I realised that technology really could transform my life because it made me much more self-sufficient and much more portable. Rhythm, in particular, enables a sequence of notes to beat with musical life; tempo sustains their wit. It is much the same for the world of letters.

On Technology

“My interest in technology came from a mixture of necessity and coincidence. I was a barrister, writing all my opinions by longhand, which would then go into the chambers’ typing pool.”

Yes, there were a few problems with the video, and I totally apologize for the glitches… but it’s been fixed and if you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out here >>

For those of you who don’t know who Max Simon is, he’s the man who helped build Deepak Chopra’s products division into a multi-million dollar business. Max struggled to build a successful business and in 2008, he lost some $80,000. He then realized a few key ingredients that helped him ultimately turn his business around. In 2009, Get Self Centered did not only break even, but generated $500,000 in revenue.

Now, Max travels the world sharing these amazing ideas to help conscious entrepreneurs…

• Create thriving and authentic businesses that are in complete alignment with their personal values and spiritual path
• Experience great wealth and abundance
• Have a powerfully positive impact on the world.

Anyway, Max will be conducting a teleseminar with me speaking about The Enlightened Entrepreneur Experience and how you can experience the turning point in your business journey.

The FREE teleseminar will take place on Tuesday, January 26th  at 5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern

You can sign up for it here >>

Here’s what we’ll be talking about:

• Why most entrepreneurs will never experience “the turning point” and what you can do to guarantee your place amongst those who do.
• The 5 necessary ingredients that absolutely must be present for you to experience “the turning point” in your business (and you wouldn’t expect many of them).
• How you can create a business that gives you complete freedom.
• A simple (yet potent) technique to overcome your fears, which has to happen for you to facilitate the shift (and it’s easier than you think).
• 3 simple and easy to do action steps that you can take right now to facilitate the turning point in your business immediately.
• Market Sophistication Levels: The one key idea (identified by marketer Eugene Scwartz), that causes countless people to fail with their online business.
• And much, much more…

Join us on Tuesday, January 26th  at 5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern

For Those of You Who Want To Discover The 5 Necessary Ingredients To Create A Business That Gives You Complete Freedom, Click Here >>

I’ve already unveiled a great deal of this stuff at an exclusive, private event. However, some of the basic tricks were already published here in this blog.

In this post, you’ll find a list of those useful tricks compiled for your easy access.

Before we begin though, here’s just some of the feedback I’ve received about my social media marketing presentation at the private event in Napa, California.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yi0tkTO8os

And now for your reading pleasure… the following complied list. Everything from leveraging blogs strategically, to the basics of YouTube and Facebook marketing is included.

1. Succumbing to EVIL Shortcut-ish Temptations and Forgetting the “Social” In Social Media

2. Positioning, “Social Polarity” and Vibrant Blog Communities

3. Facebook Marketing: How Smart Restaurants and Bars are Using “Birthday Marketing” on Facebook

4. 7 Ways to Increase Your Blog Comments

5. Blog Marketing: Monetize The Comments On Your Blog

6. How to Get Traffic from Web 2.0 Sites like Digg, Reddit & StumbleUpon

7. How I Made A Dollar From Everyone Who Watched My YouTube Video

Remember, the above posts only cover the basics but they contain tips you can implement today to boost your website’s performance.

Look out for the complete system in early 2009 when it will be launching.

If you liked this post, we’d greatly appreciate a Stumble. Thanks.

There are some updates and clarifications that need to be shared.

1) Unfortunately, Kenneth and Laura didn’t make it to Zimbabwe in the end. They were flying to Zimbabwe by way of Thailand. But Visa transit issues at Thailand forced them back to Malaysia again. Apparently Thailand law required Laura to apply for a transit visa. So they were not allowed aboard their flight from Bangkok to Zimbabwe and had to return to Malaysia.

The good news is that they’re attempting another trip in December to settle things.

2) The $10k Kenneth made was not cash in hand. Twitter is not the best tool for affiliate marketing and immediate cash. It’s the ultimate tool for leads and finding JV partners. The $10K was the value of JV and consultancy offers Kenneth accumulated in the months to come.

3) The dowry is still far from being paid. The ritual is complicated and involves a whole series of steps. Moreover, depending on negotiations, it can go from 5 cows to cell phones, cars and even small houses. Kenneth can only determine the exact things and amount of money involved once he arrives there, but for now, the value of the dowry is a rough estimation. Phew! Marrying someone in Zimbabwe is tough. Where’s a Vegas drive-through chapel when you need one?

We wish the best of luck to Kenneth and Laura. Once the wedding happens, we might share a picture or two with you here!

Here’s what happened during this time.

Our very own Kenneth Yu needed to raise $10K for a 5-cow dowry to wed Laura, his beautiful Zimbabwean bride.

The dowry is an important tradition where Laura comes from.

Now, to come up with the money, Kenneth successfully managed to pull a cool stunt that revealed to us the true potential of Twitter as a powerful networking and money-making tool.

We’ve always known that Twitter is neat, but not THIS neat.

You’re About to Witness a Phenomenal Social Media Marketing Love Story – So Powerful, You Might Shed a Tear or Two!

Watch the two videos below to learn how Kenneth Twittered his way into raising $10,000 for the 5-cow dowry he badly needed to wed his Zimbabwean bride.

How K Twittered $10K for His 5 Cow Dowry (Part 1 of 2)

How K Twittered $10K for His 5 Cow Dowry (Part 2 of 2)

How did you like the videos? Please leave us your comments and feedback.

PS – Good luck raising money for your own dowry!

For more social media marketing tips, make sure you subscribe to our list.

…but then that page refreshed and I saw this.

Why would Facebook be asking me to reenter my password?

I glanced the URL bar and this is what I saw:

it wasn’t Facebook.com. It was FaceuBook.com!

It turns out this was a phishing site. It fools users into re-entering their Facebook username and password. It then sends messages to everyone in your Friends list asking them to check out a particular blog.

When they do, the process repeats itself.

In addition to causing a lot of embarrassment and hassle to your friends, the jerk behind this scam also gets access to all your personal info.

I hope Facebook.com takes some action against FaceUBook.com, shuts down this domain and figures out how to keep these scams from affecting innocent users.

In the meantime, when entering passwords on sites like Facebook, PayPal etc, don’t forget to check your address bar to make sure you’re on the legit site.

It was a crazy 5 days of non-stop work, with the seminar was great and finishing at 10pm each day. There was no time to go out or even see the city…and it was AWESOME. His first session was Guerilla Wealth Tactics, in which he taught several ways of thinking to get rich faster.

1. Results Lead To Strategy

The lesson here: don’t think conventionally. Think outside the box. For example, if you are a cab driver, and you earn 1000 per month on an 8-hour shift, if you want to double your salary, you could work 16-hour shifts everyday to achieve your goal. If you wanted to triple your salary, you could– by working 24 hours a day. But if you wanted to quadruple your income, it would be almost impossible.

Don’t limit your capacity by thinking in terms of using your resources, but set a goal and then find ways to achieve it.

2. Business Is As Simple As To ‘K.I.S.S.’

Business, according to Harv Eker, is as easy as KISS.

In other words, Keep It Short & Simple. You can break it down into 3 components:

1. produce/buy/create (content/product)
2. sell
3. operations/admin

How much time do you spend on each of these things – how much time do you spend on what brings results? The ideal breakdown of your resource and time allocation should be:

• create – 20%
• sell – 60%
• admin – 20%

If you are not selling, you won’t make money. If this means that you have to reduce your operations, or outsource, then you should because you only get paid when you sell, not before.

3. The Rich Are Experts

Like Chet Holmes and Joel Roberts have said, find one area of specialty and focus on it. Find one thing and become really good at it. For example, not every project manager should have to spend time figuring out the site structure, setting up an email auto responder, and writing copy. You should professionals for each area of expertise. This way, your company can get more done, in a shorter time, with better quality.

Many of the richest and most successful people started out by making it big in one industry or by becoming an expert in one area, and after their success, they branch out.

4. Create High Price Ticket Items

Let me give an example. Take John and Peter, who are in the same industry. John has 100 customers per day, he makes 30 sales per day, and he has a 30% conversion rate. Peter, on the other hand, has 10 customers per day; Peter makes 2 sales per day, and his conversion rate is 20%.

Yet, Peter is richer and happier than John. Why? Because Peter has chosen to supply good to a market with low competition and more money. If John is selling a standard iPod, and Peter is selling a diamond-plated iPod shuffle, then Peter has a far better deal because even if he sells very little to a few people, he still makes enough to

What expensive products are you selling? You can give an exclusive seminar or a personal coaching program, and use these as your high price ticket items.

5. Piggy Backing Concept

Find someone in your field (or in a similar field) who is willing to buy a large volume of your product at one time, minimizing your marketing efforts and maximizing your income in a short time. They can sell your product in large volumes, for example, if they sell yours complementary with theirs. You can ask them to give away your free samples, and when these customers visit your site, you can upsell them on the back end.

6. Sell Them Before They Buy

By building a list of interested people, you have higher negotiation power when looking for partners/affiliates. It also means that you can move faster because you can go straight into creating a squeeze page for your already existent and interested list. This is similar to Bob Serling’s Tollgate Method and uses similar advanced JV tactics. By connecting your list to the products they are interested in, you act as a broker.

Harv Eker, for example, offers and charges for seminars a year in advance – a form of ‘selling’ without products, and using the revenue to create/fund products.

7. Focus vs. Scatter

Focus on completing one task at a time. This is not rocket science, but you’ll find that successful and rich people focus on completing one task at a time, then expanding and moving on to the next project. Idea evaluation is very important because without it, opportunities can become obstacles. Every morning, choose to accomplish 3 main goals that will contribute most to your revenue.

8. Processes and Automation

Systemize things and emphasize on processes and automation. Find all the repetitive tasks that take up your time and find a way to automate or outsource them. The definition of a successful business is one that can run without you.

Carlos Garcia, for example, created a report that showed how adding a video to one of his websites and changing a couple of things boosted sales rates from 1.6 to 3.3 –that’s almost doubling the initial sales rates.

If the figures are anywhere close to that, we all obviously have to get better at editing videos for our websites. A Keynote video is quick and easy to make, but that’s only a Level 1 video. A Level 2 video is where you aren’t using slides, but using story telling and person to person interaction.

I’ve had to write numerous video scripts lately for different websites, and because at Mindvalley we like processes and automation, I came up with a process for writing these scripts. It integrates a lot of ideas from Robert Cialdini, from Frank Kern, from Kenneth Yu, and from Jeff Walker.

Tips to Create your Video Script

1. Know your audience’s core identity.

What does your audience want? What do they secretly desire?

Example:

Let’s say you’re promoting a parenting tool. What do parents want from their kids? They might want, for example, a close bond and loving relationship with their child. This gives you the first clue as to what to do with your video, and how you should frame it. Your video would include you sitting with your arm around your child, who will talk about how much he or she loves you. In that way, you show yourself to be in the position these parents want.

Frank Kern does the same thing. He knows that most of his audience wants freedom, so he a video called the beach video with him on the beach because the beach represents freedom.

In other words, frame your video based on your audience’s core identity.

2. Replicate the real world

Second, you ask yourself, “What are you trying to reveal in this video? How would you talk to your friends? In what environment would you share this with your friend?” Replicating the real world is about reproducing the fireside chat or the coffee chat in your videos.

Example:

Let’s say you were a lady creating a video targeting a female audience.

If women are talking about relationship problems, where are they usually sitting? Is the setting going to be an office? An elevator? Is it going to be in a public space, or at the beach? It’s probably going to be over a cup of tea or coffee in their living room. That’s the framing clue: you would film your video in the living room, holding a cup of tea, sitting on your sofa.

If you were marketing to entrepreneurs who are struggling to get their business off the ground, they probably would have a small company. Therefore, you would not film your video with your team of programmers in the background you’d film it on a sofa, perhaps, because much of your audience might be working from home or in a small office with a comfy sofa inside.

3. Storyline

Here, we bring in a couple of ideas from Frank Kern’s Mass Control. ‘Us vs. Them’. ‘Reluctant hero’. ‘Hometown boy makes good’. You find a story that fits best, and you reveal it in the video.

Example:

If you were taking the ‘us vs. them’ storyline, you would include phrases like, “I’m going to show you, because we are all in trouble here” Or, “All of us are about to be screwed so I’m gonna show you how to prevent them from taking over…” Note the phrasing, especially ” “you”, and “them” and “us”. The ‘us vs. them’ psychology is about relating to your audience and creating a common enemy.

4. The Revelation

This has to be a key idea in the video that gets them addicted. You take 2 items that you’ve already observed, and you connect them neatly.

Example:

You can even take a trend as your revelation, for example. It doesn’t have to be something not everybody out there knows, but you can add a spin to it by adding your fresh/new/different perspective. It automatically separates you from the crowd, especially if it’s counter-intuitive to what everyone is expecting.

Now, as you are doing this, as you are giving that ‘aha’ moment, there are a couple of things that you can add in to make the video more effective.

5. Phraseology

You invent words. Such words arouse curiosity, and they make you seem like an expert.

Example:

Mike discusses military strategy, terrain assessment and the pajama posse in The Coming AdWords War, for example, and because of his expertise and experience in the field, he explains why most business owners become casualties in the rough AdWords terrain and gives a solution.

You will notice this even with some of the gurus “they use terms that you will not find in any dictionary because they coin their own phrases.

By using alliteration, you can come up with catchy phrases that sound even more powerful.

Think about the following term: ‘Moving the free line’. Where did it come from? Eben Pagan.

‘Money magnet’ Frank Kern. ‘Aspiration angle’ Vishen Lakhiani.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been talking about giving stuff away for free …for 4years! But along comes this guy Eben Pagan; he gives it the name “moving the free line” and now everyone associates this theory with him. That’s the power of phraseology.

6. Future Pacing

Future pacing is part of the phraseology that Jay Abraham invented to establish himself as a guru. Everybody talks about future pacing, but Jay Abraham invented it, and every time you hear that term, you think ‘Jay Abraham’. It’s a powerful branding strategy. Here’s how you use future pacing.

Example:

You might say in your video, “So go ahead and download this report BUT, don’t read it yet” (which is counter-intuitive). You then ask them to do something first that helps them to picture what will happen in a given timeframe if they get the report. Then, they can read the report. “It will take maybe, 29 minutes of your time,” you should say. (Note the use of the exact time.)

That is future pacing. You get people to picture future benefits after using your product.

7. Most Wanted Response

That’s phraseology invented by Dr. Ken Evoy in his ‘net-selling bible’ Make Your Site Sell. The MWR is what you most want your visitor to do, after reviewing your content. You always end with a most wanted response. Example:

Mike actually says, “Look at the sign up form below. I want you to fill in your first name, your last name and you email address, click ‘Send me The Coming AdWords War report’, and I’ll see you on the next page.” Notice that he adds anticipation by saying ‘see you on the next page’, which makes people think, “Hmm, I wonder what’s going to happen on the next page?” thereby encouraging people to download the report.

A video script is not the copy script “that is completely different. It is embedding a lot of psychological triggers and elements, story lines in the video in order to: 1. Create a bond, and 2. Get people to download the report.

If you integrate these 7 things, you’ll come up with a powerful video that will improve your conversion rates and get people more interested in what you have.

You can use this to your advantage by doing more on it than encourage your customers to close the window.

I’ve found that the people who really know how to use the "Thank-You" page are the airlines people. When you go to their "Thank-You" page, it says not only "Thank You" for your purchase, but they also give links leading to pages on "How to book a Hotel", or "How to rent a car".

This something that you can definitely use for any website for upsells, downsells or to market your other products.

When someone buys Product A, your "Thank-You" page can also link to related Service B, Membership C and/or Newsletter D, for example.

One company that has done this very well is Marketing Sherpa. Their "Thank-You" page has all their products, some of which are related to the sale that has just been made, and some are not related at all.

Anne Holland, Marketing Sherpa’s President, says,

“Another interesting fact: the most popular offer on that page gets a 29% acceptance rate, which is fabulous, but not the whole 39%. That means giving folks a choice on that page has helped our overall offer conversions increase by 10 percentage points.”

This is the same concept that Mike Filsaime called Integrated Marketing. Amazon has done the same thing.

For example, when you buy a book, the "Thank-You" page has a list of related books you can use to increase your knowledge on the same or related subjects. After making a purchase, entering their credit card number and reaching the "Thank-You" page, you can ask, how would you like this special offer?

In this way, you can increase your revenue, even by a slight margin. This is what Mike Filsaime does, and Double Your Dating does the same. It’s usually in the form of a recurring payment.

E.g., Check this box to receive a free interview with a expert, shipped to you every month for $27.

In the customer’s head, they only see $27, which doesn’t sound like much. But, you see, you can now bill this customer $27 x 12months and/or until they cancel.

You do have to get creative, though, because after a checkout, you can’t ask the customer to check out again after they’ve visited the "Thank-You" page.

Well, you could, but it’s not ideal. It’s annoying and it’s inconvenient –they just went through 10mins of hassle with their credit card –why ask them to do it again? So, after checking the button, ‘Yes‘, automatic rebilling is begun for this customer, and the product is shipped automatically.

This is why membership sites are so popular because then, the customer can check a box and only be billed at selected intervals. How have you changed your "Thank-You" page from a dead-end, wasted resource into an income generating opportunity?

I don’t usually publicize comments. But this is an exception. As I was reading this comment and the strategy the writer shared, it kept reminding me of some lessons I learned from the book “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes. It’s a seriously good book and has a special place in my business library.

Well it turned out the comment was from Chet or from a diehard fan. It linked back to Chet’s website HowToDoubleSales.com.

In any case…this is a beautiful sales strategy and one worth sharing. Here’s the comment.

Powerful Sales & Marketing Ideas of $100 Million Dollar Companies

So let’s imagine that you do sell office equipment and it’s your turn to give your speech and the audience is full of CFOs. If you’re a little strategic, you might go with something like: “The Five Ways our Office Equipment Can Benefit You.” Again, an approach like this appeals only to those who are “buying now,” and possibly those who are “open to it,” but pretty much 90% of your audience is leaving.

So what title would have a broader appeal? How about: “The Nine Ways You’re Wasting Money in your Operations and Administration.” I’m not saying this is going to rivet the executive to their chair, but they’re not leaving either. They’ll stay to hear a little more. This is also true for an ad with that headline. It’s definitely going to appeal to the top two tiers, but it also appeals to everyone in that stadium.

Everyone is interested in saving money in their operations and administration costs. Certainly every CFO is interested in that and, therefore, they would stay in the stadium. And if everything that follows has some substance to it, you’ve now taken your marketing and selling activity to an entirely new level.

The hardest thing we need to do today is grab the attention of the potential buyer and keep the attention long enough to help them buy your product. This approach of offering some education of value to them gives you a significant opportunity to attract more buyers and build more credibility. I call this “educational based marketing” and here’s a line you should write down: You will attract way more buyers if you are offering to teach them something of value to them than you will ever attract by simply trying to sell them your product or service.

As another example, I had a merchant services company as a client. They primarily target retail stores. So in their audience are retail storeowners. If they walk out there and start off with: “I’m going to show you why our merchant services are better than anyone else’s,” the 90% are leaving as they are not in the market for merchant services right now. So what could you say to keep every retailer in their seats to hear a little more? Here’s a great title: “The Five Reasons All Retailers Fail.” The tactical executive reading this is already saying: “But if all I really want to do is sell merchant services, than why would I bother with all this?”

Answer:

1. Because offering an education that helps the buyer is going to get more buyer interest.

2. If the information is actually good and useful, it automatically repositions you in the mind of the buyer as much more of an expert than all your competitors. (You’re teaching them things about their own business that they might not know.)

3. If you think and plan strategically, you will find a way to weave that information in such a way that ultimately sells your services far better than you could ever sell them by simply flat-out pitching your product.

For more information visit www.howtodoublesales.com