This will be a short post, week one was a get acquainted session. Alex told us his story, which sounds a little like many of our stories with a huge exception. After he paid $1500 a month to get the business basics down, he proceeded to make 100K over the following four months. I haven’t done anything even remotely close to that, have you?

He discussed the strategies’ he used to get there and how we need to start using these same strategies in our daily business practices. This is a business and we need to develop a mindset that we are here to provide value to our potential customer list. It’s a change in mindset, yes we are doing this to make money, but there are steps to follow in order for the money to come, create a list, create value for others, create a following and than we make money.

Alex went on to say that the fastest way to build a list and subsequently a following is to provide free content; that is content of value. People are not fooled by a pile of worthless or outdated information, it must be relevant and of value in order to build a following. Understanding why someone is willing to give you money for your offering, whatever that might be is essential to having a successful online business.

Alex stressed the importance of taking action and having a plan. He also provided us with some tools to create the plan structure that we need and break down that plan into manageable chunks of work to complete on a daily basis.

He also said there are actually three plans we need to create, a business plan, an entrepreneur plan and a personal plan. I have to admit, it is a little difficult for me right now, I don’t have a clue as to what I should be doing. This is a serious business and organization is the key to our success. In order to develop your plan, Alex suggests you keep a journal of where your time is going now, what am I doing? I am busy all day, and at the end of the day, what did I accomplish that moved my business forward? FOCUS is the key ingredient to progress.

I copied this directly from one of Alex’s slides in order to have you completely understand the detail to which Alex has driven his planning. I hope I can achieve this level of discipline; it has always been a problem for me. Ask my wife.

            To Be Productive You Need To Write Yourself A PLEDGE

                      Eat breakfast before you start work for the day
                      Read your Pledge before you start work
                      Only drink water at your desk/computer
                      Work to a timer on productive tasks
                      Do emails 2 times a day
                      Schedule exercise breaks
                      Do daily DID Sheets
                      Plan Tomorrow TODAY     

He also gave us more tips that he found helpful in organizing his plan and working his plan. If you follow his mantra and did 4 productive tasks, in 60 minute timed sessions every day, you will do more productive tasks in a day than most others do in a month. I believe this to be true, I tried it. So remember, use daily tasks sheets to monitor what is distracting you from your forward progress to success. 

Document your activities for an entire month and review your forward progress, is it where you wanted, expected to be? Make adjustments to your plan to maximize your productive time and eliminate wasted movement.
 
Alex did touch on ‘Mindmaps’, but frankly, I am not ready for that yet, I have to digest planning and tracking my time.

If there was only a single take away from this session, it’s this ‘PLAN YOUR TIME and  TAKE ACTION’, but of course there is a lot more than that one take away.

Don’t chase money, let the money chase you.

PART III of III

Why I did it again, I don’t know, but once again an internet coach/mentor happened to arrive in my inbox. Did you ever hear this? ‘When the student is ready the teacher will appear.’ Well, I have, but don’t ask me where it originated, and I am a believer in the ‘Law of Attraction’, sometimes when the need is great enough your subconscious is answered.

I was able to do a much better job in selecting a coach/mentor this time around, I was more aware of what and what not to look for in a coach. This wasn’t the first time Alex Jeffreys had offered a ‘Coaching Program’; it was however only the second time and possibly the last for a while, it was taking too much time away from his own successful internet business.

The cost is $1000.00, although not cheap, it was not really expensive when you consider what other ‘mentoring’ programs cost, or even a two day seminar.  I consider myself to be fortunate to have ‘found’ this program and to have been able to pay for it. Not only does Alex teach you ‘How’, he actually gives you part of his own successful business. Correct, Alex gives you his list building product to sell and teaches you how to use this website, your website, to build your own profitable list to jumpstart your internet business.

Alex teaches you from the initial domain name selection and purchase through marketing the product online. If this doesn’t sound daunting to you, you are either unaware of the steps and processes involved or you are way ahead of where I am today.

Each week there is a webinar on a new topic, which is scheduled to last two hours, but is never less than three and usually more, after which homework is assigned and should be completed the following week. Alex is available for questions by email during the week and he has an extremely talented technical assistant, Gary Parks. Gary is helpful and knowledgeable when it comes to all technical aspects of the course and is the student forum narrator.

The student forum is an invaluable tool, everyone is moving along at their own pace and other students who are more advanced, are more than happy to assist those of us who fall a little arrears. When no correct answer is coming from the student forum, Gary Parks steps in and answers your question.

If you read the first two parts of this article, you could be wondering why I am in this type of caoching program, isn’t this more along the lines of affiliate marketing than network marketing? Yes, your right, it is, but marketing is marketing and not sales, if you learn the mechanics and processes involved in taking a ‘product’ or ’service’ to the internet and the methods to be successful, you can apply those mechanics and processes to any ‘product’. Everything offered for ’sale’ can be considered and treated as a product.

Stay tuned and follow my progress through ‘Marketing with Alex Jeffreys’.

PART II of III

My first attempt at finding an internet coach/mentor happened to arrive in my inbox around the time I was coming to the conclusion I needed more then just a little help, I needed some hand holding.

I received an email from a fellow named Deagan Smith, from the Washington D.C. area, close to home, sounded right, so I thought, why not. After two coaching sessions on the phone, there still was no visible plan or consistent approach, I quit and asked for a refund and promptly got a full refund as promised. I have nothing bad to say about Deagan Smith. Deagan is a really nice guy, good speaker and apparently successful network marketer, just not my style. I think Deagan would make an excellent sponsor in any network marketing program he chose. But, I am struggling here, and laid back and joking is not what I was looking for, I needed a little intensity in my coach, someone with a fire in his belly.

I was attracted to Deagan for the wrong reason, I have an inherit fear of the telephone and struggled with this fear of rejection for a long time, one of the reasons success in my chosen industry had escaped me for so long, and Deagan based his coaching on the fact that he had never called a single lead. Talk about the Law of Attraction, it was mesmerizing to me, never to have to pick up the phone, YES! No, it was the absolute wrong reason to select a mentor. I wasn’t selecting a mentor, I was validating my own fear, I was justifying my inability to perform a vital task in my chosen industry.

I wrote an extensive article about fear or mental challenges that criple your efforts to be a successful internet marketer, as well as interfere with your accomplishing other goals you may have in your life. It’s entitled ‘The Mind Killer’. Together with two related articles dealing with identifying your personal fears, and overcoming the personal fears that stand between you and your success. To read more on this subject; Click on ‘My TriVita Business’ in this Blogroll.

The moral of this story is obvious; you don’t choose a mentor because he thinks the way you do, you chose a mentor in order to grow your business and overcome your failures by their teaching and example.

The Search Resumes.

PART I of III

My search for the best internet marketing course started with the decision I made sometime in the month of January 2009. At that point in time I realized that I would never reach my financial or business goals if I didn’t find someone to guide me through the maze that is internet marketing. Website construction, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, SEO, keyword optimization, and a myriad of other technology and terms that I never realized existed. The terms alone were enough to put an end to my internet marketing career before it even started.

I came to the realization that I needed help after about twenty thousand dollars and a series of failed attempts at marketing my network marketing opportunities to the reported hungry masses of the internet communities. I suppose you think that a much brighter person would have come to that conclusion long before he spent 20K, obviously you have never plunged headlong into PayPerClick advertising in Google for keywords like; ‘Internet Business Opportunity’,  “Network Marketing Opportunity’, or how about “Make Money From Home’. The money flies out the door at an incredible speed, especially at $3 or $4 a click. In a month you can easily plow through 3-5K even when being conservative.

Now, I don’t want to go all the way back to the beginning, I’ll save that for when I am mentally up to the chore of digging up all of my dead bodies, right now I don’t have the stomach for it, so I’ll start in the Fall of 2007. After a costly and failed attempt at a  network marketing business in the travel industry, I joined a company named ITV Ventures, it had a business plan that I felt was unique and they had about 60 nutritional products, this looked like the best internet marketing business I had seen to date. I dove in head first, part time of course; my fulltime day job supported my internet business obsession. Long story short, about 9 months into the business and 5K invested in an ecommerce website, that I was just ready to launch, ITV Ventures ‘dropped’ the bombshell. All the business associates were terminated, with no compensation of course, and changed their unique business plan to a new plan, consisting of a group of about 25 ‘Master Distributors’ to sell what products remained in ITV Ventures, on ecommerce sites only. When you don’t pay your bills, suppliers will stop shipping. Why didn’t I do that since I had spent so much developing my ecommerce site, ITV Ventures also wanted and additional $25,000.00 to allow you to market their remaining products. Get me once, shame on you, get me twice, shame on me!

Let’s not go any deeper into that saga; it was only another startup company in a series of the ‘Best Internet Marketing’ opportunities on planet internet. Following that debacle I swore off network marketing opportunities, which lasted a month, but this time I really did find the right company, TriVita, and it has lasted and grown; now I had to learn how to maximize my opportunity. I had been presented with a real internet business opportunity, one with established products, customers, a ten year history and a future, not some flash in the pan startup. What do I do now was the question, how do I make ‘My Business’ grow and prosper.

I needed help, now!