Frank Haywood

23
Feb
2008

What Have You Learned?

This week, I used a slightly modified technique that I learned from another blog, by watching that blog owner and what he did. I’ve spent a lot of money there, including a monthly service that I pay $100 / month for.

It was that service that has helped me achieve the very fast results I’ve seen.

On Monday, I posted an explanation of something I’d experienced and achieved, plus some irrefutable proof of what I was saying. I promised to share what I’d done to achieve the results I’d seen in a post on Friday.

However, I’d only share that information with people who were subscribed to my blog at the time I posted it. That was the deal. I forced no-one to take it, everyone has a choice in life. You agree?

It was free information, and extremely valuable too for those people that take action on it. Typically, it will be 1%-2% of people reading it.

Anyone subscribing after the post couldn’t get the information.

That was my plan at the start of the week.

But because I’m a softy, I decided to relent and offer the information for $10 for those people who had decided not to subscribe at the time I made the offer. And also to give 100 hours for people to do so.

I may not do that again. Oh who am I kidding? Of course I will, it’s a good idea.

Make a mental note to take action on it yourself right now. No, go write it into your business plan. Now.

I should make it clear here that I sent two emails out this week to existing mailing lists of mine, making the offer. That’s TWO chances for people to read my email and act on it.

Many people did. I’ve seen an increase of 205 subscribers to this blog in the last two days.

That’s 1.44% of my total mailing lists, excluding this blog. (There are also 36 brand new subscribers not on any other mailing list.)

Well, well. 1.44% – between 1% and 2%.

98% did nothing, or didn’t read my emails. It’s the same thing to me, and what I expected.

I don’t send out frivolous emails to my lists, I often send out good quality content, and I don’t promote every product going. So there’s no good reason for ignoring any emails I send out. I don’t send out many.

After all, these people joined my mailing lists willingly at some point, and have never unsubscribed.

Notice that these are all decisions that people are making of their own free will. I can’t force you to take actions. I can offer choices, but that’s about it.

Free will.

Some people though, believe that somehow other people are responsible for the choices they make.

This is a snippet from a petulant email I received from someone when they unsubscribed from one of my mailing lists.

“I don’t have time for games with free blog posts that are now $10 because I wasn’t sitting at mu computer when the announcement came in.”

That was the second announcement he was talking about, not the first which I’d sent two days previously. There were two chances to do the right thing.

Somehow, he thinks I’m responsible for his actions. He chose to be somewhere else on two occasions, and consequently missed out. He’s clearly annoyed that it’s going to cost him $10 to get the information that was free, and now blames me for what he did.

Why would anyone not want to take responsibility for their own life? As a child it’s understandable, but once you reach at least your teens you should have learned by then that every action you take has consequences. And that those actions are your decision and your decision alone. Whose fault is it anyway?

So, he’s missed out this time. But at least he’s on the list now. He won’t miss out when I announce a nickel sale starting at $1 for my new software in a password protected post next week will he? He won’t have to pay $97 when it goes on general release will he?

Oh. Yes he will have to pay $97. He unsubscribed.

Oh dear. Some people just don’t learn.

So, what have you learned from I’ve done this week?

Were you watching closely? Did you understand what was going on? Did you get it?

Have you realised that you could learn just as valuable information by watching what I did this week, as to the post I made yesterday?

Graham Cox did.

http://graham-cox.com/list-building-using-password-protected-posts/

Graham got it straight away, and I can see that a few other people got it too.

Did you?

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
22
Feb
2008

Want The Password?

Would you like the password for the previous post?

Sorry.  It’s too late.

Nearly…

For a short time you can purchase the password for $10.  Details to follow shortly.

It’s not too late to sign up to get access to future password protected posts.  There are now hundreds of people benefiting from email notifications every time I make a post.

There are just two simple steps.

Step 1 – Just go to the home page of this site, and at the top right, you’ll see a box with fields to enter your name and email address.

Fill in the fields and click the button.

Use your real name and an email address without a spam filter.  Don’t complain to me if you don’t get it right.  Try something else.

Step 2 – Check your email and look for an email from me.  Click the confirm link in that email.  Until you do, you won’t receive anything from me.

That’s it.  I won’t share your details with anyone else.  You’re safe with me.

Now when I post a new entry with a password, you’ll be notified by email.

Every single email I send you will have an unsubscribe link.  So you can change your mind at any time.

If you want to stop getting blog announcements, just click the link provided in any email I send you.

It’s that easy.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
22
Feb
2008

Protected: Up Even Further

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Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
18
Feb
2008

Going Up!

This is something I know you’ll find really useful if you have any hopes of making money online.  What I’m going to describe to you is going to make a big difference to your chances of success.

I’m not kidding.

A few short weeks ago (about 7 or 8 – so that’s just about 2 months), I decided to go for the highly competitive search term “internet business” for this blog.

This isn’t an easy term to crack, in fact I just checked and there are 19,400,000 competing pages indexed on Google.com.  So I knew it was going to be an uphill struggle just to even get recognised for the term at all.

I knew that I couldn’t just put up a Squidoo lens or Hub Page and get ranked for the term “internet business” quickly.  People have tried, and it’s just too difficult.

When I started, I’d hardly been posting on my blog at all, maybe a couple of times a month, so it was hardly in any kind of state to even start competing for that term.  I checked both Google.com and Google.co.uk to see where my position was for “internet business”.

I was nowhere.

Well actually, I got to page 30 on both of them and gave up.  Most people won’t go past page 2 anyway when doing a casual search, so being lower than page 30 meant no-one was going to find me.

But I thought “what the heck, give it 3 months and see what happens”.

So I started blogging every day if I possibly could and also I used the search term whenever I could, but it turned out to be about 20 times a month, in fact this month so far, I’ve only posted 4 times, with the latest one being this Saturday just gone.

I’ve been checking every couple of weeks to see if there was any sign of my blog appearing within the first 30 pages, and last night just before I went to bed I did another check.

Bingo!

Out of nowhere from two weeks ago, I found I was on page 12 of Google.com and page 20 on Google.co.uk.

Update: I just checked them both again, and I’ve moved up a whole page overnight on Google.co.uk to page 19.

You might appreciate this is a pretty exciting result for me, and well worth even the few hours I’ve spent on it so far.

But enough about me, you should be very excited about this too, because you can repeat what I’ve done with your own search term.

I’ve been treating this whole thing like a hobby, and I wasn’t expecting to get this kind of result so quickly.  And now that I can see how quickly things can change it’s given me a real incentive to now treat this very seriously, and come out of hobby mode and into full business mode.

Okay, here comes the real interesting thing for you, as I know that this is what you’re after.

I know that using the methods I’ve opted for, that this isn’t just a flash in the pan.  And also that I won’t get penalised at a later date for using some dubious but temporary method of getting there.

So how have I done it?  How could I go from nothing to being not so very far from page 1 in just 2 short months?

Wait for it…

If you want the answer to that, I’ll tell you on Friday in a password protected post.

That’s right, only if you’re a subscriber to this blog will you get this free (and very valuable) information, and only if you’re already subscribed before Friday.  I won’t be issuing the password after I’ve made the post.

If this doesn’t interest you, then do nothing.

That’s what 98% of people reading this will do.

Instead, the 98% will go chase the next big thing to land in their mailbox, hoping that the $67 equivalent of a lottery ticket will make a difference this time.  But of course it won’t, it will just reduce their bank account by $67.

Or they’ll spend hours on YouTube or a forum somewhere getting bad advice and frittering away the time they could be spending on building their future.

If you’re not one of the 98%, then look up at the top right of the home page of this blog.  There you’ll find a subscription box where you can enter your name and email address.

Fill it in and click the “Send announcements!” button.

And on Friday, I’ll keep my part of the bargain and tell you how you can achieve the same results as I have.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
16
Feb
2008

Support – Doing It Right

In my last post – How To Succeed – I mentioned that I’d shortly be offering support using a help desk and my own support staff.

To do that, I’ll be using my own soon to be launched support software (TicketDesk Pro).

One of my regular readers, Mike Russen, made a comment about his concern that handing problems to support staff is not the same as handling them yourself.

I agree with this if care isn’t taken to do it the right way.

The issue here is, a business reaches a point where it simply can’t be a one man band any more.  In fact I’d say that if it is a one man band, then it isn’t a business.  That one man is just kidding himself.

Here’s a case in point.

I’ve just taken the first of my holidays this year (I got back late last night), and while I was away, Paul (my developer partner), kept an eye out for show stopper support issues.  Anyone else is going to have to wait for me to answer the questions shortly.

That’s no good.  That’s totally unrealistic and unacceptable not only from my perspective, but also from my customers.

That’s why it all has to change, both for the benefit of my customers and myself.  I don’t want to be tied to this business for the rest of my life, I want my freedom!  I want to know that while I’m not around, everything continues as it should.

That’s the whole point of me doing this, and the whole point for anyone else to have a serious internet business.

You wouldn’t expect to buy from Microsoft or Apple and only deal with Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would you?

Okay, that example’s a little extreme.

Here’s a thought.  If you contacted me by email, and received a reply back from me that was typical of what I’d say, and even signed off as me, would you know the difference?

For instance, if this post were written by someone else (ghost written) who knew my writing style, would you ever know it wasn’t me?

As a reader, would that make you happy or not?  I guess it depends on your perspective, and maybe not in some cases if you thought there was a chance of that happening, but that’s exactly what I’m looking to do.  I have to do it.

I will have to test a lot of people to find someone who can do it, but I think it’s worth it.  Even so, day to day support stuff will (must) be handled by someone else so that I can concentrate on growing my business.

The fact is, I have a lot of great software either completed and awaiting release, or in the development pipeline.  I can’t possibly handle all the support issues that will arise from the many products that I’ll have out there by the end of 2008.

It took me hundreds of hours last year just to handle a couple of products.  Yeah I’m pretty certain I did it all wrong, but you live and learn.

And if I do all this right, you’ll see posts on here that will appear as if they came from me.  There will be one or two people who have the skills to pull it off who will be authorised by me to do so.

When I have a good business process for discovering the right staff to do this, I’ll let you know here on this blog.

It may take a while, as it did in finding the two great developers that I have on board now (Paul and David), but it will be worth it in the end.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business