Rock Star Lifestyle Design

This space has been starting to get really cool.

People are working really hard to change their lives and do cool things with their time. Today is another moment that shows the hard work from someone in our community. Jonny from TheLifeThing.com has brought together 30 young (and young at heart) entrepreneurs, lifestyle designers and change agents together under one roof to remind us that we all have very ambitious and very different goals, dreams and ideas of success (more on Johnny in a few).

The physical images of success are playing right now on my tv. It’s Grammy time and you can see all the artists, high end fashion and expensive production that goes with getting Lady Gaga, Elton John and 2 pianos in the same room. For some, this is the epitome of success. Money, things, highly influential and powerful circle of friends and the big house with the lake.

For others, success is being able to spend time with family, work on projects they truly care about or even having a job that is stable and able to provide for the lifestyle they are enjoying being a part of.

For Nikki Stone, success was being able to overcome adversity and win Olympic gold. Two years before becoming America’s first gold medal winner in aerial skiing, Nikki suffered a chronic spinal injury that prevented her from standing.  She was determined to see her vision of success. She worked hard and 35 World Cup Medals, 11 World Cup titles, 4 national titles, a World Championship and Olympic gold later - Nikki has seen ad experienced success.

Nikki has shared her vision of success in her new book, When Turtles Fly. In the book she chronicles her story of success along with the success of others like Shaun White (who took home more gold at the X Games this past week), 49′ers legend Steve Young, author Steven Covey and others.

What I like about this approach is that you can take bits and pieces of the lives of others and put them into your own life. This is something I learned from Tony Robbins and his modeling approach. If you want something, essentially all you need to do is find someone who has done it and model their actions, beliefs and mental approach.

The title of this post comes from a line in an nontraditional song about success from Jay-Z and Nas. For them success came at an even greater level when they came together, put their past behind them and regained their focus on making the best music in their genre. In the song Jay boats about an “apartment at the Trump” that he only slept in once. Nas goes on to say something that I think hits the lifestyle community,

I climax from paper, then ask why is life worth livin’
Is it the hunt for the shit that you want
To receive is great, but I lust giving

In true spirit Jonny Gibaud has come together in a project about bringing people together and giving back to the commuity and for those that need a little dose of what “success’s all about.”

30 bloggers, lifestyle designers and change makers have given their definition of success, but more importantly how they think you are to achieve it. You will see some familiar faces like Ashley from the Middle Finger Project, Jun from Viralogy and Untemplater, Gordie at LifestyleDesignForYou, Cody from Thrilling Heroics, myself and a ton of others!

You can download the eBook for free, right now. Pass it on and hear about success from the people that are defining success, one unique story at a time.

So what do I think of success? Well, when I sent in my comments for the Success eBook, here was my response:

Success is…

creating a lifestyle that allows you to surf on a tuesday and save the world on a friday

Achieve this by…

working harder, smarter and more passionately than anyone you know and smiling while you do it

Go learn about success from Nikki and read about it in Jonny’s new eBook. This is going to be a killer successful week. Who’s with me?

-Greg

P.S. Yup, that’s an affiliate link to Nikki’s book and I did receive a promotional copy of the book. It’s a great read if you want to see success in a new light. I was also a contributor to the Success eBook. It really rocks and costs you an afternoon of reading and getting inspired.

A lot has been changing in the Internet Marketing world in the last few months. I wanted to spend a few minutes going over some of the important changes that you should look into for your online business. Many of them are things that you should have been implementing already, however many marketers like to play on the edges to turn their biggest profits.

I have always stood by creating cool stuff that provides value to the people that need it and with this audience that reads RSLD, I think you are the same way. I follow many of your escapades and think you have the same integrity to give the most and only receive when people win with what you have.

So here are some things to look at in your online business.

The FTC

This is the subject that has been the most public as it has hit bloggers and affiliates equally hard. I am no lawyer and this should not be legal advice, but here’s what it boils down to:

• If you are given a free product to review, you must disclose it
• If you have affiliate links that you or your company stand to make money from, you must disclose them to
• This can be in blog posts, in emails and possibly even free reports/eBooks
• If you use testimonials in your sales letters or promotions, you must also state what the average customer experiences. This is giving marketers a very big thorn in the side as many have no way of telling what the average user does or gains. Most of the time its nothing, as the product sits in dust on a shelf.

What we are doing is taking numbers out of testimonials - like “I make a gazillion dollars in 2 days using your product” and now using “Greg’s product was really cool, I learned a lot and it has helped my business.” Again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m just showing what we are doing.

If you want to learn more about FTC stuff, I suggest you head over and read this post by Frank Kern, who knows a thing or 2 about the FTC and lawsuits.

Membership Sites

Here is a disclaimer, I love membership sites. I am a fan of creating really cool stuff and having people pay me every month to be a part of something special. I have even been recently speaking on the subject.

I am also a fan of free and “just pay shipping” trials to membership sites. If you do it upfront and ethically, its a great way to get people to see if they like the content you are producing and you only make money if you deliver.

As of last week - this is no more.

Memberships and rebills account for only 1% of all transactions for Visa and Mastercard yet are responsible for 30+% of chargebacks, refunds, disputes, etc. That is why merchant account (not the FTC) are putting the hammer to free trial and forced continuity offers (the type where they have to opt out before the time period or else they will be rebilled).

So, we used this type of a strategy with the Rock Star Business Series. We had a front end offer of $7 for 7 modules and 10 day access to the Backstage Pass, our membership component. If you didn’t cancel within 10 days, you were rebiled $47/mo. These types of deals are no more.

Since this hits close to home, here are some things to look at in your business, or in the structure you are setting up:

Offer the membership as the upfront product. With Label 2.0 it has always been a $50/mo product. No trials, no upsells. They get immediate full access and are free to cancel anytime, no questions asked.

If you were giving away a free product, like a DVD, CD, MP3 player, etc - use that as a bonus. Like, “Join our membership site and as a gift we will send you this DVD.”

Be as transparent as possible about the rebilling. Tell them they will be billed every “x” number of days for “x” amount as long as they are a member.

Give your members a very easy way to opt-out. Like super easy. In Label 2.0, the unsubscribe button is one of the first 3 links on the top right sidebar, in plain view. We are not scared of it. We put it there upfront, as to say - you are going to love this stuff so much that you are not going to care or need to use this button, but its here if you ever need it.

Some More Continuity Bombshells

Ryan Lee, one of the top teachers of online continuity, just received a few emails from his merchant account (the people that handle taking the money from the customers). You can read the letter in full, but I wanted to point out a few “shockers” and things that are of high impact to me.

Avoid a false sense of urgency - This means using those auto-scripts that add countdown timers, today only specials and other misleading  info on your sales page that is NOT true. Now if you offer really is only today or ends this week or something, then you have nothing to worry about.

The full price of products sold must be within reasonable “fair market value.” Honestly, not sure how they are going to assess this, but take a look at your market and be sure that your product isn’t a gazillion dollars more expensive for the same thing.

Consumers must be required to validate understanding of the terms of the offer twice during order submission. If you are rebilling someone, whether its a membership site or supplements, etc you need to have your customer acknowledge that they are paying monthly twice. Once can be on the initial offer and once at checkout. Pre-checked boxes must never be used, your customer must check them off once they understand the offer.

Up Sells with recurring charges are prohibited, regardless of consumer opt-in or acknowledgment of the offer. Ok this is the big one and it kinda sucks. I am a fan of upsells that make sense and align with what the buyer wants. If you offer a great front-end product, say some kind of training course - “7 DVD’s on How To Speak Spanish” an ethical upsell may be a monthly membership for one-on-one or group coaching where you will rebill them for as long as they want the coaching. Makes sense right? Not any more. With this rule coming from the merchant account, you can no longer upsell a membership. This just means you are going to see more memberships upfront attached to front end products. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Ok, enough with the scary tactics!

Essentially if you offer cool stuff, are upfront on the offer and over deliver to your customers, you have nothing to worry about. It you are selling teeth whiteners or acai berry, then you may want to rethink what you are up to.

What do you guys think about both the FTC rules and regs and the new membership guidelines from merchant accounts? Does this affect your business? Have you been affected? How do you think it will be enforced?

Talk to you in the comments.

-Greg Rollett

Photo above by RealEstateClientReferra ls

Things have been changing. I’ve seen the fire and the focus in some of my friends, both online and off over the past few weeks. It’s like I can smell the fresh cut grass of a baseball field every morning with how we are building our businesses right now.

The way you spend your time is more important than ever. The recent events in Haiti really proves that. Stop doing shit that you hate, stop paying for mortgages that you can’t afford and stop doing shit that doesn’t affect your bottom line or help you grow your business.

Here is a quick vid I shot that talks more about time management, but its not about time management. It’s about spending your time to where every minute counts towards your tomorrow.

The Internet Lifestyle and Time Management

What can you be working on right now that will affect your bottom line?

I have a cool case study of a music product launch that will get you super inspired to do stuff asap. The results have been nothing shirt of awesome. See you in the comments.

-Greg

Putting in the best young writers from Personal Finance, Location Independence, Entrepreneurship, Small Business and Social Media, Brain Melting Ideas and Technology you get the modern day version of Captain Planet, or what they have collectively called Untemplater.

I was really excited to learn that this project got off the ground and was lucky to get a sneak peek of their Manifesto early last week. The Untemplater Manifesto follows Jun, Monica, Carlos, Cody and Adam as they tell their story of how they are ditching the white picket fences, 2.5 children, mortgage and lifestyle that was the dream of our grandparents. Each of their stories is unique, with challenges, struggles and game changing ideas that make you feel like anyone can do this.

Grab your copy here.

The new site is a great looking multi-author blog for 20-somethings, college students and young people that know deep down they were destined for a better life than the one they are told to follow.

In addition to the site really kicking ass, the aspect that I wanted to touch on was that 7 young, alpha entrepreneurs were able to build this business in 3 months or so. Putting their strengths to use, finding a business model and creating an environment to scale the site is an incredible feat when you look at how busy all of them are.

I encourage you to go check the network out, leave a comment, read the manifesto and if you have the urge to say something, they are looking for inspired minds to write for them as well.

• Untemplater.com
• Untemplater on Twitter
• Untemplater Facebook Page

Best of luck to all my friends that have put this site together!

-Greg Rollett

photo by Mike Schmid

As we close out 2009 and look at ways to have a rocking 2010 I have been looking at what provides true value into my life and into my business. This includes the things I pay for and the things I spend my time on.

Money and Value

My mindset is that we spend money on the things that are going to improve our state. For me that includes buying music to improve my mood or get my blood flowing. This can be in the form of food that cures a feeling of hunger. This includes education, where I buy things to compliment what I already know and what I think can enhance my business.

Chris Brogan wrote a great post today (that I felt was unnecessary, but it turned out to be a great conversation) on value vs. cost. There is a new eBook by a blogging buddy of mine Nathan Hangen (I wrote about Social Media and Product Launches for him a few weeks back) entitled Beyond Blogging in which Chris (along with myself and a ton of awesome bloggers and marketers) are affiliates.

The complain came from purist commenters who do not place value in an eBook that has a cost of $47. The logic is that either:

• information is supposed to be free, or
• eBooks are written on Microsoft Word, have no distribution cost and thus should be much more inexpensive.

Ah. This is killer to me. The comments on this post were handled very supportive of the cost vs. value proposition. If you are a blogger and want to use this book to make money then it is an investment into your business and education. If you buy it as a book that you are going to read for leisure, than yea, its probably too expensive.

This is the same stuff I deal with when pricing my own products. I want to make them affordable that people will give them a shot and put some of the stuff I talk about into action. Then I also want to price it high enough to where the people that would never take action and are leisure customers/subscribers/fans don’t buy. And that’s okay.

There was an awesome comment by Michael at Remarkablogger that summed it up best:

Here is something to consider: the people with an “investment mindset” instead of a “cost mindset” are the ones perfectly willing to shell out hundreds and even thousands of dollars on training they know will help them succeed in their pursuits.

And those are the people who DO succeed. I don’t know a single successful person who is also a cheap-ass miser that can’t even invest in his own success. All the people whining about the cost of this (or any) info product can basically put themselves in the “failure” camp until they make that leap of faith and invest in themselves. Strong words, I know, but I don’t see anything to indicate otherwise.

The value to me in anything I buy does need to be justified and I think you should justify the cost in your head as well, you just need to do it in what Michael calls an “investment mindset.”

Creating an Investment Mindset

This investment mindset can be applied to nearly all purchases. When grabbing lunch out today I made a purchasing decision. I chose to invest in my health and mindset by ordering the salad and soup. A cost mindset would have seen the burger and fries on special for $5 and made the decision to save a few dollars while sacrificing nutrients, calories and a mid-afternoon bathroom run.

When I look at investments into my education I look at long-term value over short term cost. It may not be an exact science but the thinking goes something like this:

• What is the item?
• What is the item supposed to do for me?
• Can I apply this to my life or my business now?
• Is this something that I can use in the future as I grow or need new ideas/revenue/etc?
• Do I have the time, energy and resources to use it? Will I?
• Does this align with the way I am doing things now?
• Will this item give me a return equal to or greater than the price tag?
• The price?
• Yes or no?

Again this isn’t a perfect science and isn’t meant to be. Most purchases are based on emotions and wants versus real life needs.

Remember all we really need is some water, some nuts, Nike B-Ball shorts, a white Hanes T-Shirt, a tepee and a warm shower now and then.

Applying the Investment Mindset to a Real Buying Decision

This year Stompernet was the biggest investment that I made in my personal development. At $200 / mo it is steep for continued online marketing information, of which I think I am pretty well versed. Here is the process I see looking back with some analysis on my buying decisions.

What is the item?

Stompernet is like the Harvard of online marketing. With instructors that have been there and done that, resources and connections, live events and a suite of tools to make my life/business tasks easier.

What is the item supposed to do for me?

There are a few key things that I wanted to get out of the product. A support team. People to answer questions. A mastermind group of internet marketers. The tools - specifically Market Samauri, the Article Spinner and Submitter and the free 800 number. All these combined would save time, give me confidence and accountability.

Can I Apply This To My Business or Life Now? What about the future?

Yes. The second I got my username and password I was in, had access to the tools and started digging into their archives. On my recent Rock Star Business Series launch I got feedback on affiliate software, payment terms, salesletter help and some great things to look at on the backend. As I am gearing up for some new products in 2010, there are some awesome things that I have been picking up to improve conversion, boost sales numbers and increase transaction size.

I have also applied some of the lifestyle videos into my daily habits. So much of working online is mental and they have some great teachers for mindset.

Do I have the time, energy and resources to use it? Will I?

This is the biggest “iffy” part I had with Stompernet. Could I justify $200  /mo if I never watched a video or used a few of the tools. To this day I still haven’t touched a few of the tools and am still trying to find the best way to use the 800 number.

The forums can be a time suck and there is more videos than someone could watch in a lifetime. For me, the answer here was a maybe. The best thing they teach is that you use what you need and the rest will be there when you need it. That was a huge selling point.

Does this align with my current business / lifestyle?

Yea. I really want to indulge fully in online marketing and they are the Harvard. There is no tomorrow. I knew that if I wanted to make something happen, it had to happen now. The average perfect day for me includes working on my laptop from home. I needed that accountability now.

Will this item give me a return equal to or greater than the price tag?

That is the plan. If you look at $200 / mo as the investment, I would spend $2,400 a year on the product. Since joining I have increased my revenues (not profits, yet) to almost that much per month. I plan on surpassing double that amount per month in the 1st quarter of 2010. So yea, it has produced a very nice ROI.

Yes or No.

Honestly I pulled the trigger at 11:55pm of the last night of their pre-launch. I can’t say this was the easiest decision I ever made. When I thought about the value it brings in, the decision now looks easy.

The decision was still based on emotion, but it was an investment decision. It was not a cost decision. Deep down I knew I would make more than I ever invested in the training.

Other Investment Minded Buying Opportunities

photo by Anke van Lenteren

Your food. Every time you eat, whether you are cooking or eating out, you have made an investment in your health. Are you making this based on cost, or as an investment towards a long, healthy living.

Your time. You will never get time back, no matter how hard we try. Are you investing your time to create a better lifestyle for yourself or are you choosing a cost based lifestyle. This can be mental cost as well. Staying home on the couch, or reading blogs instead of working, etc.

Your work. The economy is tough. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur or an Internet Marketer or musician. Some choose to work and that’s cool.  No matter what career path you choose, make the decision based on an investment mindset versus a cost mindset if you want peace of mind.

Taking a job for the money is a cost mindset. Selling acai berry because it has the highest affiliate payout is a cost mindset. If you choose to sell the acai stuff, be sure you are doing it from an investment standpoint - maybe learning to drive affiliate traffic, looking at conversions or outsourcing and automation. Use that investment to fuel something more powerful and valuable in your life.

The Last Penny Story

I always love the seminar speakers who come up on stage and they start with their story of what they did to make it. It generally breaks down like this. Crappy job. Wanted to make a change. Bought a course. Invested a bunch of time. Stuff started to happen. Boom - success.

I remember one story where they said they had paid something like $2,000 to go to a conference and didn’t have enough money to book a room so they slept in their car for the weekend. That weekend he worked his ass off at the conference and met everyone from the people in the seats to the multi-million dollar speakers. Something like 6 weeks later he made $10,000. Then $100,000. Then the $1,000,000. He said most of that came from the relationships he made in that room. It may have been his last $2,000 - but was that investment worth it?

The Choice is Yours

We all have the mental capacity to make whatever decisions we want to make. The person in control of our thoughts, beliefs and emotions is us. The value we see in products comes from our own perception and reality. The next time you see a long sales letter, or an offer to learn something or are faced with putting crap in your body versus something that will help keep you healthy so you can surf at 60 - think from an investment mindset.

Happy New Year and please let me know your thoughts on this. I think it’s huge for those looking to make a huge impact on their future.

-Greg Rollett

P.S. If you are serious about wanting to make income and a living from your blog in 2010, I highly recommend Beyond Blogging by Nathan Hangen and Mike Cliffe Jones. He worked really hard to break into everything you need to do, do NOT need to do and brought along some powerful friends like Chris Brogan, David Risely, Chris Guillebeau, iJustine, Penelope Trunk, Pete Cashmore and more.

If blogging is not your thing no worries. Enjoy your holiday and leave a comment below on what you want to invest in to make your life better in 2010.