***Updated 3/15***

Well, we’ve witnessed yet another masterful launch orchestrated by the illustrious Frank Kern. I don’t know about you but Frank could be selling tomato slicers and I’d still watch all of the videos and read all the pre-launch materials just to see what he’s doing and what kind of NLP sneakiness he’s using.

Honestly, this was a pretty standard launch for Frank – 3 valuable pieces of material given away during the pre-launch and then the big launch. In case you missed them, they were “Four Day Cash Machine,” “Mysterious Stranger,” and the software, “Good Karma List Machine.” While the methodology is certainly similar to early launches, the production value of the videos has really improved since Frank launched Mass Control a few years ago and the pre-launch content is head and shoulders better than the stuff he gave away for his early launches.

And today is the day your inbox will be bombarded with blatant pitches and lame bonuses by Frank’s JV Partners.

I’m going to take a different approach, though.

I’m not going to make some lame pitch here. I’m not going to claim to be the only one providing an “objective” review of the product either. Look – it’s a live class meaning that it doesn’t exist yet which means anybody providing an “honest review” is lying out of their teeth.

Instead, I’m going to give you some of the background information you need to know that nobody else is mentioning, specifically, costs and time commitment required.

Is A List Really That Valuable

Look, there’s no doubt that Frank knows how to build a big list in a big hurry… and while he does have a tendency to oversimplify complicated steps once in a while, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better teacher on the topic of list building.

But is a list really that valuable? Well, yes. If built correctly, it’s almost equivalent to being able to print money on demand. And building a gigantic list really isn’t the key but the trick is to build ones who will respond to you.

However, I’m going to tell you right now that building a big list fast requires significant investment. If you think that your only cost is going to be the List Control course itself, you’re deluding yourself.

I’ll tell you right now Frank is a big proponent of PPC, Media Buys, and JV Partners. All that stuff costs money. So if you’re thinking that by merely investing in List Control, you’ll get a big list, sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. The product will simply teach you the methodology to do it. So if you’ve only got $2,000 to invest, this product is NOT for you.

The other investment you’ll need to make is time. It’s not just the hour or ninety minutes or however long each class is each week – the real time commitment is the length of time it’s going to take to implement the stuff you’re learning. If you don’t have at least five hours a week to completely focus on list building (or don’t have an employee who can), then again, I’d recommend

If and only if you meet the above criteria, and you really want to focus on increasing the size of your list (or building one from scratch), then go for it. Frank has a fun and relaxed teaching style that most people really like (i.e. it’s not like taking a class in high school or college).

I’m not going to make a big pitch for the product here – plenty of other people have already done that. Either it’s for you or it’s not and either way it’s totally cool. If you decide to get List Control through my link, I’ll give you a free month of my personal 1 on 1 coaching (limited to 5 people since 1 on 1 coaching is really time consuming).

Have A Great Day!

Gary Ruplinger

Compensation Disclosure: Although I think it’s obvious, if you do decide to purchase through my affiliate link, I will be compensated for that action. And if you think affiliate marketing is some evil thing, then stick to being and employee – being an entrepreneur isn’t for you.  :-)

Information on what is actually in the product is a little spare but to be honest, I don’t really care about the information.  I care about the software.

CPA marketing as a publisher is how I’ve been earning a living the past 15 months and I’ve been doing so quietly, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do.  In fact, it can be a major challenge to find a profitable campaign to promote.

And that’s where the Magic Bullet System comes in.  I’ll update as soon as I know more about the training – like I said, I’m way more excited about the software since I already have a wealth of knowledge on how to do CPA.

Here’s some of the info I’ve uncovered so far about the Magic Bullet System…

But if you’re packing it in and calling it a year already, you’re doing yourself a pretty big disservice.  2009 isn’t over yet!  In fact you can still get a lot accomplished this year if you really want to.

If you’ve had a bad year so far, you don’t get to call it a lost cause just yet and pack it in for 2010.

I was recently having this conversation with a friend and I was a little stressed out because 2009 has definitely not been a banner year for me.  However, I’m the first to acknowledge it’s not over yet… but there is limited time.

She mentioned it’s just a number.  While I do agree – it is just a number, it’s also a way of keeping score and I’m not ready to let 2009 slip away without a few more tries at ending on a high note.

So what are you going to do this month?  You’ve still got 24 days left (you can have the 24th and 25th off).

I’ll do my best to give that to you here.

Here’s the big thing I want you to remember – this product isn’t for everyone.

This product really isn’t targeted to or priced for people who just want to make a couple extra grand each month.   It’s very much designed for those who want to be one of the “big guns” in the online world.

Fast Action Bonus – First 100 People

Here’s the must have bonus for the product and it’s being provided by Mike Hill himself but only to the first 100 people who buy the product.  It’s a video consultation with him.  If you decide it’s for you

Links:

Sales Page (the page where you can get the product)
Webinar Page (I think they’re taking this down today or tomorrow – cliff note’s version of the product – even if you’re not buying, I’d listen)
Free Stuff Page (not sure how much longer they’ll have this page up either)

Here’s my original overview of the product that I posted on the 11th of October if you’re interested. :

Here’s a video I found that’ll give you a pretty good idea of everything that’s in the box – I don’t actually have mine yet so I can’t do my own review of it just yet:

Click Here To Visit The Official Sales Tsunami Site

I’ve been running an online business for the past 8 years and as someone who has spent in the neighborhood of $100,000 on products and training, I can tell you there are a lot of bad and useless products being shoved down your through.

They don’t really give you the information you need to run your business and many of the ones that do provide solid information only give you a small sliver of the information you need to actually run a successful business.

Sure, most of these products have been proven to get results for the guru selling it, but frequently it’s not a system that can be duplicated either due to a unique skill set the guru has or can’t be understood because the guru is a poor teacher.

I think that’s what really drew me to Mike Hill’s Sales Tsunami course.

First of all, rather than just covering the “sexy” and fun parts of being a business owners, he covers the minutia and details others conveniently leave out.

Let me give you an example. Instead of just explaining the mechanics of building a landing page for your offer, Mike actually explain the psychology behind what’s going on in your prospects mind so you can get a far better conversion rate. And because you probably can’t read minds, he explains how to split test your page until you have a winner on your hands.

It’s that kind of attention to detail that will end up saving your bacon in the long run.

There are actually 19 different sections to the course so don’t expect to be able to understand the entire business model in just one day. I would actually recommend you treat this like an intensive summer school class. That means you study the material at least 5 days a week for 5 weeks.

It is far better to approach this system the same way you’d treat a 400 level college course. You’ll need to take the time to study the material if you want to do well with it.

Here’s the link to check out the product – Sales Tsunami

Have a great day.

Gary

Better late than never, right?

Anyway, what I’d like to do right now is find out what YOU need help with… and then, get this, answer your question. (no tricks, I promise)

So here’s what I’d like you to do – there’s a link that says comments on this blog post – please click on comments and post your questions, dilemmas and places where you’re stuck, and I’ll do my best to answer your specific question. (I’ll reply in the comments and if you leave your real email address, I’ll send you a copy.)

——————–
Why am I doing this?
——————-

The first is obvious – I actually do care and want to see you succeed. I have a lot of niches that I’m involved in but this is the one I’m truly the most passionate about, and has a lot of awesome people in it that are struggling for one reason or another that I think I can help.

I don’t want to come off as some kind of arrogant “marketing god” or anything like that. I’m just a guy who loves marketing trying to help out my fellow marketers. (We gotta stick together, ya know.)

———————-
I want to help YOU!
———————-

Now the second reason I’m doing this is because I’m cookin’ up a couple new training products here at the Command Center and I want to make sure they directly address your problems and potential hang-ups. The advantage to you is that I’m personally going to respond to all your questions and give you the best answer I can.

———————-
Here’s what to do next
———————-

Just click on the comments and submit yours. I’ll personally respond to the questions every few hours (and if you leave your real email address, I’ll send you the reply as well so you don’t need to keep clicking the refresh button).

Feel free to ask comments on anything related to running an online business – getting traffic, conversion, affiliate marketing, eBay, whatever! If you ask a question that I can’t answer, I promise I’ll do what I can to at least get you pointed in the right direction.

-Gary

P.S. I can’t keep replying indefinitely, you can keep commenting, but if you want an actual answer, please make sure you ask your question within the next 72 hours (that’s 3 days if you’re “math challenged”

So today, let’s talk about how a marketing consultant can help your business.

Does Your Business Need A Marketing Consultant?

If business is booming with more clients than you could ever possibly handle, then stop reading right now – this post isn’t for you.

Since you’re still here, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume more money would be welcomed. So let’s talk about how to get more customers in the door.

When it comes to being a business owner, most business owners are pretty proficient at whatever it is the business does. If you own a landscaping business, you’re probably a pretty descent landscaper. If have a roofing service, you probably are pretty good at roofing a house.

But being a business owner does not make you a defacto expert in marketing a business. In fact, many business owners are downright lousy at it.

That’s why I generally recommend hiring a marketing consultant. Just like that plumber being good at doing plumbing, a marketing consultant is usually a pretty sharp marketer and can quickly see ways for your business to make more money.

The important thing to rememberThe key here is to hire an *independent* marketing consultant. The guy who calls you up to sell you space in the yellow pages – not a marketing consultant (those people are called salesmen, a noble profession, but not the same as a marketing consultant). Same goes for the cable company rep that wants you to buy a television commercial – salesman, not consultant.

Find a consultant who isn’t tied to any one company and they’ll be able to see opportunities in your business you might have missed. For example, instead of telling you to purchase more advertising on the radio, they can help you rework the campaign to be more effective.

Another example would be the Internet and local business owners. Local business owners are some of the worst offenders at having *terrible* websites. My definion of terrible may be different than yours. If it doesn’t bring extra money into your business, it’s terrible no matter if pretty or not .

A marketing consultant (specializing in the Internet – that’s important) will be able to take your site make sure it is a profit generator for your business.

I’m curious if you’re starting to see how hiring a marketing consultant for your business isn’t really an expense at all, but an investment in making your business far more profitable.   If that sounds good, give me, Gary Ruplinger, a call at (402) 408-9888.

“In fact, your logo is often the difference between a new customer and a missed opportunity.”

How many buying decisions have you made in the past year based on the company’s logo (not brand, that’s different)?

Any?

I actually thought about this myself, racking my brain to think of any business that lured me in and made me a customer because of a logo.  I came up with zero.  None.  Zilch.  Nada.

I know, I know – all the big Fortune 500 companies have fancy logos that everybody knows, and you need a logo too, right?

I didn’t want to take the time to go down the entire list of Fortune 500 companies so I just went with the top 10.   Let’s talk about their logos.

1) Walmart – biggest company in the world… here’s their logo, I can type it for you – WAL*MART (replace my little star thing with an actual star and their you have it, their logo)

2) How about Exxon Mobil – number 2 on the list.
Mobil’s logo – how about this – a Mobil with all letters in blue and a red “o.”  Impressed yet?

3) Chevron – number 3
They do have an actual logo beyond just the letters in their name.  I’ts blue and red, you probably even recognize it.  However, does their logo make you want to work with them?

4) General Motors – number 4
GM – For those who like at least we’re making some progress here.  Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, Saturn, Saab (and others).  They all likely have logos you recognize, but I’m going to bet when you decide to buy a car you care a lot more about the brand than you do about the logo.  Then again, they’re on the verge of bankruptcy…

I’ll stop here.  You can go look the rest of them up if you like, but here’s the point.  Your logo is not a primary reason people choose to do business with you.  It’s NOT a secondary reason people do business with you.  In fact, your logo is pretty much irrelevant.  For most companies a logo is simply their company name in a special font or color anyway.

Don’t let some graphic designer tell you different.  They’re designers.  Of course, they’re going to say your logo is important.  They’ll tell you stories of the iconic Coca-Cola logo.  Perhaps they’ll even mention that Pepsi is spending $100 million to drill their new logo into peoples’ heads (which is reason enough for me to never invest a dollar in that company).

Invest your dollars in something that will have a return.  Better train your salespeople.  Bring in more leads.  Forget about logos and other b.s. and focus on the things that make your business money.

We’ve all heard the saying “knowledge is power.”

But is it really?

Okay, let me tell you how I came to pondering this idea.  Last night I was talking to one of my friends who owns a local business in Lincoln.  She was telling me about about all the time she spends going to networking events and how they frequently talk about the economy and politics and all that jazz.

If the economy is down, does it really matter to what extent?  Does having that knowledge really help your business?

My take on this is no, it doesn’t.

There are plenty of stories (I’ll give a couple examples later) of people succeeding when they market conditions or they economy would have said they shouldn’t have been able to.  But because they didn’t know any better, they succeeded anyway.

I remember back from my mlm days when my upline would say that December is a terrible month to be sponsoring people (i.e. bringing them into the cult).  Then in January you’d hear from people who had record months because somebody failed to mention that little fact to them.

Here’s an example from Fordon Segal, founder of Crate and Barrel

Maybe your discussions about the economy are solutions oriented, and perhaps it has you thinking creatively about how to make this year even better.  But if you’re not, then you’re better off not knowing at all.  Stick your head in the sand, and get to work making making sure your marketing and sales team are the best they can be.

Anyone who knows me knows very well that I don’t watch the news. I don’t read the newspaper either. If I’m visiting an online news site like CNN, I’ll skim the headlines to make sure the world didn’t end, but that’s about it with regard to “mainstream” news. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about the economic stimulus package they just passed in Congress other than it’s about $780 billion (was I close?).

Why?

Simply because watching that shit will make you want to jump off a bridge.
So back to this story I promised. Over the holidays I went back to my hometown to visit family and we were all at my grandparent’s house for dinner. My grandpa was working on a puzzle so I decided to go help him – puzzles are fun. The evening news was on in the background and they were reporting about how busy the stores were. Yes, there were people out there actually spending money.

Fortunately, they quickly put a negative slant on the story by saying that some stores were going out of business… whew, it was a close one.

It actually got worse. They got to the weather. You’d think you’d be safe with the weather especially when the forecast calls for a very nice day for December in Wisconsin.

But you’d be wrong.

They decided to talk about how the warm temperatures were going to melt the snow and how there was a significant risk of flooding rather than talk about how it was going to be a welcome relief from the sub zero temperatures we’d been having. (There was NO flooding whatsoever, none, btw.)

At that point I decided to go help in the kitchen rather than work on the puzzle.

What’s my point? (I’ll say it again)

My point is that watching the news will make you want to down a bottle of oxycodone and go stand in front of a train.

So with this whole recession it’s pretty easy to believe that it’s the great depression all over again if you listen to the media.

Here are a few recent headlines from Google News- took me all of 60 seconds to compile these:

• GM, Chrysler Push for More US Aid After Mistakes
• Smithfield Foods To Cut 1800 Jobs, Close 6 Plants
• Delphi To Slash 775 Jobs
• California Budget Crisis Jeopardizes 20,000 Jobs
• 600,000 Jobs Lost in January

This is the garbage the media is pushing on you… for ratings!

They’ve done studies on this – happy people don’t watch as much TV so it’s in their best
interest to keep you feeling like you might be better off getting hit by a truck than to report hopeful and happy news.

What’s the reality? Some businesses are in trouble. They got fat and lazy during an unprecedented economic expansion. But that’s certainly not everyone.

Here are some news stories that you probably haven’t seen (took me a lot longer to dig these up):

• Google Earnings Up 28%
• Wal-Mart Profit Beats Estimates
• Coca-Cola Shares Rise As Profit Beats Estimates
• Condoms Sales Stimulated During Soft Economy

Wait, not every company is about to go under?

No, not even close.

Some people are making a fortune right now.

It happens during every recession without fail.

For example, during the Great Depression, Joseph Kennedy saw his personal fortune skyrocket by a factor of 40! And it was a lot worse back then than it is now.

I know plenty of business owners just like you and me claiming that they’d be doing okay if it weren’t for this recession but people just aren’t buying things.

Bull Shit!

Chris Mcneeney sold 3,000 copies of his ebook, Google Shadow in 24 hours. (about $200,000 in one day)
Four weeks ago, Stompernet did over seven figures with their Formula Five Launch.
Two weeks ago Frank Kern took in over 4 million with his Mass Control 2.0 launch selling a $2,000 product!

I could go on… and on. People are still buying stuff. They’re buying it online. They’re buying it from stores. They’re buying services. There is still plenty of money out there, but if you watch keep listening to the media (or your friends who do) you’re going to give up before you even get started.

The solution…

Turn off the damn TV!

Read a book.  Spend some quality time with the kids.  Go to the gym.  Hell, go have a beer down at the bar (Sam Adams White Ale is my recommended seasonal).

Then go out and sell something!

It was last April when I was doing a search for how well one of my blog posts was ranking in Google when I saw that my website had been marked as a “this site may harm your computer” site.

To say the least I was surprised, there’s never been any “funny business” going on around here so I thought it must be a mistake and that Google will fix it in a day or two. I even contacted Google through their recommended form to take care of the issue.

Needless to say, I was not immediately removed. My hosting company checked the server and couldn’t find any type of malicious software or viruses that would have caused Google to flag this site.

To make matters worse, when Firefox released version 3, they started automatically blocking pages marked by Google as “may harm your computer” so this website was completely inaccessible to Firefox users entirely… so I quit posting since it seemed unlikely anybody would be reading.

But yesterday I finally noticed that the notice had been removed from my site so I’m going to start posting again.

I’m going to be making some changes around here. First, I’ll be getting up a brand new blog design in the next day or two.

I’ll start making posts geared towards business owners again. It seems like a lot has happened since my last post and this whole recession thing is on a lot of peoples’ minds. I won’t beat a dead horse there, but I will give you some tips on how to come out better because of it in the end.

I’ll still be making occasional product review for products that I think are well done and worth your time and for products that need to be avoided like the plague.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got today. I’ll have a new post before the end of the week. Thanks for reading my ramblings here. Please come again soon… oh, and tell your friends