Well, after making the “Offer” Tab, I felt like I was on a roll. I was ready to make another Tab page.
By the way, isn’t it ridiculous that Facebook created the expression Fan Page for a collection of pages? It certainly makes it difficult to describe the place where the body of content appears beneath any given Tab. Fan Site? Fanbook?
Anyway, I wanted something a little “softer” as a landing page for most people that I refer to my Fan Page, even though the Offer Tab recommended by Schwind and Yaghi would be fine for PPC redirects. So this raised some new questions.
How To Create Another FBML Page:
Step
Action
Pictures
1
Once again, the following assumes that you are logged in to your Facebook account, and on your Facebook Fan Page.
It also assumes that you have already created ONE FBML page. That’s why the heading says… “Another FBML Page.”
Click on “Edit Page.” (See Red Arrow on the right. This is located under your picture or logo in the left column. )
Click "Edit Page."
2
Scan the list of settings and applications.
Find your previously created “FBML” Tab (located under the list of “Applications.”)
In this illustration, the Tab was previously named “Example.”
Click the “Edit” link under the title. See the red arrow at right.
Find the Previously Created Page, Click Edit
3
You are now looking at where you created your previous Tab.
Click the “Add another FBML box” link, located at the bottom of the editing area. See Red Arrow.
After this, it should be fairly clear what to do next. It is pretty much the same as described in the previous post..
Click "Add Another FBML Box"
How Do Images Appear on the Fan Page:
If you look at my own new “Welcome” Tab, you will see four images in all. I created all of them using Photoshop. However, the first one is different from the other three. Do you understand why?
My Logo Box – In the left column – Showing my name, photo, company name, and tagline.
My Tab Banner – At the top – Starting with the words, “Glad you stopped by… .”
A Little Check Mark Image – In the center – Used over and over as bullets in a list of items.
My Newsletter Banner – At the bottom – Starting with the words, “Collaboration and Growth….”
What is different is this: The Logo Box image is uploaded into Facebook. Many people just use their Facebook photo, but having a bit of branding here is cool, right? However, the other images are NOT uploaded into Facebook. They must be hosted elsewhere and linked. You will see how it was done for the check marks in the next paragraph.
How to Make a List in FBML:
Did I already say that FBML is not exactly the same as HTML? Not that I would be able to tell all that easily. I have learned enough HTML to be dangerous. Not trained in it; I am a learn-by-experimentation kind of guy.
Anyway, I wanted to use a list of bullets on my new “Welcome” page but it took me quite a while since HTML would not work. Here is what did work.
Note how the link URL [changed for privacy reasons] is used to access the hosted graphic of the check mark. You can use the same mark up script to create your own similar list. But you will need to create a bullet graphic and store it somewhere.
One of the things I tried to do with the “Welcome” page banner at the top of the page, is to make the request to “Like” the page as clear, yet as smooth as possible. How do you think it works?
How to Get an Opt In Form on the Page:
I use MailChimp [affiliate link] as my email system provider. My reasons would probably be best saved for a different post!
However, since each of the different systems (Aweber, iContact, etc) vary somewhat, the following is only generic advice.
Set Up Communication Between Your Email System Provider and Facebook. Generally this is done with an application created by your email service provider and uploaded into Facebook. This is necessary to establish permission for your email service provider to access information from Facebook – specifically, the form you will place on one of your Facebook Fan Page Tabs. Get the application from a link provided by your email service provider. Follow instructions to upload this application into Facebook.
Place the Form on Your Page. As with other forms, your email service provider will have a section of its site where you can design the type of form that you like. It will then generate the HTML/CSS script for this. Copy and paste the script into the FBML edit area. It worked!
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I hope that my discovery process will give you some ideas too!
Last Saturday, I added an “Offer” Tab and a “Welcome” Tab to my Facebook “Fan Page.” I’ll let you decide if you think the results are pleasing and/or whether you think they will help to get results. (You can let me know in the comments to this post.)
This Part 1 of ”Sprucing Up My Facebook Fan Page.”
I had kept putting off these Facebook improvements because I could not figure out how to add a new Tab (or blank page) to the “Fan Page” – and because it was not a priority. Still, every once in a while I would poke around to see if I could figure it out. So here’s my story of how I stumbled into some interesting stuff and figured out how to do a few things that puzzled me.
Enter Jim Yaghi and David Schwind
Talk about an amazing launch sequence! Yaghi and Schwind have been putting out some outrageously high value content for the promotion of their launch of Operation PPC Supremacy on August 31. “The Google Switch” eBook has had everyone talking about it. But as a testament to my determination to stick to my own business projects, I can say I resisted numerous emails and didn’t even download it. Then they put out the “Facebook Bushwack” video and I bookmarked it. Friday night I gave in and watched it. What I saw got me rolling. First, here is a summary of the video message:
Yaghi-Schwind Sample Click-Click Page
You can double the results of Facebook ads if you apply the psychological principle of consistency. In this case, the consistent action is Click-Click-Click. 1-2-3.
Click #1 – A Facebook visitor sees a Facebook ad and clicks on it. The click takes them to your “click-click page.” [By the way that's my name for it. You could call it your "Offer" page or even name it the same as the offer itself. Yaghi and Schwind call their page "Google Switch" because their offer on that page was for that eBook.]
Click #2 – Visitors to the “click-click page” see a bright red arrow that encourages them to click the Fan Page “Like” button. That’s two clicks. Visitors are on a roll! Click-click….
Click #3 – Visitors on the “click-click page” see another bright red arrow pointing to the same offer alluded to in the ad. They must click again to obtain the offer… CLICK!… and they are on your lead capture page. The odds that the visitor will proceed to obtain the free offer by entering their email address has been increased.
Well, as interesting as that was, the really cool thing was that Yaghi and Schwind actually give away the “click-click page.” In a link under the Bushwack video, a “generator” tool allows you to create your own customized version of the page, and the relevant mark up language script that you can just paste into your own blank Tab. I don’t know how long the link for their tool will be live, but here it is. Naturally, it was tempting to plug in my own offer text and my own link to the image of my free product… you know just to see what it would look like. Now I really really wanted to put it on my Facebook Fan Page!
The Challenge and Solution to Creating a Blank Tab in Facebook
Schwind’s video did not help me understand how to create the blank page. But now that I had the actual mark up script, all ready to paste in, I was driven to find the answer. There are a lot of out of date how-to videos floating around. But here is what I finally figured out. Like everything else – not really that complicated. One thing that threw me off a bit, is that Facebook uses what they call FBML, which is not always the same as HTML. As best as I can remember, this was how I did it:
Step
Action
Pictures
1
The following assumes that you are logged in to your Facebook account, and on your Facebook Fan Page.
Install FBML application as follows:
Type “Static FBML” into the Facebook search box.
Click on “Static FBML Application” – see red arrow at right.
Locate the FBML Application
2
Click on “Add to my Page” (located in left menu).
Click- Add to My Page
3
Navigate back to your own Fan Page. (There don’t seem to be any easy buttons to make that happen.)
After you are on your own Fan Page, Click on “Edit Page” (located in the left menu, under your picture or logo).
Click "Edit Page."
4
Scan the list of settings and applications.
Find your newly created “FBML” Tab (located under the list of “Applications.”) See the red arrow at right. (It may or may not have a number after the title “FBML.”)
Click “Edit” (located under the title “FBML.”)
Find FBML App and Click Edit
5
On this new page, notice:
“Box Title” (Red Arrow) – Change the existing “FBML” to the title of your new Tab. For example, “Welcome” or “Offer.”
For purposes of this illustration, we will change the title to “Example.”
“FBML” (Green Arrow) – Add your FBML script here. Specifically, if you have created a “click-click page” script from Yaghi’s tool, you copy-paste it here.
Later you can tinker with it if you are a learn-by-doing guy like me. Or if you are already good with FBML, … what are you reading this for??!!
Click “Save” at the bottom of the editing box!
Change Tab Name and Add in the FBML Script
6
Once again, navigate back to your own Fan Page. You should see your “Example” Tab at some point after the “Wall” and “Info” Tabs.
If not, it is because you have more than 5 or 6 Tabs already and it is hidden. So…
Click the little “>>” button (Red Arrow).
Click the new “Example” selection.
You can change the sequence of the Tabs by the click-and-drag method. For example, you could move your new “Example” Tab up next to your “Info” Tab.
Locating a New, But Hidden Tab
By the way you can determine what Tab your visitors will see FIRST in several ways:
1) Do nothing. Default is the “wall” Tab.
2) Make your new “Welcome” Tab (or any other Tab) to be the new default.
Go to “Wall” Tab
Click “Options” link under the Blue “Share” button.
Now Click “Settings” link (now visible under the “Share” button.)
Select your default Tab here.
3) Use one of your own domain names [purchase a specially created one?] and forward it to the Tab of your choice. You can then use different domain names to refer different audiences to different start points on your Fan Page.
A Couple of Issues I Had with Yaghi’s Script
Although it does a fast job of creating a suitable “Offer” (click-click page) Tab, I had a couple of things I wanted to change on his script.
I noticed that the two supplied images were stored on a server Yaghi owned. I wondered how long those images would be there. Could they suddenly disappear and leave my site hanging, without my not even knowing it? It was easy enough to create my own red arrow graphics using Photoshop. I then uploaded them into a special directory (folder) on one of my own website servers. They could also be uploaded into a blog site – WordPress assigns every graphic in the media library its own URL. Anyway, I substituted my own URL for the one in Yaghi’s script.
My other issue is the arrow that points straight UP, supposedly to the “Like” button next to the name of your Fan Page. It probably works for the vast majority of users. In my case, my Fan Page name is sooooo long, that the arrow needs to angle off to the far right to make any sense. So the graphic of my #1 red arrow does just that.
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I hope that my discovery process will give you some ideas too! To be continued…. I will discuss how I added a “Welcome” page in Part 2.
When it comes to marketing funnels, many have made the mistake that I made. I thought I had a funnel when all I had was a hoop. Note that a hoop is similar in shape to the rim of a funnel.
If you get someone to jump into a funnel, they’re kind of stuck there for a while, right?
What happens when someone jumps through a hoop? They just… keep on going. See a problem there?
So I have made another video about my biggest marketing mistakes; of course, this is “my big funnel mistake.”
Please watch carefully. Then share your comments!
If you cannot see the video here on the blog, click here.
I just got an automated telephone call from some company wanting to tell me how to make easy money online. This despite that my personal phone line is on the do-not-call list. Of course I hear about the array of buttons to push to hear the message again, or to speak with a live adviser (salesperson no doubt). No button to prevent future calls. They gave their website URL if I wanted more information on how to make money flow easily.
Do people really respond to these pests? (I know, of course people do. They do that to reward these pretenders so that they keep on pestering everyone else.)
I don’t know [shaking my head]… why is it so hard for people to “get” attraction marketing?
Another Example of Pitching and Pestering
I went to a live event where the main point of the two day conference was to create a marketing funnel. A great deal of time was given to explaining the importance of giving value, being congruent, creating loyal fans, and so on. I enjoyed the conference a lot and had the opportunity to meet a number of marketing peers.
On the last day, at the last hour, a man came up to me and introduced himself. I was glad to meet one more internet marketer and share stories.
“What brought you here to Portland,” I asked, my standard question.
He said he did not have an online presence yet; it was all new to him. He said he came because he wanted to learn how to market his MLM online.
“Have you given any thought to your target market,” I asked.
“Everyone can use our products,” he said. I wondered if he had been listening to the speaker.
“What about your free give away product? How will you attract people to your funnel?” I knew our presenter had gone over THAT part REALLY well. In fact a hundred people had been writing specific funnel plans that would do just that.
He replied, “I don’t know what that would be since we can’t give away the products that our company sells.”
Nope. He had not heard our instructor urge attendees to create their own products, information products for example. Then he said:
“The real reason I came over to you was to suggest one of our nutrition products that could help with your tremor problem.” (I have an obvious familial tremor.)
In other words, he came over to pitch his MLM product. And this was done at the end of a conference on building a funnel based on attraction marketing. (Oh I know – he “cared about my handicap.”)
2) Ask questions. Follow the advice of Ken Pickard.
3) Be magnetic. Follow the advice of Mike Dillard in Magnetic Sponsoring. (This book is for sale only. This is therefore an affiliate link. Even if you don’t buy the book, watch the 7 videos that are free. But why the heck wouldn’t you buy the most popular book on attraction marketing online for network marketers – - ever written!??)
Does this mistake resonate with you? Please add your comments (click the comments link).
Want to talk about it? My subscribers receive a free 30 minute consultation on anything they want to discuss. Want resources on finding your niche? Check my resource page.
Recently a beginning coach expressed some inner turmoil over choosing a niche. “Everyone says I need to narrow my focus – that I need a niche. But right now I have a variety of clients: different backgrounds and different issues – and I enjoy working with all of them.”
This individual wants to follow the advice to choose a coaching niche but is not feeling good about it.
How about you? Do you experience niche conflict? Do you feel caught in the middle regarding the advice to “find a niche”?
Should a coach develop a specialized niche? In my recent Coaching Cognition course, students brainstormed and came up with over 130 coaching niches! Divorce Recovery Coach, Debt Relief Coach, Prayer Coach… to name just a few. And even – an Attract Your Niche Coach.
I believe choosing a niche is good advice and especially for online businesses, but I can fully appreciate that it can create a lot of needless conflict and confusion.
The dilemma, as some see it, is that narrowing one’s focus (choosing a niche) could cause one to lose prospects, maybe even existing clients. It seems to be a classic approach-avoidance conflict. ”I should…” but “I don’t want to.”
I think that we need to understand the purpose of a niche and when to apply it. That may help reduce the conflict over this challenge.
Let’s start with this idea: A niche is the basis of a marketing strategy.
Do you need a marketing strategy?
If you have widget X and people are flocking to buy it, you may be tempted to think – I don’t need a marketing strategy. I have all the business I can handle.
I felt that way a few years ago. I offered a service that a specific Fortune 500 company loved and mandated for all of their vendors. That business kept me going for over ten years – until new faces at the company changed their priorities and my business dried up within 3 years. I thought I had a never-ending business, but I was wrong.
If you have a lot of business, a never-ending supply of customers buying from you, then you don’t need a marketing strategy. On the other hand, that is an unlikely situation. Why?
Customers may get their problem solved. (In fact, maybe you solved it.)
Customers may buy elsewhere. Never forget that competition is fierce.
If you have a niche by default (like the service I gave to the specific Fortune 500 company), remember that a niche is not permanent. You have to adjust as market conditions change.
No one else knows you are in business (lack of marketing). So if the amount of profit earned from selling to your friends and family is insufficient for you (or they stop buying), then what?
A marketing strategy includes a niche, products or services needed by that niche, and a marketing plan (most usefully a marketing funnel plan). I refer you to my recent post and video about the six elements of internet marketing.
Where will you find your customers or clients?
A common response is “everywhere.” So, everyone is your potential coaching client? The challenge is that there are many coaches competing for the business. There are over 14,000 fully certified members of the International Coaching Federation alone, and probably 100,000 more who call themselves coaches. Many are doing business globally, over the internet. How will you get noticed? Maybe you need a marketing strategy.
Or maybe you have a line of health and wellness products (perhaps in conjunction with an MLM). Maybe you feel – everyone on this planet can use these products! So all 6,857,744,507 people are your market? Why not start with the person next door then. Oh, they are not interested? Well then, who is interested? Maybe you need a marketing strategy.
A strategy implies methods.
Have a Strategy / Know Your Target Group -cc by glockkid at Flickr
A fisherman that heads out into the Atlantic had best have a strategy. Will the boat have a net or lines? Will bait be needed and if so, what kind of bait? Where will the bait be obtained and how will it be kept fresh? How many fishermen will be needed on board? Where will the boat go to fish? All these questions come down to – What is the target fish?
In marketing terms, What is my target group?
You cannot head out into the ocean and hope that any type of fish will hop into your boat, all by themselves. Knowing your target group allows you to clarify marketing themes, branding, media, and “bait” (offers, headlines, photos and illustrations with which the target group can identify, etc).
To continue the analogy: Not only does the fisherman start with identifying his target species, he asks what problem does that species face. OK, this process is instinctive for seasoned fishermen. Because obviously, the problem facing tuna is getting food. The “unique” solution is to be first to bring the food directly in front of the tuna!
Having one strategy does not mean you must reject business!
If you are experiencing “niche conflict” then so far this post is probably making you feel uncomfortable again. Why? Because I am once again stressing the value of having a niche and you … well, you don’t want to limit yourself by narrowing your business. Heck, you don’t want to turn away a perfectly good flounder if it jumps into your tuna boat!
Let me put your mind at rest. I don’t know what the tuna fisherman would do, but …
If you are a coach that has branded herself as a “sales and selling coach” and you were approached by a businessperson troubled with business-family life conflicts, would you have to turn that client away?
If you are an MLM distributor for a health and wellness line of products and you have focused on a “care of aging skin” niche, would you have to turn away a customer who wanted your company’s vitamin product for kids?
To both situations, the answer is- of course not!
Having a niche (or marketing strategy) is for the purpose of developing a customer base. It does not mean necessarily that you must limit yourself to doing business in that niche. You do not necessarily have to reject other business. You can choose to:
Reject the business because it would distract you from efforts needed to develop your current promising niche business.
Take the business because it would be a refreshing break from what you are doing.
Take the business because it has opened your eyes to a better (or at least another) promising niche. Working with this new customer will help you develop experience working in this promising niche.
Positioning yourself in a niche can mean different things to different types of businesses.
It is possible that niche conflict is the reasult of a limiting idea of how to approach the idea of “niche.”
Example: Many people promote themselves as “life coaches” with no seeming niche. But what about branding that…
Emphasizes their availability as a Polish speaking coach?
Emphasizes their availability during night-time hours – 7pm to 6 am?
Emphasizes their own spiritual orientation?
Whether you call these a niche or not, can you see how it can help with a particular target group?
So ask yourself – Why would someone prefer to do business with me as opposed to X, Y, and Z? (Those are others that you know in the same type of business. Competitors.) The answer may help you think about your position in your niche (or, how to brand yourself).
How will you find your customers, clients, or partners?
Earlier I said, having a niche is especially important for online businesses. Why? Because when someone looks for a solution to their problem online, they enter words in a search engine. So if you want to be their solution, you must pre-determine what keywords such potential contacts will use. And you are limited to just a few words.
Thinking about your niche will help you determine the right keywords to use in your social media promotion as well as in your advertising.
So if your target group is “everyone” and you use the words “life coach” to describe what you do, a search with those words will turn up 2.3 million results – your page may well be buried. Compare that to these terms:
family life coach – 156,000 search results
anger management coach – 155,000 search results
Christian life coach – 14,800 search results
home business coach – 692,000 search results
list building coach – 9,600 search results
niche coach – 3,200 search results
I’m just using coaching as an example!
So how about it? Are you counting on finding your customers online? If so, you will need “keywords” to help people find you; you will need a niche to help you think about the keywords (and other matters).
If you are not looking to find your business online, a laser-focused niche may be less of an issue.
And then, what about business partners? A niche helps to facilitate collaboration conversation with potential partners, as I discuss in my free special report, “Preparation for Collaboration.”
What’s your take?
Do you have an approach-avoidance conflict over choosing a niche? Is finding a niche a big dilemma for you?
Do you have a different view of the “find your niche dilemma?”
I made a startling discovery while I was at the No Excuses Summit. I am an internet marketing leader.
This discovery was prompted by a question asked by one of the speakers early in the conference. I don’t remember which speaker it was. But he asked, “If you are a leader, stand up.” I didn’t give it much thought. I just… stood up.
I couldn’t help looking about the huge Venetian Ballroom filled with 900 attendees. Especially when the speaker encouraged the others to look around. I was surprised to see so few people standing. I blinked and wondered, “Should I be standing?”
“Nah! You’ve only made a few dollars, how can you remotely consider yourself a leader?” an inner voice whined. Still, and again without much thought, I knew I was right to have stood.
Somewhere during the past 2 to 6 months I had already come to an understanding, a calm and certain conviction about who and what I am in this field even though I had not given conscious thought about being a “leader” until the speaker asked the question.
The self-understanding of who and what I am as an internet marketer had been growing for over a year. If you had asked me one year ago if I thought I was an online leader, I would have said “No” without hesitation. At what point it changed, I cannot say for certainty, because no one gave me a reason to think about it.
Even now, the idea of being an internet marketing “leader” rings funny to me, though I have no doubt about its truth. So where did that confidence come from?
1) It came from realizing what I have done. I have created my own blogs, web pages, autoresponder system, eBooks, videos, scores of articles, and a whole lot more. I haven’t just learned a lot, I’ve done a lot. None of this impressed me until I began to meet many other aspiring marketers both online and at my first live event in January 2010, which was sponsored by Mike Klingler’s Marketing Merge. I was startled to realize that many of these folks had been in various training programs like the Renegade Pro for a long time but had not really done much with it… not so much as a simple blog with a few good posts. This surprised me and impacted my own self-image.
2) The germ of my thinking was probably planted much earlier though, during the spring and summer of 2009, as a result of encouragement from friends I met through the Renegade/Marketing Merge community. In particular, Eric Walker provided friendship, positive comments to my earliest articles, and availability; Jerry Graham brainstormed with me over the phone a number of times; and Becky Joubert kept urging me onward, into, and through what was then the Renegade SuperGuide program. Without their support I may well have given up. I knew I had a long way to go to catch up with them, but they kept telling me I was doing the right things. From my experiences with them, my instinct for the value of community and collaboration grew.
3) I gained the greatest leap in confidence when I finally gained clarity on a niche that I wanted to pursue: helping other marketers collaborate. How did I come to value the strategic importance of collaboration? It was in April of 2009 when I watched six women collaborate in the production of a 90 minute webinar and related eBook. “Wow!” I thought. “What an awesome way to build followers!” I immediately began talking with my friends (see #2 above) who encouraged me with the idea, but I couldn’t come up with the actual niche that would make the idea click.
The Renegade/Marketing Merge Live Event in January 2010 pulled everything together for me when I listened to Ann Sieg talk about collaboration. I already knew a lot about Ann’s story but her presentation got me thinking about her own accomplishments in a new light. I thought about what Mike Dillard and other well-known marketers had done. It struck me that every leading internet marketing guru collaborated with others, and did so over and over again.
I made a video about it.
I got a lot of endorsements of the video including support from Marketing Merge owner Mike Klingler. I knew I was headed in the right direction because I finally had a solid foundation for a business (a reasonable niche) and some beginning recognition for it.
4) Continuing affirmations from others have been a huge factor over the last six months. A lot of this came from participation in a class called Coaching Cognition created at Marketing Merge. Over 24 weeks I met individually with three “peer coaches” who contributed a great deal to my self-awareness: John Balbach, Carlos Bodden, and Steve Szudera. It would be an extremely long list if I tried to name everyone with whom I engaged, however a conversation with Jan Foster stands out in my mind. An amazingly supportive class teacher and program director, Barbara Silva, contributed heavily to this growing confidence. Online support for my first webinar production came from many marketers and helped to confirm that I had a niche that would resonate with many people.
5) A final factor in self-awareness as a leader came when I realized that “I’ve got something that is actually a business.” This solidified in May and June of 2010 as a result of the first three lessons of Marketing Funnel Mastery taught by Mike Klingler. Having a “cash-flow plan” that makes sense was the final piece – a game changer in how I looked at myself.
Take away just ONE of the five factors above, and I probably would not have had the reflex reaction to stand up last weekend when a call for “leaders” was made.
In case you didn’t notice, Mike Klingler’s Marketing Merge played a significant role in every single one of the five factors. It was Mike’s teaching, together with the contacts provided through the huge community of peers, colleagues, and friends which he brought together, that spurred me on.
My purpose in writing this post has been to share a self-discovery. I didn’t set out to write a post about Mike Klingler, but his role is a simple reality. I have not a single hesitation in recommending my affiliate link providing you with the best value to Marketing Merge and Mike’s ongoing teaching. Believe me, you cannot go wrong. There were a lot of awesome speakers at the No Excuses Summit, and I enjoyed most of them. However, I owe a lot to Mike and all of the people within the Marketing Merge/Renegade community whose instruction and affirming support has brought me to this point in my business.
I almost wrote that I owe everything to Mike and the Renegade community. Of course that’s not true. Mike and others in the community both taught and affirmed me… but I did it. I did the work and I reached out to the others and involved myself in the community.
I have every intention of continuing to DO it and to affirm others who DO it as well! My thanks to everyone (those mentioned above and countless others) who have contributed, over many months, to my current online presence and self-awareness.
I am no guru. But I have found that I am a leader.
WHAT?? ME- A LEADER??
I made a startling discovery while I was at the No Excuses Summit: I am an internet marketing leader.
This discovery was prompted by a question asked by one of the speakers early in the conference. I don’t remember which speaker it was. But he asked, “If you are a leader, stand up.” I didn’t give it much thought. I just… stood up.
I couldn’t help looking around the huge Venetian Ballroom filled with 900 attendees. Especially when the speaker encouraged the others to look around. I was surprised to see so few people standing. I blinked and wondered, “Should I be standing?”
“Nah! You’ve only made a few dollars, how can you remotely consider yourself a leader?” an inner voice whined. Still, and again without much thought, I knew I was right to have stood.
And upon reflection these past few days, I now know that gradually over the past six months I had already come to an understanding, a calm and certain conviction about who and what I am in this field, even though I had not given conscious thought about being a “leader” until the speaker asked the question.
If you had asked me one year ago if I thought I was an online leader, I would have said “No” without hesitation. At what point it changed, I cannot say for certainty, because no one gave me a reason to think about it.
Even now, the idea of being an internet marketing “leader” rings funny to me, though I have no doubt about its truth.
So where did I get this confidence in my own “leadership”?
1) It came from realizing what I have done. I have created my own blogs, web pages, autoresponder system, eBooks, videos, scores of articles, and a whole lot more. I haven’t just learned a lot, I’ve done a lot.
None of this impressed me until I began to meet many other aspiring marketers both online and at my first live event in January 2010, which was sponsored by Mike Klingler’s Marketing Merge. I was startled to realize that many of these folks had been in various training programs like the Renegade Pro for a long time but had not really done much with it… not so much as a simple blog with a few good posts. This surprised me and impacted my own self-image.
2) The germ of self-confidence was planted much earlier though, during the spring and summer of 2009, as a result of encouragement from friends I met through the Renegade/Marketing Merge community. In particular, Eric Walker provided friendship, positive comments to my earliest articles, and availability; Jerry Graham brainstormed with me over the phone a number of times; and Becky Joubert kept urging me onward, into, and through what was then the Renegade SuperGuide program. Without their support I may well have given up. I knew I had a long way to go to catch up with them, but they kept telling me I was doing the right things. From my experiences with them, my instinct for the value of community and collaboration grew.
3) I gained the greatest leap in confidence when I finally gained clarity on a niche. In April of 2009, I watched six women collaborate in the production of a 90 minute webinar and related eBook. “Wow!” I thought. “What an awesome way to build followers!” I immediately began talking with my friends (see #2 above), talking about how I wanted to do something similar. Though they each encouraged me to pursue the idea, I couldn’t come up with the actual niche that would make the idea click.
At least not until The Renegade/Marketing Merge Live Event in January 2010 when I listened to Ann Sieg talk about collaboration. I already knew a lot about Ann’s story, but her presentation got me thinking about her own accomplishments in a new light. I thought about what Mike Dillard and other well-known marketers had done. It struck me that every leading internet marketing guru collaborated with others, and did so over and over again.
I made a video about collaboration, as one of the lessons from the Live Event. I was very excited about the whole concept.
After getting a lot of endorsements for the video including several mentions by Marketing Merge owner Mike Klingler, it hit me- collaboration for marketers. It wasn’t new, but it was a different way to look at working at a business, certainly for new marketers. This was the niche I was looking for. I knew I was headed in the right direction because I finally had a solid foundation for a business (a reasonable niche) and some beginning recognition for it.
4) Continuing affirmations from others have been a huge factor over the last six months. A lot of this came from participation in a class called Coaching Cognition created at Marketing Merge. Over 24 weeks I met individually with three “peer coaches” each of whom contributed a great deal to my self-awareness: John Balbach, Carlos Bodden, and Steve Szudera. It would be an extremely long list if I tried to name everyone in the Coaching Cognition class with whom I engaged, however a conversation with Jan Foster stands out in my mind. An amazingly supportive class teacher and program director, Barbara Silva, contributed heavily to this growing confidence.
Me (far right) at Klingler's MFM Live Event in June 2010 - Surrounded by Awesome Affirming Friends of the Community: Emma, John, DiDi... and others!
Then came the online support for my first webinar production from many fellow marketers helping to confirm that I had a niche that would resonate with many people. Especially supportive were friends John Balbach, DiDi Alcheva, and Emma Tiebbens.
5) Having a “cash-flow funnel plan” was the final piece – a game changer in how I looked at myself. This solidified in May and June of 2010 as a result of the first three lessons of Marketing Funnel Mastery (MFM) taught by Mike Klingler. The final factor in self-awareness as a leader came when I realized that “I’ve got something that is actually a business.”
You may notice many things in the previous five factors that relate to my recent video about the big picture of internet marketing. Clarifying one’s niche, developing a funnel plan, getting skills, taking action, collaboration, and getting coaching all have played a role in my short path to date. They will continue to play a part in my internet marketing.
On further thought about this…
Take away just ONE of the five factors above, and I probably would not have had the reflex reaction to stand up last weekend when a call for “leaders” was made.
Mike Klingler
Another thing. In case you didn’t notice, Mike Klingler’s Marketing Merge played a significant role in every single one of the five factors. It was Mike’s teaching, together with the contacts provided through the huge community of peers, colleagues, and friends which he brought together, that spurred me on.
My purpose in writing this post has been to share a self-discovery. I didn’t set out to write a post about Mike Klingler, but his role is a simple reality. There were a lot of awesome speakers at the No Excuses Summit, and I enjoyed most of them. However, Mike’s method is systematic, both theoretical and practical, motivating, engaging, and patient. I owe everything a lot to Mike and all of the people within the Marketing Merge/Renegade community whose instruction and affirming support has brought me to this point in my business.
I almost wrote that I owe everything to Mike and the Renegade community. Of course that’s not true. Mike and others in the community both taught and affirmed me… but I did it. I did the work and I reached out to the others and involved myself in the community.
I have every intention of continuing to DO it and to affirm others who DO it as well! My thanks to everyone (those mentioned above and countless others) who have contributed, over many months, to my current online presence and self-awareness.
I am no guru. But I have found that I am a leader.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again, going to internet marketing conferences is very important for the growth of your online business. Today, I am off to the No Excuses Summit in Las Vegas. Why? Networking and, oh yeah, learning new stuff.
You’re thinking, “Yes, beginning marketers need all the training and hand-holding they can get.”
Nope – these conferences are just as valuable for marketers at all levels. I have previously shared the views of Chris Brogan and Willie Crawford regarding attendance at Live Events. They are NOT beginners … more like well-respected gurus. Each insist that networking at offline internet marketing conferences has been crucial to their online success.
Today I want to share with you a blog post from Connie Ragen Green. I have been following Connie for about a year and have enjoyed her teleseminars. She started an online business in 2005 and has since published over 1300 articles and has created 20 information products. She now derives her full time income from her affiliate marketing and training business. Her purpose and strategy in going to Live Events is worth studying. Her opening comment:
Attending live events has been the best way for me to connect with new prospects and continue my education. Last year I attended 13 conferences and seminars, and my business took off like gangbusters. I believe you must think about your strategy for doing this before you sign up to attend a live event, in order to make the most of it in the months to come.
Note how she ties her participation in Live Events with her business growth. Was it just because she was a speaker? No, she did not speak at all of these events.
What is particularly striking about Connie’s strategic use of attending Live Events is found in this paragraph:
I also attend several events each year that are held by people outside of my marketing circle. This enables me to meet people I would otherwise not have connected with, and to learn other perspectives on building my own business on the Internet.
I think many marketers attach themselves to one or two gurus and attend events sponsored solely by them and the other gurus with whom they partner. But note how Connie steps outside her circle –her box (?!)– to find other leaders and attend their events. Yes, it is a great opportunity to learn new things, but the really big deal is – this is the way to expand one’s growing business into new circles of influence. Networking at live events is a major lubricant to business growth.
For some time I have been visualizing the elements that lead to a successful internet marketing business. I have been writing a lot about collaboration, but that is only one component, one element that leads to success. I have been gripped by Mike Klingler’s teaching on Marketing Funnel Mastery, but as critical as that is, it is only one component. I wanted a diagram that would be as useful for those doing advanced internet marketing as for “newbies” looking for an internet marketing strategy.
My visual has finally taken concrete form in this 19 minute video which focuses on the puzzle-box-cover version of a web marketing plan. I believe that most marketers are so bogged down in the puzzle pieces, trying to put at least a few of them together, that they have lost sight of what the completed puzzle should look like. What their functioning, growing business should look like.
One reason for this model is to use it to introduce my new subscribers to an overview of how I can help. For example, of the six key success elements for internet marketing, I focus on one (collaboration), while providing foundation level information, resources and referrals for the other five elements. It’s just that it’s impossible to address one element of an internet marketing strategy in isolation.
I plan to provide the video content in PDF “special report” format.
My goal with the video is to bring clarity to the big picture of internet marketing by providing this “business model.” Does it clarify anything for you?
Please use the comments section below to let me know if the video is helpful, and if so, in what way!
I’m fresh back from attending Mike Klingler’s Marketing Funnel Mastery Course in Portland this past weekend. (June 25-27, 2010). About 175 attended. As expected, there were two categories of benefits to having gone- the instruction and the networking.
Mike has given a lot of thought to what makes a successful marketing funnel and has created numerous worksheets and charts to clarify his points. Attendees spent large blocks of time filling in the charts and personalizing them for their own businesses. Some worked individually, others in pairs. Mike provided feedback on the first draft funnels to about 25-30 individuals, however, with or without any specific time with Mike, most were extremely pleased to have made progress in the creation of a specific plan that they did not have before.
Of equal value was the opportunity to mix with (and learn from) a number of other entrepreneurs. I had met a few of these people during a previous Marketing Merge sponsored event in January 2010. Others I had met online and now had the chance to say “hi!” — in some cases a great deal more. And there were quite a few people that I met for the first time.
I noticed that many people used the time together to provide video interviews of one another, help newbies, exchange lessons learned, learn about one another’s specialties, consider ways to collaborate, and more. Mike generously provided for networking refreshments and small groups met over lunch and supper meals.
John and Richard at Mike Klingler's Office
A highlight for me was to meet and collaborate with my good friend John Balbach that I met through the Coaching Cognition peer coaching program (also sponsored by Marketing Merge). John and I also remained to work together on several projects on Monday.
Live Events are critical networking opportunities for online entrepreneurs at all levels. This is why I am planning to also attend the No Excuses Summit in Las Vegas in just 10 days.
Just a few days before going to the event, I was able to interview two experts on “how to network at live events.” I learned a lot from the conversation and so can you by requesting the replay of the webinar here.
Note how the link URL [changed for privacy reasons] is used to access the hosted graphic of the check mark. You can use the same mark up script to create your own similar list. But you will need to create a bullet graphic and store it somewhere.
I just got an automated telephone call from some company wanting to tell me how to make easy money online. This despite that my personal phone line is on the do-not-call list. Of course I hear about the array of buttons to push to hear the message again, or to speak with a live adviser (salesperson no doubt). No button to prevent future calls. They gave their website URL if I wanted more information on how to make money flow easily.
“Find your niche!”
(Recommended Affiliate Book)
For some time I have been visualizing the elements that lead to a successful internet marketing business. I have been writing a lot about collaboration, but that is only one component, one element that leads to success. I have been gripped by Mike Klingler’s teaching on Marketing Funnel Mastery, but as critical as that is, it is only one component. I wanted a diagram that would be as useful for those doing advanced internet marketing as for “newbies” looking for an internet marketing strategy.
