Jacob S. Paulsen.com

Recently I teamed up with Business partner Andrew James to create a set of tutorial videos on how to purchase a domain, set up a hosting account, install wordpress, and setup your own site/blog. WordPress has proven itself to be the most powerful online tool in creating a fast, user-friendly, website or blog that gets quick results with the search engines.

Many people may think that wordpress is only a good platform for blogging but I have also found it ideal for maintaining a great website. The platform is easy enough for anyone to use but versatile enough to accomplish anything. With millions of people out there designing themes (templates) and plugins/widgets for the wordpress program there is absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t use this program for your website or blog.

The whole idea of hosting, php, and mysql can really give people a technology headache and so this playlist of videos is designed to walk you through it step by step. The links below will give you a discount to HostMonster.com or Godaddy.com depending on where you choose to set up your hosting account. In our tutorial we used HostMonster.

I plan on doing more detailed tutorials later on about different wordpress things but for now this will get people rolling.

This is a compilation of 7 different videos which run a total of 55 minutes

Here are a list of sites that I have created for myself or others using the wordpress platform. (Just to give you an idea of what you can do.)

www.jacobspaulsen.com

www.jpsquaredinc.com

www.carryutah.com

www.webcastrooms.com

www.androidsocialmedia.com

www.vaidiamante.com

Recently I had a marketing friend ask me what I thought was the best service online for “Email Marketing.”  Since email marketing is an important part of what all online marketers do I thought it prudent to do an overview of the different services out there. In the upcoming week or so I will also prepare an article about how to best utilize this technology on your website.

Now I’m going to briefly overview each of the most popular services out there. I have personally used 3 of the 5 services below and will attempt to give you the highlights on all 5. I highly suggest that if you are shopping around you read about each of the services below. At the bottom of this post I have set up links to each of these services so you can go directly to their sites and try out the free trials etc.

• Icontact.com Icontact is among the cheapest programs I have tried out. Their system is very easy to use and I especially like their RSS feed importing tool which I believe is unique to Icontact & Aweber. They do have a free trial you can sign up for to get a feel for the program. Their service starts out at $9.95 per month. That price will allow you to have up to 250 contacts. They have a good number of templates you can use. They allow importing & exporting of contacts and they provide good reporting of your emails.
• ConstantContact.com Constant Contact provides all the same services mentioned above. The only thing I really think they offer than most other programs don’t is there multi-list feature. This allows users to select which types of emails they want to receive from you. Instead of having individual signup forms for each list you have one signup page where users choose from all the options. This could be good or bad for you. I prefer the ConstantContact email creation program the most of all of them. They make it very easy to use their professional templates. Constant Contact is a little more pricy and will charge for an email archive.
• Email Marketer. The Email Marketer program designed by Interspire is my absolute favorite program and the service I currently use. It is the only program I’m reviewing today that has no ongoing monthly fees. You purchase the software for a one time cost and then install it onto your server. You maintain complete control over all the functions since it is installed on your site. It has all the features you could ever want: Stats, Lists, Contact Manager, Professional Templates, SignUp Forms, etc. They even have a spam word search option that is SUPER COOL. This is a large upfront expense but it will save you money in the long run. The other services reviewed here increase your monthly cost as your total number of contacts increases. With Email Marketer you never need worry about a financial burden.
• AWeber.com I have never personally used Aweber. From what I can gather from their website and feedback from fellow marketers that use it the features are similar to icontact & constantcontact. One distinct feature that I was impressed with on their site in potential shopping cart integration. Setting up an easy check out from the email to paypal etc… Sounds cool! Their cost starts out at $19 per month after the free trial but that does include up to 500 contacts.
• GetResponse.com I have never personally used GetResponse. From the looks of things on their website I am once again drawn to conclude they have similar features to the other guys. I do wonder however why I have never found anyone else who uses the program? Are they new in town or simply not as good? Their monthly prices start out at $17.95 per month

In order to be effective in marketing you must form relationships with others in which you create value for others. Before you can effectively create value for others you must first become more than you are today. This applies in both online and offline marketing. People are drawn to people who exemplify the traits that they themselves want to learn.

Think of it in terms of asset management. You are your greatest asset. In the insurance industry they use the term Human Life Value. When I use this term I am not trying to calculate the total value of what you would be worth to insure. I am talking about what you are worth to yourself and to those around you. You can begin to calculate your own human life value the same way you would your financial portfolio. You too have income, expenses, assets, and liabilities that increase and decrease your human life value.

The income in your human life value portfolio is the ongoing education and knowledge that you subject yourself to in order to grow. The expenses tend to cancel out all of the ongoing income. Your expenses include all of your non-productive habits. These include sleeping in, bad eating habits, health risks, lack of study, and ignorance. Expenses are inevitable and so don’t be consumed by what they may do to you. Its true that you want to minimize your expenses as much as possible, but much more important is out-weighing them with much greater income.

You also have assets and liabilities. Your assets & your liabilities are the people you know and the relationships you have with them. A great mentor once told me: “People are assets and things are not.” As you develop positive relationships with people you build assets. When you have dishonest or negative relationships with people they weigh on you as our heaviest liabilities.

How is your human life value adding up? Remember that you must become more if you are to succeed. This can only be done in a sincere, genuine, time taking process. There is no quick trick and that is why success never happens over night. This simply because it takes time for you to have personal growth.

Jacob S. Paulsen

Internet Marketing is changing. With the buzz right now about social media and how it is changing our focus I wanted to give all of my readers an umbrella concept that will hopefully clarify what all of this means and how each of us should be acting to take advantage of these changes.

PRINCIPLE 1: Marketing is and always has been a relationship business. You have been told before that buyers never purchase a product or service. They always purchase a salesman or sales promotion. The best sales-reps and the best marketers understand that relationships have to be formed before belief can be transferred.

PRINCIPLE 2: People will always be attracted to people who can create value for them. As one of my business partner’s Andrew James likes to say “As long as they feel that you need them more than they need you, they will never follow you.” Only by creating mass amounts of value for others will you be able attract others to you.

PRINCIPLE 3: There are three steps, or arenas in which we form relationships and then transfer belief (make sales).

1. We meet new people.
2. We identify common interests or ways in which we can create value for each other.
3. We transfer belief.

Let us look at the way this happens both offline and online in today’s marketplace.

Offline. In offline business marketing we find every chance possible to meet new people and form new friendships. We go to social gatherings, talk to people on the airplane or bus-stop, and we become part of organizations, clubs, and groups where we can network with like-minded people. When we meet people that we like we meet with them on our own time. Perhaps you invite someone over to your home for dinner or to the golf course so you can get to know them better. In these face to face meetings you learn more about each other and what your likes/dislikes are. What each of you do for work and what your dreams and desires are. At this point you will begin to create value for each other according to your own abilities. If you have a product or service that is right for them it will be an easy sale. If you don’t, that’s ok because they will refer friends and family to you who might be better for your product or service.

Online: In online marketing it doesn’t work any different. You enter into social gatherings such as Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter, etc. In these gatherings you search out and get to know new people. When you make a new friend they will inevitable want to have that one on one relationship. Instead of this happening on the golf course it will happen on your blog or website. On each other’s blogs/websites you learn more about each other. If either of you have value to create for the other in your product or service it will be a natural sale at this point.

HUGE MISTAKES YOU MIGHT BE MAKING:

1. Spamming. Nobody likes the guy who comes to the party wearing a shirt that says “Ask me how to make 20K this month.” Don’t be that guy. Social Media websites are meant for social gathering. Keep it that way.
2. Direct Selling. If you are asking people who just barely met you at the party (social website) to come to your office and check out your service/product you are making a mistake. There isn’t enough relationship there to sustain that kind of move. You need a blog or personal site people can visit to learn more about you and what you care about. What your dreams are and what your expertise is. It’s ok to have ads, links, etc from your blog to your office (product site) but the general content should be non-bias and personal in nature.
3. One Sided Relationships. Don’t try to make in-sincere friendships online. People are not as stupid as you think and the few that are, aren’t worth selling to anyway. Don’t ask someone else to check out your site if you won’t check out theirs. Subscribe to and read content from the blogs of your favorite people. Maintain sincere and genuine relationships.

Social Media is changing the world. No longer do people turn to traditional forms of media such as tv, newspapers, radio, etc for their news & information. The internet has made the world transparent and social media networks such as facebook, youtube, twitter, etc are changing the way people get their information.

Business owners and advertisers alike must take this into consideration. Without wasting huge amounts of time and without becoming spammers we must embrace this revolution. More to come on this topic but for now enjoy this short inspirational video about Social-Media.

My purpose in Social Media is quite simple. To establish meaningful relationships, brand myself as a marketing professional, and to make a profit. My greatest fear in all of this is the general amount of time I can waste in all the social media networks. So, my purpose in this article is to share with you the best tools that I have found to accomplish these; my three goals without wasting time.

Ping.fm – Twitter has shown us the power of connecting with large groups of people and sending out consistent updates with meaningful information. Ping.fm is a tool that allows you to send out a “Tweet” from the Ping.fm website that will be automatically posted into your update on your twitter profile, your facebook status, your myspace, plaxo, blogger, linkedin, yahoo, plurk, and 30 other services that you can choose from. This is a sort of one stop status update shop. Send the message once and all of your contacts on all of your social networks will get the update.

TubeMogul – One of the Medias of Social Networking is Video. YouTube does get the most traffic of any video portal site but as long as you are going to put videos on YouTube why wouldn’t you submit them to other sites as well? TubeMogul is the one stop video upload stop. From here you can upload a video and have it submitted to youtube, dailymotion, yahoo, google video, myspace video, and many more. You can also track each video on each site to get feedback on their success.

Mobile Internet – What I mean by mobile internet is internet from your mobile phone. This will be money well spent on a decent phone as well as an internet/data plan for it. There are three reasons why having legitimate (meaning a real browser) internet on your cell phone will increase your social media productivity.

1 It’s the way of the future and it’s also the path to creating time freedom. It’s hard to enjoy life when you are tied to your computer desk. Mobile Internet means a level of freedom!

2 You will always have access to your networks. You can reply to people’s requests & messages faster, you can send out updates from anywhere. Most social network sites have nice mobile versions of their website that make it easy to stay up to speed. Thus you will increase the amount of value you can provide to your networks while optimizing your usage of the value they provide you.

3 You are much less likely to waste time in the social media sites when browsing from your cell phone. It is not nearly as fun to play Facebook’s MobWars on your cell phone and therefore you won’t do it.

Fring – Fring is one of several mobile IM applications that are available for Blackberry, WM, and iphone devices. Fring is my favorite thus far. (Should you not like it or prefer a different program I can also suggest Nimbuzz & Iskoot) If you have followed my advice above you will understand that I’m all about utilizing mobile devices. With that having been said I like to be available to my skype, google talk, msn, and other IM friends when they need me. So I take all of these messaging programs mobile on my cell. I can receive & send IM messages and receive call & make outgoing calls using my skype credit. All of this via the internet on my phone; not the cell minutes. This means that even when I travel internationally I can make calls from my cell anywhere I can get a wifi connection. That is cool!

TweetLater – If you have a large following on Twitter or if you plan on it I would advise getting a free account at Tweetlater.com Their service has several cool features. Here are some of them:

1 Set it up to automatically follow people who follow you. I hate Twitter Snobs (people who want to be followed but aren’t willing to follow) and this way you will be guaranteed not to be one.

2 Schedule Tweets. If you know you are going to be unavailable you can schedule tweets for a certain time of a certain day. This can also be useful to tweet about a specific event such as a webcast that you want people to know about.

3 Auto-Reply. If you have a lot of people following you each day you can set up the service to send people a custom thanks for following me message.

BudURL – If you like to provide value to people by sending them links to articles, services, and more than I suggest getting a free or paid account at budurl.com This service will shorten long urls (much like tinyurl.com) but it will also track the number and type of people that click on that url. Very Cool!

Google Alerts – Want to keep track of your personal brand? Want to know what people are saying about your business, website, or service? Go to google.com/alerts and put in any keyword that you want to follow. Google will email you a list of all the new content that has appeared online with that keyword in the time period you a lot. (I do mine daily).

Depending on what your purposes are in Social Media I would encourage you to take a look at the way you are utilizing these social networks and the way they are providing or consuming value in your life. Create a strategy to spend less time and be more effective in your Social Networking.

Jacob S. Paulsen

What do you want? Most of America is satisfied with the 40 by 40 plan, which is 40 hours per week for 40 years. In choosing a career, you see, we pick between two different factors: freedom and security. At first these two are opposites. If you choose security you will never achieve true freedom. If you choose freedom you will likely begin with no security at all and only achieve it after time. That is why the first decision you must make is Freedom; freedom over your time, your resources, and your property both material and intellectual.

As long as you trade your time for money you cannot achieve freedom. Some people argue that being paid salary or being self-employed doesn’t constitute trading time for money but I disagree. Ask yourself this question: If you don’t do any work for the next two weeks would your paychecks still arrive? If you answer no than you are still trading your time for money. The only way to stop this cycle is to own your own business system. See the Diagram:

Owning your own business system provides an opportunity for freedom because by employing others in a predictable pattern of activities you can achieve greater results than you could alone. If you get paid on the efforts of other people you begin to have leverage, and leverage is the key to financial freedom. Kiyosaki’s diagram shows us that only in the “B” & “I” quadrant can you achieve big results. You must make the conscious decision to move to the “B” quadrant and become the owner of a duplicable business system that doesn’t require your daily involvement.

Notice I said a business system that doesn’t require your daily involvement. Having your own business isn’t enough. Most business owners in reality only own a job. You must create or buy a business system that doesn’t require you coming into work every day, every week, every month, or even every year. This may not be possible during the first 6 months to a year of your business but it must be the end goal and your system must allow for it.

Only by making the conscious decision to desire freedom, own your own business, and create a true leverage based business system can you achieve your goals.

Jacob S. Paulsen

1. Hoping for a free ride. Too often people think that by signing up one or two “key” people they will be all but done and enjoy a big bonus check forever. The other free ride lie is when you are told by your upline that you will inherit a huge organization or downline from them. While the comp plan may allow your upline to build underneath you that won’t make it free money. It is going to take work and time to build a profitable organization and any thought that you can get around that is nothing more than a lie.
2. Ashamed to be a Network Marketer. In order to have Huge Break through income in this business you must make it a part of your life and who you are. All too often people see the earning potential and decide to get involved but they are never truly committed, only interested. The products, and the business need to become a part of your lifestyle if you want to have the BIG residual income. That doesn’t mean this has to be the only thing you do for 40 hours a week, but it must become a part of your lifestyle.
3. Forgetting this is your own business. Unlike a 401K or Mutual fund your Network Marketing business requires attention. You would not buy a fast food franchise and expect it to send you a paycheck if you hadn’t done any work. Your Network Marketing business is a business and like all other business ventures it requires: 1. An initial investment. 2. Ongoing Overhead 3. Training by Experts 4. Time & Energy (equal to the rate of growth you desire) 5. Branding & Advertising. If you aren’t willing to treat it like a business don’t expect to be successful.
4. Not Patient Enough. Getting out of the business in less than 6 months is always a mistake. There are four phases to this business and the first is the investment stage. Just like any other business venture in the first 6 months are so you will invest more time, money, and energy into your business than you will get out. That is normal and to be expected. If you are in the right company and working the system correctly after 6 months you should enter the Momentum stage and begin to get paid well for what you are doing.
5. Looking for people who need your business. A big mistake that many people make is to look for the people who need your business/product and forget to look for the people who your business needs. A CEO of a mouthwash company would not recruit employees based on the criteria of having bad breath. It would be important to tell all people with bad breath about your product but as the CEO of your own Network Marketing business you need to look for the people who will help your business grow. The people with the international contacts, existing network, business sense, track record of success, etc.
6. Massive Pro-Activity without Massive Training. In this business you need a strong concentrated but balanced dosage of both Pro-Activity and Effectiveness. Pro-Activity only takes committment and can be done by anyone. Being effective on the other hand requires going through the trianing material and finding a coach/mentor within the business to hold your hand. One without the other will prove your doom. Both together will make you un-stopable.

Jacob S. Paulsen

If you have read my post about why the principles that govern Network Marketing are superior to those that govern traditional business then this post is the next logical step in understanding the industry. If you haven’t yet read it I would encourage you to do so at this link.

Now, I’m assuming that you have read my article about Principles of the Network Marketing model and that you are across that bridge. I am assuming that you have reached that logical conclusion that the network marketing business model is indeed superior. The next step then is the ability to analyze the companies and opportunities within the industry and determine what factors make some better than others. The logical conclusion is that if some companies are better than others at any given moment there must be consistent factors that we could recognize that determine which are the better companies and opportunities. This article’s purpose is to find those factors and without applying them to any specific company or opportunity.

If you truly understand the business model than you can agree with me that the number one factor that separates the true “opportunity” that exists in a company is it’s timing in the marketplace. It is the Golden Law of this industry and it lays the foundation for the rest of this article. 70% of the fortunes created in this industry are generated by people who get involved in the foundation of a company. What is the foundation? All business go through three standard cycles of business. Foundation, Hyper-Growth, & Maturity. Big money can be made in the Hyper-Growth stage and even perhaps in the Maturity, but History and logic tell us that the big financial opportunities exist for people that get into the foundation of a company.

Ok, that’s the first law of the industry. Get into the beginning of a company. How do you know if it’s the beginning? Generally if a company hasn’t hit hyper-growth by its 8th or 9th year it isn’t going to happen. When the business has a stronger focus on finding new team members you might be in the foundation. Generally as a company begins to hit hyper-growth the products become popularized and a larger portion of the volume of sales come from customers and return customers instead of new team members.

If we accept that the best thing you can do is get into the beginning than we also have to understand the number one risk involved is that your company being so young could tank, fail, and crash. Most businesses do in our industry just like every other industry. How do you manage that risk and at the same time find a company that has the potential to become a huge giant.

Lets start by talking about the history of the industry and what we can learn from companies that have already come along and become substantial players. To the best of my knowledge there have only ever been 7 companies in the history of this industry to achieve what we call Billion Dollar status. Billion dollar status means they have reached a point in which they are doing over one billion dollars or more in sales within one year and have sustained it. Seven isn’t many for a 60 year old industry. In fact history has shown that a new Billion Dollar company only comes around every 6 to 10 years or so.

So, lets dive into the meat. What are those factors that minimize the risk of failure and maximize the potential of hitting Billion Dollar status? These are the factors that create the “perfect storm” in this industry once the timing requirement of being in the foundation is met.

1.    Experienced Management
2.    Financial Backing
3.    Global Vision
4.    Product Line
5.    Compensation Plan
6.    Training/Coaching –Duplication

1. Experienced Management. It takes more than a couple of rookies to really have huge success in this industry. You have to have a team of executives that have massive experience and success in the industry. They have to know how to ship product on time, pay on time, open international markets, and create a profitable pay-plan.
2. Financial Backing. Companies fail most of the time because they are under managed and under capitalized. In our industry the under capitalized is the bigger killer. It takes big money to create product line, open markets, and attract the big leaders that we talked about in number one. Some companies may have enough money to survive those first few years until they are profitable but you are looking for a company that has the big money necessary to go global, attract leadership, and launch products.
3. Global Vision. If you really want to have massive financial success logic dictates that you need to go international. More market share means more money and the earlier in the company that international markets open the better. This can create an international frenzy when other markets also have a ground floor international opportunity. This is so super rare that I have only seen it happen once or twice.
4. Product Line. For most people they think this is the only factor. While it is super important it isn’t alone. There are many “sub-factors” to the product line that determine it’s long term success.
1. First to Market. Copy-Cat products will never make Billion Status. Pepsi will never be bigger than Coke, Wendy’s will never surpass McDonalds and the Microsoft Zune will never beat out the IPod. First to Market worldwide products are a must.
2. Universal Appeal. This is about Target Market. Can children & seniors use the product? Is it limited to one per household? Will it sell in every international market?
3. Consumable. Repeat Business is important so the product has to be consumable.
4. Marketability. Can you give out samples, show results? Is the product tangible to the person looking at the business? Can they understand it inside of a 5 minute presentation?
5. Comp. Plan. Can you be profitable quickly? Do you have strong incentive to help others be successful? Is there a such thing as a bad position?
6. Training/Coaching & Duplication. You can have all the perfect factors in place but if you don’t have training and support than what difference does it make? It is necessary for a company to attract BIG Field Leadership from other companies. These big leaders who have a track record of success not only have to be a part of the organization but they need to create simple systems of duplication. The success in this industry is in duplication. How easy is it for anyone to do it? Big leaders create training and action programs that are duplicable and follow-able for anyone.

I hope that this has been helpful. These are the factors that you can use to look at the companies that exist in this industry. Choosing the best company for you is the number one decision you can make if you want to have huge financial success. By taking the “Outside In” look at the industry you are doing what most don’t. Most people learn about the industry via a company that gets them involved. They then have the unfortunate “Inside Out” look at the industry and don’t understand why they aren’t having the success they want and why one company might be better than others.

Jacob Paulsen

Are you remotely curious about Multi-Level Marketing? The Network Marketing Industry or MLM industry has been around for over 60 years and while the general public often regards the industry with great contempt recent studies have shown that the industry is stronger than ever. Now with companies such as General Electric, Verizon, GM Motors marketing some or all of their products via the network marketing business model a lot of consumers are begining to take this industry serious. Great economists such as Paul Zane Pilzer and wealthly men/authors like Robert Kiyosaki & Donald Trump have also spoken out in great extent recently about the amazing opportunities that exist for average people in Network Marketing.

The title of this post is “The Principles that Govern Network Marketing are Superior to those that Govern Traditional Business.”

Why Network Marketing? What makes it so unique? White traditional business delivers products to end consumers via a variety of third party steps such as distributors, wholesalers, and retailers the network marketing business model delivers products directly to the end consumer’s doorstep from the manufacturing facilty. Taking out all the middle men brings down total cost. Also by removing the middle men you remove geographic barriers allowing you to do business anywhere people are willing to listen, look, and buy. Are you starting to understand why the principles that govern this business model are superior. Lets keep going.

Lets talk about opportunity in business. A traditional company is built in the shape of a pyramid with CEOs and presidents at the top all the way down through management and eventually to the large group of employees. The people at the top make most of the money and the people at the bottom do most the work. This is not a the bad part; on the contrary it is natural. The bad part is the lack of opportunity. The bottom line staff/employees don’t have the same opportunity to make money as the top level management. In fact there is a scarcity of money. The more money the staff makes the less there is left for the Management. True scarcity with no opportunity at all.

The next step up is the Commission pay model. This model is superior because the upper level management has an incentive in the successful of the regular bottom level salesman. The more sales they make the more money it makes both parties. Everyone is paid based on their actual production and so nobody can break the principle and therefore people are rewarded correctly. Opportunity is much stronger because of two things. First, abundance is much more present because the people at the top want the people to succeed even though there can still be a strong feeling of scarcity between same level salesreps. Second, Each person is resposible for their own results and so by working harder you can make more money. However there is still a fundamental flaw. Though opportunity exists for success it is not equal. A real-estate agent does not have the same opportunity as a real-estate broker because the realtor can not hire other realtors. The same is true for the insurance agent and for every other commision paid sales rep. Though there may be an opportunity for advancement and management positions, the opportunity will never be equal to the people at the top. What will eventually happen to the successful sales rep? He/she will go out and start their own company in order to have that equal opportunity. Now the salesrep has become the competition to the company that trained & coached him.

Network marketing is the answer to all these problems. Abundance is real because the marketplace is endless (or at least infinity larger than the traditional marketplace). Opportunity not only exists because you get paid on your own efforts but it is also equal because the compensation plans that exist in this industry allow for equal opportunity for everyone. People at the bottom of the pyramid can make more than the people at the top.

In fact it happens a lot. I sometimes explain it to people this way:

* Imagine buying a franchise.

* Now imagine that your franchise could sell it’s product in every country around the world.

* Now imagine that your franchise had no employees at all.

* Now imagine that your franchise didn’t handle any customer service at all.

* Now imagine that the complete upfront cost of your franchise is only between $500 to $1500 one time.

* Now imagine that the ongoing overhead expense of your franchise is only between $100 to $300 each month.

* Now imagine that you got a cut out of the production of every other franchise the company sells.

* Now imagine that you could stop working anytime after only your first 6 months to a year and not only would you continue to get a check but it continues to get bigger each month even without you.

* Now what you have is a Network Marketing Business.

Jacob S. Paulsen