Cuarta entrega: 4 de 5 - Mike Dillard

Part 4: How To Build REAL Wealth And Passive Income... One of the biggest challenges you’ll face as an entrepreneur, is learning how to responsibly use the money your business starts to make. Going from $5,000/Mo in income, to $50K/Mo is amazing, but it will require you to make some significant mental adjustments, or you could quickly find yourself a slave to an expensive new lifestyle. Making money and creating financial freedom are two completely different things.  I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way over the course of my career, so today I want to prevent you from making the same mistake, and answer an incredibly important question you need to ask yourself…  “What are you going to do with the money your business makes?” Should you buy a fancy new car? An expensive house? Diamonds or a new watch? Or should you invest it, and of so, in what? If you want to build real wealth and actual financial independence, the smart answer is to invest that money, and to invest it in assets that produce real passive income. So today I’m going to walk you through an investment that I’ve personally made, but before I do that, I want to point out why this strategy is so important to your financial security and prosperity by comparing it to what most other people do. If you look at the typical American family or retirement strategy, it sounds something like this… You work your tail off for 40 years, putting money into a savings account or a mutual fund or an IRA or 401(k).  And you do this with one objective in mind... To build a big enough nest egg to sustain you for the rest of your life once you retire, around the age of 60 or 65. Basically you have 40 years to build up this nice, big, shiny pile of cash that you now have to live off of, which means it slowly declines every single month.  When that retirement day comes, what you have, is what you have, and now you have to guess how much longer you’re going to live and how much money you’re going to need to buy food and pay for health insurance, car insurance, and everything else that you’re going to need to sustain yourself. In order to pay your monthly expenses, you must consume the money that you’ve accumulated, which means every single month you get more poor. Think about that… Every single month, your level of poverty and financial insecurity gets worse. So what would happen to your business if you pursued it with the same strategy? If you stopped selling products and producing income today, but your business expenses continued? You’d go bankrupt. So the official retirement plan for 99% of American’s is literally, insolvency. Do you see how ridiculous and backwards that is? Obviously, we’re going to say, “screw that” and we’re going to do the exact opposite. Our goal is build a business that produces cash, and then use that cash to invest in assets that produce more cash on a passive basis every single month. So let me walk you through a real world example of how I’ve done that so you can do the same if you’d like... First and foremost, we need to find an asset to invest in that does two things… First, it has to produce cash flow, and second it has to reduce taxes which is going to become a very important part of our strategy. That basically leaves us with three options... Rental real estate, such as a multi-family property, or commercial office space. You have oil and gas investments which have cash flow components and tax advantages. And then you have small businesses like car washes, billboards, laundromats, etc. The next thing that we’re going to do is make sure that finding and managing these investments takes as little of our time as possible. Why? Because the single biggest return on investment you can make as an entrepreneur is your own company. As an example, if you take the $3.2 million dollars in revenue my last company made in its very first week of business, and you divided that revenue by the start up costs that I incurred to create and start that company, there’s no way another investment could even come close to that kind of return.     My startup costs to build the website and produce the first set of video lessons was about $10,000 dollars, which means my ROI within the first 7 days of launching that company, was 32,000%. You can’t get a return like that anywhere else in that short of a time period, outside of starting your own company, so we want to make sure that that’s where our time continues to stay focused. One of Warren Buffett’s most famous quotes is, “Invest in what you know”. Well as an entrepreneur, I’m not a master when it comes to real estate or oil and gas, or the stock market, but I am a master when it comes to building businesses that produce cash flow. That’s why I need to stay focused on my business 100% of the time and why you need to do the same. If you don’t have the time or the desire to learn and master investment strategies like real estate, what do you do? Well, it’s very simple... You acquire a team of people who have. I found the best real estate investors that I could find several years ago and I invested my money with them. So in reality, I’m not investing in an apartment complex, I’m investing in people, their track record, and their level of expertise because they are the ones that are going to go out and invest my money. So, the two best firms that I found when it comes to this, and that I’ve done business with is Thrive here in Austin, run by my friends JP and Adrian. And M.C. Companies out of Scottsdale, which is run by my good friend Ken McElroy, who many of you will recognize from his work with Robert Kiyosaki and the Rich Dad Team. Here’s a picture of the very first apartment that I ever invested in..     This was with JP and Adrian and it’s called Hidden Oaks, down in San Antonio Texas. Now there are basically two requirements that you have to meet in order to invest in a firm like JP’s or Ken’s... The first is that you have to be an accredited investor. To be an accredited investor, you need to have a net worth of at least one million dollars, (which does not include the value of your primary residence), or you have to have an income of at least 200,000 dollars per year for the last two years. If you meet either one of these qualifications, you’re considered accredited. The second qualification that you’ll need is the ability to meet their minimum investment requirement for a share in a deal which is typically $100,000 dollars. What if you don’t have a $100,000? What if you’re not accredited yet? That simply means that you’re in a position right now where you need to spend a 100% of your time and energy on growing your business and building your income until you reach that point. (And I can definitely help you do that). Nonetheless, this information is extremely important to you right now even if you don’t have the money, because it’s going to help you create the right kind of goal down the road. So, how did the project go? How did that investment work out? Very well… In fact, I ended up writing them a check for a share in the complex for a $100,000, and overthe next two years I made $32,000 in profit. That’s obviously a 32% return, or as I like to think of it, an extra $16,000 per year in passive income. And beyond a few hours to review the deal and sign the papers, I didn’t have to spend a single minute of my time making that money. This allowed me to stay 100% focused on my number one investment, which is once again, my business. So let’s say that you’re really happy with these results, and you re-invest that $132K back into another apartment complex. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll keep the same ROI of 16% per year. So at the end of Year 1, you’re going to have $153,120 dollars. By the end of year 5, you’ll have $277,245. By year 10, you’ll have $582,309. By year 20, that $132,000 has turned into $2,568,820. Your ROI, (or passive income) in year 21 would be $411,000+ per year. Now you’re making money and living a fantastic lifestyle, instead of spending money and getting increasingly stressed with every check that you write. This kind of information, combined with contacts like JP and Adrian, is THE difference between achieving a life of true financial freedom, and just making more money that gets spent on toys and liabilities. Tomorrow we'll dive into Part 5, so stay tuned! - Mike Dillard

Tercera entrega: 3 de 5 - Mike Dillard

Part 3: The Transparent Truth, (with screenshots), About Leads And Revenue Generation...

Well today we get to dive into the “good stuff”... Traffic, leads, and revenue.  In fact, I’m going to show you how to make over $288,000 in profit per month, by making one single post on Facebook. But before we dive into that, I have a quick message for the 150+ readers who sent in submissions for the copywriting position I'm currently hiring for...  Many of you are sending multiple emails to me asking when you can expect a response. I'm going through all 150+ submissions personally. I'll contact the top 10 finalists via email sometime next week. If you do not get a response from me, it means that your submission did not make the cut. Alright, back to today's training session... The unfortunate reality is that millions of people start new businesses every year, and yet most of them do so without the faintest idea of how to actually market and sell their products or services.  As I’m fond of saying, there’s the amateur way to market, and the professional way... Amateurs take blind actions hoping something will stick… They post on social media all day, they write blog posts, articles, and post videos, literally keeping their fingers crossed that someone will eventually buy their stuff. They think that marketing and selling products online is either luck, or magic. On the other hand, if you approach the marketing process like a professional, amazing things are possible. In fact, let's talk about lead generation, or building an email list specifically... As you can see here, my business routinely produces over 1,300 email subscribers every single day, or over 40,000 per month, and makes over $400,000/Mo in sales...   So here’s how that’s done… The very first step that’s required to get sell your product, is ATTENTION. You can’t make a sale if people don’t know that you exist, so we need to get a lot of attention, and we need to get it from the right groups of people.  (Getting the attention of thousands of vegetarians won’t do you any good if you’re selling steaks). And if your goal is to build a sustainable, 7-figure+ business, we need to get the attention of thousands of people per day at a minimum. There’s two ways to do that… 1: You can become the “dancing bear” and essentially host your own social media show as you document and post your life 60 seconds at a time, 10 times per day on Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, or Facebook. While this can be incredibly effective at getting attention and building rapport with people, it’s a horrible way to actually build a company. Why? First, it’s a treadmill you can never get off of. The moment you stop posting, your influence starts fading, so dance bear, dance, and don’t ever stop… And second, you have no control over who sees your posts. Over the past few years, every single platform has introduced algorithms that control how many of your followers actually see your posts. And the numbers aren’t good. On average, only 1 in 10 people will even see the post you just made. For example, my Facebook Fan Page has 75,000 followers, and yet only a tiny fraction of them will see my posts unless I pay Facebook $250 - $500 to “Boost” each and every post I want seen. These aren’t strangers… The are my fans who expect to hear from me, and yet I have zero control over that unless I pay up. The same goes for Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. 2: The second way to get the attention of 1,000’s of people per day, is to do what I do, (and what I’d suggest you do…) I buy it. Instead of getting people’s attention doing the dancing bear routine every day, I simply advertise on these platforms. For example… A few months ago I spent about 20 minutes making this short video ad. Since then it’s been viewed by over 1 million people. I recorded it once, and I’ve never hard to touch it again. Ads like these become your dancing bear, so you can stay focused on building your business. Now I know what you’re thinking… “Advertising sounds great Mike, but it costs money. What am I supposed to do if I’m broke?” Great question, and I have an answer… The solution to this problem is called a Self-Liquidating Offer, or an SLO for short. This is a low-cost entry level product, (traditionally under $100), that you can offer your prospects immediately after they click on your ad. For example, when I started selling online 10 years ago, I advertised my E-Book on attraction marketing for $39. The sales from this product were designed to do one thing… Immediately recoup 100%+ of my ad costs. Once you do that, you’ve won. Your customers have just paid for 100% of your marketing costs, which means you can continue to advertise for free indefinitely, without spending money out of your pocket. So let’s say that you were going to do something similar… Each day you spend $100 dollars on Facebook ads and in return, you acquire 20 new email list subscribers. When those 20 subscribers join your list, they’re offered to chance to buy your e-book for $40. Out of every 20 subscribers, 3 of them buy your book. $40 x 3 = $120 in revenue. Congratulations… You’re now generating leads and sales without spending a dime out of your pocket. You’ve spent $100, and for that $100 you’ve gotten 20 new list subscribers, 3 new customers, and have generated $120 in revenue. So not only are your leads free at this point, but you’ve got an extra $20 in your pocket at the end of the day. Now the rules have the game have changed completely, because when you spend money, you’re making money. So what if you started spending $1,000 per day on advertising instead of $100? Well you’d have 200 new list subscribers, 30 new customers, and $1,200 in revenue, giving you $200 in profit. If we add those numbers up for each month, that’s 6,000 new list readers per month, 900 new customers, and $6,000 in profit. This is how professionals build massive lists within months instead of years. This is how you can make money, without having to use your money, because your customers are essentially funding the campaign. Does it work? You tell me… Here are my sales during a 90 day quarter from this past year… Yep, just over $1.23 million in 90 days. But how much did I actually spend on advertising to generate that revenue? I’ll show you… Here’s a screenshot from my FB ad account:   As you can see here, I spent $375,950 during the exact same 90 day period, which means I walked away with a net-profit of $864,030. That’s an average profit of $9,600 per DAY, or $288,010 per MONTH. So this is how real business owners get attention and traffic at scale, and then turn that attention into revenue. Until you master this process, you’ll be digging through the social media ditches begging for likes and views. But if you start to treat your business like a business, and start to take your advertising seriously, then the sky’s the limit… And by the way, thank you all for the kind words and feedback about this week's training series... Stay tuned tomorrow, for Part 4... - Mike Dillard

Segunda entrega: 2 de 5 - Mike Dillard

Part 2 of 5: How To Become The Hunted, Instead of The Hunter...

As a shy, introverted young man in my early 20’s, I was faced with a significant dilemma…  There was nothing more that I wanted in the world than to own my own business, and yet there was nothing that I wanted to do less, than sell a product or service.  Unfortunately, cash flow is the lifeblood of any business and cash flow comes from selling.  I would have to find a solution, or relegate myself to a life of corporate mediocrity… (And there was no way in hell that was going to happen). Necessity is the mother of all invention, and as I pondered my predicament, something occurred to me… The most successful entrepreneurs I knew… The guys and girls that I looked up to, studied, and wanted to learn from… Didn’t have to chase after a sale. They weren’t picking up the phone and cold-calling prospects. They weren’t collecting business cards, or “hustling” for a sale… Their customers were pursuing them.  They were the one’s speaking from stage and taking pictures with the audience afterward.  They were the one’s being interviewed on podcasts, or on the cover of industry magazines.  If anything, they were having to turn away potential clients and customers because they were so busy.  And that led me to ask a question that would change my life forever… “How can I become the hunted, instead of the hunter?” How can I get customers to call me, instead of the other way around? Soon enough, I’d found my answer, and from a very unexpected source… The dating world.  One of my mentor’s Eben had spent the past 10 years studying human relationship dynamics, and the root causes of “attraction” between people. And what we both discovered, is that the exact same social dynamics that creates a romantic attraction between two people, can create a social attraction between you and your potential business prospects.  Have you ever asked yourself… What makes a person attractive to others? Why do groupies flock irrationally to celebrities and rock stars? Why do people become “famous”? Why do some women find certain men completely irresistible even if they’re dead, broke, and usually jerks? Why can you throw 10 complete strangers in a group together and, within minutes, a leader will emerge that the others will follow? And, most of all, how do you tap into this phenomenon and become pursued yourself? Well the answer lies in basic human psychology, so that’s where we need to start. What I’m about to share with you is at the core of human-to-human attraction. The first thing you need to understand is that attraction is not a choice. It’s a biological/instinctual trigger that evolved millions of years ago to help keep you alive, which is usually why it’s never consciously understood or perceived by people until they actually start to study it. Here’s a very basic historical illustration… By nature, people thrive and live in social groups. We cannot survive on our own, so we formed tribes and families. Members of that group follow a leader until they gain enough experience and confidence to challenge for leadership themselves or start their own group. This is a survival instinct that has been ingrained in us. The leader (usually referred to as the Alpha) is typically the strongest and most dominant individual in the group or family, both physically and mentally. One of his primary responsibilities is to protect his group, and, in return for that protection, they follow him. That instinct is still present today, but the inherent value of a leader is now expressed through different abilities such as business savvy, sociability, monetary means, and education. Essentially, we are hardwired to find other people attractive or unattractive based on the level of value they have to offer, because we gain a portion of their power/value through association. Think of a celebrity and his or her entourage. The people in their group gain social status through their association with him or her, making them more attractive to others. They become “cooler” and more attractive to other people outside the group who want in. There are two important lessons here: 1. People have a subconscious attraction to others who convey leadership qualities and have a high level of personal value. 2. If you want to make it to the top of your industry, you must become a leader with value to offer others, and proactively convey those qualities in your marketing efforts. So where you YOU currently stand? Do you have real confidence? Are you an Alpha leader in your industry?  Here’s a simple, but very effective test you can take immediately to find out…  Next time you’re out in public and you make eye contact with an attractive person of the opposite sex, notice when you break eye contact with them. Did you look down and away first, or did they? If you looked away first, you likely have a Beta or Pre-Alpha state of mind. If you held the gaze until they looked away, you’re probably an Alpha. Then, ask yourself if you’re worried about what that person thought of you. Did you wonder what they were thinking? Were you concerned about being judged? If so, then you’re in a Beta or Pre-Alpha mindset. Well, here’s the interesting part: The category you’re in, (Alpha, Pre-Alpha, or Beta), is determined not by money, experience, the job you have, or anything else for that matter. It’s solely determined by your state of mind, which is not given or bestowed upon you by others.  Rather, your current category reflects your personal beliefs about yourself. You, and only you, decide which of these three categories you are in, and you can choose to change categories anytime you want… IF you have the courage to do so.  Society will either agree with you and comply, or will chastise you for being a “poser,” depending upon whether or not your actions are congruent with your beliefs. This is called your, “frame” or state of mind. You cannot fake belief. You cannot pretend or act.  You truly believe you are, or that you are not. You will likely feel like a “poser” when you start to adopt and accept a new belief system about yourself. You will likely get “caught” by an Alpha prospect who can sense that you’re not being genuine yet. But that’s the key word . . . yet. That’s what people talk about when they mention “fake it until you make it.”  Faking it does not mean lying; it simply means that you’re going to struggle a bit as you go through the process of moving from a follower to an up-and-coming leader, and eventually to a recognized leader. Challenging your current views about yourself and acting like a different person is a scary, yet wonderfully rewarding activity. So how do you become the hunted instead of the hunter? If you have genuine value to offer others, they will seek you out. In order to become more valuable, you must acquire useful knowledge and skills that few others have, and demonstrate the results you can produce with your skillset. Results create confidence, and confidence creates attraction. And when people come to you… When they seek you out, selling becomes effortless, and incredibly enjoyable. As for my story… I taught myself new skills in the form of copywriting and Google Adwords, and I started producing results. Soon enough, others in my industry were asking me for advice. I had become valuable.  I stopped trying to push my products or services onto others, and I started providing that value to them for free by sharing my knowledge online, which put me in a public position of leadership. And once I was in a position of leadership, I became the hunted, and people started buying my products. Attraction is a fascinating thing, and an absolute super power once you create it. Stay tuned... Tomorrow I'll teach you how to tons of traffic, and generate endless new leads, subscribers, and followers for free.  - Mike Dillard

Primera entrega - 1 de 5 - Mike Dillard

Durante 5 dias estare incluyendo en este blog, en 5 partes o entregas, algo que me impacto desde un comienzo y que creo puede ser de mucho beneficio para una o muchas personas, aqui esta la primera entrega, esto esta escrito por Mike Dillard (googlealo si no sabes quien es)....esta en ingles pero con el traductor de google puedes leerlo en español o alguien te lo puede traducir, ese alguien tambien se beneficiara de esta MUY VALIOSA informacion, comenzamos:

Once You Understand This, EverythingChanges... (Part 1 of 5)

Everyone wants an “easy button” when it comes to building a business… New entrepreneurs tend to think there’s a “trick” or “secret” to success, which is why I’m constantly asked… “How did you do it Mike? What’s the secret?” Heck, I’m pretty sure I even asked that same question years ago when I was getting my start… So here it is… I’ll give you the “secret”... It took me five years of failure after failure before this finally sank in, but once it did, everything changed… I went from waiting tables to 7-figures within 18 months. During those first five years, I thought success would come as a result of something outside myself such as a product, a marketing system, or an opportunity.  And then one of my mentors said something to me that I’ll never forget… He said, “Mike… If you want to make $50K/Mo, then you have to become someone who is capable of making $50K/Mo”. And that was my light-bulb moment… I finally gave into the fact that I needed to focus on becoming a more valuable person to lots of other people, instead of trying to cheat the system. So if you want the “secret” to success, here it is... The amount of money you make today is a direct reflection of something I call your "PVL", or "Personal Value Level". Human society uses a simple tool called "money" to quickly and easily communicate the relative value of all things, from an apple, to a gallon of gasoline, to the wage for a job. Through our free-market system, the world dictates how much money you make, according to three factors: 1: Competition - The number of people who are also capable of performing any particular job. 2: Education - The amount of specialized skills or education needed to perform the job. 3: Leverage - The number of people around the world which your work benefits. For example, there are two reasons why restaurant waiters, janitors, or retail workers make so little... As a waiter... There is an almost endless supply of workers who can fill your position. Waiting tables does not require rare, specialized skills or education. You're only serving a dozen people at most at any given time, which means you have very little leverage. So if you're in one of these positions, your PVL to the world is very low, which is why you'd be making very little money. On the other hand, brain surgeons make around a million dollars per year because... There are very few qualified individuals in the world that can perform the task, and the work requires extremely specialized knowledge and skills. Now the reason they make around a million per year, instead of $20 million, is because they're missing piece number three... Leverage. They can only work on one patient at a time. Now please don't take any of this personally or get offended if you feel like you have a low Personal Value Level right now. I'm simply stating a truth that I've learned through personal experience that most people would be too politically correct to talk about. But until you understand WHY some people make more than others, there's no way you can break free and choose a more lucrative path. Now let's compare these two examples to what I do at Self Made Man where I teach entrepreneurs the marketing and leadership lessons I’ve learned after building two 8-figure companies in two different industries... 1: Are there many people who have built two, 8-figure companies, and who are willing to share their knowledge? No, so my knowledge is scarce.  2: Does online marketing require specialized skills? Yes. These skills are not taught in school and can only be learned by those who proactively seek out this kind of training. 3: Does this business provide me with the ability to impact the masses? Yes.  If I were teaching people how to market online, one-on-one over the phone, or in person, I'd have zero leverage. Because I sell books and instructional online courses which can be mass-produced and distributed to an infinite number of people around the world, I have an infinite amount of leverage. So as you can see, my job waiting tables had a very low PVL to the world, where my job as a modern day educator using technology to reach the masses, has a very high Personal Value Level. One job pays $30,000 per year. The other job pays millions per year. So how can you increase YOUR PVL? The fastest way to reach the incredible levels of success you want to achieve is to increase your value to the world, and the fastest way to increase your value to the world is to acquire new skills. So I set out on a mission to acquire new skills, and one set in particular... Marketing and copywriting. Why did I choose these two skills? Because your business is marketing. He or she who markets and promotes best, wins. Read that again... "YOUR BUSINESS IS MARKETING". Want proof? I could dump two tons of the greatest new Super Vitamin 2000 on your driveway, but unless you knew how to market it to the right people, you wouldn't make a dime. The money is not in the product. It is in knowing how to market the product! This is the primary reason why so many investors, experts, and authors, who are infinitely smarter than I am, fail in business. So you have two options here... 1: You can acquire the skill of marketing yourself like I did. This is what I'd recommend because once you have this skill, you will NEVER experience a lack of money again for the rest of your life. 2: You can partner with someone who has already acquired this skill. My friends Jeff and Isabel are a perfect example of this kind of partnership... Isabel is a fitness expert who wrote a fantastic eBook on diet and nutrition, but she didn't know much about marketing. So she partnered with Jeff who is a master marketer, and pursues fitness as his hobby. They combined his skills in marketing with her skills on health and fitness, and built a massive 8-figure business within a year. The skill that changed my life was copywriting, which is basically "salesmanship in print." I realized that instead of pitching my product or business to one person at a time over the phone, I could write a sales letter, post it online or in an email, and have it seen by thousands of people per day. In other words, it gave me huge amounts of leverage, and I found this idea extremely appealing. Now copywriting is a skill and an art that must be learned, so I started buying every book I could on the subject. Some were free, some were less than $20 bucks at the local bookstore, another was $2,000, and the last copywriting book... (Yes, a single 300-page book I purchased about five years ago) was $5,000 per copy. Back in 2004 I was still broke so I started small and studied the skill of copywriting every day for about six months. I learned how to write persuasive ads and “capture pages” that would allow me to build a list of people online who were interested enough in what I was selling to give me their email address. For the first time in my life, I had acquired a truly valuable skill... the skill of copywriting. I spent a good 1-2 years devouring everything I could find on the subject. I used every spare dollar I had to buy every book and course I could afford. I'd sit in my room for hours every night writing out successful sales letters by hand in order to learn the psychology and the rhythm of a story. I put a level of effort into mastering a skill that 99.99% of people in the world never will, and it became my super power.  As a result, my value to the world went through the roof because I could now sell my products, or other people’s products effectively online, and at scale. Within 18 months, I made my first 7-figures.  So that’s the secret... The fastest way to reach the incredible levels of success you want to achieve is to increase your value to the world, and the fastest way to increase your value to the world is to acquire new skills. Stay tuned… Tomorrow I’m going to teach you how to become the hunted instead of the hunter, so you can attract customers to you instead of chasing after them...  - Mike Dillard PD.- Aqui mismo en este blog estaran apareciendo las otras 4 entregas en los proximos cuatro dias hasta completar las 5 entradas.

Frase del dia: Sabado 17 de Junio, 2017

Yo siempre supe cual era el camino correcto. Sin excepcion, lo sabia. Pero nunca lo tome. Sabes porque ? Era demasiado dificil.