Boost Internet Profit (part-2)

 The World Has Changed

And it will never be the same. Ever.

Following World War II, Americans were flush with cash from the post-war boom. The American ‘Dream’ was born; derived from a Fannie Mae government marketing campaign aimed at the well-employed middle class. It spawned the mortgage industry. Why live within your means when you could borrow for the dream house in the suburbs?

And then it happened. A concept that built the great American nation, ‘work to save’, turned into ‘borrow to spend’. Eventually the 15 trillion-dollar mortgage banking industry stream rolled the entire nation, promising a quick and easy solution to ‘keeping up with the Joneses’.

This evolution was accompanied by the largest systematic banking intervention in history through the Federal Reserve. The longer it lasted, the more pronounced the boom-and-bust cycles became. Cheap money flooded the housing and financial markets.

A rising tide lifts all the boats, so consumer spending increased commensurately thanks again to the banking industry, now flush with mortgage interest profits. Credit card debt went parabolic, ballooning from a mere $700 billion in 2005 to $2.5 trillion by 2007.

It was a house of cards…

That came tumbling down in 2008 with an unprecedented financial crisis that rocked the world. The most interesting component about this latest bust was that in every similar historical debacle the middle class was able to absorb the shock. Why? It collectively carried the largest tax burden and so was the largest source of income. It also spends the most.

But this time the credit cards were maxed out. The kicker was that in succeeding years the job and housing markets remained flat. Uh-oh.

So what was left?
Increasing national debt.

The government-sponsored bail out of the banks whereby newly printed cash was used to pay interest on bank assets, keeping the entire industry afloat. Trillions of dollars were added to the national debt. The result?

The recession never ended for most Americans. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

 25% of American households say they are 'just getting by' financially
 13% are 'finding it difficult' to get by
 34% feel worse off than they did five (5) years ago
 Only 30% report they are better off financially than five (5) years ago

And even a closer look…

The cost of higher education is making many Americans reconsider the traditional 4-year education. Soaring tuition is out-pacing inflation yearly.

The American obsession with automobiles has raced to record levels. In the last year, the average length of an auto loan is now 66 months, the highest level ever. More disconcerting is that 25% of all new vehicle loans originated now extend 73 months to (I hope you’re sitting down) 84 months. Seven years! The price of an average auto sale is now $27,612 with a record high payment of $474.

The borrowing continues on unprecedented scales. But meanwhile…

Home ownership rates are dropping, to 64.7%, the lowest level in nineteen (19) years. Go figure rents are on the rise, increasing 6.1% on a year-over-year basis as of this writing. Can we count on rising home values to bail out the debt? Maybe not this time.

The savings picture adds clarity. 26% of Americans do not have a single cent set aside for emergency expenses. 67% have less than six (6) months of expenses saved. Curiously, high wage-earning households with incomes in excess of 75K per year are no better off. Fewer than half (46%) have a six (6) month savings cushion.

It gets worse. 36% of Americans have nothing saved for retirement. That same 36% have less than $1,000 in savings and investments in the checking account. Why? The cost of living of course. Government intervention favors inflation over it’s much less desirable counterpart, deflation.

The bottom line is that the nation’s wealth has been decimated thanks to a combination of falling stock markets and housing prices over the last decade. The recent median net worth totaled just $56,335 down 36% from $87,992 in 2003.

And the big shocker: the only demographic which reported an increase in wealth during the same period was the 90th percentile (the richest top 10% of Americans).

People are broke.

Rising income and wealth inequality has been on the increase for the past several decades; the trend is unlikely to reverse anytime soon.

The most likely scenario: the slow recovery from the 2008 Great Recession will continue to create inequality in the coming years as assets are drawn down to cover increased consumption costs.

And so you might be asking: “Is there a silver-lining ANYWHERE, Jeff?

Yes. There is. Right here: despite all the statistics about what is happening to the masses, contradictions to the trend are EVERYWHERE! More people than ever have discovered personal freedom as well as financial success while real unemployment (or underemployment) probably exceeds 20% or more.

People just like me. A surfer turned DJ turned eight-figure Internet marketer. I am one of the 10% who experience increased wealth since 2003. My business expanded twenty fold.

Contrary to what you might think, none of what you just read about the changing world is bad news. It’s simply the new reality. It’s time to carve your OWN path. It’s time to build a rock-solid business that will generate passive income AND furnish personal freedom.

And your best bet for accomplishing this goal is to join a team with a proven track record of success. More on this in just a minute.

But first… you are going to have to make a choice.

Why You Must Choose YOU

The choice you must first make is YOU.
James Altucher said it best:

“Human beings are born pioneers. The rise of corporatism (as opposed to capitalism) forced people into cubicles instead of out into the world, exploring and inventing and manifesting. The ethic of the Choose Yourself era is to not depend on those stifling trends that are defeating you. Instead, build your own platform, have faith and confidence in yourself instead of a jury-rigged system, and define success on your own terms.”

Defining success on your own terms. Think about it.

Not societal norms, conventional wisdom or whatever popular culture dictates.

Since the dawn of man’s time on earth, the basic human drive has been to seek out frontiers. Consider the great migrations, manifest destiny, crossing the Bering Strait, early European exploration, 

colonization, refugeeism, breaking the sound barrier, one-hundred story buildings, a walk on the moon, the Wright brothers and aviation, nanotechnology, splitting the atom, finite mathematics, the artificial heart. I could go on. It’s everywhere in history. It’s everywhere right now, right in front of us.

Even the Pilgrims did it. They chose themselves. The hallmark of the human evolutionary spirit has been to carve out our own path, our own method – our own truth.

The Burger King Restaurant chain built an international brand around “have it your way”.

It’s time to return to that way of thinking.

Choosing yourself will give you the skill set required to go out into the world and dictate your place in it.

It isn’t just about starting an Internet business because you want to make money. The ‘choose yourself’ mindset must first be in place because it furnishes the self-mastery required to put yourself out there and build the rock-solid business of your dreams.

Without a conscious decision to choose yourself, setbacks may seem insurmountable, or you will ultimately succumb to the eroding middle class and ever-shrinking median incomes.

Choosing yourself isn’t a selfish thing. It’s not self-centeredness. What you learn is that grounding yourself first, deciding what you want and following your destiny derives from relative self-mastery. It’s a foundation for attacking your goals and following your dreams from the perspective of a healthy, sane, complete sense of self.

This basis allows you to act in harmony with your environment and those most important in your life. You won’t ‘burn out’. You’ll seldom be bored. Life won’t get stale. In this respect choosing you is the best possible precursor to not only creating a meaningful life, but also taking the best care of your family and your circle of influence.

It’s the ultimate value creator. And value is the supreme metric. People will be drawn to you and what you offer. And they will gladly exchange money for it, enriching you AND them.

The divorce courts are full of people who thought they were choosing themselves. They thought they were following their own path and walking their truth. But they weren’t. All they did was buy into some canned conventional ‘dream’ without ever knowing who they are. These are the people who wake up one day, look at the husband or the wife, the kids, the house, the pressure, relentless financial obligations, college tuition, debt, the $800 Lexus payment and think, “I’m DONE.”

If you develop the mindset that you and you alone are responsible for carving out your place in the world, you can then focus on the idea that creating sincere value will open up all the doors you need.

And that’s when the money starts rolling in. Trust me, it will.

At every turn in my career and business evolution, I chose myself. I wasn’t even aware of it at the beginning. The reality is that the choices I made for myself were ultimately choices made for my family, my future, my way of life. The foundation of my entire empire rests on that very first choice: Me. I can tell you first hand, it WORKS. One of its greatest benefits has been the ability to guide other entrepreneurs in the proper direction.

Think you are ready to choose? Let’s get down to business.

Introducing The 3-Step Plan

Let’s simplify the process by beginning with the bottom line.

If you want to make six figures annually on the Internet, you are only going to require two things:

(1) An offer… and…
(2) Someone to buy it.

It really is that simple. It’s just not easy. But most people make the process much more difficult than it has to be.

If all you do is focus on this simple structure of offer + buyer everything else will fall in line.

Remember that the only difference between Internet millionaires and those who never make a dime is that the millionaire was able to get lots of people to purchase a product or service.

Let’s look at how we are going to work with this structure using a 3-step plan:

Now let’s examine each step of this process in more detail…

1. Building An Audience. All successful businesses are built on the foundation of establishing, engaging and expanding a community with similar interests. Think of this audience as your ‘tribe’.

2. Building A Relationship… with that audience. People will know, like and trust you enough to do business with you. This is the foundation for creating AUTHORITY. The result is social proof.

3. Creating A Sales Machine… to offer high-quality, valuable products and services to your audience.

Step 1: Building An Audience

Always remember this fundament truth:

To create a successfull business , you must  build engage and expand a community of shared interests.

Here are five (5) ways to effectively build your audience:

(1) LIST. This is an email database of subscribers who ‘opt-in’ to receive communication from you on a regular basis. Typically, you will create a free offer to entice people to join your list. You will have to provide sufficient value in order to do this. Then you can begin to send follow-up emails to your subscriber base. More on this in just a minute.

(2) BLOG. This is a time-based website which posts content on a continuous basis. A blog is superior to a generic (static) website because frequent updating and ‘backlinks’ facilitate improved rankings in search engines. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with these terms. You will be soon. A blog is an excellent portal for establishing VALUE and AUTHORITY.

(3) VIDEO. Using popular sites such as Youtube, you create and post videos on a ‘channel’ where people can subscribe to receive notification of your updates and new posts.

(4) PODCASTS. This technique involves offering downloadable audio series. Generally, podcasts are schedule weekly (or twice a week), and cover topics of interest to your audience.

(5) SOCIAL MEDIA. Here you create a digital ‘following’ on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Also included are Facebook ‘fan’ pages which focus on specific topics and provide value via frequent posting and interaction with your tribe.

You do not have to use all five of these strategies, but ultimately you can if your business and interests deem it necessary.

For the purposes of this blueprint, I’m going to focus on the LIST and BLOG as the cornerstone of your strategy.

List building will be your primary objective at the beginning. Using the tools I’m about to provide, you can be up and running – collecting emails address today!