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In this episode of Internet Business Mastery we ask the question: In These Uncertain Times, How Do You Find True Security?.
Plus we have a quick tip about called: The Ideal Platform for Creating a Flexible Membership Site for the Web 2.0 Era.
Items mentioned in the episode:
- Congratulations to Chuck Wood for winning the Book of the Month Contest
- Internet Business Mastery Academy – Coming July 16, make sure to get on the early notification email list to receive special discounts and sneak peaks of content within the Academy!
- aMember.com
Voicemail Line: 877-877-7507
Great podcast episode guys – and very topical all around the world at the moment. I am a long time listener to the podcast and have recently taken some huge steps based on your teachings for wealth creation and lifestyle.
I joined a mastermind group and they pointed out things to me that were so obvious in hindsight that I should have been doing but wasn’t. From there my business group massively in the 3 months that followed. I had to make a decision to quit the day job or stop taking on Internet Marketing Consulting clients. I scored a 3 month contract which gave me ‘jump money’ so obviously I had the “its costing me money to be here” conversation with the boss and quit.
Now I am running my business from home and am using networking functions, mastermind groups, speaking events, adwords, print mail campaigns and soon podcasting to attract clients to my business and find true security. I am also applying another of Sterling and Jay’s teachings with the outsourcing and leverage, as I have sourced a full time web developer based out of the phillipines to help me.
Guys, i guess its fair to say your teachings work :)
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WordPress? So there are not going to be forums? Or are you planning on using BBPress?
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Oh yeah, there will be Mastermind Community forum for sure. There are forum add-on’s for aMember…
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Yeah, aMember gives you universal login for a number of forum software. But since you didn’t mention forum software I wondered what you were planning on using.
When I was planning a member site I put serious consideration into ExpressionEngine with aMember. Loved the integration. But my partners ended up being losers so I never got to implement.
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Hey guys! In my stream of thought while listening to the most recent podcast I was thinking about your whole community building thing you got going and thought how cool would it be if you started a http://www.linkedin.com group. I am a member of several groups. But my though was your community could interact on one more level. I am sure we could all benefit by being able to perhaps use each others professional experience.
Thanks for the great podcast.
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Okay I agree on the BB and it is good to hear amember can go that way. You guys have not steered me wrong yet and I have been considering amember for a while, just haven’t pulled the trigger. I have been dying to ask you guys about wordpress. My wordpress is extremly slow and it drives me nuts. I am an novice at dreamweaver but I can move through it faster then wordpress, although I like the new site layout so it makes me a little more convinced about wordpress I am excited about the new site
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Nice podcast, guys.
I often make the same point to people who work for a living–that having your own business is more secure than working for someone else. I have several sites and several streams of income (and am working on creating more!), so even if something were to happen to one, I’d still have enough money coming in to pay the bills with the others. When all you’ve got is one job and one source if income, you’re pretty much screwed if you lose it.
Have you guys read the Rich Dad’s Prophecy? I ignored most of those books after the first couple, but I needed something to listen to for a car trip last week, and picked up the audio of that one. It’s several years old, but the point is still valid, that the stock market is going to take a big hit (as if it’s not doing poorly enough) in a few years when all the baby boomers start retiring and are forced to withdraw funds from their stock-based retirement funds. The average non-internet-business-having Joe will probably be living in times of economic uncertainty for a long time to come.
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aMember is a great choice.
Let me guess what that other membership package was that cost thousands…something “gate”? ; ) That format seems a bit dated and limited (and pricey)
Joomla is also a nice platform for membership sites and may offer more security than WP for those looking into platforms, and it also works with aMember. Probably more for advanced users as Joomla can get tricky.
Good luck with the new site guys!
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I just installed WordPress locally using XAMPP for Windows as my Apache/MySQL/PHP base.
I know I have found my mentors – Jay snd Sterling.
Thanks for all the guidance!
Mark
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Another great episode guys. I’ve been listening for quite a while now but only in the last 2 months have I started to take real action on what you guys teach. Based largely on your content, and 2 of the books you have mentioned on the podcast, I’ve started teaching web design in a one day seminar format with a view to turning that into a DVD ‘home study’ style product later in the year… Just wanted to say a big thanks… if it wasn’t for listening to this podcast I’d probably be stressed and worried about the current economic climate like so many people but instead I’m excited about the future!
Bill
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I also think this was a great episode – and a timely one. I suppose I agree more with Jay’s definition of security than with Sterling’s. Actually, after listening to the episode again – I think that Sterling agrees with Jay’s definition too. Jay’s view was that autonomy – and how autonomous you are in your are in your business – is a good way to think about security in uncertain economic times. When you consider what Sterling said about control – having control over your own destiny and being able to create opportunities – he was really talking about autonomy as well.
One comment I wanted to make regarding the quick tip and amember: You mentioned that you went through many different membership systems, and none of them did everything that you wanted them to do. I recognize that amember may be the closest to your “dream membership system”, but I want point out the flaw in your thinking (at least how it came across on this episode).
The issue is simply this: Technology isn’t business value, it’s a commodity.
As we’ve seen in many previous episodes, thinking about your business can be hard. Coming up with a plan to provide value to your market is hard. In this particular case – identifying the specific elements that, if implemented, would provide value to both your business and your customers, is hard. It’s key, however, when you’re wearing the “business sponsor” hat to consider business value first and technology second. With the wealth of technical talent around the world today, there are very few reasons for any business not to have exactly the website or module or plug-in or membership system that it needs. The hard part is figuring out what you need – not in finding or creating the technology to meet those needs.
So – all of that said, I’m not going to knock you selection of amember. I’ve never used it, but it looks to be really feature rich. What I will do is challenge your thinking, and claim that, when you let the things that create business value drive your technical decisions, you tend to do better than if you let technical constraints alter your business strategy.
Thanks for the great episode – see you in the Academy!
Cheers, Michael
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@Michael,
I agree with this statement…and in fact this is the philosophy we have followed.
We could have gone with an “easier” solution for the membership site, but it wouldn’t have had the features and value that we wanted to offer in the long run.
By switching to an amember-based solution, we have put ourselves on a path that will allow us to create the business value that we want to offer.
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