These meetings were very a ton of fun and also very useful as we traded vital information on our businesses, our successes and challenges. There was so much valuable information and strategies that were being passed around that if bottled it would probably sell at  higher cost than the market price of a pop can.

When I was talking with my friends I discovered a common trap that most of my entrepreneur friends were falling into. I felt it necessary to blog about this common trap and warn any business out there that is starting from the ground up. You see most of the internet marketers are home based businesses. The most common trap you can fall into is complete ISOLATION with devastating impact t the individual behind the business.

I had a few drinks on Friday with an online mentor who makes his living selling e-product online. While the business has been a roller coaster ride with the recent Google updates my friend is reinventing himself. The recent challenge he faced was he was working so much from home that he began to isolate himself from the rest of the world, friends and family. The isolation led him to depression and at certain points he even lost his passion for the business he was in.

This trap has such a devastating impact your business, your products or services and even your customers. You can almost loose you sanity or motivation for running the business. People that have jobs wish they could work from home however most home based businesses will tell you there is a certain discipline in working from home. If you isolate yourself in your business the novelty of running a home based business wears off pretty quick.

Businesses coaches recommend home based owner to get out as much as they can, network and work from coffee shops or hotel lobbies whenever possible. The key is to be around people as much as your business allows you too. With the ability to work anywhere through your cell phone and laptop it gives you the option of being virtual.

This is one trap you want to avoid. What other traps do you recommend staying away from?

SPOILER ALERT – Read this article if you want to know how to create product quickly and efficiently.

The challenge with creating product is you have so much information you just do not where to start. As an internet marketer I have created and managed product creation for a few years now. There is one key secret to creating a product. This is ORGANIZATION.  The secret sauce is first start off by working on a TABLE of contents!

You see if you focus on the table of contents from your curriculum you will be able to sort out where each content will fall under. Its like sorting out your content by categories. The key is to list out the chapters and what branches it will cover. Then you break down each category into sub topics. After this you now have a visual list of content to write on. Through research, curation is created.

Once you have your table of contents sorted out the next phase is to use a program like One Note for Windows or Growly Notes for Mac which are easier platforms to write multiple pages of content due to its flexibility and ability to manipulate pages and sections. This is how many e books are written. The crucial stage is the organization of data and then setting a goal of writing out chapters every few weeks or months.

This quick tip is very useful and really is a golden nugget. How many of you are planning on writing a book or creating an e-product? What are your current challenges right now?

The Event

I got called on Monday by my best friend and mentioned he was going to a party at a penthouse. We had a mutual acquaintance that we had met a few times and an invitation was extended to both of us. We were both in need of unwinding and decided we would push our business plans as this event was occurring on a weekday. As the day approached we were both excited as we were both having a rough week and were in need of having a distraction and a fun night. We decided to meet over dinner and then decided to go to the liquor store to pick up a gift for our host.

The Would be Pitch 

So we started walking downtown towards the address when my spider senses started to kick in. I realized the neighbourhood was a commercial area and it look like an office building. We were talking about what our friend does for a living and thoughts of his work just struck us. We realized our friend was part of a multi level marketing company. Now please forgive me if you feel I am taking a shot at network marketers. I am not, its just something that I don’t implement in my own business. I have always been an internet marketer. As we approach the building we both start to panic and start to ask ourselves what if this wasn’t a party after all. What if we were being invited to a sales pitch? Could it be? Was our friend really trying to trap us?

The Brutal Truth

We approach the building entrance and we see 14 very young adults. I want to say they looked like teenagers all dressed up in suits. They were either dressed to impress or looked like they were attending the prom. Keep in mind my buddy and I were dressed in business casual attire and were in jeans. We certainly didn’t look the part next to these young individuals. As I was about to hit the buzzer I hear them mention a networking marketing company that I have heard of. The reason why I heard of this company is because someone tried pitching me their networking membership at a speaking event. This person barely knew me and went right for the kill in the first 5 minutes of meeting me. I had made a promise to avoid this person if I was to meet them again.

The Exit Strategy

So I stopped myself from pushing the buzzer and looked at the group of sharply dressed individuals and I recognized two guys right away. One of these people happen to be the one person I was trying to avoid and the other kid was a food cart employee who visits one of the offices I consult in. He recognized me and asked me what I was doing in the neighbourhood. My buddy asked if they knew our mutual friend. They confirmed our worst fear. The event at this so called penthouse was a sales presentation for potential prospects to join this networking marketing group. My buddy and I felt shafted, tricked and very disappointed! They asked us if we would come upstairs. We said we would consider it but we wanted to grab a drink at a bar right across this place. This was our queue to exit and not look back.

The Experience

We decided to get out of the area with our liquor. As we walked out of this area we reflected on what just happened. Someone we know obviously had no consideration towards our time and tried to pull a fast one. They tried enticing us by inviting us to a party only to really put us through a sales presentation. We were not impressed. My buddy decided to text our mutual friend and question his motives. The response, ” denial!” He didn’t feel he did anything wrong. My buddy and I felt like we were about to walk into a prison cell with a bunch of unfriendly cell mates! No thanks! There will not be any shanking today!

The Lesson

Be honest about your intentions. Your friends will appreciate what you are and what you do if you come clean. Personally if he really wanted our attention he should have had the party first. We would have all been curious as to how he bought his penthouse as such a young age. Then when we ask how, he would tell us. If we were still interested we would attend the event on our own inspiration. Rough sales tactics will only loose your credibility. I remember when someone I knew would try to get me to attend his wine presentations at his place. Those were calls I used to screen and avoid. My beef isn’t with the products I come across on any marketing platform even if it is a networking marketing form. My beef is the tactics marketers use to try and influence you. Trickery only devalues your character.

People like buying things, they just do not like being sold things – Just saying!

By the way what are you doing tomorrow, I got this wicked party to go to. Its a wedding reception but heres the catch, you have to pay a cover charge! Wanna come?

Need more proof? Let me provide you with some sample scenarios where online research made me make a buying decision and also a time when it prevented me from making a buying decision. 

Scenario 1 – When I was influenced to making a buying decision

Now as much as I am a movie buff I am not to remember when good movies hit the theatre. Instead I am more of hear the buzz on the street kinda guy when deciding when to go watch a movie. While I was skeptical on the new Avengers flick when I saw the trailer I heard about it first through a local newspaper reviewing the movie saying it had a good script. The next day almost 30 people on my face book newsfeed all had Avenger mentions as well as my twitter feed. I was surprised not to see a single negative review. Upon going online to the local theatre website I found out the saturday show times were all sold out. At this point I almost had to go. Out of the blue I read a review online about a theatre introducing a new concept of watching movies. It had developed a VIP room, with butler services and comfortable seating. All signs pointed to a successful buying decision. Now not only did my research sell me on buying tickets to go see the Avenger Flick but I also paid more to go see but I went through an up sell process. The final satisfaction was after watching the movie and realizing it was a great flick, humorous and some great moments in the movie that made me chuckle and appreciate the flick even more.

The process I went through is what Google calls the ZERO MOMENT of truth. You can read about this on this website. You can also download this highly recommended pdf here. After analyzing the entire process most traditional advertising goes through different stages

• STAGE 1 – Stimulus – This is when a trailer on TV first brought the flick to my attention
• STAGE 2 – ZMOT or Zero Moment of truth – This is when all the reviews and buzz validated a buying decision. The positive reviews not only made me want to buy tickets to this flick but I went through an up sell process
• STAGE 3 – Shelf or the First Moment of truth – This is when I decided to make the buying decision
• STAGE 4 – Experience – This is the feeling of satisfaction and reward for doing my home work and deciding to go see the movie. The fact that the reviews were dead on made me an appreciative consumer.

You can see a picture of this entire process below – Courtesy of Google

Scenario 2 – When I was influenced not to make a buying decision.

So I heard about this famous sea food restaurant in Maui on TV. Over the the years I heard about the restaurant through friend that visited Hawaii. It became a wish list for me to do if I ever visited Maui. 5 years later it just so happened that I was visiting Maui. I was so excited to go there and was stoked about visiting this famous restaurant. When I got to Maui there was so many places to visit that I wanted to make the best use of my time. It just so happened that it was a longer drive to get to this restaurant and I wanted to know if it was worth my time. Having gone through the stimulus process I decided to do some research. Now the first thing I did was check the website and the menu and while this looked appealing, I decided to go online and do some online research. The online reviews and comments were concerning. I found the recurring fragments of disappointment and displeasure from past visitors and tourists who shared my same interest only to be filled with regret. The major concern was how the restaurant was taking the quality of their service and food for granted and how the servers focused on making the most money on tips and beverages when people visited the restaurant. It was even more sad to see how people felt the the restaurant was over priced and let the standards drop. I made the decision not to visit this restaurant and do not regret making this decision.

Online reviews and comments can make major impacts to your business. Are you listening now?

Any marketing grad student will tell you the meaning of this Acronym AIDA – In fact your sales copy headline also follows the same concept when it comes to being a successful influence.

A – Your headline needs to be attention grabbing

I –  Tap into your potential prospects interest

D – Ignite the your audiences desire

A – Prompt or influence the consumer to take action

Now there are many results from effective sales copy writing. The impact of a successful sales copy can be highlighted as follows

• Influencing audience towards a certain direction
• Engaging the audience to talk, converse or share your pages
• Sell products or services
• Creating a mass following
• Promoting an event or workshop
• Building credibility

There are many different factors that impact your sales copy to make it successful. Here are some factors you need to consider when your are using sales copy.

1. Traffic sources
2. The region where your audience resides in
3. The demographics of your audience and how well it compliments your products and services
4. Age Genre that is being effected by what you have to offer
5. Interest and how well you tap into the desire of your prospects
6. The connections, platform and browser the audience is using
7. How well partners, affiliates or joint ventures promote your sales copy

We will be discussing the different types of sales copy in a future blog post however I am curious to know what the experiences have been for those entrepreneurs that have written sales copy. What were the factors that influenced the success of failure of your sales copy?

The fact is transforming yourself isn’t easy, quick or a simple process. It is possible as long as we understand how to change! The cold hard truth about business is while many attempt to seek fortunes, not many have the capacity to operate on the level it takes to become successful. I will give you an example.

This afternoon I consulted a service provider who has a ton of knowledge and expertise. This individual however has a social communication barrier. This person has met with a few coaches, communication councillors and advisors who have all tried to give this person tips on how to overcome this barrier. This person was present in body and mind but wasn’t listening to their advise. END RESULT – Come to jesus talk with me!  My opening line, “You have no place in business at the rate you are going!” After a suck it up princess, speech and taking all the excuses in the book and beating them down like a red headed step child we had overcome all the usual answers and responses. I walked away giving this person a ton of homework and a huge reality check. The situation behind this scenario is unless things change their business aspirations will fail!

I see this everyday from the people I meet to the pitches I receive. There is a lot of people running around like chickens that have had their heads chopped off. Dare I say I have been to a few networking events where you see the same people over and over again and not much change occurs. This is because many are so absorbed in the world they should be living in and very few focus on the current situation they are in. Being mindful of your current situation and where you need to go is just as important as breaking the patterns that hold you back.

I recently had someone I look up and respect give me some constructive criticism in some of the banter we normally have. While at first there was that moment where you have to let the bruised ego heal, the truth is some of the stuff shared to me was gold. I realized very quickly that if you took out the emotional effect any criticism has, theres some valuable tips and strategies being shared with me. END RESULT – Make a list of the next few things I have to do to elevate my business even further. You heard me, even guys like are constantly improving ourselves to operate at a higher level. I started focusing on my to do list. The difference between success and failure really comes down to action versus thought!

My blog post today might not be one on internet strategies or business growth tips but it is more focused on why we get into business into the first place. Finding that why factor and then focusing on the HOW factor. Heres a clue, If you apply the same habits for the next few months and you end up at the same place. Saying you wish you had more time to do this, and you need to get stuff done but you haven’t.  You are in what I call a VORTEX space of mindlessness. In order for you to elevate your game, you need to allow yourself to play the game. You might have dressed up for the occasion but whats the point in that if you haven’t left the house?

I used to work for an internet marketing company where they used to mentor start up internet marketing mom and pops on all the different stages of internet marketing. Most of the time the content was great, the coaching was superior and the guidance was one of a kind. This did not change the fact that at least 90% of those start ups failed! WHY, because our worst enemy in growing our business is ourselves.

To quote a friends thesis on a recent penguin blog post written today, the world doesn’t owe you success when you are starting a business, you owe it to yourself! The truth lies not in what you say but what you do!

What are you currently doing that can only take your business to the next level? If you have a list, share it with us and spend the next few weeks making it happen! I believe some would call it “making it rain!”

He shared a story of how annoyed he gets when someone adds him on face book and then right away gets a pitched on a product, event or fan page invite. I am sure we have all been a victim of this or make this mistake before. Can you think of a time when

• You barely got to know someone online before they started stuffing a product on you
• Started getting an insane amount of event requests
• Subscribed you to something

Well my friend shared a story of how he recently met someone who left a bad taste because of how he approached him on the social media platform. He chose to go in for the kill as we call it before even getting to know my friend. This is almost a credibility no no!  There are certain things you should consider before you enter a business conversation when building relationships with people you meet on the various social media platforms

• Build a conversation
• Find a common ground
• Establish rapport and build trust
• Share content that is appreciated
• Recognize and acknowledge your contacts
• Ask for opinions
• Establish and identify boundaries on your contacts preference
• Be respectful and considerate
• People like buying, they just not like being sold!
• Let the crowd come to you!

We call this vital stage the social media foreplay! Get to know your audience first before you go in for a pitch! Treat people how you would like to be treated. Remember if you do not follow this step you will end up losing credibility and people will start to avoid you online!

This is a trend you commonly see these days and I see people make this mistake over and over again! We are in the world of attraction marketing and in order to get a following to our brand we need to show our character first.

FOREPLAY (RAPPORT + CONVERSATION + TRUST + CHARACTER) = CREDIBILITY

By Bosco Anthony

When I met these two different individuals they were both at start up stage. They both also had ambitions of growing and having a successful business however were in need of some business coaching and guidance. The one common feature they had at the start of this experiment was they were both frustrated, depressed and very PESSIMISTIC! I remember meeting both these individuals and feeling completely consumed by the negativity they both had. The truth is they didn’t have much to be happy about. No real business plan, no idea how to package themselves and finally no sales! Sounds familiar?

I decided to take on both of these individuals and become their mentor. Now both these individuals are in the same industry, and I applied the same process for both entrepreneurs. I had two very different drastic results and I have to say I think I have found the big reason why these results are so different. In fact I am almost certain the cause of the difference of results with this experiment has everything to do with energy levels and optimism. See here are the two case studies

CASE STUDY 1 – The pessimistic entrepreneur

So the first individual is very talented and very creative. The biggest strength was the artistic approach this individual brought. This individual was so talented, smart and knew the ins and outs of the services offered. The biggest challenge is this individual was very hard on themselves, jaded and depressed. The depression turned into this individual playing the victim card, and at times made some attention grabbing comments to get a reaction. The other factor was the lack of confidence also ended effecting the overall presentation of this individual. Finally, the individual started to give up on their work. When people complimented the work, it was disregarded. People that did get to him ended up taking advantage of the talents and no sales were made.

RESULTS – A struggling entrepreneur that is need of change. The sales process and client line is low. This individual will probably need a job pretty soon to survive. It saddens me to see this individual at this state and while I am doing my best to help, change must come from within.

CASE STUDY 2 – The optimistic entrepreneur

This second individual started at a very low point. In fact this individual was a lot worse and needed to see change immediately. This individual was in need of encouragement, guidance and coaching. I was impressed how approachable this individual was to change, new concepts and ideas. The big different is this individual made growth and change a priority. More time was spent on repackaging and reinventing their brand. Through mistakes this individual grew stronger and stronger. Finally this individual has started to see growth and conversions in sales. The first sale made all the difference!

RESULTS – In the last 3 months the business model has grown by 700%. The clients are recurring and consistent. Referrals are starting to come in and this individual has a 90% conversion rate on prospect to sale ratio percentages. The biggest game changer is how optimistic and positive this individual has become. I sometimes call this person for a dose of positivity when I myself am having a rough day.

Now while most entrepreneurs brag about all the clients they have impacted, very few will admit that they also deal with struggling clients who do not always succeed. While I am not going to give up on this project or experiment, the harsh reality is the power to succeed is really in the hands of the business owner. I will tell you this from experience, your attitude, demeanour and your outlook can attract or repel prospects. No matter how hard your business is struggling keep your chin up and show your confidence and smile.

I am not endorsing people to fake it until you make it but lets face it you showing your baggage or laundry on the first date is not helping you either. We are living the world of attraction marketing where people are buying into your brand. Your brand is your character and your core! Your optimism matters! PERIOD!

By Bosco Anthony

The biggest problem is I met these people at random places at random times. While its always good to book dates in a notebook, day timer or computer at home it would be great to have something at the palm of your hands. In fact my friend who is a seasoned keynote speaker gave me some very resourceful information. If you have a smart phone you should be utilizing your mobile calendar. PERIOD! Now for my tech savvy readers you might be sitting there laughing at how obvious this recommendation is but you will be surprised how many keynote speakers do not do this today. Sometimes event organizers cant wait for hours to get a confirmation and need real time decisions.

I started using a couple of apps and my iphone calendar app and overnight just got better at organizing myself. I could give quick time answers on my availability and also just managed my time a lot more efficiently. If you are a keynote speaker the mobile calendar app should be your best friend. You cannot afford not to have it. Someone joked around and said having a mobile calendar app is like having a wallet. Lets face it you might not carry a laptop, day timer or books at any given time of the day but chances are your mobile phone is always with you. I know I am lost without my cell phone at any given time.

I have a few recommendations on certain apps you can use on a smart phone. However I recommend you do some research and see if there is any other apps that suit your business needs. Consultants, Service providers are using this more now than ever before. The apps I use are

1. Iphone Calendar App – This is an awesome free tool that comes with any iphone and syncs with your Mac.
2. Week Cal – Labels the different types of business engagements and syncs with your regular iphone calendar
3. Geo Cal – Syncs with an gmail account.
4. Calvetica – Syncs with ipad and iphone
5. MiCal – Also shows the daily weather
6. Agenda – Simplistic look to it!

You will notice I am pro Iphone, Mac and yes love the itunes apps. My sincere apologizes to the blackberry or Android crowd but they too have apps for the respective phones. While it doesn’t matter what app you have, it is important you start using these apps to manage your keynote engagements much better!

What apps do you rely on? Any recommendations for android / blackberry smart phones?

By Bosco Anthony