Pete Lauder.com

Luck is a four letter word that has slanted meanings, and it all depends upon the angle from which you see it.

For instance, the dependant amongst our society, see luck as a little treat, they get every once in a while. Their negativity blinds them to the fact that luck, is not a one off gift from the Gods, it is a way of life, that is controlled by you.

On the other hand, the positive thinkers amongst us, seem to magically obtain things that may seem out of reach to most.  This may seem like magic, but the reality is that, when you start to make things happen, by intent, then hundreds of small, and often unseen factors simply follow you with your flow of energy.

 

Just as you create your own destiny, the more powerful you become, with a positive approach, your luck begins to flow, like a constant stream.

When you reach that state, you don’t notice your own luck, it is the negative thinkers that notice your good fortune, and they envy your success. Your life is merely evolving the way you told it to, and the luckiness is just a small part of your overall outlook.

I don’t know scientifically, how this works, I don’t need to, all I need to know is that this is one of the universal laws that secretly guide us, and it works.

You may not have heard the old Lancashire expression, “if he fell in a barrel of crap, he’d come out smelling of roses”, well you can be that person, just apply positivity, remain focused, never be deluded that you are better than others, and always help people, where you can.

If you look around, anywhere on the face of the earth, you will find mankind’s creations, from buildings, to highways, to farmland, the list is endless. These creations did not grow out of the soil, like crops, they were first thought about, planned, then made to happen. This happens everyday in everyone’s life, but some step beyond the insignificant, and start to plan great things, they become masters of their own destiny.

As you evolve, you improve your own life, and the lives of others around you, your determination, and focus heighten, and things happen for you.

Luck never came into it, it is merely a by-product of success, and the recipient takes it for what it is, they accept it, with gratitude, and continue on their chosen path, without giving it a second thought.

I am not judging Raoul Moat, for his actions, nor can I condone the crimes he committed, seeing the lives he ruined in the proccess.

What has sparked my interest is the reaction of the people that have come to admire Moat, and sympathise with his case. This reaction to someone that took on the system has been predictable, in fact I have predicted this kind of thing becoming more frequent for years.

Moat has an admirers page on the web, reported to have over 18,000 fans, as I type. The media machine has already tainted the admirers as sicko’s, further strengthening the governments stranglehold on the population. My insight tells me that it is the oppression that we, as citizens are held under, that has sparked the followers in the first place.

As a nation, the British have become very good at turning the other cheek, perhaps too good. But will everyone in the Country allow themselves to be forced into line, with every increasing restrictive practice that is thrust upon them, I think not.

Unlike the French, who take to the ports in tractors, we complain, and then get on with it.

There is a sense of irony, if you can imagine the smoker who is imprisoned for crusading against the smoking ban, once released, they book a holiday to another EU country (SAME LAWS) as soon as they land at the airport, despite the signs, everybody is smoking away, in every public building in the country, and that includes the local police, and politicians. In fact the only places where smoking is really banned might be your hotel, especially if it is British owned.

When these small, and even large incremental rules, and restrictions are imposed on the nation, there are always a few that will fight the legislation. The machine of government soon restores the “law” and the rebels are forced into submission.

The governing bodies feel a victory, and continue to impose restrictions on the population, ad hoc. The machine then rolls along relentlessly.

When somebody makes a stand against this machine, no matter how unlawfully, they will attract admirers.

There will always be an element of the population that is capable of thinking for themselves, and there will always be people unable to think for themselves, but they can sense the anguish of a hunted man, and they begin to back the underdog.

I don’t know his personal circumstances, but the steroid abuse is self evident. This, mixed with a headful of woman troubles, and business worries had sent this man over the edge.

Naturally, there will be an enquiry, and all the police forces will be absolved, even though they were informed, by Moat of his intentions beforehand. The reports will request that more punative measures are put in place, to ensure this never happens again, and, of course, the whole cycle will continue to roll on, ensuring that the very same thing is guaranteed to happen with more frequency, and with much harder consequences.

You  should reflect on this event, the media coverage, and the subsequent witch hunts. Ask yourself if you want to be a victim of oppression, and what you can do to retract yourself from the kind of situation that drove this man to insanity.

Remember that all lawmakers get a payoff, no matter how much they deny this, and say they are upholding the public good, there is ALWAYS a payoff, even if it is the smugness of knowing that they got their way.

You do have a choice, you can robot-like follow every directive, like the school prefect, or you can follow your own, sound judgement, knowing that you know the difference between right and wrong, and you are quite capable of being a decent member of our society, without being dictated too from “above”.

You are not going to get an in depth analysis of the speakers from me, if you wanted to know that, you should have gone to the event, shouldn’t you.

A quick run through of some highlights saw Omar Martin telling us how he got started in the business, and there were 2 people in the room that helped him on his way.

He got started with John Thornhills ebay ebook, now out of date, as he progressed he used Randy Smith for some copywriting. Add a couple of years on to the story, and there he was, live on stage, as a guest speaker from the states.

I enjoyed the Janni G performance, JG was as motivated as ever, and gave some great chunks of advice away for free.

Most of my networking was performed bar-side.

Missing out on Simon Hodgekinson, we avoided most of the demon cocktails, so our heads were a little clearer for the weekend.

Amongst others, and in no particular order, I saw JP Schoffel, Soren Jordansen, Martin Avis, Simon Leung, Cindy Battye, Matt Garret, Randy Smith, Alex Jefferies, Chris Freville, Tony Shepherd,  Dave Nicholson, Gerry Holiday, Janni G, Jonny Andrews, John Thornhill, Phil Henderson, Mark Lyford, Paul Kinder and Robert Puddy, the organiser.

Had you come to the event, then you could have chatted away with many of the above people, and your online efforts would have gone through the roof.

Ah well, there’s always next time, but sadly there won’t be a next time.

Unless Bob has a radical change of mind, he will not be hosting the event next year. I will post any events that do come around, but the LFM event was always a classic, and will be sadly missed.

Thanks Bob, for puttting up with us hijackers.

Pete

Yes, the rumors are true, butterfly marketing has gone out into the wild. Mike Filsame has decided to give his script away, it’s not quite as opensource as WordPress, or Joomla, but you can download it for free here. 

The butterfly marketing script was Mikes big entry into the Internet marketing arena, a few years ago, I love the Johnson box at the top of the original salespage that reads;

“To Date: Over a Dozen of Our Students Have Applied Our Techniques With Results So Incredible, Their Merchant Account Providers And/or PayPal Representatives Could Not Comprehend Anyone Having So Much Instant Success With Orders Flooding In From All Parts Of The World…That They Have Had Their Accounts Temporarily Frozen For Further Review.”

You can read all the success stories here, then pick up your free copy here.

This years LFMpire builders seminar is coming up shortly, on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of May 2010.

As usual, I will be attending, along with plenty of my Internet marketing colleagues.

If you take a look at the list of speakers here you will get a flavour of the weekend event. The speakers are often of great interest to newbies on the scene, and are a wealth of knowledge to those seeking a way forward in membership website strategy, believe me, Robert Puddy has this one nailed.

The second side to these events is the contacts, and friendships formed. Just rubbing shoulders with the Internet millionaires can spur you on to greater things, and there is no closed shop.

Last year, a completely unknown guy, that hadn’t even started out yet, had flown in for the weekend. Because he knew nobody, he had to talk to strangers, he latched on to me, and my gang, and we enjoyed his company all weekend.

If he returns this year, maybe with a product under his belt, do you think he will get the help of his friends?

You bet he will.

So don’t go thinking that you are somehow above needing to visit, you might be crammed full of all the IM tactics that you will ever need to know, but are you really thinking that the likes of Alex Jefferies, Simon Hodgekinson, Robert Puddy, J P Schoeffel, and Chris Freville, to name a few, have nothing to offer you?

Think long and hard about it…

And I might well see you in Bristol.

 

There is a small debate ongoing today, over at the warriorforum, and it makes interesting reading.

It would seem, that, like me, most people scan the from column of their email inbox, rather than the subject line. This reinforces my suggestion that personal, and even corporate branding is key to your online success.

With many products on the market supporting the fact that the subject line is the main factor in getting emails opened, it transpires that this is only true, if your name has been accepted firstly by the prospect.

The subject is important, but it is secondary to the from name, therefore use your branding wisely, keep getting your name out there, and only be associated with quality products and offers.

I have an article, over on my small business website that covers branding in greater depth, the home business assistant.

Branding is often overlooked by small business owners until it is too late, and they may be associated with subjects that can lower their esteem, in the eyes of the customer.

It was touch and go, if I’d ever make it to Newcastle to Lee McIntyres workshop as planned earlier in the week. I had one of those stomache bugs that keeps you in constant contact with the toilet, which didn’t clear up until late Friday afternoon.

Feeling a little woozy, I called on Tony Shepherd, and we set off for a meet up and rendezvous with friends at the Newcastle Royal Station Hotel.

Arriving just in time to see the first day shout down in the conference rooms, it only took one phone call to Matt Garrett to discover which bar we were heading to. My big surprise of the day was to see Robert Puddy chatting to Tahir Shah, Robert has only just left the marketers cruise, and Newcastle is a long way from Bristol, so Bob was there to network.

Congratulations to Matt and Tahir on the very successful launch of Twittollower, the pair were in high spirits. Randy Smith was in full flow, once again describing some ins and outs of direct selling, he really is a start story teller once he gets in the groove, his wizard responder is going from strength to strength, and even his programmer has a spare moment to relax nowadays.

J P Schoeffel was telling me about the exciting offerings he will be launching this year, and the events he will be attending.

The beer was flowing, as it always seems to on these events when friends meet up, it’s good to get away from the screen sometimes. Suddenly, the room silenced as Chris Freville strolled into the bar, a mere shadow of his former self. Chris has been on some form of power diet, where he lost 3 1/2 stone in 8 weeks, now I’m sure its only about 10 weeks since I last saw him, and I can vouch, for him, he’s lean.

Alex Jefferies has embarked upon another self prooving type of mission, with a 90 day detox, with no beer, or bad foods, not because he needs to, but because he wants to. Being day 20 into the feat I wish Alex every success, and admire his determination.

I broke a wry smile when Simon Hodgekinson came over, the very presence of Simon ensures an evening of fun and games. Tonight was no exception, as the flaming sambucas were superceded by flaming cherry sambucas. The plastic glasses we were given had no chance against our quest for pleasure and fun, as they simply melted under the heat of the burning alcohol. Unfortunately Simon forgot to pick up the chocolate covered fire ants from his room, that he had brought just for the fun.

Much networking was done, a great time was had by all, and Matt was the only slight casualty, when he tripped, head first onto the pavement, just missing a towing hitch on a burger van.

Good times, and the next one up is Bristol with Bob Puddy.

That’s my Friday night, Internet Marketer style, with real people for once.

Unfortunately, one of Internet marketings great copy writing legends has passed away, on 1st January 2010.

Being a personal friend of mine, I feel the loss, but his legacy will live on…

Joe Robson, was a successful car salesman in his pre-online days, with 3 dealerships in the 1970′s, culminating into a very successful car sales business in the 1990′s, he then turned Internet marketer, and successful copywriter, way back in the late 1990′s.

He was catapulted to success online when he penned the evergreen Make Your Words Sell, Joe wrote the book, with his JV partner at the time, Ken Evoy, Ken added his content by way of commenting, but the ebook was written by Joe, and not many people know this, but it took 8 months and 3 re-writes before he was happy to release it.

Joe Robson became an overnight success story, and was now a well respected master Internet copywriter, he was the latest IM guru of the day, and he never looked back.

Joe’s first love was his newbie club, where thousands of struggling newbies have been led by the hand, and educated to a level whereby they can stand alone, and take on the challenges of the Internet.  Formed in 2000, and still around today, and Joe was always putting together his dream of the next incarnation of the newbieclub, newbieclub3, and worked tirelessly towards his goal.

With a subscriber base nearing 100,000, the newbie club, and several successful products behind him, Joe was at the forefront of both copywriting, and Internet marketing.

Sadly Joe was stricken by illness, in early 2008, that he never fully recovered from.

After a stay in hospital, Joe could sense the dangers ahead, and he apprenticed his son Steve into the world of Internet marketing. Steve will continue to run his fathers empire, and maybe, one day, his own copywriting skills may match Joe’s, lets hope so.

A drink, a few meetings, a catch up, and a scam.

I was in a real hurry, but I really wanted to catch up with some people at Lee’s workshop in Manchester, so I booked the hotel for 1 night.

The Palace hotel was a fascinating place, with great Victorian ceramic tiled walls, and 5ft wide doors, that must have been 9ft tall, at least. I took my wife with me, on this trip, and a couple of business partners, she loved the hotel.

After arriving late, around 7.30pm, I quickly registered the rooms, and made my way up to change into some evening clothes, nice room, it even had its own staircase in it, but the 20ft high curtains were a challenge to use!

OK, it’s around 8pm, I’m ready to network, but the bar is empty, well no familiar faces anyway, thats where forward planning kicks in. I realised that the Palace hotel was smack in the middle the Manchester nightlife scene, and those marketers would not miss an opportunity like this.

What copuld I do? I phoned a freind. Matt Garret answered his phone, in a very noisy bar, stating that he didn’t know who I was, and he told me the name of the bar, off we went to find the alpha pack.

We had caught up with the gang, just as they were ordering food, what great timing. Matt apologised for not hearing me, and he had completely forgotten, that I said I would be meeting him, anyhow, we soon got settled in, and greeted old friends, and new.

Alex Jefferys was in great spirit, as usual, and I was pleased to see him, although he might have got fed up with me saying, “have you brought us in here” when we all changed bars to a loud music venue, I didn’t let on, but I loved the place, lol.

Another friend that’s had a difficult year was Tahir Shah, it was good to have Tahir back to his marketing self. Chris Breville was there for a meet up, he did his business, then went on his way, with a few hours of driving ahead of him, Chris did well to stay around until around 11pm.

Someone that I had never met before, was John Thornhill, and he’s a nice guy.  Now I’d seen the face before, but never put 2 and 2 together.

I met Lee McIntyre, who I had not met before, wished him well, but apologised for not being able to attend the workshop, sometimes it just works out that way.

Randy Smith was in full flow, with his girl, Rachel, and I was glad to hear that Randy is on the up, with his wizard autoresponder becoming a major success story, well done Randy.

The beer flowed, and we made our way to the noisy place next door, the Varsity, where I was legally scammed!

You see, owners have devised a method of making some entrants pay twice, very cunning, but also very underhand, so I’m voting with my feet, and never going back there again.

This may catch on, so be warned.

We arrived, from next door, and paid a small entrance fee, around £5, I’ve no problem with that, so I paid my guests, and myself in, then went to the bar, and ordered some drinks. After around an hour, my addiction started to kick in.

I am amongst the small group of people that still smoke, and, due to the smoking ban in public places, I have to nip outside for a smoke, here’s the kicker.

As I wandered towards the exit door, one of the 4 or 5 doormen asked where I was going, my reply, cigarette in mouth, was “outside for a smoke.” “You need to go over there and see that guy” they replied, so over I wander, and find a man, sat at a tall table, near the door with a cash register, and a fist full of armbands.

“50 pence pal” he remarked, as he held out an armband, when I asked what for, he replied that you must pay a premium to be allowed out for a smoke, WHAT!!!

I found that very amusing, then went back to my table, to tell my party the scam, but sooner, or later, my addiction got the better of me, and I paid the money, got the armband, and went out for my smoke.

The final indignity was, that the grumpy doormen, (they always are, unless you are a 21 year old model in a mini skirt) moved us across the road, stating that we were not allowed to stand outside the bar, they own the pavement now do they? To compound things, when I woke the morning after, there was the wristband, still intact, and guess what it had on it?

An ad for manchestervarsity.com

A Blogger blog is website that you can get for free from Blogger.com. They are owned and operated by Google, so if you have a Gmail account or a Google Account, you can use your existing user info to set up your Blogger account.

If you do not have an account with Google already, you can create one forfree, at http://www.Blogger.com or Gmail.com.

Once you log in to blogger.com, you can create a blog right away! You get your own domain name that will look something like this:

www.YourName.Blogspot.com

Of course, you would replace “YourDomainName” with whatever you want your keywords to be. Most of the time, people choose keywords that are popular search terms on, so that the blog ranks higher on the search engines.

If you are in the weight loss niche, you might want to choose a name like “LoseWeightFast.Blogspot.com” for example, because the term “Lose Weight Fast” is a very popular search term and brings up over a million results.

The fastest and easiest way to make money with a blog, is with this formula: RB + AL + AM + T = $$$.

You might be saying, what the heck is that?

Don’t panic, I hate math too…just watch how easy this is:

RB = “Review Blog” – This is a blog that you will create with Blogger.com and you will use it to post product reviews, about products that you are promoting as an affiliate.

AL = “Affiliate Links” -At the end of each product review, you would include your affiliate link to the product you reviewed. Your “affiliate link” is the URL that you send people to, so that you can earn a commission on the product if they purchase it.

AM = “Article Marketing” – By writing articles (or outsourcing them) you can drive quality, targeted traffic to your blog.

T = “Traffic” – This is the traffic you will receive from both the articles, as well as people who are sur?ng Blogger.com for blogs in your category. The more popular of a niche market you choose, the more traffic you will likely receive.

$$$ = MONEY! – This of course represents the money you will earn when you make an affiliate sale!

Think about it…this WHOLE ENTIRE process won’t cost you a dime. The blog is free, with blogger.com. Becoming an affiliate of Clickbank.com, Amazon.com, Ebay.com and CJ.com are ALL 100% FREE.

Writing and submitting keyword optimized articles toEzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com is also 100% FREE and that is all it takes to make money with a blog.

Many big name marketers use this method to make tons of money…and the more articles they have out there, the more money they make. If you choose to outsource articles, this would be an expense and it could cost you anywhere from $2 – $12per article for quality articles from a freelance writer.

OK, that was just the gist of it. Let me give you more elaborate details and instructions so that you can start doing this right away.

Step 1 would be to sign up as an affiliate with Clickbank.com. <—At this link, you can sign up as an affiliate for FREE, right away. Then, you can browse the marketplace for niches and products that you want to promote! All you have to do is click the small link at the top of the page that says “Marketplace.”

The products over at Clickbank.com are “digital” products. A digital product is either an eBook or a software application. The reason why they are called digital products is because they can be downloaded immediately after purchase and there is no need for shipping or sending a physical product. An ‘eBook’ as most of you know (but remember this report is for complete newbies), is a book that can be read right from your computer screen and can be downloaded immediately after purchase. You can also print it out to read it if you prefer, or use one of those new electronic eBook reading devices.

The great thing about the products on the Clickbank.com marketplace, is that they offer stunningly high commissions to their affiliates (you). Most of them offer a 75% commission! If you were promoting an eBook that is $47,in the Weight Loss niche or the Make Money Online niche, you would earn $32.50 for every copy you sell. The best part is, you don’t even have to sell them the eBook…the sales page that the product creator made will do that for you. All you have to do is refer people to your ‘affiliate link.’

An ‘affiliate link’ is the link that is provided to you, so that you can promote a particular product (of your choice). This link will take the customer to the same EXACT page that the product creator uses to sell the product, but it will have YOUR affiliate ID in the URL. Your affiliate ID will be the username that you select for your Clickbank account. Here is an example of an affiliate link:

http://d1e28r5duovc-0xlu9u50bpj8r.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SPLR

This link goes to Matt Callens PLR site, and the code is now encrypted with the hotlink shield, so you don’t see the affiliates ID, the end part is a tracking ID that you can add if you want to.

 You won’t need to be guessing any codes though, all you have to do is click on the link that says “Create Hoplink” located underneath the listing of the product that you wish to promote — on the Clickbank Marketplace. After you select the category and subcategory you will be taken to a page full of listings of products to promote. You can view the product price, the commission percentage, and the gravity. The gravity is how many people (affiliates) earned a commission on that product in the past one or two week pay period. You can also view the sales page, which is where your affiliate link will send people.

The magic of your affiliate link is that it takes the customer to the same destination they would go to if they hadn’t been referred by you. The only difference is that since your affiliate code is hidden within the link…you earn the commission and the money shows up right in your Clickbank That’s where the review blog comes in. If you write product reviews of three Books on Clickbank, post them on your blog and then include your affiliate link at the bottom of the review. A certain percentage of people who visit your blog and read the reviews will click on your affiliate link. Out of those people, a certain percentage of people will actually purchase the Book once they visit the link. A common conversion rate is 2%. So, out of every 50 visitors to your affiliate link, you should have 1 purchase. That would net you $32.50. It is very easy to get 50 visitors to your blog and even much more.

Step 2 would be to sign up with Blogger.com. <—At this link, you can sign up for Blogger.com for FREE –and start creating as many blogs as you want, right away. You can be up and running in just minutes. If you don’t have a Google Mail account already (Gmail, Adwords, Adsense) you will have to create one, but that is 100% free. Then, you will proceed to the “Create a Blog” section, by clicking on the “Create a Blog” link.

Here you will create a name for your blog as well as a domain name. The domain name will be the web address that people type into their browser to get to your blog site. Depending on the product(s) that you are promoting.

Step 3 would be to go back to the Clickbank.com Marketplace and choose a product or products to promote. Here you can pick a category and even a sub-category. For instance, a popular niche is “Health and Fitness” and the most popular sub-category of the Health and Fitness market is “Diet.”

Step 4 would be to write a product review about the product you choose to market. Remember, you are marketing a product here…the product is already made.

It is your job to ?nd the people who want/need the information you are offering –and then give it to them. They will buy it if/when the sales pitch sells itself.

But, you do NOT have to give or write the sales pitch…the sales page for the product you’re promoting will have one already — Most likely written by a professional sales copywriter. All you need to do is guide people there, If you can not write a product review to save your own life, you can easily outsource it to someone on the warrior forum. A freelance writer would not charge too much for a product review for a Clickbank product. You can expect to pay anywhere from $3 – $20 for a custom written product review, depending on the writer and the word count of the review.

Step 5 would be to add your affiliate link to the bottom of the product review. It can be a short review, something like 250-500 words or more if you wish. At the end, you can give a strong “Call to action” so that the reader will be compelled to click on your affiliate link. Something like, “To check out (ProductNameHere), visit their website at (Your Affiliate Link) and (Something positive that the product will do for them –such as lose 9pounds in 11 days!).”

So, your call to action at the end of the product review would look like this (if we were promoting a weight loss product) example:

“To check out Fat Burning Furnace, visit their website at: http://561b3qwdsq1bz3-n74k41ghg-9.hop.clickbank.net  learn how you can shed weight and remain in shape healthily!”

Step 6 would be to drive traffic to your review blog. You don’t just want any traffic going to your site, you want ‘targeted’ traffic. Targeted traffic is visitors who are actually interested in the product that you are reviewing. They are in the market for what you are offering basically. That is the beauty of niche marketing…you ?nd the people who need what you are offering and you simply give it to them. It’s easy money, and you are helping people at the same time.

The way to drive targeted traffic to your review blog is to write articles for it and submit them to Ezinearticles.com and GoArticles.com. These article directories are the top, most popular ones and rank very well on the search engines –especially Ezinearticles.com. If you write articles in the niches that you are promoting, and you give away some good information and of course include a link to your review blog in your resource box at the end of each article, you will have targeted traffic to your blog, which will convert into sales, which means you will earn affiliate commissions!

Step 7 includes additional methods of driving quality, targeted traffic to your blog. This includes (but is not limited to) back link building, social networking, pinging your blog, paying for traffic via Pay-Per-Click advertising, traffic exchanges (not so great), offline advertising such as business cards, classi?ed ads, yellow pages, etc. The more targeted leads you drive to your  website…the more sales you will make. It’s simple, but it does take work.

There you have it. This simple, yet effective method of creating a review blog to market affiliate products costs nothing to do and can earn an potentially unlimited income. Depending on how much traffic you drive to your blog and the conversion rates, you can build a $20,000 per month business or more using this exact model.

Good luck and I wish you the best of success with your blogging.

Now go and make some money!