Webmaker's Blog

Many Clickincome clients come to us with dreams of creating a wealth generating website. Clickincome wants to help them. That’s why we’re in business. Usually, a business is just a means to an end, though. This is where the nature of your life dreams comes into play.

When you started planning your Clickincome website, or any website for that matter, what dreams did you have? Was it a million dollars in the bank? Was it freedom from a boss? What about the ability to travel the world and enjoy exotic locals? Maybe you wanted to drive a fancy new Austin Martin sport car. What about a big new house? That would be cool.

Then again, maybe your dreams were more modest. Maybe you wanted to get out from under a mountain of credit card debt. Maybe you just wanted to pay off your mortgage. Many of my clients just want to make a little more money to help ease their retirement.

Whatever that reason was, it was something you wanted. You had a dream that you wanted to pursue, and you saw building a site with Clickincome as a way to achieve it. Having big goals is great. I’ve got a few of my own. But, have you ever sat down and wondered how much your dreams are going to cost you?

I’m serious, here. How much will it cost you to live the life you want to live? Most people don’t even get this far. They think, “Oh, that’s just way too expensive. I’ll never have it for real. I’ll just sit here in front of my television and dream. Living the good life is for other people. Not me.”

How ridiculous is that? What makes you think it’s for “someone else?” What makes you think you’re not worthy? What makes you so special that you can sit an mope and moan and be so “beneath it all.” It’s ridiculous!

Guess what? It’s not as expensive as you may think. I know, I know. I’ve heard it all before. “Oh, it’s easy for you. You know all this stuff and you just do it naturally.” Sure, I do NOW. When I began it was hard. I had to do things that were uncomfortable for me. I had to break out of my comfort zone. I had to learn.

Part of that learning is doing. In other words, before you do it for the tenth time you’ve got to do it for the first time. Don’t you think the first time I tried to build a website that it was difficult? You bet your bippy it was difficult. A lot of things are still difficult. The hardest thing was to just get up off the couch and take those first few steps.

I’m digressing, here. Let’s get back to the subject at hand.

Figuring out how much money your dreams will cost you is actually pretty simple. Let’s do it together, right now. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil and write down four things you’d really like to have, do, or be, within the next six months to a year. If the dream is longer term, like becoming a doctor or lawyer, that’s fine. Figure out just one thing that will help you achieve it that you can accomplish within six months to a year and write it down.

Got your four dreams? Why not? Either you already have everything you’d every want in your life or you’ve beaten yourself silly with the notion that you can’t have it. Let me give you a thinking check, here. Don’t think you can’t have it. It’s like Oprah Winfrey said, “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” So write it down. Just four dreams.

What? You still can’t think of four. Okay. Think about what you don’t want and write down the opposite.

Finally got four dreams? Great. No, go out and figure out how much it will cost to achieve them. Hard cash number, here, please. Take the costs you find, total them up, and divide the total by the number of months you’re planning on. You want to come up with a monthly total.

Did the number surprise you? Now divide that number by thirty. This is the cost per day of your dreams. That’s all the money it will take, per day.

Now, put that aside and go look at your monthly finances. How much is your current lifestyle costing you? Include rent or mortgage, credit card payments, loan payments, grocery bills, transportation costs – everything you spend money on month to month. This, in itself, is a scary thing for most people. Knowing the numbers makes you accountable for your spending.

Next, multiply this figure by 1.25 or so. That will build in a 25% buffer for you. I’ve discovered we all spend a little more than we think we do.

Now, divide this total by 30 to come up with the cost per day of your current lifestyle. Add that to the daily cost of your dreams. Now you know how much money you need to make each day, to live your dreams.

Go compare that with your current earnings. Yep! Dig out your pay stubs or whatever else you use to track your income and figure out your monthly income, and then your average daily income, just like you did with your costs and dreams.

Let’s compare the totals. Hmm. Do you make enough money already? Probably not, but I’ll bet it’s close. Subtract the daily cost of your dream lifestyle from your daily income. This is how much more money you need to make each day to live your dreams. Don’t you think you’re smart enough to figure out a way to do that? I’d bet you are. Maybe building an ecommerce website with Clickincome will be one of those steps.

 

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Believe it or not, you're a salesperson. Whether you're an entrepreneur with a Clickincome website or you're using some other hosting service, you're a salesperson. Even if you've never opened a business in your life, and never plan to, you're still a salesperson.

That's right. At some point in your life, like it or not, you will have to act like a salesperson. Oh, I know. Some of you are saying, "Are you kidding? I hate salespeople. They drive me nuts. I'll never work as a salesperson. I just can't do it. I can't lie. I don't have enough bull-* in me."

Maybe, but guess what? You're still a salesperson. The moment you submitted a resume to a company to get a job, you became a salesperson. No, you weren't trying to hock brushes or trying to sell cleaning products door to door, you were trying to sell yourself. That's right. You were selling yourself to that HR director in order to get the job.

This is a critical epiphany for many Clickincome clients, and other web entrepreneurs. There are so many times, Clickincome client or not, that we act as a salesperson. Because of that simple fact, if you want to be successful, you must develop the mindset of a marketer.

The problem many of us face is that we think of a salesperson as slimy, greedy, money grubbing lowlife willing to sell his Grandmother into slavery for a buck. Granted, I've met a few people like that. They do well in the beginning but, once the lies are revealed, they don't last much longer on the sales floor.

Real sales, and I'm talking sales that create the longest lasting customer loyalty, isn't like that. It still deals with convincing a client that your product is so good they want to buy it, but it doesn't have to involve slimy, black hat, tactics.

My first sales job was a joke. I worked in a call center selling season tickets for the local symphony orchestra. I stank at it. I was so bad that, after three months with only one sale, I was fired. I can't blame them. I didn't have the sales mentality.

My next sales job was still a joke, I just quit being quite so funny. I learned a few things about people. I learned how to push through excuses NOT to buy. But I didn't believe in the product. I had some other problems with the company, as well. This time, instead of getting fired, I quit. Working there just wasn't working for me.

Even though that experience was, ultimately, a negative one, I learned a lot. I'm actually grateful to the people I worked with, and the company itself, for that. Even though I just felt like I couldn't stay there, the experience helped me grow.

Over the years I've learned a few more things about sales. Interestingly enough, I still don't think I'd make a good sales-floor type salesperson. I just don't enjoy that kind of work enough to really be good at it. But I've learned to respect those folks who do. A good salesperson is really worth their weight in gold.

Instead, I've developed into a special class of salesperson knows as a "marketer." Being a marketer, I've learned to develop a "marketing mindset" that has helped me with my own businesses, as well as in my work teaching Clickincome clients. Here are some of the things I've learned:

Advertising is not dishonest. The act of selling a product is not a dishonest act. Yes, some ad copy can exaggerate things a bit, but I try not to. At the same time, I don't step away from the truth. Too many people, in attempts of mock humility, forget that the products they sell actually add value to people's lives. I'm not lying if I tell people that.

Preach to the converted. If you're not preaching to the converted, you're targeting the wrong people. Another aspect of sales, that many people hate, is the idea of it being pushy. I've met pushy salespeople, believe me. I've also learned why some of them act that way. The idea of pushy sales is in trying to convince someone that doesn't want your product that they actually want it. Inexperienced salespeople will sometimes do that. Experienced salespeople know it's a waste of time and effort. The right audience is the people who need your product, and are used to spending money for it.

Writing ad copy is just writing. I used to think there was some special trick to writing ad copy. I thought there must be some formula for success that was only talked about in the inner circles of the Secret Brotherhood of Marketers. It turned out not to be true, of course. Yes, there are certainly principles that can help you. It turns out that those principles apply to all good writing, though, not just ad copy.

By letting potential customers know about your products, you're doing them a favor. If you don't advertise, how will they know about it in the first place? Do you honestly think your clients will spontaneously come to know that if they use Product X they'll get Y result in their lives? It just doesn't happen that way in real life. You're advertising actually helps people by educating them about the potential positive impact your products will have on their lives.

 

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