Week 5: Quick Start Challenge Video Testimonial

One Last Challenge

Week 5 has all been about traffic, paid and free.  Each week of the challenge has had set homework to complete.  This week the homework is to create a video testimonial basically designed to push participants to do the video thing.

I have been doing  video for some time now and have included a few as part of my homework – no big deal then to make a video.

Last Chance Saloon

The Quick Start Challenge is run by Dean Holland and Craig Crawford. I suffer from Shiny Object Syndrome and as part of the cure I designed I had unsubscribed from all email lists apart from a few. One of those surviving emails came from Paul Okeeffe who is an accomplished IMer. He said he was going to do the course. Why? Because he believes in Dean Holland. I also have a good friend who believes in Dean and Craig. Reason one to do the course.

My investing coach always says “stop doing what is not working”. Internet Marketing is in that class. I have had a go at it for 6 years now and cannot point to great success. The pitch was to spend 5 weeks and focus in on getting started and getting going. With a low entry price all I had to do was commit the time. My background was in management consulting. I am always looking for a strategic framework. I am also something of an IT geek. I understand business and I understand technology. Internet Marketing brings those two worlds together. A few years ago I crafted my own strategic framework for Internet Marketing – here it is

Combine skills, knowledge and passion that you have. Bring them together into a focus point promise that appeals to potential customers and deliver the promise.

In the first session with Dean three things stood out

1. He had been through the same world of pain without a framework to guide him
2. He has massive passion for what he does
3. He has a strategic framework.

Here is his framework and this maps into what we did over 5 weeks

1. Start blogging
2. Set out your focus
3. Build a list
4. Start mailing and blogging consistently
5. Build traffic

Dean’s framework fits into mine – a good start.  I have sat through a lot of training programs for Internet Marketing stuff.  They are all very good at telling you what button to press – mostly they would not recognize a strategic framework if they stood in one. So here is the video – before I summarize the key learnings.

Key Lessons

What did I learn specifically that will make a difference?

It is not about getting all the pieces working. There are so many moving parts to get it right first shot. Get started and be consistent. More importantly, internet marketing is about connecting with people so that they get to know you, like you, trust you. This does not need a shedload of technology – it just needs words and feelings written down, spoken or videoed (hence the push to make a video first step testimonial).

Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of button pressing that has to be right eventually. But not to worry because Dean and Craig provided excellent training tools to get started – all made fresh for the challenge. I had heaps of technical things that did not work the way I had hoped. I also had plenty of time to get waylaid seeking out the best of the shiny objects in my drawer. I was reminded again and again to focus in on getting something out using what I had already bought. It was this that got me to complete every challenge on time. I reused stuff that I had started before. I did things that I had been putting off (like http://MarkCarrington.com) and I did a 2nd round of the challenge assignments on one of my passions – charity challenge fund raising. That will ramp up my own results – $2164 raised in the month of October while I was doing the challenge.

And some of the bonus elements will help as we move ahead after the challenge is done. The week 6 walk through with Dean on all his funnels. The access to the Outsourcers Bible and tools to help get traffic will all help – added in as a bonus for signing up and completing the challenges.

Ending off, the challenge was worth the cost and worth the time and effort to get the assignments done. More so if one documented the steps fully in the blog posts and elsewhere (I do that on Trello.com)

I am confident that Last Chance Saloon for Internet Marketing has done its work and MarkCarrington.com lives to ride another day.

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