down now and think about what you hate about Internet marketing. There has to be something. As another example, I love to write articles. But I hate the tedious submission process with all the fields that you have to fill out. I also hate the waiting period for getting articles approved. Nothing in Internet marketing is without its downside.

Okay, so why am I asking you this question? Well, there is a reason…a very good one. See, many people, when confronted with something that they don’t like to do, simply don’t do it. I can think of a number of things about Internet marketing that I can’t stand so much that I don’t do those things, even though I know that it’s costing me money. The money isn’t enough of an incentive to put up with the aggravation. But what about you? This is what I want to get you thinking about.

If what you hate to do is vital to your marketing, you have three choices. You can ignore it and suffer the consequences of not doing it, you can suck it up and get it done, OR…there is a final choice that, in my opinion, is the best choice of all. You can outsource the task. Hire somebody to do it for you if it’s something that you can’t stand…especially if it’s going to make you more money in the long run.

Now obviously, you have to sit down with a calculator and figure out if it’s worth paying somebody to do the work for you. For example, let’s say you HATE article writing but you’ve heard that it can be a very good way to earn an income through marketing your products. Well, if it’s going to cost you $3 per article to get it written and each article you market out there brings in $25 on average, doesn’t it make sense to have somebody write those articles for you? Now, if it was reversed, and each article cost you $25 and only MADE you $3, well, then it doesn’t make any sense to hire a writer.

By looking at the things that you can’t stand doing and evaluating the profit that can be made should you outsource those things, you can end up making a lot more money than you are now simply by hiring somebody else to do the job.

Or…you can do what I do.

Just suck it up and get it done.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of spinning your wheels trying to get your marketing off the ground? Haven’t got a clue what you’re doing and sick of being dead broke? Why not get some solid mentoring from somebody who has been EXACTLY where you are today? Check out my mentoring program at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/mentoring/mentoring.html and finally get yourself the one on one education that can FINALLY give you the success that you’ve been looking for.