May 21, 2007

What's going on with you and money right now?

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Hi Friends,

Are you in debt, struggling to make ends meet and fed up
with not having enough money?

Are you doing OK financially but want to do much better?

Are you doing well financially but the "price" you've been
paying for your success (stress, anxiety, health issues,
relationship strain, no time, disillusionment, etc.) is too
high?

Have you reached out for books, tapes, seminars or coaching
(including law of attaction stuff) specifically to improve
your finances, lifestyle and quality of life, but nothing
seems to work for you?

If you answered "Yes!" to any of the above questions, I have
some exciting news for you. Robert Scheinfeld just
created a new resource that has the power to radically
transform your relationship with money — in ways that have
never been possible before.

I'm not talking about investing, marketing, the Internet,
network marketing, business building, real estate,
stock trading or some new technique or strategy for
increasing your productivity or efficiency.

I'm talking about a revolutionary breakthrough. Something
you've never seen or heard before. I'm very excited about
this breakthrough that I had to reach out and tell you about it
right away.

http://www.thestorybehindthesecret.com/moneygame.htm

Let me explain …

For 12+ years, Robert Scheinfeld has been teaching people
how to tap unusual "sources of sources" to create success
and prosperity in their lives. You've probably heard of his
best-selling Invisible Path to Success and 11th Element
work. Maybe you already own one or more of his courses or
books.

Robert is very proud of his earlier work which has profoundly
touched the lives of tens of thousands of people in more
than 190 countries.

However, as he continued his own personal journey, he
discovered that while the Systems he developed and taught
made him infinitely better at playing what he calls "The
Money Game" — and enabled him to amass his own fortune
(then lose it and build it up again) — playing The Money
Game was still extremely stressful, his prosperity was still
"fragile" and  vulnerable to severe ups and downs

He noticed it wasn't just him either. The same thing was
true for virtually everyone, no matter how much money they
have.

That wasn't OK with him!

        Further Down "The Rabbit Hole" …

Robert ultimately realized there were additional pieces to the
wealth and prosperity puzzle he hadn't yet found. To use a
popular phrase from Alice In Wonderland and the movie "The
Matrix," he realized he could go even deeper down "the
rabbit hole."

What he discovered through his own experiences (of making
money, crashing and burning and "being rich"), and through
his relationships with hundreds of other extremely wealthy
people (including some of the wealthiest in the world), is
that The Money Game is a game you can't win  — if you play
according to the rules, regulations and structures you're
taught growing up.

Robert discovered it doesn't work to simply play The Money
Game better and pile up more and more money, which is what
most people want tio learn and all the experts teach. You've
got to actually bust loose from the old rules of The Money
Game entirely and start playing a new game with a new set of
rules that work for YOU.

Robert discovered how to do that, how to bust loose from The
Money Game and has been quietly showing others how to do it
for the last year and a half.

He taught this concept to Chris Attwood and many others, whose
lives have never been the same since - this is POWERFUL
STUFF!

Now he's prepared to show you how to do it too through a
brand new resource he just completed and released called …

"Busting Loose From The Money Game Home Transformational
System"

In that resource, he reveals his "Busting Loose Process"
and how to harness it to make money a total non-issue in
your life.

Once you bust loose, there's no more worrying about bills or
the balance in your checkbook. No more asking "Can I afford
that?" Or "Should I buy that?"

No more worrying about your assets and liabilities, personal
income, savings, debt, profits, retirement or taxes.

No more working your butt off to "make ends meet" or carve
out a little pleasure or luxury in your life. No more of the
complexity, worry and stress that come from trying to
intelligently manage, grow and protect whatever amount of
money you've been able to pile up.

In short …

        No limits or restrictions of any kind
               as it relates to money!

We're talking about major "outside the box" thinking and
living here. Sound unbelievable? I assure you, it's very
real and absolutely doable - if you know how, which Robert
can show you.

I don't care what you think you know about money, wealth,
prosperity and abundance, or how many books, tapes or
seminars you've experienced on those topics. Robert's System
is major renegade stuff and I guarantee you've never
experienced anything like it before.

            A Guided Tour Opens The Door
                   To The Secrets …

Robert has prepared a special multimedia Guided Tour of the
Busting Loose Process for you. To take that Guided Tour,
and I strongly urge you to take it, just click on the
following link:

http://www.thestorybehindthesecret.com/moneygame.htm

It will be well worth your time.

Angela

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January 17, 2008

Building A Successful Online Business Takes Only 4 Essential Keys

The 4 ESSENTIAL Keys to Building an Internet Business:


1. You need to build a list

2. You need to have a backend and multiple front-ends

3. You need to be working with at least one other individual (partner), or in a team

4. You need to build a business with continuity income.


You need to begin with the end in mind and build your business based on the basic principles of marketing that have been around for hundreds of years.

So, how are the gurus making big, big money online. How are they constantly entering new markets and extracting huge profits from them?

They're using a very consistent, tried and true model.

It's actually a very simple model that they use over and over again, and it's easy to copy.

There are no secrets when you know the model. You only think there are secrets now because you haven't been able to piece the model together yet.

So, here it is:

This model (the KEY to online wealth), consists of multiple front-ends leading to a backend, which is either a high-ticket item or a continuity program (something where someone is billed automatically each month).

This is the foundation.  Every major online success has been a result of implementing this model properly.

Look at the most successful companies in the world, and you'll see the continuity model in action:

- Credit card companies

- The phone companies (cell phone and regular)

- Gas

- The grocery store (you HAVE to eat!!!)

- Cable TV

Even certain retail stores, like Costco are member-based. Costco charges an annual memembership fee to even allow you to shop at their store!

Of course, they can do this because of the way they've presented their product offering: buy in bulk and save.

It's no accident that these companies lock you into a subscription, and sometimes even a contract where you HAVE to pay them for a certain length of time.

Successful marketers often use a technique called forced continuity. This is where in order to buy something, someone absolutely MUST join the continuity program. The brilliant part is that the continuity program is positioned as a bonus, and on top of that the first month is free.

So, conversions on this are very, very high. And, once you have someone in your continuity program, there is a good chance they'll stay for awhile — possibly for years.

Watch the progression:

1. Customer comes in though a $30 front-end (ebook, cd, etc)

2. Customer is funneled into an email list where they are hit multiple times over the next few weeks (or even months) with autoresponders.

3. Customer is upsold into a $49/month continuity program.

4. From within the continuity program, customer is upsold to a $1000 home-training course.

5. From there, customers are upsold into a $7000 mentoring program including personal coach and teleseminars, plus other tools and bonuses.

If you didn't catch what I just wrote, read it again.

This is how the big names are making BIG BUCKS online. There are also many, many people who you've never heard of who are making insane amounts of money using this model.

Ever heard of Agora Publishing? Their model is based on continuity - they are one of the largest newsletter publishers in the world. At this point, they're bringing in $1,000,000+ per day using the model I described to you above.

With that said, let's take each of the bullet points I listed further up the page and break them down.

I want to tell you exactly what you need to do starting today.

- List Building

Building a list (with either email addresses and/or snail mail), is CRUCIAL if you want to succeed online.

If you don't do it, you will probably never reach your income goals, much less your income potential.

Start building a list now, in whatever niche is most appealing to you.

Now, once you have that list, keep in touch with your subscribers. Send them free content — build a relationship.

- You need to have a backend and multiple front-ends

This is one of the golden rules of Internet marketing.

Do you think guys are Armand Morin are making their money selling their little software scripts and eBooks? Heck no! These products are front-ends.

Armand's big backend is his BIG SEMINAR, which he holds annually. He not only charges people to be there, but he also takes a cut of whatever commerce takes place between people there. It's his seminar, so he can do it!

Remember, a backend can be a high-ticket item or a continuity program.

In this case, Armand's seminar is a high-ticket backend.

If you don't have a backend, you are seriously limiting your income. You're not following the model I've laid out for you!

Just remember, a backend is useless if you don't build your customer relationships. So, I urge you to go back again and read the 4 bullet points I've listed above.

You need to have ALL of them to make this work.

Here's a suggestion. In your everyday life — shopping at the store, taking the kids to school, etc — just pay attention to the businesses around you and ask yourself how they are utilizing the continuity model.

You're going to start seeing examples EVERYWHERE because this is a model that the rich have been using for many years. It's so freaking obvious, yet so many people miss it.

As you're observing the businesses around you, you're also going to see examples of businesses that have no backend whatsoever and you're going to wonder what the heck they are thinking.

As a final note, I want to stress that you don't need your own product to do what is described here.  Some people make it online with one affiliate site.

The model is dead simple — it's the model described above. The only difference is to use other people's products as front-ends. A successful marketer gathers email addresses, and upsells his customers to teleseminars, personal coaching, and his community subscription site.

- You need to be working with at least one other individual (partner), or in a team

I'm not going to devote too much time to this bullet point.

I just want to stress that if you're working alone right now, you're going to move much more slowly than if you find a partner who understands this model.

As entrepreneurs, we have a psychological condition where we think we know everything and can do everything better than anyone else.

This is perhaps our greatest downfall, because it is serious self-delusion.

You are going to be severely limited until you find a partner. This is a universal rule.

- You need to build a business with continuity income.

I think we've pretty much drilled this point into the ground, so I won't talk about it anymore here.

I hope that at the very least this letter has made you think.

I hope it's jolted you and caused to take a step back and really think about how you're spending your time online.

For some of you, what you're reading here will seem like nothing new.

In fact, a lot of people will say: " I already knew all that stuff…"

But the astute marketer, Frank Kern, does not seem

to think that everybody knows this.  Frank Kern wrote in his email to his list

"Listen - some idiots out there will say you don't

need a list …and if you're like me you're sick of their

B.S.  HERE'S PROOF THEY ARE LYING.

Think about this.

How many gurus do you know who don't have a list? None!!

How many big launches have you ever seen where email

marketing wasn't the NUMBER ONE method of promotion?

How many super affiliates do you know without lists?"

Please leave your comments and questions below.

Thanks, 

Angela Wickenberg

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May 14, 2008

Pause: The Most Important Word In The Dictionary

Taking a pause.  What would life be like if we never took one? 

Maddening I would say.

I had a deepened realization of this as I was Twittering this morning at twitter.com/ebizmom.  I had been feeling disoriented for the past few weeks, but especially after some minor day surgery a week ago.

"Feels like I lost footing and can't remember what I was doing"and I wrote that  "Sometimes, it's important to just breathe deeply and relax when things are cloudy and even a little 'out of order'. Letting the dust settle", and  "The most important symbol in music is the PAUSE, and pausing when speaking is THE most powerful strategy to use. And so it is with life."

As I ate my mid-morning snack, I couldn't stop thinking about the Pause and it's importance in our lives, even for all life, and how we unconsciously use the pause every day.   We would go insane without taking a pause every now and then, so in this sense, the Pause is the most important word in the dictionary, and the most important thing, the one thing we all need to learn how to purposely use in our lives. Even in software development, a breakpoint is an intentional stopping or pausing place in a program, put in place for debugging purposes, according to Wikipedia.

In my humble opinion, the Pause can be used to attain fantastic goals, like Peace of Mind, Love, Friendship, and Financial Freedom.

We take pauses every day.  But a lot of the pauses that we take are unconscious; they have become automatic.

We need to learn to take conscious pauses when we breathe, eat, play and work.

A great speaker takes pauses in strategic places to emphasize a point, and so do the greatest of salespersons.

The music that moves us the most uses pauses very effectively. 

It's called Fermata.  This word is very similar to ferment: to stir up or seethe with excitment.

We become more exciting and build expectation when we take a pause, even though the taking of the pause itself is relaxing.

We need to rest. Give ourselves a chance to release the past and heal. To become whole.

In poetry it's called Prosody; the study of poetic metre and the art of versification.

Without the Pause, there is no Beauty. There is no Music. There is no poetry.

Prosody is also the patterns of stress and intonation in a language.

To take a pause means to take a short break; a temporary stop.

Taking a pause lets the dust settle, but it also helps build momentum and excitement.

Taking a few deep breathes clears my muddled thoughts and helps me focus better. 

In this sense, the Pause is meditation.

To stop.  To reflect. To consider. To remember what's important.

To breathe.

It only takes a few moments. Just a few breathes, and we can change our lives.

Go in a new direction. Or decide to continue on a chosen path with new-found direction and purpose.

So, take a conscious Pause, and breathe.

Angela Wickenberg

 

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January 30, 2008

Thinking In Systems: Best-Kept Secrets Of The World's Best Companies

Best-kept secrets of the world's best companies
25 tricks of the trade for everything from finding great employees to sparking creativity and even knowing when to pass on a deal.
By Paul Kaihla, Business 2.0 Magazine senior writer

In that spirit, Business 2.0 magazine sent senior writer Paul Kaihla and a team of reporters on a quest to find some of the best "best practices" in business today. The companies they interviewed have stumbled upon their own unique methods for doing everything from running meetings and generating product ideas to troubleshooting M&A deals and keeping board directors on their toes.

Following are 25 ideas that are truly gems, broken down into five categories: finance, HR, management, marketing, and R&D.

They're methods that help keep some of the best-run companies, like Procter & Gamble (Research), Google (Research), Southwest Airlines (Research), Microsoft (Research), Intel (Research), and Coke (Research), at the top of their game. You've probably never heard of most of these practices — but you might want to start implementing them tomorrow. 

HEWLETT-PACKARD CEO Mark Hurd loves numbers–and insists that his managers learn to love them too. Since Hurd came onboard last March, one of the key tools he's used to keep pace with rivals is his extreme form of industry benchmarking. Instead of comparing HP's sales and profits with Dell's or IBM's, the company now tracks itself against rivals by every conceivable measure. "We want to make sure we break down every unit and business function," explains Marius Haas, senior strategy officer at HP, "so we can become best in class in each one."

Here's how it works: Imagine a matrix with various business units running down the side (printing, servers, storage, IT services, etc.) and business functions across the top (finance, HR, marketing, R&D, etc.). Now create benchmarks for each of the 72 resulting cells and you have a good idea of how Hurd is managing the $87 billion company. The benchmarks are the best guess of where HP's rivals are going to be in 2007, based on more than a dozen variables, from real estate cost per square foot to operating expenses as a percentage of gross margin.

Before Hurd took over, HP measured itself primarily against IBM, using one very blunt tool: costs as a percentage of revenues. That ignored IBM's higher gross margins and the fact that it has more gross profit to spread around. Hurd's new benchmarking method formed the basis of HP's reorganization effort announced last July, through which HP has promised to save $3 billion by 2008. Already there is key evidence of success: Operating expenses as a percentage of gross margin dropped 2 percent in 2005, helping to fatten profits by $385 million. — E.S.

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April 24, 2008

Learning what makes Facebook tick

I joined Facebook a short while ago and was invited to join a group that was studying  the

psychology of Facebook!  I thought it was going to be interesting and useful and that turned out to be very true.

A representative of the BBC wrote an article, which I am sharing here.  I'll write something a little bit later

when I have time to focus on it.  Here is my Facebook profile:  You can be my friend there, if you wish:

http://profile.to/angelawickenberg/

My Twitter profile is twitter.com/EbizMom

which I update several times a day directly from my Facebook account.

Anyway, here's the article:

 

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, in San Francisco

Facebook
Students prepare to learn the secrets of Facebook

A group of students at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley have turned their attention towards a unique course that blends popular culture with the more time-worn principles of psychology.

The Psychology of Facebook is the brainchild of Professor B J Fogg, a pioneering persuasion psychologist who founded the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford.

He says: "When Facebook came along I was one of the developers at the launch and what struck me was how there was this new form of persuasion. This mass interpersonal persuasion."

Professor Fogg says the pivotal moment came when he watched an application on the site go from "literally zero to more than a million users in a week".

He recalls that it was to do with music sharing and buying tickets and that that was when he had his "oh my gosh moment". It was quickly followed by a light bulb moment.

"Where on earth could you get a million customers in a week? That was when I said 'I want to learn more about this' and I thought the best way was to teach a class and look at how persuasion happens."

Usual coterie

It's Thursday afternoon and the sun is splitting the sky above the adobe-coloured Cordura Hall, the venue for Professor Fogg's Psychology of Facebook course. Outside there's a rag tag collection of people dodging the searing heat.

Alongside the usual coterie of students is an older crowd known simply as "visitors". These people are an assortment of entrepreneurs, angel investors, business heads and myself the only journalist.

Professor B Fogg
Facebook right now stands out from the crowd. Can they continue?
Professor B Fogg, Standford University

As we wait for the technology to click into place that allows another 700 students to tune in online, Professor Fogg declares that his goal is to help everyone to become a world class expert on the psychology of Facebook.

But this is no one trick pony according to the Professor. "What we learn here isn't just relevant to Facebook. The psychology that drives Facebook relates to other online success stories, including those blockbusters yet to be invented."

"There is something enduring about what we are studying," he declares, "whereas if you are learning how to programme a Facebook application, that then could change in 30 days from now. In fact it probably will; so that knowledge breaks."

Dissects aspect

Each week the class dissects an aspect of Facebook and looks at the way it works, the psychology behind it and what impression users are trying to convey. The gamut runs from examining status updates to news feeds and from poking to writing comments.

Today the focus is on the use of profile pictures, the photograph on the front page of every Facebook entry.

The discussion is led by Psychology Senior Richard Barton, who maintains Facebook's high strike rate in this area has to do with the default picture it puts up if you don't post your own.

"Who wants a question mark in place of their face and what questions does that raise about you? Like, why are you on Facebook? And so basically Facebook sets up an environment where your friends do the persuading to get you to post a picture."

Professor Fogg contends this is at the heart of Facebook's achievements.

"What they're tapping into are some fundamental drivers and it makes it easy to satisfy those drives. Things like the need to be socially accepted and the flip side is to not be rejected."

Class experiment

The other strand to Professor Fogg's persuasion theory has to do with motivation and outcomes, questioning why users post a certain type of picture and why they constantly change them or not.

Richard Barton, Psychology Senior
How does the Facebook 'question mark' persuade users?

To illustrate his point he conducts a class experiment asking people to write out how they want to be regarded based purely on their profile mugshot.

The findings are revealing:

"Fun, outgoing, nature loving."

"I was too lazy to rotate my picture and then I had the idea that if I left it you would think I was cool and good looking." "I'm hot."

"I want to remind my children that I was young once."

"Make people think about peace."

"Web 2.0 revolutionary and world traveller."

Professor Fogg says this random sample proves that behind even the innocent act of posting a profile picture, the psychology of persuasion in managing your image or the impression you give off is at play.

And he stresses that albeit unconsciously, Facebook's unbridled success lies in getting users to to do the work for them with friends persuading friends to post pictures, comments, or upload applications.

"I would say they were lucky and have been responsive to users but I don't think they are persuasion masterminds."

Straightforward tools

While luck might have played its part in turning Facebook into a major force in social networking, the entrepreneurs attending this course are looking for straightforward tools to help their businesses hit the jackpot.

Rob Ross has developed the Footsies application for Facebook and is working on others. For him the course is a portal into how he can make his business more relevant.

He says: "This opens a door that has not been opened before. This is going to change the game."

Student Roman David agrees: "It's beyond dollars and cents. That is part of it but its also where the opportunities are for entrepreneurs and about how the world is changing."

Professor Fogg says while his class is about trying to understand what makes Facebook tick, the people behind the site have a similar task to ensure it remains a dominant player.

"Facebook right now stands out from the crowd. Can they continue? So far with its fifty million plus users they're doing a pretty good job."

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January 10, 2007

Fear Is Invisible



I wrote in a previous post: "don't panic", but I had a panic attack last fall… it came creeping up on me - I thought I was stung by a wasp… I felt a sting, and I saw a wasp and I connected the two in my mind later on. Anything but take responsibility for what was happening to me… what I let happen to me… the situation I created … I felt faint and had to sit down… and then lie down… and I felt strange sensations going up my right leg and into my right arm and then down my left leg… and I was so weak… and my tongue "grew" in my mouth and tingled and my lips were numb and my hands shook… I called a doctor and they wanted me to take an ambulance into the hospital because they thought I was having an allergic shock!  I was weak for hours after that, but I didn't want to take an ambulance.. so dramatic! I was in chock, but I must have known somewhere inside of my disenfranchised self that this was only the fear inside of me screaming to get out… to be taken care of and released. More

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