Web Page Production
The first campaign is a white paper as ethical bribe to get opt-ins to my list.
I wrote the first version of the white paper in 3 days, then sent it off to be critiqued. After 2 weeks I got the comments and rewrote in another 3 days, so it took 3 weeks total.
Meantime I spent $150 on a squeeze page, download and thank you page (using tips from a marketing sherpa landing page report), with autoresponders from cdemails.com, which my sister operates. That experiment worked, but I wanted a nicer look and a shopping cart at the end of the autoresponder sequence.
I also wanted to leverage my time, so I decided I should leave html to the experts, as long as it was $35 an hour of less. I wrote all the copy for the new pages, uploaded the templates and images on my ftp server and bidded out the job.
I bidded it out to
- some guys from delhi via elance who did my mock-up $35/hour (bid was 175)
- a guy in pennsylvania who did the shopping cart for a friend of mine $35/hour (bid 160-180)
- a guy in toronto who sells a shopping cart system for $1500
I awarded to Pennsylvania because of the friend's recomendation and his experience with 1shoppingcart. My idea is to get it working quickly while I learn to leveerage OS commerce's shopping cart system, which is open source and doesnt charge me $40/month per site.
The site will be operating tomorrow evening, after which I will do my first test campaigns to drive people to the URL - 300 emails, and 100 postcards to my current lists (code F55F). After this I will do a going away gift to all KS alumni using the code "KSAA" and a free e-book.
After that, I will do
1 A white paper and a teleseminar peer month
2 Perry marshall publicity and other strategies prioritized til I have 30 lead gen plans running
3 build infinitebankers website up to gold members
4 Google adwords
5 build white paper campaign for companies with > 50k in leases
6 build white paper campaign for companies with > 50k in accounts receivable
Sunday, November 04, 2007
internet lead generation #2
Content Generation for the website
To gather content I joined 2 US clubs on the same topic as www.infinitebankers.com. I bought all their materials, and attended and recorded all their meetings. I also did the due diligence for Canada, where I am launching the Canadian version (duh). This included legal, (checking up on the tax code, insurance act, and bank act, among others) and procedural (what is the corresponding Canadian version of each of the steps of the basic model?
Then i had to create content. I started by testing my sales presentation to several clients and friends. When i got a working model together I uploaded a series of videos to Youtube so I could see what leads it would generate without advertising (few obviously).
After the explain-o-bot (the videos) I wrote a white paper based on the rules in Perry Marshall's course. As a member of his renaissance club I was entitled to a critique, so I sent it in and Bryan Todd reviewed and comented within 2 weeks, despite being in China. Basically he told me to take out the jargon and specify what I offered in the 30 minute consultation.
I then got
-Mark Widawer's Landing Page Templates and wrote all the squeeze, thank you, and sales landing page copy.
-Yanik Silver's Autoresponder magic and wrote the first 8 autoresponder messages
- Alex Mandossian's Teleseminar Secrets and set the first 12 teleseminar topics according to his 18 types of teleseminars chart
Still pending-
Content for the public website infinitebankers (for now will just write the home page, but the final output will look like a combo of perry marshall's and page zero (Andrew Goodman)
1 white paper per month on infinitebanking next issue is due dec 1
testimonials for the landing page
Stupid dvds are not available because Nelson is changing dvd producers
To gather content I joined 2 US clubs on the same topic as www.infinitebankers.com. I bought all their materials, and attended and recorded all their meetings. I also did the due diligence for Canada, where I am launching the Canadian version (duh). This included legal, (checking up on the tax code, insurance act, and bank act, among others) and procedural (what is the corresponding Canadian version of each of the steps of the basic model?
Then i had to create content. I started by testing my sales presentation to several clients and friends. When i got a working model together I uploaded a series of videos to Youtube so I could see what leads it would generate without advertising (few obviously).
After the explain-o-bot (the videos) I wrote a white paper based on the rules in Perry Marshall's course. As a member of his renaissance club I was entitled to a critique, so I sent it in and Bryan Todd reviewed and comented within 2 weeks, despite being in China. Basically he told me to take out the jargon and specify what I offered in the 30 minute consultation.
I then got
-Mark Widawer's Landing Page Templates and wrote all the squeeze, thank you, and sales landing page copy.
-Yanik Silver's Autoresponder magic and wrote the first 8 autoresponder messages
- Alex Mandossian's Teleseminar Secrets and set the first 12 teleseminar topics according to his 18 types of teleseminars chart
Still pending-
Content for the public website infinitebankers (for now will just write the home page, but the final output will look like a combo of perry marshall's and page zero (Andrew Goodman)
1 white paper per month on infinitebanking next issue is due dec 1
testimonials for the landing page
Stupid dvds are not available because Nelson is changing dvd producers
internet lead generation #1
Internet Lead Generation #n is a series on the progress of my efforts on the internet
The subject of the lead generation activity is a website called www.infinitebankers.com. This is a website to attract subscribers (leads) in exchange for useful information on infinite banking first in Canada, then later worldwide.
I joined thevault.bz in December 2006. This is a group of people who team up to buy information products and then share them with each other via p2p torrents. This is the single most money-saving thing I have done this year.
I joined Perry Marshall's Renaissance Club in August 2006. This is a newsletter which attracts leads (like me) to upsell a coaching program on advertising via Google Adwords. In exchange it gives valuable information on marketing for High Tech and Corporate Types (like me). What attracts me is that I am almost exactly the type that Perry writes his newsletter for. I am 40, have a wife and a kid, come from a technical background (Finance). Other psychographic things about why I am like the person he is writing to, that I only came to know after reading a lot of his stuff is:
- Mass marketing copywriting (e.g. Dan Kennedy especially Bill Glazer, and in my industry Pamela Yellen) is too cheesy for people who are going to entrust you with their life savings (my market) or make a large industrial purchase (his market) - his "techie" copywriting style creates more credibility. I still have to test this but it is important to establish the control. Perry Marshall's stuff is my control - I follow it to the letter, then tweak and record results. On the topic of "a photo increases conversion". Perry says test it with and without the photo. But his landing pages always have his photo, so my control will be to have my phot on my pages, then to take them out and test the conversions.
- He volunteers for his local church. This increases his connection to me because I do the same.
- His story as someone who is angry at dumb repetitive face to face sales is the same as mine.
The subject of the lead generation activity is a website called www.infinitebankers.com. This is a website to attract subscribers (leads) in exchange for useful information on infinite banking first in Canada, then later worldwide.
I joined thevault.bz in December 2006. This is a group of people who team up to buy information products and then share them with each other via p2p torrents. This is the single most money-saving thing I have done this year.
I joined Perry Marshall's Renaissance Club in August 2006. This is a newsletter which attracts leads (like me) to upsell a coaching program on advertising via Google Adwords. In exchange it gives valuable information on marketing for High Tech and Corporate Types (like me). What attracts me is that I am almost exactly the type that Perry writes his newsletter for. I am 40, have a wife and a kid, come from a technical background (Finance). Other psychographic things about why I am like the person he is writing to, that I only came to know after reading a lot of his stuff is:
- Mass marketing copywriting (e.g. Dan Kennedy especially Bill Glazer, and in my industry Pamela Yellen) is too cheesy for people who are going to entrust you with their life savings (my market) or make a large industrial purchase (his market) - his "techie" copywriting style creates more credibility. I still have to test this but it is important to establish the control. Perry Marshall's stuff is my control - I follow it to the letter, then tweak and record results. On the topic of "a photo increases conversion". Perry says test it with and without the photo. But his landing pages always have his photo, so my control will be to have my phot on my pages, then to take them out and test the conversions.
- He volunteers for his local church. This increases his connection to me because I do the same.
- His story as someone who is angry at dumb repetitive face to face sales is the same as mine.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Infinite Banking e-book
I now realize that there is a need for a book that explains in detail how Infinite Banking works. Some concepts not in Nelson's book are:
-PUA surrender to repay loans instead of paying out of pocket
-the bypass pipeline concept of infinite banking
-credibility establishing information like BOLI investment, number of dividend paying whole life insurance market figures, etc
-a short standard definition of infinite banking
-a short standard diagram of infinite banking
-a long process diagram of setup, borrowing, repaying, and drawing capital.
- step by step 3 phase guide to determine if IB is for you
1 learn concept
2 fact find
3 cost-benefit analysis
- how to do a 6 month review
- when to open the next branch
-FAQ
-wiki
I have 2 possible titles: "Infinite Banking Exposed" or "The Infinite Banking Workbook". The core of the book is a step by step diagram of 3 processes: lending to self, lending to your business and lending to your clients. In each diagram and explanation there needs to be a space for referring to the specific law of the country. For example, the book might describe tax deductibility of interest paid on a policy loan. There needs to be a space there for the user to write in which law or tax ruling applies in his or her country. Then when all the information is complete we would create an edition for that particular country. (e.g. Canadian edition, Mexican edition)
-PUA surrender to repay loans instead of paying out of pocket
-the bypass pipeline concept of infinite banking
-credibility establishing information like BOLI investment, number of dividend paying whole life insurance market figures, etc
-a short standard definition of infinite banking
-a short standard diagram of infinite banking
-a long process diagram of setup, borrowing, repaying, and drawing capital.
- step by step 3 phase guide to determine if IB is for you
1 learn concept
2 fact find
3 cost-benefit analysis
- how to do a 6 month review
- when to open the next branch
-FAQ
-wiki
I have 2 possible titles: "Infinite Banking Exposed" or "The Infinite Banking Workbook". The core of the book is a step by step diagram of 3 processes: lending to self, lending to your business and lending to your clients. In each diagram and explanation there needs to be a space for referring to the specific law of the country. For example, the book might describe tax deductibility of interest paid on a policy loan. There needs to be a space there for the user to write in which law or tax ruling applies in his or her country. Then when all the information is complete we would create an edition for that particular country. (e.g. Canadian edition, Mexican edition)
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
In last year’s report I allegorically described the Gotrocks family – a clan that owned all of America’s businesses and that counterproductively attempted to increase its investment returns by paying ever-greater commissions and fees to “helpers.” Sad to say, the “family” continued its self-destructive ways in 2006.
In part the family persists in this folly because it harbors unrealistic expectations about obtainable returns. Sometimes these delusions are self-serving. For example, private pension plans can temporarily overstate their earnings, and public pension plans can defer the need for increased taxes, by using investment assumptions that are likely to be out of reach. Actuaries and auditors go along with these tactics, and it can be decades before the chickens come home to roost (at which point the CEO or public official who misled the world is apt to be gone).
Meanwhile, Wall Street’s Pied Pipers of Performance will have encouraged the futile hopes of the family. The hapless Gotrocks will be assured that they all can achieve above-average investment performance – but only by paying ever-higher fees. Call this promise the adult version of Lake Woebegon.
In 2006, promises and fees hit new highs. A flood of money went from institutional investors to the 2-and-20 crowd. For those innocent of this arrangement, let me explain: It’s a lopsided system whereby 2% of your principal is paid each year to the manager even if he accomplishes nothing – or, for that matter, loses you a bundle – and, additionally, 20% of your profit is paid to him if he succeeds, even if his success is due simply to a rising tide. For example, a manager who achieves a gross return of 10% in a year will keep 3.6 percentage points – two points off the top plus 20% of the residual 8 points – leaving only 6.4 percentage points for his investors. On a $3 billion fund, this 6.4% net “performance” will deliver the manager a cool $108 million. He will receive this bonanza even though an index fund might have returned 15% to investors in the same period and charged them only a token fee.
The inexorable math of this grotesque arrangement is certain to make the Gotrocks family poorer over time than it would have been had it never heard of these “hyper-helpers.” Even so, the 2-and-20 action spreads. Its effects bring to mind the old adage: When someone with experience proposes a deal to someone with money, too often the fellow with money ends up with the experience, and the fellow with experience ends up with the money.
In part the family persists in this folly because it harbors unrealistic expectations about obtainable returns. Sometimes these delusions are self-serving. For example, private pension plans can temporarily overstate their earnings, and public pension plans can defer the need for increased taxes, by using investment assumptions that are likely to be out of reach. Actuaries and auditors go along with these tactics, and it can be decades before the chickens come home to roost (at which point the CEO or public official who misled the world is apt to be gone).
Meanwhile, Wall Street’s Pied Pipers of Performance will have encouraged the futile hopes of the family. The hapless Gotrocks will be assured that they all can achieve above-average investment performance – but only by paying ever-higher fees. Call this promise the adult version of Lake Woebegon.
In 2006, promises and fees hit new highs. A flood of money went from institutional investors to the 2-and-20 crowd. For those innocent of this arrangement, let me explain: It’s a lopsided system whereby 2% of your principal is paid each year to the manager even if he accomplishes nothing – or, for that matter, loses you a bundle – and, additionally, 20% of your profit is paid to him if he succeeds, even if his success is due simply to a rising tide. For example, a manager who achieves a gross return of 10% in a year will keep 3.6 percentage points – two points off the top plus 20% of the residual 8 points – leaving only 6.4 percentage points for his investors. On a $3 billion fund, this 6.4% net “performance” will deliver the manager a cool $108 million. He will receive this bonanza even though an index fund might have returned 15% to investors in the same period and charged them only a token fee.
The inexorable math of this grotesque arrangement is certain to make the Gotrocks family poorer over time than it would have been had it never heard of these “hyper-helpers.” Even so, the 2-and-20 action spreads. Its effects bring to mind the old adage: When someone with experience proposes a deal to someone with money, too often the fellow with money ends up with the experience, and the fellow with experience ends up with the money.
Buffet on the decline of the US dollar
As our U.S. trade problems worsen, the probability that the dollar will weaken over time continues to be high. I fervently believe in real trade – the more the better for both us and the world. We had about $1.44 trillion of this honest-to-God trade in 2006. But the U.S. also had $.76 trillion of pseudo-trade last year – imports for which we exchanged no goods or services. (Ponder, for a moment, how commentators would describe the situation if our imports were $.76 trillion – a full 6% of GDP – and we had no exports.) Making these purchases that weren’t reciprocated by sales, the U.S. necessarily transferred ownership of its assets or IOUs to the rest of the world. Like a very wealthy but self-indulgent family, we peeled off a bit of what we owned in order to consume more than we produced.
The U.S. can do a lot of this because we are an extraordinarily rich country that has behaved responsibly in the past. The world is therefore willing to accept our bonds, real estate, stocks and businesses. And we have a vast store of these to hand over.
These transfers will have consequences, however. Already the prediction I made last year about one fall-out from our spending binge has come true: The “investment income” account of our country – positive in every previous year since 1915 – turned negative in 2006. Foreigners now earn more on their U.S. investments than we do on our investments abroad. In effect, we’ve used up our bank account and turned to our credit card. And, like everyone who gets in hock, the U.S. will now experience “reverse compounding” as we pay ever-increasing amounts of interest on interest.
I want to emphasize that even though our course is unwise, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now than they do today. Per-capita wealth will increase. But our citizens will also be forced every year to ship a significant portion of their current production abroad merely to service the cost of our huge debtor position. It won’t be pleasant to work part of each day to pay for the over-consumption of your ancestors. I believe that at some point in the future U.S. workers and voters will find this annual “tribute” so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash. How that will play out in markets is impossible to predict – but to expect a “soft landing” seems like wishful thinking.
Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report 2006
The U.S. can do a lot of this because we are an extraordinarily rich country that has behaved responsibly in the past. The world is therefore willing to accept our bonds, real estate, stocks and businesses. And we have a vast store of these to hand over.
These transfers will have consequences, however. Already the prediction I made last year about one fall-out from our spending binge has come true: The “investment income” account of our country – positive in every previous year since 1915 – turned negative in 2006. Foreigners now earn more on their U.S. investments than we do on our investments abroad. In effect, we’ve used up our bank account and turned to our credit card. And, like everyone who gets in hock, the U.S. will now experience “reverse compounding” as we pay ever-increasing amounts of interest on interest.
I want to emphasize that even though our course is unwise, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now than they do today. Per-capita wealth will increase. But our citizens will also be forced every year to ship a significant portion of their current production abroad merely to service the cost of our huge debtor position. It won’t be pleasant to work part of each day to pay for the over-consumption of your ancestors. I believe that at some point in the future U.S. workers and voters will find this annual “tribute” so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash. How that will play out in markets is impossible to predict – but to expect a “soft landing” seems like wishful thinking.
Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report 2006
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
On the Use of Strength
O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength! But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.
- "Measure for Measure," Act II, Scn. ii, William Shakespeare
- "Measure for Measure," Act II, Scn. ii, William Shakespeare
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Private Equity and Hedge Fund Returns
"If you went back and looked at all the leveraged buyouts over between 1981 and 2003, according to researchers from Harvard and Stanford, you'd find that the buying firms were almost always harmed by the transaction. Last year, KKR raised $5.1 billion from the public for a company that invests (funds) KKR deals. Despite the biggest bubble in private equity ever, the shares now sell for about 10% less than the IPO price. And over the long sweep, KKR's track record is no better than an index-following mutual fund; it is just more highly leveraged.
A conceit of the private equity industry is that taking companies out of the public markets allows managers to focus on longer-term strategies. But on Tuesday, a Moody's report contradicted that claim too. Private equity "does not really invest over a longer term horizon than public companies…" said the report. "They're taking capital out over a short period of time, providing themselves with a dividend in the first three years…"
Meanwhile, according to figures from Credit Suisse Tremont, the data provider, the average hedge fund across all strategies has returned 7.86% over the year to date - almost exactly the same as the performance of the S&P 500 index.
And a recent S&P study of Absolute Return Funds - funds designed to outperform the benchmarks - showed that none of them hit their targets, after fees. The worst in the group, Baring's Directional Global Bond fund, hoped to produce 4% over the London Inter-Bank Lending Rate, net of charges, thanks to elaborate use of derivatives. Heisenberg himself probably would have been proud to call the funds' formulae his own, so complex were they. But despite the highest rates in the business, what the fund delivered over the last 12 months was a net loss of almost 6%. Of the 21 funds tracked by S&P, only four beat the rate of return an investor could have gotten from cash - without paying any fees at all.
Both in theory and in practice, an investor would have to be a moron to want to pay a hedge fund "2 and 20" for the privilege of getting ordinary returns (actually, many funds charge an additional 1% management fee…plus an additional 10% of performance as a commission…bringing the total to '3 and 30'). But a man who was looking for idiots in the investment markets of 2007 is spoiled for choice. He might as well be trying to identify the dumbest member of the British parliament or the fattest American tourist.
But the financial world, circa 2007, is full of wonders. Who could have imagined that professional investors would buy leveraged packages of mortgages made to people who lied about their incomes and were unlikely to be able to pay the money back? Or that shareholders would allow their companies to be loaded up with debt, stripped of assets, and used to pay huge "dividends" to the private equity marauders?
And now, who would have imagined that those same public shareholders would buy shares from Henry Kravis, Stephen Schwarzman, and other private equity hustlers? What do they think, that they are going to put one over on the very geniuses who made such suckers of them?"
Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning 14 July 2007
Why Switch
I now use a Mac at home. Here is why I made the switch.
I had just bought a digital video-camera. Editing the digital video required us to increase the processing and storage capabilities of our home system. So I set out to investigate our options, not excluding a Mac, which I had heard was suitable for home video editing.
To purchase a bigger PC was cheaper than to buy a similar Mac. To learn to use a Mac required time and effort. To learn real time video editing on either would also require time and effort. I had not been using photo or video editing software before on the PC - too complicated for me. I had had virus problems before on the PC and so the anti-virus, anti-spyware, patch upgrade routine running on my home PC was taking boot-up times to 3 minutes every time I turned the PC on. The Mac operating system takes care of antivirus/spyware/etc. The boot-up on my Mac is 30 seconds. But what really illustrated the difference for me was the instructions for the installation and configuration for video editing software. The PC configuration instructions were 3 pages long, and required the installation of a special $300 card and software from $50- $300. The Mac instructions were 2 lines long and basically said: "it all comes standard with the Mac"!
So for me the pain of daily 5 minute machine boot-ups made me open to alternatives. The expense and effort involved in configuring a PC so it could do what a Mac did out of the box motivated me to make the change. The simplicity of using the Mac and its software made sure that I did not experience buyers remorse.
I still use a PC for work, and probably always will. But the Mac will be my Home computer system from now on.
I had just bought a digital video-camera. Editing the digital video required us to increase the processing and storage capabilities of our home system. So I set out to investigate our options, not excluding a Mac, which I had heard was suitable for home video editing.
To purchase a bigger PC was cheaper than to buy a similar Mac. To learn to use a Mac required time and effort. To learn real time video editing on either would also require time and effort. I had not been using photo or video editing software before on the PC - too complicated for me. I had had virus problems before on the PC and so the anti-virus, anti-spyware, patch upgrade routine running on my home PC was taking boot-up times to 3 minutes every time I turned the PC on. The Mac operating system takes care of antivirus/spyware/etc. The boot-up on my Mac is 30 seconds. But what really illustrated the difference for me was the instructions for the installation and configuration for video editing software. The PC configuration instructions were 3 pages long, and required the installation of a special $300 card and software from $50- $300. The Mac instructions were 2 lines long and basically said: "it all comes standard with the Mac"!
So for me the pain of daily 5 minute machine boot-ups made me open to alternatives. The expense and effort involved in configuring a PC so it could do what a Mac did out of the box motivated me to make the change. The simplicity of using the Mac and its software made sure that I did not experience buyers remorse.
I still use a PC for work, and probably always will. But the Mac will be my Home computer system from now on.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Schopenhauer on truths revealed
There are three steps in the revelation of any truth: in the first it is ridiculed; in the second, resisted; in the third, it is considered self evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, 1788-1860
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, 1788-1860
Saturday, July 07, 2007
God is a Republican
"God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.
God is a stern fellow...and a great ebeliever in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions.... God is difficult. God is unsentimental. IT is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals.... He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus."
PJ O'Rourke, Preface to "Parliament of Whores", 1991 First Vintage
God is a stern fellow...and a great ebeliever in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions.... God is difficult. God is unsentimental. IT is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.
Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals.... He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus."
PJ O'Rourke, Preface to "Parliament of Whores", 1991 First Vintage
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