Frank Haywood – Page 26 – Product Creation, Traffic, List Building, Automation = Internet Business

Dec

2011

Personal One On One Coaching Part 2

I had lots of replies and kind words to my last blog post about my depression a few years ago.

In that post I said I’d tell you why I made it. It’s important.

With me, it was my trial through depression and the recovery time that followed that bought me to the place where I realised it was time to strike out on my own. In my case I thankfully had no choice in having to do my own thing as following my depression I effectively became unemployable.

I can take advice, and I can learn stuff just like I’ve always done, and even ask for help. But what I can’t do is have anyone tell me what to do. I can’t help that side of it any more, the barriers just go straight up and whoever’s doing the telling is wasting their breath. It’s quite different if I want the advice or knowledge.

When I finally moved into the digital products market place (in my case software) I believed for a short while all the nonsense I was told about how easy it was running an online business and how you didn’t have to do any work, ha-ha. I say “nonsense” because it really is.

Running your own business takes work and determination no matter what the business type.

There is no “short cut”, no “magic bullet”, no “loophole”, no “weird solution” or “ancient remedy” that many of the methods sellers would have you believe. You just need to choose something you’re happy with and work at it until you get better at doing whatever you do.

Obvious really isn’t it?

If you’ve been going through this yourself, or trying to get started at it, then you’ll have found that to begin with many of your days bring new problems to go with the pile of existing ones and the need to discover ways of solving them. And you find yourself “working” long, unproductive, pointless days when what you really need to be doing is focussing on the money that will drive your business forward.

More than 60% of people give up at some time in the first 6 months for whatever reason, and I suspect the biggest reasons to be a lack of focus and just plain not knowing what to do. This results in trying out lots of different things – “thrashing about” – until finally throwing the towel in.

I’ll repeat it again in case you weren’t paying attention further up the page, you need to choose something you’re happy with and work at it. 🙄

Usually and in my experience, whatever that something is, then you’ll find there’s always going to be a core set of requirements.

From my own perspective, I chose to sell software. Some days I wish I’d just gone into ebooks as I’d have total control of my own product creation process, but I don’t see that as being as much fun as working in software. I’ve always liked computers, but that’s just me. Something else might light you up in your case, or you may be similar to me.

Whatever it is, you need to do something you enjoy, or at the very least feel confident and determined about.

And I can help if you let me.

In a few days time I’ll be opening what might be my last ever personal coaching programme which will run through January and February 2012.

I say might be last ever because I have a project starting in March that will consume a chunk of my time and may eventually take me in a different direction (still with software). We’ll see, it’s very early days yet.

The last coaching I did was four years ago so you can see it’s not the kind of thing I do on a regular basis and that’s why I think it’s a bit special.

I won’t be pushing you through a one-size-fits-all sausage machine. I know that more than a few of the coaching programmes I’ve seen tend to operate on a “come one, come all” basis, but that’s not how I do it.

This will be personal coaching, tailored for you. The way I think coaching should be done.

There are some provisos that come with it though, and these are only there to make sure you’re not signing up for something that isn’t appropriate for you.

#1 – The coaching will be in the IM (Internet Marketing) niche.

#2 – The coaching won’t attempt to cover things I don’t do myself such as CPA and PPC, or network marketing. I have very little knowledge of those and I’m not really inclined to find out, it’s just not my bag.

#3 – The coaching will cover things like product creation, traffic, list building and automation by outsourcing. The stuff I personally see as vitally impotant to most online businesses. I’ll give you more information on what I will cover with this personal coaching in my next post.

#4 – You’re prepared to work hard at it and work under your own initiative with my guidance. Yes as your coach I’ll do some hand holding and pointing you in the right direction, but the sooner you take responsibility for your performance the better. I can help you achieve that very useful attribute.

#5 – You commit to the ethic of product creation. To be in the “game”, you need your own products to either give away (to list build) or preferably sell, and I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to create or have one created for you after 30 days or less. Once you know what you’re doing and you’re really cooking with some useful outsourcers, a week or less for product creation is completely do-able.

On that last one, having your own product(s) is vitally important as from that point on you can start list building. The size of your list bears a direct correlation to the size of your business. Simple isn’t it?

That okay for starters?

More information on personal coaching in my next post.

-Frank Haywood

Dec

2011

I’m Outing Myself – The Positive Side

I’ve had more than a little problem putting this together – I intended letting this out on Saturday and I’ve had to put it back.

I knew it might be a bit difficult, and it has been. I ended up writing a lot more than I intended to, and now I’ve put all that to one side and started again as I’m sure you don’t want to see something the size of War and Peace. 😉

I’ll get right to the heart of it.

In late 2002 (around about this time of the year), I was diagnosed with severe depression bought on by job related stress.

I know some people reading this will think that depression is just another way of saying you’re feeling a bit down. And that’s exactly how I used to think of it until it was my turn. 😉

We all say it don’t we? “I’m depressed…”

But feeling a bit down doesn’t even get anywhere near what depression is really all about. And no, you can’t “shake yourself out of it” in much the same way that you can’t shake yourself out of any other life threatening illness, like cancer for example. I know that one might be a hard one to swallow for some, but it’s true.

I sincerly hope depression never touches you.

Anyway. I won’t bore you with the details, but I ended up being off work for two years and then finally leaving the company I was working for. I later found out that at the time long term illness (due mainly to depression) within my business group was running at an incredible SIX percent – I think the industry standard is something like a quarter of a percent for ALL reasons.

The company had gone bad, and taken me (and a lot of other people) down with it. I was in a bad way, and it’s left its mark on me.

So I left. But I wasn’t idle for the two years I was off work. You might say I was lucky enough to be able to spend that time researching and learning how to run my own business – under doctor’s orders I hasten to add. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) helps a LOT with depression. For me it means “Keep yourself too busy to get any worse and hope you start to get better.”

Following that period, there were some rough times but we still did okay, and eventually I moved away from selling physical goods and into my first love of software.

And here I am today.

The depression *has* changed me. I can’t say for good or bad, I’m just different.

I’m almost back to the fun loving and very sociable person I was over ten years ago, but it’s taken a long time to get here, and there have been ups and downs. (I still have my grumpy days, but I don’t think I’m any different to most people in that respect.)

One of the changes now is I’m a VERY positive person, and I’ve also become a bit of a workaholic. Although I still like to kick back and enjoy myself as a reward for my hard work.

The positive aspect of my nature is part of my defensive shield against future “issues” and it’s a good thing to have, but means I can’t and won’t tolerate any negativity or negative vibes from people. My attitude is a little bit of “If you want to bring yourself down, that’s YOUR choice, now get out of my face.” 😉

It means that although I’m a much kinder more empathatic person, I will no longer “Put up with fools gladly.” I now say if you want someone to blame for all your problems, go look in the mirror.

And that’s exactly how I lead my own life now.

If I have a problem, it’s my problem and I caused it. Something I did, some choice I made means it happened. And by accepting responsibility for everything in my life (the good things too) I don’t dwell on why things work out the way they do. I already know it’s because of me and the effect I have on the world around me, even when it’s a bit unexpected.

And conversely, I no longer even try to accept responsibility for what other people do, and who then try to lay it at my door. (I teach this to my children.)

They did “this”, then “this other thing” happened as a result, even if it was an accident or a freak occurrence – THEY made the initial decision, the responsibility is theirs.

“Don’t try to blame anyone else except yourself” has become a lifestyle for me. And it’s both liberating and exhilarating. 🙂

So why the heck am I telling you all this for?

It’s important. But this is already long enough, and so I’ll tell you in the next post.

Until then.

-Frank Haywood

Dec

2011

2012 Personal Coaching Programme

After many requests for help I’ve received from people this year about how to set up their sites, how to create a product, how to outsource it, how to build a mailing list etc, I’m finally able to offer a coaching programme.

Unlike some marketers who only make their money by coaching others, I’m the real deal. I’m like you.

On Wednesday 7th December I’ll make an announcement as to how you can sign up for coaching with me.

This will be a little different to the usual “run-of-the-mill” progammes as you’ll be getting direct access to me via Skype or phone. And I’ll also expect you to be open to doing other projects with me under my guidance, as a joint venture partner.

It will be an ongoing 12 month programme, although you will have at least one product and web site at the end of the first 60 days coaching. Depending on how fast you can work, there’s no reason why you couldn’t have at least two products and web sites (it’s up to you), and you’ll soon learn how you can create one per week with a bit of effort.

One per week?

Well, long time readers of this blog will know that’s almost exactly what I’ve been doing over the last couple of years. And I also know there are people reading this that have bought pretty much everything I’ve ever released.

You’ll learn how you can move fast and achieve the same kind of results as I do. There have been many times where I’ve had the idea on Monday and delivered the product on Friday.

The focus will be in the IM niche and will be on product creation, traffic, list building, outsourcing and earning lots of money.

Due to the very personal nature of the coaching, you will be one of only 10 people that I’ll be working with. I don’t believe I can offer you the kind of attention you need to succeed with any more than that.

I know that some people will want to know how much the personal coaching will cost, and my first (and experienced) response to that is if you’re serious about succeeding online it shouldn’t matter. You’re simply coming at it from the wrong point of view.

This is NOT an expense, it’s an INVESTMENT. In you.

There’s never been anything more true than “you have to give to get”, so just put it on your credit card and pay it back out of the profits.

Let me put this into perspective. A few years ago I paid something like ~~$10,000~~ for coaching, and although I didn’t get everything that was advertised (shrugs) and a lot of it was unnecessary (shrugs again) I still consider that the BEST investment I ever made.

I paid for it on my credit card and maxed it out. The credit card company being the evil swines they are then upped my limit, but that’s another story.

All I want to say here is, I’m NOT going to be asking you for anything like the ~~$10,000~~ I paid.

This is SERIOUSLY affordable if you’re SERIOUS about making a go of it online. I don’t know, maybe you’ve had a bit of a skirmish already with creating a product, but it didn’t go anywhere?

We can fix that.

On Saturday I’ll tell you something very personal about me that I’ve shared with maybe two or three people over the last few years.

I’ll publicly explain how and WHY I got into marketing, and what drove me to do what I now do, and why my options became limited and why I HAD to do what I do.

Who knows? You may have a similar story.

Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

-Frank Haywood

Nov

2011

Five Minute Reviews – New WSO

Some time on Monday 14th, I’ll be releasing a new WSO and it’s the first of a couple of projects I’ve been working on with Martin Salter.

If you’ve been reading my recent emails then you’ll have already heard me mention Martin a few times.

He is AMAZING.

While people have often told me they’re impressed with the amount of products I put out (yeah I know I don’t always get it right), my output is piffling compared to what Martin can do. He can put together an entire product including videos, ebooks, sales page design and sales copy in 20 working hours (at a push).

I’m 99% certain that there are people reading this who have had Martin create a white label product for them. And I’m 100% certain that there are people reading this that have bought one of Martin’s products and not realised it was Martin who created it.

😉

So you know that when he gets stuck into a longer term project then it’s going to turn out something special.

This is the first of them that we’ve collaborated on and we think it’s pretty damn cool. We’ve both said that if we saw this when we were both starting out a few years ago we’d have snapped it up. But the nice thing is it’s not just for newbies either. Even though we’re the ones creating this, we’ll be using it on our own sites too.

It’s something we’ve both been doing for a few years now in an on-off fashion when it takes our fancy, so it’s nothing new in that respect. But it’s very new when it comes to how it affects you.

We’ve created an easy (for you) way of adding product reviews to your blogs in under 5 minutes per review.

The way it works is we create the reviews at an average 2-3 per month – very probably more than that – and you do a quick copy and paste of a shortcode with your affiliate links embedded inside and create a new WordPress post. This then creates a short pre-sell review on your web site which points to a fuller pre-sell on a completely unbranded white label site.

Pre-sells are a great way of introducing a potential buyer to a product.

All the white label site reviews appear with your name on them and your affiliate links – the method we’ve put in place effectively rebrands the site to appear as if it’s all yours. When a visitor clicks the link on ANY of the reviews on the rebranded site, you earn the commission.

What that means is that even if people don’t buy the product in the review they originally came to read and instead buy something else, you STILL earn the commission on that other product. (Martin and I don’t take any of the commissions – they’re all yours – we earn our money from membership subs.)

Now we know that there are some membership review sites out there already, and that they’re asking for $27+ / month – eventually we’ll be there too when we hit our targets.

But on the 14th we’re releasing a WSO for $7 membership which is a $5 discount on the official launch price. This is a monthly recurring subscription, and we think it’s so low and so easy to increase your income that it’s the proverbial no-brainer.

When you’ve registered and added your affiliate IDs, then it will take you about 5 minutes to add each new review to your blog. Mix that in with some regular blog content of your own and you’ll begin to build and fatten your personal cash cow.

Even if you consider yourself a complete newbie, then you can do this.

And once you have your reviews in place, then all you need to do is make forum and blog comments in order to see traffic clicking through to your blog. Where you could then also make them an offer to join your mailing list.

So not only do you easily build a pre-sell review blog, you also get to build a mailing list. 🙂

I hope you can see the potential in this simple to do method.

I’ll drop you a line on Monday the 14th when the WSO opens.

-Frank

Sep

2011

Outsourcing Your Business With OutVeo

I had to tell you about this as soon as possible as this topic is very close to my heart, and very importantly on the 23rd September the price goes up from $17 to ~~$97~~ so you need to get this sooner rather than later.

YES, it’s very likely that you NEED this either today or any day soon.

YES, I AM a little bit excited about how it can help us both.

YES, I DO think this is a bargain.

One of the things that can make the greatest difference to your online business is to outsource some (and hopefully one day all) the work.

It’s not easy though. First you have to find someone to do these tasks, then you have to train them to do it your way, and finally you have to hope they don’t disappear part way through a project. It’s happened to me several times.

The hardest part though is keeping your staff organised, and also keeping tabs on the state of each task and project. It’s easy enough to do with one and even two outsourcers, but then it starts to get steadily more difficult after that.

I’ve always thought wouldn’t it be much better if it could all be held together in a more structured and organised way?

Yes, there are some solutions out there such as BaseCamp and ActiveCollab, but I’ve tried both and I wasn’t overly impressed with either, and I know lots of people would disagree with me on this, but BaseCamp just plain *sucks*.

I don’t mean that it sucks in every circumstance, it’s just that the current crop of management tools are all aimed at bigger businesses. Not one of them that I’ve found addresses the need of the entrepreneur like you and me.

If you’ve had the same experiences I’ve had, or even if you’re not there yet, then sooner or later you’ll probably realise that what’s been needed for a long time is some organisational tool that addresses our particular needs when hiring outsourcers.

And in pursuit of that goal, I’ve been making notes the last 6 months trying to figure out the best way to even start approaching this.

Sadly (and also happily) I’ve been beaten to it and it’s all now done and dusted.

Yesterday I was told about (and immediately bought) an outsource management script called OutVeo that you absolutely do NOT want to miss out on. As soon as I saw it I knew it was something we ALL must have.

It’s deeply discounted down to only $17 until the 23rd September and believe me on this one, if you miss this discount now you’ll regret it later – it really is one of the “must-haves”.

(It’s actually ~~$27~~, but you get a further ~~$10~~ discount down to $17 if you promise to leave an honest review in the next couple of weeks. I have no problem there.)

Now I realise that you may not have reached the point in your business where you’re ready to use it right now, but if you keep moving forward then eventually you will be. Right?

OutVeo pulls together the whole process of organising your outsourcers in terms of staff, tasks, deadlines and payment.

I admit I’m just a little bit jealous that Brian Terry has beaten me to it.

*sigh*

Oh well. My loss, your gain.

Possibly the best thing about OutVeo is it’s a self-hosted script that you install on your own domain. So unlike pay-per-month-per-head services like BaseCamp, you pay once (currently discounted from ~~$97~~ down to only $17) and own it forever.

Add as many staff as you like and it doesn’t cost you a bean more.

Considering the development that must have gone into OutVeo, being able to get it for just $17 means it will be one of the best buys you’ve ever made.

http://www.frankhaywood.com/outveo/

-Frank Haywood