Archive for May, 2009
Help! My Server Is Melting
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That’s right, my server has melted, it’s been fried, and it’s all because the latest product launch prompted a bigger reaction than expected…
Sound familiar?? Well it should, because that’s the sort of email you get the day after most system launches these days – you’ll get pre-launch build up for weeks and weeks, you’ll receive all the mails urging you to get in before launch, then on launch day or launch day plus 1, the post-launch marketing campaign kicks in.
“Sorry if you couldn’t get access yesterday…”
“Server was offline due to unprecedented demand…”
“We have extended the deadline so you can still get in…”
It would almost be believable, and in some cases it may be genuine, but it is an integral part of EVERY major system launch out there. If you don’t believe me, start paying attention to these things and you will soon spot the pattern.
A related tactic includes “oops sorry I got the link wrong” – perfect excuse to mail you AGAIN the following day. Not only that, but it enables you to see the other person as fallible, as being no different to yourself, and therefore if someone like them can make it with their system, then so can you…
Now call me old-fashioned, call me a sceptic, maybe even call me a fool – but I hate this stuff, not least because it’s aimed at the people who are trying to make money on the net, rather than consumer-level products. There’s enough confusion out there already, people are spinning out of control from system to system, and the “heavy hitters” are exploiting this with these cynical tactics.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s a time and place for marketing tactics, and I will happily use them – but when retailing products that provide something of value, NOT for the over-hyped launch of a re-packaged marketing system that “does everything for you and provides enough video training to occupy 27 lifetimes”.
These are difficult times economy-wise, and people are even more scared because of the way the media build it up into a bogey man. The LAST thing people need is to be exploited by vendors of these marketing systems. Yes these systems are pretty good actually, but let’s cut the crap eh? “Server’s Melted”, yeah right! If you haven’t planned to cope with the massive traffic, then I would be very VERY surprised.
p.s. How many systems that “do everything for you” does one marketer need? Pick one and stick with it!
Fanfare for the Common Man
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So I have been reading a lot of the product launches lately, and I have noticed a trend that mirrors my experience in the small business software world – please bear with me, there IS a point to all this…
I have been involved with many companies in the past, who start off by offering fantastic value to small business operators, drastically under-cutting the prices of the big players in the market, and achieving a loyal customer base very quickly. Over time the software is improved, tweaked, and larger companies get interested in being clients/users. This in turn leads to an expansion in the company producing the software, and eventually a review of the business, producing processes more closely aligned to “big business” clients.
When this happens, the circle is complete; a small, efficient, bold-as-brass upstart is absorbed into the establishment, forgets its roots and foundations, and becomes yet another vendor of over-priced products. The original client base slowly gets forgotten.
So, let’s take this story and see how it applies to online marketing… to be honest, I am SICK AND TIRED of some of the stuff being pumped out lately. I have seen far far too many scenarios that go a little like this:
1. Person or Company X put out some great PR and hype in relation to how they provide free and cheap tools and information, that will really help the little guy share in the success.
2. Over time, various updates and articles start to talk in terms of “successful people spend lots of money on tools and education”. While true, and while valid – a LOT of this talk is grooming you to a mindset where you will happily pay money to these people.
3. Ultimately a new and improved service is launched, perhaps in conjunction with another “big name” – only now, instead of being a few bucks – it’s serious money. But hey, serious people will pay serious money, right?
What annoys me, similar to what annoys me with the small business software world, is not the people doing this – hey, if they want to move themselves into a, quite frankly, more lucrative but more competitive market, then so be it. No, what annoys me is that those people who need the cheaper solutions, who ARE serious but don’t have serious dollars to spare – these people get left behind every single time.
I will be brutally honest with you here – if you’re going to make a success online then you WILL need to invest time and money. If you’re on a limited budget then you are going to have to invest more time for sure.
BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND THOUSANDS!!!!
Sorry for shouting, but it’s true. Some courses and systems will cost you plenty of up-front dollars, or hefty subscriptions. Is the content worth it? More than likely, but that doesn’t make it any more affordable for the ordinary punter – and forget all that “can you afford NOT to do this” crap – it’s a sales/marketing device!
No, there is a vast “underclass” of serious online marketers with limited budgets, unlimited desire, and they keep getting crapped on over and over and over.
Do I have solutions? You bet – and in many ways perhaps this rant itself is a marketing technique. Ultimately I want to continue to make money, and I am not yet in the position where I can give everything away for free (though that would be nice!)
But do I have to rip people off in the process? NO WAY!
This why you won’t see recommendations from me for expensive things – my recommended traffic education is 30 bucks per month (a small percentage of what others charge for the same information), my recommended list building tool is under 10 bucks per month. My recommended mail software is the same low flat rate regardless of how many people in your list!
My own toolkit costs 17 bucks per month and I often give it away for FREE – if people partner with me, either through product purchase or my back end businesses, I reward them rather than ripping them off!
Realistically I would say it’s possible to arm yourself with adequate tools for less than $70 per month – and in all cases you can make money by referring others to the same tools!
This makes the task of funding much easier – for example when I first started taking this stuff seriously, I covered auto ship for a business and all my tool subscriptions by simply packing in smoking. For one of the higher priced solutions, I would have had to given up a lot more without doubt.
So, don’t buy into the hype, don’t get yourself into financial trouble – hook into my free email series, mail me, skype me, phone me or connect with me on Twitter. I’ll show you the affordable way to get this stuff going, and furthermore I promise that I, and Avallach Technology, will never abandon the little guy by chasing the corporate dollars.
THAT is my 100% money-back, cast iron guarantee, my “usp” and my total philosophy, all wrapped up in one.
I hope you like it – I know I do
Gaz
The Art of Customer Service Is Alive and Well
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This post is going to be short, and it relates to the superb service recently received from a company here in Australia. I just think it’s fantastic that there ARE still companies out there that operate on the old-fashioned principle of giving great customer service.
We were planning on handing out cards to Manchester United fans on the night of the Champions League final, thus spreading the word about the supporters club we are building up in Perth. Due to various circumstances I had forgotten about them, and left it too late. There were only a few working days left, with a weekend in the middle, local suppliers were quoting me 7 working days, and a company I had found via Google was quoting 5… Then I noticed something – they said that if the job was urgent, then go ahead, place the order, and then send them an email. Apparently this would lead to the job being flagged as urgent, and they could often get the business cards done in as little as 24 hours.
So I went for it – uploaded the graphic, set the text I wanted, and ordered 1000 cards for about 80 bucks. I sent the email, got a reply within half an hour (bearing in mind it was night time) saying the order would be watched through the process and shipped asap.
To cut a short-ish story even shorter… the cards arrived in Perth Wednesday morning, giving me a whole day to get them out to people who would help distribute them. I thought that was bloody fantastic – maybe it’s partly because there is so much BAD customer service out there, but the way this order was handled knocked my socks off. What’s amazing as well, when you think about it, by setting this sort of standard for themselves, this company can stand out from the crowd, and stand head and shoulders above the competition – that’s a pretty cheap and effective way of building business for sure.
So now, when I need to get cards done for Avallach Technology, guess where that order is going to? Guess where subsequent orders will be going to, and guess where I am referring anyone and everyone who needs business cards?
Talking ‘Bout My (Traffic) Generation
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Traffic is THE hot topic right now isn’t it?
It’s not really that surprising – anyone who has put a business site online knows that traffic is the lifeblood, without which nothing happens.
There are hundreds if not thousands of ebooks and services for sale in places like ClickBank. There’s also a lot of free information out there if you look for it, and have the time to sift through the often-conflicting advice.
I myself spent a lot of time and money on various courses relating to different aspects of traffic generation; blogging, PLR articles for blogs, article submission, Google Ads, Squidoo Lenses and much more.
It all culminated in attending an online stream of a live seminar on the subject, presented by Traffic University. Now these guys charge a lot of money for their training, though everyone who does it says it is worth it. I personally was left wondering why someone doesn’t put together good quality training for the “little guy”. It’s all well and good thinking “I WILL one day spend 600 or 900 bucks per month on training” but what if your budget currently runs to a fraction of that?
So I was talking to the guy who urged me to view this seminar stream – we are colleagues on a business team, he supplies traffic expertise, and I provide technical knowledge – anyway, turns out he was already way ahead of me, and at that stage was building a training system geared towards the little guy. I swear right now, I have been hanging out for this stuff to go live ever since, have been using it since they first put a beta online, and happily upgraded to paid status when they launched. This really is quality stuff.
I should mention at this stage that he learned a lot as a paid member of Traffic University, but has also added to this knowledge through experience in various sectors.
What is really cool is that some of the key traffic information has been released as a set of free videos – why free? Well they are very confident in the quality of their work, and are equally confident that many people will eventually become clients. They are very honest and up-front about that – another refreshing difference in the approach!
The information itself will NOT do a thing for your business, your web site, or your web traffic logs. It does require a bit of time to work through the stuff, so even though the videos are free, you need to invest some of your time – or pay someone for their time to do pretty much the same thing.
The thing is, any business owner who takes on this task for themselves will learn an incredibly valuable skill, that they will be able to apply to any site, for any business. That’s priceless to be honest with you.
So if you need help and information regarding traffic, you really do need to at least check out the free content provided:
http://wealthcreationfordummies.com/
You WILL thank me for it, and you WILL thank J & C for it too.
All the best
Gaz
Resellers / Affiliates Wanted
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The Express Marketer toolkit has been in constant use for several months now, and providing early adopters with some great functionality that has been truly appreciated.
It is now time to move on to phase 2, and that involves ramping up the affiliate program, enabling marketers to earn generous commissions on a recurring basis.
Using the ever-popular and reliable ClickBank, Express Marketer is listed with 65% recurring monthly commissions. With the retail price set at $17, this will put around 11 bucks per month, per referred subscriber, straight in your pocket.
To promote the system you will need a ClickBank ID, which will then be used to replace the xxx in the following affiliate “hop link”.
http://xxx.avallach.hop.clickbank.net/
Whether you are marketing to fellow marketers, or your clients simply need some help getting organised, Express provides them with a great solution, while growing your business’ bottom line.
Twitter Has Serious Problems?
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OK I’ll admit that it took me a while to “get” Twitter, and that wasn’t helped by my complete ignorance of Twitter clients such as TweetDeck.
I would tend to lump Twitter in with instant messaging systems such as AIM and MSN, but it’s subtly different. Twitter is not really designed to be a “chat” service, though it can sometimes be used as one, but provides a great way to send out all kinds of information to your followers.
For example, if your usage of Twitter is purely social, you might post small messages indicating what you’re doing, where you’re going, what music you’re listening to etc.
If you use Twitter to connect with clients, you might post small messages to provide details of new offers.
If you’re in the coaching game, you can use Twitter to provide followers with small nuggets of valuable information.
Twitter really is a messaging platform for all occasions and, with the emergence of various web widgets, you can put your Twitter feed and contact details right in front of your site visitors, in a seamless fashion.
A frequent accusation levelled at Twitter is that “it’s just Facebook status updates without any of the other functionality”. That, in my book at least, is a strength. Isolating that one piece of functionality immediately makes it more suitable for the array of duties identified above.
When status updates are tied in with a much larger system like Facebook, with a potentially mixed “audience” of friends, family, old school mates, colleagues etc. it would be harder to put out specific, targetted messages.
So what “problems” has Twitter got? Well, again I have to admit to being a part of the problem at one stage – partly because I hadn’t worked Twitter out at that stage, and partly because I was believing some of the traffic generation claims.
The big big problem is over-automation – there are countless systems, services, applications and “how to” guides giving a complete system that is supposed to “explode” your web traffic, get you 1000s of followers etc. etc.
To my mind this then starts to make Twitter operate a lot more like a Traffic Exchange, only with less interesting content. Not only are Tweets an endless stream of adverts, opt-in links and affiliate links, but all the space in between is filled with automated “What’s everyone talking about” messages, ReTweets, messages about new systems that will explode your business and so on.
This poor signal-to-noise ratio will kill the service eventually – just like the old Usenet newsgroups have been killed by spammers and trolls. Automated use of Twitter is NOT a viable, long-term strategy that will be of benefit to your business.
Automated use of Twitter will make you look like a newbie, and a clueless one at that, a follower (when you need to be a leader) and a spammer. Your “followers” will comprise mostly of people who don’t read their Tweets (because they are on automatic pilot as well) and the few good contacts you manage to get, will simply unfollow you when they get bored of the value-less “content” you put out there.
SOME automation of Twitter is great – e.g for letting people know about updates on your blog, But at the heart of the system, just like EVERYTHING else, is old-fashioned manual use of the service, including making genuine connections and building relationships.
To summarise, Twitter is an excellent tool once you work it out; but using it as an automated spam-bot will result in Twitter’s premature death.
You can touch base with me at http://twitter.com/avallach/
Gaz
In An Ideal World
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There are thousands, if not millions, of people spending countless hours on the Internet, clicking ad links, buying cheap software tools that will “explode web traffic” to some page or other where they are selling an eBook.
These people are also, almost invariably, likely to be averaging a few weeks with each “big new thing”, before deciding it doesn’t work, and moving on to the next shiny “opportunity”.
It frustrates me to see this. To be brutally honest with you, it appalls me that these people are left to languish; wanting a solution, wanting to make improvements in their lives, but never quite discovering how to achieve that. Still, I’m sure some people are making a killing selling eBooks and web scripts to this massive crowd.
The really sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Every single individual who has declared “there must be more to life”, or asked the question “how can I break free?” – each one of these contains the spark that can create a whole new future.
This is THE motivation for sitting down and creating “Wealth Creation For Dummies”, and THE reason why I am offering it at no cost. By sharing my own experiences, by passing on lessons I learned the hard way, thousands upon thousands of “ordinary” men and women will learn how to achieve extraordinary changes.
Furthermore, I will personally guide to success ANYONE who demonstrates they are an action taker, are coachable, and willing to invest time and energy in themselves.
I won’t let the cat out of the bag here, but what I CAN promise is this: Creating a new future for you and your family is a LOT easier than you probably imagine…
So, without further ado, hook yourself into the free coaching series right now – your future self will thank you for it!
FREE Wealth Creation For Dummies Subscription
Gaz
p.s. I’m deadly serious – it’s simple, it’s doable, and within your grasp
WCFD Update
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As discussed in my previous blog post, Wealth Creation For Dummies (WCFD) is a new initiative, delivering quality information to online business newbies, oldies, and anyone in between.
WCFD is a month-long coaching series, introducing key concepts and ideas, arming you with everything you need to experience success online (or offline for that matter).
By following the link below, and entering your details, you will gain full access to my unique coaching for free.
http://wealthcreationfordummies.com/subscribe.htm
My promise to you is this – absorb every morsel of the information provided, allow the fundamental truths to permeate your grey matter, convert all that you learn into action, and you WILL be successful.
N.B. The information provided has been learned the hard way, so do yourself a favour and avoid all the false starts, dead ends, mistakes and red herrings I have had to make over time!
Wealth Creation For Dummies
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OK, so I KNOW you’re NOT a dummy, so maybe this is not for you, who knows. “Wealth Creation For Dummies” is a catchy title I came up with because it seemed like I needed a catchy title!
But what is this catchy title all about? In a nutshell, “Wealth Creation For Dummies” is 100% no-nonsense advice and information aimed (mostly) at people who are:
- Fed up with the hype
- Sick of false and empty promises
- Still seeking the “real secrets”
It is also aimed at complete marketing newbies who want to avoid wasting time, and side-step the frustrations most people experience (although there is a school of thought that says you have to go through this phase in order to fully understand).
“Wealth Creation For Dummies” is also about showing people ways to achieve success, and help them stick 2 fingers up to everyone else’s “recession”. At the heart of “WCFD” is the training and education provided by Traffic Dynasty, but that is only the beginning!
Connect with me right now – look me up on the Traffic Dynasty forums (user name avallach), and follow me on Twitter
With the right tools, advice, guidance and associates, anyone can be successful, even dummies!
Easy as Riding a Bike
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When I turned 17 I quite fancied having a motorbike, getting my bike licence etc. but my parents were against it, and they did a good job convincing me it was dangerous. Their fears fed mine, and then I started hearing that ALL people who ride bikes will come off at least once. etc. etc.
Over the next decade I forgot all about riding a motorbike, and always viewed them as a dangerous mode of transport. Then one day I got a great job offer in a town 18 miles from where I lived. The pay wasn’t great, but it was exactly the direction I wanted to take with my programming career at that point. I was married to my first wife at the time, we had bought a house, and money was very limited.
The cost of commuting by public transport was too high, the cost of getting and running a second car was too high… so the old dream of riding a bike came back to life. I got a little 100cc Yamaha for a couple hundred quid (pounds) and got to work and back on a thimbleful of petrol. The first time I took that bike out I was smitten by the 2-wheel bug.
I then proceeded to ride on learner plates for a couple of years, eventually taking my full bike licence test when the government were introducing complex changes to the bike licence laws. Basically I had to take my test then, or else it would be a lot more complicated and expensive to get a full (unrestricted cc) licence.
The day after I passed my test I bought a 2nd hand Honda CB400F – it was over 20 years old, but had a great sound, and had way more power than I had ever handled in my life. Within 5 seconds I wondered why the hell I hadn’t taken the test earlier. Forget pottering about on a little 2 stroke. 400cc of 4 stroke power was waaaaay better.
This bike was the one to dump me on the road, and put me in hospital – the first time I hit an oily patch and ended up in the casualty department, having a mildly grazed leg examined (the next day I felt like I had been beaten up by a pack of marauding gorillas). The second time, a white van made a last minute right turn, knocking me over. All I have ever recalled of that incident was waking up in a hospital bed – no physical injuries, just concerns that I was unconscious and breathing funnily.
The Honda was written off in that incident – and I was not allowed to ride for a few months after that (medical grounds) – but after a series of tests, and a prolonged period without any headaches, I got the all clear.
So I went to the bike shop, test rode a second-hand 1000cc (thousand) Suzuki – and bought it there and then. Since that day I’ve owned a couple more bikes, and have enjoyed a total of about 15 years of 2 wheeled freedom. For me, I don’t get why people buy cars like the Lotus Elise. A bike will deliver more power, places you equally close to the engine, but is accessible to almost anyone (I am very tall and “well built”, I basically exceed the Lotus Elise weight and size limits) and is a massively fun way to get from A to B…
So what was the point of this? Well, when I look back at this story, a few things jump out.
1. My parents (and my own) fear leading to inaction
2. A situation or financial hardship FORCING an action that overcame fear
3. Not getting a full bike licence for a couple of years – procrastination
4. A situation forcing me to overcome procrastination – and then wondering why I had delayed for so long
5. The accident(s) – I knew they would happen, but I got back in the saddle on both occasions
Now I look at my life:
1. I have been an employee for 22 years this year – fear has led to me not branching out on my own
2. A build up of frustration, and a desire to NOT do the “just over broke” thing finally allowed me to overcome that
3. Procrastination – I don’t even know which of the millions of personal examples to choose from to be honest
4. Why does it always take some external event? I am still working on that
5. There WILL be setbacks, everyone goes through them (like every biker WILL come off at least once) – how you react is the key
And the common thread that runs through this? Action.
Action cures fear
Action overcomes procrastination
Action provides rewarding experiences
The “secret” to success is within each and every one of us – the only question is, will we take that and put it to work for us? Will we get back in the saddle when we’re involved in a traffic accident? Will we allow the success of others to make us angry or jealous? Will we simply stop when we think we hit a dead end, and start looking for something easier that we know we can do?
Gaz
p.s. The only thing most of us “know” we can do for sure, is to be an employee. These days all I “know” about being an employee, is that I don’t want to be one.
