Summary: Learn how to leverage Internet marketer mailing lists to get a solid picture on what’s hype and what’s not.

If you are new to Internet business, you might be wondering, “Where do I start”. You probably want to know what products will get you the best information for your money so you can start earning money online, rather than spending it. Also, you’re probably wondering which of the information products are hype and which ones have the stuff you need. That’s a great question because there is a ton of information out there and knowing which one to choose is a tough job.

Well I’m about to give you a tip that will help weed out some of the noise.

Tip One: is get yourself an email account just for Internet business research. By this I mean, set up an account that you’ll only use to sign up for informational product mailing lists. I know the form says “Primary Email” address, but it’s your in box. Put in an address that is dedicated to receiving email from Internet marketers. Then check that box daily.

Tip Two: is sign up for mailing lists that interest you. As you do, you’ll learn a lot about the different categories of products and what each of them can do if you begin to learn the language the Internet marketers are speaking. You’ll also begin to learn who specializes in what and you will get a feel for who you can understand and possibly relate to the best.

Don’t worry about spam, you are using an address dedicated to Internet marketing so you are keeping everything separate from your normal in box. Over time you will see that real Internet marketers are not interested in sharing your information directly with anyone else. In fact their list is considered the life blood of their business so you are less likely to get spam from them than you are from a large corporation.

Tip Three: is be patient. Do yourself a favor and don’t do anything at first. Just sign up for the mailing lists, read what comes in, archive everything for later reference, and just learn. Over time you will begin to learn who is interested in making a quick buck and who is interested in giving you value. I’m not knocking anyone here. People are motivated by different things and the marketer who is interested in giving you value is also trying to make a dollar. He is just going about it in a different way than the guy who is in for the quick turn around.

Tip Four: is read what other people are saying about the product before you buy anything. If you read what people have said about products in the past then you might be able to get an idea of what a particular Internet marketer will sell in the future. If they have put out solid information and quality products, then they are likely to again in the future.

Tip Five: is the most important I think. By signing up to multiple mailing lists you will start to see overlapping emails messages. This usually happens when a product is being launched and multiple Internet marketers are pitching the product to their lists. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but if all the marketer is doing is copying and pasting the message into the box and expecting you to buy, then that will quickly show up when four messages come in that all exactly the same.

As a buyer of information you want to know that someone is in your corner and that you are getting value out of your dollars. The marketers who are truly creative and who are interested in promoting good products to their lists will take the time to craft a personalized email message to their list. In my experience, these marketers are interested in quality and long term money making practices which means more than likely they have actually reviewed the product or will at least tell you if it may not be for you.

So, get an email address, sign up for some lists, learn as much as you can, and remember that this whole Internet thing has been churning for years and your not going to miss the train if you don’t jump now. In fact, you can avoid throwing yourself under the train if you will just step back and take the time to look, listen, and learn. Then when you’re ready you’ll be better equipped to pick the best product that will give you the most value for your money.

Keep reaching for success,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Accelerate your business online using social media.

If you haven’t been to a meet up, then I highly suggest you visit Meetup.com and look for a topic that interests you. There is probably a Meetup group in your area that specializes in your topic of interest.

Meet ups are an awesome way to connect with your peers, learn and share new thing, and be motivated to take action on your own projects.

At Saturday’s WordPress Meetup I met a blogger who was on the Mike Huckabee campaign, a blogger with a popular Stephen Colbert fan site, a brand new sustainability blogger, an eBay affiliate blogger, and a Spanish language blogger, all in the span of about two hours.

Some of the things that I learned in that short time frame were truly invaluable. For instance, I was able to confirm some eBay affiliate information I had heard, and I learned that I could get a higher affiliate payout using the PepperJam Network than the eBay Partner Network. That was well worth the time spent all by itself.

It was also interesting to actually get to talk face-to-face with people that I talk with on Twitter. It was good to see the promise of online social networking take shape in an off-line conversation. I will say it was a little hard to match screen names and avatar thumbnails to actual faces.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I had missed saying hello in person to a few of the people I talked with on Twitter. But, overall it was good to connect nonetheless.

Overall, the Dallas WordPress Meetup was a big success with about 40 people showing up. Tony Cecala gave an overview presentation on installing WordPress 2.7.

Tony did a great job of covering the high points dealing with hosting, control panel options, blog structure, and custom themes. He finished up with a useful list of plug-ins.

It is always difficult these fit everything into a two hour meet up, with Tony did a great job summarizing everything in about 40 minutes.

If you’re in the Dallas area and are looking for a good WordPress group, then check out the DFW WordPress Meetup calendar. We meet once a month and it’s well worth the time.

If you’re not in the Dallas area, be sure to check the Meetup.com website to find a group in your area and get connected.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

The service costs six dollars a month and seeks to fill the gap that exists in Facebook’s chat messaging system.

Today you can adjust your mobile Facebook account setting so that you’ll receive text messages for friend requests, messages, wall posts, and status updates from your friends. You can also post status updates using text messages, but you can’t chat outside of Facebook without ChatToText.

Here are some of my thoughts on the service, the Facebook application model, and the marketing behind ChatToText.

But before we get to that, let me walk you through the process I experienced when I signed up for ChatToText.

Oh, there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned about ChatToText yet. Part of the model for encouraging viral promotion of the application is an attached multi-level marketing pitch. What do I mean by that?

Well, you can either signup to use the service for $6 USD a month and use it like any other subscription based service or you can sign up and promote it to make $2 per new sign up and .25 cents per new tiered sign up (up to 8 levels deep). That means there’s a commission structure associated with using and promoting the service that has the potential to provide a return for as long as the subscription is active, or for as long as new people are signing up. I would imagine that like with anything else, there will be a saturation point, but for now everything is new.

So there you have a cool new Facebook application with a multi-level marketing spin to encourage promotion. Got, it? Of course you do. So let’s look at the sign up process, both as a potential user of the service, and as a Facebook marketer. To help you out, I’ve documented the whole process.

Allowing Access

Initially I saw a Facebook message come across from one of my friends that said Facebook was going MLM. Being curious, I clicked through to the ChatToText application where I was presented with a very simple, but very well done,  4 minute video that told me all about the service and how to sign up.

If you’re even slightly interested in Facebook marketing, copy writing, or using videos for marketing, I recommend you watch the offer video. It’s very smooth and the copy in the ad is too the point, addresses objections, sets expectations, empathizes with you, and ultimately greases the way for a clean buying transaction.

After I clicked the sign up button at the bottom of the video, I was presented with a standard Facebook “Allow Access” message.

I clicked allow and I was taken to the ChatToText website outside of Facebook. Looking at the web address in my browser I could see that the ChatToText guys were using aMember as their member management solution and affiliate management tool.

In case you don’t know, amember is a commercial piece of software that connects a long list of open source software packages together so you can create membership sites or just plug disconnected systems together. I’ve used it in the past to plug WordPress, forums, and photo galleries together.

It’s not overly important that you know they use amember, I just think from an Internet marketing perspective that it’s interesting because the software costs less than two hundred dollars and offers a flexible solution for creating membership sites. Which shows, that you can take an idea and an inexpensive tool and turn them both into something that makes money online.

Create An Account

Next, I completed their member registration form and clicked continue. As you can see the registration form was short and too the point. They’re just trying to get the user to the next step.

After reading through their user agreement, I saved a copy to my hard drive for later reference and clicked the “I Agree” check box and clicked continue.

Complete The Payment

I was then taken to PayPal to complete the payment portion of the signup process. The first thing I noted was that ChatToText  put a big red notice at the top of the page to tell me something “really important”.

This is an interesting tip and something you might want to consider for your own marketing if you use PayPal. The message is part of the header graphic that PayPal lets you upload to tell people who they are buying from. I think it’s a creative use of the space. Even if you don’t have a required message,  it could also be used as a place to remind the buyer about special bonuses so to keep them encouraged to follow through with their purchase. Just a thought.

Next, I logged into my PayPal account, reviewed the details, and clicked the pay button.

Once the payment was accepted I was presented with a “Return to Merchant” button, just like the big red text mentioned on the first PayPal screen.

So, I clicked “Return To Merchant” and got this message.

This is a standard message and it doesn’t exactly create any feel good moments, but at this point in the purchase process the   payment has been completed so the buyer is committed to an action.

So, I clicked continue which took me to the order thank you page where I was prompted to complete the setup process.

Now, take note that this is not an Amazon OneClick process, but the ChatToText guys are smart because they put the payment process up front as quickly as possible.

Instead of trying to pull the buyer through the signup process and configuration process, they get them to complete the payment first. ChatToText shows the buyer the product offer, and immediately closes the deal with a payment.

Once the buyer is committed to the transaction, their motivation to complete the process has shifted. They won’t abandon the process because they have already paid.

Complete The Setup Process

Clicking the “click here” link took me back to Facebook where I was greeted with a step by step setup process.

In fact, the graphics indicated I was already on step 2 and there was even an option to watch videos to help with completing the process.

Pause for a moment: It may not be obvious, but the extra support videos are meant to reduce the likelihood of refund requests by people who can’t finish the process. Remember, this is a monthly subscription service and it’s only $6 so if you, the developer, can get the buyer to complete the process and the service works, then you will probably have a customer for a very long time. In fact, it would take a lot of screw ups on your part to make them even think to cancel. $6 isn’t much to pay, but it can add up with thousands of signups.

Here’s what the multi-step status page looks like.

Invite Some Friends

Since there is a multi-level marketing / viral promotion (ie, you want to get some payolla) component to the application, the  next step is to tell some friends. So, that’s what I did. It is interesting to note that you are limited to sending the application to 8 friends. So, I picked people who I thought would use the the application, would respond to a request from me, and had friends who would use the application.

This is an important point because you don’t want your requests going to waste. Sure you can always promote the thing later in other ways, but since your doing it, you might as well try to make it count.

To futher encourage action, I included a custom message with my invitation to let my friends know that I was researching the application and I wanted to know their thoughts. It’s important to be genuine during this step. I really was researching it and I do want to hear their feedback, but I also wanted to ask them a question so they would feel compelled to respond. If people think you are waiting on them, then they tend to respond.

Next up was to enter my cell phone settings. So, I entered my cell number and selected my phone carrier.

Setup Your Phone

In a few seconds I recieved a text message on my phone with instructions on how to confirm the message.

I entered the confirmation code and sent a text message back to ChatToText.

In about ten to fifteen seconds the ChatToText system was updated and I was able to click the “Click Here” link to refresh the page and complete the setup

Add To Your Profile

Then I was taken back to the setup steps page and asked to add the ChatToText application to my Facebook profile page so that people would know they can chat with me via text messaging.

Take notice that just below the big red box that seems to dominate all your screen real estate and your attention there is a button to add the application to your profile page. I clicked it and

The application instantly showed up on the left hand side of my profile page just under my friends and my networks. You can move your box around if you like, but it won’t go above your friends, so you might want to consider where to put it so you will get the best exposure.

Your sign up action will also show up in your Facebook activity stream so your friends can see that you’ve signed up. This is just one of those great Facebook automatic promotion things that doesn’t hurt your promotion efforts.

How To Cancel Your Subscription

So what happens if you don’t use the service and you’re not seeing any revenue from the application? How do you cancel your subscription?

Well there are two ways you can manage your account. One is to view your ChatToText Facebook application page where you can see all your stats and commissions and the other way is to access your membership through the ChatToText website.

To cancel your subscription, you can go to the ChatToText website and log in with your membership log in.

On the main membership page you should see a link, in the bottom right hand corner, to cancel your subscription. It’s pretty easy to do.

There you go. That’s the whole sign up process.

Now let’s talk about the model that is being presented here.

The Model That’s Being Presented Here

As marketers and developers look for ways to make money with Facebook, I’m convinced that they are going to have to move away from the poke, super poke, and someone just gave you a beer, model of grabbing people’s attention.

They are going to have to offer real services that do real things to add value to Facebook user lives.

Now you can argue the value of chat all day long, but the truth is it’s up the buyer to weigh that value and decide if they want to pay to get it. This is where I think ChatToText is doing an excellent job. They are hitting the market at a place where there is a gap which is unlike most MLM setups.

Most Multi-level marketing systems try to convince the buyer that they want what is being offered and the buyer can offset the cost by selling the product. But, ChatToText is offering what people want and then encouraging them to talk about the service by offering a tiered commision on sales. It’s a fine line I know, but isn’t that always the way it is. You can’t make someone talk positively about something they really don’t want, but you can’t shut a person up if they really like something.

Another interesting thing to note is that ChatToText is building a base of qualified buyer. Provided they do a good job of delivering their service, they should be able to leverage that base for future marketing efforts. And by offering a service tied to a communication channel, they will have the ability, if they ever choose, to inject marketing messages into the flow of communications via text messages or chat responses.

So let’s review briefly. When making a Facebook application:

• Offer a subscription service that provides on-going value
• Complete the payment process up front
• Include a viral component that will help the app spread
• Build a base of qualified buyers that you can leverage for long term growth.

Be sure to checkout the ChatToText application both as a user and as a Facebook marketer.

As you can see, there are lots of interesting pieces to this story.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Let’s Connect on Facebook!

Can being a Love Kung Fu artist help you increase your customer base and make you more efficient too? Well, I can guarantee anything, but it has certainly worked for Mark Berry of LoveKungFu.com.

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark and he told me about several creative ideas he’s used to build up his online life coaching business. Using word of mouth advertising, teleconferencing tools, and his own organizational skills he has increased his customer conversions and freed himself to focus on the success of his clients.

In the interview, Mark shares with us how he increased his conversions by screening prospects in just 20 minutes and how he used the self publishing of his own book to open up new opportunities. All throughout the interview he offers some extremely creative insight that I know you will find valuable.

I hope you enjoy the interview.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Listen to the Love Kung Fu interview now

Read the full Love Kung Fu interview transcript

Charles McKeever: Hi, welcome back to another edition of the Open Source Marketer Podcast. I am Charles McKeever and I am the Open Source Marketer. And today I am here with Mark Berry. Mark Berry runs and operates Little Love Coach, and he is going to be sharing with us today a little bit about how he does his business online and offline.

Just to give you a little background on Mark, he is 5’3″ and he is known as “the little love coach.” He has coaching clients all around the world. And in 2002 he started Love Kung Fu, which is a life coaching company that’s dedicated to helping people improve their dating and relationships. Mark, thank you for being on the show here with us.

Mark Berry: Thanks, Charles.

Charles: Well, let’s just — let’s just jump right into it, because I am really interested in what you’ve got going on here. I have been to your website, I have been to littlelovecoach.com and then I have also been to Kung Fu Love. And I have to tell you that you’re doing a great job of working things online and offline. So tell us a little bit about…what is Love Kung Fu, and how did you come up with that concept?

Mark: Well, it’s the name of my company and I called it Love Kung Fu because, Kung Fu means skilled. And a friend of mine and I were brainstorming on what we were going to call this thing, because before the company started, I was just giving love advice, and I started charging for it and people started paying for it. So once I was giving this love advice out and selling it, then I had to come up with the company name.

And we looked around and we brainstormed and lovekungfu.com was one of the only ones not taken of everything we came up with. So — and what’s funny is, the further I got into the company and the further I got into helping people find love and help them in dating and relationships, the more Kung Fu started to apply, because Kung Fu, as you know, it means work, and sometimes it means struggle, and love is hard, love is work. So that’s the basis behind Love Kung Fu.

Charles: So you say that you were giving out free — I guess giving out free advice in the beginning?

Mark: Well, I’ve been giving free advice my whole life. [laughs]

Charles: OK, yes, welcome to the world.

Mark: Right. But around 2002 was when I started charging people and I just said, “Hey, I’m offering this program where I work with you one-on-one, week after week for a five-week period, four to five weeks, and we help you accomplish very specific goals.”

Case in point, my first client ever, her name was Grace, and she wanted to meet some new guys. She wanted to meet guys that were at her financial worth. And she kept finding losers. So she started talking to me, we started working every week and I helped her to find better places to find these guys. I helped her brainstorm and seek out places that these guys could be at her level.

And sure enough, by the end of those five weeks, she was going on all these different dates with guys that were really up to par, like really at the level she wanted.

Charles: Was it obvious then that there was a market? I mean, beyond this one person, did you know that there was a market for you to do this?

Mark: No, I didn’t know there was a bigger market when I — back when I started that, I had not even heard of life coaching at all, which is basically what I do. All I knew is that people kept asking for it, and so I kept offering it. And now over the last six years or so, I have started to discover there actually is the really big market for people who want life coaches and that market is only just beginning.

Charles: Really. So there wasn’t like a — did you do any kind of research, or, I mean, was there a place where you could go to find out that this was happening, or you just paid attention?

Mark: No, I just followed demand. And you know, as a business coach as well, that’s really what I recommend to people too, like, listen to the demand. And as a result of listening to the demand, I’ve coached people in their — I’ve written their online dating profiles for them, I’ve given dating advice, I’ve given sex advice, I’ve helped people write their first book.

And I’ve done all of that because I kept listening for what they wanted. And only much, much later, circumstantially did I find that there actually is a market. But yes, everything I found… all of my business I found, I found just through listening to people and listening to what they wanted.

Charles: So was this your first online business, then, or your first business at all, or what’s the story there?

Mark: I got into real estate investing in about 2000-2001, and started this right after that — just coincided with it. My first client was first my real estate investor mentor, and then she thought, “Oh, your advice is good,” and she hired me. So, it’s my second business. But it’s really the first time I have ever built anything online because real estate investing is not online at all. You know, it’s not anything I did that wasn’t –

Charles: So you didn’t start out with a website then, I guess you just added that later?

Mark: Yes, we had a website, but it was mostly just kind of a motivation, it was like a business card, which kind of put us out there. But it certainly was not really a marketing tool, especially the way you see websites as marketing tools today. It was more to create a brand for us and a motivation. But all of my first business was all word of mouth and people I met in person who wanted to hire me.

Charles: Do you find yourself doing more online business today, or more offline business?

Mark: Well, you know, the online business that… the sales are almost always online because that’s the only way that I take a credit card is over the computer. But what I use is, I use the online websites like LinkedIn and Facebook, and I connect with people. And then through those connections online, people I never would have met, email lists, however I meet people online.

Then I funnel all those people into one-on-one conversations on the phone. And from those phone conversations they get excited, they get interested, they want to hire me, and then I redirect them to the website and have them sign up where we’re talking.

Charles: You use the model of a funnel, where you have a large general population and then as the prospects get more and more refined, they get closer and closer to the buying process?

Mark: Yes, and the funnel that I have created is a 20-minute strategy call, and I actually modeled that from Laurel Ingmar’s Live Out Loud program. And what I do is, if you’re interested, then you get a taste test of the coaching. What — how can I help you in 20 minutes? And if that helps you enough that you like what you hear, from there you sign up for the five-week program, four weekly calls.

Charles: That’s pretty sharp. I like that, because most people will be willing to give up 20 minutes, you know, to find out if something is going to work for them or not.

Mark: Well, yeah, and I found that because this is a relationship-oriented business, like any service business, about 50 percent of your investment is in the relationship itself. So what I found is that there was no way for me to sell myself without actually having a conversation.

Charles: [laughs]

Mark: Yes, right. So when I first started I had 45 minutes, like they got a full call to try me out. What I found was I was helping people so much, so fast, that I actually was giving them more than they could even handle in the first 45-minute call, and they would be all full and all done, and then not hiring me.

So I found that in a 20-minute call, I could actually help them enough so that we formed a relationship, but not so much that they’re all full up and ready to go.

Charles: That’s pretty sharp. I guess you just noticed that over time, is that it?

Mark: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] Everything I notice is the hard way, yeah.

[laughter]

Charles: That’s good though, because a lot of times I think people kind of get a certain result and then they feel maybe discouraged. They don’t think to refine what they’re doing, and see what else works. So that sounds like that’s what you’ve done, you’ve just over time tried different things until you got the result that you wanted.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I’ve had to try a million times, it’s a never ending process of experimentation and refinement and personal growth.

Charles: So you said you’ve built relationships, you have to have the conversations with them and things like that. Have you in your marketing efforts… I mean, have you tried buying traffic or cross-promoting between sites, or do you rely any on search engine traffic, or anything like that?

Mark: I’ve done quite a bit of experimenting with online search engine traffic, online advertising to the general public. The service I have provided with life coaching, I’ve found, is still so new and so cutting-edge, the ads are not targeted enough that I am able to pick up anybody.

I am really not able to pick up any clients with any sort of positive return from those marketing ventures. Couple that with the fact that it’s a service job, and it’s really a personality-matching kind of business, and what happens is they never actually come through. So I have actually found that search engine marketing, and even a lot of online advertising is not working for me.

Now, the one thing I have not done yet is online advertising specifically on dating sites, which is a gold mine, I hope. I trust that will actually work, since I am a love coach, and that will complement those businesses. So, that’s really the next online advertising venture that I’ll try, is just focus on those dating companies.

Charles: Now, do you consider your business to be strictly an Internet marketing venture? I mean, you have an offline component, right?

Mark: It’s a real blend, it’s a real blend. Again, because it’s a relationship business, I’ve found that I’ve had to blend. All of the coaching I do is on the phone, so I don’t meet with anybody in person.

Charles: How interesting.

Mark: So most of my clients are actually not in Dallas where I live: they’re in New York and Toronto and San Francisco. I’m on various newsletters, various email lists, and forums. Sometimes when I travel I go to classes all over the country, and I’ll meet different people through various networking events and educational classes, and then from there they’ll hire me, or they’ll tell a friend and the friend will hire me.

So, most of my business comes from networking, but that networking is probably split about half offline and about half online. For example, one woman in New York was on an email list with me, a Yahoo! Group, and she saw what I was doing and got to know me better and better. We had met once before, but really we knew each other through the Yahoo! Group.

So she hired me, and as a result of her, three friends of her hired me, and then three friends of a friend of one of those friends hired me. They’re all doctors in New York, female doctors in New York, researchers and doctors in New York. I’ve never met anyone except the one girl, the first girl.

Charles: Oh, that’s fantastic, yeah! That’s a stronger piece of marketing for you then anything that you could pay for really. I mean because you’re piggybacking a little bit — well, a lot really, on their personal recommendations.

Mark: That’s right, that’s right. They’re all single women in their late 50s, and so finding love is on a ticking clock, and they were very, very interested in me. What I was able to provide with the coaching helped, because it helped the first girl and then they just kept telling people because it kept helping.

Even though I never met any of them, I was able to provide a lot of value just through phone conversation. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t been providing value to people on the Yahoo! Group as well, which is where we really got to know each other.

Charles: Right. So yeah, that’s not a “set it and forget it” kind of thing then. It’s more of an interactive, always on, always looking to be of value to other people.

Mark: Yeah, it’s definitely a business that requires my presence, it’s not a product. At the same time, I like that, because it’s more valuable to me. I can actually see the results, as I talk to people, I know it is working.

Charles: So, things like Facebook and all the different social networks and stuff, those must be a pretty good place for you to hang out.

Mark: They are, and I’ve learned a lot about networking over the years. The big thing about networking, I used to go to networking events, and then if I got 10 business cards, I would be so mad at myself if I didn’t follow up with all 10 of those people, right?

What I found about networking online and offline is, that there is only 10% of those people that are really, really going to turn into a great relationship. Well, multiply that times all of your friends on MySpace and Facebook, right? All of a sudden if you tried to follow up with everybody that you meet on there, mostly you’re wasting your time, right?

Charles: [laughs]

Mark: I mean it’s like, too much!

Charles: Sure.

Mark: If you follow that 10% rule and you say, “10% of these people are going to be interested in somehow partnering with me or hiring me,” if you get good at figuring out which those 10% are, then you can really take advantage of sites like that, and that’s a skill I’m still mastering. You know, we met on the Internet.

Charles: Yeah.

Mark: I mean, that’s the only way we’ve known each other, is exactly through all those networking sites.

Charles: Yeah, exactly. We connected online, and then I went and looked at what you were doing. You did a very good job of presenting yourself and what you did, and from there it was just like, “OK, I want to talk to this guy. I want to find out what he’s doing now. I want to pick his brain and see what kind of experience that you’ve had.”

I know that everybody has a story, and yours was one that was compelling. I mean, you did a good job of laying it out. So yeah, I can just imagine that would be the same net effect over and over again, as you interact with more and more people.

Now tell me, talk about interacting with people. Tell me, how often do you speak at events? Because I notice that you talk about your speaking engagements.

Mark: Yeah, right now it’s about once a month. I’ve only just started getting really serious about being a speaker, and it feels like a big open frontier for me, there are all these opportunities. I’m kind of sorting through them and just now starting to really speak.

I’m a writer, and as a writer I have more ideas than I have time in the day to write them down. So, as a speaker, one of the first challenges I was facing was what do I think about because there’s way too much in my brain to actually say it all at once. [laughs]

So I created this speech called “The Four Arts of Love.” It’s based on a concept I created early on in the creation of Love Kung Fu. And what “The Four Arts of Love” is about is, it’s the idea of that any skill you are trying to learn, any goal you have, can be achieved by learning a sequence of skills. And that sequence of skills usually falls in one of four arts of love.

The four arts of love are the art of being single, the art of dating, the art of relationships, and the art of teamwork. So, in the speech now, what I do is I talk about those four arts of love, and I start to help people really identify what they’re learning and how those four arts of love can help facilitate them learning the right skills in the right order.

Charles: Is there a circuit for this kind of thing? Or I mean, do you set these events up yourself, or is there something that you can sort of piggyback on an event that needs speakers?

Mark: Well, I was doing a singles event, a monthly singles event, and then we morphed that into a book club. And now we are actually going to focus entirely on getting it out into these singles groups that already exist. So, there is a circuit for love. There’s a circuit for singles groups, and those sometimes bring speakers in, and then really anybody who is interested in hearing someone speak about love, it’s a really interesting topic.

And as we all grow as people and in society, we’re starting to have more people wanting to learn about love. You know, love has been always seen as this kind of “have or have not” view in life that’s kind of like — oh, well, he’s just got lucky, that’s why he found someone. Or she was just born pretty. But more and more people are starting to approach love the same way they approach money or business, it’s actually a series of skills that you can learn over time.

As people start to figure that out, they’ve started actually wondering, “Well, who is the expert, how do we learn about learning about love?” And that’s where I’ve started to come in and speak to those groups. Then those ideas affect you, you know, for the rest of the week you will be thinking about everything we talked about, and if I did my job right it will affect how you interact with people, how you talk to singles, how you act in a Starbucks or a bar or a club or a networking event.

Charles: Yes, it’s hard not to be affected by ideas. So, tell me how — you told us a little bit about the coaching services and how you got into it — you know, kind of one person at a time and things like that, but tell me more about the life coaching part of what you do. I mean is that something that you do in groups, or something that you do on an individual basis? You talked about doing phone calls, I mean, how do you normally do that?

Mark: Well, the life coaching is set up almost exactly like a personal trainer, except it’s on the phone. And just like a personal trainer, you set a goal of what you want to accomplish. So, all of my programs are five weeks long, with the exception of couples coaching, which is 10 weeks. But pretty much in increments of five weeks, we set a goal.

And the first — the goal-setting call, the strategy session, is the free 20-minute session. If you don’t have your goal in mind already, that’s what that call is for, is to really figure out what your goal is. So, I’ve had clients who have goals like, “I want to meet more girls.” I have some clients who say, “I want to find true love by the end of the year. I want to be married by Valentine’s Day next year.”

Charles: Oh, wow.

Mark: Yeah, you know, I mean, people have goals in their love lives. I had one client who wanted to have his first book written and published in 15 weeks, and he accomplished that goal.

Charles: Oh, wow.

Mark Berry: Yeah. So, whatever that goal is, that’s the first requirement. And as a life coach, for me, that’s — sometimes I see a lot of people in different industries, either coaching or counseling, who don’t clarify the goal before they start. And to me, I have found that if they don’t have that goal really set in stone, that I might as well just give them their money back and coach them for free, because the goal is everything.

Once you set that goal, then you can look for ways to measure it. Like, you can measure true love by measuring the number of dates that someone goes on, because if they don’t go on any dates, zero times infinity is still zero. [laughs] So they have to go on dates, right, in order to find somebody. So, that’s a way to measure it. So, then over the five weeks you measure the number of dates they’re going on.

And then, “Well, I’m not finding anybody.” Well that’s what the coach is for. That’s what I’m for, is to help you figure out how to find the right people, in the right places in the right situations, in the right time in order to accomplish your goal.

I’ve had couples who were arguing about sex issues, which is a huge issue, money and sex, right? So, they would have a goal that they wanted this resolved, that they wanted this issue to be — they wanted peace of mind around this issue. That’s a goal, because you can measure that. You can count the number of fights, for example.

So, then what they do with me is once they set that goal, then we talk every week and I shed insight on their issue. Because having an outside observer, having an expert on the topic, look at what you’re doing, and look at what you’re saying and actually shed some insight on the issue, is going to help a whole lot more than all the bad advice from all your friends and family.

Because, you know, most of us are not doing it right. And I wasn’t, you know, I had to learn the hard way and I did a lot of reading and a lot of research in order to become an expert on this topic. But when I started, heck no, I was doing it all wrong. And most of the advice that people give out or people get is bad, is really bad advice. There is a lot of research to back that up.

Charles: So, we tend to turn our friends into guinea pigs. We give them advice, and then they’re the ones who have to go off and live with whether or not it works or not.

Mark: Right. [laughs] You know, there’s actually a lot of data and research and statistics that will back up almost anything that anybody says or does in a relationship. So, why not rely on the expert to guide you?

So then, what I do on these calls is just like a personal trainer, that I motivate, you know, one part cheerleader, one part, you know, football coach, and one part expert. So, each week we talk about where you’re at and the progress you’re making. And then I give you homework based on those conversations that will actually propel you forward.

So, for example, with Grace, she was meeting all these crappy guys, but that’s because she wasn’t going anywhere that rich people go. So, with Grace, her first assignment was to spend the weekend and list out 20 places that wealthy guys and powerful guys go and hang out. Where do they hang? And make that list and then go to one of those places this week. That was her homework.

For the guy writing his book, his homework was to — well, his first homework was to write, because when you are writing a book, your first job is just, you write the first book, get the first draft done, right? [laughs] So, that was his homework for five weeks.

But you know, whatever your goal is, there is homework that will have you in action. And that’s the other reason why I like the name “Love Kung Fu,” because Kung Fu really implies action. Kung Fu your love life.

Charles: [laughs] Yes, do you make them — do you require that they make noises when they do that. They have to do — [makes kung fu noise]

Mark: [laughs] Only if it helps.

Charles: You don’t try to make sure of that?

Mark: Right, no.

Charles: On Kung Fu Love, you talk about a Hottie Boot Camp. So, what is a Hottie Boot Camp, because it sounds interesting?

Mark: Well, Hottie Boot Camp is one of the programs that I offer, and you know you’ve got your five-week program, right, and right now it’s $250 for five weeks. But, then, within that five-week program, there are a whole lot of different options you can take.

So Hottie Boot Camp is one name that we use, and it did refer to an in-person Hottie Boot Camp we did, but now it actually refers to an individual five-week program that you can take. So, what people that take the Hottie Boot Camp love is that it actually — the goal of Hottie Boot Camp is to make you hot, inside and out.

So, we spend those five weeks looking at your wardrobe, looking at what clothes make you feel hot, and you go through your wardrobe, and you throw some stuff away. And then from there, you start to look in the mirror, and every day you start to see something different about yourself that you think is hot.

One of the premises of Love Kung Fu is that if you can figure out what to learn and what to do, you can really, really change how you feel and what you can accomplish. So the Hottie Boot Camp is one of the five-week coaching programs over the phone, just like everything else, it’s one-on-one with me, and you learn how to be hot! How to see yourself as hot.

Charles: So, a little bit of self-image self-exploration, where you can then have the confidence to go out and connect with the people who you want to connect with.

Mark: Yeah. One of my top Hottie Boot Camp clients, he was so down on his looks that he absolutely could not even — he’s gay and he wouldn’t ask any guys out. Even though — I’d met the guy, and the guy’s hot. And that’s the funny thing about Hottie Boot Camp, that actually a lot of hotties take Hottie Boot Camp, because they don’t see themselves as attractive as everybody else does. So, at the end of that five weeks, he started to see it.

You know, there’s a lot of things that we do in the program that have you really open up to that. A lot of it is introspective, but I believe the best introspective comes from life experience, and the best life experience comes from someone holding you accountable to actually do it.

Charles: Yeah, and a lot of times we tell ourselves things and then we wind up acting out those thoughts, don’t we?

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Charles: And then we need somebody else to help us break that pattern.

Mark: Yes.

Charles: All right. Well then, tell me more about the social club, and the forum and the meet-ups and stuff like that. I know you talked about those on lovekungfu.com, so… tell me about the social club, first of all.

Mark: Well, the social club right now is a book club, and it’s a weekly book club. We’re putting it on hold for the holidays, but it’s a weekly book club in which people can get educated. And because there’s so many networking sites out there on the web and stuff, the social club also extends out to meeting people on all of the online communities that we’re all part of, and that the Love Kung Fu team is a part of.

So, the YouTube page, the Facebook page, the MySpace page, so that people can start to really chat. The online forum is just waiting to take off. [laughs] You know, it’s just kind of hanging out for a while, because nobody gets on there. You know, a bunch of people kind of gel on there…I don’t know if you’ve ever tried starting a forum before, but until there’s some sort of critical mass, it just kind of hems and haws along, so…

Charles: Yeah, I’ve actually been involved in the starting of a forum, and you’re absolutely right, it’s one of those things that you constantly… it’s like a newborn child. I mean, you really have to watch it night and day, or you know, it falls face-first on the carpet and suffocates. [laughs] It’s not something that you just turn on and it goes.

Mark: Yeah, and what’s funny about forums is that I have a set of college buddies, and there’s probably 10 of us, but it started out with maybe about six of them who created this online forum just for catching up. And that forum is more active than forums I’ve seen with hundreds of members. And there’s only 10 of them.

Because it’s pretty much a place that they go where they know the people, because they went to school with those people. And so even though it’s only 10 people, it’s a huge forum with thousands and thousands of posts. So, again, that ties the online world to the offline world, because I know for a fact that the only reason that forum is so strong and works so well is because all those people know each other in person. They know each other offline.

Charles: Right. I would venture to bet that even on the huge forums, the really active, large, thousands of people forums, I mean, those are just a collection of very small cells of people. You know, it’s hard to have more than 20 people, having a conversation with 10 to 20 people that you really know. Otherwise it’s a surface-level conversation, it’s just sort of a hit and run. And it seems like that’s another part of managing the forum, which seems to be, you know, how to keep the thing from imploding. [laughter]

Mark: Right, right.

Charles: But what about the meetups? I mean, Meetup, of course, meetup.com, does local group meetings. So the idea there was, at least according to their website, to get people off their computers and into coffee houses and real-life settings. So how has that worked out for you?

Mark: Meetup is great, I love Meetup, and I’ve even heard there are several other sites like Meetup. I’m not sure, but I would wager Meetup is probably the biggest, and it’s continuing to get bigger and bigger every day.

And what happens with Meetup is that all the people in Meetup, not all, but a lot of, like… the meetup I did was called Smart Singles, and of course the idea, as we said, was to have singles meet up for more than just drinking, but actually to learn something. And I created the meetup and discovered this whole world of singles who were really connected both through the Meetup website and through these events. As a matter of fact, one of these girls, she was going to six to eight Meetup events a week.

Charles: Wow.

Mark: I was convinced for the longest time that she worked for Meetup.

Charles: [laughs]

Mark: Because she was a shameless promoter of not just one but dozens of meetups that she belonged to, all serving their own groups and having their own missions and goals and everything and she was just everywhere.

So Meetup has really been really neat. As for our own meetup, I’ve met so many people through Meetup and some of those people have become clients. So, they see the website, they come to the event because they like the idea, and from there became clients. I actually have several clients from Meetup.

But it wasn’t just that they saw me online. I think part of the problem with advertising online is that if you’re not already known, then you’re not real, you’re not a real face, you’re not a real person. Which is why video helps a lot with advertising: people start to feel like they actually know you when they see a video of you.

So in Meetup, they met me, and that’s when they bought. Nobody found me through Meetup and bought without first talking to me on the phone or meeting me.

Charles: Now, have you done any video?

Mark: Yeah. I have a YouTube profile. All my profiles are MarkBerry555, so that’s a great way to find me all over the place. [laughs] And I have done a lot of YouTube videos, and I have experimented with YouTube a lot. And the videos are great when they add to your website. When they are embedded in your website, and the whole purpose of the video is for that page.

Like, I have an Action Dating kit, it’s a $67, two-CD workbook guide to dating, to finding love in 28 days. And I put a video on YouTube and then I embedded that YouTube video on my website, and it really helped. It really helped the believability of the product. Because they felt like they were buying it from a person, not a generic web page.

Charles: Right. That’s an interesting point to make there, that just doing one thing can improve, you know, the sales or the conversions or whatever it is you’re trying to do on your side. But, you know, it’s not always that obvious to people that that one thing needs to be done. And I think that’s a good example of it.

So, when did you decide to create the books and the audio materials, then? I mean, what was — I mean, you went from doing the, you know, getting into the coaching end of it and things like that. When did you say “Hey, I need to turn these into something that I can sell?”

Mark: Well, it was — it became a personal journey, and a lot of it, my author coaching clients, my writing coaching clients, it’s the same way. It becomes personal. Like, just to be able to say that you are a published author is one of the most proudest moments of my life. You know, I don’t have kids, so those books are my kids.

And so, being able to say I’m an author was…slowly over time, that kind of crept on me, became very personal. And I had these ideas, these concepts in my head since years. So I have so many — I actually wrote an entire book proposal to propose it as a self-help book and sent it out, didn’t get any response.

But that book proposal writing process in into itself was incredibly enriching and complicated, actually. It’s as hard as writing a book. And once I wrote that book proposal, then I started to see another opportunity to really use book writing as a marketing tool for the coaching.

And since I had all these concepts just lying around in my head gathering dust, that’s when I decided to go ahead and just write and self-publish the first book rather than trying to find a publisher. So that first book was “Splatter Dating.” And I read splatterdating.com and…

Charles: Did you come up with that name?

Mark: Yes.

Charles: Wow. That’s…I mean, it just sounds like it will get your attention immediately.

Mark: Well then, and I — I seem to keep attracting names that get attention. [laughs] So that’s good, you know, it’s good. It wakes people up.

And the concept behind splatter dating is that you want to just throw yourself out there. You just want to, you know, don’t be so picky, don’t be so stressed out about a date. Just go, get a lot of coffee dates and just throw it all out there, just throw yourself out there, just splat, right? And so then “Splatter Dating” was born out of that idea.

And so that book led me to realize how much I loved writing. And so I wrote the second book, which is the workbook that belongs inside the Action Dating kit, and that’s the workbook and CD kit. So then I wrote that book as more of a fiction self-help blend. So you actually follow these three students as they learn about dating, and they actually have their own little boot camp with this Chinese guru guy and learn about love on the journey, and then meanwhile you’re actually learning concepts along the way.

And now, my next project, I think it’s actually going to be a hybrid of Hottie Boot Camp combined with a script I wrote like 10 years ago called “The Beautiful People,” about a model who gets sucked into this world of beautiful people, except that as he gets to know the more beautiful people, then all the unattractive people in his life start vanishing. And so that’s going to track a concept I have called “The Seven Stages of Hotness,” which is a presentation I do, one of my speeches about how to be hotter, how to be more attractive.

Charles: Well, you know, I want to kind of bring back around one of the things that you said there that I thought was interesting, was that you did self-publishing on your first book. And there’s a certain element of credibility that goes along with being a published author, you know, being able to say that you’re a published author, whether it’s in a magazine or, you know, picked up by a publisher, or if it’s self-published.

Because once people feel like there’s something that you had to say that’s been printed, then there’s this credibility that goes along with it. So, sounds like that was kind of a great way for you to get your ideas down and get that credibility, was by doing self-publishing.

Mark: Yeah. And self-publishing is now something that you can do… I have self-published each of my books for less than $1,000 after all costs. And I did that with some decent creativity. But self-publishing now is so affordable that it’s really worth it. And you said that it lends credibility. And although it did not put a lot of money directly into my pocket, which is, of course what I expected, but that didn’t happen.

But what it did do is it did open a lot of doors. I would pick up the phone and call my local coffee shop and say, “You know, I’d like to do a seminar there,” or something like that, and they kind of go, “That’s nice, who are you? No, I’m not interested.” Once I was published, I recall, if I went and said, “I want to do a book signing at your coffee shop,” and they would jump all over it.

Charles: [laughs] Now, that’s interesting.

Mark: Yes. And that happened in a lot of different forms and fashions. People that were never paying attention to me, immediately would perk up and start paying attention when they knew I was an author.

Charles: Huh.

Mark: Yeah. So self-publishing was one of the best, most personally rewarding experiences I have ever had. It was really powerful.

Charles: That’s pretty smart. I would never have thought to set up my own book signing, you know. I mean –

Mark: Yeah. [laughing]

Charles: We all get ideas, I guess of, you know, that’s what the publicist does. There is something that somebody else takes care of when you reach that point, you know. But yes, it makes complete sense that you could do that.

So what, did you just show up with a table and a bunch of books and — I mean, how did you pull that off?

Mark: A table, a bunch of books, and balloons, and you know, a pen, and name tags, maybe. And really what we did is we just had fun. We had fun. If I had to do it again, which I plan to, because I plan to write more books, I would do a whole lot of them, and all over the city, and just cram them into like a two- or three- or four-week period.

Charles: Yeah.

Mark: And just run the gamut. Because, you know, because my business is still growing and still developing. So a lot of the marketing, it’s still relationship marketing. It’s still people I know or friends of friends. So if you have 20 book signings that they can pick from, then really, nobody can really say no, unless they’re really not interested.

Charles: [laughs]

Mark: Right?

So then you send out the glass… The other thing I have seen Michael Piore and Elizabeth Marshall do — they are some great marketers. They create a list of people that will email, all on the same day, an announcement about the book. This is actually how a lot of really successful authors got pushed up on Amazon, was that they had… Everybody would buy their book all on the same day.

So then Amazon records that as a record number of sales, and it pushes you way up. So you get like number one in self-help for this day. So you’re number one for a day. Well, that gets you notoriety, that gets you something you can put on the book or on wherever. And they did that by building up a list of people who were interested in emailing it out all on the same day — a launch, if you will.

Charles: So, that’s a very good strategy. I like the aspect of that because it’s smart. It’s just a smart way of doing it.

Mark: Yeah. Book sales is its own universe.

[laughter]

Charles: Yeah, I can imagine… Well, you know I have this picture in my head. I don’t know if it is the way that it happened or not, but I have this picture in my head of it being something that would be a great conversation starter. You would probably pick up new relationships and new prospects out of that alone.

Mark: Yeah.

Charles: Sounds like a great way to go into the market.

Mark: Well, yeah. My last writing coaching client, he wanted to publish a book and he went to me because I was an author. [laughs]

Charles: [laughs] There you go. It builds on it. It builds on itself.

Mark: Well, that’s right. Ivan Misner, founder of BNI International…it’s the largest networking company in the world and they have hundreds of chapters in every major city, and he told me that he…What did he say? That he started the largest international networking company in the world, but nobody would put him on TV until he had written a book. Yes, and he wrote a book, and now they will put him on TV.

Charles: Wow.

Mark: So, the power — yes, the power of being an author, it’s great.

Charles: Yes. That’s very fascinating. I have to try that out to see what kind of… I know there are bloggers within the blogosphere there that have published their own books, whether it be just a downloadable PDF or an actual physical product. And that’s been a big marketing piece for them, just to be able to say that they’re a published author. Even though their blog is what they do.

Mark: Right, yeah.

Charles: They’re writing every day, but it’s not the same as saying, “I wrote a book.”

Mark: Yeah, right. Writing feels like childbirth. It’s a process, and it really does change you. There is a reason why people respect authors so much, and that’s because writing a book is really hard. It’s a very big challenge and it’s something that really takes a lot of personal fortitude to achieve.

Charles: Yes, sometimes putting together a grocery list is hard.

Mark: Right. [laughs]

Charles: So, where do you think that — you probably didn’t expect to be where you are today, so where do you see your business going in a year? Where do you see the future for you?

Mark: Well, it’s funny, because the probably the biggest expectation I had — I certainly didn’t expect to be a love coach, but once I did start to give love advice, I expected to be a millionaire from this thing. And in fact, it’s grown a lot more organically. It’s grown slower, and along the way I’ve learned so, so, so much. So, where do I see myself headed?

Really, the next goal is to master the art of sales and marketing and really develop a larger marketing campaign, above and beyond guerrilla marketing. The trick for Love Kung Fu, and for life coaching as an industry, has been, how do we overcome the lack of understanding about what the heck this industry is.

So, that’s one of the first hurdles I really see, is learning how to speak about coaching so that the everyday average person who has never heard of it before understands it, and immediately sees the value. Much like the personal trainer industry or the massage therapy industry must have built itself 20 years ago.

Now, people that have personal trainers love personal trainers, and there is a whole segment of people and a whole group of millionaires and billionaires that developed themselves… they got rich off of those developing industries. So that’s really where I see myself, is becoming one of those icons of the life coaching industry and developing myself accordingly.

Charles: Yes, definitely I think that people instantly identify with the term “personal trainer,” whether we get an idea of someone in the gym, a physical personal trainer, or we get the sort of mental image of, like, Tony Robbins or something like that. It’s a connecting point where you say, “This is my personal trainer,” most people will go, “Oh, OK.” Yes, life coaches may be so new or so little defined that people aren’t clear as to what that really means.

Mark: Exactly, and 20 years ago when you would say to someone, “I’m a personal trainer,” they would say, “What? What is that? What do you do?” So, that industry has really taken some leaps and bounds, and that’s really where the coaching industry is headed, is through those same hoops and into those same leaps and bounds.

Charles: Well, excellent, excellent. Well, it sounds like you’re definitely on track to do all that, and you are having your goal set. Everything that you have going on, like I said, it was blindingly apparent to me when I went upside that you are organized and that you have plenty of things to offer people, no matter what level they were at — whether they wanted to do something one-on-one, or whether they wanted to pick up some materials and do something self-paced.

It really seemed like you were working all angles of it. So, kudos to you, definitely. So now, where — we talked about lovekungfu.com, and we talked about Little Love Coach, but tell me, if I have listened to this entire program, where can I find more information about you and what you do?

Mark: Well, the best thing, if they want to hire me as their coach or if they’re even considering it, is to get into a strategy session with me, get into an action strategy call, which is that 20-minute call. My phone number and my email are spattered all over the Internet. They can go to littlelovecoach.com and sign up for the newsletter, or they can go to lovekungfu.com, track down my phone number, and just call me.

To get that phone call started, scheduled this week, scheduled today, because the thing I care about most is that people take action, that they do something about their love life, and they do something about that book they always wanted to write. If that’s something that they’re interested in, they need to get a hold of me. My cell is 972 — can I give my cell out?

[laughter]

Charles: Your cell phone — you go ahead, my friend.

Mark: All right. 972-365-8084. The people I’m looking for are people that are not going to mess around, people that are serious about what they want to accomplish. And that’s who I work with.

Charles: Well, all right, Mark. It’s Mark Berry from Love Kung Fu, and thanks for being on the call with us. It has been really informative. I have enjoyed it, just to talk.

Mark: Thank you, Charles. You were great. Thank you.

Contact Mark Berry at Love Kung Fu today!

That’s right, you heard me. FULL UP!

And no, there’s no “until I tried this” or “wait till you hear about that” coming next.  It’s ALL horse fertilizer designed to get people excited and draw them in for the sale, end of story.

Here’s why.

Nobody, not a fine art painter, a guitar player, a computer programmer, or a street corner pimp learns how to make a stack of cash over night, none of them!

Yes, over time they may all learn a few valuable lessons of their trade that they can put to work, but those lessons still take a finite amount of time to learn. The human brain just doesn’t normally absorb, organize and act on information that fast. It just doesn’t work that way. It takes time to learn what you need to do, organize your thoughts into actions, and then actually do something.

Here’s an example of what I mean.

Twenty Years To Make An Overnight Success

One day at an art show, when I was sixteen, I came across a very talented artist. He was selling beautiful paintings for a healthy price. Being young and financially challenged, I asked him how long it took him to paint the picture. My “by the hour” mentality at the time equated time spent into value in dollars. The painter was polite and had obviously heard the question before so he responded, “Twenty years”.

At first I didn’t get it. How could it take someone twenty years to paint that! I mean it was pretty, but come on. Then I realized, the painter had studied art, tirelessly practiced his skills, thrown away all the paintings that didn’t work, and finally twenty years later on Saturday afternoon he had produced the painting I was now hassling him over.

You see it took him twenty years to be an overnight success. He didn’t just produce the painting on day one. He spent hours up front learning how to do what was now on display.

That’s not to say that it takes twenty years to produce an overnight success on the Internet, but time and effort are still required. When was the last time you heard of something online and thought that it was brand new only to find out it had been around for several years?

Google in all it’s current Google goodness is ten years old this month. That’s a short time frame compared to twenty years, but it still took time and effort to get things off the ground.

Reality versus Fantasy

You see, most people I want to believe that it happens overnight without blood sweat and tears. They want to believe that all the rules of the game have changed and the simple flip of the computer power switch will turn on the money machine and set us free financially, but it’s just not true!

Generations of smart people have been mentally crippled by the idea that they will hit it big without an investment of time and effort. We keep hoping and dreaming, chasing that next best thing when the answer is already in front of us. We just don’t want to listen.

The truth is, no one is going to simply hand us all their hard work in an easy push button solution and they’re certainly not going to push the button for us.

Yes, I’ve read the same sales letters you have. I’ve been enticed to know more by just putting in my name and email address. I’ve even put my money where my mouth is and purchased ebooks, training courses, and site memberships. But what I’ve learned from all the behind the curtain stuff is this, there really is no silver bullet. Real study, real time, and real effort is still required to make things happen. These materials can help accelerate the learning process, but time and effort is still required.

Now, am I saying online success isn’t possible? No I’m NOT! A lot of things are possible on the Internet. In fact, more things are possible online than offline. But when we, you and I, talk ourselves into believing that something is true when it’s not, then we get hurt because we stand to loose our motivation, or desire, and our money and that just isn’t productive.

Moving Past The Hype

So what are we suppose to do and who are we suppose to trust? How are we suppose to learn what we need to know and do what we need to do if outrageous claims are everywhere?

The answer is simply this:

We have to understand why Internet Marketers make claims of overnight success and we must learn to move past the hype and understand what they really have to offer.

Let me explain.

People, in general, work hard for their money and they aren’t willing to give it to anyone who politely asks for it. So, Marketers have learned over time what to say and how to say it to get people to make a decision. The headlines must be compelling, the copy must be long enough to remove doubt and explain benefits, and the timing must be urgent enough to promote immediate action. If the Internet Marketer doesn’t present the offer just right, then people won’t buy, period. The marketer might say please, and have an attractive site, but if he doesn’t hit the right mental triggers then you and I won’t give them our money.

This creates an environment where outrageous claims become common place to get the buyer to pull out their credit cards. Believe me, most marketers would much rather provide you with a simple order page where you can quietly buy their product without the need for flashing lights and Broadway dancers, but that’s just not the way things really work. So, they come up with bold claims that sound attractive to get buyers to take action.

When a marketer says he’s made $100 thousand dollars overnight he’s probably being completely honest, but what he’s not saying is that it took him several years of learning how to do all the things required that led up to this success. He’s probably not telling you that he spent a lot of money on training courses or spent long hours at seminar taking notes and studying all he could before getting to this point. He’s probably not telling you that he had to give up half of his current profits to his affiliates to make that dollar figure, which still isn’t a bad deal.

What we have to recognize is that marketers are in the business of constantly trying to get us to take action. It’s that simple.  That’s what they do. Yes, we can still learn plenty of things from them, be first we have to identify and move past the hype to get to the good stuff.

Internet Marketing can teach us how people think and how we can encourage action. They can show us how to test sites, and how to look for advantages in the online market place. They can give technical advice and show us how to combine systems to create value for site visitors. They can make suggestions and recommendations based on hours of study and research in an industry that is constantly changing. Most marketers do have some value to offer beyond the hype. What they can’t give us is overnight success without any prior knowledge or experience.

So what should you do to shake free of the overnight success bug?

• Fix in your mind that you are building a long term business

• Look for ways to be efficient and productive and stop looking for shortcuts

• Decide to commit to what you are doing even when it seems like the payoff is way off

• Recognize hype as just a way to sell products and services

• Remember that get rich quick is ALWAYS a lie

• Remind yourself daily that success requires time and effort

For now the goal is simply to get ourselves off the sugar high of looking for an overnight way to get rich. Once we can recognize the lie and remove it from our expectations, then we can start to look for real solutions that get real results.

Remember, at no other time in human history has someone been able to have an idea, start a global business, and begin making money without ever leaving their home. But it still doesn’t happen overnight.

There is money to be made online. There are creative ways to generate traffic and market to buyers. Success is out there waiting for you. Just remember it all takes time, and it all takes effort.

Just keepin’ it real.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, but I heard a lot of popular blogging names were there. It would have been a great chance to mix it up with other motivated people because getting to know people face to face will always be a great way to build solid long term relationships.

I really enjoy talking with focused like minded people so, you can imagine how excited I am about attending WordCamp this weekend in Frisco, Texas. The blogging event has been on my calendar for a couple of months now and at last glance, 130 bloggers are registered to attend.

In case you haven’t heard of the event, it is a two day WordPress blogging event that focuses on blog reader and developer topics.

Over the two days we are scheduled to talk about topics like WordPress 2.5, how to handle content theft, building blogging influence, seo for bloggers, the business of blogging, and testing with WordPress.

Lorelle VanFossen is scheduled to deliver some of the material related to WordPress Power Tips. Her blog has been a great source of information for me as I’ve tweaked my WordPress blog from it’s original template to what you see today.

Her blog was especially helpful when I upgraded to WordPress 2.3, so I’m hoping for an opportunity to personally thank her for the great information she provides on her blog.

Overall it promises to be a great two days. I plan to report live from the event and I’ll be posting pictures to the Open Source Marketer Community. So be sure to look for those starting this Saturday.

If there is an event in your area or a major event that you can plan to attend, then I highly recommend that you plan to be there. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and make friends with people that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise by attending events. Even free events have been a good source for making contacts.

For the most part people are very open at these events because they are there to meet other people and share information too. So, if you’ve ever wondered how you can meet people within your industry, attending events is a great way to make those connections.

If you’re in the Dallas area this weekend and would like to attend a blogging event, then there’s still time to register. If you already plan to attend, then look me up while you’re there and we can sit and have a coffee together. I hope to see you there.

Going to camp,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Now don’t get me wrong, the success of his blog is not defined by whether or not he gets quoted in a major publication. To be sure he is quoted everyday on his own blog that reaches thousands, if not millions, of people around the world. But, being featured in WSJ online is a great sign that blogging, and bloggers in general, are being slowly absorbed into the media conversation as someone to pay attention to.

This is fantastic for bloggers and Internet Marketing in general because as blogs and celebrity bloggers draw more attention to making money online, then more and more people will come online looking to get even a little slice of that golden pie.

The annual salary that Darren claims, along with the other annual numbers quoted by other bloggers, is getting people’s attention for sure. In fact, I would argue that people still under estimate the true earning potential online.

Just as we like to under estimate the amount of change a technology will bring and over estimate the amount of time it will take for that change to occur, so are we limited in seeing from here how much upside there still is in making money online.

Blogging is one such method that continues to prove itself out. But, just like any business there are many who will not successfully establish themselves as players in the market. There are no guarantees. But if we just hold on and ride the back of the bear, then even if we don’t find ourselves listed in the halls of the Wall Street Journal, then at least we might get linked to from enough people to keep the affiliate checks flowing.

Inspiration Seeking,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

P.S. Blogging is just one such method of making money online. Be sure to keep an eye for the series I am writing on how to build niche websites that make money while you sleep….okay, I know how cheezy that sounds, but I am doing it with several niche sites and if I can do it you can too (okay, cheezy again, but true).

To answer the questions I am drawing from my own personal experiences so if you have other suggestions or ideas, please share them in the comments for this article. I am sure others will appreciate the community feedback and my blog doesn’t use the nofollow tag so your comment link will benefit you as well. Here it goes.

Question: How did you build up visitors to your site? You have a lot of readers, and I was wondering if you actively went to other blogs and added comments or if MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog served to help with this.

Answer: I use blog commenting, forum posting, forum signatures, Meetup.com profiles, del.icio.us bookmarks, StumbleUpon submissions, email signatures, blogCatalog and MyBlogLog listings, and I joined Yaro’s Starak’s BlogMasterMind Course. That is all I can think of at the moment. There might be a few other things, but I think that is most of it. I use all of these methods in combination with offline events, and blog search engine optimization techniques. That helps me get search traffic as well as link traffic from multiple sources.

Question: Your content is a good reason for visitors to return, but how do you get them to show up in the first place?

Answer: I always suggest writing good articles that have attractive headlines and high value to the reader. Then link to that content in as many places as possible. Also, be sure you have multiple ways for the reader to stay connected to you when they get to your blog. For example, make sure you have options for RSS subscriptions and email updates. Then just keep pushing out value.

It helps me to think of blogging as one long continuous conversation. Each person I meet and each place I go is part of the collective voice of the reader I am writing for. It helps me to stay focused (though some days are easier than others). Overall I want people to find real information on the blog and not just filler. The idea being that this will keep them coming back and encourage them to spread the word. That’s what keeps me motivated during the journey.

I hope these tips help. It really is a lot of work to make an overnight success. So try to stay motivated and keep your focus on enriching the lives of others. It really is more about the journey than the destination. Even a ride on a first class flight can stink if you drop an engine along the way.

Aiming high,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

So what is Meetup.com exactly? Simply put, Meetup.com is a way for people online to coordinate to meet together in offline settings.

Now, your probably thinking, “Wait a minute, isn’t this article suppose to be about website traffic!” Well, just hang on because it is. You see Meetup.com is effectively an authority website on getting people together and they currently have a Google page rank of 8 out of 10. Combine that with the fact that people go to Meetup.com specifically looking for meetings centered around targeted topics of interest and you have an excellent formula for getting good quality traffic to your website. Even if you don’t actually hold regular meetings, you can get visitor traffic to your website by just having a completed Meetup group listing with a link to your website.

So, let’s take a look at what’s required to get started with Meetup.com and then we’ll talk about getting traffic. Everything I’m about to share with you is information from my own first hand personal experience with starting and running meet up groups on Meetup.com.

The group I currently organize, the Frisco Internet Entrepreneurs, holds regular monthly meetings. Every meeting is an opportunity for like minded people to get together and swap information, business cards, and ideas. It’s also a place where I choose to promote my website, point attendees to additional resources, and build a solid contact list with valuable relationships behind them.

Getting Started
Becoming a member of Meetup.com is an extremely simple process. Anyone can register for free, sign up as a group member, and start attending meetings of existing groups.

Picking Group and User Names
During registration, keep in mind that picking a user name is important. When I first signed up for Meetup.com I used an alias as my user name, but I quickly learned from an internet marketer friend that he had used his real name and it improved his search ranking for his business website. I immediately changed my user name and within two or three days I saw a definite improvement in the search rankings for my name and related websites.

Personal Profiles
Having a Meetup profile page alone can get you some visitor traffic to your website. The first thing I recommend you do after registration is complete the profiles for both yourself and your group, if you choose to organize one.

Keep in mind that as a Meetup group member you are allowed to create a profile for each group that you join. That means you can create a default profile to use across all your group memberships. You might also decide to create a business profile, a carefree profile, or a targeted profile depending on the type of group you join. It really is up to you based on what you are trying to achieve. Just remember that each profile is an opportunity to promote something specific about yourself, like your website. Whenever possible, add a keyword rich link to your website.

Group Profiles
Even though a personal profile cab get you some traffic, a better way to generate website traffic on Meetup is to step up and actually organize meetings. When you form your own group, you get to manage a group profile page which is a much better way to gain visibility. Group profiles have much higher visibility because Meetup visitors search for group meetings by topic. This means your group profile is usually the first thing interested visitors see when they start searching Meetup.com for a topic. When they find your group listed in the category for their topic of interest, then your website link will be there too.

The group profile is also a good place to tell everyone what your group is about, who should attend, where meetings will be held, what meetings will be like, and so on. You want to provide as much relevant details to potential group members as possible while keeping in mind that the group profile is a valuable place for you to use targeted keywords related to your topic of interest and a good place for you to include your website link.

Startup Costs
If you want to have a group profile you will have to become a group organizer. The entry fee for group organizers is $19 per month for the ability to create up to three Meetup groups. I recommend committing to the six month option up front if you are serious, because your monthly rate drops to $12 per month. That comes out to be about .40 cents a day, which is a whole lot cheaper than any advertising Adsense.

What you get for .40 cents a day is access to a focused audience of people who are interested in specific topics. They are also willing to invest their personal time to meet in local settings. For the most part a willingness to spend time offline engaging in functions related to a topic of interest shows that they are active in and therefore potentially more passionate about the topic than the average site visitor. That means there is plenty of motivation for you to step in and help direct that passion by establishing your own group, providing good quality information, and then referring them to your website for more resources. Remember to always focus on adding value to your group members and this practice will work well for you for a long time to come.

Keyword Rich Listings
While completing your group profile, keep in mind that search engines like Google are constantly crawling sites like Meetup.com for relevant content. So, you’ll want to create keyword rich group listings. However, while search engine traffic is important to consider, also keep in mind that the listing is ultimately for people and not the search engines. You want everyone who comes to Meetup.com looking for your topic to read your group profile and join your group or click through to your website. Try to keep a balance when creating your group profile, but when in doubt always default to user friendly.

Holding Classes
Holding classes is a great way of using Meetup.com to get website traffic. It is generally understood that if you want to get something in this world you have to give something first. The same holds true in this case. If you want people to come to your website, then you need to hold classes that teach others about the very thing you are promoting on your website. I’m not talking about delivering a commercial for your website. But, I am talking about giving people real information that they can use and gain value from while providing access to your website as an additional resource.

When you hold a meeting be sure to let people know the purpose of the meeting and let them know that they can get more information on your website. Be sure to post meeting related information on your website and verbally remind everyone that the resources are available on your website as a supplement to the meeting.

If there are documents to be downloaded, then place them on your website as part of an article related to the meeting topic. Also, be sure to put your website address in the resource materials you offer to your group. Encourage everyone to pass the information along to anyone they think would benefit.

Let’s be honest, you want to give everyone a reason to visit your website. And, you want to give them reasons to hang out, and continually return to your website. Don’t try to hide this fact from your group members, just keep providing value and you’ll both win in the end.

If you provide value to the members of your group then they will be naturally interested in you and any other projects you are involved in. Then you will have a perfect opportunity to let them know about your website and what it has to offer. If you make your website an extension of the value you are offering at the meetings, then it will be a natural fit for them to want to visit your website. It can’t be said enough; I recommend you always hold meetings with a focus on providing value to the meeting attendees. Keep the interests of your group members in mind and the rewards for your efforts will be great.

Welcoming New Members
Another good tip for getting your website in front of people is too send a personal welcome message to each new group member. You can send them a welcome message through the Meetup.com contact page. When you welcome your new member be sure to let them know what the group is about, when the group normally meets, and any other relevant information to a new member. In your email signature, be sure to include a link to your website and let them know that you are the group organizer. I usually include my name, title, and website address on all contact messages to members. This is a great way to let people know about your website without coming across as a self promotional commercial.

Message Board Postings
In addition to event listings, profile pages, and member messages, you can also leave messages on the group message board. This is a great way to create content that hangs around for a long time. When you post event details to the group be sure to check the option that lets you post the information to the message board as well. This will let members know what is happening with your group and it will also create a form of archive that new members can use to get information about past events. As always, be sure to include a link to your website in these message board postings as well. This will increase the chances that your link will be seen by people and search engines.

Additional Benefits
Here are a few additional benefits that are not directly related to website traffic, but are worth mentioning. When you attend Meetups you have the opportunity to meet people that you might not otherwise have met. Because Meetups are centered around specific topics, the people who attend the meetings already have something in common and that helps people start conversations and build relationships. These relationships are great for building loyal website followers. If someone gets to know you and is interested in what you do on your website, then you have the potential for adding numbers to your website traffic.

Meetups are also a fantastic way to gain business and personal contacts. Regardless of what type of website you operate, Meetups can put you in contact with people who can help you expand in your topic of interest. I’ve met a number of professionals that I wouldn’t have otherwise had access too. The value of these contacts is immeasurable.

At the last Frisco Internet Entrepreneurs meeting I met a retired advertising executive, a video game designer, a Christian website owner, a lighting professional, a credit repair specialist, a budding screenplay writer, an Internet lawyer, a web developer, a community portal owner, and an eBay seller. Everyone brought a unique set of skills and abilities. I made several contacts that night and walked away with new ideas.

Develop Public Speaking Skills
If you are interested in building your name as a public speaker on your topic of interest then start a Meetup group and lead the group in discussions about key topics within your category on interest. If you do this, I recommend that you have some form of blog that you can direct Meetup participants to. You will get website traffic from people who attend the Meetup as well as from Internet search traffic that is looking for specific information on your chosen topic.

Get Valuable Feedback
Meetup groups are also extremely valuable for the feedback they provide. By holding classes, answering questions, and supporting the group as it grows, you will learn what problems people are trying to solve within your topic of interest.

You will also have an opportunity to try out different solutions with the group and see what returns the most value. This will increase your own knowledge while at the same time providing you with valuable information about what would do well as a product or service that could be offered to people outside the group.

Generate Materials
As you create content for your group meetings you will also be creating content that can be re-purposed for digital products, membership sites, services, or home study course. Again, you leverage the feedback from the group to refine your content to create a truly valuable product that solves real problems to become an irresistible offer to potential customers.

So, as you can see there is a wealth of ways to use Meetup.com to drive traffic to your website, make contacts, and build valuable relationships that will help you grow your website and your online business. Meetup.com is an under utilized resource that will serve you well if you are prepared to spend just a little time getting involved. Who knows, you might even have a little fun along the way.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Special Thanks
A big thanks to Keith, Doug, Don, Neil, Lee, Bill, Mark, Sharon, Mike, Julie, and Melody who attended the August Frisco Internet Entrepreneurs Meetup in Frisco Texas. You guys made the meeting a fantastic success.

Last night I took my family to see the Pixar film Ratatouille and for over an hour and a half we were amazed by an animated world of imagination, exploration, dream seeking, and creativity. For those of you who don’t know, Ratouille is about a rat in Paris who wants to be a French cook. Let me tell you, when I left the theater I felt totally inspired and energized.

Now this article is not a movie review. But it is about belief that you can do great things right where you are with what you have regardless of who you are, where you come from, or how you got there. In most ways that is all of us. The subject of interest and the circumstances might vary, but the fact remains that we only fail to win when we fail to try.

OpenSourceMarketer is about just that very thing. Today, you are somewhere doing something that you don’t want to do, or you’re on the cliff about starting something new. Let me encourage you to step out on faith and just go for it.

If you’re starting a blog, building an opt-in mailing list, creating an information product, creating a subscription site, starting a community site, or selling multi-color widgets then swing for the fence because nothing is guaranteed to happen if you don’t start doing something. Trust me if you miss a season of American Idol you’ll be okay.

Be bold. Be brave. Face those fears that keep you from taking that first step and start on that journey today. Join a mentoring course, buy an ebook, subscribe to my Premium Insiders Friends mailing list (okay, one plug). Whatever you decide to do to start your online business, decide to commit to the task ahead today and wake up every morning with success under your feet and the end goal in mind and don’t let anyone tell it won’t work or it’s been done.

There has never been more opportunities, more information, more tools and available skill than there are right now at your finger tips.

So, I encourage you to start today and live each moment as an inspiration of success.

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

For more information about how you can grow your own successful blogging business, visit OpenSourceMarketer.com/blogblueprint