Chasing The Gurus

We ordered Jarhead on Pay Per View last weekend. For me it was one of those rare glimpses into my husband’s past life as a Marine deployed to Iraq. One day, I asked if he was afraid when they deployed and they were telling all the troops to expect the worst biological weapons. He kinda shrugged (men!) and said his famous words “You gotta do what you gotta do” so, just do the job and hope for the best.

In an article in the Entrepreneur Magazine, Robert Kiyosaki said, “Fear made some Marines smarter, while others fools” and “I learned that fear, when it takes the form of self-doubt”, kills more men than the enemy”. Hmm… a lot of masculinity but it made me think about my business ventures.

There are points in time when I am fearful. It could be fear of interviewed and recorded, fear of getting on a live call to speak, fear of failure, fear of success, fear my product is not good enough, fear people will unsubscribe if I recommend a product and on and on and on. Yet, none of these activities risked my life at all. Yeah I’m risking some ego, self esteem and sometimes money but all of that can be earned back again know what I mean?

When my husband (and all the brave men and women in military today and before) went into the battle field, they risked it all, there is no turning back if you pay the ultimate price. So… here we are, afraid of things that aren’t fatal. Just do it.

I have a lot of fear but over the last year have learnt to deal with it. What about you? If fear takes a stranglehold on you, your business is not going to go as far as you hope. Sometimes we just have to close your eyes and jump and when you jump often enough, you will become familiar with it and soon, it’ll be like “Hey, no sweat”.

But if you succumb to your fears, it’s not going to go away, the next time you come to the same cross roads (you know you’ll come to it again), you’ll be no better than where you are now, you’ve not progressed and you’ve lost the opportunity to move your business ahead. As my Marine says – You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do so go get ‘em.

Technorati Tags: business, confidence, USMC, self esteem

Do you ever think this affiliate marketing stuff is just hot air? I mean, how is it possible to make money just by putting up a couple of links? Besides, why should you promote other people’s stuff when you can make more on your own products?

You know those are very valid questions and honestly, you won’t make much (or anything) just by putting up links on your website. It takes know how to make it pay off.

Allow me to share a quick story with you. 5 years ago, I heard great stories about this affiliate marketing thing. Like most people, I gave it a try, signed up for any program I could find under the sun, especially those that had great commissions. You know what happened? I never got even one sale.

Needless to say, I gave it up and chalked it all up as a scam and a whole load of hot air. Until 2004 that is…

That’s when I started working with Alice Seba on some technical stuff and she started talking about affiliate marketing again.

I was like yeah, right. Like I’m going to fall for that again. But this time something else happened. It seemed like almost overnight Alice transformed her already successful business into a really very successful business. Right before my eyes. That made me sit up and pay attention.

I had to set aside my fears, my skepticism and past bad experiences. It’s one thing to hear about Mr. Big Shot or Mr. Young And Single With No Kids earning lots of money but quite another to hear a fellow WAHM earning good money on affiliate products.

After all, think about it, what’s so special about Alice Seba? No offense Alice, but she’s a busy mom just like me, she has limited amount of time just like me, I’m just as smart as she is. I’m her peer. So if she can do it so can I.

And, that’s just what I did. I started putting into action little tips she threw out. I’m happy to say it works. I’m getting affiliate checks from all over the place. Even DH got into it and he’s starting to earn and mind you, DH is not internet business savvy. He just puts the little things we both learn from Alice into action.

Tomorrow, Alice is rolling out the Affiliate Marketing Sweetie course. Unlike other courses you hear about, hers is absolutely WAHM wallet friendly. Plus shhhhh! Between you and me, if you sign up for her affiliate marketing tips newsletter, you’ll get a special discount tomorrow. So go ahead and get the newsletter now.

I hope you take this chance and will see you on the affiliate success road.

A fellow MomMasterminds member Kristie Tamsevicius confessed recently about her addiction to learning. Is this even possible? Furthermore, isn’t learning a good thing? Well, not always.

As one who also suffers from this, I think yes it’s very possible and more entrepreneurs suffer from it than they realize. So what are the symptoms? This is certainly not a medical diagnosis and should not ever be treated as one. Looking at inwardly, I’d say a learning addict is always buying courses, coaching packages or attending classes. Sometimes, cost is not a deterrent. Attention span is short and old courses bore them quickly before exhausting what they learn from one course.

In January of 2006, as I was reviewing my business and the way I work, I saw clearly how addicted I was. Okay, I’ll come out and admit it that it showed up more clearly in my balance sheets than my in my head. Immediately, a choice was made to rid myself of this. Yeah, pretty much cold turkey.

Every offer that come into my inbox is deleted, no matter who offered it and no matter what it was. I slashed my subscriptions drastically and I’m not done yet. Just doing that alone, I managed to reclaim 2 days of the work week. I’ve also been able to increase my income by an average of 30% in the first 3 months.

I’m very determined to keep this trend and even improve upon it and still looking for areas where I could trim off. To help me with this, I went back and reviewed Kelly McCausey’s The Power of A Focused Business. An exceptional course for the price, highly recommended.

I’ve also signed up with Jimmy D Brown’s ecoaching class, no it’s not a how to make money course and no I’m not relapsing Jimmy D Brown’s coaching to me is a deeper extension of what I learnt in Kelly’s audio course as it will teach me how to focus my business and boil it down to 3 working hours a day and still be more efficient than before. I also believe the combination will ultimately help me review what I already own and dig deeper into them. I can’t wait, the old courses sitting in my cabinet are starting to look enticing again.