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.

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!

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!

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.

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…

The most condescending business advice you’ve ever heard.

Hi there!

How are you? It’s so good to see you again – it’s been a while.

I had a fantastic time in Monaco, thank you very much.

But I’ve been in bed for the last two days. The combination of too-much-sun and not-enough-water will do that to you, it seems.

So, as I was hallucinating in bed last night, trying to shiver my way to sleep, I got to thinking about why most people’s mini-businesses don’t succeed.

What is the difference that makes the difference? I thought to myself, because I liked the way it sounded.

The difference that makes the difference is indifference, I replied, because I was high on sunstroke and I liked the way that sounded even more.

But I knew it didn’t make sense. Certainly not in this context anyway.

So I pulled myself together and searched my brain for a more helpful question. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well do some productive thinking.

What do people most need to help their businesses thrive?

That’s better.

I don’t think it’s more information, I replied. Most people know a few things they could be doing right now to move their business forward, get more clients and stuff.

(And if they don’t, they should click on that link for a few very simple suggestions.)

The problem is that they’re not doing them.

Bingo.

What people most need is to actually do the stuff they already know they should be doing.

Brilliant! A stroke of genius.

If there’s a Nobel Prize for the most obvious and naive piece of business advice then I’m first on the shortlist.

I went to sleep.

So, why aren’t they doing these things?

Well…

Because some of the things on that list are rather unsexy.

Because some of the things on that list are a bit scary.

And, quite frankly, they’d rather be drinking margaritas, eating biscuits in bed, or flirting with the hot teenage gardener.

Not that those aren’t useful and enjoyable activities. I’m sure they are. It’s just that they aren’t going to help your business grow. And then you’re not going to be able to afford those margaritas.

I want you to have all the margaritas / pool boys / hot nannies / ice-cream (delete as appropriate) that you desire.

But first… I want you do some of those things on your list.

(NOTE: I’m well aware that I’m the only one who uses under-the-covers margarita and biscuit binges as an excuse not to follow through on tedious marketing tasks. I’m sure your excuses are much more socially acceptable and involve kids, chores and family responsibilities. Unfortunately, these things are not as funny to me so they don’t get much of a mention today. Thanks.)

So here’s what we’re going to do…

(It’s pretty cutting edge.)

What I want you to do, is to pick a few items you know you should be doing (borrow some of these, if you need.)

Then write each of these on a single day on your calendar.

And then do them on that day.

Let your calendar be your coach. It’ll tell you what to do and it tell you when to do it. You won’t even have to think about it. Just do it.

If you think this is the most obvious and condescending piece of advice you’ve ever heard, then you’re probably right.

But I can’t overemphasize the importance of getting the basics right. Most mini-businesses fail because they never really get going. The key is to start moving, and keep going.

Thanks for putting up with my nonsense today. I’ll see you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Be my filter, baby!

One thing we are not short of these days is information.

People are rarely looking for more information. In fact, often they feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information at their fingertips.

They are looking for exactly the right information at the right time. And they are looking to have it pre-approved by someone they trust.

Do you satisfy this need for your customers?

Have you established trust with your customers?

Do you keep your customers’ problems in mind at all times?

Do you filter relevant and helpful information, share it with your customers in a consistent way, and let your customer know you’re helping them out?

Good! Well done you.

See you in Monte Carlo, you lovely information filter, You.

JJ Jalopy.

10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Get More Leads!

Hey there!

It’s great to see you again.

This is going to be a quick one today, because I have to go and pack my suitcase.

Tomorrow I’m flying to Monaco for a long weekend. It’s (yet) another bachelor party….

I’ll be sure to bring a massive Toblerone back for Mrs. Jalopy!

Now… I’ve talked before about the power of making constant small incremental improvements in your business. (Kaizen, baby!)

The big consulting houses have made a living out of this for years.

If you can make 10 processes 10% more efficient then you’ll make 10 gazillion times more money.

Or something.

Now it’s rare that I set myself up as a positive role model on this blog… but today I took a small step towards increasing the number of people that turn up at my (virtual) door, and I’d like to encourage you to do the same.

So what did I do?

Simply, I introduced a new channel by which people can find me. I took out an advert.

So what could you do? How you could you increase your leads?

Why not pick one of the following:

• Put an advert on Craigslist
• Hand deliver sales letters in your local area, or mail them to a list relevant to your business.
• Start a blog!
• Write a new blog post. (It has been a while, hasn’t it?!)
• Start Pay Per Click Advertising on Google
• Make Google love you a little more (SEO) by:
  • creating a Squidoo lens or Hubpages space, linking to your website
  • highlighting some of your keyword phrases in your web pages or posts.
  • adding some internal links within your website to the pages you want people to visit the most.
• Buy a banner advert on a relevant website.
• Comment on relevant industry blogs. Or join the discussion on a relevant internet forum. Be unique and add value.
• Record a video and post it to YouTube.
• Go Viral! Create an awesome thing linking to your website. Give it away for free. Encourage others to do the same.

Go on. Pick one and do it today. Google will tell you how, if you’re not sure!

Or ask here. I love questions.

See you soon. Take care!

JJ Jalopy.

Small Business Therapy #1 – People are already doing it better than me!

It can be easy to think that you’re the only small business owner who freaks out.

That you’re the only one struck by huge crises of confidence.

That you’re the only one too scared to pick up the phone, go to that event, make that decision.

You might look at successful people and say to yourself:

What’s the matter with me? These people never worry that they’re not good enough. They never wake up at 2:00 AM in a cold sweat wondering where the money is going to come from and whether they’ll be eating their left arm for dinner next week.

And this makes you feel alone.

You are not alone.

You see, most people who are in the business of dispensing business advice have a vested interest in you thinking that they have their stuff together. In adopting a position of authority, they depend upon social proof and the illusion of expertise, credibility and success to maintain their personal brand.

The result? They are unlikely to share their worries with you. They are unlikely to reveal that they, too, still suffer from crises of confidence now and then.

You might come to the conclusion that successful people just don’t freak out.

There is also much emphasis placed upon positive thinking and positive communication these days. If you go on Twitter, you’ll be inundated with messages of positivity, inspirational quotes and reminders to live every day like it’s your last!

It’s nice, and can be just what you need at times…

…but when you’re freaking out, thinking that you’re a total failure and wishing you could give it all up right now, then these people’s well-intentioned messages of inspiration feel like needles poking into your brain.

To paraphrase Russell Brand, it’s like being beaten over the head with a freaking rainbow.

Seize the day, they say!

Grab that sword, confront your fears, and slay that dragon of fear like the fear slaying dragon killer you were born to be, they say.

And you feel like you’re the only one (understandably) too busy throwing your own pity party to go anywhere near that bloody sword.

I can’t, you say. I’m throwing myself a big pity party. I feel hopeless. I want empathy, not vague “motivational” platitudes.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a waste of your energy, they say.

So you pick up that sword and shove it right into their gullet.

This makes you feel better.

But we don’t need to go maiming people with imaginary swords to feel better about all this. The fact is that, all of us feel unconfident sometimes and all of us freak out sometimes.

So, every weekend for the next few weeks, we’re going to have a little small business owner therapy session, here within the safe walls of our our home here in Jalopyland. We’re going to try to meet these issues with understanding and talk them through together.

Hopefully it will be helpful to you. Even if it just makes you feel grateful that you’re not as screwed up as me!

People are already doing it better than me!

You might have done all the market research in the world. You think you know what you’re doing.

Then… BOOM!

Here comes the crisis of confidence.

You’re worried that you’re not good enough.

Or rather, you wonder why you should carry on when other people are already doing That Thing You Do better.

There are many life coaches who are so much better than me, you say. Why would someone go to me when they could hire Mr. SuperCoach down the road?

There are many people who are much better writers than me, you say.

There are many people who are more confident or charismatic than me, you say,

There are many people who are more knowledgeable, or have more experience than me, you say.

Here’s what I say….

It doesn’t matter.

People don’t come to you for your expertise, success, experience or knowledge.  They don’t come to you because you’re the shiniest, greatest, or the most successful.

They come to you because of the way you make them feel.

Don’t believe me? Let me give you some case studies…

Where I go for lunch.

I spend a lot of time in a town called Watford, just North of London, UK, doing business consultancy work.

I like to get away from the office at lunchtime and go and sit down to eat. There are many places I could go for lunch. Many of them part of a big successful chain of restaurants, some of them small independent places.

My very favorite lunchtime venue is a small Lebanese restaurant called Nana’s Bakery.

I don’t go there because it’s the most convenient for me. (I have to walk down a busy, unfashionable main road to get there.)

I don’t go there because it’s the cheapest.

I don’t go there because they have the best food in the world (although it is pretty good!)

I don’t go there because they are well-known or because I’ve heard about them on TV.

I go there because they make me feel welcome. I go there because I get a big friendly welcome every time I walk in the door. I go there because they know my name, they give me free tasters of dishes they’re trying out, they invite me into the kitchen to show me how they make their flatbreads.

I go there because they are my kind of people.

And they’re always very busy because many other people feel the same way.

Now, if they had given up simply because there were already successful restaurants in the area, or similar small ethnic restaurants in the area, then my lunchtime would be a sadder affair.

Where I go for my blogtime.

If I want to read about health and meditation I go to www.anthonylemme.com

In fact, I go there even when I don’t want to read about health or meditation because I like hanging out there.

I could learn from Deepak Chopra, or some other heavily made-up guy who sits on Oprah’s coach.

But I read Anthony.

Even though his website looks like crap.

Even though he’s not yet as well known as many of the other people I could learn from.

Why?

Because I like the laid back vibe.

Because I like that reading Anthony’s stuff feels like talking to a friend.

Because I like that he talks about rock and roll, sex and meditation all in the same sentence.

Because I like the emotional experience I get there.

So what can we learn from these examples?

We learn that there is absolutely room for you, because you are You.

So, other people are already doing That Thing You Do?

That’s great! Because it tells you there is a demand for that thing. And there’s always a room for another voice, another point of view, a slightly different experience.

What people want most of all is to feel understood, to feel connected, to feel part of something.

To be successful you need to provide a consistent emotional experience that will be appealing to a certain group of people

As a small business, you are in a unique position to connect with people by being authentically you.

And you’re #1 in the world at that!

Okay, but are people really going to pay me for my services just because they like me, when they could go hire someone better?

Um, yeah. Kinda.

Not everyone wants the best in the world, and not anyone can afford the best in the world,

There is a place for you. I promise.

Some silly questions to finish

What would have happened…

… if The Beatles had given up because they thought they could never be as good as Elvis?

… if Beethoven thought he could never be Mozart, so didn’t even bother?

… if Rihanna thought she could never be Britney?

(Okay, maybe scrap the last one…)

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

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Things that make you look like an idiot!

I’m the kind of egomaniac who reads over his post archive to laugh at his own jokes.

In fact, it was this very act that prompted me to come and talk to you.

I’d been reading a fantastic article I’d written earlier in the week about the limiting beliefs we have about marketing.

Gosh, I thought to myself. Isn’t this a wonderfully informative, enjoyable and light-hearted read? This guy is just like me. It’s great to feel so understood.

And then I read this: (emphasis added for the benefit of our little conversation here)

You know that the thing that your selling rocks. So go tell people about it. Spread the love. Spread the happy. Change lives. Change the bloody world!

This guy’s an idiot, I thought.

Now I despise grammatical elitism as much as the next person with something more important to worry about.  But some things just make you look dumb.

So yes, I am fickle. Yes, I am judgmental.

And this would be fine if I were the only judgmental asshole in the world.

Unfortunately, I’m not.

Most people who understand that your and you’re mean two different things will think less of you if it appears that you don’t. Not in a moral kind of way, of course, but certainly in an is-this-person-clever-enough-to-teach-me-stuff kind of way…

And that’s not ideal when you’re in the business of dispensing wisdom.

Have you heard of the term hygiene factor? It was coined by a dude named Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who made his name in business management. He was interested in what motivates an employee.

He came up with the idea of a hygiene factor – something that causes dissatisfaction when missing, but does not increase satisfaction when present. Just as washing your hands stops you from getting horribly ill, but does not necessarily fill you with youthful vitality and joy!

In your company communication, the quality of your spelling and grammar is a hygiene factor.

You’re not going to win anyone over with your perfectly concise sentence construction.

No-one is going to fall in love with you because you use big fancy words or know where to put a semicolon.

But they might think you’re a bit dumb if you get its and it’s all muddled up.

We all make mistakes. I generally write late at night and I write very quickly. I don’t rework much of my writing and I don’t proofread as thoroughly as I might. The seductive call of my bed is generally more attractive to me than the idea of reading through something I’ve already read, however fantastic and hilarious it might be.

But I will be proofreading more carefully in future.

Whether you like it not, people will judge. So have a little think your business. What things are damaging your customers’ perception of you or your brand?

Do you, for example, have a blank About Me page?

Why?!

Why, oh why?

Do you realize how bad that looks?

Clean it up! Sort it out!

See you tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Please kick my butt if I haven’t sorted that About Me page out soon!

Sleazy salespeople and their sleazy salespeople ways.

Hey there!

It’s late here. But before I sneak off to bed, I want to catch up with you for a little chat.

Earlier today I was reading an excellent article by my friend, Aussie persuasion expert Duane Cunningham.

Go back, click on his name and read it if you want the rest of the post to make sense.

On the other hand, if you’re after a more psychedelic blog reading experience then go read something else, then come back and debate the appropriateness of your reading choice in the context of the remainder of the post.

Alice in Wonderland might be a good choice.

So you’ve just read Duane / Lewis Carroll make a pretty bold premise. I’ll paraphrase it thus:

“Strewth mate. If you’re gonna be prissy about sales and marketing, don’t “like” it, aren’t any bloody good at it, aren’t (wo)man enough to hunker down and get good at it then you’re bloody well not going to make any bloody money!”

Or something like that.

I’m exaggerating, of course. But not much. Duane understands the value of not sitting on the fence. His blog is pretty badass. You should check it out.

So… if Duane’s premise is correct, then that pretty much sucks for the majority of us who regard selling as a rather disagreeable pastime…

… unless we change some of our beliefs around sales and marketing.

Most of the people I work with don’t really like the idea of marketing or selling themselves, their product or their service.

They think of selling as that thing that salespeople do.

I am a consultant, they say.

I am a coach, they say.

I am a yoga-instructor.

I may be all these things, they say. But I am not a salesperson.

This is usually because they see the act of selling or marketing as an affront. Maybe they’ve been exposed to too many nasty pushy salesmen. Maybe their friends have tried to get them involved in some lame pyramid scheme. Whatever, they’ve come to see the whole selling stuff deal as A Bit Icky.

Which is a massive shame. Because Duane is right. You can’t make money if you’re not selling stuff.

You need to sell stuff to make money. But selling is not necessarily a dirty nasty sleazy thing, and you can do it without being a dirty nasty sleazy douchebag.

(I love the word douchebag. It’s sorely underused this side of the Atlantic.)

You don’t need to be a sleazy chain-smoking salesman from the seventies, banging on endlessly about his “leads”. You don’t need to write big long ugly internet sales pages that look like your son has swallowed a yellow highlighter and vomited it all over your monitor. You don’t need to send a million sales letters to a million ungrateful mailboxes. You don’t need to start spamming people’s inboxes.

You don’t need the used car salesmen approach to selling.

Not at all.

Selling your services or product is really about making sure that an awesome thing ends up in the hands of an awesome person who will benefit from it but who might not otherwise recognize the value it holds for them.

And for that…

You need something awesome that you believe in. And you deserve to feel proud about that thing and to promote it in a non-creepy way that you enjoy.

That, my good friend, is a part of what this blog is all about.

You know that the thing that you’re selling rocks. So go tell people about it. Spread the love. Spread the happy. Change lives. Change the bloody world!

For a quick intro, check out this post here http://www.jjjalopy.com/coaching-business-startup-202-beliefs-about-marketing/

If you’re worried about promoting your stuff then, to be successful and to start making the money you deserve, you’ll need to do one of two things:

• work on your beliefs about marketing (see above)
• get better stuff to sell.

Often, for coaches and consultants, the reluctance to promote your services enthusiastically actually stems from a lack of confidence in your services themselves.

And how do we deal with that?

Well… we come up with a plan to manage it. And we’ll do that together soon.

But for now… it’s time for bed!

Have a fun evening. Say Hi to Duane from me when you pop by!

JJ Jalopy.

Procrastination, Twitter and my Cartoon Nose Job

Hey there!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Relax, put your feet up and pour yourself your favorite drink as I tell you a story.

 

It was Wednesday evening this week. I sat down at the lovely big glass desk in my man cave and turned on the computer.

I feel great about today, I said to myself as my mac sprung into action. I’m going to get loads of productive work done.

I fired up my web browser and logged onto Twitter.

 

A lengthy aside about Twitter

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a bit like an online bar (except that you have to bring your own alcohol and you don’t need to wear pants.) There’s a load of people, a load of noise, some cool fun interesting people to meet, and some terrible dullards.

There are people who want to convince you that hawking overpriced vitamins on your friends and family is a good idea, as well as people who just want to hang out, get to know some people and have some fun.

The key to using Twitter in a way that doesn’t suck, is to ignore the first lot and befriend and engage with the second lot. Just as you’d walk away from the drunk guy in the corner dribbling on his sweater, and go talk to fun looking lady on the unicycle making balloon animals.

For the small home business owner, Twitter is an excellent networking and marketing tool. Especially if you’re prepared to take the time to do your marketing in a personable, non-creepy way.

It can also be an excellent procrastination aid.

It really shouldn’t be. 

It takes a few seconds to say something funny that’s on your mind, check out what other people are up to, and then get back to work.

It should be a perfect-sized refreshing break…

…if you have well-defined work to be getting back to.

 

So, back to my story… What happened with me?

Well, I noticed a comment from an internet friend. (That’s a friend I know through the internet, not a friend who is an internet. There’s only one of those.)

And I replied to said comment with a hilarious comment about rolling a watermelon down a hill, turning a house upside down with a big stick and a rock as a lever, or some other such nonsense. I don’t remember what it was right now, but it was surely absolutely hilariously irreverent.

Gosh, I am terribly amusing sometimes, I thought to myself.

And then I checked my email.

I had a message from the illustrator I’ve been working with. (I found him using elance. You can find out how to do this effectively in this article here.)

He’s making a cartoon logo of me, for reasons that are much more to do with satisfying my own ego than any serious branding considerations.

He had sent me some sketches. It’s really cool to see a cartoon version of you. I sent it to Mrs. Jalopy and a few friends. I debated whether my nose looked too big and whether my hair was curly enough.

I shot an email back to my illustrator dude. If I’m going to be a cartoon, I’m going to be a bloody good looking one, that’s for sure.

I requested a cartoon nose job.

An hour had now passed since I first sat down to work.

I should finish that article on confidence that I’ve been writing on and off for the last week. Or I should finish the About Me page on my website, or that Squidoo lens, or those sketches I’ve been promising the web designer…

Yeah, but first… I bet someone has replied to that hilarious comment I made on Twitter. 

They hadn’t. Perhaps no-one had read it yet. Or maybe they thought it was so hilarious that they couldn’t think of a worthy reply. Yeah, that was probably it.

So I logged onto Facebook, made a few comments on some people’s photos, watched some videos of monkeys playing with firearms. Soon got tired of that.

 

The bit where I hurry the story a little because you’ve got the idea by now…

Looked at my cartoon again.

Thought about finishing that article.

Or the one for April which has now been festering even longer. (Sorry April, if you’re listening. It is like totally brilliant though.)

Thought about making that squidoo thingywotsit.

Emailed the web-designer dude with a link to a website that I think is prettier than the one we’re making…

Finally I sat down to finish the article.

But by now I was feeling really tired and Mrs. Jalopy has already gone to bed. I don’t like it when we go to bed separately. I miss my snuggletime.

So I turned off the computer and go to bed, feeling a little guilty about how long I had just spent doing pretty much nothing.

 

So what went wrong?

Gosh. Lots of things. Where do we start?

I had no goal.

To be successful at doing stuff you first have to know what it is that you want to do.

“I’m going to do some networking and hopefully finish that article, talk to the web-designer and illustrator” is not a goal.

So what would have looked better? How about this?

I’m going to finish my article on confidence and reply to any urgent emails. I’ll give myself a couple of breaks to make tea and to briefly connect with people on Twitter.

I had no deadlines or defined timescales.

I had blocked off a period of time in which I was going to “do work”. I had allowed myself to be okay with not finishing anything. I was happy simply to be doing work stuff.

So I flitted around, satisfying my little ego with cartoon nose jobs and flirting with imaginary friends on Twitter.

What would have looked better?

I’m going finish my article on confidence tonight, before I go to bed. 

I had no accountability.

I sometimes talk about making non-negotiable agreements with yourself. 

This is when you say, I’m going to finish this article before I go to bed because I’ve decided that I will. There is no other way. 

You’re being accountable to yourself. You’re coaching yourself.

You may also get a lot of value being accountable to a coach, or a mastermind group trying to achieve similar things together.

Either way, accountability is a big piece of the puzzle. 

 

The bit at the end where we wrap things up.

I’m sure the story I just confessed is totally unfamiliar to a productive and efficient business person like you!

Or maybe it’s not so much…

I find it interesting that the basics to working productively are so simple, straightforward and easily understood – but also difficult to act upon consistently.

There is a huge payoff in getting the basics right. Having a plan, putting timescales and deadlines against all your tasks and being accountable to yourself and others… these are the basics.

And we’d do well to set up a habit to remind ourselves of this every single day as we sit down to work. And make a non-negotiable agreement with ourselves to do these things – even if we don’t feel like it.

How do you manage this? What systems do you have in place to remind yourself of the basics to working effectively? What strategies to you have when procrastination rears its ugly head?

Let me know! You know you can talk to me below. And you know I love it when you do!

See you soon.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I believe that procrastination is actually a very complex issue. It is my belief that no-one self-sabotages. All of our decisions are, I believe, made with our best interests in mind, but with limited or “flawed” information. In this post, I don’t mean to make light of the issue of procrastination, simply to highlight the importance of getting the basics right.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION EXTREME!

Hey there!

I’m back!!

I’ve missed you. It seems like such a long time since we last spoke.

I have a vague recollection of talking to you yesterday, but I’m pretty sure my heart and mind were tucked up in bed at the time.

I’m pretty psyched because I’ve just finished off a brilliant article about delegation and outsourcing for my Jalopy Gang V.I.P.s.

I know it sounds incredibly unsexy, but it really is rather wonderful.

I give you instantly applicable strategies that you can use to master that big long list of things that you have to do, by borrowing other people’s time. And, if like me, you’re a massive prima-donna control freak who can’t stand the idea of relinquishing control of your baby business to someone else, let alone paying them for the privilege, then we’ll tackle that too.

Yep, it’s bloody brilliant. And it’ll be hitting your email box shortly.

 

 

You have about four hours to sign-up below if you don’t want to miss out on this, and other valuable greatness. Do it. I love your email box. It’s my favorite. And I’d love to hang out there more.

Right.

See you in a bit!

Okay, okay. You want a teaser. I thought you might.

Here you go…

 

So you have a to-do list as long as your arm…

…and you only have so much time in the day.

We all do.

No-one has a monopoly on time. It’s the one thing that we all have the same amount of, every single day.

So if we all have the same amount of time available to us, then how is it that some of us manage to invent bagless hoovers, wind-up radios and biros that work on the moon, whilst simultaneously releasing six prog rock concept albums about cyborg goats that live on Mars…

…whilst others barely manage to get up, go to work, and get the kids fed before it’s time for bed?

Well I’ll tell you for why…

The robot goat fetishists have become expert at the following strategies:

 

Oh yeah. I’m such a tease. Sign-up. Become a V.I.P.

See you later!

JJ Jalopy.

Overcoming the fear of success – Background reading.

Hey there!

Mrs. Jalopy and I have been traveling all day and we’re finally back home.

We had a wonderful weekend  in Austria celebrating our friends Jon and Birgit’s wedding.

It was beautiful.

And the party was crazy!

Now I’m really tired and making all kinds to health and sobriety promises to myself which will get forgotten just as soon as I emerge from the other side of a good sleep.

And that’s where I’m going right now… 

I really wanted to post today because I’ve missed you. But as my mind is absent today, in my place I will leave you with some preparatory reading for our discussion tomorrow. (See what I did there?)

Here’s a great article on Overcoming the Fear of Success, from the fantastic Dumb Little Man blog.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about strategies you can use to build your confidence in your coaching or consulting business and grow your business at the ideal rate for you.

I’ll be back and well-rested tomorrow, posting, sending my V.I.P.s a shiny new newsletter and generally saving the world.

Party on.

JJ Jalopy.

My Boss is a Jerk.

Hi there!

I was reading a well known productivity blog earlier today and it pissed me off.

It was 10 AM. I was on my 15th coffee of the day, working through last year’s to-do list. I’d eaten a Mars bar for breakfast cause I thought I didn’t have time to make anything else. My veins were protruding through my eyeballs. I felt confused, tired, overworked, uninspired.

And here was this blogger dude talking about how he walks bare feet on the beach every morning, meditates for hours a day, eats only raw food, plays with his kids all day and breezes through is to-do list in a calm and efficient flourish of Zen-like productivity!

Bully for him, I thought. There is little in the world more annoying than smug productivity advice.

It would be great to be like that, I thought. It really would.

But I have a boss who forces me to work late in the evening. I have a boss who interrupts me with work questions at all hours of the day. I have a boss who stops me from spending quality time with my family and friends.

He’s insensitive. He’s fickle. He fails to see the big picture. He bosses me around.

Yes, my boss is a jerk. 

My boss is me.

Ah, the perils of the home business owner…

One of the reasons we start a home business is to get away from the control of someone else.

No longer will I have to put up with that angry, irrational, unappreciative control freak who treats me like crap, we think.

And that’s great.

But it sucks if you then become that irrational unappreciative control freak and start treating yourself like crap.

Whoops.

In the Jalopy Gang Newsletter I sent out to my awesome V.I.P. list yesterday (sign-up at the top of the screen) I shared a great question to ask yourself throughout the day when you’re about to make a decision or take a new action, or enter a new environment. It was this:

Is this what being good and respectful to myself looks like?

Well… I’m an enormous hypocrite and I haven’t been asking myself this too often.

And if I had I certainly wouldn’t be eating Mars bars for breakfast…

So yes, it’s time to coach myself a little better.

See you soon!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Definition of Linkbait from seomoz.org: Link-worthy, Linkerati-Targeted Content.

P.P.S. Definition of Linkbait from JJ: This. Feel free to link the crap out of it. I won’t mind.

How to create a kick-butt coaching brand!

Branding. Create a coherent and predictable emotional experience for your customer.

Hey there!

I’m on my way back from a gloriously sunny weekend by the seaside. We lay on the beach, we played Frisbee, we paddled in the sea, we surfed.

Everything I own is now full of sand. Including this laptop, which I haven’t touched all weekend.

Now… I’m sure you’ve been sat by your email box all day, eagerly awaiting the delivery of your weekly Jalopy Gang V.I.P. newsletter. Well… I’m afraid you’ll have to wait one more day to receive it this week, because I’ve been extremely busy all weekend doing nothing. And now I’m worn out!

It’ll be totally brilliant. Sign-up below to be sure not to miss out.

 
There’s some really great free stuff coming soon…

Earlier today, as the sun beamed down on my face and the cool sand squeezed between my toes, I got thinking about branding.

I’ve spoken before about the benefits of communicating a single, coherent message to your customers through your branding.

Equally important, I think, is to deliver a coherent and predictable emotional experience, and to anchor this to your brand.

What am I talking about?

Well…Why do you watch 24?

You watch 24 because you want excitement. You want 600 plot twists in 6 minutes. You want close-ups and explosions and stuff. You have an expectation that it will get your blood pumping. 

Why do you watch Oprah?

You watch Oprah because you want to connect. You want to hear people’s stories and relate to them. You want to feel understood. You want to feel inspired. You have an expectation that you will feel this way, and it is familiar and comforting.

Why do you watch films you’ve already seen before?

Because you know how they’re going to make you feel. You know what you’re going to get.

Whenever we enter into an interaction we have a certain expectation of what the emotional experience is going to be.

What is the emotional experience that your service / product / website / brand provides?

Is it predictable and consistent? 

If you switch on Oprah, hoping for some inspiration, then you’re going to be disappointed if you end up with a sweaty Rush Limbaugh blaming all his personal problems on anyone else who isn’t just like him.

If you switch on 24, hoping for some action packed excitement, then you’re going to be disappointed if you end up with a slow, tender love story.

So, be consistent. Make the emotional experience part of your brand, and keep it mind in all your communication.

See you tomorrow!
JJ Jalopy.

Stop your blog from sucking. And save the world!

Hi there!

Do you have a blog?

(To extract the maximum enjoyment from this narrative, you might want to play along. Even if you currently find yourself blogless…)

Does your blog suck?

No, of course it doesn’t. It’s brilliant.

But even the most brilliant of brilliant blogs can be improved upon a little…

So would you like to make your blog even better?

Of course!  And how would you feel if I told you that you could achieve this with the very simplest of strategies, right now, at home in the comfort of your own pants (or someone else’s if you’d prefer) in 6 minutes a day with a glass of wine in your hand and your cat curled up on your keyboard?

You’d say that would rock, right?

Well, what if I told you could do all this and save the world at the same time?

You’d say JJ, you must have fallen out of the crazy tree. I know you’re totally awesome and everything, you’d say, but I don’t think you could offer us all of that.

And I’d say perhaps not… But I’d like you to meet to very lovely people who can.

They are Darren Rowse from Problogger, and Naomi Dunford from IttyBiz.

They are both very lovely and they both know lots and lots about blogging and small business and stuff like that.

Darren has written an indispensable eBook which gives you 31 simple actions steps towards making your blog really awesome. It’ll take you a month to get through, after which your blog will emerge as shiny as the shiny side of a coin well polished on one side.

If you do the exercises in the book then you will see results. That’s a Jalopyland Guarantee. If you don’t then you can follow me everywhere I go for 24 hours prodding me continuously and yelling I told you so in my face.

And I won’t be allowed to punch you in yours.

Fair?

I thought so…

Now what’s the deal with this Naomi lady? Where does she fit into this grand plan?

Well… the  book costs $19.95 (That’s a total bargain, by the way.) And if you buy the book through her, she gets $10.

And why should you care?

Because Lovely Naomi is not going to keep that $10. No, she’s going to take that $10, give it to Kiva.org and then she’s going to double it.

Yep. You can rock your blog and save lives at the same time.

Convinced?

I thought so. Now… go to Naomi’s blog here, scroll down and click on the bit where she says “This is the Link. Click on it.”

Buy it and change lives.

Rock and roll.

Oh… I should probably make it clear that I make no profit whatsoever from all of this. Im fact, it has nothing to do with me at all. I’m just sharing the love. That’s how we roll in Jalopyland baby!

I’m off to the seaside tomorrow. Chat to you later!

JJ Jalopy.

Tell us about all the cool stuff you’re doing JJ!

Hey there!

So Manchester United lost the football tonight.

Still… life goes on. Especially if you could care less about Manchester United.

Today I thought I’d share with you what I’m up to, and then send you away with a chocolate surprise as I get busy with aforementioned stuff.

You’re soon going to see a few changes around here:

A New Cleaner, Clearer Website Design

A new splash of paint.

 

There’s a ton of really awesome stuff on this website.

But it’s a right bitch to find it, and the layout of the site is rather confusing.

So I’ll be taking the time to sort that out. The new design will be:

• cleaner
• easier to read
• lighter
• whiter
• like fresh laundry on a summer day
• funner
• more JJ. (Oh yeah.)

If you come and visit and the site looks as if a child drew it on your screen with half-chewed crayons, then you probably caught me in the middle of upgrade limbo.

I know there are ways and means to update a website in such a way that the changeover is almost seamless from the visitor’s perspective. I also know we probably won’t bother ourselves with such folly.

So if it looks like crap, that’s why. It’ll get better. Honest.

More Really Cool Stuff.

I’m busy making really cool stuff for you. If you’ve been paying attention to my coaching marketing blueprint then you’ll know that the last step is:

Explode your Business. Get leverage on your time.

In my business, this means making cool stuff to help as many people as possible. There’s some really great free stuff coming up which I’ll make available to existing and new subscribers to my awesome Jalopy Gang newsletter, as well as some slightly-more-than-free-stuff that I’ll be revealing soon.

Some secret other stuff which is just like so totally cool it’ll make your eyes pop out and your head fall off, at which point you won’t mind so much about the eyes.

Yeah, some of that too. Subscribers will find out soon!

As I’m so busy, I’ll posting a bit less often on here from now on. Not a lot less, mind you. We’ll still hang out and laugh and learn together.

To make up for that – and as a present for being so lovely and reading down so far – I’m going to share my super awesome brownie recipe with you.  These are the best brownies in the whole world. Enjoy!

Here’s your shopping list. 

• 200g Butter
• 200g of the finest dark chocolate money can buy
• 100g of milk chocolate
• 50g of cocoa powder
• 275g of caster sugar
• 90g of flour
• 3 big eggs

This makes enough brownies to last a couple of hours, regardless of the number of people you have. They’re good. Really good.

Now the instructions. Pay attention!

Cut the butter and break the dark chocolate into cubes. Put them in a bowl. Rest the bowl on top of a saucepan filled about a third full with water. If the bowl touches the water then you either have an inappropriately shaped bowl or too much water – remedy the situation!

Now but the saucepan on a low heat and stir the butter and chocolate as it begins to melt. 

Once melted remove the bowl from the pan and allow the melted chocolate to cool.

As it cools, sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl to remove any lumps.

Chop the milk chocolate into chunks with a knife or whatever garden implement you feel like misusing.

Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk like crazy until you get a nice fluffy sweet mixture. This mixture is delicious…

Now pour the melted (cool) chocolate over the fluffy eggy goo and fold it together with a spatula. Keep going in a figure of air so everything is the same lovely chocolate color. Be nice and gentle because we don’t want to get rid of the lovely fluffiness of the egg goo.

Now sift the cocoa and flour mixture on top of the chocolate goo. When it covers the top, fold the dry mixture into the goo. This will look horrible and dry at first, but bear with it. Keep going gently until you’ve folded in all the cocoa and flour and you end up with a fudgy, sticky consistency.

Finally, stir in the milk chocolate chunks. 

Stick the mixture into a shallow baking tin that you’ve prepared in whichever non-stick way you like. Make sure it covers the whole surface of the tin.

Whack it in the oven for about half an hour. You can tell when it’s ready because it won’t wobble in the middle when you shake it.

Now allow them to cool, chop them up and eat them.

They are best served with wine, coffee good music and great company.

TASTY!

See ya later, Alligator!

JJ Jalopy.

How to identify with your prospective customer.

Hi there,

How are you today? 

Hi again. This is JJ interrupting himself. He’s going to drone on for a couple of paragraphs about some of the mildly unfortunate things that happened to him today, using naively constructed metaphors involving the wet bits of fish. Skip to the bit marked AIMLESS SELF-INDULGENT RAMBLING STOPS HERE if you could care less. Thanks.

I woke up in a foul mood today. 

I think it might have been the rain that did it. 

It had been such a sunny weekend, and I woke up early this morning to rain.

Then… when I left the house I discovered I had a hole in my shoe.

Then… as I squelched my way up the escalator and out of the tube station, I realized I had left my umbrella on the seat.

By the time I arrived at my destination I was as wet as the very wettest bits of a wet fish.

Under other circumstances I may have found this funny. I may even have done a little dance in the rain – Dick Van Dyke style.

But not today… Today I was a big grumpy grumpyhead.

Why am I telling you all this?

To be honest, I’m not sure. You are not my therapist and I’m rapidly talking my way into a blogging black hole.

HOWEVER…

Do not be too quick to write off this post just yet, because I’m putting aside my petty grudges against the unfortunate practicalities of the day and pulling something TOTALLY AWESOME out of my box of tricks.

Sometimes I like to mention how brilliant my Jalopy Gang newsletter is. 

(Totally, is the answer, by the way. It’s totally brilliant.)

Well… I’m getting lots of few new subscribers these days. (Hi new subscribers! I love you!) And one of the things that makes me a little sad, is think that these awesome new folk have missed out on some of the really cool stuff I’ve downloaded into your head in my previous newsletter.

So today I’m going to share this with you. It’s an answer to a lovely reader’s question about how she can identify with her prospective customer. It’s not the best-written thing I’ve ever produced, but it’s jam-packed with useful information. Awesome.

Let’s go…

 

 

 

==> AIMLESS SELF-INDULGENT RAMBLING STOPS HERE

A question from a reader:

JJ. I’ve picked a niche market to target, and I’ve created a simple representation of my average customer as you suggested, but I’m having trouble identifying with my customer. Do you have any tips on how I can get inside my prospective customer’s head?

This is a great question!

I realise now that it’s something I glossed over somewhat when we discussed this in the context of my business.

It is relatively easy to identify with your niche if you are already involved in that niche. It is even easier if your prospective customer is essentially a past version of you, before you solved some of your own problems.

But what if you are new to the niche? How can you identify with something you have never experienced yourself?

Well, thankfully, there are some great tools you can use to help you understand your prospective customer, before you immerse yourself in that niche.

What are people searching for?

When someone has a problem, or they want information on a subject, they go to Google (or a similar search engine) and they search for information, advice, or people with similar stories or experiences.

And they don’t censor what they type in. It might be embarrassing to ask your Mom, but it’s not so embarrassing to ask Google!

Google knows everything.

And Google will happily tell you what people in your niche are searching for! You can find out what they’re worried about, what they’re looking for, what is on their mind.

This is amazing.

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in a search term describing your niche.

If your niche is women trying to come to terms with their husband’s infidelity  then type “cheating husband” into the keyword tool and see what comes up.

Google will tell you exactly what they’re looking for!

Spend some real quality time with this tool. All the information you need to use it effectively can be found on the Google website.

Do it. I can’t overemphasize how important this is!

What are people talking about on Internet groups?

One of the great things about the internet is that there is a community for everything. No matter how bizarre your area of interest, there will be an online community for it.

Lizard racing?

Underwater scrabble? 

Whatever your area of interest you will be able to find someone else who is also interested in that thing, and you will be able to chat to them online.

Your mission is to find the online communities related to your niche market and find out what people are talking about and the questions they are asking.

So where can you find these:

Popular group sites:

http://groups.google.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/

http://groups.live.com/

Social Networking Sites:

http://www.facebook.com/

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/

Use directory sites (dmoz.org, yahoo directory etc) to find the most popular forums in your niche:

http://www.dmoz.org/

http://dir.yahoo.com/

http://specials.msn.com/

What questions are people asking on the Internet?

Question and Answer websites are an absolute goldmine for niche research.

Sites like Yahoo Answers, WikiAnswers etc. allow people to post questions, which are then answered by experts and Internet busybodies alike.

http://answers.yahoo.com/

http://wiki.answers.com/

Search these sites for questions relevant to your niche. It’ll tell you exactly the questions people are asking, and what they’re having trouble finding out by other means.

Find a popular question people are struggling to get answered anywhere else on the Internet, and you have just discovered yourself a potential goldmine!

NOTE: This is a massively awesome tip. You should do this. And then you can thank me by telling all your friends how brilliant I am. And why not suggest that they too subscribe to my newsletter so we can all play together in a giant bubble of love, and take over the world.

Ask people yourself!

My final suggestion is to do some good, old-fashioned market research. Find people who represent your niche and ask them what they’re worried about, elicit their values, find out what makes them feel good and what their dreams are.

You can create a survey online at www.surveymonkey.com.

If you’re a respected member of a popular forum then you could make a post on the forum, linking to your survey. This will be especially effective if you offer a small incentive for filling in the survey. A small downloadable report might be good.

If you’re not an already respected forum member then this will probably be regarded as spam. It is best to build up a reputation as a value-giver before you ask for anything in return.

Please let me know how you get on with your research. And please share any magic bullets of your own!

See? That rocked in the end, didn’t it? 

Well done me.

See you tomorrow for more fun and games!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I’m thinking about simplifying the look of the website. It’s a bit busy, I think. I want it to look cleaner and more fun. And I want bigger text, so it’s easier for you to read. Let me know if you think it’s a good idea. 

Which reminds me… I should really update my contacts page…

You can contact me on:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jjjalopy 

Facebook: Just search for me. Not many people have my name. Except one guy who’s into cuckoldry. Mrs. Jalopy would probably appreciate me pointing out that this is not me.

Email… jj at jjjalopy dot com

Other stuff, but I can’t be bothered to type any more right now. G’night!

How to Market Test your Business Idea in Under Ten Minutes

Hi there!

I hope you had a lovely long weekend.

Sometimes on my blog I like to have imaginary conversations with imaginary people who appear to be very interested in what I have to say.

If one of these imaginary folk were to ask: 

Hey JJ. So what’s are the real steps involved in this setting-up-business / coaching / mentoring lark of which you speak?

Then I would be able to show them checklists, flow diagrams, lightning-bolt-strewn process maps. They would be impressed.

I like to call this my methodology, because I am fancy like that.

This methodology is the foundation of all my work with folks who want to set up their own little businesses. It’s the main reason that my mentoring service is so totally brilliant, and why this website is too. Even if you’re only here because you like my hat.

Earlier today I was doing some ad-hoc coaching with a friend of mine who is looking to start an online business. I ran him through a quick set of tests he could use to determine whether there would be a market for his business idea.

That’s cool, I thought to myself. I should share this on my blog and add it to the methodology.

And that’s what I’m doing here. 

I made a quick 7 minute video to explain the process. It’s a long way from being slick – and if you’re not interested in internet business then frankly it’ll bore you to tears – but the information in here is fantastic.

I think everyone would benefit from following along with this one. I should really sell this information for a gazillion dollars or something, and I probably will one day, so watch it now whilst I am still outrageously generous!

Enjoy! And if you feel like telling the rest of the internet how great you think this is then please go ahead and Digg, facebook, mixx me and generally shout messages of love from the rooftops. I won’t mind!

See ya’ tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

Fill Your Coaching Practice in 7 Easy Steps.

How to become a coach. With Coaching Marketing Superstar JJ Jalopy.

Hey there!

Look! I’m on YouTube – spreading the word about my coaching marketing blueprint and other awesome stuff.

Obviously I cringe if I watch it and have no way of telling objectively whether it sucks or not.

So please tell me what you think…

Feel free to be totally honest with me.

Except if you think it sucks. You can keep that to yourself.

Actually, you can keep quiet unless you think it’s totally brilliant. Otherwise I’ll get all self-conscious and I’ll do the next one in the dark.

Thanks. Glad we’ve sorted that out.

See y’all tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 207 – Coaching Business Branding Basics

How to become a coach. With Coaching Marketing Rockstar JJ Jalopy.

Hey there!

Welcome back to Casa Jalopy.

Let me pour you a glass of wine. It’s a cheap Chilean Shiraz today – half price from the supermarket.

Yep, I’m living the V.I.P. lifestyle to the fullest. Diddy would be proud!

Unfortunately you missed dessert. We had a Gu chocolate souffle each. Have you tried them?

They’re the best thing in the world. (Well, apart from me!)

They’re delicious. Every taste is like a spiritual orgasm! They’re even better than the awesome chocolate brownie recipe that I shared with you in my last newsletter.

My newsletter sucked a bit last week, actually. Sorry about that. I was tired. I wrote way too much. And it was formatted like crap.

BUT… it’ll be waaaay better next week. So sign up here!

The Jalopy Gang Newsletter – A newsletter so awesome that it knows when it sucks…

Yeah, I know. And I call myself a marketing expert!!

Yesterday I had a busy, amazing, productive and love-filled day. When I blogged about it, my buddy Christian asked me to elaborate on what I’d been doing.

Well, like any self-respecting attention-seeker, I love talking about myself . What I’m about to talk about is almost entirely irrlevant to anyone wanting to learn about starting their coaching business, setting up their home business, productivity tips, marketing advice, or any of the cool coaching and mentoring stuff I talk about, so feel free to the section below entitled JJ stops rambling here to get to the content!

So what was I doing?

Well… I completed the arrangement of an asset securitization for an automotive vendor finance portfolio.

Ever wish you hadn’t asked something?

<<If you care, insert your own paragraph here about credit rating agencies, responsibility, asset-backed securities, credit crunch, capital adequacy, balance sheet restructuring, Megan Fox or Stephen Hawking, or Megan Fox and Stephen Hawking together with a big bowl of strawberries.>>

The details are unimportant, thank God. What is relevant is the sense of achievement that comes from doing a job really well. THAT rocks.

JJ stops rambling here!

Right. Let’s get out the blueprint.

You found your niche coaching market.

You personalized your prospective coaching client or customer and created a customer avatar, a representation of your average coaching client. You sat inside their head for a while and you understood their problems and their worries. You understood what scares them. You understood how they feel about their friends and their family. What obligations they feel they have. What their hopes are.

Then created an image of the kind of person they would like to talk to. How would they make them feel? What experience would that person have? How would they make them feel better about themselves? How would they help them solve their problems?

This was the first step to finding solutions to their problems.

So what’s next?

Well if you like, pretend for a moment that you are JJ Jalopy.

…

Now come away from the mirror and get back here. Concentrate!

That’s better…

Now your customer avatar (following mild-mannered ladies man Eben Pagan) is an awesome lady called Marjorie. Recap here…

Now, as a coach, the answer to your coaching clients’ problems is going to involve You. 

You are going to form an essential part of your brand. Your business communication is going to largely based in the way You communicate.

That’s a given. And it’s massively important, actually. Don’t go thinking you need to put on a serious business hat when you’re running your business and that you can relax and be yourself when you get home.

However it is that you are – that rocks. That’s why I love you. Be like that when you’re playing business.

HOWEVER…

You are a complex and multifaceted individual. You are a socially sophisticated person. You do not interact in the same way at the Vicar’s house as you do when you’re sharing a glass of wine with your best friend.

Unless the Vicar is your best friend.

You do not bring the same aspects of yourself to every situation.

Remember the image we constructed of the person your customer would most like to talk to? Let’s call this person your business avatar.

In constructing your brand and communication plan we want you to:

• be totally authentic
• emphasize the aspects of your personality and communication style which are consistent with that of your business avatar.

Make sense?

Cool. Write this down. Think about how this feels to you. 

And in the next post in this series I’ll discuss how I do this in my businesses.

Until then have a wonderful evening. I’ll see you next time!

JJ Jalopy.

Two inconvenient truths about marketing

Hey there!

I’m going to be short and sweet today. I’ve been writing way too much recently and I feel like joining Mrs. Jalopy on the sofa and watching 90210.

Yep. That’s the kind of mood I’m in today!

I’m going to share with you two inconvenient truths about marketing and human nature which, if you’re smart, (and I know you are) you can use to your advantage in your own marketing…

1. Everyone THINKS they are too smart to respond to advertising or marketing messages. 

2. Everyone loves to feel superior.

Okay. Okay. They’re not truths. They’re generalizations. But I couldn’t say that. It would make for a shit title, wouldn’t it?

Have a think about this.

How are these two related? 

How might you take advantage of this in your marketing efforts?

How might you best assess the effectiveness of a marketing campaign?

Right… It’s time for Beverly Hills 90210. Oh, how I love great art!

See ya tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Marketing your blog and getting people to fall in love with you!

How to become a coach. With Coaching Marketing Expert JJ Jalopy.

Hi there!

Happy Mothers’ Day!

Hope you had a fantastic weekend.

I’ve just returned back to the city from a wedding in the countryside.

I love a good wedding. Or as my friend Steve pointed out, what I really love is a good wedding reception. (We must have that Martini sometime soon, Steve.)

Now, as you know, I’m writing a book at the moment.

It’s obviously going to be brilliant, but that doesn’t really matter if no-one reads it.

So how do I get people to find me, take the time to find out about me, realize I’m a genius and fall in love with me for my modesty, good looks, charm and business expertise?

Well I guess the first thing I need is a bigger picture of my happy smiling face on my website! I’ve been meaning to get around to that for ages…

…But more importantly, I need a marketing plan much like the Coaching Marketing Blueprint I have been sharing with you over the last couple of weeks.

And of course, this here blog is all part of that evil plan! <<Insert evil laugh here>>

Now, if you’re new to the internet and you’ve been following along with my series on Marketing your Coaching Business then what I’m about to talk about may seem like a massive jump into the realm of the of the unknown.

But I’m going to talk about it anyway, because that’s what I feel like talking about today. And I’m tired. And you should always let a tired person do what they want, or they’ll get grumpy.

I can be good at grumpy!

Right… so this blog forms part of my evil plan to get the internet to fall in love with me and buy my book. You know this because I just told you. But how exactly does this work?

Well my blog is useful for a number of reasons:

• People searching for information on marketing their coaching business more successfully may find me and become interested in my writing.
• Other bloggers may dig my writing and link to me, making it easier for more people to find me
• It helps to build my reputation as an authority in the coaching marketing niche
• It’s an informal forum in which I can be myself, which means that…
• I can build my relationship with my readers
• I can build relationships with other bloggers and businesses
• I grow a large repository of useful and relevant written content
• I get valuable feedback on my writing and ideas and inspiration from comments, linkbacks etc.

I could go on and on and on. But a list of poorly elaborated bullet points does not a good post make.

Suffice to say, having this blog is a very good thing and an important part of the JJ Jalopy marketing plan.

If you follow the marketing plan I use with my coaching clients then it will soon be a part of yours too.

Now, on the train back from the countryside I was reading an awesome book by Naomi Dunford and Dave Navarro (no, not the guitarist dude) called How to Launch the **** out of Your Ebook. Yep, the name was what attracted me to it!

It’s a great book. Really awesome. You can find out more about it here. And if you buy it then I get half of the book price, thanks to another awesome concept called affiliate marketing, which we’ll be discussing when we get a little further in our Coaching Marketing Blueprint.

Well something in the book caught my eye, and it was this:

Blogging is not complex – it’s about 20% writing good content and 80% getting the word out (seriously.)

Hmmm, I thought.

And I scratched my chin, as that is the internationally-recognized symbol of a good ponder.

Do I spend 80% of my time networking, building traffic and getting the word out and 20% of my time writing content?

No, it’s more like 80% – 20% the other way round!

At least it has been, until I had my little ponder…

So how do I get the “word out” about my blog?

Well, inspired by my obnoxiously-titled favorite new book,  here are some of the strategies I’ll be using to pull readers from other people’s audiences.

Sneaky, eh?

I will contact competitors or bloggers on related subjects and ask to write guest posts.

The advantage to me here is massive. These bloggers have put in a lot of work building an audience that is receptive to the coaching market. If they fall in love with my writing and they follow a link back to my site and enjoy what they find there, then I have a new fan. Marvelous! (Note that all of these plans fall apart if my content sucks.)

So why would anyone let me do this? Surely they won’t welcome the competition?

Well, they might want to mix things up on their blog. They might just want someone else to write something for once so they don’t have to. If they’re a big time blogger then they’re probably not too bothered about the competition that lil’ ol’ me represents.

Little do they know… <<Evil Laugh>>

Another strategy is to do loads of useful and valuable commenting on the popular blogs in the coaching advice niche.

Up to now, I haven’t been doing enough of this because, quite frankly, it’s time consuming and a bit of a pain in the butt. But the networking and traffic-building payoffs can be massive. As long as I don’t insult too many people, it will help build my reputation in the eyes of readers and bloggers alike.

Posting on relevant discussion forums can make a massive difference too.

I don’t do this, but I should. If I set myself up as an authority on a couple of well-frequented relevant coaching forums, then this can only be a good thing. I’ll be testing this out in the next month or so and reporting back…

Social Media Networking is another thing really smart thing that I’m not doing that much of. Websites like facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter make it very easy for people with similar interests to find each other. It’s a great networking tool, and something I’ll be talking about as I get more experience with these tools.

That’s a lot to be getting on with! Like a good investigative scientist, I’ll be testing out these strategies and monitoring their effect on my visitor traffic and subscriptions. I’ll report back with data. Now, where’s my lab coat?

One final thing… if you’re observant you may have noticed that it is Sunday.

Sunday is the day that my awesome Jalopy Gang Newsletter hits your email box. This week we have a fantastic exclusive article about outsourcing, as well as all the usual value packed articles, fun and games and silly shenanigans. There’s also a super tasty treat at the end!

I have an incredibly discerning readership. So if you suck, please don’t bother signing up.

If you’re intelligent, creative, generous, sexy, and otherwise generally awesome then please join the gang by putting your name and email address in the boxes below.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
JJ Jalopy.

The way you make me feel!

Hi there!

How are you?

We’ve been in the heart of the English countryside, at our friends Adam and Louise’s wedding. It’s been a great day. We’re in a beautiful part of the world. The bride looked beautiful. We drank too much wine. We danced to Journey, Bon Jovi and Bonnie Tyler…

It’s been awesome.

And now I’m going to urge you to think about a very simple but important concept.

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 how 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?

Something to think about…

Love you!

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 206 – Find the solution to your customers’ problems

How to Become a Coach. With Coaching Marketing Rockstar JJ Jalopy.

Hey there….

2003 Contino Rioja?

Yeah. It’s been a busy week. I’ll pour you a glass – you deserve it.

I have some cool news!

After submitting my coaching marketing podcast to iTunes a couple of days ago I am now available in the iTunes store!  Subscribe here!

If you think I’m totally brilliant then feel free to rate me five stars and tell iTunes I rock. I won’t mind. Really.

Recently, we’ve been talking a lot about marketing coaching. I’ve outlined a marketing blueprint for you to follow. It’s superhighway to coaching domination.

So you found your niche market.

You created a representation of your customer and you got inside their head. You got to know their worries, their concerns, their hopes, their dreams. 

You began to see a process that could lead them to find you, if you could be the solution to their problems.

And if you did the first two stages really well then the next stage should be easy.

Let’s go…

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Look through their eyes. Feel what they’re feeling. Feel their pain and their frustration.

Now ask yourself the following question:

What kind of person would your customer like to talk to right now?

Don’t think about what kind of business they might like to deal with.

Don’t think about what products they would like to buy.

Don’t think about what marketing messages would work well.

Not yet, anyway…

Picture in your mind a single person talking to your customer, making them feel better about themselves and making their pain go away.

How does this person talk to your customer? What experiences do they have? What knowledge do they have? How do they make your customer feel?

Have a really good think about what the relationship between these two people would be like. What would they talk about? What tone would they use with one another? 

I urge you to really think about this. Take your time. 

The next step will be to translate this insight into a full branding and communication plan. We’ll use my business communication plan as a case study. This is where it gets really exciting!

Mrs. Jalopy and I are hitting the road early tomorrow to go to a wedding in the countryside – so I’d better hit the hay!

See you tomorrow for more fun and games.

Love you!

JJ Jalopy.

Reboot.

Sometimes things are annoying.

Oh, sorry. That was rude of me. How are you?

Yeah, I’m a bit peeved.

I’ve been writing a super nerdtastic article on how to turbocharge your RSS feed and submit podcasts to iTunes! 

I’ve created beautiful screenshots with annotations, clear instructions and bullet points.

It really is a work of art. 

But I can’t share it with you yet…

…because I’ve been unable to turbocharge my own feed today. And my podcast remains unsubmitted.

I’m laying the blame for this entirely on feedburner.com because it’s the only part of the process that isn’t me. I know it’s probably my fault, but feedburner.com doesn’t have feelings and I think it’ll be okay shouldering the blame for a while.

Technical problems can be irritating because they are rarely the most profitable or effective thing you could be working on. 

And you never quite know how close you are to solving the problem.

It’s a shame to have spent four hours sorting out an RSS feed. But what if the solution is only a few minutes away? The payoff in those few minutes would be large. When do you give up?

Having gone through every troubleshooting attempt I can think of I have one last option to try… 

If there’s anything I learned from my time as an I.T. consultant, it’s that the first thing to try in the event of technical failure is to reboot the system.

That’s going to be my approach today. Except that the system is me.

Tomorrow I might have another go. Or I might decide to create an RSS feed for my podcasts manually. No turbocharging in sight. 

Either way I’ll show you how I did it, and that’ll make us both happy.

I’m off to bed for a reboot!

See you tomorrow. I’ll be cheerier then, no doubt…

Good night.

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Two of my other websites are down today too. Sometimes it happens. Tomorrow will be better.

What is Coaching? And are you a Coach, JJ?

How to become a coach. With Coaching Marketing Expert JJ Jalopy.

Hi there!

Did you have a good weekend?

I’m glad. I’m recovering from some karaoke over-exhuberance. I almost have my voice back now.

When I mentioned yesterday that I was going to do karaoke, Super Chef Christian Haller left a comment on my blog explaining that he would rather have his finger nails pulled out with pliers!

Well, Christian, I’m afraid my singing last night would have done nothing to change your mind on that one.

We did have a lot of fun though.

I also received my favorite ever comment yesterday from Central Oregon Expert Don Shepherd. 

JJ, you are the King of shameless self promotion.

This is so beautiful that I want to frame it and put it up on my wall!

I’m going to have to get that in some of my marketing literature. Thanks Don!

Last night, I was talking to a friend of my friend Steve. He’d been introduced to my website here at www.jjjalopy.com and he told me:

I love reading your articles. It’s my favorite lunch time reading; your writing is really entertaining and I’ve been learning a lot about starting a business. But I’m not quite sure what it is that you do. And I’m not sure I fully understand what coaching really is.

And I realized that I have never really discussed that with you.

Let’s have a look 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 conversation 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 in that kind of mood.)

My clients are coaches, consultants, home 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.

Now as we get to know each other better, you’ll begin to see that I fit a lot of different things under my coaching umbrella. I like it that way and I hope you will too.

Now go enjoy the rest of your day. I’m going to have a cup of herbal tea, then off to bed!

See you here tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

More Readers’ Niche Questions – How do I identify with my niche?

Hey Dude(tte). High five!

I’m back on the train, returning from a wonderful weekend with my parents in the countryside. It always feels relaxing to get away from the city for a while.

We’re returning this afternoon for our friend Ellie’s karaoke birthday party. There’ll be party food, lots of wine, Abba and glittery cowboy hats.

Not quite so relaxing…

…but a lot of fun!

I love karaoke. My friends usually wind up wrestling the microphone away from me so they can have a go.

Mrs. Jalopy doesn’t seem to enjoy my singing quite so much…

Right… This week has been truly nichetastic! I’ve used the word niche more often than is recommended or considered normal in polite company.

But that’s because I believe it’s super important to define and identify with your niche market.

So today I’m going to tackle another reader’s niche question…

JJ. I’ve picked a niche market to target, and I’ve created a simple representation of my average customer as you suggested, but I’m having trouble identifying with my customer. Do you have any tips on how I can get inside my prospective customer’s head?

This is a great question!

I realise now that it’s something I glossed over somewhat when we discussed this in the context of my business.

It is relatively easy to identify with your niche if you are already involved in that niche. It is even easier if your prospective customer is essentially a past version of you, before you solved some of your own problems.

But what if you are new to the niche? How can you identify with something you have never experienced yourself?

Well… I’m going to be answering this one in the second edition of my Jalopy Gang newsletter, which will hit your email box around midnight tonight (if you live on the East Coast.)

I’m going to share with you my secret niche-finding magic bullet! This is a veritable magic dowsing rod for finding profitable and untapped niche markets!

To be sure not to miss out, why not pop your name and email address into the boxes below?

You’ll be glad you did! It has been described (by me) as the greatest e-zine ever written!

See you then,

JJ Jalopy.

Readers’ Niche Questions – Niches for Affiliate Websites

Hi there!

How nice of you to come visit me in the countryside.

It’s a beautiful spring day here. Let’s sit on the porch and have a cup of tea.

 

Hey JJ. I’ve set up a website selling affiliate products that I like, but I’m not really sure what my niche is. Can you help?

Okay. So you’ve found a product that you like and you want to sell it. 

Cool. That’s the other way round to the approach we’ve been discussing recently. And that’s fine. Variety is good. Sometimes it is good to do things upside down. Especially if you are a bat.

The first thing to say is that if you don’t know what your niche is you probably aren’t concentrating your efforts as effectively as possible. That’s okay. We can remedy that by deciding on a niche.

So how should we start?

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

Building on our conversation yesterday, 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, assuming you have already chosen an affiliate product to promote, how are you going to decide what niche to target?

I would start with thinking about your own personal experience. 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?

In many ways this approach is slightly more difficult than tailoring the product to the niche.

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 tomorrow.

JJ Jalopy.

Reader’s Niche Question: Why do I need to pick a niche?

Hey there!

How on earth did you find me here on the train?!

How very resourceful of you. I’m impressed!

Mrs. Jalopy and I are leaving the city to spend the weekend in the countryside. It’s my Dad’s birthday and we’re going to see my parents.

Happy Birthday Jalopy Senior!

Recently we’ve spent a bit of time talking about niche markets.

I’ve received a few great questions via email. So over the next couple of days I’m going to take some time to address these and clarify a few things.

I’m going to talk generally today. What we discuss will be directly applicable to anyone who wants to sell something.

So, why do I need to pick a niche?

Okay. Let’s think about what a person thinks and does before they buy something.

Jane wants an iPod. She’s seen lots of adverts on TV and she thinks they look pretty cool. Lots of her friends have one too. She knows they’re made by Apple and she’s heard that the Apple Store is a fun place to hang out. 

She goes to the Apple Store and buys herself an iPod.

Duane also wants an MP3 player, but he’s not sure which one is best. He canvasses the opinion of his friends, reads some reviews in a Hi-Fi magazine and, based on his research, opts to buy an AussiePod. It’s slightly more expensive than the iPod but real flames come out of the top of it whenever Duane listens to AC/DC.

Unfortunately, three moths later, after rocking Highway to Hell on heavy rotation, Duane’s AussiePod case is burned to a cinder.

Duane goes online to look advice about burnt AussiePods.

He types “flame resistant AussiePod” into Google and he finds a website called Percy’s Pods.

Percy knows everything there is to know about fictitious iPod variants and he shares his incredible wealth of  knowledge on the internet. The same technology anecdotes which prompt rolled eyes from his wife at the dinner party go down a storm with the enthusiasts who visit his website!

Duane finds a great article on the site which helps him to construct a flame guard for his AussiePod using everyday household materials. Now he’s free to rock out in total confidence and safety!

Over the coming months Duane returns to Percy’s Pods because he loves the site so much.

He discovers that a new iPod variant has just been conceived in the fertile imagination of a man on a train.

It’s the ConservaPod. It’s been specifically designed to filter rock stars’ political ramblings out of their live performances.

That would make a perfect gift for my friend Rob, says Duane. Now he can listen to The Boss without cringing!

Everyone loves Bruce.

 

Duane takes a link from Percy’s Pods to the ConservaPod website, where he buys one for Rob. The ConservaPod vendors give Percy a percentage of the proceeds for referring Duane to their website. Duane doesn’t mind about this one bit, because he gets the same price regardless, and he enjoys Percy’s website.

Now, was there any point to that little story or was I simply amusing myself?

Well the first and most obvious point to make is that nobody buys anything by accident.

In these stories (and most other stories we could come up with) the 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 this from the point of view of your business. Are you or your business:

• an established brand or authority?
• providing specific information, advice or product or service reviews?
• providing solutions to common problems?

And if you’re not….

…then how do you think people are going to find you?!

In order to become an expert, authority or a solution in either of the ways outlined above, you will need to concentrate your efforts.

This is why it is important to clearly define your niche market.

If Percy hadn’t concentrated his efforts in one particular area, Duane would never have bought that ConservaPod through him.

Make sense?

Shout if not. And maybe I’ll tell you another story!

Tune in for another great question tomorrow. See you then.

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 205 – Identify with your niche!

Hi there!

You’re looking great. I love what you’ve done to your hair!

Come on in and sit down.

It’s curry night tonight: Chicken Tikka Masala. The English national dish!

Now, where were we?

Ah yes… Yesterday,  Holistic Health Heavyweight Bob Kaufer asked me a question which was so perfect that I couldn’t have possibly planted a better one myself!

He asked:

JJ, what is your niche?

Super fantastic question, Bob. I love questions about me! 

What a great case study this will be. And a perfect introduction to Step 2 of my Coaching Marketing Blueprint – Identifying with your niche.

Let’s do it!

My niche market is newly trained coaches who are struggling to get their business started and to attract paying clients.

Following Andy Wibbels’ definition, we described a useful niche market as:

a group of people with a common set of urgent problems or passions that are accessible, and who have money to spend.

We clarified, stating that, to be useful to you, your niche market should be:

• small enough that you can become an expert and build a good reputation within that niche
• large enough to support your business. 

With this in mind, let’s analyse my niche market…

Is the group large enough to support my business?

Yes. Coaching is very much a growth industry. More people are taking coaching qualifications than ever before, meaning that there are more qualified coaches than ever before. With a large number of coaches available, people are looking for an edge.

Is the group small enough that you can become an expert and build a good reputation within the niche?

Yes. I’ll cover basic market research in detail shortly. For now, trust me. Besides, I’m JJ Jalopy. I rock!

Is the group accessible?

Yes. There are a number of places where newly qualified coaches “hang out”:

• coaching training schools
• online forums
• online communities and websites like www.jjjalopy.com
• coaching industry magazines
• networking events
• any much more…

Finally, does the group have a common set of urgent and painful problems or passions that invoke a lot of emotion?

Hmmm… Now this is an interesting question.

Before we tackle this, let me take a few minutes to introduce you to this dude… 

His name is Eben Pagan. You might not believe it, but this nerd from California has made gazillions of dollars on the internet selling eBooks, subscription programs, and high-end DVD home study courses about picking up girls!

And it gets better… He does it all under the brilliant pseudonym of David DeAngelo!

To be fair, I don’t think Eben would like my description of his business too much. He would describe his niche as dating advice.Sounds a bit more conservative, you see.

(But between you and me – it really is about picking up girls. I know. I’ve read the emails. And you should too. If you want a perfect case study in how to use an email autoresponder system then subscribe to his opt-in, pay attention and learn. I’m about to buy his eBook too so I can see how his back-end follow up communication works. Mrs. Jalopy will be so pleased! )

I’ve got off track again!

Nowadays Eben also helps entrepreneurs with their own internet businesses.

Eben understands that value of being able to see the world through your customers eyes. To help you do that, he teaches the concept of a customer avatar.

A customer avatar is simply a representation of your typical customer. 

This is a great tool to help you empathize with your niche market.

Eben goes even further with this idea, suggesting that you also create an avatar for your business. All your communication can then be thought of in terms of a dialogue between these two people. It’s a really powerful way of thinking!

Let’s have a go at creating JJ Jalopy’s customer avatar. This should help us in understanding my niche market.

She’s called Marjorie. (She would have to be, really!)

Marjorie is 35 years old. She is recently married and she has a young daughter. Marjorie has always had a strong urge to help people fulfill their true potential. Egged on by her friends and attracted by the flexible working hours and the freedom of being able to work from home, Marjorie decides to train to become a coach.

She takes a life and business coaching certification and she gets a steady stream of non-paying clients to build her confidence as she qualifies.

She’s a great coach. She completes her qualification and she starts to get referrals from her friends. She picks up a couple of paying clients, but then things start to dry up a little. She knows she’s a great coach, but she’s finding it really hard to get more clients.

She’s scared the money will run out. She’s scared that she won’t be able to provide for her family.

She’s scared she’ll have to go back to work or get a part-time job.

She’s worried that she’s made a mistake. She’s worried about being a failure.

She’s worried others will see her as a failure. 

She feels lost because she doesn’t have a clear plan of what she needs to do to make money as a coach.

She feels overwhelmed with potential options and things to do.

Does this sound like an urgent and painful problem, involving a large amount of emotion?!

Of course!

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears we have a good niche market here. Well done me!

I encourage you to go through this complete exercise with your own niche ideas. You’re going to learn a load simply from asking these questions. 

Right, so what’s the next step?

 

That’s right! We need to find solutions to Marjorie’s problems!

But not today – I’m pooped!

Ta-ra!

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 204 – Find your niche market

How to become  a coach. With Coaching Marketing Expert JJ Jalopy.

Bonjour!

How nice of you to come by again.

It’s been a lovely sunny day here in London. I spent the early evening relaxing in the sunshine in a beer garden.

A beer garden isn’t necessarily the picturesque and foliage-filled drinking paradise you might imagine. In fact, any part of “outside” that you can drink in gets called a beer garden in England.

A few paving slabs, some plastic chairs and a liquor license? Yup – that’s a beer garden.

And a jolly nice evening it was too.

Now, earlier this week I gave you a sneak peak of my Complete Blueprint for Coaching Marketing World Domination!

Here it is again in all it’s lightning bolt strewn glory.

Today we’re going to discuss the very first step.

Which is…

 

Find your niche market.

Now, it has been said that life coaching is a solution looking for a problem.

And, in a certain respect, I agree.

Very few people are looking for a “life coach”.

No. People generally have specific problems that they want solved. And they usually want an expert to help them solve these problems.

It is easier to become perceived as an expert if you pick a narrowly defined market in which to work. 

Deciding upon your niche market is the first step in becoming the superstar coach that you were born to be.

My favorite description of a niche is from blogging expert Andy Wibbels

A group of people with a common set of urgent problems or passions.

I’ll go slightly further.

To be useful to you, a niche must be a group of people with a common set of urgent problems or passions that are accessible, and who have money to spend.

So, JJ, where should I start with defining my niche?

Well actually, we already started with our earlier discussion on how you answer the question: What do you do?

You’ll want to pick an area that excites you, and ideally an area in which you already have some experience.

The next step is a sense check. Is your niche market:

• small enough that you can become an expert and build a good reputation within that niche?
• large enough to support your business. 

I once had a client tell me that her niche market was women.

That’s half of the world!

It’ll take some serious effort to reach expert status in the coaching women market. That’s not to say that it’s impossible – just look at what Tony Robbins has achieved – but it will be a lot of work.

Eventually she decided that her area of expertise would be housewives who want to get back into work.

Now, that’s a niche market!

They have a common painful problem. They are accessible – they belong to common organizations, or read common websites or magazines. And the market is well-defined enough that it is possible to become known as an expert in the area.

Now, a final sense check:

• does your niche market have a common painful problem or a passion that involves a large amount of emotion?
• is your niche market prepared to spend have money to spend on the resolution of their problem or the accomplishment of their dream?

So, whilst the unemployed may be an easily accessible group of people with a common urgent problem, they don’t necessarily have too much money to spend. So, unless you’re being paid by the government or you’re marketing a very low cost coaching solution, this probably isn’t going to work out for you in the long term.

Now, I hope you have at least an idea of a possible niche market for you.

Next time we talk we’re going to get inside the head of one of your prospective customers and find out what really makes them tick.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Oh. Look at the time! How did it get so late!

I’d better get myself ready for bed.

You can let yourself out. I’ll see you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Are you having fun?

Hi there!

It’s great to see you as always.

I’m stuffed.

Today I treated myself to takeout pizza. It had every kind of meat in the world on it. Delicious!

 

Right… Did you enjoy my first ever newsletter?

Oh, I’m pleased!

But I have a confession to make… 

I was playing around with my shiny new e-mailer system  earlier – marveling at its sleek design, ease of use, and general idiot-proof-ness when…

…I accidentally unsubscribed a load of you.

So, yeah. I suck.

If you get another confirm email in your emailbox today then that’s why. Click the link if you want to get back on my list. Leave it alone to tell me I suck! 

Whoops. Good start JJ! 

Anyway… I wanted to go on a bit of a diversion today because I think what I’m about to ask is really important.

Now, starting your new business involves a lot of work. 

You knew that from the start, of course. And you’ve been working hard. Very hard.

My question to you is this…

Are you having fun?

That’s right. Are you having fun? Are you happy in your work? Are you happy outside of your work?

Earlier in the blog, I stressed the importance of making a plan to commit to your new business. We talked about getting friends and family onside and we agreed that it was important to schedule regular time to work on your business. 

We said that timekeeping is one of the aspects of a job that you might want to apply to your new business. We said that you’d get to play boss and you’d do well to be a bit strict with yourself.

But there was one thing that we forgot to talk about…

…and that’s to make sure that you enjoy what you’re doing.

Let’s add an extra step to my productivity formula. I contend that to be truly happy and productive in your work you need to: 

1. Understand that you can only be doing one thing at a time
2. Work on the single most important thing in terms of the profitability or growth of your business
3. Feel okay about not doing any of the other 10,000 things you could be doing.
4. And know that you might as well be enjoying the thing you’ve decided to be doing – because it’s the only thing you’re doing!

Okay fine, JJ. That’s nice and everything but some things just suck. How can I enjoy doing my taxes? How can I enjoy trying to get my documents back from a hard drive crash? How can you enjoy writing my first sales letter when I’m feeling totally overwhelmed?

You’re right, of course.

You’re always going to have a crap time trying to get your documents back from a hard drive crash. Even Buddha hated that.

And you are going to have crises of confidence. You are going to get angry when you accidentally unsubscribe a third of your one-day-old mailing list. 

I just had a little tantrum about half an hour ago in fact. It was rather camp. I’m glad you didn’t see it.

So, as much as I want to find ways to make my work as fun and enjoyable as possible, sometimes it is simply out of my emotional reach! So if I can’t be working and enjoying it, I want to be shutting myself away with no distractions, getting it done, and then winding down when I’m finished.

This is "meditation"

 

And that’s super important.

If you’re going to be holed up, working like crazy, then you better schedule in some time to smell the flowers. Make it as important as your work time.

Don’t start doing the washing or cleaning the bathroom. You wouldn’t do that in your lunch break at work, would you?

Do something that completely relaxes you. Go and play with the kids. Go and watch some TV. Make a pot of tea. Have a cuddle with your husband or wife.

…

…

…

(Ahhhh…. I should listen to my own advice more often!)

Now let’s think slightly longer term.

I’m going to bet that you threw yourself into your business with enthusiastic abandon. I bet you scheduled time to spend on your new business and then you stayed up ’till 2:00AM because you just had to finish that article. 

You woke up energized because you were excited about your new business. You were having so much fun! You were spending a bit less time with your family, but they understood because you had told them how important this was to you.

Then gradually, after three weeks of consistent hard work, it became a habit. It was easy to switch on the computer and get to work – but you began to feel a little tired. You began to find harder to get excited about working on your business. 

Perhaps you wondered if you’d be able to carry on like this? Perhaps you worried if your relationships would suffer if you carried on like this?

Well, you have two choices.

You either accept that, for the next X weeks you’re shutting yourself away and focusing on getting stuff done. And then you’ll strengthen your commitments to the parts of your life you feel have left behind a little. 

Or you make those other commitments now to create a balanced life you love right now.

Any other option is too rubbish to spend time on. And you know it, don’t you JJ?

(Yes, this post was written entirely for my own benefit!)

Right… I’m off to ask Mrs. Jalopy about her day…

See you tomorrow!

JJ Jalopy.

Coaching Business Startup 203 – The Complete Coaching Marketing Blueprint

How to Become a Coach. With Coaching Marketing Superstar JJ Jalopy!

Hey there!

It’s a MASSIVE day today in Jalopyland!

Not only am I going to give you the patented and much-hyped Complete Coaching Marketing Blueprint for Coaching World Domination…

…BUT I’ll also be sending out the very first edition of the Jalopy Gang Newsletter tonight. It’s a weekly publication which will appear in your email box every Sunday, packed full of free resources and unique content that I won’t be sharing anywhere else.

Sign up below to be sure you don’t miss out!

Cool.

Now I’ve hyped quite this enough thank you… so without further ado, allow me to present The Complete Coaching Marketing Blueprint for Coaching World Domination!

Gotta love those lightning bolts!!

Many clients, when they first see this blueprint, can be a little confused as to how this relates to coaching marketing.

Well…. today I’m going to invite you to have a think about this yourself.

Be easy with it – just have a think about how this might apply to your business. What might it mean? What could I mean by a niche market? What could a marketing engine be? What does it mean to get leverage on your time?

Then next time we meet, I’ll take you through the entire model step-by-step. And you’ll begin to see that I truly am a coaching marketing genius!

In the meantime, I’m off to write my first ever Jalopy Gang newsletter! It’s obviously going to be totally brilliant, so make sure that you’re subscribed. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the fun!

See you a bit later today!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. Not sure if I mentioned this, but I have a newsletter. Why not sign-up?!

Coaching Business Startup 202 – Beliefs about Marketing

How to Become a Coach. Coaching Marketing Advice with Coach Marketing Expert JJ Jalopy.

Hey there!

Welcome back to Jalopyville!

We’ve had an awesome day today. Mrs. Jalopy and I have just come back from the gym.

To be honest, we spent more time in the hot tub than the gym.

I’m all about efficiency at the gym. The more efficient my workout, the more free time I can spend in the hot tub!

I think of most of my life like this. The more focused and efficient I can be in my work, the more time I have to lie in on Saturday morning and enjoy a cuddle with Mrs. Jalopy.

So as we reclined in the tub, with warm bubbles foaming around us, we began to talk about marketing coaching.

How do you feel about marketing your coaching?  I asked.

Well I know I have to do it, she explained, but I don’t want it to take over my work. I’d much rather spend my time coaching.

Most of the coaches I work with see marketing their services as a necessary evil.

This makes sense.

Coaches want to coach. Kind of obvious, right?

That’s where coaches perceive the most value. And that’s what they find most rewarding.

So that’s where their focus is. And some see the marketing piece is a necessary but unwelcome distraction from coaching itself.

Some coaches hold marketing in much worse regard. The mere mention of the word can be enough to cause disgust. They might see it as aggressive, as hostile, as an invasion.

My new series on this blog, which I hyped like crazy the other day, is all about marketing your coaching business.

It’s my premise that you will not achieve total coaching world domination without a marketing plan. My job here is to help you to do that.

It is my challenge today to get you to see marketing as an important, enjoyable and win-win extension of coaching itself.

Quite a claim, right?

Well… I’ll invite you to keep an open mind as you listen to what I have to say.

Let’s meet The Greatest Coach in the World.

The Greatest Coach in the World is the greatest listener in the world has seen. She listens to the very core of what the client is saying. She listens past the words and understands the key drivers of her client’s behavior. She understands their fears. She understands their core desires. She understands what motivates them.

The Greatest Coach in the World is also the greatest communicator the world has seen. She understands the best way to engage the client to get the very best from them. She knows the language to use to inspire them. She knows when to challenge them and the best way to do it. She is able to effortlessly guide them towards the result or understanding that is in their best interest. 

She’s a coaching dynamo! A superstar!

The greatest coach the world has seen!

But she doesn’t do much coaching. She doesn’t help many people.

Because she can’t stand the idea of marketing her services. She sees it as an act of aggression, an affront.

People hate being sold to, don’t they?

Besides, she’s the Greatest Coach in the World! The clients should find her.

But they don’t.

And hundreds of would-be clients walk past her in the street every day, failing to notice that lady they just walked past will help them to make their life a work of art!

Isn’t it sad?

It’s doubly sad when you realize that the Greatest Coach in the World would be the Greatest Marketer in the world, if it weren’t for one small limiting belief.

Wow, hang on there. That’s a bit of a leap JJ! What do you mean?

Well, let’s meet The Greatest Marketer in the World!

The Greatest Marketer in the World is the greatest listener in the world has seen. She listens to the very core of what the prospect really wants. She listens beyond what they say they want and she understands the key drivers of her prospect’s behavior. She understands their fears. She understands their core desires. She understands what motivates them.

The Greatest Marketer in the World is also the greatest communicator the world has seen. She understands the best way to engage the prospect so they listen to her message. She knows what language to use to inspire them. She knows when to challenge them and the best way to do it. She is able to effortlessly guide them towards the services or products that provide them with the most value. 

She’s a marketing dynamo! A superstar!

The greatest marketer the world has ever seen!

Hmmm… Does any of this sound familiar?

As an awesome coach, you are already an awesome marketer…

…as long as you believe you are and you believe in the value of your services.

The last point is important.

Often a “distaste for marketing” is used as a convenient excuse for not taking action because the coach is not confident of the value of their services.

The first stage to getting past this is to acknowledge that you are doing this.

The next stage is to acknowledge and appreciate your value as a coach, and the value you can bring to people’s lives.

I was talking to a client last week. She had run a trial session a week ago and hadn’t heard anything back from the client. She didn’t want to call him to follow up.

I asked her why? (And THAT is awesome example of coaching in action, right there. You can write that one down and use it yourself if you like. )

She told me that the guy was in a lot of debt and she didn’t want to make things worse for him by making him pay more money on coaching.

I asked her what she thought would probably happen if he didn’t take her up on her coaching offer.

He’s likely to carry on behaving the way he was, she said.

I asked her what benefits her coaching would give him that he hadn’t had access to before.

As she listed out all the things that benefits he would enjoy as a result of her coaching, she began to see that taking her up on her offer of coaching would provide him with the best possible chance of making positive change happen in his life. 

And she made the call easily. Her lack of belief in the value of her coaching had been the cause of her hesitation. Nothing else.

As it happens he declined her offer. And that’s okay. Many more people will benefit from my client’s coaching and they will be glad they said yes.

So how do I go about marketing my coaching practice, JJ?

Well that’s a good question. And one that we’re going to address in this awesome new series.

The approach that we’re going to take is one that I like to call win-win value-giving relationship-oriented marketing.

Or WWVGROM for short!

Every value-packed post I write on www.jjjalopy.com is a marketing message. Even yesterday, when all I did was show you that every motivational catchphrase can be improved with the addition of the word “Dude” – that’s a marketing message.

All of the communication I have with you serves to enhance the message of the JJ Jalopy brand. It is valuable to me because it enhances the JJ Jalopy brand essence and the relationship I have with you. It is valuable to you because it educates you, brings you hope and understanding, entertains you, encourages you, brings you specific and valuable advice, and much more.

This is true win-win value-giving relationship-oriented marketing.

And it is this kind of relationship-oriented marketing that I’ll be encouraging you to engage in during this series.

Great marketing is as entertaining as it is valuable. A great sales letter can be a riot to read! And it can be packed full of great free information.

Sometimes it can be full of hype. And that’s okay. Hype can be a lot of fun. And you’ll have the goods to back it up.

I hyped this series like crazy. But I know it’s going to be great!

The marketing model we’ll work with involves capturing attention, building relationships and then walking the talk. It’s based on giving value and exceeding expectations. It’s as far from the image of a pushy car salesman as you can image. (Although sometimes it pays to be pushy when it’s in the prospect’s best interest.) 

I hope you’re excited about the rest of the series. Next time I’m going to drop the blueprint on you. The complete blueprint to total coaching world domination!

That’s when it gets really wild!

But now I’m going to finish off some cheesecake. Yum.

See you tomorrow. It’s been grand!

JJ Jalopy.

P.S. I’m sorry. I know this was waaaay too long. I wanted to get this bit covered so we can get onto the exciting stuff tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me!