It’s a little known fact that Napoleon Hill, the author of “Think and Grow Rich”, a person who’s considered the father of the self-improvement industry, ended up broke and was supported financially by W. Clement Stone throughout the last years of his life.

But let me assure you that it doesn’t mean that Hill lied when he wrote “Think and Grow Rich” as well as other bestselling self-help success and achievement oriented best sellers.

The reason why Hill ended up “on welfare” is because he either never practiced what he preached, was too busy researching success principles to find time to actually apply them or because he didn’t entirely understand abundance.

Abundance

Abundance is the opposite of scarcity. Abundance is when you have no such feeling as guilt or sense of insecurity regarding money and finance. But to better understand abundance we first need to learn to “ask for the doe” for our services.

Feeling guilty about charging money the less fortunate then ourselves for what we do is the number one reason why 90% of those who preach prosperity aren’t prosperous.

Guilt is a feeling I got accustomed to early on in my internet marketing career, ever since I had to name the price to my first client. Although the sum was as small as $10 a month-I still had an overwhelming feeling of guilt for actually asking him to pay.

I felt as if I am being unfair, as if I am taking away the last money he ever had, that he was going to spend on food for his starving children. That’s exactly what it felt like when I said the number out loud.

But as I discovered later, there isn’t anything wrong with charging money for what you do. Even more, there’s nothing wrong with making as much money as humanly possible by doing what you do. It’s not greed or excessive profits-it’s opportunism. It’s entrepreneurship. It’s the right thing to do!

You shouldn’t lose sleep over the fact that you’re selfishly “taking” money away from people. Understand that they are going to spend that money anyway. Regardless of whether they are going to pay you or the liquor store cashier-it’s only a matter of time before the money’s gone.

Isn’t it better if they spend their money with you, improving their life in some way, instead of spending it on cigarettes, alcohol, hookers or coca cola? (Note: Yes, Coca Cola is as bad (worth) then hookers, cigarettes and alcohol…)

Chiropractors Are People Too

A study has been done amongst failing chiropractors to find out the common reasons for failure. It has been discovered that more than 50% of the time, the reason why a chiropractor didn’t close the deal was because of his assistant “not trying too hard” to motivate people to schedule an appointment.

They’ve discovered that the reason why chiropractors’ assistants weren’t eager convincing people they’re making the right decision was guilt. Assistants felt guilty for encouraging people to pay more than seventeen hundred dollars for treatment because they felt their boss is already making too much money and that it’s wrong taking so much money from someone who has no insurance and has to pay the full treatment fee.

Get Rid Of Guilt

For you to be able to make any money online (and off), you have to be comfortable with charging the full price. There’s nothing wrong with asking the maximum amount of money possible for the goods you deliver.

And don’t let the famous “If I just work harder” fairy tale mislead you. It’s not about what you deserve or how good of a person you are. There are millions of deserving, generous, sweetest and most adorable people who are broke, were broke and will always be broke. But you don’t have to be …and quite frankly-you shouldn’t. It’s no fun!

Napoleon Hill’s failure to retire rich shouldn’t discourage you to practice what he’s teaching in all of his fantastic books, but it’s also important to feel that you deserve to receive everything the universe has to offer.

It’s important that you understand that the sum of all money does not equal to zero-there’s more money then we can spend. The reason why some are rich and others are poor is only because of their habits, thinking and actions-not because there’s a shortage of resources.

Warning: this post might offend you …but you should read it anyway!

A stereotype is a commonly held public belief about specific social groups, or types of individuals. The concepts of “stereotype” and “prejudice” are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups, based on some prior assumptions.

Social Code

A town where I live is located in the middle of the desert Negev and throughout the day I come in contact with many Arabs. And although those are not the type of Arabs that ride donkeys and sit in a circle to smoke a hookah, their basic instincts still pre-dominate their behavior.

It has been 10 years since I moved into this town, but to this day I have trouble with accepting them as a part of the community, since their animalistic attitude is pissing me off.

Lately, I’ve been researching on the topic of social code and I came to a conclusion that no matter where we live there are A-holes surrounding us.

This led me to another conclusion: my prejudice towards Arabs is nothing but a strong stereotype which was engraved in me since I was a little kid by my dad.

I recall that ever since we moved to Israel, wherever we go, I hear racial comments from my father about Arab behavior and culture. I believe that I overtook that inner hate towards the nation and let my emotions drive me and control my attitude.

Following the chain of interesting conclusions, I now realize that we all act upon our stereotypes, even in internet marketing. Although we have a wonderful community of entrepreneurs, family men and aspiring youngsters (like yours truly), we still let our bigotry cloud our judgment.

Below I describe 7 most common marketing stereotypes and the way most of us perceive them:

1. The Scammer

That’s a no brainer isn’t it? The person behind the sales page is automatically perceived as a scammer. This happens because we don’t know and most importantly don’t trust that person.

2. The Guru

Difference between the Guru and the Scammer is that Scammer always talks about how great he is while the Guru is humble and you discover his greatness via printed material, a friend, a gift or another Guru.

3. The Motivational Speaker

A person who’s constantly cheering others up, even if they are not asking for it. His vocabulary consists entirely of the words like wisdom, courage, persistence, motivation, success, inspiration, desire, achievement, vision and quotes of successful people.

Motivational Speakers are like high school friends-it’s nice to run into one once in a while, but if you meet more than 2 in a day-it’s annoying.

4. The Procrastinator

A person who’s always whining about EzineArticles’ strict submission guidelines and how it’s impossible to get traffic unless you have a ton of $$$ to invest in PPC.

5. The Social Media Fan

A person who’s tweeting 127 times a day, shoots 9 YouTube videos a week and harassing you to join his group on Facebook notwithstanding the fact that you’ve ignored his request 36 times already.

6. The Spammer

Similarly to the Social Media Fan, the Spammer is bombarding your Twitter timeline, Facebook wall and Stumbleupon inbox with the same offer.

7. The Faker

A person who follows the “Fake it ‘till you make it’ credo. Although I don’t think that it’s wrong, I still do not necessarily support this approach to marketing.

Safety Issue

Often we develop stereotypes and prejudices as a defense mechanism (unless we just accept other people’s prejudices as our own). Our newly acquired attitudes prevent us from getting hurt.

That’s exactly what I used to think two month ago, but not today…

“Don’t judge the book by its cover” Author Unknown

More often than not our “defense mechanisms” cloud our perception of reality and lead us to bad judgment.

I realized that in the past 2 month. Before I was accustomed to perceive every Arab as a violent being. Now I realize that I was wrong judging every single Arab I meet on the basis of my previous encounters. Throughout the last 2 month I came to know quite a few nice Arabs, who have jobs, families, dreams and interests just like the rest of us.

To conclude this post in a nutshell: Don’t Judge People!

Some marketers see 2010 as the year when the Crisis is going to finish the job and ruin the Economy for good. Others perceive 2010 as 2 years away from 2012 and there are those who think that 2010 is going to bring more positive change than ever before.

During 2009 I finally cracked the list building code, became a better writer, my SEO and Marketing Skills gained ground and my personal life has never been sweeter.

I would like to think of myself as one of those blind optimists who believe that 2010 is going to be a prosperous, generous, profitable, exciting, magnificent, exhilarating and unpredictable period where anything is possible.

There a few changes I would like to see occur in 2010 compared to the passing year:

1. REAL testimonials

Although the new FTC rules are live, it’s only a matter of time before some wise-ass finds a loop hole and starts posting lame testimonials again.

I would like to see more internet marketers taking more responsibility for their products and the results their products can produce for their customers. Most of the testimonials we see nowadays are either gathered on the Warrior Forum or through vendors’ friends and colleagues.

I would like to see genuine, REAL testimonials which weren’t crafted for converting new customers, but those that were expressed during the moment of absolute joy of witnessing the actual documented result with a certain product.

I would like to see people’s responses after they’ve actually paid for the product and not for getting it for free-that would make an outstanding difference in our marketplace. More than 75% of all lame ass products would be gone and we would only be left with high quality stuff that’s really worth the investment.

2. Higher Marketing Standards

In 2009 anyone could become an affiliate marketer or a vendor for any product. They could have easily proclaimed themselves as an expert and market dozens of products simultaneously.

But what if there were certain standards that anyone who wanted to become a marketer should have had to meet? Criteria such as the amount of traffic to a website per month and a list size minimum of 100 subscribers etc.

That would not only heighten our marketing standards but would do all of the newcomers a huge favor, because most of them have no clue about how to generate their own leads or how to drive traffic.

Raising the bar would be similar to the 1^st person shooter video games where you have to go through mandatory training where you learn to operate the basic weapons, through grenades and move across the battlefield before your first mission.

This way by the time you’re playing the first round-you’re capable of navigating through enemy territory and applying medic kit in case of injury. That makes much more sense than feeble-mindedly wondering in the war zone and getting shot.

3. Less Of Free

Until recently I thought that it’s ultra cool that anyone can get so much free internet marketing training and resources for free, but only now I realize how wrong it was of me to assume so.

Because of the enormous amounts of free offers and inferior opt in bribes, generating leads became harder and the quality of leads has gone down significantly.

Thanks to the low quality opt in bribes, we now face the time where our prospects are immune to our free offers while disregarding the paid ones, since the moment a new product is released it will take only couple of month before it becomes available for free.

I know that because I am one of those people. I don’t remember the last time I bought software, because in most cases I managed to find a free copy within just couple of weeks.

This wouldn’t have happened if there was less of FREE. When we get a lot of free, the value of paid goes down until it becomes free and there’s another product that’s doomed to take its place.

Agree? Disagree? What changes would you like to see in 2010? Leave a comment!

Join me and my good friend and mentor Jodie Thompson on Saturday, September 26, to witness REAL abundance mindset in action.

We will be making an announcement that not only make your socks pop but also will benefit your own abundance mindset like no other.

You will have an opportunity to create an additional (and ongoing)  income stream to benefit your financial stability and help a lot of  people do the same in the process!

If you’re even a tiny bit interested in the Law of Attraction and Making Money Online, you’ll love this!

Let me give a little hint about what we’re going to talk about:

• Never before seen material about How To Apply the Law of Attraction in Internet Marketing
• Underground contest announcement
• REAL life example of abundance thinking that proves that poverty and recession are as real as we make them to be
• and another special (sneaky) announcement you don’t want to miss…

Sits are limited! Hurry! Click Here To Book Yours Now!

Trust me when I say this: even if you don’t do anything on that webinar-simply sit and listen, you’re still going to leave with a better mindset than you came in with.

Thinking about the time when I was starting out in internet marketing, I remember how terrified I was about starting my own business and going against everything I was taught in life… I was always told to study well and work hard so someday I can become an important and established individual.

After reading “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, I understood how stupid of me it was to follow these people’s advice. These people have never achieved anything substantial in their lives. They considered a safe corporate 9 to 5 job with monthly bonuses and a company car to be the cream of the crop. Listening to them was as silly as listening to those who would tell me that in order to attract a woman you either needed to be as rich as Donald Trump or as gorgeous as Brat Pitt. Ri-i-ight…

The evolution I went through while trying to figure out internet marketing reminds me of the process of looking for a perfect mate. It is fascinating how these two seemingly different practices are alike.

As my interest in internet marketing grew, so did my interest in girls. I have indulged myself into both at the same time. I have devoured knowledge in internet marketing as well as pick up and dating advice. But the one thing that constantly kept holding me back was Taking Action… or should I say NOT Taking Any.

Just as I was afraid of approaching the girl of my dreams (or any girl for that matter), I was terrified of approaching people and talking to them about my business. And those times when I did approach someone – I’d screw it up by talking too much… And that’s a major flaw in both Dating and Internet Marketing worlds…

Becoming an internet marketer meant becoming a leader. It meant becoming a person others can look up to and seek guidance from. Just as becoming sexy and popular meant becoming an individual others would admire and kill to hang out with. Everything came down to becoming a man of value, just as the Einstein told us we should in his famous quote:

“Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value”

However, as soon as I began to take action, MASSIVE action, I became a man of value for those who didn’t. Simply by overcoming my own shortcomings and fears I became a leader. I became the person I wanted to become a long time ago – a  person others admired. I was admired for the mere fact that I was taking action and implementing what I have learned from others instantly.

By conditioning myself to take action I have turned both my internet marketing career and my life around. By overcoming my fears with constant application of the principles I was exposed to – I became an inspiration for others, who lacked that courage.

Sure, there were those who didn’t admire me as much. In fact, there were plenty of those who would either ridicule or hate me for becoming the man I’ve become at that time, but I’ve figured out a way of dealing with these bastards uneducated individuals.

The reward was worth it. The price of disconnecting from the 90% of my surroundings was worth paying for the goodness I have received in return. I became a true leader for those who seek guidance in internet marketing as well as a dreamboat for the women around me.

As soon as I have earned the rank of “a-21 Year Old Internet Marketing Mastermind,” I realized that the time has come to look for the ONE. I understood that it was time to create my own product. I wanted to find the perfect woman I could spend my life and raise a family with.

It was time to do something that most pick up artists and internet marketers are afraid of – it was time to settle down…

Stay tuned for my next post, where I am going to share with you how I created and developed my first product and found the love of my life.

Dan Ariely, the author of “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions,” wrote about a research on how we accept advice from others and “experts” in particular.

The experiment featured a subject, an “expert” and an fMRI machine.

Subject’s brain was attached to an fMRI machine which monitored brain activity while the subject was making simulated financial decisions. The subject was asked to choose between receiving a risk free payment and trying their luck at a lottery. During the experiment, occasionally, they were presented with an “expert” economist advice as to which option they consider to be better.

“The results are surprising. Expert advice attenuated activity in areas of the brain that correlate with valuation and probability weighting. Simply put, the advice made the brain switch off (at least to a great extent) processes required for financial decision-making.”

The study showed that we become attached to advices from confident (but not necessarily accurate) sources. It means that we tend to put our own opinions aside whenever we hear one from an “expert.”

It is important to point out that the “expert advice” was suboptimal – meaning that the subjects could have done better had they relied on their own opinion. However, subject’s brain was literally switched off at the moment he was making the decision simply because he trusted the “expert” THAT MUCH.

The study explains why people are ready to pay hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars for Expert Consultation and Advice (without even realizing that they might have been better off without it).

I find this to be an astonishing marketing discovery. It enables us to better understand the consumer’s decision making process at the point of purchase. You can literally leverage this scientific breakthrough to boost sales. Here’s how you do it:

Instead of talking about how great and valuable your product is, ask other people to do it for you:

• Ask former clients to provide a testimonial stating clear benefits or problems your product solved for them
• Recruit affiliates and provide them with the necessary tools to make it easier for them to market your product
• Don’t sell people – give “expert” advice (which is best executed with your product)
• Get other experts in your niche talking about your product

Selling has become much more sophisticated in the last couple of years and if you want to keep up with the best of the best – you need to step up your game. A sales letter isn’t enough anymore, the traffic needs to come from an expert – an authority figure that has a following (that listens).

It is one of the reasons Internet Marketing is the future of sales. The immense viral potential simply makes it unstoppable. Every product has the chance of going viral. If you do your homework, you can be the next big thing no matter what you’re selling.

Your product needs to be good enough for people to want to share it on Facebook and Post it on Twitter. Your marketing funnel should reward those who spread the word with high priced bonuses. And you should have an army of clients who are ready to back the claims up.

Combining All Three Together – You’ve Got Yourself A Proven Recipe For Viral Market Domination.

In today’s competitive markets, converting a visitor to a lead is very hard. Converting a visitor to a customer is even harder.

People are no longer impressed by sales letters and promises. “Money back guarantee” seals and screenshots of commissions generated via Clickbank no longer provide the same kind of sense of security at the moment of purchase decision.

In order to effectively manage your traffic and convert as much visitors to customers as possible you’ll have to move the FREE Line.

The FREE Line

People love getting stuff for FREE. Your soon-to-be customers judge your credibility and the value of your products by the kind of information you supply for FREE.

If you share crappy, low value stuff for FREE – people will automatically assume that your product is crap as well. And since there is plenty of crap you can get for free, people just won’t pay to get it from you.

In order to come forth as a savior who will make all their problems go away, you’ll have to solve some problems for FREE first. After you have earned the status of the messiah, only then you will be in the position to offer a product or a service.

This is the reason why you see so many FREE offers lately. Free newsletters, reports, videos and eBooks. People love getting stuff for free and most will never turn down such an exciting opportunity.

What Works Best

Not everything which is free costs the same. Some products, when given away free of charge have low perceived value while others are treasured.

Understanding the difference between the perceived value of a free gift is utterly crucial. People perceive one product to be more valuable than the other. Believe it or not, but people are actually becoming very picky about what they want to get for FREE.

According to the Launchtree studies, video is perceived to be the most valuable free product of them all. People love videos. We can see that by the mighty growth of YouTube and other video networks.

Second best is PDF. For some reason people believe that if it’s a PDF file – it has to be something worth checking out. Usually, that’s seems to be the case. People who create PDFs usually invest at least some value into them, otherwise, why bother converting the file type from DOC?

Audio seems to be the bronze medalist for most, but for me – audio is the best. You don’t need to read the audio, you don’t have to wait for it to load if you have a lousy connection and you can take it along anywhere as long as it’s an MP3.

The Power of FREE

PDF, MP3 or MPEG – if it’s FREE, chances are people will want to get it, as long as your copywriting is intact. When you are giving away free gift, don’t forget to include some serious value and you’ll guarantee yourself a trustworthy expert status along with some serious revenue.

P.S: In Case You Haven’t Noticed I Am Giving Away A Free Report. Just Enter Your Email In The Upper Right Corner And Grant Me The Expert Status

Last night, after watching the Champion League’s Final between Manchester United and Barcelona, I was pissed! In fact, I was so mad that the inevitable happened…The law of attraction kicked in and I actually broke my shoe. Yep, broke it!

Well, that meant that I needed to go to the shops and get me a new one. Being an “Official Sports Wear” freak, as you could have noticed if you have watched some of my videos, I went to the only shop in my home town I rely on when It comes to sportswear – Mike’s Sportswear.

Today, when I left the shop with a pair of new Nikey’s, I have realized something. There was a lesson in internet marketing to be learned here. Why have I gone straight to Mike’s without even considering going to another shop? I mean, we have plenty of Sportswear shops here, but I have chosen Mike’s for a specific reason.

I have built a solid relationship with Mike’s for the past 3 years. The moment I have started taking care of my body and working out until now my experience with Mike’s has been great. That led to me being a regular client at his store. Well, this is exactly what you should be doing with your business.

Build a rock solid relationship with your list. This will lead to the same results as for me and Mike’s. They will be eager to listen to what you have to offer. Not only will they purchase from you, but they will keep coming back again and again simply because they like you and like buying from you.

This is actually one of the concepts I learned in the Launchtree Course: make your customer’s experience a pleasant one and he will keep coming back! That is also why Mike Dillard says that the quantity of the leads you generate is not that important (although I believe it actually is…) but the Quality of your relationship with your leads is. That is why all the Top Guns of internet marketing are talking about Value and Reciprocity. This is what makes your business an empire in the long run.

When it comes down to marketing, it is crucial to understand what is that people want-and give it to them. Watch the video below and I promise you, as soon as you finish watching it, you will have a whole other perspective on the marketing process.

Next time you sit down to write a copy or a sales letter, make sure to address the Color with the same delicacy as you would the Font, Size and Position of the Headline. This is ultimately important because we are conditioned to notice color and to react to it in a certain way.

Just to give you a quick example: what comes to mind when you think of McDonalds? I don’t know about you, but I almost instantly imagine the Yellow Arks of the letter “M” in front of me which makes me want French Fries sooo bad! Personally, I am way past that age when McDonalds used to excite me since now I fully realize what it represents. The fact remains though, that Yellow color immediately triggered a strong desire for food inside of me.

This little experiment (which you can do by yourself by the way) only goes to show you that the colors which are chosen for Marketing and Branding aren’t just incidental. They are carefully analyzed and suit every single aspect of a business they represent.

Now, in order for you to really understand how to use the colors for branding and marketing, here is a quick breakdown of the rainbow for you:

• WHITE – White is associated with innocence, purity, peace and contentment. It’s considered clean and sterile. It’s cool and refreshing. White can have a calming, stabilizing influence.
• BLACK – Black is the ultimate power color. It suggests strength, potency, authority, boldness, seriousness, stability and elegance. It’s distinguished and classic, great for creating drama. Black has more weight than other colors. Too much can be ominous.
• Gray or Silver – Gray can be associated with conservative qualities and considered traditional. Business-wise, it symbolizes high tech and suggests authority, practicality, earnestness and creativity.
• GOLD – Gold suggests wealth. It’s considered to be very classy.
• BLUE – Blue is the favorite color of many businesses. It suggests sanctuary and fiscal responsibility. It inspires confidence. It is the most popular and second most powerful color. Darker shades are authoritative. Dark and bright blues represent trust, security, faithfulness and dignity. Paler shades can imply freshness and cleanliness, although they can imply weakness.
• RED – Red stimulates many kinds of appetites. Red commands attention, alerts us and creates a sense of urgency. It’s considered the sexiest of all colors. Red symbolizes heat, fire, blood, love, warmth, power, excitement, energy, strength, passion, vitality, risk, danger and aggressiveness. Financially, it’s associated with debt.
• YELLOW – Yellow is the sunshine hue and is a spiritual color. Yellow represents a warning, but it can also bring happiness and warmth. The most preferred yellows are the creamy and warm ones. Bright yellow can be irritable to the eye in large quantities. Yellow speeds metabolism. It’s often used to highlight or draw attention.
• GREEN – People associate green with the color of money, as well as nature. Olive greens are associated with health and freshness — a good choice for environmental concerns. Green suggests fertility, freedom, healing and tranquility. Green represents jealousy. Businesses use it to communicate status and wealth. Green is a calming, refreshing color that is very easy on the eyes.
• BROWN – Brown is associated with nature and the earth. Dark browns represent wood or leather. Brown and shades of cream are associated with warmth and coziness. Brown suggests richness, politeness, helpfulness and effectiveness. It is solid, credible, mature and reliable. Light brown implies genuineness.
• ORANGE – Orange is associated with vibrancy and the tropics, as well as warmth and contentment. It can instill a sense of fun and excitement. It implies health. It suggests pleasure, cheer, endurance, generosity and ambition. It can make an expensive product seem more affordable. It appeals to a wide range of people, both male and female.
• PINK – Pink is considered a very feminine color. It represents gentleness, romance, well being and innocence.
• PURPLE – Purple represents royalty and luxury. In darker shades, it’s considered a wealthy color. It suggests spirituality and sophistication. In paler shades, such as lavender, it’s feminine and romantic.

From now on, choose your colors carefully when it comes to branding and marketing in general. Try not to become a default user, stand out. Pick YOUR color, the color, which defies you best, and prove that you are worthy to represent it.