Key Success Secrets – Part 1 | Introduction

In the early days of my wealth coaching career, I was always very focused on the practical, the down to earth, the “how-to” of becoming wealthy.  I’d read all the books out there on the market on the principles of wealth creation, becoming rich, the power of belief and focus, attraction principles and I was angry and frustrated!

Because none of them told you how to make money!  None of them laid out a step by step plan of  HOW TO ACTUALLY DO IT!

So my first book The Money Gym – which started as an email programme, I was not arrogant enough to think I had a book in me – was written out of that frustration;  I wanted to give you a step by step, logical plan for how to make money and even become rich.

I wrote it as I wanted it, simple, easy to understand, with pictures.  I tried to include (and credit) the best bits of all I had read or heard, from Robert Kiyosaki to Napoleon Hill, from Steven Covey to Mary Hunt, from Gill Fielding to Robert G. Allen, especially where it was helping me and making a positive difference to the way I thought and particularly to the way I acted.

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Losing, Loving, Laughing & Life!

It’s been a week at home, this week, settling back into school routine, getting used to the grey skies, trying to decide if I want to stay here and try and buy this house, or move into Shoreham or Brighton to something brighter and newer.  Feeling restless…..but happier than recently as it’s been sunnier in Shoreham.

We’ve been gearing up for the Money Gym “Really Useful Internet Day” on 10th October and I’ve been starting to plan the marketing campaign for that which will take place over the next four weeks and will hopefully fill the room.

Because even an event with a ticket price of £25, all of which we are donating to our favourite Money Gym charity “The Big Issue” (helping the homeless help themselves), takes a full on marketing campaign to ensure it’s success.

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Exciting Things Planned For Autumn 2009 At The Money Gym

Well, it’s Autumn and the kids went back to school on Friday – they loved it!  You can only enjoy so much “hanging abaht” doing nothing apparently!

After a week or so of feeling really quite down, mainly due to the weather, I’m perking up a bit and looking forward to the speaking gigs and exciting projects I have to work on.  Steve creating me a new and very gorgeous looking blog has helped – so thanks Steve!

If you are feeling like you want a new start on your wealth creation, like the kids have a new term, then here’s an overview of and exciting Autumn at The Money Gym.

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A Link & A List – How To Get Started Making Money Online

People who are very experienced at making money online always tend to forget the fact that most of the population don’t have a clue about the internet, beyond buying items on eBay or Amazon and using Facebook occasionally.

They certainly don’t know the potential for making money online, not as a full time job but as a second income.  And they certainly don’t know the basics of how to go about it.

All the infomation is available online, if you go to YouTube you can find a video to show you how to do just about anything, but the sheer enormity of the information is totally overwhelming, you don’t know who to trust and so nothing gets done.

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Internet Marketing | Zero To Hero Online | Matt’s Progress

As the discussions rumble on about whether internet marketing is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” ex-Navy man Matt Jones has taken up the baton, and is quietly working his way through the Money Gym Membership Club Magic tuition videos, with a bit of coaching from me.
Read the first post here >>>	Read the second post here >>>
Read the third post here >>>	Read the fourth post here >>>
He’s agreed to post his progress in becoming a newbie internet zero, to internet marketing here in the comments here – so, over to you Matt!

Internet Marketing | Emperor’s New Clothes | Part 3

Read Part 1 Here >>>

Read Part 2 Here >>>

Wow!  This debate about whether it’s possible to create a real live passive income online – defined as enough to live on without having to actually do anything, once set up – has really hit a nerve on both the blog and our private Google Group!  Several success stories, many tales of woe.

I’m going to be posting up a selection of comments from the google group later but in the meantime I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to run two experiments.

1.  Taking an internet newbie from zero to hero with one of our products

There’s a new guy just signed up to our Membership Club Magic group – name of Matt.  Matt will tell his own story soon, but basically he’s a bright guy, who has just been made redundant, wife, two kids including a brand new baby. He’s been looking for another job and has some potential offers on the table but in the meantime, he’s come across internet marketing and specifically me and our Membership Club Magic product, and for the next two months, he’s able to work on his internet project every week day, for at least 3 hours.

I figure, being ex-Navy, Matt can “follow the bloody instructions” as Frank Kern calls it.  He’s got the desire, he’s got the time and hopefully he can focus.

I’ve offered Matt a once a week coaching call, daily focus emails as well as office-hour skype backup coaching & support  in return for his giving me a weekly update on how he’s doing, what his challenges are, how he feels about it all and anything else he wants to share.

He’s got a great idea for a specialist niche membership site, with plenty of scope for extra revenue streams above and beyond the membership fees themselves, and it’s got the potential to be licensed nationwide, if not globally, if he can get the business model right.

So, we will follow Matt’s story with interest.

2.  Taking an experienced internet marketer (me) and following a step by step system meant for newbies

Tried this  recently with the InfoMillionaire system and sorry, Trey and Frank, while your content is great and I’m going to carry on subscribing as I’m learning stuff all the time from you, your system is NOT for newbies to internet marketing.  There’s not enough support when you need it – a forum would have been good – and even I kept getting stuck.  Also, even though I’ve been using them since 2003, I managed to blow £200 accidentally on Google Adwords when I took my eye off the ball for a couple of days, because one day nothing was happening as my budget was too low, the next day your suggestions kicked in and it went ballistic.  £200 over 2 days and no sales from a site that converts at 0.6% normally, so I was doing something wrong and I dont’ know what.

So my next experiment is going to be following a system highly recommended by Martin Avis, who I like, respect and trust.  He recommended this step by step product  in 2008 and is still recommending it and describes it thusly:

“  …..‘My Online Income System’ from a lady by the name of Kimberley Hoffman.  I’d never heard of it and don’t normally buy random products ‘to order’ but was sufficiently intrigued by the sales message to stump up for it.   What I found was that Kimberley had pretty much created what I was planning to write – a beginners’ guide to making regular money from Clickbank.  It is step-by-step, very clearly written and it covers all the important stuff you need to know.  I love that lady – she has saved me a whole lot of work!  If you are experienced in Internet marketing then this is probably not for you (unless you are experienced in knowledge but are still not making any money). But if you want to learn how you can make a regular income as an affiliate marketer and eventually look forward to sizable checks arriving each week, then this course is highly recommended” Martin Avis

Well, I’m experinced all right, but I’ve never managed to crack Clickbank, either as an affiliate or as a publisher (our Money Gym book is on there) so it sounds perfect.

Actually, it’s funny how the universe throws things at you, as just this week I noticed on our Google Analytics an upsurge in traffic to our Clickbank sales page from one particular Clickbank affiliate, and we have sold one ebook per week from this traffic, so I was thinking I should turn my attention to it sometime soon.

£33 later, I’m now working through Day 1 and I’ll let you know how I get on.  It’s very step by step, day by day, so that’s working for me so far.

Hey, I might email Martin Avis and ask him if I can interview him on how he managed to “make it” in passive income online and what he thinks it takes!

Internet Marketing | Emperor’s New Clothes | Part 2

Read Part 1 Here >>> To continue the story….

Example #2 – The Money Gym Internet Marketing Home Study System.

Between Christmas and New Year 2006, I laid out the 12 Simple Steps To Creating An Online Business as followed by me when creating the Money Gym.  It’s a bit dated in terms of the delivery methods, it’s video but not lovely Camtasia Theatre video, but the content is very relevant and the principles outlined in the Home Study System are still relevant three years later.

I never got around to finishing the final module, but do you know what?

Nobody to date has ever noticed (in spite of paying over £1500 for it) because nobody “just following the bloody instructions” and worked through the system step by step.

Now, we are paying someone to recreate it in Camtasia Theatre style, because it is still a great step by step system and we want to carry on including it in Money Gym Gold and Silver and need it to be upgraded.

Aha!!

Example #3 – Guy Thompson

I forgot to point out to Judith in our meeeting that, albeit not in 90 days, one of our Money Gym clients, Guy Thompson, a really lovely man and great contributor to the Money Gym community, is “just following the bloody instructions” and is getting there on the making money online front.

(I must ask Guy how it’s going and report back to you, actually I have an idea that could help Guy and help my argument and help you too! )

Guy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1988, but even so he spent the next fifteen years as legal adviser to online information businesses headquartered in New York.

In spite of having a demanding “day job”, Guy has written an ebook on the topic of Multiple Sclerosis , got his first sales page up for that ebook, he’s finished the first of his “Guy’s Guides” to making money online (ideal for people with Multiple Sclerosis)  and he is an active Twitterer and has even become an Ezine Articles Expert Author on Multiple Sclerosis.

Phew!  Put’s the rest of us to shame doesn’t he?  Imagine what Guy could achieve if he was working full time on this!  He’s pretty focused in the time that he has got to advance his internet business, isn’t he?

I am so determined to prove that “internet marketing” works, that I’m going to bloody well make it work for The Money Gym.  In fact, if asked what I will be doing when rich as Croesus and just about to pop my clogs, in between playing poker in Los Vegas, I’ll be working on my internet marketing projects.

By which I mean that I want to make a meaningful stream of ongoing passive income – by which I mean PROFIT – from our ebook and other passive income products.

How it works at the moment is that we get a stream of organic traffic – 4000 to 7000 unique visitors – to our website at http://www.TheMoneyGym.com from my various online marketing activities, from articles to videos, to Twitter and Hubpages, Facebook and links in from other sites.

However, I regard all our information products as front end marketing materials, rather than profitable products in their own right, because we don’t make enough from sales of said products to keep Steve, Judith and I in the style to which we would like to become accustomed, if we never wanted to work again.

So they are “marketing that pays for itself” which is great and actually the holy grail of most traditional business models….

But a true passive income business – selling totally passive products profitably – cannot depend on organic traffic alone, because any moment, the search engines could change the way they index websites and your traffic could disappear overnight.  It’s happened, to Brad Fallon with his “wedding favors” site – famous story in the world of internet marketing.

Nicola’s Definition Of A Successful Internet Marketing Business

A true passive income business depends on dependable “paid for traffic” from various sources such as Google Adwords, arriving at a website which converts that traffic at predictable levels, to subscribers and/or sales and which makes a profit for the owner, over and above what they pay for the traffic.

(Or one that drives “paid for” traffic to the sales page of an affiliate product, which converts to sales of that affiliate product, but for the purposes of this series of articles, I’m going to focus on you selling your own product)

And I’m going to set a goal now to make Internet Marketing work with the Money Gym products and also share the stories of some of our Money Gym clients – like Guy – who are “just following the bloody instructions”.

Oh my God!  I feel the “Money Gym Online” book coming on.  Written in instalments on the blog with interaction from our readers and subscribers.  Cool.

So keeping it really simple (another challenge online and for me particularly) what do I consider you need to create a successful passive income generating internet business?

1.    Successful Internet Marketing For Beginners

• A Domain name – either one with key words in (if working in a niche) or a generic one like www.ABCEnterprises.com
• Hosting – we use FunkyDomainNames.com to register our domains and provide hosting – they have a 24 telephone helpline which you WILL use at some point!
• An ebook to sell – write your own, pick one at Clickbank.com or buy one  with resale rights.
• A sales page to sell it from – if you have a resale rights ebook make sure it comes with a sales page.  If selling your own ebook, use Sales Letter Generator by Armand Morin, which breaks it down into simple parts/tasks and takes away the overwhelm.
• A shopping cart – we love TotalBusinessCart.com – to integrate with your PayPal account so you can take money, follow up with prospects in an automated yet personal fashion, manage your database of contacts, products, mailing list, broadcast facility, affilate scheme and much more!
• A blog to generate organic traffic.  We recommend Wordpress which installs on your own domain with one click via your hosting control panel (Cpanel) at FunkyDomainNames.com.
• A Twitter account to generate organic traffic – mine is second only to Google organic for traffic generation to our website.

Tomorrow I’ll cover what you will need for more intermediate and advanced actions but you could look at your internet business right now and compare it to this list.  Remember, it’s not what you do, but what you are NOT doing that’s making the difference.

In the meantime, I would love to hear what you think about Internet Marketing and hear your stories.  Use the comments box here to share your thoughts.

Resources mentioned in this article:

“31 Days To Millionaire Marketing Miracles” by Tracy Repchuk
Free membership and excellent free report

Guy Thompson’s Multiple Sclerosis Guide
http://www.multiplesclerosisguide.com/,

“Guy’s Guides” to making money online (ideal for people with Multiple Sclerosis)
http://www.guysguidesonline.com/

Guy Thompson On Twitter https://twitter.com/Guy_Thompson

Articles on Multiple Sclerosis
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Guy_Thompson

Domain Names & Hosting (with one-click blog install)
FunkyDomainNames.com

Armand Morin’s Sales Letter Generator (preview feature works better with Internet Explorer than Firefox btw)

TotalBusinessCart.com – everything you will ever need to run your online business under one affordable roof

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com

Clickbank – to find products to sell or to sell your own products

Internet Marketing | Emperor’s New Clothes | Part 1

There are  some virtual storm clouds brewing at the Money Gym.  Judith and I came the closest we have ever been to a row the other day at our board meeting while talking about me re-writing my book for 2009 and beyond, and the topic was the same old recurring theme of Internet Marketing – Is It The Emperor’s New Clothes?

This topic has also been rumbling around our Money Gym Mastermind Google Group as Marion Ryan (one of our Money Gym coaches and no slouch at making money online herself with her Rockin’ Blogging service) asked “Is anyone out there making any real money with affiliate marketing?”

Just to clarify, when we are talking about Internet Marketing, we are not talking about “Marketing Your Business Online” which all of us at The Money Gym totally love, do effortlessly and succeed in all day every day, but “Internet Marketing” as defined as the ability to create automated flows of passive income from selling information products (your own or someone else’s) online without having to deliver a service, workshops, coaching, all those things that involve you actually doing something and turning up for work in the real world.

Judith says ”Internet Marketing simply isn’t viable and perhaps all the gurus are selling a dream, albeit one that we all want. We cannot point to any single success story within the Money Gym community, including ourselves as principals of the business, and that that simply isn’t good enough for our clients, they deserve better.   We are not in authenticity and even worse, we could be misleading our clients”.

Although Tim Ferris’ “4 Hour Work Week” book is one of her all time favourites, and leans heavily on his passive income made online by selling a product, Judith feels very strongly that when I re-write OUR book I should not imply that you can make millions online very easily.  That I should be more realistic and not hang out the internet dream in the book as, in her opinion, there is no real evidence in our circle that it works.   She considers that we might even remove it as a separate Lane Of The Wealth Highway in our teachings in the Money Gym coaching programme , including it instead only as part of our business module.

I passionately believe the opposite and I say it does work because I know a LOT of people – met at many seminars over the years – who make their living like that.  And a very good living – defined by me as more than £5000 or $10,000 per month upwards to the “millions a year” merchants.

I believe they earn that because of the lifestyles they lead,  the fact that they are able to afford to go to all the seminars, cruises, the Maverick Adventures all around the world, the houses they live in, the cars they drive and that they never seem short of cash.

Judith’s logic asks: “well, if it works, how come specifically none of our Money Gym clients while able to become wealthy, even millionaires, through the other lanes of the Wealth Highway, have ever yet managed to become an internet millionaire or even make any meaningful recurring passive sums of money working online?   If you yourself, Nicola, have been – to use your own words – diddling about online since before God was a lad, how come you are not one of the internet millionaires living the life you describe above?”

I say, because none of us ever do it right.  We never keep it simple and “just follow the bloody instructions” to quote Frank Kern.

Actually it’s very rare that any of  us simply just do it.

Example #1

Last year, we hosted a 90-day Money Gym Internet Challenge, where our clients were supposed to define their internet goals and then, with our support, achieve them in 90 days.

Some set goals to finish their ebook, some set goals to make their first $10 online, some set goals like “get my first 100 subscribers to my ezine list” and I really did my best to help them keep it real, set realistic goals and then work out how they were going to achieve them.

We were supposed to post up our goals for each day, actions taken and achievements to a special Focus Day google group we set up.

So, did anyone do that?

Some, for a while.

Did even one person finish the challenge or achieve their goals set?

No.

What went wrong?  Well, I always say that the difference between success or failure is more about what you don’t do, than what you do do.

They didn’t get focused, didn’t take consistent action, they got discouraged, they just gave up.  Sometimes life just got in the way.

Just think for a moment about one of your goals, one that you constantly fail in achieving.  Think about the one single thing, that if you did it, would absolutely guarantee success.  Now think about why you don’t do and why you don’t do that thing.

But I’m getting distracted here…one of my issues with my own internet marketing success by the way.

Tracy Repchuk talks about the fact that 92% of people who go to internet marketing seminars will NEVER succeed and it’s true.  They will buy more and more stuff, hoping for the magic wand, the secret key….hang on, this is sounding just like the people who go to property investment seminars, business building seminars, stockmarket trading seminars.   It’s sounding like wealth creation in general.

Tracy also talks about the importance of getting focused in her excellent best selling book “31 Days To Millionaire Marketing Miracles” which, incidentally, was written in days and took just 58 days to become an Amazon best seller. Focus works and she’s demonstrated that.   But Tracy Repchuk was a successful business person before she discovered internet marketing and lots of the gurus were too.   Judith would say this just proves her point; “Tracy is selling more information on how to do it rather than just selling something online like Tim Ferris for example!”

So is it possible for ordinary people to create a passive income online?  Or are they wasting their time, chasing a dream?

The Money Gym Internet Challenge wasn’t a total waste of all our time because, a year later, some are just getting to the point of finishing their ebooks, have websites up online and have mailing lists and some even have membership sites.

But hardly anyone is “just following the bloody instructions” and getting on with it, step by step.

Read Part 2 Here >>>

Bugs, Birthdays, Business & Beautiful Food

I got an email from Hal, my mate from Georgia, today.  The subject line got my attention as all of Hal’s emails invariably do.  Today, the subject line was “One big fat ugly rat” and I opened it immediately….

It went to to say….

“Dear Nicola,  I don’t know about you, but one big fat ugly rat in my house is one way too many!

I spoke with a gentleman a few days ago and he told me he had found evidence of a rat in his basement. He asked, “Do you think I have a rat problem?”

What?  Are you kidding me? A big fat ugly rat in your house and you’re asking me if it is a problem?

Now, I don’t know about you…but if I find evidence of a rat in my house, I’m going to take immediate action.  Rats and my wife do not mix…..under any circumstances.

NO…..not at all……no way!

Roof rats (Rattus rattus) are rampant in the Atlanta Metro Area….just as they are in all metropolitan areas in America.  They have been living in our houses for thousands of years. It’s their natural habitat.

Roof rats are referred to as “commensal rodents”.  Commensal means, “lives with man” or “shares man’s table”.

Let me suggest one thing to you.  If you even THINK you hear something in your attic or basement….if you even THINK you smell a strange “amonia-like odor” in your basement or attic….if you even THINK you have found droppings from what could be a rodent…..you need to take immediate action!”

He went on to suggest some immediate action you could take, and of course, one of the action you could take would be to call Hal.

Hal, you see, has a company called North Fulton Bug Extermination and if I lived in North Fulton, and had a bug problem, there is only one man I would call and that’s Hal.  Apart from the fact that he’s a mate of my mate Mike Stewart, the Internet Audio & Video Guy, Hal, through his emails, has established that he’s

1. Passionate and knowledgeable about bug extermination
2. A Really Nice Guy

His website bears that out  and note, he’s using video to immediately connect with and communicate with harrassed householders with a bug problem.

Now, you might be wondering how Hal became such a cutting edge web marketeer and the answer is, of course, he wasn’t, but he’s a fishing buddy of Mike Stewart, who is brilliant at internet video and audio marketing.  one of my first mentors online actually.

And I think it’s a brilliant story that shows the power of the internet to market existing real world businesses, even very local business, who have a traditional business model but open minds when it comes to marketing.

Mike’s site also has a brilliant video promoting a local carpet company.  There are well edited videos of all the staff just talking about their customer service ethos, and why they are so proud of working there.  Where would I go for carpet if I lived in Georgia?  Well not some faceless shop where nobody cared about what they do or sell, that’s for sure.

I email Hal sometimes to let him know his emails light up the inbox of someone in the UK, and he always responds with amazement and delight.  Do you think he realises he is running the risk of becoming the Gary Vay.ner.chuk of the bug exterminating world?  A cult hero….

I might start a Facebook Fanclub for Hal.  what would he make of that, I wonder?

where am I going with all this?

Dunno, except I’ve just got back from Tamkin Riaz’s and Michael Young’s Mastermind Networking event in London where I was delighted to meet a roomful of new people, all successful, positive, upbeat people who are barely registering the credit crunch let alone being affected by it.  Specialists from all areas of the wealth creation arena -from all over the world – and very nice people.

Property investors whose long term investments are making a rental profit for the first time in ages, internet marketing specialists whose businesses are booming as everyone wakes up to the fact that a “job for life” is the riskiest thing you can bank on, and that the banks are the last places you should keep your cash.  Everyone is looking for another way, so if you have a success story, you can inspire others to changet their lives too, and boy, is that needed.  Tell your story, and exchange some energy.  Make some money while those who are not looking to change their mindset panic.

All of this was contrasting sharply with the blank, grey, miserable faces on the 8.15am commuter train from Shoreham to London.

And the man on GMTV this morning who took 21 weeks of serious, full time job seeking, to find another job exactly the same, and exactly as vunerable as the one he had been made redundant from.

If only he had applied himself so diligently to finding another way to make money rather than trading your hours for a pittance.  If only he had known there was “another way”.

Today, we made a list of the challenges of the average person, when trying to get to grips with property investing and internet marketing and then we tried to brainstorm what the solutions might be, in trying to get that average person to overcome those challenges and how to get them to take action.

As you might expect from a roomful of dynamic entrepreneurs, talented speakers and business people, by the end of the day, we had abandoned the “how to make the horse drink, having led him to water” rough plan for the day, and had come up with a MASSIVE money making scheme of our very own.

Herding cats, as Greg & Andy used to say of our meetings at Passive Investments in the early days.

Great fun, and thanks to Tamkin and Michael for organising the day and changing the venue from Luton to London so I could attend.  And I think I’ve met some joint venture partners and potential event organisers for my swiftly burgeoning speaking career.

Off to Manchester at 5.45am tomorrow (man!) to spend a day with one of my first ever Money Gym clients ever, to review his wealth creation actions over the last five years, and plan the next five.  Then to Central Manchester to speak for “Build Your Wealth” – you can still book to attend this interesting two days

Flying, luxury hotels, taxis, I absolutely love it.  Effortless travel, old friends and new and just great fun.

Tickets are flying out for the Property Extravaganza now, and Judith is reaching new paroxysms of excitement as she organises the speaker webinars to help encourage you to come along and help us help The Big Issue, who help the homeless help themselves.

She won’t rest till all 200 tickets are gone, and we are a quarter of the way there, with a month to go still.

Are you coming yet?  If not, why not?

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

we put on bloody marvellous events and even if you come for no other reason than to do what I’ve done today, which is hang out with dynamic, optimistic, positive, clever people………well, that’s a good enough reason, eh?

Gotta go, pan fried cod with asparagus, safron potatoes and a portugaise sauce (sundried tomatoes, garlic, parsley, white wine etc apparently) on the go next door….washed down with a glass of Judith’s present to the birthday boy, Steve.

YUM!

Have fun, we always do.

Nicola

We Never Worked A Day In Our Lives….

I keep uncovering little gems as people are still uploading videos from the Internet Marketer’s Cruise 2009.  Check out the sound track to this one which goes “never worked a day in my life” which is what people buy online (quick, easy, magic button stuff) but I’m telling you straight, we have all worked our arses off  in some form or another to be able to have this much fun. And it was great fun….
Join us next year off the coast of Mexico http://www.themoneygym.com/holidays

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