A “White Sand” Christmas…and How You Can Make 2012 The Best Year Ever!

Well it’s the first week of the new year, and I’m writing this post form the balcony of our beach house here in Australia!

So much has happened since my last post…

• Moved my family across the world to Australia to live by the beach
• Started to learn how to surf when we stayed in Manly Beach in Sydney for 2 weeks
• Pet a Koala
• Had a Kangaroo eat out of my hand
• Swam with 5 dolphins and 1 sting ray
• Toured all around Sydney – the museums, the zoo, the bridge and harbor (loved it!)
• Spent days at the beach with my family
• Learned how to drive on the LEFT hand side of the road…
• Celebrated our first foreign Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years as a family

All while getting our lives set up here in Australia (getting the Internet ONLY took a month and a half to finally get connected….thank you Telstra…), completely redesigning my website (like the new look?) and growing my businesses (thank you SKYPE!)

We have plans to adventure all around Australia in the coming months, and have a trip to explore New Zealand at the end of the month

We had an amazing time here in Australia – all the people have been so good to us, friendly and welcoming. Even though the internet took quite a bit longer to setup here than we were expecting, the move and transition has been rather smooth for us…as far as moving to new countries go.

The kids and the family have had a blast – we had a great first foreign Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years! They celebrate Christmas and New Years here
like we celebrate July 4th back in the U.S. – having BBQ’s, playing on the beach and in the water - we’ve really enjoyed the holidays (minus being away from extended
family) The kids have been missing the snow a little bit, but theywere still able to pull out their mattresses and “sled” down our stairs. I told them that this year we were going to have a “White Sand” Christmas..and they’ve loved every minute of it!

And with it being the beginning of 2012 – everyone is thinking and talking about 2012 goals and resolutions for the new year

And the question that I find many people (including myself) are asking themselves is:

“In spite of all the problems and turmoil in the world right now -
HOW can I make 2012 the BEST year EVER?”

The answer?

1. Create more value for other people than you ever have before
2. Align your life with your purpose and passions more than you ever have before, and

Those are 2 simple questions, but they can be difficult to answer for some people often because we

A – Don’t yet identify the true value that we can create for other people
B – Don’t have a clear understanding of our Purpose

And if you haven’t watch my free ”Its Your Life Videos” yet – then I HIGHLY recommend you head over there RIGHT NOW and check them out, because they will help you get clear on those 2 questions!

I recently had a very close friend write me an email and ask me a question – he wrote me an email that said

“I have an extra 20-30 hours a week and I was looking at doing something online to make some extra money.  I did a search for how to make money online but rather than sift through the scams I thought I would see if you know of any companies out there.  Let me know if you have any businesses you recommend or any to stay away from as well. Thanks!”

I thought it was a GREAT question – that I know so many people have, so with his permission I’m going to share with you the answer that I sent to him – in hoping that it can possible create value and help you or someone you know who might have the same question!

For making money online – that is the billion dollar question isn’t it?

Like I have said before, I do NOT recommend 99.99999% of the “make money at home” programs out there – there’s a LOT of garbage and scams out there….push button systems and softwares, sleek salespages and salesvideos that end up promising the world, and delivering nothing but empty promises and headaches.

Seeing the current trends of millions of people coming online every day, and the internet becoming an increasingly effective tool at growing businesses online – If you’re looking get started building a business online in 2012- here’s what I would suggest:

First – you need 3 things

1. A converting offer to promote that creates TRUE VALUE for the target market (offer)
2. An audience to promote it to (audience)
3. A way to market the offer to that audience (marketing channel)

Ideally – you would want it to be:

A. A subject that you are passionate about and believe in
B. A product/market that aligns with your purpose and leverages your personal strengths/ability and
C. An offer and an audience that would have some synergies with your other businesses – so that you can have a bit of leverage and crossover with what you are already doing – this is nice to have as it make it easier for you to get started because you’re able to transfer momentum from your previous/current businesses/ventures to your new venture online – but it is not completely necessary.

That being said – here are some ideas or examples of putting it all together

Since it’s much easier/faster/cheaper to promote someone else’s EXISTING product – the fastest way to get started is affiliate marketing – find a product to promote, and then go around and promote it to your audience, and earning a commission.

So – the question is – what products do you want to promote and what kind of audience do you want to target? What are the current assets
and relationships that you can leverage? For example, if you wanted to target business owners (audience) – a few great value products to promote (offers) could be

-Aweber Email Autoresponder – I’ve been promoting this since I started my business online, and I get a check each month from them!
- Free Website With Hosting - This is an incredible value and amazing value where you can get  a free $2000 website just for setting up your domain and hosting account!

You get the idea – there are hundreds of different offers out there - you just need to find an offer that creates INCREDIBLE VALUE!

So going along with this example – the 3rd ingredient is a way to market the offers to your audience (business owners) – the goal is to eventually build a database of your target audience – and then you can send the offers directly to your audience (via email and/or mail)

If you don’t currently have the 3rd element (marketing channel to your target audience) – then the fastest way is in paid traffic – that way
you’re instantly able to step in and get access to your target audience – there are a number of paid marketing channels online – the first one I would recommend is Facebook Ads because the demographics are SO targeted (age, religion, interests, likes, college, work,
etc…) – you can access a lot of people very quickly and affordably ($0.05 – $0.15 per click) – and I have training on this if you want to
look into learning how to setup and run facebook ads – this takes a bit of a marketing budget initially to invest in traffic – not a lot - you can start with as little as $100 and grow it from them. If you are smart and work at it, you can grow your cash quite quickly.

Another idea might be to target consumers (audience)  and create some leverage/synergy with your other activities/businesses

Places like http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/ and http://www.cj.com/publisher have thousands of consumer offers if you sign up as a publisher.

Again you could use facebook ads to target this audience as well.

I have 4 main training programs that I highly recommend if you’re looking for incredible learning/training resources (and most of these are FREE or VERY low cost):

Paid to Play Academy - Garrett J. White is one of my closest brothers, friends and mentors – I’ve gone through all the training in the Paid to Play Academy – and it is the best training program I have every seen (and I’ve seen a LOT of them!) over 24 hours of AWESOME content and training, and you can try it all out for 7 days just for $2.97 – biggest bargain and no-brainer I have ever seen!

Tony Litster’s Creation Mastermind - this is one of the BEST courses I have ever been through on goal setting and goal getting – it’s an amazing 12 week course to start 2012 with – and best of all it is free!

James Schramko’s Super Fast Results Forum – I just had a BBQ at his house a few weeks ago when we were in Sydney – he’s a class act and a great guy to know! He has some AWESOME training on affiliate marketing and traffic generation, and you can get his Internet Marketing Speed Report - for FREE!

Other good people/blogs/podcasts that I follow:

http://paidtoplay.tv/
http://www.therisetothetop.com/
http://www.clay-collins.com/
http://www.davidrisley.com/
http://tropicalmba.com/
http://www.lifestylebusinesspodcast.com/
http://freedomocean.com/
http://www.marketingshow.com/
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/ http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Almost ALL of the programs and websites I’ve put here are FREE – I ENCOURAGE you to go check them out right now and try them out! And if you really like their free program, I would highly recommend that you show your appreciation and consider purchasing one of their other paid programs if it can assist you in your life or business in some way right now.

These are all people that I have personally spent time going through their training, and investing in their programs – and they are constantly and consistently creating more value for the people around them!

At the end of the day it takes time, energy and money to make it work. If you don’t have as much money, then it will take more time and energy. If you have more money, it will take less time and energy.

It took me 2 years, thousands of hours, and over $100k in investing in my own education and training to get where I am right now – and I don’t
want you to have to go through the same learning curve that I went through – it could have been a lot faster and a lot cheaper if I knew back then what I know now

It is my goal in 2012 – to be able to create more value for you and millions of people all of the world than I ever have before, while living my life in alignment with my purpose and passions

So how can I help create more value for you starting today?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback!

1. What can I do in 2012 to create MORE value for you?
2. What is your primary goal for 2012?
3. What things can YOU do in 2012 to create more value for the people around you?

The best is yet to come!!

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Want to follow my adventures? Join me on Facebook!