Family Man - Internet Marketer - Sometimes A Complete "A-Hole"

This is my first introductory post.

Unlike most of you I'm into Facebook, although I have a pretty good Pinterest following

Anyhoo...

The Steemit platform probably will be where I explain my posts on Pinterest. Honestly, I probably should have been doing this on my personal website along, but I digress.

We will see how things will pan out. Oh yeah, this is a "introductory" post...

I'm Francis Murray. I'm 46. This is a picture of my lovely wife & I (we were married July 9th 2016).

I'm an Internet Marketer.

I'm about to go on a little rant and clear the air here...

I have been around Internet Marketing for over a decade now. In those years I have had pretty extreme UPs & DOWNs. Real Roller Coaster Action. 

Anyone that has been trying to build a business online will how this feels...

We are being beaten down every day by TV ads, newspaper ads & email ads and that’s only in our “regular” life. Internet marketers have added pressures; we thirst for knowledge about our livelihood. We get pitched by offers everyday…

• The New "Dominate This & That" offers...
• The New “Must Have” Plugins...
• The New Money Making “System of the Day”...
• “The Deal of the Day”...
• “The Offline of the day”

Seriously? Do you see the problem here? A case in point…

“The Deal of the Day” and the “Top Seller of the Day” are offer’s that are recommended daily! YES 2 a day, except on Sunday, where there is a listed  “recap” of the week’s special of the day. Are there 600 offers that are worth looking at, in a year? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

We can get lost, confused and frustrated. So frustrated that you may even want to quit! I know these feelings intimately.

If you allow me to tell you a quick true story, I’ll show you how you can have a thriving Internet business and piss it all away, in less than a year.

Until now I have never share this with anyone, including my best personal friends…

Why?

Pure embarrassment!

A few years ago, I was a busy product creator, putting out WSO’s (Warrior Special Offers). I specialized in “piggyback” products. 

A “piggyback” Product is a product that enhances another product, that you do not own. The difference is instead of offering it as a bonus by being an affiliate, you actually sell the product piggy backing off the momentum of the original product. 

This is a great business model because the original idea has already been created for you, you simply “enhance” the product. Kind of like an outside “OTO”.

I started gathering names & emails. Every time I launched a product, I would email my list to tell them about the new product, a good percentage would buy it. I would gain more subscribers naturally from the WSO listing. After 7 to 9 WSO’s you would have an responsive and growing list.

This business model was working well me. I was gaining a good reputation, respect from fellow IMer’s & I was making good money. My list was growing; this was even before WarriorPlus & JVZoo, so having affiliates was not really an option.

I then started creating relationships with the product owners, because I was “piggybacking” off their products. Surprisingly enough, none of the product owners had an issue with it, probably because it was boosting their sales too.

Eventually, some of us started working together on projects and making a ton of money. Long story short, a misunderstanding between the partners happen, some finger pointing and we split ways. I must admit that I had some responsibility in the situation.

We all have lessons to learn, but I learned my in spades. Which meant a lot less money for me, I became disillusioned & depressed. I mean seriously depressed.

I neglected my two of my BIGGEST assets:

1. Myself – I lost my positive attitude. I lost trust in fellow Internet Marketers. Very Sad Actually!

2. My List – I never emailed them at all, except an occasional offer when I needed money. I lost over 1/2 my list in 6 months. Did I mention that these were ALL buyers. An all buyers list is pure gold in the IM world.

What a waste!

This is where my information overwhelm / Shiny Object Syndrome kicked in…

I started looking for other ways to make money, the list goes too…

• Adsense
• PPC
• CPA
• Contests
• Offline
• Amazon
• List Building
• Offering Services

You name it, I have most likely tried it. Seriously, I “tried” everything.

Why would I tell you this story?

My hope you never fall into this trap like I did. There are many reasons for Information Overload, IT DOESN’T JUST AFFECT NEWBIES! My story illustrates that.

Why do YOU want to overcome YOUR Information Overload?

Productivity – In order to succeed in this business, you need to be productive. You need to focus on tasks that NEED to be done. This is especially true if your a one man or one woman show.

Unfocused Effort – If you are always “learning” you are just a career student. You will not ever focus on the “Doing” aspect of your business. 

One of the most important parts of business is knowing the “big Picture” or the 30,000 foot point of view. If you know the big picture, you will be able to break down the things you need to do into “projects” then down into “tasks”. 

You will never be able to be focused if you are always learning “new” stuff. Keeping that in mind, you can learn what you NEED to learn (Like single tasks), not on all the extras.

Time – We DO NOT have unlimited time. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, age, perceived success or any other measurable gauge; we all have one commodity… TIME. 

Save as much of it as you can, if you are soaking up all the latest marketing information, you are not enjoying what life has to offer.

What Matters To You? – In my case, I masked my depression with “new” information to try out. It was a way for me to escape what was bothering me. I always 

used the information gathering as an excuse to say “I need to learn this” or “I can put this to use later.” Knowing what really matters to you is so important.

Ask yourself why do you want to be an IMer? For me, it was real simple, time freedom. I wanted more time to spend with my family, coaching baseball, softball & basketball for my children when they are young. 

Tune everything out and reflect on that question - What Matters To You?

Stress & Depression – As I mentioned above, constantly learning more information creates an illusion of being busy. As we try out more systems, methods, plugin, strategies, we feel like you are keeping ourselves busy. 

This is an ILLUSION. If you have more than ONE Business model going right now, you are NOT doing yourself a favor. 

You are spreading yourself to thin.

If you are spreading yourself out, then you are creating a bad business environment for yourself, with too many tasks to do. This will lead to stress and maybe depression.

OK OK, I told you that I would help you and not scare you to death! 

"Geeze Francis, what's wrong with you?"

Now for the good part, here are the 11 tips that I have used to be more productive, but one more quick little thing…

You need to be focused on a set of "ONE THINGS" in your business, here is my suggestion (It has worked wonders for me)...

Pick ONE Niche, ONE Business Model & Master ONE Traffic generation strategy.

Forget everything else!

There are tons of business models here are a few, pick ONE…

• Affiliate marketing
• Adsense Sites
• Product Creation
• Product Launches
• Membership Sites – Paid/Free
• Amazon Review Sites
• Offering Services
• CPA Marketing
• many more business models

Master ONE Traffic Strategy

• Video Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Banner Ads
• Pay Per Click
• Pay Per View
• PPC
• many more traffic strategies

Random Hint: Do you what you love to do. If you don’t, you will burn out.

OK, now on to the good part…

1. Only Learn WHAT YOU NEED – Ok, decide on what you need to learn and only learn that one task. What types of information and source actually provide value to you? 

Decide what medium that you would like the learn from, there are plenty of ways to learn. Video, PDF’s, Blogs, Podcasts etc. 

After deciding on your chosen medium, you seek the information. You are reversing the your mindset. Focus on what you NEED to learn and discard the rest.

2. Email Junkie Cures – This was my biggest time waster! For obvious reasons we can’t stop using email, because we have to be able to send files and communicate with people online, BUT when checking email becomes an obsession, we need to stop that. 

Like I said, I was guilty of this, BIG TIME! Also the mind set should be a little different when checking email. I have adopted the attitude of “prune & trimming” my emails.

Step 1 – Unsubscribe form all but 2 or 3 marketers that you have really learned from in the past. You know the ones that put out great content, not “churn and burn” marketers who are promoting the latest & greatest product 2 times a day, every day.

Step 2 – Unsubscribe for all the affiliate networks that have “of the day” emails, these are of the biggest time & money suckers in internet marketing.

Step 3 – Check your email 2 or 3 times a day, at specific time in the day. Also take a whole day off checking your email. (My day is Sunday)

These 3 steps will increase your productivity 10 fold.

3. What is your Mission? – I’m not asking you to write a mission statement, although it is a good idea, but you do need to know your end goal. 

Ask yourself, When I start a task, what do I want out of the completion of that task? That way, it is easier to budget your time and to focus on that task. Each task should be progressive until the completion of a “project”.

4. Scheduling – Make time to work on a specific ‘project’ in your business. It is a good idea to break down a project into tasks. Schedule time to complete each task, focus on completing that one task, then move on to the next.

Here is a quick example of the way I divide up a ‘project’.

The very first thing I do in the morning when I sit down at my computer is check email. I divide this ‘project’ up into 3 tasks.

Task one – “Pruning & Trimming” – I determine what kind of emails I have in the inbox and divide them into 3 categories.

1. Throw away emails – I instantly delete, unless I have seen the email address before then I look inside, scroll to the bottom and unsubscribe.

2. Social Media / Personal Emails – These are Facebook messages and other social media messages. Emails from friends and business partners that can wait for lunch time. (I check and reply while I am having lunch)

3. Customer Support email & Immediate Business Email – These require me to respond to right away.

Task Two. I put all the emails that I am not going to answer immediately into a separate folder labeled “Lunch Time Emails”

Task Three. I respond to customer support email, then business partners emails.

That is what I do every day when I first get to my computer. It is just a routine that I gotten into, I would suggest that you come up with a similar routine.

I don’t check my email again a second time until lunch, usually I get more email. I use the same little system, but I answer customer support & business email I get, then I look at and respond to my social emails, while I am eating.

5. Stop Checking Stats every half hour – I know it is exciting to get sales, watch your traffic bars go up, but I know from personal experience that this is a huge waste of time! 

Instead, I check stats twice a day. The first is when I’m done check my morning emails and the second is just before I log off for the day. I would 

suggest you adopt something like this into your schedule.

6. Be Realistic – Informationholics need their fix, I would set aside time each day for maybe 30 minutes or so checking your favorite marketing sites.

Caution! If you are looking around on sites like the warrior forum, jvzoo, clickbank or warriorplus, DON’T BUY ANYTHING! Stay away from new products, you will drift off in marketing no-man’s-land, stay focused.

Activities like checking your phone, watching TV, playing games on your phone (This used to be a big weakness) and other distractions should be eliminated completely.

If you are having trouble with this, download timer software (click here for a good one, it’s free! Yup Google fot the win!)

7. Humans CAN’T Multitask – Seriously, if you focus on one task, you will be more productive. 

I know that your mind can start reeling when you think of another cool idea, but you need to concentrate on the task at hand until it is done. One thing you can do when you have a little “ah ha” moment is carry a little notebook, note it, then focus on the task.

When you multitask, you can cause yourself undue stress. Stress leads to negative thoughts, and negative thoughts lead you to be not being confident. 

Sorry for the Yoda moment there, but it is true.

8. Try An Information Diet – Decide to go without checking an information source for a set amount of time. I’m talking about a few days.

Once you have completed the information diet, evaluate your feelings. Ask these questions…

Did you notice a positive difference in your online business life?

Did you lose anything by not consuming that piece of information? (trick question actually)

Is this something you could like to give up (or greatly reduce) permanently?

The results might surprise you.

9. Reduce Your Work Load Over Time – This sound counter intuitive, but trust me it works. One you have the basic model of your business set, you only really need to focus on traffic, and depending what business model you choose for yourself, you should concentrate on building relationships with people.

Let your “system” work for you.

10. Email Fasting – I got this from another marketer, “Go on an email fast for a day or several days.” This will be difficult if you are like me, and want to know what’s in that inbox, but with anything hard to do, you will find satisfaction accomplishing it.

11. Turn off Your Phone (or don’t Answer It) – Turn off your phone, or put the phone on vibrate mode while you are working. You’ll be amazed by how much you can get done without phone interruptions.

Bonus Cure - Ask yourself these questions… 

How many times do you check your email in a day?

How much time do you spend reading those emails?

How much time do you spend on facebook, twitter or pinterest?

How much time do you spend on forums “looking around?”

I encourage you to just keep track of the time you spend in these activities. You will have actual data that you can look at to show you how much time your wasting.

Ok, one more thing, YOU ALREADY KNOW ENOUGH TO BE SUCCESSFUL ONLINE! Pick the business model that appeals to you the most, master that one traffic technique & you will be on your way to a 6 figure business online.

Anyhoo, that's me and what I got for you right now!