• Today’s lesson is the most important one in the series so far.

    In case you haven’t been following along, I suggest you get yourself up to speed first. Because it’ll make what you’re going to read here much more powerful and useful to you.

    We started on last Friday with a blog post made up entirely of questions. It’s titled, “A Daring Blog Post.” (Click on it and read this one first).

    Next, on Monday we continued the conversation with a post that answered the riddle of whose successful marketing starts with a single sentence. It’s titled, “Entrepreneurial Success in a Sentence.” (Click on this and read it second).

    Then yesterday, I showed you the single biggest mistake both entrepreneurs and marketers are making online today and what you need to do to solve it. It’s titled, “Greater Empathy = Greater Rapport = Greater Profits.” (Click on this and read this third).

    Good. Now you’re up to speed…and primed to get the most out of this post.

    It’s now 7:45 a.m. and I’m writing this post from my ocean office. In fact, here’s a picture of it.

    writing-todays-post-at-the beach.jpg
    Yep, I’m writing this on the beach on a yellow legal pad.

    Why am I not pecking away on my laptop?

    Because I discovered long ago I get my best writing done far way from a computer. It’s no secret that I have ADD and its simply too tempting to have access to too many files when the task at hand is writing. Plus it seems much more personal to me to write to you in freehand.

    Why am I at the beach?

    Because it’s the most inspiring place for me to be. In fact, I start every morning here (unless it’s raining). I always start by writing in my journal first for about an hour. Next, I tacked the most important business task at hand. And today that’s writing this here post to you.

    Now you might be saying to yourself “well, that’s all well and good Rich, but how does what you’re doing relate to me improving my marketing and making a lot more money online?“

    And you know what? That’s a fair question…so let me clear that up for you right here.

    YOU’LL LEARN AS MUCH (IF NOT MORE) WATCHING…
    WHAT I DO RATHER THEN JUST READING WHAT I TEACH!

    You see, believe it or not, in just 3 days of blog posting I’ve already accomplished quite a few objectives. Some of them are the same goals others struggle with for months to achieve. So the most valuable advice I can give you today is to lift up my skirt, so to speak, and show you the method behind my madness.

    O.K. now before I begin I should admit you’re probably not starting out at the same place I did last Friday. Heck, I’ve got a reputation, I’m a known entity, and I’ve got a substantial list. But so what?

    Even if it took you ten times as long and you got only 1/2 the result I did, would it be so bad?

    Ten times as long would be 30 days instead of 3, big deal right? But what results am I talking about? Well, brothers and sisters, read on to find out…

    Last Thursday, I was looking over our website stats. It wasn’t hard to notice our traffic was way down, engagement was sort of non-existent and our sales were less than I’d like them to be.

    Also, I felt I have become a little out of touch with what the markets’ concerns, questions and desires were.

    So, I decided to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

    And you can learn more from what I did in these past 3 posts than what you’ve learned from reading them.

    On Friday, we had more traffic to the blog than we’ve had over the past three months. And more visitors engaged (judging by the number of comments) than we’ve had in over SEVEN motnhs.

    In addition, I immediately plugged into the concerns, questions and desires you had, my dear reader, by reading all the comments you graciously shared with me.

    Now, if that wasn’t enough, we also saw sales shoot up a bit. All-in-all not too shabby from a single blog post.

    So on Friday and throughout the weekend, we achieved positive momentum in all the key areas I was concerned about.

    And to an entrepreneur like me, positive results in any marketing is more addictive than crack to a junkie, so I entered this week like a man on a mission.

    Next, on Monday I added to the momentum. How so? Our traffic on Monday more than doubled again, engagement continued and ancillary sales inched up even higher. And I got an even clearer picture of what was on your mind.

    Then, yesterday (Tuesday) our traffic doubled again. In fact, yesterday’s post hit Alexa top 10 most popular pages on the entire Internet at least 3 separate times!

    The engagement continued and miscellaneous sales were even higher than I expected. So, you can see why I am so excited to share these results with you and help you translate them to your own business.

    O.K, enough bragging. It doesn’t really suit me, but I thought it was important to share with you the achievements so you’d be even more motivated to use what you’re learning here.

    So, what are the lessons?

    Well young grasshopper, I’m glad you asked. Let’s…

    BREAK DOWN THE MAJOR OBJECT-LESSONS

    In Friday’s post:

    • I did something different and unexpected – (a blog post made up of entirely just questions). That’s important because doing something that is (1) unexpected and (2) unique, are two key ways to get a lot more attention than you would do otherwise…
    • I teased you a bit (sorry) with something you might want to know. Do you remember? I said, “Would you like to know how I learned more about my prospects problems?” And many of you said yes! Which immediately increased engagement and also laid the groundwork to get you coming back to the blog so I could deliver on what I teased you about…
    • I engaged in the conversation by responding to commenters in the comment section. Showing readers there’s a real benefit to commenting…

    In Monday’s post:

    • I delivered on what I teased you about in Friday. So I came through for you. Some of you thought – hey I told Rich what I wanted to know and he did what I asked and then asked yourself what other things you might want to know and asked me. So I showed you that I’m a stand up guy that you can trust and gave you an even bigger incentive to share your desires…
    • I taught you something new, showing you that I can provide value and that coming to the blog was worth your time…
    • I promised you more posts at a specific time and a specific frequency which gave you a clear reason and time to check back and read the next installment. This is incredibly important if you want to build your traffic and you don’t have a large list like I do to rely on. In fact, by Tuesday we already were getting lots of readers coming back to see if the post was published at 10 A.M. on the button…
    • I gave you an example from my work, showing you I practice what I preach while at the same time getting quite a few readers to download the report which was a nice secondary benefit…
    • I continued to engage by replying to comments – turning the blog post into more of a conversation than a dialogue. This gets you more comments because it gives readers another reason to participate because they can see that you are reading their comments and replying…
    • I ended the post with two questions – one about your biggest takeaway (to get you to acknowledge publicly what value you got from the post – a form of social proof and commitment) and the second about what you wanted me to focus on in future posts (once again giving you another reason to check back tomorrow)…

    In Tuesday’s post:

    • I delivered again just as I promised I would regarding the time, day, and providing value once again. Showing you that you could count on me to honor my promises and giving you an even greater incentive to check back tomorrow…
    • I started the post with a link back to the prior post with a strong recommendation that it be read first. This increased the amount of time on the site and number of pages the average visitor read for the day. It also helped new visitors get up to speed on the conversation that was already taking place…
    • I pulled 18 comments from the previous day and incorporated them into the post, highlighting one as being the primary motivation for the entire post. Once again this shows readers (1) there’s a strong reason to comment, (2) that the series is really an ongoing conversation and not a static monologue, and most importantly (3) that I really care about you and what you are saying and I take it to heart when I write the next post. Obviously, this enhances the bond between me and you (a reader of the blog), and gives an even stronger incentive to comment and interact with me and others on the blog…
    • I taught you a new distinction. This one might have explained why you’ve gotten less than ideal performance in the past, and showed you a way to remedy it in the future. Proving to you the time you spend reading my posts is time well spent. You can probably see how this increases repeat visitors, traffic and engagement all in one fell swoop…
    • I continued to engage by replying to comments…
    • I ended the post with the same two questions again for the same reason I had done it the day before…
    • I also asked you (at the end of the post) to retweet the message which helped bring a plethora of new visitors to the blog – new prospects that I could begin to introduce myself to.

    So, there you have it. What do you think?

    And more importantly… CAN’T YOU DO THE SAME?

    Like I said, often times you can learn more from watching what I do.

    O.K., now even though I’ve shown you the method behind my madness – I would REALLY appreciate your feedback on this post. Especially since tomorrow is a clean slate. And I got to figure out what I am going to teach you next.

    That stated… Can you please share with me (in the comments below):

    1 – the most valuable take-away you had from this post…

    2 – how you’ll use what I taught you today…

    3 – what you want me to write about tomorrow (even if you’ve already told me in prior posts)

    And, oh yeah, can you please retweet this post (it’s below the title and to the right, remember?) and feel free to repost it on your blog (as long as you credit me and link to the site) if you so desire.

    till tomorrow at 10 AM (sharp)…

    To higher profits and beyond,

    Rich Schefren

    UPDATE — THE SERIES CONTINUES — YOU CAN READ THE NEXT POST IN THE SERIES BY CLICKING HERE!!!

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