Let me admit something: I’ve been reluctant to promote other people’s products.  I could do what Chris does, and Promote the HELL (emphasis his) out of thesis. I believe in Thesis (a lot).    But, the bottom line is this: I don’t want to promote anything bad that someone has done.  I don’t want to be held accountable and dissipate my credibility with any member of my audience for $40-50 bucks.

I’ve had people sign up with Aweber through my affiliate link. I’ve done this because I want cache with Aweber, not because the revenue is significant.  I have, thus far, not gotten a check from them, and when I do I will donate it somewhere cool.

That is changing.

I’m going to start doing some affiliate marketing very soon.  And I’m going to do it differently.  This, I call Affiliates With Integrity.

1. Only the best products. I’m never gonna need the $$, so I’m only going to sell what I have paid for.
2. Nothing Comped. I won’t do an affiliate product if I’ve been comped for ANYTHING ever.
3. Non affiliate & affiliate links from the site. Just because I don’t want people to feel like they have to buy from me.
4. 100% guarantee for all affiliates: If you bought via my affiliate link, I will guarantee your purchase 100%.  That is how I roll. If you have ANY problems getting a refund, tell me about it, and I’ll make sure you get refunded.
5. Only stuff I’ve bought & Used. If I haven’t paid for it, I won’t recommend it.  If it’s crap., I won’t recommend it.

I want to maintain your trust, and I want to talk a little about the good Ideas I’ve paid for.  Freelance X factor fits. (No affiliate links)

Affiliate marketing won’t ever be a significant source of revenue.  But, I want to participate in the programs and start building pages for other people’s stuff.  I want to round out my education as an internet marketer, and why not do it with good stuff?

Five People I Would Drop $200 Because They Told Me To.

1. Nametag Scott Ginsberg- Scott has never let me down yet with recommendations of books and music.  I believe that he gives a crap about what he slings out there.  And I do believe that if he said, “Johnson, you GOTTA go buy this,” I’d be a moron not to.
2. Michael Martine- WordPress SEO secrets was solid as hell.  He also put me in contact with How To Launch the **** out of your E-book by Dave Navaro, which was worth  every single penny that it sold for.
3. Brian Clark- Let’s see, I’ve referred my clients to the Thesis theme, I’ve bough teverything but the Teaching Sells course that he’s sold lately.  I’ve yet to be let down.  He cares too much to putz around with a bad product.
4. Cristina Favareau- Solid advice, solid work.  She’s never sold anything that I know of, but if she said, “hey Chris, this is $200 bucks, and I think you should have it,” I’d totally take a flier.
5. Pamela Wier.-  Dude, nicest person on the planet.  Solid copywriter/designer.   She’s got EVERYONE’s best interest at heart.  If you want good copy, go to her.  IF she said that I needed to get this course, I’d do it.  (She’s paid for dozens of internet marketing courses & is completely realistic about it).

I want to make sure that I earn and keep trust.  I won’t ever do affiliate stuff that’s undisclosed.  I will, however, take advantage of the affiliate programs that pay well.

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One dentist’s name is Susan Stalnaker:

I’ve never  met her.  She could be a fantastic dentist.  She does, however, have questionable taste in license plates.

Vanity plates have been something I’ve never understood.  In ohio, it works out to 8-9 bucks a month to have something adorn your car.  Of course, I’m not a car guy, so that could be part of the problem.  But like Morgan, I got me no patience for vanity plates.  I think they are for idiots.  Something grates on me, and I think “Old Jags” when I think license plates.

I see this:

About every day when I walk to my office (I have the worlds crappiest house, but the worlds best commute).  I dig it. Anyway, what do you think?  I see that plate, and I remember..the actual SS dentists as being pretty creepy dudes.  AM I nuts…but my mental image goes right away to this:

I’m thinking marathon man all the way:

So, what’s a BETTER license plate for Dr. Stalnaker?  How can she convey things without bringing back memories of John Wayne and the Luftwaffe?  I’m guessing that–given the choice between “SS DDS” and “GHX-B49J”  I’m taking the second one.

Here’s the real question though.  What is your marketing ACCIDENTALLY saying about you?  How could people construe it?

My guess is that this post will soon rank #1 for Susan Stalnaker, Dentist.  She’s not taken care of her online reputation.  Here’s her google search.

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Revisions are where I lose money.  Every now and then a project gets in revision hell and has no chance of winning.  Once something gets to the fine details, once a client is focused on the teeny things that are wrong, they lose focus on the big picture: Blogs dominate SEO, blogging, done right is STILL in 2009, the EASIEST WAY of rocket your business upwards.  The Thesis Theme even moreso.   When we don’t get really close the first try, the customer gets honked.  I filter the work that comes from my three (freelance) designers before it gets to the customer.  More often than not, it gets done quickly.  Sometimes, when a customer sends something up, they lose focus.

So I need a design interview, accompanied by a video, that expresses what I want to express in the way I want to express it.  Because I’m ridiculously cheap, I have to make it video based, with examples.  So I think I’ll sue the Contact Forms 7 Plugin so I can show examples and the like.

More to come.

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Sonia talks about how–ultimately–there are cool kids vs. Internet marketers.   The cool kids get attention and the IM crowd gets paid.   I get paid on the Internet.  I’m not getting private jet money–but I do very OK thankyouverymuch.   I…am in a tribe obsessed with human connection.   You know, the one that didn’t get mentioned…the one that uses Facebook.  The one that gets more and more leverage.  Oh, sure, I did the book thing and made money selling ebooks, and I’m launching the **** out of my next ebook. I’ll do six figures from F#@% Therapy, if I hustle.

But ultimately, my income and security will be found in a third way–by connecting to people I meet on the Internet.   No mention of that tribe.  I’m working towards getting rich.   I’m working towards running around with a cool group of people.  Helping things grow to a higher and higher level, getting cool things made, cool people connected with, and keeping it REAL.

By growing my social media presence in depth, I, too am an Internet marketer.  I am an unlimited freelancer, an unlimited salesperson.   Sure, I get a little rush when my Blackberry pings from my e-junkie account  And sure, I’m probably missing the boat by not putting affiliate linkseverywhere.

But…you don’t have to worry about my motivations.  If I tell you that HeapCRM is the best thing since ACT 6.0, you can bet your sweet ass I mean it and why.  I don’t lend my reputation to anyone, unless the product is F#%@ing great.  You’re not thinking I’m going to be after some affiliate commission.   I care about people, and it’s making me rich. I’m not saying that Brian and Sonia don’t care.   I am saying that the best way to sell on  Internet is to build your  robust social media presence and sell to it, protect it, guard it, and add more value to it than anyone else can.

That’s the easiest way to make big cash on the Internet, and all it takes is caring, using Facebook, connecting and….helping.  The best part is that the skills from both crowds come in handy.  The cool kids crowd can help ya get an audience, and the IM crowd can help you sell.   Provided that you care, you’re beyond contempt.

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But, right now, let’s look at the things I have to do on a regular basis.

-create a SEO singing blog for my therapy alternative book.

-Create about 18 blog posts/week between here, http://rightrightnow.com (so not up yet), and the 3-4 guest posts I want to write.

-Get my adipose problem solved.

Now, to do this, I have a simple tool.  One task list, one piece of paper for daily actions & basecamp.  I haven’t ‘finished’ this daily form yet, i’ll give it some thought & a week.  But it has me making the calls and suchlike that I need.

What I made:

weekly-scorecard

Now, this gives me a sense of what I’ve done, and committed to.  I’ve got an ‘action stack,’ each day where everything is planned and I know where I’m going with my life on a regular basis.

It’s not yet perfect, but this is 2.0, and what is?  Everything is in beta.

So, I use two sheets of paper a day.  I guess I should probably put it on the other side of this.  I don’t comute, so sop lecturing me bout being green.

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That project has had an opportunity cost.  First, I have to make it really good.  It’s good now, but it’s gotta be really good.  Details, loads of ‘em.  35,000 words.  180 images (each worth, 1,000 words?) Most of ‘em matter.   I plan to make money selling it, my goal is about 15k downloads.  That’s stopped me to a point, from growing my client base, and gathering more clients.  There are two clients I have that I’d have trouble grinding out business if either or both left.  So this month is about diversity.  Getting more clients.  More business from more people, as fast as I can.

I digress, as many would say, always.

Real plainly, I want to hit some specifics in January.  Not feb.

Task Based:

Behavior Based:  (Joes Goals)

Numbers Based:  (google docs)

This stuff is hit-able.  I think.  Will require that I actually work harder, but what doesn’t?  This kind of project focus that I want is important.  I can do a card and cross off stuff every day pretty easily.  I wonder what I can use to manage this?

First task: to find a CRM.  It’s either going to be HEAP-CRM or Highrise.  Neither have hotkeys that work right.  The hotkeys would make them grow.

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Nobody likes a perfectionist, but nobody hates a masterpiece. I don’t want to sanitize my work to perfection because the kind of writing that is excreted by committees blows chunks. I’ve almost completed my book, and it’s been in an improving state of almost completion for weeks, even though it’s consuming 3-4 hours of my time each day. And it’s 3-4 joyful hours. I think I’m a week or so from releasing it, and I wanted it out there and in the world’s hands before christmas, hence the santa hat.

But, really, the content was drafted. I don’t have the capacity to write production quality content in real time. I was taking on big damn topics: Drama, procrastination. There’s a chapter called f—k your parents. Those things weren’t going to work if they were hamfisted or shrill attempts. The writing itself had to be more solid than anything I’ve ever written, and it’s certainly a project that is about as hard as anything I’ve done.

Realize, I’ve read about 500 books in the business/self help/personal development genre in my lifetime. Everything from the excellent “7 Habits” to the mediocre “Cheese” to some trite & dangerous crap du jour like the Secret.

Right now, I’m not unhappy with the writing. That’s not to say I’m done with it. I’ve gone through it 5-6 times, and it’s shaping up to look really friggin’ cool. The last week has been uplifting–the feedback from my throng has been good, and now I look for more negative feedback to make sure it’s sharp as hell before I release it. I should be doing work on the Blog I’ve made, but that’ll come, and I intend to continue to improve this throughout its lifetime. There’s also so much more to write, there were 24 chapters called:

F—k yourself:
f–k clutter
f–k perfection
f–k whining
f–k obesity (free sample)
f–k procrastination
f–k indecision
f–k drama
f–k slacking

F—k Your tribe:

f–k your team
f–k your guru
f–k your job
f–k your stroller
f–k baby boomers
f–k The Jonses
f–k lawyers
f–k meetings

F—k your programming:

f–k self righteousness
f–k manners
f–k fear
f–k egotism
f–k entitlment
f–k compromise
f–k materialism
f–k your parents

The interior design I absolutely love, and the collaboration has been an utter blast. The marketing is going to be fun, too, an ‘anti’ self help book. We’re going through it over and over again to make sure it makes sense, it’s solidly constructed. It’s more work than you think, but the work will pay off, provided that the entire consumerist economy isn’t a worse problem than I had thought.

This will probably be the last PDF I do. While doing a PDF gives you good control and SOME interactivity, the real promise of ebooks is what they do that’s not book. In other words, Brian Clark was again, right. And I’ve ignored his advice because of Zen To Done’s inspiration. That was a PDF that felt like the best of both worlds, so I gave ‘er a whirl.

Anyway, this beast has consumed me for a while. I look forward to getting it done and off of my chest. I’ll probably have some version of this for sale next Monday, but it’s unlikely to be the ‘final’ version.

Also: more stuff on freelancing is coming. For those of you that requested the book download–I’m sorry I got ahead of myself. I was excited about Keith’s cool Aweber plugin for WordPress, and wanted to put it to use. (That’s another project that’s almost done. If you want an aweber box that’s 100% customizable, and 100% compatible with every WP theme, let me know, Keith and I’ve got something cool for you).

See you tomorrow.  Back to th e mill.

My clients should get more out of me than they are–but selling is the fun part.  Meeting people, getting deals in the door.   I care about the standards I uphold, but really, it’s a thrill to be able to take a project in and know it’ll get done.   I wish I knew it’d be done perfectly, and not by me.  That’s the next step.

It’s the case though–that the toughness of the times and the fact that I’m still punch drunk from paying Uncle…that I’ve got enough scarcity-mentality in me I’m not willing to give up the significant cut in revenue it takes to grow.   As an economist, this decision should be easy.  My output is sales.  That’s where I’ve got a competitive advantage.  My thick skin, can do attitude and General Pattonesque ethos makes me take those hills.  Even in this economy I’ll take in work.   I need to get it through basecamp so I can honor my commitments.

I think the thing that I need to keep to is this: anything that’s NOT marketing or writing, I don’t do.  That means WP setup, that means DNS issues, that means even project management.  I want to sell more widgets, not acquire the skills I need as a coder.

I had a goal to hire a project manager by EOY.  I didn’t and it doesn’t appear that I’m going to be able to.  But what I can do is delegate more, and get stuff off of my plate…so I can honorably put more on my plate.

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I set goals–sell x units, do y in volume.  But I never felt it.  The big ‘so what’ was always behind that.  I couldn’t make myself give a crap about any of it.  Sell another commodity house here in CMH?  Sure.  Happy to serve.  No, really.

I got jazzed about the marketing: doing something that generated leads.  And I had a tsunami of leads.  But I saw myself as a (just) six figure guy, and that’s what I did.  Oh, I sustained a bunch more in ’05, but we all did.  I had the gig from 01 to March of this year.

If I felt I had enough listing appointments, I’d flake out on people, cancelling them.   I only wanted so much work, and I didn’t realize that.  Since I was great at generating leads, I could always pick from the easiest and nicest people to work with.

Each quarter, there I was, netting out what I needed as a Realtor, letting leads and deals rot on the vine.  When leads are abundant, I didn’t value them.  (Hey, kids, they are still abundant).  Rather than work with an asshole it was, “Here, here’s your listing back, sign this mutual release, and I’m out of there.”   I didn’t care, couldn’t care, and still don’t see the anxious need to produce the nothing that makes up a lot of the Real Estate Practice.

Still.  Still there are good reasons to love the business.  The reason I still orbit it is this:  if someone is willing to take a 100% commission job, they value freedom over security.  That must be nurtured, period.  That spark is sacred, and part of the best within the American spirit.  If you can do your job better for them,

Life went on.   I would then pretend I loved the business after being geeked by a MFO event or something like it.  And in lieu of creating what I wanted to (leads), I got stuck as a practitioner.   And I would set goals I couldn’t care about each year.

60 houses.
$350k average price
$550 GCI.
$350k net.
1000 hours prospected.
Etc.

Yawn.  Possible?   Sure.  But money doesn’t lead, it follows.  You don’t start with an income and then build a life around it.   To maintain it, I had to ingest so much poison I almost became that guy.   And I didn’t have the right ethos then to really get after it.  I didn’t have acute needs, till the IRS gave me the Rodney King treatment, I was coasting, if that.   I didn’t love what I was doing.  And that’s a way to waste your life.

Not saying you can’t.   Not saying it’s not possible, but I ratcheted it all down to mere numbers.  Numbers do matter, but only when you’re chasing something that also drives you.   Right now, i’m driven to write, driven to lose weight, driven to help people get efficient, and I’m driven to get out of debt.   I’m carrying a net worth of roughly -$65,000 that I want GONE.  Money comes easily enough for me.  I don’t need to make that the end all/be all.   I want to make Right Right now into a practice of some sort.  A couple people asked what my BIG DAMN GOALS were:

1. I will weigh in at 175# before March 1st 2009. My ultimate goal is 159#, but I won’t be thinking about that for a bit. I want to think about all the milestones I need to pass through first.  Friends, that’ll put the total weight loss at 97#.  That’s a gymnast.  I’ve already lost a bunch.  Only standard is to get to 175#.
2. Next E-book, f-therapy, does 10,000 units. I’m getting it started (this is the first time I’ve talked about it) at http://f–ktherapy.com  It’s a strident treatise about uncluttering your life, your mind, and ignoring the toxicity of our society.
3. I will get “subprime” published and collect an advance of $50,000 or more. Again, I’m already stacking the deck in my favor.  The quality of the writing & insight matters, but I’m making it such that I’ll get the most receptive audience possible.   I don’t know if it’s a meritocracy or not, but if it’s not, that benefits me as I like to win, and I’m competing to win right now.  I stack the deck with stuff that makes it hard to ignore me.  Just watch.
4. To be debt free in 500 days. I have my debt pegged at $65,000, most of it being the IRS’s suff.   It might be a little less, and I’ll tabulate it next weekend.   My budget/burn rate is something like $2500/month.   Gross THAT up for taxes, and I’m at an income need of $4,000.    365/500 =73%.   73% of $65,000  = ~47,450.   Gross THAT up by 30% for taxes = $62k.   Divide that by 12, and we’re at: 5200 month for debt retirement.   Add that to $4,000 and we have a need (without savings) of 9200/month.  This puts me at 108,000 for the year, a number I can hit in my sleep, doing this stuff.

That’s pretty much what matters.   I put a $$ on the advance because I want to have it taken reasonably seriously–I’m not necessarily going to just take the first person to write that check, I’m going to make it have the best chance at a real live widespread audience.   I know times is hard.   I don’t want to be in a ‘need the money,’ point in my life.  And I won’t be.

A lot of other things are ‘nice to do’ next year:  I wanna read about 100 books, 40 fiction/60 nonfiction.   I want to run a 3:30 marathon.   And to make $108k, I’ll need to divide my income somehow–ebooks aren’t a ‘guarantee’–I need to pursue the courses that I have taught, and the rest of the stuff that I regularly do.  I think that if I rely on the consulting gigs for the income and make everything else ‘fun,’ we’ll be juuuuuuuust fine.

I have to rewrite it fully (or therabouts, there are great scenes) by Feb 1, 2009, choose the best representation by 6/1/09…and catch lightning in a bottle.  I can do ll this stuff, things like this always happen quickly for me.  Someone next year will sell a breakout debut novel, lose a ton of weight, and do a kicking e-book.   Why not me?

Dashboard comes up tomorrow.

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