Jan/100
The One True Way to Success
Someone asked me today what I thought the “one way” to affiliate marketing success was… They said they liked what they saw in what I’ve taught in the past. So, they figured they’d reach out and see if I could give them advice on the “one affiliate marketing training course” I would recommend.
Here’s my honest answer:
Thanks for the compliment. Honestly, I’m not going to recommend “one thing”. The truth of the matter is – for me and others – success has been a matter of trial and error. In order to improve your situation you have to do three things:
1) Relate 2) Repeat 3) Reframe
Relate = finding a program, a business model, a project, a mentor, or a group that you RELATE to – that makes sense to you – that you likeRepeat = repeating habits that will lead to your success based on whichever program you’re in from aboveReframe = as you have little successes, you begin to reframe your mind from someone who says “I am a marketing loser” to “I kick ass at marketing”.
At first glance, your handwashing site looks like crap. But what I’ve learned is that what a site LOOKS LIKE has nothing to do with how much potential it has to make money. Plus, you say you’re making money wiht it – that’s great. The one direction I would go in if I were you would be to expand upon the success you’re already having. Add more side-niches to the handwashing concept … find other ways to build that out and monetize it more. Try a more professional looking version of it.
You say you want to do affiliate marketing? Okay, that’s great. Go do it. You’re smart enough to have put a site together and get a little success going, you’ll be smart enough to come up with a plan to put into place and try a lot of the tactics that are out there.
The “RELATE” side of the three “R”’s above is really a search. Trial and Error. Allow yourself to try stuff that makes sense and follow it to the letter … but then if it doesn’t work, that doesn’t make you a loser – it just means you found something that didn’t work for you. (And I would apply it to the niche you’re already in, too, btw.)
Hope this helps ya out a bit – I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for – but truly there is no “on size fits all” program for success. You have to find your own way.
Jan/101
When I grow up … I wanna be like my mommy
Be Sure to Read Below
After it was graded and the child brought it home, she returned to school the next day with the following note:
Dear Ms. Davis, I want to be very clear on my child’s illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This drawing is of me selling a shovel. Mrs. Harrington
Dec/090
Dec 10 EURUSD – PAT Software, a little confused
Asking Martin Cole for a little advice re: the above trade. He usually doesn’t answer here on my blog – but on his own blog which you can reach at the above link.
Harris
Dec/090
Dec 8 2009 GBPUSD Forex
It’s getting late, so I just wanted to put this up real quick.
67 Pips from my 2nd attempt to trade with PAT Software. (I coulda got over 90 if I didn’t have such an itchy trigger finger – you’ll see what I mean in the video.) If you’re interested in Forex trading, I highly recommend LearningToTrade.com (and if you click on the link to the left, it will even give me credit for referring you).
Let me know what ya think – or if you’ve got any questions 
Harris
Dec/090
Dec 2 EURUSD Forex Chart
I’ve wanted to do this for a long time …
I’m beginning to learn to trade Forex. I’ve found an incredible mentor named Martin Cole and I highly recommend him.
Hope y’all don’t mind – I’m going to put a forex chart up here from his software (it’s called PAT software). If you’re interested, click on Martin’s name or PAT software. Disclosure: Yes, it’s an affiliate link. However, I would never recommend anything I don’t believe in — especially when it comes to something as sensitive and risky as trading or investing.
My guess is you won’t know what the heck I’m talking about in this chart. That’s okay – you can learn a bunch more by going to Martin’s Site. He has a bunch of free info and a great course that I’ve already been through. Highly recommend him (I have done some deep research on this — the robots, the signals, the systems — they’re all bullsh*t. I’ll tell you why later.)
Much more to come later. Let me know if you’re interested by commenting, okay?
Harris
Nov/090
How My Wife Got on Oprah…
(Partially Reprinted from YourInstantSite.com)
First let me get this huge disclaimer out of the way.
Nothing you will read is endorsed by Oprah Winfrey,
the Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo Studios or any entity
remotely related. Not the YourInstantSite service,
not this site, not this story, not me, and not my wife.
How a Total Internet Newbie Turned a Simple Passion Into
An Incredible Oprah Opportunity in Less Than 5 Months…
Here’s how it happened…
A site that we set up “instantly” directly resulted in my wife getting on The Oprah Winfrey Show. True story.
I’m not talking about one of those B.S. sites that people hand out to promote ‘their’ product or anything like that.
I’m not talking about the “business in a box” templates people pass around either.
And I’m not talking about any sort of Private Label Resell Rights (PLR) site that converts for crap because whomever created it spent less time on the sales letter than they did creating the name of the product.
As great as that all sounds – someone handing you a beautiful template and you making lots of money with it – that just doesn’t exist.
And if you really think you’re going to make tons of money with something like that, then you’re absolutely insane.
No no. The idea behind “Your Instant Site” is NOT that we’re giving you some sort of “magic black box” web site that spits money at you. I mean, please, think logically about this for a second…
Now, really… If I could instantly create sites that would make me tons of money over and over again with no additional effort on my part, why in heck would I tell you about it? Seriously. Why would anyone tell you about it? I mean, if you had a magic button that pumped money out every time you clicked it, would YOU give it to anyone? Of course you wouldn’t.
Unfortunately, there is no magic button.
A “magic black box that spits out money” has never existed and never will, yet people have always been selling it and will continue to into the future.
Why?
Because, sadly, that’s the story that sells. People want so badly to believe the magic box exists, when someone tells them that it’s there, they simply must have it. And then they spend the rest of their lives buying the same story over and over again because they’re convinced that the story is true – but somehow that magic box just didn’t work.
But, at the end of the day, the magic box sellers are really just telling us (and selling us) what we want to hear.
So what is “Your Instant Site?”
It’s easy.
The moment after you join, you’re instantly given the foundations to build your business on:
- A search engine loving Instant Site
- Easy-To-Use Software that Attracts Visitors
- Beginner Business & Traffic Training
But before I get into the details of what YourInstantSite.com offers, I want to take a few minutes to share with you the story of how the instant site I’m about to give you, got my wife, Andrea, on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
That’s my wife, Andrea, on The Oprah Winfrey Show!
It’s pretty unbelievable to think about isn’t it?
A site that literally was set up in a matter of seconds, somehow managed to get my wife on the most powerful publication for her market (or almost any market) … In less than 5 months.
Now let me clarify something here.
She wasn’t “trying” to get on the Oprah Show. It’s not like she was deliberately going after it – and to be completely honest – until we got the email from a producer there, the thought never even crossed our minds. That’s part of what makes it all so unbelievable.
But you can’t even imagine what that has done to her self-esteem, and most importantly her BUSINESS.
- She’s being invited to celebrity parties & networking events.
- People are constantly sending her products that they want reviewed.
- And she’s even looking to work out her first big advertising deal with a well established brand.
You have to know something about my wife first though…
Read the Rest of the Story by Clicking YourInstantSite.com
Nov/094
2 Secrets to Get People ReTweeting Your Messages
I’m about to show you how to really SUPERCHARGE your Twitter efforts by getting people to click on things that you send out, and more importantly how to get your followers to actually ReTweet your messages. When they do this, it gets your Twitter ID in front of their followers; their followers will very often come check YOU out & consider following you as well.
(And for all you Search Engine Optimization experts out there, your head should be spinning at how awesome it is to get people sending out LINKS to your Twitter pages. But I’ll leave that conversation to the experts of that field.)
In my last post I talked about building a relationship with your followers and gave you an easy to follow daily process of things that you can to do to help you start connecting to people in the right way. I also mentioned jumping into conversations where you feel you might have relevant or interesting things to contribute.
That’s all well and good, and it works, but there are some things that you can put into place that will literally put your Tweeting and newfound relationships with your followers into hyperdrive.
One of the keys to the success of this approach is not just getting people to talk TO you, you want them to talk about you as well, and that’s where Retweeting comes in. The funnier, more interesting, & more emotional your tweets are; the better chance that they’ll be ReTweeted. But don’t think that just because you’re witty and handy with a good line or two that it will entice people to retweet what you’re writing.
There are some proven tactics that will get people spreading your Tweets all over the Twitterverse and I’m about to share a couple of them with you right now. Not only that, once you engage your followers and start giving back, they’ll click your links AND retweet them as well! (I love it when I see people ReTweeting links of mine that actually have *affiliate URLs* in them – but that’s a topic for my CoupDeTwitter members only – heh heh.)
Okay, so how do I get people to start retweeting me?
Once again, this is not nearly as hard as you might think. One of the most popular and MOST retweeted segments that you can put out there are: Famous Quotes. It’s true. People simply love to retweet good quotations. It might seem silly but there’s actually a ton of value in doing this. It’s a great use of Twitter to instantly get a motivational thought coming through the timeline and it turns out that people just love to ReTweet them back out.
There are a bunch of places you can go to find great quotes.
My wife bought be a book called “The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time” which has 100’s of quotes in them. Every once in a while, I pop open the book & look for a quotation or two that I like. But even easier for you would be to find a website that has quotes that you can cut and paste right in. Instead of me telling you my favorite quotations websites; just go ahead and type “motivational quotes”, “success quotes”, “sports quotations”, or whatever tickles your fancy into your favorite Google .. er, I mean, your favorite search engine and you’ll find more than what you’re looking for.
Once you get into the groove with this, I recommend even using a service like TweetLater to automatically send quotes out from your Twitter account for days and months to come. I love me some TweetLater & this is a great use for that service.
Once you find a quotations site that you like, you’ll find literally hundreds if not thousands of quotes. Some of them are obviously too many characters to fit in a single Tweet, but there are many to choose from that fit right in. Oh, and one rule of thumb especially with things that you’re wanting to get retweeted… even though you have 140 characters to work with, keep your quotation tweets down to around 120 which gives people room to retweet them and not have to modify them at all since they’ll be putting “RT @yournamehere” in front of each Tweet when they re-send it out (which is, of course, the entire point of this little exercise).
A little something else regarding quotations that I love to do is to pick a person that is currently in the news. Recently we had a rash of celebrities passing away – I went out and Googled quotations from those very people & helped to honor them with good positive quotes from them. Great stuff. People seemed to really appreciate (and retweet) those quotes.
That’s enough about quotations, I’ve got one more big tip for you…
Alright, now another thing you’re going to want to tweet of real value is pertinent, up to date and breaking information about your particular interest or niche. How do you keep right on the cutting edge of things related to your business or niche? If you didn’t already know about this, you’re gonna freakin’ love me for telling you about it.
Google has a service called “Alerts“.
When you sign up at http://alerts.google.com, you can have the god of the internet, Google, send you all kinds of information right into your e-mail that keep you completely up to date on just about any topic you can imagine. You should put in pretty narrow keyword terms so you don’t get too much crap to sift through. But even if you do, you can always adjust it later. Just get out there and get started.
You’ll have blog posts, news items, and web pages sent directly to your inbox. Scan through it looking for what you feel is the best articles and then viola — use that content in your tweets! Sending out this sort of information will train your followers that you’re a giver of good information; and, more importantly, it will train them to click on stuff that you send out. Many will even ReTweet these posts, thus telling their followers that YOU are a good source of up-to-the-minute information as well.
Putting your Twitter marketing efforts on hyperdrive, my friend, that’s what CoupDeTwitter is all about.
Try these tips for yourself! You’ll be shocked at how well this really works. And when you do, please let me know through my Twitter account @harrisfellman. I’ve got tons more to share with you when you decide to become a member of the growing “Twinja Army” – people just like you who are “taking over” Twitter with my incredible Coup De Twitter system. I hope to see you in my private forums soon!
Sayanora Future Twinjas,
Harris Fellman
CoupDeTwitter.com
Oct/093
Why Build Relationships on Twitter?
Okay, here’s the real magic of using Social Media, like Twitter, for marketing purposes…
You can build relationships with and connect to REAL PEOPLE. Oh, Big Advertising, the trade winds are a shifting. Consumers are way past the tipping point now where they tend to trust ‘Regular Joes’ now more than Big Giant Corporations.
My guess is, that if you’re reading this article, you’re probably more likely to be a Regular Joe than the CEO of a Fortune 500.? (Dare I coin a new phrase? CE-Joe? Hmm, no – I’ll pass.)
So, the real glory of Twitter is not so much that you can easily build a list of followers as I discussed in my last post. It’s the fact that you can build RELATIONSHIPS with them. And this is where you, the Regular Joes, have an advantage!
What I’m going to do for you in this post is get you started creating those relationships. I’m going to give you a daily process that, if you follow it, will easily turn your Twitter account into a magnet in whatever industry or niche you may be in.
In some of my previous posts, I already got you started on the path to Twitter greatness. So, let’s recap my 4 main rules of engagement shall we?
- Get Followers
- Build Relationships with them
- Get them Clicking & Retweeting and…
- Make Money.
In my last blog post I talked about how to get tons of followers and gave you some (hopefully) compelling reasons why you should bother. If you took action as I suggested, you will have literally thousands of new followers very soon.
So, Now what?
This brings us to the next phase of this Twitter takeover. It’s time to start to really build a relationship with your followers. But first let’s talk about why it’s so important to do so.
So here’s the question:
Who do YOU trust?
Sure, you might say your Mom or Dad, but really for most things… you trust your closest friends. What we’re talking about here is who you trust for recommendations. But to put a finer point on that and put it within the framework of a business discussion:
Who do people buy from? People (and companies) they trust!
Therefore, as you’re building your relationships on Twitter or any other social networking site, that’s actually what you’re doing… building TRUST. And it’s imperative that you do.
“How?”, you may ask. It’s not that hard really.
You’re going to want to first start by engaging your followers. This can be as easy as a simple and personal welcome message when they follow you. Some people I know actually do this manually (by hand) for each and every follower that they obtain. I can see the validity of this method – but it’s awful time-consuming. Especially considering that there are a number of services out there that can help you do this.
My personal favorite is Tweetlater.com. It’s free and easy to use. Not only does it send out automatic welcome messages for you, it also allows you to schedule tweets to go out in? the future among many other very powerful features. Go check it out Tweetlater, it’s an incredible free tool.
You’ll want to be sure to create a welcome message that adds value or engages your new follower. Otherwise, you’re just creating spam straight to their direct message inbox. Stay away from even attempting to tell your new follower about any product or service that you might have. It’s a sure way to turn them off and have them unfollow you immediately.
What you want to do is get them replying back to you right away. For instance, ask a question that’s easy for them to answer – their favorite gadget, football team, or whatever’s appropriate to your interests.
There is some debate about automatic welcome messages and I’ve had several discussions (some heated) with people on Twitter about it. The bottom line is this: You must give value and further your cause in some way. It’s a delicate balance. You can’t just say “Hey look what I got, don’t you wanna buy one”. And be warned, “Hey thanks for the follow, looking forward to tweeting with you” ends up being just as useless to you in the long run as well.
Finally, what I really wanted to do was give you a quick “daily process” that you can follow to really ensure interaction on Twitter. Feel free to add in more than this if you want to, but if you do this each and every day, you can be certain you’ll have a growing base of people you’re starting to build a relationship with.
Daily Process For Your Twitter Account
- Read your @mentions and reply to all of them.
- Post what you’re actually doing or thinking about right now.
- Post a favorite quotation, recent news link, or just basic info (this can be from online or offline resources) HINT: Go to http://alerts.google.com and set up some alerts for your interests to be automatically sent to your inbox.
- Scan your own timeline & look for conversations to jump into.
- Go to http://search.twitter.com, search for topics of interest to you, and get into a few conversations there as well. While you’re there, go ahead and search for your own name and/or company name to see if anyone is talking about you
- Check your direct messages (DMs) and reply to them as well.
- Repeat this at at least 3 times a day.
In a future blog post, I’ll share with you? some awesome secrets about how to get your Twitter friends to click on stuff you send out, and even more importantly how to get them ReTweeting like crazy as well.
If you like what you’re reading here, you’re going to love my Coup de Twitter system. It covers all 4 of the main steps to Twitter Domination in easy-to-follow and easy to swallow step-by-step video format. But first, check out the FREE video on the home page – no sign-up required.
Now get out there and kick some Twass & be sure to follow my Sensei booty @harrisfellman on Twitter.
Thanks again for reading,
Harris Fellman
Marketing Sensei
CoupDeTwitter
Aug/092
What Are You Missing?
Probably like most of your mother-in-laws, mine forwards me a few emails a week. She’s a sweet lady with a good heart. So, the emails are usually just mediocre humor or some gushy lovey series of pictures. I usually zip past them without giving them much thought & I even MISS many of them.
Ah, the irony – thank goodness I didn’t miss this one. I’m not sure who wrote it originally – it’s a viral email is all I can tell ya. It’s a very quick, interesting, and profound story. Take a minute to read it – would love to hear your comments.
? 
Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
After 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.
?
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
10 minutes:
A 3-year-old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly as the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.
45 minutes:
The musician played.? Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.? He collected $32.
?
1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
?
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:
?
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments…
How many other things are WE missing?