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Wisdom from the Dalai Lama
I haven’t gotten much into the whole Google+ system although I have used it on my blogs and websites for some link love. Today, Google sent me an email with updates, something I rarely if ever even take a look at. I was shocked to find out that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was a member of Google+ and posts to it pretty regularly.
His post for today really struck a chord with me. He said,
The quality of everything we do: our physical actions, our verbal actions, and even our mental actions, depends on our motivation. That’s why it’s important for us to examine our motivation in our day to day life. If we cultivate respect for others and our motivation is sincere, if we develop a genuine concern for others’ well-being, then all our actions will be positive.
This is so important for us as Internet Marketers to remember. Everything in this business, any business and life in general will have better quality when we have deep motivation for doing those things. Being an entrepreneur is such a struggle for so many people, but if we are to sit back and analyze our motivation, we will often find that what we say we want is not motivating enough.
Take the chronic dieter. She (and usually it’s a woman) desperately wants to lose weight. But does she want to lose weight enough to stop eating donuts and pretzels? Is it motivating enough that she may be facing heart disease, advanced aging or diabetes by continuing to consume those items that contribute to these disorders as much as they do to being overweight? Is it motivating enough to want to fit into her wedding dress from 20 years ago? For some perhaps, but for so many it is not.
More often than not, what does motivate people is their ego. Who can they show off to? Who can they show up by losing the weight faster than, looking “better” than etc? They want to be able to stick it to someone when they lose the weight.
As I write this, I realize that this is important as much to your marketing efforts as much as it is to your own personal success. So remember to learn a bit about the people you are selling your products to and hit those buttons that make them want to click your links and buy. Sell those products you would stand behind, not just something that will make you a quick buck. Bring value to others and you will bring value to your own life.
Personally, try to remember to always be congruent in your own actions. One trap people (myself included) always fall into is focusing more on saving money than making money. If you want to make $50K per year, why quibble over the 50 cents you overpaid on a head of broccoli at the supermarket — especially if it means you have to wait another 15 minutes for someone to fix the error? If you want to make more money, then focus there. When you focus on expanding your revenue, your whole world expands. When you focus on saving a few bucks here and there to the point that it outweighs your ability to make more money, you have basically accepted your current stage in life and are conveying to the Universe that you can never be anything more than you are right now.
The Biggest Mistake Kindle Publishers Make
Kindle’s publishing system is a godsend to anyone seeking to make more money online, supplement an income or replace a job. It is so easy to do once you understand the basic principles of marketing.
Unfortunately, most people don’t understand how to make their books stand out on Kindle. A lot of people feel that they need to create books on a subject that nobody has ever done before. Besides the fact that it’s practically impossible to find an idea that hasn’t been explored before, if you’re not seeing something written on the idea you have in mind, it’s because there is no interest in it. Someone has likely tried it and failed.
Book shoppers generally aren’t looking for something obscure. They want something they can relate to. Something that will solve a problem for them. Or something that will answer some question they need answered.
So what this means is that publishing a book on your chosen topic can’t not be done (yes, I know it’s a double negative, but here it makes more sense than leaving the sentence in the more straightforward voice — at least, to me), but you must approach your topic by letting your audience know what you can do for them.
Let’s say that on your last trip to the Amazon, you discovered a unique method of healing uterine fibroids called, Dinda Uta Mira. You don’t entitle your book Dinda Uta Mira because most people won’t understand what the heck you’re talking about. Instead, you title it, Uterine Fibroid Cure: Secret Cure from the Amazon.
Get it? The title is based on the solution then further draws interest of passersby by mentioning that its a secret cure. Doesn’t everyone want to find out what the secret cure from the exotic Amazon might be? Add the word “ancient” in there and you’ve taken it a level deeper!
This is so easy to do, yet I see so many poorly named titles on Amazon it’s almost laughable. So if writing is your thing and you want to publish to Kindle, subscribe to my feed as I’m going to have more and more info on how to successfully publish on Kindle!
Smells Like Gina Ratliffe
So I got a on a mailing list for a manifesting summit a few weeks ago. It consisted of nightly supposedly no-pitch webinars from people who practiced various types of methods to get your brain in shape to create positive change in your life be it health, wealth or anything else that people want more of.
Somewhere along the line, I got on the list for one woman by the name of Vanessa (I’ll leave her last name off because I don’t know anything about the way she practices and don’t want to give her a bad name unnecessarily). One evening she sent out an email asking for people to complete a survey. And for the first 30 respondents, you would get a complimentary 30 minute phone session to help you get clear on your goals. I bit even though I knew that a pitch would be on the back end of the “free” session. But mainly, I wanted to study her sales technique. Honestly, if she had anything worthwhile to say, I would have been happy to buy whatever she was selling.
So a few weeks later came the time for my free session — yes, I “won”. As soon as we got on the call, I got a bad feeling. She prefaced the meeting by saying “Do you mind if we just jump into this?” Which is fine, but something in the tone of her voice was uneasy. She asked me a couple of vague questions that she didn’t even seem comfortable with phrasing. So of course, my answers were all over the place. Her inability to ask her questions in a tangible way, made my answers just as vague. To boot, all along she kept telling me how honestly she speaks to people and that she wasn’t there to be my friend, but to help me. Fine by me, I actually prefer this in a professional relationship.
Yet, as I spoke, she would interject her perception of what I was saying. I say perception because she was basically putting words into my mouth. Then she made her “analysis” of my situation — my energy was trapped. Oh God! Really, Einstein? Why do I feel that all 30 people you gave one of these sessions to go the same exact diagnosis? It was the lamest analysis of any sort that I had ever received. Pathetic, senseless, time-wasting drivel.
Then, with 10 minutes to spare, she moved in for the kill by offering her “prescription” to my ailment. Her $3000 90 day coaching program! Because I was such an honored recipient of the freebie, her fee had been knocked down from $5000! Wow! Thanks! I feel sooooo special!
I was honest and told her that I would not make a $3000 decision in 10 minutes. She got audibly upset and started telling me that I was crazy for not investing $3000 that was guaranteed to have money falling out of the sky into my lap immediately following the first session. Even though she was acting like a complete douche bag, I knew that telling her that point blank would not be the best way for me to handle it, so I used a technique I learned from internationally acclaimed life coach Morgana Rae — I asked my Money Honey.
This is a fantastic technique and if you haven’t heard of it, then I suggest you get Morgana’s book on Financial Alchemy. Click here to check it out.
So when I asked my Honey, he said “Smells like Gina Ratliffe.” (if you don’t know who that is, then read the ‘about’ page on my blog) Then I knew just what I had to do. I came back with “You’ve been honest with me, so if it’s all right, I’m going to be honest with you.” She paused almost as if astonished because no one had ever turned the tables on her, then replied, “Uh, OK.” “I know myself”, I continued “and if I purchase this now, I’m going to get a refund tomorrow. And I will resent you.”
This time, she heard me loud and clear — honestly, what could she say to that?– and we hung up the phone within a minute in a civil way, which is always preferable to a hostile scenario. I really owe this ability to put her in her place and take charge of my own path to my Money Honey. I’ve been practicing talking to him daily and he has never let me down yet! In the past, I would have let this drag out for at least another 10 minutes and then would have ended probably by incorporating more drama like calling Vanessa a name or just hanging up on her.
Although I’m sure Vanessa would have had numerous upsells to her coaching program, I have no idea if she intended to deceive people like Gina Ratliffe/DeVee does. But her tactics certainly were familiar!
If you want to clear out your Money Monster and discover your Money Honey, then check out Morgana’s book. It is the best (and cheapest) financial decision I have made this year!
Make Money Online Scams: Don’t Let Them Scare You From Making Money!
Those of you who know me, know that when I started making money online I got scammed big time. The saddest part about it was that the woman who I got scammed by was recommended by a friend. Not necessarily for the program she sold me on, but for another free program she had. 
At the time I wasn’t very impressed with the free program she put together. But she was featuring Marianne Williamson, the famous love attraction coach, that my other friend had recently been working with. Speaking to the other friend she mentioned that Marianne Williamson was a woman of principles who only hangs out with other people who are genuine. So I decided to give it a try.
She was trying to position herself as an Internet marketing specialist. At the time I didn’t even really know what Internet marketing was, but I knew that I needed to start making money online soon.
So I signed up for the course to the tune of almost $6000 and a few months later the class began. It was clear that she had no idea what the heck she was doing. She taught very convoluted concepts that made no sense to any of the 30 women, well supposedly 30 women, who were on the calls. Yes, this class was given by teleconference.
Within a month, I realized I made a big mistake, but still tried to make the system work. The woman who sold the course really didn’t know what she was doing.
She claimed she had a money back guarantee, but nobody ever saw their money back — even the few of us who actually demanded it back. In fact she even threatened us on the last day of class that we would never get her support going forward should we ask for our money back.
A lot of people got scared from this experience and decided that they would just avoid Internet marketing all together and go back to their traditional jobs. But not me. I wanted something different. I understood the value of the Internet because I had already have some small successes on my own with the Internet.
I immediately set to work and began researching different ways of making money online. And I’m so glad I did. Now even though I don’t make the millions of dollars this woman apparently makes scamming people, I do make a decent amount of money and soon will be surpassing my husband’s salary which is — well let’s just say he makes a really good amount of money.
And over the next coming months, I know that we will be living the Internet lifestyle. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t really be afraid of the Internet. Yes, there are scams on the Internet. But that doesn’t mean that everything is the scam.
In fact I bet that you deal with just as many scams in your personal offline life even more than I do online. For example I know very few people who trust their doctor. their dentist, plumbers, electricians or even their mechanic. And honestly how many people do you know really trust lawyers – at least how many people do you know really trust ALL lawyers?
A friend told me that her elderly parents were charged $8000 to have a tree removed from their roof, only to meet someone else a few weeks later and said he could’ve done the same job for $800.
So in any case I just wanted to illustrate that not everything on the Internet is a scam. If you have dreams of becoming very wealthy or at least quitting your daytime job or being self-employed, then you need to just be smart, be safe, be aware and learn from your mistakes because the Internet is an amazing place to earn a fantastic living.
You might want to check out the small business scam article that ran in CNN this past month. It features yours truly on page 4!
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/smallbusiness/1111/gallery.scam/4.html
Money at your Fingertips
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