Fast Company Science on Twitter

Posted in: Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Fast Company recently published an article on Twitter, Report: Nine Scientifically Proven Ways to Get Retweeted on Twitter.

The article presents science on which Twitter updates get re-tweeted more often, and why.

Here’s what the data say:

• Use links in tweets, but use shorter URL shorteners
• Pleading for re-tweets works
• Idle conversation doesn’t
• Use $5 words (smarter updates get re-tweeted)
• Use punctuation, but not semi-colons
• World events and breaking news go viral fast
• Use proper nouns and 3rd person verbs
• Emo is a no no
• Best time of the day (4pm Eastern)
• Best day of the week (Friday)

To read the full article, visit Fast Company.

thubten @ October 31, 2009

Not My Passion = Not My Job

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy, Virtual Assistants | Comments (0)

As people who are endeavoring to implement the ideas found within The 4-Hour Workweek, we have become internet marketers. What we market online varies, but we are all internet marketers, just the same.

Tim Ferriss presented virtual assistance as integral to allowing us to free our time and get more done with less. Taking the leap to hiring my first virtual assistant has been quite a process. There was nothing inherently long about it; I just needed to paint myself into a corner before I was willing to jump. I have gotten tired of bending over to pick up pennies while dollars were falling out of my pockets.

My move to Portland was not inexpensive, and I did some hard looking at the math of my businesses to see how I could make more or spend less, hopefully finding a way to do both. Here’s the process I went through.

I started by writing down my income.  Let’s say it’s $50,000 per year. I divided that by 2000 hours (a salaried person’s work year), which gave me $25/hour. Some internet marketers work six days per week, which would give 2500 or so hours, yielding $20/hour.  You do your own math.

If you are doing tasks in your business that would cost you less to outsource to a virtual assistant, then you are HEMMORHAGING money by doing it yourself!

Some of my excuses I had come up with to avoid hiring a VA included:

Excuse #1: I don’t trust anyone doing my work for me.
Excuse #2: I can do it faster myself.
Excuse #3: I don’t have time to train an assistant.
Excuse #4: I don’t know if I can come up with 40 hours worth of work for them each week.

Here’s how I finally dealt with each of these on the path to hiring my first VA:

1. “I don’t trust anyone doing my work for me.”
What this has meant is that as long as I don’t trust others to get the work done for me, I can only do everything myself. It seems obvious when stated that way, but many of us don’t snap out of that trance, ever. This is the basis of the E-Myth as well, working on your business rather than in your business.

2. “I can do it faster myself.”
Depending on the task at hand, I probably can, but even if it takes my VA twice as long to do the work at $5/hour, I am still GAINING $10/hour for every hour of work (assuming you earn $20/hour.) Doing it yourself, you are WASTING $10/hour. Why not just light up an Alexander Hamilton once an hour? It will be more fun.

3. ” I don’t have time to train an assistant.”
Getting over/through this one took some mind bending on my part. It was during a LinkedIn message reply session (I get a LOT of mail on LinkedIn), that I realized it was insane for me to keep doing what I was doing. My behavior said that I would rather do the same repetitive task over and over and over again instead of training an assistant just ONCE so they can do the task FOREVER.

4. “I don’t know if I can come up with enough work for them.”
This was initially a concern for me when I started my search for an appropriate outsourcing firm.  What I found is that the best firms will find ways to keep the VA busy, working on my behalf, helping me make more money, which will help me better afford buying more time.  This process can take the form of my VA promoting an affiliate program where I get paid ongoing commissions for sales they help ME generate — without my assigning any work to them. So, I can end up earning more per month than I actually pay your VA. This is an amazingly positive feedback loop.

I have realized that there are literally hundreds of tasks that my virtual assistant can take off my plate very week. As I finished my days, I would make a list of my priorities for the next day. I noticed very quickly that at least half of my tasks could be easily delegated to a virtual assistant. This is how this whole process got started for me.

All I have to do is send an email with instructions on what’s to be done for the day. By the end of the day my assistant emails me, letting me know that my mind-numbing tasks were completed for me .

In my search for a company with the right fit, I discovered Daven Michaels, and 123Employee. You can download his free e-book which explains it all: Outsource This! Read the e-book, and then have a conversation with 123Employee about your needs. I am very glad that I did.

I recently recorded a podcast interview with Daven, which will be posted to the site very soon. The public portion of the interview covers the general questions that one might have about outsourcing a virtual assistant. The members-only interview covers specifics about how you, as an internet marketer on a quest for the 4-Hour Workweek, can get the most out of the service.

Download Daven’s book now: Outsource This!

thubten @ September 29, 2009

The Magic of RSS

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy | Comments (0)

I am writing an e-book, and would very much appreciate your input, so that I can answer your questions and make sure that the book meets your needs.

The book will cover maximizing the use of RSS feeds to build your audience and your reach. I will do a basic overview, and then go in depth on the various topics.

Is there anything specific that you like to know? Have you had problems getting one set up? What’s been your experience so far?

Every person who contributes a question will receive the e-book for free, once it is published. Please send your questions about RSS to RSSQuestions@4HourGuru.com.

You can subscribe to this blog’s feed by clicking the RSS logo above, or by visiting the RSS Subscription widget in the right sidebar.

thubten @ September 4, 2009

Creating Your Product

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy | Comments (0)

Creating your first information product can be a challenge, if you don’t have an experienced guide to show you the way. For me, that guide has been Brian McElroy.

I have been using Brian’s systems since I first met him and have had great success with them. I can’t recommend him highly enough. I know that many members of this 4-Hour Academy community have been using his product creation system with great success.

To learn more about Brian and his training visit Brian’s Site.

thubten @ August 26, 2009

Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization

Posted in: Re-Posts | Comments (0)

There are few holy grails in web design and internet marketing, and the perfection of on-page SEO is one of them.

In an inspired and exhaustive post to SEOmozBlog, radfish shows us how to create a ” ‘Perfectly’ Optimized Page.”

thubten @ August 17, 2009

Ask and You Will Succeed

Posted in: Book Reviews | Comments (0)

When I first heard the title of KennethFoster’s book, Ask and You Will Succeed, I thought it would be something like Jack Canfield’s The Aladdin Factor, where you the reader is encouraged to ask FOR what is desired.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that what is being asked is a series of questions to oneself about oneself. These questions have the reader (and asker) leading a self-reflexive Socractic conversation.

This is not a quick fix manual, although results may appear quickly. This is a life shifting series of questions that help you get to the root of what’s actually causing your current experience. With honest answers to honest questions, honest solutions appear.

Jack Canfield (@J_Canfield on Twitter) wrote the foreword, which is thoroughly insightful and adds a great deal to the anticipation of what’s to follow. I hope that Jack will find a way to get @JackCanfield on Twitter. It just seems right.

Getting to your 4-Hour Workweek, whatever that looks like for you, will come much more quickly when you’ve aligned yourself internally. I encourage you to use this book to engage in the conversation with yourself through Ken Foster’s Ask and You Will Succeed, taking yourself several steps, perhaps several miles, down that path.

thubten @ July 1, 2009

Twiche (Twitter Niche) Yourself

Posted in: Social Networking | Comments (0)

There are many free web services available to support Twitterers with building a following, too many to list here. A novel service has appeared on the Twitter stage, a personal Twitter concierge that does everything for you, with the important exception of submitting your updates.

TwicheYourself.com has established itself as a premier Twitter concierge service, which will manage your twitter following for an initial 90 day campaign, and then on a monthly basis if you choose to continue.

Twiche Yourself adds niched followers based on keywords that you choose, then unfollows those who choose to not follow you back, and then adds more niched followers.

Having an enormous following of people who don’t care about what you’re selling won’t make you any money. Having the biggest niched following possible will ensure that your message is going directly to those who really want to know what you have to say, as well as buy what you have to sell.

thubten @ May 11, 2009

Turbo-Charge Your WordPress Blog

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy, Connecting | Comments (0)

I have assembled a list of the very best WordPress plugins, some of which I use on my own blogs (*), and some of which I don’t.

Try them out yourself, and see if they work with and improve your blog.

Optimizing Your Blog Site

Ultimate Google Analytics*
Google Analytics is an amazing free web site tracking service. This plugin allows you to add your tracking code to your entire WordPress site in one easy step.

DB Backup*
Your entire WordPress database is backed up and sent to your email, or you can download the file.

WP-SpamFree
This amazingly powerful anti-spam plugin eliminates all automated spam.

All in One SEO Pack*
This universally useful plugin optimizes your meta tags for the search engines.

Google XML Sitemaps*
This Google XML Sitemaps plugin generates an XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your blog. XML-Sitemap is supported by Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and Ask.com.

Social Networking Support

Lifestream
Your activity from many different social sites can by channeled by Lifestream. Facebook, Friendster, Flikr, YouTube, Twitter as well as any other RSS feed are all supported.

Twitter Tools
You can pull your Twitter tweets onto your blog, both as posts and digests, as well as create tweets from within your WordPress blog.

Facebook Connect Community
Facebook Connect Community allows your blog’s users to sign in with their Facebook login info.

Spreading the Word

Sociable*
Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites includ ing Digg, Reddit, SU, Mixx, Propeller. You can also add e-mail and print buttons. It also supports TwitThis, but the plugin can be made easier by using TinyURL (or another URL shortening service) and automatically logging the user into Twitter with the URL and Title already shown.

Digg Digg
Dig Digg adds Digg, Reddit, Yahoo Buzz (and Stumble Upon coming soon) buttons with counters allowing your readers to vote for your posts directly on your page.

Visitor Interaction Tools

IntenseDebate
This plugin replaces the comment boxes with an advanced comment system, which includes karma points, RSS, threaded replies, and the ability to comment via email.

Disqus Commenting System
This plugin replaces the comment boxes with an advanced comment system, which includes Facebook Connect, RSS, Gravatars, comment karma threaded comments. Additionally, Discus features top commenters, recent comments, and video comments.

WP Greet Box
New visitors to your blog receive a greeting tailored to the site they were referred by: Google, Facebook, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, etc. Customizing a message for anyone coming from any specific site is a breeze.

Popularity Contest
Your readers will be able to see which of your posts are most popular based on views, comments and pingbacks, etc. You are able to weight the value of each type of feedback.

WP Since Last Visit
This very cool widget reveals to your blog’s visitors which posts and comments are new since their last visit.

WP-PostRatings
This plugin allows your readers to rate your posts, and allows you to display the ratings on the sidebar.

WP-PostViews
This plugin allows you to display how many times a post has been viewed.

Subscribe-Remind
Inserts below each post an invitation for your readers to subscribe via RSS.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin introduces your readers to other relevant content on your blog site.

Video Support

Smart YouTube
You can easily insert YouTube videos into your posts, comments and RSS feeds with this plugin.

Video Widget
You can easily display videos from video sharing websites on your blog. Supported formats include Quicktime, Windows Media Player, YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, Daily Motion, MetaCafe, Reever, Blip.tv, and others.

Miscellaneous Cool and Useful Stuff

Category Posts Widget
This widget will display any number of posts in your sidebar from any category you specify.

PHP Contact Form
Your readers can contact you easily and securely when you use this custom fields contact form generator

WP Page Numbers
This plugin adds pagination to your blog.

Front Page Excluded Categories
This plugin allows you to select categories you don’t want to appear on your front page, and block them.

DropCap First Character
This plugin makes the first character of a post larger, like in a magazine.

Wordpress Download Monitor
This plugin allows you to manage and track uploads to and downloads from your blog.

AdSense Manager
This plugin allows you to insert AdSense, Yahoo, AdBrite (and other) advertising to your sidebar (and anywhere else on your blog).

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ May 3, 2009

Twitterfy Yourself

Posted in: Social Networking | Comments (0)

I have been getting some amazing business results with Twitter. This has partly to do with what I’m tweeting about, mostly Beachbody, TurboJam, P90X, Hip Hop Abs, Shakeology, raw food, and social media.

It also has a lot to do with how many people are receiving my tweets, about 13,000. I’ve been using Hummingbird to build my Twitter following, and you can, too! Hummingbird has been an indispensable tool, and I recommend it highly.

I just can’t shut up about how amazing Twitter is. I recently recorded three shows all about Twitter with Jonathan Gillardi for our podcast, The New Rich Blog Podcast:

Twitterfy Yourself: (Part 1), (Part 2), and (Part 3).

Take a listen and please make comments!

Thubten

P.S. The VERY cool twitter bird graphic above is by @luclatulippe. It, and others, can be found at luclatulippe.com.

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ April 10, 2009

Spicing Up Your Squeeze Pages

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy | Comments (0)

So much relies on your first impression when someone arrives at your squeeze or landing page. You really need to grab your visistor’s attention and engage them as quickly as possible. 

I’ve been asked a lot lately about how to do squeeze/landing pages. I posted several months ago about a great resource for designing your first basic landing page (here’s the post).

Some community members have asked for additional information and support for spicing up their squeeze pages with video. Here is one that I recently discovered and recommend: Scott Drake’s Squeeze Page Mega Pack.

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ March 16, 2009

How am I Doing This?

Posted in: Affiliate Programs, Muses | Comments (0)

I made 2-Star Diamond Coach in Team Beachbody in ten weeks. How am I doing this? The short answer is that I’m listening to my mentors and am doing what they say. My mentors include Beachbody Superstar Diamond Coach Ariana Reed, as well as Jonathan Gillardi and Jonathan Budd.

Here are the first and the second 4-Hour Guru posts about Team Beachbody.

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ March 5, 2009

Better than Batman’s Utility Belt

Posted in: Muses | Comments (1)

Just like any superhero, each and every marketer uses a set of tools to ensure the success of each campaign. I’ve mentioned Jonathan Budd in my videos about my network marketing success. He’s one amazing marketer. Using his secret marketing utility belt he brought in 3000 individuals into my GeneWize business.

He had my attention early, and I have watched him build his businesses to over $125,000 per month in revenues in the past year, and he just turned 25 years old. It feels a bit odd being schooled by someone young enough to be my son, but he knows what he’s talking about.

Below is a list of the tools that Jonathan used and is using to build his businesses and his income. I share them with you so that you, too, can benefit from his experience, and mine.

Core Programs

Online MLM Mastermind System
This is Jonathan’s main program for The MLM Mastermind System. Build your own reverse funnel system with funded proposals to build your multiple streams of residual income.

Online MLM Mastermind
The Mastermind Mentoring program is one of the most sought after training and mentoring programs in existence. Join me in Jonathan’s exclusive inner circle.

Online MLM Mastermind Course
This is Jonathan Budd’s most successful online marketing course. Exhaustive doesn’t begin to cover what you’ll learn from Jonathan in this course.

Social Media

Twitter Friend Adder
Twitter Friend Adder is a Windows-based desktop application that helps you manage your Twitter presence and build a following on Twitter.

MySpace Friend Adder
Similar to the Twitter Friend Adder, the MySpace Friend Adder helps you build your group of friends and contacts on MySpace.

Search Engine Marketing Tools

Get Response
Every internet marketer needs an autoresponder to manage their campaigns. Get Response is designed with the internet marketer in mind.

Ad Goo Roo
For someone considering or actually engaging in lots of pay per click marketing, this is an EXTREMELY powerful keyword tool. It lets you spy on the biggest competitors in your niche, as well as generate massive lists of other keywords. An amazing tool to have for PPC.

Perry Marshall’s Adwords Course
This is a fantastic course for learning how to master google adwords.

Word Tracker
Word Tracker is by far one of the most advanced keyword research tools on the internet. Word Tracker is perfect for doing ANY keyword research. You will be able to tap into gold mines of undiscovered niches.

SEO Guide Book
This is the most powerful book on search engine optimization (SEO) on the market. If you want to get your articles, blogs, websites, videos, or ANY other piece of content to rank higher in the search engines… this book will teach you everything you need to know.

Video Marketing

Traffic Geyser
This is an awesome software package that allows you to automatically upload videos across over 75 different sites at once. Perfect for anyone doing video marketing.

YouTube Blaster Pro
For anyone seriously engaging in video marketing, you simply must have this software.

Personal Development

Wealth Dynamics Profiling
Team building is essential if you are going to be a successful marketer, so is knowing EXACTLY what your skill sets are. The XL Results Foundation is made up of the world’s most POWERFUL entrepreneurs and this test will be more valuable to your long-term success in marketing than just about anything else.

Super Mind Evolution System
The Super Mind Evolution System is an awesome program for teaching people alpha brain wave enhancements and mind strengthening techniques.

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ March 1, 2009

Beachbody Rocks!

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy, Muses | Comments (1)

We are rocking Team Beachbody! Here’s my Team Beachbody update video. I did my best to keep it short and sweet.

Here’s the original post about Team Beachbody.

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ February 27, 2009

Accounting ~ 4-Hour Style

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy | Comments (0)

Does your office look like this?

Are you prepared to do the accounting and bookkeeping for your new businesses?

The 4-Hour Workweek opens up the possibility of a migrant lifestyle, travelling regularly, engaging in international businesses, and taking mini-retirements abroad. This lifestyle is supported through aggressive entrepreneurship, which means running a business; running a business means doing accounting and bookkeeping.

Here are five strategies to help you get started on the right foot:

1. Mobilize

The most obvious step to get accounting data off your laptop and onto the internet. You’ll probably only need to do accounting once or twice a month so don’t worry about spotty internet connections. Look out for online accounting software that suits your business; especially look for a system with bank reconciliation, since you can use this to check for errors and omissions that may be more likely given the distributed nature of your business. It’s also helpful if there is an API which may allow you to hire a programmer in the future to automate some tasks.

2. Systemize

Design and document your accounting system. You will want to be able to delegate all your business related tasks on a moment’s notice, possibly to a foreign virtual assistant who will want very precise procedures and instructions to follow. Store this document on a hosted wiki or Google Sites, if possible, so you can easily update and share it.

3. Digitize

If you’re travelling, the last thing you want to manage is paper documents. Digital documents can fit in the change purse of your wallet, be backed up online, and shared to your virtual assistants and contractors. Consider mailing everything to Shoeboxed and Earth Class Mail to make digitizing and managing your documents easier. Keep original documents online using Zoho or Google Docs.

4. Optimize

First, eliminate all inefficiencies and redundancies in your accounting system. If you are entering data into two databases, consider hiring a custom software developer to write a one-click process to copy the data over instead. Also, avoid entering individual transactions where possible; you only need enough detail to do a bank reconciliation on your primary business bank account. If you are getting a lot of transactions on your bank account, consider using a secondary one and transferring lump sums to clear away the clutter on your bank statement.

Second, get familiar with the reporting in your software, and use the reports to apply the 80/20 rule to focus your efforts on the businesses and products that are the most profitable. Don’t forget to value your time – if you want to make $100k per year on 4 hours per week, every hour is worth $500; don’t consider a business profitable until you’re taking at least that wage in profit. Consider using time tracking software to get a more accurate sense of how much time you are spending.

5. Get Advice

Find an accountant with relevant experience to advise you on tax best practices and help you with all of the above. Most people earning $70k or more should be able to get back the accountant’s fee in tax savings, and if your business gets more complex, an accountant will be able to read the pulse of the business in ways only an accountant can.

About The Author

Dobes Vandermeer is the founder of Habitsoft Inc., the maker of Clarity Accounting, an online accounting application for small businesses and startups. He resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada with his wife and business partner, May Chu, and their newborn son, Dante. Dobes began programming computers before he started high school. His other interests include philosophy, personal development, entrepreneurship, fantasy/sci-fi novels, and business/productivity books.

Connect with Dobes on LinkedIn.

dobes @ February 8, 2009

Research Research Research

Posted in: 4-Hour Academy | Comments (0)

I’ve been spending much of my time early this year researching ways to increase and improve the results we’ve been getting with the revenue generation programs we are participating in, as well as examining new programs that may get us all to our 4-Hour Workweek more quickly and reliably. The next few posts will include the highlights of the research I’ve been doing, and I am excited to share those results with you here.

You’ll hear about Team Beachbody and how that’s growing. You’ll hear about the guy who helped me to build my GeneWize organization to more than 3000 distributors in six months, Jonathan Budd. You will learn specifically what he did and how you will be able to apply his tactics and strategies to building the marketing engine for your own Muses.

Stay tuned!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ February 1, 2009

A Slam Dunk Home Run

Posted in: Muses | Comments (2)

Team Beach Body – The Coaching Program

The timing of the Beach Body coaching deal was too important to wait until January to get this video posted.  I was on the verge of a holiday season cold when I made this video, so please listen to the content, rather than the sniffles. Enjoy!

I have a lot of opportunities cross my desk every week, the vast majority of which are “me too” products (just like everyone else), or are just not all that interesting. I thank the people who present those opportunities to me for sharing them with me and move on.

What does it take for an opportunity to make the cut, before I will join or share it with you? The company really needs to make it easy for the distributor to qualify and make money, and the program has to work without requiring you to share with all of your friends and family.

How much does the company need to do for you, the distributor, before I will consider joining? They need to do a lot, plain and simple. Beachbody is doing some heavy lifting. Because Beach Body is already grossing over $300M on the $100M they’re spending on infomercials every year, they can afford to leverage their new distributor organization into place.

I have never seen a company go as far as Beachbody to launch their distributor network. Here’s what I’m talking about:

1) They Give You Customers: Beachbody is giving customers generated by their infomercials directly to the coaches (distributors) with a 25% retail commission on all follow-up sales.

2) They Give You Coaches: Beachbody is also placing new coaches under qualified current Diamond coaches.

When I was presented the opportunity to join Beachbody as a coach, I asked lots of questions and all of them were answered, mostly on the Team Beachbody web site. To take a look, visit Beachbody’s Site. I later got on a conference call and got the rest of my questions answered.

Finally, you may know that this last year I have been in the process of shedding weight, more than 70 pounds so far. I will be shedding at least another 110 pounds in 2009, maybe more. Part of why I’m so excited about participating with Beachbody is that I get to give myself and those who participate with me in Beachbody, the gift of health and fitness, as well as the gift of financial freedom. How cool is that?

If you’re ready to get started as a coach or have unanswered questions, send me an email: 4HourGuru@gmail.com.

I’ve been a coach for less than two weeks and I already have my first check!  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ December 24, 2008

The King of Twitter

Posted in: Social Networking | Comments (0)

@artbrock and @thubten
at the Angel Capital Summit

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ December 23, 2008

Creating your First Landing Page

Posted in: Membership Sites | Comments (3)

Many of you have asked for assistance with creating your first landing page.

When I started writing web pages back in the mid-90s, I found it helpful to look at sites that I liked and see how they were put together.

In the spirit of reinventing no wheels, here is a landing page template that you might want to use to get yourself started: http://dotcompreneur.com/free-landing-page-template.

Good luck!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ December 20, 2008

Learning from Ryan Deiss

Posted in: Continuity, Membership Sites | Comments (0)

I’ve been learning a great deal from Ryan Deiss about membership web sites. I’ve followed his advice to the letter. Everything’s been going smoothly thus far.

To learn more about what Ryan’s doing with membership sites, check out this VIDEO.

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

Tags: Continuity, Membership Sites

thubten @ November 2, 2008

Multiple Muses – Little Steps

Posted in: Muses | Comments (0)

What Is A Muse?
Muses are how Tim refers to online automatic internet cash machines. A muse can be anything that generates income for you that you don’t have to manage more than four hours per week. The more efficient and productive the muse, the more time you have to live your life the way you choose.

Many Muses Make Light Work
Tim has several businesses that allow him to have his lifestyle of choice. If he decided to increase the cost of his lifestyle, he would either have to increase the revenue generated by one or more of his current muses, or create one or more new muses to make up the difference.

For us who are just starting out with one or more full or part-time jobs, we have to do quite a lot of work to get our muses up and running. Increasing efficiencies and marketing effectiveness will allow our muses to lift us out of our current daily routines, giving us the freedom to create lives that we love and that support us fully. Does that describe why you’re a part of this group?

I look forward to hearing your success stories.

Attracting the dream!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ November 1, 2008

Affiliate Programs to Join

Posted in: Affiliate Programs, Muses | Comments (0)

The 4-Hour Academy Bootcamp is on its way in November.

You will want to have a Muse to work on during the bootcamp. Having one or more affiliate marketing sites
would be a perfect way to get started.

You will have the opportunity to become a 4-Hour Academy affiliate prior to the bootcamp. I will send out a link in an email in the not too distant future. You will also be able to promote The 4-Hour Academy programs through ClickBank.

Below are several affiliate programs not available through Clickbank. Click on the subject link to get to the affiliate signup page.

Protecting the King

4-Hour Academy member Gail Lynn was Executive Producer of Protecting the King, a film about Elvis Presley’s younger step-brother, David Stanley. David directed the film.

If you want to purchase the film prior to becoming an affiliate, I request that you use my affiliate link to make that purchase: Buy the PTK DVD.

Mind Movies

You may have already had exposure to Mind Movies. Whether you have or not, you will want to become a Mind Movies affiliate. Become an affiliate first, then buy your Mind Movies package, if you haven’t already. I have had amazing results with my own mind movie, and am excited to be able to share this affiliate program with you.

As I discover more effective affiliate programs, I will share them with you. My next post will be about having multiple Muses, or multiple streams of income. Now, more than ever, we need to keep our focus on having more than one source of income.

This will be fun. I promise!

To your freedom!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ October 31, 2008

The Basics of Affiliate Marketing

Posted in: Affiliate Programs, Muses | Comments (0)

Here is a taste of what you’ll be learning during the 4-Hour Academy bootcamp. This session covers the basics of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing Basics

If you intend to use affiliate marketing as your sole Muse (automated online income stream) or as a supplemental Muse, you’ll want to have a basic understanding of what you want to achieve with your affiliate marketing program. Decide what level of income you intend to produce from each program you start. Search for a program or product that will allow you to reach your goal. You’ll have to know what questions to ask, then how to market your product, and what pitfalls to avoid. This article is not intended to be a sole source of information on affiliate marketing, however, it should get you started in the right direction.

Questions to Ask

Choosing the right affiliate program is essential to having a successful Muse. To get your feet wet, you can join the programs I’ll be including in a follow-up email. Using a broad-based service such as ClickBank will handle many of your concerns. Still, asking some simple questions will help you to decide:

1. What is the cost to become an affiliate? Since most affiliate programs are free, there had better be a VERY good reason that you’ll be charged anything to join a program.

2. How and when will I be paid? Each program is different. Some programs pay with PayPal, and others mail you a check. Some programs pay monthly, and others pay quarterly. Some programs require a minimum amount of commission is earned before they’ll issue a payment to the affiliate.

3. How is the customer tracking done? You’ll want to know how long your referrals will remain in their system, and if each email address belongs to the first affiliate that it’s referred by, or if the referring affiliate can be overwritten by a subsequent registration.

4. How and where are the affiliate statistics maintained? You’ll want to make sure that you can access your detailed stats online in real time.

5. Is the affiliate program one- or two-tier? You’ll get paid on the commissions of those you sponsor if it is a two-tier program.

6. What is the conversion ratio? This number tells you how many visitors you need to produce to make a sale. Obviously, the higher this number is the better.

7. Will the program pay you for hits and impressions as well as sales? This isn’t essential, and it’s a good question to ask.

8. What’s the commission rate? The commission on sales can be as low as 5% and as high as 100%. I’ve even seen 125% programs. You’ll want to make sure that the commission rate makes your work worthwhile. Commissions on hits and impressions are usually between .01% and .05%.

Marketing Tactics

It is more important that you get started with something, than that you start with the most amazing program known to history. The paralysis of analysis stops more people than any of us would care to admit. Selecting a program that will provide a decent return is a good idea. You don’t want to waste your money (or your reputation) on advertising or selling low-quality goods or services.

What you, as an affiliate marketeer, are hunting for is the best market to market into, one that provides the
biggest payoff for the least effort (a “4-Hour Compliant” business). While this holy grail is possible, there’s no formula out there for you to follow. There are some solid practices that have been used successfully by the biggest and best in the business. I’m sharing with you here the top methods and practices that will help you to do very well in online affiliate marketing:

1. Offer something free to each visitor. This can be a report or a piece of software, something easy for you to provide automatically with no cost to you. Make sure that your report or other free item has real value. This will distinguish you from others who are marketing the same product. Place the “Free Item” offer and button at the top of the landing page, so it will always be seen. Follow up with each person who takes one of your free items. Use an auto-responder like aweber.com to receive their information and to set up the follow-up emails. You likely won’t make the sale on the first visit. It’s been shown that the average customer will buy from you after the seventh contact, so stick with it. Make sure that your auto-responder messages are full of useful information related towhat you want to sell. Slant the information toward why they should want to buy from you. Each email from you should have a subject line that will get your prospect to open the email. If they don’t open it, they can’t read it and they likely won’t buy from you. Make sure to run your email through a spam filter checker before you send it so that you can avoid the pitfall of getting dumped in the trash by their email client before they ever get to see your amazing information.

2. Do everything you can to ensure that the traffic coming to your site is targeted. Having only random eyeballs looking at your site will get you random and pitiful results. To help target your traffic you can write articles on your topic and post them on relevant sites. You will also want to set up a web lens on squidoo.com. Learning how to get the most out of a Squidoo web lens is a whole lesson, if not a course by itself. If there’s demand, we can put one together. Do your best with Squidoo on your own first. You’ll want to write and post one or more 500-word articles each week. The effect of these articles will be cumulative. As you post more, your previous articles will begin producing more visitors to your site.

3. As you build your list (another lesson/course) you can begin to publish an e-zine or newsletter (yet another lesson/course) and send it to your list. Publishing the e-zine or newsletter will help you build a relationship with your list, and marketing to someone you know is easier and more profitable than marketing to someone you don’t. Make sure that the information you include is useful, but not a sales pitch. Once your readers feel that they’ve gotten information that is more valuable than what you’re asking them to purchase, they’ll become buyers.

4. When you put each web site up, make sure that there’s only one page for each product or service that you’re marketing. If you put everything together, people will get confused and leave without opting-in. Include testimonials and reviews on the site, so that the visitors will be able to relate the product or service to their own lives and needs. Photos, names and locations will make a big difference in the effectiveness of your reviews and testimonials. Designing and writing a sales letter page is again another lesson or course. Browse others’ sales sites and see how they do it. An example sales letter page for one of my Muses is www.driveyourkarma.com. Not to worry, it’s a test page example. Including your related articles on other pages on the site could help bring targeted traffic, too.

5. Use video whenever you can. Video sells much better than text. If possible, create a demonstration video showing the product in use. You can post the videos on your websites as well as on YouTube. The YouTube videos will direct people to your marketing site.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Affiliate marketing is a very powerful and relatively easy way to make some extra money online. If it is managed well, it could very well become your only Muse. Affiliate programs are very egalitarian in nature. The sites that attract and convert the most visitors will make the most money. The pitfalls are equally egalitarian in nature. Ignorance of these pitfalls will cost you:

1. Getting on a bandwagon. When you are marketing something that everyone else is also marketing, you’ve got some serious competition. This competition is not just for customers, but for clicks in your PPC campaign. To avoid this pitfall, look to your own likes and dislikes. Choose something to market that you enjoy (or would enjoy) and use (or would use). It will be easier for you to write compelling copy about something that you like and enjoy. You can promote that product to people who are like you where people like you will be hanging out (online).

2. Failing to buy or use the product. Not being your first customer will kill your business. Once you’ve identified the program that you want to join, buy the product and use it. Put it through its paces. The better you know the product, the better the copy you’ll be able to write. Your enthusiasm will be genuine and your prospects will feel it. Only after you’ve used the product and are happy with it should you sign up for the affiliate program.

3. Getting distracted by too many programs. It is easy to get excited about affiliate programs and great products. It is also easy to join affiliate programs, so you might join too many. Being distracted with too many programs and products will ensure that your sites, reports and articles are unfocused. Join them and build them one at a time until each one can run on autopilot. That’s the best way to ensure reliable income from your affiliate programs.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-Per-Click advertising is an art, one that can be studied at length to great depth and still you’ll have more to learn. My best advice for anyone wading into this area is to purchase a system that will show you exactly what to do and how to do it. When you follow the system, you will produce results.

There is one system I have used that does just this. I did not want to have to become an expert in PPC. I just wanted results. The system that delivers the best results is Commission Blueprint.

Not that you’ll have any reason to utilize it, they have a 60 day refund policy. If you don’t produce results within 60 days, you’ll get a full refund. I figured that if they’re that confident in their system I should be, too.

Get a head start on your 4-Hour Academy Bootcamp classmates and get started with Commission Blueprint and ClickBank.

I look forward to hearing your success stories, so get started NOW!

To your freedom!

Thubten

Please Follow, Connect with and Friend Me:

thubten @ October 30, 2008

Membership Sites – Continuity Blueprint

Posted in: Continuity, Events, Membership Sites | Comments (0)

What Is Continuity?
If you are building sales on your site(s), but are only selling to your customers one time, you’re leaving lots of money on the table. It’s been shown that it is much easier and less expensive to sell to someone who’s already bought from you, than it is to a new customer.

Over the past year, since I first read The 4-Hour Workweek, I have been studying and test-driving many systems that others’ have created to help people like us to build our online businesses, businesses that will free our time from our income. The quicker we are able to build that additional source of income, the quicker we’ll be able to quit our jobs or take a long leave of absence, or do whatever we want to with our time.

Who the Heck is Ryan Deiss?
The person who’s most impressed me in the arena of true online business building is Ryan Deiss. Below are links to several videos in which he explains how he sets up ALL of his online businesses. I’ve gotten tons of value just from these videos:

Business on a Napkin
Ryan explains how all of his businesses are structured so the business model fits on just one cocktail napkin.

Continuity Snowball
Ryan details how the numbers work within his own businesses using his Napkin Strategy.

Publisher
Ryan demonstrates how we don’t have to be, and may not want to be, a master of anything to make money online, simply by publishing others’ great ideas.

12 Minute Membership Site
It was this video that brought home just how valuable Ryan’s materials would be to everyone in this group. If all you do is watch this video, you’ll be several steps ahead of everyone in the group who doesn’t.

Continuity Case Study
Ryan walks us through his own ForEx membership site.

Continuity Blueprint Sales Letter
This is all an amazing education for us. Take a look at how Ryan structures his sales letter and learn from a master.

A Very Special Offer
For those of you in the Denver-Metro area, I will be leading a Continuity Blueprint Mastermind, which will meet once each week for ten weeks starting in January.

Each Continuity Blueprint Mastermind meeting will be between one and two hours in length, depending on the size of the group and on the content covered that week. We will walk through the process of building an online business using the techniques and strategies offered by Ryan in Continuity Blueprint.

This investment in your education is only $497. Installment arrangements can be made. To reserve your seat, send an email to DenverMastermind@4HourGuru.com.

Attracting the dream!

Thubten

Profile: LinkedIn.com/in/thubten
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/thubten

thubten @ October 28, 2008

4-Hour Academy Instructor Profile: Bill Ayers

Posted in: Connecting, Instructor Profiles | Comments (0)

I would like to introduce you to Bill Ayers, one of the 4-Hour Academy experts on Muse building. Bill has been assisting individuals with building their online businesses since I’ve known him. He is the creator and owner of Webeneur.com and is a tireless advocate for the Mobile World Citizen lifestyle (MobileWorldCitizen.com).

I conducted an interview with Bill especially for this group: Listen/Stream or Download. Once you’ve listened to the interview, you’ll know why so many people have used Bill as a coach to help them develop and build their Muses.

Bill’s personal coaching program includes:

• One 30 minute one-on-one call per week
• A structured format to accelerate your business
• Direct input from someone who has already created mobile income (Muse)

You can count on receiving:

• Experienced guidance on how to start and/or grow your Muse
• Valuable input on how to move forward quickly to reach your goals
• A 100% Money_Back Guarantee

Some of our programs are very US-centric, and that can be difficult for many members of our group. This program can be utilized from anywhere in the world. Please take advantage of this golden opportunity. To apply to be one of the people to benefit from Bill’s master coaching on the topic of freeing yourself to live the life that you dream of living, click through to his web site and sign up now: Mentoring Program.

On the site look for the “email me” link, and send Bill the information he requests. It’s as simple as that! I look forward to hearing your stellar success stories very soon!

Attracting the dream!

Thubten

********************

Thubten Comerford
Profile: LinkedIn.com/in/thubten
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/thubten

thubten @ October 25, 2008

Getting Connected

Posted in: Connecting | Comments (0)

Whether or not you are an entrepreneur at this moment, the only way that you’ll be able to liberate your time is to be one. Whenever I send you an email, I will interact with you as an already successful entrepreneur. I am assuming that you joined the 4-HA group in order to become a member of The New Rich, as described in The 4-Hour Workweek.

The 4-Hour Academy Community
Since I first started this 4-HA community group on LinkedIn I have been at work creating my muses and getting them going. (Remember, Muses are how Tim refers to online automatic internet cash machines.) I have spent a great deal of time studying and implementing internet marketing strategies and tactics that Tim did not go into in his book.

Connecting with me
I request that as part of your participation in the group, that you connect with me directly on LinkedIn. You may find my profile at www.LinkedIn.com/in/thubten. You may use my gmail address to invite me: 4HourGuru@gmail.com. Please mention the 4-HA in your invitation, so I know not to re-invite you to this group on LinkedIn.

I also request that you sign up for an account on twitter.com, if you don’t already have one. Please begin to follow me. Twitter is one place where I regularly post what’s going on in the 4-Hour world. Seeing how people tweet on Twitter will help you prepare to promote yourself and your products online with style. You can follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/thubten.

Connecting with 4-Hour Gurus on LinkedIn
Two other 4-Hour gurus that you should connect directly with are Scott Everson and Bill Ayers. Scott is the lead instructor at the 4-Hour Academy, and you can find his LinkedIn profile at: www.LinkedIn.com/in/scotteverson. Scott’s email address is Scott@Everson.ws.

Bill is the leader of the Webeneurs group in San Francisco, and is a mover in the 4-Hour Workweek world. You can find his LinkedIn profile at: www.LinkedIn.com/in/MobileWorldCitizen. Bill’s email address is Bill@Webeneur.com. You will want to connect with Scott and Bill directly.

Joining Entrepreneurs’ Groups on LinkedIn
I am also involved with several additional groups on LinkedIn and enthusiastically invite you to join these groups. They are groups that you’ll want to join, even if only to expose yourself to some new and interesting
people.

Calling All Angels
Calling All Angels is a group of entrepreneurs who are committed to helping each other raise the funds they need to start and build their businesses. Join this group to learn how to prepare yourself and your project for funding.

Entrepreneurial Standards Forum
The Entrepreneurial Standards Forum is for entrepreneurs seeking to improve their business model, their revenues, and their profits through the sharing of information. Businesses that go through the ES2F benchmarking process are more likely to succeed, and are therefore more attractive to potential investors.

Startup Founders
Startup Founders is a group of startup founders, networking with each other, sharing information, joining others’ teams, building solid new businesses that thrive.

Attracting the dream!

Thubten

********************

Thubten Comerford
Profile: LinkedIn.com/in/thubten
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/thubten

thubten @ October 20, 2008

Welcome to the 4-Hour Guru Web Site

Posted in: -Welcome | Comments (0)

Fellow entrepreneur!

It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to The 4-Hour Academy. You chose to join this group on LinkedIn, and I thank you. It is my intention that this decision on your part have a positive effect on the rest of your life.

What is The 4-Hour Academy?
The 4-Hour Academy is a group of like-minded people from around the world who are committed to freeing their time and their lives from their income. We have been inspired by the book by Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek. If you haven’t purchased it yet, please do.

This is a virtual community, which is linked through through this web site. Over the next several months I will be building out an online community for us all to interact through. If you are someone who has the desire and skills to put together an online social network for The 4-Hour Academy, please let me know.

What Can I Expect?
You can expect to receive information blasts brimming with great opportunities to build your online businesses (Muses) to first replace, and then exceed your current income, as I have. I will be sharing with you what I’ve done to be able to create each day without concern for where my next dollar will come from, how I can choose how I work, where I work and when I work, and how I did this using the principles contained in The 4-Hour Workweek.

When you receive an email or link to a blog post from me, please read it, and then decide if what’s being offered or presented is for you. If it isn’t (and much of the time it may not be for you), please simply archive it.Some of what is presented will resonate with you and you’ll dive in. There is so much information to present that you won’t be able to put it all to use right away. Build your Muses over time.

Instructor Profiles
Sometimes what I will be sending to you will have Instructor Profiles (profiles of the 4-Hour Academy instructors, people who have expertise in the areas you will need to master, or outsource in order to free yourself).

Muse Profiles
Some of what I send you will contain Muse Profiles (these are opportunities that I and others are using to create multiple streams of automatic income. These are what will free you from your job, if you still have one. Some of the muses will be US-centric, and others will be available to anyone. If you have a Muse to share with the group, please submit it. It may be selected as a featured Muse Profile.

4-Hour Academy Bootcamp
As part of your participation in The 4-Hour Academy, you will have the opportunity to participate, at no cost to you, in a 4-Hour Academy boot camp, which will walk you through each step. I have been working with the experts to put this boot camp together, and have gone to great length and personal expense to make it available to you at no cost.

The boot camp will cover everything that you need to know to get your Muses up and running. Some Muses will look like those described in The 4-Hour Workweek, and others will not.

The essential topics will be covered during the boot camp in detail, and won’t be just an assortment of links skimmed from an internet marketing podcast. There will be real, useful information, presented by real experts in each topic area.

This is a Marketing Community
This is a community, but it is specifically a marketing community. We are all learning how to market our products and services via email and web sites, so you will be receiving emails that look very much like the emails you will be sending out to your lists as you are building your own Muses. Learn from these emails. Don’t just archive or delete them. Once we have an online community to interact in, this process will become much more collaborative. I am very much looking forward to that day.

What Happens Next?
The group has been around for a while, about a year now, and I’ve shared a great deal with the group during that time. You will receive all of the information from those emails that is still relevant and useful to you.

I look forward to your active participation in the group. Please send me your ideas and resources, so that I might share them with everyone. Eventually we’ll have a site where all of this information can be aggregated.

I’ve created a survey on Survey Monkey, where you can leave your input for me about what you’d like to see happens with this group. I look forward to reading your success stories. Click Here to take survey.

Please remember that we are all in this together, creating and building on opportunities together, learning together, each starting from wherever we are and creating lives we love.

To your freedom!

Thubten

********************

Thubten Comerford
Profile: LinkedIn.com/in/thubten
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/thubten

thubten @ October 15, 2008