|pros • per • ly|

I woke up this morning at 5:25am to go play basketball. I played for an hour and a half and then came home to get ready for the “work” day. As I was driving to work I was so tired that I literally fell asleep waiting for a stop light.

I thought to myself, “what can I do to give myself more energy?” I have to ask that question because I don’t consume anything with caffeine in it. Then I remembered reading somewhere that an apple had the same effect on your body as a cup of coffee in the morning.

I decided to put the apple to the test. Our office building is next to a gas station and so I went over and bought me an apple (which cost me $1.38, don’t buy apples at gas stations) and ate it on my way back to the office.

Before I was finished eating the apple I already felt 100% rejuvenated. I had morning energy like I had never known before. This truly is something revolutionary for me because I have a healthy way to get energized in the morning.

Just thought I would share it with you all.

Don’t Buy Into The Hype – You Can Still Make Good Money

I don’t watch the news. Partly because I don’t have time but mostly because I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I’m so sick of hearing the doom and gloom of our economy. What I have realized that it is the hip thing to say “Well the economy is down so…” or “we couldn’t do this or that because of the down economy.”

Honestly the more I hear it the more I think people say it because it is the thing to say. Here is a newsflash…the economy is not down in internet marketing. Jesse and I have created a business model that has proven to work over and over again even in this “down” economy.

I’m not denying that things are bad for many people in many industries, the point I am making is that you don’t have to submit to the idea that it is impossible to make money in this economy. I can tell you with 100% confidence that this year is going to be my best year financially ever…in fact it already is guaranteed to be so.

So how in this “fledgling” economy can I have my best year ever? Like I have mentioned  before in previous posts, I have a great system in place that allows me to acquire websites, fix them up, take home the revenue increase and eventually sell the site.

How To Make Money Flipping Websites

When people ask me what I do I always say “I flip websites”. Then when they realize they didn’t mishear me, they give me an “I don’t get it” look and I explain that it is like flipping real estate only with websites.

I have seen alot of programs out there that supposedly teach you how to flip websites but the tactics they teach are short-term minded and the profit is minimal (in the hundreds of dollars) per transaction. My system takes a more long term approach and has allowed me to do things like buy a website for $500, spend time increasing it’s value and about a year later flip it for $150,000. That’s the kind of increase that I have experienced over and over again.

Website Flipping Tools That Work

Now I will say that I am at an advantage because I have created some awesome website flipping tools that allow me to quickly evaluate websites, find hidden gems on the verge of being big money makers, and tools to help me optimize and increase rankings of websites I buy.

Whenever I show friends these tools the first thing they say is “can you send me the link to that?” I have never made these tools available to anyone else because I think they are too awesome for everyone to have. They give me too much of an advantage.

You Can Get Access To The Prosperly Tools

I may make these tools available to the public in the near future. As of right now, there is only one way that you can get access to the tools.

If this is something you would be interested in, enter your email below and I will let you know when we are ready to make them available to you.

Also, after you sign up I will immediately send you the report I wrote entitled “Striking Internet Oil” where I tell you exactly how I took a website I paid $150 for and in less than 2 years sold it for $250,000.

One other thing – we hate spam as much if not more than you do. Your email is only going to be used to let you know when we have the tools ready.

Well we got back on Monday from the System Seminar internet marketing conference put on by Ken McCarthy. Jesse and I went with a good friend and neighbor Mark Butler who is also making his name in the internet marketing world. The three of us are like minded so we had some long in depth internet marketing conversations.

I will give you my feelings towards the conference at the end of this post. But first, here are my 10 take-aways from the conference which by the way cost me $1000 just to get in.

1. It is very important to get to know your visitors. Find out what they want and what their needs are. If you know their objections, it is very easy to overcome them. Use feedback tools like Kampyle.com to get the voice of your visitors.
2. The most important thing you can do is develop a relationship with your visitors. You do this by providing a lot of value to them. If you do this properly you will gain a following. Once you have a following you can really make money online.
3. A good internet marketing strategy is to develop a sequence of products that you push to your visitors. A good example of someone who does this is Dave Ramsey. He has an entry level book you can buy. Then he has a home study course which is more expensive. After that he has financial coaching which is even more expensive etc. He just moves his customers through the sequence. Sure there is a drop off as the prices get higher but obviously you don’t need as many customers when the ticket price is high.
4. Use Google’s Website Optimizer to test. I know I have said this time and time again but let me reiterate this. You need to always be testing to increase conversions. A Google representative in charge of Optimizer came to the conference and was one of the speakers. He really renewed my desire to test, test, test. Surprisingly, when he asked the attendees how many people used Website Optimizer, there was only a handful of the 200+ people that did.
5. Pricing is relative. Always test your pricing. You can increase your revenue dramatically simply by increasing your price.
6. It’s all about the list. When I said before that you need to create a following the best way to do that is to build your email list. Do whatever you can to get more and more people to sign up for your email list. Provide them with real, valuable content that will keep them loyal to you. Make your email sign up prominent on your website. Make it as easy as possible.
7. Here are 4 books you should buy and read: My Life In Advertising, Tested Advertising Methods, Web Design for ROI, Landing Page Optimization
8. Be proud of your product. Don’t be afraid to tell people what you offer. If you provide value they will want to know what you offer.
9. Don’t discount your product. Make it a bargain by adding value to it with bonuses.
10. 90% of what we heard at this conference we already knew. There wasn’t a lot of specific information being given out so I really felt bad for the beginners. I would advise against attending this seminar in the future, especially if you are beginning.

The biggest benefit for us was the time in the hotel room in the evenings when Jesse, Mark and I would bounce ideas off of each other, give advice and strategize with each other on our own businesses. That time was way more valuable than the actual conference. I highly recommend that you find some like minded individuals that live near you and start meeting for lunch once a week. It really will help your business.

PS – We ate at Gibsons Stakehouse in Chicago (rated #1) and it was probably the best steak I have ever eaten.

Jesse and I are anxiously awaiting the internet marketing conference we are going to this weekend in Chicago. Our wives are not happy about us traveling again but they also support us in this endeavor. This conference is going to have some of the best internet marketing experts around teaching so hopefully we will come back with some great take-aways that we can share with you.

We admit that there are areas of internet marketing that we don’t have a ton of experience (ie social networks etc) but we hope to learn more and make our internet businesses even more successful.

A couple of things I want to learn about are using PPC on affiliate websites more effectively and maximizing the tools in Google Analytics to increase conversions. I also want to learn about follow up sequences a little better and if there are any sure-fire models to follow.

I will keep you posted on how it goes in the Windy City.

Yesterday Adam and I decided to enjoy the nice weather (65 degrees!) and golf (well, first we went to put downpayments on some scooters).  On the way to the course, this being the first time playing for the season (second time for me since I played down in Phoenix while at Infusioncon), we made some score predictions for the front nine:

Adam predicted 55.

I predicted a 43.

I was jokingly optimistic, seeing as how a 42 is the best score I’ve ever shot.

At any rate, here are the results:

If you’re wondering what the other numbers are, bottom left is the tee shot, Y means the fairway was hit, N means it wasn’t.  The bottom right corner is where we record the number of putts.  You’ll also see if there were any OB penalty strokes, or if we had to deal with any bunkers.  (This is content for another post entirely — tracking your progress to stay motivated and promote smarter decision making).

Speaking of bunkers, Adam had to deal with three of the four on the ninth hole.  He had his best tee shot of the day, smashing it probably 290 yards, but the ball ends up in a fairway bunker.  He hits it out of that bunker and back into the next fairway bunker down.  Then he hits it out of that bunker and ends up in the next bunker further down.  Finally he escaped the sand completely only to land in some dirt next to a bulldozer (they’re renovating).  Once on the green, he one-putted for a triple.

Anyway, did you notice the final scores?

Adam: 55

Jesse: 43

Let’s set aside the fact that I beat Adam by 12 strokes in nine holes, and just think about the fact that the score we specifically targeted for ourselves was the one we reached.  Adam padded, knowing it was his first time playing in several months.  Don’t you find it terribly interesting that he dealt with all of those troubles on the final hole?  Maybe it was his subsconscious willing the 55 to happen.

No?

Alright, maybe that’s stretching it a bit.  But it did cause me to raise a curious eyebrow.

Adam and I have very specific goals when it comes to our overall portfolio of sites.  I won’t share our specific goals, but the key is in the specifics.  They are extremely specific.

If you want to start making money online, you’ll need to set some specific goals.

Bad Goal: I want to start making money online.

Good Goal: I want to make an extra $300 per month online within the next three months.

(I want to shoot a 43…today.)

You can’t be driven or motivated by the bad goal from above.  How will you reward yourself with the satisfaction of finally reaching an unreachable goal?  You can’t. You won’t.