Business Action Steps

My most recent computer security certification attempt is now behind me, and I am finally able to spend some time working on my business.

I worked on a web site today that I need for some CPA (Cost Per Action) training that I am taking. It looks pretty nice (no link yet, sorry…).

I’m also working hard on my Turbo Membership stuff and need to make time to upgrade my Fantasos install to Delavo.

Finally, I’m selling one vehicle this week (making the transfer tomorrow) and need to drive from Stuttgart to Mannheim tomorrow to do it — then find a way back to Stuttgart… Plus I’m purchasing a new vehicle and need to drop off paperwork in a few different places, plus make arrangements to pay for it.

Busy week — but I finally made progress again today. Hope you did, too!

I just posted on my other blog about the current status of Delavo and a special offer for Turbo Membership. Rather than re-post the same thing here, I encourage you to click on that link and read about the special deal you can get on Turbo Membership for the next seven days — or until all membership slots are sold.

And while the Turbo Membership “special” sales letter has replaced the squeeze page where you can sign up to get a free copy of Delavo, it’s not too late. Simply follow the instructions on that other blog post before 9:00 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 19 and you can still get a free copy of Delavo, John Delavera’s new eCommerce solution. As one of John’s “Online Angels”, I know how to still get you in — and my other blog post will tell you all about it.

And be sure to check out the special bonus I’m offering if you join Turbo Membership this week — or simply accept a free copy of Delavo (and why wouldn’t you want one?).

Again, that link: http://tombrownsword.com/news/391/delavo-is-released-almostdelavo-is-released-almost/.

I’d like to take a few moments today to talk about the system that is going to run my business. What you see on this website (as well as any other website I own) is only the “tip”. Most of what makes my business successful is hidden, behind the scenes.

Let me start by discussing a few absolute requirements that I have for my “behind the scenes” system:

• Centralized. I’ve wasted far too much time trying to integrate various bits and pieces of stuff from different sources, then trying to get it to work together. Affiliate programs. Download protection. Customer lists. Payment processor integration. You need it all — but if you buy it “piecemeal”, just try to make it all work together.
• Support. I’m running a professional business, and when I have a problem, I don’t want to take the time to sort it out myself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve purchased those “bits and pieces” and run into problems, only to find out that the creator of the script has disappeared because they didn’t figure on having to support the thing after they sold it on the Warrior Forum for ten bucks. I’ll gladly pay a few dollars to get the support I need — and so should you.
• Expandable. If I need to do something that the script won’t do, it should be easy to either write — or have written — an extra module that will add the functionality I need. The last thing I want to do is to have to ditch my current system and go with something new simply because my current system won’t do some simple task. And this ability to “snap in” a new module isn’t as easy as it may look because the creator of the system has to design it to allow for this expandability. But regardless of how difficult it is to allow for this, I demand it.
• Security. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I’m a certified computer security professional. Security matters to me, and anything I recommend to my customers had better be as secure as possible. Yet how many scripts out there don’t even bother to sanitize input before it’s passed to the database (the most common reason for SQL injection attacks — and sanitizing input is a simple way to prevent this huge problem). I want a system that has good programmers who think about stuff like this. And if there is a security problem, I want to be able to “reach out and touch” the owner so that it gets fixed FAST (this goes back to Support). Oh, and don’t forget about the simple stuff… Like securing your downloads from product thieves…
• Easy to learn. OK, I don’t expect a robust system that’s going to do it all for me to be easy. I don’t expect to have it up and running within 10 minutes. I know that there’s going to be a learning curve, but I’m willing to invest some time in learning a good system that’s going to meet my other needs. However, there needs to be good training materials available: ebooks, videos, and the ability to ask questions.
• Friendly customer interface. It has to be nice to my customers. It has to “remember” them so that repeat customers don’t have to enter their ordering details every time they want to order something from my site. It has to make life easier for them (and me).
• An owner who cares about his customers. This is probably the most important “feature” of my system. I want the system backed by a person who cares about their customers. Even better, I’d like to see the owner of the script actually use the thing himself!

On May 17, 2009, that system is going to be released. For exactly seven days, you can get the script at no cost. And I will be offering a bonus package.

Yes, there will be some expenses involved if you are willing to invest in your business (and I’ll be brutally honest here; if you AREN’T willing to invest a bit of money in your business for quality software and support, then you aren’t really in business or simply love problems and abuse). Support probably won’t be free, and I do recommend that you get support. Additional functions (called “plug-ins”) also won’t be free, but by purchasing available plug-ins, you’ll be able to affordably customize the script so that it does exactly what you want it to do. But you will be able to get the basics of this powerful script at no cost — but only for 7 days, starting May 17.

Click here to find out more about this system. There are videos available there that explain it far better than I ever could. Please take the time to watch them all; the few minutes you invest in watching the videos will convince you that this is THE system that can make a huge difference in your business, as well as mine.

Oh, and the person behind it? The person who pushed me over the edge and convinced me that this is THE script that is going to meet — and exceed — all of my extremely stringent requirements?

None other than John Delavera. John has proven to me that he and his products can be relied on. He’s going to be here tomorrow, next week, next year, etc. And I not only trust him to deliver; I trust him enough to recommend that YOU click here to get on the announcement list for Delavo.

And remember: I will be making an extra bonus available. Check back here to learn more and to find out how to claim it. But for now, just sign up for the Delavo announcement list. My bonus isn’t as important as that!

But for now, the choice is yours. Do you want to continue the way you’ve been going — or are you ready to let John Delavera help take your business to the next level? The choice is yours; choose wisely (as I already have).

I just finished the final formatting for the ebook. It’s 36 pages at the moment (12 pitch font). Lots of work for one week (at least for me).

I’m printing it out and will give it a final proofread. Tomorrow morning I’ll email a copy to some former mastermind partners, finish the sales letter, set up the download area and the autoresponder, and put it on Clickbank.

Is it done? I don’t think so. Is it perfect? Far from it. But remember: The objectives were to:

• Get something out there to sell.
• Get some practice at writing short reports and sales copy.
• Fail fast (and don’t waste a lot of time doing so) or succeed fast!

Mission almost accomplished.

Oh, today’s distraction: My little girl (she turns 3 in about two months), who is always healthy as a horse, got sick last night and kept me up for a couple of hours. Bless my wife, she stayed up most of the night with her until little girl was finally able to go back to sleep.

By the way, my wife is a living saint. She does stuff like that all the time so I can focus on work and on making this business work. I get fantastic support from her — and I’m well aware that support like that is not the norm amongst people who are still working their online business up to a full time income.

Almost midnight; time to get a bit of sleep.

Just when you thought that you had seen it all…

I resolved a major obstacle on the path to getting my ebook completed by Sunday. And I mean a MAJOR obstacle. Basically, the whole thesis behind the thing was about to come tumbling down like a house of cards in a hurricane. When I went to bed last night, I was 110% STUCK and had no idea how to dig myself out of the hole I was in. It literally looked as if the entire project was going to crash and burn.

I had the whole problem resolved shortly after I woke up this morning and simply continued writing. Hey, Life Happens.

And speaking of happening…

I was madly pecking away at the keyboard, happy to be past the hardest parts of the ebook, when the phone rang. A friend whom we had not seen in about 10 years was only 100 kilometers from us and he was wondering if he could stop by and spend the night?

Well, what do you say? “Sorry, Friend, but I simply have to get this ebook out by Sunday or a professional sarcaster-er might rip me to shreds because I was silly enough to take him up on a challenge”?

Nah, that wouldn’t work, so we are renewing an old friendship while the finishing touches of Chapter 7 await. Five chapters await after that (although four of them have already been at least partially written). Then I need to format and produce the ebook, set up the download area, finish (and format) the sales letter, set up the product to sell on Clickbank, wait for two important pieces of software to get back to me so I can include them as bonuses with the product…

And so it goes. Nothing is going according to plan. And I promised my wife that I would take her to the mall tomorrow (she does not drive) and my son wants to buy some games for his brand-new Nintendo DSi (just released in the States!). That should take the better part of the day, leaving me with just a few hours to do about two days worth of work. And let’s not even talk about graphics, shall we (not!)?

And yes, I think I’ll meet my goal. So there.

Yes, it rained today. I also spent more time in my basement office, furiously hacking away at my computer’s keyboard. In fact, I’m still at it; I’m just taking a quick email break before getting back to work.

And “UGH!” is a small word to describe how I feel about now. My head hurts, I can’t see straight from looking at the computer for so long, I want to get out of here and take a walk…

And FINALLY, I’m starting to understand what it’s going to take to actually launch a decent product. Here are a few observations:

• When I sit down at the computer, I know exactly what I want (or need) to do.
• Because I know what I need to do, I don’t waste time. I sit down and do it.
• Having a deadline is keeping me focused.

So ignoring the physical discomfort, I feel great, knowing that this little exercise, complete with self-imposed deadlines and stress, is doing wonders for me.

Right now, my ebook as 6,101 words, 367 lines, and 29,336 characters without spaces (36,014 if you count spaces). And I’m only about halfway done. That’s 6,101 words closer to my goal, and 6,101 words that did not exist this time last week.

Action. Action. ACTION. It feels good, even if my head is spinning…

It’s going to rain tomorrow (or so says the weather website; as if they could ever predict the weather here in Stuttgart!). Today, however, was warm and sunny, and after work I went to the playground and spent some time playing with the kids. I then came home, fixed a bowl of soup, and proceeded to feed it to my almost three year old daughter (who needed the “Daddy Time” more than she needed the soup).

I do not want to write this evening, but I am seated at my computer, I have a rough draft of my Marlon Challenge product sitting in front of me, and I’m about to dig back into it.

Yeah, I want the freedom, but do I really have to work this hard? Of course, the answer is “yes”.

I wrote this so that I can go back and read it when I feel like doing something else. If this product does sell a few copies and is a success, then I’ll look back at this post, remember, and get back to work on more products. Some day I’ll be able to work on products instead of going to work, but that day will never come if I don’t start writing.

See you later…

OK, I opened my big mouth one too many times. Sort of. This time, however, I didn’t say a single word; I simply started typing.

And here’s what came out.

Yeah. I’d better have a product ready by Sunday or the “shtuff” is going to hit the proverbial fan.

My comment is #2 on Marlon’s blog. You’ll notice a link there. It will be a redirect link. I have until Sunday to actually get the thing working or Marlon Sanders has my permission to basically make an example out of me.

Now if you know Marlon, you know that he’s a great guy. He also has a wicked sense of humor. I actually saw him upstage professional actors at a dinner party in 2006. Unrehearsed. So I’m not about to let him turn that sharp wit and scathing sense of humor loose on me.

But that’s not my main motivation (I simply put my comments on his blog post to further motivate me). I know that getting this done represents an opportunity for me in so many ways. I’m confident that I’ll get a couple of clicks from Marlon’s blog and that I’ll make a few dollars from the product — a product that anybody who sells a digital product needs because I’m going to show you some ways to stop digital product thieves from finding your products. And it’s going to help get me into “product creation mode”, something I sorely need to be doing.

I’ve been visiting some underground forums where your digital products are swapped, and to be quite honest, those people don’t want to buy your product; they just want to give it away and swap it (at least that’s my opinion; I’m also aware that all it would take is for one miscreant to buy your product and post it…). I’m going to tell you some good ways to protect your digital downloads. Yeah, it’s going to be a bit inconvenient and require a little W-O-R-K, but if you have a $47 product and you make even one extra sale a week from implementing these techniques, is it worth the $188 a month to you? I wouldn’t say “no” to that!

So here’s the deal: There will be a product for sale at the link in that blog post by Sunday, April 19 (I read Marlon’s post last Sunday and gave myself seven days). Of course, as always, I’ll keep my promise and offer that product to my mailing list subscribers at a substantially reduced price for a short period of time before the official release.

But since I’m on an extremely tight time schedule, it really is going to be a VERY SHORT period of time — probably just a few hours. I can guarantee you that it will be done by midnight on Saturday (US Eastern Time).

So go ahead. Read that blog post. Print it out (I did). Study it. Mark it up. It contains a formula for creating a quick product. Is it going to be perfect? Probably not, but it will be closer to “perfect” than the product you never created.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Read Marlon’s blog post and consider doing what it says. Heck, if his post and this post gets you to take action and you create a product by this time next week (we’ll say by Midnight, East Coast Time, next Tuesday), I’ll buy a copy. If it’s good and if you do everything Marlon’s post says that you need to do (in other words, if it has an affiliate program), I’ll promote it on this blog and in my newsletter.

2. Sign up for my mailing list (see the sign-up box at the top right of the main blog page. If you don’t see the sign up box, click on the banner at the top of any blog page to get there). Watch for an email, probably some time late Friday or early Saturday, to learn how you can pick up a copy of this new product for a few hours at a price you won’t find anywhere else.
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Two quick things:

1. First off, a “teaser” about the system. I’m going to be making the first book in the system available to list subscribers early next week, so if you’re not subscribed, make sure that you sign up for the mailing list (If you are already subscribed, I’ll email you the link). I’ve already printed out and read the book, plus the follow-on book (which you can only get if you join a particular membership site. More details on that to come).

2. I’ve changed the mailing list from a blog notification list to a newsletter list. My goal is to eventually send you a weekly newsletter that has a summary of what I’ve been up to during the past week, plus let you know about things that can help you take action and succeed with your own business. If you signed up and don’t like this, just reply to any of the emails that I send to the list. I’ll see, read, and consider your comments (please, no personal flames. Thanks.).

As the church nursery worker said to her co-worker, change is inevitable (or was it “We shall not all sleep; we shall all be changed”?)…

As I write this, this is the only post on this blog that is not password protected.

Why? Because I’ve been duped long enough:

• I first started this blog to track my progress in a certain coaching program. Turns out that the “coach” was only interested in belittling and insulting me. He may have been successful and might have taught me what I needed to know, but I had enough of blind obedience in my Army days.
• I then “flitted” from project to project, never doing enough to really get anywhere on them.
• Truth be told, I never truly believed that any of them would succeed.

But somebody just challenged me to make my business successful.

Game on, Dennis!

So the old posts are… Well, not gone, but no longer visible. They are all password protected — every last one. If you want access, leave a comment and I’ll tell you where you can wire your $1,000,000 — the access fee…

I’ve also switched my autoresponder company, so if you are signed up for my list, please do so again. Thanks in advance, and I apologize for the inconvenience. I do recommend that you sign up because many of the posts on this blog will be password protected, and only subscribers will have the password to open those posts (nobody gets the passwords to the older posts; I’m talking about password protected posts that I make in the future).

One last word: I am going to be implementing a system that:

• Was created by a successful online marketer.
• Is used by that marketer.
• The marketer wants to duplicate his success and thinks that he can bring out the same success in me.

I’m up to it. More details in the days to come.

I’m also going to be working on another project at the same time. Armed with only $25 and knowing where I can get information, I’m going to try to start earning $200 a month. That will be more than enough to implement the system I’m going to be documenting on this blog.

If you want to “play along at home” (and you are certainly welcome to do so, although I have no idea if you’ll make any money; please see my Legal Page for my Earnings Disclaimer), please do so. If you don’t have any business income right now, don’t worry; I’ll link to the other project shortly — the one where I’m going to try to turn $25 into a $200 a month income (income that will give you more than enough to implement the project I’ll be documenting on this blog).