Over the last 12 months I’ve noticed a marked increase in the number of small business owners who want to ‘escape’ from their business, either because they’re nearing retirement, or are struggling to keep their business afloat. Or because they’ve built a business they’ve ended up hating!

When people tell me they want to make money online — but not with any reference to their current business… well that’s not something I focus on, so I usually refer them to other people and resources.

One such resource is a book I read over Christmas . It’s one of the best I’ve ever read on the subject of how to earn passive income and live the ‘Internet Marketing Lifestyle’ so I wanted to quickly let you know about it.

Get Out While You Can – Escape The Rat Race so far has 158 four and five star reviews on Amazon, for a good reason.

The author — U.K. based Internet Marketer George Marshall – explains multiple business models, with the key focus being affiliate marketing — where you earn commission by creating Google-friendly websites that promote other people’s products and services.

I have done very little in terms of teaching or advocating affiliate marketing. It’s certainly not my core strategy (which involves list building using lead pages, and then e-mail marketing the list.)

However, as a business model I think affiliate marketing definitely holds a lot of appeal to the people who fall into one of the three categories I touched at the beginning of this article.

In his book George does an excellent job of explaining affiliate marketing in layman’s terms. And for more advanced marketers, it’s still a highly enjoyable read and contains dozens of references to useful resources and clever tricks of the trade.

However, there are the two big reasons why I like the book so much, and am unreservedly recommending it…

1) It’s honest.

George doesn’t talk about ‘Get Rich Quick’, or even ‘Get Rich Slow’ for that matter.

He explains how to create lots of small websites, each one of which earns a small amount of income, that over time build up to generate £60,000 a year or more.

Certainly not riches, but for anyone who is looking for a way to ‘escape the rat race’ as he puts it — that extra income will be a more than welcome addition to their bank balance.

While I’ve heard about this strategy before, what separates George from many other marketers who do this is that he advocates creating web sites that contain genuinely useful content – they’re not what I would call ‘junk content sites’ that unfortunately flood the Internet these days.

His book also contains numerous examples and links to actual sites he’s built, and he gives an insight into how much he actually earns from them. It’s an uncommonly candid account of ‘real’ Internet Marketing and the results you can expect.

Secondly, and critically…

(2) His book doesn’t just tell you what to do, it tells you HOW to do it.

In my own books I’ve always tried to not just explain what needs to be done, but also how to do things. In George’s book he’s done a brilliant job in this respect.

I could go on about how great his book is but at the end of the day it’s only £12.74 — not exactly a big deal if you’re already interested in Internet Marketing!

If you want to escape the rat race then grab a copy now, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Bye for now,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. I don’t talk about the Internet Marketing Lifestyle much. Is this a topic you’d like me to talk about more in future? Leave a comment below and let me know - if enough people comment then I’ll cover this topic more in future.  Thx.

UPDATE 30th Nov 2011: This great service is now BACK ONLINE… hurrah!

My favourite domain checking tool at AjaxWhois appears to have been taken offline. It looks like the developers have discontinued what I felt was a fantastic research tool which I frequently referred to in my books and training programmes.

The service was so useful because unlike normal services that told you whether a domain name was available for you to register, AjaxWHois actually checked while you typed each character of the domain name – meaning it was a really fast way of finding suitable domain names for lead sites.

I’ll try and find an alternative service to recommend as soon as possible.

In the meantime it’s back to the ‘old way’ of researching domain names using sites like DomainTools.com and UkReg.com.

Ed.

UPDATE 30th Nov 2011: This great service is now BACK ONLINE… hurrah!

I read Crush It! by multi-Millionare social media success story Gary Vaynerchuck a while back.

It’s a quick read, and yet contains loads of great ideas and takeaway tactics so I made the following notes, and thought I’d share them with you. You might find these useful.

First of all, the central message of the book is this…

“Any business which doesn’t embrace social media will be dead on their feet over the next few years.”

Now I can’t see that happening for every business.

For example my local plumber is busy, but doesn’t have a blog or Twitter or Facebook account. And I can’t see his lack of “social media savvy” affecting his business for quite a long time.

However, I do totally agree with this in respect of businesses that find work based on reputation, trust and authority. Especially professional service providers, like consultants, advisers and trainers, who can all use social media to generate high quality sales leads and expand their reputation and influence.

On page 24 Gary talks about the best types of content to share with your social media subscribers and followers…

“Storytelling is by far the most underrated skill in business.”

And on page 51 he has a great list of ways to generate ideas for social media content. I’ve tweaked them slightly – check out the book to see the original list.

Here they are…

• Tell me everything about what you offer the marketplace that makes it unique.
• Tell me a story that makes me care about your product or service as much as you do.
• Tell me about interesting conversations and events that happened recently.
• Tell me about the industry trends you’re seeing, and predict how it may change.
• Tell me about your favourite tactic/technique and the benefits it provides.
• Tell me about your most interesting clients, and how you helped them, before and after.
• Tell me your biggest challenges, and how they relate to your customers and clients.
• Tell me your story… why you do what you do?

Not only are Gary’s ideas great for generating social media content, they’re also great ways of coming up with email content too.

Interestingly, Gary says (on page 72) the best business tweet of all time is “What Can I do for you.”

I say ‘interestingly’ because I’ve found that one of the best emails you can ever send your prospects is…

“Tell me your #1 biggest challenge”, or words to that effect. More or less the same question.

On page 74 of Crush It! he also gives us an insight into how he started pre-selling his book, which got to #1 on the Amazon Best Seller list for Web Marketing books within the first few weeks of its release…

1. He posted an announcement video on his blog about the book and why it meant so much to him.
2. He gave links to buy his book on book retail websites.
3. He asked his readers to pass his book on to their friends.
4. He put a button on blog labelled “Support Gary’s Book” – which linked to a page thanking them for their interest.
5. He gave them a ‘Widget’ they could add to their own website or blog.

And more. (Again, read the book for the full list. Just a brief summary here.)

However, one thing he said which – for me – raised a ‘warning flag’ was on page 80, where he says…

“Analytics are not important for social media.”

Now I’m a huge advocate of tracking and testing everything we do to market and promote our businesses.

So, to spend a lot of time on social media marketing and yet deliberately not track it all seems like a dangerous activity.

However, I do understand why he says that statistics and analytics can “mislead and prevent you from ever gaining foothold” where social media is concerned.

To borrow a line from The Shawshank Redemption, I know that all it takes to get traction with social media marketing is “pressure, and time.”

However, just for record, the advice on “not tracking stats” should very much not be applied to standard direct e-marketing, using tactics like e-mail marketing, lead pages, pay per click and so on.

In fact, not tracking your statistics with non-social media marketing is one of the fastest ways to lose your shirt – I’ve seen people lose a fortune in PPC for example, simply because they weren’t tracking it carefully enough.

Anyway, back to the book.

On page 99 Gary says…

“The ultimate goal of social media is to get people on to your blog.”

… and that you need to place “calls to action” on your blog to ‘capture’ people when they visit.

Now I’ve talked about this in all three of my books.

Capturing visitors is super-critical, if you want to optimize what the Internet does for your business.

Some of the calls to action Gary lists include…

• Allow people to subscribe (opt-in) to your email newsletter.
• Asking people to “Follow” you on Twitter.
• Asking people to join your “Fan Page” on Facebook.
• Asking people to “Share” content on Facebook, MySpace, etc.
• Having a “Tweet This” button for blog posts and other content.
• Having an “Email This” button.

And Gary also recommends this page for a comprehensive list of social media tools and resources, and also the following blogs…

• http://www.TechCrunch.com
• http://www.ReadWriteWeb.com
• http://www.GigaOm.com
• http://www.SocialTimes.com
• http://www.Endgaget.com

And here’s a really interesting piece of advice from page 95…

“Creating content should be the least time-consuming part of the whole endeavour – creating community is where the bulk of your hustle should go.”  (n.b. the bolding is my own.)

That’s something I know I’ve got wrong in the past – I’ve spent a lot of time over the years on creating content, and not enough time getting leverage on said content, so that’s salient advice indeed.

Finally, here’s a list of all the steps he recommends, based on the list he gives on page 135…

1. Identify your core passion. (But see my comment below about this)

2. Make sure you can come up with a list of at least fifty excellent blog topics on the subject.

3. You must be able to answer Yes to the following two questions (1) Am I sure my passion is what I think it is? And, (2) Can I talk about it in a more authoritative and compelling way than anyone else?

4. Name your personal brand.

5. Buy your own name as a web address (domain) in .com and .tv (Gary recommends going for firstnamesurname if possible – like EdRivis.com for example. I use KnowEm.com to show my clients where their name is still available. It’s a great tool and the basic functionality is free.

6. Choose a format (medium) that suits your personal style (audio, video or written). Gary favours video.

7. Start a WordPress or Tumblr account (personally I have both – cover your bases)

8. Hire a designer (I’d add that your need to be choosy and hire a great designer so your websites look truly professional.)

9. Include a Facebook Connect link, Call-to-Action buttons, Share functions, and a button that invites people to do business with you in a prominent place on your blog (p135)

10. Create a facebook fan page (he recommends not using standard profile page – if have one put a link on that to Fan page)

11. Sign up for an automatic distribution service: If you’re mainly going to be posting written content then sign up for a Ping.FM account. Or if video’s your thing then sign up for a TubeMogul account.

12. Post your content.

13. Start creating a community by commenting on other people’s blogs and forums and replying to comments to your own blog posts.

14. Use Twitter Search (Search.Twitter) to find as many people as possible talking about your topic, and communicate with them.

15. Use BlogSearch.Google.com to find more blogs that are relevant to your subject

16. Join as many active Facebook fan pages and groups relating to your topic possible.

17. “Repeat steps 12 through 16 over and over and over and over and over!” [I've left that quote intact - exactly as Gary says it in the book. I get the feeling he wants us to repeat this process?]

18. Do it again…

19. And again…  [Yes, he definitely wants us to repeat the process!]

20. When you feel your personal brand has gained sufficient attention and stickiness, start reaching out to advertisers and monetizing – although he does mention selling your own products if you have any (his books targeted at a wide range of people – not just business owners.)

These are for me some of the highlights of Gary’s book.

I highly recommend you read it a.s.a.p.

Just one thing to bear in mind — the target audience for Gary’s book is ‘anyone’.

So, his advice on things like “finding your passion” hopefully probably don’t apply to you, because given that you’re a business owner, you’re hopefully already “following your passion” in your everyday work?

Anyway, hope you found this useful?

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think — not only about this review — but also, Gary’s book if you read it. What were your highlights?

And best of luck with your social media marketing. It’s certainly something I’ll be focusing on more in future, starting by making my social media icons more prominent on this blog.

All my best,

Ed Rivis.

I’ve just launched a brand new website in conjunction with my colleague Alexa Whitten – The Ultimate Expert’s Publishing House offers a range of services that help professional service providers – like consultants, advisers, trainers and coaches – quickly write their books, become a published author and gain far higher level of recognition as an expert in their field… and earn more money as a result!

Check it out — there’s a very special free report available on that site too — well worth a download if you’re wondering how to write a book in less than 7 days like my last one!

Visit The Ultimate Expert’s Publishing House for more information, and to check out the snazzy new site.

I look forward to seeing your book on Amazon alongside mine shortly!

Ed Rivis

I just found a cool new tool for researching domain names and made a video showing how I use it to research domain names for new landing page sites…


Click here to watch it.

It’s a fantastic tool, and best of all… it’s free!

Also, here are some quick tips on registering domain names for landing pages…

• If you’re advertising in print make sure they’re short and memorable.
• Make sure there aren’t any hidden ‘rude words’ in your domain name.
• If you sell International always try and register the ‘.com’ version.
• If you’re outside the USA and sell nationally you’ll also probably want to register your country specific domain (like domain.co.uk in the United Kingom) but still register the .com to stop ‘cyber-squatters’ and competitors trying to capture some of your traffic.

Warm regards,
Ed.

P.S. Sites mentioned in the video:
Ajax Whois
Email Marketing Dynamite

P.P.S. If you bought 5R Formula on my recommendation I promise your bonus is on it’s way, just taking a bit longer than expected. (Hint: It’s a key part of my new E-Mail Marketing Dynamite package mentioned in this video.

I don’t normally email about time management. but I’ve found a piece of inexpensive software that’s SO good I had to tell you about it.

I’ve been using The Action Machine for a few weeks now, and it’s boosted my productivity by what I can only guess is hundreds of percent.

How it works is incredibly simple.

You give it a list of things you want to accomplish today, set a deadline for each task (rounded up to the nearest 15 minutes). Then it displays those tasks all on a screen with a timer underneath each one.

Then all you do is pick a task, start the timer and get working in it. You can click to pause the task timer, but I’ve found the best way to use it is to keep working on each task, relentlessly, until you finish it.

And when the task timer beeps to say the time’s up… that’s it. You don’t do any more on that task.

Now the relentless focus — and the fact you’re ‘not allowed’ to spend any more time on that specific task — is a powerful way of making sure you don’t fall foul of Parkinson’s Law, which states “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

In other words the more time you have available to do something, the longer that task takes to complete. I find that a lot — which is why for me The Action Machine has made such a big difference to the way I work.

It’s incredibly simple, seriously effective software. I love it.

Click here to read more about how it works.

A lot of modern office and productivity software is suffering from ‘feature bloat’… where developers throw in lots of features you don’t need and never use so they can put a higher price tag on it. The Action Machine doesn’t suffer any of that. It does one thing, and one thing very well.

Check it out and see what a difference it can make to your day too!

-Ed.

I interviewed master web copywriter and conversion expert Daniel Levis last Thursday (23rd April 2009). At the end of the interview Daniel made you (my blog reader) a very special offer — access to his full 5R Web Conversion Formula at a preferential rate (i.e. big discount!). To help you decide if this is for you, here’s a quick video review I made over the weekend…

Watch this video to find out why I’m raving about 5R! (CLICK THE GRAPHIC BELOW)

In a nutshell, this is one of the best copywriting programmes I’ve seen, because of the systematic way it goes all the way from from market research through to the end result of highly responsive web copy that packs a powerful emotional punch.

As explained in the video, Daniel’s special offer to my blog readers and email subscribers (which obviously includes you!) is a fantastic $200 discount off the standard price.

==> Click here to get the full 5R Formula shown in my review at $200 discount.

Remember, Daniel’s special offer expires on the 30th April — that’s this coming Thursday!

Act now and take advantage of Daniel’s amazing 365-day guarantee — where he says “if after implementing his system you don’t see an extra $15,000 sales (more than £10,000) as a direct result then you get a full refund.”

How strong a guarantee is that! Who wouldn’t want to try this programme and put Daniel to the test?

I look forward to hearing about the amazing effect this has on your web marketing too. Click here now to go and grab your package too.

To greater web conversion,

Ed.

I’ve managed to get World class web copywriting expert Daniel Levis to agree to do a one time teleseminar with me this coming Thursday night at 8pm (GMT).

I don’t normally do live teleseminars (this is only the second one I’ve ever done), but the opportunity to get Daniel on the phone *live* is simply too good to miss!

I’ve known about Daniel for a long time – he’s a genius at optimising web site conversion — which I explained in my book and various reports is one of the real secrets to get more leads, more sales, and more profits from your site.

Click here to register and discover: “How to Grow Your Customer and Prospect Lists Online 4 to 7 Times Faster — Without Spending a Single Penny More on Traffic, or Hiring a Hot Shot Copywriter!”

The lifeblood of your business is your list of customers and prospects…

Wouldn’t it be great to grow it faster?

According to a recent Internet Marketing Center survey, online advertisers are capturing contact information from an average of between 5% and 10% of the people who visit their websites, and of those, only 1% to 2% become paying customers.

It’s shockingly bad and oh so common, especially among UK small business websites.

So, how would you like to uncover a little known way to do 4 TO 7 times better… without having to attract a single additional visitor to your web site?

Well that’s just one of the profit boosting secrets you’ll discover at the teleseminar this coming Thursday, where I’ll be grilling web copywriting and conversion expert Daniel Levis.

Click here now to register.

One more thing: Daniel is one of the HOTTEST online copywriting specialists I know.

Where most people would be thrilled to turn 1% to 2% of their website visitors into buyers, Daniel’s clients enjoy conversion rates as high as 10%!

His online sales strategies are so good his private clients routinely fork out $17,500 (about £12,000) for a single web marketing campaign — plus a cut of the sales.

That’s actually amazing value when you consider one of his clients rakes in over $5 million a month! (About £3.5 Million GBP).

On our call Daniel’s giving away a complete 5 step strategy for supercharging the selling power of your ENTIRE web presence that he says ANYBODY can use to instantly begin growing their online sourced lists up to 7 TIMES FASTER than just about everybody else!

If you’re sick and tired of waiting for the day your web site finally begins making more sales…

generating more traffic…

capturing more HIGH QUALITY leads…

and bringing in more customers like clockwork while you goof off and enjoy the profits…

YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS EVENT!

Click here to register

Plus, if you’re quick, you can erupt your online sales and profits before the call even begins.

Be one of the first 250 to register, and you’ll also get instant access to over 30 minutes of hard core conversion training on streaming video…

Take my advice and — while you can — steal Daniel’s simple, but highly effective 5 Step process for creating websites that sell and put it to work in your business.

Sign up for these exciting training opportunities at the below link. There’s no cost to get in.

Click here to register

I really hope you sign up for this — it’s not very often I do a live teleseminar, especially with someone like Daniel, so you can be sure the information will be top notch.

I look forward to seeing you on the call!

-Ed.

P.S. Many of the teleseminars I’ve listened to have been ‘pretty thin’ on content. This won’t suffer that problem – Daniel’s going to reveal some of the key principles of getting web conversion that many copywriters fail to talk about.

This is quality information that will be recorded and sold at a later date, and it can give you a real edge.

Register NOW!

Hope you had a great Easter weekend. I’m away at the moment (visiting family down South) but of course with email my business can be 100% mobile, so it’s not a problem keeping in touch.

While I’m away I’ve noticed an updated version of one of the most impressive Internet marketing courses I ever invested in is back on the market… Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula (PLF).

Rather than me explain what it is, click here to get an explanation straight from the horse’s mouth.

Jeff’s giving away 70 minutes of free video training as a preview of the full course — and knowing Jeff, the quality and depth of information in that video will be *immense*.

If you have ANY interest in making money online, even as an *extra* income in addition to your main business, then PLF has just about everything you need to know.

It’s also reveals the key tactics I use to run my own online business – if you watch the following video you’ll recognise at least a handful of techniques I deployed in the run up to launch my mentoring programme last week (and which is nearly full as a result!)

If you’re curious, click here to check it out.

Watch those videos while they’re online, because whether or not you invest in his full programme, these will give you a solid grounding in one of the most effective marketing strategies ever devised.

Enjoy!

-Ed.

P.S. This is an affiliate offer. If you watch the video and then decide to invest in PLF I get paid a commission which is nice. Of course if you watch the video and don’t buy then I don’t get any commission – and that’s fine too!

I only ever promote affiliate programmes that I’ve personally tried and tested. Considering I run my business using core tactics of Product Launch Formula I think I’d be doing you a great disservice if I didn’t let you know about it.

Watch the videos because even if you have no intention of investing in the full programme because you’ll get a World-class explanation of one of the most powerfully effective marketing techniques, which I understand even Apple recently used to launch one of their most successful ever products!! (Yes, it’s _that_ good!)

Don’t miss it! Here’s the final link.

In my recorded phone conversation with UK copywriting master Paul Gorman last week it became publicly known that I’m not a very good copywriter.

Luckily I never claimed to be — and that’s why copywriting is a tiny chapter in my strategy book, where I talk about headlines but also strongly encourage the reader to get well versed in copywriting, or outsource it like I do.

And even though I outsource my copywriting, I still want to try and get better at it, so this morning I visited one of my favourite copywriting blogs and saw ‘Million Dollar Marketing Secrets’ being offered for just $7 …

I haven’t used Ryan’s copywriting services (I know I will someday, maybe soon), but I’ve been following his blog a long time, and I’ve seen his sales letters. They’re excellent.

So I recommend his book (which includes other big name copywriters) before I’ve even read it.

If you want a copy — you need to be real quick — go and grab a brand new copy of his book for just $7 (that’s about £3.50 – bargain!) before the special offer ends.

I just ordered myself a copy because although I outsource copywriting, I still want to know as much as I possibly can. (And if you heard me get a verbal kicking from Paul Gorman you know why as well!)

Grab the book while you can — I think the special offer ends sometime today (soon).

-Ed.

P.S. Ryan, just to be clear, when it’s my birthday I won’t be posting photos of me in my pjs!

P.P.S. If you want more copywriting blogs check out the list of recommended sites on the right side of this page — including Stephen Dean (Steve’s got some great copywriting products I obviously need to pay more attention to!), Carol Bentley (great book), Ryan’s blog which I just mentioned above, and Paul Gorman’s Leave them in the Dust. All great resources.

P.P.P.S. Question time is closing at 12pm today when I announce the winner and answer everyone’s questions about using web statistics to increase site traffic, optimise conversions and increase sales.