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Is it worth your time and attention to attend conferences?

The reputation of Internet marketing conferences is steadily declining. In many cases it’s for a good reason: you pay a lot of money in conference fees, travel, hotel, etc and you end up sitting through presentations that are just thinly disguised product pitches. So it was with some trepidation that I attended Ken McArthur’s jvAlert Live in Long Beach this past weekend.

Beforehand Ken said multiple times that his jvAlert Live event is different. It’s more like a family reunion than a marketing event. Ken even organized an online family reunion for old and new attendees. That all sounds great, but which event organizer (or affiliate promoting an event) would not say that their event is better? I’m known to be skeptical, and somewhat jaded, but I love being proven wrong.

And boy was I wrong! The quality of the speakers and the attendees was outstanding and their accessibility was exceptional: I had lunch and dinner with world class speakers and Internet business legends every day. Yes there were product pitches at the end of most presentations, but only after some real and useful content had been delivered. Since the presenters pay their own way to the conference I think this was a fair trade-off.

It was a fairly small event, around 60-70 attendees, so I had a chance to speak to almost everyone there, from seasoned multi-millionaires to beginners who had not yet made their first dollar online. I learned something from each and every one.

Posted 22 October 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)

The Top 4 Writing Tips To Get Your Book Done

I just finished writing a book: 101 iPhone Tips and Tricks. I didn’t follow Ken McArthur’s system, so it took me considerably more than 12 hours to write. Nonetheless, I discovered these tips along the way that helped me with writing the book, and most importantly finishing it.

1. Select a topic you’re passionate about

Writing a book is hard work and you’re going to spend a lot of time writing. So you’d better make it as enjoyable as you can by selecting a topic that you like. Sure you can write something just for the money - ghostwriters do it all the time. But your passion, or lack thereof, will show through in your writing.

Thinking about the money you’ll make from the book can be great motivator or an inhibitor when you’re writing. Robert Allen once said that based on his previous books’ performance he knew that he was going to make $20 (don’t recall the exact amount) for every word that he wrote. So to him it was a joy writing every word. Douglas Adams on the other hand knowing how much money he’d earned from the Hitchhiker series agonized over every word he had to write. Because if it was worth so much, people expected every word to be very, very good.

2. Schedule time for writing

Writing a book is a large project and as with any large project it’s easy to put off taking the first step or getting sidetracked during the project. Therefore schedule 2 hours every day for your writing. It’s hard to be productive for longer stretches than 2 hours at a time. If you’re on a tight deadline, schedule multiple 2 hour block during the day with significant breaks in between. But don’t stop just because your timer says your 2 hours are up if you’re in a groove and your writing is just flowing, Conversely, and more importantly, don’t stop before your 2 hours are up because you’re struggling with the words that day. Every writer struggles some/most days, and if you start making excuses for why you don’t feel like writing today, then you will never finish the book.

Find a time during the day when you’re most productive at writing. For me it’s in the morning after I drop off my son at daycare and before I read any email or get engaged in the daily work of running a business. Tim Ferriss prefers 12 - 4 in the mornings. Find what works best for you and stick to it every day. During this time slot you isolate yourself: no phone calls, no emails, no Internet, no interruptions whatsoever.

3. Research first, write later

The Internet is a great tool for doing research, but it’s also an endless well of information. Before you embark on a new chapter in your book do all the necessary research to gather the information you need for that chapter. Set at limit on how much time you’re going to spend on the research. When you’re done, disconnect from the Internet before you start writing.

If you’re constantly switching between writing and looking up things on the Internet you lose your focus and your writing mojo. Should you find that you need some additional information just make a note in your text to get the exact quote from that famous person, or to research a specific topic further. The important thing is to keep moving forward, to keep that text flowing.

4. Write rough, edit later

Don’t struggle to find the exact words that perfectly convey your idea. Write the first words that come to mind. Don’t worry about spelling or perfect grammar, just keep the words coming. When all the writing is done you will go through the text many times to edit, improve, proofread; repeat. That magic word you spent so much time finding and committing to paper may not work in the larger context.

One of my favorite words is automagically. Since it’s not a real word it should be used very sparingly. My editor pointed out that I had used it 13 times in my book. You only get that perspective after all the text is written and you go through it again with an editor’s mindset.

Speaking of my book…

If you have an iPhone you want this book. The iPhone is a wonderful product with a gorgeous user interface, but it’s a first generation product. This book will help you get around some of the rough edges, discover many of the hidden features and make you more productive. It is chock full of tips and tricks; I guarantee that you will learn something new.

Sign up to my notification list on this web page. You can’t miss it - there’s a big hand pointing to it.

Posted 10 October 2007 † Nick Dalton § Writing ‡ Comments (0)

How do you write a 100 page book in 12 hours?

Preselling a product before you create it is usually a good strategy. That way you can determine if there is a viable market before you spend time and resources on developing the product. My friend Ken McArthur (famous for jvAlert, jvAlert Live and his digital watch) has managed to presell his upcoming book so well that a major publisher is making it their headline book this spring. A big advance has been paid, full color ads are being printed, everything for a big book campaign is in motion.

There is just one little problem: Ken hasn’t written his book yet! Maybe he took this preselling concept a little too far…

I’ve written many reports and ebooks so I know that writing a full length book is a lot of work, at least it is for me. So I would feel under pressure and be a bit worried if I was in Ken’s shoes. When I’m embarking on a new venture where I have no prior experience I always try to find a good mentor who’s already successful at what I’m trying to accomplish. For his book writing project Ken has engaged one of the best in the business: Glenn Dietzel and his team from Awaken the Author Within. They are confident that Ken will be able to write a bestselling book in just 12 hours.

12 hours for a hundred pages is 8 pages per hour, or about 30 words per minute. Whoa! That’s half the speed of a good typist doing clerical work. Ken has not only have to type this fast, but presumably also put some thought into what he is writing. I’ve got to see how this system works! At that speed I could crank out 10 long posts per day for this blog…

Ken has invited me (and you) to watch over his shoulder as he’s writing his book. You will learn the tips and tricks Glenn and his team use to make Ken a bestselling author in record time. If you’re doing any amount of writing this could be a very interesting and educational journey to watch. Ken is a big and generous man, but there is limited space to watch over his shoulder. You can sign up for a spot at www.BooksMeanCredibility.com

Posted 20 September 2007 † Nick Dalton § Writing ‡ Comments (0)

Ten Terrific Technorati Tips

Claim Your Blogs

The first step to making good use of Technorati is to create your own Technorati profile and then claim your blogs. By claiming a blog you’re proving to Technorati that you’re the owner of that blog and that allows you to see interesting statistics about your blogs.

Upload Your Picture

With over 112.4 million blogs on Technorati you need to use every available method to stand out from the crowd. A picture that you upload will show up in many places on Technorati:

- A small little image is shown in front of the title for each blog post.

- In the list of people who have favorited a blog.

Add an Interesting Paragraph About Yourself

Another way to stand out from the crowd is to add a paragraph with interesting information as a short bio in your profile. This is shown on your profile page and together with your picture in the list of fans for a blog that you have added as your favorite.

Favorite Your Favorite Blogs

Find your favorite blogs in Technorati and add them to your list of favorites. If you uploaded your picture as recommended above, your picture will show up on the Technorati page for your favorite blogs. Not only will that attract the attention of the blog owner, but other people interested in that blog may click on your picture to see who you are and what blogs you write.

Link to Other Blogs in Your Posts

Linking to other blogs in your posts is Blogging 101. How this relates to Technorati is that your post will be shown to the owner of the blog you linked to, in the Blog Reactions section. WordPress uses information from Technorati to show incoming links in the admin dashboard. (After version 2.3 WordPress uses Google Blog Search instead.)

Tag Your Posts

Technorati uses tags to classify blog posts. You can see all posts related to “attention” at technorati.com/tags/attention. Technorati uses a special syntax for tagging posts. For WordPress there are several plug-ins that create the tags for you. I recommend that you do not display the tags on your web site since that gives your reader several opportunities to wander away from your site. Since Technorati gets its content from your RSS feed that’s where the tags need to be. A good WordPress plug-in for this is: AutoMeta

If you have a two-word tag like “attention age” you don’t need to explicitly list all permutations. Technorati will automatically list your post under “attention age”, “attentionage”, “attention” and “age”.

In addition to any tags that you explicitly add to your pots, Technorati will also use the categories you post was associated with as tags.

Ping Technorati

After you write a blog post you need to tell Technorati about it. This is done by pinging Technorati. If you’re using a service like Ping-o-matic, that’s already done for you. Otherwise you need to add http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping to the list of services your blog software pings. In WordPress you enter this information in Options > Writing > Update Services.

Subscribe to Tag and Search Feeds

We’ve already established that commenting on other blogs is a great way to get attention. But how do you know when there is an appropriate blog post to comment on? Find a tag or do a search on a topic you have expertise in. Above all the search results there is a small RSS icon that allows you to subscribe to the search results. Add the URL to your favorite RSS reader and anytime a new blog post is written about your topic you will be notified. You can then quickly jump to that blog and write a comment.

Technorati WTF

Technorati has an interesting feature they call WTF where bloggers explain why certain topics are hot right now. This is both a good way to find out what buzz worthy at the moment and a great opportunity for you to become the authority on a hot topic. Just write a good comment on a WTF topic that has no explanation yet and link to your blog.

Increase Your Ranking

Technorati has a ranking system based on the number of blogs that link to your blog. To quickly ascend the Technorati ranks you need to understand two things about the ranking system:

  1. Multiple links from the same blog to yours only count as one incoming link. You need to be active on many different blogs with comments, guest posts and links within regular posts.
  2. Only links created within the last 180 days are counted. You cannot rest on your laurels or your ranking will start to sink.

What are your favorite Technorati tips?

Posted 03 September 2007 † Nick Dalton § Blogging ‡ Comments (0)

Social Media Links are Ridiculous

Does your blog look like a Christmas tree at the end of each post with dozens of small icons for every obscure social media site? Just because there is a plug-in for your blog that makes it easy to add them, doesn’t mean that you should do it.

At first glance the idea of encouraging your blog readers to digg, stumble, bookmark and recommend your post seems sound. And if it works for a few services, more has to be better. Right?

If we think about it from your readers perspective: Do the social bookmarking links add any value for your reader?

If your reader is actively using one of the social media sites, it’s very likely that they have the accompanying toolbar installed. Clicking on the familiar toolbar button is probably much faster than finding the right tiny icon on your site.

If your reader does not know what social bookmarking is all about, it’s unlikely that they will take the dozens of icons on your site as an inspiration to find out AND then after they have registered on a site come back to your post to bookmark it.

Other than *yourself*, how many people do you think are going to take the time to highlight your post on more than one social media site?

So is it worth it to take up this much space on your blog with these icons? The correct answer is of course to test it. You can track clicks on outbound links with Google Analytics.

That said, you should occasionally encourage your readers to digg your post on a single service that you are targeting for that particular post.

Posted 22 August 2007 † Nick Dalton § Social Bookmarking § Blogging ‡ Comments (0)

Leverage Other People’s Attention

Outsourcing work become a necessity in today’s business world. The realization that you cannot – and should not – perform all the tasks of running your business yourself is an important milestone on the path of every entrepreneur. Tim Ferriss – of 4-Hour Workweek fame – has taken this one step further and is outsourcing his life. His web site has several great stories on this topic.

A slightly different approach to leveraging other people’s attention is to have an intern program. James Brausch has the most successful intern program that I’ve heard of. Interns commit to working 3 hours per day, 5 days per week on James’ businesses. In return they will learn and improve their skills in copywriting, traffic generation and product creation.

His intern program has two levels. Level 1 interns receive their instructions from an autoresponder series and they report the results of their assignments to a level 2 intern manager. When an intern manager sees a pattern of excellence they invite the level 1 intern to become a level 2 intern. This selection process is extremely valuable and level 2 interns will be great candidates when a new paid position opens up.

James Brausch is very protective of his time and wherever possible he automates his businesses. The intern program is no exception to this. No interns have direct access to him; no secret phone number, no special email address. The processes James has setup have been tested over time and they are self-explanatory to anyone who can follow basic instructions. Sure some interns will feel that they need more hand holding, but that is part of the selection process. 95% of the interns typically do not perform the tasks assigned to them. You shouldn’t expect more of your interns and you need to design the intern program accordingly. The tasks that you assign to level 1 interns must not hurt your business if they are performed incorrectly or not at all, because that is what will happen 95% of the time.

The benefit of joining James Brausch’ intern program is of course that the interns get to see how a very successful Internet business is run from the inside; skills that they can directly apply to starting and running their own Internet business. But if you’re just starting out and haven’t yet made a name for yourself, how do you successfully recruit interns to work for free on your business? James will answer this question himself on Monday, along with many other questions on how to start your own intern program.

Posted 15 July 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)

Make Your Attention Count Twice

In the attention age you must use your scarcest resource – your attention – wisely, if you want to succeed.

For repetitive tasks that you don’t want to pay attention to again, record a video as you’re doing the task. Most likely you’re performing the work on your computer, so just start Camtasia recording in the background and speak into the microphone as you’re working.

The recorded video will serve as perfect instructions for an intern or an outsourcing company. All they have to do is follow the exact same steps as they see in the video.

Another option is to create an information product from the procedure that you’re performing. It doesn’t have to be something unique that only you know how to do. There is always a market of people who want to learn directly from someone who has done it before instead of trying to figure it out themselves.

James Brausch is a master at this. His products Create A Blog, Create A CD, Create A DVD, Publish A Newsletter, etc. where all recorded as he was performing these tasks to create other products.

Speaking to yourself and recording what you’re doing may feel strange at first, but when you consider that this is the last time you will be performing this task or you think about the extra money you will earn from an additional information product, I’m sure you’ll get over it. ;-)

Posted 11 July 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)

Fail Fast For Free

A startling revelation for many entrepreneurs entering the Internet business arena is the very low cost to get started. The article headline is a phrase I think I first heard from Robert G. Allen back in 2001. Since then the business climate has changed from irrational exuberance to the attention age. Today all entrepreneurs need to consider one resource that is definitely not free. In fact it’s the most scarce resource you have: your attention.

You can get your website or blog up and running practically without any cash outlay. You can even fill it with content, add affiliate links and AdSense ads without paying a dime. However, if you spent 3 months of your attention on this project it definitely does not qualify as free (or fast for that matter). To avoid this attention trap you need to approach your projects systematically.

Define Your Goal

A goal needs to be both specific and measurable. If it doesn’t meet both of these criteria then you don’t know when you’ve won and earned the right to celebrate.

“Make money online” is an example of a poorly defined goal. A better goal would be “Make $500 per month as an online affiliate marketer by working on average 2 hours per day”.

Define Your Projects

When you have defined your goal, you need to come up with several project ideas that can help you reach that goal. Brainstorming ideas and dreaming about how successful they will be is very alluring and many people spend their entire lifetime in this stage. As a beginner there is an easy way to cut directly to the chase: Follow in the footsteps of someone who has already achieved a goal similar to yours. If you’re already a seasoned veteran you can skip ahead to the next section.

Allow yourself one hour - definitely not more - of online research to find a mentor that you can follow. Start searching at Amazon.com for books on your subject. While there are literally thousands of ebooks on every conceivable subject, the hurdle to have a book published and distributed by Amazon eliminates most of the junk for you. Also scan a dozen or so blogs that cover your topic. Don’t get sucked in, just look for names that keep coming up in multiple blogs, and frequent linking to the same authority blogs.

Once you have found your one mentor purchase their beginner’s book, ebook or ecourse. It is very important at this stage to stick with one mentor and one information resource. There is a cacophony of contradictory voices out there and as a newcomer to the subject you have no way to evaluate who is right and who is wrong. Trust your gut instinct when you selected your mentor and stick with it through the duration of your project. Do not switch horses midstream. That will cause you to lose your focus and bring you back to square one.

As you’re reading your new book or ecourse, make notes of projects that your mentor recommends and which you think you can accomplish.

Evaluate Your Projects

When you have several potential projects that can bring you closer to your goal you need a systematic way to select which one to implement first. Create a list of evaluation criteria. There is no right or wrong evaluation criteria, but each item should be important to you. Here is my list:

  • Size of market

  • Proven market

  • Cost to reach prospects

  • Profit per item sold

  • Complimentary products available for upsell and back-end

  • Competition

  • Startup cost ($)

  • Your attention required for startup

  • Your attention required ongoing

  • Your passion for the project

  • Strategic fit

For each project, answer each evaluation criteria with one or two sentences. Then assign a value from 1 to 5 to each, where 1 is bad and 5 is excellent. With this scale a very large market would get a 5 (excellent) while a very high startup cost would get a 1 (bad).

Do not spend more than 2 hours on this. Too many projects never get off the ground because they are analyzed to death. Read the headline of this article again.

Once you have assigned values to each criteria for all of your projects, you simply add up all the numbers for each project. And the project with the highest total score is the one you should start with. Once you are comfortable with this evaluation methodology you can assign different weights to the evaluation criteria. For example, if you are low on cash reserves the Startup cost criteria may the most important to you. Then you can multiply the 1-5 score for this particular criteria by 2 or 3 to give it more weight in the overall score.

Approaching your projects systematically like this has several benefits:

  1. The likelihood of you selecting the best project is much higher.

  2. You have justified to yourself why you selected this project. When you’re having a hard time and you’re doubting if you’re really doing the right thing, go back to your notes and reinforce the reasons for selecting this project.

  3. Keep your list of evaluated projects. Each time you have a new idea for a project, evaluate it using the same criteria and compare it to the other projects. Each time you complete a project you know which one to tackle next.

Complete Your Projects

The fact that you have a large list of potential projects does not give you a license to jump between them. Focus your full attention on your current project and see it through to the end. Finish it even if you come up with a new project idea that scores much higher than the one you’re currently working on.

Even with this systematic approach not all your projects will be successful. Learning to fail and learning from your failures is also very important. And if you never complete your projects you are guaranteed to never be successful.

 

Posted 06 July 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)

Physical Distractions

While it’s the explosion of electronic communications and media that has pushed us into the Attention Age, good old fashioned clutter is still a source of distractions that needs to be dealt with.

Ryan Healy has a great method he calls the Three-File System to deal with paperwork. Most of us have a tendency to collect and keep information just in case. The Three-File System has a simple solution to ensure that you don’t keep things forever. In a nutshell the system works this way: Get three file folders and label them #1, #2 and #3. When you need to file something away because you might need it in the future, place it in folder #1. At the end of each month move all items in folder #1 to #2. What was previously in #2 gets moved to #3. And what was in #3, which you by now realize you have not looked at or needed for three months, is simply shredded.

Do you have a stack of magazines and trade journals on your desk? Throw them out now. Should you ever need any of the information contained in them, most respectable publishers have web sites where you can search the full content of magazine back issues. If they don’t - oh well. It’s very unlikely that they are the only source for any particular piece of information.

Catalogs? Unless it’s a vintage, collectible Sears and Roebuck catalog send it to recycling. What possible use does a paper catalog have today? The company’s web site is superior in just about every aspect. While you’re at it, save some trees for your grandchildren and ask the company to stop sending you paper catalogs by mail.

Posted 06 July 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)

Pay attention to your kids

I was going to soccer practice with my son the other day. He’s only 3 years old, so the practice has a high degree of parent involvement. We were out on the soccer field and in between two exercises I noticed that another dad pulled out his Blackberry and checked his email. What email could possibly be that important? And if he was expecting something that important, what was he doing out in a soccer field in the first place? Multi-tasking is highly overrated. Pay your full attention to the one thing that is important at any given time. And don’t think that your kids don’t notice. You are their role model.

Posted 06 July 2007 † Nick Dalton § General ‡ Comments (0)