Another week has gone by and I am slowly making progress. I have been held up a bit by techie issues, all of which were easily solved with help from Daniel (John’s technical support department). Each time it happens, I am delayed by 12 – 24 hours, due to the time difference. Daniel is in the U.K. and I am in New Zealand, so generally, when I write to him it is the middle of his night, and when he replies, it is the middle of mine!

I have plenty of other stuff to get on with though.

My big triumph this week was getting my sales page finished and uploaded. That was so exciting! It actually looks like a real one – LOL.

How do other people ever get everything done, I wonder? I have been so focused on the sales page, not forgetting that life in the physical world must  also be maintained , that I have fallen behind with posting to my two blogs. I suppose when you actually know what you are doing, you get more done more quickly.

Well, it’s week 9 for most of the others on the course, but I’m still behind, and working on week 8 stuff.

Week 8: we are supposed to be creating our sales letter (Did I mention I had finished my ebook?). John warned us we might find this difficult. Well I can tell you, I have really struggled. We have good course material, and goodness knows, I have read through enough sales letters during the last three years – I should be able to write one no trouble.

And I am, really. It’s just taking me longer than I imagined it would. I’m used to just writing like you would speak. I mean, you don’t think about every word or sentence you are going to say when you are talking  (well, there are times when maybe we should, I know…) to someone, and that’s how I generally write best. The words just come, and I write them down.

Now, I am having to stop and ask myself if my words will be having the effect I want them to have on the reader. I am having to think about what I am saying. Once I have to stop and think, the words don’t flow.

Perhaps there is my answer: I should just write, then go back and edit afterwards. Meanwhile, I am firmly of the opinion that once I have some income from all of this, someone else will probably be writing my sales letters!

It’s Easter, a time when the roads in New Zealand, as in other countries that observe this holiday, are clogged with traffic and drivers are hot, frustrated and irritable.

Not me! I’m happy as a mouse in the pantry, head down at my computer. I’m in catch-up mode now. My product (an ebook) is almost complete – just needs finishing touches, and I’ve been creating my second blog. This one is on the topic that matches my book.

I’m happy because I am so much enjoying this course, I feel I am learning a lot and that I have made some progress at last.

It was a good exercise to repeat the blog building process. I went back through all the relevant class material and naturally, it was all much easier the second time around. I did make one serious mistake, though. I was careless, and I managed to delete an important file from my blog template! My blog looked very strange after that!

An email to Daniel (John’s techie support person) soon had me sorted. It took me less time to correct the problem than it had to create it in the first place!

If you are new to the internet and thinking of buying into a “how to” course, I can’t stress to you enough the importance of good support for your queries. In this regard, John and Daniel have never let me down, always replying promptly, even over a holiday weekend. 

I hope they both found an opportunity to have some “time out” from computers and coaching students.

To a rewarding internet journey

Sue 

I’m still behind the program! My problem is the length of time I am taking to do the research. The more I discover about my topic, the more questions I have, therefore, the more research I need to do.

John is very reassuring, saying it won’t matter if any of us are a bit behind, as we will easily be able to catch up. I do like it that I can work at my own pace. It would be much more difficult if I were having to keep up with live lessons. I want to produce the best product that I can, so it does not make sense to me to rush this part of the project.

Another problem I have is that this blog is about my progress on the coaching course, but my product is totally unrelated to anything to do with internet marketing, so I really need to create a whole new blog.

With that said, I had better get on with it.

Toward a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

I have been so engrossed in writing my ebook that the whole week has flashed past without me posting to this blog. I have to say that even though I have been researching my topic for the last year, there seems to be an endless amount of information to amass, verify and sort out (the oats from the chaff, so to speak). Much of it is conflicting, which rather suits my purpose in writing on my chosen subject (nothing to do with internet marketing, by the way). But I must decide what is sensible  and logical, what is biased towards promoting a product, and what is completely contrary to my own opinion. I must decide how much to put in, and what to leave out.

In short, I am running out of time. I’ll bet I’m not the only one.

Therefore, this post is not only late, it is short. There’s no point in waffling on if you have nothing much to say.

So for now, I’m back to my book, and a few more hours of reading, note-taking and, with any luck, some writing as well.

Toward a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

John Thornhill Personal Coaching: Week 5

This week has brought a huge buzz of excitement for me!
We have started to create our own product.
Firstly, we read Paula Brett’s excellent book about writing an ebook – Emergency Surgery – Operation ebook. (See My Review). It’s an excellent, easy to understand  guide for anyone who is wanting help with getting ideas, or wanting a system to follow for getting a book written.

We developed the title of our product and ordered the domain name and the graphics.

The graphics were what caused me my big buzz. At John’s recommendation, I ordered them from Planet Divinity. It was my first time buying professionally designed graphics and I was a bit wary of parting with my money, but I decided there was no point in doing the course if I was not going to follow advice. So I paid the very reasonable fee, filled in the order form, sent off some of my own photos for the designer to use and waited to see what I would get.

I did not have long to wait. One friendly email communication from the designer (about my photos) and a mere 48 hours later I had my web page template, complete with buy now button and a few other incidentals, and my product cover in two sizes.

To say I was thrilled with the design is an understatement. It is gorgeous! The colours are just as I had visualized them and my photo that I was not sure would be any good just leaps off the page with energy.

I am very pleased I followed John’s advice to get professional graphics. It saved me hours of struggle and got me a great result I could never have achieved myself. As for Planet Divinity, I am so impressed with their service they will be my graphic designers for life.

Review: Emergency Surgery: Operation eBook, by Paula Brett

If you’ve been trying to make it as an internet marketer of information products, even for only a short time, the message will eventually get through – you need to have your own product. For many of us, the next thought is – “But I don’t know enough about anything to write an eBook”, or “I can’t write well enough to write an eBook” or “nothing I am interested in is of any use to others”.

From the very first page of her book, Paula Brett shows us that she has shared our pain and then goes on to offer us a clearly laid out plan to overcome all our obstacles. Her “Emergency Surgery” is to effectively remove our own self-defeating thought processes and transplant in their place a confident, positive attitude to the task ahead.

Paula takes the process of creating an information product and breaks it down into manageable pieces so that our feelings of  “overwhelm” fade to insignificance. She guides us step by step through a system which is almost as simple as “connecting the dots”. Paula includes a set of worksheets that help us work through each step. Her instructions are interspersed with encouraging anecdotes from other successful writers, about their own beginnings in internet marketing, which serve to remind us that everybody was once new to this fascinating arena. By the time we have finished reading Operation eBook, we understand exactly what we need to do.

I have found Operation eBook to be well written in an entertaining and readable style, with clear instructions that are easy to follow. I followed them, even though I had no idea what I would write a book about. Paula’s book first of all helped me find my topic, and then showed me how to create my product. My very first ebook has almost written itself!  Not only that, but also I now have many other topics buzzing around in my head, waiting to become my next product.

If you have been struggling to discover something that you can write about, or grappling with the “how to” of writing your book, I can strongly recommend Paula Brett’s Operation eBook as the solution to your problems.

If you want to stop that little voice in your head that’s telling you you have nothing to write about and can’t write anyway, I urge you to give Operation eBook a try. Go there now, before you forget. Here’s the link – you won’t regret it.

http://paula-brett.com/hg/?a=2phLsh

Wow! This week has rushed by so quickly.
Our task for this week was to choose our niche and do some research in preparation for product creation, so there was much less technical stuff to deal with.
We followed a brainstorming and selection process step by step until we arrived at our choice.

I have not found this week easy at all, not because of any weakness in the course material, but because I suffer from something that many new aspiring internet marketers are plagued with – self doubt.
It goes like this (I’m sure you will know what I mean): you make lists of all your interests, hobbies, skills and so on, looking for something you might be able to educate, inform, or help people with. It has to be something that there is a group of other people passionately interested in and willing to spend money for. Then, if you are like me, you think “Oh, why would people want to learn from me? What qualifies me to set myself up as an expert on A,B,or C topic?”

Thinking like this defeats me before I get anywhere near started. Over the last three years I have learned that actually, I know a lot about several topics that I can help others with. I love to do research (so that I can find out more), I can write well enough and in a readable style, but, more importantly, I have learned that I must build a relationship of trust with my readers. My future success will depend as much on this relationship as on the quality of  any material or information I will offer, although of course, I must provide information and products of high standard and value to my subscribers in order to sustain the relationship.

So I banished all self-defeating thoughts, worked through all of John’s exercises this week, I’ve chosen my niche, and I am having a lot of fun doing research. There is plenty of information on my topic available for free on the internet, but finding it takes more time than most people have spare. I figure that bringing the salient points together into one place should be useful enough to people that they will be happy to pay for a product that will save them many hours of time.

My topic is in a field where large companies have deep financial investments and many experts offer strongly opposing opinions. I know enough about the topic, from personal experience, to easily make choices when confronted with conflicting information; I’m confident enough in my knowledge to pass those choices, and the reasons behind them, on to my readers; I’m not involved in any associated industry or profession, so I can offer readers the information from an objective viewpoint.

Now, I did not set out to be teaching others how to start an online business, since I have not yet done that myself, so my topic is in another line altogether. That means I will have to create another blog (it will be good for me to go over that again and see how much more quickly I can do it this time). With that said, I had better get started.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

As a newcomer to internet marketing (common term “newbie”), your task is to learn the basic essentials.  Whether your goal is to build a long-term business or just to generate an extra income, in the beginning those basics are pretty much the same.

It cannot be said too often – there is no “get-rich-quick” scheme to online riches. Believe me, I spent more time trying out such schemes than I am willing to confess to. Now don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of “latest and greatest” new ideas or secrets cropping up daily that will probably enhance the business of someone who is already established and understands how these new ideas can be used. But if you are just starting out to learn how to build a business online, you must understand that you will have to put time and effort into learning the basics, building a solid foundation from which your business will grow. You can try out the latest new tricks later. Forget about the ones you might be missing just now – the good ones will still be around, even tested and tweaked to work better, by the time you are ready for them.

The basic steps to building a strong foundation for your internet business have not changed much in principle over the years, and there are a few guys teaching those steps still, who have been teaching them for years, and whose good reputation depends on their students, people like us, going on to do well. With hindsight, I can see that if I had started out three years ago studying with one of these experienced marketers, I would be much further ahead now than I actually am.

Remember I said in an earlier post that I unsubscribed from most of the many newsletters and lists I had signed up for? The ones I kept (and now have time to read properly) are listed on the right under “other cool blogs”. I’ve kept up my subscriptions to these ones because I’ve found that they are generous with tips and sound advice. In fact, I’ve often learnt more from their free stuff than I have from other people’s over-hyped rubbish that I’ve paid good money for (it’s unbelievable that I could have been so gullible for so long). So I invite you to take a look at what they have to say, get to know them, then make an informed choice about where you will spend your valuable time and attention.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue

I remembered that I said in an earlier post I would keep a weekly diary about the training and I just realized that I have not really done so. The end of week 3 is approaching and I am so excited I can hardly wait for week 4 to begin! It amazes me how much I have learned how to do in this short time.

To recap: In the first week we made the preparations for creating an online presence. I used to think the first step would be to build a website, but no, it turned out there are a few things to achieve before you get to that. Choosing a domain name, for instance.

In week 2 we learned the steps involved in creating that online presence – so much easier than everything I had tried in the past. Somehow, I’d got the idea that the first thing you need is a website. Well, a blog is a sort of website and it turns out that it’s dead simple to set up, especially when you have these very clear videos to follow that John has made for us.

In week 2 we also started making our first posts and signed up for Google Adsense. I had heard of Adsense before, but I did not really understand how it works. I’m learning.

I am wondering if one ever needs a “real” website. It will be interesting to find out.

This week has been much more technical than the first two weeks, but once again, thanks to the clear explanations in John’s videos, I did not find any difficulty in getting everything up and running. Google Adsense became a bit more clear – it’s all those little ads you can see scattered about the blog in little groups called “Ads by Google”. They are meant to match the contents of your blog or site. I was amused to see the first ones that appeared. They were all about French cooking or learning to speak French. I changed the title of my blog from simply “sue-french” to “sue-french’s internet marketing journey” and started to get some ads that were more relevant. John told me not to worry about it – the ads will gain more relevance as my site becomes more established.

The other major things we covered this week were getting an autoresponder service (Aweber, which seems to be rated as best by most marketers) and adding the opt-in form you can see at the top of the page.
As well as this, we carried on posting to our blogs.

I have found this very satisfying. At first I was worried I would not have much to say. I had no idea what I would write about. I didn’t really believe I had anything in me that I was expert enough to teach anyone else about and did not think anyone would be too interested in just reading about me, or about my life. So I followed John’s suggestion and planned to write about the program. I just wanted to get started. That’s one thing I have learned over the last three years – you go nowhere if you don’t start.

Well, something magic happened once I got started. Suddenly the writing was easy, and now it’s hard to stop. And another thing – totally unexpected, this – I realized that I have actually learned a few things over the last three years and that I will feel less as if I have wasted those years if I can pass on a few tips to others. That’s how I got sidetracked away from posting my diary about John’s coaching program.

I’d love to get a bit of feedback, so if you’ve got a comment or a question, go for it.

To a rewarding internet journey,

Sue