John Reese is a old school domainer, internet strategist/technologist, and a really SMART dude. He owns a ton of domains and businesses, including income.com.

With this ONE email, he truly opened my eyes to things I forgot, things I needed to remember, and ways to run an efficient business.

This email REALLY put stuff back into perspective. WOW. Thanks John.

I hope all of you find this email just as helpful as I did so I am copying and pasting his email directly below.

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In light of my upcoming 40th birthday, I want
to share 12 valuable mini-lessons that I’ve
learned so far as an entrepreneur…

These range from mistakes to avoid, to
making strategic decisions, of how to get
cash flow to come in the fastest, etc.

They are in no particular order…

1. ALWAYS DO MORE THAN IS EXPECTED OF YOU

I learned this at an early age from my Dad.
He had a very successful career as a business
executive and engineer, and this the core
principle that created his success.

You can apply this to your business in many
ways… over-delivering to your customers,
giving unexpected bonuses to your employees
or outsourced workers, and more.

Most people do just the bare minimum. Do
more than is expected of you and it will do
amazing things for your business.

2. STOP DREAMING AND START DOING

Too many entrepreneurs get caught up in the
big dreams of how they will one day be rich
and how their life will be amazing…

…but they never end up doing anything.

They buy courses, read all they can, jot
down little notes and ideas in a notebook,
but nothing ever actually gets created.

A web site doesn’t get made. Advertising
isn’t run. Markets aren’t tested. Nothing.

If you want to make a lot of money the only
way that happens is getting stuff done. Period.

3. DON’T LET LEARNING DELAY ACTIVITY

Most people that have studied Internet Marketing
much already have the basic skills that are
needed to build a million-dollar business.

That’s worth REPEATING…

Most people that have studied IM much ALREADY
HAVE the basic skills that are needed to build
a million-dollar business.

You can get stuck learning new stuff FOREVER.
There will always be new methods and techniques
that get discovered. The Internet changes on
a DAILY BASIS. This is a given.

Don’t get caught in the trap of “I’m going to start
building my business right after I go through this
next course…”

You can start building your business TODAY while
you are studying and learning new things that you
can easily apply TOMORROW.

Things will NEVER perfectly align for you and
your business. There’s no such thing. So don’t
wait. Get started NOW and take action. Get some
stuff going and go from there.

4. MULTIPLE IDEAS CAN BE THE KISS OF DEATH

It’s okay to work on multiple projects and ideas.
It’s almost impossible to stop entrepreneurs
from having tons of new ideas at the same time.

BUT…

No new money comes in the door until you get
ONE project launched and making money.

Something has to be launched FIRST.

5. MAKE JUST ONE DOLLAR FIRST

No one has ever made a million dollars in sales
without generating $1 first.

ALL successful businesses start with that first
sale and then grow from there.

It doesn’t matter what your income goals are.
The faster you make your first dollar, the faster
you will reach your goals. PERIOD.

6. DO THE IMMEDIATE CASH PROJECT FIRST

What should you work on next? Whatever will
bring in cash the fastest for your business — and
of course, I mean that in a moral/legal/ethical way.

If you analyze all the great ideas you are probably
sitting on, I bet you can realistically prioritize them
in the order of which ones would actually make
money come in the fastest (if it succeeds.)

THAT is the project you need to focus on.

Cash is the lifeblood of your business (and your life.)

Save some of those “big” ideas for the future. Focus
on the ones that stand the best chance of getting
new money to come in right away. Once you have
some stable ongoing cash flow in your business, then
you can take a chance on that project that may take
longer to pay off.

7. EMAIL MARKETING KICKS THE CRAP OUT OF
EVERYTHING ELSE

When it comes to growing a business online, nothing
generates long-term cash flow like an email list of
engaged subscribers & customers.

Email marketing is the best way to generate traffic.
It’s the best way to ‘recycle’ the same visitors again
and again to any of your projects. It’s also the best
way to convert prospects into buyers.

RSS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, BLAH BLAH BLAH

Yes, those methods can generate leads. Yes, those
methods can generate some sales. But time and time
again little old email marketing kicks their butts — by
a long shot.

So make building a list, and a solid relationship with
it, a top priority in your business.

8. RUN A LEAN OVERHEAD MACHINE

I can’t stress this one enough.

When you start growing a successful business
it’s really easy for your overhead to get out of hand.
It’s easy to start hiring a bunch of people and
committing to a bunch of expenses.

Take it from me, when you have months where
your fixed expenses (doesn’t include advertising, etc.)
are well over $100,000/MONTH (and growing) it can put
you in a tough position to make healthy profits.

I used to have fixed overhead that high but never again.
I realized there were smarter ways to do things.

What you need to realize is that REVENUE doesn’t
mean jack squat. It’s your profit (income) that
matters.

So while running a $10,000,000/year business (sales)
is impressive, I know people running a $1,000,000/year
business that nets MORE than the person that owns
the $10MM/year business.

It all comes down to your expenses.

Sometimes it certainly DOES take heavy expenses
in order to make a lot of money. But that’s not my point…

My point is, your overhead can really get away
from you. If your sales experience some dips,
and it’s almost guaranteed they will at some point,
then you can LOSE YOUR BUTT very quickly.

So add to your overhead as a last resort.

9. MAKE ACCOUNTING A PRIORITY

This is a big mistake that most entrepreneurs
make — and I’ve been guilty of it as well.

Keeping the books and doing accounting work
is the LAST thing that most entrepreneurs want
to mess with. We have more fun by coming up
with new ideas and trying to make them grow –
not spending hours of our time inputting receipts
and figures into QuickBooks.

If you don’t like accounting, immediately pay
someone a few bucks to handle it for you. Just
make sure your accounting is always up to date.
It’s very important.

As an extension of this, make paying your taxes
a priority — even if you pay them in advance.

I have paid a small fortune in tax penalties because
of being lazy and filing late. And it’s too easy to
let one delay turn into another and for the problem
to get worse. So make it a priority.

Don’t “rob Peter to pay Paul.” This is a trap
most entrepreneurs fall into — again,
I’ve been guilty of it in the past myself.

It’s easy to start making a bunch of money
and think “I’ll just use this money to make
more money instead of paying my taxes
on it now and I’ll just pay the taxes later
after I’ve made even more money.”

Or the same thinking is applied towards
delaying payments to a vendor, or some other
expense that needs to get paid.

This is probably the #1 mistake entrepreneurs
make that can create problems and a lot of
wasted money in paying penalties and interest.
So make sure your accounting is taken care
of and your taxes get paid on-time for you.

10. DON’T LEASE OFFICE SPACE

(If possible.)

As tempting as this might become if your
business starts to grow, avoid it at all costs.

If you’re like me, what will happen is that you
will eventually stop going to the office and just
work from home where you always were
more comfortable anyway. And/or you will
end up realizing you really didn’t need it.

Having an “office” is not required to have
a successful business. We live in a
Digital World now and it’s just not important
anymore.

Even if your business grows and you need
employees, you still don’t necessarily need
an office. There are people out there running
$20MM+/year businesses with no office; the
employees all just work virtually. This is
becoming more and more common.

* There certainly are exceptions to this. My
team in the Philippines works out of an office
I leased. But they are collaborating on software
projects and NEED to work in the same location.
And, of course, it’s also very inexpensive.

Most office leases are thousands of dollars
per month and usually don’t turn out to be
a good use of cash.

11. ALMOST EVERYTHING TAKES LONGER

When creating new projects, or having some software
made for you, or having an ebook ghostwritten, or
anything else, know that things almost always
take more time than originally expected.

This is the #1 reason why you need to act TODAY
to start putting things in motion to grow your
business. The longer you wait, the more into
the future you push your potential of getting
money to come in the door.

12. THE MONEY IS IN THE MARKETING

Don’t get caught up in trying to make Web pages and learn
HTML, or studying how to create javascript, or learning to
master Linux so you can administer your own server, or
how to use Photoshop to create little logos, etc.

You can certainly do that stuff if you want, but know that
it will most likely just be a HOBBY.

It’s no surprise that some of the most successful entrepreneurs
I know are also some of the LEAST TECHNICAL people I know.
The main thing they do right is to simply pay others to do all
the “nuts & bolts” stuff that makes online business work.

It allows them to spend all their time on the marketing — which
is where the money comes from.

*** BONUS LESSON ***

* See how I’m over-delivering as mentioned in the first lesson?

SPENDING TIME ONLINE ISN’T NECESSARILY WORKING
ON YOUR BUSINESS

Just because you spend hours a day online doesn’t mean
you’re working on your business.

You can do ‘research’ forever and never make a cent.

You need to be spending most of your time on:

- Generating Traffic
- Communicating With Your Customers (i.e. blog, list, etc.)
- Creating Content

Don’t fall into the trap of reading blogs & forums, chatting
on Facebook or Twitter, checking stats, reading news,
etc. for hours upon hours.

Just know that almost all of that stuff (with rare exception)
is LOSING YOU MONEY more than making you money.

—

I hope you enjoyed these mini-lessons. Hopefully, you
can apply them to your business and be a lot more
successful!

Yours For Online Profits,

John Reese

Download The Slides From The Presentation Below

Download The Presentation Video (Right Click and “Save Link As”)

In this “gangster” video I go over, landing pages, Facebook traffic, CPV traffic, emotional benefits, mindset and so much more.

Most people think of the word “gangster” as a negative word, but it’s actually derived from a VERY positive word. (SERIOUSLY!)

The reason why I am giving this video to you on my blog is because I realized something I haven’t done in a long time was GIVE BACK to my blog readers and list subscribers.

I mentioned in this video that one of the ways to gangsterism (is that even a word?) is to be grateful and to give back.

So here I am, giving this HOUR LONG, content packed video to YOU – without requiring you to optin or trying to sell you anything.

Just my way of saying, THANKS.

After you’re done watching, let me know what you think by leaving a comment! (and hitting the “like” button!)

YOU GUYS ROCK!

Anyway, I’ve only heard about Jon through random people saying that he works 18 hours a week, AT THE MOST. I really didn’t believe this could be done, but damn, this guy blew my mind with his knowledge.

So it all started when Jay Deiboldt approached me about 3 weeks before the seminar and asked if Jon Jonas could speak on stage with him. Jay said this guy Jon knows outsourcing like nobody else and would go perfect with his presentation.

I said, ya sure go ahead, as long as he don’t gotta pitch.

So then I meet Jon Jonas in Diego the day the event started. I never met this guy before. This guy’s from Utah, and looks like a nerd. Really! haha.. I could have swore he was some nerd who just does tech stuff. The glasses, the pink shirts, the golf hats, khaki’s, the whole 9. Now I’m not crackin’ on this guy, it’s just not my style…LOL… But, then he gave his presentation and I was pretty much floored. This guy Jon Jonas knew his shit about outsourcing. Pure genius when it comes to outsourcing. He’s a SMART dude and cool to chill with. (outside of his gear..haha..ok sorry jonas..had to do that)

He took it upon himself to outsource EVERYTHING he does. No, not just customer service.

I mean:
1) Creating campaigns
2) Optimizing campaigns
3) Setting up landing pages
4) Making banners and PPC text ads
5) Split test everything
6) Customer service
7) Running media buys
8 ) Making sure networks are paying
9) Creating products
10) Managing the products
11) Research on ANYTHING
12) Link building
13) Article writing and posting
14) Programming anything
15) Reporting
16) The list just goes on and on

I mean, isn’t the above most of our businesses?

Now when he told me he outsourced this stuff, I didn’t know what to say. He has a staff in the Philippines that he pays at the most $450 per person per MONTH. I was just speechless, but at the same time VERY intrigued. He outsourced things that I wouldn’t trust ANYONE with. But he put full trust in them!

He teaches them how to do certain tasks and sets up Visio diagrams and Camtasia videos for them. In fact, one of his own staff members MADE a Visio diagram for HIM to review on what the company should do! WTF!!!!!!!!

He trains them on exactly what they need to know and they run with it.

This genius nerd guy sits back now and plays golf EVERYDAY and has all the free time to do whatever he wants. Now to teach someone to do anything you want and trusting them speaks of major trust, but his explanation is that paying them $450 a month is actually A LOT in the Philippines. So they are happy to do what you want so they can grow with your business.

This is something our company never did. We outsource stuff like landing pages, graphics, small programming tasks and other stuff. But never campaigns, optimization, testing, etc. I’ve NEVER had luck with outsourcing full time jobs. I have used India before (that really never worked), but never really used his ways of finding people in the Philippines. Jonas has his own staffing agency too which is bad ass (kinda like bestjobs.ph).

But the more we started thinking about it, we were like why not? That’s the work that nobody really wants to do, right?

So we looked into his program and I have to say, that it just kicks ass. No wonder this guy is chillin’. He literally REPLACED himself. Completely.

He took himself out of the everyday business stuff and now he focuses 100% on the creative side of the business. Which is what EVERYONE needs to be doing!

Here’s why:

It reminds me of a GREAT book I read about two months ago – A Whole New Mind. This really couldn’t have came at a better time. I read this book and it talked about outsourcing everyday tasks to “knowledge workers”, people who just do tasks that are very straight forward and just require an analytical mind (left sided thinkers). And the right brainers were the one’s who are the creative side of the business. Those are the people who MAKE a huge difference in the world because it is the CREATIVE side of them coming out which is what REALLY sells. Then a week later Jonas tells me about this whole outsourcing and how easy it can really be.

Immediately we started figuring out where we need people like this. So we started looking to hire some dudes from the east side of the world (or the west, depending where you live!) and we found some qualified people pretty quickly. They are gonna start working for us in a week. Just hired 2 people, and looking for a third. I mean for $1,500 a month at the most, we can get 3 to 4 people!

Now we have our staff creating videos on daily tasks that take up time that they don’t want to do, and give it to them. Duh?!

These guys are dedicated employees who will take our biz to the next level.

So anyway, Jon Jonas’s “Replace Myself” is just an ridiculously easy way to find people and hire cheap people who are experienced. He already has a DB of resumes to look at! Don’t think it could get any easier than that.

Moral of the story – STOP doing shit you don’t need to. BE A RIGHT BRAINER!

These were derived via extensive quantitative research with thousands of consumers, a panel of psychologists, and marketing consultants who specialized in assessing emotional purchase motivation. Taken together, the list is probably the best representation of the full spectrum of human needs which can be met by purchasing a given product or service.

1. Feeling Loved: Feeling Loved implies that a person has a satisfactory number of significant attachments in his or her life from whom (s)he receives an adequate amount of emotional nourishment on a daily basis

2. Feeling Attractive: Having a strong level of comfort with one’s physical being. Knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence. (Note: ‘Feeling Sexy’ … the specific ability to attract a desired sexual partner, is a special kind of attractiveness, which is rated separately)

3. Sense of Adventure: Interested in exciting and remarkable experiences, sometimes involving unknown danger and risk.
Rising to the challenge, exploring new territory, feeling excited about new leanings, new experiences, etc.

4. Feeling Financially Secure: Believing one has adequate money to take care of the majority of their BASIC needs and desires in the present and in the future. Feeling Financially Secure is different than Feeling Affluent or Wealthy – which means one believes they have enough money to buy WHATEVER they desire (more than basic needs and wishes) and has more money than one could reasonably spend.

5. Sense of Accomplishment: Seeing progressive evidence in one’s life that particular worthwhile goals are being sought after and achieved.

6. Feeling Caring or Nurturing: Interested in providing emotional, physical, financial, or spiritual support to others, warmly enjoying the process of doing so.

7. Being Altruistic: Able to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of society. To forgo one’s own gratification in favor of the interest of others whose well-being will not enhance one’s own.

8. Being Assertive: Able to stand up for and strive to obtain one’s own interests, especially given the presence of difficult people who stand in the way.

9. Feeling Brave or Courageous: Being willing to face risk and danger for the purpose of obtaining a positive benefit (when it is judged to be beneficial and wise to take the risk). (Being willing to face risk and danger without judgment is ‘foolhardiness’).

10. Feeling Creative: Interested in and able to UNIQUELY express oneself in words, behavior, or the arts.

11. Excitement or Liveliness: Having a strong sense of being alive, having the energy and interest to partake of all life has to offer.

12. Feeling Fair, Just, or Ethical: Marked by impartiality and honesty. Able to make judgments free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism. Interested in upholding these principles.

13. Feeling Luxurious or Pampered: The belief that one has enough resources at hand to enable splurging on things that are understood to be unnecessary DESIRES as opposed to essential NEEDS.

14. Feeling Healthy: Having confidence in one’s physical well being, strength, and ability to avoid disease and illness.

15. Feeling Athletic: Having confidence in one’s physical strength, stamina, flexibility, and ability to meet various physical challenges. (Especially sports, but also non-competitive physical challenges)

16. Feeling Flexible or Adaptable: Able to change one’s perspective and use one’s strengths according to the demands of a wide variety of situations.

17. Feeling Free: Being able to say what one wants to say, think what one wants to think, go where one wants to go, be with people one wants to be with, and behave how one wants to behave. Generally, being able to do as one pleases!

18. Being a Good Friend: Believing oneself to be attached to and supportive of a cared for other. Providing companionship and enjoying their company.

19. Enjoying Humor: Seeking to laugh regularly. Enjoying the ludicrous or absurd. Liking to make others laugh.

20. Feels like a Good Teacher: Able to successfully impart useful knowledge or abilities to others.

21. Being In Control: Able to influence one’s self and surroundings as desired. Being able to predict, manage, and successfully react to the occurrence of stressful events. Having the ability to decide when, how, and where one will engage in particular verbal or behavioral expressions.

22. Feeling Independent: Able to care for oneself, not requiring others to meet one’s needs.

23. Being Insightful: Able to make useful new connections. Seeing the broader picture, able to understand the way things work in new ways.

24. Having Integrity: Walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Knowing one’s behaviors are consistent with one’s principles. Able to put off or deny one’s own gratification at the moment in favor of a cherished principle. Being willing to hold oneself accountable for one’s actions.

25. Feeling Wise or Intelligent: Being mentally keen or quick. Knowing that one has a high degree of mental capacity which has been used to accumulate the kinds of knowledge and experience which makes one particularly well suited to meet the challenges of life.

26. Taking a Leadership Role: Serving as a leader for others, helping guide others towards worthwhile goals and being directly responsible for their supervision and performance.

27. Peaceful – Relaxed – Calm: Feeling peaceful, relaxed or calm. Having peace of mind, body, and spirit.

28. Having a Sense of Power: Able to wield influence over one’s own life and over others. Occupying a position of importance in life.

29. Being Productive: Believing oneself to be effective in consistently contributing some valuable work product to one’s own life, family, or society.

30. Feeling Respected: Being acknowledged and recognized for one’s value or contributions to one’s loved ones, family or society.

31. Feeling Spiritual: Feeling an established connection with a higher power of one’s own definition (one that transcends the mortal world). Can be, but is not necessarily, the higher power defined in one’s chosen religion.

32. Feeling Sexy: The specific ability to arouse the desire to mate in a potential partner of the desired gender. (Feeling Sexy is a specific type of the more general ‘Feeling Attractive’: which is knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence).

33. Feeling Romantic: Enjoying the thoughts, feelings and perceptions associated with the desire to be ONE with another human being.

34. Feeling Safe: Reasonably knowing no harm will come to oneself. Able to rest assured in life or in a relationship.

35. Sense of Belonging: Knowing on a gut level that one is part of a family, group of friends, or society where one ‘fits in’ due to similar values, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies.

36. Feeling Trustworthy: Will not harm others in favor of one’s own gratification if given the opportunity. Reliable, dependable, able to be counted on.

37. Feeling Unique: Feeling unique implies that one is aware of being an individual distinct from all others.

These emotional labels and single paragraph descriptions were derived from an extensive quantitative research with thousands of consumers, a panel of psychologists, and marketing consultants who specialized in assessing emotional purchase motivation. Together, the list is probably the best portrayal of the full spectrum of human needs which can be met by purchasing a given product or service. When you understand the logical connection between one of the above features and the way that the feature exclusively supports the prospect’s self esteem, your attempts to entwine emotion into your marketing ads are much more realistic and effective and do NOT require hype or “emotional attitude.”