here’s an article absolutely worth reading
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-39706765

(the title “Is inequality about to get unimaginably worse?”
gives you a hint how important it really is!)

it’s no longer really a question of IF you’ll have to choose which side you want to be on, but WHEN.

(seriously, read the BBC article, otherwise the rest of this post won’t make sense)

Just to illustrate: here’s some seriously life-changing medical development:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39746027

but guess who is going to have that stuff implanted?

Certainly not the unwashed (and no longer useful) masses!

The big question is: are you going to be on the “useful” … or on the “no longer of use” side of the equation?

Apologies if this comes across as a little bit ‘too scary’ for a sunny Saturday morning … but ignoring this is the same thing as not taking care of your retirement YOURSELF, instead of relying on someone else.

I don’t know about your country, but even here in Germany, the power-house of Europe, we have massively increasing rates of people who retire … pretty much with NOTHING, simply because they didn’t take responsibility earlier on in life!

Which is also why e.g. I’m so p***sed off by this stupid nonsense with the guy who gets dragged off the flight, and gets compensation:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39739737

the real issue is this: we (yes, YOU and I and everybody else) have a large role to play in this!

We don’t take FULL responsibility!

Take the example of the overbooked flight situation:

We demand rock-bottom prices …

… but are not willing to accept that at rock-bottom pricing, … well, there isn’t much room for things like ‘customer service’, having enough wiggle room to transport another 4 staff without having to throw people off the flight etc.

The same applies to your DSL, your mobile phone provider, quite possibly your health-insurance, most of the things we buy …

in many/most cases happily ignoring the destructive impact it has (working & living conditions in the Far East + rapid destruction of the environment over there come to mind).

Every time you get the “cheapest” possible deal … someone, somewhere has to cut corners and “take”.

Right now, we can “push” the impact of those actions “away” in many cases … but as the BBC article suggests: that is going to change, and it’s going to change fast.

To use Steven Covey’s analogy: you can’t keep withdrawing from the back-account, at some point you have to deposit.

And that’s precisely what we as a species are NOT doing at the moment: depositing!

Not nearly enough!

The good/scary/bad news (depending on which side you’re on) is this:

those who just take, take, take are precisely those who will quickly find themselves on the “oh look, you just outlived your usefulness” side of the equation (fortunately, they won’t even really notice because they’re too busy staring at their mobile phones addicted to the regular buzz they get from the other ‘takers’)

So, to come back to the title of this post: it’s not really about “ending up” on either side – it’s all about choosing your path to get to the side you want to be on!

Your thoughts? Which side are you going to be on – and what actions are you actually taking to make sure you’re going to be there?

Veit

Today I have a piece in 3 acts for you – all part of a bigger picture:

Act #1: I was wrong about John Carlton’s teachings.

You see, when I first encountered John Carlton’s copywriting, (bought his Kick-ass copywriting rebel guide) … what struck me was that it *appeared* to be all about power-words, ‘juicing/amping up’ the headlines etc.

And whilst that still certainly is a big component of what he teaches … I recently checked out his ‘launch-webinar’ for the upcoming (today?) Simply Writing System.

And when you listen closely, you’ll notice that really, he’s all about “permission based marketing” … on that webinar recording he says it quite a few times: (I’m paraphrasing):

if there isn’t enough trust, you need to back off.

Here’s the thing: of course I can’t be sure if he said those same words back when I first encountered John …

but assuming he did (a fundamental philosophy like this is unlikely to change that quickly) …

then it goes to show that back then, that message was simply ‘invisible’ to me:

I was a rookie when it comes to copywriting … and as a result my brain was focused on the ‘obvious’ stuff.

Back then I thought (because that is what the message was out in the marketplace), that copywriting is all about ‘persuasion’.

so my brain was looking for ‘persuasion’ stuff … like powerwords etc (which my brain also didn’t like, hence the inner conflict;-) …

… but it completely missed any (potential) mentioning of “woah, you’ve got to back off and only use ‘persuasion’ when people are ready to be persuaded.

So, the key lessons here:

1. accept the fact that your brain can only pick up the information it is ‘tuned into’. (as a consequence: keep challenging what the ‘market’ tells you … there tend to be ‘trends’ which can easily trap you into a ‘false’ belief-set)
2. if & when you position your own offer, and you have a message that goes against the overall ‘trend’ … make sure to highlight that part of your message, really make it stand out – because as you can see from above: if/when the market is indoctrinated to believe one thing, they may well completely miss your message because it it ‘invisible’ to them

If you’re lucky, their launch-content is still up, so check it out here.

Act #2: On Creating Digital Products

Now, John’s course is obviously a ‘digital’ product (with a live coaching component) … and it’s a fine example of a ‘useful’ course, because it ticks certain boxes I’ll get back to shortly.

and if you want to learn how to create such ‘useful’ digital products (whether it’s an actual ‘product’ you want to sell, or just the ‘ethical bribe’ you give away in exchange for an email address), you’ll get a lot out of Eben Pagan’s video here.

(plus a whole bunch of great lil’ goodies on the thank-you page … you need to sign up twice, which is a bit silly, (lol, personally, I don’t like ‘inefficiency’ … I would’ve preferred a tick-box along the lines: “yes, send me your book and that video too”;-)

The reason I mention Eben as an example is … that his courses actually provide pretty substantial value. And when I say ‘value’ … I mean not ‘perceived’ value, or ‘fear of loss’-style value pummeled into your scared brain with enough scarcity and bonuses.

Here’s why this matters:

When you combine such ‘real’ value with the next ‘mini-act’, you’ve got yourself a nice lil’ (or big) win-winner:

Act #3: how to create an ‘infinte’ life-time-value

ok it’s not ‘infinite’, but keeps rising and rising.

Just applied to sign up to yet another Perry Marshall offer … and a big component ‘why’ (apart from the information I want of course) is that he does ‘rejection’ marketing:

you actually need to qualify, and demonstrate that you’re a good fit

Unlike e.g. Jeff Walker who’ll take anybody’s cash all day long, no matter if they’re a good fit or not.

And when you now look at the 3 pieces together … what happens when you’re ‘brainwashed’ into believing one side of the story, Eben Pagan’s take on Digital products and Perry Marshall’s healthy bank-balance …

… you’ll quite possibly notice something:

more likely than not, you have been brainwashed to believe that you must sell as hard as you can.

And that it’s ok to deliver sub-par products because “hey, most people don’t even open the packaging, never mind go through the course”.

And more likely than not, once you start questioning that ‘wisdom’, you’ll realize that the real fortune is elsewhere.

(hint: starting to create products people actually WANT to consume, and then making sure you only sell to those who CAN consume them would probably be a good starting point…)

Cheers

Veit

​

So, over the last few days my inbox is flooded with all kinds of “must have” offers, like yet another email autoresponder tool, another page-builder, another ecom-inspector to find the latest ‘hidden, undiscovered’ gem in the Aliexpress world, the latest this, that and the other.

So, here’s my wee lil’ rant:

stop dickin’ about (SDA), ignore pretty much all of that, and get going.

Here’s the recipe, in case you’re wondering: To succeed with online marketing you need

1. landing pages. Get yourself a tool you’re comfortable with, spend a couple of hours actually going through the documentation. If the tool can do landing pages, and – added bonus – thank-you pages, that’s probably all you need.
   SDA with the latest & greatest – it’s just a distraction from your real job: figuring out what offers convert.
2. an email autoresponder. Let me ask you this: do you truly believe that your email/subscriber list is your biggest and most important asset? If so, SDA with the latest & greatest self-hosted, or new cloud-hosted autoresponder service – that’s the equivalent of having unprotected sex with random strangers in the alley behind a seedy nightclub … usually doesn’t last long, and tends to come with all kinds of nasty surprises. Just get yourself one of the ‘big’ hosted providers, and be done with it.
3. ‘traffic’: aka: visitors to your landing pages, so they can sign up to your email list. SDA with ‘free’ or low-cost strategies like SEO, solo-ads, penny-clicks etc. Low cost in almost all cases means: either nobody else has managed to make it work (and therefore it’s cheap), or it’s not cheap at all because it requires a ton of work (as is the case e.g. with SEO). Instead, set aside a few bucks for FB/YT/IG ads and be done with it.
4. a great offer: SDA with the latest & greatest ‘research’, niche-identifier, ninja-hidden-gold BS tool. Reality: 99.999% of all ‘winners’ have already been discovered. Your job is to take one where you can provide value, then add your own unique positioning to it. And with that, you attract (via traffic that goes to your landing pages) prospective clients who then sign up to your email list … and if you keep providing value, you’ll live happily ever after. Especially, when you combine this strong offer with
5. Digital Products: it’s all about ‘providing REAL value’, so SDA with PLR, hyped-up promises, or all kinds of tricks to get people to hand over their contact information, and later on hard-earned cash. A great offer works best when combined with a great digital product – no matter how big or small (in fact, for ‘capturing emails, it should be either extremely small (super-easy to consume), or extremely big (massive thud-factor)). Learn how to create fast ‘n easy, high-value digital products, and now you don’t only live happily ever after, you’re also loved happily ever after.

Once you have those tools, all you need to add is a healthy dose of “stick-with-it-iness”, and I guarantee, you will succeed!

The end

Veit

PS: If you want to know what I use:

• Autoresponder: ActiveCampaign (over 2 years now) & Aweber (using them for over 10 years now)
• Landing Page Builder: Convertri (if you’re genuinely interested, let me know and I may be able to organize a discount code for you)(also search my Youtube Channel for a comparison with all kinds of other landing page builders)
• Traffic: FB ads
• Offers: … I just test ideas using the simple steps explained in the Attract & Nurture workshop

earlier today I did a review and had to illustrate the point of how “subtle changes” can have a big impact.

Here’s a short snippet that highlights the main point:

The key thing here is NOT that I’m ranting or in some way dismissing what Marie Forleo is doing on here site, but instead … well, you see in the video.

Probably even more important than the ‘obvious’ result is … that she may even do that on purpose!

Ask yourself this: who is her target audience? What are they aspiring to achieve? What have they quite possibly been struggling with? And what is it they’d like to be able to do? (and never dared to)

in that light … does the one ‘thing’ I so violently react to in the video perhaps even make sense?

As you see: subtle changes, massive difference!

your thoughts? Answer YOUR take on the questions above, and leave a comment below!

Cheers

Veit

so yesterday I had a fabulous conversation with a colleague of mine who teaches ‘sales’ (the nice kind, not the used-car-sales variety;-)

One of the gold-nuggets I wrote down was:

are you exhausted wrestling with your prospects – shouldn’t THEY be the ones who are exhausted, they are the ones with the problem after all

Great insight, and perhaps shift in perspective … and also something I observe with so many people when it comes to marketing:

they WRESTLE their marketing, instead of leveraging the energy and power in the system jiu-jitsu style:

jiu-jitsu is a martial art and combat sport that teaches a smaller person how to defend himself against a larger adversary by using leverage and proper technique” (source: Google)

Until about 2 years ago you could drive some ice-cold traffic straight at a sales-page (and yes, I still get a bit of a tear in my eye when I think back to those easy 5-figure days) … dream up some ‘interest’, send to sales-page, Bob’s yer uncle.

Well, sadly, Bob’s no more, and that brute-force (white-belt) approach is good for FB’s coffers, but not much else.

These days the ‘leveraged’ way, and

proper technique is to layer and sequence target & custom audiences

And that’s something Mario Brown does in practice (if you follow him, you’ll have noticed his campaigns unfold like a delicate dance over the last few weeks, see the example below), but also teaches in the new, updated version of his Video Ads course, which I highly recommend you get!

in it, Mario shares his 3-level method for stacking and/or segmenting your audiences, all combined with a real-life case-study of all of it in practice, so you can immediately go and model it – no fluff, all real actionable content.

I think this (leveraging and using proper technique, instead of using brute force against the ever growing bigger adversary/competition) is so important, that I’m offering the brand-new version of my WP FB Pixel plugin as a bonus – in this new version you can build custom audiences based on video-views ON YOUR SITE! (meaning: not just views of FB videos, but also YT videos on YOUR site)

Here’s a quick overview over what you can do with WP FB Pixel these days:

So, if you’re interested in using brain instead of brawn when it comes to do doing ads, get Video Ads Formula 2 through this link, and the download instructions for WP FB Pixel will be waiting for you in the JVZoo download portal.

Veit