A Sneak Peak at the Jalopy Cheat Sheet – Marketing Tips and Tricks

Tips and tricks do not good marketing make.

However, they do help.

And caring is sharing.

Here’s a Sneak Peak at the Jalopy Marketing Cheat Sheet.

(Yes, I am rather proud of that title!)

Marketing / Branding

- Make your brand obvious and consistent everywhere and in every communication you have.

- This includes all other online tools and accounts. If your Twitter page looks totally different to your website then people will be confused. And confused people don’t buy.

- What do your customers hate? Tell everyone how much your business is so not about all that stuff.

- Benefits are more sellable than features.

- Get your customers email address by offering them a free thing as a bribe.

- Email is best for promoting your stuff. Not your blog.

- Offer gift certificates. People like that stuff.

- Don’t let people forget about you or your promotion, especially if it’s a long time coming

- Look out for companies that do marketing well. And copy what they’re doing.

- Look out for companies that do marketing badly. Do the opposite of what they’re doing.

- Have a good story.

- Know your customers. Know where they hang out and what they’re worried about. Meet them there and talk directly to them in your marketing.

- Ask for referrals all the time.

- Under promise, over deliver.

- If something isn’t working, stop doing it. Even (especially) if you’ve put a lot of work into doing it.

- Spend your time and effort convincing the people who aren’t sure about you. There’s no need to try hard to convince those who are already convinced.

- Tell your customers “It’s not your fault.”

- The big four questions your customer asks during the sales process (Source: Mark Joyner)

• What are you trying to sell me?
• How much?
• Why should I believe you?
• What’s in it for me?

- The 16 human desires (source: Kevin Hogan)

• Eating
• Sex
• Desire to compete or seek vengeance
• Nesting instinct
• Connection with others
• Curiosity
• Tranquility
• Desire to Save
• Power
• Status
• Independence
• Acceptance
• Principled Loyalty

- Get your readers’ attention. This is the most important thing.

- Make all your communication easy to read.

- Short paragraphs

- Big headers

- Nice clear text

- Repeat yourself a lot. People forget stuff. And they don’t read it in the first place.

- Be specific. Use numbers and statistics a lot.

- Be concise. Write less. Bite sized pieces.

- Ask questions. People’s brains are pre-programmed to answer them in their heads.

- Best converting headlines:

• - How to…
• - 7 ways to…
• - Who else wants…
• - Discover how a…

- Negative subject lines are nearly always best

- 365 day guarantee increases conversion AND reduces return rate

- Highlight guarantee in a separate box on your website. Be flashy if you like.

- Instructional follow-up emails and/or video messages reduce return rate (most people return because they haven’t used the product, not because they don’t like it)

Website

- Highest converting landing page layout is (source: 10conversionsecrets.com):

• Top left: headline + image
• Bullets left hand side
• Optin Right side
• Social proof, testimoninials, media appearances etc on right hand side
• Text and pictures at the bottom, below the fold if necessary.

- Don’t waste space

- Optin should always be above the fold

- Optin box should be as flashy and obvious as possible.

- Putting audio of your offer increases conversion significantly. (Yeah, I know. Ugh. It does work though. People are weird.)

- Use animation.

- Video explaining site security increases conversion

- Put logos on website next to your Buy Now button to help customer trust that you’re not a fraud

• verisign
• 128 bit encryption
• BBB
• hackersafe.com, truste.com etc.

- Changing your scroll bar to colour red increases the chance your customer will read below the fold (Source: John Reese)

- Rusty, burgundy color headline dramatically increases conversions (Source: Ryan Deiss)

- Second to this is light blue

- 20pt Tahoma font with quotation marks converts best

- Google dislikes the word testimonials. Call them Customer Feedback, or similar. (Source: Ryan Deiss)

- Put the best testimonial in the P.S.

- Put all testimonials in a yellow johnson box for the best conversion rates

- Oversized buy buttons are the way forward. Make it very clear what you want your customer to do next!

- Orange border with blue text “Add To Cart” converts best (Source: Perry Belcher)

Cool, eh?

Love JJ.

Did you enjoy that enormous slab of highly practical marketing know-how?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Marketing 101. Features vs. Benefits as taught by hot sorority girls.

“Customers want benefits. They don’t give a hoot about features”

- a thousand different sweaty, shouty, marketing experts

This is ubiquitous marketing advice.

But what does it really mean? And why are you probably doing it all wrong?

Let’s start at the beginning…

• A feature is a fact about the thing you sell.

• A benefit answers the customer question “Yeah, fine. But what’s in it for me?”

And the answer to that question is where the money is…

The thing is, most people and most businesses suck at answering this question.

This is good news for you, because you can answer it a bit better and make a lot of money.

So how do you answer it better?

Well… let’s role play.

I’ll be the balding middle-aged guy shopping for a sports car. You play the spiv that’s trying to sell it to me.

Let’s go…

So what’s so great about that sports car over there?

It has 128 valves, 60 pony power and is available in a variety of eye-catching metallic paint finishes.

Yeah, fine. But what’s in it for me?

It goes really fast and it looks fantastic.

So what?

Well… it’ll certainly attract attention. Heads will turn as you drive past.

And why should I care about that?

It’ll make you feel young and sexy. Your friends are going to be totally jealous and think you’re the coolest guy ever. Hot chicks are going to see in that car and they’re going to want to sleep with you. But you’re happily married aren’t you Sir? So you’re not really concerned with that. Right Sir?

Bingo!

We’re finally hit a convincing answer to the question “And what’s in it for me?”

Let’s look at each of the answers you gave, one by one. (Yes, I know you didn’t really come up with them, but it doesn’t half simplify this writing lark if I pretend we’re having a chat.)

“It has 128 valves, 73 widgets, 60,000 pony power and is available in a variety of eye-catching metallic paint finishes.”

This – a list of car statistics – is a clear feature. It’s a list of facts about the car.

If you simply describe the features of the thing you’re trying to sell then you’re leaving all the thinking in the hands of your customer. You hope that they’ll figure out the reason why they might want that feature, but what if they can’t make that leap themselves?

Your customer isn’t going to be as helpful (or annoying) as me. He’s not going to keep asking what’s is in it for him. He’s going to accept your answer and he might come up with a reason why those 128 valves are a good thing for him. Or he might not.

Now you might think that it’s not a big ask to get a balding forty year old man to picture the imaginary sex he can have with imaginary twenty one year old sorority girls in his imaginary new vehicle… but it doesn’t hurt to help him to make that connection.

“It goes really fast and it looks fantastic.”

This might appear to be a bit more of a benefit, but it’s really just an elaboration on the feature.

It’s an unconvincing answer to the “What’s in it for me?” question. Why should I care that the car is fast? What’s the real benefit to my life? How does that really make me feel?

“Well… it’ll certainly attract attention. Heads will turn as you drive past.”

Better. But why does he care about that?

“It’ll make you feel young and sexy. Your friends are going to be totally jealous and think you’re the coolest guy ever. Hot chicks are going to see in that car and they’re going to want to sleep with you. But you’re happily married aren’t you Sir? So you’re not really concerned with that. Right Sir?”

Now, through tedious repeated questioning we’re finally at the point where anyone could understand why our middle-aged friend really wants that flashy sports car.

That was kind-of a dumb example, chosen predominantly because it entertained me. Let’s blast through a few others to hammer the point home.

More Examples:

Slimming Pants:

Patented pain-free Kevlar corsetry (feature)

You’ll look slim, feel sexy and make your ex-boyfriend crazy jealous when you see him at that party next Saturday (benefit)

24/7 Grocery Store:

Open 24 hours a day every day (feature)

You can buy your ice-cream at 3 in the morning and share a hot midnight feast with your wife (benefit)

Web Design Nerd:

Skilled in PHP, Javascript, Python, BDSM (feature)

Will create you an awesome looking website that makes people want to empty their pockets of money and give it all to you (benefit)

Deodorant for Men:

Science stuff that stops you from sweating (feature)

You’ll get loads of ass. (benefit)

Is this all becoming clear now?

So what can we learn from these examples?

Yes, that’s right. The most important thing in marketing is whether or not hot chicks want to sleep with you.

Oh. Sorry. That’s not it. It’s that features are more important than benefits.

But then everyone knows that. Right?

Love JJ.

Did you enjoy that little slice of marketing advice silliness?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Why it’s smart to copy the brainy kid’s homework. (Or how to get a franchise for free.)

Why do you think banks are more likely to lend money to franchisees than most other entrepreneurs?

One of the most important reasons is that the franchisee is buying into an already proven business model.

When you buy into a good franchise you don’t just get a brand.

You don’t just get a logo, a bread oven and some polyester uniforms.

You get a system and a business model too. You get a business model and marketing plan that works.

And that’s why franchisees are often successful.

However, these benefits come at a cost. And for some of you this cost will seem large. Stuff like:

• Loss of individuality
• Responsibility to franchise
• Franchise fees
• Crappy uniforms.

So before you put on the hair net and acrylic shirt and prepare to smell of fried chicken forever, let’s think of some alternatives…

Wouldn’t it be great if you could do what you love, in your very own style, wearing whatever clothes you like… but still have a proven, successful business model and marketing plan behind you?

Yes, JJ. That would indeed be rather fantastic. A panacea, arguably. (Look it up in the dictionary for proof.) But how could I attain such a lofty goal?

Well, unnecessarily verbose imaginary reader, allow me to present a simple three step plan.

Step 1. Target Selection.

Find a business already operating successfully in your chosen market.

Step 2. (Ethical) Business espionage.

Use my ethical espionage techniques to uncover their business model.

Step 3. Deployment.

Copy their business and improve on it in key areas.

And what’s the end result if I do all this?

Only total market domination!

At the very least you’ll begin to help yourself to a slice of the market share.

There’s really no need to create a business model from scratch when you can steal a ready-made one which is proven to work in the market that you are trying to enter.

So how I identify a business to copy?

I’ll show you that when I talk to you on thursday.

Oh, JJ you tease. You just want to go to bed, don’t you?

Yeah totally. Mrs. Jalopy is calling me and I feel like a snuggle!

See you on Thursday for Business Espionage Target Selection…

I can’t bloody wait.

Love JJ.

Did you enjoy that little splice of moral-dubious business advice?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

The Way You Make Me Feel. Marketing Lessons From The King of Pop!

Imagine that I am your prospective customer.

I’ve had a hard day at work, my kids are being difficult and there’s nothing good on the TV. I’m feeling a little bored and a bit fed up. I open my mail or go to the computer and I come across one of your marketing messages.

Now, ask yourself the following question:

How does your communication make me feel?

Think about the amount of money people will spend on music, hobbies, the cinema, going out, drink, drugs, fairground rides, bungee jumps…

Why do they do it?

Because they want to be entertained. And they want to feel something different to the way they feel right now.

So when your prospective customer or client comes into contact with you, what do you do?

• Do you treat them like kings and make them feel appreciated?
• Do you make them laugh?
• Do you challenge them?
• Do you excite them?
• Do you let them in on a secret?
• Do you make them feel accepted and part of a cool group?
• Do you make them feel clever; superior even?
• Do you reassure them?
• Do you take their pain away?
• Do you make them feel understood?

Play that funky music, white boy!

(Or any other combination of race and gender thereof!)

Love JJ.

Did you enjoy that little marketing chat?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

What George Orwell Can Teach You About Copywriting

As a little business owner, you’ll probably write at least some of your advertising copy yourself.

So I asked superstar author George Orwell – that dude who wrote Animal Farm – for some copywriting tips. Just for you.

He responded with the following 6 rules for effective writing from his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language.

What a great guy.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Common phrases feel comfortable, easy and melodic, but they carry little emotional response.

Good copy is ALL about creating an emotional response. So be creative, compelling and original.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Using long words does not make you appear intelligent, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing with them.

In fact, using words that your reader is not familiar with cause them to disassociate with the copy.

That’s the last thing you want to happen.

3. If it possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Good writers cram meaning into every word.

Words that don’t contribute meaning to your copy reduce its impact.

So take them out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

The active voice is more powerful than the passive voice.

Don’t believe me? Let’s compare the following:

“I kissed a girl” – Active voice

“I was kissed by a girl” – Passive voice

(Yep. Copywriting tips courtesy of Katy Perry.)

The passive voice is not wrong. But it can be awkward, vague and wordy.

People don’t dig that kind of copy.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

You want people to understand what you’re talking about, right?

If there’s a chance that someone might not understand what you’re talking about then elaborate in simple language.

Don’t drone on though.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Use common sense when applying these rules.

If the application of one of these rules results in something that looks hideous then go ahead and break it.

They’re guidelines really.

And some more tips George Orwell would have given you if he’d actually been talking about copywriting.

7. Know your audience and write directly to them.

Get a clear picture of who will be reading your article and keep them in mind at all times.

The best copy reads like a conversation between two people. So read your copy out loud. If you wouldn’t say it to a customer then you probably shouldn’t be writing it either.

8. Write an awesome headline.

This one is pretty good.

Although it would arguably be better were it to reference Katy Perry instead.

8. Retain continuity.

If you make good points in a disconnected manner then the reader is likely to leave the copy, even though the content is good.

Each part of the piece should lead into the next, and everything should be tied up nicely at the end.

9. Champion the benefits, not the features.

Everyone tells you this. Because it’s good advice.

Concentrate on what your thing will do for people. Not how it does it. (Unless it’s highly relevant.)

10. Be specific.

Give numbers, facts and evidence. Loads of it.

Don’t give people the chance to think that you’re full of it.

Do you have any copywriting tips? Have you ever channeled the spirit of a dead author? Leave a comment below.

Love JJ.

Did you enjoy that plagiarization of a late great author?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

A 3-step antidote to entrepreneurial ADD

Dave is quitting his day job in six months’ time.

He’s been quitting his day job in six months’ time for the past four years.

He’s never short of ideas, Dave.

And he’s always on the look out for the newest trend in the market. He knows where the next big wave is going to be and he’s sure to be riding it.

But then he spots another wave.

The new wave is as absolute beauty. It’s even bigger than the last one. He can’t miss this. Not this one. Man, he’d kick himself if he missed this.

And so goes the cycle.

The constant search for the newest biggest wave. The distraction of the shinier shiny thing. Entrepreneurial ADD.

In these modern times – the age of the internet – entrepreunerial ADD is more of a problem than ever.

Why?

Because the barrier of entry to any market now is so low.

Anyone can put up a website in a couple of days, for practically nothing, and be in business.

So what’s the antidote?

The antidote is a plan.

And a sober commitment to that plan. No more messing around.

The steps you take might look something like this…

1. Find a market.

Find a market that you can be really passionate about.

Find an area of that market (or niche) with:

• high demand (lots of people want what you’re offering)
• low competition (few other business are offering it and offering it well)

More on this? Try here, here, and here.

2. Figure out what you need to do to be the best in that market

Work out who your customers really are and what they really want.

More on this? Try here and here.

Spy on your competition. Find out exactly what they’re doing. Copy the best bits and improve on them.

If they’re online then this bit is easy. You can:

• Subscribe to their newsletter / auto-responder sequence.
• Analyse their keywords, back links etc. using an SEO analysis tool
• Join their affiliate program and ask loads of questions

When you’ve done all this then you should have an excellent idea of how to build a better business.

3. Do that stuff. And keep doing it.

You now have a sober plan of what you need to do to appeal to your customers and dominate your competition.

All you need to do now is to start doing it.

And carry on doing it until you start making a profit.

I think that Dave would quit his job in six months’ time if he followed this plan.

What do you think?

Love JJ

Did you enjoy that little nugget of highly-practical knowledge?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Do you know what questions your customers want answered?

Hey there!

I’m always banging on about how important it is to identify with the needs, pains and desires of your prospective customers, so that you can provide the solutions they want.

(Check out this article for some wonderfully practical advice on this.)

One of the very best ways to do this is to find out what questions your prospective customer is asking.

And the one of the easiest ways to do that is to find out what questions your customer is typing into the internet search engines.

You see, people often type complete questions into search engines.

If you can identify these questions and then answer them then you can make all your customers’ dreams come true. And – as a bonus – you’ll be able to help yourself to a nice big slice of the search engine traffic pie.

(A tasty pie, indeed.)

So how do you find out what questions they’re asking?

Well… The eggheads at Wordtracker have just released a free keyword questions tool, which looks to me to be a rather wonderful little thing. You can find it at http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions/

You enter a one or two word keyword phrase, the tool “pairs it with pair it with six question words – what, why, when, how, where and who – and then conduct[s] a broad match from” [1] a database of a years worth of search terms.

I typed in the phrase life coach and got the results below:

Cool, eh?

The value in the Times Asked column should be treated as strictly indicative. It tells you the number of times that search term appears in the Wordtracker database in the last 140 days.

This doesn’t really mean anything in the real world, as this database holds only a sample of the total searches made. So you should not treat these results as absolute but, rather, use them as the basis for further research.

For a better idea of true search volumes, you could type these questions into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. (We discuss more about this here.)

What are you going to do with these questions?

Now you’ve identified the best and most relevant questions your customers are asking. Which is an admirable thing in itself.

But what specific actions are you going to take on this knowledge?

You might:

• Create a webpage or blog post answering each one of the questions you’ve identified
• Create a product to sell which is targeted specifically to answering one or more of these questions
• Address these questions in your existing sales copy
• Make an appearance on Oprah with the name of your website tattooed on your forehead and talk about the answers to these questions.

Oh yeah.

Remember… market research can be fun!

Love, JJ.

Did you enjoy that little nugget of highly-practical knowledge?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every month for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

[1] http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-questions-tool

A new lick of paint!

How does it look in here?!

Pretty, isn’t it?

I’ve done a little bit of rebranding and a complete website redesign.

I hope the new website is cleaner, more fun and easier to find your way around. There are a few loose edges to tidy up but I’m going to let you have a play with it. Please let me know what you think.

So what was the thinking behind this redesign?

Well… I wanted the look and feel to be more consistent with the Jalopy brand essence.

But more importantly I wanted to:

• reduce the chance of confusion
• have a single, clear, highly conspicuous call to action. (Can you tell what it is?!)

As always, your feedback is very much appreciated!

Love JJ.

If it all starts to look a little bit funny around here…

Hey there!

I’m going to be giving this place a lick of virtual paint over the next couple of days.

So if the site starts acting up a bit then please relax, laugh, go and make a cup of tea, hug the dog, take a nap and rest assured that it’s all going to look super shiny awesome when you come back!

We’re bound to get a little bit of paint on the carpet…

See you soon in a brand new shiny Jalopyland!

JJ.

Get Over Yourself! It’s not about you.

I have a secret…

Most of your customers, even your most loyal ones, don’t care how hard you work, how much you want to help them, or how cool, funny or successful you are.

They care about themselves.

They care about making their pain go away. They care about feeling good, being entertained, feeling successful, feeling superior, feeling clever.

As entrepreneurs, you and I sometimes focus on what makes us look and feel good, rather than what makes our customers feel the same way.

And that’s a costly mistake.

It’s about them, not you.

So get over yourself!

JJ Jalopy.

Did you enjoy that little nugget of mildly-offensive wisdom?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing. (Or how affiliate checks can keep your wine cabinet stocked this year.)

You may have heard that affiliate marketing is a good way to make money on the internet.

And you might fancy well fancy a bit of the affiliate marketing money pie yourself.

After all, it’s not cheap to keep your shoe cupboard overstocked and the children’s margarita habits satisfied.

So what is Affiliate Marketing? Give me an introduction please.

Okay. Thanks for asking.

In affiliate marketing, a business with something to sell, rewards one or more affiliates for each each customer (or visitor) brought about by the affiliate marketer’s marketers efforts.

So basically you, the affiliate marketing dude(tte), get rewarded for marketing someone else’s stuff.

The seller puts all the effort into producing something awesome. Now he wants to sell it to as many people as possible. Because of this, he is prepared to share the money he gets from the sale of the item with you if you can find him some customers.

For downloadable products with negligible distribution costs the seller is often prepared to share 50% of the cost of the item with you, sometimes more. And all you had to do was find someone who wants to buy it.

Cool, eh?

So how I do affiliate marketing effectively?

Well, let’s have a think about the actions that might lead a person to purchase a given product.

Let’s assume that our prospective customer is either:

• ready to buy from a preselected manufacturer, retailer or authority figure
• looking for more information on a product or service
• looking for information to help them solve a problem.

Let’s think about your prospective customer, as he sits in front of his computer, ready to search.

Scenario 1 – Dave has already decided on the product he’s going to buy.

Dave has heard great things about Kevin Hogan and his Secrets of Reading Body Language Home Study Course. He’s a subscriber to Kevin’s newsletter Coffee with Kevin Hogan, and he digs Kevin’s no-nonsense approach to life and work. He learns a ton from Kevin’s newsletter and he trusts and appreciates the Kevin Hogan brand.

Dave is likely to go directly to Kevin’s website, or take a link from Kevin’s newsletters, maybe with a discount coupon code. He’ll buy the Course directly from the source that he trusts.

Is there any way that you could persuade Dave to buy the course through your website, rather than directly from Kevin?

Well it’s not likely, because Dave isn’t looking for anyone else.

Your best chance in this scenario would be to buy prominent advertising on keywords similar to the one’s Kevin uses to promote the product, or to offer compelling extra bonuses or rebates to tempt Dave to buy through you – effectively reducing your margin on sale.

Neither of these options are likely to do very well because you are competing directly with Kevin, who is an established and trusted authority figure. And Dave isn’t looking for you anyway.

Oh well.

Scenario 2 – Marie is looking to buy a certain type of product, but doesn’t know which one.

Marie had a great conversation with her friends last night about body language. She becomes fascinated by the subject. Her friend John tells her that he took a great weekend course on body language and it helped him to improve his personal and business relationships enormously.

Marie goes online to search for body language courses in her local area of Wichita, Kansas.

Is there a possibility that Marie could buy the Kevin Hogan home study course through your website?

Well, yes. But you will need to be the answer to the question that she was searching for.

Marie was looking for body language courses in Wichita. If you know something about that subject then maybe you can create a website that Marie will visit?

Maybe you’ll have a website with reviews and listings of different courses around the U.S. or within Kansas. On that website you’ll could also have a review of Kevin’s Home Study course, or a relevant sales letter. Marie might decide that, although she was looking for local weekend courses, she quite likes the idea of being able to study at home. And if she buys the course you make a share of the profit.

In this scenario you have created a niche market - people looking for local weekend courses.

If you concentrate your efforts in building a resource rich website in this area, or buy advertising in this niche area then we can attract visitors and sell some copies of the course.

It’s not a great niche, because there is little emotion associated with the common problems and passions of the group. But it’s a step forward from Scenario 2.

Scenario 3 – Susan is pissed that her husband cheated on her.

Susan’s husband cheated on her last year.

She’s hurt and she wants to be sure this doesn’t happen again.

She goes online and searches for information on how to be sure she is never lied to again.

In this scenario, is there a possibility that Marie could wind up buying the Kevin Hogan home study course through your website?

Of course. But, just like before, you need to be the answer to the question that Susan is asking.

Maybe you have a website with articles and advice targeted at married women trying to deal with their husband’s infidelity. Maybe you have a specific page dedicated to reading body language to ensure that you are never lied to again. Maybe this page will contain a summary of your experiences with the Home Study Course and a link to purchase it.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we have defined a niche. And in concentrating on that niche, you have been able to provide the answer to the question Susan is looking for. Once you have her attention you can then offer her the chance to buy the course from you.

This niche is probably going to be more profitable to you than the previous one because there is a large amount of emotion associated with the common problem the group experiences.

Do you see how this works?

Good. So, how do you decide what affiliate product to promote, and how are you going to decide what niche to target?

I would start with thinking about your own personal experience. Is there a product you have bought recently that you have had a lot of value from? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Why did you buy the product?
• What in particular benefits did you get from the product?
• What kind of people do you most identify with?
• How could the product benefit your friends?

It can be a great approach if you have personally received a lot of value from the product and have a clear idea of an accessible group who could obtain similar value from it.

Good luck! And let me know how you get on.

See you later dude.

JJ Jalopy.

Enjoy that?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

What is Coaching?

So JJ, what is this coaching lark of which you speak?

Good question. I don’t discuss this very often.

Let’s start by looking at the various ways coaching authorities describe Coaching:

an … ongoing relationship which focuses on clients taking action toward the realization of their visions, goals and desires.

– Personal and Professional Coaching Association.

Coaching involves holding out a possibility in front of others whilst coaching them to move to the next level with relentless compassion.

– Robert Hargrove.

Coaching is a collaborative process that amplifies and accelerates self-discovery, promotes clarity, creativity and choice, and helps people achieve – and often exceed – their goals more quickly and more efficiently than they would without the partnership of a coach.

– The Academy for Coach Training.

Effective coaching challenges limiting assumptions embedded in our viewpoints about self and others in a way different than teaching or training… coaching is a unique form of dialogue that expands an individual’s capacity to transform his or her limiting beliefs.

– William Stockton.

So what does this mean in the real world?

Well coaching is really a dialogue between the coach and client with the goal of helping the client lead a happier, more awesome life.

This is achieved by:

• increasing the client’s level of self-awareness
• setting goals which will add to the client’s quality of life
• achieving those goals.

Simple, right?

So what does the coach contribute in this process?

Clarity - The coach asks questions to help the client build up a clear picture of what they really want.

Ideas - The coach may lead the client in exploring options they may not have considered before

Accountability - The coach will hold the client accountable for their actions. The coach may give the client homework to complete between sessions.

Brainstorming and Collaboration - The coach acts as a non-judgmental sounding board for new ideas. She creates a creative and supportive brainstorming environment.

Support – The coach provides encouragement for new ideas and supports the client in their decisions.

Challenge - The coach may challenge the client to expand their comfort zone, break old habits and pursue new beneficial directions in their life.

Validation - The coach may provide validation, support and encouragement.

Direction – The coach helps the client to gain perspective in times of overwhelm or confusion. She may also voice her opinion or give advice if it is necessary to move the conversation forward.

This last point, about advice, is a controversial one. Many well-respected coaches and coaching academies will disagree with me on this, stating that coaching should be entirely non-directive.

My view is that clients will often get overwhelmed and confused. And when we get overwhelmed our minds and bodies can shut down and ideas can appear out of our reach. Figuring it out becomes very difficult for someone experiencing overwhelm. In my opinion a suggestion or piece of advice can work wonders to give the client the support, structure and confidence they need to move forwards.

Now, if you are observant you’ll notice that I do not describe myself as a coach, but rather as a mentor (or sometimes as a consultant, if  I’m feeling a bit fancy.)

My clients are coaches, consultants, home business owners, small business owners or managers within larger corporations. My work with my clients is directive.

I work within a framework similar to the one I’m sharing with you on this blog here and I give specific advice and guidance – lots of it. I am an expert in this area, and I would be doing my clients a disservice if I did not.

To avoid confusion within the industry I do not use the term coach to describe what I do, even though I like it!

Coach JJ just sounds cool.

Don’t you think?

JJ Jalopy.

The Worst Advice You’ve Ever Heard about Starting a Coaching or Consulting Business.

Rare is the day when I’m not flagged down in the street and asked the following question*:

JJ, What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever heard about starting a coaching or consulting business?

And every time I respond the same way.

What an excellent question, I say. The worst piece of advice I’ve heard about starting a business of this kind is…

“Build it and they will come.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

“Build it and they will come.”

It has a great ring to it.

There’s only one problem with it.

(It’s a big problem.)

It’s this…

They won’t come.

You might be the greatest life coach in the world. You might have splashed out on the flashiest website the world has ever seen. Your business card might be so beautiful it makes you cry, BUT…

…if people don’t know who you are, they’re not going to come looking for you.

If you’re struggling to get enough clients you should have one priority and one priority only.

And that’s getting more clients.

Marketing your coaching business is the single most important thing you could be doing.

If you have no clients then nothing else matters. Not your training. Not your qualification. Not your website. Not this article right here.

Why are you still reading? Go!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Don’t believe me? Check this out.

* This may not be entirely representative of reality.

Business Idea Brainstorming. I need inspiration!

In preparation for the release of the Market Testing Kit, I’m running a short series for those of you without a business or those of you looking to do business in a new market.

To kick things off we spoke about our tendency to put good business ideas on a pedestal, and how that can stop us getting started in business.

Then we rolled up our sleeves to come up with loads of ideas for your future business.

Today we’re going to elaborate on the brainstorming process. I’ll share some ideas on where you can get inspiration for entrepreneurial ideas.

Struggling to come up with business ideas?

The other day I set you the challenge of coming up with tons of ideas for markets to explore in your soon-to-be brand new business venture.

I suggested that you put aside the critical part of your mind for a while and really got creative.

For some people, this blank page approach may have been somewhat overwhelming.

So if you’re struggling, allow me to present some little strategies to get your creative juices stirring…

1. What are you passionate about?

This is a great place to start – especially if you’re are looking to take your very first leap into the business world.

Do you have any hobbies or interests about which you know an enormous amount?

What magazines do you subscribe to?

What are your favorite websites?

My imaginary friend Nigel is into model railroad in a big way. When he’s not relaxing with a cup of tea, reading Model Railroad Enthusiast magazine, or chatting to fellow enthusiasts on his favorite model railroad forum, Nigel can be found in his attic, building and maintaining his model railroad.

Nigel is a model railway nut!

It makes perfect sense that Nigel should start his business idea brainstorm right here, in the model railroad world.

It’s something he knows a huge amount about. It’s something he is passionate about. It’s something that he speaks confidently and enthusiastically about.

And he already has a great idea who his market is and where they hang out.

So what ideas might Nigel write down?

Well… he’s going to want to get a little more specific than “model railroad stuff”. Perhaps he’d come up with something like the following:

• instructional DVDs on building a model railroad
• rare or vintage railroad parts
• model railroad machinery
• model railroad software
• model railroad plans or layouts
• a model railroad online museum

Not all of the ideas he comes up will be very good, but he shouldn’t be concerned about that right now.

He’s just coming up with ideas and getting them down on paper.

2. Borders is your friend.

I have long maintained that the Borders chain of bookstores is the greatest place in the world for market research and for meeting your future life partner.

Have a walk around and look at all the categories. Travel, history, computing, D.I.Y., gardening, cooking etc… Look at all the different topics and subjects within each section. You have the whole world under one roof here. You should have ideas coming out of your ears!

The For Dummies series can be great inspiration too. Each of these books is written to a large target audience of people who want to learn about something specific. Can you find a specific market within one of these books? Be creative.

Now, before you go and grab that coffee, go and check out the magazine rack. Every subject that people want to spend money to read about is here. And each of these magazines is written to a specific target audience. They’ve already done the market research.

Don’t pay attention to the subjects only. Take a look inside and see what people are selling. Look at the advertisements. Could you sell something similar to this market?

Finally, now you’ve written down a ton of great ideas, you can go for a coffee with that nice lady you met as you both reached for the same copy of Stamp Collecting World.

3. Online Research and Trend Spotting

There are countless great online resources to help you discover what people are interested in and what they’re buying.

Here are just a few…

What are people buying online?

Amazon Hot New Releases

MySimon Top Searches

eBay Marketplace Research

eBay What’s Hot

Market Trends

Google Trends

Google Zeitgeist

Trendwatching

How to websites

WikiHow

eHow

How to do things.com

4. Springwise.com – New Business Ideas from Around the World

Billed as “your daily fix of entrepreneurial ideas”, Springwise.com is a website full of new business ideas. It’s really rather wonderful.

I inhale their newsletter every week. And, as a future world dominating entrepreneur, I think that you should too.

5. Keyword Suggestion Tools

Free keyword suggestion tools like Wordtracker and the Google AdWords Keyword Tool will return related keywords based on a starting keyword you supply.

What’s a keyword, you ask?

It’s what someone types into a search engine when they’re trying to find something. We call that a keyword, even though it’s usually made up of more than one word. Keyword Phrase would work better really, wouldn’t it?

So if Nigel types “model railroad” as his starting keyword then he’ll see a list of related phrases that people search for, as well as an indication of the number of people that search for that phrase each month.

This is an excellent source of ideas and you can get a quick and easy idea of the potential size of the market.

Unlike me, Nigel probably knows a fair bit about atlas model railroad. It could lead him to come up with a great idea that he had yet to think of.

Any more suggestions?

Put them in the comments. Sharing is caring!

JJ Jalopy.

Business Idea Brainstorm-o-rama!

In preparation for the release of the Market Testing Kit, I’m running a short series for those of you without a business or looking to do business in a new market.

To kick things off we spoke about our tendency to put good business ideas on a pedestal, and how that can stop us getting started in business.

Today we’re going to roll up our sleeves and come up with loads of ideas for your future business. We’re going to do some brainstorming.

Hence the silly title.

But first, let’s get one thing out of the way.

Many people believe they are no good at coming up with ideas.

“Just not creative”, eh?

If you think this describes you then here’s what I’d like you to do…

1. Go to the kitchen and find a fish. A trout would be perfect.
2. Holding the fish by its tail, wave it laterally back and forth.
3. Move fish towards face. Or face towards fish. Doesn’t really matter.
4. Slap face with wet fish.
5. Return to the article.

Good. How was that for compassionate support and understanding from your favorite business coach?

Fine. I’ll try a bit harder…

Lots of people come up with idea after idea on a daily basis.

Are they different from you?

Probably not. I doubt that these people have any special powers that you don’t possess. I doubt that you’re missing some kind of creativity gene.

My guess would be that the reason you think you “can’t come up with ideas” is one or all of the following:

1. You lack of confidence in your creative powers.
2. You lack confidence in the ideas you actually do come up with.
3. You haven’t had consistent practice in the art of coming up with ideas.

In our ongoing brainstorming process, we’re going to systematically shoot each one of these three lame ducks.

(No real ducks will be harmed. We’re hippies ’round here, remember?)

Ready?

Oh yeah! Let’s go…

The Brainstorming Mindset

You know that guy (yes, it is usually a guy) who can always identify exactly why something isn’t a good idea, what it’s flaws are and exactly how it’s going to fail?

(They’re usually pretty easy to find because they tend to enjoy sharing their analysis.)

These people are great to have around when you’re planning the implementation of your projects. But you want them well out of the way when you’re brainstorming.

Slap this part of you with the fish for a little while and then lock it in the closet until later.

Brainstorming is all about possibilities.

The result we’re after is to come up with a load of good ideas, but that’s not the process.

The process is to come up with as many ideas as we can. On analysis, they might turn out to be terrible, but we’re quieting the critical part of our mind for now.

Crazy ideas are encouraged. If you think about selling jewelry to seahorses then write it down. Seahorses like to look good too, you know…

If you have a family, a job, or opposable thumbs then I know that you successfully come up with creative answers to problems all the time. Your “business” life is no different from the rest of your life. You bring the same person to the table.

The difference is your belief. Believe that you CAN come up with great ideas.

Because you totally can.

Hey Ho, Let’s Go!

I want to challenge you to come up with LOTS of ideas.

It’s through stretching ourselves that our most interesting ideas will be born.

So pick a number. 50? 100? And challenge yourself to come up with that many ideas.

Write numbers down the left hand side of a piece of paper (or two or four.)

Write down what comes to you until you’ve completed that list.

Don’t censor.

Don’t over think.

Don’t worry if your ideas suck. Lots of them will. It’s fine. We all have sucky ideas all the time.

Some of them are gonna be great though!

I’m struggling, JJ. I can’t fill my page.

It can be hard. But in flexing your creative muscles like this, you’re making it much easier to do this in the future.

If you’re struggling then take a walk away from your paper. Tell yourself that you need some ideas, and then put your mind somewhere else for a while. Go for a walk. Go paint the seahorse’s nails. Go for a nap.

Naps are great creativity fodder, by the way.

I guarantee that ideas will come. Don’t judge them too much – write them down!

Cool. I have a ton of ideas. What’s next?

Great job. Well done.

Now it’s time to get a bit more critical. Stay tuned!

JJ Jalopy.

Your Business Idea Is Not Special.

“I’m going to quit my job and start working for myself.

…just as soon as I come up with a fantastic idea.”

Does this sound at all familiar?

The reason many people do not start their own businesses is because they’re waiting for a perfect and unique idea to hit them upside the head.

If only the right idea could come along I’d make a fortune, they say.

If only I’d been the first to think of that bagless vacuum cleaner, wind-up radio or erectile disfunction remedy, they think, then I’d surely be a millionaire by now.

Well… allow me to share a secret.

Other successful business folk aren’t going to like me for this, but here goes…

Your business idea really isn’t that important.

A given business idea is rarely inherently good or bad.

(Well okay. Sometimes they can be bad, but it’s rare. The worst I heard involved tapeworm. You don’t really want to know.)

Provided that an idea isn’t totally unethical or logistically impossible, it’s likely that you could make it work. If you wanted to.

You can turn most ideas into profitable businesses if you want.

People want a lot of different stuff, some of it rather mundane. The availability of bagless vacuum cleaners does not stop people from wanting to buy milk.

When we look in hindsight at successful businesses, it can be tempting to attribute their success to a really smart and unique original concept. If we dig deeper though, we see that the “magic” is usually in the implementation or the marketing.

It’s usually the doing, rather than the thinking, that makes the difference.

Your local farmer didn’t need a great idea to make his business work. He just did what works and he did it well.

Soft drinks existed way before Coca Cola took over the beverage world.

Search engines and web portals existed way before Google did it bigger, better, faster, louder and more efficiently.

So, Mr. JJ, I have a question… You tell me that most business ideas could be made to work. You tell me that the magic is in the implementation and the marketing, not necessarily the concept itself. It all makes sense, but isn’t that a weird thing for you to be saying, given that you’re creating a Market Testing Kit thingy to help us figure out whether out business ideas are likely to succeed or not?

Ah, yes. Good point.

You see, markets aren’t really created equal.

It’s actually easier to build a successful and business farming the land than inventing bagless vacuum cleaners.

Good online market research is about finding proven and predictable markets which offer the greatest chance of success.

It’s about finding the right place to start your farm.

So first, we’re going to come up with some ideas…

Stay tuned for a business idea brainstorming extravaganza!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Go here to find out more about the forthcoming Market Testing Kit and sign-up my advance discount Email list.

P.P.S. In a previous post I promised a poem for the next person to sign up to my advance discount mailing list. The winner was Philip from San Francisco. I apologize in advance…

There was a young man from San Francisco

Who had an idea for a business at the (ahem) disco.

Was the market legit?

He used his Market Testing Kit

And he throughly worked out the risk-o.”

I’ll get my coat…

What my public speaking disasters can teach you about starting a business.

Last week I delivered a lively talk about off-balance sheet accounting to a crowd of a few hundred excited accountants and consultants.

(Please bear with me – there is a point coming.  I tell you this not just to impress upon you how rock-and-roll my life is outside of the walls of this website!)

It went pretty well thank you very much. The nerds loved it.

Was I nervous?

Not really. I’ve done this kind of thing many times before. Excited, perhaps.

It hasn’t always been this way though.

Before I had done much public speaking I’d had the vague idea that I might be good at it. I was pretty happy in this belief and didn’t feel a great urge to go out and prove it in the real world by actually doing much of it.

In fact, the thing that sticks in my mind when I look back to the times when I had to speak in public was not the fear of public speaking itself, but rather a sense of not wanting to prove myself wrong by finding out that I was actually a bit rubbish.

During my time at university there would be times when I had to speak in public. I prepared (more or less). I got nervous. I talked. People seemed to enjoy it. I felt relieved. And then I forgot about it all and went to the bar, content in the knowledge that I was a public speaking superstar.

Later, in 2002, I took a job in which I would do much more public speaking. Despite the underwhelming abundance of evidence in my favor, I was pretty confident that I would be brilliant at it.

I prepared extensively for my first talk. I wrote copious notes. I memorized entire paragraphs and phrases. I practiced under my breath on the tube into work.

I was incredibly nervous before the talk. My hands were shaking. I was sweating. I couldn’t keep my legs still.

I stood up and I spoke in front of hundreds of people. It was all a bit of a blur but people seemed to enjoy it. They stared back at me as I spoke with interested looks on their faces. They laughed in all the right places – a bit too much sometimes.

I felt relieved and elated.

I truly was a public speaking rock star! I went to the bar and celebrated my obvious brilliance.

As I spoke more and more, however, I slowly began to make a few new distinctions.

I learned how to structure my talks more effectively. I learned how I could better hold the interest of the crowd with my gaze. I learned that if you don’t prepare, your talk invariably sucks. I learned when to be serious and when to be lighthearted. I learned that sometimes it’s best not to tell my silly jokes all the time.

I could now see that my earlier speaking ability has improved dramatically in the last seven years. And that those very first performances included a lot of room for improvement. I could have structured them much better. I could have told far fewer inappropriate jokes!

Why did it take me so long to make these distinctions?

Because, in the beginning, I was nervous, afraid of looking silly, and looking only for validation that I was awesome.

I didn’t have the awareness to step back and make distinctions about what worked and what didn’t.

This is where it turns into a really tenuous metaphor about your business.

Starting a business can be a bit like this.

In the beginning you can expect to be nervous, anxious and searching for validation that you’re doing the right thing.

At this point, you’ll lack the experience and objectivity to make this distinction.

It’s only after you’ve rolled up your sleeves, gotten busy and made a few mistakes that you can look objectively at what you’re doing and really start to grow.

The important thing in the beginning – and the thing that really separates those who are successful from those who are not – is taking action.

Get on that podium and tell some inappropriate jokes. You’ll figure out the lessons soon enough.

JJ Jalopy.

Enjoy that?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

You MUST do this before starting an online business.

Want to make money on the internet?

Yeah? Cool.

Would you like to know how to do it?

Well… I’ll tell you right now.

You need people to buy stuff from you.

(More specifically… you need enough people to buy enough stuff from you at high enough prices.)

So why aren’t people buying your stuff?

Well… for many of you, it’s because you don’t yet have any stuff to sell. You don’t yet have a business.

We should probably do something about that.

I want you to have all the awesome things that you think having a successful business will give you.

I want you to work towards something you feel is important. I want you to feel free to spend as much time as you like with friends and family. I want you to wake up and smile. I want your world to be full of sunbeams and gold. I want you to have the life of your dreams.

Look. You’re obviously reading this blog for a reason.

Maybe it’s because you dig really bad jokes. Maybe it’s because you have a crush on my cartoon avatar on Twitter…

…But most likely it’s because you’ve thought about creating your own business. You’ve thought about making a change.

So why haven’t you done it?

Here’s what some people said:

• I don’t know what to do. I don’t really have any obvious area of expertise.
• I can’t think of anything original.
• I have tons of ideas. Some of them are good and some of them totally suck. But I can’t tell the difference.
• I’m scared. I don’t want to waste money on a bad idea.
• I’m terrified it won’t work out.

I understand all these concerns.

I have friends who have plowed years of effort and thousands upon thousands of dollars into businesses that failed.

And this makes me sad because, in many of these cases, all of this stress and worry and wasted time and effort could easily have been avoided with a small amount of simple market testing.

There is no reason at all why you should spend your precious time and money on projects that will not serve the best interests of you and your family…

…if you you focus on the right things.

The internet is a pretty predictable place, you see. And I’ve created a simple set of tests that will allow you to determine how likely an online business idea is to be profitable.

I run through a few of the concepts in the video below.

…but I want to give you more.

I’m all about over-delivery.

I’m serious about the sunbeams and gold.

I’m going to give you a complete Market Testing Kit for small online businesses.

It shows you step by step how to determine if there are enough people who want to buy enough stuff for enough money. You can do this without spending any money at all.

I also show you how you can actually make money as you test your business idea, without even creating a product or service yourself.

There’s videos and worksheets and checklists. There’s lightning bolt flow diagrams galore.

But I already have an online business. Will this help me?

This is will be of great value to anyone who does business on the internet, or wants to get started.

This is for you if you’re:

• thinking of starting a small online business, but have no idea how to do it.
• looking to move into another market
• an established business owner who can’t quite attract the number of customers you’d like
• looking to narrow your target market
• looking to widen your target market

Okay. So obviously this is brilliant. How do I get it?

Well it’s not quite ready yet…

This is a good thing because it allows you to get on board early and help influence the direction and content of the product.

And because I have favorites, you’ll get the opportunity to buy it at a significant discount when it’s released…

…if you sign-up to my advance notice email list.

So… if you think this rocks and you’re interested in finding out more, then please add your name and email address below and click submit.

Shortly afterwards you’ll receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm. Do this and you’re registered and good to go.

I like a clean inbox as much as you do. I won’t use your email address for anything other than information about this product. And I won’t do that very often.

Thanks for your help and support!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Did you remember to enter your email address? No? Why are you being silly? This is awesome.

P.P.S. The first person to sign-up after I publish this gets a poem written especially for them and published in my next post. (Likely Haiku or Limerick.)

P.P.P.S. This is a different list to the V.I.P. list that my newsletter goes to. (I know that not all of you lovely V.I.P.s will be into this, you see.)

P.P.P.P.S. Mrs. Jalopy appears in some of the videos and she’s really pretty.

Wet People WANT to be Sold Dry Cleaning

Surprise! It’s me!

Yes. I realize that, as surprises go, my re-appearance on my own blog is not going to rival any of the really big ones, like Scary Spice making babies with Eddie Murphy or Ellen getting hitched to that bird from Ally McBeal, but I have been away a little while and I’ve missed you.

That’s why I brought you cake.

So what’s up? How’ve you been?

I see the talented and beautiful Coach Kalpna has been taking good care of you in my absence.

(And if you missed it, you’ll probably want to read her wonderfully-crafted article on how to screw up your personal branding. Then, after you’re suitably impressed with that then you’ll might want to read this article about dealing with worry on her blog.)

Now, in my absence, thousands of emails arrived in my email box in the past week.* And it has been the same question every time. Rabid fans, hungry for some JJ wisdom, have been asking this question in droves. It’s the same question I get every thursday night when chess club overruns and I return home at three in the morning in a drunken stupor with an octopus around my neck…**

Where on earth have you been, JJ?

I’ve been up a mountain.***

That’s right.

Sometimes a man needs to climb a mountain.

As it happens, that man was not me but a friend. Sometimes an unforeseen emotional and spiritual crisis strikes and the only logical course of action is to embark upon an ill-prepared camping trip up a mountain in the Lake District.

If this here blog were more literary in nature then I would wax poetic about the rugged landscapes, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mists encircling the mountain tops…

But I like to talk about learning here. So please allow me to describe…

Three lessons learned atop an English mountain in the rain

1. The only Zen you’ll find on the Top of the mountain is the Zen you bring up there

Okay. This isn’t exactly a learning of my own.

It’s a quote I lifted from Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Great book, by the way.)

Makes me sound wise though, I reckon.

Next…

2. When your Dad tells you “Look Son. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about hiking it’s to put all your belongings in a bin bag (refuse sack) inside your rucksack if it starts raining, otherwise all your stuff will get wet, and not having dry stuff to put on when you’re wet isn’t much fun” and you think “that’s a good idea, but I probably won’t do it because it sounds like a lot of effort and my stuff probably won’t get THAT wet” then you really should ignore that thought and just do what your Dad suggested anyway, otherwise you’ll end up with a load of wet stuff that makes you feel sad.

Which brings us onto…

3. When someone limps into your hotel, soaking wet, carrying a rucksack with tent attached, they probably won’t mind being sold to.

This is the bit in which I appear less than heroic. But also the bit in which I make a semi-relevant point about marketing.

As it turns out, you see, it wasn’t really camping weather. If the wind had abated awhile then we might have had a fighting chance of getting the tent up, but it wouldn’t have stayed attached to the ground for long.

At least that’s the story I told myself as I craved a nice warm bath and a beer in the hotel in the nearby village.

So, with tent on back, we headed back down the mountain in the pouring rain towards the village.

Now it also turns out that my left knee isn’t really a walking-down-mountains kind of knee. In fact, it’s more of a crunch-and-grind-and-make-me-grimace-and-scream-with-every-step kind of knee. (Yes, I am a true athlete.)

So when I arrived at the hotel in agony, cold and soaking wet, I would have gladly liquidated the children’s college  fund (if such a thing were to exist) to pay for a room in that hotel.

The receptionist was an angel. She reassured me that:

“Yes, I do indeed have rooms free. And here’s a room key. Why don’t you go have a nice warm bath and then we can check you in properly when you’re warm and relaxed? And if you leave your rucksack here we can get your clothes dried for you and up to your room within the hour. And would you like a table for dinner? You don’t look like you want to be walking very far.”

I happily said Yes to all of the above and gladly paid an extortionate amount of money for the service, but I would never have asked for it because my focus was simply on sliding into that lovely warm bath water.

Sometimes someone wants what you provide so much that they are thankful when you try to sell it to them. This is especially true when they haven’t yet realized that they would want it.

This might be worth thinking about next time you worry about “up-selling” or being “a pushy salesperson”.

Just sayin’.

JJ Jalopy.

* This might not, you know, actually be true.

** This entire paragraph may exist only because I think I’m funny and not, in fact, as a result of its resemblance to the truth.

*** This bit, and the rest of the post, really is true. Honest.

Enjoy that?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

How to Destroy Your Brand!

Hey! I’m on sabbatical up a mountain. I’ll be back in a couple of days. In the meantime, here’s a guest post from my beloved Mrs. Jalopy. It’s brilliant. Make sure you let her know!

Hi there, Kalpna here – you know, Coach Kalpna (if you don’t know, come and see me here!)

I’m a big fan of JJ Jalopy and when he asked if I would guest write a blog post I went through a flurry of emotions. First there was the flattery – little me being asked to write on such a cool blog? Yes please! Then there was that feeling that I just couldn’t do it. For one, what would I write about, what would people think, what if I didn’t add any value? Argh.

There’s a lot to tackle there, but today I’m not going to write about confidence boosters or how best to write a blog. That’s not really my job and in all fairness, I’d probably not be able to give the sort of constructive and loving advice that JJ provides in his oh-so-humorous style. Instead I’m going to share with you a story that gave me some learning.

I attend a fair few of these networking events and Coaching for Coaches days. I get to hang out with some people from my profession and we exchange stories and lessons and generally help each other out. I went to a full day seminar a few months ago. There were coaching professionals from all spheres of coaching. I met a lovely lady who helps people with their lives and their wardrobes – I think she probably has friends who are color therapists. I met a man who taught me that although men have more neurons in their brains than women but that women’s brains are able to make a larger amount of connections along nerve cells than men. Apparently this information could help change the face of coaching between the sexes. It was fascinating and mind boggling all at the same time!

What I was really looking forward to was hearing from a smartly dressed lady who was going to talk about brand identity. I’d been given a glossy brochure beforehand showing her immaculately dressed with a smiling, friendly face and a few perfectly scripted words about her, her company and her specialism. I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, what a great brand she is for herself!” I’m not ashamed to say that I was feeling like I was going to meet someone with a celebrity status.

So with a bounce in my step and with high expectations I entered the lecture theatre. Within minutes the lady within the pages of my brochure was stood in the auditorium talking about brand identity. She talked about the importance of a brand particularly when you are your own brand – which is the case for the majority of coaches. Everything that she said was spot on. I learnt the importance of nurturing your brand and being the brand and conducting yourself to support your brand in every single interaction. She was good. I liked it. I knew she was on to something. And in my eyes she had credibility. She was walking the walk and talking the talk.

Much like JJ’s friend Dave, the guy who doesn’t buy life coaching, I need convincing before buying into something – whether that be a physical purchase or just buying into a theory or idea. This lady was oozing credibility, she appeared trustworthy and was adding real value to me. What’s not to like? If she’d been selling something, I’d have bought it right then and there!

On my way out of the auditorium I couldn’t help but join the small group of people waiting to talk to her. I just wanted to give my thanks (and, OK, the celebrity stalker in me really wanted to meet her!). She engaged herself in a couple of brief conversations with the waiting people and finally turned to me, to look right through me whilst handing me her business card. Not one word, no eye contact, no acknowledgement. She just turned to talk to someone else.

In that moment the immaculate, friendly image I had of her disappeared with a poof. All the good feelings I had about her vanished. Her brand essence disintegrated in my mind. I felt cheated and a little bit stupid.

I walked away thinking that she was a bit of a fake.

OK, I admit, that’s a strong reaction to have to something that might have a really simple explanation (maybe she needed the loo, maybe she was hungry, maybe she was in a rush, maybe she didn’t like the look of me…) But rejection can hurt, and our opinions can only be built on the information we have available. Your customers are likely no more compassionate in this regard.

As JJ would say, her incongruence was the smelly carpet in her branding.

What is yours?

Marketing for Granola Eating Airy Fairy Woo Woo Hippie Types

A friend of mine is a color therapist.

What on earth is that? You’d be entitled to ask.

And, to be honest, I don’t really know.

It’s some kind of holistic therapy involving waving specifically colored silks over the patient’s body or directing colored light onto the body with the aid of a light box and some colored lenses.

So, yeah, its a bit out there.

An aside: For those of you willing to write this off as a total waste of time, remember that a very important part of the therapy process is the care and attention that the therapist pays the client. So yeah – the light stuff is obviously a load of hooey, but that doesn’t mean that the therapy as a whole has no merit.

Now, the main problem that a color therapist has with marketing her services is the same one that a Law of Attraction Coach or a more esoteric alternative Life Coach would have.

I call it…

The “What The $&@£ Is That?!” factor

If you own a business that makes people ask What The $&@£ is That? then you’re going to want to work a little harder to overcome the immediate objections a potential customer might have.

Remember Dave, the guy who doesn’t buy life coaching?

Dave’s main concerns are:

• He doesn’t want to look stupid
• He doesn’t want to other people to think he’s stupid
• He doesn’t want to waste money.

These concerns shout even louder in the mind of the person considering color therapy or anything involving past lives, aliens, wind chimes or touchy feely magical stuff  (The “Law” of Attraction.)

So what’s the antidote to all this doubt?

Bucket Loads of Social Proof

That’s right. Social Proof.

LOTS of it.

You want to overwhelm your potential customer with evidence that:

• lots of other people do it
• lots of other people have had great results with it
• other people are proud to talk about it
• other people were skeptical but took a chance and were happy with it
• their friends won’t think they’re weird if they do it
• it is acknowledged and accepted as okay by the mainstream.

So…

You want loads of testimonials from real, live people from different walks of life.

You want testimonials from people who were really skeptical but ended up getting a lot out of your service.

Ideally you’ll have been mentioned in the mainstream media and not just Granola Times. You want to make this obvious to your potential customer.

You want to a collect bucket load of evidence that your service is legitimate, accepted and valued by other people.

Got that?

Good. Now we’re at square one and we can start talking about the benefits…

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

Have you got a crazy woo woo business? Cool. Tell me all about it in the comments. You crazy hippie freak.

Small Business Therapy #5 – What if I’m a massive success and I can’t cope?!

This is the fifth article in our small business therapy series. Today we’re talking about the fear of success.

Blimey! It’s that time of the week already!

Relax. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink. It’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive kind of way, without a sleazy old therapist in site.

So… Fox News get in touch with you.

They’ve invited you to talk as an expert in your field.

How do you feel?

Excited?

Yeah! Why not?! You’re going to be on the telly!

In fact, for two minutes you’re going to be the most important thing on there! They’ll probably give you free tea and biscuits. You’ll meet famous people and stuff!

It’s going to be great for business too. You’ll write about it on your website or in your newsletters. You can put a little “Featured on Fox News” icon on your website. Admittedly it’s Fox News, rather than a proper News network, but it’ll increase your perceived credibility no end.

Flattered?

Yeah. Damn right.

It’s a pretty hefty shot of validation really, isn’t it?

They want little old you to talk on their big telly box program. They could have chosen Paula Abdul, David Hasselhoff or the guy from the Will It Blend videos. But they chose You; the obvious expert in your field. Give yourself some recognition. You did well.

Panicked?

Umm… Yeah. Most likely.

We’re all scared a lot of the time. You’re likely no exception.

So let me ask you… What scares you about this?

I’m scared of being on TV.

Go on…

I’m scared that I won’t have anything to say.

I’m scared that my face will go all red and I’ll look stupid.

I’m scared that I’ll fall over my words and people will think I’m dumb.

I’m scared that everyone will realize I’m a total amateur.

I’m scared that it’ll go brilliantly and I’ll be in massive demand. I’m scared that everything is moving too quickly and I won’t be able to cope.

Good. Phew. You’re human. I was worried for a second.

We start to freak out when we imagine things happening that we don’t like.

Often we imagine things going really really well for us; so well, in fact, that we won’t be able to cope. We imagine attention and glory coming our way. And then we imagine royally screwing it all up – in front of a ton of people.

We tell ourselves that we aren’t ready for success. We resist success because we think it will cause us pain.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel like this.

But it’s not very helpful.

So what can you do about it?

1. Realize that you’re not alone.

Everyone is scared.

Talk to anyone who has achieved any degree of success and they’ll tell you that they were initially terrified by the idea of doing something different. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that they still get scared, even now.

It gets easier, they’ll say, but it never truly goes away.

You might choose to label it excitement or anticipation, rather than fear, but the feeling will be there. The butterflies aren’t going to go away.

When you’re paralyzed by fear you might look at other people getting by and think you’re the only one that’s scared.

The truth is that what you’re feeling is no different than what anyone else is feeling. There are a whole load of terrified people out there, acting in spite of the butterflies in their stomach.

The secret is that, once you’ve done something once, it’s not quite so scary the second time around.

The New is always a little scary.

But it can also exciting, exhilarating and rewarding. And you’d do well to tell this story to yourself occasionally when you start imagining the one in which everything goes wrong.

2. Realize that no-one is paying you a whole lot of attention.

So there are all these people running around, freaking out and going about their business.

And there are a whole load of other people, sitting on the coach, drinking wine and wishing they could summon the will to make something happen.

There are the people moaning about their neighbor mowing the lawn in the early hours of the morning.

And the people secretly worrying about their partner’s infidelity…

Do you think these people are concerned about you?

Of course not. Most people are too busy dealing with their own stuff to really pay you too much attention.

Try to remember this when you worry about not living up to people’s expectations.

The truth is that they probably don’t have them. And they probably don’t care.

The people that actually are paying attention will be supportive. The ones that aren’t don’t matter so much…

3. Know what you want.

The journey is going to be hard sometimes, so it helps if you know where you’re going and why you want to get there.

Keep the end in mind. It’ll help you get the strength to push through the challenges as they come.

4. Prepare. Consciously increase your confidence.

When you’re scared of success you’re likely to resist that which is in your best interest.

You might choose not to promote or market yourself as effectively as you could because you don’t feel ready for the attention this will bring.

The key is to be pro-active about this. You might want to make a plan to take action to increase your confidence alongside your other efforts.

If you’re a life coach, you’ll gain confidence by coaching. Do it for free if you have to. And do a lot of it.

If you’re a public speaker, you’ll gain confidence by speaking in public.

Make a plan to get the exposure you need to grow your confidence, at a rate that is comfortable for you. This is as important as anything else you do within your business.

What does your plan look like?

Good luck.

JJ Jalopy.

Enjoy the post?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Does Your Carpet Smell of Wee?

There’s a pub nearby that serves fantastic Thai food.

It’s mouthwateringly delicious.

It’s the best lunch in the area by a country mile.

But I don’t eat lunch there anymore.

And neither, it appears, does anyone else.

Why?

Because the pub is dirty, untidy and the carpet smells of wee.

What is the smelly carpet in your business?

Maybe you’re so used to the smell that you can’t recognize it. So ask a trusted friend. And listen.

JJ Jalopy.

It’s my birthday today!

We’ve just finished the chocolate cake and we’ll be firing up the barbecue soon. Cheers!

Enjoy the post?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

Why Dave Doesn’t Buy Life Coaching

How the devil are you?

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?!

I’ve been busy doing….you know, stuff. You still love me, don’t you?

Phew.

I must admit I was a little worried.

Right… so what are we going to talk about today?

We’re going to talk about Dave.

Who is Dave, you say.

Dave is This Dude. He’s in a bit of a rut.

Dave is married to a lovely girl named Judy. Dave loves Judy and Judy loves Dave. But they rarely keep the neighbors awake at night anymore.

Dave is an accountant. He’s a big important one and he wears a suit to work everyday. He’s handsomely paid. His wage easily pays the bills as well as satisfying his desires for shiny red sports cars, Judy’s expensive taste in shoes and bags, and the kids’ vodka habit.

Unfortunately, Dave’s job bores him to tears.

Dave reads self-development books, reads through the exercises, thinks it would be a good idea to do them…

…then opens a Bud and sits down in front the football.

He wonders why he feels so pulled towards the sofa.

And he decides he could do with a partner in his effort to improve his life. He decides he could do with a supportive kick-up the butt. His thinks about the life coaching sales letter you dropped through his door.

Life Coaching could be just thing I need to help me get out of this rut, Dave thinks.

So he pulls your sales letter out of the trash, brushes off the old banana skin, and re-reads your letter.

It’s a good letter.

Dave feels understood. He feels hopeful. He feels like you could be the one to help pull him out of his rut.

He grabs the phone and starts to dial your number…

…and then he stops.

Why does he stop?

What makes Dave, hungry for your life coaching expertise, put the phone down and switch on America’s Top Model.

Fear.

That’s what.

Fear of what, you say?

Many things, my fine friend. Let’s address a few of them.

Dave doesn’t want to feel dumb.

Dave bought a new cellphone last month.

It’s a great phone. He can order pizzas on it with one flick of the finger. He can read www.jjjalopy.com on it on the way into work. That’s how good it is.

The salesperson told Dave that he’d need insurance.

Dave didn’t want insurance. He had heard that cellphone provider insurance is a rip off.

I don’t want insurance, said Dave.

No, you’ll definitely need insurance, said the salesperson. It covers you for everything under the sun. And you never know, do you? Here, I’ve added it onto the contract. You’ll need it, but you can cancel it in a month if you change your mind.

Dave didn’t argue.

But when he got home he felt dumb. He felt betrayed. He felt like he’d been sold.

Every time Dave has an experience like this, his mistrust grows.

When Dave reaches for the phone he thinks about how dumb he’s going to feel when he falls for that trick again.

And we all like feeling dumb, don’t we?

Yep. That’s my point.

Dave doesn’t want other people to think he’s dumb

A couple of years ago Dave got involved in a get-rich-quick style multi level marketing scheme.

He was pretty excited about it all and eager to offer “investment opportunities” and packs of overpriced vitamins to his friends and family.

This is a scummy pyramid scheme, his friends said.

No, this is different, he replied. This is a genuine investment opportunity. Look at this glossy brochure. Look at these graphs. Look at these testimonials. Look at these income projections.

It was a scummy pyramid scheme.

Dave felt like an idiot again. His friends were happy to confirm this assessment.

When Dave reaches for the phone, he thinks about his friends at the pub telling him that life coaching is a waste of money. He thinks about his friends telling him that life coaching is for wimps and hippies.

Who cares what they think? Dave says to himself.

But the truth is that he does care. And he’d love to be able to trust his instincts on this, but he doesn’t. He puts down the phone.

Dave doesn’t want to waste money.

Dave has bought a lot of rubbish in the past.

It didn’t seem rubbish in the shop but it certainly did once he’d got it home.

Dave doubts his judgement a little bit more every time this happens.

When Dave reaches for the phone, he thinks about all the bad purchasing decisions he’s made in the past. He puts down the phone.

….

Oh dear.

It appears that Dave had been kicked around a fair bit by unscrupulous business folk in his time.

This means that you are going to have to work extra hard to gain his trust. If you give Dave any reason to mistrust you, however small it may be, then the game is over.

So how do you get Dave to buy?

Here’s how…

Address his concerns

At the very least, you’ll want to bring his attention to each of these concerns and provide reassurance on each point.

Prove your trustworthiness

Be human. Include a photo on your sales letter and/or website. Tell stories from your own personal experience. Tell Dave you share the same concerns that he might have. Make it clear that you treat your clients or customers with the utmost of respect.

Establish credibility

Include testimonials from real people with real names, real faces and real businesses. Tell him with whom you’ve worked previously. Show him any qualifications you might have, awards you’ve won, or relevant impressive achievements.

Provide value

Is there anything you could help Dave out with right now? Perhaps you could include some valuable self-development tips in your sales letter or website?

What can you do to demonstrate that you can help Dave without any financial commitment on his part?

Start a conversation

It’s likely that you’ve done all of the above but Dave still isn’t ready to splash out just yet. He wants your coaching, but he still has doubts and he needs more reassurance.

Make it easy for Dave to keep in touch with you.

Put your phone number, website URL, Facebook or Twitter details on all your communication, online and off.

Provide regular useful relevant helpful content on your website and other media. Demonstrate your brand identity, trustworthiness and credibility in everything you write. Make it easy for Dave to learn from you, and to learn what a fine trustworthy person you are.

Make it easy for Dave to give you a way to keep in touch with him

In ideal world you want to collect Dave’s contact details so you can keep in touch with him and ensure that this conversation happens.

So make it easy for Dave to give you his email address, home address or phone number. Make it easy for Dave to subscribe to your blog, follow you on Twitter or be your Facebook buddy. Maybe you could bribe him – in an ethical way, of course – by offering him some free stuff if he gives you his details?

Got that?

Good. Now it’s up to you to carry on the conversation and demonstrate your trustworthiness and credibility.

Dave is most of your customers. How are you going to reassure him?

JJ Jalopy.

Enjoy that?

Well why not sign-up to my V.I.P. list and get awesomeness like this in your emailbox every week for free?

You’re definitely V.I.P. material, so put your name and email in the boxes below and press the friendly “Join Now” button.

5 easy ways to make money RIGHT NOW!

Sometimes you need money right now.

Maybe you’ve spent all your savings, used up all your credit and you’re about to get evicted from your home if you don’t make payment in the next two weeks?

Maybe you’d just feel a whole lot better if you had a bit more cash right now?

Either way… here are some short term strategies for make money very quickly.

These are not sustainable business models. They are quick short-term strategies to get you out of a hole.

I hope you don’t need them!

1. Sell stuff on eBay

You’ll probably have heard of this enormously popular auction site.

eBay brings together buyers and sellers, makes the transaction nice and easy, and takes a cut of each transaction for its trouble.

They make a big song and dance of the fact that you have thousands of dollars of unwanted stuff lying around the house that you could sell on eBay.

It’s probably worth finding out whether or not they’re right.

Have a root around your house.

See what you can find.

You could probably live without that fancy stereo system that you haven’t figured out how to connect together after your last house move.

And you’ve always hated that colored glass kingfisher.

So you’ve gathered together some stuff to sell. Now all you need to do is sell it.

But first you need…

An eBay profile with positive feedback

People on the internet are untrustworthy.

A lot of people share this belief. And for good reason.

Unless you have a documented track record of Not Ripping People Off, you’re probably going to find it hard to persuade people to give you money over the internet.

It’s very very difficult to sell anything on eBay if you don’t have positive feedback as a trustworthy eBay buyer and seller.

So how do you get good feedback?

Here’s a few suggestions:

“Borrow” a friend’s profile.

Know a good friend with an impressive eBay profile?

Cool. Ask your friend to submit your listing for you.

This isn’t a long term solution, but we’re after quick money here.

Buy a load of really cheap stuff

eBay doesn’t make it immediately obvious whether your feedback relates to buying or selling things.

You can therefore build up an impressive eBay profile by buying a lot of really cheap stuff. After a couple of weeks, you’ll be good to go.

Use an eBay listing service

There are a number of companies that will do all the work for you. You drop of your stuff and they will take the photographs, write a great advert and sell your stuff using their super-feedback-powered Power Seller Profiles. The only downside is that they take a significant percentage of the sale price for their efforts.

Got the profile? Great now we need to photograph the stuff and write the listing.

My advice?

Get a book from the library about selling on eBay

Selling stuff on eBay isn’t rocket science but there are better and worse ways to go about it.

eBay has been around for a long time so there is a lot of good advice out there. Go to the library and get out a couple of books. Don’t buy a dubious internet information product when you could get something better for free at the library.

It’s going to take some time, but that’s probably one thing you have quite a lot of right now.

Do this okay and you’re almost certain to get money.

Do it badly and you probably still will – just not quite as much…

Next idea…

2. Buy stuff cheaply and sell it on for a higher price somewhere else

I’ve identified an awesome business model.

It goes like this:

1. Buy things cheaply
2. Sell the same stuff for more money somewhere else.

Yes. I am a genius.

Right now, though, we’re after a quick turnaround. And, as you might have only a few hundred dollars left on your credit card, we want to be sure that there’s a hungry market for the stuff you’re going to sell.

So you’re going to want to do some market research.

Have a look on free classified ad websites like Craigslist. Items on these sites usually sell for higher prices than you can pick them up on eBay or in clearance sales. Find out what’s popular and appears to be selling well.

Then try to pick these items up cheaper on eBay, at clearance sales or other marketplaces.

This one can be easy if you have a hobby you know about which you know an insane and unhealthy amount.

Next idea…

3. Sell old books on Amazon

You almost certainly have a number of books sitting around at home that you’re never going to read again.

Amazon makes it really easy to sell this stuff without having to write an advert or really put in any work whatsoever.

It really takes no time at all.

Go to their website to find out more. Just be careful that you don’t lose money on postage and packaging costs.

Next idea…

4. Sell your services

What useful things could you do for people in exchange for cash?

Can you:

• write or edit articles?
• help people tidy organize their office?
• create or customize websites?
• do graphic design?
• do coding (computer programing)?
• mow the lawn?
• trim hedges?
• babysit?

The list is endless…

Now is the time to get in touch with all the people you know, tell them what you’re doing and tell them you’re offering large discount based on your current circumstances.

Put an advert up on Craigslist too whilst you’re at it.

Next idea…

5. Sell websites

If you do business on the internet you might have a few half-finished or otherwise neglected websites hanging around.

Did you know that you can sell these for cash, especially if they specifically target a well-chosen keyword or two and a high Adsense pay per click price (read this article on niche websites if this makes no sense right now.)

Search for “Website Flipping” for more on this strategy.

Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay.

JJ Jalopy.

How to use Twitter for Marketing – Why should you care?

Twitter for Marketing

What is Twitter?

The press tell you it’s all the rage.

“The world is all a twitter”, they say.

All the cool young kids (MC Hammer? Mr. Demi Moore?) are doing it, they say.

But what actually is it? And why should you care?

Apparently it’s a microblogging platform.

I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t seem very bloggy to me.

I see it as a really easy way for people to send messages to one another without any of the awkwardness of talking on the phone or the formality and structure of email.

It’s great for small talk. Great for networking. And as a business or a one-(wo)man-brand it’s great for building social proof and establishing your brand in the mind of your customers.

You send messages out into the ether and people can choose to listen to them, or not. Similarly, you get to choose whose messages you want to listen to.

Sounds a bit odd, but it makes sense. So why should I devote any of my time to it? I’ve got enough on right now thank you very much.

That’s a good question. I know your time is precious. I know you’ve got a to-do list longer than a really long piece of string.

And I don’t want to add to that list if it’s not going to make your life easier, your time more productive or your business more profitable.

The good thing is, used correctly, it should help you achieve all of the above.

How so?

Well let’s think about the journey that a stranger has to take to go from guy-on-the-street-you-wouldn’t-recognise-from-Adam to raving fanboy – the guy who buys everything you ever produce and tells all his friends how much you rock (heck, he probably has your face tattooed on his arm.)

Following our discussion the other week about permission marketing, let’s pretend your customer’s journey looks like this.

1. He notices you.

2. You ask for his permission to carry on a dialogue.

3. He gains trust in you.

4. You make him an offer. He buys some stuff.

5. You grow your relationship by carrying on doing what you agreed.

This is by no means the only marketing strategy you might use. In fact, many of your customers may well jump straight in at step 4. But let’s run with this for the sake of making our discussion nice and simple. Read this post for some background on this model.

So what I think you want to know, my beautiful small business owner, is..

How is Twitter going to help me do these things better?

I’ll tell you for how…

Step 1: Your customer notices you.

This first step is often the most difficult for new business owners.

You have a Really Cool Thing that You Do, but no-one seems to know about you or your Cool Thing.

How do you get our stranger to find out about you?

Well… you could find out where he hangs out and stick an advert in his face. You could run adverts in a local paper or a relevant trade magazine. You could buy a mailing list and send out letters. You could buy adverts for relevant keywords on Google Adwords, or buy advertising on a popular website.

These are all valid and relevant marketing techniques. Generally, however, they cost money. And it’s best to avoid spending too much money when you’re just starting up.

So what’s the alternative?

Well… if we can provide the content or information that our customers are already looking for then you can be sure that these people are going to tell others about it.

The best way to get the word out about Your Thing is to have other people get the word out about Your Thing.

It just so happens that Twitter is one of the quickest, easiest and most efficient ways to connect with a large number of people with similar interests or groups of people with similar problems that you can help solve.

You can connect with people, help them out with their thing and they will be more than happy to talk about you. It’s an excellent way of building social proof and getting Your Thing in front of more people’s eyes. (Yes, I know.)

So now the news of Your Thing is buzzing around the Twitterverse. Our stranger (let’s call him Adam) is no longer quite such a stranger. He’s heard all about you. And he’s paying attention. What’s the next step?

Step 2: You ask for his permission to carry on a dialogue with him.

You want Adam to agree to hang out with you some more.

Twitter facilitates this process in a number of ways.

Firstly, if he likes your stuff he might choose to follow you on Twitter. This means he has agreed to see the messages you write. You, in return, might choose to follow him back, and you might choose to communicate directly with him if you wish.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Twitter makes it easy to direct interested people to relevant and targeted information on your blog or website, by sending messages with links to pre-selected content. This is free, helpful, totally non-creepy and it doesn’t look like marketing.

Even better, other people will happily share the links to all their followers if they like it. And guess what their followers are going to do if they like it?

If that doesn’t make you pee your marketing pants and squeal with joy, I’m not sure what will.

Of course, your web page is optimized to make it easy to collect Adam’s email address, isn’t it?

Good.

Adam now follows you on Twitter and is a subscriber to your email newsletter. Perhaps he’s even your Facebook friend now.

I think he’s made it clear that he won’t mind hearing from you again! ?

What’s next?

Step 3: He gains trust in you as you deliver on your promises

Adam followed you on Twitter because he wanted to hear your pearls of wisdom. Or maybe you told a dirty joke and he kind of liked it.

Either way, Adam expects you to act in a certain way and deliver a certain emotional experience to him.

Do this. Consistently.

You can use messages on Twitter to send links to interesting content on your blog, to videos on YouTube, to useful and relevant articles on other blogs. You can do this much more often and much more informally than you could via Email. Send someone an Email every day and it will piss them off. Send ten messages a day on Twitter and people will not bat an eyelid. (I don’t want to get into Twitter best practice in this post, but here’s a quick word of warning. Twitter is, above all, a sharing medium. People will respond badly if you appear only to be promoting yourself.)

If you’re useful, friendly and, above all, consistent Adam will grow to trust you.

Step 4: You make him an offer. You buy his stuff.

Twitter makes this easy, as it gives you the power to publicize your offers to a large group of interested people. It also makes it easy to bring Adam to your blog, website, or wherever you want him to go.

Step 5: You build the relationship by carrying on doing what you agreed.

This is where a lot of people get the wrong idea about relationship marketing.

Relationship marketing is all about “creating authentically meaningful connections”. It’s about sharing. It’s about personal attention, trust, feelings, rainbows and fluffy bunny rabbits. It’s about campfires, acoustic guitars and singing Kumbaya. Right?

Umm… No.

Sorry.

It’s about selling stuff.

(The clue is in the marketing bit.)

You don’t buy an iPod because you played online Boggle with Steve Jobs and he knows about your niece’s swimming medals. You buy it because makes you feel cool and it does what you want it to do.

Relationship marketing is about consistently satisfying the initial promise you made to the customer.

It doesn’t involve a huge amount of small talk. It doesn’t involve getting to know every one of your customers on a personal level. You don’t need to know their children’s names, their shoe size and the intimate details of their relationship with the pool boy. You might want to, but it’s not necessary. Probably a fantastic procrastination technique though!

Relationship marketing is about focussing on customer satisfaction and retention. It’s about delivering a consistent emotional experience to your customers.

Basically… Make your stuff cool and do what Adam wants you to do.

Twitter helps this process immensely as it provides you with an excellent way to get your name and your messages in front of your customers’ eyes on a regular basis.

Convinced?

Great. In this post we focussed on why you should care about twitter. If you want to know more about the basics of Twitter, how it works and how to get the best out of it then check out this excellent article from the Remarkablogger website.

Then, once you’re up to speed, we’ll talk strategy!

I can’t wait.

See you around!

JJ Jalopy.

How to follow me on Twitter

As Dave pointed out in the comments, I’ve been banging on about making it easy for your readers to give you permission to talk to you but then totally failed to tell you how to follow me on Twitter. D’uh.

I’m @jjjalopy. You can find read updates here. Go there and hit the follow button. Then send me a message and I’ll follow you back. Otherwise I won’t notice you and I’ll just assume that you want me to join a pyramid scheme or sell me viagra or something. And that would be a shame.

How to Become a Better Writer

Hi there!

Mrs. Jalopy and I are back home after a fantastic weekend in the Welsh Countryside watching our friends Paul and Geraldine get married. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun party.

And it’s good to be back home.

This week is going to be fun because my twin brother is visiting from San Francisco. Maybe I’ll try to get him in front of the man cave webcam so you can marvel at genetic cloning in the flesh…

How to Become a Better Writer

Earlier today I was reading a post on the Copyblogger website called 73 Ways to Become a Better Writer.

It’s an excellent list of suggestions, but I thought I’d come up with some of my own.

• Write a little every day.
• Tell people that you’re A Writer. Harness the power of identity.
• Read your writing aloud. Rework anything that sounds clunky.
• Carry a notebook around. Even if you don’t write anything in it, having it will make you feel Writerly.
• Take time each day to drink tea and ponder. Wear corduroy pants for extra bonus points.
• Read www.jjjalopy.com everyday, even if I haven’t bothered to post anything in a while.
• Rework old writing to make it better.
• Rewrite other people’s writing in your own voice. (Don’t publish it though. That’s called plagiarism.)
• Blog. Consistently.
• Edit out all the unnecessary stuff. Except if it’s really funny. Or it features MC Hammer (big on Twitter), legendary white rapper Vanilla Ice (used to date Madonna) or Kriss Kross (the teenage rap duo famous for wearing their clothes backwards.)
• Be authentic. Unless you’re really dull, in which case you might want to pretend to be interesting for a while.
• Review your own writing critically.
• Ask for feedback and listen to it.
• And above all… keep writing.

Have fun!

JJ Jalopy.

Market testing, copywriting and a website made with crayons.

Bonjour!

I’ve been writing the copy for the Google Pay Per Click testing phase of my Market Testing Kit.

What on earth does that mean, JJ?

Oh yeah. Sorry.

It means I’m writing a basic sales letter for strangers who are interested in market testing their business idea.

The plan is to buy visitors through Google Pay Per Click advertising, direct them to a nice sales letter written by me and see how many of said people sign up for my I’m-interested-in-this list.

Don’t worry if that doesn’t make any sense either. I’ll guide you through the process step-by-step in the Market Testing Kit itself…

So what’s this sales letter going to be like Mr. Jalopy Man?

Would it be more fun if I showed you what it won’t look like?

Probably. I imagine it’ll be somewhat less educational though.

You’re probably right. But, to be honest, this pretend conversation was really just a setup to show you this anyway…

http://youreapoorloser.com

Do go and visit. It’s hilarious. And kinda brilliant. I thought it was a joke at first, but there’s a real product for sale there…

So, yeah. It won’t look like that…

Stay tuned for more educational updates soon. (I think we’ll be filing this one under General Silliness)

Mrs. Jalopy and I are hitting the road tomorrow to go to another wedding in Wales. I think it’s the last of the year. As much as I love a good wedding, I’m looking forward to getting my weekends back.

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

Market testing, cowboy hats, cartoon nose jobs and Duane Cunningham’s bikini workout

Hey there!

How are you today?

Excited about my forthcoming Market Testing Kit product?

Of course you are!!

So why aren’t you on my I’m-really-interested-in-this list yet?

Do you realize that I might not even make it if I don’t get the love and attention I crave?

And that if you’re on the list then you’ll be eligible for a massive advance discount and awesome pre-launch bonuses?!

Perhaps you’d like to go here right away to learn about it?!

Another link just in case you missed the two above?

Okay…

So what has this ridiculous title got to do with your awesome Market Test kit, JJ?

Nothing actually. That was just a little rant I wanted to start things off with.

What I wanted to talk about today was search keywords.

You see, one of the great things about business online is that you can monitor and track pretty much everything…

… including the search term people typed into Google to find your website.

Some of these search terms are pretty esoteric.

Here are my favorites for this website so far:

#5 – Cowboy Hats (11 visitors)

11 people  have managed to end up at my website after searching for cowboy hats. They mostly ended up here or here.

Well I guess I do talk about them rather a lot…

But why did they click on a link that is clearly about business advice or coaching?

Who knows. People are odd.

Maybe I should affiliate for Sheplers?

#4 – Make me look like an idiot (15 visitors)

Who would want such a thing?

15 visitors apparently.

They ended up here.

#3 – Cartoon Celebrity Nose Job (1 visitor)

There is so much I could say about this…

I really have no idea what this person wanted to find but I imagine they were rather disappointed when they ended up at this confession about my social media procrastination habits!

#2 – Duane Cunningham Bikini* Workout (1 visitor)

Yes. My second favorite.

I can hear the heavy breathing from here.

They’ve got to have felt let down when they ended up learning about a Wordpress upgrade instead.

* The word bikini might have been added for comic effect.

#1 – JJ Jalopy is an ass (1 visitor)

Come on then. Own up.

Did you type this in?

And just what exactly were you trying to achieve by this?!

I find it incredible and hilarious that someone typed this into Google and pressed search.

Amazing.

So in the interests of research I typed this into Google myself and, as well as finding my own site, I found a lovely comment from my friend Avery on Naomi Dunord’s awesome IttyBiz blog. It reads:

Very nice! I came here from JJ Jalopy’s site. He’s an ass.

Thanks Avery. You ass.

Love you all!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Don’t forget about that Market Testing Kit.

Why your business will fail. And how we’re going to stop that happening.

I’ll tell you why your business will fail.

Three reasons:

• not enough people are interested in the thing you’re trying to sell
• not enough people want to pay for the thing the you’re trying to sell
• not enough people want to pay high enough prices for the thing you’re trying to sell.

Yes. I know. I am a genius. Thanks.

Unfortunately, people often figure out this not-enough customers deal a bit late, sometimes after they’ve invested years of effort and invested heavily in their product or service.

This makes me sad, because a lot of this “wasted” effort could easily be avoided with a small amount of simple market testing.

That’s why I made this market testing video.

Awesome as it was, this video generated a large number of questions. There’s only so much you can explain on YouTube in 5 mins.

I want to give you a complete Market Testing Kit for small online businesses.

It’ll show you step by step how to determine if there are enough people who want to buy enough stuff for enough money. I’ll show you how to do it without spending anything.

I’ll also show you how you can actually make money as you test your business idea, without even creating a product or service yourself.

Who will benefit from this?

This is will be of great value to anyone who does business on the internet, or wants to get started.

This is for you if you’re:

• thinking of starting a small online business, but have no idea how to do it.
• looking to move into another market
• an established business owner who can’t quite attract the number of customers you’d like
• looking to narrow your target market
• looking to widen your target market

What will be in it?

There’ll be videos and worksheets and checklists. I’ll even throw in a few lightning bolt flow diagrams too.

Sounds great. When can I get it?

Here’s the thing…

It’s going to take a while for me to make it.

And it’d be super embarrassing if I spent ages creating a market testing kit that didn’t have a market.

Wouldn’t that make me look like an ass?

So I’m asking you, my beloved and trusted blog reader, for your opinion.

I know I haven’t given you a huge amount to work with here. We’re in pre-testing, people. (That’s how I justify this page looking like ass.) BUT… I’ll shortly be throwing together a little sales page for Google visitors. It’ll be more detailed (and probably ever-so-slightly sleazier) than this little description here. I’ll point you at it when I get a chance.

But for now… if you think this rocks and you’re interested in finding out more, then please add your name and email address below and click submit.

Shortly afterwards you’ll receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm. Do this and you’re registered and good to go.

I like a clean inbox as much as you do. I won’t use your email address for anything other than information about this product. And I won’t do that very often.

Thanks for your help and support!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I have some INCREDIBLY EXCITING NEWS coming soon. Stay tuned!

Small Business Therapy #4 – What if I lose all my money and end up scavenging for food in the trash?

This is the forth article in our small business therapy series. Today we’re talking about overcoming fear of failure. Or rather, the fear of losing all our money, having to scavenge for food in the trash and performing DIY surgery on ourselves with a rusty saw and a bottle of whiskey.

Crikey! It’s that time of the week already!

Relax. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink. It’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive kind of way, without a sleazy old therapist in site.

Have you ever had thoughts like this?

Aaaarghhh…What if my business all goes horribly, horribly wrong?

Aaaarghhh…What if everyone realizes I’m rubbish at this stuff and laughs me out of business?

Aaaarghhh…What if I have to listen to my Mother telling me that she always knew I should never have quit my job for the REST OF MY LIFE?!

Aaaarghhh…What if I run out of money and I have to scavenge for food in the trash?

Aaaarghhh…What if I can’t afford to feed and clothe my family and it’s all my fault?

Aaaarghhh…What if….

Fear of failure.

It’s a bitch isn’t it?

It ties you down and stops you from doing the things you love, living your dream and being so happy that you do star jumps in the street and give sweets to strangers for no reason other than it makes you smile.

I want those strangers to have those sweets so we’re going to sort this out – as much as we can – by talking through it together.

We’re going to break this topic down into two main fears (although they’re really one and the same).

• The fear of looking silly
• The fear of starving / dying / your whole life falling apart

Last week we covered the first of these. This week we’re dealing with the second – the fear of losing all your money and having everything fall to pieces.

The And-Then-What? game

What are you afraid of?

I’m afraid that my business will fail.

And then what?

I won’t have any money coming in anymore.

And then what?

I’ll run out of money and I’ll get myself in debt and I won’t be able to pay the bills or buy food for my family.

And then what?

My family will leave me. I’ll have to live in a box and scavenge through the trash for food. I’ll probably get gangrene end up having to hack off my legs with a rusty saw.

Oh dear.

And this discussion was supposed to make you feel better…

The truth is that most of us have had a lot of practice at the And-Then-What? game. And we’ve gotten pretty creative at it.

The problem is that the game is often totally debilitating. It paralyzes us.

We all crave comfort and security.

When we have these freak-out sessions we often want to return to whatever is most comfortable and familiar to us.

Maybe it makes you want to pack it all in and return to the day job you hated – the one that paid you a predictable amount of money every two weeks?

Maybe it makes you want to hide under the bed sheets with a bottle of gin and a box of chocolates?

Maybe it makes you want to watch girly movies for days on end until you’re swimming in a pool of your own tears?

Sometimes, though, it scares us into massive action.

Sometimes the fear of financial ruin scares you so much that you work like crazy, utterly terrified, desperately pursuing every lead like a rabid dog.

Massive action is a good thing.

Ruthlessly pursuing leads can be a good thing, if you’re not too creepy about it.

But being utterly terrified is not. Not for your business. Not for your health. Not for your emotional well-being. Not for your family.

Just not cool.

So clearly, neither of these scenarios is ideal.

So what can we do about this?

There’s really only one thing that will help here…

You need a plan.

Not very sexy, I know, but that’s it.

The plan will give you comfort. The plan will be your safety net.

It’ll show you exactly where you are, where you want to be, and what you’ll do if you’re not getting there.

It’ll give you exact steps to take when things aren’t working out the way you intended. Because you’ll have planned for everything, including the very worst case scenario.

The brilliance of the plan is that you can do all your thinking when you’re calm and rational. This way, you don’t have to do any of that tricky thinking stuff when you’re too busy freaking out.

You just need to follow the plan.

What should this plan look like?

Step 1: Where are you now?

• How much money do you need every month?
• What is your financial buffer? How much easily-accessible money to you have right now?
• How long can you survive on your financial buffer, assuming you’re making no money from your business.

Got that?

Now, your answer to 2 and 3 might be zero. Maybe you’re in debt right now. That’s okay. We’re planning for everything.

Step 2: What are you going to right now to meet your needs?

• Do you need to take a part-time job?
• Do you need to do to reduce your expenses? How are you going to do that?
• Do you need to borrow money?

Step 3: Planning for the worst case scenario.

Think of the very worst case scenario, whatever that is for you.

Got it?

Okay. Now you’ll want to do two things:

• Make a plan to take action that will reduce the likelihood of this scenario occurring
• Make a plan of what you will do if it does occur.

As an example… if your worst case scenario is being sued, losing all your assets and having to declare yourself bankrupt, then you’ might want to look at asset protection. (If you’re in the states then my buddy Rob Northrup can help you out with this…)

You’ll also want to write down the actual steps you would take to get yourself back on your feet if this really happened.

You won’t enjoy doing this, but it will give you peace of mind.

Step 4: Scenario building

Think three months into the future.

If your income level is below $X and your financial buffer is below $Y, what exact actions are you going to take?

Do this with a variety of numbers, and be very specific. Remember, the goal is to have a complete action plan you can follow to the letter.

Now think six months into the future and answer the same question.

Now a year.

Now two years.

And you can stop for now. Phew.

How does this make you feel?

How do you feel about sitting down and making a plan like this?

Do you think it will give you peace of mind?

Are you resistant to it? Does it seem like a chore? Something you probably should do, but are reluctant to?

Please do let me know.

I resisted this kind of planning for a long time because I found it uncomfortable to confront the worst case scenario. Having been through this exercise myself and with others I recognize its power.

Peace of mind really is just a tedious planning task away!

JJ Jalopy.

Get 6 hours of extra stuff done in a day!

Hey there!

How was your day?

I’ll be quick today. I’ve got to run because I’m late for dinner. I’m going to have streak frites and red wine…

Shhh… Don’t tell my diet coach…

You’ve met time management expert Dave Navarro before. He’s a super cool guy.

He’s so cool, in fact, that he’s giving away his fantastic 30 Hours a Day Time Management program.

It was originally a 11-CD program and Dave sold it for a zillion dollars.

Now he’s giving it away for free on his blog. Because he’s awesome like that.

I’ll let Dave explain what it is…

Hi, I’m Dave Navarro, and I want to welcome you to the 30 Hours a Day Project.  Since this project is a time management program, and since I know you’re already too busy as it is, I’m going to make this introduction short and sweet.  This way you can dive right into what you really came here for – freeing up massive amounts of time and increasing your productivity so you can get 30 hours of stuff done in a regular 24 hour day.  Sound good?  Let’s go.

About the 30 Hours a Day Project

People thought I was a little crazy when I told them I was working on a system to get 6 hours of extra “stuff” done in my day.  They thought it was impossible, I guess the same way a lot of people think it’s impossible to earn a million dollars in a year or two.

But people go from zero to a million all the time, so I figured it that we humans could go from 24 to 30 hours of productivity as well.

Pulling six hours of results out of thin air may sound unattainable, but it’s not when you really think about it. It’s like increasing your daily get-things-doneness by less than 25% – and that is certainly very reasonable, if you have a solid plan on how to do it.

(Yes, technically, I’m aware that if you take out the 8 hours that many people sleep in a day, and you’re left with 16 hours, well, then pulling an extra 6 is a little over a 35% improvement.    Still not impossible – if you have a solid plan, that is.)

The Solid Plan

The 30 Hours a Day Project revolves around three simple steps that you can take to send your daily results  through the roof:

• Discover what problems are you holding back from getting things done

• Create a battle plan to kill those problems, one by one

• Create a system to work that battle plan every day so you can reap the benefits

Now, I know that sounds simple, and that’s because it is.  Success isn’t rocket science, it’s just a matter of getting solid on the fundamentals. There’s no reason to get overly complex, like a lot of other time management methods do.

Most time management systems make things really complicated and bog you down with these huge systems that you are supposed to use to replace the way you are doing everything in your life.  From my experience as a coach, I’ve rarely, if ever, seen that work.  If you’re too busy already, the last thing you want to do is step back and try to change everything at once.

That’s why the 30 Hours a Day project does things differently.  I’m going to take you through a series of mini workshops that are going to show you the small, manageable next steps you can take to start making progress right now, right where you are.

You don’t have to change everything overnight to start seeing some massive progress.  You’ll be able to go at the pace you want to, you’ll be able to pick and choose the areas you want to work on, and you won’t really have to break away from the tools you are already using.  You’ll see what I mean as we start moving on.

Now, I told you I’d keep the intro short and sweet, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’re done.  So let’s start getting you closer to your 30-hour day!

Get the 30 Day Time Management System Here.

Don’t say I’m not good to you!

JJ Jalopy.

How to turn total strangers into raving fans!

People won’t buy stuff from you if they don’t know who you are.

Traditionally, businesses have spent a large amount of money trying to attract the consumer’s attention.

Seth Godin called this interruption marketing. The idea was that the marketer would find out where the prospect his likely to hang out (often in front of the TV!) and grab their attention by shoving an advert in their face.

Interruption marketing techniques included unsolicited direct (junk) mail, television, radio and billboard advertising.

Back in the day, attracting people’s interest with interruption advertising was a simple but expensive business.

If you could put a repeated television advert out to the whole country then pretty much everyone would know who you were within a few weeks.

Nowadays, though, more information is thrown in our faces than ever before.

This is mostly due to one thing… The Internet.

And what has been the result for the marketer?

Well… consumers have become much more sophisticated in their ability to ignore traditional marketing messages.

Attracting interest in the modern world has become more complicated (as there are more messages competing for our attention), but potentially cheaper.

Why cheaper, you say?

Because we can now use modern web strategies such as blogs, websites, social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter), article marketing (Ezinearticles, GoArticles) , user-generated content sites (Squidoo, Hubpages, Tumblr)

Implementing these strategies is very cheap and even free in many cases. All it takes is the time and effort needed to build up a presence on the internet using these tools.

In this model, we allow people to find us by providing the content or information they are already looking for.

So, once our customer has found us, what are the next steps?

Well, before we do anything else, we must get permission to carry on the conversation with the customer. This could be done by asking the customer to sign-up to a newsletter, like the Jalopy Gang V.I.P. list.

Mr. Godin calls this permission marketing. He describes the concept like this:

Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.

Source: Seth’s Blog

The next step is to build trust with the customer.

You do this by doing what you agreed to do, providing huge amounts of value and generally helping people out with their lives. You can do this by providing your customers with helpful things, like this article here!

Then, and only then, can make them an offer to buy something awesome that will help them.

And of course, you’re not quite done yet…

The final (and ongoing) step is to nurture and grow your relationship with the customer through your continued open and helpful communication. This is how you create raving fans and loyal, appreciative customers.

As you develop your marketing, keep asking yourself how you move your customers along this path.

You’ll want to develop a complete understanding of exactly how this process works for you.

Ask yourself this:

What exact steps would a total stranger need to take to become one of your biggest fans and a trusted and appreciated customer?

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

All in One SEO Pack Plugin Configuration. Or Why SEO is the Most Tedious Thing in the World.

How to configure the All in One SEO Pack Plugin so that your search traffic doesn’t suck.

Or why SEO is the most tedious thing in the world.

Have I got a nerdtastic treat for you today OR WHAT?!

Like any self-respecting narcissist with a website, I track my visitor statistics in painstaking detail.

One thing I’ve been noticing recently is that the amount of traffic I’ve been receiving from web searches has been significantly down, whereas the amount of returning visitors has been significantly up.

For a while I focused on the latter of these two observations, happy that you like me enough to come back. (Thanks, by the way. I like you too.)

And I kind of forgot about the first bit, writing it off as one of those things.

The world of the internet is pretty predictable most of the time.

One of the things I love the most about business on the internet is that it’s pretty easy to predict what is going to happen.

Let’s think about how someone gets to a website from an internet search:

1. They have a question, problem or a thing they want to find out about.
2. They type a relevant phrase into Google, Bing or one of the other (crappier) search engines.
3. A list of results are returned, matching your search.
4. The user picks the one that looks like it matches their query the best.
5. They get to your site. They’re either happy that they reached your awesome and information-rich resource, or they’re pissed that your website is a great big pile of spammy nonsense.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Now, there are two things that we can work on in order to get more people to our websites.

1. We can work on making our webpages appear higher up the search engine results pages (SERPs).
2. We can work on making the title, description and summary details more relevant, interesting and clickable.

Both these points are generally lumped under the banner of SEO. Or Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is the most tedious thing in the world.

It’s a fact of life that if you abbreviate something enough it becomes really boring.

SEO is one of those things. Every hormonal teenager on the internet thinks they’re an SEO expert. Do an internet search for proof.

Really, there is nothing magical about SEO. It’s simply the art of structuring your website and webpages in such a way that they are appear high up the list of possible search engine results for certain key phrases that you expect people are likely to search for.

These key phrases are generally called keywords, even though they are usually composed of more than one word.

Google decides what to return on search results pages based on:

1. How the keyword phrase appears in your webpage.

Ideally you’ll want the keyword phrase to appear in the URL (the address you type in to get to the webpage), the title, description and in the main body of your text.

Ideally you’ll want the keyword phrase highlighted in bold, or in a header at some point. And you’ll want other webpages (they can be on other pages of your site) linking to the page with the keyword in the link text.

You’ll also probably want these keyword phrases to appear in the META tags of your page. If you don’t know what this means then don’t worry. We’ll cover it a bit later.

Many people think that having your keyword phrase loads of times in your webpage helps too. I think they’re wrong. Even if they’re not wrong, doing this will make your articles read like crap and people will think that you’re weird.

2. How important Google thinks your website is.

Google has favorites.

It decides how much value your website has based upon some magic and mysterious criteria that Google puts on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.

It also decides, based on the links between the pages of your website, which are the most important pages on your site.

It sums all this up in a thing it calls PageRank. No-one really knows what this is, but you can get an estimation of it from 0 to 10 by installing Google Toolbar on your computer.

Here are some factors that affect your Google Page Rank:

• The age of your website
• How big it is
• How many other websites link to it
• How much Google likes those websites that link to you.

3. Other stuff

There are many other verified or hypothesized search engine ranking factors. You probably don’t need to worry about them. Here is a good place to start if you’re interested.

Fine. But I can’t really be bothered with all this. I just want to write cool stuff that helps people and makes them laugh.

Yeah. Me too.

I find this SEO stuff a bit ick really. I want to concentrate on writing cool stuff, not on gaming the search engines.

Thankfully, the search engines rules are set up to look for cool stuff (as opposed to spam.) So if you’re writing lots of cool stuff, then you’re really halfway there.

All you need to do, is add a few little tweaks to help the search engines to realize what you’re stuff is, and to realize that it’s cool.

If you’re running Wordpress, then something that will help you a lot is the All in One SEO Pack Plugin.

It does a lot of useful stuff for you, so you can concentrate on making good stuff. The only thing you need to do is have a think about what your keywords should be and put them in the relevant places. Then let the All in One SEO Pack Plugin handle everything else for you.

Cool. So how to I install it?

Go here.

And follow the instructions.

Configuring the All in One SEO Pack Plugin

The All in One SEO Pack Plugin is not one that you can just install and leave alone.

In fact, the reasons that my website search traffic had started to suck was that, on upgrading Wordpress to version 2.8, my plugin had resorted to its default settings. The result was that my search result titles and descriptions now looked like ass and no-one was clicking on them.

So here’s how to set things up so your search traffic will rock.

Home Title	Put the title of your whole website in here. This is the title that gets displayed at the top of your website home page and the title that will appear in the search results for your website. Make it good and relevant, and include your main keyword if you can do it without it looking ick.If you leave this blank then Wordpress defaults to the name you defined in the main Wordpress configuration.
Home Description	Describe what your website does here. Include a few keywords if you can.This description is displayed below the title of the site in the search results pages. If you don’t fill this in then your the text in the search results will simply display the first bit of text on your homepage. This could be totally irrelevant and create confusion in the mind of the searcher. Confused people don’t click, so put something good in here.
Home Keywords	List relevant website-wide keywords in here, separated by commas. The jury is out on how much attention the search engines pay to these keyword META tags, but you might as well put some in anyway. It can’t hurt.
Canonical URLs	Leave this option checked. This helps avoid duplicate content problems. It is believed that the search engines don’t like duplicate content too much, so leave this checked.
Rewrite Titles	Check this box.This one is really important. By default Wordpress puts the Category or the Home Title at the front of every Google search result and then the post description afterwards. This is a bad thing because the post or page description is generally much more relevant to the term that the user is searching for. Putting the page description first gets you more relevancy points from an SEO perspective, and it means that the user is much more likely to click on your link. By default, this option will rewrite the title of a post to be Post Title | Blog Title. This is much better.
Post Title Format	%post_title% | %blog_title%
Page Title Format	%page_title% | %blog_title%
Category Title Format	%category_title% | %blog_title%
Archive Title Format	%date% | %blog_title%
Tag Title Format	%tag% | %blog_title%
Serach Title Format	%search% | %blog_title%
Description Format	%description%
Paged Format	- Part %page%
404 Title Format	Nothing found for %request_words%
Use Categories for META keywords	This lets you use post categories as meta keywords for each post. You might want to do this or you might not. I don’t.
Use noindex for Categories	Check this box. It prevents duplicate content, which is believed to be bad from an SEO perspective.
Use noindex for Archives	Check this box. It prevents duplicate content, which is believed to be bad from an SEO perspective.
Use noindex for Tag Archives	Check this box. It prevents duplicate content, which is believed to be bad from an SEO perspective.
Autogenerate Descriptions	Check this box. If enabled then the plugin will automatically generate a description for your post (the thing that appears below the title in a the search engine results pages) from the first 160 characters of your blog post. The plug-in will allow you to override this with a unique description for every post, but this is great when you’re posting quickly.
Additional Headers (3 boxes)	Leave unchecked. These are a bit complicated to explain and I can’t be bothered right now. You don’t need this.
Log Important Events	Leave unchecked. This probably lets you log problems with the plugin developer. Not sure. Don’t really care.

Here’s how mine is set up:

The final bit – Overriding the defaults for specific posts

Now you have everything set up then you can leave everything alone and never really worry about it again, if you like.

However… the plugin also allows you to override some the default title, description and meta tags for each post and you’ll want to do this for posts in which you’re targeting a very specific search term.

These settings appear in the Wordpress Visual Editor, as shown below:

Go Forth and Optimize!

You now have the power within you! Go forth and optimize your website!

Rock on!

JJ Jalopy.

Small Business Therapy #3 – What if I Fail and Look Stupid?!!

This is the second article in our small business therapy series. Today we’re talking about overcoming fear of failure. Or rather, the fear of failing and looking stupid.

Yep. It’s that time of the week again.

Relax. Pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink. It’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive kind of way, without a sleazy old therapist in site.

Have you ever had thoughts like this?

Aaaarghhh…What if my business all goes horribly, horribly wrong?

Aaaarghhh…What if everyone realizes I’m rubbish at this stuff and laughs me out of business?

Aaaarghhh…What if I have to listen to my Mother telling me that she always knew I should never have quit my job for the REST OF MY LIFE?!

Aaaarghhh…What if I run out of money and I have to scavenge for food in the trash?

Aaaarghhh…What if I can’t afford to feed and clothe my family and it’s all my fault?

Aaaarghhh…What if….

Fear of failure.

It’s a bitch isn’t it?

It’s a big heavy bitch that ties you down and stops you from doing the things you love, living your dream and being so happy that you do star jumps in the street and give sweets to strangers for no reason other than it makes you smile.

I want those strangers to have those sweets so we’re going to sort this out – as much as we can – by talking through it together.

We’re going to break this topic down into two main fears (although they’re really one and the same).

• The fear of looking silly
• The fear of starving / dying / your whole life falling apart

This week we’re going to talk about the former.

Overcoming the Fear of Looking Silly

I hate looking silly. Don’t you hate looking silly?

Sometimes the fear of looking silly rings so loud in my head that I don’t do something I really want to do.

Why?

Because I’m worried that I’ll look like a tit. Or I’m worried people will think I’m stupid. Or that they’ll realize that I’m not actually cool after all…

We hate being embarrassed and, naturally, we try to avoid it. (We’re good to ourselves like that.)

This is… that feeling often rings louder inside our heads than the drive to do the thing that we love. And we end up missing out.

Perhaps you’re putting off staring that business doing the thing you love because you’re scared it all go wrong and people will think less of you?

Perhaps you’re putting off really promoting your business because you’re scared it’ll put you in a limelight that you’re not ready for?

This is totally sensible and totally understandable.

But I know it’s not what you want…

I know you don’t want to be a slave to your emotions. I know you don’t want your fear of looking silly to get in the way of doing what you love.

I don’t want that for you either. I think you’re brilliant and I don’t want to deprive the world of your brilliance.

How do we overcome fear of failure?

Well first of all let’s recognize that it’s not the failure or looking silly that you’re scared of, per se. It’s the emotions associated with these things. It’s the desire to avoid guilt, shame, or any other emotion that you think you’ll experience that is stopping you from taking action.

Yeah. Great JJ. Thanks. You just changed some words around. Is this supposed to make me feel better?

Well yeah. Kinda. Because it now pushes the issue back within your control.

Although it might not always seem this way, you create the emotions you experience. And by changing the way you interpret the world you can change the emotions you experience.

So many people will give you useful reframes. If you think about failure in a different, more positive way, they say, then you’ll feel better about it all.

Some powerful reframes that you’re probably fed up with hearing about

1. Failure is really just feedback.

Most successful businesses were pre-ceeded by a stream of attempts that didn’t quite work out the way they were intended.

When people talk about this they usually mention Thomas Edison, who made six zillion shitty light bulbs that didn’t work before he stumbled across the final design. If he’d given up along the way then we wouldn’t have America’s Got Talent, they say, as if this were a bad thing.

If you find something that doesn’t work then you’re really one thing closer to something that does. You don’t have to try that thing again. It didn’t work. See? A useful learning experience.

2. The only way to fail is to not try your best.

It didn’t work out, but you worked hard and you did your best? Well you can be bloody proud of yourself.

(This one came from Tony Robbins.)

3. Your business is really just a project.

This is a powerful frame that my mentor, Kevin Hogan, introduced me to. The idea is that what you call your business, that thing you do, is really just a project.

You’ve had projects before and you’ll have projects in the future. You’re trying one out at the moment. It’s not really a big deal if it fails because it’s only a project. Your Mother-in-law might not be so smug about telling you you should never have left your job if she knows it’s just a project.

Clever, isn’t it?

If you can truly convince yourself to believe these reframes then these will help you enormously.

But here’s what to do when you can’t convince yourself of the above

Most likely you won’t buy into these reframes in the short term. You might have heard a hundred times about Thomas Edison’s thousand attempts at a bloody light bulb, but rationalizing to yourself that failure is a valuable feedback mechanism can be somewhat of a stretch when you’re right in the middle of your little freak-out storm.

And whilst it might be empowering to believe that your little business is just a project.

Just try telling this to your body when it’s gripped by panic.

It probably won’t listen. In fact, it’s more likely to yell back at you “shut up Tony Bloody Robbins. I’m too busy freaking out to listen to your feel-good mind-trick crap right now.”

And then it’ll carry on freaking out.

If you’re anything like me you don’t want tricks, techniques or advice when you’re in one of those moments. You want gin. Or Valium. Or more furniture to throw at the wall. The value of a well-placed reframe is not obvious to you mid-meltdown.

So go easy on yourself. Realize that, despite your best efforts, you’re not going to think your way into a position of unlimited self-esteem straight away.

Or ever, really…

So learn to recognize the emotions that you’re running away from and accept that it’s okay to feel them.

It’s okay to worry that your business is going to fail and you’ll feel ashamed. It’s okay to worry that the person you’re about to call about a joint venture is going to be dismissive of you and you’ll feel embarrassed.

It’s okay. We all feel like that sometimes.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel. And stretch out in whatever way you can. You don’t need to “get over it”. You don’t need to jump out of your comfort zone. Just do what you can do right now. Stretch a little, if you can. Next time will be easier.

So how do you feel?

I hope you got a little something out of that. It made me feel better anyway! ?

Join me next Saturday for another installment. We’ll be talking through the fear of having to feed your family with scraps of half-eaten food you stole from the trash. Or something.

Take care!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Look. This was really bloody long. I love you lots and lots for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed what you read.

I’d like to invite you to sign-up to my V.I.P. list. You’ll get free email awesomeness just like this delivered straight into your emailbox every week, except when I’m horrendously hungover.

You can even reply to the email and talk to me. We’ll probably end up best friends. Put your name and email address in the boxes below if this sounds like something you would like!

The 3 main reasons people don’t want to pay you for coaching.

A little ramble about food. (Scroll down for the useful bit!)

Hey there!

How are you today?

Mrs. Jalopy and I have just had pizza.

And chips.

And wine.

And chocolate.

It was wonderfully delicious.

I have a appointment with my friend and health coach Anthony Lemme tomorrow. We’re going to talk about my diet. I have a feeling that he’s going to tell me that pizza, chips, wine and chocolate are bad for me. And he’s probably going to recommend that I cut down.

So I’m indulging in a semi guilt-free binge beforehand.

Shhh… Don’t tell!

The useful bit starts here!

If you have a coaching service, then you may encounter objections when you offer your coaching services to prospective clients.

In fact, you’ll begin to hear similar objections again and again.

This is natural. Coach can be a large expense for many people.

Now, I know your coaching service totally rocks, but we can’t expect everyone else to know that straight away.

So here are some really simple strategies you can use to help your prospective client see past a few of these objections and open themselves up to the idea of coaching with you.

Objection 1 – I can’t afford it.

Strategy 1: What is the cost of NOT achieving the goal? What is most likely to happen if you don’t hire me.

Yes. It can be quite a lot of money for some people.

But let’s look at the cost of not hiring a coach. What do you think would most likely happen if you continue on as you have been?

How will you feel about this in 6 months’ time?

Strategy 2: What would make it worth it?

Perhaps we should create a bigger goal. What could you achieve that would make it worthwhile?

Objection 2 – I’ll have to think about it / I’ll have to ask my partner about it

Strategy 1: Identify underlying concern

Of course. I understand this is all new to you.

And I sense that there’s something your worried about that we haven’t discussed. Could you think what that might be?

Strategy 2: Talk them through the thought process or the conversation they will have with their partner

What questions will you ask yourself?

…or…

What questions will your partner ask?

Objection 3 – I could just do it by myself

Strategy 1: What you’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working

How long have you been thinking this way?

And what results have you been getting?

Strategy 2: Working as a team can be fun

How do you think working together with me on your goals might actually be a lot of fun?

Strategy 3: Cool sports dudes have coaches, you know…

Do you think Roger Federer/ Tiger Woods / Lewis Hamilton  would be as successful without their coaches?

Now you have some strategy, go out there and get some clients.

See ya tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Keep Going – You’re Doing Great!

You’re doing great!

But I don’t have any clients and no-one seems to want my products.

But you’re moving? You’re taking regular, consistent action?

Yes. But I feel like it’s not working. I feel like I’m wasting my time. I feel like giving up.

Growing a business takes time.

Most fail because their owner gives up before giving the business a fair chance to succeed.

The people who succeed are not the smartest. They’re not those with the best ideas. They’re not the most talented.

They’re those that take regular, consistent action.

Those that don’t give up.

Those that keep going.

The next e-mail you write and the next phone call you make will make a difference.

Keep going. You’re doing great.

JJ Jalopy.

How to Write Blog Posts Really Quickly

I get a lot of questions about writing.

Whilst I’d love it if people were asking about my concise, conversational and hilarious writing style…

…usually the questions are along the lines of:

How do you manage to write so much?

How do you write so quickly?

How do you keep coming up with ideas every day?

We’ve spoken before about how to write a super crazy awesome blog post.

Today I’m going to talk about how to write one quickly.

Six steps to Writing Blog Posts Really Quickly

1. Start before you start writing.

You don’t want to sit down in front of a blank screen with a blank mind.

If you find yourself in this position then set the intention of coming up with a great idea for an article, and then go and do something completely different. Go for a walk, sit in the jacuzzi with a beer, give the dog a haircut. Whatever you like. Just get away from the computer screen and do something else for a while.

Soon, a rather wonderful thing will happen. Ideas will spring into your mind as if from nowhere. This might appear magical but it’s really just the way your subconscious mind works. (Probably. Ask someone clever for proof.)

You’ll soon start to consciously think these ideas through in your mind. Maybe bits of dialogue or a great story or metaphor will appear. Maybe you’ll start to flesh out the structure of your argument. Maybe you’ll just come up with a really great topic.

Either way, now you have material.

It’s time to grab a pen and paper and…

2. Make an outline

You’ve got all these ideas swilling around inside your head. Now is time to get them out of your head and onto paper.

Make a rough outline of what you want to cover in your post, in whatever format you like.

I draw mind map-like doodles. You might prefer bullet points. Do what you dig.

Now we’re ready to write, but first…

3. Remove all distractions

I am so easily distracted it’s silly. I’m like a magpie in a jewelry store. A child in a candy store. A tired metaphor in a tired metaphor store.

I’ll be halfway through writing and then feel the urge to go and tell Mrs. Jalopy a funny story for the day. Or I’ll feel the urge to check my email. Or look at how many people replied to me on Twitter. Or check the number of new subscribers I got. Or…

You get the picture.

So if I’m going to write something good, I need to make sure that I’m not going to be distracted for the next twenty minutes.

Maybe you need to shut the door to your office for next twenty minutes? Maybe, like me, you need to write your posts on an editor which takes over your entire screen, removing all possible computer-based distractions?

All distractions removed? Good, now…

3. Start with whatever excites you the most

Now you’re ready to start writing. And we want to start with a BANG!

Sometimes you might have some great ideas but you’re feeling anxious because you’re not sure how to start.

You want to start with whatever excites you the most. Not necessarily at the start.

Maybe you’ve got a really great story that you want to tell. Just thinking about it makes you smile.

Start with that. Get excited! Get fired up! You’ll build up momentum for the rest of the piece.

Sometimes you might have a really great first sentence in my mind. In this case, the start is the place to start!

Once you’re in flow and you feel the excitement, keep writing. Structure is important, but emotion is more so. You can tidy things up later on…

4. Drop anything that doesn’t work

Don’t be a slave to your outline.

You’re writing, you’re in the zone, and some of the items in your outline don’t seem to work anymore?

Drop them. They won’t mind.

5. Don’t be tempted to save good stuff for later

As a blogger, sometimes you might worry that you’re going to run out of ideas.

It can be tempting to want to hoard ideas for future posts. Don’t do this at the expense of the post you’re writing now.

There will always be more ideas, so make this post the best you can.

6. Get it finished!

If you’re anything like me, then you’re never going to be 100% happy with anything you write.

There will always be a better adjective. There will always be a wittier way to make that point. There will always be a more thought-provoking question to finish with.

Learn to accept that good enough is good enough.

Press the Publish button, make yourself a cup of tea, and celebrate a job well done.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I have officially decided that this post is linkbait. That means that it’s a brilliantly bite-sized piece of shareable web-fodder. So, here’s what you do… Link to it from your blogs. Tell your friends about it on Twitter or Facebook. Digg it. Stumble it. Do all that other stuff that web people like some much. Your friends will love you for it. They’ll think you’re brilliant. Because you are.

Small Business Therapy #2 – I Don’t Want to Blog!

This is the second article in our small business therapy series. Today’s session is about blogging.

Happy Fourth of July!

I had planned to write this post last weekend.

I had also planned to send out my awesome and much-hyped (by me) Jalopy Gang Newsletter to my beloved V.I.P. list.

Instead I sat on a beach in the South of France for about 12 hours in the blistering heat and drank enough premium French Lager to kill a horse. (And a burly, hard-drinking one at that.)

Predictable results ensued.

I am never going on another bachelor weekend again.

So… I’ve been away for a while. This post almost didn’t happen. Newsletter awesomeness didn’t manifest. And God wept.

But NOW I’m back….

And it’s time to talk about our issues. You and me. In a non-creepy, constructive way with no seedy old therapist bores in sight.

The introductory story about the man with no name.

An unnamed client recently came to me to ask for help in promoting his business on the internet.

(He’s doesn’t actually have no name. He has a very lovely name, in fact. It’s just that I’m not telling you what it is.)

He has a small but successful offline business, and he’s looking to expand his marketing efforts online. Good for him. This idea gets the Jalopy Seal of Approval. (You can have one too for a small donation into my Paypal account.)

He’s getting a website designed. It looks pretty flash. It’s even made of Flash.

That’s a cool looking website, I said. Do you have a blog?

No. I don’t want a blog, he replied.

We’ve spoken about blogs before, me and he. He knows that I believe that the blog is the pinnacle of awesomeness when it comes to non-pushy, value- and relationship-focused internet marketing. This is true for a million reasons I have bored him with previously, and a million reasons that I’ll explain to you in my forthcoming product How to Use the Internet as your Faithful Marketing Love Slave.

So I stared at him blankly until he elaborated.

I don’t have time to maintain a blog, he replied.

The reason you don’t do something is rarely because you don’t have enough time. If something is important enough to you, you’ll make time for it.

<<Blank stare>>

<<Silence>>

I don’t have anything original to say.

What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in that.

And I don’t write very well.

And I’d run out of things to talk about.

And I don’t like putting myself “out-there” so personally. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Great. Now we were actually getting somewhere

So let’s talk these through together, one by one…

Objection 1 – I don’t have anything original to say.

We started to address this in our first small business therapy session.

It’s not true that everything worth writing about has already been written about by someone.

But it nearly is.

So does that mean you can’t write about it too?

Must every point you make be completely and totally original? A unique and perfectly-formed gem of knowledge spawned from your mind only?

Of course not!

What’s important is that you say what you have to say, in your own voice, at the right time.

In doing that, you’ll change lives.

Don’t believe me?

Okay. Have you ever heard something that you’ve heard a hundred times before, but for some reason, this time you hear it, something really clicks?

Why is it that the same information, presented slightly differently, only sunk in when you heard it described in a certain way, by a certain person?

It’s because that person was able to describe it to you in a way that you could uniquely relate to.

There are people that need to hear what you have to say. From you.

And you owe it to them to be yourself, to tell your story, to spread your knowledge.

Next…

Objection 2 – What I have to say is boring. People won’t be interested in it.

There are many massively popular blogs that I find mind-numblingly tedious.

What does this tell us?

Well… it either means that I’m a poor judge of blog quality…

…or it tells us that different people like different stuff.

Have you ever done any random, un-targeted web browsing? (You should. It’s an excellent procrastination aid, if nothing else!)

If you have, then you’ll know that there’s a huge amount of unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff out there. And it’s very very popular.

Which means that there must be a whole ton of people who like unoriginal, pointless, yawn-inducing stuff.

Or rather, a whole load of people who like the stuff that I think is unoriginal, pointless and yawn-inducing.

Someone will like your boring stuff. I promise!

Now, maybe you’re worried that no-one will show up to read your blog?

That’s a different issue. And a largely practical one.

Getting people to read your stuff is largely a function of how well you promote it. If you promote it well, people will come. And even if I might think it’s tedious, irrelevant and unoriginal, other people will not. They’ll visit and they will return.

There are more than enough weirdos on the internet for your weird blog to have a weird audience of its own.

There. Doesn’t that make you feel better?!

Next…

Objection 3 – I don’t write very well

I know how this can feel.

I love good writing. I’m attracted to some of my favorite blogs predominantly because of their unique and creative writing style.

Sometimes, when I’m reading a beautifully written blog such as www.copyblogger.com, a little voice appears in my head – the one that says:

JJ – you’ll never be this good. Why don’t you just give it up?

And part of that voice is correct. I probably will never be that good. I probably could be, were I to really work at it, but that’s not my focus.

Sometimes my ego and my desire to be the best at everything stops me from remembering why I am blogging in the first place.

I’m not blogging to become a great blogger. Or even a great writer.

I’m blogging to help people to succeed with their small home businesses. I’m blogging to help people leave their day jobs and do something that inspires and excites them. I’m blogging to promote my services and forthcoming awesome products.

The best writing style for a blog is a conversational tone. Imagine your average reader is in front of you and talk to them as a friend.

If you can write the way you talk when you’re having a coffee or a beer with a friend then you’ll be a great blogger.

Next…

Objection 4 – I’d run out of things to talk about

I strange and wonderful thing starts happening when you start writing.

Ideas seem to be born out of nowhere.

You’ll be writing a post and you’ll get ideas for five more. If you make it your intention to come up with ideas for blog posts and then go about your day, you’ll be surprised at how many great ideas pop into your head.

Give it a try.

Next…

Objection 5 – I don’t like putting myself “out there”. What if everyone realizes I’m not as much of an expert as I’d like to pretend? What if everyone realizes I’m weird or thinks I’m a screw-up?

Ah yes.

You’re going to be writing about yourself and you’re scared that people might find out that you’re not perfect.

Yeah. Makes sense. Because we love people who claim to be perfect, don’t we?

We really connect with them, don’t we?

We feel so appreciated and understood when we’re around someone who says they’ve never made any mistakes in their lives, don’t we?

You see where I’m going with this…

Good.

Your story will give someone hope. Your story is the reason people will finally understand what they haven’t been able to understand so far from anyone else.

Your story is the reason people are there, reading a blog and not an encyclopedia.

Be honest. Be yourself. Rock the world.

<<Deep breath>>

That was good. I enjoyed that.

It’s been lovely. See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you enjoyed that then you might want to sign-up to my V.I.P. list. You’ll get an email newsletter every week (except when I have heatstroke.) Sign-up now and get it tomorrow!

Life Coaching Math. Or an introduction to income planning for the rest of us.

Pocket protector at the ready?!

Today we’re going to do some coaching math. (Put an S on the end of that if you feel like being British for the day.)

Don’t worry. It’ll be nice and easy. And I’m going to hold your hand every step of the way and tell you that you’re doing great.

So… let’s pretend my star mentoring client and imaginary blog sycophant Life Coach Marjorie comes to me with the goal of making $100,000 a year from coaching next year.

That’s a good goal.

Marjorie’s a great coach. She’s the best, in fact.

But without a concrete plan showing how she’s going to make that money, it’s unlikely that Marjorie is going to wind up achieving her income goal simply by being brilliant.

Thankfully, Marjorie and I are a great team. She’s a life coaching superstar, and I’m an annoying guy who makes her write dates and numbers on piece of paper until it looks like some kind of plan.

And this is a good thing. Because the plan is going to show Marjorie how she can go from zero to $100,000 a year.

So we write $100,000 at the top of our piece of paper. This is our target. We brainstorm how we’re going to get there…

My regular coaching rates are $200 a month, explains Life Coach Marjorie.

Great.

I think I can probably maintain 10 clients a month on average over the year, she goes on to say,

So let’s write that down (pretending that taxes, expenses and other undesirables don’t exist…)

10 Coaching Clients per month @ $200 = $2000 per month = $24,000 per year.

Cool.

But it’s not quite $100,000 yet.

Marjorie could try to reach her goal, by doing on of the following:

• coaching 50 people a month
• increasing her rates to $1000 a month

Fortunately, Marjorie is smarter than that.

And she has been listening to me when I harp on about the value of producing information products to support her coaching service. She thinks it would be a good idea to write a small downloadable eBook on goal setting.

I do too.

This downloadable book will:

• provide a nice customer entry point for people who aren’t yet ready to stump up the $200 for Marjorie’s coaching
• increase her credibility and establish her as an authority in the personal development / coaching field
• make her money

Marjorie thinks she can write the 20 page book and get the design and distribution sorted out in a month.

She’ll sell it as a $19 download. She estimates that 40 people will buy it every month.

40 eBooks per month @ $19  profit = $760 per month = $9120 per year

That’s pretty good going for a month’s work.

Marjorie thinks she has another book in her. This one is going to be a larger, more comprehensive affair. It’s a manual for housewives who want to get back into work.

She thinks she’ll be able to write it and get it on the market in 3 months. She’ll sell it as a $69 download, with an option to pay extra postage for a printed version. She thinks she’ll sell 20 copies a month.

20 Printed Books per month @ $69 profit  = $1380 per month = $16,560 per year

As Marjorie is the greatest coach in the world, she thinks it’s only fair to impart some of this magic on other coaches. She decides to record a CD program with recordings of real coaching sessions. She takes on a few new coaching clients at reduced rates on the agreement that she may record the sessions. She asks her friend’s son to edit the sessions on his computer. She arranges for a fulfillment house to manufacture and distribute the CDs on her behalf.

This takes 2 months.

She sells the CD program for $150. Due to the small expected volumes it costs $15 to manufacture and ship the CD sets. She expects to sell 10 CD sets a month.

10 CD Programs per month @ 135 profit = $1350 per month = $16,200 per year

And if we add this up we come to:

Total projected, 6 months into plan:  $65,880 per year.

So far in our plan we’ve covered 6 months. Marjorie is well on her way to reaching her target next year.

We’ll stop here, but Marjorie might want to go on to write some new eBooks, start a subscription service, run tele-classes or produce another high-end physical product (or two.)

All of these will provide extra income. The introduction of new customers via an increased channels will result in more repeat business, and many of the numbers above can be expected to grow.

This is an interesting model to play with and think about and it’s a good basis upon which to build a plan…

…but don’t believe the numbers in this example. We’ve made some pretty huge assumptions here. All products have a limited shelf life and there are many other costs which have not been considered in the model.

I think the most interesting thing that comes out of this is the realization that the one-one-one coaching model is not very scalable. I’d advise everyone, coaches or otherwise to be on the lookout for ways to supplement their income. This is where the money lies…

Be creative. You rock!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. If you’re interested in more thinking along these lines, you should check out Andrea J Lee’s awesome book Multiple Streams of Coaching Income.

If you get it using this link here, I’ll receive enough money to buy myself a lovely cold beer. And that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Especially on a summer day like this. Go on… I’m a happy drunk, I promise…