Social Media Marketing

Six Steps To Initiate Success

June 14th, 2010 by Michael Feil

If you are a home based business owner or an entrepreneur then you have probably ran into naysayers either criticizing you, your product, or your business. You are always going to run into people that have something negative to say, however how you handle yourself in those situations is important to the growth of your business. Today we’re going to discuss how to respond to your current situation and what steps you need to take in order for you to continue on the path to success.

In any situation whether it’s good or bad there are three ways to respond. You can React, Respond, or Initiate.

Reacting doesn’t take any thought, because it’s purely emotion. Acting on emotion is not a very smart move. We see in the real world many people going to jail and doing time because they reacted. The bottom line is that reacting requires very little thought.

Responding takes a little more effort and a little more thought. Some responses are good while others involve more emotion than thought which could lead a situation going nowhere. Responses are all over the place; responses to emails, verbal, responses, video responses, responses in forums, etc. If you are going to do any kind of response than I think you will need sit down and really think about what you’re going to say before you respond.

Seth Godin said in this book Tribes, “Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it. They cause the events that other have to react to they make change.”

Initiating is by far the best of the three. Let me explain how I took the initiative in my business and totally bypassed reacting and responding. When I first got into network marketing I was approached by an “old schooler” who closed me hard and I joined his organization. I brought some people into the organization but it was like my job in the corporate world, their marketing tactics just didn’t fit my personality. It wasn’t fun, I was driving all over the place going to different meetings and presentations, and I was wasting a lot of my hard earned money.

Around the same time I discovered online marketing. It was way different than what it is today, but it caught my eye and I wanted to learn as much as I could. I approached my upline and told him about this new world of marketing that I discovered. His response to me was, “That’s not how this organization does business. You need to stick to the system.”

Well I didn’t like the system, I wasn’t content, and I wanted more. So I left that company. I didn’t leave because of the money; I left because I wanted to learn as much as I could about online marketing. You see, when he told me that I couldn’t market outside of their sales system I could have reacted with my emotions and gave him a piece of my mind, and I could have responded appropriately after thinking and formulating my response, but I chose to initiate my several yearlong study of online marketing. In a sense I was initiating my future.

Fast forward about 7 years and now I am in a social media class that Jonathan Budd, Katie Freiling, and a few others were teaching. They taught me how to blog, market through social media sites, and actually get traffic. After the course I started I initiating. I got busy implementing every strategy and tactic that they threw at me and I started to get traffic to my blog (real traffic….not my parents just stopping by) and the leaders started to notice me.

From there things just took off. I got asked to be a leader in another class, and I met 5 other great guys who are now my business partners and we formed a company called Empowered Tribe where we teach people how to set up a social media tribe that will help them quickly their business up and running online. All off this happened because I chose not to settle, but chose to initiate.

One leader defined the term leadership as a planned assault on the status quo. In other words, don’t settle for what is, initiate for what will be. Each person initiates differently. Some people may initiate by just getting their blog up and running and finally taking control of that, while other people may initiate by developing their own product and / or course. Still some people may initiate by breaking off with their currently company and going a totally different direction. In any case, nothing will get done, no progress will happen, and no change will take place until you first take the lead and initiate.

Sometimes we don’t know how to initiate, where to begin or what to do. I would suggest that you look to leaders in the industry that you admire and see how you can emulate what they are doing. Sometimes you need to pay a mentor to help you get started and help get your thought process down on what you want to do and how to get you there. That is perfectly alright because all leaders have mentors. We just need to take the first step and initiate it!

Below are 6 steps to help you initiate your future:

1. Analyze your current situation and see if you are satisfied with where you are in your business.

2. If you are not satisfied think of where you want to be and what you want your business to look like. Visualize what you want your business to look like.

3. Write out some clear and measurable goals for your business. These goals need to be as clear and specific. For example, I want to master social media is not a very strong goal. A better goal may be, I want to have 10 opt-ins a day into my autoresponder in 6 months by implementing the 10 tactics Michael Feil teaches in his autoresonder class. Can you see that the second example is much better than the first because it is specific and gives a time period?

4. Now that you have your goals you need to set up your plan. Basically, what steps are you going to take to get to your goal? All this needs to be documented in a place you can go back and look at it again and again.

5. Now comes the initiate part. Start working your plan and making a change. Like I said before, often the initiate part starts with breaking off of something you are doing that is not getting you to where you want to be. It’s time to leave the status quo and start making things happen.

6. Once you start working your written plan you should now be able to see a change. Things are now taking off and you are making a difference with your actions and your plan. This would be a good time to ask a mentor to check out what you’re doing to make sure you’re on the right track. You may have to pay for this or if you know the right people it may not cost you anything. If you do have to pay this would be money well spent.

Initiating is a 6 step process and most of the time it won’t happen overnight. It will take time and it will take some work on your end, but if you’re not satisfied what how things are going it probably is time to start initiating change, especially if you want to be a leader in your industry.

I want to encourage you that no matter where you are today you can be successful. You are someone of value and of worth and you are important to this world. You can make great things happen, all you have to do is bypass reacting and responding, and just roll up your sleeves and start initiating. The future is wide open. Visualize what you want, then start initiating to make the change towards your dreams and goals.

If you like this please comment, share it on Facebook, and Tweet it!

Tags: Internet Marketing, Leadership, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tribe Mastery, Tribe Syndication, Tribes
Posted in Internet Marketing, Leadership, Social Media Marketing | 24 Comments »

Give Away The Farm To Get The Bank

May 29th, 2010 by Michael Feil

Value! That what online marketing as evolved into. In this video I go over the “give away the farm to get the bank” marketing principle. I discuss how important it is to first give before you can receive and how you can make your offers more attractive by giving more that what is expected.

If you like this please comment, share, and tweet it! I would love to know how you’re using this principle in your marketing plan.

Tags: attraction marketing, Internet Marketing, Leadership, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tribe Mastery, Tribe Syndication, Tribes
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing | 18 Comments »

Empowered Blog Service Reviewed By Beth Allen

May 11th, 2010 by Michael Feil

Do you struggle with your blog? You know, spending hours trying to get all the widgets and plug-ins just right. Are you a first time blogger and want to set a blog that has everything you need to dominate the social media scene? If so you will want to check out Beth Allen’s blog post “First Class Blog Design Service Makes It Easier Than Ever To Share Your Passions!” Click on the title to read now!

Beth shares some valuable information for the beginner and advanced blogger. This is one post you need to check out! Let me know what you think of it! Don’t forget to tweet it and Facebook share it!

Tags: Blog Tactics, Blogging, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tribe Mastery, Tribe Syndication, Tribes
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tribe | 3 Comments »

Is Your Blog Set Up Right For Social Media?

May 4th, 2010 by Michael Feil

If you want to really get a lot of people to your website to see what you have to offer one of the things you need to do is give them great content. With social media marketing you NEED to have a blog. It’s a must!

You blog will become the hub of everything else you do. All your traffic through Twitter, Facebook, MySpcae, YouTube, etc. should be driven back to your blog. Why? Because that is where the real CONTENT should be. That is where you will speak to your visitors on a deeper level. That is where you will get your visitors to sign into your autoresponder and ultimately turn them into customers.

So what are blogs really?

Basically, blogs were first introduced as weblogs that refer to a “server’s log file.” It was created when web logging hit the virtual market. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, web logging gradually saturated the virtual
community making the Internet a viable source of greater information.

However, with web logging, you still need a web site and domain names, but with blogging, you do not need anything just an account with blog providers. In most cases, these kinds of blogs are free of charge. However, since we have been talking about attracting marketing and branding yourself it will be wise to get your personalized domain name like mine (i.e. www.michaelfeil.com).

With the onset of blogging in the industry, personal journaling had been a common ground for people who wish to be known all over the world. However, not literally famous as this is not a case on being popular or well-known personality.

Generally, blogs are created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write their daily adventures, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express online.

Nevertheless, with the advent of the online businesses, blogs had gradually taken the limelight in providing businesses a chance to boost their productivity online. This is where the business blogs have taken the limelight.

Business blogs are, basically, created to advertise the services or products of a certain web site or online business in order to increase online sales.

Moreover, business blogs are also one way of promoting the company so that the other readers will know that a certain company exists online. With blogs, entrepreneurs are able to establish a name in the virtual market through articles that can be very useful in the reader’s life.

From there, you can make money out of blogs by simply syndicating. This can be done many ways, and some are RSS technology and plug-ins such as TweetMeMe, Facebook Share, Comment Love, etc.

So, if you are thinking to create a blog, whether for business or for pleasure, you need to know some tips that could help you get through and make your blog one of the interesting blogs online.

Here’s how:

If you don’t know where to start with developing a blog The Empowered Tribe has several great professional looking blog templates that come with all the plug-ins and widgets you need to get your content out there right away that will bring traffic to your blog. You can see these examples at http://empoweredblogs.com.

If you like this please retweet, share it on Facebook, and leave a comment!

Active Income: Passive Income’s Super Motivated Twin

April 10th, 2010 by Michael Feil

The following is a guest post from my of my good friends that is very successful with social media and building businesses so please take a moment to read her article. I am sure you will pull some great nuggets out of it!

Hang around Internet marketers long enough and you’ll hear the term “passive income” tossed around a lot. I’ll agree, passive income is some of the sweetest income to make, but what is left out of the equation is too large to ignore – not enough people online are talking about “active income” passive’s super pumped, pesky twin which usually is the precursor to any “passive income” made.

If passive income is the Holy Grail, let’s take a look at active income as the quest that knights went on before reaching the grail. It seems too often we read books from super successful people like Tim Ferriss and think “wow, he got rich off automated income” leaving out the “after working like a dog to get where he is” part. So instead of just focusing on the end result let’s take a moment to study the path of active income that often paves the way for you to sit back on a beach somewhere sipping a Mai Tai as your bank account grows like crab grass.

Forms of smart active income that lead to passive income

1. Start with freelancing, finish with a high-end membership course.

Freelancing is a great way to get out of your job pronto and still be able to pay the bills. This line of work is for people who are highly motivated and highly skilled in at least ONE area. But if you have the dedication and skill, freelancing can be a great path to eventual passive income. So say you are an amazing writer and you decide to write a Blog about copy writing while pursuing your freelance career doing the same thing. You can build an audience and a community around people who are interested in this skill while showing them how you’re making a living as a copy writer. After a while your community should be solid and you may introduce some products that will help your readers build their own writing skills, maybe offer a seminar or an e-Book. Give it some time as your community continues to grow and you should be able to stop freelancing and instead make a full time living from a membership course that will give lots of value to your community while letting you cool your heels finally.

2. Build a product, sell the product, end up with other people building and selling said product.

The product can be anything from an exercise machine to a vitamin line. You create it, market it, lay the foundation for a business empire and after a little success you can start automating the process. Farm out the production, hire a sales team and even pass off management duties so that your “product” becomes a true source of passive income that you only have to check in on from time to time. Note: this takes a lot of systems being in place and for more info on this model I suggest you read The E Myth.

3.Work really hard to build up a passive income affiliate network.

Something that it seems like many bloggers do to create passive income streams is to build up networks of mini sites and then promote solid affiliate products via these sites. The sites have to be geared towards a specific niche and they’ll take a lot of time up front to set up and populate… this isn’t a get rich quick scheme. But if you spend the time, do the research and build 10 sites making $500 a month each you are in business. Then just rinse and repeat until you’ve made your passive income goals come true.

4. Work really hard to build up a community and then profit from offering info products.

Similar to the membership model we talked about first, this type of business is started with a community. You must give and give of yourself and your knowledge at first to have a good shot at success later on. Also it helps to really care about the community you are building, so if you hate knitting don’t start www.knittingrocks.com because your phoniness will show through fast and you won’t be able to build a solid base (as you can see the link has been disabled, hence my point!). Once the community is built you can profit from ads, affiliate products or even build your own unique offerings that can make you money for the life of the site. All you must do is keep up the community (which is the fun part in my mind) and passive income will follow, with a lot of elbow grease in the beginning, of course.

So next time someone tells you they make “passive income online” be sure to remember that the path to passive income is paved with action. Don’t beat yourself up if your income route is more active than not, there is nothing wrong with working hard at a job or business you love.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Leadership, Online Marketing, Passive Income, passive income programs, Social Media Marketing
Posted in Passive Income, Social Media Marketing | 14 Comments »

8 Keys To Success For Live Events

March 16th, 2010 by Michael Feil

Live events are great! It gets people offline for a bit so you can meet each other face to face and interact on a more personal level. Many people don’t realize that live events don’t just give them valuable information to help the person grow, but it actually helps their business grow. This is because the relationships and connections that you make at a live event can become very lucrative partnerships and joint ventures.

In this industry that we’re in many people go to live events but don’t really know how to get the most out of their experience there. I would like to give you some tips on what to do before, during, and after a live event.

1. Make a list of questions you want answered while you’re there. Before you go to the event you need to make a list of questions you want answered while you’re at the event. If you have questions about something specific you are working on or having trouble with then write down the questions you need answered and seek out those experts while you’re there.

2. Write down who you want to meet while you’re there and what you want to ask them. This is different from the above because the above questions are questions about your specific business and struggles you may be having with your business. If you know someone you admire or respect in the industry is going to be there write their name and some specific questions about their success like, “What’s the most 3 important things you did that got you to where you are today?” Or, “If you had to do it all over again what would you do different?”

3. Get on every speaker’s blog and see what they’re about before you go to the event. You may be going to an event with several speakers but you may only know one or two of them. Before you go to the event you will want to do some research on the speakers to see what they are doing and get a feel for what their niche is in the industry. A best place to do that is their blog. You can go there and see their “About Me” page and get some background information from them and then browse the rest of their blog to see what kind of content they are putting out. After you get to know them better from their blog they may be one of the people you want to meet and ask some questions to.

4. Find a live event buddy and hold each other accountable. This can be someone that comes with you to the event or it could be someone that you meet there. Many times at live events people are furiously taking notes and when they get home where do those notes go? On the bookshelf or in the drawer never to be seen again! Well, here’s a solution for that. Ask someone to be your event buddy so when the event is over you both can debrief before you part ways and tell each other what you learned and what you’re going to implement and what your actions steps are for when you get home. Then when you get home agree to meet on Skype of the phone once a week for a short meeting to see if you guys are completing your action items that you said you were going to do. This sometimes morphs into a partnership or a joint venture. So make sure you find a good buddy!

5. Craft your brand. When you go to a live event you need to brand yourself just like you want to brand yourself online. When you meet someone you want to tell them three things; 1. Who you are, 2. What you do, 3. Why you are here. For example, if I was going to a live event that will teach me how to blog I will say something like, “My name is Michael Feil and I am and I teach people how to market online through social media and tribe building principles. The reason why I am here is to gain more knowledge on how to get more traffic to my blog and meet other people in the industry.” So then people that might not be familiar with the tribe concept may start asking me, “What is a tribe?” Then we can start having a meaningful conversation instead of, “Where are you from?” Or, “Nice weather we’re having today!”

6. Get business cards made that has your information on the front and your brand on the back. So on the front of the card you will have your name address, email, phone, etc. Then on the back you can put your brand like we mentioned above. Or you can put the URL to your top three affiliate links. Or you can say something like, “Teaching people tribe building principles that will give them massive exposure. Call me for a FREE 30 minute consultation.” Remember the goal is not how many cards you give out but how many you get so YOU can follow up with them. If they don’t have a card write down their info so you can follow up with them.

7. Cross off each question as they get answered. Going back to point one, as you are at the live event and listening to the speaker many times he or she will answer your questions that you wrote down through their presentation. Whatever is left over you can then seek out the proper people to answer them.

8. Get the event early and stay late. Most likely you traveled far and paid a lot of money to come to the event so make the most out of it. Get to the event early and stay late if you can. By doing this you will have time to interact with some of the attendees there as well as a chance to speak with the speakers. Your time there is valuable there so make the most of it!

These are just eight of many different ways you can make the most out of a live event. The main goal there is learning but the value really comes by networking.

If you are interested in meeting some of the great industry leaders and peers that you see online every day, learning all the current principles on online monetization, networking, and coming to a really fun fundraiser with many surprises you will need to check out the event we are hosting. You can find all the details at http://TribeSyndicationRevolution.com

Tags: Goal setting, Influence, relationships, Social Media Marketing
Posted in Leadership, Social Media Marketing, Tribe | 21 Comments »

Featured Interview On Tribe Building And Social Media

March 5th, 2010 by Michael Feil

I just finished a great interview with my new friend Maren Kate Donovan . She is an up and coming leader in the online marketing and social media industry. Below is the actual interview that we did. Enjoy….

MAREN: How’d you get started in online marketing?

MICHAEL: I started about 7 or 8 years ago doing Autosurfing and “get rich quick schemes.” I made a little money and lost a lot of money. It was a good learning experience for me.

MAREN: What kind of 9 to 5 job did you escape from?

MICHAEL: I have my undergrad in Sociology and my Masters in Health Care Administration. I was in the business side of health care for several years (hospice and long term care) and I got tired of Corporate America so I just quit. I am also a Sign Language Interpreter so after I quit my health care job I started my own business doing Sign Language interpreting. During that time I also started my online business with 5 other guys. We have rolled out 2 online marketing courses already and have some great plans for the rest of 2010.

Our company is called The Empowered Tribe. Our philosophy is that we can’t succeed in this business alone and we need to rely on each other for accountability, traffic generation, and special skill sets that each one of us bring to the table.

Together we have made tens of thousands of dollars in just a few short months and we have never met in person yet. That is the power of the internet! However, we will be meeting for the first time at the end of March in San Diego, CA and we will be doing a live event for people that are interested in learning how to monetize online. This will be a great time to network with industry leaders and we will be co-hosting a charity event with Raven Starre (http://mlmrealityshow.com).

MAREN: Break down the ways you monetize your blog or online business(es) and if you have other streams of passive income that you’d like to share please elaborate on them.

MICHAEL: There are several ways I monetize online. On my blog http://michaelfeil.com you will see tabs up towards the top. Let me discuss some of these tabs and how I monetize through them.

1. The first monetization tab is called “Featured” and this is where I highlight the network marketing company that I am involved with. People can come here and get all the necessary info they need in order to join my organization. The product I have is very unique and there is no other product out there like it. Plus the social media marketing and tribe building education that the person gets when they are in business with me is second to none!

2. The second monetization tab is my “Mentoring” tab. This tab discusses why it’s important to have a mentor and if someone is interesting in my mentoring services then they can purchase it right there on the page.

3. The third monetization tab is my “Live Events” tab. This talks about hiring me to come to your live event and speak on a variety of topics. It also explains how my business partners and I can come to your live event and do a whole social media / tribe building workshop. It’s a very great time and well worth the money! In fact we are doing one in San Diego, CA on March 26 – 28, 2010. You can find all the info at http://tribesyndicationrevolution.com.

4. The fourth monetization tab is my “Resources” tab. This tab lists several of the affiliate programs that I am linked up with. When someone buys from my affiliate link I will make a commission.

5. Right under the “Resources” tab is my “Facebook” tab. For a price I can build people a custom Facebook welcome page for their Fan Pages.

6. Right under the “Facebook” tab is my “Website Building” tab where I show people how they can easily build sales pages themselves through a product called XSite Pro. I have created a video tutorial series that goes along with the XSite Pro software and people can purchase my video tutorial series that will help them get the most of the XSite Pro software.

So those are six ways that I monetize just through my blog. I also monetize through the online marketing courses that I develop and teach. Depending on the time of year it is you can get more information on these courses at http://tribemastermindformula.com. If the class is closed you can opt-in to get information on when the next class is starting up.

MAREN: What would be your 3 top tips for budding internet marketers to take heed of?

MICHAEL: 1. This industry is not a get rich quick industry. I thought it was when I first started 8 years ago and lost a lot of money. Once I learned that I have to actually build a business I started to become successful.

2. Brand yourself, not your company. When you start to brand yourself people will see you as a leader in this industry and then they will start to follow you. Once they start to follow you can then start to take the conversation offline and get to know them on a more personal level and “interview” them to see what they are really looking for. Maybe you can help them by mentoring them, direct them to one of your affiliate products, introduce them to your network marketing company, doing a joint venture with them, etc. The important thing is getting to know them personally and creating that trust. Once the trust has been established the possibilities are endless.

3. Build your business through the Tribe Concept. I can do a whole 2 hour lecture on this but it basically means that you are to go out and find about 5 or 6 peoples that have the same goals and aspirations as you do and you meet a few times a week to syndicate each other’s VALUABLE (that’s the key word) material all over the social media sites to get back links and massive exposure to your website or blog. There are many different principles to this kind of marketing which again is too long to get into now, but believe me, it works!

MAREN: What is the single best action you’ve taken that has positively influenced your biz and life?

MICHAEL: To find and PAY an already successful mentor that helped me get to where I am today. I was struggling before I got help via a mentor, but when I broke down and paid someone that is already successful and did exactly what they told me to do I then started to make money online. Success didn’t come overnight. It was s stepping stone process and like I said, I followed every instruction to the “T” and I started to see results.

The second biggest thing I did was find a good group a guys to go into business with. We talk daily, have become best friends, hold each other accountable, and are actually making money online.

To sum things up I just want to say there is no overnight success. Everything takes time so don’t worry that you’re not making money yet. If you follow the right steps and principles you will start to see success. Get with a mentor to show you the RIGHT ropes, and then seek out a group of people that are like minded and have the same goals as you do. Then start working with them creating projects and joint ventures.

Thank you Maren for this interview and if anyone has any further questions about what I have talked about you can contact me at mike@michaelfeil.com or Skype me at michaelfeil.

Have a great day!

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think about this interview. I would love to hear your thoughts! Also, Please Tweet and Facebook Share while you’re at it!