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Feb
29

Meet the Bachus (your evil sidekick and influence)

By | Entrepreneur, Main Content, Success

6 Comments

Kinda like meeting the Fockers…

But the Bachus is an evil creature that wields enormous power and influence over your life.

It is also  wickedly good character from the True Blood TV series (which has some fantastic characters they continue to develop throughout the seasons).

The said part is…

…we ALL have some of the Bachus in us.

It controls our personal lives, our business lives, and our income.

But there is one simple thing you can do to START putting The Bachus in its place…

This video shows you what (yes, I am going to try doing far more videos in the coming months – simple videos – but still a different type of information you should be using in your own business).

Have a great day!

Troy

PS: Happy Leap Year!

In honor of such a great day, I am offering you a one-time only offer of the ENTIRE 2007 and 2008 Wild West Wealth Audio MP3 Library for only $29.  This is the SAME information that helped Chris V become a multi-millionaire before he hit 30 years old!

https://responsivedm.infusionsoft.com/saleform/nathnisf


“…grew from $2300 per month to over $96,000 per month”

“Troy, I cannot thank you enough for the 2007 Wild West Summit you put on. My membership business grew from $2300 per month to over $96,000 per month and still growing at a ridiculous rate… all from your marketing calendar, copy writing and you helping me tell my story with the world. I have gone from a College Student to a Millionaire in under 3 years with my Dream Home on the water being built as we speak… My wife and new born daughter thank you even more!.. lol

I think your event, your information, your personality is incredible!”

Chris Vermeulen
Founder, TheTechnicalTraders.com

Feb
28

Apples, Lobsters and Restaurants that don’t charge

By | Marketing Plan, Wacky marketing ideas

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One of my FAVOURITE types of businesses are ones with recurring revenues built in.

Looking back, this is something I should have invested much more time and money building.

Looking forward though, there are always things to be done along this line.

Some businesses are easier to figure this out, others can be much more difficult (which usually means you have to start a sideline business that relates to your main one, but has recurring revenues built in).

You’ve hear me talk many times about the Lobster Guys and their million dollar business built up in 3 months.

But, I have yet to talk about this restaurant in Chicago that sells memberships instead of meals:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/dining/reviews/rstaurant-review-next-in-chicago.html?pagewanted=all

(sent to me by Greg Douglas of Douglas Environmental www.douglasenviro.ca)

This BREAKS all the so-called ‘rules’ of the restaurant business… and they are thriving!

Can’t even buy a membership right now – they are full up with a waiting list.

Marketing like Apple Computers
You’ve heard me praise Apple before on their use of the App store for building in recurring revenue – and their incredible focus on creating a cult of followers (yes, I am a fan – using Mac as my main computer for 8 months now, and using iPad and iPhone religiously too)

http://blog.smallbusinesscopywriter.com/time-to-create-a-cult/

What I may not have talked about is my love of recurring revenues from the information marketing world.

Like click bank.  You can set up your own products to sell on click bank, or sell other peoples products on there too.

Last year I did an AWESOME call with Dan “The Man” Lok on how you can set up recurring revenues from Clickbank.

…here is the recording (and he has a new coaching class starting mid-March if you are interested – let me know if you are and I have a nice gift for you to get started).

http://www.danlokpassiveincome.com/troywebinar.html

============================================
Starting March 1st, I am doing a Troy Party.
============================================

It is officially my 10th year in business, and I am gearing up for some FUN STUFF for you.

Will you play with me?

It’ll be fun for sure!

More to come.

The main point is…

…it’s time for YOU to put some serious thought into creating passive income from your business, or starting a new business that DOES pay you passive income.

Paper.
Pen.

Usually the best place to start your planning.

Think about everything you know about businesses that built in membership models, and MAKE them fit your own.

The pay off could be fantastic… and I would love to help you get it going.

Chris V came to my Wild West Wealth Summit in 2007.  At the time, he was in a business that was ‘ok’ but not his true passion.

Here is what happened after he built a passive income type business…

“…grew from $2300 per month to over $96,000 per month”

“Troy, I cannot thank you enough for the 2007 Wild West Summit you put on. My membership business grew from $2300 per month to over $96,000 per month and still growing at a ridiculous rate… all from your marketing calendar, copy writing and you helping me tell my story with the world. I have gone from a College Student to a Millionaire in under 3 years with my Dream Home on the water being built as we speak… My wife and new born daughter thank you even more!.. lol

I think your event, your information, your personality is incredible!”

Chris Vermeulen
Founder, TheTechnicalTraders.com

Let me know if I can help you build your own passive income-based business.

Troy

PS: One of the greatest things I personally did to help myself make the necessary changes at a faster pace was to start writing more.

There is a therapeutic quality to writing that can propel your business forward at breakneck speed.

But again, it takes guts to do and motivation to start.

If you want to start now… get the Story Selling Home Study and I will also give you my 31k club training series.  For the next 31 days I will fire you up and get you writing more often, with greater profits as your goal. http://www.storysellingtips.com

The 31k club has transformed many lives of those who went through the Story Selling Coaching.  Now you get it free with the Story Selling Home Study course!

Feb
27

Content is king in a pitchfest world

By | Email Marketing, Leads Generation, Writing

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Who else is sick and tired of pitch after pitch?

Ezines. Blogs. Twitter feeds.  Websites. And on, and on, and on.

The actual product launches are great examples of marketing, but the sheer volume of them in the internet marketing space is
deafening.

Same with Social Media, which I am still working on.

Now that everyone is starting to use the same formulas to grow their Social Media followers, it is a very busy world on there, everyone pitching their wares, with little real content.

So, what can you do?

Start thinking like your actual customers would be a great start!

Do you like being pitched at 24×7?

Of course not.

Something useful would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?

Or something entertaining added into the mix?

Think through what you could be giving them that would help them, hook them, get them more involved with you and your business, or keep them coming back for more.

You could try:

* A simple 4 page print newsletter instead of always using email

* Create an ebook of your best blog posts or articles, and give it away to your existing leads, and/or use it to generate new leads.

* Turn your ebook into a physical book.  Self publishing tools like lulu.com make it extremely easy to do small run printing of your books.

* Interview your own people.  Get insider information from your customer service people, your engineers or technical people.  Talk to the sales people. The marketers. Etc.  Find out 3 interesting things from each of them about their perspective on your business and products and share it with your contacts.

* Test putting together an autoresponder series that educates your clients on how to use yoru products and services.  You could have one series for new users. One for intermediates. And one for advanced.  As soon as they finish one level, offer them the next.

* Implement some form of membership program into your business.   I worked with a massage therapist in the past and we changed his entire business model from one-off purchases to a membership-only model. From a $45 massage, to a $900 membership.  Or what about the Lobster guys who I have written extensively about through this blog. They went from selling $5 lobsters on the docks (with every other fisherman), to selling $3,000 memberships (and making a fortune along the way).

* Become a problem publisher.  Share the fact that you are not invincible (like so many of the gurus out there pretend to be).  Show them your challenges you faced, and what exactly you did to overcome them.  Show the problems your customers faced, and how your products helped them overcome them.  Be real. Be human. And admit you have flaws.  Everyone loves a real person… and detests the fake snake oil salesmen.

* Do a teleseminar series with experts in your field.  Get 4 or 5 experts together and host an educational series your prospects and clients would want to be a part of.  Side benefit: you have a product after you can sell or use in lead generation.

* Be unusual and outrageous in your marketing.  Take California Tortilla for example.  They have a fabulous newsletter (CalTort Taco Talk – http://www.californiatortilla.com/taco-talk.html) that is exceptional. They are personal.  They come up with funny contests and sayings (like their Pop Tarts a Go Go Day, or their Wall of Flame that talks about their “Ass in the Tub”, “Ass in Space” and the ever-popular “Ass in Antarctica”, hot sauces).  I WISH there were more restaurants doing this… actually, anyone could be having more fun with this type of approach… including me (a writer-downer for myself).

* Create a Top 10 list or a buyers guide to help them in their decision making process.  Show them the proper way to decide on their purchase.  With real content, little sales talk, and lots of personality.

* Be the first in your field to bring out a Tales-From-The-Toilet (or something like that) publication.  This could be a monthly or weekly publication that comes out that shares wacky stories from around the world, and then relate those stories back to your field.  Give them a laugh.  Break up their day.  And keep them coming back for more.

* Bring out a regular book, movie, or website review.  Anyone in the marketing field needs to be an avid reader and researcher… so share some of your findings!  Tell them what you are reading, and what you thought.  Or tell them about the movie you just saw with your kids.  Or the aweful experience you had last week at the mall when trying to buy clothes.  The opportunities are endless to do this, all it takes is some initiative.

Break the damn rules.

Just because someone, somewhere said this is “best practice” doesn’t mean it applies 100% of the time, across 100% of the industries.  For every one person seeing success with “the rules” there are just as many, or more, seeing bigger and better numbers by breaking the rules.

Feb
24

Weird, wacky and wildly profitable

By | Marketing Plan, Story Selling, Wacky marketing ideas

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“You know who’s weird? Astronauts. Saints. Nobel Prize winners. Scientists. People with hobbies you’ve never heard of or are afraid to try. People who speak their minds. People with both problems and (gasp) solutions. People who are (enviably) not like you. Being weird means being noticeably different. It means being or doing something that makes other people stare, or laugh, applaud, or boo. And it’s something we all need to cultivate.”

This is the quote from a wonderful article about the business benefits of being weird.

It was sent to me by a good friend and fellow marketing consultant, Graham McGregor (who has an incredible free book at http://www.TheUnfairBusinessAdvantage.com - grab a copy – it is awesome).

Weird things get media attention…

…and buyers attention too.

Weird has far less competition than trying to be all “professional”.

The best part?

Weirdness is more profitable than being normal.

My VERY WEIRD marketing assistant Casino - always on the job looking for bizarre marketing ideas

My VERY WEIRD marketing assistant Casino - always on the job looking for bizarre marketing ideas

People eat up weirdness!

Just look at all the reality shows, celebrity mags, and the utter fascination with train-wrecks-in-the-making that we see plastered all over the media, and even in our own personal lives or circles.

Weirdness is where it’s AT in 2012.

Have a look at this fantastic article on Forbes.com

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicahagy/2011/12/13/why-weird-is-wonderful-and-bankable/

Then think about what YOU can do to crank up the weirdness in your business!

(and watch for my rather bizarre and unusual month of March coming up… some very interesting things on the plate for you and I!!!)

Have a great and prosperous day.

Troy

PS: It’s never too late to start sharing the weirdest stories from your past http://www.storysellingtips.com.

Weird works and gets attention… then mix that with some personal stories about yourself and you have a WONDERFUL (and hard to ignore) mix for your marketing.

Try it… you’ll like it.

Feb
23

Simplifying and duplicating YOU

By | Copywriting, Writing

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One of the best and most powerful things I love about marketing online is how EASY it is to duplicate your efforts.

Quickly.
Inexpensively.

For example, through these daily emails, I can rapidly expand the reach of them in 10 minutes a day.

Here is how I do it, and you should too:

* Write my daily email.  Depending on how much and how fast you write, this can take from 15 minutes to an hour.  BUT, the more you write, the faster you get and the less time you take.  Less time = more money.  (aim for 250-500 words)

Simple, right?  The Story Selling Home Study http://www.storysellingtips.com includes the 31k Club emails which will have you cranking out emails every day for 31 days.  You are rolling then.

* Format the email for text-based broadcasting (I use www.formatit.com to set email line length to 65 characters for emails – easier to read for people)

* Send broadcast out to you.

* Put that same email into the autoresponder sequence so it can keep on promoting me for years to come with no additional effort.

* Post non line length formatted version to my wordpress blog

* Through Social Media plugins on my blog, I can then share my article with Linked in, Facebook, Twitter and Stumble upon.  It takes another 2 minutes MAX to do this.

* Optional: Read article onto video and distribute video through site like www.oneload.com – it then sends your video all through the web for free.

Think about this…

…one email.

…6 immediate sites it is posted on.

…if I choose the video option then we are talking DOZENS of sites.

THAT is leverage.

Small investment of time in, mega distribution out.

Get an assistant to help if this is too much for you to do.

But marketing should never be considered a hassle or too much work!

It’s your lifeblood.

Just get it done.

This is a simple formula that works for me… and will work for you too.

Have a great day.

Troy

Feb
22

Honing your personality in pixels

By | Main Content

8 Comments

Next month is 10 years in business for me.

A big achievement I am proud of, but one I also question on exactly HOW this happened.

I was an english class flunky in High school and in University (had to take English 101 TWICE in University to get my grade point up!)

…add the fact that I was NEVER a writer until 10 years ago.

Makes you kinda wonder how I got here… does for me anyhow.

The type of writing I do is specialized on helping those who want to sell more products or services.

Considering I was in sales for 15 years before writing, now it makes a little more sense.

But to get good fast at writing with personality, I found a couple things that worked well for me, and will for you too.

1) I hand wrote out successful ads, sales letters, even book chapters.  Yes, BY HAND.  The cramps were painful. It took a long time.

But damn did it work well!

I first hear about this from the late, great Gary Halbert… and ignored it. I thought “why would I write by hand? typing is way faster!”…as does everyone who hears this.

One day I thought I would just listen to someone who mastered the skill, so I began. Every morning for 2 hours before the kids woke up, I would hand write out sales letters.

For 6 long months!

Every.
Single.
Day.

And oh my, it did far more for my writing fluidity and ease than anything else I had ever done.

It is also something I recommend you do too.

But you need to commit to it for at least a couple months.

By the way, there was a recent Harvard Study that scientifically proved that HAND writing wired the brain differently than typing…hence, why it worked. As you write by hand, you are creating new neural pathways… ones that aren’t created by typing (not to the same degree).

2) Write lots.  The more I write then more comfortable it seems and the better the results I get.

These dailies are a wonderful thing for the soul… very therapeutic and it helps create MEGA content for your marketing efforts!

For the first few years in business I tracked every single hour I wrote.  I made a 1,000 square excel sheet and marked off every hour of writing I did.

The first sheet took 14 months to fill (something like that), the next one 12, the next 8, and so on.

I don’t track any longer, but the funny thing is… the more sheets I filled… the better my writing got.

Go figure.

3) Write JUST like you talk.  ONce you are done writing a piece, practice reading it out loud.  If you stumble on anything, rewrite it.

If it is smooth and an 11 year old could read it back without stumbling… perfect!

4) Last, share your faults and failures through your writing.

For me, it’s an endless supply of writing material :O)  I am not scared to admit I screw up along the way.  But I also do some real good things for my clients too.  (if you ever need any help with sales copy or email campaigns, let me know)

Being a real person rather than some knob who pretends to be perfect is the ULTIMATE relationship builder.

Try it.

Last, I shared stories… lots of them.

It’s how the Story Selling Program came about http://www.storysellingtips.com and its the basis for my business.

All of these you should be doing too.

It will help your business…

…and your bank account!

Have a great day.

Troy

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