Just released a video to kickoff the launch promotion for Opportunity.com.

This video will show you how to create an “Affiliate Commission Engine” that can generate affiliate marketing income on auto-pilot.

To watch the video and bypass the opt-in form click here to go directly to the video.

After a lot of careful consideration, even before Income.com gets fully launched, we’ve decided to change the company name.

This is for many reasons.

1.  ”Income.com” no longer fits the business model we’ve involved into. (I’ll explain the business model in a moment.)

2.  Domain names are becoming irrelevant.  It’s only a matter of time before all URLs are truncated into some sort of short redirect.  (As is happening on Twitter with tinyurl.com.)

Our plans for Income.com were originally to build a massive media company that would be part education portal for starting & growing an online business, and part social community to connect entrepreneurs and marketers.

But those plans have changed…

After analyzing a lot of data during the past few months I’ve come to the conclusion that all the real money is in Pass-Along Marketing via email.

Every get ‘pass along’ emails from friends and family?  You know the ones, where they forward you (and tons of other people) jokes, news stories, videos, etc.?

Or the crazy viral effect that happens on Facebook when all of your friends send you new app requests or other pass-along things that show up in your newsfeed?

This is essentially Pass-Along Marketing and it’s only to get BIGGER.

Because of this, I have decided to evolve the direction of the company to take full advantage of it.

We have invented some amazing technology that will allow anyone to create an account that connects them with tons of affiliate program offers that they will earn money from.  Then the system ties these offers into carefully ‘disguised’ pass-along emails that they can send to friends & family.

These emails also contain powerful tracking URLs so the ‘pass-along’ path can be fully tracked; even through multiple generations of one person passing it to another.

Members in our new system will be able to earn override commissions on a multi-tier person-to-person ‘triangle’ shaped structure.  It’s VERY powerful.

So if you pass something along to your parents, for example, and they then end up passing it along to others, the affiliate commissions compound.

AND… 

It gets even better.

If someone you pass something along to ends up joining the program as a member themselves, you’ll earn a percentage of all of their pass along activity.  So your income will only explode through the pass-along effect.

We’ll Be Starting Pre-Launch Very Soon - Don’t Wait To Sign-Up!

I expect this opportunity to take the Internet by storm.  Because now people can make money from annoying others with pass-along emails and Facebook requests.  This is a MAJOR breakthrough.

So Income.com Is Changing Its Name…

The new company name is Spamway.

Get in before its too late.

Validation.  AKA Hey, this works!

It’s a process that every entrepreneur and online marketer really needs to know and know well.

Before you start a new web site or online venture you need to VALIDATE it first.  In other words, you need to be able to make sure it has promise and/or it’s going to work.

There are TWO important validation steps that you should do at the beginning of any new online business or project…

1.  Test Market Related Affiliate Offers

Every online business needs to generate some of its revenue from Affiliate Marketing.  It’s a great way to monetize lead generation and can be a great profit center.  Sometimes it can be the entire business.

So when thinking about a market to go into, or a product to make for a market, the first thing you want to do is to run some tests and try to earn some affiliate commissions by promoting competing or related products in that market.

If you can’t find any affiliate offers that will sell in that market, or you can’t get any to sell (doesn’t have to necessarily turn a profit) then that’s a major danger sign.

2.  Drive Traffic With The Most Targeted Keywords Possible

Buy some Google AdWords traffic before anything else.  Run ads using the absolute most targeted keyword related to what it is that you want to sell.

If you can’t produce conversions from this highly targeted traffic it’s a major danger sign.

Think about it… if you’re trying to sell an infoproduct or merchandise related to growing tomatoes and you buy some clicks on Google from people searching for “grow tomatoes” and you CAN’T get it to convert then you’re in deep trouble.  Either your landing page is horrible and needs major work, OR…

Your offer for that market is a bad one.  That market might not buy that information, for example.  Or maybe it’s a mostly do-it-yourself market and they rarely buy kits like the one you’re trying to sell.

Whatever the case, trying to VALIDATE the market will usually tell the situation.

IF you are able to generate some affiliate income by promoting products in your market, it’s a great sign.  If you’re also able to generate sales of your own product or something you’re thinking about selling with the highest targeted keywords then you’re well on your way.

But if you can’t generate some affiliate commissions or can’t generate direct sales using the most targeted keywords possible, then you are unable to validate that market/offer as a potential winner.

That means it’s time to move on to something else.

The rate at which you can quickly test and move on to something else will often have a lot to do with how much money you make.  Because generating money online is all about TESTING.  So get used to doing it.

I know exactly what you want… more money, right?

And ideally you want more money without much effort.  You don’t want to have to go setup a new web site, or create a new blog, or produce a new product, or go write a bunch more content, or go buy advertising.

You simply just wish there was a ‘magic’ way that you could instantly make more money without much additional effort.

Well, there is a way.  And I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it.  So pay close attention.

Here’s What You Need To Do:

Do a ‘Marketing Audit’ of your entire business…

- MAP out all the web sites you have and every web page that any of your visitors has the ability to view.  And it needs to be EVERY SINGLE PAGE.

- MAP out all of the email ‘contact’ that you have with any prospect or customer; this could be emails that get sent from your autoresponder after someone subscribes to your list, or a thank you email your site sends after someone submits an order, etc.  List EVERY point of contact where an email is sent to someone.

After you take some time and map out ALL of your marketing ‘touchpoints’ (web pages and emails) it’s now time to find INCOME LEAKS.

I guarantee you that right now you are not taking advantage of everything you already have to work with.

Think about it…

On the “Thank You” page that loads, for example, after someone submits an online form to opt-in to your list, are you promoting any of your products on that page?  Are you promoting affiliate offers?  Are you running AdSense ads?

When your site sends out emails, for example, like an emailed copy of a receipt for a product someone just purchased from you, do you include a promo for another one of your products or for an affiliate offer that earns you a commission?

“Thank You” pages and other ‘Response’ confirmation pages and emails are some of the BEST places to promote other things that will generate income for you.  The reason is because you are getting something in front of someone that JUST RESPONDED to something else.  This isn’t a PASSIVE web site visitor.  It’s someone that just TOOK ACTION that you asked them to take.

So these prospects and customers are the most likely to TAKE ACTION AGAIN and click on an affiliate link, or go check out a video you created, or go buy another one of your products, or go and take any action you’d like them to take at that time.

Take some time to fully AUDIT every single web page you have on the Internet as well as every single email that’s a part of any ’system’ you use and you are sure to find INCOME LEAKS and opportunities where you could INSTANTLY be making more money if you simply used that precious real estate to get other offers in front of people.

It’s so easy for entrepreneurs (myself included) to put up another web site or project and move on to other things without MAXIMIZING every little piece of real estate that we can use to make money.

So it’s a good idea for you to do this “Leak Detection” process on a regular basis as you continue to add more sites, pages, email follow-ups, etc. to your online marketing.

AWESOME UPDATE:  Less than an hour after I posted this someone messaged me on Twitter to tell me that they applied it to a Thank You page and made a quick $145 in affiliate commissions!  (And they’ll continue to make money from that addition on a regular basis.)  Gotta love taking action!

If you’re not already, make sure to follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnreese

Read this entire post for some information that you definitely need to know to take advantage of some opportunities that are right in front of your nose whether you realize it or not.  (More on that in a moment.)

Sorry for the lack of blog posts and communication lately.  I’ve been extremely busy working with my team on creating some really valuable stuff for you.  We’re going to finally start rolling things out very soon and throughout this entire year.  There is A LOT of amazing stuff on the way.  So buckle up!

If you’re looking to start an online business to make an additional income, or if you’re ready to explode your existing business, then make sure and be ready for some announcements that will be coming very soon.  One major announcement will be made before the end of this month (February).

The development of Income.com itself has taken a lot longer than I had originally planned.  We, as a young startup company, have been through many ups and downs.  Our primary issues have been technology related.  I won’t go into all the gory details, but let’s just say we had to abandon well over a year’s worth of programming code to start all over due to a change in our programming team.

But sometimes in life, and in business, you have to take a step back to be able to take several steps forward.

I strongly believe in our mission at Income.com and know we will be creating a legacy.  I know we will help thousands of people and their families with our new Web shows and everything else that’s in the works.  It’s going to be a lot of fun too.  So stay tuned.

Opportunity Is Knocking But Are You Answering?

Right now the global economy is going through a rough time.  And it may even get worse before it gets better.  But in any situation, even during the Great Depression, there is always a massive amount of opportunity to build wealth - you just have to be willing to seize it.

Know this… Opportunity is all around you.

I recently had a great discussion with one of the top Internet marketers in the world, and someone who is a very close friend… Frank Kern.  In this discussion I asked Frank this question…

“In your opinion, what’s the one major thing entrepreneurs should be doing right now?”

And his answer was simple… “Make offers.”

Frank hit it right on the head.  If you want to make money, and lots of it, you have to be making offers. That is the one action that makes more money than anything else.  Making offers.

Whether it’s creating your own new products to offer to your customers, or running a special discount offer, or even promoting someone else’s product where you get paid, making offers is what creates the cash.

Not fiddling with SEO.  Not posting on Twitter all day.  Not surfing Facebook.  Not hanging out on discussion forums.  And not spending countless hours of your time on research.

Now all of those things certainly have value, and some of them have a lot of value.  But without making offers and selling stuff you aren’t going to make much money.

There is PLENTY of money for you to make right now.  Don’t let this economic situation “fake you out” into thinking people aren’t buying stuff anymore.  It couldn’t be further from the truth.  You just need to ACTIVELY make offers if you want to make more money.

Let me tell you a quick story…

As you may or may not know from some of my previous posts and email newsletters, I’m a huge saltwater aquarium enthusiast.  As soon as I bought my house a few years ago the first thing I did was start designing my “ultimate” aquarium.

After weeks of doing research, and figuring out how much space I had to work with, I ended up designing (on paper) a 10 foot wide, 1,000 gallon aquarium.

So after 6 months of anxiously waiting, it was finally custom built for me and installed.  Here’s a photo of it with me standing in front of it to give you some perspective on how big this sucker is:

Back to the story…

I have this aquarium serviced & managed every week by an aquarium specialist.  They keep track of the chemical balances, clean the aquarium, and do a lot of other maintenance.  Having a tank of this size takes quite a bit of work — especially since the saltwater evaporates non-stop and has to be refilled.  (We use an automated system for that.)

Bill, the guy who owns the company that services my aquarium has become a good friend.  We’re both big sports fans and often watch games together and hang out.

Of course, just from hanging out with Bill we’ve had many discussions about business and marketing.  I’m constantly trying to give him advice and help him grow his company.  Well, recently he came to me and was almost in a bit of a panic…

“John, I really need to talk to you about my business.  I know when we hang out you prefer to get away from the marketing talk since that’s part of your work, but I could really use your help.”

I, of course, said I’d be glad to help and asked what his problem was.  He proceeded to tell me…

“This economy is absolutely killing my business.  I’ve never seen it this bad.  Usually I could count on a steady flow of referral business but that is way down now.  I’m really worried.”

The first thing I told him was, “Don’t panic.”  That’s the most dangerous thing anyone can do.  Every problem has a solution, you just have to analyze the situation and create a strategic plan.

I asked him several questions about how he was currently running things, what his options were, etc. and the conclusion and ’solution’ I came to was simple…

HE JUST NEEDED TO MAKE OFFERS.

Referral business in many ways IS down right now.  Some of the older more ‘passive’ ways for many entrepreneurs to generate sales in ANY business is no longer consistent.  And in many cases, like his, it has all but gone away.  (At least for now due to the current economy.)

But with so much opportunity all around us, it’s usually just about getting PROACTIVE and making offers and making things happen.

And that’s exactly what I told Bill do.

I told him he needed to be proactive and call his customers and offer specials on certain items.  Stop by some of the locations (many of them restaurants or doctors’ offices) and bring some corals and fish and tell them, “I think this would look really great in your tank, would you like to buy it?”

I also instructed him to be more active in ASKING his customers for referrals and inquiring about other aquarium needs.

Now he was already doing ’some’ of this, but just not a lot.  That wasn’t his main focus.  Like many entrepreneurs he was content with the referral business he was already getting and the revenue that was coming in from his “old ways.”

He agreed to give it a shot and less than a week later I got an excited call from him telling me that things were looking up very, very quickly.

From the very moment he ’stepped up his game’ and got more proactive about making offers and taking action to produce more ACTIVITY in his business, the money started rolling in again.  And now he’s actually in a position to really GROW things bigger than they ever were.

And it’s all because he got more active in MAKING OFFERS.

Are You Making Offers On A Regular Basis?

If you want to make more money that’s all you need to do.  Make offers.

Frank Kern made it sound and seem so simple but it really does just come down to that.

Frank’s a super successful marketer because he has the gift of cutting out all the nonsense and just getting to the stuff that brings in the cash.

Frank recently helped, of all people, Tony Robbins with this exact “offers” stuff I’ve been talking about.  Yes, Tony ‘Freakin’ Robbins.  And it’s no surprise that Frank’s simple advice and plan made Tony a bunch of money that his company wasn’t making.

It was the ultimate no-brainer.

Check Out This Amazing Video With Frank & Tony Robbins And A Soon-To-Be-Rich 13 Year Old Kid!

* I highly recommend every product, course, free report, video, or advice of any kind that Frank ever puts out.  He is truly one of the top marketers in the world and has helped so many people (including ME) make a lot of money in their business.

I’ll be in touch with more news soon.

NOW GO MAKE SOME OFFERS!

SPECIAL NOTE:  Don’t forget to make sure and ‘follow’ me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnreese

Have you ever seen the Hugh Grant movie, About A Boy?

If you haven’t seen it you should rent it because it’s a great movie.  But if you have seen it then you’ll recognize the following quote from Grant’s character “Will”…

I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?

I’ll admit the title of this post is a bit misleading.  It reads like you can get everything you want “in under 24 hours” but that’s not what I mean by it.  I used this title to not only get your attention but to demonstrate the POWER of this statement if you fully grasp it.

In order for you to accomplish anything in life you have to learn the power of INCREMENTAL SUCCESS.  Let me explain how it works…

It doesn’t matter what you want to accomplish… making a million dollars, losing 50 pounds, learning to speak French, etc.  In order for you to accomplish what it is that you want you MUST achieve your goal incrementally.  There’s no other way for it to happen - it’s IMPOSSIBLE.

No one makes a million dollars without making $1 first.  No one loses 50 pounds without losing 1 pound first.  And no one becomes fluent in French without learning how to say “bonjour” first.

So now that we’ve established that accomplishing anything you want must come through incremental progress, then you realize that success is created by a series of smaller accomplishments that add up to the final goal.

The next thing for you to understand is the process of TIME UNITS.

Just as the character in About A Boy managed his entire life, you need to understand how time is applied towards incremental progress for ANYTHING you want to accomplish.

The main unit of time in our lives is THE DAY.  That 24-hour period that repeats again and again until one day we die.  It’s what we live our lives by.  Every day is an important day and in order to accomplish everything you want in your life you must account for each and every day.

Do you know why the kiss of death in trying to accomplish anything in life is the old mantra of I’ll start on it tomorrow?

And you know exactly what I’m talking about.  You have that product you want to create.  The one that will make you more money.  Or that new blog to set up.  Or that affiliate marketing campaign to put together. Yet somehow you easily convince yourself, “I’ll start on it tomorrow.” And you lose yet another day of your life that you’ll never get back where you made ZERO INCREMENTAL PROGRESS.

When we are living any given day it’s so easy to put things off.  It’s so easy to procrastinate.  It’s so easy to convince ourselves that tomorrow we’ll start going to the gym.  Tomorrow we’ll start eating healthier. Tomorrow we’ll do some writing that we’ve been putting off.  Tomorrow we’ll start studying Japanese.

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.

Well, there’s a reason why most people don’t accomplish that much.  There’s a reason why it seems like WEEKS or even MONTHS go by and you haven’t accomplished things you know in your heart you really want yet you haven’t made any progress towards them at all.

It’s because it’s so easy to put things off until tomorrow.

So Here’s What You Need To Understand…

This is exactly what changed my life when I was struggling as an entrepreneur and really helped me break-through to finally building wealth for myself…

If you are trying to accomplish anything, in this case growing your income, you must do something every single day towards accomplishing your goal.  Let me repeat that…

YOU MUST DO SOMETHING EVERY SINGLE DAY TOWARDS ACCOMPLISHING YOUR GOAL.

It doesn’t matter how big or how small this effort has to be.  It just has to be SOMETHING.  So every day that passes in your life you will incrementally be closer to getting everything you want.  It’s a simple, yet powerful concept.

If you want to lose weight, for example, then just walk 1/2 mile each day.  Not a mile.  Not 5 miles.  1/2 mile.  If you walk 1/2 mile each day that’s like walking 3.5 miles a week.  Walking 3.5 miles seems pretty far to most people.  But 1/2 mile is nothing.  Yet you get the same net result from walking 3.5 miles whether you accomplish it in one day or one week.

Almost anything worth accomplishing in life seems BIG when we look at it from “Step 1.”  Everything requires incremental progress.  And most things require MANY steps to reach the finish line.  

When we are faced with everything we must do to accomplish any goal it often seems so overwhelming that it’s much easier to just put off starting it until another day.  And that day often becomes a week, a month, a year, or more often than not… NEVER.

If you want to grow your business you must be taking action every single day that contributes towards your goal.  This doesn’t mean checking your email more, or looking at stats more, or “doing research” (i.e. surfing sites all day) it means putting in the work towards creating that product, or doing some writing for an article or blog post, or making a video you’ve been wanting to make, or setting up a site and testing some Adwords, etc. etc.

Stop letting a single day go by when you aren’t making at least SOME incremental progress towards ALL your goals and it is IMPOSSIBLE that it won’t change your life for the better.  

Even if it’s just a small step each day. Because that’s a step you’ll never have to do again and you’ll be even closer to accomplishing your goal.

Please make sure and follow me on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/johnreese

Also please ‘retweet’ or share this blog post with others and help them start 2009 off right!

* Sorry for the ‘blog vacation.’ I was traveling throughout Europe for two months on a much needed vacation. Regular posting will resume soon.

I always laugh when I see people on business and marketing forums say this…

“There are no secrets!”

“You can learn everything for free online!”

Etc. etc.

When it comes to consulting and/or selling one’s expertise there will always be those that believe every piece of knowledge or discovery is already known by others. And these same people believe that information can easily be found on the Internet — so they believe they have no need to invest in consulting, buying a training course, etc.

There is A LOT of extremely valuable business and marketing information that is not ‘publicly’ known. New discoveries are made everyday. Anyone that ever thinks they know it all in ANY market or area of expertise is an IDIOT. We should ALL constantly strive to learn more about our respective interests and industries.

As far as “secrets” are concerned, this is a different story. The word “secrets” has, and probably always will be, one of the most powerful words in the history of copywriting. And this is the reason that this word is often used to describe valuable information and is a popular choice to use in book and course titles. i.e. my own Traffic Secrets 2.0 product.

But even if every piece of knowledge and information was being freely discussed on the Web, from articles to discussion forums to blogs, etc., the information itself is essentially WORTHLESS.

When it comes to Internet Marketing information it doesn’t matter if you know a few tricks to get top rankings in Google, or ways to pre-sell a prospect to increase the conversion of an affiliate offer, or a few words you can add to an order form to decrease shopping cart abandonment…

The only thing that matters is YOUR STRATEGY.

How you use the tactics and techniques. When? How often? What tactics can you combine? In what order do you execute them? And so on.

I’ve known many Internet marketers that actually know more information and knowledge about IM than some ‘gurus’ do. Yet these marketers FAIL. They don’t have much success building their online business. They struggle and struggle often. They end up feeling bitter and thinking that the techniques don’t actually work — or at least as well as some say they do.

The problem is simple… they know or have all the puzzle pieces, they just don’t know what to do with them.

In order to succeed and see positive progress in ANYTHING you do for your business you must use a solid strategy. A plan of action that fully defines what needs to be done and when. And then a plan for how to use the results (good or bad) to progress from that point forward.

So my advice is to pay less attention to learning so much about individual tactics and techniques and focus on a bigger picture of how to use MANY things together in a solid plan.

Even if you knew everything, or could find it somewhere, you’ll still need to know ‘what’ to do with it. Don’t ever forget that.

If you’re one of my Traffic Secrets 2.0 customers then you know exactly what I’m talking about as the TS2 course is all about carrying out a specific strategy to produce a ton of targeted traffic and not just a bunch of individual ’secret’ tricks.

Ahhhh the Internet. What a crazy 24 hours it has been.

If you followed yesterday’s saga then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Attacks. Insults. Accusations. Assumptions. Reactions. Disrespect. Punches. Kicks. Slaps. And more.

Yes, just another day on the Internets.

Well, I’m about to say something that will probably come as a huge SHOCKER to everyone, especially those that so passionately defended me; which I sincerely appreciated it…

I WAS WRONG.

Looking at the situation again after the dust has settled, I am man enough to realize that I was wrong in some of the things that I wrote yesterday and how I ‘positioned’ those that I wrote about.

I was a hypocrite in the process. As many of you know, one of the primary things I teach is not to get caught up in NEGATIVITY in your marketing. Don’t spend time bashing your competitors or others in your industry.

Because in almost every case no good will come from it.

Your sole focus should be on providing great value to your prospects and to your customers. In the great free content you giveaway, as well as anything you ever sell to someone. If you stay focused on the positive, and truly work hard to deliver great value to your market, everything else will take care of itself.

And if it doesn’t for some reason, there’s nothing you can do about it because you simply did your best.

I broke this ‘rule’ yesterday.

I read some blog posts that mentioned me by name and I became defensive because of how I felt I was being positioned. So I got all fired up and had a knee-jerk reaction and made my post yesterday. And while I truly had been wanting to express those thoughts on anti-marketing attitudes online for a long time, I realize now that the way I went about it was all wrong — even if I truly did feel I was ‘right’ in defending myself based on the situation.

Since I wrote yesterday’s post defending myself and expressing my thoughts, Duncan Riley and Mark Hopkins have both responded with new posts.

As you can see by their posts, the negative ‘cycle’ just continues to churn. As I post insults or imply things about them, they in turn find whatever ammunition they can find and return fire. It’s like a tennis match. The ball just keeps getting hit back and forth and ultimately isn’t going anywhere.

This is what happens when people’s reputations are being challenged. And it’s a completely natural reaction and one that ANYONE would have.

So now it’s my turn to defend myself against the latest remarks from them and hit the ball back over the net. But I’m not going to.

Instead, I’d rather look at this from a more constructive point of view and have the three of us go back to focusing on the more important things in our lives — because, frankly, this type of drama is a waste of time and we all know it.

Let’s start with Duncan Riley.

Duncan kind of started things off with his original post that quoted an email I had sent to my list and he referred to me as an “ebook salesman.”

I took offense to this ‘ebook’ remark because most people use that term in regards to someone selling a $19 ebook that promises to make people rich. And I get sick and tired of having the knuckleheads that DO sell that crap bringing the rest of our industry down.

So I fired back at Duncan and included him in my long rant. His name came along for the ride and I essentially painted him as anti-marketing. In hindsight, even though I was bothered by the ‘ebook’ comment, I probably should have recognized that he was subscribed to my email list for a reason.

After all, his original post was quoting an email he received from me.

Even, though, in Duncan’s latest response he ‘returns fire’ he also makes the point that he likes my copy and likes to keep up with other marketers. Hence the reason I now see that it was completely unfair of me to just lump him in with everything anti-marketing.

Which, ironically, is the very thing I was so passionate about when it came to defending myself — fighting back against the generalizations that all Internet marketers are evil and are only out to abuse the Internet and/or rip people off.

So my apologies to Duncan. In hindsight I should have contacted him personally, expressed my concern over how I thought he was ‘painting’ me out to be, and taking it from there.

As a side note, I’ve actually enjoyed reading Duncan’s writing for a very long time. Before he started his recent blog he was a long-time writer for TechCrunch where he wrote about up and coming startup companies — which is very far from anti-marketing or anti-capitalism.

Let’s move on to Mark Hopkins.

The situation with Mark is a lot different than Duncan. In fact, Mark really took the negativity to far greater lengths — even to a realm where so many things were unjustified and became personal attacks, in my opinion.

But if I truly take a step back and look at things from Mark’s perspective, I can get a different view than my own. While I certainly won’t defend some of what he said about me and how he went about it, I am reasonable enough to see what motivated him in the first place.

Mark has made it loud and clear that he despises MLM and other types of “referral marketing.” He feels that it preys on a large set of people in the process, and that any model like that is junk — and so even, though, BlogRush was free, it was based on a referral credit system and Mark just didn’t like the ’smell’ of it, so to speak.

As many of you know, I myself am not a fan of MLM and don’t suggest my students get involved with it. Because the focus of those things are more about ‘recruiting’ others than marketing an actual product of value; and that’s, ultimately, in my opinion, a doomed business model.

I think it’s better to build a business by creating ASSETS — such as your own products, your own customer list, your own content, your own marketing, etc. I believe the same money and time spent on building a business with your own assets will always yield far greater results than just ‘recruiting’ or promoting another company’s business. And, again, this is just my opinion.

As I explained to Mark in my ‘defense’ to his ‘pyramid scheme’ attacks on me, I setup BlogRush as multi-tiered referral system because I wanted to give the users the benefit of the ‘network effect’ when it grew virally. With all the other services online that have grown from viral marketing, the only core benefit is to the company that owns the service — the users get nothing out of doing the marketing for them. It was also done to help the small blogger without much traffic have a chance to leverage the network effect, otherwise a 1:1 exchange ratio doesn’t do them any good; because they don’t have much traffic to start with. But even aside from that, I see Mark’s point about the ‘overpromising’ marketing for it and have told him that we’re working to change it.

I never stated I was perfect and neither is my marketing.

And, of course, BlogRush is a free service and trying to call it a pyramid scheme is a reach — even, though, Mark makes a good point that it still takes people’s time and even uses up some space on their blogs. Fair enough. If Mark truly feels passionately about his dislike for anything related to that multi-level stuff then that’s certainly his right.

In Mark’s responses he has pointed out that I unfairly painted him as an “anti-marketing hippie” and that he has long been posting about things that are the opposite — of which I was unaware. So while I got mad at his personal remarks towards me (and how he tried to paint me as a huckster selling things to ‘my victims’) it was unfair of me to make the anti-marketing insinuations about him and do to him exactly what I was so against — the generalizations about Internet marketers.

So as tough as it may be for me… My apologies to Mark Hopkins.

Mark didn’t like the marketing of BlogRush and probably even some of my other marketing and that’s fine. It’s his right to feel the way he feels. If he wishes to continue to post negative remarks about me, my business, my products, my marketing, etc. so be it. There’s nothing I can do about it but do the best I can to deliver value to my customers — because at the end of the day, those are the only people I am accountable to.

And finally… TWITTER.

I think it goes without saying, but Duncan put a creative ‘focus’ on what wasn’t said in the email I sent out about Twitter that started this whole thing, and so I want to clarify it once and for all…

I didn’t say it word-for-word in my recent email encouraging people to use Twitter, but I’ll say it… DON’T BE A JACKASS AND SPAM OR ABUSE TWITTER.

As many of you know, I’ve already expressed how blatant promotions and pitching on social networks and other social media DOESN’T WORK. Social media is best used to give great content and great feedback in any conversation and eventually lead people to your blog or other areas where you’ve posted great supporting content. Then after someone has had a change to see what you offer in terms of free content does the process start towards being interested in doing business with you.

Perfect example: as many of you know I hit the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends in less than 5 days from the time I announced that I set-up an account to my list. For those of you that made it into that group of 5,000 you know that you’ve never seen me ‘pitch’ or heavily promote my own products, affiliate links, or anything else. I’ve only used it to interact with people and to syndicate or announce content I posted on my blog.

So don’t spam Twitter. Don’t direct message people links to your sites. Don’t overpost URLs to your stuff — otherwise people will “unfollow” you and then Twitter will serve no purpose if no one is ‘listening’ to anything you post.

If you make a new blog post, by all means share the URL with people following you. But always keep in mind… What’s In It For Them? They aren’t following you to get blasted with advertising. They’re following you because they believe what you have to share and say is interesting and has VALUE.

So the moral of the story from all this drama is this… far greater returns will happen for you and your business if you stay focused on the positive and on creating value and not getting caught up in negativity towards others — justified or not.

I am now moving on from this drama and going back to what I do best and what makes me happy. I suggest others do the same.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I have written a follow-up post to this entire drama and it’s important that you read it. Thank you.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. This post is something I’ve wanted to express for a long time. So grab some popcorn and your beverage of choice. You’re in for a long one.

I was recently called out and attacked by Mark Hopkins over at the blog Mashable with his latest post, Is Twitter Vulnerable To Marketer Attack?

Mark apparently got his motivation to make such a post after reading blogger Duncan Riley’s recent post (also directed at me and showing a recent email I sent to my list) Pending Sign Of The Twitter Apocalypse: It’s Being Talked About By Internet Marketers.

I think it’s about time that someone actually set the record straight and addressed attacks like these against Internet marketers. On the Web, there has always been this massive divide between entrepreneurs using the Net for marketing purposes and those that aren’t.

If You’re Going To Call Someone Out And Attack Them At Least Get Your Facts Straight

Both Mark and Duncan referred to me as an “ebook salesman.”

That’s pretty interesting considering I’ve never sold an ebook since I’ve been marketing online for over 15 years.

So come on, guys, you’re supposed to be “journalists” so try doing your research first — especially if you’re going to publish something that more or less is a personal attack and tries to put someone down.

But even, though, they have this fact wrong about me their implication with this statement is something I’m going to come back to in a moment because it’s important.

Both Mark and Duncan attempt to imply that somehow I was encouraging marketers to abuse or spam Twitter in some way.

Here’s a tip: Why don’t you actually READ whatever email you’re trying to use as ‘evidence’ to make your case? You may want to reread that email and pay close attention to this sentence:

“Observe how others post and you’ll quickly learn the culture, etiquette, and uses for Twitter.”

I clearly state that there’s an ETIQUETTE to be used on Twitter. I am not in anyway encouraging people to abuse Twitter. It’s clearly stated directly in that email.

Even if that sentence wasn’t included, the implication is still that I am notorious for teaching people to be abusive with their marketing or something. Well, if you would have actually done your research on me (before attacking me) you’d know that I don’t support or teach any Internet abuse of any kind.

If you’re not going to take the time to actually do some research about me the very least you could have done is OBSERVE MY POSTS ON TWITTER.

As anyone can clearly see, what I’m encouraging people to do is actually the OPPOSITE of what Mark and Duncan are trying to imply.

But they’d know that if they had done their research.

Anyone can see the public history of my Twitter account at: http://twitter.com/johnreese

So why on earth did these ‘journalists’ not investigate it?

Ironically, Mashable has used their Twitter account for 100 TIMES MORE promotional effort than I have with mine. Hey pot, meet kettle.

Last Time I Checked Twitter Used A ‘Voluntary’ Messaging System

And completely aside from the points I just made, Twitter works by having users opt to follow other users — and they only see their tweets after they have voluntarily chosen to follow that person.

This makes it nearly impossible for someone to abuse the system for evil marketing purposes. Certainly some idiot will probably come up with a way to mass-send ‘direct’ messages to people (and Twitter will squash them) but Twitter’s design does not allow people to just blast anyone.

But what do I know. I’m not trying to make a living as an ‘expert’ blogger about Web 2.0 services.

Mark also took the ‘attack’ efforts against me quite a bit further than Duncan. Mark makes a statement that I’m a “Web 2.0 flopster.” The word “flopster” implying FAILURE.

Back to the lack of research factor…

If Mark had done his proper research on me he’d know that I’ve been one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the history of the Internet when it comes to creating online projects that CREATE PROFITS.

I was a pioneer of opt-in email marketing when I created one of the first auto-reply email services for businesses in 1994.

I am one of the few people in the world that can say they’ve created a web site from scratch and using a tiny marketing budget put that site into the Top 500 most trafficked web sites in the world.

And, oh yeah, I’ve done it with THREE different sites and I’m currently working on my 4th.

I’ve made millions of dollars in a variety of markets - from golf to hobby markets to B2B. I’ve been one of the top super affiliates in the world for companies like eBay, Chase, and other Fortune 500 companies. I’ve even generated over $1,000,000 in AdSense earnings without paying a penny for advertising or playing the “arbitrage” game — and I did it as a ’side’ project.

And as most online marketers know, in 2004 I released a training course and generated $1,000,000 in sales in the first 18 hours from the marketing campaign I put together — which ended up creating $1M in net profit within the first 7 days.

And I did it without risking a single penny on traditional advertising.

So Does That Make Me A ‘Flopster’?

Again, it’s all about the research.

HOWEVER… maybe Mark was simply referring to me as a failure in the “Web 2.0″ sense? Referring only to projects that are Web 2.0 services.

Fair enough. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mark has consistently ‘hated’ on my BlogRush project. He has bashed it in the past and for whatever reason continues to seem all fired up about it.

He implies that the service was a dumb idea (without so many words) and that it failed, was overhyped, yadda yadda yadda.

Was BlogRush A Total Failure?

Even if it was… WHO CARES? I mean, if an entrepreneur comes up with a crazy idea at 4AM and has the guts to ‘go for it’ and it fails, does that make that person a FAILURE? After all, BlogRush is not even the core focus of the company I’m trying to build. But should someone that has a failed project like this just call it quits?

If I had taken that attitude about being an entrepreneur I would have been homeless a long time ago. It’s better to have the courage to try something and fail to not try at all. It’s amazing how many people bashed BlogRush yet most of them had never taken a major risk in their entire life.

No risk, no reward.

At least I had the guts to invest $400,000+ of my own money to give the idea a shot. Yes, my money. Not money some VC gave me.

The Internet would not be what it is today without the courage of entrepreneurs trying all kinds of crazy ideas.

As far as BlogRush is concerned, I’ll be the first to admit that it did not work out the way I had hoped it would. I hoped it would be a great service that would provide tremendous VALUE to a lot of people.

There were many factors that I didn’t expect when I created the service — such as the amount of abuse, that many people would hide the widget so low on their pages it wouldn’t get much click activity, etc. Then there’s also the issue that most bloggers don’t know how to write compelling titles — which has everything to do with the click-rate.

BlogRush also encountered some technical issues and other growing pains. Hey, it happens. But even with all of those problems and unforeseen issues, was BlogRush truly a failure?

Well, let’s look at some traffic analytics from Compete.com. In this chart let’s compare BlogRush’s traffic with that of Mashable the super popular blog where Mark is one of their writers:

Huh? That’s weird. For someone calling me a failure when it comes to my little “Web 2.0″ side project it can’t be that bad of a failure considering it gets more traffic than one of the most popular blogs in the world — that Mark happens to works for.

And here’s what’s really amazing… this chart is primarily showing unique visitor numbers based on the BlogRush site and NOT on the reach of the widget itself; because the widget is served on other sites.

Here’s A NEWSFLASH For Mark: The BlogRush widget has already been served over 540 MILLION TIMES.

I think most other entrepreneurs would LOVE to ‘fail’ that badly.

Mark also attacks some of the marketing copy that I used for BlogRush. He says it’s nothing but “hyperbole” and overhype, etc.

Hehe. I love the irony in the fact that Mark created his post based on a blog title that contains “Pending Sign Of The Twitter Apocalypse.” Great use of hyperbole, Duncan. I actually think that title rules!

Bloggers are notorious for their strong usage of hyperbole. Hey pot, meet kettle. Oh, you guys already met. Well, maybe you should get married.

I will be the first to admit that we overpromised and underdelivered (so far) with the promises of the copy for BlogRush. Anyone that knows me as a marketer knows that my entire career has been the OPPOSITE. I thrive on overdelivering value to my customers. And again, I admit that BlogRush didn’t work out like I thought it would - no one is more disappointed about that than I am.

Many BlogRush users ARE getting the free traffic benefits that were promoted. But most of these marketers have a solid grasp on writing really click-worthy titles; which makes all the difference.

But Mark is very passionate about dogging BlogRush, and that’s his right just like anyone else. So, Mark, I’m sorry that it didn’t live up to your expectations. We’ll gladly issue you a full and prompt refund.

Oh wait. Somehow I forgot BlogRush was a totally FREE service.

But There’s A Much More ‘Poisonous’ Message About Internet Marketers That Needs To Be Addressed

I’m so sick and tired of the anti-marketing attitudes of writers, pundits, and others on the Internet. It’s been going on since the Web started to take off in 1994/1995.

So many of these people make it out like all Internet-based marketers are only selling scammy, rip-off garbage. And while the Internet is certainly filled with all kinds of jackasses that spam and abuse every known online service and tool there is, not enough ‘credit’ is given to marketers (like me and most of my customers) that have great marketing and success online and do things the RIGHT way.

And not enough credit and attention is given to the fact that if it wasn’t for Internet marketers there would be no Internet or Web 2.0 as it is today.

MONETIZATION IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF THE INTERNET.

Without all of the affiliate marketers, affiliate merchants, small bloggers, advertising networks, marketers buying PPC traffic, and everything else that is a part of the “Internet Economy” 99% of what’s on the Web today would not exist.

So for Mark, and any others that seem to take this anti-marketing attitude, the next time you cash your paycheck you should take a moment to realize it wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the very marketers that create and sustain the economy of the Web.

Heck, just take a look at many of the ways that the Mashable blog is able to generate revenue — many of those programs and networks only exist because of marketer activity.

So if you kill all the Internet marketers, YOU KILL THE INTERNET.

As far as the spammy and abusive marketers go, it’s unfortunate and it pollutes the Web. Thankfully, the Internet has this great darwinism effect where those that don’t provide value end up getting destroyed. Junk and scammy crap will always end up in FAILURE. The ‘problem’ is that so many new junk peddlers take the place of the old ones.

One more point I want to make… Mark and Duncan’s efforts to call me an “ebook salesman” is being done in a negative light relating towards selling information to teach people how to make money in some way.

This is another common anti-marketing attitude that has existed online for ages. So many people are put off by marketing or promotion for anything to do with “making money.” Even, though, there are hundreds if not thousands of fantastic products on the subject that are truly helping people.

To realize this, I only have to take a look at the success stories created by my own teachings and what they’ve done for thousands of individuals and their families.

Are there tons of people peddling utter garbage and worthless “I’ll show you how to press a big red button and get rich” crap online? Unfortunately, YES.

But to stereotype anyone and everyone that publishes or provides marketing or business advice is PATHETIC. And that is primarily what happens when it comes to the anti-marketing attitude.

A Quiet Revolution Is Forming

These anti-marketing folks need to realize something…

The world is changing quickly. Economies are evolving. More and more people around the globe are realizing the benefits of having their own business online. The ‘marketing’ uses of the Internet are only going to GROW. And it’s actually going to make the Internet even STRONGER and more developed. As the needs to increase monetization are created it will spawn more innovation online.

The survival of Ideas, Sites, Services, and Companies on the Web are ALL dependent upon the activity from Internet marketers. I just wish more people would start to realize it.

* I would like to encourage my fellow Internet marketers to spread the word about this post. Thank you.

By now you probably know what “Target Marketing” is. It’s the process of designing your marketing for a specific group of people that would be most likely to buy what you sell.

As a simple example, if you sell products for men then you don’t need to include things that would appeal to women. But it’s much more complex than that.

The WORST thing you can do with your marketing is try to “be all things to all people.” This is what many refer to as the SHOTGUN APPROACH — you advertise and promote your business to anyone and everyone with the thinking that you’ll sell more by reaching more people.

Massive mistake.

If you truly focus your efforts (the way you communicate, your marketing style, the benefits that you stress, the stories you tell, the keywords you bid on, the places you choose to advertise, etc. etc.) towards your most ideal prospect then you stand to make the most money.

The closer you ’speak someone’s language’ (i.e. to a person’s feelings, problems, situations, etc.) the higher your conversions will be. i.e. the more sales you’ll make.

Because the problem with the shotgun approach is that your marketing becomes TOO BROAD and doesn’t ’speak’ directly to anyone (or group) in particular.

There are MANY marketers making the shotgun approach mistake. But there are probably MORE marketers (especially those marketing via the Internet) that ARE properly using target marketing as the foundation for their business BUT they are using some shotgun-type mistakes because of HOW they market online.

Here’s a great example…

How many companies online are trying to structure their web sites, content, and marketing to appeal to ALL INTERNET USERS within their target market? (Probably 95% of them.)

But here’s why this is, in my opinion, BAD MARKETING…

Internet users have different connection speeds… different screen resolutions… different computing power. Trying to structure your online marketing to appeal to ALL of these things is, ultimately, a way to LOSE MONEY.

Why?

Because in an effort to appeal to ‘everyone’ you sacrifice the ability to do a better job to a subset of those users. The best example is broadband users.

Income.com, for example, is going to be doing A TON of video. And guess what? We’re NOT going to have ‘alternate versions’ of our videos for dial-up and lower bandwidth users. In fact, we’re going in the opposite direction — our primary content is going to be aimed at users with fast connections. (Which is the majority now anyway.)

By creating our content and producing it to have the best experience for the majority of users that DO have fast connections we can do a BETTER JOB with our marketing. On the other hand, if we tried to create our content so it could still be experienced by everyone, we’d be ‘robbing’ our broadband users of a better experience — which can, ultimately, lead to higher conversions or higher revenue.

Some web designers are STILL designing web sites for 800×600 resolutions. This is silly. 75%+ have 1024 or greater screen resolutions now. Marketers can create better experiences by designing for the majority of their target audience — and in doing so make more money. Far more than the money they think they’d ‘lose’ by not catering to those users that are going to NOT get the ideal experience due to their computer and connection limitations.

In any business you’re going to have to do things that might “leave people out.” It’s just part of the process. If you want to maximize the amount of money you make in your business you’re going to HAVE TO make some tough decisions. Whether that’s not marketing to 18-24 year olds because most of your sales are coming from older folks, or with the dial-up vs. broadband example I’ve given you.

In fact, I would like to make you a CHALLENGE. I’d be willing to bet that RIGHT NOW in your business you could fine-tune your marketing to more directly target FEWER PEOPLE than you currently are. And in doing so, I’d almost guarantee that you make more money.

Always keep in mind… it’s not about the size of the audience, it’s about the rate at which people buy. Sometimes you have to focus on a smaller audience to produce more money.

Another great example of this is are companies that sell with premium prices. They are willing to ‘give up’ all of their potential buyers that won’t be able to afford (or justify) paying extremely high prices for their products. But they end up making more money because they tailor their marketing to do a better job of ’speaking’ to their target audience that WILL be most likely to buy their stuff.

So start thinking how you can at least start doing some test marketing to a smaller targeted audience. Set up a separate web site and special offers if you have to.

BONUS TIP: If you’re selling a bunch of products right now with an online store examine what products are selling the most. You’ll most likely find that 2 or 3 products account for 90% of your sales. If so, target your efforts to ONLY sell more of those 2-3 products and you’ll most likely make a lot more money than trying to appeal to people that ‘might’ want your 20-30 different products.