Internet Newbie Diary

Since I was talking about horses and the carrot approach that snags so many opportunity seekers, it shouldn’t surprise you that now I want to talk about the flipside.

The carrot is the enticement, dangling in front of your nose, offering you something you want, desire, and (if the sales copy is good)… something you’ll be convinced that you need.

The stick

There’s a stick? Somebody is going to beat you with a stick when you land on their website? In a manner of speaking, yes.

Let’s look at ways the stick is used.

Limited time

Is the clocking ticking? Do you have to make up your mind in 17 minutes or the reduced price disappears?

One Time Offers (OTO)

OTO is really the same idea as above. The clock is not ticking, but once you leave this page….

Limited quantity

Only 17 copies left!

… and then they’re gone forever

… and then the prices goes up

Offensive copy

We’ve all seen this kind of copy:

• you’d be an idiot to pass this up
• only a moron would not see the value of this offer
• I’m richer, smarter, have bigger cars than you do
• you will feel terrible if you don’t grab this right now
• obviously you don’t care about your success if you’re not willing to spend a measly $ x dollars
• there are winners and losers.

It’s offensive. And it’s a little like watching a train wreck. Do you click away, or keep reading? If you were at a party, a lunch, or hanging around your office how would you respond to somebody talking to you this way?

Don’t be a horse.

Remove the blinders. Watch for the carrot and the stick approach. Take time to assess how you are being sold. What you respond to. It isn’t only a way to protect yourself from the dream sellers. You can also learn a lot about emotional triggers and the right (and wrong) ways to communicate with your own customers and visitors.

In an earlier post ‘Master Minds, No Minds, and Never Mind‘ I talked about the value of having a master mind group.

Ideally you’ll be able to form a group close to home and meet face-to-face, but it’s not necessary in order to be successful.
My master mind group of five is spread over four countries and four time zones. Although we share a common goal (to succeed in Internet Marketing), we have diverse backgrounds and markets and each person brings something unique and wonderful to the group.

We do a weekly call on Skype for one hour. There’s five of us and we each get 10 minutes to ask for help, ideas or brainstorming from the group. Ten minutes goes fast. You state your case quickly and each person gets to add comments.

W e have some special challenges because we’re doing our meetings remotely, so each week someone is tasked with chairing the call, keeping everyone on track and making sure things keep moving. This task rotates to the next person in line for the following week. This way no one person is stuck with being the time-police and we’re all leaders.

Five people. Ten minutes each. That leaves us five minutes at the top of the call for announcements and greetings, and five minutes at the end for house-keeping items.

Amazing things can happen when you have five great minds working together.

One of the members records the call, so that means less time scribbling notes and more time to pay attention to the call. And if we miss a call (hey, life happens - kids, car troubles, electricity outages) we can download it later.

Between calls we have a private group on Facebook so we can follow-up, ask questions, send each other helpful links, contacts and introductions to people we need to meet to either JV or further our business.

If you want to benefit from a master mind group, don’t let barriers stop you. Start pulling together a set of people. If you can’t find someone close by, look online and follow our model or build your own.

I’d love to hear about your master mind group and how things work for you.

And if you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer.

Remember driving somewhere with your parents? Or maybe now you experience the joys of driving somewhere with your kids?

Are we there yet? Bobby keeps pinching me. Shelly won’t stay on her side of the seat. I need a bathroom. How much further is it?

And really … are we there yet?

One of the best tools I’ve found for myself online is the ability to:

• weed things out (never mind)
• ignore the BS and idiots (no minds)
• find like-minded souls (master minds).

Now what do master minds and road trips have to do with each other? Probably not a lot. But when it comes to impatience and the quintessential ‘are we there yet?’ question, there is a common thread.

A master mind group is simply a small group of people who are committed to moving ahead themselves and to helping others in their group.

Notice I said committed. Notice I also said group. The dynamics of bringing together a group like this has been well documented by none other than Napoleon Hill in his classic ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

If you want to propel your success forward, I recommend forming a master mind group. Don’t look for people who have the same market or the same experience or background as yourself.

The beauty of this type of group is that everybody will bring different skills and problem-solving abilities to the table and suddenly, there’s a synergy of ideas and a brainstorming of solutions that you could not have accessed on your own.

And to answer the question how a master mind group is like a road trip…

A master mind group, like a road trip, can get you to your destination

And perhaps more importantly, if you choose the right trip companions, you’ll also enjoy the journey.

In a future post, I’ll tell you a little more about my master mind group and how we run things.