I’m sure this post will piss a lot of people off.  But if it motivates just 1 person… then it will be well worth it.

And while you’re reading – make sure you look at this as a business advice post.  This isn’t  political. This is NOT about republicans vs. democrats or anything like that.  As a matter of fact, I don’t support either of those parties and frankly despise 99% of politicians.

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 6 months, I’m sure you’ve seen the discussions of the 99% vs. the 1% in the United States.  Many of the 99% believe that the wealthiest people in America make too much money, and that more of that should be shared with the lower level workers in companies.

It’s a good rallying cry, and it makes a great political angle to exploit.  And just a few years ago, I probably would have been in the corner cheering on the 99%.

But after a few years of running my own business my views have changed.

One of the biggest changes in my mindset that’s helped me be more successful in every area of my life was getting rid of the victim mentality that I held onto for so long.  I always had an excuse outside of myself for why things in my life were the way they were.  And when you let yourself think like this, you’re capable of rationalizing pretty much anything to make yourself feel better.

But here’s the blunt truth that I’ve learned over the past few years…

The first thing you need to realize if you want to be successful is that no one in this world owes you shit. You don’t deserve anything.  You were born into this world like 6 billion other people and what you make of your life is 100% dependent upon YOU.   Until you get this through your head, and you fully understand it, you’ll never reach your full potential.

What most people don’t understand is that just because you’re a hard worker and you’re loyal doesn’t mean you should make a bunch of money.  Your income is directly related to how you affect the bottomline.  People that are producers understand this.  People that grind out 40 hours a week in a job they can’t stand usually don’t.

Another thing you need to recognize is the fact that most successful people bust their ass and risk everything for their success.  Sure there are people who get lucky and get rich because of their family or they get a fat contract from the government, but the majority of people I know and work with that are successful have risked a lot to get where they are.

Hell, I lost a relationship with a long time girlfriend in part due to my drive to be successful at all costs.  I can still remember sitting in my apartment barely making $2,000 a month while I was grinding out 15 hour work days to try and get my business to where I wanted it.  Most people don’t have this kind of ambition and aren’t willing to make the real sacrifices that are necessary to be successful.

The idea of working 40 hours a week and taking weekends off was nowhere in my mind when I was struggling to build my business.  I was working well over 70+ hours per week and getting up at 9 Am on Saturday & Sunday to work as well.  And at the time, no job was beneath me.  I was doing consulting gigs and copywriting jobs for absolutely peanuts.   I’m embarrassed now to think that I sold my services for as little as I did.  But at the time, I really didn’t care.  It’s what I had to do to make ends meet.

I think one of the biggest problems most people have is they don’t realize how good we have it right now.  If you live in a free country where you can do whatever you want for a living, then you’re already miles ahead of most people in this world.  How would you like to be born into a country where you have no choice what you get to do for a living?  The government says you’re a factory worker, and you’re a factory worker for life.  Those people are the ones that are truly screwed.

Yet in America, we have so much opportunity, and we live in a period of time where it’s literally never been easier to make money.  I started my business in college at the age of 22 with less than $500!  And guess what?  It was a bitch to get started and I took a lot of shit from everyone including family and friends when I was starting out.

I can still remember people laughing at me after I graduated college when I told them I was gonna try to keep this going and see where it goes.  This type of “job” just doesn’t seem normal for most people.  They don’t get it.  They don’t understand the entrepreneur’s mindset.  I don’t want to rely on a company to determine my income for the rest of my life.  I want all of my success to be dependent on what I do.  I want unlimited freedom to make as much money as I can and to live the life I want.

And while I’m on that topic, don’t let anyone tell you or make you feel like being wealthy is a bad thing.  The envy and jealousy of most people is a sick, sick emotion.  And they’ll do everything they can to bring you down.  Making a lot of money is a DAMN good thing.  Just last year alone, I was able to have a full time employee, multiple freelancers working for me and I was also able to donate at least $4,000 to local dog rescues.  Because of the good year I had, I was able to help out a lot of people.

This idea that by getting rich you are “hurting” other people is complete bullshit.  Unless you’re scamming them out of money, then you really have no reason to feel guilty about making money.

So to get back to the original title of this post, you have a choice whether you want to be in the 1% or the 99%.  The 1%  is not some “pre-determined” class that you need an IVY league education and a rich family to attain.  I came from a small town in Ohio of 30,000 people with a dad who works in a factory and a mom that’s held every job from waitress to preschool teacher.  I barely scored a 23 on my ACT and I wasn’t even smart enough to get a business minor in college.  Yet, Ive busted my ass over the last few years to learn everything there is about advertising and making money online.  And now I’m at the point where I make a pretty good living doing what I love.

Like Dan Kennedy has said “You either believe, like me, that because 1% of the people are rich that ANYONE can get rich, or you believe, like many others, that because 1% are rich that NO ONE can get rich.”

It’s your choice.  Just remember it all comes down to YOU.  All of your successes and all of your failures are a result of what you’ve done in the past.  You can either stay on the same path you are on now, or you can make a change and strive to be a part of the 1%….

I get around 100+ emails everyday.  Some of these are from marketers who are looking to me to fix their problems, fund their ideas, rob me blind…whatever

However, the question I get the most usually has something to do with “I’m in a good job, but I want to make money online.   How do I motivate myself to leave my job?”

When I read this, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Fight Club…

“People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love”

Unless you’re REALLY suffering, you can pretty much rationalize everything in your life and convince yourself to stay in your “comfortable” bubble.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for 4 years now, and I’ll be the first to tell it hasn’t always been “comfortable” or easy.  I was clearing $15k a month right out of college, and then struggled for nearly a year without any income.

I really hit “rock bottom” last summer when in a span of a week, I lost my major consulting client, Lebron James broke my heart and left Cleveland… and a few hours after that my girlfriend of 3 years came home from work and told me she didn’t want to be with me anymore.

Talk about a shitty week.

To add “insult to injury” I had enough money to survive for about 2 more months.  During the few months before this, I was working on my 31 Day Fat Loss Cure site as a side project.

I was never in a hurry to get the 31 Day Fat Loss Cure going.  I was comfortable with what I had.

However, when everything came crashing down,  I did what all successful people do… I put it behind me and started busting my ass IMMEDIATELY to get The 31 Day Fat Loss Cure profitable…

After about 2 months of breaking even, things really started to take off for us.

Since last summer, I’ve taken The 31 Day Fat Loss Cure from nothing to one of the best selling fat loss programs on Clickbank.

But, none of this would have been possible without me hitting the lowest point in my life.

You know how personal development gurus always say “look for the good in each situation” – well last summer when I was sitting there in my apartment, depressed as shit – you never could have convinced me this was going to turn out well for me.

But it has.

And the reason it has – is because I hit my “rock bottom” and had no other way out.  I didn’t have any time to goof-off or play around with “potential ideas”.  I had 1 goal and that was to make my website profitable in less than 2 months… No exceptions.

So this is what I tell all the people who email me and want to know how to make this their full-time job.  No, you don’t need to quit your job, but you do need to set a HARD deadline, and work towards it like you have no other option.

If this is always your fun “side gig” you’ll never put the full effort into it that you need to make it.

- Justin

P.S. – Feel free to leave me a comment below about hitting your “rock bottom” or your “breaking point”…  If you have your own story, feel free to share it with me.  I’d love to hear from you.

I feel like writing today & I want to talk about something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately…

About 2 years ago, I remember reading a post from Brian Clark of Copyblogger about success.

In the post, he said something about “you have to enjoy the process of building your business, because you’re not gonna be any happier when you finally “make it”.

At the time, I wasn’t making much money and my business was struggling. Being an arrogant 25 year old back then, I thought Brian was completely full of shit with that statement. When you’re struggling, the thought that things getting better won’t make you any happier is a tough pill to swallow.

I’ve come to realize though – he was absolutely right.

Sure making more money makes things easier on you, especially if you were struggling to pay your bills before. But if you’re building your business with the thought that somehow success will make you happier, I can tell you it won’t.

Just this past week I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle – and all of this really came to fruition.

Eckhart’s message is that most people spend every second of their life living in the past or waiting for something in the future. They believe that external events will somehow fulfill them and make them happy. This really hit home for me.

After thinking about this, I realized the only times I’m truly living in the now, and not thinking about something else is when I’m doing yoga or meditating.

Eckhart’s message is very powerful, and I’ve thought a lot about how it applies to me and my business.

In my business I’m always setting goals and striving for specific things to accomplish. But what I’m realizing is that while hitting these goals, is great – the end goal doesn’t make me any happier than the process. I need to focus more on “being present” and enjoying the process of getting my business to where I want it to be.

The sage wisdom that Brian Clark gave 2 years ago was right. If you’re not enjoying the process, you’re never going to enjoy it when you “make it”…

- Justin

In the past 3 years, I’ve come to learn a lot about the “mindset” it takes to become successful…

I’ve written numerous times about this, but I really feel that I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my bad “mental blocks” about money in the past 3-6 months.  Here’s a few of them I want to share that really helped me.

1.  Selling something is not a zero-sum game (one person doesn’t win while the other person loses)

This is something I struggled mightily with when I got into affiliate marketing, especially when it came to promoting our fat loss product…

We have a great product and truly help a lot of people to get in shape, yet for some reason the thought of taking people’s money just felt a little wrong to me.

This thinking is RAMPANT in the blogosphere.  Everyone who blogs, seems to think that everything on the internet should be free.  And that if someone is charging for information, they’re ripping people off.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

When you sell something to someone you are enriching their life.  You’re making their life so much better by selling them your product.  And on top of that, if they pay a decent price for it, they’ll actually get better results than if you gave it to them for free (this is scientifically proven BTW)

You have to get out of your head that this is a zero-sum game and that one person is winning and one person is losing when a sale is made.

2.  If you think rich people are assholes… you’ll never be one

I had a very bad thought process about people who had money growing up.  Most of this is usually programmed into your subconscious by your parents, relatives and whoever you generally look up to when you’re young.

The truth is most of the rich people I know now are some of the kindest, most giving and interesting people I know.

All of them love helping people.  All of them live fun, interesting lives.  And all of them use their wealth to give back and help out other people and groups.

If someone’s an asshole, it probably has nothing to do with how much money they have.  They might have been a major asshole when they were broke, and not they’re rich.  The money didn’t change them – they were always just an asshole.

If you want to make a lot of money, you need to get this out of your head.

3.  Working “harder” and being more “deserving” will not make you rich…

This is one of the big keys I learned from Dan Kennedy.  I had a bit of this mindset for a while, but quickly got rid of it when I read his book.

Here’s the thing…

Money doesn’t have a conscious.  It doesn’t care if you’re a priest or a pornographer.  It’s just paper, that’s all it is.

If you think that you’ll make money by being a better person – or by “scrubbing harder” then you’re wrong.  Now is being a better person a bad thing?  Of course not.

But you can’t think that just because you’re a more deserving person that you’re going to make more money.  Money doesn’t work like that.

Hopefully these help you to break a mental block you have and a nice flood of money comes your way

- Justin

I’m going to make a few new posts this week with some of my biggest copywriting tips…

Since one of my main niches is fitness/weight loss – a lot of the examples will be from this niche.  With that said, don’t think that these are exclusive to this industry.

Let’s get right into it…

If you thumb through John Caples Tested Advertising Methods, you’ll notice a large majority of the book is dedicated to two things – the headline and the appeal of the ad

Whether you’re doing a sales letter, a video or an autoresponder series – this is where the sale is made or lost.

You could have the greatest sales letter in the world – one that you paid $25,000 to have written and it’s absolutely perfect – but if the appeal you’re trying to sell to the customer is wrong then you have NO SHOT at making the sale.

What do I mean by the appeal?

Let’s take the weight loss niche for example….

In general there are 2 categories when it comes to weight loss.

1. People who want to lose weight to look good

2. People who must lose weight because of some medical condition

If you’re targeting the people who want to lose weight to look better, then your whole appeal throughout your ad has to be about that… You’ll need to appeal to their ego and play up things like…

• You’ll be the one who turns heads at the pool this summer
• Your wife won’t be able to keep her hands off you
• Your friends will be jealous and they’ll think you look 10 years younger

Either way, these are the appeals that work when it comes to selling weight loss/fitness etc…

One of the biggest mistakes I see is that people base their appeal on logic and reasoning…

This is totally wrong.

Human beings buy on emotion – and then rationalize it to themselves based on reasoning.

People don’t buy $145 Nike’s for the traction or ankle stability – they buy them for the feeling they get when they wear them.

People don’t buy  a $45,000 BMW for the turning capabilities or the handling – they buy it to be part of an elite class – they’re buying recognition and appealing to their ego

Whether you like it or not, people have irrational reasons for buying something – don’t try to go against it…  Make sure you appeal to their irrational fantasies…

- Justin

P.S. – I’ll be back with more copywriting tips this week.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you’d like to see me write about…

It’s been a while…

But I’ve been working on something new that I wanted to chronicle here and share with you…

My main consulting client decided to go in another direction and get rid of most of his business, so he doesn’t have much of a need for me anymore.  At present time my income from him was 90% of my monthly income.

At first when he told me that, my stomach churned and I felt sick.  Not again I thought…

I thought about other consulting gigs and copywriting jobs I could pick up to replace the income…  But after thinking for a while, I decided this would be a perfect time to just go “balls to the wall” with our ebook…

My initial goal is to profit $100 a day with the ebook within the next 30 days.

For a lot of marketers I realize this is chump change and they’d be able to do it in just a few days…  But for me this is a totally new task.

You see, for all my experience with copywriting, blogging and SEO… I’ve never done anything with paid traffic (besides Facebook for local businesses)

I stayed away from PPC for so long because it confused the shit out of me – but Ive come to the realization that if I want to bring in REAL money then I have to master a few forms of paid traffic.   All of the best marketers I know who are killing it are all VERY good with paid traffic.

So what have I learned so far?

I’m kicking everything off with Facebook ads right now…

Since I’m familiar with the platform from doing local stuff, I figured it would be the easiest to start with…

The biggest obstacle for me so far has been learning how to test & track.  Ive never really had enough traffic to test things when I was only doing blogging.  But now that I’m driving 2000 people to our site each day, I can test tons of different headlines/buttons/copy and get a feel for what’s converting the best.

Being that I’m not the brightest guy when it comes to tech things, I picked up some really good tips on tracking and analyzing your data from the videos Jeremy did in the Shoemoney System.  Just by using Google Website Optimizer & ClickTale, I’ve been able to get a lot of great data on our landing pages and sales videos…

The 2nd variation of our order form is converting 40% better than the original…  My original landing page is actually still converting the best after about 9 variations…

Right now I’m still not profitable for the campaigns, but we’re getting close.  I just rewrote the copy for our sales video & I think that should give us a good bump when its up…

The more I think about this, the more I realize that if its your own product you’re promoting you really don’t even have to be profitable.  If I could break even and bring in 50 sales a day, that means I have 50 new customers and I didn’t pay a dime to get them.  And if I can dial it in even more and start collecting emails + customers then I can put them in the autoresonder and really kill it.

Jus think what if you could break even for the day and pick up 500 email addresses?  All you have to do is put them in an autoresponder for 30 days, pitch them your product over and over – then make a new product or promote affiliate offers to them.  You’d have a massive list in no time, and would easily be making 6 figures a year off a list of that size.

I’ll go more into depth on my next post and share some of the stuff that’s working for me…

A few weeks ago, I rented a NAVY Seals training documentary from Netflix.  First of all, it was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a while and I highly recommend you rent it if you have Netflix.

One of the big lessons I got out of it was a phrase they said over and over… “it pays to be a winner”

Whenever the SEAL instructors put the guys through grueling workouts they always made it a competition – and the team that won got a 5-10 minute break while every other team had to do more excruciating work…

Throughout the film you could see this drilled into their head over and over.  The potential SEALS were taught that second place is worthless – it’s the same as coming in last.

After watching I couldn’t help but relate a lot of this to Seth Godin’s book The Dip.

Seth says that there’s no reason anymore to be the #5 general grocery store in the world.  You’re better off being the #1 organic grocery store.

Nobody wants the 5th best dentist in your town, they want the best dentist in your town.

And when it comes to our industry the same holds true.  No affiliate wants to promote the 5th best offer on Clickbank.  They want the highest converting product that pays out the most per sale.

The difference between being 5th and first is drastic.  It could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a publisher.

One of his quotes sums this up really well…

… the real success goes to those who obsess. The focus that leads you through the Dip to the other side is rewarded by a marketplace in search of the best in the world.

and then he has this gem…

The most common response to the Dip is to play it safe. To do ordinary work, blameless work, work that’s beyond reproach. When faced with the Dip, most people suck it up and try to average their way to success.

Settling is easy.  Anyone can do it…

It pays to be a winner.

]]> http://www.justingoff.com/winner/feed/ 4 http://www.justingoff.com/increase-income/ http://www.justingoff.com/increase-income/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:19:31 +0000 justin http://www.justingoff.com/?p=547

I wanted to tell ya about a little experiment Ive been doing over the past 4 months. Some of you may already do this…

In Dan Kennedy’s book Wealth Attraction For Entrepreneurs (a MUST read) he has a chapter on donations and saving.

Basically from all of his work with millionaires, he noticed all of them always have 2 things in common….they save money and also donate money routinely.  So Dan has people try this experiment out and almost always they see an increase in their income from it.

I had similar results  over a 4 month period.

Basically it’s pretty simple, any time you make money and you are depositing it into your bank account make sure you take a standard amount each month and donate it to a charity and then take a percent and put it specifically into a “wealth” account.

Here’s how I did mine…

I did 5% of my gross (I believe you should do the net, o well) to a wealth account and then 5% I donate to a charity I like.  I actually do my donations and savings each Monday throughout the month.  I think this is a better way than doing it just once a month.

Well Ive done this for the past 4 months, and my income has gone up about 35-40%.

Basically the idea behind it as Dan says is that it triggers something subsconsciously in your mind that most rich people do and changes the way you think about money. I can honestly say I’ve noticed it as well. Im more apt to go after things I would have probably held back on before.

I thought this was as hokey as could be when I read it, but I committed to it for 90 days, and now Im a believer.

If you’re not currently doing something like this every time you make a profit, give it a shot, I think you’ll see some big benefits from it.

BTW the book is Wealth Attraction For Entrepreneurs. I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s really helped me to break some bad mental blocks that I’ve had in regards to money.

- Justin

Two things have had a bigger impact on my outlook on life than anything else…

• being an entrepreneur
• and getting serious about working out

Before either of them I always had a “victim” mentality.  I had an excuse or a rationalization for everything and I would blame anything but myself for the situations in my life.

Wyatt Woodsmall, a popular expert on “change” and NLP says “Human beings are addicted to their sufferings.  It’s what allows them to rationalize their existence”

This is exactly what I was doing…

One of my first “awakenings” was when I was working out with Vic about 2 years ago…  Vic was my trainer and put me through some grueling workouts.  I remember in one of my high rep deadlift workouts I was ready to call it quits and go home.  We had another superset of pushups and body rows to do, but I was just planning on skipping them and being done for the day.

Vic had other plans…

The thought of me leaving didn’t even cross his mind.  It was in that moment that I realized why I had never seen results with my workouts before.  I was never willing to do what it took to get results.  I always cut things short, or did just enough to get by…

It wasn’t my genetics or some other excuse that was holding me back.  It was me.

Mark Rippetoe has a great quote about this in one of his Youtube videos…

“The process that a person goes through when they go from sedentary to active, demonstrates quite conclusively to everyone that does it – that you get out of this activity exactly what you put into it…it’s the most stark lesson in the way the universe operates”

That single lesson has taught me so much.

It’s helped me with my workouts.  It’s helped me with my business – And it’s helped me to be a better person.

It’s a lesson I wish I would have learned earlier in life, but I’m grateful that I finally did learn it.

I’ll leave you with a quote that Clem Stone (billionaire salesman) told to Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup author) when Canfield was interning for him…

Taking 100% responsibility means you acknowledge that you creat everything that happens to you.  It means you understand that you are the cause of all your experience.  If you want to be truly successful, and I know you do, then you will have to give up blaming and complainging and take total responsibility for your life – that means all your results, your successes and your failures.  This is a prerequisite for creating a life of sucess…You see, Jack, if you realize that you have created your current conditions, then you can uncreate them and recreate them at will.  Do you understand that?  Are you willing to take 100% responsibility for your life?”

I hope I have a few more “eye openers” like this coming my way…

When I started making a living online 2.5 years ago I was making some good money each and every month.

For someone who was just starting out, I was regularly having months of $12,000+ profit and working about 7-8 hours per week (yes per week).  For a 22 year old kid, fresh out of college this was like hitting the lottery.

But looking back now, I realize just how naive I was…

When I started out I had an income source, not a business.  I exposed a flaw in the search engines, and was raking it in solely from a mistake that Google hadn’t fixed yet.  Looking back now, my biggest mistake was not scaling the operations and milking the situation for all it was worth.  I sat by and was content with the money I was making – not knowing it was all going to come crashing down in a few months.

After everything crashed, and I had my income source taken away I was scrambling to find a new way to make money online.  As much as it sucked to have my income source taken away, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.  Back then I had no work ethic, and no idea of how a real online business worked.  I had no assets in my business (like an email list), and everything could have just been taken away at a moment’s notice (like it was).   Since then I’ve come a long way in my business knowledge and work ethic due to reading a ton of books and by seeking the advice of people who were already successful in the online business…

I’ve had numerous setbacks and triumps in the past year or so.  I sold a blog that was only 7 months old for $40,000.  I also jumped into a new industry only to realize I didn’t “know it all” and I had a ton to learn.  It’s been a long, slow ride to get in a good spot to succeed with our fitness site.

But part of being a good entrepreneur is going through the tough times.  It’s similar to being an athlete.  The best athletes in the world aren’t the best because of their talent…. They’re the best because they never quit, and they always want to better themselves. They take their lumps each and every year, and only the strong willed that truly have a desire to succeed will stay at the top.

I’m reminded of this all the time as an entrepreneur and recently I’ve seen my girlfriend go through a similar tough time trying to start her own business as a freelance photographer.  People are going to cut you down, insult you, call you an idiot and question everything you do.  A lot of people who work regular jobs, are secretly unhappy and would rather see you fail and be miserable just like them.  And some of your biggest problems will come from the people who you’d expect the most support from… your family and friends.  Most of them can’t see you as anything more than what you are right now, so they try to keep you at the level you’re at.  Jealousy definitely plays a factor in this, as deep down they don’t want you to be more successful than them.

If you’re running your own business be prepared to take some lumps and be prepared for the unexpected to happen.  I’m not making as much money as I’d like right now, but I think I’m in a great position to have my best year ever in 2010.  We have our fitness product finally done, and we’re getting ready to jump into PPC and start promoting this baby.  I’m sure we’ll go through some tough times, and hit a few dips, but I also have grown a lot in the past year, and literally know about 50x more about business than I did even a year ago.  I’m a better marketer, copywriter and I understand the web a lot better.

As Dan Kennedy says, most entrepreneurs that continue busting their ass usually experience “the phenomenon”.  This is when you attract more wealth in a 6 month span than in the previous 6 years (or something similar).

I feel a phenomenon coming for me soon.  And so should you if you’re determined to grind it out and stick with it.

- Justin