Internet Business Mastery: Business Development and Internet Marketing for the Web 2.0 Age

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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, starting an internet business while working full time, an internet business success story with Mark Mason. And we’d like to remind you that if you’d like to get a jumpstart on creating your own profitable internet business using our proven system, claim your risk free trial membership to the Internet Business Mastery Academy by going to FreeAudioGift.com.

So Jay, what’s been going on lately?

Jay: Well I’ve got something actually pretty big on my mind right now, it’s because of an email I got a couple days ago. It’s always nice to hear from our listeners, and this one was in particular chastising us believe it or not.

Sterling: Well, that doesn’t happen often, does it?

Jay: This was in reference to a newsletter we sent out recently where we mentioned that we had hired a new web developer from the Philippines for along $500 a month full time, and that meant two things – they could hire somebody at that kind of a rate as well from the Philippines, and so we linked to that. And number two that we were looking for whatever input they had about anybody to respond to the newsletter and let us know what kind of improvements they might like to see on the site because we want to use this full time guy to just make our offerings better, to make it easier and more useful for people to use our site.

Sterling: Yeah, all the stuff that we never get around to.

Jay: Yeah, and we have no business doing anyway, that’s why we hired someone else to do it.

Sterling: Exactly.

Jay: So here’s the reply that I got to that newsletter. I’ve omitted the name, we exchanged a few emails and have a good discussion, that’s why I wanted to bring it here to the podcast and get your input on this as well. But I’m going to go ahead and read this email omitting his name.

It says, (this is addressed to us – Sterling and Jay), it says: “I’m surprised that you would boast about outsourcing to the Philippines at a time when unemployment in the U.S. is at a high. There are plenty of high qualified type people looking for work in the U.S. who can help you, people who can actually come to your office and meeet you in person. I understand that businesses have to be competitive, and they are often driven to find the cheapest price. But at what cost?

Fewer jobs in the U.S., the commodification of high-level intellectual jobs, which makes it difficult for U.S. companies to compete because we use local talent and have to charge more. Your email announcement describes hiring the person like you found a great online deal on a laptop. This is just as problematic if not more as hiring outside the U.S. Human beings are not commodities, I’m sorry you’ve gone this route, you’ve lost a devoted follower.”

So pretty strong words, now I can understand that everyone’s got their different viewpoints, I don’t know what all the background is that has brought him to his particular view on the economy and outsourcing, and certainly when it comes to economics it’s a very complicated issue and we’re all going to have our different views on the finer points of the economy and how it works. It’s a very complex thing.

Sterling: Well and it sounds like right off that he is actually being affected by this himself. He says, “which makes it difficult for U.S. companies to compete, because we use local talent and have to charge more.” Is that right, did he have something like that, where he was actually…

Jay: Well it sounds like he has his own company and I’m sure he has his own employees, who knows if in the past he’s been laid off because of outsourcing, or has had to…or struggling to make ends meet in his own business because the economy and how it’s affecting things. Who knows, I mean grant it, it is a difficult time, a lot of people have a lot of different emotions running, and there are definitely people struggling not only in the U.S. but all over the world from various aspects and things going on in the economy.

But I wrote him back, and I decided this is an issue that I wanted to write back on and kind of outline my position, because it is something that is an important issue and I wanted to discuss is on the podcast here. Now it’s hard to do this without getting all political, and it’s not like this is a political podcast by any means, but from a very business standpoint there’s some good points that need to be made here.

So here’s a few of the things that I personally feel on this issue and Sterling you can tell me if you agree or what your particular stance is. So there’s two things: first, he’s saying that we were treating a human being like a commodity, second of all the whole issue of by outsourcing, you’re hurting the U.S. economy. So first to speak to the commodity issue, I mean a human being is a human being. By no means do we want to mistreat a human being, or treat them in an unethical way.

Sterling: Nor do we.

Jay: Yeah, nor do we. And humans are not commodities, certain skill sets however, sometimes can end up being in a commodity type…I mean it can end up in that category, I mean very simply, and that’s something we all as human beings have to keep up with, is making our skill set so that they don’t become commodities. I mean it’s true that to the one sense a Virtual Assistant, we hire somebody; we hope he works out, we’d love to have a great relationship with him for a long time to come because it benefits him and us.
But truth be told, if things don’t go as planned, which has happened to us before, we gave them more than ample time to do the work, and with our first tech V.A. I even instructed him on things that I thought needed to be done better, gave him a chance to fix it and he didn’t so we let him go, because we knew we could replace him very quickly and easily. So in that sense is the skill set a commodity, well we know we can go and find readily available the rest of that skill set.

Now that said, here is the truth of the matter when it comes to the human being and how we treat that person. I mean the one that we just hired, it’s a young man right out of college in the Philippines, we’re paying him a salary that’s at least equal if not higher than what he would otherwise make. He gets to set his own hours, he gets to work on things he finds challenging and interesting.

We give him paid holidays, we pay him to learn new skills, because we’re wanting him to constantly learn new things for us as we’re pushing the envelope. So his resume is getting better as we pay him to do that. We don’t ask overtime of him, he works no more than 40 hours a week, and that’s more than I can say for most U.S. employers, especially these days. If he needs time off for a family matter, or do to something, this is the Philippines. Things happen, power goes out, the typhoon hits, and we work with those issues.

And not to mention we also give these people raises and bonus more than once a year, so again, much more than could be said for most U.S. employers, or employers elsewhere in the world as well. So I would say he’s treated way better than I was ever treated as an employee. I worked to the bone, worked overtime, and usually not compensated overtime, I was a salary employee. I didn’t necessarily get time off, even though sometimes I would bust my butt for days on end.

So obviously as anybody who’s employing somebody, I want to make sure they’re treated how I wish I had been treated when I was employed. So that’s what I would say to that first statement of how we view and/or treat a human being in certain skill sets.

Sterling: I agree.

Jay: Second of all I guess is the unemployment issue. So the argument is that by advocating outsourcing to other places and by telling other people how they can do that themselves that we’re hurting the economy in the U.S. First of all there’s a very important point to make here, and that is in Internet Business Mastery, our definite major purpose that both Sterling and I have and I think I can speak for him because we’ve talked about this a lot is, we are here to not only bring increased freedom and happiness to ourselves through our internet business but also to others.

And that is not limited to any particular country, we are here to help as many people who can listen to us across the whole world. To find increased freedom and the ability to make an income for themselves through internet business. And we have almost as many listeners outside the U.S. as we do inside the U.S. In fact we probably have more outside the U.S. than we do in the U.S.

So that is simply to say that by no means is what we teach, our mode of business, or our philosophy in what we do within this business based on anything U.S. Centric or U.S. specific. I mean this is a world-wide podcast, it’s a world-wide audience. That aside, let’s consider a couple different scenarios I guess we could have gone with here. There are some people who would hear this whole argument and say well the patriotic thing to do is hire domestically, hire locally, and to help somebody out in your own country, or neighborhood, or community, or town, and whatever.

If that’s something that somebody chooses to do to bring happiness to themselves and others, great, by all means do so. However, our budget would have allowed us to hire only a freelancer here in the United States for about 10 hours a month. So we could have provided somebody in the U.S. ten more hours a month of work, but we as a business would only achieved a fraction, or a 1/16 to be exact, because we would have only got a 1/16 of the work hours out of them.

So we would have only got 1/16 of the improvements to our sites, hence the benefits that our listeners and members will reap through these improvements that we’re going to implement in our site. So in order to afford the same amount of time to cover the additional cost of hiring someone in the U.S. we would have had to raise our prices, and that would have excluded more people from being able to afford our service, our help, and to join the Academy and hence learn the stuff that we teach to create their own income and improve their own lives.

That’s scenario #1, scenario #2 – we hire a full time developer in the Philippines, our budget allows to pay him a very livable salary, we’re able to achieve 10x, in fact 16x the amount of site improvements than if we had hired somebody in the U.S. And so therefore, our ability to reach our market and help them, and help people create their own businesses, create their own income. What is one of our primary purposes for this podcast and this business, it is vastly improved by the fact that we hire somebody full time. So obviously when we weigh these two scenarios, we opted for the second scenario by doing things competitively and cost effectively, we end up creating more opportunities for people to listen to it, and to learn the stuff that we teach and hence in the end, people start more small businesses – internet businesses – whether it be in the U.S. or in other countries as well.

And it’s something that’s been said many times, that small businesses are the backbone of an economy. Not that our primary goal was to go out and go ooh, we’re going to fix the economy. Again, our primary goal is to bring freedom and happiness to ourselves and those that hear our message through internet business. But it certainly works out nicely that as such, as it works out, we’re helping the economic climate because we’re helping to create small businesses and helping people be able to find the kind of income that they need.

You need to look no further than some of the people we’ve talked about on the podcast or even interviewed. Pat, who was laid off from this job last year, and now thanks to our help is making much more money than he ever did in his employment, or Kurt whose son’s medical bills were going to require him to get a second job, and instead he started an internet business and so now he has the money to help out with those medical bills without sacrificing valuable time with his family.

Or Cornelius who we have recently interviewed, who has taken his profession and turned it into a thriving business that teaches other people how to thrive in their profession – in this case project management and hence make their job situation more solid. So I think that’s a pretty strong argument for the economic benefits that kind of end up permeating through what happens to be our primary goal for this business.

So all that to say that in the end, we have no ethical or moral reservation about the approach that we’ve chosen for our business to do the outsourcing, and we make it a policy not to do anything that would harm anyone else, or would harm a human being. I mean yes, we want more happiness for ourselves and others, but not if it’s going to hurt somebody. So we do consider will this hurt somebody when we make our decisions, but our primary goal is to bring that increased freedom and financial stability to as many people possible worldwide.

And by doing business as efficiently as we can, we reach that goal to a greater degree. So very length, long-winded I guess long response to that email and like I said discuss this through email with him as well. But I thought it was something interesting to bring to the podcast for people to hear our stand on that since we do talk a lot about outsourcing. There’s probably some people who have wondered that and also to hear what other people think on the matter.

But having said all that, Sterling, is there anything in particular that comes to mind for you?

Sterling: Well, I think that the way you said it is very diplomatic and nice, and I very much agree with it. It’s probably best I not get too…obviously this is not a political show, we could go into the politics of it and stuff, and oh I could. But the thing I’d like to kind of remind everybody is, we definitely are with the internet business, in a world economy at this point.

Our customers are in the world, not just the U.S., or not just in San Diego, or Portland, or wherever. And I think of my business as that kind of a thing, a world business. And I’m not restricted to a local at all, so I come at this whole situation with that at mind as well as, and again you said it really well, it’s based on your own personal preferences of how you want to do business, and the goals of our business are to make great lifestyles for ourself, and we both just happen to both get fulfillment out of helping others do the same.

So those are the two main important things for us, and without getting any more political, I think I’ll leave it at that. So I completely agree with what you’re saying.

Jay: And I guess there’s just a couple more points that I want to make. I mean we definitely realize that with a podcast that is listened by a lot of people worldwide, yes, we have an ability; we’re in a position to influence others. We talk about how to build influence in our Academy, and we know that we affect people’s thinking about their business and in making decisions and we continually strive to use that position that we have responsibly. Now in the end people have to realize look, there’s something called personal responsibility.

And so somebody decides to hire and outsource, that’s because they know their circumstances and they make the best decision for them. Let’s say that they listened to something we said and they think you know what, maybe I am going to have to lay off a couple of people and outsource. And that’s sad when somebody has to be laid off, but again we’re offering up information, but there’s a disclaimer at the end of every one of our email newsletters. It’s like look, you have to make the right decisions for you, with whatever professional help that you get from lawyers, accountants, and whoever else given the laws and the things in your own current…where you live and all the circumstances that you are in.

You’re the one that knows your situation better than anyone, so I mean yes, we offer up our best insights, but in the end it’s personal responsibility and each individual that makes the decision for themselves. So I think we probably said enough on the issue, but by all means, we’re open to hearing other people’s ideas on that. It’s a very interesting topic of discussion, so by all means we love to have people come back to the blog post for this episode.

This is episode, what are we on here, we’re on number 70 I think? And comment, let us know if you have other thoughts about this, by all means. And we’ll let the community have their say as well. So I little longer chit chat than normal, but it’s something that I thought was very interesting, and we definitely wanted to bring to the podcast.

Alright, so with that, let’s go ahead. We have an awesome interview for with somebody who’s done some really cool stuff, let’s jump into the interview with Mark Mason.

And now the featured segment…

Jay: Hello everyone, this is Jay here. Hope you’re doing well, I’m joined by Sterling as well and we’ve got today on the phone Mark Mason. Mr. Mark Mason, who has been a long time listener of Internet Business Mastery, also a long time member of the Academy who is one of our original charter members of the Academy that launched almost a year ago.

And he runs a site called MasonWorld.com, we’ll be talking to him more about that as well as his other activities online. He’s been starting an internet business while working full time, and also he’s a family man. So we wanted to talk to him about how he makes it work, how he gets it all done. He’s done an excellent job working consistently, and being focused, and making it work despite the limited time that he has. So thank you very much for joining us today, Mark.

Mark: Hey, thank you very much and I really appreciate the fantastic introduction. It’s great to be talking to you guys today.

Jay: Well let’s go ahead and have you talk to us a little bit about what got you into internet business to begin with. What brought you to the world of internet marketing and information marketing?

Mark: Well this is kind of a question I get a lot, and actually and answer, at least it’s interesting from my point of view. I was a computer geek, but I didn’t really understand anything at all about how money moved around on the internet. I always kind of felt like I wanted to have a web-based business, I just didn’t really understand what that meant.

And one day I saw a story on the Today Show about a guy who was a retired handyman who had a website that was later found out monetized with AdSense, and he was pulling down $11,000 a month with an AdSense website. And I figured if this guy can do this, and he’s a retired home handyman, certainly a computer geek can be successful in those sort of circumstances.

Sterling: Yeah, that is one of the things, I have other computer friends that are really versed at computers, and I think it always really makes them grit their teeth to know that I actually make money with it, and they’re the ones that helped me all the time, right? I keep trying to explain to them that I can hire people to do the computer stuff if I have to; it’s about the marketing and the actual business side of it. But yeah, that happens to me.

Mark: And that’s exactly one of the very first things I learned from you guys, after I started understanding how money moved around on the internet. I realized, and I think Jay you’ve been through this, you realize that actually sometimes knowing tech can be a hindrance and you have to be very careful not to get buried in the technology and actually focus on the business. So I’ve been a student of internet marketing not technology for the last couple years.

And actually I’ve learned probably the most about internet marketing from Internet Business Mastery, from the community building aspect, as well as a lot of lifestyle design things. That’s what I’ve relied on your guys for, and that’s been a major influence in my sculpting of MasonWorld.com and the related businesses around that.

Jay: Well we appreciate hearing that. Now MasonWorld.com, would you say that’s your primary site right now then that you’re working on?

Mark: Well you know what I did was, MasonWorld.com is actually a domain with an age of about ten years, and I mentioned to you I was a computer geek, so I’ve always had a domain for monkeying around with website stuff. I used to run my own servers in a closet in my house just as a technology hobby. And so what I decided to do was to turn that into a blog to document my journey online. And really initially it was sort of a make money online journey that’s morphed into what I’d describe more as an internet business and lifestyle design journey as I’ve learned from you guys and others about needing to envision what I want this thing to be in five years as opposed to focusing on making the next $20.

It’s a really important distinction. In the MasonWorld.com website is an internet marketing teaching site now where I share my experiences, I give as honest and unbiased reviews to things I’m doing as I possibly can, and I share those with people and have tried to build up a community around that in the way that you guys teach.

Sterling: Okay, so who would you say is like your primary target market for that, and who is it that you’re actually trying to reach?

Mark: Yeah, so initially I thought what I was trying to do was to develop content for search engines and monetize my affiliate links on that site. That was my simple minded initial approach, so that was really short-sighted. I mean clearly what I’m trying to do now is reach people who want to get started online and particularly I’m starting to focus in on part-time entrepreneurs like me that have a day job that they’re not interested in getting rid of.

I love my day job, but I am interested in investing in a future internet business that has all kinds of implications for my personal lifestyle. As you guys know very well, you can construct internet businesses that run 24 hours a day completely on automation using outsourcing and other techniques that you teach, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with MasonWorld.com. So my target market is then people who want to learn how to do that, or learn with me if you will.

Jay: Well I like what you say there, because clearly internet business and internet marketing is a very broad niche in many ways, and there’s a lot of people involved in that niche, but it’s very cool that you found something specific to kind of set yourself apart and say look, I’m somebody who enjoys my job and I’m going to niche this down further, and I’m going to reach out to and try to get a community of those people who do want to do this as a part-time or side thing. They like their job, and they’re enjoying it, and they’re wanting to get an extra thing to provide for many some other portion of their lifestyle that they’re trying to design.

So the lesson that can be learned there, just side stepping your niche or niching down more specifically, is very powerful because now you have a message that flags…now there’s people listening to this even right now are going, “Well that’s me!” So I’m sure Mark’s got some great things to say, some great insights, and every day he’s working a job and at the same time trying to get his internet business going.

And certainly you’re going to have insights to offer for them that say Sterling and I might not, because we’ve been out of the ‘9 to 5’ for six years now. I mean we remember somewhat what it was like to be back there and trying to do stuff at the same time, but you know we’ve I’m sure lost sight of that in many ways, and so it was very cool to hear how you’ve decided to niche that more specifically for yourself.

Mark: Well thanks, I appreciate that. I have to say that I can’t completely take credit for that. I mean you guys teach lifestyle design components that lead to that kind of analysis. You also teach a lot of the niche selection and audience focus. It’s not necessary to create a business that’s all things for all people right? You can make a business out of specifically what you’re passionate about.

The things I care about are integrity, teaching people, and the fact that this can be a cash flow positive hobby or serious business, or however you want to describe it. That’s gravy, because I think it’s really interesting as a technical person very interested in the marketing piece, that’s something that’s not in my formal background with degrees in engineering. So it’s been a life long learning experience, you guys also talk about that – about being a lifetime learner. And it’s been an opportunity for me to learn a lot, I want to pass that along to people as I can.

Jay: Awesome, now really quickly for those who are listening and may be curious, if you can do so without incriminating yourself, what is your day job?

Mark: Well yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, I have an engineering position, engineering management position at a very large semiconductor company located in the Southwest. So it won’t be hard for people to figure out what that is, and I’m in the research and development operation, and I work on next generation semiconductor designs for things in the cell phone space as well as the compute space. So lots of hardcore high tech semiconductor manufacturing activities going on in my day job.eyHJadwf

Jay: Gotchya, so I know what it’s like to be an engineer, does that mean that sometimes you…I mean you say you love your job. Is this something you still see yourself doing for a while?

Mark: Absolutely, I love my job, I love the company that I work for. I do not fit your normal cubicle escape sort of market segment in the short term at least. I mean obviously I don’t want to work here until I’m 85 years old, but right now I have a clear vision of what I want to do inside of this company in the next ten years, but that doesn’t prevent me from working in a parallel activity that’s completely unrelated to my daytime job in the evenings and have a really good time doing it, meeting tons of people, helping people be successful. That’s what I’m all about in the evenings, and I really enjoy it.

Jay: Very cool. Now I remember seeing recently in the Academy forums you were talking about looking for some other niches to get involved in as well. Is there some other things that you’re working on too, or what’s the status? Or are you still focusing on MasonWorld, or what are you thinking there?

Mark: Well, I recognize that it is healthy to have a diversified business, and knowing a lot about internet marketing allows me to explore affiliate opportunities in other kinds of niches that I care about in various spaces, not just the typical things that internet marketers go after, but maybe I want to be the world’s expert on Elvis Bobbleheads. I don’t by the way, but if you do Google Elvis Presley neckties, you will find that I dominate the search for Elvis Presley neckties.

I mean there’s all kinds of things you can get into that are like that. And basically anything that you care about you can easily find a way to establish some presence on the internet in that space and start to build both community and a chief engine search ranking that allows to monetize traffic.

Sterling: Absolutely, now a lot of people have a really hard time with the step of choosing a niche. How did you go about choosing yours?

Mark: Well you know, I’m one of those people…the niche of internet marketing is something that I was just serious about and decided I was going to do. And let me tell you something, if you have ever looked at internet marketing space from a competitive standpoint, and I know you guys have extensively, it’s got to be the most competitive space on the internet for search engine traffic.

I mean you’re going up against professional internet marketers to try to talk about internet marketing, it’s a very difficult space. And I’ve been successful in that space, so my first comment is don’t let the competition scare you off, but I find the best niches are things that you care about. Let me give you an example, my wife is probably the best mother on the planet, and she’s interested in raising our child, and one of the things they do all the time is play.

So it turns out she’s an expert on children’s toys. So we have a website where we sell children’s toys, it’s a new project that we just started and as you guys teach, it cost us $20 or $30 to get it up and running, literally. And we’re already driving traffic to that site, and we’re not going to retire on that income tomorrow, but over time that site will be one of the sites in our activity that generates positive cash flow and adds to the bottom line, and it allows my wife to participate in the business and focus on something that she is passionate about.

Jay: Awesome, that’s a great example. So you’ve kind of implied a few different ways that you’re making money, so can you share some examples of how you’re making money online? Is it mostly through affiliate income or what are your different income streams that you have right now?

Mark: Yeah, the income streams that I have, I’ve got a couple of businesses that are running basically. One business that I’m running is I’ve got a few products of my own that I have got websites set up for, traffic is arriving at those websites, and some of that traffic is converting to sales, those are all electronic products and that’s an information marketing sort of business.

Then I’ve got other websites that I have where I’m selling particular affiliate products and I’ll give you one example I actually got from Sterling very early in the Internet Business Mastery listening experience. I heard you guys talking a lot about Dan Kennedy, and so I went out and created a small website where I resell or drive affiliate traffic to Dan Kennedy products on eBay. Some of them are actually Sterling’s products on eBay, I’m sure I have sold products for Sterling, and got paid commission.

And I know you appreciate that, that’s an affiliate example, and then the other thing I got started with – these are kind of simple things you can get started with that are compatible with part-time internet marketing is just AdSense websites. So I pick a topic that I’m interested in, I see that it meets certain criteria for cost-per-click. I generate five or ten pages of information, kind of til I get bored and I put that site out there, monetize it with AdSense, and do some light promotion on it to drive traffic. That traffic generates AdSense clicks, and that revenue just sits there and accumulates over time. Once you put the stuff out there, it’s out there forever.

Jay: Awesome.

Sterling: Yeah, that is very cool. One of the things we like to get into of course is mindset, so we wanted to know, what fears have you faced along the way in starting your internet business, and how did you overcome them?

Mark: Well you know, one of the interesting things is I guess initially when I was starting the MasonWorld.com blog. I was literally someone who didn’t know anything, I was basically blogging about the fact that I didn’t know anything and I was learning along the way. And one of the fears that’s very natural is to try and understand who in the world wants to read about somebody who doesn’t know anything, and all about how they don’t know anything?

And it’s a really good question, and the answer is, or it seems to be that there were a lot of other people who also didn’t know anything and they were interested in knowing they weren’t alone, and learning what I learned, and they shared with me and we had conversations, and so it was that fear that you always hear about whether or not people care what you have to say.

And the answer is there’s over six billion people in the world, you really only really need a couple of thousand to have a viable internet business. You’re going to find people who care about what you have to say.

Sterling: Absolutely, and in fact you can have under a thousand and do incredibly well. I’ve got stuff that’s under a thousand that I could live very comfortably on.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely.

Jay: Well I’m really glad you brought that one up, because I know a lot of people face that exact same thing, and there’s a reason why at least a couple thousand people have found what you say compelling and interesting enough to stick around and listen to you. You’ve resonated with them just with your own experiences and the values that you portray, and when you do come out and say, well you know what? There’s a lot of things I don’t know, but I’m going to share what I do, and I’ll tell you what works and what doesn’t work for me.

I mean there’s a humanness that comes out in that that people can really attach to, and in fact it reminds me of the whole story that the Superman comic didn’t do nearly as well until they introduced Kryptonite, and he had a weakness, so that there was something that people could relate to – if you’re just perfect and invincible all the time it’s a lot harder for people to connect with that. So I think that’s a great example that you’ve shared there – a fear to overcome.

Sterling: Well and we’ve done that too right? Like that was how we started was the almost anti-gurus. We were just guys that were doing internet business, and it works incredibly well. People I think really like to hear the actual like you said, humanness I guess of the situation instead of a guru on a mound up high.

Mark: Right, if you’re constantly comparing yourself to Yanik Silver, or Andrew Locke, or one of those guys that we all love (and I love those guys, and I follow them and I think they’re great), but if you’re starting at zero and you can’t even see Yanik Silver from zero right? So that can be a little bit de-motivating, it’s much better if you can have some intermediate goals in the form of mentors that you can look at and recognize that there is a path to becoming Yanik Silver, or Andrew Locke, or quite frankly Jay and Sterling.

I mean anyone listening to this podcast can be as successful as Jay and Sterling, I really believe that, but you’ve got to take action and get busy or you’ll never catch them.

Jay: That’s right!

Sterling: Absolutely.

Jay: So how would you say internet business has impacted your life? You’ve said ‘Well for now, I really enjoy my job, I enjoy having this profitable hobby, or maybe side business.’ I mean do you have some specific ideas or specific examples of how this has contributed to portions of your lifestyle design? What have the benefits been for you?

Mark: Well I have three children and another one on the way. And so for me, having multiple streams of income seems like a credible strategy to deal with the rising costs of college. I mean it’s very nice to imagine a situation where no matter what your level of income is where you have another five, ten, fifteen percent of income that you can use now or in the future to do whatever it is, to realize whatever lifestyle design that you’re going after.

So these kinds of things have caused me to question things like my planned retirement date for my current job, what kind of investments I want to make now and in the future in my business. And so as a result of that, one of the things I have decided is I reinvested an enormous amount, almost 100% of the proceeds from my business right now because I’m just interested in growing it as quickly as possible. And in order to do that, I’ve used some of the things that you taught – for example the GetReplaceMyself.com that you guys talk about, which has been incredibly helpful to me in growing the business without causing me to work additional hours. Just like you talk about, I’m getting more done working less.

Jay: Awesome, that’s something I think a lot of us can enjoy.

Sterling: Oh yeah, and speaking of your family, you’ve done a really great job of working on your internet business despite having a full time job and a family life. What would you say are three things that have really helped you stay on course and make that happen?

Mark: Well, of course for me personally the three things that I would pick would be to say first of all, I am sure to remember that my family comes first. So that’s for me, so whatever is important to you, you’ve got to keep that first, because if you’re doing all this stuff and you cross the finish line without the thing that’s most important to you, you’ve messed up the lifestyle design portion of the exam. Go back to square one, you did it wrong.

Sterling: Absolutely.

Mark: Right, and the second thing I would say is that I am doing as much as I can to involved my family in the side business, and they think it’s cool. My wife has a website, my twelve year old actually has a website that she works on occasionally although she’s so distracted by the Jonas Brothers, sometimes it’s hard to get her to do anything on it.

But yeah, I involve my family in it. And then the third thing is, you have to be realistic about your goals. I mean, sometimes I get email from people and they’ll say something like, “Please help me, I lost my job four months ago. My credit cards are maxed out, and I’ve got 20 days to make $50,000. How can I do that?” And I feel for those people, and they’re losing their houses and stuff like that, and it’s terrible. But that’s not the business that I’m in. I’m in a business where you build equity over time, you have to create value in order to build that equity. It’s not something for nothing proposition.

And the business I’m in, it takes time to build that. It’s not an overnight thing, and so the third thing then would be to be realistic about goals that you have in your business, and that’s another way you can help keep it from taking over your life.

Jay: Absolutely. Are there any other tips that come to mind for somebody who’s trying to start an internet business?

Mark: Absolutely, and that would be one of them that you give all the time is, take action, even if it’s the wrong action. Look if you put up a website or put up something or try something out, and it doesn’t work out, move on. It’s not a big deal, or leave it there and come back to it in a year and see what’s going on. It’s just not a big deal. Fail quickly, so that you can understand what works and what doesn’t work and move along.

Second thing I would say is, find people that you believe in that you can trust. For me, that’s you guys and several other fantastic internet marketers that I know have honestly and integrity as their core principles. I follow them and I listen to what they have to say, and I try to tune everything out that isn’t related to what those guys have to say. And then the third thing I would have to say is, avoid being distracted by every shiny new object that comes along in the internet marketing space.

If you’re responding to every email list that you’re on, and going and checking out every sales letter, and buying stuff every week, you’re doing it wrong. You need to find a business plan that you can believe in, whatever it is – whether it’s what you teach at Internet Business Mastery, or some other related thing, you need to focus on that and keep working it until it works, or until you’ve determined that it’s not going to work. Switching horses every month is not going to get you where you want to be.

Jay: Those are all excellent pieces of advice, good stuff.

Sterling: Now we really like having everyone hear what others have to say about the Academy, so how is being a part of the Academy contributed to your progress and success?

Mark: Let me tell you a story, and you guys know this story, but I’ll recount it. Two things – one is, I claim to be as you guys know very well the world’s record holder for rate of Internet Business Mastery podcast consumption. One time on a trip to Asia, I listened to all episodes from Episode #7 all the way through to I think it was Episode #40 twice in a 48-hour period.

So I think that makes me the world’s record holder. So the day, and Jay you probably remember this, the day that you guy’s went live on the Academy, I was actually in a shopping mall at noon when the website went live, and I was worried that all the slots would be gone, so I actually contacted you and begged you to hold me a slot. I don’t know if you remember that, which you did of course.

Sterling: Oh, I remember too.

Mark: Yeah, and that made me a charter member of the Academy, because I knew what you guys were teaching was in line with what I wanted to do. So there are three things in the Academy that I think are completely invaluable and unique. I mean you just can’t put a value on three things that exist in the Academy, well maybe four. You can decide how you want to count them.

Number one is the course material that you guys generate, and the methods that you teach, the quality of it is just stunning. It’s much, much higher than what I expected, and you’ve got this I guess it’s going to end up being eleven courses in multiple parts, I don’t know how many hours of audio and video material it is, but it’s really fantastic.

That alone is worth a small fortune, and other people are charging a small fortune for the parts of that that they teach. One of the things that continues to amaze me is that you guys are teaching some very important ideas that other people are still not teaching, and so it’s really hard to put a value on it. That’s thing one.

Thing two is the Internet Business Mastery forums which I participate in pretty heavily. If you are wanting to get started on the internet, you need to be able to talk to people that have either done what you’re trying to do or are trying to do what you’re trying to do at the same time and share your problems and concerns. That’s what the Internet Business Mastery Academy forums do for you, those are absolutely fantastic and you guys have done a good job of recruiting some people with lots of experience to continue to participate in those forums to add to your voice.

And so that’s almost like free mastermind mentoring there that comes complete with the Academy. And then the other thing that’s really fantastic, this is three – three would be all the resources. So I’ve never seen anything like the Rolodex that you guys put together, that’s also unique in the industry. I know that I’ve seen it like one other place, but to have that included with the price of the Academy, that’s just really fantastic.

Four, which I would say is really part of two is having access to the two of you. That’s really been important to me, I know just the relationship you’re able to maintain with your clients and I consider one of those, it’s just amazing, and the example is a podcast microphone. The other day I needed a podcast microphone, I popped Jay on Twitter and said, “Hey, what’s the podcast microphone?” And you guys, the way you treat your clients is, you saw the message and responded.

Now I have a nice fancy new podcasting microphone for my next podcasting adventure. So those are the four things that I would say in the Internet Business Mastery Academy that make it worth so much more than the cost. It’s just really hard to understand what the multiplier is, it’s the difference between success and failure in internet business, and I don’t know quite how to put a price on that.

Jay: Well that’s quite nice of you to say.

Sterling: Yeah wow, thank you.

Jay: And of course we want to thank you for being a valuable part of the community, you’re one of our highest posters there in the forum, which is why you’re now one of our community managers, and so we definitely owe it to you for the part that you have played in helping make that a healthy community. So we definitely want to thank you for being a part of that as well.

Mark: Well it’s my pleasure, and if I had it to do all over again, and I had my credit card out all over again, and the site went live all over again, I would pay the money all over again without hesitation. I mean it was clearly an outstanding decision for me, and I suspect that it would be a good decision for other people as well.

Jay: Awesome.

Sterling: Very nice.

Jay: For those listening who want to find you online Mark, where can they go to find out more about you and what you’re up to?

Mark: Yeah, come to MasonWorld.com, come see me. I have forums there too if you go to MasonWorld.com, and look at the links, you can post a message in the forums, you can also reach me with the contact information on the blog, and I’ve also got a support ticket system there. So that’s ground zero for everything that I’m doing and I always try to answer all my email and all my questions, all the questions that people ask of me.

And coming soon I am launching the MasonWorld.com internet marketing podcast which is going to be a nice companion to the Internet Business Mastery podcast because it’s going to address this part-time internet marketing sort of niche that we talked about earlier, and that should be coming in the month of July. So be on the lookout for that, and you’ll be able to find that on iTunes if you’re listening to this sometime after July, it should be there.

Sterling: You know I want to actually really quick mention that there’s something really cool that I haven’t seen before that’s on your blog, and that’s the retweet button. I love that!

Mark: Oh that is outstanding, thank you! That retweet button is a plugin for WordPress and actually it’s funny that you mention that, because I need to have my V.A. fiddle with the stylesheet a little bit to get it formatted a little better, which that’s a hint to everybody out there, don’t spend time editing your stylesheet for your blog. Have somebody else do it for you. As tempting as it might be for me to get in there and start writing <div> tags I’m not going to do that.

And I know you guys will get mad at me if I write too much code, so I know I can’t do that. But yeah, thank you very much, that’s just another fantastic example of why what you teach, which is to use WordPress is exactly what you want to do. I just looked yesterday, because I was looking for something for a friend of mine that I was trying to help, there are fifty-six hundred plugins for WordPress on WordPress.org right now.

Sterling: That’s crazy.

Jay: Well yeah, MasonWorld.com is a great site, it’s a good niche that you’ve chosen there, and we’ll look forward to hearing your podcast. You’ve definitely made yourself an excellent filter of information for people interested in such things. So people can check that out, we’ll have a link to that in the show notes for this interview and episode as well. And I guess to finish up we just want to thank you for taking some time to chat with us and for all the little insights that have added up to a great wealth of knowledge just in the half hour that we’ve been chatting here, so thank you Mark, for taking the time to do that.

Mark: Hey thanks, and before we leave I want to issue a challenge to your listeners, and that is – if they’re considering doing something about internet business, when this podcast ends, I want them to go decide what that is and do something today. They should do something today, even if it’s a small thing. They should take some action today, and then do that again tomorrow.

Jay: Awesome, well that’s a perfect ending for this excellent episode, so we will just finish up with that. Thanks for joining us.

Mark: Thanks guys.

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!