Ignite Nashville 2010- My World Domination Presentation

So you may have caught my blog post earlier this week about the formula for world domination. If you didn’t, then scroll down a bit – it’s down there. I had so much fun thinking about it, I decided to turn it into my Ignite Nashville presentation. So here’s my “test” run-through to make sure I understood what to say in each slide.

If you didn’t make Ignite Nashville this spring, check out BarCamp Nashville in the fall! Lots of fun. And to see the live performance, check out the Ignite Nashville website.

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My Guide To World Domination

So I haven’t yet dominated the world, but didn’t think that was any reason not to write about how to do it. It’s not like you have to have been President to run for the Presidency. All you need is a plan and a good media team.

So not having a good media team, I thought I would start with World Domination and perhaps move on to the Presidency at a later date. At least that’s how it seems to have evolved thus far.

Joey Smith, the energetic and focused marketing guru, helped me understand the flaws in my early strategy plan during a short conversation at NAMS. He was talking about how to find joint venture partners and said “start small, find partners with the same list size as yours” – but my mind immediately took that tidbit and applied it to my overall plan.

His point was don’t try to hook a big fish joint venture partner if you haven’t yet tackled the little fish yet. Besides, won’t the little fish make much happier partners? Especially if you succeed and both become big fish.

So my marketing strategy has changed a bit since my talk with Joey Smith. Now I plan to continue with smaller goals, dominate those smaller niches and move on to bigger ones. But here’s what makes my World Domination plan different: Dominate a Niche and then work on an overlapping Niche. That way some of the players will be the same, and your message can be carried to the new group by your old fans.

What’s your plan for World Domination? How do you go from where you are now, to where you envision yourself? Leave a comment so we can all ooh and aah.

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DanMorrisMarketing.com is Live

“So my friends the time has come. Time to raise the roof and have some fun.” I’m not sure about the roof part, but I did accomplish a goal this week. I completed and made live my newest creation: http://danmorrismarketing.com

I love this LettersFromDan site, but like I said in one of my previous posts – your blog must have a theme to be ultimately successful financially. There’s so much clutter in this world that “randomness” often just doesn’t cut it. For example, how many men go straight to the Sports Section when they unravel the morning paper? There’s a reason it has its own section. I bet there are a TON of people that read the sports section and that’s it.

What are the chances they’d subscribe to the paper if sports stories were just randomly placed throughout the paper?

But LettersfromDan makes me smile – so I decided I’m not changing it – though I contemplated it for a long time. Ultimately, the only reason I wanted to change it was so clients and prospective clients had a place to “check me out” online. My adventures with Mark, thoughts on the different places I enjoy traveling and random opinions just didn’t fill that need.

Thus DanMorrisMarketing was born. And this week it is live. You’ll see some new stuff over there – but it will not serve as a constantly updated blog as I’ve intended this to be. So join me there. Join me here. In either case, I love that you’re reading and look forward to chatting with you soon.

(oh that first sentence, that was the opening line of “All night Long” by Lionel Richie – in case that’s haunting you right now).
:)

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Twitter Problems: Contingency Planning

Do you spend hours of time on Twitter?

Let me rephrase that.

Does Twitter mean something to your business?

If so, what would happen if Twitter went down? If you lost all of your followers? What would happen if someone started spamming from your account? (Could you imagine if someone started sending out porn links from the @microsoft “verified” account?) Do you have a contingency plan?

The fact of the matter is having a contingency plan is sometimes what makes and breaks a company. Let’s take a look at Toyota for example. They’re suffering some major PR bruising right now because they’ve failed to act timely and confidently in the face of their automotive problems.

Let’s compare that to Johnson & Johnson – the definitive contingency planning company. When someone reported they’d found a needle in their shampoo – J&J went into action. They’d already brainstormed that problem and had a book with the fix already written. Within a week they had all the affected shampoo out of stores and new “Needle-Free” labeled shampoo on the shelves.

We know that Twitter has become part of our business because you can barely watch any news program that doesn’t cite Twitter or invite you to comment on Twitter. More and more people are joining Twitter, following companies, brands and people and “believing” what is being tweeted. That being said, it’s also largely out of our control. Everyday, people are encountering twitter problems like:

  • Spammers
  • Lost Followers
  • Lost Profile Photo
  • Deleted Account
  • or the inability to log-in among others

The key is to get the solution in your hands BEFORE you have a problem. For example there are two things you have to do to stop a spammer should they get access to your account. Unless you do both, you likely won’t stop them. And once you see spam with your name on it, how long do you have to fix it before your customers’ notice? Before they complain? Before they unfollow you?

I wrote a report called TwitterGlitch that highlights these problems, how to fix them, who to talk to at Twitter to get them fixed and even which third party “help desks” are monitored by Twitter.

The smartest thing you can do to protect your Twitter account is to click on “Profile” everyday and make sure all the tweets on your front page were left by you. And if you’re using Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, make it a habit to log-in to Twitter.com once per week to check your account log-in. Otherwise, get a copy of TwitterGlitch and have the solutions to your problems in your hands. Don’t make finding the solutions your second problem.

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The Work Gets Easier. . .

Last night I did something I haven’t done before. I took a product, created a website and started driving traffic to it in less than an hour. Now that is LEAPS and BOUNDS ahead of where I was a year ago, before the first NAMS conference.

Now I have shiny button syndrome, so perhaps, I shouldn’t have digressed from my original goals to get that done last night. But I came across a free “rebrandable” e-book from Kevin Riley. Normally I think I would have just set it aside for the time being, but Kevin mentioned that he put some “case studies” about how businesses use Twitter in the report.

Having just produced Twitter Glitch, I was immediately interested.  So I quickly read the report and actually thought it was pretty cool – excellent information – for Twitter users.  What was even better is that it was a “Free Report” I could give out on my own site.

A good part of this “hour” getting this executed was deciding how to give it away. I assumed I would “tweet” about its existence, but there still had to be a way for people to view it.  So where do I put it? In a new post in this blog? On Facebook? On a new webpage? As a bonus in TwitterGlitch? Hmmm. . .

I really wanted to use it to help build a list, but ultimately decided that a “Free” report should be free.  So I abandoned my desire to use an opt-in box and ultimately decided to create a new webpage on TwitterGlitch.com.  I may change that – and always can – that’s just what I did.

Now Kevin Riley does makes it easy to give away his reports. He provides you a webpage and even some e-mails so you can tell people about the free report. So I modified one of his webpages and created this page: http://twitterglitch.com/TwitterMeThis (take a look at it).  When you press the button, you get the report instantly! Voila!

So, I was quite excited by that. There’s no way I could have done that a year ago – and while that’s small potatoes to the experts, it makes me smile like an expert.

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Getting it Done! The Work. The Priorities.

Ever come back from a networking event, or a conference or a workshop with tons of stuff on your plate? Did you end up watching videos on YouTube to give yourself a break before you really got to work?

I did that. Last week in fact.

I got back from the Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop in Atlanta so full of vim and vigor I almost didn’t know what to do. Almost.

But I figured it out. If you were there and you were listening, Mark Hendricks gave you the answer “start with the end, and work backward”. That’s sorta logical, I guess.

So let’s break it down. Your goal is to profit from your business, and just exactly how are you going to do that?  This is where some people get stumped. So let’s make it easy. Well, you’re going to do that by collecting more money than you spend. Easy?

So my first thought was: I’ve created a product. It’s done, it might need some tweaking but it’s done. So how are people going to pay for this product? They’re going to need PayPal or some sort of order now button. OK. That’s actually done. In order to buy it, they’re going to have to understand what they’re buying. Sales Page. OK – That’s done.

Now, if you’re in the same boat and one of these things isn’t done- well, that’s your action plan right there. Finish that.

The Sales page is done. The checkout is done. The product is done. I even found some ‘bonus’ products to add to the sale. Not Done. I guess I’m doing that.

But when I’m done with that, the only other piece I need is buyers. Hmm. . . I just organized my list of things to do on this project from the back to the front. I know what’s done, which means I know what’s left.

Now I need to work on those traffic generating ideas I learned at NAMS. That means articles, blog  posts, tweets, videos, podcasts, Facebook updates, finding JV’s, backlinks, mini-sites, etc… Does it matter which one you do first?

No. Do the one that sounds fun right now. I mean you might as well be having fun. Suppose writing articles sounds fun today, and tomorrow and the next day, should you get down on yourself that you’re not doing videos and podcasts and backlinks? 

Nope! because if you were doing articles and articles and articles – guess what? You were doing something that’s going to pay off. When you feel like doing a video – do it. When you feel like turning your articles into videos  – do that. If you understand that repurposing is easier than creating new content, and choose to create new content anyway – Good For You! You’ll always have time for more content – just as you’ll always have time for repurposing.

My advice to you. . . Don’t sell tickets to an event that happens once. Don’t spend your time on things that have an expiration date.  Spend everyday doing something that will last, something that will help and something that keeps you smiling.

And remember that every social media account that you open, every site that you build, every hurdle that you jump makes it that much easier tomorrow. Ever meet a successful internet marketer who hasn’t been doing this for 5 or more years? I don’t think so.

Well, guess what they were doing the first 5 years? Yep – creating the systems, the products, the sites, the networks, the tips and the tutorials. This is a long distance haul. Settle in, it’s going to be a good ride.

So tell me your “after conference” secrets to organizing your priorities. Let’s learn a little something (before we meet up on YouTube, watching videos). :)

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Fill In The Gaps and Achieve Your Own Success this Year!

So Darren Crawford and I had an idea after seeing at least one person come away from NAMS without even a blog set-up.  We decided we’d start a weekly mastermind group for #NAMS folks.  The idea is simple really.

Once per week, we’ll put on a NAMS only, mastermind phone call. If you’re like me, you’re not ready to hire a VA until you’ve got some level of confidence and knowledge about the tasks. And I recall quite well that 1 year ago getting a blog set-up was a major hurdle. In fact, it wasn’t until NAMS that Cathy the WordPressWizard informed me about the difference between a Wordpress.com account and a Wordpress blog.

So, go to Free Weekly Mastermind.com and get in on the fun. Between the two of us we can get you from A – M, then we’ll make sure to have some guest experts on the calls with us to get us from M – Z.

There are many steps that never get taught at conferences – and for the most part – they shouldn’t be. So if you’ve never heard of nameservers, cron jobs, embed code, article automation, the 10×10x4 traffic strategy, TubeMogul, Onlywire, or the PrettyLinks Plugin – there’s a good chance this Mastermind call is for you.

If you know all that stuff, then join us so you can stretch our learning and we can try to stretch yours.

Sign up for the Free Weekly Mastermind.com Today!

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Lessons From the Niche Affiliate Marketing System (#NAMS)

Ever get in way over your head? Did you come out unscathed? That’s what a lot of people at the Niche Affiliate Marketing System are feeling this weekend.

Hold that thought. . .

Saturday morning Mark Hendricks spoke to the group as a whole. What was probably a bit strange to the attendees is he didn’t talk about internet marketing, he spoke about life. But it slowly became clear that a career in internet marketing is about the juggling of time, family, use of money, use of time and tasks. Without looking at all these things as a whole, how you create a lifestyle that includes a healthy balance of life – not just work.

Mark Hendricks at Niche Affiliate Marketing Sy...

Image by rogercarr via Flickr

One of the illustrations Mark used was the working of a maze. To get your crayon from the Start to the Finish, isn’t if faster if you start from the finish and work backwards? The point he makes is – doesn’t it make sense to create a goal and work backward from the goal to now see how to accomplish it?

For instance if you want to make $48,000/year, don’t you first need to be able to make 4,000 in a month? Doesn’t it make sense then to figure out how to make $1,000/week? And then doesn’t it make sense that you’d have to learn how to make $150/day? (Yes, I know that’s not perfect math, Bob The Teacher) :)

When you work backwards and try to figure out how to make $150/day – you’ll know you’re beginning to achieve your goal.

Back to feeling overwhelmed. . .

So what I know,  as a 3 time NAMS attendee, that the “newbies” might be feeling overwhelmed right now, but once they establish their overall goals – all the tools they learned here will be right in their lap. And they’ll know exactly how to use them.

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NAMS is finally upon us!

Ever been to an internet marketing conference? Let me guess. . . Session 1. . . chat in the hall with someone you sat near. . . Session 2. . . rinse, repeat.

Most of them are like that. You go in knowing that the speaker’s have a goal in mind. Sure, they’re going to provide you some information that will be useful – but ultimately they’re going to be selling themselves or their product.

Now imagine this. . . you sign up for an internet marketing conference. . . but before you go you meet 90% of the people in an active forum, exchange ideas and even set up dinners to talk about subjects like copywriting and joint ventures.

Imagine creating mastermind groups and find business partners before you even get there. That’s what NAMS has turned into. The Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop, put on by David Perdew has become an incubator for success.

So can you still expect the instructors to spend their time selling? You can expect it – but most of the time you have to ask them if they have a product based on the lesson. This is a group centered on educating its peers. This is a group of friends – hell bent on being just that.

And in this crazy world – what better way to spend a weekend than with friends!

Interested in when the next NAMS event will take place? Try Clicking this!

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The Tools You Need To Create An Affiliate Site

Well I’ve worked on turning one of my websites into an affiliate site this week, and let me tell you there is definitely a learning curve.

In fact, as of this moment, the site isn’t even live yet. First I had to identify some software that would handle the tracking of affiliate sales. In the end, I asked some folks I knew and got pointed in the right direction.

Then I decided to create a new sales page, but I couldn’t finish that until I’d completed setting up and installing the affiliate software. Why is that you ask? Well, the sales page has a “buy now” type button on it. When you click it, you’re supposed to go to an order page – well the order page is part of the software so I had to configure that to get the url for the order page.

Then, the order page requires integration with PayPal (or Clickbank). However, I couldn’t set-up PayPal until I’d completed the Thank You Page because PayPal wants to know where to send people back to once they’ve completed the order.

Back to the software. . . Then I noticed that I also hadn’t set-up the autresponder system, which is the tool that automatically sends out confirmation e-mails and future follow-up e-mails. That meant that I needed to go to my autoresponder to get the code and add it to the software.

Once I got all of that configured correctly, I still needed to upload the product and then use my cpanel to password protect the folder that houses the product. That certainly won’t stop the “product theft”, but it will slow some of it down.

I’m pretty sure that when I have all that done this week, it will work beautifully. I can’t say that I recommend the affiliate tracking software yet, but it does come highly recommended. All the other tools here I use quite often and enjoy.

So in somewhat chronological order, here’s the tools you need to create an affiliate site:

1. First of all you need a domain name. I’ve used GoDaddy to buy my domain names, but I host them elsewhere.

2. I’ve used Hostgator to host my sites. I like the cpanel and the price is right.

3. Then you’re going to need the affiliate tracking software. I’m using Delavo, but haven’t used it long enough to give you an opinion.

4. After that it would be helpful to have an autoresponder set up. That way you can send confirmation e-mails, follow-up e-mails, product updates, etc. I use AWeber but envision I’ll change to ByPassPublisher sometime later this year.

Image representing AWeber Communications as de...

Image via CrunchBase

5. To get paid, I use PayPal, but I think you’d be better off if you could take credit cards on your site with a merchant number. Unfortunately, no matter how you slice it – you’re going to be giving a piece of the pie away.

6. To load up the software and sales page to your site, I recommend downloading filezilla. It’s a free tool that will help you in everyway. If you’re building a Wordpress site, however, you won’t need filezilla. Either use Fantastico in your cpanel, or this free WordPress Installer.

7. The only other tools you may need would be an html editor (like NVU which is free) and perhaps a .pdf creator like Adobe.

Once you have those things in place – you’re ready to go!

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