What If They Don’t Like It?

July 12, 2011 Lifestyle / Newbie Corner
3 comments

Whether they admit it or not, everybody struggles with this question albeit with differing levels of severity. I wasted most of my early 20′s as what I call a high functioning agoraphobic. I was definitely agoraphobic, but I was motivated enough by money to leave the house and do my job. I was basically a husk, who would play a character that didn’t care so much about peoples opinions, then run home to drink away the days woes, pretty grim, right? You don’t have to tell me, I lived it!

I am very happy to say that those days are behind me, and I will never allow myself to go to that dark place again.

How did I get over my severe fear of failure and what others thought? I went out and failed as hard as I could! When I was a child I would love to watch stand-up comics, I would dream of being a famous comic, but I’ve always been too shy to dare try. So I decided I was going to give it a shot, because if I kept up with my agoraphobic ways I’d probably end up going completely insane, anyway… It is with great pleasure that I tell you that I failed. I got stage time, bombed, did it again, again, and probably a few times after that. I got a few laughs, but for the most part I was making a fool of myself, but you know what? I’m still here and very much stronger from the experience.

The only opinion that should really matter is your own. Don’t get me wrong, there are some people that I highly respect and I hold their views very high, but I won’t let their opinion mess with my self esteem. Constructive criticism is important, if the person actual has your best interest in mind, and they’re not just putting you down to make themselves feel better about their wasted lives (cut these people loose, you don’t need them in your life).

Once you know how to truly learn from and embrace failure, magic things will happen in your life. You get a lot stronger from failing than winning, it may not be as much fun, but ask any professional fighter what fights they get the most out of- the answer will more than likely be the ones they lose.

Are YOU happy with what you’re putting out there? If the answer is yes, screw everyone else, what do they know? What’s the worst that could happen? A little embarrassment never hurt anyone, unless they let it…

To your next spectacular failure!

Adam J Wagner

Where The F#*k Do I start!?!

June 9, 2011 Newbie Corner
1 comment

“Where do I start?”  One of the hardest questions to answer, well for me it was…
With regards to Internet Marketing, OK, not just Internet Marketing, but any business- Yes Internet Marketing is a business, not just buying products that promise you can make millions with “one mouse click” if that were the case why does anyone have a job?

In my opinion Internet Marketing and ALL businesses start with five things.

1)An Idea- All empires start with this- I love Internet marketing because we can build upon many ideas at the same time- but don’t spread yourself too thin… I’ve always found that once I get a great idea it will causes an… Well, let’s call it an idea explosion, that in turn will cause a violent avalanche of product ideas that can cover a wide spectrum of customer issues itching to be solved- the only problem is that there is just never enough time to give birth to all of them. Always keep your mind open, I always have to tweak my original idea several times before it will become the success that I’m looking for.

2)Budget- Our beloved Internet Marketing is one of the only businesses where this isn’t the most important thing, a big budget can make things much easier- but it isn’t necessary. What other business can you start with under $100 and make yourself a millionaire? What more motivation do you need?!?

3)Skills & Tools- If you think you can start a new career without learning any new skills, or owning the necessary tools- you may just want to look into working for someone else, sorry but anyone with any empathy for their fellow human beings won’t take your money if they think you won’t get anything from what they’re selling. In IM this step is much easier (and cheaper) than most. Think about it, most trades people have to spend thousands on their tools to make a living and they don’t come close to the income level of a successful internet marketer. All you really need is a computer (if your reading this you more than likely already have one) domain, hosting, and some kind of auto-responder service, to build your list. There are ways to make money without these, but if you want any kind of lasting presence online they are a must.

Anything above these core essentials are really just to make your life easier. Nowadays there may be tons of competition, but with that comes a lot of free resources that are open to anyone (eg. Google Webmaster tools & Analytics, WordPress, Warrior Forum, etc. I’ve given you the basic skills you need HERE, but in this ever evolving business you should always be learning, or you will be left behind.

4)Preparation and Research- Once you’ve learned your core skills, and setup your domain, hosting, autoresponder, etc. a lot of your prep-work is done! You just need to visit, blogs, forums, and other sites in your niche to find where your target audience is, and what they need. Don’t be scared of competition, that just means there is money to be made! There is plenty of room for everyone, all you need is an idea.

5)Getting In Front Of Your Audience- At the most basic level, the success of your business depends on how many people you can get your offer in front of! (hint: that’s what this game is all about) This is where the research you did in step 4 really comes into play, how can you get in front of your audience if you don’t know where they are?

It should go without saying, but you won’t go ANYWHERE if you don’t do anything and just dream about being successful, I don’t care what The Secret says! Set goals and every few months take a look at how your business has grown. Are you satisfied? If the answer is anything but a resounding YES!!! You need to figure out what you’re doing wrong and rectify it before it is too late!

My biggest fear is being an old man that must look back upon a life that he is not proud of… Whether that is your fear or not, I’d hate to think of anyone that has to live my biggest fear.

Get To Work, I Believe In You!

Adam J Wagner

What Do You Have In Common With…

March 11, 2011 List Building / Newbie Corner / Uncategorized
4 comments

What do all super successful marketers have in common??? Intelligence? That definitely helps, Charisma? Listen to Frank Kern do a presentation and it’s obvious why he was able to achieve such a massive level of success. But if we’re talking about how to make big money online, you can keep your Frank Kern level charisma- give me a large, responsive email list!

Since you’re here looking at online business related information, I will assume you have somewhat of an understanding of how powerful it would be to have your very own base of highly targeted customers, that you can promote to repeatedly, cost practically nothing, and are dying to buy from you based solely on the trust you’ve developed by providing top notch quality information.

So there you go, if you can do that- you’ll be a huge success, everyone will be soooo jealous…

By the time you have built a list reaching into the thousands you should hopefully have at least one successful product under your belt, which netted you the majority of your subscribers.

Now, don’t be worried about creating your own product,  there is a lot of high quality MRR\PLR products out there, that you can use in your list building efforts- you just need to find one that is high quality, that people actually want. One thing a lot of people don’t mention is the difference in a subscriber that has purchased something and one that has taken you up on a free offer. This is why I always create separate lists for buyers and freebie seekers. I keep my list of purchasers to myself and treat them like gold, where, as bad as it may sound, the freebie seekers are subjected to ad swaps and things of that nature.

Always avoid any offer that wants to trade you cash for subscribers, if you haven’t tried this yet, learn from my mistakes and don’t bother. While this may get you a large list fast, you might as well just email your offer to random addresses, as I guarantee you’ll be looking at around the same conversion rates.

I can’t think of any way to simply throw money at your list building efforts and instantly have a fully-grown email list bursting at the seams with responsive clients that trust you enough to open their wallets- you can build a big list, but as I said before, you may as well just aimlessly punch email addresses into outlook, and not bother buying an auto responder.

The best lists I have built have come from the promotion of products, but I do have sites set up with the sole purpose of list building, but I HIGHLY recommend you at least turn your thank you page (the page they are directed to after subscribing) so you can separate buyers from those pesky freebie finders, as well as help cover any costs incurred from sending traffic to that offer.

Never ever create anything that allows customers to go through your sales funnel, without at least obtaining their email address, if they decide not to buy from you, give them something free in exchange for their email, so you can keep trying to sell them- or build a bigger list to use for ad swaps.

What a lot of marketers don’t address is the how important speed is to your list building efforts, unless you’ve built up huge report with your list, and in many cases even if you have, there is going to be a substantial drop in responsiveness after a few months. People will have either gotten what they need and moved on, or given up and moved onto something else. So you need to constantly be adding new leads to your client base or all your efforts could be for nothing but a big list of old email addresses.

So it is extremely important to get a lot of subscribers and you get them FAST, which is why every time you start a new project- you have your list in mind!

Always LISTening,

Adam Wagner

Setting Goals- Daily!

February 25, 2011 Lifestyle / Newbie Corner / Uncategorized
2 comments

I can’t stress enough the importance of setting goals for yourself, especially when you are pushing extra hard to get your new business off the ground. I have made it a habit for myself to set daily goals for myself. I know it sounds lame, but at this point it’s become as regular as taking a shower in the morning and it really helps push me to get things done. Many things that I started out having to set goals for have now become habit, no longer need to be written,(such as writing goals everyday) and I can move on to more difficult challenges.

Setting goals on a daily basis was a real turning point in my life. I really can’t fall asleep if there is something on my list that I didn’t accomplish- which is incredibly powerful when you are trying to take charge of your life. As I check things off  before I go to bed- I set my goals for the next day. Give it a try for a few weeks and you will be amazed at what you get done in a day!

Some days it works out better than others, like today I set the goal of starting my blog, but I have no good post ideas and don’t feel like writing… I’ll make it good later, or will I? You know what, I like it like this! I achieved my goal and you get to see the unfiltered, unedited, and un…well thought out? That doesn’t really work, but I’m tired so it stays.

Get started on your new habits!

Adam Wagner

First Post

February 24, 2011 Uncategorized
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So this is the first post on my new blog… I’ve got nothing, so I guess this is just going to serve as a place holder until I can think of something truly stellar for the first post!