John Reese, the creator of the Traffic Secrets training course, is reputed to be the first person to use internet marketing to make a million dollars in less than a day.  In an interview with Tony Robbins, Reese describes what he considers the most important contributing factors to his success.

No Belief, No Follow Through

Early in the interview, Robbins observed that “many people want to change their lives. They have a vision of what they want to do, and they believe it, sort of, but they never follow through.”   I think the problem for most people is in the sort of.   Most folks aren’t really certain that they can create the change they want.  If their belief were truly strong enough, they would follow through.  On some level,  most of us doubt ourselves.  We believe in our limitations more than our capacity to create.

Beliefs Can Be Changed

Years ago, I was trained in Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP.  The way I learned to help people create change for themselves was to help them change their beliefs about what is possible INCREMENTALLY.  Don’t believe you can run a 4 minute mile? Try running an 6 minute mile.  When you can do that, work on a 5.5 minute mile, etc.

How John Reese Did It

John Reese did exactly this as he worked his way up to his million dollar day.   He started with goals of small sums, working his way up to $500 in a day.  Each time he achieved a goal, he solidified his new belief (in what he could create) at a very deep level.  He always set specific goals such as earning $40k per year, having a $4500 day, having a $40k week.  Eventually he reached a $100k day before finally hitting a million in one day with a product roll out.

How You Can Do It

Reese teaches his students to do the same.  He starts by giving them the goal of making $1 worth of sales.  Though some might scoff at this, he reminds us that “any progress at all is worth gold compared with no progress.  So focus on that first dollar. … You have to take that first increment, no matter how small.  Otherwise, you haven’t made the inner shift in your thinking.”  In fact, he sees 90% of the (internal) battle as achieving this first goal.   After that, reaching the next goal is often just doing more of the same.

Robbins puts it in even stronger terms. “One thing equals happiness and that’s progress.”  He emphasizes three ingredients for success:  having a clear vision of achieving your goal, taking (appropriate) action, and having grace (some call it luck).

Six Steps to Success

Let me break Tony Robbins’ ingredients down into a more detailed list.

1. Be very specific in choosing a goal.  Saying, “I want to make as much as possible” doesn’t work.  There’s no such amount.  Saying, “I want to make 20 sales of $50 each by the end of next week” is more like it.  You may end up making more.
2. Be certain that you’re going to find a way to make it happen.  Even though you may have doubts, it’s important to limit the “negative self talk” as much as you can.  If the doubt is too big, then maybe you need a smaller goal increment. The doubt will be released as subgoals are achieved and you make (even small) progress.
3. Visualize the goal clearly.  You should visualize in as much detail as possible what it will be like for you when the goal is achieved.   See what you would see, hear what you would hear, feel it, smell it.  Create as vivid a picture as you can in  your imagination,  using multiple senses.  You’ll get better at visualizing with practise.
4. Execute your plan to achieve this goal.  Some call this “taking massive action.”  In other words, act as if you fully believe you can do this.  Put your energy into it as if certain of success.
5. Persistence is critical.  Just plain don’t give up.  Here too, smaller increments help give you continual rewards that make it easier for you to keep going.
6. Be grateful for grace when the unexpected goes your way.

Conclusion

Now you know the important ingredients for making a million dollars in a day, or anything else you’d like to achieve.  It may not be easy, but it’s definitely doable.

Click here to listen to the interview.

If you doubt that developing your copywriting skills is the single most important thing you can do for your business (and maybe your life), please listen to this interview of David Garfinkel by Ann Sieg.  David Garfinkel is perhaps the leading copywriting coach and mentor.  Click here to listen to the interview.

Last year Ann hired David to train herself and several members of her team.   More recently the launch of the Renegade Professional trainings generated over $1.1 million in sales in 72 hours.  Ann attributes this success to Garfinkel’s coaching.

Not About Money

I didn’t grasp the significance of copywriting to the whole picture until I heard this interview.   During the interview Garfinkel takes an unexpected perspective.

“Copywriting is not all about money. Copywriting is inspiring people to take action.”

Building on this point he remarks that “The practise of copywriting helps people become much more effective communicators.”  The reason is that good copywriting necessitates putting your audience first.  You imagine yourself in their position and you write from it.   You use their language and acknowledge their concerns and feelings.  To Garfinkel, copywriting is the skill of communication in its highest form.  Indeed, he gave the Preamble to the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as prime examples of this skill.

An Empowering Skill

There are many benefits to having copywriting skill beyond marketing.   For many, learning copywriting is empowering.  Ann indicated that communications among her staff improved because of this skill.  Once you adopt the “copywriting mindset” you treat every communication as important.  It’s about understanding what your audience is thinking and then finding the simplest way to get your point across to them.

A Dangerous Skill

This is a dangerous skill to have.  There are certainly those who abuse it. And that may be why selling can be so distasteful to many of us.  However, we all have the choice to use it responsibly and ethically. When used correctly, copywriting is about identifying the people who are interested in what you have, and giving them an invitation to it. When used properly, there’s nothing manipulative about it.

Ann Siegs Comments

Here are some of Ann’s comments about the interview from a promotional email.

“This interview is as much of a mental transformation
about the way money is made as it is about producing
short term results.

We get into some heavy-duty subjects like…

-Is sales EVIL?

-How does making money tie in with serving people?

-How you can apply our million dollar launch
strategies to your entire downline

-The most powerful form of copywriting EVER (hint: the
United States Government uses it)

-Plus, you’ll even get to hear David critique me!

The interview is absolutely free.”    Ann Sieg

Here’s the link to the Garfinkel interview again:
http://renegadeproblog.com/wealthexperiment/

Conclusion

Listening to the interview, I felt that what I was hearing was in sync with my own values.  Hearing the emphasis on service, ethics and responsibility was refreshing.  I’ve spent many years working for corporations where business practices, though considered normal for the US, were at times not only unethical, but downright abusive.  It’s a welcome relief to find a training program, and an occupation where my own values are not only appreciated, but taken to heart and acted upon.

I found his story deeply inspiring.   Lately, I’ve been focused on outer things like building blogs and writing squidoo articles.  But hearing his story reminded me that the inner work we do is far more important than the outer work.  In order to make our businesses flourish, we need to shift our thoughts and beliefs about abundance.  When we believe that we are abundant, the money comes.  The hard part is to replace our doubts about ourselves with the belief that we can have the life we want and be paid for it.  That’s where most of us stumble.  In the interview Proctor discusses how to make this change.  While listening, I wrote down the books he mentioned which treat this topic in more detail.

Here are his references. Hope you find them helpful.

• “Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill. This book changed his life.
• “The Hidden Power”, Thomas Troward (1921)
• “The Millionaire Maker”, Loral Langemeier
• “The Street Kids Guide to Having it All”, John Asarath
• “As a Man Thinketh”, James Allen
• “The Science of Getting Rich”, Wallace D. Wattles (1910)
• “You Were Born Rich”, Bob Proctor
• “The Millionaire Mindset”, Gerry Roberts
• “Magnificent Obsession”, Lloyd C. Douglas
• “The Secret”, Rhonda Byrne

You can listen to the interview here, www.askbobproctor.com/replay.  There’s also a transcript you can download.

To find out more about Mr. Proctor’s coaching program, check his site, www.bobproctor.com.