A few months ago, I received an invitation in the mail to my 10 year high school class reunion. I couldn’t believe it had already been 10 years since I had left L.A. and flew 3,000 miles to Boston, to begin a new life…

It may sound dramatic when I say “begin a new life”, but that’s exactly what it was.

I did not like my time in high school.

It was quite miserable actually.

High School was very much like being a crab in a bucket, with other crabs… feeling like the one crab who would attempt to climb out of the bucket, only to be pulled back down by other crabs. I took all kinds of crap from many of my peers in high school, quietly absorbing it and rarely striking back.

I’m not sure what kept me moving forward, doing the best I could to let the negativity slide off me and continue to perform.

The only relief was the praise from my teachers and a few close friends. It was their guidance and encouragement which reassured me that I was on the right path.

To this day I’m still impressed with my ability to absorb the shots and criticism, yet stubbornly move forward. It would have been much easier for me to have assimilated into the norm and gained the comfort of social acceptance.

I also played varsity football, yet was totally miserable being a part of my high school team.

Involuntarily Training for a Marathon

Every day, I would show up to practice 1 hour late because I was also part of my school’s Academic Decathlon team. My academic team met during the last period of the day, which was also the period football practice began.

I made my academics my priority and therefore, whenever I showed up to football practice, my offensive line coach would tell me to start running to make me pay for missing part of practice, but all it really did was cause me to miss more practice.

I would run for the next hour of every practice. If I wasn’t wearing pads and a helmet, people would think that I was training for a marathon. I became quite the runner.

My teammates had given me the nickname “Calculus”, in an attempt to marginalize my efforts. I couple of times I did “snap” during practice and got into scuffles with some a-holes on the team.

That earned me another nickname… “Manson”.

I think I liked “Manson” better than “Calculus”, because it at least represented me standing up for myself and giving them a taste of their own medicine.

It would have been easy for me to just quit the team, but I could not give my coaches or teammates the satisfaction of driving me away.

I slept very little, because I carried a full load of AP classes, worked at Chuck E. Cheese, did Academic Decathlon and had football practice for 3-4 hours per day. I would get home late, exhausted then stay up until 2, 3 or 4 in the morning to finish my homework. I would get up at 6am to begin my day again.

If not for the football season ending and winter break, I definitely would have had a mental breakdown.

What also helped was that my 1st period Physics teacher, Mr. Lowe, understanding my situation would let me sleep through his class as he lectured. Other students complained as to why he allowed me to nap, while everyone else had to pay attention to his lectures.

He would reply, “Because Fernando is the only one with an A in the class. Now pay attention!”

This got me some rest, but didn’t make my relationship with my peers any easier.

When I graduated, I had been accepted to MIT and I could not wait to leave L.A. for Boston. It was an opportunity for a new life, where no one knew who I was. A new life did indeed begin…

“What Happened to the Shy Ferny?”

This past Saturday, I attended my 10 year reunion and hung out with people I hadn’t spoken to for over a decade. With a few exceptions, I did not keep in touch with people from high school so I was seeing everyone for the first time.

It was an amazing experience and interesting enough, none of the people that had tormented me in high school were there. I got along great with everyone and met a few folks I didn’t know before.

I really had a great time, which was a little surprising.

A conversation of note was with an old friend Alex, who I greeted. I use to work at Chuck E. Cheese with him, making pizzas.

Before the reunion, many of us had submitted bios of where we were at now, occupation, and a picture.

Alex had read the bio I submitted and said, “I read your bio and saw your picture. I recognized your face, but I could tell you weren’t the same person. What happened to the shy Ferny? You smile more, you’re confident, even your posture and the way you stand is different.”

I asked him, “How was my posture before?”

He replied, “You kinda hunched over, very shy and kept to yourself. Wow. You look good.”

I said ‘thank you’, and tried as best I could to explain what had happened over these past 10 years. It turned out he had recently started working with World Financial Group, a financial services network marketing company, and had discovered the blessings of personal development and understood the value of a positive association of friends.

So I connected with him on that level and explained that over these past 10 years, my association had changed, and therefore I had changed. I think he understood, based on his recent experience in this industry.

An Out of Body Experience

That Saturday was a surreal experience, because of how I felt as a socialized. Until then, I had no idea how much I had changed, until I mentally stepped outside myself for a little bit that night and I made myself aware of how I interacted with everyone there.

Kind of like an out of body experience…

Alex was right.

I was not the same person as before. I was more confident. As a result of this new me and my body language, I sensed that the level of respect people had for me was also different – in a good way. They were happy to see me, wanted to take pictures with me, were interested in my life and I was interested in theirs.

A couple of folks pulled me to the side and spoke candidly about how proud they were of me, being that I was latino, and how much they had respected me during high school, despite the fact that some of their friends would put me down behind my back.

I also sat down and had a great conversation with an old friend, named Lorena. She didn’t know this, but I use to have a small crush on her in high school. Back then, like any nerd with a crush, there were many times when I helped her with her homework and was the best friend I could be. She was always very grateful for my help, and she was one of those few friends who provided me with encouragement and support.

We caught up that night and I met her husband, Louis, who’s a great guy. They had flown in from Arkansas, where they settled down. They have been married for 7 years and are both doing great, with 3 beautiful children.

Lorena was also the only other full-time business owner in the room besides myself. Being a successful business woman, considering where she came from, having never finished college and raising a family was an extraordinary accomplishment and I was very proud of her and how far she had come.

We talked a little bit about business and we exchanged a few ideas. It was very cool to see people I grew up with doing so well for themselves and having become successful entrepreneurs.

The Alpha Networker

I guess the reason I’m sharing this is in part to reflect on how far I had come since leaving for college, and trying to piece together my transformation.

And most definitely, a HUGE part of my transformation was as a result of these past few years growing as a business owner, dedicating myself to personal development and becoming the “Alpha Networker”, Mike Dillard defines so well in his Magnetic Sponsoring course.

It was clear that the “Alpha Networker” was the Ferny who was present that night for my high school reunion.

The only part of the old Ferny, which remained was my heart and the stubbornness, which never allowed me to quit anything I began. It was this stubbornness which got me through high school and my failures in Network Marketing.

This ability to weather the storms of life, eventually led me to discovering Mike Dillard and Magnetic Sponsoring, and led to my growth as a networker, a marketer, a teacher and entrepreneur.

The growth and skill as marketers Raymond and I have gained is laid out in our AMF course. It’s the equivalent of $50,000 in business experience, instruction and investment we made to gain the knowledge necessary to find success.

It’s available for you when you’re ready to take a giant leap forward in your business.

As for my personal growth and transformation… well, I’ve described this journey as best I can in many of the AMF newsletters I’ve written, including this one. I hope this one, as well as the others, will inspire you to find the courage and confidence to move forward in pursuit of your dreams, despite the pull down from the “crabs” in your life.

But I can only talk to you about my journey. You’ll still need to embark on your own.

Ok, I’ll admit it… I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton during the primary season. In fact, someone very close to me had a high level position within the campaign.

Aside from me wanting to support my friend, I did believe that Clinton was the best candidate for the job, considering the other choices (i.e. Obama and McCain).

And yes, I even volunteered for the campaign. (“Burn Ferny at the Stake!”)

Ok, ok… I get that some of you may not be pleased and it’s not common for a marketer to reveal their political affiliations, but you’ll see in a second why it is I’m revealing this (despite it possibly destroying my street cred among fellow capitalist).

You see, being that I was so close to the campaign, I got to visit the campaign headquarters on more than one occasion, (I even put together some AMF marketing pieces using Hillary’s internet connection), met Hillary Clinton and was in both Nevada and Texas for the primaries and caucuses there… I got to observe a lot of things that others probably don’t’ know about.

And I even joined civil rights legend Dolores Huerta for a ‘tequila tonic’ in Vegas! (Look up ‘United Farm Workers Union’ on Wikipedia if you don’t know who she is.)

But more importantly, it was what I learned about how Hillary and Obama mobilized people, which was most interesting.

Now there’s no question that Obama had the advantage when it came to getting people off their couch potato butts and moving them with speeches on ‘hope’ and ‘change’. But no one has ever answered the question as to why he’s able to mobilize people so easily and efficiently.

People try to argue that it’s because of his charisma and great speeches. That helped, but that really wasn’t it.

You see, it was when I was in Texas for the primaries when things finally clicked…

While Clinton staffers were waiting for paper lists of Texas voter info so they could send people knocking on doors during the primary & caucus there, Barack Obama had mobilized over 104,000 “boots on the ground” to overwhelm the caucus sites and knock on the doors of undecided voters, compared to the 20,000 boots Clinton had.

While the Clinton folks were waiting for an audio commercial to be approved by headquarters to run a radio ad one day before the day of the primary & caucus, Barack Obama had been running radio ads every 15 minutes for 2 weeks on every station and was all over the Banner Advertising networks, including CNN.com.

So again, let me ask the question: How is it that Obama is able to mobilize both his staff, volunteers and recruit advertising specialists from every possible kind of marketing medium in existence?

The answer is pretty simple…

How Obama Used Social Media to Crush a Political Dynasty

Obama’s team had completely and totally mastered every single advertising medium, but none was more powerful than Social Media.

I recently read an article from MIT’s magazine, the Technology Review called ‘How Obama Really Did It’, which broke down exactly how it is that Obama went from a political newbie to possibly being our next president. And the incredible thing is that the main stream media hardly ever explores how Obama raises money online, (mainly because they don’t understand it).

So while “lipstick on a pig” gets most of the airtime on Fox News, Obama is getting hog stinkin’ rich on the internet.

Obama’s team has setup shop in every major social network in the world, including MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Not only that, on the day Barack Obama announced his candidacy, he launched his own social network, MyBO (MyBarackObama.com).

Today, the estimated size of the network is about 1 million people and rising.

On the day before the Texas primary/caucus when I was at the San Antonio Clinton headquarters dialing undecided voters (yes I did this too), Obama had mobilized over 100,000 Texans via his social network and told each one of them exactly where the undecided voters on their city block lived and to go persuade them to vote Obama’s way.

With the click of a mouse, Obama’s team was able to command the troops and pass on exact info on the demographics, contact info and address of any particular MyBO member (including undecided voters).

While at the San Antonio office, it was clear that the Clinton’s staff was overmatched and the only reason they pulled off a victory in the primary was because of Clinton’s strong latino support (non-internet users) in Texas and sheer grit on the part of the campaign staff.

However, social networking proved to be the deciding factor in the caucus results in the state. In caucuses, people are actually required to show up for 1-2 hours to participate and get their vote counted. In this type of match up, all that mattered was the strength of a motivated network and clearly, MyBO gave Obama the advantage.

Clinton ended up losing the state over all (counting primary and caucus results) and ultimately lost the election.

And today, McCain faces a similar handicap.

In fact, McCain doesn’t even know how to use email, so good luck trying to explain social networking to him.

It’s pretty embarrassing when Obama’s Twitter account has over 80,000 people following his ‘tweets’, while McCain’s Twitter account has a little over 1,000 people following. Clinton is not much better, with just over 4,000 followers.

In fact, Obama’s Twitter account is the #1 most followed in the world.

How You Can ‘Swipe’ Obama’s Marketing to Grow Your Business

So how exactly does this information pertain to you?

Well if you look at the overall blueprint for Obama’s social media campaign, you’ll notice that all of his accounts on the major social networks point back to one place – his website.

In fact, Obama actually employs capture pages to get basic voter info, then back-ends them with his MyBarackObama.com social community, where new members fill in more detailed information about themselves.

And aside from his social media campaigns, his banner ad buys, Google Ads, TV ads, radio ads, etc. all point back to one place – his website. Like any good marketing campaign, Obama is comprehensive, yet very focused about the end goal… which is to capture precise voter data, use that data to send micro-targeted personalized messages, send instructions to supporters, and build a relationship with his community members.

So now you may be thinking, “well, I have my YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, and I have my capture page, but I certainly don’t have the resources to create my own social network, so how does this help me?”

Well, when you understand the purpose of Obama’s social network, beyond just data collection you’ll see where I’m going with this…

This entire time that you’ve been on our list, we’ve been stressing the importance of building a PERSONAL relationship with your prospects.

It’s very hard for Obama to connect with folks on MySpace, where spammers, porn ads and teenage girls run the show. So by bringing people into a community where the theme and focus revolves around his message, he eliminates the noise and incubates his ‘prospect’ from negative influences.

He also has the power of social influence within the network, because members will interact and keep each other motivated and positive.

He uses the major social networks (and other advertising mediums) as feeder sites to MyBarackObama.com community, since he has limited control on how he can communicate with his followers on the major networks.

Your Own Social Network…

Well, you’ll be shocked to discover that you do indeed have a social network available to you, which allows you to form a personal relationship with prospects, in an environment which is conducive to forming business relationships…

If you’ve followed us for a while, you know that Raymond and I made a name for ourselves using BetterNetworker.com (formerly MagneticSponsoring.com), built a huge following and subsequently became financially independent.

Our most important business partnerships came from our active participation in this community, including an ongoing working relationship with Mike Dillard, our mentor and friend.

It’s been really amazing how easily we’ve been able to utilize this community to speak to precisely the people who are most open to our message.

And just like Obama, our MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts are used to feed people into our capture pages, then we send folks over to Better Networker.

Now you may be wondering why I would send my subscribers to BN.com and potentially be exposed to other people in the industry who can ‘steal’ them from me.

Well, if you’ve seen all the great content we’ve published on the site and our active participation in the forums, you’d know that by continuing to add value to the community, the community in turn provides us a great deal of social proof as leaders through their praise, public feedback, thank you’s and not to mention the sheer quality of our content.

This in turn legitimizes us as industry leaders, and they get to see firsthand how we are able to impact the lives of other entrepreneurs. We aren’t hiding behind an autoresponder anymore… they get to see us in action LIVE!

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised… The Revolution is Here.

There is absolutely no reason why you can’t do the same. If you’ve grown a list, send them over to Better Networker and allow your subscribers to see you perform in front of a real community of knowledge hungry entrepreneurs. Be their guide through the world’s #1 social community for entrepreneurs.

If you haven’t grown a list, use Better Networker to grow one. Add value to the community, and people will flock to you and join your email newsletter. (Trust me on this one!)

And I’m not going to mince words here, it is critically important that you get involved with Better Networker NOW, since the community is still in its infancy. Right now BN.com has a little over 19,500+ members and Mike has personally told me that the goal is to grow it beyond the 100,000 member mark within 3 months.

What this means is that there is going to be a flood of new likeminded entrepreneurs who will be looking to you for leadership. And I guarantee you that if you aren’t there to lead them, someone else will take on that role.

So now you know the social networking secret, which allows Barack Obama to maintain a strong loyal following, despite his lack of experience, youth, race and religious baggage. Everyday, his community members get a perfectly crafted message, they are educated, persuaded to take action, make new friends and become a part of something bigger than themselves.

You can make this available to your prospects as well, and they will be forever indebted to you for introducing them to such a powerful opportunity.

==============Please Rate this Article (Thumbs Up)===============

Ferny Ceballos got lucky with social networking and SEO thus became an “expert” or “guru”. In 2008, he went from the miserable confines of a cushy corporate job, to retiring into the wild and crazy world of network marketing. If you’d like to harass Ferny, go to the AMF training site Attraction Marketing Formula or visit him at the Coffee House Manifesto.

['Tequila Tonics, Politics and Social Networking' also published on Better Networker]

“My compadre, He looks like royalty in that picture.”
- My Father’s Friend

The other day I was having lunch with my mom at a Mexican Restaurant and we got to talking about my father and how she had chosen to marry him.

The thing that my mom confessed about first meeting my dad, was that she was not attracted to him AT ALL.

My father wasn’t a bad looking guy, he was just… well… kinda old.

My father had some extra baggage around his waist (I inherited this gene), was 18 years older than my mom and the only source of income he had was performing as a Mariachi at bars around Southern California and Tijuna..

So it would seem like he really didn’t have much going for him… at least not on the surface.

Giving Without Want, Before You Can Have

You see one of the reasons why my father married so late in his life was because he had selflessly dedicated the first part of his life to helping raise his younger brothers and sisters, financially support everyone in his family and shield them from the abuse of his father, my grandfather.

He didn’t move forward with his life, until he was sure that everyone of his brothers and sisters were going to be ok.

My father had to grow up really fast and at really young age, but unlike many people with a dysfunctional youth, that experience actually made my father a great provider, a strong leader, and provided him with the ability to selflessly give to others without expecting anything in return.

This experience coupled with his deep philosophical understanding of his faith formed what my mother would later see — a magnificent human being. Even at times, when people he helped were not grateful or took him for granted, it didn’t matter.

My father had a saying, “If they don’t appreciate me, God will”.

But when my mother first met my dad, she could not see the great person that was before her.

Driving a Car Without “Reverse”

All she could think about at her young age were the superficial things like financial stability, youth, good looks and someone with a fancy car…

Did I mention that my dad, when they were dating, would drive my mom around in a car, which could not operate in reverse? He had to strategically park everywhere they went, so that he didn’t have to back up.

Eventually, the police had to impound the car and take it from my father because it gave off too much smoke and was a safety hazard. LOL!

But my dad wasn’t naive either. He knew what was up. He just had a great attitude about everything.

He couldn’t do much about his age, finances or looks. But what he could do was treat my mom with respect, show the quality person he was, serenade my mom (remember he was a mariachi) and do what he could do with the resources he had.

Testimonials - My Father’s Secret Weapon

However, according to my mom it wasn’t really any of that stuff that won her heart, ultimately.

The one thing that my dad did, which really had a huge impact on how she felt for him was that they would always spend time around friends, and family (from both my mom and dad’s side) who knew my father personally.

And whether it was my mom’s aunt or my father’s friends, every chance they got, they would praise my father and talk about what a wonderful guy he was, and how he had helped them.

My mother could not escape it.

Person after person, friend after friend, family member after family member, had nothing but great things to say about my father, and told countless stories as to how he had helped and impacted their lives.

And what seemed like DeJavu, everyone of them would say, “Like Coco, there is no other. No one is as good as him.” (Coco was my father’s nickname.)

Misery Incarnate

One day, my mom was over at her aunt’s house and she noticed a picture of my father wearing a suit in a portrait. She stopped to look at it.

Also at the house was a friend of my father… in fact, my father was the only friend this guy had.

This guy was quite possibly one of the most negative people you’ll ever meet. He was an alcoholic, hated people, was alone, constantly got into fights….. let’s just say, he was misery incarnate.

Well, this guy walked up next to my mom and looked at the portrait alongside her and said, “My compadre. He looks like royalty in that picture… he is royalty.” Then he turned around and walked away.

My father was the only person in the world, this miserable person cared for and respected.

I sat on the opposite side of the table as my mom recounted these experiences and she said that she felt as if she had fallen in love with my father through everyone that had praised him over those first few months…

She never had a chance…

She started noticing that the superficial criterion that she had tried to measure my father up to, was just that… superficial.

The Power of Social Proof

Through the testimonials of all these people — young, old, male, female, drunk, sober, family, friends, musicians, acquaintences, bar tenders– she got to see the impact and influence that my father had over countless lives and how much he enriched them.

A year after having met my father, they married, had 4 kids (I was the 3rd) and lived an extraordinarily happy life. When my father passed away when I was 13, there was absolutely no doubt just how much she loved him and would miss him.

She’s remained widowed for over 15 years, choosing to never marry again. She can’t imagine finding anyone better, but she’s so grateful for the time she did have with him.

She came to understand better than anyone, why so many people had spoken so highly of him and not one soul spoke anything remotely negative… she’s yet to meet anyone who has.

It was awesome to hear my mom tell these stories about my father. Even though he passed when I was young, he made a lasting impact on my life and showed me how to be a person who operates with integrity and showed me how to be self-less, yet strong and firm.

And his influence on my life, has translated to many successes my life, including relationships, family and business as well.

“Who Have You Helped?”

Almost everyday, I will see an email in my inbox, or a forum post on the Better Networker Community, or a comment on one of my articles or Web 2.0 profiles, of people thanking us and give us unsolicited testimonials on how we have helped them.

Often with our clients, when we are instructing them on sales letters, one of the components we tell them to include are testimonials. The next question, which comes out of their mouth is usually, “well, where do I get them?”

My response is, “who have you helped?”

The fact of the matter is that if you don’t have people lining up, thanking you for what you’ve done for them or even just know of a couple of people whom would be willing to vouch for you, then you got some work to do…

We’ve gotten testimonials and praise from top industry leaders like Tim Erway, Mike Dillard, Daegan Smith, Joe LoBalsamo to name a few…

But it’s the random emails we get from people we don’t know and whom we will probably never meet, which mean the most and warm my heart.

And the results you produce for yourself, will be directly related to the results you produce for others.

And all this will be a direct result of the books you read, your education and the people you meet.

You know better than I do, how valuable the content you receive in this newsletters is. The teaching stands on its own, even if you never buy our AMF course… and that’s done purposefully.

Purchasing our Attraction Marketing Formula course will probably be the best investment you’ll ever make, because it will give you clear direction towards achieving the results you desire for your business and guide you step-by-step through the process of setting up your own marketing system and generate tons of traffic from Google.

But our goal when we created the AMF Bootcamp Newsletter back in 2007, was to make sure that after you finished reading our emails, that you went away a better person than you came in even if you didn’t purchase anything.

Each newsletter stands on its own, as valuable teaching.

I tell my mom that the influence she and my father had on my growing up, is what ultimately helped me become free… living with humility, learning to pass the credit, serving others and busting your ass!

That has been the key to our success. There is no magic trick to marketing.

Marketing is marketing. The same methods Mike Dillard and other mentors of ours taught us, they have taught countless others.

The difference between us and others, was on how we presented ourselves, how much value we provide to our readers and how hard we worked to make sure we served you better, than everyone on the internet who is screaming at you for your money.

Stay true to yourself, serve others and work hard… eventually, the impact that you’ve made in the lives of others, will lift you to getting the things you want most in this life.

Just ask my mom if this formula really works.

=======================================================

Ferny Ceballos is a recovering aerospace engineer, computer scientist, internet marketer, martial artist and microbrew enthusiast. Despite holding degrees from MIT & USC in Engineering, Fernando decided to turn his back on engineering and jump into the vast and profitable world of internet network marketing in 2006. To learn more about building your own MLM lead system, go to: http://www.attractionmarketingformula.com

["Social Proof - Driving Your Car Without Reverse" also posted on BetterNetworker.com]

About 5 seconds into me reading his blog, a page popped up within his blog page asking me to opt-in to his email newsletters list.  I was like, “Oh, that’s cool!” (Not the email list, the popup.)

And the pop-up had a link to the vendor of the software who’s name is Seree W. (His last name is insanely long and ridiculous.)  The software is actually a wordpress plug-in and called “FasterIM Opt-in”.

It’s $17 so it’s really cheap and I bought it.  I like how easy it is to integrate into your wordpress blog. You can check out two working samples at:

http://www.coffeehousemanifesto.com/blog

and at

http://www.betternetworkerprofits.com

(Warning: My copy is insanely good and you may be hypnotized into opting into my newsletters.)

If you are interested in checking out the software, including a FREE version of it, click here.

For the price you can’t beat it, especially if you wanted to hire a programmer to do this for you.

Enjoy!

- Ferny Ceballos

["FasterIM Opt-in: Cool Opt-in Plug-in for Wordpress" was posted on BetterNetworker.com]

There are 3 main conversion models I’d like to go over with you today.  In case you don’t know what a “conversion model” is, it’s simply online marketing’s jargon for “converting your visitor/potential buyer to a buyer.”

1-Step Sales Page: Shot in the Dark

The first method is the 1-step sales process.  This is where you simply kick someone over to a full blown salespage and you attempt to to sell on the spot.  As Fernando and I teach in our Attraction Marketing Formula boot camp (newsletters 5 and 6, entitled “Will You Marry Me?” and “Can I Get Your Number?“) this is very much like a guy going up to a girl he’s never met in his life and asking her to marry him right then and there.

Not only will he most likely get a “NO” for an answer, he’d most likely also get a kick to the balls as the girl scream hysterically for help and calls for help.  Yes… Fernando and I do live close to Hollywood, where freaks are a dime a dozen, so that scenario is VERY real.

(I’ll tell you when this is okay to use at the end of this article…)

2-Step Squeeze Page: Let’s Go Out First…

The second method is one you are probably more familiar with if you’ve been around the Magnetic Sponsoring Community at all.  It’s the exact system Mike Dillard uses to promote his products. 

It simply involves putting up a capture page which gets the reader’s information in exchange for something of value before kicking them over to the salespage.

Think of it as a guy asking a girl out on a date (with the promise of a movie and a nice dinner), getting her to say yes, and THEN asking her to marry him at the end of that date.  The key thing is the movie and the dinner of course, the “bribe” as we call it. 

(Side commentary: geeze, we men sure are suckers eh?  Or wait… is that the other way around?)

2-Step Reverse Squeeze Page: Impressed?  Good, Want to Date Me Now?

And the last but not least method is about bribing them upfront without asking for anything in return and hoping that they are so impressed that they’d give you their contact info so you can kick them over to the salespage.

It’s like posting a valuable piece of information (your bribe) right there on your capture page and at the end of that free lesson you ask for the opt in. 

It’d be also like randomly buying a girl a drink at a bar and THEN going up to her to chit-chat.  You only hope that she

1. Liked your drink enough to chat with you
2. Like YOU enough to want to chat with you or
3. It was one helluva strong drink!

Advantages & Disadvantages

With the 1-Step Sales Page, you get only one shot.  Either they love what you have to say on your salespage and take that leap of faith to trust you and buy from you, or they are lost forever.  Realize that since their money is actually at stake now, people who are willing to do this are far less than those who would be willing to give up their contact information.

Again, think about a guy asking a girl to marry him right off the bat. 

Can it EVER happen?  Yes. 

But the numbers are far less than if the dude asked girls to go out with him.

With the 2-Step Squeeze Page, you are asking for far less in the beginning – a simple name and email-address.  On top of that, you are even offering something in exchange – your bribe.  You’ll find that people are far more likely to opt-into your capture page than they would buy had you sent them straight to the salespage. 

And realize that a person who may not buy from you today does not mean she will never buy from you.  Maybe timing just wasn’t right.  So with a squeeze page collecting her information, this allows you to ping her radar once in a while hoping you do catch her on a day when she’s finally ready and capable of buying.

The downside with the 2-Step Squeeze Page is if you are in an internet marketing savvy market, people know the tactics and some would vouch to just give you a fake email just to access your salespage, thereby skipping the entire “Squeeze Page” process.

This brings us to the 2-Step Reverse Squeeze Page process…

The 2-Step Reverse Squeeze Page is quite interesting.  You are offering value right up front and letting your bribe do the talking.  “Hey, if you like what you’ve seen so far, you should opt-in and get access to even MORE cool stuff!”

Rather than using the “curiosity” factor (which the reader knows can involve false promises) to draw people in, you are using something much more solid and tangible.  Actual proof that you do know your stuff and you CAN help your reader.  What you end up with is typically a higher quality list and a more responsive one at that.  On top of that, you’ll end up with less spam complaints than the 2-Step Squeeze Page.

Of course, you run into the challenge of making sure your upfront bribe is worth its weight in gold and is something your market is looking for.  Otherwise it’d be like sending over a Martini to a girl at a bar who doesn’t drink.  STRIKE OUT, BUH-BYE!

Rule of Thumb

The 1-Step Sales Page is really only for your warm market.  This means if you already have a list of people you communicate with and people on that list know who you are and like your personality, message, product, or whatever it is about you, THEN you can send people straight to the 1-step sales page. 

A working example would be Fernando and myself sending out an email telling folks on our list about a new relevant product we created that they should go nuts over.  We wouldn’t need them to opt-in again since they are already on our list so we just kick them over to the salespage – leveraging the relationship we’ve worked so hard to establish already.

The 2-Step Squeeze Page is a great system for sure if your market lies outside of online marketing.  The reason I say this is because those of us who are internet savvy and who knows capture pages inside and out KNOW that we can easily bypass the whole system if we say… give a false email address.  Like any tactic, once it’s been around a while people learn it, know it, and figure out a way to beat it (on top of having a stigma towards it). 

This is where the 2-Step Reverse Squeeze Page comes into the picture.  Try offering something so irresistible that your reader has no choice BUT to opt-in just so she can get more.

Ultimately, the 2-Step Squeeze Page and the 2-Step Reverse Squeeze Page require split-testing on your behalf. 

Last Words on Selecting Your Conversion Model

Odds are if you are just getting started, you’ll want to go with the 2-Step Squeeze Page if for no other reason than the fact that it’s the easiest method of the 3.  Then once you have a list and some results to show for, you can experiment with the other 2 methods.

To Affinity and Beyond,

Raymond Fong

P.S. Click here to learn AdWords Secrets that’ll get you the traffic you need for your conversion model.

["Three Proven Conversion Models" was first published on BetterNetworker.com]

Google has made some major changes to their quality score algorithm.

These changes include things like no more minimum bids.

Feel free to read more about the Google quality score changes.

You may also want to read more about the implications of these Google quality score changes on the Search Engine Watch blog.

Thanks, Russell!

-Ferny Ceballos

If you’ve been wanting to figure out a way to use massive leverage in
creating your Adwords campaigns, while still maintaining relevancy and
abide by all the silly rules Google has in place, check this out…

My buddy Joe put together a video on how he goes from doing keyword
research, to posting 500 new highly targeted and relevant ads in just
a minutes using some awesome and free tools:

http://www.betternetworker.com/videos/view/how-to-make-500-longtail-adwords-ads-in-under-an-hour

He should be charging for this, but he decided to give it away for free
and he has nothing else to sell.

Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what the catch is…

- Ferny Ceballos

P.S. Comment and give the man props. Tons of value for the people in
this community.

Here’s a fun opportunity pre-sell letter I wrote, as an example for the Traffic Formula LIVE attendees. If this were a real pre-sell letter, it would appear right after someone opts into your list.

Instead of a sales letter, they see this, then they are directed to your opportunity sign-up page.

Enjoy!

Ferny Ceballos

=====================

Dear Friend,

Welcome to Jumla Juice! Your free report on the secrets behind Jumla Juice is making it’s way to your inbox as you read this. Be sure to check your email in the next 5 minutes for your valuable report.

I’m sure you’ll be astonished by what you find in your inbox.

While you are waiting for that, let me go ahead and reveal one secret that is NOT covered in the report. It’s actually a pretty incredible story…

Now I’m not going to make any claims about the amazing health benefits of the Jumla Juice product or say anything silly like “it can cure cancer”, but I do have something to say about the Jumla Fruit, which was discovered behind a bar on the Tijuana, Mexico ‘La Revoluccion Blvd’ Strip.

For years, the owners of this bar kept the Jumla tree their little secret. Everyday, they would blend the Jumla fruit in their famous margaritas and sell the drinks to their American patrons at premium price. They advertised the “World’s Only Hangover Proof Margarita”, but they would never reveal how this was possible.

Until one day, while a back-alley deal was going on, one of the Tijuana street cops involved in the deal noticed a medium size tree with very colorful fruit behind the bar. After closing his deal, he walked over to the tree and picked the fruit.

This officer had been up all night partying with this buddies and was experiences the most awful hangover. He couldn’t keep any food down, but was really hungry so he decided to eat the fruit. Within 30 seconds of swallowing his first bite, his pounding headache and dehydration had completely disappeared.

He felt like a million pesos and long story short… the ‘Jumla fruit cat’ was out of the bag and news traveled to the states about this incredible hangover curing fruit.

Two Mexican-American entrepreneurs, Ricardo “Rich” VeDos and Julio “Jay” Del Angel immediately drove to TJ from their million dollar estates in San Diego, and paid the bar owners $2,000,000 for their tree and paid the Tijuana street cop $100 bucks to keep his mouth shut.

The Rich and Jay brought the tree back to their organic farms in Souther California and extracted the seeds from the precious Jumla fruit. By the following year, they had massive farms of the precious Jumla trees and the Jumla Juice Opportunity was born.

The Jumla Juice Opportunity is the only opportunity in the history of network marketing to be on pace to match the revenue of the entire beer, wine and spirits industries combined! Wine, beer and spirit drinkers from around the world are going through extraordinary measures to get just one bottle of the amazing Jumla Juice for what they say is its hangover killing ability.

There is no better time than today to get involved in an opportunity, which even your negative broke Uncle Bob will love, because of his drinking habit. This opportunity is truly for everyone, because we all have that drunk uncle in the family.

To learn more about this incredible opportunity and the obscene income potential available to you visit the link below and we’ll be in touch soon!

We recently posted a 1 hour interview with my friend, Frank Bruno, who’s a video marketing and conversion expert.  Most people focus so much on the traffic side, they forget about the power video has to increase sales conversions on your website.

There are also some pitfalls or counter-productive uses of video on your site, which you should avoid.

You can listen to the entire call on BetterNetworker.com at:
Video Marekting & Conversion Secrets

Enjoy! Lot’s of great content!

-Ferny

So I know it’s really exciting. We have a “new toy” to play with now that BetterNetworker.com is live and is replacing the revolutionary Magnetic Sponsoring Community.

Like anything else, there will be some growing pains. Especially with people who weren’t around when the original MS Community launched. Back then was a very exciting time but there were a few humps we had to go over early in MS’s launch, before many entrepreneurs in this industry used it to launch their very successful businesses out of… Raymond and I included.

A lot of the same things I saw then are happening now, and it’s time to shake this place up and have that bad stuff fall out, and have the leaders in the community rise up and make this place great.

There is no reason why the newest person in this community can’t use this as a launching pad for their networking business… it just has to be done right.

I’m gonna be very blunt here. The reason why Raymond and I are financially independent is as a result of us leveraging the Magnetic Sponsoring Community (now Better Networker). The veterans of this community like Susan Coils, David Schwind, Jim Yaghi, Shiraz Khan, among others, understand that the best way to use this community to grow a business, is by bringing REAL value to other community members.

This is an opportunity for you to develop YOU, Inc, and strut your stuff as a “value giving leadership machine”. The people mentioned above have done that.

Some newbies on this site, seemed to have mistaken this community for an article directory. Sorry guys. This is the wrong place. This community is designed for you to give, not to take.

Re-purposing content (nice way of saying ‘copying’) from other websites is a HORRIBLE way of branding yourself on this community. It’s a HORRIBLE way of marketing your opportunity. It’s a HORRIBLE way of making friends on this site.

It’s possibly the quickest way to get yourself BANNED from BetterNetworker.com

Your job as a business owner, is to attract people to you. In this environment, attraction occurs when you can significantly improve other people’s lives, because then people will want to be around you so they can continue growing.

There’s an article I wrote back when the MS Community had just started, about the blessings which literally fell into my lap as a result of doing my best to make others in this community better. Anyone who hasn’t read it, should read it as a guide for how you should utilize BetterNetworker.com to grow your business. It’s written from my own experience as to what works and doesn’t work:
Are You Posting Crap on the Magnetic Sponsoring Community?

I also would recommend you join the Better Networker Results group, so you can receive regular updates on the best practices, updates and tips on maximizing your results in this community.

But I think the bottom line is, if you want to succeeed here, you need to take the eyes off yourself and do everything you can to serve others in this community.

I shake my head when I see someone who has a bunch of reward points for activity in this community, but only 6 connections in their network (friends list). All it means is that they have posted a bunch of articles, without any results. Most of these articles were works by someone else.

Don’t re-purpose content. People want to know about YOU and how YOU can solve their problems. If YOU can help solve someone’s problem, you’ll have a new fan… possibly even a new distributor or customer.

Reposting an article by another marketer, does nothing for YOU, Inc. All it does is brand OTHER MARKETER, Inc. and it pisses off US, Inc. Then you’ll be joining BANNED 4 LIFE, Inc.

This community is the greatest opportunity you will have to grow your business and it’s absolutely FREE. It’s the richest resource of network marketing leaders and knowledge you will ever find and it’s completely FREE.

So let’s make the most out of it.

-Ferny

Participate in the forum discussion for this article here:
How NOT to Use Better Networker

["Shaking Things Up on Better Networker" was originally published on BetterNetworker.com]