When was the last time you asked yourself:  ”Am I where I want to be in life?”

If you ask others, they’ll often lie to you.  They’ll basically shrug off that question and answer in the form of habit.

“My life is fine”, “I am happy”

But are they living their dream?

Everyone should have a dream of what they want to be doing.  And, if they aren’t currently at that point, they should be doing whatever they can to work towards it.

One commonly shared dream is owning a huge yacht.  There’s only one way to know if you’ve accomplished that dream.  Just ask yourself, “Am I on it?”

I have a dream.  To be honest, I’m not there yet.  That’s fine, I have time to get there.  I’ve seen others with far less time, and are so far away from their dreams, there’s a good chance they’ll never reach their destination.  That won’t be me, and I wouldn’t want it to be you. 

What are you doing right now?  Are you working a job, wishing you could run your own business and make more money instead?  If so, what’s stopping you?  I know others who work a full time job, and still manage to make available the time to work on their business on the side.  Their businesses are growing.  That’s a step towards most peoples dreams.  Working for yourself without a boss on your back.

Are you there yet?

- Aaron Brandon

A number of internet business folks have been mentioning mind mapping lately.  Some talk about it as being some sort of secret tool that will solve all of your problems.  In truth, it won’t.  But it is a neat tool, but that’s about all it is.

Think about how you create a PowerPoint presentation.

You know how it’s done.  You’ve got a topic, and a bunch of bullets.  Then, you might have some sub-bullets.

Sorry folks, that’s pretty much the same way mind mapping works!

Mind mapping simply changes how you’re visualizing those outlines.  Instead of a list, you’re creating a visual diagram of your notes.  Instead of a topic at the top, you’ll have a circle, or some sort of figure for a starting point in the middle of a page.  Instead of all of the bullets, you’ll have lines (or some graphic, like an arrow) pointing to each item in the list, and more pointing to the sub items.

Quite frankly, it’s more like a flow chart for a process, rather than having it in a written format.

But, I’m not actually bashing mind mapping .  To be honest, I use them for several of my own projects.

I believe giving myself the ability to visualize my notes in a more graphical way can help me be more organized.

Here are a few things I’ve used mind mapping with:

• Websites
• Business Procedures
• Instructions
• Presentation notes

I’ve even mapped out an entire online business.  The only problem I’ve had has been keeping it update constantly.  For example, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop adding more ways to get web traffic to a website.  I come across at least one new way every day!

That reminds me, I’ve been debating whether I should create a product for using mind maps. 

I’m interested in getting your input.  If I were to create a product which showed how I use and create mind maps, would you purchase it?  Comments are open.

- Aaron Brandon

Is there such thing as giving too much of a reward to someone?

Let me think up an example.

Let’s say that you need some feedback for one of your latest DVD’s.  In order to do that, you can simply ask customers for a testimonial.

On the other hand, there’s a chance you’ll get a low response.

So, you create a reward/incentive.  You ask for their feedback, and in return, you tell them you’ll give them a course valued at $100.00 (or something like that).

What will happen?  You’ll get a large number of skewed feedback responses.  You will more likely receive positive feedback so they’ll receive the reward.

So, the trick is to prevent an overreward.

One of the best methods I’ve ever used for collecting feedback has been to just give the product away for free.  Then, ask for their honest opinion of the product.  Tell them you don’t mind whether their feedback is positive or negative.

It goes perfectly along with the same old “Give and you shall receive” methodology.

- Aaron Brandon

You know the feature in most programs that lets you undo and redo actions?

It sure is a great tool.  If you know you did something wrong, you simple undo a previous action and then correct it.

But, if you compare that tool to reality, it’s more like magic wand.  You can’t undo past actions in life.  Life is a forward progression.

Let’s say you have a goal in mind.  It’s to have made $100,000 dollars of additional income online.  The way to do that is to follow a proven path, and take focused action.

If we compare that to the undo/redo tool, it’s not too different, besides the fact that you still can’t undo your actions.  However, you can redo most actions multiple times.  You need to learn what works (like what’s profitable) and repeat the action if it’s proven to work.  If it doesn’t work, you need to move on and try something else.

But remember, you can’t go back.  The clock is ticking, and you can’t afford to waste any time.

- Aaron Brandon

Can you run a multivariate test for a soft drink? 

Yesterday, I came across a product which was obviously running a multivariate test for their product.  But, this wasn’t an online business.  This was a soft drink company.

For a number of years now, I’ve noticed some number and letters under the bottle cap.  Before that company was putting numbers and letters under the cap, they originally had a little message that said something like “free 12oz drink”.  If you won something, you could just take it to the store and get a free drink.  It was a little trick they played.  They did whatever they could do to get you to look under that bottle cap.  For a good reason…  You might have won a free drink!  But lately, I haven’t seen that.  I’m not saying they no longer give away free drinks, but instead, they just show some numbers and letters.

So how the heck is that a multivariate test?

Well, if you think about it, it’s no different than the new feature in MuVar which converts an IP address into an address separated by dashes to make it look more like a coupon code.  You can use that feature with any physical product you sell online through a website.

Of course, MuVar is a bit different because MuVar is using an IP address instead of a pre-made code which is placed on the product itself.  If you were printing your own bar codes, and manufacturing your own physical products instead of using a service, then I don’t see why you couldn’t set it up the same way as the soft drink company I noticed.

So, back to the soft drink.

You see the code under the bottle cap.  Then what?  Well, there are instructions on the bottle label.  It tells you to go to a website where you can enter your code to win rewards.  You sign up, and by the time you’ve entered your code, the company now has all of your contact information as well as the code of the bottle which was presumable purchased.  If they’re using the code for multivariate testing (and I’m only assuming they are, since I don’t work with them) then they now know which bottle label was profitable.

Interesting?

I thought so…

That reminds me.  Another soft drink company likes using quotes on their bottle caps.  While that does keep some people entertained (for like 5 minutes), it probably doesn’t help the company one bit in increasing their profits.

- Aaron Brandon

A friend of mine wants to start up a business.  He told me he’s going to just download a program, learn how to make websites with it, and then he can start up his own web design business.

Sounds pretty simple when put that way.  My nephew, who I sometimes babysit talks that way (very simply).  Since my nephew doesn’t have the largest vocabulary yet, and is 2.5 years old, he speaks in the simplest forms.

My friend has absolutely no experience creating websites.  But he did happen to find a hungry market in his area.  But without the experience of creating websites, how does he plan on pulling it off?

Of course, it’s going to be a much more difficult task than he first imagined.  But there is a way he could make this happen.

He can:

• Learn HTML and graphics design himself

That’s going to take a while.  I’ll just say at least a month for him to learn it.  But even then, he won’t be any expert.  Clients (if he can get any) may be unsatisfied with the work done, and will likely not use his service again.  On the flip side, clients may work him like a dog and he’ll be stuck working a second day job.  Oops!

• Outsource the work to someone else who already knows HTML and graphics design

This would definitely free up some time for him.  Considering that he still has a day job, I think this would be most beneficial to him.  He seems to have enough money for some luxuries (going to night clubs, buying video games) so I’m sure he can find a way to pay a contractor for work.

He can find contractors on a website like craigslist.org or elance.com, and there are plenty of other places to find freelancers.

I’ll monitor his progress over the month and see if he decides to take any action.  I do wish him luck, but wouldn’t be surprised if he were to forget his original plan and jump on something else.

 - Aaron Brandon

Have you ever heard of “product creation worry”?  It happens prior to, or after someone creates a product.  They start worrying about the following:

• What if someone doesn’t like the product?
• What if the product is not top notch like some others?
• What if someone complains, or wants a refund?
• Is the product priced correctly?

These are all very common.  I’ve experienced them all before.  In fact, many of these things have crossed other product creation authors as well.  My best advice to conquering worry is this:

Don’t worry!  Don’t allow worry to stop you from releasing your creation.  Take action, and experience what comes, and your worries will go away.

The truth is…most of the things people tend to worry about don’t ever happen!  So why worry?  Get that product out there!

- Aaron Brandon

Every once in a while, I’ll run into a person who just isn’t the type of person I like to associate with.  They’ll complain about their money. They’ll complain about their car.  They’ll complain about… almost everything!

More often then not, it’s a friend or family member.  I know, that doesn’t sound very nice.  But it’s very common for your own friends and family members to be negative. 

I know I titled this post as “overcoming negativity”.  If you found this post because YOU need to overcome YOUR negativity, well… continue reading.  However, I want to tell you that the negativity may not have really been caused by you.  You see, the truth is, the information and people around you that are negative, may in fact be the causers of your negativity.

Think about this:

You’re a self business entrepreneur - Do you see or hang out around other people complaining about their 9-5 jobs?  Don’t they like talking about how much their job sucks and what they’d like to do to their boss?  Do you have friends that do that around you?  If so, then you must take the correct action to resolve this.  Keep away from these types of people.  You’ll be much better off associating with other entrepreneurs with positive attitudes.

Do you tend to get stressed out when you watch the news?  Watching the news can easily cause you to act very negatively.  Why is that?  Well, it’s pretty rare for the media to report good news.  Most often, it’s the bad news that’s reported.  The bad news tends to grab more viewers attention.  It’s unfortunate, but true.

If you want to overcome negativity, this is your homework:    Stop watching/listening to/associating with any negative people.  Shut off the valve that spews any negativity into your life, and you may end up changing your life for the better!

- Aaron Brandon

Niche - recess: a small concavity
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Guru - Meditation master who has attained oneness with God and who initiates others into the spiritual path and guides them to liberation.
www.shoshoni.org/Glossary_Yoga_Terms.htm

PLR/Private Label Rights - * PLR - codice aeroportuale IATA dell’aeroporto civile di Pell City St. Clair (Stati Uniti)
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLR (Umm, some language I don’t understand, probably an abbreviate for something I don’t care to know about)

Private Label Rights - No definitions were found for private label right.

MRR - is the rate at which a given number of impressions over the period of a month are sold at.
www.onlineadvertising.net/glossary.html (Apparently there was a real definition for MRR before someone coined master resell rights?)

Master Resell Rights - No definitions were found for master resell rights.

Have you figured it out yet?  Most of these terms don’t even really exist!  They only mean something to a herd of (internet marketing) folks who don’t know a darn thing about marketing and business.  I was there once.  I thought the big online “guru’s” who used these terms somehow knew more than me.  The truth is, most coin these terms so they can appear smarter than the rest.  And you know what?  People buy into it.  It’s a sad reality, but I can’t stop it, but I can educate you about it.  Maybe it can help some of you take a look at things from the other side.

I really hope “internet marketers” don’t think of the big names as meditation masters.  That’s pretty outrageous if you think about it.

- Aaron Brandon

I have a student who will soon hop on the blog wagon.  But, as almost always, I get the question: “what will I blog about?”.

There’s actually any easy method to figuring this out.  Here’s a list of questions you should ask yourself before writing your first article:

What is my blog about?

When I first created this blog, I don’t think I knew it would be an online business blog.  I probably figured it would be a personal blog mixed with some business experiences I’ve had.  It think it was originally called “The Personal Blog of Aaron Brandon. Once you have some idea of what your blog will be about, you can move forward with the next question:

What will I write about?

If you picked the subject of your blog, you will write about it, and the categories within.  Most blogs have a list of categories on the side of their blog.  Go search for other blogs on your subject.  What are those authors writing about?  Do you have your own opinions about their thoughts?  Express your own on your blog.  Want to know how other blog authors started off their blogs?  You can often do that by looking at their blog archives.  Go find their very first post.  It will likely just be an introduction to themselves and their blog.  That’s a good start.

How often should I write?

Start by writing one article Monday through Friday. If that seems like a lot of work, it isn’t…  It should take at least 30 minutes of your time per week to write that amount.  Once you get in the habit of doing so, you’ll find it easier to sit down and start typing away.  Once you develop enough daily traffic to your blog, you’ll feel the importance of getting that daily blog entry posted.  You wouldn’t want to let down your readers, would you?

When do I take a break?

If you can crank out a number of blog entries in one day, and timestamp them for each day of the week to be posted automatically, your blogging break will be the rest of the week.  Or, when you’ve found a good way to outsource your article writing.

Who am I writing for?

For anyone reading your blog.  It’s your duty to bring in the necessary traffic so you develop a readership.  You’re also writing to other blog authors in the blog community you’re in.

- Aaron Brandon

Everyone has habits they must cease and desist. Television watching is a big one. She takes your time from you with ease. You just sit there on the couch… maybe you try to make an agreement with your TV, to only watch her for five minutes, or watch only one sports game. Soon enough, you can’t turn her away. She has lured you in. You’re hooked!

You know you shouldn’t be watching. You’ve got blog entries to write, a new product to create and promote. A non-automated business to run. Your excuses are so lame: “I’ll only watch this show”, or “This show will give me an idea for a new product”, or “It’s important to know the news”. You must cease and desist from this. I did. In fact, I don’t even have a television in my home.

At first, there may be a withdrawal period. You may have absolutely no idea what to do with yourself. You can sit down on the couch, but it’s different now. There’s no television to keep you occupied. This is good, but you don’t know it yet. Maybe you can have someone sit across from the couch and you can talk to them. Hopefully it won’t be about something on television you watched. Maybe it will be a brainstorming session about the next blog entry you’ll write, or product you’ll create.

If you’re reading this, you’re not watching television. That’s good. But don’t go back to it when you’re done reading this. Do something productive. Something you’ve been putting off for a while. Something that you know you should be doing daily.

- Aaron Brandon

One method you can use to get traffic to your blog is pretty easy.  You just link to other blogs!  Unfortunately, some people still don’t see the real benefit in doing so.  Maybe I can fix that.

Every once in a while (usually at least once per week) you’ll see me post a blog entry with a catchy title. In the post I’ll provide a link to another blog.  Why do I do that?  Did they ask for a link back to their blog?  Are they students of mine?  Interns?  No.  They’re new blogs that I found with links pointing to my blog.

So, where do I look for new links to my blog?  Do I look at my stats?  Do I go to one of the main search engines and look for new sites linking to my blog?  That is one way.  I don’t need to do that though. I’ll show you a picture from inside my WordPress control panel:

I check this part of my blog regularly.  When I log in to my WordPress control panel, this is what I see on the right side of the welcome page.  By linking to these authors, it lets them know that their efforts are being accomplished, and that they’re affecting me in some way.

But does that mean I’ll post a link to any blog linking to me?  No.  I have a number of spam blogs that seem to enjoy linking to me.  I would never link back to them.  One blog on that image is crossed off for that very reason.  For other blogs, if there was no information I found useful or that my readers would find useful, there’s no point in sending them a link.

I just read the top incoming link.  It’s from Keith Goodrum.  So is the third link down.  I do recognize his name now.  I wouldn’t have if he never linked to my blog.  The other blogs on the list are from Mohamed Bhimji, James Brausch, Terry Dean, Stephen Dean, and Jim Sansi.  Are you familiar with these names yet?  I sure am.

- Aaron Brandon

Sounds like one of those new lame ass “internet marketing” abbreviations for something… doesn’t it?  Actually, it’s not.  I just came up with it myself.  You don’t have to use the lame abbreviation yourself, but do remember the actual message, it’s very important.

JGID = Just Get It Done!

Videos - One student of mine has been working hard on recording an install video for one of his new products for what seems like a week now.   I can’t be absolutely sure what’s slowing him down.  I imagine it’s a belief of his that at some point, his video will become perfect.  That just doesn’t happen.  Record it, and just get it done.

Testing - Everyone (I think) knows they should be testing their sales pages, opt-in forms, and whatever else they can test.  Eric Graham had an awesome webinar I attended last night.  He shared a number of his test results with around 500 attendees.  How many of those people do you think will implement his suggestions? Not too many, unfortunately.  I’ve already gone ahead and implemented a few suggestions of his to my own sales pages.  I “just got it done”.

Blogging/Article Writing - Yeah, you should be doing this daily.  This entry is going to take me 5-10 minutes to write.  It certainly doesn’t require a huge amount of focus.  I was awake since about 12 noon, and went to bed around 11pm.  That’s 11 hours, which is 660 minutes.  How much time during the day did it take to spend writing a 5-10 minute blog entry? (Someone calculate that for me ).

Procedures - Your business is running on these whether you like it or not.  Are you outsourcing any of them yet?  No?  Have you taken the first few steps to do this, like writing an ad?

Or maybe you’re still new to online business.  Maybe you’ve been considering creating a blog, or creating your first product?  Now is the time to Just Get It Done.  Or else… it will be a week… month… or year… later, and you’ll be wishing you had just started today.

- Aaron Brandon

I just read an interesting post over at Pat B. Doyles’s blog: http://www.patbdoyle.com/?p=243

She wrote how much of a mistake it was to give up exercise when leaving the 9-5 job she once had.  I know exactly what she means.

My 9-5 job required me to do a lot of standing and walking. Now, working on my online business, I do mainly sitting. Of course, I don’t have to sit down for 8 hours (thank goodness), but the change from the normal routine from that day job did impact me.

Shortly after ending my day job, I worked at my desktop computer which was on an old kitchen table, with an executive chair to sit in. The chair was nice, but the ergonomics were terrible. My hands were not leveled correctly with the keyboard, and my chair did not slide under the table, so I was unable to sit as close as I wanted to the keyboard. This caused me to slouch forward, not keeping my back straight.

The solution that fixed that problem was the purchase of a laptop.  All that’s required for me now is to sit where it’s comfortable, and set the computer on my lap.

The other day I was at a family members house where there was a reclining (lazy) chair. Oh man… that was great. I’ve never owned one, but now I see why I need to.  I was able to sit in it without getting up for a few hours, without having my body in any weird position. I will do this more often. If you do this though, make sure you don’t accidentally work too long. Sure is easy to do when you’re comfortable!

Okay, besides my new “lazy chair working method”, I still need exercise.  I pay about $30 bucks a month which gives me access to a fitness center.  I do agree with some people that it’s weird to be bicycling or running in place, or lifting odd machines instead of doing something in the real world… like going jogging, skiing, bicycling, etc. I think I will do these things more often. The whole concept of paying to exercise is pretty ridiculous anyway. That’s the part where I disagree with Pat’s blog entry.

Here’s the excerpt from the part of her entry I didn’t neccessarily agree with:

A while ago I read on someone’s blog that they had decided to give up their gym membership when they quit their job to work on their internet business. No!! That’s just the opposite of what you should do. You need the gym more than ever, when you work from home.

Give up some other expenses, but don’t give up exercise. It is vital to your business success.

If you need to cut expenses, sure, go ahead and quit paying that $30-50 per month gym membership, because you can actually get exercise for free. (I know folks…that’s a little hard to believe). You can just bolt out your door, swim in a lake (if you’re in a warm climate) or hop on the old bicycle and peddle your mind out for a while. But…DO EXERCISE!

- Aaron Brandon

The other day I released my new course called “audio product creation” (The link to it is now located on the right side of this page).

Usually, I’ll release a product as a special in one post, then I sometimes write another post titled something like “3 hours left” or “special ends soon” or something along those lines. This time I did something different.  I first posted the 24 hour special as usual…

How did that do? Well… only a few sales trickled in.  Actually, I was a bit shocked by that. The amount of sales for the first few minutes and hours was much lower than usual.  I have no idea why. It could have been because I promoted a special (someone else’s product) a day earlier, but I can’t be certain that was the reason for less sales at first. I didn’t set up any way to track how many sales I referred…so I have no idea if that could have effected the numbers.

So… because my product was about audio product creation and audio editing, I decided to get a little creative and record the 24 hour special announcement in audio, with a few minor adjustments, for a second post on my blog.

The results?

Another round (a much better one) of sales. More so than my first announcement. That blog entry did not contain the usual ”sale ends soon” type of title. It was simply “Audio Product Creation Course”. I imagine that could have had an effect on the number of sales as well. Could readers and customers be getting bored of the same old “24 hour special” title? I don’t know. Did some readers enjoy my audio enough to convince them to purchase? I don’t know. But I do know, whatever I did… it made more sales.

I had also wondered if the first blog broadcast e-mail just didn’t get sent out to my list of blog readers…but my stats showed that it did.

Alright, I think that’s enough insider information for now… I can’t just give you ALL the behind the scenes info, right?

- Aaron Brandon

I often talk a lot about creating screen capture products on my blog. The reason is, they have very high perceived value. E-books on the other hand, have a very low perceived value. But, both do have their place, and, either one can be easily created from the other.

Let me explain that. Let’s say you have written an e-book. What does it take to convert that into an audio file? All it takes is someone spending the time to narrate that into audio using audio editing software.

Now let’s look at it from the other way around. What if we have an audio product, and want to turn it into an e-book. Well, you can actually narrate that too! There is speech recognition software that you can use to turn your voice into text. Or, for a small expense, you can outsource that task and have someone write a transcript.

So why would you want to do that when I’ve already said that e-books have a low perceived value?

Well, there are customers who do prefer data in different formats. Some like reading text at their own pace, or so they can just copy and paste notes into their computer. Audio would need to be translated into writing with a pen.

Do you see where I’m going with this? You can create another product by simply converting your previous products into other formats.

So I’d like to get back to my e-book example. Let’s talk about turning an e-book product into a product with higher perceived value. The best way to do this would be to simply read the e-book out loud while recording your voice into audio editing software. I recently did that for a few of my blog articles, which I will later turn into a product.

I know some people who have tried reading articles and e-books into audio editing software in the past, but it never seemed to turn out quite right. It just didn’t sound natural, unless the e-book had been written in the same way they spoke.

That’s the key to turning any text into a nice audio presentation. Write just the way you speak. Later, you can turn any writing into audio, and you’ll be able to turn that audio into a product, which has a higher perceived value than just an e-book. Then you could even go physical, and burn those audio files to a CD.

How far have you gotten? Are you still coming out with $20 e-books? Or, will you start cranking out some high end audio stuff? Let’s make that happen!

PS - Look out for my course on creating an audio product in the next few days!

- Aaron Brandon