A lot has been going on in the background with family issues I’ve needed to deal with… so this week, I came to a decision.

Since the wheels had fallen off somewhat, I decided to get new ones rather than try to find out where the old ones rolled off to. So the new wheels are simply a redo of my goals and plans, and with that now done, I’ll let you know where I am heading with this blog (and my business).

In 3 months, I plan to have a list of 1500 subscribers, several free products created and at least one paid product.

Now to get that list, the first thing I need to do is generate value and promote it to get traffic.

• I will be creating a rather unique product to give away.
• I will be using some of the “non-technical” methods from Alex Jeffrey’s coaching.
• I will also be employing some more of the “standard” traffic promotion and Web 2.0 techniques.

Now, I will be publishing the results of this online, so today I have not much to show (because I haven’t done much yet) so you can assume a value on practically zero visitors and I’ll also let you know what I have done to get it happening.

Current 3 month Alexa rank is 1,713,515.

This will all be in the “What is Mark up to now…. ?” category.

Like anything else, you need a plan, an Internet Marketing Business Action Plan.

The reasons for this are:

1. Your internet marketing business plan will give you targets, so you can work out what to do and when to do it.
2. It is also a home based business plan, and keeps you accountable! You need to monitor and assess yourself and make sure you are doing what you planned to do!
3. It will force you to select products and niches, and determine which internet marketing methods to employ to reach your goals.

Now this is not some tedious, difficult, “normal” business plan, rather an “action plan”. Why? Because the Internet, as shown in my previous post The What, How and Why of Internet Marketing , Internet Marketing carries far less risk than traditional business and the costs are truly minimal, in fact, they are lower than the amount most employees would spend getting to work and back! So the business plan need not have anywhere near the depth of financial forecasts, etc.

Working from your dreams as per The Importance of Goals and Dreams!, you need to define a long range set of goals, actual measurable targets to be achieved in 12 months, then come back to a 90 day target, a monthly target, weekly then daily, which should be, each night, planning set of tasks you will do tomorrow, and, this is the hard part, actually do them!

Before you can do that, you need to assess what time you have, and to do that, you really need to find out how you spend your time! The best way to do this is, a diary of sorts. You can make a time sheet or buy a business diary, for example. If you write down everything you do for each hour of the day, you will find out:

• What unavoidable tasks you already have that must be scheduled.
• What time you waste!

Anything that is not contributing to you reaching your goals is unproductive time. However, you MUST schedule time for breaks (at least hourly) and leisure with your family etc. (Remember, you want to work to live, not live to work!)

Once you actually start your business, you need to keep this up, so you can check off the tasks that you planned for the day! Remember, the hardest part of Internet Marketing is making sure that you actually do it! It is very easy to get distracted, even if it is “business related”, such as the latest fad in the game, and think that you are being “educated”, when in fact you are wasting time!

“Business related” is not your business if it is not contributing to what you need to do today!

If it is not on your “to do” list today, you should not be looking at it!!!

Keep your eye on the prize!!!

Planning is ongoing and a part of your business. Your final task for every day should be assessing your performance today (you should be keeping a diary or time sheet, remember!), and then working out what needs to be done tomorrow, then creating tomorrow’s task list!

So, the nitty gritty stuff? Internet Marketing is a simple game.

Your role as a marketer, is to help people who want or need particular products find and acquire those products. Marketing is not about “selling”, it is about finding the people who already want or need the products, and matching them to that product through your sales funnel. You get paid a commission for providing the service!

Which products and  people depends on the niche you choose to market, and that depends on who you are. Nobody can choose them for  you! There are a lot of ideas on this in the free Easy Cash Webinar. (Have you got that yet?)

So how do you actually market to them? Remember this?

Click to enlarge.

You can choose any of the methods in this diagram, or a combination of them!

The single most important thing, though is none of these tools. They are just vehicles! The most important thing is the plan and that you are following that plan! It’s the lack of a plan and action on the plan that causes people to fail!

It’s not the schonky products and scams that cause failure, it is the lack of that business plan and the lack of action on that plan!

It’s not good marketing products and tools that cause success, it is a business plan that is acted upon!

OK, it is impossible for me to go through the nittygritty in this blog post because I’d be typing until the cows come home, BUT, the information is available to you in the Easy Cash Webinar, straight from my mentor Alex Jeffreys! What’s even better, it is TOTALLY FREE!!!

GET IT FREE, NOW!!!

Well not as text, but I can give you a mindmap to look at, thanks to Freemind ! Gee that is proving an amazing tool! You have downloaded this for yourself, haven’t you?

Click on the thumbnail to have a look!

The What How and Why of Internet Marketing Mind Map

The “why” of Internet Marketing is pretty much a “no-brainer”….

Throughout history people have made fortunes and empires through conquest, discovery, and entrepreneurial endeavour, but, for the most part, it always depended upon being at the right the place, at the right time, with the right resources at hand, and for the most part, was only available for the privileged few and could never be repeated.

Now, the Internet presents limitless opportunity to everyone with a computer, Internet access, and the drive to realize their goals! This is greater than all those that preceded it rolled into one!

Absolutely everyone and anyone, anyplace and anywhere, that has access to a computer and the Internet has boundless opportunity!

What a great leveler that is! It doesn’t matter what side of the tracks you came from, you can start for free and even such things as getting domains and hosted sites can be done for nothing more than pocket change!

This excites me no end!

You just need to get in and do it! The only thing holding you back, is YOU!

So how do you go about it? For a start, go and get the Easy Cash Webinar…. it is totally FREE and it will truly open your eyes as to what Internet Marketing is really about! Trust me, you will be surprised!

What’s more, follow this blog, and I will show you how I do it!

Tell me what you need to know (see the category on the right) and I will get that information together for you!

For now…. Get the FREE Easy Cash Webinar!

Now to do that last bit, I really need to know what you need, and this is the place for you to tell me!

So, don’t be shy! Go ahead and tell me what you need, and I will do my level best to give it to you!

Your business is a journey, but without an inspirational dream, you have no destination, and a that means you’ll simply wander off and get lost.

Before you can succeed at anything, you need to have a goal, a dream. I am not talking about a wild fantasy, but you have to have something to strive for, something that keeps you motivated.

Your dream has be more than “make a lot of money”. That is not a real goal. What you want to achieve with that money is what you need to think about.

Firstly, money is just something that was invented to make trade easier than bartering. Just look at anything, the price tag is different now to what it was a few years ago and it will be different again in the future and in the  Forex markets you’ll see the value of currencies changing by the minute!Money has no real value until you trade it for something else!

Real goals are things that you can visualize and will change your life!

Of course people will think of the obvious material things such as a fine house, car, boat, jewelry, but there are other things that are as, or even more important! Think about your lifestyle now, and the one that you would like to have!

If you think about lifestyle, you can add in things like travel, reduced stress by being debt free, and then there is the most valuable thing of all….. time!

Every day, hour, minute and second is a precious fleeting thing  that you cannot buy and that you can never get back. Do you want those moments spent slaving, or would you like more of them spent enjoying yourself, fulfilling yourself with your loved ones, etc?

My general, long term goals include:

• to be independent with my time, able to spend whatever time I wish on what is important to me. I have been a wage earner, where others determine where and when I spend my time and I’ve been enslaved by my own business, unable to see the forest for the trees, and they are not situations I wish to revisit! I want to be able to be there for my family whenever they need me!
• to be financially independent, debt free and able to cover not only the costs of my own comfort, but any expenses I need to, such as medical expenses for me and my family, the costs of educating my kids, the ability for my wife to travel overseas to visit her family in the Philippines when she needs to!
• to build a “green home” that is not only comfortable (even luxurious) but is energy efficient, etc, and I’d also like an electric car, in fact, I’d like to invest in and even get involved at some level, in the development of such technologies! Remember, I have a technical background, so it as much to satisfy that “geeky” side of me as anything else, but I don’t want to do it as  “job”, I’d like to be able to do it “on my terms”.
• to have a home music studio of sorts and a collection of guitars and amps to complement what I have already!

Just do a mind dump!

Once you have these, print out pictures or statements and put them where they will remind you constantly what you are aiming for in your life. This stuff is the “secret” of the The Secret. Motivate yourself with your dreams.

From there you can work backwards and eke out a 12 month plan, a 90 day plan, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly tasks. You can use mind maps to make this a lot easier! Here is some free software I use to help with that…  Freemind

I know you have probably heard it “Fail to plan and you plan to fail”. It might sound a bit “yada yada” after a while, but those that fob it off as worthless are those that have not done it. The world is full of mockers, and they all have one thing in common – a lack of success and no hope of finding it. Their ridicule is more about their own insecurities and doubts than anything else.

So, what are your dreams? Please share them below!

This is what your business is not….. It is not “Internet Marketing”, it is not “Email Marketing” , it is not “Ebay Marketing”, nor is it “Affiliate Marketing” or “Day Trading Forex” or “MLM”…. or whatever else you’ve chosen.

No, I haven’t gone loony (some may say I can’t go loony, because I’m already there, but back to the topic…)

As an entrepreneur, to find your business, first look in a mirror….

You, your dreams and desires and all you do to realize them make up “your business“.

All of those other things are just “vehicles” that you use in your business to get you from where you are to where you want to be! You may have many different vehicles, and when you need to, you change from one to the other!

Something that I never really thought of until I started Alex Jeffreys’ coaching was some very important things that should be included in a business plan but are usually left out.

When you work for someone else, they dictate the hours you work, what happens if you are sick, what annual leave you will get, etc, as part of your job, industrial award, employment contract or whatever is the norm where you live (it varies from country to country), but if you are an entrepreneur, you are self employed, and so that means that you are both the employer and the employee. You can end up in a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation here!

If you try to “separate business and pleasure” or “business and personal”, you will run the risk of having all work and no room to enjoy the life you want!

I remember a bloke, actually one of my students back when I was teaching in a local college, who told me that he having difficulty making classes because he had to work so hard as his boss was the “meanest, most demanding bastard that there ever was”. I said, “That’s not good, mate! Who’s your boss?”. He grinned and said “Me!”. He was self employed! I laughed it off as a joke at the time. Years later it came back to sting me and hard!

As an entrepreneur, you are self employed, and if you do not factor your personal life and everything that goes with it into your business plan, you can very easily end up with “no life”. It is very easy to get wrapped up in “the business” and actually miss out on those things you wanted when you started out!

I know this first hand, because I made that very same mistake a few years ago! I remember desparately trying to wrangle things on the fly to “squeeze in” important parts of my life, such as my family. I remembered Harry Chapin’s “Cats in The Cradle”, and how I’d vowed I’d never do that to my kids, but now had those lyrics haunting my thoughts!

I’d ended up living to work and not working to live, and because I’d failed to plan for them, the most important things in my life were having to be “squeezed in” as an afterthought!

Never leave yourself out of your business plan because you are your business!

When I realized this, I thought about it and had a spark of inspiration… This was a different way of looking at it, and I came up with the  ideas of “Wholistic Business” or “Holistic Business”, however you want to spell it (it can be spelled both ways!). Then I Googled it and found out that it was about as original as last week’s bread… drats!

It doesn’t hurt to extend this further…. For example, your customers are part of your business, so this means that you have got to remain ethical, because if you rip off your customers, you are ripping off your business!

Think about it…. will a customer stick around and buy stuff of someone who has sold them garbage disguised as gold before? There is also the old adage that a happy customer will tell probably a few people about you, but an unhappy customer will tell everyone! You are not anonymous on the Internet, especially with the rise of social networking and Web 2.0!

Next post will be about the first step in developing your business plan…. Cya then!

Remember to add any feedback and ask any questions below!

Regards,
Mark.

This post is getting into the deep and meaningful, intellectual stuff a bit, but it is very important.

Before anyone can start a business of any kind, they have to get a few things straight in their mind. I am no different, and neither are you!

It is the lack of this understanding that has people falling for those hyped up ads out there, the ones that promise a “Turnkey, Push-Button, Auto-whatever” that’ll have you richer than Bill Gates by lunch time tomorrow, and all for $97!!!

Yeah, right! And I’ve got a nice bridge that looks like a coathanger that you you can have …

All yours for the one-time low price of $50!!!

Get the idea? You need to get rid of the “lottery mentality” first and foremost!

To get what you want, you are going to have to put in the work! This is inescapable!

So what about the “universe of abundance” and how it will “manifest” wealth to me as long as I believe it, like they say in “The Secret“? Hmmmm…. what they say in that film is real, and there were some very important things in it, but the way they say it can be very misleading and it’s very easy to get led up the garden path with this one too!

I’ve seen a lot of people who believed that all you have to do is maintain a positive belief, dream and visualize, and it happens because the “law of attraction”, yada yada. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way! Many people have lived the life of a daydreamer, had firm belief and been positive, etc, yet they have never realized any of it, died poor and taken their delusions with them!

The real “secret of The Secret” is this. Nothing will magically manifest itself unless you act on it, and action means work, and having the right frame of mind will give you the drive to stick to the task and keep going until you succeed! You need to be an entrepreneur! Others will notice your drive and enthusiasm and will want to work and associate with you – that is where the attraction comes in!

In my next blog post I will be showing you some practical ways which are essential in making sure that you realize your dreams and not have them evaporate as daydreams!

Next on the list of stuff to clean out of your closet is the “wages mentality”!

A couple of weeks ago, in relation to the time that I was spending working on by business, someone asked “How much are you getting per hour for that?”. Basically, he was “having a go at me” for  “wasting my time” when I wasn’t getting paid. That is the “wages mentality”.  I pointed out to him that the big problem with working for wages is that as that you have to keep working to get paid and as soon as you stop, the pay stops! I might not get paid now, but when I do I’ll get more, and even better than that, when I stop working, I can still keep getting paid!

Look at a farmer. They prepare the field, plant their crops, wait for it to grow, harvest it, and only when it goes to market do they get paid. That is what it is for the entrepreneur!

If you are going to start a business, you need to establish the mentality of the entrepreneur in your own mind! The entrepreneur understands that they will work now, invest their time, effort and money, but they will not get the benefit of that work until later when the project is up and running.

If you like fancy terms, some people call it “the principle of delayed gratification“.

The thing is that it can mean that you end up being rewarded far, far more and sometimes the benefits can flow on and on, getting paid over and over, for years and years as “residual income” even if you have stopped working! You work now, get paid later, but you end up getting paid more!

This is very hard for some people to grasp and hard for most people to do, especially if it is going to take some time. Many give up and say it doesn’t work, but they are wrong!

“Winners never quit and quitters never win”!  (Vince Lombardi)

I believe that anyone that disputes this quote, doesn’t understand it!

Thomas Edison tried about a thousand different things before he got his light bulb to work. When asked about those “failures”, he said he hadn’t failed, but succeeded in finding out the 999 things that don’t work!

So the above quote from Vince Lombardi should not be applied to a particular project or promotion you are doing… Some things will work and some won’t. So when one doesn’t and you cannot fix it, of course you don’t persist flogging a dead horse, but, like Edison, you move on and find one that does work! Apply the quote to your overall business!

Anyway, that’s enough for this post. To sum it up, to succeed in business, you need to become an entrepreneur, and that means acquiring the mindset of an entrepreneur, getting rid of the “lottery mentality” and the “wages mentality” and realizing that you have to have to put in the work first and then get paid later.

My next post will be a bit more on the “deep and meaningful but important stuff”, and understanding what your business as an entrepreneur actually is!

I hope this has been helpful and would really appreciate any feedback you would like to add below!

Regards,
Mark.

This is my first post, delayed quite a bit as I have had some serious problems concerning my son’s health to deal with and family must come first.

So, better late than never, time to get the ball rolling!

I am starting this blog along with others in Alex Jeffreys’ Marketing with Alex 3.0 coaching program. What a blast that has been so far!

I will be doing a bit of a “report” of sorts of what I am learning through Alex’s coaching as well as adding my perspective borrowing from my own experiences and other sources, hopefully making this blog a source of unique content.

The plan is to provide you with not just a journal, but including a lot of valuable information that you can take aboard and build your own business online.

If I am not delivering what people want – there is no reason to do this! So, since this is for you, please be sure to leave your comments, questions and requests on how I can give you more of what you need or improve the way I am saying it, whatever!

Anyway, as I said, this is just to get the ball rolling…. My next post will be on the basics of business – any business!

See you then!