Bruce Hoag
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Scott, I believe that Sean has only ever used PayPal. I could be wrong, but I think that that’s the case.
He’s probably off for the weekend, but he might look in tomorrow.
Shoot him an email and ask him.
It’s what I’d do.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Don’t be too hard on yourself, Claire.
It often depends on what you read.
If you take in a steady diet of posts from places like MOZ, Kissmetrics, the Search Engine Journal, ahrefs, etc, then you can find yourself believing that if you don’t have a degree in Google Analytics that you’re somehow deficient in the IM space.
For those people and many others like them, metrics are their lifeblood.
Most of us don’t need to have that degree of detail in that sort of thing.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’ve been where you are, Don.
It’s largely why I am where I am.
At one time I had more than 2000 books. I had to use the first two levels of the Dewey Decimal System to find my way around them. LOL
I studied piano, organ, composition, business, organizational psychology – which itself includes a dozen or so disciplines – public administration, marketing . . .
The thing is that life isn’t long enough to pursue everything that interests us.
And so we have to look for avenues which will enable us to engage in some of them.
Writing, as you’ve probably discovered already, is one way.
A question for you.
When you write about topics you love, is there one that stands out from the rest?
Or, like me, do you find that it’s the writing itself that keeps drawing you?
I have a little exercise that I’d like you to try; but first, tell me your answers to the questions I’ve posed.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Maxwell and Gladwell are both excellent, Norma.
Some years ago, I decided that I wanted to see Covey’s reading list for his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
I’d heard that he had read 200 years of success literature.
I ordered up his PhD dissertation, only to discover that it had nothing to do with what was in his book.
Never did find out.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I have it on good authority that PayPal sometimes refuses transactions and even closes accounts without explanation.
Sean can give us the benefit of his experience here.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
🙂 Claire
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I don’t use membership software yet.
Right now, there’s no need.
To me, that’s key.
If you have a business that makes you a living and you want to add a membership component to it, then do so; but if you’re just starting, you don’t need one.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
So Leslie, how can we help you the most right now?
In a way, it doesn’t matter where you start.
That’s because you’re likely to go through several revisions for you reach your destination.
Knowing what I know now, I would pick the one part of self-development that interested me the most, and then interpret all other aspects of it in that context.
I’d write about it like that and create products that were structured around it like that.
Over time, I know that that would probably change as I got more clarity on the topic.
Thing is, that if you don’t just start, you’ll only ever do research.
Research is a lot of fun. I’ve done enough of it to attest to that.
Unfortunately, few people get paid to do just it.
So just pick something, and then get busy. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
🙂 Claire
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I already sent you a request, Claire.
Go to the top of this page and in the navigation bar, click Members.
You’ll be able to see everyone who is in the group, who has invited you, and be afforded the opportunity to invite others.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
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The One Thing by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
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Essentialism by Greg McKeown
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Willpower by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney
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The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
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Influence by Robert Cialdini
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The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
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80/20 Sales & Marketing by Perry Marshall
I have several on my shelf to read, but three of them stand out especially.
They are:
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Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg
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Deep Work by Cal Newport
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High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Another thing you can try, Dana, is to break up your tasks into 20 minute chunks of time.
That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s amazing how many of these there are in a day.
Even if you only do one small step, it’s one less that you’ll have to do later.
Thing is that there’s no silver bullet.
You have to give yourself the mental space to think this through.
I have to change my plans and schedule constantly.
If I get one day in the week that goes according to plan, I’m doing well.
Could be a series of late nights.
Fatigue.
Distractions.
Little things that aren’t very important unless they’re left for too long when they become urgent.
Keep your schedule as flexible as you can make it.
Create a routine for the next few days that you can live with.
Follow it, then evaluate what went right and what didn’t.
Revise it and start again.
It’s what I do.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
So, if I understand you correctly, Scott, what you’re trying to figure out is how to receive money for big-ticket items that you sell. Is that right?
If so, then you need to use what is called a Payment Gateway.
PayPal is one, and I know that Sean uses them.
There are others.
I use Stripe and PayPal.
Here’s an article (I haven’t read it) that compares the features of several. https://ecommerce-platforms.com/ecommerce-selling-advice/choose-payment-gateway-ecommerce-store
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
If I could explain all that Google does, Claire, I’d be a billionaire. LOL
The answer to this question lies in the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO-ers are constantly looking for ways to get their websites to show up in the first couple of pages of search results.
One way seems to be to have a large number of links to your site. (You’ve probably heard in the past about people who exchanged links, bought or sold links, etc.)
Some SEO-ers have gone so far as to set up Private Blogging Networks, or PBNs.
The idea here is to invite a lot of people into a group, and then to link to each other so that the bevy of links propels them to the top of the search results.
Google sees this as an attempt to cheat the system. They want the sites at the top of the search results to get there because people are naturally linking to that content; not as the result of one or more people gaming the system to make it look like it.
So if you own several websites, and they’re likely to be with the same host, and you link back and forth among them, then it’s possible that Google will interpret that as a PBN.
Matthew Woodward did a few videos on this where he explained how to create a PBN.
His argument was that Google didn’t like them because they worked, and there’s probably some truth to that.
As we all know: Google wants to be in control.
According to Woodward, however, Google has discovered PBNs in the past because people created them in a way that attracted attention. They told others about them, for example.
He also created a course (now closed) on how to do it. I was tempted to sign up for it, but the financial outlay to set one up was more than I wanted to spend, and I didn’t want to put the time into it because it would mean getting distracted from what I really wanted to do.
This is the briefest of explanations, but I hope that it makes sense.
The bottom line is that it’s okay to do a certain amount of linking among your sites, but you have to be a little cautious so as to not give the impression that you’re trying to do something that Google disapproves of.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy1 user thanked author for this post.
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Thanks for your feedback, Don.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Personally, I would start delegating as soon as I could afford it.
There are things that take me hours – even days – to accomplish, and those things won’t necessarily bring in more customers.
Perry Marshall talks about $10/hr, $100/hr, $1K/hr and $10K/hr work.
All of us should concentrate on doing the last two, and outsource the first two.
The reality is that most of us spend the majority of our time doing $10/hr work.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I find that I connect better with some people than others; and even though there may be more of one gender than another, I wouldn’t want to pitch myself to one and to the exclusion of the other.
Unless your product is for women specifically, or men specifically, I think it’s a mistake to aim for one, but not the other.
People are complicated.
It’s impossible to know without a lot of experience whether one gender will like your products more than the other.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’m a little confused, Scott.
At the beginning of the thread, you ask how you can get paid on big ticket items; but by the end it sounds like you’re the one that wants to buy an expensive product.
What is it that you’re trying to do, and where do you live?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Thanks, Claire.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I was listening to Tim Ferriss today, and suddenly realized that I’d mentioned the wrong name in my post.
It’s Kevin Kelly, not Kevin Kline.
Apologies for the confusion. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Welcome Norf.
Do you live in Italy?
Time is the one thing that few of us think there is enough of.
All that stuff you hear about how everyone has the same amount of time is baloney.
That’s because not everyone has the same amount of discretionary time; and that’s what matters.
Have you ever heard of Pareto’s Law, often referred to as the Pareto Principle?
In a nutshell, it says that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your effort.
Once you become aware of it, you’ll see it everywhere.
That 80/20 ratio can be applied to anything ad infinitum.
So let’s apply it to your workweek.
If you work 40 hours per week, then 20% of it is 8 hours.
That means that you accomplish 80% of what you’ll do all week in one day.
And then you’ll spend 80% of your time doing the other 20%. In other words, you’ll spend four days per week on just 20% of your results.
Let’s take that a step further.
You’ll spend 4% of your time, or a little over an hour and a half on 64% of what you achieve, and 96% of your time on just 36% of what you accomplish all week.
One more step.
You’ll spend approximately 1% of your time on accomplishing more than half of what you do in a week, and 99% of your time on accomplishing LESS than half of what you do.
That may sound crazy, but when you look back over your week and pinpoint the amount of time you actually spent on your work, you’ll find that it’s surprisingly accurate.
So, if you knew that you only had two hours per day, four days per week to work on your business, what would you focus on?
And what would you leave out?
We all waste so much time, and we do so for what we think are all the right reasons.
Think about these ratios, and then get really focused on what matters most.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
This may seem like the blindingly obvious, Scott, but why not send Sean an email and ask him what he means?
We all know that he reads and replies when we write to him.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Scott, we should probably compare genealogical notes by email or on some other platform.
What do you suggest?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
All we laid-back people.
Can you feel the competitive streak beginning to surface? LOL
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Wow, Scott.
You’ve really been through it.
Zig Ziglar famously said that if you help enough other people get what they want, then you can have what you want.
So rather than focus on getting rich, instead devote yourself to helping as many as you can.
Easier said, than done – I know; but your motives are vital to your success.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Best thing to do is to contact your bank, Scott.
Tell them what you want to do, and then ask them what the best way would be for you to do it.
If there is a daily limit, they may waive it for a one-off purchase.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Unless they are mentoring you on different things, in my opinion you should only have one at a time.
That’s because each will have their own ideas and style.
If you’re using two, for example, then the ideas could be contradictory.
That’s because no one has a corner on good ideas, and there are many ways to get the same results.
The key is to find someone who respects you, shares your goals, recognizes what you’re capable of, and who will stretch you.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Hi Steve,
I’m aware of password “rememberers.”
LastPass may be the best known.
They also got hacked a little while ago.
Services like this feel a lot like putting all your eggs in one basket.
If anything goes wrong, you’re in trouble.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I try to bookmark many of Sean’s sales pages, but that sneaky young man has a habit of taking them down. 😉
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Where do your ancestors come from, Scott?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
There’s a new platform in town called Mention.
I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s free and they’ll promote your articles for you.
Another one I think is called Blogarama.
You simply register (it’s free) your site with them, and then every time you put an article on your blog, they resend it.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
The way to get past the “it takes longer to find and explain it” problem is to create systems.
That’s a fancy way of saying, create a checklist, a series of detailed steps about how to do a particular task.
Yes, it’s time-consuming.
But you’ll only ever have to do it once, at least until the software you’re using changes significantly.
I’ve done this sort of thing for myself on occasion.
There are some things that I have to do, but don’t do often enough to remember all the steps. So I make a list of the steps so that the next time I do it I don’t have to spend hours figuring it out again.
Once you have your system, then you can give it to the person to whom you’ve outsourced the work.
Here’s another way to look at it.
Add up all the hours you’ve spent doing it yourself and compare it to the time it would take to create a system. You may be surprised at how much time you’ve lost by following your approach.
As your business grows, you simply won’t have the time or energy to do it all yourself.
That means that you have to create systems so that you can delegate work.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Willie, there is no such thing as “best.”
If you’re starting from scratch, then I’d pick whatever was the easiest for you to do.
Just get it out there.
Work on what’s most important, and when you’re bored or too tired to do anything else, then you can tweak your site.
But if you devote your energies to tweaking, then you’ll never do anything else.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’m grateful for a job that pays the bills and leaves me enough to save a little besides.
I’m thankful for a car, a roof over my head, a warm, dry, and quiet place to live.
I’m thankful for physical, mental, and emotional health, clothes that fit, clean water, and close friends.
I’m thankful for a church where the Bible is faithfully preached Sunday by Sunday, where prayer meetings and house groups are important, and where love is shown in spades.
I’m thankful for my Bible, access to outstanding Christian books, and the desire to read and to meditate.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Claire,
You have no idea how many dead ends I’ve encountered. I should be working for a mapping company. LOL
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
What I want to learn
There’s a certain irony in this question.
That’s because many of us have a propensity to learn and to keep on learning, but somehow never quite get around to implementing.
As a result, we’ve been exhorted, even admonished, to stop learning and start doing. LOL
That said, there are two things that I want to learn in particular:
The first is what I’m missing. I can’t help feeling that even if I did everything I knew how to do that the most important things still haven’t sunk in. I feel tantalizingly close, but not there.
The second thing is that I want to learn how to find the people that I can help the most. You know, Sean, better than me what my strengths are; but for one reason or another, I haven’t been able to connect with the right audience.
Some of that certainly has been the result of changing niches a few times; but I think that there’s more to it than that.
Who I want to meet.
I like to spend time with people who are really smart, and so if I was in a mastermind group, for example, I’d want to be with the sharpest tools in the box.
Who I want to collaborate with
The people I most like to collaborate with are those with whom I can create joint projects.
That’s much easier said than done.
It’s about finding those who need what I have and who have what I need.
I prefer to have part of a pie, rather than 100% of no pie.
I want to have access to . . .
Not something that I’d thought about.
I want to . . .
Build a business that frees me from the day job and enables me to live where I want to and manage my time the way I want to.
I also want to help as many people as I can inside and outside of this group.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Why would you want to retire, Scott? 😉
As long as you’re having fun and you’re healthy enough to carry on, why stop?
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I use WordPress with the Beaver Builder theme and plugin.
That’s the result of trying a lot of things.
I took a weekend course at a university to learn some basic HTML way back when.
Eventually found Dreamweaver. Remember them?
Then moved to WordPress. Tried a lot of themes.
Here’s something you should know.
I struggle with all the techy stuff.
I probably know enough CSS to wreck a site. LOL
The thing about Beaver Builder is that you can make a site that doesn’t look like it’s in WordPress.
Have you noticed? WordPress sites all look pretty much alike.
The tech support at BB is great, too.
I used OptimizePress for a couple of years, but they had a habit of upgrading their theme without updating their training.
And when I contacted tech support, it took longer and longer to get a decent reply. Sometimes it would take several messages for them to tell me what I needed to know.
A whole week would go by before I could solve something.
Bottom line is that if you’re comfortable with CSS and JavaScript, then you don’t have to be so choosy; but if the technical stuff is a challenge, then go with WP and BB.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Wow, Elaine.
That’s a lot of income for printed newsletters.
I do meet people from time to time who are “computer challenged.”
When you work with them every day, it’s hard to believe that not everyone does. LOL
I am curious to know – and I’ll understand if you don’t want to tell me 😉 – the gist of your content.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I’m with you, Don. Interested in most things. Been that way all my life.
Had to force myself to focus on fewer and fewer things.
Still interested in a wide range of subjects, but I’ve learned how much energy I should give to each one.
That is an art.
It’s something that each of us has to discover for ourselves.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Many congratulations, Kristin.
Having written a book myself, I know that it’s quite an accomplishment.
Take a few days off to clear your head, and then start promoting it.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Good point, Jan, though beginners tend to underprice the value they offer.
One thing I see from time to time is that after a product becomes popular, everyone on the list is offered a chance to “lock-in” the current price, and then it’s raised for new customers.
That approach creates scarcity and can cause people to buy.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Bob & Elaine – your insights are valuable. Must admit I never thought of PLR like this.
Having said that, the stuff I’ve seen . . .
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Self-doubt also keeps you from “believing your own press.”
By that I mean that it’s easy to get so caught up in what we’re doing that we’re blind-sided by someone else.
This is how industries get disrupted.
If the market leaders had been paying attention, then they would’ve seen the changes coming.
A dose of healthy self-doubt would’ve kept them on their toes.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Perfectionism, Suzanne, is the first ingredient in the recipe for a nervous breakdown.
Judging from your picture, I’d say that you’re probably too young to remember the Total Quality Movement that became popular 20-30 years ago.
Everything was quality.
The goal was perfection.
I think that Six Sigma came out of that. (Sigma is the greek letter for one standard deviation, and six is an alliterative expression of near perfection.)
Quality is important, but no one cares if it’s perfect.
All people really want is to solve their problem.
And those of us who tend towards perfectionism have to remember that.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy1 user thanked author for this post.
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Hi Suzanne,
I actually know quite a bit about how psychometrics – tests that help us to understand personality traits – are constructed.
And so when I see presentations, such as the one you mentioned, the first thing I was to see is the research.
Do you have a link or two for that?
The test manual would be especially interesting.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I haven’t read it, but Perry Marshall, one of the highest paid consultants in the world, wrote a book about FB marketing.
If I was thinking about doing it, I’d read that book first.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Live is always better because you’re able to interact with those who attend.
The challenge is getting enough people to attend.
If the conversation feed is quiet, everyone will know that hardly anyone is there.
That could damage your credibility.
So if you’re sure that you won’t have at least a few hundred people who come to it live, then you probably ought to record it, and then make it available to those who sign up.
The one thing you must not do is tell people it’s live, but then deliver only a recorded version.
Doing that makes your stuff look dated; not evergreen.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
Like all advertising, I wouldn’t recommend it until you’re earning enough to pay for it.
And even then, I’d be inclined to find other ways to get people to my site.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
I would treat this requests like any other business offer.
Check out the person who has approached you.
Visit his/her website.
Ask the person how your products fit into the other products sold by that person.
At any point that something doesn’t look right, walk away.
But there might be an opportunity mixed in with all the junk.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
