The Article I Can’t Describe

By Marlon Sanders

It begins in a conventional way. But then, I go into territory you’ve probably never read, thought or heard of before.

It’s a long article. But I think it’ll be worth your time.

I’ve been in the business of selling online since before the WWW began (back in AOL and Compuserve days).

I’ve made a full-time living at this since before most gurus were even IN Internet marketing.

I see LOTS of people claiming to have been “in Internet marketing” for a long time. But were they actually making a full-time living?

I’ve been not just “in” Internet marketing but making a very good full-time living for longer than virtually anyone in this market.

So I’ve learned a few things about how you promote products and services. I’m talking about once you have folks on your list, how do you get ‘em to buy?

Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years.

=======================================
1. Know your email process in and out.
=======================================

Whether you use Automateyourwebsite.com, Aweber or Getresponse, know it in and out.

Look at it like it’s your cash cow and you GOTTA keep it living.You should know:

a. How to create a web form to get subscribers

This includes doing inline forms as well as pop-ups.

b. How to read your stats

c. How to pass variables

d. How to insert names in subject lines and emails

e. How to create and test thank you pages

f. How to create and test confirmation emails

g. How to monetize your confirmation page

h. How to create opt-in pages that work

i. How to track your email delivery

j. How to monitor your subscribes and unsubscribes

==========================================
2. Create promos in different media
==========================================

Over the years I’ve used podcasts, blogs, videos, screen capture video, webinars, teleseminars and live streaming video.

You need be confident in creating these things. You should know how to put up a Wordpress blog or do a screen capture video. Or stick a podcast on your blog.

Podcasts are a great way to get info out to your audience in a little different format than the same old, same old. And a podcast lets you inject personality, which hopefully you have some of.

Podcasts are a great way to “set your frame” vs. your competition. They’re a great way to sell your differentiation and tell your creation story.

Pre-recorded video lets people see YOU. A little bit goes a long ways. But it can be a terrific way to communicate by adding a visual element.

Blogs, screen video, teleseminars, streaming video — these are ALL our tools as communicators.

Here’s my formula. This is the RED FACTOR formula made simple:

Step one: Analyze your competition

Step two: Create a winning value proposition

Value = {Benefits - Costs} x Convenience

Step three: Communicate that winning value proposition through every means and channel you can

That is Red Factor right there. Basically, you get an advantage and then you communicate the living daylights out of it. And you do that through all the media — podcasts, video, screen video, blogs, live video. The whole nine yards.

Now, if you’re part time, if you’re just getting started, you take this one step at a time. You don’t gotta do it all today!

But this is the vision, the direction.

What’s funny is, the hardest part for me to explain to people about the Red Factor concept is the idea of “getting an advantage.”

People are like, “Marlon, I wanna make BANK! What’s this crap about getting an advantage? I don’t wanna COMPETE! I just wanna be in niche where no one else is and the money is big.”

People who tell you you aren’t competing are flat out lying to you. Period.

Why? Because no one has unlimited dollars to spend. So you are competing with them spending those dollars with you vs. Starbucks, bookstores, or whatever.

Even if there ARE no competitors in your niche, you STILL compete for people to spend money with you vs. something else. Competing sounds hard! But really, it’s LIFE, baby!

The day you were born, you began competing for the attention of your parents vs. the TV or other stuff. How? By crying!

It was your FIRST marketing ploy!

================================
3. Embrace Your BORN IDENTITY
================================

This is the part I hope you read carefully. It is the part I doubt you’ve heard or read before.

You were a promoter and a marketer the freakin’ day you were born! You implemented your first promotional tool (crying) the day you were born.

You broke through the noise in the market to get attention the day you were born!

You ARE a marketer by design. Embrace your destiny!

You sold your parents on getting you a toy for Christmas. Or sold your teachers that you lost the homework.

It’s in your BLOOD! Some of you just don’t realize it’s in your blood. If you really want something from someone, you DO know how to communicate and get it.

Now, you just gotta translate THAT skill or ability into communicating benefits to a marketplace.

Into differentiating yourself or what you sell from everyone else. Give people reasons to buy from YOU.

If you can’t think of ANY reason in the world for someone to spend their money with you instead of someone else, then you need Red Factor.

You need to learn to analyze value propositions. You need to learn to CREATE.

We are creators.

Making a living online is about CREATING value. Competing is about creating more VALUE than the next person. Or doing a better job at communicating the value you create.

But this is an act of creation.

It’s an ART as much or more than a science.

Creation is the ultimate joy in life. If you have kids, you are a creator.

If you have grass growing in your yard, you are a creator. You created life.

If you have plants, if you have a business, if you can create music, if you can sing or create melodic sounds, if you can influence people with ideas….

BABY — You ARE a creator!

It’s in your blood. You can’t escape IT. You just need to let it escape out of you! Out of your brain into the outside world.

The act of creation is the most sacred act on earth. It’s spiritual. It’s beautiful. And that’s what we are here for.

We are here on this earth to create.

You may have lost touch with your creation ability. Your ability to create and then communicate.

If you have, then find your destiny. Realize creating is part of you. You’ve been creating effects, creating results ALL your life.

That’s all an entrepreneur is.

An entrepreneur is a creating living and acting by laws of creation. Laws of bringing things into being. Into existence.

There are laws of creating value and laws of communicating that value.

If you don’t have the bank account you want, you either aren’t creating value you are aren’t communicating it to enough people with enough force, effect and creativity.

It’s TIME for you.

It’s time for you to find your essence. Your being. It’s time for you to begin CREATING.

Some people in this business think the only way to make a dime is to copy someone else. Fair enough if you add value.

But it still ONLY works if you create. If you add value.

This business IS about creating value and promoting or communicating that value to people in the “market” for that value. That is your target market. The people who are “in the market” for the value
you’ve created and offered.

You probably have a job.

You’ve been used all your life to doing what people told you to do. So in terms of your occupation, you may not be used to creating. But in all the rest of your life, you have been creating since the
day you were born.

You’ve been marketing, promoting, since the day you were born.

Did you know you can create value for your living? That people will pay you to create value for them?

Here’s an example. A guy who was a teacher. And now makes a living on the Net (www.lee-mcintyre.com/blog)

That’s NOT an affiliate link. But I bought his products just as I buy dozens if not hundreds of others every year. And I admire his ethics and the way he believes in delivering value to his list. Lee, in my opinion, is a beautiful example of having a small list but doing quite well by creating and delivering value.

His approach is simple.

He delivers value to his list. And then also sells stuff. People reward him with purchases. You know, I hate to say this but I think he expressed what he does and how he does it better than I could have.

With all the hype and the obsession with how much you can make in a day or an hour. With all the emphasis on money not soul, it’s nice to see someone doing well who manages to combine money
and soul.

It’s not about the biggest numbers. It’s about finding who you are. Your destiny. About being able to create value for others who recognize and appreciate that value.

If you can do that, I think you have a good life. An honest life. A life worth living. And I think life will reward you with a good living. Maybe not a millionaire’s life. But a good life.

=====================================================
4. Be able to do the basics yourself — even if you outsource
=====================================================

Some people would say outsource everything.

And I believe I created the FIRST product that showed in detail how to outsource on Elance. It was called Digital Product Creation System. And I was doing this stuff WAY back before anyone even knew what outsourcing meant.

And having a lot of experience, I will tell you that I still believe you should be able to do the basics yourself.

Do you outsource? Yes. But if you can’t do the basics yourself, you’ll be subject to having smoke blown up the nether regions of your body by people who want to create a mystique around what they
do.

Let me give you an example:

A long time ago when Lisa worked for me and we were figuring out graphic design, there was this particular way of doing a curved sidebar that we really wanted to do.

We just could NOT figure out how to do it.

So we hired 3 people off of elance to do it for us.

None of the 3 did it right. One did it fairly well. But we never used the design.

Today, I know HOW to do that effect in Photoshop. It takes 5 seconds. You use the warp tool. Grab. Pull. 5 seconds.

But I spent $250 or more on the freelancers and didn’t get something that was decent.

People will try to pull the wool over your eyes. They’ll try to mystify processes, so they can be lazy, work slowly and charge you a fortune for something simple.

Like one time someone told me they had to “put in the infrastructure.” I was like, “WHAT infrastructure? Dude, there ain’t no infrastructure.”

I’m all for outsourcing.

But I still believe you need to know the basics.

For example, podcasting. A podcast is an mp3 file delivered via RSS. Once you have Podpress installed on your blog, it’s automatic. Piece of cake.

The word “pod” comes from the idea that people can listen to the audio on their IPOD. The word “cast” gives the idea of broadcasting your audio TO people’s IPOD’s.

That is where RSS comes into play.

Or how about header graphics.

Listen hither: You CAN do basic graphics far easier than you think. The initial fear of all the doodads on Photoshop or Photoshop Elements is 100X worse than the reality.

It’s FUN once you learn a very few simple basics that trip everyone up.

I thought Design Dashboard was an awesome product. But I’m still disappointed that some people “didn’t get it” or still weren’t able to execute.

Mostly because we have a 20-minute overview video as a bonus that somehow people missed. So I’m gonna revisit this issue.

If you KNEW how simple and easy it was to do basic graphics, you’d LAUGH in the face of people who tell you “Oh, you need to outsource ALL your graphics.”

Some? Alright. But all? Please. I don’t buy that.

You open Photoshop. You set your canvass size to 650 pixels wide x 150 pixels deep. You create a little gradient. Add some text. Add a stroke. Drop in a photo.

Done!

It can be THAT simple.

Now, will you still hire out your graphics to Design Guru Ryan, Graphics Genie, GraphicsMaverics or any of the other highly talented designers?

Sure. Why not? Their prices are reasonable.

It CAN be a trap to do everything yourself beyond a certain point. Most people in the beginning have to learn to do things themselves because they have more time than money.

But listen up. If you can’t:

* Put up a podcast
* Install a blog
* Add a plugin
* Create a basic web graphic
* Insert a table in your html editor
* Upload a video to Youtube
* Shoot a Camtasia video (or CamStudio)
* Shoot some live video with decent lighting
* Add an autoresponder
* Add autoresponder opt-in form code to a web page

If you can’t do ANY of that stuff, then you’re going to need a full-time employee/webmaster — NOT a freelancer.

And even then, you’re gonna be frustrated.

I’ve been selling ebooks online by the thousands before most modern day gurus even knew what an ebook was.

You are a creator.

You are a communicator.

Today is YOUR day because today you can create and communicate.

Let me know if this resonates with you. Let me know if you think I’m full of it. Let me know if you see yourself as a creator. Let me know what your hang-ups are in creating and communicating value.

Let me know how I can help you become more of who and what you are. Or let me know if this is all too theoretical for you and all you wanna know is how to find some plr and sell it.

Or whatever. http://www.marlonsnews.com

I’m here to serve you. The best I can. With the skills and knowledge I have. I can’t and won’t promise to make you a millionaire.

But I can promise to show you how to create value and communicate it to people in the market for that value. And that’s a noble, honest living serving your fellow man.

Marketing is something we can be proud of.

We are all born creators. And born marketers.

This is our Born Identity.

———————————————-
Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Info Product Dashboard.” If you want to create your own info products, go to:http://www.productdashboard.com