Day Twenty Five

Well, things were looking up when I got some impressions from google... until... they rose the price on me by 40 cents!

@!*&#&%!*#&!

Ugh, thats a 200% increase in ppc price in one day! It was bad enough when some of the clicks were priced at 60 cents... but now... they all are!

I am starting to really hate google adwords. It seems as though my PPC ads were not getting a desirable amount of clicks. I was testing different ones but before I know it, google screwed me again!

I also grabbed a few books today, one is on creativity and problem solving that is very cool. The other two are Richard Bransons Autobiography and his book "Screw It Let's Do It". I read most of Screw It Let's Do It today and I must say A+++ book. There is no 'filler' or useless jargon, it is straight forward and easy to understand.

It's actually kind of hard nowadays to find books that are actually written by self-made billionaires. Most of the books on the market are written by ghostwriters.

Overall I learned so much from that little book. I think my difficulties in business are because I am doing for the money. Instead of for fun. When I was doing businesses for fun I not only enjoyed it, but put out MUCH better work - in fact, it didn't even feel like work. It was, a labour of love.

So I think I have to get back to basics and focus on something I enjoy. I have a number of ideas in the works, but that book has completely changed the way I look at things. Hell why was I even doing this business if I wasn't having any fun at it?

What's the point of being rich if you don't enjoy it at the same time. So, I think there has to be some major changes happening. Not quite sure what exactly I am going to do, but I have a lot of ideas being generated.

Day Twenty Four

Well today I managed to get some impressions by going for different keywords that were similar to ones I had chosen earlier. Basically, so far my ads are not getting clicks, I dono why, but they just aren't.

So I have been modifying the ads and monitoring their progress throughout the day. So far there hasn't been much luck.

Day Twenty Three

Well today I first made all of the bullets for my salesletter. After that I worked over the intro and the offer, then finally I got the headline working.

After that I formatted and put up the salespage as well as made some tweaks to the book. After a long day of work I was ready to start sending traffic via google adwords until...

I learned it was 60 cents per click and there are only 4 advertisers! what a load of bullshit.

I checked the ppc three days earlier and im pretty sure it was a much lower number. Googles driving me insane but maybe I will try content network ads.

Day Twenty Two

Alright well today was incredibly productive. I managed to get the book finished which is a major plus for me. So I am planning on working on the sales letter tomorrow and may even be able to do a WFSO by tomorrow evening.

I credit my newfound speed in getting stuff done to my book. It helped me to further apply my own principles into what I was doing and caused me to become hyper productive. Overall I am pretty happy with how things turned out, I have a product to sell now and so next comes the copywriting.

So that's all for today, tomorrow should be very interesting. I do not want to rush the sales letter too much, I have to make sure I craft a really good one.

Day Twenty One

Well man oh man what a day, as I write this book on success I also start to see flaws in my own approach. One thing I am learning is that it is a big pain in the ass to write a book.

From now on I want to hire someone else to do it for me. This is a lot of work and I would rather be focusing on marketing the damn thing rather than writing it. Ah well, I suppose that's just life and I am going to have to deal with it.

This is a hell of a lot of work. Writing is no fun if you ask me. Whatever, its better making money using a pen and a piece of paper then working my ass off all day. Still, I don't like this whole writing business, I would rather be selling it than making it.

Oh well, I am working hard on delivering my customers with exceptional value, I don't think there is anything easier to write sales copy about than a exceptionally good product with a great offer. It is definately a lot more work to have higher standards for product quality, but I am not just getting into this to make money, I want to genuinely help people and do more than what the average marketer does. Albeit, its a lot more work - hopefully it will be filled with rewards.

Day Twenty

Well I am getting a lot better at doing this now. I learned a number of things about product creation today. First and foremost, never create a information product on a word processor. Something about typing on a computer - on a word processor, makes you go slower. I am a fast typer, yet when I am trying to write a book, I am damn slow!

So what I do is write on yellow legal notepads - and man does it ever help! I dono what it is or why I am sooo much faster when writing on notepads, but man oh man do I ever get a lot more done. I also noticed, that by turning the computer off, I get more work done. Even if I am writing on notepads, just having the computer screen on seems to slow me down.

Computers and the internet especially and particularly excellent ways to waste a lot of time. They are full of distractions and make it very easy to constantly be wasting time. When you just have a pen and a pad of paper, you are able to focus much more clearly on the task at hand. I personally prefer to spend one hour writing effectively and then go do whatever the hell I want - rather than spend four hours trying to type on the computer while being distracted.

Overall I got a lot accomplished in a short period of time. I am starting to balance out my life more, relaxing in the day and then doing short, highly effective bursts of work at night. I find I not only get more done but I also work less!

The book on success is coming along nicely, I decided I was going to do a lot more than what most people do. I am really going the extra mile to deliver great value to my readers. It feels pretty good to be writing this book, I don't feel anxious or worried like the other products. I have a really good feeling about this product.

Day Nineteen

Well today I focused mainly on getting to know my market better. I surfed some forums and started working to develop a deep understanding of my market and my prospects.

On interesting idea I came up with today is how to help people solve their problems within my market. What I was thinking is, if I look through forum archives and find all the questions people post on forums - then thoroughly (most forums has pretty vague and simple responses, but not always) answer those questions in my books, then I will probably be able to provide a great deal of value to my customers.

Today I also remembered I already have a product that is finished. It is a book on achieving your goals in life. I am going to update and expand it, write a sales letter and start sending adwords traffic to it tomorrow. After that I will get back to work on my book about marketing books.

Day Eighteen

Well today I finally finished taking notes from the Gary Halbert Letter. Aside from that I have run into a bit of a snag in my plans to sell a book on marketing artwork. You see, I am supposed to have a market - that is a need/want and then satisfy that desire with your product.

It appears there is a much bigger market in teaching writers how to market - then in teaching artists. Luckily not too much of the book has been written. So my plans are to relax a bit tomorrow and plough through to make a lot of progress on writing a book about marketing novels/books.

My biggest stumbling block so far has been products. I don't want to be an affiliate for someone else, most of the time they sell crappy products. The actual process of making a product is lengthy so I intend to push through and get this book finished asap. Then I can write a sales letter, make an opt-in page and start selling!. I will also need a backend or two or three lol, but I will worry about that later.

I think I could just cross-sell something like "better writing" books. Besides I can always backend an affiliate promotion while in the process of developing my own backend.

Day Seventeen

Alright well today was a highly productive day of taking lots and lots of notes on copywriting, direct marketing, business and law. I learned a lot and it was a pretty jam packed day of highly productive work.

I also learned a cool new tactic to try out. Basically what you do is record what you do every hour each day on a tape recorder. Its a very interesting thing to go through.

An important Idea I came across today was to test an idea and find out as soon as possible if it was going to be profitable or not. So I was thinking I might set up a pre-sell page and ask people to opt-in for notification when the product becomes available. This does two things, it tells me what kind of demand (if any) there is for this product and it builds me a list of people who are interested in buying the product I am selling!

Day Sixteen

Alright well today I basically went over more of my copywriting and direct response books, which I am learning a TON from.

So many things I learned today, it would take hours to talk about all of them.

Anyways. I started sending PPC traffic to the webpage, so far not even one measly click! Although, I just started and I spent about a whopping 5 seconds writing the copy for the Google Adwords Ad.

Tommorow I am going to do a much more thorough job of writing my pay-per-click ad and really start sending some serious traffic to my website.

Day Fifteen

Alright well today I went through a whirlwind of emotions. Just one of those hellish days.

Eventually I got my act together and ploughed through a unbelievable amount of direct marketing and copywriting material. Its about 7:30 am and I have been going at it since about 7 - 8 Pm, which means I have been doing nothing but studying direct marketing for the past 12 hours.

Anyways, I am going to go to sleep (because I doubt I could remember any more even if I kept reading) then I am going to get up and I figure I can put in another 16 hours or so.

Day Fourteen

Okay well today I think I was rather productive. Yesterday I sort of wiped myself out, so I tried to take it easier today. Alright, first thing I did was got to work on tightening up the email opt-in page, basically just making it nicer.

Next I worked on the Privacy Policy and placed a link to it directly under the submit button for the email opt-in form. After that I got to work on my business strategy.

After a lot of thinking, some phone calls and more thinking, I finally came up with a way to get around a little problem I have been having with my current strategy.

Before, I was thinking "Build a List, Launch the Product, Make lots of money!" However, the problem is to do a good product launch, it takes a while. Especially when you have no list and no Joint Venture partners.

So what I decided to do instead, is a little bit more complicated and probably a lot more profitable way to doing my product launch. Here is how I am going to do it: Instead of just building a list (if I did it with PPC that would mean large losses in moola) what I am going to do is first create a cheaper product (but still very high quality content) and use that to generate some money for me while I am preparing for my big launch.

Here is the FlowChart for my new strategy

PPC - Article Marketing - Link Building
|
Email Opt-In Form
|
Visitor Is Redirected To A Salespage
|
I Make Money From Ebook Sales AND Build A List At The Same Time!
|
Send Visitor High Quality Content
|
Go Through Launch Sequence
|
Launch My Premium Product
|
Make Lots Of $$$
|
Repeat

So this is my newly revised strategy, which I think should work much better now.

Day Thirteen

Well today was an eventful day. I wrote a bit of the book, a couple pages to be honest. However, I did sign up for Aweber and get my email opt-in page looking pretty spiffy.

One thing I noticed is the difference in how internet marketers perceive sales pages and how the general public perceives sales pages is very different. So what I did was I asked a few friends to comment on my sales pages.

After about 3 hours of revisions I finally created a salespage that didn't look salesy or spammy but still maintained all of the elements of a salespage. Why did I do this? Because just like how advertisements that look like editorials in newspapers get higher readership, the same is true for websites that don't look salesy.

It still has a headline and everything else, but its just been tactfully disguised with the page layout to be lure them in lol.

Now im working on improving my email opt-in sales page, then I also have to work on driving traffic to the webpage.

Day Twelve

Okay today was a rather productive day, I got down to business and took hundreds of notes. Now I have this big stack of yellow note pages and a ton of information about salesmanship. I am using the process Gary Halbert described in one of his newsletters about how to make a product.

Basically the idea is to buy a few or sometimes all of the books about a given subject, take notes on them and then create a super-book which is the combination of all of the books, that essentially guarantees you a pretty good product.

One thing I have learned about internet marketing is that good products are scarce and hard to find, those that do have top-notch products get a lot of word of mouth advertising. Plus it is a lot easier to write good copy about an amazing product than it is to write about a crappy product. So I am putting in a lot of time, energy and effort into making sure I create a good product.

It's a hell of a lot of work.

It's worth it though, if you ask me. I feel better just knowing the tremendous value my customers are going to get from it. There is a whole process and strategy I am working out, really taking my time to lay out everything that they need to be successful as an artist.

In doing so, I will help a lot of people do what they love, so it's not just about the money, I get to help a lot of people accomplish their dreams at the same time too.

As a double bonus, I am learning more about salesmanship and marketing as I create this step-by-step, thorough plan along with the appropriate tactics on how to really make a lot of money as an artist. I am not sure about price point yet, the price is going to be directly affected by the quality of the product, the only thing is - that it is hard to sell a purely digital product for more than $150.

So I may need to get a real merchant account and set up an account with a order fulfillment business. Disk.com is supposed to be pretty reliable so I am not too worried about that. It's just another thing I would have to go through in order to sell at a different price point, that said - it would probably also mean much higher profits as well.

Day Eleven

I have just had a profound insight today. I think my internet businesses will forever be changed after today. Let me explain,

I happen to have an excessive amount of talent in art. In fact, in my entire life, there has never been a time where I haven't been the best artist there is. What I realised, is that the reason why I am good at art is mainly because of one thing, self-esteem.

Even if I paint a picture I think looks like total crap, in my heart, I know, that it will eventually turn out looking amazing. How is it that I can look at something which I think is crap - and turn it into something people oo and ahh about? Belief in myself.

There isn't even a question in my mind that I can do it. I know I can, without even a second thought about it. This is the central reason why I am good at art because deep down, I know I can draw and paint a good picture no matter what.

I think, the reason why I have been having difficulties in internet marketing, is for one key and central reason - lack of self-esteem. So what I really think I need to do, in order to be successful at marketing goods over the internet, is to have a big ego and believe in myself.

So if my website isn't converting prospects like crazy right away, thats okay, because all I need to do is test and tweak my sales letter until it pulls well. These are facts, if you test for long enough, your website will eventually convert well.

So today I turn a new leaf in my belief. I believe that I am the best, I just haven't created my multi-million dollar website yet. But I will, soon.

I am #1.

Instead of humbly going to guru's begging for advice on building a profitable business, now I feel as though all along I knew what had to be done to succeed online. Its about confidence. I have been suffering from low confidence in my abilities to succeed online - but no longer.

From today on, I will create the biggest ego in the world if I have to, but never again will I suffer from the crippling effects of low confidence.

Now I realize, I don't need Guru's - they need me. If I don't buy their products, they go out of business. I don't need anyone to tell me how to run a successful business anymore, I know I can do it all by myself.

I believe in myself, I know I will achieve success.

Today is the day I start the rest of my life. Not as a humble student but as a fully fledge master who will no longer go begging and scratching to learn how to succeed online.

I don't need or want any Guru's, I don't care how much or little money other people make online. I say, they are only human, and there are others who have come from humbler origins and made much more money than they. There is nothing special about the Guru's. They are just marketers.

They are only human, of flesh and blood like everyone else. They have no special advantages or secret powers. There is no reason why I should not be more successful than they are.

In fact - I deserve success a lot more than they do for I would use the money I earn for a much nobler cause, helping others.

So today is the day I begin the rest of my life. Not humbly going to Guru's for advice, but living as my own empowered self who has no need of Guru's. Besides, I am much smarter, younger, healthier and vastly more resourceful than the Guru's.

I don't need or want them anymore. I will achieve success by myself, and exceed all others.

Day Ten

I reached some pretty low points today as far as morale is concerned. There were times when I felt just like giving up, like the whole world was falling down on me. It was pretty rough.

Somehow I am managing to pull together the morales to push through all the self-doubt and worry. Right now I am onto writing the actual book, because that is the most important thing that needs to be done right now. I also have prettied up my email opt-in page to hopefully increase conversions.

I think I might make some changes to the bullets of my sales copy because they may be a little over the top. The copy as a whole is pretty good, although I will be doing lots of testing regardless.

I haven't started actually building a list yet. So far I have been tweaking the copy, taking lots and lots of notes for my book. I have also been pushing through a lot of self-doubt and the desire to switch markets yet again. So far so good though, I am starting to get excited about doing this again, which is a good sign.

Overall I am just happy to have made it through the day. I got Google Analytics on my email opt-in page so I should be ready to roll. Just need to sign up for Aweber and send some pay-per-click traffic to the page.

What I am going to do is track the keywords that the visitors come from, then find out which keywords have the best opt-in rate. Once I know this, I can use the top pulling keywords for SEO and Article Marketing to drive traffic to my website.

Day Nine

Today I worked on content, I am getting a lot of great ideas on how to provide tremendous value to my visitors. I am focusing on first giving a lot of free and very valuable content before even thinking about pitching the customer. This is for a lot of reasons but it all gets down to good and profitable business practices.

I am having second doubts about doing this market as well, even though I know it extremely well. I think I may be doing some form of self-sabotage or just be nervous about starting a highly successful internet business. I am trying to get to the root cause of all of this anxiety, haven't quite figured it out yet.

Day Eight

Today I made the opt-in page for the email newsletter. So far so good, now I am going to have to figure out how I wanna promote my website. Gary Halbert said it should be done through off line ads because the quality of the traffic is higher. Plus if you're a good copywriter, you could get a lot more people through off line advertisements than Pay-Per-Click.

So I think I might go with a mixture of off line ads, exchanging links, articles and Search Engine Optimization. Overall the real way to get heavy visitor traffic is through highly valuable content.

Day Seven

Took the day off today, I was getting overworked after spending months and months on internet marketing. It is giving me some time to clear my head.

Day Six

Alright well today I went over a long debate about whether I should stick with the investment product or not. I have been unable to find anything about the FTC rules regarding advertising investment products and right now my sub-conscious mind is wary about it.

So instead what I think I will start with is doing a book on marketing artwork, getting into galleries, etc. This way I can build up a large amount of funds from the sales of the book to fund other business ventures. I already have the book laid out, so tomorrow I will get to work on the newsletter opt-in page, sign up for an email list server and work on the book itself.

Day Five

Well so far so good. I went out and bought another 3 classics on the stock market and i've been going over them, taking notes and building up more material for the book. I registered a domain name and hooked it up to my hosting account.

I am starting to build up a pretty big stack of note pages, after I get through the rest of these books I should have a plethora of material with which to write a book on investing in the stock market. I am still thinking about my target market and how I am going to go after them in my sales copy for the email opt-in.

It's a lot of work but experience has taught me that it is way better to create a really top-notch product than to cut corners and try to finish it too quickly. Plus people will be more pleased with the product and want to buy from me again.

Day Four

Today I took tons and tons of notes about stock market investing and learned a great deal about technical analysis. Overall I think the book is going to be very strong in terms of content. There is still a lot of work left to be done and I need to start preparations for the pre-launch of the book. I also spent some time going over the various legalities of what can and cannot be said in advertising regarding investments and business opportunities.

Even on the internet one has to ensure they are in compliance with the FTC's regulations. So basically I have been getting material for my book and thinking about the different sales appeals I can use for it.

Also I think its about high time I start building a list, so tomorrow I am going to go over list building strategies, register a domain name, write copy for the email opt-in and then work on a free special report about the stock market.

Day Three

Well today I think I have settled on either doing a content based art site and promoting affiliate programs off of that - or writing an investment book for beginners which takes them by the hand and shows them how to invest successfully.

I might do both in the end, probably start with the investment one because it produces money faster and I would really like to get some extra loot right now $_$

So I will be taking a whole bunch of notes and working on creating a super, kick-ass book for investing.

Day Two

Today I worked on more new ideas about what kind of market I should get into. So far the possibilities are Investing, Art and Outdoor Adventure markets. Still trying to narrow down which one to chose, its a very difficult for me to decide. I don't really want to teach art but there is so much bad information out there I almost have to.

In investing there is so much bulls**t that someone needs to re-introduce the concepts of science and mathematics into investing, instead of widespread speculation. As far as Outdoor Adventure goes, I just like the Outdoors and I love Adventure - not much more to it than that.

Overall I am having a tough time deciding what to do, I am leaning towards the investment market though.