Today is the 5-year Anniversary of the “Million Dollar Day.”

On August 17th, 2004, I released the original version of my Traffic Secrets course and pulled in over $1,000,000 in sales in less than 24 hours.  And without spending any money on traditional advertising.

Up until that day, doing a million dollars in sales in a single day (for an individual) was unheard of.  Many thought that $100,000-$150,000 in a single day (which was still extremely successful) was about the ‘ceiling’ for what could be done.

But just like Roger Bannister breaking the 4-Minute Mile (which many thought would never be done) many others started to do it as well.  Today there are many high school athletes that can break a 4-minute mile.

And today in 2009, since that big day in 2004, many other Internet marketers have also had million dollar days and even multi-million dollar days.  I, myself, have done it again as well.

While certainly much of what contributed to these big days was ‘technique’ (which I’ll get to in a moment) a lot of it is simply MINDSET.

That barrier, just like running a 4-minute mile, was a MENTAL barrier as well as a physical one.  Often times before anyone accomplishes something for the first time it seems like it’s not possible.  Yet once something is accomplished, even if it’s extremely difficult, others seem to follow with similar success.

This is the same reason why if you take most self-made millionaires and take away everything they have that they’ll find themselves back on top in less than a year.  Yet so many other entrepreneurs that have never made a lot of money flounder around for many, many years before breaking through - and some never break-through.

If you want to make a lot of money in your life (even in a short amount of time) you need to get your MINDSET together.  And, no, I’m not talking about The Secret and the law of attraction.

It’s not enough to WANT a better life.  It’s not enough to be AMBITIOUS.  And it’s not enough to just work hard.

You have to have a conversation inside your own head about what’s really possible and what are you really capable of.  Only when you truly believe this capability (no matter what it is) are you on your way to achieving it.

So What Are You Truly Capable Of?

That’s the question you need to answer within yourself.

It’s also interesting to look back on that “Million Dollar Day” and observe HOW it happened from a technique and strategy standpoint…

For years many marketers repeated the mantra, “The money is in the list, the list, the list.”

I shocked a large crowd of marketers when I was on a conference panel in 2002 and I said, “Let me tell you the real secret…  the money is NOT in the list.  The money is in OTHER PEOPLE’S LISTS.”

One of the most powerful things about Internet Marketing is the ability to LEVERAGE the marketing assets of others - their customer and prospect lists, their traffic, their content, their relationships, their expertise.

I leveraged Affiliate Marketing and got a lot of partners to help promote my product and that was a big key to why it was able to break-through that $1,000,000 in a day barrier.

And while, yes, I had to pay my affiliate partners about 50% of any sales they referred, most don’t realize that my net profits were still very high.  Some like to think that the launch ended up only netting me about $300,000 or so after all commissions and other costs were paid.

That launch, in just the first few days, ended up NETTING me $1,000,000 in PROFIT.  Not sales.  And it continued to bring in cash flow for many months after the initial launch.

The total ‘end result’ from the launch itself will probably end up being worth $20MM or more.  That’s the power of LEVERAGE.

From a technique standpoint I came up with several tactics for that launch that are now being used today.  I was one of the first marketers to ever leverage a blog for SOCIAL PROOF.  During that original Traffic Secrets launch I was driving prospects to blog posts and their comments about “can’t wait to buy this!” were encouraging others to do the same.  I strategically leveraged those comments to create more FRENZY and get more people interested in buying the product - long before it was even released or people even knew an exact date it would be released.  A lot of marketers use this technique today.  And it still works great.

Another tactic I came up with was using great free content to ‘warm up’ my partners lists.  After all, most of those people didn’t have a relationship with me, or even know who I was, so it was very important that before a product of mine was put in front of them that they had a reason to be interested in what I had to teach.

I produced a special PDF report that my affiliates were able to hardcode and giveaway to their lists.  This played a MAJOR part of why the overall launch was so successful.  It greatly increased the conversion rate of people buying on launch day long before they ever saw a sales letter for the product or even know what all was in the course or how much it was.

Today practically every launch you have been exposed to gives away great content upfront before the product itself is promoted.  And today that PDF (which will still work) has evolved into VIDEO.  Reports and special hand-outs can still work well, though.

Throughout all of those techniques the power of ANTICIPATION is what helps build the buzz and demand.  Apple is a master of doing this with their product releases.  So anytime you can give your customers something to LOOK FORWARD TO it will increase the rate at which they buy.  The movie industry does this with movie trailers and release dates, and so does the music industry, car industry, and so many others.

If you aren’t using anticipation in your marketing you’re losing a lot of money.  So start thinking of different ways you can incorporate it.

Last but not least I just want to drive home the point that my historical Million Dollar Day accomplishment would not have happened without the involvement of my affiliate partners.  Relationships online are incredibly important.  If you want to leverage other people’s marketing assets like I mentioned, then you need to ‘play well with others’ in your market.  Sell other people’s stuff first, then try and build a relationship to get them to reciprocate to promote your products.

The most successful marketers online are working with others - across any industry you can think of.  The ones that end up making only a tiny percentage of what they could have are the ones that burn bridges with people (i.e. ruin relationships), get into fights with other people, and typically have a negative attitude.  It truly does come down to the difference in having an ABUNDANT mindset and a SCARCITY one as mentioned in the amazing book, Think And Grow Rich.

I hope this post has inspired you in some way to go out and create your own new record day of accomplishment.  Always remember, no matter what you currently think you’re capable of is not even close to what you truly can create.