timjamesbrennan.com

Show Notes:-

N.B. If you would like to make use of the time-codes below, this version on justin.tv has a time-code displayed with the video.

This show was originally recorded on March 18th 2008

1:02:08 Just to give you an idea of the technology I’m using, I’ve a Mac Pro tower with a Logitech USB camera. The picture is OK and the lighting is zero professional, but this hat is mediating the light on my face.

1:01:11 I’m not trying to look like Michael Moore as some said. Hello Alison.

1:00:59 I’m using a snowball condensing microphone. The snowball has a little more flexibility for moving around.

1:00:00 Now, I can do some pretty spiffy things that I can’t normally do - like showing a photo. I can use Skitch to grab a picture and throw that up.

59:24 I can also show you movies. The movie I am about to show you hasn’t been shot for this - to make a video for this, I would have to blow it up very, very large.

58:16 The program that allows me to do these (effects) is called Cam Twist. I can call in Flickr streams,  my twitter feed is down there scrolling, and I can do thought bubbles.

57:11 You can do this anywhere, any place, which I think has got huge ramifications in your niches. Where this is really powerful is in good old normal Joe and Jane Smith niches, because they’ve never seen anything remotely like this. With the sense of community, it just works really well.

55:45 One of the things about Justin.tv is that it’s public access, so anyone can come along which can cause some excitement. There are moderators so everyone plays nicely.

55:10 Imagine if your niche was trout fishing and you could show a movie of landing the latest trout.

54:52 The other thing I can do is make this all available for recording. Not only can we do this show live, but we can have the show recorded for later.

53:06 I want to now talk about The Thirty Day Challenge; we’ve already starting testing. In 2008, the challenge will be completely different to the one in 2007. Does it mean that the 2007 information is not any good? Absolutely not. It’s not only good – it works brilliantly.

52:06 For the newest people, here’s briefly a 30 second overview. The 30dc was created in 2005 when I had just sold a bunch of my little niche marketing businesses. My business partner at the time, Frank Kern, was busy being daddy for the second time and I was sort of twiddling my thumbs a bit. In all the stuff that we taught, there was one element that we had really forgotten to talk about during our training. And it was the concept of teams and team work.

51:23 Because when I first started doing niche publishing way back with Amy Roberts, Mel, Ugene Ware and Anthony Fernando, the thing that made that all work was the fact that we did that together as a team. And we met every Wednesday at the state library here in Melbourne.

We would work on each other’s project. And hopeful that we would get a product up for sale and make the first dollar (it took us 93 days). The team was really a critical part of that, because the team motivated. If someone got ahead the others would try and catch up, so there was a bit of friendly competition within the team.

50:40 There was an accountability – even if it wasn’t people saying, “You must finish this!” I’ve found that when you’re in a group and you’re all committed to an outcome, you don’t need to say anything a lot of the time. It’s very obvious who’s falling behind and who’s not falling behind.

50:18 Unfortunately, our brain in an effort to protect us usually causes people to drop out. They would rather drop out than subject themselves to having to front up - which is a bit of a shame.

50:00 Therefore, the Thirty Day Challenge was created to literally prove the concept that if you’re in a team, as a general rule you will do better than if you were doing it solo.

49:42 Now of course, Tom Tate, the first ever person who made a dollar with the Thirty Day Challenge, he did it as a lone ranger, didn’t he? He was the exception to the rule. But I’ve got to say that the vast majority of people who have been successful since were involved with teams.

49:17 Of course with social marketing, teams have now become even more important. I don’t think that in 2008 the internet is a solo sport anymore. The days of Frank, or I, or Dan Raine,  trying out little projects on who knows… growing tomatoes or whatever it happened to be… and making a real lot of money out of them… I wouldn’t say that they’re over, because I’m sure that right now there are people who are doing exactly that. I’m just saying that the balance of probabilities and likelihood of success would go towards people who are in teams.

48:34 They don’t have to be big teams either. I think that there’s an efficiency curve if you will – once you get past 4 or 5 people the efficiency goes down hill.

48:08 There are some video sites that are not designed for multiple broadcasts with hundred of people as we have now. 335 (viewers) – that’s fantastic. Your average teleconference call might have 100 listeners.

47:44 So that was the original idea behind The Thirty Day Challenge and who would have believed that it would grow as big as it has. It’s an insane time. For a month Dan Raine and myself … if someone could email a picture of Dan Raine in his pink thong that would be awesome, I think the broadcast needs that at some point.

47:08 Uh oh, Dan’s online. Hi Dan. Notice his username is pink which is lovely.

46:52 There’s one other thing about the Thirty Day Challenge which I really wanted to emphasise to people. I think a lot of people are excited by the sexy big numbers that people throw out, particularly in internet marketing. Frank for example has done some extraordinary things in terms of the success that he’s had, but sometimes those numbers distract people.

46:14 Here’s the problem – you go to a seminar and you see all these speakers who have done really well. Your enthusiasm bank account is overflowing and you go, “Right, I am going to make a difference. This internet stuff is going to be the thing that changes my life”. Great, you’re enthusiastic – and off you go.

45:41 You work hard at and all of a sudden you haven’t made $10,000 in your first month. Subconsciously, your brain’s going, “Oh, this is not very good. I think we might have to come up with a distraction because I don’t want poor Ed to feel like he’s a failure”. Your brain will do that, it’s very powerful - it doesn’t want you to feel like poo if it can possibly avoid it. So it will avoid rather than confront.

45:06 That’s why people often joke, “A dollar. Just a dollar. I’m going to make hundred’s of dollars”. A lot of those people aren’t here at the end of the thirty days. The reason why we focus on the $1, or $10 now, is because it’s achievable.

44:25 People forget that the first time I did something online it took 38 attempts. To make Wedding Planning Secrets profitable took 38 attempts. So I wanted to prove that people who start slow with small steps and set easily achievable goals and going to do a lot better. That’s a key part of the 30dc.

43:37 We are up to 344 viewers which is fantastic. 

43:13 The other piece of news is that we want all of you to help promote the 30dc. We want to do it in a really cool way by showing you the behind the scenes work. People don’t realise that in terms of traffic and participation the 30dc was bigger than anything that was done on the internet at that time. And the reason was that we were using social networks for marketing for the first time.

42:11 We thought that it would be really cool to show you guys how to do that to help us get the word out about the 30dc and have some really cool prizes. In fact we’ve had to create a whole new system to reward people for social networking activities. In showing you the process (behind the 30dc) you should be applying these to your own niche.

41:10 (referring to chat) Jason Moffat’s first year’s effort was that dread-lock site which was very cool.

40:53 One of the most frustrating things about internet marketing is looking at the list of the things that you should be doing and the list of what you are actually doing. And it’s the same for us.

40:20 Did you realise that there are over 15,000 unique visitors to the 30dc blog every day. Not during the challenge – that is now.

39:35 ScreenFlow is just absolutely amazing. I’m going to play you a little bit of video to show you the power of ScreenFlow.

38:07 I am system agnostic. All I am passionate about is great software. If I had to hand on heart coach someone who wants to make money online, what I give them to do it?

37:09 You have to account for the software as well. How much is CamTwist? It’s free. How much is VisualHub which hands down professionals across the board give the best produced .flv files? $29. Compared to Sorenson Squeeze which is around $400-$500.

36:32 If I look at my fellow internet marketing teachers, all bar Jeff Johnson have gone to Macs. Some have always used Macs like John Reese and Frank. It’s the best platform for producing internet marketing content. I am after the best possible tools for the job.

35:35 One of the biggest fallacies is the expense of a Mac compared to a PC. I’ve blogged about the alliced reports of a comparing a Dell PC to a Mac.

31:50 One of things that has happened that is really interesting is the eBay and Commission Junction situation. I don’t know if you’re aware but eBay had an affiliate program (ValueClick) that was run through Commission Junction. EBay have now taken that in-house (eBay Partner Network).

30:24 Another thing is Facebook. If you listen to Twitter and Blogs about Facebook they are getting punched left, right and centre.

29:50 A lot of posts say, “I will never click on a Facebook ad”, and this was funny to me because I recall in 96-97 when people said “I’ll never click on those!”. You might not have, but millions did. The challenge is to make it a seamless experience. The guys who get and understand it are making a killing

28:42 The other thing is the whole applications side of things. If you see my Facebook applications page you will see how many invitations I get. It is crazy.

27:58 (note to self) Use a separate browser window (during broadcasts). I’m also using Flock as well.

27:53 It’s very important online when your looking at so much data to sort the wheat from the chaff. Make no mistake, there are people doing super, super well using Facebook demographic marketing. For example, with wedding planning you can target users who are engaged. I am getting 1-2% click through.

26:40 People are trying to take the same techniques they are using in Google (Adwords) and apply them in Facebook, and I think that’s a mistake. Phrase marketing as opposed to demographic marketing are two different kettles of fish. The way people make decisions are identical, but the way to get them to make the decision you do have to think about.

25:55 One thing that I think is a huge opportunity is the iPhone software platform (aka iPhone SDK). Software programs is a really interesting area. Don’t turn off. People think that you have to be a coder – you don’t. You just have to be a user. Steve Jobs doesn’t code.

24:08 The way in which the world has opened up in  terms of out-sourcing and screen capture programs (e.g. Camtasia for PC or ScreenFlow for Mac) means that it is much better to show the programmers what you want instead of writing it down. I have had much better success since I have started shooting ScreenFlow screen capture of what I wanted rather than trying to write it down.

23:38 I have dealt with people from Lahore, Pakistan to Romania, to all over the place and if people can see what’s going on it makes a big, big difference.

Questions & Answers Section

22:36 So,what do you want to know about the Thirty Day Challenge in 2008?

22:28 (Someone types “I love John Crowther”) I love John Crowther too, but in a brotherly sort of way.

22:18 I think that there is so much in terms of the iPhone. If you’re in trout fishing, what kind of trout fishing what kind of iPhone application could you come up with? You could do a whole weather and trout fishing report. Then there’s the opportunity of selling of services and ads for that.

21:37 Of course the Thirty Challenge will be free. It wouldn’t be the Thirty Day Challenge if it wasn’t free. I must point out to people that the 30dc 2007 edition is by no means superseded. It is a brilliant course with strategies that work right now, today. If you into the forums you will see people virtually on a daily basis getting rankings and making their first $10.

20:57 (Viewer asks) “Ed I want to set up a membership site with video upload facility”. That’s way too complex to answer here today.But is it possible? Yes it is.

20:40  Thank you for the segway to the YouTube API opening up. Now, non-propeller heads are probably going, “You’re talking Latin to me again”. But it’s a big deal because Google/YouTube wants to host your video. You might have noticed that as of 10 days ago, you can upload files up to 1024MB in size.

19:55 With YouTube opening up this will allow you to build in video upload and hosting capacities into any site using the API. This might freak out a lot of you, but don’t. All you have to do is tell your programmer, “I want the facility to upload a video, I want people to be able to play and search”.

19:07 Question: Is successful internet marketing possible without mailing lists and squeeze pages? Answer: Yeah. Of course it is, but seriously, why? The mailing lists that your develop is a huge asset and if you look at all the big internet marketing launches, they’ve all been driven off email. This comes back to (that) it’s not about email. This is about a strategy I call “check moves” which I taught in the 30dc. So, if you want to refresh yourself, go and look at the whole video on check moves by a brilliant guy out of Melborne, Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson .

18:15 A lot of professionals highlight that lesson as the key lesson. It’s all about how often you contact people, which is why Justin.tv is absolutely brilliant.

17:34 (Referring to chat) Thanks for that really useful Wikipedia definition of “API”. It’s brilliant that people can chip in with some URLs.

16:49 Question: Can you give us a newbie guideline. Answer: The best advice if you’re just starting out is to go through the steps of the 30dc. By doing things is the way that you absorb and learn things.

15:50 There are a million other strategies such as Frank Kern’s Mass Control or Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula. The most important thing is that you just focus on one thing first – you need to walk before you can run.

15:05 I personally would go and have a look at 30dc 2007 because in 2005 you could pay 5 cents per click for pretty much any phrase in Google. You can’t do that anymore and in fact Google are penal if you don’t put things exactly they way they want. It’s harder get it for 5 cents, unless you have a little secret trick which you might have to stay tuned for.

14:08 With the older challenges the market research strategies still hold, but 2007’s Gtrends strategy is worth its weight in gold. That’s still the world class way of determining traffic; everybody I know who’s big in internet marketing is using that exact method.

12:50 Question: Will you post show notes? Answer: I’ll post the actual video, but if someone wants to post notes I will come up with an extraordinary way to compensate you.

12:15 Question: Is the Immediate Edge a natural progression to the 30dc? Answer: Yes, absolutely. We’re trying to make changes all the time to make it even better.

11:45 Do you think that YouTube has become a much more valuable traffic generating tool as opposed to other web 2.0 sites since the last 30dc? The answer to that is a big fat YES. YouTube is the biggest attractor to the 30dc by so far it’s not funny. Video is where it’s at.

11:20 For a lot of people (broadcasting themselves) is worse than public speaking, but the traffic on YouTube is astounding.

10:21 Apple TV, Tivo, Xbox & Micosoft Media Center are making YouTube an extraordinary platform. This is why they are releasing their API so you can custom build your own YouTube. You will be able to build the front end, in other words what people will see, and YouTube will provide the back end.

9:48 Question: Is Social Marker working for everyone? I presume so, but may I tell you that very soon you are going see a social marketing tool that will be released first to the 30dc people. It will change the way you socially bookmark forever

9:18 Dan’s been a bit quiet recently because he has been programming something fabulous. And it will be free of course to Thirty Day Challengers.

8:36 Question: How often do you put new posts on a new niche site that you’re testing? Answer: I tend to let the stats tell me, according to how well that post is bringing me in traffic. As a general rule you want to be updating it at least 5 times a week. I know in the old days of blogging it used to be the case of posting 3 times a day, but I don’t know that that is necessary with social bookmarking because it changes the whole dynamic.

7:56 What I do and what you should do as a Thirty Day Challenger is be stats driven. Using software such as Google Analytics you need to think about where is your traffic coming from, in terms of what phrases are coming up. Also, “Is the traffic continuing, or is the traffic dropping off?”

7:18 When the traffic drops off you need to investigate. It’s a bit like triage. You have to decide where to put your effort because you can’t do everything all the time

5:55 Question: Any chance for some interaction for those who are starting the 30dc from scratch? I see a lot of new people looking for direction. Answer: If this (the TV show) has worked, then I think this is perfect, and we’ll do this on a weekly basis. We can be driven by you guys (the viewers). This works for me, because this is great leverage of my time and I can maintain 300 people right the way through.

5:25 Thanks Dan for that URL (URL is missing, but if anyone has this web stats software link please add it in comments below – cheers, Tim)

5:02 Question: How do you market a paid PDF report without a website? Answer: Dan will tell you to sell them on Amazon. I know a lot of people go to eBay, but Amazon has so much more credibility, it has the whole engine and everything is ready to go. I know some guys, Fred Gleeck is one, that are doing very well selling on Amazon. Side note: all those buggers in Romania who are selling our stuff on eBay they do well, but we know were you are, and we’re comin’ to get ya, I .

4:14 Question: When you test a market on free content hosts, if find that it’s a good product do you abandon free site and start own site? Answer: No, you do both. It’s a great misconception of the 30dc that it was all you had to do, but really it’s just to get you started with their first $10. Once you’ve got a profitable site you really want to start looking at pay per click (PPC), product launches, and other strategies as shown in the Immediate Edge. It’s getting you going with the least amount of risk, and the least amount of money, since most people don’t have a lot of money to put together.

3:08  Question: Will you do another discounted offer for the Edge? Answer: I will have to ask Dan about that.

2:52 Question: Ed, is it better to have a dozen sites, or concentrate on one from the beginning? Answer: Again this has changed a lot from 2005 to 2008, because you really need to start focusing on one niche. Notice that I didn’t say one site, I’m saying one niche. It’s fair enough to spread markets until you’ve found a niche that you love and is profitable, but then you need to go deep.

2:25 Where as in the old days, Dan, Frank, and I would just go wide because it was easy. With social networking the danger is that if you don’t go deep and own your marketplace, someone can come in and “back-door” you. For example, they could use pay per click and come in through the back door that way, or they could use say search engine optimization. In other words where ever you’re not, they will be. (If you go wide you can’t cover these back-doors.)

1:38 Amazon has also video ad applications and Dan is actually in the process of testing that on the edge.

1:23 Question: What do you teach in the Immediate Edge that’s not in the 30dc? Answer: 30dc gets you started, gets you comfortable, and gets you your first $10. It gets you going with a strategy that if you really max out will make you do very well. To take that next step, in the Edge we try to show you all the other things that you can be doing in a theme based way. We just did a Facebook theme, a video theme, and a couple of project themes.

0:21 Question: Could you sell a PDF report through Squidoo? Answer: Not directly through Squidoo, but you could certainly set it up on Amazon and then use Squidoo to promote it.