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We’re all familiar with the “reviews” that are actually sales material in disguise. That’s not what we’re talking about here. If you want to write legitimate, believable reviews that attract search engine attention, increase traffic and build your reputation as an influencer and thought leader, here’s how to do it – complete with a template you can use today…

1. Realize you’re going to be spending some time on this. Commit to using the product yourself and writing a bare minimum of 1,000 words.

2. Choose the product. It should be something you want and you can use, while also being of interest to your readers.

3. Know your audience. What are they most interested in? What are their goals? Keep them in mind during the entire process because you’re doing this review for them.

4. Be unbiased and objective. Don’t bring preconceived notions to your review. Start with an open mind, looking for all of the positives and all of the negatives. Remember, your reputation is on the line so be honest.

5. Use the product. Some reviewers try to get away without using the product, and it always shows in their reviews. Don’t fake it – use it.

As you’re going through or using the product, keep these questions in front of you:

– What does the product do?
– How is the product different from similar products?
– How difficult or easy is it to use this product?
– What makes this product worth the purchase?
– What’s wrong with or missing from the product?
– Who is this product intended for?
– Where can this product be purchased?

6. Take notes as you’re using it. You won’t remember everything later when you go to write your review. Plus your notes will make the writing process much faster.

7. Don’t rely on PR and marketing material. Yes, you can use their photos. But write your own review from scratch.

8. List the good and the bad. You might make a Ben Franklin style list, placing the pros on the left side of the page and the cons on the right. Remember, even if you are acting as an affiliate for the product, your review will be much more believable when you also list the cons. And your reputation will remain intact for future promotions, too.

9. If it’s relevant, include technical information. Just ask yourself – would your readers want to know this?

10. Provide examples of the product’s use. You could write about different situations it might be used in, different outcomes it could facilitate and so forth. If you put the product to use yourself, write about your experience and the results you achieved.

11. If you’re selling the product as an affiliate, be sure to disclose that fact.

Product Review Template:

Writing a professional looking review isn’t difficult when you follow this simple outline…

> Introduce the product and write something interesting about it
> List the key product features
> Talk about the benefits of using the product
> If relevant, include information on the author as well as author case studies
> Discuss the good and the bad; pros and cons
> Explain who would best be served by the product
> Include pricing and purchase information

Unbiased, honest, in-depth reviews aren’t the fastest posts to write because of the research and testing needed. But placing your readers’ interests ahead of your own can help you build a solid reputation as an industry leader.

And in the long run your readers will love you for it, trust you because of it and be more likely to buy your highest recommendations.

Social media can be a great place to build your audience and your list. The trick, of course, is to be seen. Here’s how to make that happen…

Get in the game.

If you’re not posting, then you’re invisible. Increase your social media activity and your followers will grow.

To do this: Choose a posting schedule and stick to it. For example, 5 times a day on Twitter, 3 on Facebook and 3 on LinkedIn. Use a content curation app to schedule your posts. And know your audience so you can give them what they want.

Join the right communities.

From a business standpoint, communities are where the valuable conversations take place. Find your communities and join those groups to discuss your niche.

Don’t promote yourself or your products the moment you join. Instead, participate in the discussions and mention your product only when it’s the answer to someone’s question. Your goal here is to build relationships with your targeted audience.

Use great eye candy.

You already know that visuals attract eyeballs and make your content more shareable. No doubt you’re already using a visual on every post. But is your visual pulling its weight?

Instead of grabbing the first picture you see, think about what you want your visual to convey. What emotion should it evoke? Should it be playful? Happy? Heart-wrenching? Silly? Hopeful? Celebratory? If you’re not sure, think about your message.

Then choose something that really sings. HINT: You can’t go wrong with pictures of people’s faces – we’re wired to look at others.

Build your own advocacy group.

Studies show that social media advocates increase the credibility of your messages. It’s a form of social proof when other people Tweet your latest blog post or post a link to your latest podcast. Not to mention the extended reach of your advocates.

And did you know your message is more likely to go viral if others are promoting it rather than you? It just makes sense. So start building your own team of people who post for you. They could be happy customers, vendors, virtual assistants and so forth.

You might even have a reciprocal agreement with other marketers to promote each other’s content.

There you have it… 4 reliable ways to take your social media marketing to the next level. Post more often, join the right communities, make the very most of your photos and build your advocacy groups.

Write these down and choose one to do this week, one next week and so forth, until all four are an integral part of your social media marketing efforts.

Yes, you can work like a horse, make all kinds of big plans, stay up late and get up early. But if your head isn’t in the right place, you’ll never get ahead. It’s really that simple.

A second job? Forget about it. Unless that second job is digging gold bricks out of the ground, you’ll never get ahead. Lack of sleep, lack of a life, an abundance of stress, poor eating – the last thing you need is a second job.

And you know it. It’s why you’ve got your own online business or you’re starting one. So is mindset even important? Shouldn’t you be concentrating exclusively on the mechanics of your business?

The fact is this: Without the proper mindset, the mechanics really won’t amount to much. If you don’t believe you can do something then the odds of you actually accomplishing it are slim. And if you do momentarily succeed, your own self-sabotage will reverse that victory in a hurry.

Here then are 5 money mindset hacks you MUST have to permanently increase your income in a dramatic, gratifying fashion:

Believe in yourself and your abilities.

To say this is key is an understatement. If you don’t believe in yourself, you will actively find ways to fail, whether you realize you’re doing it or not.

We all deal with being vulnerable, feeling uncertain and fearing failure. But you’ve got to trust that by moving forward despite these feelings, you’ll figure it out. It’s a matter of stacking small victories one on top of the other. Each victory should give you some small boost in confidence that you can use to earn the next victory, and so forth.

This is why having a big hairy goal often doesn’t work – you don’t believe you can accomplish it because you’ve never done anything like it before. But if you break that big hairy goal down into tiny simple goals, and then accomplish them one by one, soon you will believe that yes, you truly can do anything you set your mind to.

Lose your money blocks.

If you’re perpetually short of money, you’ve likely been programmed to have a negative relationship with it. During your childhood you heard things like, “Rich people are crooks,” and “Money is the root of all evil.”

Two things you can do to lose your money blocks are…

Reprogram yourself. The subconscious believes whatever it hears over and over again. To reprogram your subconscious takes work, but it’s worth it. When you think, “I have to work hard to make money,” correct yourself with a statement such as, “It is so easy and fun to earn money.” Choose 2 or 3 positive affirmations and turn them into mantras that you say to yourself throughout your day and as you fall asleep.

Find friends who are good at making money. Connect with others who are on the same entrepreneurial path you’re on. Talking to, relating to and being around people who easily make money will help you to see it’s alright for you to make money as well.

Declutter your life.

This one is simple – if you have a lot of useless stuff lying around your office, your home and your car, you don’t have room for the abundance you’re seeking. You don’t have room to grow. Money loves speed, clarity and clear space. It hates clutter. Get rid of everything in your life that serves no purpose and organize the rest.

Be ever so grateful.

Let go of resentments. Forgive positively everybody of everything, with no exceptions. Holding resentments only hurts yourself – it doesn’t hurt the person you refuse to forgive. And be grateful for everything you have in your life, as well as those things about to come into your life.

Forgive yourself for your financial past.

The person you most need to forgive is yourself. And you might have to do it over and over again. Forgiveness is a funny thing – today you forgive yourself, tomorrow you’re berating yourself again for the less-than-wise decisions you made.

Any time you find yourself beating yourself up, forgive yourself. You did the best you could at the time. Remind yourself that the past can never be undone, and you can’t live there, either. But you do have today, so make it count.

Now, most readers will nod their heads at what they just read and forget about it. But a few – perhaps you – will take this advice to heart and begin making the changes necessary to realize your financial goals.

For you, this could be the start of a whole new financial life – one of abundance.

Rosa Parks was a woman, a relatively ordinary black passenger on a bus going into town one day in 1955. At this time, black people had to give up their seats on public transport for the white passenger; a rule that most followed to keep the peace. But not Rosa.

One day, she had had enough. Her mission was to encourage the civil rights of black people in her community and she felt that this rule was both unfair and demeaning to her cause. So when the bus driver got angry and told her to give up her seat for a white person, as was normal – she did something unheard of. She said no.

This small message to the people around her was the sparking of the Civil Rights Movement and was a key action in the future equality that stemmed from this fight.

Sometimes, in life, you have to be congruent with what you want others to see and experience. Sometimes your business name is not nearly as important as what you stand for. In fact, a well – written or explained mission statement can be the most vital part of your marketing strategy and it can change customer loyalty.

For example, the first store branded as “Trader Joe’s” opened in 1967. This Californian store, despite having a very unexciting name quintupled the number of its stores between 1990 and 2001, and multiplied its profits by ten. Trader Joe’s sales for 2009 was estimated at $8 billion.

In 2010, Fortune magazine estimated Trader Joe’s sales per square foot of floor space to be $1,750 — more than double that generated byWhole Foods Market even though technically they were much bigger with more advertising coverage. Why? Because they had a very clever mission statement that customers believed in and backed. Their statement was this:

“The mission of Trader Joe’s is to give our customers the best food and beverage values that they can find anywhere and to provide them with the information required to make informed buying decisions. We provide these with a dedication to the highest quality of customer satisfaction delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, fun, individual pride, and company spirit.”

This statement puts the customer and the customer experience central to the reason that they do business and their customer service policies back that up.

If you wish to succeed online in the same way, you must ensure that no matter how small you are or what product/service you may be selling – that you include a mission statement. One that shows the potential clients what you stand for, what you wish to achieve for them and how you plan to do so. This makes you believable, it gives you value and shows that you have ethics.

Not every online business has a mission statement. They think they don’t need one. They focus all their energy on branding, naming and selling their products and forget that being personal and driven in a very transparent way can absolutely double or triple your profits.

If you are one of these brands that have not yet developed a mission statement – I suggest you get working on one. It is also good to help you understand where you are at and where you want to go. Research some of the most effective mission statements and see what the biggest companies are portraying on their websites and through their ad campaigns to generate inspiration for your own mission.

People like to buy from genuine businesses who know and are congruent with what they are doing. It makes you unique to your message and shows people that you are not all about making money – you have some aims and objectives too that are very important and should be known.

If one black woman on a bus can spark an entire change in the world, who’s to say that your well designed mission statement won’t change the face of how you do business and how important you become to the customer?

Two words: Recurring Payments

If you’re like many online marketers, you might think the key to success is having a huge list of subscribers and tons of customers. And of course, both of these things are good…

But if each customer only buys from you one time, then much of your time, energy and resources will be spent on forever finding and selling new customers.

If, however, you can increase how often each customer buys from you, then you can make more sales while doing far less prospecting.

For example, imagine if each customer buys from you 6 or 8 times instead of once. And imagine if you only have to sell them once for this to happen…

… you can begin to see the power of subscription payments.

And it gets even better…

– Because your average customer value is higher, you can actually afford to ‘buy’ new customers through targeted and tested ad campaigns. This literally takes the ceiling off of your income.

– People who buy from you on a subscription basis are much more likely to buy other products from you as well.

– You can spend far less time hunting for new customers, and more time cultivating the customers you already have.

– You continue to get paid until the customer does something to stop these payments. It takes effort on their part to overcome their own inertia and figure out how to unsubscribe. Often it’s easier for them to put it off, sometimes for months and even years.

– If the service or product you’re selling brings a tremendous amount of value, they’re not going to want to cancel. Ever.

– You have an excellent idea from month to month of what your income will be. You’ve got financial stability. You can plan ahead.

Continuity products can be clubs, memberships, subscriptions, software and so forth. It’s a product or service that the customer subscribes to, usually on a monthly basis.

As an affiliate, you receive a percentage of the sale each month as the customer renews. As a continuity product owner, you receive payments as long as the customer stays subscribed. You receive full payments if you made the initial sale and partial payments if your affiliate made the initial sale.

Some of the best continuity programs for affiliates involve a service or subscription that is a valuable part of the customer’s business. For example, if someone is making money with their list, they’re not going to give up their autoresponder. Some marketers make ongoing 4 and 5 figure payments each month from just one of these continuity programs, such as Aweber.

Other marketers start their own continuity program and find financial security within months and sometimes even just weeks.

A huge weight is taken off your shoulders when you KNOW that next month “X” number of dollars will be coming in, even if you don’t sell anything new. And you can use that money not only to live on, but also to reinvest into your business such as advertising to drive more customers onto your lists, where you guide them into more continuity in your quest to help them and accelerate your early retirement.

This is super easy and can be done by most anyone trying to get into the Internet marketing arena. In fact, I know people who make $5,000 and more (sometimes a lot more) just about every time they do this.

Your results, of course, may vary.

Here’s what you do…

Find a good WordPress plugin with PLR rights. It needs to come with a license that allows you to make any changes you want to it, along with the source code. You’ll find lots of these in PLR membership sites.

Google the plugin and find out what bugs it has (if any.) People will tend to complain on forums about plugin problems, so this should be easy to research. Make note of any bugs.

Now get creative. Look at your plugin and ask yourself what change or addition you could make that would improve the plugin. It just needs to be one thing that truly makes it your own unique plugin.

And it needs to be something buyers will appreciate having.

Once you have this, go to Upwork and get a quote for what it will cost to make the change to the plugin, as well as fix any issue it has. $300 or so is fairly typical unless there is a major issue.

If it’s not super expensive, get the work done. If it is super expensive, go get another plugin and start over.

Tell your coder to also rename the plugin to the name of your choosing.

Pay for a professional looking e-cover and register a domain name.

Write your sales copy and put your new plugin on Warrior Special Offers or JVZoo.

Plugins tend to sell really well. Gather the names of all of your buyers and let them know you’ll alert them when your next plugin comes out.

Rinse and repeat.

Yes, it really is this easy. Your first time you might have a few questions and challenges to work through. Like anything else, there is a learning curve. But this is one of the fastest ways you can start making serious money online very quickly, and if you take action now you could be pulling in your very first WordPress plugin profits within the next few weeks!

No matter how much it makes you cringe, here’s something you must do on a regular basis. It’s vital that you know exactly what you are putting your customers through. What looks like a perfect sales funnel on your end could indeed be a house of horrors from the customers’ point of view.

That’s why you want to pretend to be your own customer. Go to your sales page, click the buy link and proceed all the way through.

Sure, you were quick to add lots of upsells, down-sells, cross-sells, recommended products and so forth. But what is it like from the customer’s point of view?

Does it take an eternity to get through to the download link?

Does every link go where it should?

Do your customers arrive at your download page only to find the recommended product is totally unrelated, no longer available or even the product they just bought?

Does the opt-in form obliterate the download links?

Do links to other marketer’s products on the recommended section lead where they should go? Or are they going to dead pages? Or worse yet, has that marketer changed the page to a squeeze page so he can steal your buyers?

Do the download links work properly?

And what about the wording on each page – are you noticing mistakes that are costing you money?

Going through this process can be painful but also highly profitable. You’ll find your mistakes and be able to correct them before another customer has to go through this maze.

This process is worth your time because your customers deserve the very best experience possible.

What I’m about to say goes against almost every self-help book out there. It goes against what you’ve been told time and time again. It might even go against your moral code…

Then again, if you want to be rich, you might want to consider where your ‘moral code’ came from. The advice everyone loves to trot out and display to anyone who will listen is, “Do what you love, the money will follow.”

Hmmm…

What if you love writing poetry? Or gardening? Or making baskets? What if you love crochet? Or cats? Or hiking? Yes, you can make money in all of these niches.

But… how much?

Making money and getting rich are two entirely different things.

Making money is getting the bills paid and maybe being able to scrimp enough together to take an annual vacation.

Getting rich is, well, getting RICH. Whatever that means to you – a 6 figure income, 7 figures in the bank, 8 figures in investments and real estate – you decide.

But guaranteed, you’re not going to attain any of those levels of wealth if you’re focused on the crochet niche.

(Do you even know what crochet is? It’s taking a hook and some yarn and making an sweater, scarf, etc. Enjoyable and relaxing, yes. Profitable, NO.)

Okay, so if the key to getting rich is to follow the money and not the passion, what exactly does that mean? It means you go where the money is. You find something that is highly profitable and focus on making those profits.

You don’t strive to be the best blogger or the best website builder or the best social media maven. You focus solely on where the money is and you do whatever it takes to make that money. (Staying 100% legal.)

We’re talking about a mind shift here – a different way of viewing your business.

If your focus is to be the best life coach, then you are a coach. But if your focus is to have the most profitable coaching business possible, then you are an entrepreneur. And as an entrepreneur, you’re going to quickly realize you need to hire others to be the coaches while you find the clients. Then you’ll put systems in place to get the clients while you focus on scaling, and so forth.

Notice that you are not a coach, you’re an entrepreneur. You’re not working IN your business, you’re working ON your business. I know this difference might seem slight to the uninitiated. But if you look at anyone who has built a business to 7 figures or more, you will see that they set aside passions and followed the money.

They’re not experts at the products and services their business delivers. They hire or outsource experts for that. They are experts at making their businesses big and profitable. That’s entrepreneurship.

And what about those who go even further, building one successful business after another? They’re focused on something even beyond money.

Walter White, from the television show Breaking Bad, sums it up like this when talking to his partner Jessie…

“You asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business. Neither. I’m in the empire business.”

But that’s a step beyond.

For right now, if you want to become rich, focus on where the money is and how best to deliver the stellar products or services that will bring that money to you by the truckloads.

And by the way, if you’re really, really passionate about crochet, or poetry, or gardening… you can do as much of it as you want once you build your wealth building business (or empire) and then sell it for megabucks.

One of the things we hear all the time is that we need to ‘avoid shiny object syndrome’ and focus on what we’re doing. And they’re absolutely right. Nothing beats focus and work for getting something done. That said, I’m going to make a case for the fad bandwagon – but not the case you might expect.

First, what do I mean by a fad or trend?

Simple – every time a new social media platform becomes popular, or a new marketing technique is the latest rage, it becomes a marketing fad. Everybody is talking about it. Some people are doing it. And a few people are profiting from it like crazy. These are the marketers who are creating and selling the products to feed the ‘fad frenzy.’ And they are making a killing.

The fact is, you can do the same if you choose to, without sacrificing your focus on your main objectives. Here’s how:

Keep an eye out for the next up and coming trend. When you see it, decide if you want to try it. Not in a super-serious, set-everything-else-aside way, but simply as something you do for fun to see if it works. If it interests you, then play around with it. See if you can make it work, and if so, how well.

Frankly just about every one of the latest greatest marketing techniques does indeed work. It’s just a question of do they offer a high enough return for the time and effort involved. If you’re short on time, outsource the experiment and have someone do it for you. Keep close tabs on the steps involved and the results achieved.

If you have success, record it on video or write it up in a pdf with screenshots. And sell it as a product.

That’s right – I’m going to tell you what a lot of big marketers already know but frankly don’t talk about – give the people what they want.

These products on the latest greatest marketing techniques sell like hotcakes. For example, a while ago there was hardly a TikTok marketing course to be seen. Now they’re everywhere. And the people who produced these courses are making bank.

Now to be clear: Do not offer something that you haven’t proven works. This is not a method to scam people – this is a method to give them what they want. If the technique doesn’t do what it says it will do, don’t make the product. Be 100% honest. And have fun.

Experimenting with new marketing techniques can be a blast. And now and then you’ll run across a new system or technique that you want to add to your own marketing arsenal on a permanent basis. Think of this testing of marketing techniques as a hobby that can pay off handsomely.

It’s a win-win-win because:

– You make a new product with proven results that sells like hotcakes.

– Customers get to buy exactly what they want, and you can feel good about selling it to them because you KNOW for a fact it works (you tried it!).

– And sometimes you learn a very valuable new skill for your own business.

So yes, if you’re interested and if it won’t interfere with your main business, by all means jump on the next new shiny object and see where it takes you!

A lot of people think that to be a coach or consultant, you must have built a few million dollar businesses and have a ton of experience under your belt. Not true.

To sell coaching services, you have to be really good at ONE thing. Just one.

It’s up to you what that one thing is.

Maybe you have a unique traffic system. Or you’re really good at guest blog posting. Or you can make videos that set people’s hair on fire.

Whatever your one thing is, if you’re good at it, there are people out there that want you to show them what you know. And they don’t just want a 20 page pdf or even a set of videos.

They want one-on-one HELP.

And that’s where you come in.

True, in the beginning you might charge lower prices for your coaching.

But as soon as you can show you get results not just for yourself, but also for others, it’s time to raise your fees.

And don’t even let anyone tell you that you can’t coach. Don’t even let you tell you that.

People need your help. It’s selfish not to offer it.

It is a win/win for both you and your new clients to get them off to a fast start. Leverage your knowledge to help others, grow your business and create a new income stream through coaching.