Idea Almanac

Rule 23: Don’t Be an Employee in Your Business

If you are planning on starting a new business, take care not to spend too much time working as an employee in your business and not enough time as the business owner working on your business. This is the core message of the book, E-Myth, by Michael Gerber. As a new entrepreneur, you probably have a strong technical background in providing the specific service or product your company sells from your past work experiences, but you may lack experience in managing a business, which is what you need as an owner who runs the company that sells your product or service.

Excerpt From: Matthew Paulson. “40 Rules for Internet Business Success: Escape the 9 to 5, Do Work You Love, and Build a Profitable Online Business.”

Idea Almanac

R.O.I. STANDS FOR RELEVANCE, OMNIPRESENCE, AND INTIMACY
Relevance refers to the quality of the messages you’re sending. It’s how you win attention, it creates the way your business is positioned in the minds of others, and it determines how the offer(s) you make to the market are received. Omnipresence is the strategic distribution of your message, brand, and marketing. When your audience feels like everywhere they look, there you are. Intimacy is the element of real, human connection in your marketing, and it’s the piece that I feel entrepreneurs miss the boat on the most. Nothing makes business happen and money move faster than trust. And the fastest way to build trust is through inviting others to share greater Intimacy with you.”

Excerpt From: Oldford, Scott. “The Nuclear Effect: The 6 Pillars of Building a 7+ Figure Online Business.”

Idea Almanac

It seemed like the answer to the question of whether people would pay for online tennis instruction was “No”—at least not at the volume to support Will and his business partner.
That was when Will discovered the Product Launch Formula. And since it was desperate times, Will leapt into action. He put his first launch together in just a few weeks. As he describes it now, that first launch had some rough edges. Will threw his prelaunch together quickly and used only the very basics of the formula. But as you’ll see in this chapter, even if you get only the core principles right, the results can be dramatic. That first launch did $35,000 in sales in a week’s time, which was as much as the business had made since they opened the doors ten months earlier.”

Excerpt From: Jeff Walker. “Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online – Amazon Link

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“That’s why you must pay attention to what I call the triad of selling—the offer, the close, and the risk reversal segment. These three elements support the entire structure of your ad. Remember, whatever copy we’re writing is an ad whether it’s a sales letter, e-mail, landing page, or even an eBay ad—they’re all ads.”

Excerpt From: Ray Edwards. “How to Write Copy That Sells : The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often – Link to Amazon

Idea Almanac

The easiest to start business opportunities today let you take advantage of the publishing capabilities of the Internet to attract sales. Fragmented and distracted audiences, piracy, and lower cost competitors are destroying the 20th-century media elite of top newspapers, TV programs, radio stations, record labels, and film studios. There’s room for you as one of those lower cost competitors, too. If you pick a profitable target market and serve that audience consistently with content it finds valuable or entertaining, you can make good money with low overhead, and have fun doing it, too.

Excerpt From: Scott Fox. “Click Millionaires.”

Idea Almanac

I want to be abundantly clear: the goal should be to charge as much money for your products or services as humanly possible. I’m talking heinous amounts of money. That being said, anyone can raise their prices, but only a select few can charge these rates and get people to say yes. From this point forward, you must abandon any notion you have about “what’s fair.” Every enormous company in the world charges you money for things that cost them nothing. It costs pennies for the phone company to add an additional user, except they don’t mind charging you hundreds per month for access. It costs pennies to manufacture pharmaceutical drugs, but they don’t mind charging hundreds of dollars a month for it. ”

Excerpt From: Alex Hormozi. “$100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No.”

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I taught myself direct marketing as a science. I’m a reliability guy. I’m far more interested in a car that starts and runs well and predictably every time you turn the key than one that looks sexy and is popular with some in-crowd, but might stall at 80 MPH or not start at all. I like evergreen, not frequently obsolete. In my roles as a strategic consultant and a direct-response copywriter, I am all about creating advertising, marketing, and sales assets of lasting value for my clients—not moneymaking devices written in disappearing ink. That’s why I agreed to write the foreword for this online marketing wizard’s book. I admire the truth Russell has put between these pages. – Dan S. Kennedy

Excerpt From: Russel Branson. “DotCom Secrets.”

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The patterns of Facebook have almost identically matched what Google did when it started.
Step #1) The Adoption: Make the barrier of entry easy to get everyone in and using the platform.
Step #2) The Price Hike: Slowly raise the prices to squeeze out the margins, killing off any entrepreneurs who don’t understand how to use funnels.
Step #3) The Slap: Kill off the 50 percent of advertisers who cause 90 percent of their headaches.

Excerpt From: Russell Brunson. “Traffic Secrets.”

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I asked my friend how she would define retirement, and she said, “Not having to work at all anymore.” What does her definition imply?
Traditionally, you work because you need money. You wouldn’t survive without your paycheck, at least not for long. So, if retirement means not having to work at all anymore, then the definition implies financial independence.
Retirement = freedom.
Retirement = choice.
Retirement = financial independence.

Excerpt From: Rachel Richards. “Passive Income, Aggressive Retirement: The Secret to Freedom, Flexibility, and Financial Independence”

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“Selling your company, especially for $10 million or more, is life changing, to say the least. Heck, it’s generation changing. I’ve seen it happen many times, and it never gets old. If you use the method in this book, you may find yourself in a position to one day sell a business if you want to. This is absolutely possible, assuming that your product is good, you’ve built a good business, and you have put in the step-by-step work I’ve taken you through. In fact, you really make your money when you sell. Even after you cross the million in sales, you will still likely be paying yourself a modest salary, investing as many dollars as possible back into the business. You celebrate when you finally cash in your chips.”

Excerpt From: Ryan Daniel Moran. “12 Months to $1 Million.”