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This is Internet Business Mastery, episode 52.

In a world where bosses control your life, and thoughts of escape fill your mind, where inspiration seems dead, and cynicism rules the masses, you have a desire to break free. You feel the need to take control. Now, there exists a place where the secrets of freedom and wealth are given to those who believe. Internet Business Mastery.Com – free your mind!

Sterling: Hello, and welcome to Internet Business Mastery online at InternetBusinessMastery.com. I’m Sterling…

Jay: And I’m Jay, coming from somewhere grainy, yet beautifully green – Portland, Oregon.

Sterling: And we’re here to help you escape the ‘9 to 5,’ and live the lifestyle of your dreams by turning your life’s passion into a profitable internet business, especially if you’re just starting today.

Now on this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we’re going to talk about the seven reasons why people don’t succeed in internet business, and how you can avoid every single one, part 2. Then we’re going to talk about a critical plug in for any WordPress based site.

So Jay, of all the places you’ve been in the last couple years, let’s see what was it – there was Manhattan, Hawaii, Argentina, where else? Now, Portland, Oregon.

Jay: Southern Utah, Portland, Oregon…

Sterling: Yeah, which one of those has been your favorite place, and where you going next?

Jay: Well I don’t know if I can name a favorite, they’ve all been cool for their very own reason. You know, believe it or not, New York still has…a good part of my heart has been left in New York City in Manhattan. I certainly loved that place. But I was really enjoying Portland, the Pacific Northwest is beautiful, and it’s a very, very cool city for many reasons.

As far as what’s next, we’ll we’ve been here a few months, and we’re kind of starting to think about that. Normally, we would pick up about now and move to something else, but I don’t know. There’s a lot of factors up in the air, and Melanie’s maybe wanting to start pursuing her life’s passion a little more, which is what she got her graduate work in, doing therapy.

So she actually might start looking in the job market here, which might mean planting a root or two, I don’t know. We’ll see how that goes, it’s crazy. But we could be happy here in Portland, it’s an awesome, awesome city. So we’ll see; we can certainly enjoy quite a bit of lifestyle stuff that we enjoy from this particular location. We’re just playing it by ear; we’ll see how it goes.

Sterling: So is your love of New York your excuse for watching Gossip Girl? Oh wait, that’s me, sorry! Anyway…

Jay: Right…

Sterling: Okay and I was just going to mention I’m in the middle of packing. I’ve got boxes all around me trying to get this episode and then get right back to packing. I’m a little less about traveling the world, I’m finally moving like I said in the last couple of episodes, finally getting down to the beach in San Diego.

Jay: So you found an apartment down there huh?

Sterling: Yeah, I’ve actually got a little duplex down there, and again, like twenty steps from the beach. It’s absolutely amazing, but I’m doing the part I hate right now. There’s always a price, and the price is packing and getting stuff on a truck, and moving it down there.

Now I’ve hired a company, but it doesn’t take away any of the stress. I’m like, “I hope it gets there! I hope all my stuff….” Of course all my computers and stuff are going with me in the car. But everything else is going to go on a big truck. That’s the stress of it, but by the time this thing airs, I should be down there and all’s well. So I wish I could just fast forward to then, which is kind of now to those listening.

Jay: Time shift your move. You’ve got to send a few emails and make some money, pay for this little maneuver to So. Cal. So write yourself some checks then.

Sterling: Oh I’ve got big plans on that. Actually we’re going to talk about that in the featured segment.

Jay: Very cool, well we’ll be excited to hear how things work out as you get settled in San Diego.

And now, the featured segment…

Jay: Okay, in this episode, we’ve got Part #2 on our series that we started last time, seven reasons why people don’t succeed in internet business, and how you can avoid falling victim to these very reasons yourself.

So let’s go ahead and review the four points that we went over last time. The first one was people; they don’t know why they are doing it. They’ve got to have some other reason why other than just money or else when you hit those pitfalls, it’s going to be very difficult and the solution was to create your definite major purpose.

The second thing was information overload, people start looking everywhere, and they’ve got all these emails coming in, and they’re not sure where to get started. They think they’ve got to try them all, and that’s just going to lead to certain failure when you spread yourself too thin and don’t focus in one particular place. So the solution we proposed was to unsubscribe from the e-newsletters, and pick one system, or one course that fits your style.

Number three was that people don’t act fast enough, it takes a quick and bold action when you get the right information; you’ve got to move quickly. And that is what produces results. So the solution there was, make consistent actions.

And the fourth point to the last episode was that people are not willing to make it a priority. They said things like, “I don’t have the time,” or “I don’t have the money,” and really it just means that they haven’t made it a priority yet. So the solution there was decide what your priorities are, and make sacrifices accordingly.

So on this episode, we’re starting out with point number five in his little series of seven pitfalls. So point number five is that they don’t get help from those who have already done it. I know sometimes as entrepreneurs, we feel very self sufficient, independent. We want to do our own thing, we tend to be mavericks.

There’s a word that’s become so popular in the campaign season. We sometimes don’t reach out and get the help that we need elsewhere, and we think, “Oh, I’ll just figure it out myself, I’ve go to understand it all myself, and I’ll just figure it out.” And that’s one way to do things, but one way or another you’re going to pay for it, and it may be that it takes you months and months, or years and years to really get where you’re trying to go.

And you just have to go through the school of hard knocks yourself. So you’ve go to remember that, you’re going to pay for the success one way or the other. And so really the quickest way to success is to pay for it now in terms of finding the right training, the right people, finding somebody who can mentor you. And even if it requires putting the money forth to make that happen, that’s definitely going to shortcut things.

So you need to put the money out there and learn from those who’ve done it before, or you can spend the years of your own time figuring it out the hard way. And we’ve done some of both, we’ve been in both positions, and it’s definitely…I know when I finally paid someone to give me the road map, I’ve never regretted that.

That’s always rocketed my progress forward when I’ve done that. And that’s something I’ve learned a lesson in even several years ago when I was in a band with songwriting. And I remember at first I was the very independent artist who I felt songwriting was just an inbred thing, and I’ve got it within me, and I’m just going to figure this out on my own.

And so I definitely hindered my progress as a songwriter in that art, and in that craft, and I finally did start going to some classes, and reading some books, and studying people who taught the art of songwriting, and that’s when I really saw that craft move forward very quickly.

It’s also the thing that got me out of my job the quickest, when I finally found a real estate mentor that taught me how things were done well. And before that I floundered for a long time after reading “Rich Dad,” and wondering, what am I going to do going in this direction, and going in that direction, and hitting a lot of false starts.

But when I finally invested, at the time it was Ron LeGrand’s real estate investing courses, and I devoured those, and found a local real estate mentor. I got two people that showed me the path the quickest way to get there, and that’s when things really started progressing forward, and I was able at that point to quit my job and do something that I had been mulling over and trying to do for a year and a half at that point. So this is definitely something I’ve experienced myself. How about you Sterling?

Sterling: Well yeah, the first thing I did with internet business was, I was doing the real estate investing. And again, like you mentioned Ron LeGrand, he actually sent me a sales letter about this tiny little course he taught only one time a year about internet marketing, and internet business type of seminar.

And I decided, what the heck, I’m going to go check that out because I was really leaning towards doing some sort of business on the internet. Because real estate just wasn’t cutting it for me, I didn’t enjoy it at all. So I went there, and while I was at the seminar, I bought a course. And it’s funny, so at this point I had gone to a seminar that talked all about internet business, then I’d even bought a course to show me some specifics, and it still took me six months before I actually started succeeding.

But it wasn’t because the course was bad, it was because I just like never did the course. I tried to fuss around with it…again that entrepreneurial stuff you just talked about where it’s like, “I’m going to go figure it out,” and then finally I did follow the course and started to see some success. And it’s funny, because I still reverted back to the maverick, because the success I saw was because of the stuff I’d learned.

But it was only very, very, very beginner stuff, and all the advanced stuff I needed to know, I still tried to figure it all out on my own. And it wasn’t until maybe a year and a half after that that I started going okay, I’m making enough money to live, but I don’t want to just survive. I want to explode with cash!

Then I bought more courses, and I tried to find people who had actually done it and who knew what they were doing. Because it’s weird out there, there are all these people who talk about internet business, and then when you find out they’ve done nothing. They’re almost like authors of books, most of the time they’re just researchers.

And you know, I found a couple of things I liked and then just through doing it for as much and as long as we’ve done, then of course we get to the point where we know all these different things and have our own specific system. But at first it was me making that decision to actually not only find the help, but use the help.

Jay: Yeah absolutely. So that’s point number five is that they don’t get the help from those who’ve already done it. So what’s the solution to this problem?

Sterling: Okay, so the solution is to find someone who’s arrived at the destination you want to reach, and get their guidance on how to arrive there.

Jay: Call ahead and get some directions, sound like a good idea to me.

Alright, so point number six – the sixth reason why we most commonly see people fail in internet business or not succeed in internet business is that they don’t learn how to market and get traffic.

And really when it comes to business, when it comes to entrepreneurship, marketing is everything. I mean when we look at hugely successful entrepreneurs that we know, that we’ve studied, that we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with, or just be around, they are all very talented marketers.

Now there’s a lot of things that they don’t know how to do, they might not even know how to put up a website, and they’ve got plenty of people to help them with that. And they may even have some people to help them with marketing, but still in their own right, they are good marketers.

Marketing skills is what’s going to determine the amount of money you can make in your business. And so it’s always going to be a worthwhile investment to expand your marketing skills, and become better at these things. Because if you know how to market, for instance it doesn’t matter if you’re in economic recession, your business can still thrive because money can still thrive.

Because money will keep flowing, you’ll be able to adapt much better, and figure out how to place yourself still in the flow of money, and how to get your message in front of the right people, in front of the right money as the money shifts around even in economic downturn.

And companies that not only survive, but also became huge brand names through the depression are the ones who knew how to market. So to become a master marketer, you can literally be able to write your own check.

Sterling: Well and the interesting thing about how my world works now is, traffic and marketing are like my top priorities now. I’m trying to get it where I spend about 80% of my time thinking about traffic and marketing. And as we farm out most of our little tedious jobs within the business to V.A.’s and such, I want to get it to the point where 90% of my time is spent on that.

And we’ll still be spending time on content creation and the like, but become a marketing and traffic master is certainly where the money is. Alright, so the solution for number six, which number six again is – they don’t learn how to market and get traffic – and the solution of course is, become a regular student of masterful marketing and study the best marketers.

Jay: Awesome, so number seven is that they don’t build their list and community starting from day one. And we’ve mentioned this before how both on the show as well as in the Academy, we’re talking about community building; we’re talking about building your list, about getting that group of loyal customers and prospects who look to you as a trusted advisor. And that is something that should start from the moment the business starts forming.

Anytime we launch any new venture now, that’s one of the first things we’re looking at is, get the email list sign up on there, what’s the opt in offer going to be? How are we going to attract people to that, get them to raise their hand, say they’re interested, become a member of our community and start what we call the Community Builder Blueprint inside the Academy?

That’s what we teach, to know this is the top asset that you’ll have is your list or your community as we call it. This is where all the equity in the business is, and you should start building this from day one. That’s why we created an entire course on this Community Builder Blueprint inside the Academy, and then another entire course on how to use blogging to attract that community.

And we just recorded an entire other course on how to build an email list, and then engage with that list. Because it’s all around how to start doing this as quickly as possible, and it hurts when you see this business that maybe has been around for a couple years and you look at their website, or you ask them, “Do you get people’s emails? Do you collect their…how do you get people to raise their hand and self identify as someone who’s interested?”

They kind of look at you quizzically and wondering, what do you mean? And that’s so critical, it’s so important to do that from the moment your business starts forming.

Sterling: Now luckily for me this list building thing was one of the first things I learned, so I didn’t have the pain of seeing that I could have been making a list for years. And in fact, I still have the very first list I started, and I still write emails to this list, and I think I probably have several hundred emails in an auto responder to these people as well as stuff I write here and there.

And since I’m going to be moving, the thing you talked a little bit earlier, I’m moving now and rather than pay for the move myself, I decided to have a moving day sale and just send three separate emails to my very first list and I’ll easily make enough money to easily pay for the movers, to pay for the move, to pay for everything.

And that’s what you were talking about, write your own checks. Whenever I need anything extra, then I come up with some sort of a sale, and I write my own check by just sending a couple of emails to my lists. And that’s the power of lists for sure.

Alright, so again number seven was they don’t build their list and communities starting from day one. And the solution is the moment you start your business, start collecting email addresses and names right away.

Jay: Awesome, so there you go. That’s the second part that completes our list of the seven most common reasons why we see internet people not succeed in internet business. And we’ve given you a solution of how you can easily overcome each one of those.

And just a quick review of the three we went over today – the first one we went over today was, they don’t get help from those who have already done it. Then we talked about how they don’t learn how to market and get traffic. And then we talked about they don’t build their lists and communities from day one.

So you can easily overcome each of those by finding someone who you can call ahead and get directions from them, get a mentor, get somebody to show you the way. You can also become a regular student of masterful marketing, and you can start collecting email addresses and names from the moment that you start your business.

Sterling: Alright, so now we’ve got a question for you, what’s holding you back from reaching the next level of your internet business? How can you overcome these obstacles? Please go back to InternetBusinessMastery.com and post your answer on the blog.

Jay: Alright, we just have one quick announcement for this episode, we’ve got a winner for the lifestyle design video contest that we announced last month, kind of off the cuff. And Ron Davis is the winner of the contest, his video will be posted at the blog for everyone to see. He sent out a nice video that talked about his ideal lifestyle, and how internet business helps him accomplish that.

Ron as it turns out is also a member of the Internet Business Mastery Academy. You can find him at DistinctionsForLife.tv or you can see his latest photography related project that he’s kind of been cooking up and talking about in our mastermind forums, and the mastermind community inside the Academy.

And you can find that at GlamourApprentice.com, we’ll have links to those two sites on the site on the blog post for the show notes.

Sterling: Alright, congratulations Ron, and your case of succulent Omaha Steaks are on the way. And just let us know when we need to be at your place for dinner.

Jay: That’s right.

It’s time for the Internet Business Quick Tip…

Jay: On this episode’s Internet Business Quick Tip, we’ve got a critical plug in for any WordPress based site. You know, when you’re posting regular content to your site as a WordPress blog or WordPress site makes it easy to do, that contents going to build up over time, and those comments are going to build up over time.

And it’s easy to take for granted that that will always be there. But there’s always those crazy instances where something might go wrong with the host, and all of a sudden, the data might be gone. If the database that runs your WordPress gets corrupt, or something crazy happens, you can have problems.

Now hopefully the host you’re with does some backups of their own. But it’s always a good idea to have a good backup system for yourself that you take care of yourself in a trusted place. So to do that with our own WordPress based site, we use a cool plug in called WPBackup – very cleverly named.

We’ve got a link to that back on the site that you can go and check out, or you can also Google for ‘WPBackup WordPress plug in,’ and that will come up as well. And this is just a slick little plug in that you can install on your site, and you can either go in there and manually have it download a zipped up backup, or email you a backup.

But what we like to do is we actually set it up once a week to zip up the database and send it off to us, at least once a week. If you’re posting a lot, then you may even want to have to daily or every other day. And it can automatically zip that up, and send that information to an email address that you want, and you’ll have those building up in your email archive.

So if heaven forbid anything ever happened to your WordPress database, you’ve got the quick backup to get your back online easily. So check that out, WPBackup is our quick tip and recommended resource for this episode.

Sterling: Now if you’ve like dozen of other resources such as this one, you can find them in the Internet Business Mastery Academy along with video tutorials of us showing you exactly how we use them. And to get a 30 day no risk trial membership to the Internet Business Mastery Academy, visit freeaudiogift.com.

That’s it for this episode of Internet Business Mastery, until next time we wish you ultimate success in your internet business.

You’ve been listening to the Iconiclass of the 9 to 5, and the purveyors of freedom and fulfillment – Sterling and Jay! Sterling and Jay invite you to discover one of their most popular audio programs ever, the free builders of designing your ultimate internet lifestyle! Visit freeaudiogift.com now and sign up for the free weekly Internet Business Mastery email newsletter! And you’ll get instant access to the life changing audio presentations, pulled directly from the content of the acclaimed Internet Business Mastery Academy membership community. Go now to freeaudiogift.com! Internet Business Mastery – free your mind!