Road to Rich Schefren

My long and winding road to building a business and making the wise decision to get a coach named Rich Schefren to guide me. Read along and see if you can relate to any of this story…

The quest for having a real Internet business can be fleeting for many aspiring entrepreneurs. On the surface, making money on the Internet looks easy. It seems that most everyone falls into the trap of push button wealth. A great deal of time and money is wasted looking for the magic button! You know the one, the button that sends cash to your bank account automatically. Here’s the secret, there are no magic cash buttons! So stop looking for one.

Jumping around without direction

I’m guilty of jumping around from one opportunity to the next. Searching for the answers to build an automated profit machine on the Internet. Heck, I think we all go through the phase where we are in a buying frenzy looking for that elusive magic button.

The sales pages are addictive, they pull you in with false promise, only to fall short most every time. In many respects, the experience of jumping around this way just serves to harden you and make you even more determined to succeed. Providing you get through it with any money left.

Focus is everything

Most everywhere I go, the topic of focus comes up. The truth of the matter is that when I have real focus, the cash flows in. Real focus requires discipline, pick a path to follow and stick with it to the end. Delete emails that don’t apply to what your focus is. Unsubscribe to the clutter, close your email software and really focus. The Internet has created a very sort attention span for many people. We get a thought about something and click, we’re off wasting time again.

My experience has been that whenever there is complete focus on one project or system, profits are made. One of the issues for so many, is that it has become difficult to keep our attention on anything long enough to succeed. Interruptions are everywhere, phones ring, emails come in, everyone wants a piece of your time. Managing your business and your time is absolutely critical to success.

Success breeds success

My focus on paid traffic was a great experience. When the decision was made to focus on CPA (cost per action) offers, using paid traffic. With effort and focus, income shot up. Success can be more addicting than looking for that magic profit button.

Whether it’s joint ventures, CPA offers or affiliate marketing, complete focus was followed by profits. It still seemed too much like a job. The business still seemed to suck you in and require too much time. My objective has always been to have more free time, not less. You know, the vision of the hanging out at the beach while your bank account gets filled up even when you are not there.

Kicking it up with a coach

The objective seemed simple enough, but there still seemed to be something missing. Getting over five figure paychecks is very cool. Getting to the six and seven figure levels will require something different.

In stepping back and looking at the big picture, some conclusions can be made. All the great successful people seemed to have a coach working with them. Tiger Woods even has a coach.

I have read most all of Rich Schefren’s reports, starting with his Internet Business Manifesto. One thing that always struck me about Rich was that he had a way of hitting home with me. His reports are always quite blunt and to the point. In many respects, he smacks me in the head with the truth of how things really work.

With a little research into Rich Schefren, it’s said by many respected millionaires that Rich is the guru’s guru. Once the decision was made to get a real coach, Rich was my choice. Joining his Guided Profit System, also known as GPS Elite was the right decision.
Signing up with Rich Schefren for coaching has to be one of the best decisions I’ve made since deciding to build a business on the Internet in the first place. One thing that impresses me is the level of dedication that Rich puts into his coaching. While most things that I’ve bought in the quest for success have fallen short, Rich has exceeded my expectations.

The road map to a higher level of success is very clear now. My sincere thanks goes out to Rich for being real, some of the best bang for the buck I’ve ever seen.

John Stiles

A little rant about slaps

Most everywhere you go that has to do with Internet marketing, you’ll find discussions of the latest Google slap. Google changes things to improve what they call quality and many perceive it as a slap! It’s good news for me and anyone else who bothers to add quality to the Internet.

Google is not the only one slapping bad content, a recent slap was from Squidoo. They removed all the pages that users set up with only one module. Squidoo now requires a minimum of 3 modules with good content. More good news. Too bad for those that abuse Squidoo and other sites with junk in an effort to get traffic or sales!

So why is a Google slap good?

Quite frankly, I’m tired of people trying to game the system and messing up good techniques for the rest of us. On the other hand, I love it when the gamers get slapped. Lets face it, we all hate spam! Those that use Pay Per Click on Google to send traffic to poor quality sites get slapped, plain and simple. Marketers trying to game the system are playing a losers game! As the shady techniques get slapped, they constantly have to find new ways to game the system! Not a good way to build a solid business.

Some marketers even charge membership fees and teach members how to game the system to get high page ranks in Google. Imagine paying someone to teach you how to build your business on quicksand! Building any business on a house of cards will fail every time. Sure, you may make some great short term profits. The sad fact is that you will always have to rebuild when the shady technique falls apart.

Winning with Google Slaps

Winning is not that hard, in fact you’ll beat most of the competition just by doing things right and avoiding the latest scams.

As long as you provide quality information on your site or anywhere else you put content, you’ll never get slapped. When people that try to game the system get slapped, those of us that try to do things the right way move up the ranks. Very cool.

Here’s a few slap tips:

Participate in all aspects of the market you are working in. Only participate with quality answers or content. Post comments on blogs, forums, or anywhere you can find a community of people in your market.

Become known as someone who helps others and knows the market. Use the signature file with a link back to your site or a page on your site. Never spam with affiliate links. The more you post helpful information, the more people will grow to trust you. The traffic will follow if you put some effort into what you say on other sites. Add quality to the Internet where ever you go and the Internet will be a better place for all of us.

The more places you provide quality answers and content, the more links you’ll have pointing at your own site. The reality is that back links pointing at your site help get you free traffic. Back links also get you a better standing in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

Don’t fall for the gimmicks or try to game the system. Anyone who posts comments on other sites that are filled with affiliate links and spam are sure to get deleted or not posted at all. Seems like a complete waste of time to even attempt to post junk anywhere on the Internet. You may get a small amount of traffic for the effort, but quality content will bring you quality visitors.

Conclusion: Slaps are Good for Business

Now that we know that slaps are good for our business. Go add some quality to the Internet! Show people in your niche and the world that you have something worthwhile to offer. You’ll be richly rewarded for the extra effort.

John Stiles

Before we get to the frog

Here’s my disclaimer: No harm was done to any frog in any way. The frog is used in this story for illustrative purposes only.

This story was told at a sales seminar I attended about 25 years ago. The graphic nature of the story, plus the common sense truth of it could be why it stuck and I remember it. Just goes to show that story telling helps get your message to stick!

Can a frog story help you?

I here many complaints about information overload and this little frog story may help. There have been many times over the years that I’ve suffered from too much information.

We all learn by degrees, like a slowly rising thermometer! In other words, one step at a time. As babies, we crawl, then we learn to walk, then we run. We don’t start our lives with the ability to read novels either. We learn to read in steps with small words, then we go on to the big words.

A graphic presentation of information overload can be told using a frog as an example.

Take a pot of water and bring it to a boil. Think of this as all the information dumped on you at once. Now take a frog and toss him in the boiling water! The frog jumps out immediately without getting hurt.

Many people get overwhelmed by all there is to do and learn with Internet Marketing. When overloaded as humans, we flop around, never really getting things going. Then we either jump out of the boiling pot or sink to the bottom, buried in information overload!

Take the same frog that jumped out of the boiling pot and put him in a pot of water that is only room temperature. He now swims around like a happy little frog would do in water.

Keeping in mind that frogs and people are different. Turn the temperature of the water up a degree at a time each hour. The frog will continue to swim around and never know to jump out as the water heats up. Hours later when the water gets hot, the frog is cooked. Poor little guy didn’t know any better and never jumped out.

How can you apply this to your business?

Take apart all that needs to be learned in building your Internet business and break it down into small chunks. Learn each chunk, one degree at a time. Once you learn all the steps to building your business, one degree at a time. When you get to the end, your business will be cooking!

The moral of the story is that any time you start to get overwhelmed and reach your boiling point, don’t jump out. Break down your projects and tackle them one degree at a time!

Hopefully this little story helps you as much as it helped me over the years.

John Stiles