Location, location, location.

Virtually any book, article, or blog talking about starting a physical, offline, bricks and mortar business, emphasizes the important role location plays in business success.

BUT… what can you do to attract customers when your business is virtual? When it’s online?

Because, you DON’T have any:

• foot traffic or passers-by
• artfully decorated window displays
• way to be a bakery with the aroma of baking bread wafting out your door
• sign spinners to catch people’s attention

So what can you do to attract the right customers?

The solution is to use simple emotion to attract and influence your prospective customers and draw them in through your online front door i.e.: your website.

You’ll also want a point of difference, so you stand out from the crowd amongst all the ‘noise’ and distraction online. Be authentic, be attractive, and be awesome.

Attracting Attention Opens Doors And Charms Customers In

What you have to offer is worth their investment of time and money – otherwise you wouldn’t be in business as an affiliate marketer.

So there’s a million ($’s) reasons why you must leverage how our brains work in order to encourage your website visitors to spend some time (and money) with you.

Ready to start? Sure! You know when you’re onto a good thing.

You’ve always sensed it deep inside, even though you were hesitant to say it out loud. You’ve had times when you’ve fallen short of your goals. Who hasn’t? We sure have. Maybe you’ve even thought of giving up. But you kept falling forward. The fact you’re here reading this proves you’re not a quitter.

So, are these statements true for you?

a. I want to create financial success

b. I am willing to do what it takes to do that (within reason)

c. I am coachable

d. I want to learn ways to make my dreams a reality

Yes? Yes!!

You truly are a winner and we’re about to show you how to grab your audience by the eyeballs so you can show them why they need you.

Here's: 10 Proven Customer Attraction Ideas To Make You More Money

1. Grok Your Audience

You read that first word a couple of times with your face all scrunched up like “Huh?” But, if you’ve read Stranger in a Strange Land, by the incomparable Robert Heinlein, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.

To grok is to “empathize or communicate sympathetically; to establish rapport.”

You need to learn what motivates the people you want to draw into your online business.

• Before you sell them anything, you need to engage them
• Before you tell them what you have, show them why they need you
• Before you show them why they need you, figure out that answer yourself

“What motivates them?”

“What are their desires?”

“What problems do they need to solve?”

Where do you turn to learn the answers to these questions?

Simply ASK the people in your target market. Surveys will give additional insight into who your visitors are and what their goals are.

Go to forums where your target market is hanging out and see what questions people are asking, and what they want help with.

Go to Amazon and look at reviews on books that are relevant to your niche, and see what people are saying there.

Once you know their stories, what do you do next?

2. Cast Your Reader As The Star

You’ll read every word, because it’s about you

There’s an old joke that ends something like this: “But, I’ve talked enough about me. How about you? What do you think about me?”
You’ll lose the interest and attention of visitors and potential clients if all you do is toot your own horn. My products…my services…me me me! After a while it all sounds like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon.

Yes, the end goal is to sell your products and be successful. But, be patient and pace yourself. First, let readers see themselves in your content. There’s something irresistible about feeling understood. Then draw them in with your consideration of who they are and what they’re about.

Always use ‘you’ language, and remember to have a spattering of inclusive language to include your reader in the article, like:

• Does that make sense to you too?
• Maybe you, or someone you know, has experienced that too?
• Perhaps you feel the same way?

Do you know what we mean? ????

3. Be Unique!

There’s a TON of competition online – blogs, websites, Facebook pages – which is evidence you’re in a profitable niche.

Your first instinct may be to figuratively create a better mousetrap than your competition OR to openly find fault and unprofessionally slate your competition (we see that a lot in the affiliate marketing niche – which is very underhand and immoral). Hold off a minute. Avoid lowering yourself into a mud-slinging match with them. Simply present yourself in a better, more interesting manner.

Carve out your own attractor factor.

To be outstanding online – Be Unique! (We snapped this poor doggie in Koh Samet, Thailand)

Do you in a way that’s different from the way others are doing them.

Run rings around your competitors and encourage prospective customers to follow.

Being innovative and diverse will garner attention and publicity (we’ll always do a high five for free advertising!), and it’ll increase your chances that other players in your niche will want to work with you too.

Those connections will increase your visibility and your bottom line.

Meek and mild won’t cut it, child!

Stand up. Stand out. Show off and they’ll show up!

Doors will open and customers will flood to you.

For us, our best-selling, triple-award winning book sets us apart – it’s helped us change people’s lives – BUT… we’ve also seen others attempt rip it off (which is infuriating), but proves our competitors are in awe of it to want to copy us. However, copy cats aren’t authentic, and are only doing themselves a dis-service.

4. Engaging Emotion

Sit back and relax because number 4 is full of wisdom, insights and techniques you’ll want to commit to memory and take to heart.

We want this to make sense to you. Humans feel safer when things make sense.

But, most often feelings trump logic (that’s important human psychology to understand as a marketer).

When you want to get people’s attention and draw them in, simply appeal to one of their basic emotions…

What are these basic emotions and how can you use them to benefit your customers and your business?

Love is in the air everywhere you look around

LOVE

Love is a natural fit for fashion, dating, and beauty niches. But, love is also a motivator in gift giving and health-related companies.

Tell success stories about being loving, falling in love, feeling loved, and people will love you lol.

They’ll associate your website with feelings of warmth, security and caring.We’ve been married for nearly 30 years now, so happily portray ourselves as a loving, caring, middle-aged couple – hence our branded image…

ANGER

What makes your target audience furious?

Talk about it.

Tell them why they have every right to be angry.

Stir them up, then tell them how you can help make it right.

What pisses us off most is people who give up too quickly. They stumble at the first hurdle, think online business isn’t easy, and never really give themselves permission to keep failing forward. It’s sooo sad to witness, as we know they have what it takes to start and grow a thriving online business – they simply need to trust themselves.

This post was written as a bit of a rant to express our anger and people’s lack of resourcefulness:

>>How To Be Smart In A World of Dumb Opportunity Seekers <<

SHOCK

We’re not talking about shock for the sake of sensationalism. That’ll turn people off and send them packing. You want to shock them and show them how they can take action. This is a bit different from the “anger” aspect.

With shock, you are making visitors aware of a problem or injustice and giving them an outlet for their outrage.

We use shocking numbers and rapid pace of change in this article:

>> How Safe Is Your Job From The Bots <<

FEAR

Headlines like “The three ways you put your life at risk every day” and “Have you protected your family in case of an emergency?” grab attention.

However, be super sure you have answers to show customers how to alleviate the problems you highlight. You don’t want to bring them in and then have them look elsewhere for solutions. Make a clear connection between the need at hand and what you offer to help fill that need.

We generally use the fear of missing out (FOMO) in our emails as a real motivator to take action.

JOY

Can you read that word and not start to hum Ode To Joy?

Spread joy in your virtual world. Smiles and joy are contagious.

People love to share pictures and sayings that have a positive vibe, so include those attention getters on your site and Facebook page, and they’ll be shared over and over.

Viral brings more traffic, more people, and more sales.

HOPE

As the story goes, when Pandora’s Box was opened, and all the evils of the world were released, all that was left was hope. People need hope when things are dark. Be that light of hope and your visitors will grasp onto it and to what you have to offer.

This article gives hope – in that ordinary people like us can take consistent action and escape the rat race:

>> How To Actually Have Your Cake And Eat It Too <<

HUMOUR

According to a study based on a review of the 100 million most shared articles, the ones that caused laughter, joy and amusement accounted for nearly half of the total. Make people laugh, make them happy, and make them joyful, and you’ll make yourself well known.

DISGUST

There must be something the people you’re targeting get really disgusted about. Find out what it is and write about it. Get their attention by agreeing with them and find a way to address the problem.

We’re disgusted by scam artists and ponzi schemes – which prompted this post:

>> 7 Warning Signs When You’re Confronted With A Ponzi Scheme <<

SADNESS

It’s okay to make people sad IF you offer them a way to make a difference.

The emotion of sadness can be used very successfully in fundraising campaigns – and in meaningful videos like this (tears well in our eyes every time we watch it as Fiona’s Grandad was blinded in World War II)

ANTICI…PATION

Are you about to launch a new product?

Do you have a seasonal sale coming up soon?

Do you have a new e-book to release?

Capitalize on the countdown.

Stir up some excitement.

We use countdown timers to good effect in our emails…

PRIDE

People are proud of so many things. Their accomplishments, their heritage, their children, their homeland, their local community. They’re proud of their sports teams (except when the games take them back to that anger category!).

Shine a spotlight on what instills pride in the people you want to reach, and write stories that’ll endear them to you.

This was a proud moment for us – taken in Kanchanaburi, near The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Thailand

NOSTALGIA

Those were the days, my friend…

We never appreciate the good old days until they are long gone. But then, we can’t get enough of the memories. Appeal to those feelings of nostalgia and you will grab their attention in a big way.

Here’s a blast from our past – every kid from 70’s New Zealand can recall every single word from this Kentucky Fried commercial:

5. We’re Story Tellers at Heart

Our need for stories is built into our makeup. Stories go right to the emotional center of our brains, cutting through usual rational thinking filters. Long before our history was documented in written form, stories were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth.

Stories catch attention and hold it.

Stories make us want more. What next? What happens then?

Put your message in story form and capture the interest of your visitors by bypassing their conscious ‘sales’ radar.
Start using stories to sell.

Put your message in story form and capture the interest of your visitors by bypassing their conscious ‘sales’ radar.

6. Lead with the Unexpected

This feeds right into the emotion of surprise we talked about earlier. Say something contrarian or controversial. Say something that’s a misconception and prove why it’s incorrect.

Maybe we could have begun this piece with something like “Here’s why emotion plays no part in marketing.”

We received an email recently from a famous marketer, Neil Patel of Quicksprout and Kissmetrics. It read: “Why you should use boost posts on Facebook”. We KNOW and TEACH that boosting posts on Facebook is a very specific strategy, which needs to be executed in a certain way to be cost effective – so we wondered what on earth Neil was on about – and opened his email – and clicked through to his blogpost. Of course, the blogpost wasn’t condoning boosting posts on Facebook – but he’d succeeded in grabbing our attention and diverting us to his blog post for 5 minutes.

This article is an example of blog post on the same topic as this one, but using a contrarian approach by leading with a famous explorer:

>> Ernest Shackleton’s Top 3 Tips for Attracting Customers <<

7. Grab attention with your headline

It’s the first thing people see. If it isn’t great, they may not go any further. Don’t miss the opportunity to bring the traffic to your door because your headline is, well, sad and boring.

Spend time reading headlines other people wrote. Which ones catch your eye? Which ones have you hovering your mouse and clicking? And why?

Think about your target audience. Know your audience well. What’ll work for them? What emotions do you want to evoke in them?

What’ll move them?

Start a swipe file of the best headlines that moved you to click, and revise them to suit your needs. Now we’re absolutely not advocating plagiarism! Just inviting you to use the best as your guide. It’s what great copywriters do.

And use this handy tool to analyse your headlines to tweak and perfect them.

Search Google for “proven headline swipe”

8. Write as the crow flies

remain sharply focused to deliver one key message in your online content

Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Be direct. Don’t start out by telling your reader about this great recipe for apple pie if it isn’t going to show up later in your story.

Promise to offer something of value. Build on that, focus on it, deliver on it in your content.

Bottom line: remain sharply focused to deliver one key message in your online content.

Every element of your content – headline, sub-headers, words, images, videos – ought to work together and deliver your single main point, as you promised.

9. Leverage Recognition

Want other websites to divert attention (and traffic) to you and your offers?

Start by focusing attention on them! People love recognition. Significance is one of the six core human needs we have. (The other five are certainty, variety, love and connection, growth and contribution.)

When you want another website to link to yours – write about that site. Send them a request, and ask if you can feature them in a post on your site. Stroke their egos bit, but not in a deceptive or phony way. Write about people, products and websites you truly find valuable. Remember, links from major websites means way more traffic or website visitors for you.

When we first published Living A Laptop Lifestyle, we approached various targeted authority sites to see if they would publish a review of our book. As they’re always looking for topical content for their followers, most readily agreed.

Click the image to link to a review of Living A Laptop Lifestyle published in FlyBe inflight magazine:

Approach targeted authority sites to see if they'll publish your content with a link back to your website

10. Inject Interaction

Have interaction on your website. Make it fun.

Engage your visitors. Let them do something more than read or watch.

Give them choices of ways to participate – encourage them to comment, share, take a quiz, or play a game.

It’s all about helping your website visitors make micro-commitments – the more micro-commitments they make, the more obliged they’ll be to buy.

Help your website visitors make micro-commitments to build the obligation to buy
Click To Tweet

11. Give more than you promise

We promised you 10 ways. Fancy a bonus extra?

Use a variety of media on your site. People learn in different ways, as in, they have different modalities of learning. They’re drawn to a variety of styles and methods. For example, Fiona prefers to skim text to take information on board, rather than being ‘held hostage’ to watch a video, yet Greg’s more than happy to watch a video. We’re all different!

Make the most of our human qualities and provide your prospective customers with a mixture of audio, video, and imagery (holiday snaps, cartoons, graphics).

Hedge your bets on a variety of numbers on the roulette wheel and you stand a better chance of being a winner. In other words, offer your visitors a number of ways to access your content and you and your visitors are winners too!

Still With Us?

Phew! There you go. A box full of emotional tools just for you.

Which will you use first?

What excites or intrigues you most?

What stories will you tell your visitors?

How will you draw attention to all you have to offer?

We can’t wait to hear back from you about what works for you. We’d love to hear your stories

Chat To Us:  Find A Time When You're Free

Connect with us on Facebook

Follow us on Instagram 

If you like this post, SHARE IT using the buttons on the left.

The post 10 Proven Customer Attraction Ideas To Make You More Money appeared first on gregandfionascott.com.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly.

They lit a fire in the kayak…

… it sank – proving once and for all you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

Ha ha.

Joking aside, we don't know about you, but we were raised to get a good education, build a respectable lifelong career, and work for the man for the remainder of our days

It seems ‘normal' doesn't it?

It's how society and the education system condition us to think, act, be.

But, unfortunately, it's fundamentally flawed!

Now you might think you've been making wilful choices since your first day on this planet, BUT…

The status quo in society has been ‘working on you' since drawing your very first breath, sculpting the way you view the world, and dictating ‘normal', acceptable ways of thinking, doing and being.

You can't avoid it. We didn't avoid it. Heck, we didn't even realise there was a status quo when we were STUCK in it!

Like us – your parents/guardians likely had the biggest impact on you, including where you lived, what school you went to, and what career you chose. Simply because most parents reciprocate the way they were brought up themselves.

Hence perpetuating the status quo, limiting your choices to only acceptable ones, and squashing your ‘out-the-box' thinking and creative spark forever.

Status Quo Control Stops Here

History can't be changed – you can't roll back the clock on how you were brought up, where you were educated, and what standard choices you've made to date!

BUT… you CAN ‘wake up' right now to the fact you don't have to accept the status quo any longer, from this day forward.

That was the EPIPHANY we had in 2009.

And it's a realization you're likely having too, seeing as you're already aware there are alternatives to the pervasive status quo of working for the man for the rest of your life – or else you wouldn't be reading this post.

So you’re likely interested in generating revenue around your individual lifestyle? As opposed to putting your life on hold for 40, 50, 60+ hours a week while you endure the bump and grind of employment, to provide for the loved ones you don’t have time to be with?

Can you see the irony in that?

Maybe you’re interested in being able to live anywhere you fancy while earning a good income?

Or how about having more time freedom to do your own thing?

We're here to share with you an entrepreneurial way to be self-renewed, self-fulfilled and self-reliant. To get unstuck from that career which probably doesn't make you bounce out of bed any more, or to unchain you from that business which works you like a slave, or to build up a truly comfortable nest egg so you can fully enjoy your Golden Years.

In short – to have your cake and eat it too.

To explain how you can actually have your cake and eat it too, and to help you believe it’s within your capability, we've recorded a brand new three-part video training series for you, with the very obvious title:

How To Actually Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

What we mean by ‘have your cake and eating it too', is to earn a sustainable income but also have the time freedom, flexibility and lifestyle to enjoy it to the full.

That's exactly what we do and there's honestly nothing special about us, so if little old Greg and Fiona Scott can do it, we believe anyone else can do it too.

Click the video below to watch and learn:

As we explain in the video, your mission is to build a lifestyle business, which is an online business where you earn a healthy substantial income, working only a few hours a week.

An online lifestyle business leaves you completely free to travel the world and work anywhere in there's an internet connection. That's what we mean by ‘how you can have your cake and eat it too'.

Think about being in a job where you're working for somebody else, probably working all the overtime in the world just to get a one or two percent pay increase at the end of the year, and possibly a bonus. BUT… your pay is CAPPED. Maybe you'll get a one percent rise this year, maybe two percent next year if you're lucky, yet you have to work many, many hours for that puny perk.

You might have to keep doing all those training courses your employer says to do as well, for very little gain.

Because…

There's a ceiling, or a limit to what you can earn, because your time is a limited resource.

You must realise you don't have any leverage of your time.

The difference with running an online business is you're not capped on how much you can earn, as in, there's no glass ceiling and you don't have to work any harder to earn a small amount of money than you do earn a large amount of money. Does that make sense?

The big difference between an online business and a job is: LEVERAGE.

Leverage in a work environment is restricted because your employer is paying YOU to personally perform the services you were contracted to.

Also, what eventually happens is, you become under-appreciated in your job, which leads to not being fulfilled or passionate about what you're doing any more in your job/career. How do we know? Because that's exactly what happened to us.

What's The Solution Then?

It's not rocket science – sell products instead of your time!

We leverage other people's products and promote them on the internet. It takes a tiny proportion of our time to make our business work, week in and week out, to earn a sustainable healthy income.

Let's give you some numbers as an example:

We promote a product that pays us a commission of $1,000 per sale (we're talking in US dollars because that's the currency of the internet). If we wanted to replace an annual income of $100,000 then it's simple maths to know we need to sell one hundred units of that particular product that pays us a $1,000 commission per sale to make $100,000 income per annum.

That’s a simple model, however, you need to advertise, so there are advertising costs to account for, which are the largest cost of doing business online.

In an online business, your advertising is vital. There's other little bits and pieces that add up to $20-$50 per month, but your advertising is by far the biggest chunk of your overhead costs.

Back to the example above, in order to make those one hundred sales to earn $100,000 commission per annum, we need to stack on another thirty sales to cover advertising costs. Advertising costs for a year could easily be $30,000 – therefore we need to sell 130 of those units to earn $130,000 commission, less our advertising costs of $30,000, leaves us with $100,000 net profit per annum. Make sense?

There's another nice little bonus here too. When you're self-employed, or working for yourself, you have to put money aside for the tax man, but at least it's not grabbed out of your pay packet every month like it is for employees. (But we're not going to go into that as we're not in the business of giving tax advice and aren't authorised to do so either).

Hopefully, we've explained the numbers clearly to you: so to earn a net profit of $100,000 per annum you’ll sell 130 units that pay $1,000 commission each, less $30,000 advertising costs. How long does it take us to do that? It's a few hours a week, now we're up and running.

Quit Trading Time For Money

You've got to acknowledge it's a completely different business model from trading your time for money to earn the income your employer pays you. The added bonus of this lifestyle type business is: you can be where on earth you want to be. That could be at home, from a coffee shop, or on the beaches of the world.

Hopefully that helps you begin to understand how you can have your cake and eat it too.

You need: LEVERAGE

Next, click to watch this video:

Harness Residual Income

We talked about quitting exchanging your time for money so you can scale your income by running a thriving, healthy, successful, online business. BUT – you're probably wondering how to do that, exactly?

One of the mechanisms you can leverage is called residual income.

A prime example of residual income is our book Living a Laptop Lifestyle, which we wrote once (obviously) but we get paid every time a copy of our book is sold.

We wrote the book in 2012, but every time we make a sale (which still happen like clockwork) we get paid month in month out. Which is a perfect example of residual income. You do the work once, and get paid many times over for that one input of effort.

There are lots of different ways to earn residual income, Living a Laptop Lifestyle is a prime example, but you don't have to write a book in order to earn repeat income… because that's where affiliate marketing comes in.

Affiliate Marketing Explained

You're probably aware anybody in the world can register for free as an Associate of Amazon, which is what Amazon call their affiliates. As Amazon is the largest, most popular, affiliate marketplace on the internet today, it’s got a TON of trust, and is a reputable business model.

When you're an Amazon Associate you can promote our book, Living a Laptop Lifestyle, because it's listed on Amazon – and earn a commission on every sale you make.

As an affiliate for Amazon you can promote any product whatsoever, and when you rinse and repeat the process, you'll build up a healthy sustainable income selling other people's products.

And there's more than just Amazon! There are thousands of affiliate marketplaces out there where you can pick and choose products you're passionate about, in niches you're passionate about.

In a nutshell, promoting other people's products so you make a commission from every sale is what affiliate marketing is all about.

What Skills You'll Learn

It's all well and good talking about affiliate marketing – but what tasks do you have to do to make it work?

Good question!

There are ONLY THREE THINGS to do when building your affiliate marketing business, and they all start with the letter ‘B' so they're easy to remember.

Funnily enough, we call them:

The Three B’s of Online Business – ha ha

[1] The First B is to ‘Build Your List'

Your list will be a database of prospective customer email addresses, who'll be people with a particular problem you can help solve with the affiliate products you offer them.

In other words, you’ll gather email addresses from people who visit your website, so you can stay in touch with them by email, and hopefully encourage them to visit your website again to consider what you have to offer there.

WHY is building your email list or email database sooooo important?

Let's assume you pay to advertise the website where you promote a high-ticket/high value/top tier affiliate product, so hordes of targeted people visit it. Those visitors will read a bit, dither a bit, get distracted, then click away… because that’s what people do. They hardly ever buy anything off you first-pop. (Consider your own online shopping habits!)

They click away empty handed, never to revisit again!

You’ve wasted ALL your advertising spend. You may as well have flushed that money down the loo.

You KNOW your website visitors have an interest in what you offer simply because you targeted them based on related interests they have, and they willingly clicked to visit your website in the first instance. However, if you've got no way to stay in touch with those people, no way to share more information with them, and no way to pique their interest about your solution to their problem – you’ve got no business! Seriously!

The solution?

Encourage your targeted website visitors to willingly add their email to your email database list, by offering them something of value in exchange for their email address.

You may’ve received the free seven-part video training series we share, which teaches the principles of building an online business and reveals another exciting concept each and every day for 7 days. That free training is a fair exchange for your email address, so we stay in touch with you.

The great thing about building an email list of targeted people with a problem you have the solution for is: you can market to them – repeatedly. What that means is, you pay once (to the advertising platform) to get people interested, then market to those people over and again to offer them whatever products you think are relevant to the problem you targeted them with in your ads.

[2] The Second B is to ‘Blog’

Write/collate content that’s valuable to prospective customers. Provide information to answer their queries. Tell stories that relate to solving their problems.

The reason you blog is to provide valuable information for the prospective customers you have on your list, who you've got there by doing paid advertising. To build a relationship with those people, you educate them, inform them, inspire them, entertain them, and promote to them – all by way of your blog posts.

Let's say you're building a list of people who are interested in weight loss. You’d blog about weight loss, about healthy foods to eat, and how they can remember to put their knife and fork down after each mouthful so they eat slower and feel full sooner. In other words, provide information to help people make an informed decision about buying your affiliate weight loss offers.

In summary – provide helpful information to solve problems for people, to build trust in you as an authority, and to endear prospective customers to accept your recommendation that your affiliate offer is the exact solution they're looking for.

Like a Tripod or a Three-Legged Stool

The third and final B of online business is the one that connects and locks those first two together. Like a tripod or a three-legged stool, you need to have all three B’s in place for your business to have a solid foundation, to stand up correctly.

[3] The Third B is to Do ‘Broadcast Emails’

The phrase ‘broadcast’ is simply terminology used by Aweber, the trusted autoresponder we recommend. It simply means a fresh email you write and send to your prospective customers to pique their interest in one of your blog posts.

So, the purpose of a broadcast email is to get the people on your list, to read a specific blog post so they learn and grow. Your aim is to get their eyeballs on your educational, informational, inspirational, entertaining, and promotional blog posts.

When you think of a new blog post as like a blockbuster movie, then your broadcast email is like the movie-trailer to that movie. It serves to pique the interest of the people on our list, to create curiosity, and to ‘dangle a helpful carrot’ in front of their noses.

A broadcast email the functionality that gets the people on your list, who you get there by doing paid advertising to build your list, to read your blog posts. So a broadcast is the connection between your list and  your relationship building blog posts/content.

There you have it – the 3 B’s of Online Business!

Keep It Simple

Run your affiliate marketing business by honing the three B’s of online business. There are only three money producing tasks which make up your marketing… which is why it's a lifestyle business, because there’s nothing else to do!

Therefore, the only three skills to master are:

=> Build Your List by doing paid advertising on third party ad platforms

=> Blog, or Video Blog, or create valuable, helpful, objection busting content

=> Broadcast Emails to get the people on your list to digest your valuable content so they get to know you, like you, and trust your recommendations are a perfect solution for them.

The MOST MAGICAL FACT with these 3B’s – you only do the work once, and each output keeps working for you again and again and again.

That's why you easily scale up your results.

Once a paid ad starts working, you leave it humming along in the background for months, continually building your list on autopilot.

Once a blogpost is published live on the internet, you continue to reference it repeatedly.

Once you write a broadcast email people love, you re-use it again and again.

**Leveraging your outputs in this way, provides time freedom, which means Lifestyle.

BUT… it gets better, because there’s more to Leverage than only your outputs…

Now, click to watch this video:

Three further points of leverage to ensure your online business is a lifestyle business are:

[1] Leverage Other People’s Products

Rocket Scientist's need not apply. Nor people with big brilliant ideas about what to sell online. Because neither matter in Affiliate Marketing.

Let someone else think through all that.

Leave the creativity and hard graft of pulling a product together for others to do.

Leverage other people's products to sell, and receive a commission for each sale or referral you make.

Sit back and let the product creator take care of:

• delivery of the product
• payment handling and secure merchant accounts
• customer support queries

You don't need to do a scrap of any of it, yet you'll still receive a referral commission for finding that customer.

Couldn’t be easier!

We fell in love with the simplicity of the affiliate model – that, and the fact it saved us having to rack our brains for clever ideas

[2] Leverage Other People’s Skills (particularly sales skills)

We make sales 24/7, all around the globe, and we’ve never had any sales training whatsoever.

We make sales even when we're not at our laptops.

We make sales when we’re sleeping, flying, hiking, skiing, scuba-diving!

How that possible? Well, we don't actually make the sales ourselves. We leverage a sales team who are trained in sales and who manage customer conversions for us without us having to lift a finger.

The sales team works around the clock, irrespective of what we’re doing. We leverage their skills and time, so we're free to do what pleases us most.

Imagine not having to negotiate your own sales!

Don’t know about you, but it’s a huge thing for us because we're not sales people, we’ve never had any training (well, apart from writing work resumes and CV’s), and we don't know how to sell. We simply have someone else manage that for us

[3] Leverage Other People’s Tools

We talk about automation a lot – because automation frees up your time.

Online tools aid automation. They make it easier for you to have tasks happening on autopilot.

So, here are some of the tools we love most:

AWEBER email database autoresponder – it works on autopilot for us 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Yes, that means we can be wherever we chose, because we have the piece of mind our autoresponder is operating in the background.

Another piece of software we absolutely adore is ROBOFORM. Working online means having a ton of passwords and login details – Roboform not only remembers every single password it also securely remembers the website the login details relate to. Roboform saves us hours every month.

Some of the people we coach keep handwritten notebooks with all their passwords in – and it takes f o r e v e r for them to log into their affiliate marketing platform. We sit there drumming our fingers on the table… w a i t i n g ! When, with Roboform, it’s a one click wonder.

The final suite of tools we couldn’t do without is offered by Six Figure Mentors – it's DIGITAL BUSINESS LOUNGE.

Imagine easily getting a website set up and live online in a matter of a few clicks! Digital Business Lounge makes that possible.

Digital Business Lounge also includes lead capture page software, professional graphics creator software, link shortener software, and all the tools you need to operate a business online.

The suite of tools within Six Figure Mentors’ Digital Business Lounge is unrivalled anywhere else. We, quite simply, couldn't get by without them. Which means you don't need to reinvent the wheel and build these tools yourself!

So there you have it!

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too quite simply involves LEVERAGE

Leverage affiliate marketing and residual income.

Leverage other people's time, creativity and expertise.

Leverage other people's products so you don't have to have any wild crazy ideas yourself.

Leverage other people's tools – particularly automation tools, so you free up time to do what makes your heart sing – that’s what a lifestyle business is ALL about.

Having your cake and eating it too is the ability to create a healthy, sustainable income online, BUT still have the time to enjoy it too.

Which ISN'T the way it works in traditional employment.

When we ‘worked for the man' we put in 60 hours a week for an annual salary – the more hours we spent in the office, our true hourly rate was slashed, because a fixed income, divided by more hours, means a lower hourly rate. That's simply NUTS as there's no way to scale it up.

Here's the NOT FUNNY part – it took us 25 years to work that out!

Which is why we're keen to explain to you in the hope it doesn't take 25 years for the penny to drop for you too.

To get unstuck from that career which probably doesn't make you bounce out of bed any more, or to unchain you from that business which works you like a slave, or to build up a truly comfortable nest egg so you can fully enjoy your Golden Years – it all starts with learning how to leverage other people's products, time, skills, expertise, tools in the booming affiliate marketing industry.

If learning such life-changing skill is of interest to you too, we highly recommend this exact same education which got us started. It's up to you whether you take back control of your time and life, however this absolutely works for us – it's transformed our lifestyle and allows us to travel the world for 9 months each year.

Are you ready?

Chat To Us:  Find A Time When You're Free

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The post How To Actually Have Your Cake And Eat It Too appeared first on gregandfionascott.com.

Greg: As a kid, I remember Mum rubbing Savlon onto my bloodied elbow after falling out the tree in the garden.

“It hurts!” I whined.

“That means it’s working,” Mum said knowingly.

Sometimes what’s good for you hurts a little too. And that’s how we feel about this post. It’s brutal.

Brutally honest.

Not the merciful honesty, where somebody points out you have a hair hanging out your nostril just before attending a critical meeting. No, we’re talking about the in-yer-face kind of honesty where we deal out the nitty-gritty facts.

It’s fierce. It’s frank. It’s transparent.

And we can almost guarantee you WON’T be happy about it.

In fact, we’ve been holding off publishing this post for quite some time now, hoping somebody'll do the dirty work for us. But, so far, no one has. So, out of respect to you, we want to deal you the truth.

Here goes…

You know how you’re interested in having an affiliate business?

You understand it’s the best lifestyle business model?

You know it’ll allow you to escape the time for money trap and have all the freedom and flexibility you’ve always craved?

Plus…

You’re super keen to be emotionally free, geographically free, and stress free…

BUT… you’ve twisted your brain in a bend to grasp how the financial freedom part actually works? How the figures stack up? And can you make it work for you too, right?

Good… everyone else is wondering the same thing.

We wanted to know how the numbers stack up when we got started back in 2009 too!

So, Let’s Start With The Basics And Build From There…

(If you already know the starter stuff, simply skip ahead to the bit where we talk about the money metrics)

But, if you’ve got any nagging doubt about what affiliate marketing is AND how it can give you back control of your time and allow you to be your own boss (when you have the right focus and the right positive attitude), check out this 5 part blog post series.

OK. Moving on…

ALL affiliate business models revolve around you building an email database, or email subscriber list (same difference). The MAGIC is, your email subscribers need to be quality targeted people who have a problem you can help solve with one of the products you promote as an affiliate. Make sense?

In addition,

You know the people on your email list have that ‘gripping’ problem because you referenced it in your ad! It’s what attracted them to you in the first place.

Why Gather People’s Emails?

The reason why you build an email subscriber list of quality targeted people’s email addresses is because… they’re HUMAN, so they won’t make a split-second decision to buy from a complete stranger. So you need their email address to keep in touch with them, to help them, to relate to them, so you’re no longer that complete stranger to them.

They’ll need influence and information to believe the affiliate product you’re promoting is a good fit for them.

They’ll want guidance, direction, and help from someone they have an affinity for. And that requires a boat-load of content, a titch of humility, and an ounce of persuasion.

They’ll react favourably when you demonstrate you care about providing value to them. You do that by being consistent with how you deal with them, over time. When you consistently show up in their email in-box – they know you’re reliable, you stick around, and are a helpful resource.

Reality is…

Sadly, many affiliate marketers don’t get this point

Many marketers are like that annoying guy at the party who you form an instant dislike to.

The guy who turns up – a total stranger, stands in your personal space, talks to your face (while seedily casting his eye round the room for his next culprit) and says: “buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff”! Blah Blah Blah!

You aint ever gonna buy that guy’s shit because he’s annoying, he doesn’t take an interest in who you are and what you really want, and he doesn’t even listen to you. Ever experienced someone like that?

Creepy, hey?

It’s the same as going up to an attractive person and asking them for a date, then asking for their hand in marriage in the very next sentence. Relationships don’t work that way. They never have and never will. There’s no time spent getting to know and understand each other. No time was invested for little favours, little buy-ins, little wins of trust.

(we dated for 6 years before our wedding day… some take longer, some take less time – but it still takes time building a relationship)

You know,

Affiliate marketing is about building relationships too – relationships with quality targeted email subscribers who need the affiliate product you promote. Once you’ve captured their email address, you can stay in touch with them by email. Then, slowly but surely, you’ll email the right information to build sufficient trust with them, to enable them to accept your recommendation (your affiliate product) is the solution they’ve been looking for all along. Simples.

Working The Numbers – How $1’s Stack Up

There’s a universally accepted statistic – across all niches, and all marketers, in all parts of the planet – that each email subscriber is worth, on average, $1 per month to you in affiliate commissions… WHEN you email helpful content REGULARLY.

That’s $1 per month per email subscriber – earned as a simple affiliate marketer – no matter how you attract the prospective customers, no matter what email database software you use, and no matter what affiliate product you promote.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you don’t believe each email subscriber is worth $1 per month to you – affiliate marketing aint the answer to your prayers and you may-as-well close this page and stick to the time-money exchange trap!

[IMPORTANT TO NOTE – this $1 per month isn’t even relying on you having an integrated suite of products to promote!] More on that shortly.

How To Earn $10k Each Month

It stands to reason, to earn $10k a month revenue, you need at least 10,000 people’s emails on your email database if each email is worth $1 per month. Yep?

Fact is…

… most people overlook, or fail to consider, the price to acquire people’s emails in the first instance.

It requires an investment in paid advertising.

Which involves placing pay-per-click ads with third-party ad platforms like Microsoft Bing/Facebook/Youtube.

When you amass subscriber emails by doing pay-per-click advertising, you can expect to pay roughly $1 per click – again, another industry standard metric.

$1 per click means the ad platform charges you $1 when someone clicks on your ad.

The link in your ad automatically redirects the visitor to your subscriber capture webpage, which is a relatively static webpage where the main functionality is for the visitor to enter their email address, which is then automatically stored in your email database.

Automation stuff like that is what makes the affiliate business model a lifestyle business model – ‘cos it’s hands off – so it keeps on working when you’re not!

In essence,

… most subscriber email capture webpages have an average 20% conversion rate when you target quality people with the right message in your ads – put that another way – one in 5 visitors to the email capture webpage will enter their email address on that page.

When the ad platform charges you $1 per click, it means you’re paying $5 in advertising to acquire 1 subscriber’s email address because the ad platform charges you per click and not per new email address. Capeesh?

BUT… when you understand each email subscriber brings in $12 per annum in revenue, on average ($1 per month), you’ll happily invest $5 in advertising to capture their email address, won’t you?

Because it’s 140% return on your investment (ROI) for the first year.

Which is better than a kick in the teeth!

Figures Get Real

140% ROI in your first year? That’s phenomenal!

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute. Let’s talk worst-case. Let’s get real.

Unfortunately, we made little ROI on our first 1,000 subscriber emails which really and truly made us doubt ourselves, question what the hell we were doing wrong, and wonder whether $1 per email subscriber per month was pure BS!

Here’s the scary part:

We weren’t getting $1 clicks nor 20% conversion rates either. Why? Because we were still learning the psychology behind what makes people buy and what pushes people’s buttons. That’s the skillset to be learned here. It took us a while to ‘get it’!

If you’re anything like us, truth is, your first 1,000 subscribers will likely cost you $10+ in ad spend to gather each person’s email, which is a $10,000+ investment. Simply For Your Marketing Education. It’s something you ought to get your mind around from the outset, but stick with us, as the story gets better… a LOT better.

Great Expectations

You’re building your business for the long-term, and understand no business is highly profitable from day 1, right?

So let’s project forward how your advertising and email list building metrics will likely pan out…

Let's Cut Through the Confusion With All This

Get the Clarity and Support You'll Need to Start a Thriving Affiliate Business

DISCOVER:

• $350 in Affiliate Marketing Training for FREE (There's No-one Else Offering This!)

• 30 Days Unlimited Access To Our Digital Skills Library Also FREE! (To Max Your Internet Skills And Have The Right Know-How)

• How To Access A Wealth Of Affiliate Insights And Training Materials You Can Experience For Yourself (To Confirm You Have What It Takes)

• How To Immediately Access Your Own Personal Mentor Who'll Be There Every Step Of Your Journey (To Make Things Stress-Free)

• How To Access Module 1 Of Our Step-By-Step Get Started curriculum – Introduction to Affiliate Marketing (Know Exactly Where You Stand)

CLICK HERE TO CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNT

1,000 – 2,000 Lovely New Email Subscribers To Help, To Educate, To Inspire

Building from 1,000-2,000 email subscribers (remember these are real people to get to know) will probably cost anywhere between $5 – $10 per person’s email.

2,000+ will likely still be $5 – $10 per subscriber email…

By 3,000+…

…you’ll have likely ‘cracked this nut’ and ought to have your subscriber cost down to $5 per email or a bit less – simply because you’re becoming more skilled at attracting the right quality of person, more practiced at the ads platform, and more comfortable with consistently committing your ad budget.

The Tipping Point

You’re now seeing a tipping point – where you have a break even ROI and can cover your costs and steadily increase your ad spend to grow your email list.

Now’s the time for rapid scaling up your subscriber generation.

The easiest and smartest way to scale fast is by having a higher ROI per customer eg: $3 – $5 – $10 – $20 – $50 per subscriber per month rather than the industry standard of only $1 per month.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

A higher customer value means you can spend more per email subscriber to acquire a customer – and there’s a LOT more wiggle-room to accommodate mistakes, while you still generate income and SCALE UP.

Which is why…

… you need an integrated suite of products to promote as an affiliate.

Forging Ahead To 3,000 – 5,000 Email Subscribers

You’re still investing $5 per subscriber in ad spend.

And starting to see consistency on your ROI and subscriber generation.

Aim to generate 20 subscribers a day, which is 600 subscribers per month.

600 * $5 per subscriber means investing $3,000 in advertising each month.

With an ROI of the industry standard $1 per subscriber per month you’re breaking even (3,000 targeted people’s emails are worth on average $1 each per month),

BUT… with an integrated suite of products which returns an average $500 per customer, on the lifetime value of that customer, your scale begins to shift – upwards for higher returns.

Building Beyond 5,000 Email Subscribers

Still investing $5 per subscriber in ad spend.

Now you’re making money.

Generating 30 subscribers per day, which is 900 subscribers per month.

Daily ad spend of $150 a day = $4,500 going out each month.

$5,000 ROI per month ($1 per subscriber) in commissions.

Paying you a net profit of $500 per month as you build.

Business Is Booming With 10,000+ Email Subscribers

Still investing $5 per subscriber in ad spend.

Generating 33 subscribers a day, which is 1,000 subscribers a month.

Daily ad spend of $166 a day = $5,000 a month.

$10,000 ROI per month ($1 per subscriber) in commissions.

Paying you a net profit of $5,000 per month as you build.

BUT remember, these numbers are still based on the industry wide standard of $1 income per subscriber, per month.

However, you have an ace up your sleeve!

What if you could leverage an integrated product suite?

How Does An Integrated Suite Of Products Maximise Your List Building Investment?

We’ve hinted that promoting an integrated suite of products returns you an average $500 over the lifetime value of a customer – which is CONSIDERABLY MORE than $1 per email subscriber per month.

But, what’s an integrated product suite and how would you spot one?

Take Apple for instance: they have an integrated suite of ‘lifestyle’ products extending from ipods, Apple watches, iphones, and macbooks up to large desktop iMacs. Having a cohesive product suite is important because there’s a variety of price points, across a variety of stand alone products, so people who love the brand and what it stands for find it tricky to stop at buying only one product – we own 2 ipods, 2 iphones, an ipad, a notebook, and a macbookpro!

Which means IF you could promote Apple’s products as an Apple affiliate (which you can’t), the lifetime value of each customer you refer is maximised, because…

… people who buy one Apple product generally go back for more – and you’d earn affiliate commissions on all the life time purchases of each customer you refer to Apple. Hope that makes sense?

But guess what?

Six Figure Mentors and Digital Experts Academy together have an integrated range of education products for customers to select from.

Individuals and small businesses can chose any (or all) step-by-step digital marketing programs offered by Six Figure Mentors and Digital Experts Academy, depending on what they want to achieve in this phenomenal digital age. This integrated curricula also has a strong lifestyle brand – just like Apple.

Affiliates who promote Digital Experts Academy products can earn a substantial income from anywhere in the world there’s an internet connection. For example, the lifetime value of each customer to us, given the curricula we’ve invested in, is $1,000 per person…

…so we’re giddy with excitement to pay $5 in advertising to gain a quality targeted email subscriber when we know, on average, one in every 50 people will become a customer.

Consider the potential return here.

Do the sums.

Would you happily trade Facebook or Google or Youtube $250 for $1,000 too?

That’s a whopping 300% ROI – over the space of 60 days. That’s right – most customers make a buying decision in under 60 days.

Round that up to an annual figure and you’ll be ‘wetting your pants' too – 1800% ROI. Crazy, huh?

Compare that to 0.5% interest on money in your bank account for one year!

(We were speaking to a lady the other day who was chuffed to get 5% interest per annum on her money in the bank – we had to burst her bubble!)

Let's Cut Through the Confusion With All This

Get the Clarity and Support You'll Need to Start a Thriving Affiliate Business

DISCOVER:

• $350 in Affiliate Marketing Training for FREE (There's No-one Else Offering This!)

• 30 Days Unlimited Access To Our Digital Skills Library Also FREE! (To Max Your Internet Skills And Have The Right Know-How)

• How To Access A Wealth Of Affiliate Insights And Training Materials You Can Experience For Yourself (To Confirm You Have What It Takes)

• How To Immediately Access Your Own Personal Mentor Who'll Be There Every Step Of Your Journey (To Make Things Stress-Free)

• How To Access Module 1 Of Our Step-By-Step Get Started curriculum – Introduction to Affiliate Marketing (Know Exactly Where You Stand)

CLICK HERE TO CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNT

What Work’s Involved? What Do I Need To Learn? What Am I Prepared To Do?

Here’s what separates the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the entrepreneurs from the opportunity seekers.

Here’s where you gotta roll up your sleeves and put in some effort and energy – like you do to build any business.

So what skills do you need to build a subscriber email list and build a relationship with those people?

For starters, chose which ads platform you want to master – Youtube, Facebook, Microsoft Bing. Pick ONE, and stick with it till you can place ads in your sleep! Get the best training, learn how to write compelling ads, and understand what’s going on the in the heads of your target audience. (Six Figure Mentors education can help you with all that).

Next – Find Your Voice.

Whatta we mean by finding your voice?

It’s got nothing to do with how your voice sounds, any accent you may have, or the extent of your vocabulary. Nup!

Finding your voice means finding your confidence, strength, passion to nurture your targeted email subscribers by providing helpful information, inspiration, and leadership.

So, maybe it means having to ‘get over yourself’, OWN what you already know, and liberally SHARE what you know with your email subscribers.

Do things like:

=> shoot video

=> publish blogposts

=> post on social media

=> write broadcast emails

=> do Facebook Lives

=> hold Webinars

In other words, provide value, offer insights, share your opinion, deliver inspiration, and solve problems your subscribers are experiencing.

It’s all about them and NOT about you.

Finally, of course, promote your affiliate offers to your email subscribers too, as that’s the only way they’ll get the depth of solution they’re looking for… and

… it’s the only way you’ll maximise your ROI per customer Yes?

Sadly,

(Often, the people we coach with their marketing are reluctant to promote offers to their email subscribers, which beggars belief, but was the same for us back in the day. The source of their reluctance to sell is usually down to not liking being sold to themselves, not wanting to come across as a douche bag, or issues surrounding having money – which are all mindset matters whch can easily be rectified )

But… I've NEVER Done Anything Like This Before…

We hadn't either when we first got started – we were an Accountant and a Project Manager who didn't ever know what an Entrepreneur was, let alone think like one.

Guess what?

We learned.

And you can too – even in your spare time.

You never walked before you took that first baby step. You never got a job before that first paid employment. You never asked someone on a date before you popped that first nerve-wracked question!

There's always a first time for everything.

Just to be sure, we have some test questions for you:

1. Can you copy and paste text from one spot to another?
2. Can you send an email (this post'll be obvious why)?
3. Can you search Google and Youtube for answers and information (proves you're resourceful)?
4. Do you have a willingness to learn a new skill (like you did at Uni or when starting a new job)?
5. Do you have a winning can-do mindset (as in, you're ripe and ready to transition from an employee to an entrepreneur)?
6. Do you have a burning desire to succeed (so, you're happy to set goals, avoid procrastination, and Follow One Course Until Successful, i.e.: FOCUS)?

How did you score?

6 out of 6?

Congrats. You've got what it takes to learn affiliate marketing… in your spare time.

Find Your Marketing Budget

The other stumbling block some people trip up on, is they lose patience with their restrictive marketing budget. Obviously $2k a month is going to build your list faster, and you’ll see results quicker, than $500 a month. So, boosting your ad budget calls for resourcefulness.

What’s within your power to increase your marketing budget so you build your email database quicker – before you run out of patience?

Seriously, put some thought into this…

Here are some ideas:

• Invest your disposable income

• Lower your overhead and adjust your lifestyle – make lunches, eat out less, quit smoking/drinking/gambling, cancel non-vital subscription

• Get a second job

• Drive for Uber.com

• Let your 2^nd room on Airbnb.com or couchsurfing sites to help out tourists

• Get a full time lodger/room mate

• Get a business partner with money to invest

• Have an Idea eg: provide a service, freelance on upwork.com or freelancer.com

• Refinance your home to invest in your business

Frankly,

GET RESOURCEFUL

There’s no alternative, is there?

We’re not proud of the fact we built websites for people, and helped clients attract their own email subscribers, so we could boost our marketing budget – for us, it was ‘needs must’ as we had to make our business work for us!

The BIG takeaway here is:

Let Your Current Pain Drive You Towards Your Freedom Goal, Then Let Inspiration, Purpose, And Impact, Drive You Towards Your Digital Life

Last but not least,

EVERYTHING we cover in this post, is taught by Six Figure Mentors. EVERYTHING.

No stone is left unturned. (and they provide the online tools you need to make it happen too!)

It all depends how badly you want to quit exchanging your time for money. Do something you're passionate about. Grab back control of your time freedom.

>> Stack up the money in your affiliate marketing business <<

Chat To Us:  Find A Time When You're Free

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One Saturday in October 2016, when we had 3 months cruising in civilised San Diego, we cycled to Ocean Beach for a bite to eat. Over lunch, we read a blog post from our friend and mentor Jay Kubassek, which got us thinking…

3 Epiphanies That Will Change Your Entire Perspective About How To Live Your Life

You know how we drift through life – almost robotically – without too much thought of the consequences?

Allowing days to roll by, doing our best to survive each one, not being emotionally scarred from work?

That was the REALITY for us back in 2009…

25 years of it!

Up until our work life came screeching to an abrupt halt…

Laid off, sacked, made redundant – with NO thanks, NO warning, and NO leaving party!

Chewed up. Spat out. Cast on the scrapheap of life (that's what it felt like!).

Now THAT… was a MASSIVE WAKE UP CALL.

It gave us a swift kick up our backsides and shook our reality to the core.

We did some serious head scratching, that lead to 3 epiphanies of our own which totally changed our perspective on life.

We want to share them with you today in the hope it will change your perspective on work and life too:

[Epiphany 1] CAREER FOR LIFE?

As both of us had fully invested in our three year University degrees we both “thought” we'd bought into a career for life. We (smugly) thought we were set for ever!

Greg even got a holiday job, two years in a row, processing student loan applications – which reinforced the idea for us that tertiary education required students to invest in their futures as the Government lent money to fund it.

Truth be told,

For the next 25 years, we further invested in our Continuing Professional Development to maintain our professional qualifications (Accountant and Project Manager)

This reinforced the “falsehood” that we'd invested in a career for life.

Reality is…

That CPD training wasn't hugely practical because it was generally completed to ‘tick a box' as it didn't really provide worldly skills – only knowledge relevant to our roles at the time (is that really beneficial?).

The point is – we were aware of other income solutions (property investment, trading forex, contracting).

BUT… were so heavily invested in our careers, we were too damned proud to admit the careers we'd invested 25 years in, no longer provided the fulfilment, joy, and passion which make life meaningful. Let alone the lifestyle or a prolonged sense of achievement…

Does that make sense to you? Maybe it resonates with you?

[Epiphany 2] TIME FOR MONEY?

Before we knew it, we'd “come to accept” we had to work long hours to earn a living – in essence, to exchange more of our precious hours for scraps of extra pay each year.

Sadly – we'd built a prison for ourselves – a ‘work prison'.

We didn't dare leave work before our bosses…

Because we didn't want to give them any reason to fault our performance in case we didn't get that expected year-end bonus we believed we were entitled to.

(BTW – getting to work early didn't count, as it's all about appearances, so we actually had to stay until after the boss left – so it was NOTICED).

We couldn't miss a day of work…

As there were always endless (boring) meetings to attend, to keep our bosses happy, so they could keep their bosses happy – all the while lining someone else's pockets.

(In the Accounting profession, the hourly charge out rate is usually more than triple the hourly pay rate! How's that for feeling valued?)

We had to negotiate for holidays we wanted…

Never taking them at month end – and always having to bargain to get the Christmas break off.

Haggling for time off puts a nasty taint on the holiday anticipation. Especially as those holidays were the only luxury in the weekly tedium that was slowly but surely wearing us down and sapping our spirits and our joy for life.

Then there's the work related travel we were expected to do, so we could be where our bosses wanted us to be – all the while keeping us away from the people we love most…

Can you see how all these ‘office practices' built up the belief that the only way to improve our lives was to exchange more and more precious time for pay rises, bonuses, and perks?

Which made it tricky to see the wood from the trees, right?

Such beliefs became our reality and we were blinkered to the fact we were perpetuating our own struggle, keeping us further and further entrenched in that ‘work prison'?

Maybe you know someone in the same boat?

[Epiphany 3] AN ALTERNATIVE PATH…

Here's the kicker – we didn't realise, until that fateful day back in 2009, THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS THERE to take a different path if the current income strategy you're using is no longer working as you'd anticipated. The choice is ALWAYS there there to Design The Life You Love

Recall Einstein's definition of insanity?: doing something over and over again and expecting a different result…

We learned to re-skill, re-train and re-educate ourselves, even on a part-time basis – BECAUSE we'd already proven to ourselves we could excel in one career, and we'd learned a lot of lessons in life too.

So the penny finally dropped… there's nothing stopping us from learning another future-proofing skill – that is, learning how to market any product in any niche, online.

We learned to leverage our time so don't need to work the hours we used to (we run a business around our lifestyle and not the other way around).

We learned to work and holiday at they same time (it's how we can be in San Diego for three months, then in Australia for 4 months over Christmas, followed quickly by 3 months in Thailand to continue to avoid winter in London).

We learned to choose to work with we people we love – not with blinkered, negative, back-stabbing people who were trapped in a mire of mis-beliefs.

When you surround yourself by people who earn significantly more than you, a LOT rubs off on you. Seriously!

We learned to please ourselves and be happy, fulfilled and successful – simultaneously. Imagine that?

We learned how to leverage this digital age we're in – there are digital systems, digital skills, and digital technology which make things so much easier, which didn't exist even 5 years ago. (they're NOT even technical – which is the beauty of it all)

The Digital Age Is Upon Us

Far too many people don't realise their JOB IS INSECURE – for 3 reasons:

1. Redundancy, Down sizing, Being laid off due to the economy and out-dated business models
2. Younger cheaper grads coming through who can't get the job they've invested to get and are hungry to start earning to pay off their student debt
3. The bots are coming which'll eliminate 50% of all jobs due to the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

We're meeting people who understand the jobs they do now won't be around when their children grow up – so they're focusing on their kids' futures too.

Hope you understand the critical importance of this?

We share our three epiphanies, in the attempt to open your eyes to what's happening in the world around you.

WAKE UP to the choices you have today.

If the strategy you're using now is no longer fulfilling you and is no longer delivering the life you expected it to – Change It!

It's OK to have been in the dark up till now – but it's NOT OK to continue to fester in a ‘work prison' when you now understand you have an alternative.

An alternative where age is no barrier to entry.

An alternative where tech skills aren't necessary (but understanding human psychology is).

An alternative where you can leverage other people's time, skills, and expertise – like we do…

Here, Take A Peek…

A Rosy Future?

You know how time speeds up the older you get?

It's all to do with perspective. When you're 10, one year is one tenth of your life. But when you're 50, one year is one fiftieth of your life – so a year seems less when you're 50 than when you were 10.

So how quickly will the next 30 years whip by – 30 more years of the same day happening over and over again – like Groundhog Day.

Stagnating in the status quo.

IMAGINE… you've been practicing the same career for the last 5, 10, 15 years.

What if you went into work one day and realised you could get a 2% pay-rise every second year for putting in the same long hours but with more responsibilities for the next 10, 20, 30 years and all you had to do was more of the same.

The same long hours, the same unfulfilling work, the same frazzled people, the same expectant boss, the same dumb meetings, the same lack of fulfilment. Anticipating retirement as it promises a break in the sameness.

Because, if you don't change anything, all you'll get is more of the same! That's a FACT.

But What If…

What if you wake up one day and realise there's an alternative where you can make a small shift, take one small step each day, and re-skill, re-train and re-educate yourself – in a way that's a lot cheaper, faster, and more fulfilling than going to University?

What if you can ignite your passion for freedom, using the same digital business system as us.

Because, it's possible to Design the Life You Love, when you invest in your education, believe in yourself, and put in the effort (but way less than you did at Uni!)

Meet you on the beaches of the world

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Life is NOT a dress rehearsal.

Life is too short to stack up a pile of shoulda, woulda, couldas.

This sage advice comes from an extremely reliable source – people on their deathbeds! Those MOST experienced in REGRETS.

More on that in a minute…

First, let’s examine what it is you’re looking for?

Why Are You Here?

If you’re anything like us, you’re likely a corporate professional who’s studied long and hard to carve out a successful career for yourself. You want a sense of accomplishment, achievement and importance, which’ll benefit your nearest and dearest by providing them with life’s little luxuries. It’s a simple human need to feel loved and of value to your family. We get that.

But, why did you choose the career you went after?

Maybe because it’s a field you’ve always been interested in, or maybe circumstances led you down that particular path (Fiona studied Accountancy because she won a chunky scholarship; and Greg studied Computer Science because he unwittingly wiped out an entire shipping customer database, so decided he didn’t want to repeat that gut-wrenching feeling of messing up on a grand scale). Or maybe, you bowed to parental pressure and followed the course they thought was best for you (which is the worst reason of all, in our opinion!)?

Back then, your dream was to:

• own your own home
• provide your family with the very best you could afford, and
• do all the things your heart desires. Yes?

But we’re guessing that ‘happy ever after’ fairy tale ending hasn’t happened yet?

Trouble Is…

There’s a big fat chance you’re feeling trapped and unfulfilled in that once promising career.

It takes HOURS to earn a living each week which eats up your leisure time.

You’ve come to realise there’s a limit to what you can earn in your 60 hour work week as there’s no easy means to scale up your income.

Your appreciation and passion has dissipated with the repetitive ‘week in and week out’ of same old processes, politics, and protocols.

Continuing professional development must be done, but most of it is outside your preferred area of practical expertise!

You have to dress a certain way, a uniform of sorts, whatever is prescribed – instead of whatever's 100% comfortable.

Commuting means more time away from your loved ones too.

But, above all…

True Fear

You're scared stiff because you’re staring down the barrel of spending the rest of your working days that way. Stuck. Trapped. Knowing there’s something better out there but not sure what it looks like or where to start looking for it.

There’s nothing worse than having all those years of work still stretching out ahead of you, when you're no longer fulfilled or passionate about your job or your career.

Oh wait, there is one thing worse!

Having to wait to retire, until you finally have time to do the things you really want to have time to enjoy NOW.

To put that major fear into context, there’s an insightful (but tearful) book to reference: ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying', by an Aussie lady, Bronnie Ware.

Bronnie worked in palliative care for many years, nursing patients in the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. She questioned those patients facing mortality about any regrets they held or any things they wish they’d done differently. She found that in the twilight of their lives, they shared five common regrets.

As you read on, think to yourself what could you do differently right now with your life, so you live a life of joy, happiness, and meaning, and avoid harbouring these regrets.

Here are the five most common regrets of the dying, in order, starting with the most common first:

[1] I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me

Many people pursue careers their parents dictate, and end up shelving their real passion and skill. Others don’t honour even half their dreams and die knowing it was due to poor choices they’d made. The moment you lose your health, the game's over!

[2] I wish I didn’t work so hard

This came from EVERY MALE patient Bronnie nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. They deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence. (We've both been a victim of this in the past, but . . . creating passive income has banished this regret forever)

[3] I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings

Many people suppress their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settle for a mediocre existence and never became the person they're truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result (Steve Jobs?!).

[4] I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you’re faced with your approaching death, the material possessions in life don’t matter – it’s love and relationships that'll concern you most.

[5] I wish I’d let myself be happier

This is surprisingly common. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice.

They'd stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

Can you see the top 5 regrets of the dying are all embodied in the one true fear?:

Having to wait to retire, until you finally have time to do the things you really want to enjoy now?

What Would You Enjoy Right Now If Time (or Money) Wasn’t An Issue?

What do you dream about doing when you have time freedom?

Forget those hyped up ads you see everywhere depicting the dream lifestyle with flash yachts, big mansions and fast cars. We’re NOT talking about false advertising lifestyles. We mean the things you really and truly want to do now, today, if you had the time.

What is it for you?

Let’s see…

(these are in no particular order)

• Learn to play golf/tennis/guitar/piano/darts/paint – whatever was your passion was when you were younger, before life beat it out of you. Let’s face it, to get good at any sport/instrument/leisure activity requires practice and persistence – which requires time – lots of it
• Take world trips without having to negotiate time off and plan 12 months in advance (that’s our passion)
• Ski/surf/sail/scuba to your heart’s content
• Spend quality time being present with family, rather than spending roughly 75% of your waking week hours with people you don’t really care about and who don’t really care about you
• Never again wake up to an alarm clock – because you don’t need to be out the door at 7.30am each weekday morning
• Prepare and cook healthy meals – take time to experiment and try new recipes
• Go to the gym when it’s not busy – it’s much more pleasant with less sweaty bodies around
• Shop when everyone else is at work – linger in the aisles at your leisure
• Be charitable with your time – help out at a non-for-profit venture you have an affinity for
• Be there when friends and family need you (without experiencing the indignity of begging for time off)
• What about home renovations, keeping the lawns tidy, washing the car…

Here’s space to fill in the blanks:

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

Next, think about the plus-side of not being stuck in a job or career or business you’re no longer passionate about…

For example:

• No more boss controlling your time or micro managing you
• No more commuting
• No more aimless meetings
• No more holiday restrictions or conditions on taking time off
• No more stress (our life now is Zen)
• No more continuing professional development that’s so ‘dry’ and non-practical

In our experience it’s…

More freedom without someone else controlling our time, worth and emotions (those last two are way bigger than you think – sometimes it’s tricky to see the wood from the trees when you’re trapped in a situation which you see no way out of)

So…

Think about what you can do to have quality of life now that makes you happy, joyful, replete.

How can you create more space in your life, so you become happier and more open to new opportunities – ones more suited to your new lifestyle?

5 Ways To Start Living Life On Your Terms Sooner Rather Than Later

So you need to break away from the old ‘salary model’ of earning a limited income in exchange for 40-60 hours a week. Which means being entrepreneurial and running a business.

Yup, you’re already adept at promoting and selling because you’ve ‘pimped’ your CV to land plum roles – so learning to be entrepreneurial and business-like is the next logical step. It’ll be a bit scary, but it’ll also be excitingly rewarding.

So let’s take a look at your five main options:

1. Buy Into A Franchise

Franchises are a great business model because all the rules, regulations, processes, and protocols are set out in black and white for you – which removes a big risk element right from the get-go.

They range in price from $20k for cleaning/dog grooming/online advertising type franchises, up to $M’s for restaurant and hotel chain franchises, and you can easily find an industry or market you’re passionate about or have an affinity for.

The key drawbacks are:

• you’re limited with what you can say in your advertising to attract new customers
• you're usually limited to a physical geographical location
• there’s no avenue for individual creativity, and
• you have to fork out a hefty proportion of your earnings in franchise fees

In reality – it’s like landing another job!

2. Do MLM (Multi-Level Marketing )/Network Marketing

Think: Herbalife, Amway, Avon, Forever Living, Utility Warehouse, Tupperware as big MLM companies. All household names with reputable products.

Network marketing companies are similar but their products are more virtual or not so tangible. With both MLM and Network Marketing, you can earn small commissions by making sales of the products, plus you can earn by ‘recruiting’ new sales people or new distributors.

When you recruit new distributors, then they join at a level below you. When the new distributors you introduce go on to recruit further distributors, those people join at a level below them. This is known as your downline, ie the people below you in the hierarchy.

In most pay structures within an MLM you earn a commission when someone in your downline makes a sale. So you can get commissions passed up to you from many levels deep, hence multi-level marketing.

However, the big trade-off is, the further down the line you’re positioned, the more difficult it is to recruit people into your downline.

In reality, MLM's make most of their money from people failing. There's a term called Breakage, that prevents most people apart from those highest up the chain from succeeding. Breakage is unclaimable bonus income that distributors (especially part-time people) fail to earn because of high group volume and downline rank requirements that stop them from qualifying in almost every pay plan.

3. Try Amazon And Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is a fulfilment business model where you buy products individually from a wholesaler who ships them directly to your customer on order.

So you don’t have to purchase huge stores of inventory, you simply partner with a drop shipping supplier and list their merchandise for sale on your website. Once you receive a customer order, it’s automatically forwarded to the supplier for fulfilment. The supplier will ship the product directly from their warehouse to your customer, and charge you only for the price of the shipped item.

So you don’t need a load of start-up capital, there’s no risk in have a ton of stock stored somewhere, and you can run your business from anywhere in the world there’s an internet connection.

Problems start when the warehouse runs out of stock (without telling you) or is late delivering a purchased item to the customer – so you have to deal with irate customers.

Profit margins can be skimpy too. For expensive electronics, margins will likely be in the 5% to 10% range. But for low-priced accessories, margins will often be in the 100% range. So it’s a volume game, which will take a long while to scale up, to make real money.

The Fulfilment By Amazon model is similar to drop shipping because you can opt for Amazon to store your product in their warehouses and have them do the fulfilment for you, BUT… you have to invest up front in a stockpile of product.

Be careful with your market research to ensure there’s an insatiable demand for your product, and be prepared to take a few months to get up and running and start making sales.

4. Get Into Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is one of the most popular ways to earn a sustainable, scalable income online, although it’s a relatively new business model in the scheme of things, so it’s sometimes a bit misunderstood. Basically, you refer a customer who buys someone else’s products or services and you receive a commission for the referral.

Amazon is the biggest, most trusted affiliate marketing place on the internet, but not too many people appreciate that Amazon doesn't ‘own' all the products it offers for sale.

The attraction with affiliate marketing is you don’t have to have any products or services of your own to sell, you generally don’t need a website, nor marketing materials, nor payment processors, nor customer support – because the product creator provides all that. So it’s a low cost way to get started online.

However, the key skill you need to learn is: how to market products online, or how to advertise the products you’re promoting as an affiliate – which takes time, and investment – just like any other business.

The biggest cost in an affiliate marketing business is advertising because you must get your offers in front of as many targeted people as possible to make a substantial commission income. The problem with that is most third party advertising platforms have become quite expensive for ‘small’ advertisers as they prefer to deal with reputable brands.

Therefore, you need to promote various affiliate products which produce chunky (top tier) commissions, in the order of $1k+ per sale referred.

5. Master A Hybrid Business Model

This is our favourite online business model. It combines affiliate marketing and top tier commissions (those over $1k per sale referral) with an integrated range of products. Sounds complex, but it’s really not.

Take Apple for instance, they have an integrated suite of ‘lifestyle’ products extending from ipods, Apple watches, iphones, and macbooks up to large desktop iMacs. Having a cohesive product suite is important is because there’s a variety of price points, so people who love the brand and what it stands for find it tricky to stop at buying only one product – which means IF you could promote Apple’s products as an Apple affiliate (you can’t), the lifetime value of each customer you refer is maximised. Hope that makes sense?

Six Figure Mentors and Digital Experts Academy together tick all the boxes of a premium hybrid business model. They pay affiliate commissions over $1k, have an integrated range of products for customers to select from, so you can earn a substantial income from anywhere in the world there’s an internet connection by mazimising the all important customer value.

Digital Experts Academy (DEA) is an educational organization which provides individuals and small businesses with a step-by-step digital marketing program created to streamline the process of starting a business in today’s internet economy. It boasts integrated curricula with a strong lifestyle brand – just like Apple. And it provides ALL the marketing training, digital tools, and support you need to be the next online success.

DEA is always looking for leaders, people of value, people with influence, people who are willing to grow.

Is that you?

There's no requirement to be technical, there's no age barrier to entry, and you can set up your business in about 15-20 hours a week..

The Bottom Line Is…

Life is a choice. It's YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. We believe you should choose happiness.

Attaining happiness and fulfilment isn’t about being a better you, it’s about letting go of everything that isn’t you.

Rediscover who you were, before the world started to dictate who you were not.

To wrap up…

Here's a video worth considering:-

Why Most People Die Before Age 25

In The Same Boat?

If you find you relate with this post in any way, maybe you've been ‘in the same boat' as us, we'd love to share with you the same online business startup training we stumbled across, which had an monumental impact on us. It sounds cliche, but the truth is, it's changed our lives for the better, for ever.

This information allowed us to leverage the new hybrid online business model which has allowed us to free ourselves and get unstuck from the professional careers that no longer fulfilled us.

As we've aluded to above, life is completely different for us now. We have the ability to write our own paycheck and travel the world free as two birds, doing some work whereever and whenever we please. We'd honestly love to think we can help a few people simply by sharing this stuff.

A quick final point we’ll make is, this training will probably set off so many lightbulb moments when it comes to solving the problems we've been sharing here, like feeling trapped and limited with your time.

If you have any questions for us at all after checking this out, we're always here and happy to help anyone who can relate to the things we've shared.

You CAN be who you want to be, you CAN create the life you love.

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All too often, people bandy around words which they know and understand but which leave others feeling clueless, none-the-wiser, and left out. Know the feeling?

Like jargon at work. Or cryptic acronyms. Or twins secret language.

We're guilty of using terms you might not fully understand. Sometimes we simply don't think it through properly, or we get a bit lazy with our language, or we forget who's listening.

Because we're always talking about LIVING A LAPTOP LIFESTYLE or living a DIGITAL LIFE. But what is that exactly? And why should you care?

Have you ever wondered? And would you like some clarification? Sure you do.

So we recorded this video to set the record straight. Click to watch it now. It's 3 minutes full of meaning and information.

The GREAT THING about a Digital Life

Today, we'd love to share with you exactly what a digital lifestyle means to us. You'll need to interpret what it means for you.

The GREAT THING about a Digital Life is – it can be anything YOU want it to be

We're passionate about waking people up and opening people's eyes to the alternatives that are available online. That's why we wrote Living A Laptop Lifestyle, recorded the video above, and have written this post. But we haven't always been that way…

Since 2010, we've served and helped hundreds of individuals wake up to the possibilities that exist on the Internet today.

Up to 2010, we were a Chartered Accountant and a Project Manager. Our jobs were super stressful. Taking holidays back then, meant we had to work our butts off for the fortnight leading up to the holiday, then, it would take the first week of the holiday just to unwind and de-stress. Maybe you know what we're talking about?

Eventually, we realized we were no longer passionate about what we were doing, and were certainly no longer fulfilled in our roles. Days were hum-drum. We robotically set the alarm clock each evening to get up and go to work the following morning – without ever questioning that we were merely existing, living the status quo, and not living life to the full doing what we love, when with love and with who we love.

Quit. Toxic. Dicks.

We simply had the insight to leave our careers, and quit corporate Britain, because we weren't happy with what it was doing to us and the stress it involved and just how full-on it is. There are a million reasons why corporate workplaces are so toxic, which we won't go into here – let's just say, many bosses are dicks, who relish exerting control over employees in an attempt to get their own back. Then there's the commute. And the fact you spend at least 40 hours a week with people you don't care for and who don't care for you. Is that the most sensible use of your precious time? Surely not?

If money were no object, and you opt to make the most of your limited time, what passion would you pursue? Family? Sport/Hobby? Something benevolent? Think about it.

Our passion is to travel and the great outdoors. We also love drinking wine and eating out. And we love scuba diving and skiing too. So it totally bamboozles us why people don't indulge in their passions as much as possible? Why wouldn't you? Why wait to you retire to start living life to the full? Seriously.

Harking back to 2010, we wanted a business where we could do what we like, when we like, and be passionate about what we're doing. So we re-invented, re-skilled, and re-educated ourselves how to market any affiliate product online. And we're no spring chickens, so if we can do it, you can too.

The point is, we run our lifestyle around our business, not the other way around as most people do. Our business doesn't run us. We run our business, but we get to choose the lifestyle we live as well.

In 2015 we spent 5 months travelling in the US and Mexico, then four days ‘home' in London before heading down to Australia and New Zealand for just over 3 months (so we missed the English Winter). BUT we could then enjoy winter by skiing in the French Alpes for a month on end when we returned from NZ.

Imagine having vacations longer than a week or two, not begging for time off to enjoy family events, and not answering to anyone else but yourself?

Digital Life Nutshell

In a nutshell, we've got the ability to work absolutely anywhere in the world that there's an Internet connection. We travel with our laptops and run our affiliate marketing business as we go. Working 5 hour weeks are not uncommon. NOTE: there IS still work involved, and getting set up requires effort, investment, and fortitude – but the result is totally worth the input.

We LOVE our lifestyle, and we're very grateful to Six Figure Mentors education, which has had a huge part in helping us to achieve it.

How You Can Achieve A Digital Life

If you feel you're cut out for a digital life too, Six Figure Mentors have put together an Extraordinary Online Business Startup Training Package which delivers powerful Internet money-making education designed to help you get up and running in the shortest time frame possible. After accessing your free account today, you’ll be able to make immediate progress with building your new online business and income stream.

When you grab your training package, you'll discover:

• Tips on how to achieve your ‘Digital Lifestyle’ – living the dream of working whenever and from wherever you like!
• How to create and optimize your business for maximum freedom and flexibility.
• Invaluable insights into the fastest and most effective business model that lets you get set up and earning profit with a minimum of hassle (even if you’re brand new to online business).

Dive in to see for yourself why Six Figure Mentors are “The Place To Be” for people looking to tap into the booming digital economy with a simplified online business – cutting-edge training, Digital Toolbox, supportive community and more – all designed to give you dramatic growth, independence and freedom. Extraordinary possibility made realistically within reach!

Roll On Your Digital Life

We truly think it's what life should be. Get started today.

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“You can’t handle the truth!” Remember those powerful words spat out by Jack Nicholson’s character in the 1992 movie ‘A Few Good Men’?

Well, not only do we believe you CAN handle the truth; we know you DESERVE the truth! And we’re thrilled to have this opportunity to share our wisdom with you.

So we happily present you with more than just a “Few Good Truths”.

Here are 7 realities about powering up your online business which stem from all we’ve learned after a few crAZy years online.

Ready? Of course you are!

Truth No. 1 – You don’t need CEO experience when you have C.E.O. drive

You can gain knowledge through books and experience. That’s a given. Titles can be impressive. Agreed. But, you don’t need someone else dub a title on you in order to be a big success. It’s not like a day job.

To build a successful online business simply engage your CREATE EXCEPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES drive. With that C.E.O. passion in gear, you’ll be unstoppable. And the only title you’ll want or need is “Successful Digital Entrepreneur”.

The truth is, those who push through the overwhelm, the frustration, the boredom, and the impatience – will gain mastery – because mastery and success come with perseverance and persistence, not with university degrees, job labels, and entitlement.

The same goes for technical ability too – when you’re forever thinking you’re not technical – you WILL prove yourself right. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because we humans inherently don’t like being wrong. When you attempt to learn to use a new software or platform, you’ll mess it up (sub-consciously) because you’re always telling yourself you’re not technical. And you want to prove yourself right, right? (We KNOW this from first-hand experience!)

In this day and age, technology has developed to the point when you don’t need to be technical. If you can do the following three things, you have all the base skills you need:

1. copy and paste text,
2. search Google and Youtube, and
3. send an email

Constantly remind yourself you already have the base skills you need, and you instantly cure the technical ability issue. Simple.

Yes, you’ll still face speed bumps every now and then, but you’ll be resourceful with your searches of Google and Youtube to find solutions to overcome the road-blocks.

Truth No. 2 – There’s no “Abracadabra” to success in online business

No farmer ever waved a magic wand one day and harvested his crops the next. His bounty came about due to a combination of planning, planting and persistence.

Furthermore, no farmer we into business short term for just one year, or just one crop, or just one season. It’s a long game. It takes time, patience, and effort.

The same goes for you and your online business. Consider what products you want to cultivate, and plant your seeds. Till that soil. Find a need many people have and find the product that solves their problem and you’re on your road to success. Write those blog posts. Build that website. Create the body of problem solving content that’ll prove you’re genuine about helping people and the income will surely follow as night follows day (we were going to say as Spring follows Winter, but not all parts of the planet are lucky enough to experience the four distinct seasons!).

Anyway, there’s a season for everything. Make this your season for success.

Truth No.3 The internet is SAFE when you choose wisely

You wouldn’t walk down a dark alley with wads of cash hanging out of your pockets and diamond rings sparkling on every finger, would you? We know you’re smarter than that.

Use that same combination of intelligence and common sense when investing in your online business.

Trust your gut.

If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t right. If someone’s offering you overnight riches, the age old adage applies: if it sounds too good to be true…

Do your due diligence, ask the right questions, do some digging.

When you take risks, take qualified risks.

And above all – avoid Ponzi schemes. Here’s what to look out for when confronted by a Ponzi scheme.

Truth No. 4 – The basic rules of business still apply

You’re going to work, invest, and commit. It’s a real business after all, albeit it in the online, virtual, digital world.

Sometimes you’re going to work very hard – particularly at the beginning.

You’ll succeed (hopefully often), but sometimes despite your very best efforts, you’ll fail. We have as well, and it’s no fun.

But, making mistakes provides you a valuable gift. The gift of learning from your mistakes.

Pry the gift of learning from the closed fist of failure.

We’ve done that many times… so we’re wiser and more prepared for the next adventure.

You WILL too

Truth No 5 – There’s no one-stop shop – until now!

Sadly, there’s been no one single website, book, or product that holds all the answers you’ll ever need for success in online business. It’s the unicorn of false hopes. Until now!

Picture the internet as an “all you can eat” buffet of wisdom. You can pick and choose from the many offerings. Select servings from a variety of sources and gorge yourself until you can’t eat any more, and can’t move or take action because you’re too full.

But NOW, there is a dedicated one-stop-shop for all your online business educational requirements which includes:

• all the online business tools you’ll need and
• all the help and support of a like-minded global community.

It’s called Six Figure Mentors. It was launched in 2010, and along with their sister company, Digital Experts Academy, they’re tackling the online education industry head on.

Truth No 6 – Profits are there to be made. Why not by you?

By virtue of the fact you’re reading this right here, right now, proves you’re heading in the right direction. Allow your inner GPS guide you to the places and spaces where you’ll find direction and inspiration.

Don’t be detoured by the nay-sayers, doubters and passion-killers. Some friends and family won’t want you to change, to be fulfilled, and to have success – cos it’ll make them look bad. Some might mistakenly believe in jobs for life. And some might be way more risk averse than you so aren’t in a position to give advice and hold you back.

We’re living proof it’s easily doable to make a sustained income online. And we love the results of our strategic planning and dedicated work. But there’s nothing special about us – we simply plotted the course, invested in ourselves, and persisted until we got the right results.

Truth No. 7 – Age don’t matter

The internet doesn’t care if you became eligible to drink or vote last week or if you got the senior discount when you caught public transport today. The numbers that matter aren’t how many candles there were on your last birthday cake. The numbers that matter are the ones that show up in your bank statement.

We’ve all read about child prodigies as well as people who didn’t have great success until they were over the age of retirement.

Sometimes the careers of those children burn out like a shooting star. A burst of light and then nothing! On the other hand, what if those late bloomers had been able to enjoy that level of success all their lives?

The internet makes it possible for you to start at any age, and grow and maintain a business that creates a sustainable income, and enjoy life-long satisfaction, wealth, and fulfillment.

You’re never too young to start. You’re never too old to continue. You simply need to believe in yourself, be open-minded, and have a thirst for learning and taking action.

The number of sunsets you’ve seen don’t matter as much as the sunrise you welcomed today. You have NOW. Grab this opportunity! We can help you have even more to celebrate when you blow out the candles on your next birthday (which for Fiona will be 50!).

Dare to make a wish and make that wish come true.

Conclusion

Now you’re armed with the information you need to leverage the internet and build a sustainable online business – which allows you to have the time freedom to live the lifestyle of your dreams. Because once you have an online business set up and humming along, you get your time back. Maintenance really only takes a couple of hours a day, tops.

To learn more about the very best online business model available, the business model Six Figure Mentors teaches you all about, click through to watch this explanatory video.

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The post The Science Of Online Business: 7 Truths We’ve Learned From A Few Crazy Years Online appeared first on gregandfionascott.com.

Have you ever asked yourself the question:

“What IF there’s something better out there for me?”

Here’s why we’re wondering if you’ve ever asked yourself that question: Back in 2009 we asked ourselves that exact same question and boy we’re glad we did, because by asking that question we set ourselves on a new course of life.

We wanted to know if there was something better out there for us. You see in 2009 we were waking up every day, going to our corporate jobs, working 60-70 hours a week, getting stressed, commuting and all the normal stuff, completely unfulfilled and completely not passionate about what we were doing.

Maybe you can relate and maybe you can't. But we decided that we’d had enough. We didn't want to spend 70-80% of our waking life, doing something we weren’t passionate about. Yes we were grateful we had a nice car, a nice home, and we earned a good income. But we were NOT FULFILLED, and NOT PASSIONATE about what we were doing.

CLICK THRU THIS SLIDE PRESENTATION TO LEARN MORE:

CONFESSION TIME: ALL the images in the slide show are our own piccies, so CLICK ABOVE to check them out

So… WHY is it so many people, despite the amount of opportunity out there, never ask themselves the question:

What If There’s Something Better Out There For Me?

We'd hazard a guess people don't ask that question because … people don't make the time to.

Life is stressful, life is busy, and life happens whether you like it or not. People are often very grateful for what they do have in life, and we totally get that, we totally understand that; but at the same time, THEY NEED TO REALISE THE INTERNET HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING.

We're travelling with our laptops now (and have been for the last 6 months), and can get on the internet to self educate ourselves on pretty much any subject we want to know about. We can get online and learn about rocket science if we really wanted to. The opportunity to be informed didn't exist when our parents grew, it didn't exist for our Grandparents either. In fact it didn't even exist for us either. We didn't have the internet when we were at school – and we only got our internet connection at home in 2006.

But the REALITY is, people are blind as far as we're concerned…

… because there's SO MUCH OPPORTUNITY out there with what's available online today, people need a wakeup call and we're here to spark people's imagination so they ignite their passion for a life that matters.

So, if you're someone who's asking yourself that question: “What if there's something better out there for me?”, then we're the guy's to tell you there absolutely is.

Why Are We So Confident There Is?

Well, since 2010 we've served and helped hundreds of individuals WAKE UP to this tremendous opportunity existing on the internet today. We've been able to show them how to educate themselves, and to create, cultivate and build:

=> Businesses they LOVE

=> Businesses they bounce out of bed to work on

=> Businesses which allow them to live life on their own terms

Many of our students have gone on, not only to be successful as in they wake up every day passionate about what they do, but financially they've also been able to build six figure and even seven figure businesses within a 2-3 year time frame (which is almost unheard of in the traditional, offline, ‘bricks and mortar' world).

And as a result of that, we have a tremendous amount of confidence in terms of what's needed on the internet right now. And that's MORE LEADERSHIP. As a result of that, we've partnered with Digital Experts Academy, which is a business started started in 2012 to create and cultivate that leadership the world needs.

Digital Experts Academy is educating individuals about what's possible in this digital world

If you're someone who's sick and tired of being stuck in the ratrace, or if you're someone who's sick and tired of maybe not having enough money, or if you're sick and tired of not being passionate about what you're doing, or if you're somebody who's got an overwhelming feeling there must be something better out there than what you're doing right now, well we'd like to introduce you to our community. We'd love to introduce you to what we're up to in the world.

If you want to find out more, we suggest you CLICK THIS LINK, to discover if there is something better out there for you too.

Learn how you can actually create and cultivate and build a business you're passionate about.

We believe you'll absolutely be blown away by what's possible in this new digital world we all live in.

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Home » EARN AN INCOME ONLINE

Each morning, we wake up and look out our bedroom window at the ever-changing blue of Sydney Harbour, with the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House filling the window pane, and we pinch ourselves at how fortunate we are.

NONE of our incredibly liberating lifestyle would be possible if we’d surrendered to the fears which gripped us back in 2009.

When we first launched our online business, we had endless questions, self-doubt, and stifling fear.

There was NOTHING half-hearted about our decision.

Time For Change …

We’d turned our backs on our careers of 25 years, Fiona as a Group Financial Controller or Chartered Accountant and Greg as a Project Manager – and we did so for three interesting reasons:

1. toxic stress
2. lack of control over our time
3. a distinct lack of fulfilment

We chose to learn a brand new skill which neither of us had any prior experience in.

Would we crash and burn? Would we be able to work together, and stay happily married? Would we learn to be entrepreneurial? Would we be able to learn to be successful affiliate marketers? Would we remain focused? Would online scammers take advantage of us? How long would it take us to earn a sustainable monthly income?

But … we’ve come to realise all those worries were totally unwarranted.

And we hate to think where we’d be now if we’d allowed those dumb fears to consume us and hadn’t embraced the internet in this digital age.

In 2009, we’d just been LAID OFF, with: NO warning, NO thanks, and NO leaving party.

We never thought it would happen to us. Back then, we ignorantly thought we were immune to the recession, to jobs being outsourced to countries with cheaper economies, and to everything going digital. Maybe you know someone like this too??

The Real Kicker …

The real kicker was … not only did we lose our substantial salaries, we also lost our retirement plans and our private healthcare packages that went along with it.

What do most people do in that grim situation – because we've got to earn something, right?

We too did the obvious – started looking for another job!

Therein Lies The Problem

The PROBLEM with landing another senior corporate position is:

>> there's a ton of competition from younger, keener, more affordable employees who want to prove themselves and are prepared to work all hours under the sun to do so,

>> there's an experience and wisdom trade-off against cost and control-ability,

>> some people call it ageism.

What’s more, we really had to acknowledge how workplace stress was wreaking havoc with our bodies and mental health. Plus our roles NO LONGER FULFILLED US!

Necessity dictated we find an alternative source of income.

So we sat down together and discussed our options. We knew we needed something that:

• wouldn’t be impacted by the recession,

• we could learn easily, and

• wasn’t going away anytime soon.

The Obvious Answer:

Leveraging the internet was the obvious answer because we could follow our passion for travel, control our own schedule, and build a business around our lifestyle rather than the other way round.

Build A Business Around Your Lifestyle And NOT The Other Way Round
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What would you do with freedom and flexibility? Your passion doesn't have to be travel. Maybe you're a homebody who's passionate about spending more quality time being fully present with the people you love the most?

To get started, we literally glued ourselves to our laptops and did in-depth research and due diligence on all the different online business models we could find, until … we found one which would let us pursue our passion, while earning us money whether we were working or not. In other words, a lifestyle business model.

We worked hard to learn all we could to lay solid foundations in our business.

We battled our worries, limitations and doubts, because we were determined we wouldn’t let our fears and insecurities steal our future wealth and happiness. Then we simply continued to tweak the system so it worked for us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.

Fast forward to today, we now gallivant around the world, doing what we please, staying months at a time in one idyllic place or another (always by water – hence our stay in Sydney), and our business always operates, earning us a sustainable income.

We don’t have millions in the bank, but we have the FREEDOM AND FLEXIBILITY to follow our dreams and earn money our own way – which in our money – is priceless.

We wrote all about it in our best-selling award winning book, Living A Laptop Lifestyle.

It would be easy to be jealous of us . . . until you discover this could be your lifestyle too. It’s within your grasp when you chose to embrace the digital world. Overcome your fears and limiting beliefs and learn all you can now before it’s too late.

The facts which shock most people are:

• it doesn't take hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands to get started like most traditional brick and mortar businesses;

• it doesn't require any staff or big teams of people (there are only the two of us);

• it doesn’t require the huge overheads you'd expect with a traditional business;

• it’s easy to learn when you have an open mind and a willingness to learn (we managed it and there’s nothing special about us), and;

• it's something you can start around another job or another business.

As you can imagine … a LOT of people want to know more about this kind of business model.

It's almost 2016 and we’re living in a digital age. The time has never been more opportune to share some free information and principles with you, to help you really understand what you need to do to create and succeed with this kind of business model.

Our passion is to share our experience in establishing a lifestyle business – a business which provides you the freedom and flexibility to work where you want and when you want. For some people, that means being able to work from home from any corner of the world, for others it means being able to scale up income to afford some of the nicer things in life.

We started our business:

WITHOUT any third party funding,

WITHOUT any prior experience, and

WITHOUT knowing how the internet works.

If this sounds interesting, AND you're hardworking, ambitious and open-minded, CLICK HERE to learn all about this business model and the business system we use. We know it’ll open up some ideas for you, and maybe get you thinking differently about your future.

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The post How To Actually Fund Your Perfect Lifestyle appeared first on gregandfionascott.com.

We’re in the age of infobesity, infoxication and information overload, where the burgeoning hole between the information you NEED and the information you HAVE is growing like a snowball barreling down the mountain at breakneck speed.

But there’s something more graphically HORRIFIC than that . . .

Most people aren’t remotely AWARE there’s a growing gap in their worldly understanding – and if they are, they’re clueless how to remedy the situation before catastrophe strikes.

Information Is At Your Fingertips

Answers to life-long problems are just one search away. Information is readily available. The problem is: knowing exactly what to search for in order to receive the correct, concise, current, answer to your prayers.

So now it's time to leap off of the 9-5 treadmill and quit busting your ass to make fat profits for your boss – which way do you turn, what do you search for on Google, and how to you avoid wasting time going down rabbit holes?

The answer is staring you in the face.

You’re reading this online. You search for answers online. You buy gifts and groceries online. You watch movies online. All these digital services are . . . ONLINE.

Your Future Is Online

Get it??

We’re in a DIGITAL AGE – and we’re never going back to the industrial age or the stone age.

Today, it’s possible for a one person business to do battle with big corporations online.

Today, you can leverage other people’s time, expertise and money.

Today, you can do business 24/7/365 with the entire world – rather than sweating it out in cube farm saying yes boss, no boss, three bags full boss.

But HOW to you get started?

How do you jump the queue to success online?

How-on-earth do you get your finger on the pulse of the information you need to change your life and move forward?

CLICK To Watch This Video Now >>

As We Talked About In The Video . . . 

Here’s where to take your test drive so you can jump the queue to success online and SAVE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME going down information rabbit holes – and instead, use your precious time to do the things that please you the most.

Give it a try.

Earn on Your Own Terms

What’s not to LOVE about . . . earning on your own terms . . . working where and how much you choose . . .  having a blast . . . and helping people in the process?

However – if at any point – you decide the training, tools and solutions about the best online business model, the best products to promote, and the best way to fund your lifestyle with an income that travels aren’t for you after all – then, NO PROBLEM.

Just say so within 30 days, and we'll immediately stop sending you our emails and will arrange a FULL 100% REFUND. No questions, no fuss.

No matter what you decide, the “Internet Laptop Lifestyle” Workshop is yours to keep . . .

We do hope you'll Take Six Figure Mentors For A Test Drive Today. Make a first-hand, informed decision whether it’s right for you today.

If you like the idea of an income that goes with your lifestyle – or one where you’re passionate about helping people like you . . . you owe it to yourself to give Six Figure Mentors a risk-free trial.

. . . Just imagine a life where you could travel the beaches of the world . . . maybe work a few hours in the mornings and relax, snorkel, fish/read/sunbathe in the afternoons . . .

Or maybe you dream about life up in a wee highland town where the mist rolls in from the sea . . . or maybe life in a big, cosmopolitan city like London where you could enjoy the hustle and bustle, theatre, shows . . .

When you have a portable business which pays you wherever you are in the world . . . so you make your own hours, be your own boss . . .

All that is possible today. And you DON’T need to be technical. Six Figure Mentors will show you how.

Can you really afford not to take a look and create an account?

Waste no more time. Act now – give Six Figure Mentors a try when you Click Right Here.

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