Internet Marketing Ranger

Sorry I haven’t written or posted to my blog much lately…

But it has been for a very good reason!

It pretty much comes down to *3* little letters…

F-L-U.

Ahh yes, the wonderful flu.

I had it… and had it BAD.

A nasty version of a flu bug has been making its ’rounds’ all over the world this year and it made sure to stop by my life.

I was sick, on and off, for about 5 WEEKS!

5 long, stinkin’ weeks.  Ugh.

And each time I thought it was finally gone and I was about to return to ‘normal’ it would come back.

Evil stuff.

But I’m happy to say I’m back to 100% now.

Unfortunately, I got very little work done during all those weeks.  All of my major project deadlines were missed, postponed, or rescheduled.

And I’m just ‘now’ getting back to work full-speed…

Many have been anxiously waiting for me to release “Traffic Secrets 2.0″ and I was hoping to have it out by now.  But due to that lovely ‘plague’
that I caught, I still have some work left to finish the final CDs and get it into production.

It’s now looking like it will be released some time late next month.

Thanks to everyone for their patience.  It will be well worth the wait.

The big Income.com site is coming along great.

Our team encountered some tech-related issues but we’ve pretty much solved them all now.  We’re still doing some testing and additional development.

We’re also working on a lot of the CONTENT for the site.  So thanks to my ‘downtime’ it has set us back several weeks on our schedule.  Oh well, it happens…

But I’m not going to rush it.  This project is extremely important to me and I’m only going to release it when it’s 100% ready.  So everyone will just have to continue being patient.  And, yes, I know it’s been well over A YEAR since I originally announced that I was working on this.

I’m dying to ‘let the cat out of the bag’ (even some of it) and post “spy photo” shots or other info about what Income.com is all about, but I just can’t do it yet.  I’m not yet ready to let the world see what I’ve been cooking up.

More news soon.

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Why I ‘Reversed’ My Policy On ‘No Affiliate Links’
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A few months ago, I made an announcement to my list that I would no longer being using affiliate links.  That I would no longer recommend products with an affiliate link unless it was for a project that I was involved with marketing-wise.

My thinking was that I really wanted to make people realize that when I recommended a product to them that it was my sincere recommendation for something they could benefit from.  And if I was being compensated for the recommendation that it was somehow less ‘trustworthy.’

My announcement created a firestorm of feedback.

I was actually a little surprised at some of the comments I received…

“Is this hypocritical????  You’re advising us to use affiliate links and play both sides of the game as you call it but now you aren’t going to do it yourself.  I’m confused.”

“Are you implying that anyone that uses affiliate links is unethical or dishonest?”

“John, you don’t understand, I WANT you to use your affiliate link.  It’s my way of ‘thanking you’
for the information you share when I happen to buy something you recommend.  I’m afraid if you no longer promote affiliate products you won’t have as much of a reason to spend the time telling your list about new stuff that’s worth looking into.”

And those were just the tip of the iceberg.  I received TONS of comments from people — and everyone had interesting points of view.

Let me first clarify something… there’s nothing unethical or ‘wrong’ about promoting something with an affiliate link.  The ‘wrong’ part, in my opinion, is when marketers are promoting products just for the sake of GETTING PAID.  They really don’t care if someone benefits from investing in the product or not.

And to me, this is WRONG.  Very wrong.

But after thinking about things, I realized something…

If you’re honestly only promoting affiliate products that you believe will help your customers, then it ultimately doesn’t matter if you’re being compensated or not.

BECAUSE…

If you BURN PEOPLE by promoting a CRAPPY product, it’s going to come back to you.  It’s going to hurt your credibility and damage your reputation.  It can actually kill your business — I’ve seen it happen to other marketers.

The other ‘issue’ that really made me reconsider my original decision was the fact that many people CALLED ME OUT (like the “hypocritical”
remark above) and made me realize that if I no longer promoted affiliate products that I wouldn’t be PRACTICING WHAT I PREACH.

And I really *do* think all marketers should incorporate a revenue stream from promoting other people’s products and services.

I’ve said it for YEARS…

“Your customers are going to buy from others whether you like it or not, so you might as well get paid for it.”

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize lead generation costs and can even be a business in and of itself.

So consider me an affiliate marketer again.  But just as it was for many years before, realize that I’ll only promote products and services that I truly think are TOP-NOTCH and that you’ll benefit from.

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        My Kids Apparently Hate Italy (A Lot)
—————————————————————-

So just about the time I was ‘finally’ feeling better, I got a nice surprise…

Let’s just say I decided to leave the house for an entire day (after having ‘cabin fever’
for weeks) and when I came home I found
something I wasn’t expecting…

My two “kids” (aka Baron & Betty my English Springer Spaniels) decided to have some ‘fun’ in the family room…

They literally DESTROYED a $5,000 Italian leather sofa.  D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-E-D.

I still think they somehow called over about 200 other dogs from the neighborhood to help them in their fun because they sure did a lot of damage in a very short amount of time!

(I wonder if they were ‘plotting’ this for weeks…)

Here’s a photo of the culprits caught in the act.
They thought they were being ‘cute’ as you can tell by the looks on their faces…
http://www.income.com/images/couch.jpg

When I first saw the ‘wreckage’ I just stood there STUNNED.

And then, for some strange reason, I started to laugh about it and thought to myself…

“Well, at least I’m not sick anymore.”  

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   Is A ‘Product Launch’ Just A Bunch Of Hype?
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By now you’re probably sick to death of hearing about “Product Launches” (I know I am!)

BUT HERE’S A “REALITY CHECK”…

-> A semi-successful product launch in your
business (or re-launch of an existing product) can make you more money in a shorter amount of time than *ANY* OTHER MARKETING STRATEGY.

I don’t care if you have $100,000 CASH to go drop on PPC.  If you know what you’re doing, a product launch campaign can bring in more immediate sales than anything.

Want to make a bunch of money?  A successful product launch is most likely your best bet.

And the ‘beauty’ of a properly executed product launch is the MOMENTUM it builds for your business long after the ‘launch’ itself.

I know this all too well.  I’m *still* generating millions of dollars in sales in my business based on the momentum from doing a successful product launch back in 2004.

And you probably know what I’m referring to…

My “Million Dollar Day” when I launched
my original “Traffic Secrets” course and pulled in over $1,000,000 in sales in less than 24 hours — which at that time was completely unheard of.

That day definitely became a part of
Internet Marketing history.  And I’m extremely PROUD of that accomplishment.

But doing a massive product launch like
that (that does millions of dollars in sales) takes a solid TEAM of talented people.

I had a lot of great friends and talented marketers that helped me out during that historic campaign…

MICHEL FORTIN - he wrote the core sales letter and did a fantastic job.

JAMES SCOTT - he wrote all the intricate bullets of the sales letter. James actually watched every single second of every DVD and CD-Rom and “pulled out” every possible ‘bullet’ he could make for the sales letter.  He did an amazing job.

FRANK KERN - he gave me killer ideas for the email copy that was being written for the JV partners.
I, ultimately, wrote all the email copy myself but his “crazy ideas” really helped.  (Frank is a ‘magician’
when it comes to email copy as most now realize with his “mass control” success.)

KEVIN MILLER - he was a Flash and Video
whiz that brought my ‘dream’ of having imbedded video previews of each DVD right in the sales letter — which at that time was not being done.
(We almost didn’t pull it off either!  We realized it wasn’t going to work when we launched at 9am
– we didn’t get the videos to work until 3pm.)

And countless other marketing friends that were “along for the ride” and contributed their valued feedback and ideas…
like Stephen Pierce, Jim Edwards, Yanik Silver, Jeff Mulligan, Jason Potash, Jimmy D. Brown, and many, many other people. (Too many to list.)

It was truly a COLLABORATIVE team effort and I will always be eternally grateful to all of the people that helped out (as well as my valued JV partners and customers, of course)…

BUT…

When it came time to “Tell The World” the earth-shattering news that $1,000,000 (from an internet marketer) was made in less than 24 hours, I sat down to write a special PDF report explaining the principles behind HOW I DID IT…

I wanted everyone in our community to be able to not only LEARN from what happened but to also go out and have their own “million dollar days” — or at least super successful days…

But in this special report where I revealed
*HOW* I went about making it all happen
there was only ONE MAN that I publicly
recognized.

And I didn’t recognize just this one person to take anything away from all the other people that helped with the campaign, but I wanted to publicly recognize him because I know that he had more to do with the success and achievement of that “Million Dollar Day” than anyone else…

And that man is JEFF WALKER.

You’ve probably heard of Jeff’s now
somewhat famous, “Product Launch Formula.”

It’s THE GOLD STANDARD for doing product launches online.

And, sure, other marketers have had success with product launches.  But you know what?

NO ONE has produced more successful
product launches for “the average marketer”
than Jeff Walker.  He has truly changed
a lot of lives.

Jeff Walker has more case studies and
success stories from people that used
his formula (in crazy niches from scrapbooking to fly fishing) than anyone else on the planet.

And that’s a FACT.

I would be willing to bet that nearly every major launch that you’ve seen online in the past 5 years either had Jeff consulting for them directly or they were “borrowing” some or all of Jeff’s formula.

Traffic Secrets.
StomperNet.
Mass Control.
Pipeline Profits.
Butterfly Marketing.
Annihilation Method.
Strategic Profits Coaching Program.
7-Figure Code.

What did those massive launches ALL
have in common?

Yup.  Jeff Walker was brought in as a strategic consultant on the launch strategy itself.

If you want to succeed in basketball you give Michael Jordan a call.  If you want to succeed with a product launch it’s Jeff Walker.

And that’s only a partial list of launches you’ve probably been exposed to online.

Jeff continues to evolve and fine-tune
his amazing formula.  It’s pretty much
his full-time job.

In fact, Jeff’s about to release…

“Product Launch Formula 2.0″

The first major update to his original course that changed the industry.  And I’ve seen his new course — it’s UNREAL.

A lot has changed since his original course was released and now he has MOUNTAINS OF TEST DATA from many of his students’
launches that he has used to make his
‘formula’ even more powerful.

If you want to experience a major CASH FLOW WINDFALL in your business there’s no better way than to do it with a product launch — even if you do it only to your own small list with no JV partners.  (Jeff shows you how he does this all the time.)

You can get more information about
“Product Launch Formula 2.0″ and see
some VALUABLE VIDEOS he’s just giving away:
http://www.income.com/productlaunch2.html

When you watch his videos you’ll quickly discover that it’s not just about “Million Dollar”
launches… the first video shows how a
‘regular guy’ literally went from FOOD STAMPS to Six Figures.  Seriously.  See for yourself:
http://www.income.com/productlaunch2.html

More news soon.