The Underachiever Life

Why You're Going To Have To Step Up And Become A Leader

This is not something that's easy to say.

It certainly breaks every rule about making something appear easy as a marketer.

In fact I reckon this course of action is the equivelent of the Internets "Third Rail" - Touch it and you end up as the human equivelent of Kentuck Grilled Chicken (sidenote - what the HELL are you thinking KFC!)

But I'm compelled to do this.

I have no choice. The evidence is overwhelming. The proof incontrovertible.

I was not given two stone tablets and there was no burning bush ...but it may as well have been.

I DO NOT WANT THIS BURDEN. I was perfectly happy teaching people cool techniques, recognising awesome technologies for marketing when others had missed them (or downright derided them - and me !).

LIFE WAS SWEET

But at the end of last years challenge I had a niggling feeling. Something was not right with the world, there was a disturbance in the force (Ok, I swear that was the last Star Wars line). Something was wrong.

You see the Internet Marketing Tool box is ever expanding. New Technologies and techniques are in abundance. It should never be easier for you to take a business online and make some money. Make a living.

I mean we just had conducted the biggest online education event in History - over 50,000 challengers took the Thirty Day Challenge. Everybody RAVED about it.

We had seen a bunch of successful Launches and superb programs released. Stompernet, Product Launch Formula, John Carltons Simple Writing Formula, Traffic Secrets and Mass Control.

This stuff is beyond top shelf. I wish I had access to a TENTH of this information when I started out.

LIFE WAS SWEET

But it wasn't

With all this knowledge, all of this experience, all of this ninja strategy and tactics we should have more people THAN EVER being successful at creating an online business.

But we aren't....

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZPPPPPP

(Thats the sound of me touching the third rail and smelling of electrified and grilled sample of KFC's finest...)

People were loving the courses, RAVING about the instruction and quality of the video.

Trouble is, the same percentage of people were successful. This should be increasing...but dammit - it's not.

This is NOT MY CROSS TO BEAR but WHY OH WHY did I even bother to notice this...

FLASHBACK - 25 YEARS - Phil Collins - One More Night playing on the radio and a mulleted student at Beechworth High School is having his Career Counciling session...

TEACHER: So what do you want be, Ed

ED: Well, I want to be a teacher.

TEACHER: You Can't be F**cking Serious.

PRESENT DAY...

Well, actually as it turns out you can make an enormous amount being a teacher.

I love teaching dearly, Nothing makes my day and boost my ego more than when someone comes up to me at a conference and tells me how the Thirty Day Challenge has changed their life.

Way Cool. The problem is that the number of people stroking my ego is not increasing and it should be. (I'm not sure that came out right...)

My problem is that I have this overactive Jimmy Cricket on my shoulder that forces me to look at the data when it would be WAY more convienient not to.

But bottom line - although everythng is Easier, Cheaper and Faster for you to be a success online. What's going on?

TO MUCH COMPETITION!

That's it!

There are too many people trying to compete for too fewer markets.

With all these people learning how to do this, it's just too tough. It's like those dudes who cleaned up on that bolivian goji/accacia/dishwashing detergent, that they sucked people into to paying $75 bucks a bottle (actually the marketer in me - looks at that and goes there must have been some serious marketing chops to get away with that positioning - but I digress)

The point was the people who got in the top of the tree did awesome - the ones at the bottom - were rooted.

(Get it ROOTED - oh I crack me up - Roots are at the bottom of a tree - oh my champange comedy right there ladies and getelman...)

Phew, that's got you off the hook, you were to late...

ummm...

Not Quiet.

Problem is, people see an "online business" as somehow being different to a "REAL" business. You Know - differnet rules apply and stuff...

Rubbish.

Business is Business is Business

Trying to claim there is a difference between online and offline is sooooo last century. In fact, if your businsess does not have elements of both - your stuffed.

But that is another essay for another time.

Like the rising and setting of the Sun, millions of business will start,thrive,choke and fail (hopefully focusing on the first two) this year.

And guess what?

They will next year and the year after that and then you know what they will the year after that until 2013 when we will be taken over by Marshmellow men from the planet Xeon..so dont get too attached.

KIDDING

This little thing called commerce has been going on for a millenia and will continue to. So arguing that there is too much competition is hogwash.

I mean the iPod, iPhone and Gabrial v18 guitar amplifier DID NOT EXSIST in 2000 (Sidenote - HOW DID PEOPLE SURVIVE!!!!!)

Forget the millions of exsisting markets - look at the thousands of new ones springing up every year.

Nope, i'm afraid the too much competition argument is totally bogus.

Next.

YOUR NOT TELLING US THE REAL STUFF!! YOUR KEEPING THE GOOD STUFF TO YOURSELF!

The X-files was my favourite show ever. I LOVE a good conspiracy theory. Truly.

However the thought that I or anyone else would hold back our best stuff is ludicrous. Even more so in the day and age of the magnificent Twitter.

IF IT"S FREE IT SUCKS - ergo the Thirty Day Challenge

and it's cousin Urban Myth...

IF IT"S FREE THERE IS A CATCH - ergo the Thirty Day Challenge

I can understand these urban myths. I really can. Our biggest problem marketing the 30DC is to convince people that the two statements above just do not apply.

In the past people have exploited free information to hook people in - The law of reciprocity (Cialdini's influence - a must read!) is powerful.

But they didn't live in the age of Twitter - We Do.

You may not know this but I want to let you in on a Thirty Day Challenge little known secret...

We use the exact strategy we teach in the Thirty Day Challenge to research and develope markets that we hope to make a million dollars in - let alone $1.

We do not hold anything back. Those first seven days are identicle. This surprises people. It shouldn't.

My Mentor Gary Halbert used to Growl at me that "you can never give away to much of your best stuff - Ed - The more you give away - The more people will buy."

This is very hard for people to get your head round. All I can tell you is that in the last ten years I have apllied this it has ALWAYS worked. Not once has it backfired.

THE MORE YOU GIVE AWAY, THE MORE YOU WILL MAKE.

Now I'm not into the woo-woo stuff. I like my science backed up with some peer-reviewed goodness. In the past decade there has been a mountain of peer-reviewed research into proving this fundamental truth. Again, another essay for another time.

So If it's not competition

And we are not holding anything back...

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG...

And bugger me if the answer didn't sneak up behind me as I sat listening to "One More Night' on my iPod sitting in 23J on a 747 about 6 miles above Tuvalo on a very dark Pacific night...

To Be Continued...