Andrew and Daryl's bestseller

I just spent the last 4 days at an internet marketing conference on the Gold Coast called Our Internet Secrets which was hosted by Andrew and Daryl Grant.

Our Internet Secrets blew me away in terms of quality of content and how thorough and patient Andrew and Daryl were in their delivery.

If you’re ever interested in learning the basics of internet marketing I can’t recommend this conference enough.

Over the course of 4 days we covered:

• How to research a niche using the Google Keyword tool,  clickbank and the youtube keyword tool
• How to access the existing products being offered to the market and how to understand what the customer is looking for and identify gaps
• How to capture a point of difference and position a product that stands out from the competition rather than directly competing
• How to design, research, product and price a product quickly and cheaply across a variety of media (text, video, audio & software)
• How to write an effective sales letter including specific copywriting techniques
• How to create a website and make all the tech stuff work
• How to drive traffic to that website using Google adwords, SEO, blogs, forums etc
• How to monitor your website and fine tune it to boost results ($)
• How to establish yourself as a credible expert in your niche and take your business to the next level
• What a membership site is and how it works and how to make one
• Other techniques to generate publicity (and traffic) such as speaking from the stage, best selling books, free publicity from the press

We also touched on the psychology of success and how to identify and eliminate mental blockages if you have them which was not something that I expected to be discussed but I was very impressed with how well this was covered.

A final point worth mentioning is that this was a sales conference and Andrew and Daryl and the other speakers were selling back-end products throughout the process however it was an extremely soft sell and they did an excellent job of providing high quality content that made the (brief) sales pitch very acceptable.  I didn’t buy anything.

So if you ever want to boost your knowledge around internet marketing, check out the Our Internet Secrets events as it’s a great foundation.

And a big thanks to Yaro Starak for the free tickets.

                                      

Nobody who bought a drill actually wanted a drill.

They wanted a hole…

Therefore, if you want to sell drills, you should advertise information about making holes- NOT information about drills!

I don’t know who coined this, but I think it’s excellent.

                                      

August 2008 – Current

Orange Dot is a company that develops accessible technology devices. It was founded by Rhys Cooper and myself to develop an accessible mobile phone interface for people with disabilities.

Rhys is the creative genius who knows an incredible amount about accessibility and what the disability space needs and I’m the nay-saying accountant who writes business plans and stifles Rhys’ dream.

To date we:

• have won the mega pitch panel prize (August 2008),
• recruited two kick arse non-executive directors,
• argued a lot,
• raised $30,000 in angel investment,
• lodged patent applications,
• completed a working prototype,
• won the MEX mobile user experience award for the freelance category in London,
• have released the first prototype for real world user testing; and
• enabled a disabled person who had lost power in his home to get help.

Orange Dot will be releasing it’s first commercial product, the Doo Phone in June 2010.

The Doo Phone is designed for people with visual impairments, limited dexterity, intellectual impairments or someone who just wants a really easy phone to use.  The Doo Phone is a software interface for a Windows Mobile based smart phone.  You can find out more about the product by visiting the Doo Phone website.

Check out www.orangedot.com.au for more info on the company.

                                      

Simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything

The number of people you need to ask for permission keeps going down:

1. Go, make something happen.
2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

The original is here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/simple-five-step-plan-for-just-about-everyone-and-everything.html

                                      

There’s just something about this video that just makes me sit back and go “wow, I’ve just seen something special”

                                      

This is really the first time I’ve approached this in a structured way and I really wish I’d done it sooner.  It’s certainly something that I’m going to try and make time for at least every 6 months.

Pausing and taking time to reflect and plan is in my opinion an essential part of Lifestyle Design.  It forces you to evaluate what you’re doing in life and to look at whether or not you’re heading in the desired direction.  I’m not 100% happy  with my lifestyle right now, and doubt that I ever will be and the process has certainly helped me to refocus my attention on the areas of my life that need the most work.

So what exactly did I get up to last weekend?  To answer this question, here’s the rough structure I followed over the 3 days.

Day 1 – The past

Unplug, recharge, relax and reflect

I turned off my mobile phone for the entire weekend, didn’t watch any TV and didn’t have any social engagements.  This weekend was all about me and I made no apology for being selfish.  This may take a little explaining to the people around you, but I think it’s well worth it.

I made a commitment to myself to eat healthy, exercise and sleep well and I followed this for the 3 days – avoiding caffeine and sugary foods, taking lots of walks and light exercise and sleeping without and alarm.

On the first day I went for a decent walk through some parklands and spent about an hour trying to meditate and generally clear my mind.  A friend have me the advice of breathing normally and focussing on trying to feel your breath move your nose hairs.  If, like me you are not proficient in mediation I found that just sitting quietly, looking at the park around me really helped to settle my mind and de-focus.  After that first hour I felt relaxed and open – ready to do some light thinking.

I grabbed a notebook and  wrote down everything I did in the last year.  You can see the output from this in the previous post.  I patiently flicked back through all my notebooks and photos from 2009 and when I got to a new topic or activity that I’d forgotten about I simply made a note of it.  I’d forgotten a lot of what I’d done over the previous 365 days and I found it really enjoyable to take stock of the previous year and gave me  a sense of achievement and accomplishment that I wasn’t really expecting.

Day 2 – The present

Again with my notebook in the parklands, I answered the following questions:

How do I feel?

What things are in my life now?

What are the good and bad aspects of these

‘How do I feel’ is not an easy question to answer.  It seems to require a level of honesty that I’m still a little uncomfortable with.  Rather than giving the simple answer of “I’m fine” or the face that you put out to the rest of the world, take your time and just scribble some words down without looking for an explanation.  I think I spent about 20 minutes on this, just feeling my body and letting my mind speak without trying to force anything from it.  The words I wrote down were:

Hopeful, Annoyed, Frustrated, Tired, Agitated, Disconnected, Inspired, Peaceful

When I read back over these I realised that they seem to totally contradict each other.  How is it possible to feel both peaceful and agitated?

To try and connect with the part of me that was feeling this way I chose a word and tried to write down which part of me was feeling that way and about what.  What aspect of my life is making me feel hopeful?  What is making me feel frustrated?  Amazingly this seemed to just flow and flow and I ended up with a lot of writing on the page without much effort.  When I felt that I had written enough about a word – perhaps when I had done that emotion justice, I simply paused and then chose another word.

The second question of ‘What things are in my life now’ was easy, it was simply a list, much of which I’d already covered when I reviewed 2009 on  the previous day.  Going through and identifying the good and bad points of each was certainly much harder and I found that there were several that had a lot of bad and not much good.  The more work I had to do to justify why something was a part of my life, the bigger the red flag that maybe I should look to remove or reposition this in my life.

I also undertook a small stock take of my health and financial position to see if there were any emotional triggers lurking.

Day 3 –  The future

For this I opened up my bookcase and grabbed 2 or 3 good books that I find inspire me and remind me of what’s possible in this world.  I like to go top-down when planning and prefer to establish a big picture and strategy that is compelling before breaking it down in to practical components.

I brought out some big sheets of paper and restated my vision – “To work profitably with passionate focussed people and help them to accomplish great things” and scribbled some sentences down about what my life will be like when I’m living this vision.

The next step I tried was to take a leaf out of the book E-Myth and decide how I will act when I have achieved this vision.  Here is what I wrote:

I will:

Choose where to direct my focus in the present moment

Provide a meaningful contribution to others

Show generosity with my time and money

Improve my honesty with myself and everyone around me

Show gratitude for what I have and receive

Be open to new ideas, people and situations

Be disciplined and follow the above

The book E-Myth makes a compelling case that if you identify how you will need to act in the future when living your vision, the only way to get there is to start implementing those behaviours today.  So that is what I’m going to try and do.

From there I divided up 2010 month by month and identified what area I will focus on for the first 6 months and what I will do in each month.  For January my goal is to bring this website up to a visual standard that I’m happy with.

So there it is.  The recipe I used for my weekend of reflection on planning.   I finished the weekend feeling very positive about the upcoming year and focussed on what I need to do today.

                                      

With today being the first day of 2010 and I thought it was high time that I followed my own advice and have a look back at the year that was and what I’ve achieved. I spent a couple of hours looking back over my notebooks and discovered a lot that I’d forgotten and I’m really proud of the steps forward that I took in 2009.

Here are my highlights:

Experienced the ups and downs of being in a relationship and learnt a lot about myself in the process.

Applied for the JET program – teaching English in Japan, was invited to interview but had to withdraw as the interview time was scheduled when I was overseas.

Quit my job at the start of the year and took 6 months off work. Possibly the best 6 months of my life to date.

Spent 3 weeks overseas in Taiwan and Hong Kong with my girlfriend and other friends. My first overseas trip without my family

Raised capital and issued shares in Orange Dot Pty Ltd, went on to complete a working prototype and commence user testing. Identified the necessary limitations of my involvement with this project.

In March attended the Edgeware Do Well conference and met an amazing group of people, many of whom are now my close friends.

Established a new base of friends and became much more confident with meeting new people and building a network, especially through my involvement in Orange Dot and The Hive

Kept a detailed record of my finances for the entire year

Started a food blog, EatDrinkBrisbane.com and tried my hand at being a food critic. I recruited another writer to the blog and then passed ownership and creative control over when I realised that I was no longer enjoying working on the project.

Asked myself some difficult questions and for the first time I think I was honest with myself. Am I happy with where I am and what I’m doing? Do I know where I’m going? What am I doing with my life?

Got some clarity about who I am, what I’m good at and what I’m not good at

Discovered my purpose – To work with passionate people and help them do amazing things

Became a Director of The Hive and helped facilitate 8 great events.

Volunteered with the RSPCA

Started Goal Accountability Sessions (GAS) with 5 others and have become much more focussed as a result

Recruited a mentor to help me puzzle out this thing called life

Commenced learning mandarin

Did a 30 day sleep experiment of getting up every morning at 7am, this gave me an insight into what motivates me and how I can implement change in my life successfully

Ran the Bridge to Brisbane from start to finish in 44:08, the result of about 18 weeks training at the start of which I couldn’t run 4km. This was a big boost to my self confidence in being able to set a goal and achieve it

Secured my 2nd freelance client (TCP)

Outsourced my workload from my 1st client (UQU) and trained an employee

Started a new business (PDQ) with my friend Andrew, subsequently realised our research may not have been thorough enough

Improved my relationship with my father and had our first ever ‘real’ conversation.

Had my house set on fire and flooded

Rode a Segway

Raised more than $200 for Movember, my first even involvement in a charity event