If you’ve been on my newsletter list for the past year (or more) then you know I’ve got through quite a personal transformation…

In early 2009, I had moved from Florida to California.  I spent about 12 months there and then decided I wanted to go somewhere else.  And I decided to do it in a bit of a ‘dramatic’ fashion…

I decided to get rid of everything I owned (things) and just travel the world out of a small backpack with just my laptop and a few days worth of clothes.  I called it my MINIMALIST ADVENTURE.

I travelled to 3 different continents over the next several months, and technically I’m still on that trip — although, I got a bit burned out on living out of a small bag (and not having a home base) and so I decided it was better to set up a ‘home’ and then travel to and from there, and of course acquire some more clothes and normal stuff to be able to enjoy myself a bit more.  But I’m still going to keep things to a minimum and not acquire tons of things like I had in the past.

I’m back on the east coast and happy to be closer to my family.  But here’s my ‘point’ to this message today and what I’ve learned from my little ‘experiment’…

During the past several years, as I’ve talked about many times before, I failed to release many new marketing products.  Even ones I mentioned were in the works ended up fizzling out when I either changed my mind or got distracted with other things; such as working on unrelated business ideas.

I started out with a ‘bang’ back in 2004 when I released “Traffic Secrets” (that most people know me for) and then after that (I am willing to admit) my popularity pretty much went downhill from there because I did a poor job of releasing a lot of new stuff — I’ve made it known how much I hate product creation, and that had a lot to do with it.

I ended up working on a lot on non-marketing stuff during those years; I built a large content network of sites (driven by articles and syndicated content) and worked on some software projects.

But during the past 4-5 years or so something else happened that affected everything I was working on…

I GOT SEVERELY BURNED OUT.

I used to be a “marketing junkie” and maybe you are too.  I used to read everything about marketing (online and offline) I could get my hands on.  I read Advertising magazines, Direct Marketing periodicals, bought all the new marketing books, you name it.  I lived and breathed marketing.

And what used to be a “fun” topic for me turned into something that I had lost my passion for. I felt like my creativity and the ‘fire’ that fueled me as a serial entrepreneur since I was about 10 (when I ran a BBS and other little businesses) was fading.

But then one day I really started to realize ‘what’ the problem was…

TOO MUCH NOISE.

And this is the same premise as to why I decided to do my little Minimalist Adventure…

I was spending 10-15+ hours per day online.  Reading, researching, and communicating with people.  I was getting over 3,000 emails PER WEEK, and was involved in all sorts of ‘networking’ stuff with social networks, etc.

I quickly reached over 5,000 ‘friends’ on Facebook… over 25,000 ‘followers’ on Twitter.  I was getting hundreds of “direct messages” on Twitter and Facebook in addition to all the emails that hit my inbox every week.

The Internet truly is like drinking from a fire hose.  And I think it’s just becoming a bigger fire hose everyday!

To say I had personally reached ‘Information Overload’ is an understatement.  I had very little time to actually THINK and to be creative.  Basically, I was becoming a data zombie — like most people are today.

So I Decided To Make Some MAJOR Changes…

If you’ve been on my newsletter list for the past year then you noticed many of them…

1.  I deleted my Twitter account.

I came to the realization that using Twitter just wasn’t that profitable for ANY of the projects I was working on.  It was becoming more of a ‘chat’ service than anything and had me wasting a lot of my time.

2.  I deleted my Facebook account.

Facebook had me logging in many times a day. (Like most people are doing right now.)  It was like “Extended Email.”  Just another place people were bombarding me with messages.  And to be honest, I was spending a lot of my time filtering through information about tons of people that I didn’t care about.  I don’t mean to say I didn’t care about the people, I mean I didn’t care to see every ‘update’ that they were taking their kids to soccer practice, or how their dog just puked on their rug, or that they were excited that their husband was finally taking them out on a “date night” etc.  I’m sure you know what I mean.  Facebook is really the “TOO MUCH INFO” system of all systems.  It exposes you, at least in my opinion, to too much info about people’s lives.

3.  Several months ago, I left all the ‘mastermind’ and ‘brainstorming’ groups I was a member of.

I used to have regularly scheduled phone or Skype chat sessions, usually multiple times a month.  I had a little ‘brainstorming’ setup with a friend of mine that was in the software business (not marketing related) and we’d do a call together every other week to talk about our latest projects, what our bottlenecks were, and to encourage each other to keep staying productive (or helping solve problems).  But I realized this was taking up a lot of my time and after a few sessions, there wasn’t a lot to keep talking about.  So I decided to stop doing them, and my friend understood and actually was feeling the same way.

I was also a member of a mastermind group that mainly communicated via email — like an email discussion list where one person could post something and everyone would get it, then someone would reply and everyone
would get the reply, etc. etc.  This was a very influential group with some of the top marketing ‘gurus’ but it also included some other major infoproduct publishers – from fitness, real estate, stock trading, relationship
advice, etc.  The members in the same industries would try and support each other with cross-promotions and JVs, and the entire group would share test results and talk about their business goals, challenges, etc.  It was tough making the decision to leave this group, but it was just another thing adding to my inbox load as well as just being another ‘pipe’ of information that added to my overwhelm.  So I resigned from the group and everyone understood as I was moving on to other things in my life and was trying to ‘downsize’ everything I had going on.

4.  I changed my email address.

I just couldn’t take the amount of email I was getting.  It was just too much.  It gave me so much stress it wasn’t even funny.  Maybe you are dealing with the same thing?  So basically I declared “email bankruptcy” and just changed my email address.  And I only gave my new email address to my family, close friends, my employees & outsourced workers, and other ‘mission critical’ people. I still get ‘some’ emails from people that I had to contact for something (and they saw my new email address) etc. but overall I have greatly reduced my email load.

Today I get less than *20* total emails per day.

And considering that 50% are probably from my Mom (Mom, I do like your emails!) I don’t get a lot of email from that many different people.  And I’m glad.

AFTER ALL OF THESE CHANGES, I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER.

I’m now 100 times more creative than I have been in the past 5 years.  I have less stress and most importantly I spend a lot less time on the computer.  I never realized how much I was using the computer everyday. It’s actually a pretty amazing thing to only be online a short amount of time each day. Go figure.

And as many of my long-time customers and subscribers know, for over 2 years I’ve been “in motion” of following a lifelong dream… to be in the Video Game/Entertainment business. I’ve talked for years about making games and working on other ‘fun’ projects.  It’s a much different business than an Internet publishing business, but I really enjoy it — even, though, the new company has been slow with generating revenue (we’re getting there, though.)  That industry has really changed in the past few years.  You still need some capital to build a business there, but you no longer need $20MM to create a ‘console’ game for the Xbox, Playstation, etc.  Small indie developers are finding success with iPhone games and Facebook too.  I’d love to create the next “Angry Birds” or “Doodle Jump” but we’ll see.  For those that don’t know, the 99 cent game “Angry Birds” on the iPhone/iPod Touch has now generated over $10,000,000 in sales!  I think that includes their $4.99 version for the iPad too.  But it’s amazing especially when the game has barely been out for one year. And they’re already talking about leveraging the game into possibly a cartoon and other merchandising opportunities.  And that’s just ONE game idea.  I have tons of them.

I now have a little ‘Game Studio’ in the Philippines, and setting that up and my experiences with it is what really motived me to do my “Outsource Force” class earlier this year.  I really think it’s a HUGE component to building a scalable business — leveraging labor costs and having others grow your business for you.  We’re also now in a position to do contract work where we build games (and other apps) for other companies — another
great opportunity. The demand for iPhone apps and other mobile application development is HUGE now. (And growing.)  In fact, it’s one of the fastest growing industries in the world. So I’m looking forward to our future.  This is a really exciting time in history — the ‘shift’ from desktop computing to mobile computing.

The outsourcing advantages are common sense really. Steve Jobs isn’t assembling iPads in a factory somewhere.  In fact, Apple itself doesn’t really build many of their own products. Almost all of their products are manufactured in China now.  It just makes the most financial sense.  We live in a Global Economy now and as a business owner you need to tap into all the resources at your disposal to have the best chance of survival.

So I’m spending most of my time on this little game/apps company now.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m now spending only about 10% of my time on this marketing business,and I’ll probably shut it down within 6 months — all my employees are in the process of moving over to the new company and I just have less and less time to spend teaching.  While I do love teaching (and of course all my great customers) I ultimately love being an entrepreneur myself. And I’ve made it no secret that I never wanted to be a ‘guru’ anyway.  Just not really my cup of tea.

* I’m still working on the TS2.5 update that all TS owners will get for free.  You’ll get an email when it’s done with download instructions. (Thanks for your patience.)  Aside from that I won’t be producing any new marketing products.

I recently signed a ‘brokerage’ agreement with Sedo, one of the top domain name companies in the world, and they’re in the process of selling my income.com domain.  They’ve listed it at $1MM but think they can sell it for more.  We’ll see. I want to use the additional capital to build the game/apps company.

THE BIG ‘TAKEAWAY’ FOR TODAY…

I know my ‘moves’ aren’t the best for everyone, but I do challenge you to think about minimizing your communication with your online ‘friends’ that you connect with on Facebook, Twitter, and via email.  They very well may be taking away from your life and your business rather than adding to it.  We really do only have just so many hours available to us in a day, and it’s really hard to reach your goals if you spend a large percentage of your time “communicating” and “researching” and not “doing.”

Yours For Online Profits,
John Reese

Technorati Tags: Anthony Robbins, John Reese, Tony Robbins, traffic secrets, traffic secrets 2, ts, ts2, ts2.5

As many of you may know, I am about to move to Thailand to work with Greg Jacobs for an unknown amount of months. Its an amazing chance of a life time to work with him and also to move over there, The best part is that my girlfriend (Sheree Mirabito)  can come with me too! So onto the point of this post. I was thinking as I look at all my “stuff” shit I have heaps to take with me to Thailand. How am I going to fit that in just one suitcase, oh thats ok, I can just get another and cram as much shit as possible into them both.

But the reality of this is, I really only wear about 1/4 of the clothes I own, I dont need 5 different parts of shoes and I really don’t need all the computer technical crap that I would normally bring with me. I just need the bare minimum. Thats the reality, but telling myself thats all im taking is another story. It wasnt until I read the blew blog post that Joanna Kinsman wrote (I knew about John Reese‘s minimalistic journey as John is a friend of mine, but I never really thought it was going to be me who followed.) And the other reality is 90% of my stuff is in storage as I lived out of my car for 11months while I was working on my internet businesses, that 11 months ended about 3 months ago after getting back from a Trip to the USA.

I HAVE DECIDED – I am only taking one suitcase and I am going to take as little as possible, I might even model of what John Reese did in one of the links below:

“After recently telling someone about what I am doing they said, ‘But, John, I gotta tell you. It really sounds like you’re just running from life.’ To which I replied, ‘No, you don’t
understand, I’m running TO life.’”
-John Reese

A few months ago, John Reese, though it wasn’t his intention, started a trend in the world of internet marketing, by selling and giving away most of his

belongings. He broke the lease on the gorgeous home he was renting on the ocean in La Jolla, CA and with only his laptop and a backpack of select items, set out to travel the world.
You can read his public letter here.

Kris Mainieri recently made a similar decision, gaving away many of his possessions, and just this week took off on a trip around the world with his girlfriend. Check out Kris’ letter on the Warrior Forum.

Now, I didn’t have a luxury car to sell, or a $7k/month home that I was renting, but I have certainly experienced a shift since moving from California to Maine two months ago. Perhaps it’s the more simple, laid back lifestyle here that I’ve slipped back into on the east coast.

This was supposed to be a temporary move, but I’ve decided to stay, given the great opportunity that has developed here. I need to book a flight, sort through the things I left behind, sell my car, and frankly – it’s the most stressed I’ve felt in a long time.

I realized that I’ve been getting along just fine with the few things I brought with me across the country, and have nearly forgotten about all of the shoes and dresses I left behind. It almost makes me sick thinking about how much money I’ve spent on those items that are so insignificant to my life that I can’t even remember what they are!

One of the easiest ways to keep all this stuff to a minimum is certainly picking up and moving, causing you to sort through the things you really do want or need – I just realized I’ve moved 9 times in the past 3 years! I’m looking forward to once again having my inventory downsized, selling some of my belongings, and giving things away to friends and Goodwill.

The closet in my apartment that is brimming with stuff, and the car I left behind are weighing me down and while I’m dreading the process, I know it will feel great to take care of this and start fresh 

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions – Have you ever done anything like this or even thought about doing something like this?

Technorati Tags: Greg Jacobs, Joanna Kinsman, John Reese, Kris Mainier, Minimalistic, Mitch Sanders, Thailand, Travel, Warrior Forum

Check it out below:

This post was originally written and posted in July 2008. It created a firestorm of comments, a particularly spicy phone call from a phat Internet marketing guru, and an introduction to a fascinating woman who kind of rocked my world. Hilariously funny (to me) is that I never NAMED anyone. The freakin’ POINT was about if there was a list – who would be on it?

For the record, I like John Reese, for whom I got about 700 email offers flooding my inbox. This was about the way $1000 digital products were being slammed every 3 weeks on what seemed to be a rotation among big list gurus.

I complain – you decide. Here is the original post:

The 12 Biggest Whores in Internet Marketing

Walk down the cyber streets of Internet marketing today and you’ll see Internet marketing whores dressed in skimpy outfits (shocking subject lines), shaking their bonuses at you, (the stuff they swore would never be for sale again at their last launch), and cooing seductively – for what?

For a teensie cookie to John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0.

Why, because if you buy John’s Launch Product from them, they take a big fat 50% of your money for themselves – and if they are the real “bottom bitch” (the #1 whore from the book ‘The Pimp’) they win even more in prizes and inner-circle, zero-gravity-dive braggin rights.

Is this too strong?

So while you are busy sorting the flood of emails you are getting today with each one pimping off their bonus “package” as youself two questions:

1. “Does the person sending this to me actually give a darn how I come up with the money for this “must have” product – and whether it truly has a positive impact on my success – or if it is just another big box of stuff I will not be able to digest – putting me further behind in my goals?”

2. “Does this course contain real “secrets” or, is it possible, I can learn everything I need to learn, at a pace I can actually absorb and implement it – another way, for less money or free?”

Come on, haven’t you seen this movie before?

In 2005 “Traffic Secrets” was a great name because John Reese really had come out from underground with lots of great tips and strategies that were, for the most part, not well known outside a few heavyweight players online. It was a seminal work of great value.

AUTHOR NOTE: I was totally right about the following observations about Social Media.

Today, the entire world of getting traffic to your website, blog, or sales letter, has changed dramatically due to social networking, and web video, twitter microblogging, chat, and wireless.

IMHBAO (In my humble but accurate opinion) there are many people who have been pioneers in the social marketing movement. Jack Humphrey is the king of this medium and already has a fabulous resource that is constantly upgraded with the newest ideas.

This medium is not static – it changes constantly.

This is, I know, a very controversial statement I’m making here – and by contrasting John and Jack I’m going to catch flak from some people who think I’m a whore, just a really tricky one, for doing it.

QUESTION: Ask yourself, how did you got so jaded?

ANSWER: Email List Whores…

Please take just a few moments and leave your feedback here as a comment – and tell me, is the landscape of Internet marketing changing – or will millions bleed once again out of the pockets of people like you and me – and into the bank accounts of the 12 Biggest Whores in Internet Marketing?

Technorati Tags: bonus, Guru, Gurus, John Reese, Subject Lines, traffic secrets, traffic secrets 2, traffic secrets 2.0

A few things to tell you about today…

First…

“Social Media” is all the rage everywhere you turn…

On TV.  In Magazines.  Newspapers.  Movies.  And more.

You’ve probably heard “Facebook” and “Twitter” so many times now in your life that you’re probably tired of hearing about them.

But the big question is… is using Social Media really good for you and your business?

I think for most entrepreneurs the answer is NO.

At least “no” because of the way most people are using it.  I’ve always said that Twitter and Facebook are great for SYNDICATION efforts.  There are some great ways to auto-publish links to your articles, blog posts, etc. with them.  And that is definitely something you want to be doing.

But I see so many entrepreneurs spending hours upons hours of their time ‘chatting’ with people on Facebook or Twitter.  Somehow they feel that because they are using those sites, and because the media is so ‘big’ on Social Media, that somehow their business is benefiting from it.

In many cases, it’s THE OPPOSITE.

Spending hours of time on Facebook and Twitter is most likely LOSING MONEY for folks.

In most cases, the traffic that can be generated from those sites is often very untargeted or very unqualified.  Facebook Ads is the exception and I highly recommend you test with it and use it to generate targeted, profitable leads if you can. * That’s where you can buy ads that run across Facebook based on user demographics and interests.

If someone takes the same amount of time they spend on Facebook or Twitter and spends it setting up ad campaigns on Google Adwords, or creating some targeted, highly optimized content for their site, they will make more money in their business.  I guarantee it.

Something for you to think about.

Again, I DO think those sites can help your business, but you shouldn’t be spending more than 5% of your “business time” on them.

I challenge you to use “Anti-Social Media” for 2 weeks.  (Or longer if you can do it.)  Don’t use Facebook or Twitter at all.  Put all of your time into SEO efforts, setting up AdWords campaigns, and writing articles.  You’ll be surprised how much faster your business grows.

The second thing to tell you about today…

Is an update on ME.

A lot of people have been asking me about my travels and my ‘experiment’ with minimalism.

After traveling non-stop for 2 months, I can tell you one thing for sure…

IT’S TIRING.

It’s rough to go from place to place and constantly be on the move.  It’s like it’s hard to ‘relax’ for very long because you know your current surroundings are only temporary.

And being without a “home base” of some sort, I believe, works against you mentally.  Your mind is always aware that you’re just a perpetual nomad and in ‘motion.’

I think the key to being able to perpetually travel is to stay in certain places for long periods of time. Even setting up a little “home base” and then travel to and from that point.

What’s up next for me is to spend some more time in MY OWN COUNTRY.  There are some great cities in the US that I want to experience. I also want to be in the US to spend more time with my family.  I’m realizing more and more that that’s what is truly important in life. (Yes, obvious, I know.)

As many of my long-time customers know, my brother died about 5 years ago.  And not a week or so goes by without being reminded that I wish I had spent more time with him while he was still alive.  And I know that one day (even, though, I definitely don’t like to think about it) I’ll probably have the same thoughts about the time I spent with my parents.

So along with a lot of other areas that I want to have more balance with, spending time with my family is one of them.

I definitely still have lots of destinations on the “To Do” list and I still plan on getting to them all — but I have already come to realize that I need a more balanced way to continue to travel or I will reach a major point of BURN-OUT.

As for the minimalism stuff, I’m still a huge believer in it.  Not necessarily in only having a few shirts and outfits, etc. but just not having tons of STUFF in my life that can become a distraction.  I’m sure that I’ll be acquiring some new things as I set up a little home base, but I’m definitely never going back to the life I once had in regards to owning an overkill of stuff.

The one thing I’ve really experienced so far on my little ‘journey’ is getting some perspective. I’ve had plenty of time to think about my life and focus on what’s really important — I’ve also thought a lot about past choices and how things may or may not have been different.

More than anything, I’ve realized the value of BEING PRESENT.  That life really is short and it’s passing by in the blink of an eye.  And I’ve been doing an interesting “Time Machine” mental exercise (you should try it)…

Whatever you are doing today, or with your days right now, imagine eventually being 10 years into the future.  And imagine being able to get into a Time Machine and visit TODAY (10 years earlier).  Would you want to be doing whatever you were doing then? Or would you wish you had spent those days doing something else?

Like not to harp on the Facebook/Twitter stuff, but think of a day in the recent past when you caught yourself ‘surfing’ for several hours on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You know, when you were just chatting it up with people, etc. and you really didn’t do much to make more money in your business that day – heck, we’ve all been there and done that many times.

Don’t you wish you could have a ‘do over’ and get that essentially worthless day back?

Something to think about.

And if you have a dream to start a certain type of business or to do something you’ve been thinking about for a long time, DO IT.  Don’t wait.  Just go for it NOW.  Often times the ”worst case scenario” if it happens when pursuing that dream isn’t all that bad — so it’s definitely worth the risk.

Since I was a kid, I’ve dreamed of having a video game company.  And now, after putting it off for more than 25 years, I’m finally going for it.  And even if it ends up not having the same success as other businesses I’ve had in the past, I really don’t think I’ll care.  Because I know I’ll be a lot HAPPIER and excited about it. And at the end of the day, that’s really what matters.

So I challenge YOU… don’t wait.  Do whatever you’ve always wanted to do TODAY — or at least get started with ‘it’ in some small way that you can accommodate in your life right now.

Yours For Online Profits,
John Reese

Technorati Tags: driving traffic, Facebook, facebook ads, generating traffic, Google Adwords, income dot com, Income.com, internet marketing, John Reese, Mitch Sanders, Online Marketing, Sheree Mirabito, Social Media, Twitter

Sometimes when you are busy with your business and a lot of things are happening, you lose sight of what you need to do in order to run a successful business. This is  probably the most important email I have ever read in my life.

John Reese is a old school domainer, internet strategist/technologist, and a really SMART dude. He owns a ton of domains and businesses, including income.com.

With this ONE email, he truly opened my eyes to things I forgot, things I needed to remember, and ways to run an efficient business.

This email REALLY put stuff back into perspective. WOW. Thanks John.

I hope all of you find this email just as helpful as I did so I am copying and pasting his email directly below.

=============================

In light of my upcoming 40th birthday, I want
to share 12 valuable mini-lessons that I’ve
learned so far as an entrepreneur…

These range from mistakes to avoid, to
making strategic decisions, of how to get
cash flow to come in the fastest, etc.

They are in no particular order…

1. ALWAYS DO MORE THAN IS EXPECTED OF YOU

I learned this at an early age from my Dad.
He had a very successful career as a business
executive and engineer, and this the core
principle that created his success.

You can apply this to your business in many
ways… over-delivering to your customers,
giving unexpected bonuses to your employees
or outsourced workers, and more.

Most people do just the bare minimum. Do
more than is expected of you and it will do
amazing things for your business.

2. STOP DREAMING AND START DOING

Too many entrepreneurs get caught up in the
big dreams of how they will one day be rich
and how their life will be amazing…

…but they never end up doing anything.

They buy courses, read all they can, jot
down little notes and ideas in a notebook,
but nothing ever actually gets created.

A web site doesn’t get made. Advertising
isn’t run. Markets aren’t tested. Nothing.

If you want to make a lot of money the only
way that happens is getting stuff done. Period.

3. DON’T LET LEARNING DELAY ACTIVITY

Most people that have studied Internet Marketing
much already have the basic skills that are
needed to build a million-dollar business.

That’s worth REPEATING…

Most people that have studied IM much ALREADY
HAVE the basic skills that are needed to build
a million-dollar business.

You can get stuck learning new stuff FOREVER.
There will always be new methods and techniques
that get discovered. The Internet changes on
a DAILY BASIS. This is a given.

Don’t get caught in the trap of “I’m going to start
building my business right after I go through this
next course…”

You can start building your business TODAY while
you are studying and learning new things that you
can easily apply TOMORROW.

Things will NEVER perfectly align for you and
your business. There’s no such thing. So don’t
wait. Get started NOW and take action. Get some
stuff going and go from there.

4. MULTIPLE IDEAS CAN BE THE KISS OF DEATH

It’s okay to work on multiple projects and ideas.
It’s almost impossible to stop entrepreneurs
from having tons of new ideas at the same time.

BUT…

No new money comes in the door until you get
ONE project launched and making money.

Something has to be launched FIRST.

5. MAKE JUST ONE DOLLAR FIRST

No one has ever made a million dollars in sales
without generating $1 first.

ALL successful businesses start with that first
sale and then grow from there.

It doesn’t matter what your income goals are.
The faster you make your first dollar, the faster
you will reach your goals. PERIOD.

6. DO THE IMMEDIATE CASH PROJECT FIRST

What should you work on next? Whatever will
bring in cash the fastest for your business — and
of course, I mean that in a moral/legal/ethical way.

If you analyze all the great ideas you are probably
sitting on, I bet you can realistically prioritize them
in the order of which ones would actually make
money come in the fastest (if it succeeds.)

THAT is the project you need to focus on.

Cash is the lifeblood of your business (and your life.)

Save some of those “big” ideas for the future. Focus
on the ones that stand the best chance of getting
new money to come in right away. Once you have
some stable ongoing cash flow in your business, then
you can take a chance on that project that may take
longer to pay off.

7. EMAIL MARKETING KICKS THE CRAP OUT OF
EVERYTHING ELSE

When it comes to growing a business online, nothing
generates long-term cash flow like an email list of
engaged subscribers & customers.

Email marketing is the best way to generate traffic.
It’s the best way to ‘recycle’ the same visitors again
and again to any of your projects. It’s also the best
way to convert prospects into buyers.

RSS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, BLAH BLAH BLAH

Yes, those methods can generate leads. Yes, those
methods can generate some sales. But time and time
again little old email marketing kicks their butts — by
a long shot.

So make building a list, and a solid relationship with
it, a top priority in your business.

8. RUN A LEAN OVERHEAD MACHINE

I can’t stress this one enough.

When you start growing a successful business
it’s really easy for your overhead to get out of hand.
It’s easy to start hiring a bunch of people and
committing to a bunch of expenses.

Take it from me, when you have months where
your fixed expenses (doesn’t include advertising, etc.)
are well over $100,000/MONTH (and growing) it can put
you in a tough position to make healthy profits.

I used to have fixed overhead that high but never again.
I realized there were smarter ways to do things.

What you need to realize is that REVENUE doesn’t
mean jack squat. It’s your profit (income) that
matters.

So while running a $10,000,000/year business (sales)
is impressive, I know people running a $1,000,000/year
business that nets MORE than the person that owns
the $10MM/year business.

It all comes down to your expenses.

Sometimes it certainly DOES take heavy expenses
in order to make a lot of money. But that’s not my point…

My point is, your overhead can really get away
from you. If your sales experience some dips,
and it’s almost guaranteed they will at some point,
then you can LOSE YOUR BUTT very quickly.

So add to your overhead as a last resort.

9. MAKE ACCOUNTING A PRIORITY

This is a big mistake that most entrepreneurs
make — and I’ve been guilty of it as well.

Keeping the books and doing accounting work
is the LAST thing that most entrepreneurs want
to mess with. We have more fun by coming up
with new ideas and trying to make them grow –
not spending hours of our time inputting receipts
and figures into QuickBooks.

If you don’t like accounting, immediately pay
someone a few bucks to handle it for you. Just
make sure your accounting is always up to date.
It’s very important.

As an extension of this, make paying your taxes
a priority — even if you pay them in advance.

I have paid a small fortune in tax penalties because
of being lazy and filing late. And it’s too easy to
let one delay turn into another and for the problem
to get worse. So make it a priority.

Don’t “rob Peter to pay Paul.” This is a trap
most entrepreneurs fall into — again,
I’ve been guilty of it in the past myself.

It’s easy to start making a bunch of money
and think “I’ll just use this money to make
more money instead of paying my taxes
on it now and I’ll just pay the taxes later
after I’ve made even more money.”

Or the same thinking is applied towards
delaying payments to a vendor, or some other
expense that needs to get paid.

This is probably the #1 mistake entrepreneurs
make that can create problems and a lot of
wasted money in paying penalties and interest.
So make sure your accounting is taken care
of and your taxes get paid on-time for you.

10. DON’T LEASE OFFICE SPACE

(If possible.)

As tempting as this might become if your
business starts to grow, avoid it at all costs.

If you’re like me, what will happen is that you
will eventually stop going to the office and just
work from home where you always were
more comfortable anyway. And/or you will
end up realizing you really didn’t need it.

Having an “office” is not required to have
a successful business. We live in a
Digital World now and it’s just not important
anymore.

Even if your business grows and you need
employees, you still don’t necessarily need
an office. There are people out there running
$20MM+/year businesses with no office; the
employees all just work virtually. This is
becoming more and more common.

* There certainly are exceptions to this. My
team in the Philippines works out of an office
I leased. But they are collaborating on software
projects and NEED to work in the same location.
And, of course, it’s also very inexpensive.

Most office leases are thousands of dollars
per month and usually don’t turn out to be
a good use of cash.

11. ALMOST EVERYTHING TAKES LONGER

When creating new projects, or having some software
made for you, or having an ebook ghostwritten, or
anything else, know that things almost always
take more time than originally expected.

This is the #1 reason why you need to act TODAY
to start putting things in motion to grow your
business. The longer you wait, the more into
the future you push your potential of getting
money to come in the door.

12. THE MONEY IS IN THE MARKETING

Don’t get caught up in trying to make Web pages and learn
HTML, or studying how to create javascript, or learning to
master Linux so you can administer your own server, or
how to use Photoshop to create little logos, etc.

You can certainly do that stuff if you want, but know that
it will most likely just be a HOBBY.

It’s no surprise that some of the most successful entrepreneurs
I know are also some of the LEAST TECHNICAL people I know.
The main thing they do right is to simply pay others to do all
the “nuts & bolts” stuff that makes online business work.

It allows them to spend all their time on the marketing — which
is where the money comes from.

*** BONUS LESSON ***

* See how I’m over-delivering as mentioned in the first lesson? 

SPENDING TIME ONLINE ISN’T NECESSARILY WORKING
ON YOUR BUSINESS

Just because you spend hours a day online doesn’t mean
you’re working on your business.

You can do ‘research’ forever and never make a cent.

You need to be spending most of your time on:

- Generating Traffic
- Communicating With Your Customers (i.e. blog, list, etc.)
- Creating Content

Don’t fall into the trap of reading blogs & forums, chatting
on Facebook or Twitter, checking stats, reading news,
etc. for hours upon hours.

Just know that almost all of that stuff (with rare exception)
is LOSING YOU MONEY more than making you money.

—

I hope you enjoyed these mini-lessons. Hopefully, you
can apply them to your business and be a lot more
successful! 

Yours For Online Profits,

John Reese

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