Download the MP3 [ 39 Minutes - 18 MB]

Caroline Middlebrook has been on my radar for a long time. I enjoy her writing style, her candor and her honesty and of course, she writes about the industry I love, and mentions my name now and then on her blog too, which is guaranteed Yaro-linkbait. It was about time that I invited her on to my podcast for an interview.

In this call you will hear Caroline recount her history online, and she’s been in the game for a long time, even doing pay per click marketing back when Overture was the main player and AdWords didn’t exist! You will also hear a lot about Caroline’s techniques for building traffic to her blog, how she built up her audience (currently 5000+ subscribers) and how she’s managed to make at least $1,000 every month (as high as $3,000 some months).

The Bloggers Bible

The Bloggers Bible is Caroline’s latest project, a new book that teaches her methodology for building a successful blog and then generating an income from it. Caroline has some very unique ideas, is a great teacher and is the least hypey person I know in the industry, and her book does a great job of representing all these aspects.

Caroline is offering a 30% discount off her Bloggers Bible just for my readers, but there’s a catch - it expires January 16th - so you have one week to save yourself some money if you want her book.

You might wonder why bother getting Caroline’s book if you already follow my training on blogging? There’s a simple answer to that - she’s different.

We share many of the same philosophies and Caroline is a Blog Mastermind graduate, but as you will hear in the interview, she doesn’t agree with everything I teach and has her own system, so if you like what she says in the interview, definitely grab her book while the discount is available.

You can find the discount offer here -

Bloggers Bible 30% Discount

Show Notes

• Caroline explains her first experiences making money online
• We learn how Caroline turned to internet marketing by taking Ed Dale’s 30 Day Challenge
• Next Caroline explains her time spent niche marketing and why she didn’t like it
• Caroline launches a blog after ending her niche marketing/30 day challenge days
• She offers some fantastic advice on building traffic to a new blog and how she did it
• Important: Caroline talks about her free report and how she used it to make thousands of dollars
• Caroline explains why she wrote her Bloggers Bible

Click Here to Download the MP3 [ 39 Minutes - 18 MB]

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I bought Traffic Secrets 2.0 from John Reese when he released it mid last year and Frank Kern was nice (smart) enough to throw in a couple of bonus DVDs to the first group of buyers, and I was one of them.

I’m a fan of Frank Kern simply because he’s a good entertainer in his videos and obviously he’s great at selling through email when it comes to Internet marketing products, but to be honest I’ve never been blown away by his marketing advice. That being said, I’ve never seen much of his work outside of his free videos, so I really need to spend more time with the surfer dude slash internet marketer.

With Traffic Secrets Frank threw in two DVD presentations. One of his very early Mass Control presentations and another on Core Influence, which I thought was the better of the two and the one I want to talk about now.

What Is Core Influence?

(more…)

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• Download the MP3 [ 35 Minutes - 16 MB ]

This is the third in a series of case-study podcast interviews with successful Blog Mastermind students, where we look at what they do right in order to achieve above-average results.

First it was Mitch, who’s blog exploded in popularity ramping his traffic quickly beyond 5,000 daily visitors. Leigh’s interview was extremely popular as she explained how she went from making $20 to $4,500 a month with her online business. Today I interview Leslie, who made almost $32,000 in 2008 working part time online (he’s a full time teacher, and we all know how hard teachers have to work!), and has an interesting story to tell because of the unique way he makes money.

How To Make Money Giving Away Freebies

Leslie’s market is freebie offers and rather than explain how it works here, you should listen the podcast. It’s interesting that you can actually make money by offering freebie giveaways that other companies provide, and that’s how Leslie makes the majority of his online income.

Leslie has taken his expertise and transformed into into a thriving blog called The Freebie Guy. His next step is to launch a membership site and in preparation for this, he just released a new free report called - The Freebie Report - which teaches how Leslie does what he does with freebie offers.

In this interview you will learn…

• How exactly freebie trading works and how Leslie made $70 in his first DAY doing it
• How Leslie experimented with different methods to make money online and eventually found something that worked
• Why Leslie decided to start a blog and join Blog Mastermind
• What were the biggest lessons for Leslie as he grew his business
• Why Leslie wants to position himself as an authority in his industry

Leslie is not only a Blog Mastermind student, but he’s taking part in every single coaching program I have on the market as I type this. What I love about this is every week I see more evidence of how much effort Leslie is putting into his business and how much output he creates every day, DESPITE having to work a full time job.

Leslie is proof that, with discipline and enthusiasm, you can juggle your salary job as you need it to pay the bills, while you build up your online income. I expect in Leslie’s case that sometime this year (2009) he may say good bye to his job as his online income grows.

Here’s the download link again for the MP3 -

• Download the MP3 [ 35 Minutes - 16 MB ]

Yaro Starak
Loving Success Stories

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Although I boast I was able to run my business while traveling a circle around the globe, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t experience more pressure on the time available for work.

The way I chose to travel resulted in planning the details for my next stop a week before I arrived - sometimes just 24 hours before arriving or even after arriving! This included booking accommodation, flights and figuring out things like how to get from the airport to the apartment or hotel I was staying at.

Once landing in a city and settling in, the next “pressure” was determining what was worth seeing and doing, and ensuring the time available for fun was used on the best sites and attractions. This involves research and planning, reading reviews online at sites like TripAdvisor.com, buying tickets for tours and figuring out how to get to places using public transport.

When at home in Brisbane my time is quite fluid and I have few commitments or deadlines. With just my mother now living in Brisbane, I rarely have family events on and I’m not married with children, so I’m pretty much looking after myself.

Traveling dramatically changed how I live. What is normally stable in my life - where I live, what I do during the day and what I eat - became dynamic, with the variables changing every week. Suddenly my free time was gone and I was forced to live in perpetual inconsistency.

As a result of the constant changes in my life, I had to become very focused with how I used my working time. I didn’t want my blog to die, I had customers to support and I wanted to work on new projects so my business continued in a positive direction. This was no easy task, but I’m proud to say that I was able to achieve all my business goals in 2008 despite the changes to how and where I lived my life.

Revisiting the 80/20 Rule

If you’ve never read my article on the 80/20 rule, go do so now. It’s one of the most powerful concepts available today that can truly make a difference to your life and your business. My article introducing you to the rule has been one of the top 10 posts on this blog for years. You can find it here -

• What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life

If I look at the metrics, this was a great year for my business. I more than doubled my revenues, my blog readership and email lists grew significantly, I had successful product launches and released some fantastic free resources like the Conversion Blogging video, not to mention publishing many articles on this blog that I know will continue to bring in traffic for years to come (the true essence of a pillar article).

None of this would have happened if it weren’t for the 80/20 rule.

Information overload has always been a problem. In 2008 it became even more of a problem. Although a great enabler and empowering tool for education, the world wide web has created a situation where it’s as important to be aware of what you need to know and do as much as knowing how to do it. If you don’t learn how to ignore 99% of what’s out there, you never get the clarity to learn the 1% that you should focus on.

I Want Your Attention

(more…)

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Most of you haven’t met Gideon or myself in person, but if you did, you would see we are both down to earth and soft spoken - not your typical extroverted, in-your-face marketers. Of course what you perceive as over-the-top might be different to another person so you may not agree, but I’m pretty comfortable saying that Gideon and I are way below average when it comes to the hype-o-meter.

One interesting observation I made during our launch that you probably weren’t aware of, was Gideon’s email marketing style (his writing style when promoting), compared to how he is in his videos.

Gideon has difficulty doing any kind of “sales pitch” in his videos, he much prefers to focus on content, and if you watch the few parts at the end of his videos where he was promoting our paid course, you could tell he wasn’t pushing very hard at all.

However, when Gideon wrote emails, he wasn’t afraid to use his marketing skills. He knows the triggers, is quite comfortable pushing all the right buttons and isn’t afraid of saying whatever it takes to convince you that you need to do what he suggests.

This is important because if Gideon couldn’t sell the premium course when it came time to sell it, then our results would have been negatively impacted. At some point in business you have to be prepared to sell.

The same goes for anything else we promote through email, whether it’s to convince people to watch a free video, or download a report or read a blog post. It’s not always about eliciting a purchase, it’s any time you want people to click a link or even just open an email in the first place - any action at all is impacted by your ability to “sell” the benefits of taking that action through the words that you use.

I asked Gideon if he had studied copywriting - and he has - which explains his ability to talk in marketing speak when communicating via email when necessary, yet it doesn’t show up in other forms of communication with him. Gideon has learned skills that are vital to his success as an Internet marketer, and you can too.

Be Your Self

(more…)

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I’ll let Gideon show you exactly how it works in his video. As with all Become A Blogger videos, this is for beginners.

You can watch the video and leave a comment here -

X-Factor Video - An Easy Way To Get Audio Onto Your Blog

Enjoy!

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I made it back home to Brisbane today after 8 months traveling. The trip took me completely around the world and included these major cities (in the order visited)…

• Brisbane (home)
• Fiji
• Hawaii (Waikiki)
• Vancouver
• Toronto (spent summer here)
• Las Vegas
• Chicago
• New York City
• Niagara
• Montreal
• Quebec City
• Winnipeg
• Glasgow
• Edinburgh
• London
• Brussels
• Amsterdam
• Paris
• Rome
• Venice
• Florence
• Napoli
• Vouliagmeni (beach near Athens)
• Athens
• Dubai
• Singapore
• Brisbane

It was an amazing experience and something I’ve never done before. Obviously I have lots of photos and videos, most of which I simply haven’t had time to upload. I’ll slowly add them to my Flickr and YouTube accounts over the next few months.

During my travels I was able to run my business and of course blog too. This included completing two six figure product launches and generating six figures in affiliate sales. This is definitely a good thing because I can tell you - Europe is expensive for us Aussies!

Now that I’m back home my immediate priorities, besides getting over a cold, is to support all the new Become A Blogger Premium students and the Blog Mastermind students, clean up the email I’ve let pile up a little during the last couple of weeks and then just chill out for a bit before getting into 2009 project work.

I look forward to catching up with the Aussies and I hope everyone has a great holiday period wherever in the world you are.

Yaro

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"How To Start An Internet Business
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I’ll make this brief since you have probably made your decision already, but I want to make sure you don’t miss the deadline if you still haven’t decided…

Become A Blogger Premium, the video training course presented by Gideon Shalwick and myself, is open for new members at the special introductory rate of $27 a month until 6PM EST US time, Thursday 11th of December 2008, one week since we opened the program. After that the price increases to $47 a month.

You can find out all the details about the course and sign-up here -

www.becomeablogger.com/signup/

Welcome To New Members

I’d like to welcome on board the 600+ members we already have and all the new people who join in the next few days.

For the past few months and in particular during the last two weeks Gideon and I have been focusing our energy preparing this program. As is the case with many information products released online, we spend a lot of time on marketing initially, however now that our opening period is almost over, we’re turning our focus on to the members.

The first group of members are special because they help frame how the program evolves. We have a basic roadmap ready to go (no pun intended), however with feedback from the active membership we will be modifying the program as it progresses. We are also inviting members to request videos on any topic they want covered.

The first run through of the program is definitely the best time to do it because you save money and you get to partially dictate what is taught.

Plus don’t forget, you have 60 days to decide whether this program is right for you thanks to the mandatory Clickbank refund period (our payment processor). Try it for two months and if you don’t get your $27 bucks work, cancel. There’s no risk here.

If you can afford $1 a day and you are ready to build a successful blog by following along with Gideon’s clean and easy to action videos, here’s the link to join -

Become A Blogger Premium

Don’t Forget About The Free Stuff

Although it’s pretty obvious I’ve been promoting a video course on this blog and my newsletter for the past two weeks, you shouldn’t take that as an excuse to stop paying attention even if you never intended to join.

The Roadmap To Become A Blogger report, which is nearing 10,000 downloads, is free and will remain free. It’s full of great content and regardless of whether you join our membership site, there’s a lot to take away and action from the Roadmap - so don’t ignore that resource (in both text and audio downloads).

Gideon has also been releasing a few X-Factor videos, which contain real tips that you can use. Yes they promote our program, but they do so by giving you ideas you can use. This is intended as a content launch that helps everyone - you don’t have to give us money to benefit.

And let’s not forget, watching a launch unfold is interesting in itself from an Internet marketing perspective. I hope you have been monitoring what Gideon and I get up to with your marketing hats on too, if you are nearing the stage where you are ready to release your own product online.

Thanks To Gideon

I’d like to thank Gideon especially as he has been working his butt off for the past month getting everything ready. This is his first major launch and as is often the case, he’s really had to put in the hours to keep things going.

Without Gideon you wouldn’t have all this amazing free content and for those special people who joined the Premium site, you have lots more from Gideon to look forward, and of course from me too!

Both Gideon and I look forward to meeting all the new members in the forums and the live teleconferences, which will begin in earnest starting next week once all the new members settle in.

Don’t Forget The Thursday Deadline

Make sure you mark Thursday at 6PM if you are going to join and want the $27 a month price. The course goes for six months long, and after that you enjoy lifetime access to all the resources and any future upgrades we release at no extra cost (you pay for six months only).

That’s a concrete deadline that we can’t change because it wouldn’t be fair to the members who acted quickly and signed up early. Join now or be prepared to pay more for the videos from Thursday night onwards.

Click here to sign-up

Yaro Starak
Still Blogging 4 Years Later

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Text Transcript of Video

• Download the text transcript [ PDF ]

Last night the 500th member joined Become A Blogger Premium, which is an awesome result. We now have a great community who are ready to dive in and build fantastic blogs.

However, if you still haven’t decided whether our new video course is right for you, Gideon has put together some sample videos so you can see what the program is like. This is the caliber of video that is going to be released to members over the coming months.

We thought we’d start by sharing an X-Factor strategy video, since it’s clear people love the X-Factor concept to help make your blog stand out from the crowd.

The video above helps with Milestone One (Topic Selection) from the The Roadmap to Become A Blogger report we gave away last week. Make sure you download and read or listen to the report (there’s an MP3 audio version too) if you have not done so already.

Helping You Find Blog Topics

This video is for those of you who have yet to choose a topic for your blog, or perhaps your three test blogs if you are following that blogging strategy. In the video you see one way to gather live feedback from real people about potential topics and also gauge how popular topics could be.

Press the play button on the video that is at the start of this post to watch.

More Videos

Gideon and I have some more free sample videos to come out during this week leading up to Thursday, when we raise the price of membership from $27 to $47 a month.

Stay tuned and keep up the blogging!

Yaro and Gideon
X-Factoring

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We’ve just flicked the switch to open the doors to Become A Blogger Premium video coaching program and I’d like to invite you to sign up as a member at this link -

Become A Blogger Premium

How Much Is The Course?

Gideon and I are focusing this program at beginners and we don’t want to restrict anyone because they can’t afford hundreds of dollars a month, especially given the current economic situation. I realize many people wanted to join my other coaching program, Blog Mastermind, but they simply can’t afford it.

If that sounds like you, then you should be pleased as we have a special price for Become A Blogger Premium -

It’s just $47 a month and the course goes for six months.

We are using Clickbank as the payment processor, which means you have a guaranteed 60 day refund period offered by Clickbank. You can try the program for a full two months and at any time during that period you decide it’s not for you, go to Clickbank and ask them for a refund.

Of course I know you will love the program and as with all the products I release, I’m not going to just abandoned this after I’ve made some sales. Gideon and I are committed to making Become A Blogger Premium a leading video course and will be refining and enhancing it for a long time to come as we get feedback from the first group of students who join this week.

Here’s the link to sign-up -

Join The Program Here

What Do You Get If You Join?

(more…)

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