I just had some friends come to visit from Arkansas on Dec. 22 . So things have been a little hopping around here since then and I haven’t  had a lot of time to myself  to sit down and write for a while. Just this note to you all that this blog has not been lost in space.  I am in the process of listening to Alex’s module four.

Later yaall…mike

 When your blog is up, you can use RSS feed to for a more continual readership to the blog You can also use  Aweber for readership signup. Remember to get it online now. “You don’t need to get it right, just get it running” After you get it running go to www.google.com/addurl/ .
    What is a blog really good for? It keeps you accountable, and it will motivate you (I need motivation) and it has momentum. Once you start to write on your blog you will find that it gets easier to write. I’m finding that it really does get easier.
   If you have a favorite radio station it has a call sign, my favorite station is W.I.I.F.M. (What’s In It For Me) Alex gave us this acronym and it kind of sticks in my mind. Make sure that your blog gives good value for continued readership.
   Do a story about how you started , your family or, as I am doing here, about my building a six figure business from scratch. Your blog needs to be updated once or twice a week.
   Social sites are a good way to send people to your site. When they come to your site encourage them to visit your squeeze page and build a list.
   If you create value the rest of your business will take shape.
   How are blogs powerful? They are fast to put up- other people send people your way- they provide value to you-  build a readership-and they build you a list.
   A good acronym is KISS keep it simple stupid. A blog needs have a basic story,
your story. Tell the readership how you started. I started in a land, far,far away called……..OOPs, lost my head for a moment.
   There are three types of people: People who don’t learn from their mistakes, People who learn from their mistakes, and people who learn form the mistakes of others. So align wourself with someone who has done what you plan to do and learn from their mistakes.
Later…mike

 Traffic will be discussed in the next module (Module 4) So I can’t wait for that one.  So far we are averaging about one module a week. With a brainstorming session (6-7 hours long) Alex was on for the whole time. Whew!  And an interactive session.  I will write a little about those in another post.
   The old adage: “Quitters never win and Winners never quit!” is the quote of the day. And what a quote it is, no one who ever succeeded in any endeavor did so with out some failure in their quest. My wifes grandfather worked for Thomas Edison when he was perfecting the filament for the light bulb. It took him over 1000 tries over two years to get it right. In fact there are some light bulbs (unlike mine that burn out, it seems in about a month)  in service for over a hundred years now:  #1 in Livermore, CA (turned on 1901-1905) ,#2 in Forth Worth, TX (turned on 1908) and #3 in Mangum, OK (turned on 1926-1929).  Amazing!
   What is a blog? An online weblog in which we write in as if in a journal. This makes us accountable and gives us feedback from the comments.
   Your very first post on a blog gives you instant momentum. And blogging maintains your focus and keeps you honest as your postings are viewed by the world so to speak.
   What needs to be on your blog?  First you want your blog to be personalized and not be one of the basic themes. There are a lot of themes out there, find one that appeals to you and use that one. As we learned, not to have a calender on the page because it takes up space unnecessarily. We want to have content that provides value to our readers.
   Oh Oh!The dinner bell has been rung . I will continue with this third module when I am done.
Later…mike

The Profit Pulling Platform is Alex’s gift to us. He has given us a business that he has developed to give us a headstart on our paths to success to a 6 figure a year business.
   Module 1 was the beginning to get us organized and the mind set to keep on top of things. Or as Alex puts it as K.O.T.O.B.O.T. Which to us laymen is “Keep On Top Of Being On Top”. I like the way that Alex puts things in context and in an easy to understand format
   A Profit Pulling Platform is the business behind the website. As a group we are all excited to be following Alex on this tantalizing venture into the previously unknown world of internet marketing.
   Watch how the rest of the world markets to you. They all want to deliver to you a fad or something shortlived, our design is to develop a system to deliver a worthwhile product to enable the recipient of out product to acomplish their goals.
   Winning in the marketing business is being un-afraid to lose. As we learn from Alex, he has given us the start of something big, The Profit Pulling Platform and is going to fast track us all on the road to success and is going to explain it to us step by step.
   So the next step was to get a blog up and running. Which I Finally got going( duh as you can already see!).
   With a blog up and running, the next step in the progression is to drive traffic to the “squeeze page” A squeeze page is the website that collects the e-mail address’ of your list. Usually it is a free e-book or program that is something like a brick and mortar store’s “loss leader” to get you in the door and perhaps to get you to buy something else. An e-book is an excellent way to get a list. First it gets a list going by having people sign up to get it and second because of your url, or website address, is inside of the e-book it gets distributed by those who give it to their friends.
   So you can see that the mailing list is the most important part of any marketer. Whether they are on the internet or have a brick and mortar establishment.
   Give away a great value item to get a list going and you will benefit from the list in ways you can not imagine.
   Until next time…mike

   To Recap the last two posts on Module 1 and to give you a little more to chew on here is the next post.
   To keep you on track, keep a daily “Did Sheet” to focus on the tasks done and to prevent becoming lost by redoing the same thing again. Sometimes my days are like amnesia, so with this, “Did Sheet”, I can keep my wits about me.
   Have a copy of your daily goals at hand and read it to yourself to keep that goal fertile in your mind.
   Use a timer to keep yourself on track for the task you are performing at the time scheduled. IE: email, product development etc. This keeps your task from over running  into another tasks time slot.
   Don’t multitask, remember that if you are trying to start two different business’s at the same time and your chance of success is reduced to only 70%.
   Do your plans : The 12 month, the 90 day, the 30 day (break it down to 4 weeks), the weekly and the daily. PLAN TOMORROW TODAY.
   Something Alex does is something that I haven’t done before, is to have a daily journal to be able to look back on your accomplishments for the month and make adjustments to what has worked and what didn’t.
‘Til next time…mike

I’m back..
To continue with the last post.
   Everyone that builds a blog should have something to give away, something that provides value. This value is something that the recipient can make use of and provide you with chance to market that free content by getting your name out there virally.
You have a chance to create something from nothing by getting space on the internet and using that space to “create value on that space and the rest will be money in the bank”
   Alex brings out that if you ” imagine that your time online is a book and it’s 100 pages of failure then it’s up to you to change the last chapter into a happy ever after,”
Just take Action! There is no need to get it right, that will come later, the need is, to get out there and get it going. You can fine tune it later. This will speed up the learning process and you will learn as you apply different ideas.
   The next order of business is to get organized. Planning comes first as no one builds a house without having a plan, or nothing but confusion reigns.
Your plan needs to have a Business Plan, a Entrepreneur Plan and a Personnal Plan. You need to focus on your plan not two plans. One plan has a 95% chance of success but two plans have only a 70% chance of any success. Going ” Forward to Basics ” is about being organized.
   Write things down! If you have a thought write it down so you won’t forget it.
Create a year plan, write a 90 day plan, have a 30 day plan, a weekly plan and a daily plan. When you have a goal written down you are more apt to follow it. When each goal is met make a new one and add it to your plan. By doing this you will have focus and make your plans into reality. Do not multitask in this plan remember the %’s of success.
   A wonderful idea that Alex brings out is that by planning your goal from the end and working backwards gives you a timeline to work by, and therefore your focus.
Enough for now.
Later….mike

Well, the first module of Marketing With Alex was an eye opener. He called it Moving Forward to Basics. Most other people who mentor do so moving back to basics. We need to change our mindset to building our business not for ourselves but to the betterment of others.

This business is not a get rich quick scheme but a get rich forever system.
Alex brings out that you are either a winner or a loser based on whether or not you take action or not on the things that winners in this business need to do. Which the first order of business is to step outside your comfort zone.
A quote that he brings out is ” Don’t chase money, let money chase you.” I like that because it brings to mind “that what most people chase after is the most elusive to find” (an old chinese proverb ?).
The next order of business is to align yourself with someone that is credible, someone that is “walking the walk and talking the talk.” Which is why I am fortunate that Alex is my mentor, and someone who is being recognized by the internet marketing “gurus” as a rising star and a contender in the marketing field.
The next big order of business is to create a blog and start posting about our experiences with the mentoring process and build a readership.
I had a bit of a problem of getting a blog setup on my marketing website. Although I am using Wordppress, which is a very good platform, I couldn’t seem to get it to work. After confering with others and some digging of my own I finally got it up and running. Albiet a little later that the rest of my fellow students, oh well.
I willl continue the rest of Alex’s module on my next post a little while. I do not want to write a book on this post or bore anyone.
Later…..mike

Finally Alex!!!!

As you can see from this post I finally got my blog up and running, but not without some putting some serious time  into making this work . I first couldn’t get Wordpress to work. Then I got it to work but I didn’t know that only the front page worked. So, being me, I immediately wanted to have a different theme. I loaded this theme in and in an instant , it didn’t work. So I unloaded and re-installed with the same result. I contacted the themes author , but still no go. More errors ! So to make a 2 week long story shorter , it finally does work as you can see.

Later……. mike