What do you get when you mix an Internet marketer with an Alligator?
This is not a joke with a punchline or a fancy product name...
There's nothing to buy today, so listen up. This is one of the best emails
I've ever written and better than some of my best blog posts.
What I'm about to explain is critical to your success online in 2011 and
beyond. Those who heed this warning will survive online, I'm scared for
those who do not.
Let's begin...
Alligators have survived for millions of years through many evolutions,
and they are one of the most durable, most efficient creatures on Earth.
They rule the food chain in their natural environment and only have two
things on their minds; survive and eat.
Even lions go down stream when they see a big croc in the water!
So what can we learn from them? How can we become like an Internet
marketing alligator?
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LESSON #1: Survival
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Never in the history of Internet marketing has "survival" been more
important or more at everyone's doorstep than today.
For years and years IM'ers laughed at big business. They said "HAHAHA
these fortune 500 companies just don't get it!"
Well that day has come and the window for the "hobbyist" is closing. Now
big business is laughing at us saying "HAHAHA these little guys have no
clue how to run a real business"
Think about it...
Do you think Google gives a crap that we are crying about Adwords rules
when Best Buy, Dell, Tylenol, Amazon, Staples, Macy's, and Nordstroms
are buying ads from them?
I have friends who are spending $2,000/day on ads and they still get slapped
because who cares about $1million a year when you make $20mil a month from
the big boys?
But thats not "nice" we say...
Let's not forget that we're talking about "business" which is one ingredient
away from full on war (business is war without violence).
This is just part of the evolution of the Internet and it's happened to every
other marketing medium ever created. To survive evolution you have to
adapt your strategies.
Do you think the alligator survived millions of years of evolution without
any change at all? No way!
The first cousins of the crocs and gators actually used to sprint on two legs
and were suspected to be plant eaters. They were 8 - 13 feet long and about
1,000lbs.
Then the big dinosaurs came and they couldn't compete on land so they fled
to the water and grew bigger. The next evolution of crocs and gators were
40ft long and weighed over 10 tons.
They evolved from being overrun and outsized by dino's to EATING THEM!
I can't do your thinking for you, but where can you go that big business
hasn't yet caught on too? Can you go there, get big and fat, then come back
and eat your big business competitors?
If Adwords is crowded could you find another traffic network?
If blogging is crowded could you start a Youtube channel or Podcast?
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LESSON #2: Durability & Efficiency
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Let's not play patty cake... Times are hard!
Divorces, layoffs, and bankruptcy are common stories. It's tough and it's
scary but you've got to become like the gator.
Put on your thick skin, roll with the punches, and keep fighting. Sometimes
it's not about the size of the dog in the fight. Instead it's about the size
of the fight in the dog.
I know that's sooo cliche, but isn't it true?
Does the fat champion sometimes fall to the lean and hungry challenger?
Take one day a week to look at your business from the outside thinking
about how you can make it more durable and efficient.
Are their areas that you are weak in? Can you erase them from the plan
totally and keep moving forward? Are there time drains that you can get
rid of?
For example I was trying to blog daily because thats what my competitors
do and they are beating me because of it. But they are bigger than me and
I cannot compete on that front.
But if I backup and write one REALLY awesome blog post every once in
awhile and focus on driving ALOT of people to that post, then I can start
competing against my competitors who have spread themselves thin.
Another example...
My email subscriber list is tiny compared to my competitors, but my open
rates and click through rates are unheard of.
That's precisely how I'm able to compete against the largest gurus in IM
on the JV leaderboards. Their lists are bigger but mine is more responsive!
How can you become more durable and efficient?
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LESSON #3: Rule The Food Chain
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Everyone has a weakness...
Even the mighty Nile Crocodile can be captured and killed by humans
if the human takes advantage of the Crocs weaknesses.
If the human tried swimming in the Nile river naked with no weapons
he would be eaten alive. But when we wait on land with nets and disarm
the croc with rope around it's snout... WE EAT THE CROC!
So what, if there is someone bigger and better than you.
I promise you they have a weakness...
Back in my Joomla days my biggest competitors had more credibility
than I did and they had a lot more content then I did. They had been
around for years before me.
But they were selling written instructions for a visual process. When I
came in with video instructions they had to play catch up to me. Today
they all sell video instructions like I was.
Remember this lesson... Pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land
For example...
The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, it was the better MP3 player!
And it didn't matter that Apple was a struggling company going into a
brand new market against established competitors.
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LESSON #4: Focus On What Matters
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Everything an alligator does helps him survive and eat. Even when you
see a gator lying lazily on the river bank.
He's not being lazy...
He's soaking up the suns rays into the tiles on his back, which act like
solar energy units, storing energy to get him through the night.
What should an Internet marketer be focusing on?
Well think about this...
I don't know about most product launches
I don't know who trashed who in the warriorforum
I do know that I'm getting a 33% bounce rate and that women age 31 - 39
are my best clickers for the parenting niche.
I do know that there's at least 5 popular fan pages on Facebook that I could
convince to promote my product.
Some newbies think that tracking and testing comes later. That you don't
do those things until after you have your business setup.
I didn't build a business and then decide to focus on those things.
I started focusing on those things and then ended up with a business.
I vividly remember the day one of my mentors showed me the value of
marketing metrics. And that my job was to seek out ways to improve
those stats everyday.
"You control the needle, the needle doesn't control you" he would say!
In fact speaking of mentors/coaches, I'm driving down to Boca next week
to spend an hour with one of my new coaches. This is the guy I hired to
take me to the next level.
He is the master at taking guys with small businesses and helping them
add a zero or more to the end. He takes guys from $10k a month to
$100k a month.
He's the guy who helped me with that High Performance Websites
webinar and the whole campaign behind it.
You saw how well that did!
In fact while I'm down there I'll try to "ply him with some honey'd wine"
and convince him to share some words with my peeps on a webinar.
Would that be cool? Would you like to hang out with the ninja that
teaches me how to be a ninja?
If I get at least 10 people who reply with "yes I'd like to meet your coach"
then I'll bribe him, wine and dine him, whatever I have to do to get him to
agree to a free webinar.
Let me know, it's up to you, hit reply
--
Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
