Tunnel Vision ~ More On Taking This Blog Down
Yesterday I wrote about why I’m taking this blog down. The fact is I’m going in a different direction from Internet marketing. That said my new focus will require marketing and lots that I learned from Rich Schefren, Alex Jeffreys, Alex Goad, Mark Dulisse and others too numerous to mention, will come into play.
For example Jason Potash today alerted me to his latest blog post about tunnel vision.
Essentially is saying rather than diversify and attempt to be like Wallmart find a niche that works and sell the hell out of it. The example he gives is of a guy who just sells spiral bound maps.
I intend to focus on photography . . . but not just any photography.
More to come!
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Why I’ve decided to remove this blog!
Last year I took part in Alex Jeffreys’ Coaching Program for Internet Marketets. I also signed up for Rich Schefren’s GPS2 system, subscribed to Google Conquest and purchased Mass Control 2.
I bought lots of other stuff too!
And I had some successes in the Internet marketing field, made a lot of new friends and, overall, found the experience enjoyable.
However my passion is in photography, rather than marketing on-line, and so this is where I’ve decided to focus next year.
For this reason this domain is about to change its focus so this blog will shortly be removed.
I would like to thank all who have visited here over the past year and whatever your endeavours I wish you well.
Stephen
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Alex Jeffreys Student Blogs Revisited: Is Your Problem That You’re Unlike Alex?
Yesterday I spent some time visiting the bogs of those who have commented here in the past. With a few exceptions most of these are still alive, although some haven’t been updated recently.
Many of those who comment here are people who took part in Alex Jeffreys’ first Coaching Program, which ended in January.
Of those students a few are highly successful, but many are not.
Before you think this is going to be another one of those blogs exhorting people to take action, or suggesting that failure on-line is somehow your fault be reassured it isn’t.
You see I think I may have discovered the reason why some are succeeding whilst most continue to fail even after Alex’s coaching.
The reason emerged as I looked at the various blog styles, the posts made, and the comments offered.
You see Alex is a highly charismatic character. He likes to live life in the fast lane. He works hard, plays hard, and puts himself forward.
Do you remember how he sent out that video letting us know that he had been nominated for a Shorty Business Award on Twitter? Pure showmanship!
The fact is though that not all of us are showmen, or show women. But that doesn’t mean we’re failures.
Lets look at this in more detail.
Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham in the Maven Matrix Manifesto clearly outline the benefits of showmanship. So do Dr. Joe Vitalie, Jonathan Gunson, Maria Andros and may others.
Quite simply when you’re perceived to be the expert in your field you don’t need to search for joint ventures, products to promote, adwords, pay per click, off-line advertising, or any of the things that are the bread and butter of most Internet promotion. The reason is that people will beat a path to your door. Indeed you will have to turn most J.V. offers away.
But being on show comes at a price. Not everyone wants to live in the limelight, to be under public scrutiny, to have to endure comments made about the veracity of their claims. Indeed not everyone wants to be a star.
If you don’t want to be a star that’s OK and you can still be successful on-line. But you need a different kind of training!
You see you can never become a star even if you model what the successful Internet marketing stars do unless you know deep down, at your core, which is a feeling just under your diaphragm below your stomach, that you’re really a star who has always been waiting to happen.
If you don’t have that conviction, them really you need to follow a different path to success.
Here are some other tests to determine if you’re a star, or what I like to term a ‘back-room executive’.
Would you prefer to drive a Ferrari, or a family saloon? Do you want to change your life, or lead the same life in better surroundings without financial worries? Is your wristwatch about showing you status, or telling the time? Are you looking for life in the fast lane, or a better education for your kids?
If you want the Ferrari, the new lifestyle, the Audmars Piguet wristwatch, the tux in the casino, then most likely you’re a star in the making. You know what you need to do ~ get your teeth fixed and then make videos; create a professional polished web site; develop your own products to giveaway; give interviews; endorse other peoples’ products; write books; give away free reports; cosset other stars; and hire Glenn Dietzel :~)
But if you’re interested in your family, your wristwatch is used to tell the time, you like your life but would enjoy a larger house without financial worries, and you would like your kids to get a good education without having to leave home then probably you’re a back room executive.
These aren’t trivial distinctions. Take the wrong training and you will fail.
Can you imagine a star spending their days supervising the development of a host of niche web sites? Do stars look forward to spending even half an hour doing keyword research to find hot niches that will make them money on auto-pilot if they do it right?
Of course not. They’re researching diamonds, and Porches, purchasing yachts, and writing stories about teachers who thought them failures because they didn’t apply themselves to lessons or care about the environment.
But the back room executive loves the chase, and meat of marketing on-line. Tracking down a bevy of long-tail keywords, setting up a set of valves and funnels to make money on auto-pilot excites them beyond measure. Indeed they even get satisfaction from knowing that they might buy the entire street yet their neighbours think of them as modest people possessed of community values.
If deep down you’re a back room executive you need to know the intricacies, tips, tricks, turns, white hat, grey hat, black hat, secrets of the Internet that enable reclusive people to make thousands on-line.
Personally I don’t believe that grey, or black hat techniques are necesary for on-line success, but as an Internet marketing professional you should know every twist and turn of earning money on-line.
There are a few places where this information is available but this week a new product called ‘The Affiliate Funnel System’ from Saj P hits the marketplace. Click on the video below to view the first module.
To read my full review of the Affiliate Funnel System Click Here :~)
More Alex Jeffreys’ Student Resources and Talent:
Update on my Web Design Course
Visit my new website and if you would like a website built for yourself leave me your comments below and the I will be in touch with the first 5 of Alex Jeffreys students to sort out their free website for them.
Twitter Top Ten Tools - #1 Tweet Deck | Alex Jeffreys Coaching Program
Alex Jeffreys coaching program, An online journal of how I am building a business selling information products under the guidance of my new mentor Alex Jeffreys. I am logging my journey every step of the way so I can pass this knowledge
Rich Schefren great email about marketing maps
These marketing maps from Rich Schefren is what I’ll use to plan the Alex Jeffreys Coaching Program promotions.
Alex Jeffreys | Internet Marketing Temple of Learning for Newbies
Now YOU can learn from the most switched on dude in Internet Marketing TODAY - Alex Jeffreys! Not tomorrow! TODAY! Procrastinate NOW. Go on. You know you want the bloody thing! And it’s FREE anyway. Sheesh!
Alex Jeffreys new Student Blog Theme | Alex Jeffreys Internet
Just a brief post today. As regular visitors will no doubt tell the Blog looks totally different now than my original one when I started it at the start of the Course.
Alex Jeffreys Guru
Alex Jeffreys Internet Marketing. Alex Jeffreys is a successful internet marketer.At the start of 2008 his aim was to earn $250000 however he actually made over $500000.There’s no doubt that this year will see his first $1 million.
Butterfly Marketing 2.0 Home Study Course
Yippee! Yesterday I managed to get hold of Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing Course, version 2.0 for nothing. Well, okay I had to pay $30 shipping charges but so what? Still an unbelievable deal. It was a no-brainer really.
Alex Jeffreys and Maria Andros
What a superb job Alex Jeffreys done last night on the call as he introduced the Video Queen Maria Andros who is so enthauastic and passionate about her job or should I say hobby as she enjoys it so much.
What Mike Filsaime, Alex Jeffreys, Frank Kern and Maria Andros Know
For those brave enough to get behind the camera it’s a great way to connect to targeted audiences. The idea is to be yourself and act natural. No-one explains that better than the video queen herself, Maria Andros
New Maria Andros video explains driving traffic through twitter
Hi,. I just watched Maria Andros new video for her brand new coaching program. I was blown away at how well she teaches. And even more important what she has to say. She really gets it about how to make money with videos and social
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Rich Schefren
Rich Schefren is an entrepreneur with an education in accountancy and strategic planning. He has a proven track record of business development and marketing excellence. This brief biography covers his education and business achievements since the early 1990s. Schefren is a graduate from Case Western Reserve University and seemed set on a career in strategic planning with the prestigious Arthur Anderson firm, from whom he had won college scholarships. It was an opportunity that many would have appreciated but in 1994 he left Arthur Anderson to rescue the ailing family clothing business.
Early Business Success The family store, located in Broadway in lower Manhattan, was ill-located and having difficulty competing with the larger stores located in malls. The young Schefren, perhaps as a result of working for Arthur Anderson, and maybe because of his own intuition, realized that the family firm needed something radically different if it was to survive.
Schefren’s strategy was to make the store itself a fashionable destination. Using his knowledge of techno music, and what techno music club goers wanted, he remodelled the store and sold techno clothing and merchandise at discount prices.
At one time his store was the only place where you would find: Diesel Jeans, Vintage Levis, Mecca, Sabotage, W & L.T, LEnegia, Mookes & Fray, Gene Meyare, and Kikwear under one roof. The plan paid off. The store attracted patrons such as Madonna, Urma Thurman, Prince, Bon Jovi, and Eric Clapton.
Revenue increased from $1.5 million dollars to $6.5 million in three years. Shefren attributes part of this success as the result of being able to recruit the right people, many of whom have gone on to highly paid positions with companies such as Diesel, Levi’s, Prada and Dolce & Gabanna. Success came at a price, however, the days were long and Schefren realised that the ‘rag trade’ wasn’t really what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
After rescuing the store from closure, and seeing it well into the black, Shefren returned to college to finish his degree before trying his hand as a hypnotherapist.
Dynamic Changes Hypnosis Centers His hypnosis centers, jointly founded with his wife Deb followed the same path as the family clothing store. Using marketing strategies devised by the likes of Jay Abraham, and John Carlton. Schefren rapidly built a reputation, not as a hypnotist, but as someone able to market hypnosis.
His chain of hypnosis centers was able to spend $ 3 million a year on advertising, which combined with some savvy marketing methods created a $7 million turnover in four years. Later he sold his marketing skills to other hypnosis vendors. It was around this time that Schefren first entered into the arena of Internet marketing. He found the business exciting and rapidly set up a number of joint ventures with established names in the field.
Internet Marketing Schefren brought something new to the Internet marketing business, which had hitherto been compared to the ‘old wild west.’ Where others had learned by experimentation tricks and fancy ways to apply direct marketing tactics to the on-line world, few knew how to run their businesses and enjoy quality time at home with their families.
This was somewhat ironic since many of these Internet marketers were working out of bedroom, home-offices! Using the skills he had developed as an entrepreneur; as someone trained in therapy; and with the valuable experience from Arthur Anderson, Shefren was able to rapidly help Internet marketers become better organized, more profitable, and have more leisure time. In 2004 Schefren formalized his consulting business by launching
Strategic Profits,whose target market is currently Internet marketers. Working as both an Internet marketer, and a consultant to Internet marketers has enabled Rich Schefren to identify all of the problems those who wish to market on-line face. Importantly he discovered that it may not be the marketing itself that causes Internet businesses to fail, but rather that people start out believing that they must create everything themselves.
In 2006 he formalized this information and presented it to the wider Internet marketing community in a report entitled: ‘The Internet Business Manifesto’, or simply ‘The Manifesto‘.
The Internet Business Manifesto No-one had seen a free-report that was as detailed and well produced as the Internet Business Manifesto, and a number of additional reports have been released since. These include ‘The Missing Chapter’, which is no longer available, ‘The Final Chapter’; ‘The Attention Age Doctrine’, which is no longer available; ‘The Attention Age Doctrine Volume 2’; and ‘Maven Matrix Manifesto’, which he co-authored with veteran marketer and business consultant Jay Abraham.
These deal with a variety of topics. In the Internet Business Manifesto Rich Schefren takes the time to introduce himself thus:
- 1. At the age of 22 I took a failing clothing company from 1.5 million to 6.5 million in three years.
- 2. At the age of 26 I started a hypnosis center that grew in to a 7.5 million dollar business in less than four years
- 3. At the age of 31 I got involved in online marketing and within the first two years I generated over 4 million dollars in partnerships with Jay Abraham, John Carlton, Jeff Paul, Stephen Pierce, Yanik Silver, and Alex Mandossian.
- 4. At the age of 33 I began working on a systemized coaching program whose members read like a whose who of the Internet: 1shoppingcart, Jim Edwards, Mike Filsaime, Brad Fallon, Harlan Kilstein, Tellman Knudson, and many others (whose names I am not allowed to mention), and have averaged an increase of over 1.5 million dollars per member in 16 months.
The sub-title of the Manifesto reads: ‘A Big Business Was Just A Small Business That Did The Right Things, A Wealthy Business Owner Was An Opportunity Seeker Who Became An Entrepreneur.’
He goes on to assert that it’s far easier to sell a product to an opportunity seeker than a true entrepreneur because the entrepreneur knows what he wants and isn’t easily deflected from her, or his, path. Schefren presents a good argument that most of us have no idea what our time is worth; we waste what time we have on non-income producing activities; and are unaware that when we work productively we may well be able to employ others to do essential tasks for less than your own time is worth. This then increases the profitability of our family businesses.
The Missing Chapter ‘The Missing Chapter’, which is no longer available, focused upon two important messages. These are: 1. A web-site doesn’t equal a business, and 2. The kind of business you start is as important as the choice of person you marry. He goes on to explain that whilst you may have many interests, for example you may like taking photographs, this doesn’t mean that becoming a professional photographer is necessarily your best choice for a profession.
Rather than creating a business around interests it is more prudent to create one around your strengths.
Schefren uses the examples of the family clothing business, which he remodeled around his knowledge of the Techno culture, and that of his hypnosis centers where he used business skills to compete, rather than attempting to be the world’s greatest hypnotist. Elsewhere he explains: “If you want to maximize your chances of being successful then you need to use your strengths to create a new sub-niche or niche, where by default you can be the best in the world.” The Missing Chapter is well written, and provides a number of diagrams and tools to help business owners develop sound business practices and processes.
It is, however, no longer available but much of what is there, and far more is available in one of his products called The Business Growth Coaching Program .
The Final Chapter In The Final Chapter Rich Shefren introduced us to his winning formula: Vision + Strength + Passion + Resources + Alliance Partners + Powerful Tactics + Action Plan = Success Without one of these ingredients, he asserts, your business cannot be truly successful. It’s sound advice and the Final Chapter provides a full 61 pages making each of these terms explicit.
The Final Chapter has also been withdrawn, but its content is available in the coaching program. The Attention Age Doctrine Volume 1 The Attention Age Doctrine, also no longer available, was to my mind a confusing document. It concerned itself with the ways in which Internet marketers and small business owners are deflected from their goals by being unable to ‘tune-out’ all the hype and garbage the media feeds us every day. In particular it returned to the theme of the entrepreneur being like a player who keeps their eye on the ball, whilst the opportunist loses track of the ball because they are attempting to play too many games at once.
The Attention Age Doctrine Volume 2 The Attention Age Doctrine Volume 2 is altogether better document than Volume 1. It bears so little resemblance to the original report that it might easily have been written by a different author.
This document is endorsed both by Brian Tracy and Jay Abraham and it goes straight to the point: “Having peoples’ attention not only can make you famous, it can also make you rich.” But today we are overloaded with media, with the result that people are sceptical, and have learned to tune the world out. In response to this media in the form of e-mail, web 2.0, T.V. print advertising, direct mail etc is turning up the volume.
Computers have made publishing cheaper and this in turn has led us into a world festooned with pushed sales messages. In the past, however, newspaper, T.V. and direct mail to some degree placed the onus of getting your attention on the advertiser. Today web 2.0 is moving the balance toward the consumer who can be more selective about how and what to read and view. No longer do we have to listen to programmed radio stations, instead we may select from many thousands of podcasts available on-line.
To quote Rich Schefren directly: “Sales miracles begin when you make the transformation from party crasher to the guest of honour.” The best advertising used to be word-of-mouth, now this translates to peer-to-peer and the medium moved from mouth to mouse! My Space, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Viddler all provide a means for peers to comment and join in conversations. Managing this for the benefit of your peers, and therefore your business is the subject of The Attention Age Doctrine Vol 2.
I wholeheartedly recommend this free report. It lays out a blueprint about how to manage web 2.0, and also can stop you making damaging mistakes. The Attention Age Doctrine Volume 2 introduces the term ‘Maven’, who may be described as a well known and trusted authority in their field. This term is taken up in what is currently the latest in Rich Schefren’s free reports.
The Maven Matrix Manifesto The Maven Matrix Manifesto is authored jointly by Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham. This report challenges the childhood injunction that it’s better to be seen and not heard. It makes it clear that unless you stand out from the crowd you cannot hope to be seen in today’s hi tech Information age. Jay Abraham writes of how he took a postal clerk with ambitions to be his own boss, and never have to worry about money again, to $500 million in sales per year in one and a half years.
He did this by making Jim Cook, of Investment Rarities, the No 1 expert trusted voice in his market. Maven’s don’t engage in search engine optimization, pay per click, or the like because they are highly sought after people who people are willing to ‘Google’ just to discover who they are, and what they have to offer.
Moreover, as a maven, when you put your name on a product it practically jumps of the shelf. Your competitors all want to promote your product as affiliates because they know that your products are easy to sell. The corollary of this is, of course, if you endorse a ‘duff’ product you will lose your maven status. People will invite you to speak at conferences, and pay you to do so. The Maven Matrix is a “step by step process to take you to the top of your market.” If fame and fortune have, thus far, eluded you then you should be advised to pick up this free report without delay.
Shorter Reports From Rich Schefren In addition to these quite lengthy reports it’s not unusual for Schefren to give away smaller documents as .PDFs. These include his ‘Complete Marketing and Launch Model’ and also a set of drawings made by schoolchildren on the topic of marketing. In the recent past Rich Schefren, through his company ‘Strategic Profits’ has launched a number of products including a conference entitled ‘The New Beginnings’, which was hosted at Disneyland, Florida in February 2008. His current portfolio of products includes:
Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren’s Maven Home Study Course 1. Teaches you how to create a business persona that reflects who you truly are, whilst projecting strength, wisdom, and authority. 2. Enables you, through your professional ‘Maven’ character to present yourself to your market taking you from where you are, to where you want to be in bite-size sequential steps. 3. Ensures that your building block strategy is ‘well-formed’ and displays no contradictions in the minds of those people comprising your market. 4. Provides lots of tools and techniques to get your message across, including the right language patterns and words to use. 5. Enables you to watch an listen to questions that people who attended a conference on ‘Mavenhood’ asked, and the answers given by Rich Shefren, Jay Abraham and others. 6. Using live teleconferencing to train you in Mavenhood.. 7. Makes you part of an online group and class where people present their own plans and have them critiqued and improved. 8. You will conclude the program with a real action plan tailored specifically to your market and needs; and 9. receive continued mentoring for six months after the conclusion of the course.
The Business Acceleration Program This program is, somewhat, different from The Maven Home Study Course because it focuses on how you organize yourself, rather than how you present yourself to your marketplace. Through it you will learn: 1. How to develop a photographic memory and use this ability to run your business with precision by being on top of critical information in your industry. 2. How to arrange your working environment so that you may optimize your time, and that of your employees. This is a method used by Apple, Microsoft and many other corporations where time is money and costs count. 3. A Harvard technique for exceptional productivity: A low cost method that helps you to work more creatively, more effectively, and leaves you feeling good at the end of the day. 4. FREE MONEY: A desk accessory that some have used to earn an extra $24,499 within a year. 5. Create your own billion-dollar mastermind group: Use the camaraderie of peers to catapult your business to new heights. 6. A source of FREE up to date information : A method to access masses of free information about your business or industry. 7. A step-by-step guide to creating inexpensive promotional offers and gifts: The method used by Rich Schefren to create new blueprints, and free gifts with which to attract subscribers.
Faster Audio This software was commissioned by Rich Schefren in order to meet his own requirements for self-development and study. "Studies show the average person speaks 125-150 words per minute yet you can comprehend up to 600 + words per-minute", Shefren claims. Speed listening enables you to use this skill to learn faster from audio systems such as an MP3 player. What FasterAudio™ software does is accelerate your audio’s while leaving the authors voice, spirit and intent sounding normal, just faster. It’s no longer for sale.
The Business Growth System This is a course based upon Rich Schefren’s original coaching program, plus new material that is added as he develops other products. It was one of Rich Schefren’s original products, and the sales page reflects this. The product however seems good value for those who are serious about their businesses although some might consider it to be expensive. The product includes access to a discussion forum, access to live seminars, and question and answer calls.
Strengths Mastery Advantage This is also a coaching style course. It provides some of the components contained within The Business Growth System. In the sales letter Rich Shefren reveals that he thinks you will be so pleased with this course that you will want to sign up for The Business Growth System.
Conclusion It’s beyond doubt that Rich Schefren is a highly intelligent and skilled entrepreneur. He has approximately ten full time staff working for him in Strategic Profits, and no doubt is outsourcing some more of the work that drives his machine. He has set out to cultivate experts from both direct response and also Internet marketing. These include: Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, John Carlton, Alex Mandossian, Stephen Pierce, and Yanik Silver,.
Although Schefren works closely with such marketers sometimes his marketing messages become somewhat contradictory. He has been known to use such phrases as “destroy the competition.” This is unfortunate, since in The Maven Matrix Manifesto he makes it clear that Maven’s are people who sell products that their competitors will promote.
Moreover, as Shefren’s student base has widened he has become more directly involved in the promotion of joint ventures with some of them. These need to be carefully examined before automatically making a purchase since the student is more likely to be responsible for the quality of the product than is Rich Shefren.
Any company is only as good as those who work for it. Strategic Profits is, on the whole, a good company but sometimes its marketing messages are confusing. This generally occurs when Schefren attempts to promote the products of others, rather than to following his own council and being the maven’s maven. Not every family business owner will aspire to be a maven like Rich Schefren. Although his products, and advice, may well enable you to achieve more with less effort, Schefren himself seems at times like a nuclear powered bee-in-a-bottle. I think one day he might explode.
His success model relies on collaboration, marketing prowess, and having sound skills to promote. As a result his business will undoubtedly grow, and with it some complexity is inevitable. His Fast Audio product looks like a departure from the other products, and it remains to be seen if he will able to sustain his chosen identity as the reliable pilot for those navigating the choppy waters of Internet marketing.
There is much that family business owners, and aspiring business owners may learn from Rich Schefren’s example, and wisdom. He delivers a lot of useful information, and much of it is both free and invaluable. Kindly note: I’ve supplied this info as a service and without warrantee. You are advised to perform your own due diligence before purchasing any product from the Internet, or elsewhere.
Rich Schefren Launches ‘Joint Venture Manuscript: Joint Venture
Rich Schefren Launches ‘Joint Venture Manuscript: Joint Venture Manuscript’ - February 18, 2009. Rich has launched ‘Joint Venture Manuscript: Joint Venture Manuscript’.
My Weekend With Alex Jeffreys and Rich Schefren
I’ve been busy applying the bundle of notes I took and the things I learned down on Boca Raton, Florida at Rich Schefren’s office last weekend — it was an amazing weekend.
Rich Schefren Releases ‘The Entrepreneurial Emergency’ Free Report
Can Bring You The Results You Want Online Rich Schefren Reveals The Simple Answer To The Uncertainty Syndrome In His New Report… "The Entrepreneurial EMERGENCY"
Gurus Get Bare for Valentine’s Day - John Chow, Frank Kern, Rich Schefren
Gurus Get Bare for Valentine’s Day - John Chow, Frank Kern, Rich Schefren, Derek Gehl, and Bob Jenkins - it’s funny!
Will You All Please Shut Up! You are NOT a "guru"
I worked for a few months with Rich Schefren at Strategic Profits. I had interviewed for a Marketing Director position, and we both determined that I was overqualified for what they needed.
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