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This is Internet Business Mastery, Episode 61.

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…

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, even if you’re just getting started today.

On this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we’re going to continue with the online business blueprint with part three, and in the Quick Tip, we have a resource for easily uploading files to your Amazon S3 account, which will be our part three of the Quick Tip almost.

Jay: Yeah, we’ve been talking about S3 the last couple months, and this will be our third and final tool to help you get going with S3.

Sterling: And we’d like to remind you if you’d like to get a jumpstart on creating your own profitable internet business using our proven method, claim your risk free trial membership at the Internet Business Mastery Academy by going to FreeAudioGift.com.

So we’re finally rid of the wicked witch.

Jay: You’re going to get me singing that annoying little munchkin song.

Sterling: It came right to me as I was talking. I was like oh boy, now I’m going to be singing it too. It just seems so perfect.

Jay: Yeah. So for those wondering what we’re referring to – it’s not a bad date that Sterling went on.

Sterling: Yeah, exactly.

Jay: It’s our host, if you’ve been watching our Twitter updates, you know we’ve been struggling with Media Temple for quite some time now. That’s the host that we’ve had the Internet Business Mastery blog, and podcast, and the Academy on as well. And we started using them not quite a year ago because there was lots of really good buzz and things going on. And we were ready for a bit of an upgrade to what we were doing, we knew we were going to be launching the Academy and we wanted something dependable. And you know, I’d say we were relatively happy with it at first, but really thinking back there’s been a stream of annoyances that now it seems were probably their fault the entire time and then things just got progressively and incredibly worse over the last few months.

So it’s nice to finally be free of them. We finally got to the point of look, it’s just time to go elsewhere, this is just ridiculous. And we need to have the Academy up and dependable, and quick – easy for people to use. So yeah, it’s nice to finally get through that. Anybody who’s gone through a server switch knows that it’s not a fun task. Like you said Sterling, it’s like having to redo Windows on your computer and reload everything.

Sterling: It’s horrible, yeah. And the fact that they made us have to do that makes me hate them with a passion. Not only that though, but it was the Saturday afternoon when a lot of people go into the Academy to learn like they paid for, and it’s down for seven hours.

And like if somebody signed up the day before and was like, “Oh, I want to go in and see all the content and actually learn what I paid for, and I can’t.” I mean that’s their first impression of us and it’s because of the hosting. And all they can go is, “Oh, can we give you one month’s free?”

Yeah we want crummy service for another month. I don’t care if it’s free, you’d have to pay us. It’s insane, and they just absolutely I don’t think get it.

Jay: The funny thing is that if you search for Media Temple on Twitter, clearly we’re not the only ones having problems and that are upset. In fact, there are a couple of Internet Business Mastery listeners that have been using Media Temple and they’ve been having similar problems and have been conferring with us and us with them a little bit.

It’s like okay, what have you guys found? Where are you going to go? And we ended up moving to a host called Mosso, which is quite an upgrade. I mean, we’re paying considerably more now, but we’re ready to be done with the dating and courtship game if I can use that analogy.

We just want to settle down with a nice host for life. It’s time to be done with messing around with different people. And some people might be wondering, well that’s not the host that you recommend for beginners in the Academy on your Toolbox page. And that’s true, these hosts Media Temple and Mosso, certainly they’re more expensive than your….so definitely with the beginners we try to get them going with something as quickly as possible.

And actually we still use that host that we recommend for beginners, I’ve still got a couple sites on that. But certainly at some point you reach a point where you’ve got to upgrade. And your traffic, and the infrastructure of your site merits having something more robust. And hopefully we’ve found that, so far I’m really happy with Mosso. And Media Temple – all I can say is you know what guys? You really screwed up.

Sterling: Well, and I’ll say this too, the people we refer to in the Toolbox on the site for hosting, I have all of my other internet businesses with that host. Media Temple was our chance to take a test drive with a higher end host. And we wanted to test them out before we referred people to them, which I’m glad we didn’t, because look what happened.

But even Mosso, until we fully test it and see how they work, we don’t fully recommend them yet although I’ll say I mentioned them once or twice on Twitter and through Twitter they got to me within five minutes. I was like okay…this is a good start.

Jay: So I guess the lesson learned here is…I mean certainly for beginners and getting something started and for the lowest capital possible – that’s one of the great things about internet business, then the hosting we recommend for that on the Toolbox and in the Academy is a good place to start.

Then when you reach the point where it’s time to upgrade, you definitely want to pay attention and make that choice very carefully. Because if I think about the headache, and the hassle, and the money we spent to pay a technical freelancer to switch things over, and the time that even I had to spend personally on the server switch – it’s a significant…it’s not a small thing.

The money ended up being lost in that switch over. So if we had just done that a year ago, I think we would…even though we’re paying five times the amount now with this new host, yeah I think we would have still been ahead of the game just because we wouldn’t have wasted all that time and money recently.

But lesson learned, so I guess we’re sharing this for the benefit of everybody listening to this. But as you listening to this, and as a user of Internet Business Mastery it certainly means at least our hope is and with the research that we’ve done and the host that we’ve chosen that it would be a quicker, more dependable experience now for you.

And we hope that that’s the case, and certainly let us know if you see otherwise, and we want to make the right decision, and of course let you know what we’ve learned because that’s the point of Internet Business Mastery is to tell you what we learn so you don’t have to go through the headache yourself.

So there you go, Media Temple’s the wicked witch, and Mosso hopefully is the host you settle down with for life, we’ll see.

And now the featured segment…

Jay: Alright, on this featured segment, it is time for part three of our online business blueprint. Again we are going through the latest greatest A-Z system that we have designed for starting from scratch, deciding what your business is going to be, and getting it online and making money. And so we’ve already had a couple parts, and in the last part – in part two – we talked about…step number four was to build a bulletproof online empire.

There we were talking about your brand, your business entity; all the things you needed to do there to put out a solid foundation. And then in part five we talked about launching a far reaching Web 2.0 presence – how to quickly and inexpensively get a website and a web presence online that is fit and ready for the Web 2.0 age.

So if you haven’t listened to those parts, we definitely encourage you to go back and listen to part one and part two in the last two episodes of our online business blueprint. And again, this is just following along exactly what we go into in extreme depth with tutorials and everything inside the Academy. But we wanted to share that here in the show because this is our latest and greatest system.

And that’s what this show is all about, is helping you know what our latest stuff is for launching internet business. So with that let’s go ahead and start with step number six. Today we’re going to go over step six and step seven, which both have to do a lot with building up your market and your community – extremely, extremely important part of this whole online business blueprint, and something that a lot of businesses do backwards.

We’ve said many, many times, find the market first then find out what they want and give them the product. Don’t find your product, and then go find a market for it. And so this stuff’s going to play into that quite a bit.

So one thing that you probably heard us say before that we definitely want to state up front here is that there is an incredibly important asset that any successful business needs. And this goes for online or offline, and I think a lot of businesses don’t realize that this is their most important asset. They might think, “Oh, it’s our inventory, it’s our incredibly ingenious IP (intellectual property) that we have patented and protected. It’s our crack team of scientists – that’s our best asset!”

And all these are important things, but the most important asset that you can have for your business is a community of loyal customers, and even loyal fans that look to you as a trusted advisor. They’ve built up a relationship with you over time, and they look to you for valuable information.

And then when it comes time to market and sell to them, that process is much easier, much smoother, and much more effective, and delivers a lot more value to them, to the market at the same time. So it’s really a win-win when this is in place. So we want to share something with you called the Community Builder Blueprint.

And we’re actually going to start at the end. This is kind of a step-by-step process of building up this community and explains the reasoning why this community asset is so important. So let’s actually start at the end of this process. And it all starts with what is it that you want your market to do?

You probably want to get them to act in some way. So Sterling, names a few ways that you and your businesses have wanted to get a market to act.

Sterling: I would like them to buy something. And actually along with this, it’s funny, this weekend I was actually talking to a friend of mine here in San Diego. We went to dinner, and we were talking about what he does. He’s kind of an activist of sorts, he’s written books; he’s done all this stuff. He has a podcast, all these things for this community of people.

And he was getting very frustrated because in all these years, it’s really hard to get them to act. And so we talked a lot about this Community Builder Blueprint, and this was the missing piece, the influence to action – all the things we’re going to talk about here. This is what….as we were sort of talking about this, he’s looking at me going, “Oh my god! Like what do I do? How do I do this?”

Because this is the important part of not only business, but for somebody like him, it’s not just specifically a business, it’s a completely other thing where he’s just trying to get people to act. It still comes down to all these specific things. Like another thing I would say is, relationship.

Like build a relationship with somebody so that there’s trust. What else for you?

Jay: Yeah, buy…I mean obviously we’re talking about business here, so buy is a key action. And you mentioned relationship, so that would be in getting them to act, you want them to maybe comment on your blog. You want them to reply to you on Twitter, those are all relationship type actions they might take. Or you might want them to rate or review you on Amazon or other product sites.

I mean all these actions that along the way you want your market to take, the key one being sales – to buy, but all these other things as well. So the thing that gets them to act is, you mentioned the phrase ‘influence to action,’ is the influence that you have with your market. I guess don’t want to say ‘over’ your market, it’s more with your market.

The influence that you have, so that when you have that call to action, whether it’s in a sales piece, whether it’s in a podcast, whether it’s in a blog post, whether it’s in an email message. When you have that call to action, they respond because you have that kind of influence that makes them go, “Yeah, you know what? I’m going to do this.” And that influence…okay, so where does that influence come from?

Well it comes from that trust and relationship that you just mentioned. If you have the trust of your market, if they trust your opinion, if they trust that you would only offer them value, trust that you create valuable services and products, trust that you share information that is worth them taking the time to look at, whatever the case might be.

Whatever the case may be, if that trust is in place, then the influence is intact, and marketing and sales become incredibly easier. I mean really marketing is this building up of trust over time in this relationship building, which we’re going talk more about here. And sales then is simply asking your market who loves you to act, to do whatever it is that you want them to do.

So influence comes from them trusting you, trust comes from a relationship, building up a relationship – which is something that happens over time, through interaction and engagement. So the best way that we know to build a relationship with somebody…I mean if you think about any relationship that you have with family or friends, you know the thing that nurtures a relationship is you interact with them over time.

You get together for dinner, you talk to them on the phone; you have your family reunions. Now we’re not saying you’ve got to go out to dinner with everybody in your market, but there’s other simple ways, especially on the internet these days, that you can have that kind of engagement and interaction.

So engagement – a great definition of engagement is repeated…and I guess I’m using the word to define it…interaction is repeated engagements or engagement is repeated interactions. So it’s repeated interactions over time that strengthen the mental, and emotional, and even physical investment that they have in you and your brand, and in your information – your products.

And those engagements happen through things like…think about what we do in Internet Business Mastery, we have the podcast that comes out every couple weeks, and you listen to that, and you respond to it. We have the email newsletters that go out, there’s Twitter where we interact with many people that are listeners, and Academy members, and colleagues, and people in the market.

These engagements and interactions over time are what build up the relationship leading to trust, and hence that influence that you have to get them to act. Well, before you can engage with people, you can’t just go out there and demand people’s attention. You just can’t go out there and say, “Hey! Listen to my podcast, hey you have to read my blog right now!”

And of course advertising sadly has been that way for a long, long time. And that’s kind of been the habit of oh, let me just throw this commercial in the middle of you listening to your favorite music on the radio. Oh, let me just throw this commercial in the middle of you watching TV.

Now grant it, those media maybe have their place but even more meaningful is the types of interactions we talked about earlier, and that happens through permission based marketing, or permission based interaction with your market meaning that they raise their hand and they say, “Yeah, you know what? I’m interested in seeing what you’re all about. I found you through searching on Google, I found you on YouTube, I found you on iTunes, I found you wherever…my friend told me about you and I went and checked it out, and I listened to something, or I read something, or I tried your free download, or whatever it is that you were offering, and it looks good.

So you know what? I’m going to raise my hand, I’m interested in what you’re all about; go ahead and send me your email newsletter. Go ahead, I’m going to subscribe to your podcast, I’m going to subscribe to your YouTube channel, I’m going to join your Facebook fan page,” and whatever these different interactions are that you have.

They’re permission based, they’re allowing the person to raise their hand and go, “Yeah, you know what? I’m in,” and that is the beginning of the relationship. Of course before you can get permission, they have to know about you. You have to get their attention, and attention in and of itself is a very valuable…it’s a currency these days. We are in an attention economy, somebody lending you their attention is like them opening up their wallet, and giving you…I mean not it gets to that.

I mean we all value our time, like we value our money. We value our mental, and emotional, and physical energy that we have day in and day out. So that gets sliced very carefully between all the different responsibilities and interests and things that we have to do and that we want to do – taking the kids to their soccer practice, and then okay, now I’ve got responsibilities at work, and okay spend time with my wife or husband, and then okay yeah, I’d like to sit down and check my email.

I mean think about all the media that are vying for our attention, you’ve got your shows on your DVR, you’ve got your mobile phone with all the blips and bleeps, and notifications coming to that, and text messages. You’ve got email, and maybe you’ve got Twitter and Facebook, you’ve got your iPod full of media….

Sterling: Yeah, you’ve got your mandatory Internet Business Mastery podcast to listen to every other week.

Jay: That’s right, we know that, it’s like the most important. So that’s taking up a big slice of your attention leaving even less for The Daily Show, which we know you listen to Internet Business Mastery before you watch The Daily Show. So this is just to give you the analogy of your attention is a valuable thing. And your market’s attention likewise is a valuable thing.

So think of that as currency, and so this whole Community Builder Blueprint, it starts with getting their attention and then getting their permission. They opt into the email newsletter, they subscribe to the podcast, whatever the case may be. And then you engage and interact with them over time. That builds up a relationship so that they trust you more, and once that trust is in place you can influence them to action, whether that’s to buy or whatever the case may be.

So this is the process of attracting a community of loyal customers to look to you as a trusted advisor, and who will buy again and act in whatever way again and again over time.

Sterling: Well and I think of now how a piece of advertisement comes to me now, and if it doesn’t follow at least some of this, I’m really annoyed by it. It’s not even just a mild annoyance like if you’re watching TV and a commercial comes on right at the best part. It’s even worse now because I’m like, you don’t have my permission! You don’t get my valuable time without me choosing it.

So it’s even worse knowing this stuff makes it even harder to be around commercials in any way, or something that’s just jumping out in front of you. “Boo! I’ve got your attention now!” It’s almost like, “See this gun?” You’re looking at the gun, “Oh my gosh!” And it’s like, “Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, I’m going to put the gun away, you’re going to buy this toothpaste.”

You’re like, what? I didn’t even ask for your toothpaste and you scared me to death! So it’s a completely different model, and then when you get used to it, it’s even worse trying to be around other types of marketing and advertising.

Jay: So what do you do in those instances when somebody pulls out the gun, I mean besides doing your fancy aikido move that pulls them to the ground peacefully and disables them, and gets the gun and throws it away. What do you do when the ad interrupts what you’re doing, and of a sudden…just when interruption based attention getting attempts at, attention getting happens. What are some of the things you do, I mean on the remote you click change the channel. What are some other things that you do in these cases?

Sterling: Well I actually a lot of times I vow not to use that product specifically to teach them to not do that. I really get that way now, especially in certain ways when people just aggressively come at me for something, especially for something I haven’t put out any interest in. And they come at me with it, I’m just like going, oh well, I’ll never use that service.

And I’ll specifically look for their competitors if I ever need to, because they did that to me. It’s so weird, because we get very….nowadays with how much there is to do at any given moment. Your time just seems more and more valuable, it’s like I don’t want to waste a second on it. It’s funny on Hulu.com, when I’m watching The Daily Show, even the commercials…I mean I know they’re trying to monetize this thing, but I’m like, do you like or dislike this ad? It’s always dislike.

Except for me, if it’s a movie trailer I’ll watch it and I’ll like those.

Jay: Except for Hulu own ad with Alec Baldwin, have you seen that one?

Sterling: Yeah, yeah.

Jay: Oddly enough, the Hulu ad itself I would probably say I like. But that’s just because they entertain me, so I found it relevant.

Sterling: Yeah, I’m trying to train their ad system to only show me movie trailers. Even if it’s like this public service announcement that’s a really great thing for humanity, I’m like nope, movie trailer, yes. I don’t want any ads, but if there’s got to be an ad, it’s got to be exactly what I want.

Jay: It’s funny, that’s a great example you bring up Hulu, because I’ve noticed….I’m pretty sure it’s Hulu that has recently started saying before you start it’s like okay, would you rather have the regular commercial breaks, or would you rather watch this seven minute Honda video or this movie trailer, or something like that?

And lately, I’ve always selected oh, I’ll watch the Honda video…because the interesting thing is actually the Honda video….and I don’t even remember if it’s Honda so I guess maybe this is not so effective….but I’ve noticed they’re kind of like interesting little like documentaries. The point being I found…I mean certainly the movie trailers are relevant to me because I like movies, but I found some of these other things that they’re asking me beforehand, would you rather this or this?

And when I’ve said well yeah, just show me the four minute video by so-and-so, I’ve actually found them more interesting and relevant because they actually contain content that’s interesting to me rather than it just being ‘well here’s the latest Dove soap ad.’ It’s like, well I don’t buy Dove, what do I care?

And the point being it comes down to relevance. I mean a couple of weekends ago I was on a radio show here in Portland, a marketing talk show, and I was talking about this same topic. And one of the hosts started talking about, “Well, how is what you’re talking about, putting out compelling content in order to get people’s attention, how is that any different than just putting up a billboard or a commercial on TV? You’ve still got to put something out there and be invasive on someone’s attention.”

I’m like no, no, no it comes down to relevance. I mean I can drive down the highway and see a hundred billboards and how many of them are relevant to me? Maybe one in a hundred. However, if I’m deliberately going to iTunes and searching for internet marketing, or fitness and health, the podcasts that come up, I have a choice whether or not…and the chances are probably more like 1 out of 2, or maybe even more that the content is relevant to me.

So I think right there 50% versus a 1%, that’s a fifty times more relevant, hence a fifty times less invasive attention getting method. So this kind of thinking about how you get people’s attention is very important today, and it comes to relevance. And so the way to be relevant and to get attention in a very meaningful way is to create authoritative relevant content frequently for your market – blog posts, and podcasts, or online videos, or Twitter posts.

There’s all kinds of ways you create content, I mean your updates on Facebook are content to somebody. So making that kind of frequent content and syndicating in as many different channels as possible – through YouTube, through iTunes, and that’s over time a progressive thing that you’ve built up.

But making that frequent authoritative content through as many channels as possible, that’s how you get people’s attention in a non-evasive way that then starts this Community Builder Blueprint. And so that I guess is the whole point that we’re making with this step number six – that is how you attract a community of loyal customers who are going to buy again and again and tell you what they want, hence you can come up with the right product and not waste your time there.

So an incredibly powerful step right there in step number six – something that a lot of people do not do in business and a lot of people will not teach you, if there’s somebody listening to this who’s been in a MBA program who has taught this kind of thing, please let me know. I want to know.

Sterling: Um yeah, right.onH

Jay: Alright so number seven, step number seven. We’re going a little long here, but this is important content, if you can’t tell we’re incredibly passionate. But step number seven is, okay you’ve told me I’ve got to create compelling content that continually engages my community, that gets their attention, how do I do that?

Well the basic way that we teach that is to post content to a blog. So start yourself a blog, in step number five we talked about launching a site, getting that stake in the ground, your real estate online; your hub of your content creation. It’s a place that you can magnetically draw people to, and then through RSS feeds and stuff get your content out to as many places as possible.

So the first step is to like we said in five, get your blog installed on there, and then just frequently post content; whether it’s text, or video, or audio, or a combination of all those, and then take that feed and get it into different directories. And make sure Google’s indexing your blog, and post some of your videos to YouTube, and get your feed into iTunes, and start syndicating it in as many places as possible.

So let’s talk about the content itself, how do you make it compelling? Let’s go ahead and again use Internet Business Mastery as an example. I mean in the beginning we just started talking about what are the questions that maybe we had when we got started in internet business? What are the things we wished somebody had told us? What were the questions people asked us often?

We just started with those questions that we got asked on a regular basis, and so do that same thing. If you’ve got your own business already, or think about to when you started, and just think – what are the questions that come up often, and just pick one small specific question and write a blog post, or create an audio, or create a video and put that on your blog and put it out there.

Sterling: Don’t be afraid also to talk about where you failed. You tried something and that didn’t work, so it led you to this. That was something originally that we did that the guru people weren’t doing, they were just saying, “Here’s how to do it, I’m up on my mound,” talking to the people. “I never make mistakes,” and we’re like, “Yeah, we did this and this is what happened, but luckily it led us to this, so just do this.”

Jay: Absolutely, I mean case and point, just this morning on Twitter I shared how I failed at making my pancakes for breakfast. Oh wait, maybe that’s not what you were talking about. But it’s a good point, if you think back to Internet Business Mastery, we’ve had at least a few episodes where we’ve talked about okay, you know what? Here are mistakes we’ve made, and how you can avoid them.

And that just makes you more human, when you’re willing to say look, I’m not super human, I made the mistakes, but I’m here to help you save you that problem. So that’s a great point, so answer those kinds of questions, talk about your failures and how you overcame them, give the information you wished you had gotten when you started.

And some people start asking at this point, “Okay, well if I’m headed towards making a product, how do I know what do I give away for free, and what do I put in the product?” And that’s a very common question. Now one easy guideline for this is kind of the ‘what to do’ versus the ‘how to do it.’ If you think back to the last time you maybe listened to a podcast or somebody, I keep using us as an example, but we like to share very actionable and good information on here.

But clearly there’s only so much we can share in the thirty or forty-five minute podcast that we put out every other week, and so if you want the exact very specific getting in there, nitty gritty how to do it, then join the Academy. So that’s kind of a guideline there, and you’ll see a lot of bloggers do this. But that said, don’t be afraid to give away some of your best ideas.

I mean we get very liberal with some of the best ideas and stuff that we’ve come up with, because that’s just great stuff for solidifying the relationship and the trust.

Sterling: Well, and if you consider today, we’re recording an episode of Internet Business Mastery, the podcast, which will take us about forty minutes let’s say to record it, but then the rest of the day we’re going to be recording content for the Internet Business Mastery Academy, and that will take us about three or four hours.

So you can see the difference in how the content works, you give a lot of great information for free which is kind of the ‘what,’ and then the very, very specific ‘how’ which is obviously going to take a lot of time depending on what market you’re in. But that’s where you’re going to spend as much time as you can giving very specific things.

Jay: Now there are several factors that go into crafting a very good piece of content. So whether it’s a blog post, or a podcast, or a video; there’s just a few things. I mean certainly in the Academy case and point, it’s a lot more detail, but let’s take a blog post as an example, or even a podcast episode. I mean, you have a title for that blog post; you have a title for that podcast episode. You have a title for that video, whether it’s on YouTube, or on your own site.

And you’ve got to think of that title as a headline. That is the thing that’s going to be the clincher. It’s the thing that somebody sees in a matter of a second or two seconds, and decides, “Am I going to dedicate the ten minutes to watch this video? Am I going to dedicate a half hour to listen to this podcast? Am I going to dedicate a couple minutes to read this blog post?”

So remember the title is a headline. And from there you just lead them through the content all the way down to the end of…once you’ve got a great title, they start reading the beginning so you’ve got to have a great opening paragraph that makes promises and starts delivering on the promise that you made in your headline, and starts peaking their curiosity, and just moving them forward.

And that gets them to the next paragraph, all the way down until they get to the end and at the end you should always have a call to action. You’ll notice that we have calls to action in our podcast, we have calls to action in our blog posts, at the very least we ask a question and say, “what do you think?” And that’s because we want that engagement and interaction to happen, which leads to the relationship.

So keep those things in mind. Now here’s a very easy formula for creating a great piece of content. In every single segment that we create for the Academy, and even often here on the podcast, there’s three things you should have in your piece of content.

At the beginning, tell them what you’re going to tell them. What is it that they’re going to learn, what’s the problem you’re going to solve in this piece of content? What is the content about?

Number two is, why is it important to them? We talked about…just think back to the beginning of this episode and some of the stuff we said. We’re going to talk about why it’s important.

And then at the end of the piece of content, take action. You tell them okay, here’s what you should do about it now. So what are you going to tell them, why is it important, and then here’s what they should do about it now. And if you think about that in every podcast, in every blog post, in every video you take, your content is going to be immensely more valuable than a lot of the content out there.

I mean sometimes I read a blog post, I start and I’m like, why is this important to me? They’re just commentating on someone else’s blog, or they’re just adding to the echoing and the noise in the blogosphere. It’s like, give me a reason to keep reading. Why is this important for me?

And then at the end it’s like, I put it through that litmus test before I post to any of my blogs, I say look, if I can’t tell them why it’s important and what to do next, I should not be blogging about this.

Sterling: Well and today alone, I saw yet another post of Twitter stuff. Here’s eight Twitter programs you must….I’m like oh my gosh, really? Another…..? And no reason as to why I should read about eight more.

Jay: Yeah, it might have been several months back, or last year that kind of a post were a dime a dozen. The title itself might have given people an idea of yeah, I’m trying to figure…but now it’s like there are so many of those out there it’s like unless you give people a deeper level of why it’s important, why should they click that?

They’re like I see twelve of those a day. Alright, so there’s some ideas there on making compelling content. Let’s give you a few ideas of types of content. And we actually give fourteen formulas inside the Academy. But let’s give you three of them. Here’s three different types of…and again, this will work for blog posts, podcasts, videos.

Number one would be a list of resources. And you see this very often, maybe it would be like, ‘Here are the top email marketing resources as recommended by Sterling and Jay,’ or something like that. We’ve got our Toolbox page, which is a list of resources. So the list of resources type post, people like that a lot, because they love links, they love to click things, they love to find something new that they can use that makes their life easier.

Sterling: Well, and if they’re part of your community and they trust you, hopefully anything you give them – those links of resources – are things that you actually use and have tested. So I mean for ours, people are going to that knowing that we actually use these services, and we say it on the list of resources. This is what we use right now…so it gives that credibility of our community knows that.

Jay: And don’t take for granted the resources that you use. Sometimes you use it day in and day out, and it seems like the commonplace thing, but for somebody to find out… “Oh my gosh, Aweber is where I should go for my email list? Oh that’s awesome! That’s exactly what….” It’s easy to take something for granted when it’s something you use every day, but there’s somebody out there who doesn’t know where to go for that particular type of service.

So whatever your business is, the place that you go buy yarn for your knitting, the place online…some website, whatever your niche is, you’ve got those resources that you may take for granted that you can share with your audience. Interviews, a very easy thing to do; find other people doing important things. Other market leaders, other exciting case studies within your market, and just interview those people.

An incredibly easy way to create content, just come up with a few questions, send it by email or get them on the phone, or do a video in person with them, whatever the case may be.

And a third idea that we’ll give in this episode is just the simple question or poll. Present a question, here’s something that’s been on my mind, I’m kind of wondering if this, this, or this is better. I’d like to know what you think, and then just put out ‘answer in the comments,’ or include a poll where they can click and answer, and then comment if they want.

So the simple question or poll is incredibly powerful as well. So there’s three ideas right there to get you started. Like we said, there’s eleven more formulas that we share and talk more about, and go more into depth in the Academy, but that’s plenty to get you going right there.

And then here’s a couple of ideas for never running out of content. And I know this first one is one of your favorites. So why don’t you talk about that a little bit Sterling?

Sterling: Well, I’m out and about a lot. And that’s where I’m out on a walk or a bike ride or whatever, that’s where I get probably most creative. So when I’m out and about, I like to capture my ideas with a system such as Jott.com. And Jott is where you can actually record like with my iPhone, they actually have an application where I can just press the application and it will record whatever I say.

And then it will transcribe what I said, and put it in my email inbox so I don’t have to go through all my audio and type it out. So then I can just copy and paste it into my mindmaps, any sorts of ideas I have. So again as I’m walking on the beach in the morning, my beach walk, all these ideas will be coming to me. Or if I’m listening to a podcast or something that helps me come up with different ideas, I’ll just stop it real quick, call Jott, tell my idea and when I get back it’s all in my inbox ready to be put into action.

Jay: Yeah, you might be in a mastermind meeting, and an idea comes up. You might be listening to another podcast and it sparks an idea – a piece of content that you should do. You might be on Twitter and see somebody ask a question or make a comment that sparks an idea. You might be reading a book, you might just be in the shower.

We know the proverbial shower where you get all your great ideas. So having some kind of system, whether it’s a notepad, whether it’s a PDA, whether it’s Jott.com through your cell phone – have a system for capturing your ideas as they come up. And then come up with a central mindmap or a document, or something where you collect all those things.

I mean now, when we go to make a new episode or a podcast, I just go and immediately refer to our content idea mindmap, and that’s where we collect all these ideas. And just immediately I can remember oh yeah, you know what? We were thinking a couple months ago that this would be a good idea, let’s do that one next.

And so I never have to sit there and struggle for a half an hour thinking oh what’s my next blog post going to be about, because I’m always capturing them when they come to me. And that probably is one of the most important things you can do for never running out of content ideas.

So come up with some kind of system to capture ideas wherever you’re at, on the go. Come up with a system for capturing and organizing those as you go. So there you go, that’s step number six and seven of our online business blueprint. Six is attract a community of loyal customers who buy again and again, and then seven is create compelling content that continually engages your community so that you can build up that relationship with them.

If you’d like to know more about these two topics, we’ve got a full course about each with hours of audio and video for you to go through. And you can go and get your risk free trial for the Academy at FreeAudioGift.com for more information on these steps as well as the other ones we’ve shared in the other episodes too.

Sterling: Alright, so tell us what you think, what other ways have you found to attract a community of loyal customers? To let us know, go comment on this blog post at InternetBusinessMastery.com.

Jay: Alright, now we are to the announcements, and I guess this has become the breakthrough segment as well, because that’s really what we’ve been using them for the last few episodes.  This is becoming one of my favorite parts of the show, and not just because….I mean certainly this is people sharing their success stories from the Internet Business Mastery community, listeners, and Academy members.

And of course it’s very fulfilling to hear their stories, but one thing that I find I need…no matter how long I’m an entrepreneur, I still love to hear people’s success stories. They’re just little victories that they have along the way. And no matter at what level they’re at, it just gets me psyched, it gets me all pumped up and energized to go and do something myself.

And so I love hearing these little stories, so this is becoming one of my favorite parts of the show that we do. But one of the big reasons we started doing this is because we realized that’s a really important part of this whole process, is to share those kinds of success stories so that it gets us pumped up. And we want to share that kind of energy with the community as well. So we hope that you get that kind of energy in listening to these little breakthroughs.

And we definitely want to hear your breakthroughs, no matter how big or small they may be, at whatever level you’re at. If it’s important to you and exciting to you, we want to hear about it.

Alright, so the first one here is from Sunday Shields, who has been an Academy member for a while now. And she said, “This month I created my web content template and hired a V.A. to do the rest. My website is up technically, but is being modified as we speak by the V.A. The website is about showing administrative professionals how to be fearless and soar above the competition. We secure success through training, support, and strong network of trusted friends.

I partnered up with an Academy member in the San Francisco Bay area to form a mini mastermind group. I finished reading one of the best books ever written, “Think and Grow Rich” while maintaining my hectic schedule of work – 50 hours a week taking business classes and preparing for the San Francisco Marathon.

All in all, February was a very successful month, as it marked the beginning of the end of the corporate world for me. It also through my membership of the Academy community, strengthened my belief that I can design and create my own destiny.”

So if you want to see Sunday’s….I mean her site is still under works, but if that sounds like something interesting, and you want to keep an eye on that, it’s at Admins4Admins.com. And there’s a couple of things I wanted to point out about her story and why I wanted to share it. I mean there’s a lot of great stuff in here.

First of all, the fact that she decided what she wanted her site to look like, and now her V.A.’s doing it for her, and that it absolutely the fastest way to success. So great job there, she’s got a great niche that’s she’s chosen here. I love that she’s talking about how she’s put together a mini mastermind group already, that’s something that we talked about recently on the show.  So clearly she took fast action on that, and the Academy was able to help her put that together.

And then I love that she talks here about how she’s working 50 hours a week, yet she’s still reading this book and getting her business put together. And what she doesn’t mention here, and I’m pretty sure I’ve either seen in posts or maybe it’s a picture I saw of her, I’m pretty sure she’s a mom too. So add that on top of everything, and she is still making it happen. So that is a great inspiration to all of us of just working smart and being determined, and as she says creating her own destiny. So great stuff Sunday, thank you for sharing that with us.

Sterling: And again on her site by the way, Admins4Admins – it’s the number four instead of ‘for.’ Oh she has both.

Jay: Oh she’s got both, another smart thing that she did….

Sterling: Yeah, definitely.

Alright, next we have John Cunningham, an Academy student that shared the following on Facebook. “We’ve done it, we’ve launched our first product and our free audio course is around the corner. We’re interviewing with on the air with John Nelly….” Yeah remember him? He’s the voice artist that did our intro to the show here.

“…and that’s thanks to you. In the first hour, we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of hits, sign ups, and we’re already making money. Thank you – the Academy rocks!” And that is John from DraftingNation.com.

Jay: Alright, and our last success story that we want to share with you is from Kurt, who is also known as the Uncover Lawyer. And Kurt I have to give a quick shout out to here, because he has lived in the Portland area. He lives near Portland, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to get together sometime here. I want to put together a little Internet Business Mastery Portland Meetup together, but I want to thank Kurt publically because when we were moving to Portland, he was very, very liberal with giving me all kinds of great information and helpful stuff to help us know where to pick a place to live, and things like that.
So thank you very much for that Kurt, and just a very cool with having this whole community of Internet Business Mastery that you’re connected to is wherever I go I can find somebody who knows what’s up and can give me a clue up on things. So that’s pretty darn cool.

So anyway, he has an audio comment that he sent in, very powerful stuff, especially if you’re the type of person as many are these days worrying about the economic climate and what that means for being able to start your own business well. Listen to Kurt’s story and see if that doesn’t inspire you. So let me go ahead and play that comment.

Kurt: Hey Sterling and Jay, this is Kurt. I just wanted to call and say thanks, really just because in this bad economy, I’ve found my online business growing each month, and I just wouldn’t know where to start if it weren’t for Internet Business Mastery. And I think maybe unlike some people right now, I went online not because of the bad economy, but to help pay medical bills for my autistic son.

We were going down every month losing a little bit more money with all his treatments and therapies, and something had to change. So that’s really what motivated me to start a business. I had to, and I’m an attorney. And what I did was open something called UndercoverLawyer.com. I had no idea what to do, so before I did that, I found you on iTunes. I quickly ripped through every single episode that you guys offer, and unlike other gurus, you told people what to do instead of just a bunch of hype and ra-ra about become millionaires instantly in one day.

So I first opened for business in April of 08, and that May, the first full month did $3,000 in sales. And it hasn’t rocketed up to the stratosphere, it even dipped during the summer, but ten months later I’m at $8,000 a month. And through the Academy, I’m now learning how to add products. I hope to do a membership site, so the sky’s the limit.

I’m a lot better than working for an hourly wage. Part of the reason I’m calling is because with the economy faltering and people losing jobs, my wife and I look at each other and it’s like here we are with two jobs. I’ve got my regular law job, and then I’ve got Undercover Lawyer. I’ve got more business than I know what to do with right now as far as keeping me busy, making more money than I have in my life.

I haven’t killed off the ’9 to 5′ yet, but online business has been a huge bright spot for my family’s finances, for my son’s medical treatments, and one day we will kill that ’9 to 5.’ It wouldn’t even be a possibility if it weren’t for you guys and for Internet Business Mastery. So thanks a lot, this is Kurt. I look forward to the next episode. Bye-bye.”

Jay: Well, I think that comment speaks for itself. It’s just encouraging for all of us to hear. The internet business…the reason why it makes us so passionate and excited for ourselves and to teach it to others is the very things that Kurt’s talking about in this audio. The control that it gives you in your life and over your finances, I mean whether or not you have been able to quit your ’9 to 5′ yet, it’s just very inspiring to hear about those kinds of stories where you’re able to better provide for your family, or reach new goals, or achieve a lifestyle that you want.

So thanks Kurt for sharing that comment with us, and definitely an inspiration to me hearing your story. So thanks.

Sterling: Well and this actually also…there’s something about these breakthroughs that I wanted to point out as well, because from time to time when I go to different groups in San Diego and stuff, I have people that cynically ask me a very specific question and I get it from time to time. But the question is, “Are there really ways to make money online that aren’t teaching other people how to make money online?” And I’m like, “Uh, yeah!” And then I get this entire list of people from the Academy who have nothing to do with internet business, internet marketing, traffic, any of that stuff.

And in fact, I’m not actually sure if I remember anybody that does something similar to us, but most people are like this. So just this episode we’ve got a lawyer, we’ve got somebody doing Drafting Nation, we’ve got Admins4Admins. I mean come on, not to mention the people we’ve had on before as well for the cubicle escape episode. And we could go on and on with all the different people and all the different niches out there that are just ripe for the picking.

Jay: Absolutely, I guess I can’t remember if I mentioned, but if you want to see more of what Kurt is doing, you can find him at UndercoverLawyer.com. And yeah, it’s worth checking these people’s sites out just to see like Sterling was saying, in all these different niches, people are finding success. So it’s very, very exciting to see that stuff going on.

It’s time for the Internet Business Quick Tip….

Jay: Alright, on this episode’s Quick Tip, and we will make this one quick since we’re running a little bit long with all this juicy content. We’ve been talking about Amazon S3 as a great place to host your media for quick and dependable delivery. And so this month we want to talk about a great little tool that we use for actually uploading your content to Amazon S3.

The way it works is you can’t just use any old FTP program like you might use with your usual hosting. You have to have a special access program, and so the one we use is actually a plug in that works right inside of Firefox. And it is called S3 Fox or S3 Organizer sometime’s it’s called as well.

And you can find that over at S3Fox.net. It’s free to use, and since it works with Firefox, you can use it on either Mac or PC. So go ahead and give that a try if you’re looking for something that will allow you to upload your files to Amazon S3.

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!