I just received a call activating my National Guard unit for the snow storm.
Unfortunately I’m going to have to scrap this challenge. But just temporarily.
I’ll probably be out about a week or so, but when I get back I’m going to kick off $15k Flipping v1.2.
Until then. Later.
Funny story.
All the files for my $15k Flipping thought it’d be cool to disappear from my local machine.
Yep, not cool. My entire second website is no where to be found…
C’est la vie. Onto work.
I’m chalking today up as a wash.
There was a friend of mine in town who wanted to stay over, so I my normal work time turned into hangout time.
The best use of my time? Not so much.
But what is really important in life?
And, I got the fast article marketing gig done. Looks pretty solid in terms of quick traffic.
For Saturday and Sunday I had to take some time off. I didn’t want to be a douche and call people on the weekend, and needed some time to decompress. I’m reading this book Rediscovering Catholicism (great read) and got reminded of the need to consciously slow down and do a self eval regularly.
Plus, like the title of this post says, I was getting the “can’t” mentality. Corny line number two. ”Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” Saturday I just ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, so I decided it was time to decompress.
Point for the coach.
But, now I’m locked, cocked and ready to rock.
Things I’m Going to Get Done Monday:
With focused work, I can tackle all of these.
Today was pretty good. It started off on the right note with my presentation in History. Mainly because (or in spite) of my sweet drawing skills. Presentations are always fun though.
Anyways, after that I got an email saying that my e-junkie affiliate program wasn’t working. So I downloaded JAM by JROX, installed it and setup an affiliate program in the span of 15 minutes. That was a good thing.
Since, I think site #1 is pretty much sold by the mailing, now I’m working on cranking out a few sites that have revenue and a list so they’re easier to flip lightening fast. My traffic driving method is CPV (I’ll write a process map for it and put it in here tomorrow). To make the model work I need views for about $.015 per view. That’ll be close to breaking even, which will then let me sell the site for cost (work, domain, etc).
That said, here’s what I got done today:
What I Got Done Today:
And that’s about it.
What I Want to Do Tomorrow:
Today was… bleh.
I felt like I didn’t do much, but I think I made one REALLY big step forward.
Jim Straw (from Business Lyceum) is going to mail for me, which should definitely get this first site sold.
The problem is, I don’t think I can count on doing that for all the sites, so I’m going to look at driving a little bit of traffic to them, and then flipping for revenue.
Right now I’m thinking CPV traffic would be the fastest, and once I sell this site, it’ll be within my budget…
Tomorrow I’m gonna just have to make up my task list and go from there – don’t quite know what is going to happen with this mailing!
Ever read Seth Godin’s book, The Dip? Great book, definitely would recommend it.
Today not ditching this challenge and just buying a mankini are all thanks to that book, and a video Frank Kern, John Reese and Tony Robbins did (their interview).
It was one of those times where I kept getting those sinking feelings that… this just wasn’t going to work.
But, I made a decision a week ago, and again today, that even if I go this whole time and don’t sell jack, I’m going to have tried a lot of random tactics.
Or, to put it another way, I’ll be able to tell you exactly what doesn’t work.
The other thing is, between this budget, rules and challenge itself, I’ve really been expanding on my limits. There’ve been soooo many times where I think to myself “this would be so easy in Photoshop” or “I could just mail that little list I’ve got” or whatever. But, I’m not going to cheat myself.
Plus, every time (seriously, every time) I decide to push through and figure out another way, I 1) solve the problem a better way than I would’ve otherwise, and 2) become a little more resourceful.
Yep, I don’t think I’m ever going to do another project in non-challenge format. Makes the dip a lot easier.
Anyways, you don’t care about any of that. On to what I did and didn’t do today:
What I Wanted to Do Today:
What I Did Today
I called a bunch of different marketers, left some terrible (in terms of quality not content) messages, talked to some cool people (met Mukul Verma – nice guy), and came across a not necessarily novel, but useful idea.
When I was trying to figure out the best way to “differentiate” myself from all the emails marketers get everyday, but still stay short, I decided to try vMail or video mail. Here’s what I did:
The subject is: Regarding %SITE_NAME% Subscribers
Out of the five I mailed, I got one response back in like 20 minutes – and that was the only dude who is probably awake (it’s like 1AM EST, so people in Australia are all up). The rest are on EST or close to it.
Hopefully they’ll have a pretty decent response rate. I guess I’ll know by tomorrow.
Alright, on to what I’m doing tomorrow:
What I Want to Get Done Tomorrow:
Wish me luck!
Yep, that’s a definite Dune quote.
Fear is the mind killer. I will face my fear. It will pass over me and through me and only I will remain.
Today I had a tough time, and built imaginary important tasks up to skip doing the really important ones.
What I Got Done Today
What I Wanted to Get Done
Those two at the top in bold were the only really important ones, but I puttered around because I kept telling myself I “just wasn’t in a writing mood.”
This isn’t going to work at all if I don’t get copious amounts of traffic to the marketplace, and I need to sell this site if I want to have any budget for tackling a small site setup at Flippa or anything for that matter.
Man, I’m glad I did this challenge! It’s a great reason to stick with a plan – because it’s really just fear that’s sabotaging me – not the fact that I know one way or another it’ll definitely work or won’t.
Part of the thing I had going on earlier in the day was it was a beautiful day so I went to the river instead of doing work, so set myself up for not doing any phone calls. Hanging out with my little brothers, and running around in shorts jumping on rocks was a blast, but not super productive.
Tomorrow no excuses. I made a list of people’s email addresses and phone numbers (15 to be exact) so I’m going to contact all 15 tomorrow.
Bottom line, if I don’t get these JVs going, I’ll have no real traffic to my site.
What I Want to Do Tomorrow
I need to get as many people on board to promote the marketplace through integration marketing as possible, and then get some to mail so I can build an instant list. I’m thinking the lifetime 50% commission thing will help that.
Anyways, I’m off to bed.
Today I overcame one of my biggest sticking points.
Video.
Most of the time I say I’m going to do it, but never really get around to it…
Today I did the walkthrough video for the site, and for my first video over 2 minutes ever, I’ve got to say, it was pretty fun. The quality isn’t phenomenal, and the editing could be better, but I’m pretty damn sure it’ll get the job done.
Plus, it was fun.
But onward and upward, it’s way past time for me to go to bed, so I need to get this done!
In short, I got everything done, plus a little process mapping.
While I was working on coming up with benefits, I came across a phenomenally useful article by copyblogger: Now Featuring Benefits!
Every internet marketer knows that he has to write benefits, and not features, but all that means is we grasp at straws and throw in fake benefits. Definitely a good read if you’ve got the time.
Tomorrow is going to be a rest day. I’ve stared at a computer screen way too much and need to go out and reboot the old brain.
What I Want to Do Tuesday:
This might be a bit heavy workload, but I think I can push through it.
Today was extremely productive.
I got everything done except for the Micromember stuff. I bought it without checking to see how the conversion engine worked, and it’s way more funky than I want. To send someone to the payment gateway they’ve got to register with your blog first, which puts a HUGE step in front of a conversion.
Sure, I’m not going to be trying to generate conversions, but the whole idea here is to sell phenomenal websites. Can’t pull off phenomenal if I sell a site with a garbage conversion rate.
But, since my budget has no room I’m either going to do the Digital Access Pass one cent trial, or checkout Memberwing free version. Not sure how the conversion process is on them either.
Other than that little snafu, I crushed today. Slept in a bit, got up and got some solid work done.
Gotta say, this living alone gig is pretty phenomenal. I mean I’ve got peace and quiet almost all the time. And soooo much space.
But anyways.
Down to my theoretical vs actual.
What I Wanted to Do Today
What I Did
Yeah, I feel pretty good. The site is 90% done.
Here’s a copy of the JV Introduction Letter if you want it btw.
Had a revelation/reminder today too, which I carried to brainstorming on the toilet.
I’d planned on selling sites that I’ve developed (gotten members in/made money) to competitors in the niche, since they’d be dying for the paying customers. But, I hadn’t really thought about selling a brand new site to competitors.
Well, now I have. And I’m going to try to hit people who don’t have continuity programs, but another digital product, and dudes with continuity programs already (Bob Serling calls it Attack of the Business Clones or something).
Tomorrow morning I’m going to get this membership plugin worked out, and throw all the content in.
That’ll be the last step site #1! Exciting!
What I Want to Do Tomorrow
Sure the last one is a little abstract, but I feel like the marketplace needs to be more… me. After all, selling is just a transference of emotion (Zig Ziglar said something to that effect). I believe very strongly in the potential of the sites I’m making, so now I just have to convey that.
