Frank Haywood

Jan

2008

Just In Case You Were Wondering…

…about the power of blogging.

Today (18th January 2008) Michael Cheah linked to one of my blog posts.

I know that because WordPress has been designed to tell you when incoming links are coming from other blogs, and also where they’re coming from.

So of course, I took a quick look at Michael’s blog, and immediately found something I liked.

Here’s a link to his post about left brain / right brain usage. Very interesting, it looks like I’m a right brainer although it flipped a couple of times to left brain.

In case you wonder if the image changes direction every so often, my wife stood next to me and insisted it was going anti-clockwise most of the time, even though I could see it going clockwise most of the time.

But that’s not the point of this post.

The point is, if you blog regularly (at least once a day), and link to other peoples blogs, then you will almost certainly get the owner coming to take a look, and even links back and mentions like the ones above.

And what do links mean? Altogether now…

TRAFFIC!

Next, advertise your own products in the sidebar by linking to them, just like I’ve done, and you’ll either get sales or sign-ups or both.

Stop wondering, and start blogging.

(BTW, anyone want to know how to set up a blog properly? Coming soon…)

-Frank Haywood

Jan

2008

What’s The Difference Between Those Who Do And Those Who Don’t?

I’m talking about achieving here.

The difference is attitude.

Those who don’t have one or more blockers that stop them from achieving. These blockers usually boil down to the individual’s perception and attitude.

Yes, I know you’re probably saying to yourself, “oh no, not another Positive Mental Attitude article”. Well, maybe this is a little different. Maybe not…

Have you noticed that the people who gripe in life are ALWAYS griping? Nothing is ever right for them. They’re always unhappy with something, and expend a lot of energy looking for the next thing to moan about.

“I can’t come up with a product idea.” “I’ve got my product idea, but I can’t get started.” “I’ve created my product, but I don’t know how to create a sales page.” “My sales page is up but I can’t get any sales.”

It’s just worn me out writing that and thinking in that way. It’s so negative it makes me feel ill just experiencing it, and I’m sorry if it’s taken you the same way.

How do people get anything done with an attitude like that?

Well, in most cases they don’t, but there are always some that do, and then they hit a “blocker”.

A blocker is that one thing that they can’t get past. Correction. The one thing they think they can’t get past.

All they need is a little help to change their thinking.

Let’s take the final example above. You have a product, but no sales.

The first question to ask yourself is “do I have traffic?” and if the answer is no, then that’s the thing to work on.

There are probably as many traffic sources as there are ways to make a million dollars.

Here’s a few…

JV partners
Forums
eBay
Squidoo
YouTube
StumbleUpon
Article sites
Blogging…

I don’t think I need to go on – just ONE of those sources worked upon and used exclusively should be enough to bring in traffic to make at least a sale a day.

So… You match your traffic source together with your product.

For instance, you might be selling something that helps ebook sellers deliver their ebooks. Such as SmartDD. 😉

Then JV partners and eBay would be the first / best way to go, and the way to build affiliates. Once you have enough affiliates, you reach “critical mass” and they do all the selling for you.

Now… As always, the devil’s in the detail.

You may know about all of the traffic sources above, but how do you get traffic from one of them? Well, they’re all different and need to be treated in different ways.

But choosing one and trying to get traffic from it is probably a good start.

This is where many people fall flat on their face.

They try… and after a month or 6 weeks, nothing’s happened.

They decide that it’s impossible to do.

Despite the fact that people are milking traffic from many of these sites, some people don’t get immediate success and that’s it, they give up.

(I blame all the BS artists out there who get people excited by the prospect of it being “easy”. When the real world hits and they find it isn’t as easy as they were led to believe, then the depression sets in.)

I’ll put you right now so you don’t get the wrong idea.

It isn’t easy.

Anyone that tells you it is has either got to the nice place where affiliates are now making sales for them, and / or they’ve forgotten that to start with it was actually quite hard.

See my post on Your Big Steel Ball.

Let me give you an idea of the kind of sales you should be making – these are pretty much standard numbers.

If you get 100 mildly interested visitors to your site, you will make 1 sale.

If you make less than 1 sale per 100 visitors, then you may have a poor product, or more likely, your sales page is at fault.

If you make 2 sales per 100 visitors, then you’re doing pretty well.

3 sales and you have an excellent combination of product and sales page.

More than that and it looks like you’ve found yourself a highly qualified (well targeted) traffic source.

In most cases, if you have traffic but no sales, then your sales page is crap.

I have a site that I’ve never done any work on since I set it up a couple of years ago. It was a practice for me when I was learning. (I think the domain may have just expired.)

I’ve never promoted it, I’ve never done anything with it since the day I set it up. To my knowledge, I may have submitted it to Google once, and that was it. There are no graphics other than the PayPal button, it’s text only.

To my amazement, that site has resulted in a sale about every 3-4 months… A tiny amount of traffic must be finding its way there, and every so often it results in a sale.

I’m quite pleased with that…

All I did was follow a few rules about setting up a sales page.

All I did was try.

All I did was give it a go.

I went in with the right attitude, not knowing whether it would work or not. I believed it would, and I was more pleased with myself for having done the site as it was good practice for my next one.

You can do the same as me. Be pleased with what you’ve done, be pleased with what you do. Don’t get upset or decide “it doesn’t work”.

If you want to achieve, if you want to build a successful business, then you have to give it your very best attitude.

Moaning when things don’t magically work out won’t achieve anything.

Being pleased with any of your achievements puts you in the right frame of mind to go do some more.

-Frank Haywood.

Jan

2008

Check This Out

Check This Out:-

http://www.affordasoft.com/20websuccesstechniques/

-Frank Haywood

Jan

2008

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

There’s a correlation between those people who take responsibility for their lives and those who are successful in all aspects.

There’s an equivalent match for those people who don’t achieve and those who point the finger at everything and everyone else for their condition.

Look, it’s like this. Once you take responsibility for the fact that where you are in your life right now is no-one’s fault but your own, is when you can take the next step and do something about it.

Are you with someone you don’t like any more? Got a job you hate? Feeling sorry for yourself because you don’t have any money and you’ve racked up huge credit card bills?

Whose fault is it?

Go look in the mirror.

And before you respond back and say “ah yes, but…”, well, that’s just an *excuse*. If you’re unhappy, that’s you that’s done that, sunshine, no-one else.

Don’t agree?

Okay, just tell me, who is the person that’s responsible for your life?

Is it me?

Is it your government?

Is it one of your parents?

Did one of the above make the decisions that got you to where you are today? Are the reasons you are where you are, because those things in the past just happened to you?

Or are you prepared to face the truth that your life is your life? And that you are all grown up, and that you are responsible for everything that happens to you?

You make decisions every day about your life, and you should know that you can make dramatic changes with the smallest of those decisions.

Like…

Today, I’m going to accept responsibility for my life. I don’t like my job, and I don’t much care for working for other people, so I’m going to do something about it.

I’m going to create a product, and I’m going to offer it for sale online.

While I’m working on the traffic for that, I’m going to create another related product, and put that one on sale too.

And another, and another…

Trust me. That’s all it takes. That’s all there is to it.

It’s not a secret. If it is, it’s the worst kept one ever.

Make a decision, NOW. Take control of your life.

Take some simple steps, and change things forever.

-Frank Haywood

Jan

2008

Product Idea Follow Up – Default Ebook Layouts

After making a blog post about my default ebook layout, the number of downloads has risen dramatically from 211 to 494. See this screen grab from my Aweber account:-

You can see it’s really hit a chord with people. I’m amazed at how useful everybody is finding this tiny little product I’ve done. It seems that by accident, I’ve stumbled upon something big.

It’s a simple idea, and the surprising thing is that no-one’s ever done it before. But isn’t that the way with a lot of the really good ideas? They’re just simple things that are useful to people.

I’m only just now realising what it is that I have here, and so I might just have to follow up with this myself. I’ll wait 30 days and if no-one contacts me to say they’ve done a pack of default ebook layouts, then I’ll do my own.

My guess is no-one will.

On a side note, if you’ve been struggling to find that one idea for a product, why don’t you think about what it is that you need yourself, and see if it’s been done before? Even if it has, I think you’ll find it either isn’t good enough or doesn’t give you quite what it is you’re after.

Once you know what you need to do, create your own version, and use it as your first product.

If you want further product ideas from me, make sure you’re signed up to new blog notifications as I’ll be password protecting future ideas so that only my blog readers will get them. You can sign up on the main page.

-Frank Haywood.