This morning I enjoyed an engaging conversation with fellow internet marketer Andrew James, who among other things is preparing for a 1000 mile bike ride. He knows that I’m preparing for a 1/2 marathon (weak in comparison). Our conversation led me to draw some conclusions about these passions that we enjoy.

Everyone I look up to is passionate. We don’t usually share the same passions but the point is that we have them. Passions I am arguing draw people toward you, and expand greatly your personal network. It doesn’t matter if you are passionate about cooking, running, fashion, harry potter, or firearms the point is that you are not alone in these passions. There are HUGE communities of people out there who share your likes and dislikes.

If your likes and dislike are just that…. simple likes than you are unlikely to form new friendships or seek out others who share your likes. If however you have strong likes that become passions you are likely to find others and inspire them to be passionate also. This is the first key: Your own Passions will drive you to find other like-passionate people.

The second key: Being passionate makes you unique and attractive. If you are truly to become “attractive” as we use the term in marketing then you must become unique and appealing. Being passionate is the first key to being unique. I would challenge you to find someone else in this world that shares all of my passions. (If such a person exists please contact me). Being passionate will make you unique and this in turn makes you more attractive than the average Joe.

Now assuming that you understand the importance of being passionate about something; or even better several things let me outline some tips on how to live your life of passion, personal development, and marketing!

1. Search our passions that are healthy and doable. Do not decide you are passionate about big game hunting if you live in Miami, FL. Make sure your passions will be healthy to your lifestyle and that of your family.
2. After deciding on a passion, identify communities both local and online that share your passion. Network with them. Learn the jargon, attend events, and create friendships.
3. Set BIG goals within your passion. If you like to read novels, set a goal to read a new novel every week for 3 months. If you like to cook, set a goal to arrange a charity dinner for homeless people. Do something BIG that lies within your passion.
4. Announce your goals to EVERYONE around you. This will make you more accountable to your goal and it will continue to attract more people to you; both those who do and don’t share your passion. Recruit others to work toward the same goal with you.
5. Now, brainstorm to discover way to monetize your passion. I’m not suggesting that you give up your current job/business to cook/read/run full time. I’m suggesting that there may be ways to utilize your passion and your goals to further build your business or create perhaps a side income.

If you can do this your life will be enhanced and your bank account will thank you. This process is in line with developing a better you, growing your business, and most important creating a close-knit family unity.

As a last note allow me to tell you about some of my passions that perhaps you, my readers might share.

I love running, spelunking, geocaching, American history (specifically anything related to our founding fathers & the revolutionary war), firearms and 2nd amendment rights, dogs, listening to audiobooks, cell phones (specifically the android platform), and of course my AWESOME family!

What are you passionate about?

Since releasing my new ebook, “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” people have been going CRAZY to get their hands on it. I’m now making it available for free. Why would I do this? Two simple reasons.

1. I’m looking to expand my influence online and would like to do this by exposing more people to my website and twitter profile
2. I truly believe that if everyone had this ebook our industry would not suffer such a poor reputation.

What do you have to do to get the E-book for free?

Step 1: retweet this EXACT message on Twitter. Simply copy and paste the text below and post it to your Twitter account. If you don‘t have a Twitter account, you‘ll need to get one for free here: http://www.twitter.com

RT @jacobspaulsen is giving away FREE copies of his MLM Lessons ebook, go here to learn how to get a free copy: http://www.budurl.com/jspmlm

Step 2: Follow me on Twitter. You can follow me by visiting the link below and clicking on the “follow”

button below my picture: http://www.twitter.com/jacobspaulsen

That‘s it! As soon as you complete both of these steps, we will automatically send you your free “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” eBook via a Twitter direct message, so please check your “direct messages” inbox on Twitter for the download link, after you‘ve followed the 2 easy steps above.

Need better instructions? Watch this video

Another Tutorial Video in my Social Media Video Series

I met up on the phone with a good friend from Arizona to help them set up and use Flickr. I’m still amazed that I was able to get this one done in less than 10 minutes! To see other tutorial videos check out my youtube channel or click on the tutorials page above!

Social Media Tutorial Videos Continued

In the series of video tutorials I have been preparing I’ve received a lot of requests to do some more specific WordPress tutorial videos. WordPress has become the most popular website/blog tool online today and while most people are super tech savy the wordpress platform allows for anyone to create a great website with powerful content.

Today I have preapred a tutorial video about creating a new post in wordpress. To see my other tutorial videos visit my youtube channel or check out my tutorials page above.

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

Since my interview with Andrew James two weeks ago I’ve received a lot of inquiries about GoodReads.com In an effort to continue my series of tutorial videos about Social Media Marketing I’ve just completed this new 10 minute video about setting up your account on Goodreads.com Goodreads will be the next BIG thing in Social Media. I guarantee it!

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.