A 5 Step Internet Marketing Plan That’s Affordable and Effective
Are you planning for explosive sales this year through an effective, organized Internet marketing campaign or are you maintaining your status quo and hoping for the best?
A planned, organized Internet marketing campaign with rotation through a variety of targeted sites, directories and venues is not hard to coordinate, does not need to cost a great deal of money and can generate traffic and sales faster than search engine submissions alone. It takes a bit of research and a solid knowledge of your target customer, but you can plan and implement a simple marketing campaign in the space of a dedicated day.
A Five Step Marketing Plan follows, created by in the trenches experience with Internet marketing for small business. By doing each of the actions, you'll end up with an effective holiday marketing campaign, creating a marketing plan that can be implemented immediately and begin reaping you sales successes.
Internet Marketing Plan Step 1 - Defining Your Customer
Defining your customer is as important as defining your products or naming your business.
If you have not yet done a marketing plan within your business plan, then you need to do this exercise. If you already have this in your business plan, you can skip ahead to Step 2.
Action:
Answer these questions as honestly as you can. In other words, don't project your expectations or hopes on them. What is your perfect, solid customer really like?
Is my perfect customer male or female?
Does my perfect customer work out of the home or in the home?
What is the job profile of my perfect customer - an executive, manager, worker, entrepreneur, stay-at-home parent, etc.
What is the net household income of my perfect customer?
What level of education does my perfect customer have?
Does my perfect customer have room in her spending budget for my product/service on a one time, occasional or constant basis?
How do my perfect customers use my product/service - do they buy it for themselves or as a gift?
Does my perfect customer spend a lot, some or minimal time on the Internet?
Where does my perfect customer look for my product/service? Both online and in physical locations?
Once you have this written out, you should have a good picture of where to start looking to place your message and how to write your message copy.
Internet Marketing Plan Step 2 - Choosing Your Targets
Now, where are you going to post your ads? A coordinated effort across several sites and venues commonly frequented by your customers is the most effective marketing campaign. If you are seen in several places your visibility and retained message is much stronger. Complementary sites that you can help cross-promote to your visitors, who will then see you there too, will provide excellent reinforcement of your message. Holiday specific sites that are well promoted are excellent areas to consider.
When considering a site or newsletter for your ad, look at factors such as traffic, search engine placement, external linking (how many places link to it), quality of current ads and types of messages being presented in current ads. Are there many competitors of yours already or is the advertising of a complementary nature to your business? Are the ads completely unrelated to your business and to the intended traffic of the site? These are all clues to measure a best fit of your message to the traffic of the site.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is another consideration for your Internet marketing campaign but can be daunting for someone new to this form. If you're new to PPC, stick to places that allow you to set limits on daily expenditures. Google is a good example. This will also help you to experiment and determine the most effective keywords by paying close attention to the statistics of the PPC campaign.
Conversion rates are an important measuring tool. What you need to do is determine what exactly you want to measure for your marketing campaign. Is it sales orders? Newsletter subscribers? Downloads of your free e-book? A conversion rate is the number of click-throughs it takes to achieve your target measurement. Your page may have 1000 hits, 14 clicks and 1 sale in a day. Your conversion rate is 1:14 or 7.1%. In other words, 7.1% of the clicks are generating a sale during this period.
Close monitoring of your conversion rates will quickly tell you what is working and what is not. Don't hesitate to change, tweak or modify your ads if needed. This is a process in constant motion until you find the best fit. Remember too, an ad may work superbly in one place but not in another.
Action:
Create a spreadsheet or document that you will enter in all the sites and venues that are a consideration in your Internet marketing campaign. You can find a free version of a spreadsheet file called the "Ad Planning Guide" to help you get started at Under the Awning and look under "Gifts & Specials".
Part 2: More of The 5 Step Internet Marketing Plan
Here are the last three steps for creating an effective Internet marketing campaign.
Internet Marketing Plan Step 3 - Budget
While some folks think this should be the first step, realistically you can better create the budget for your marketing plan when you have a good idea of the costs involved. That can only be done once you've figured out your targets. You probably already have a figure in mind of how much you can really spend, so go back to your marketing campaign sheet and total up the costs of all the ad spots you'd like to do. Chances are that total will exceed your overall spending limit.
Action:
Now go through that list and prioritize the ads in terms of where you think you'll get the most exposure and results that fit within your budget. Move the others into a holding list.
Marketing Plan
Extensive Marketing Plan Template Download it Now & Get the Job Done!
BizTree.com
Remember, as the ads start to pull in results you can always go back and expand your marketing campaign from that holding list.
If you are engaged in pay-per-click advertising, check in daily for the first week or so and monitor your results to ensure you are paying for results.
Don't forget to consider ad swaps and bartering as part of your payment and marketing budget. Many sites will swap newsletter ads or banner ads for similar placement on your site. It never hurts to ask.
Internet Marketing Plan Step 4 - Creating Your Ad Content
Internet marketing works best when you focus only on one or two things. You may have a variety of products but pick one or two items that are good sellers and have a solid appeal to your target market for your marketing campaign.
Next ask yourself, "What am I selling"? It's rarely the product or service. You are selling a benefit, something that registers at the emotional level. If you are selling fishing rods, for example, you're selling the excitement of successfully landing that monster in the lake. If you are selling cosmetics, you're selling beauty.
The most successful ads use words that relate to the customer. Use You and Yours and never put the focus on Me, Mine, Our, My or We. Create several emotional words associated with the product - fun, comforting, relaxing, stimulating, addictive - and use at least one of them in the ad.
Coupons are also an effective marketing tool. They can be easily tracked either manually or by an automated shopping cart system. Use different codes for different advertising locations and you'll quickly see which ones get the best attention.
Action:
Create a text ad for each item in your Internet marketing campaign, making sure to hit at least one to three prime keywords in the text. Text ads typically run 60 characters wide by 3, 5, 7 or 10 lines long.
Once you have your text ads, go through your banner inventory. Do you need to update them with a holiday specific message? Does every image have an appropriate ALT tag? Is the graphic properly optimized for size (under 20-50kb) and resolution (72dpi)?
Internet Marketing Plan Step 5 - Tracking & Monitoring Your Ads
Tracking and reacting to your campaign's successes are critical in maintaining an effective marketing campaign. From your website stats to PPC stats, there are many ways to determine what is working and what isn't. By paying attention you'll learn volumes about your ads and how to hone them for best results.
Tracking tricks include using specific coupon or sales codes for each ad placement, setting up separate entry pages on your site for each ad, and utilizing a service that helps track activity. For example, a mall directory like Under the Awning gives you performance stats on your product listings. There are advertising management services that help you to track ad performance, such as phpAdsNew, a free service that is relatively easy to implement and gives powerful ad tracking management and support.
Action:
On a daily basis for the first two weeks, review the results of your various ads. Write them up in your tracking sheet and look for any trends or patterns. Which ones are performing, where and why? If some aren't working, replace them with others that are or try another from your hold list. Once you settle into a pattern of review and ad management you'll know better how often you need to monitor your marketing campaigns.
Successful holiday Internet marketing campaigns are within the reach of any business, no matter what your budget. By following these basic marketing plan steps and committing to the follow-through, you can create a cost effective marketing campaign with a substantial return on investment.
marketing
Sabtu, 29 Maret 2008
How to Find and Master a Niche Market
Niche Marketing Can Be Your Ticket to Success
One common path to success for many small businesses is establishing themselves in a niche market. Because no matter how hard they try, no large retailer can be all things to all people, there are always going to be segments of the population whose needs for particular products and/or services are going unmet – leaving room for the small business to succeed by meeting those needs.
So how can your small business capitalize on these unmet needs and find and dominate your own niche market? Concentrate on these four basic concepts for niche marketing success:
1. A unique product or service.
For starters, if you’re going to master a niche market, you need to have a unique product or service. Ideally, you want to be the only one selling what you’re selling.
The trick to coming up with such a product or service is to “look on the fringes” for unmet needs.
For example, one East Coast entrepreneur’s business consists of creating hand-made medieval outfits. Large retailers and even shops specializing in costumes don’t supply these types of garments.
Don’t forget that processes can be products as well. They’re ubiquitous now, but someone once looked at an inkjet printer cartridge and came up with the idea and the process for refilling them. Need help getting started with this sort of idea spotting? 7 Sources of Business Ideas will spark your thinking.
2. A marketable product or service.
You can create all kinds of wonderful and wonky products and/or services but if no one wants what you’ve produced, what’s the point? Maybe there’s no one selling fried insects from a vending cart on your street, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The niche market of people who enjoy eating fried insects in this country is so small they wouldn’t even fill a phone booth.
There has to be enough of a demand for your product or service for your business to make a profit. How do you find out? By trial and error or by conducting extensive market research.
I, of course, recommend the latter. If you want to know if there’s a market for dog coats, bamboo flooring or counseling for the Blackberry addicted, the best way to find out is to get out there and ask. Making or buying a lot of something and throwing up a Web site to see if there’s any interest in what you’re doing is for people who don’t want to make money.
3. Choose a niche market that’s available.
Remember, niche markets tend to be smaller so there’s only room for so many players. When it comes to niche marketing, if you try to jump on a bandwagon, you’re only going to fall off the back. For instance, I mentioned the niche market for gay marriages in Best Business Opportunities 2005.
Before you started such a business yourself, you would certainly need to carefully research the competition and the size of the market to see if a new business in this niche would be viable. It might well be better to find a different niche in the marriage or gay markets and make that niche your own.
4. Market, market, market.
Marketing is perhaps more important for niche market businesses than for any other kind, because the niche market business is by definition, unknown and succeeds or fails on making the connection with exactly the right kind of customer/client. If I open a Starbucks, for example, people know right away what that business is about and what kinds of products to expect. And because Starbuck’s market is “anybody who likes coffee”, they really don’t have to worry much about advertising at this point in the game.
But if I open a business providing naturopathic treatments for pets, selling tub/shower conversions for the elderly or providing virtual assistant services to professional speakers, to give just three examples, people won’t know what to expect or even that my niche business exists at all unless I make the effort to reach and educate them. So market, market, market – and once you have a customer or client, make contact on a regular basis.
A unique product or service that will fulfill the unmet needs of a specific group of people – that’s niche marketing in a nutshell. If you apply all of the four concepts above, your small business will enjoy the powerful competitive advantage that mastering a niche market provides.
One common path to success for many small businesses is establishing themselves in a niche market. Because no matter how hard they try, no large retailer can be all things to all people, there are always going to be segments of the population whose needs for particular products and/or services are going unmet – leaving room for the small business to succeed by meeting those needs.
So how can your small business capitalize on these unmet needs and find and dominate your own niche market? Concentrate on these four basic concepts for niche marketing success:
1. A unique product or service.
For starters, if you’re going to master a niche market, you need to have a unique product or service. Ideally, you want to be the only one selling what you’re selling.
The trick to coming up with such a product or service is to “look on the fringes” for unmet needs.
For example, one East Coast entrepreneur’s business consists of creating hand-made medieval outfits. Large retailers and even shops specializing in costumes don’t supply these types of garments.
Don’t forget that processes can be products as well. They’re ubiquitous now, but someone once looked at an inkjet printer cartridge and came up with the idea and the process for refilling them. Need help getting started with this sort of idea spotting? 7 Sources of Business Ideas will spark your thinking.
2. A marketable product or service.
You can create all kinds of wonderful and wonky products and/or services but if no one wants what you’ve produced, what’s the point? Maybe there’s no one selling fried insects from a vending cart on your street, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The niche market of people who enjoy eating fried insects in this country is so small they wouldn’t even fill a phone booth.
There has to be enough of a demand for your product or service for your business to make a profit. How do you find out? By trial and error or by conducting extensive market research.
I, of course, recommend the latter. If you want to know if there’s a market for dog coats, bamboo flooring or counseling for the Blackberry addicted, the best way to find out is to get out there and ask. Making or buying a lot of something and throwing up a Web site to see if there’s any interest in what you’re doing is for people who don’t want to make money.
3. Choose a niche market that’s available.
Remember, niche markets tend to be smaller so there’s only room for so many players. When it comes to niche marketing, if you try to jump on a bandwagon, you’re only going to fall off the back. For instance, I mentioned the niche market for gay marriages in Best Business Opportunities 2005.
Before you started such a business yourself, you would certainly need to carefully research the competition and the size of the market to see if a new business in this niche would be viable. It might well be better to find a different niche in the marriage or gay markets and make that niche your own.
4. Market, market, market.
Marketing is perhaps more important for niche market businesses than for any other kind, because the niche market business is by definition, unknown and succeeds or fails on making the connection with exactly the right kind of customer/client. If I open a Starbucks, for example, people know right away what that business is about and what kinds of products to expect. And because Starbuck’s market is “anybody who likes coffee”, they really don’t have to worry much about advertising at this point in the game.
But if I open a business providing naturopathic treatments for pets, selling tub/shower conversions for the elderly or providing virtual assistant services to professional speakers, to give just three examples, people won’t know what to expect or even that my niche business exists at all unless I make the effort to reach and educate them. So market, market, market – and once you have a customer or client, make contact on a regular basis.
A unique product or service that will fulfill the unmet needs of a specific group of people – that’s niche marketing in a nutshell. If you apply all of the four concepts above, your small business will enjoy the powerful competitive advantage that mastering a niche market provides.
Defining Your Niche Market
A Critical Step in Internet Marketing
In my ten years of experience working with clients one thing I've noticed is there are some business owners that have defined their niche market and have a clear picture of whom it is they are marketing to and there are others that tend to waiver or be unsure.
Often business owners view a niche market as narrowing their sales or cutting into a profit margin, so they fear it. The truth is a niche market could be defined as a component that gives your business POWER. A niche market allows you to define who you are marketing to.
When you know who are you are marketing to it's easy to determine where your marketing energy and dollars should be spent. Take for example a car dealership. A car dealership calls me up and tells me they want me to help them develop an Internet Marketing strategy.
My first question as always is "Who are you marketing to?" They answer by telling me they want to market to anyone interested in buying a car. Now let's keep in mind that this car dealership is located in New York. I approach the process by working with the client and explaining to them that although they market to a person in Seattle, because that "person is interested in buying a car" the chances of that person coming from Seattle to New York to purchase that car is a very unlikely. Therefore they've wasted time and money and will more than likely see no return on either. By the time our conversation is finished I've helped them see why narrowing their niche market down to be "anyone interested in buying a car within a 50 mile radius". They now have POWER. They know where to spend time and money to market and their vision is clear. They are now 10 steps ahead of the other car dealership located 20 miles away who is marketing to "anyone interested in buying a car".
There is even a greater importance in having a well-defined niche market when planning your Internet Marketing strategy to achieve Internet Success. The most common misconception about online marketing is that if you build it they will come or having an online business will make you wealthy. Truth is you have to find your niche market to get them to come and you must offer a product or service that they are demanding to reach a level of financial success via the Internet.
Defining your niche market before you embark on your Internet marketing strategy is important for the following 5 reasons.
You have the ability to maximize your marketing budget by targeting your defined niche market. You'll know exactly where to advertise. You'll know where to look to find ezines and related sites that are catering to your market. This gives you a starting point.
Your site can then be optimized for search engines so that your niche market can find you easily.
You are able to cater your site to your niche market.You can develop your site to guide your viewers and help them find solutions or products that you offer that are specific to the problems that your niche market encounters.
A defined niche market makes it easier to develop ideas for new products or services that inherently appeal to your specific niche.
You have an upper-hand in establishing yourself as a leader in your industry.
Do you now see the importance of having a niche market? Are you struggling with who your niche market is? If you answered yes spend some time asking yourself the following questions:
What is it that my current clients have in common?
How do I set myself apart from the competition?
What is different about services or products that I offer?
What are the "extras" that I bring to the market?
The best way to answer these questions is without analyzing them too much. Just write down what it is that first comes to mind. Once you've completed them analyze the answer and it will be easy to define your niche market
In my ten years of experience working with clients one thing I've noticed is there are some business owners that have defined their niche market and have a clear picture of whom it is they are marketing to and there are others that tend to waiver or be unsure.
Often business owners view a niche market as narrowing their sales or cutting into a profit margin, so they fear it. The truth is a niche market could be defined as a component that gives your business POWER. A niche market allows you to define who you are marketing to.
When you know who are you are marketing to it's easy to determine where your marketing energy and dollars should be spent. Take for example a car dealership. A car dealership calls me up and tells me they want me to help them develop an Internet Marketing strategy.
My first question as always is "Who are you marketing to?" They answer by telling me they want to market to anyone interested in buying a car. Now let's keep in mind that this car dealership is located in New York. I approach the process by working with the client and explaining to them that although they market to a person in Seattle, because that "person is interested in buying a car" the chances of that person coming from Seattle to New York to purchase that car is a very unlikely. Therefore they've wasted time and money and will more than likely see no return on either. By the time our conversation is finished I've helped them see why narrowing their niche market down to be "anyone interested in buying a car within a 50 mile radius". They now have POWER. They know where to spend time and money to market and their vision is clear. They are now 10 steps ahead of the other car dealership located 20 miles away who is marketing to "anyone interested in buying a car".
There is even a greater importance in having a well-defined niche market when planning your Internet Marketing strategy to achieve Internet Success. The most common misconception about online marketing is that if you build it they will come or having an online business will make you wealthy. Truth is you have to find your niche market to get them to come and you must offer a product or service that they are demanding to reach a level of financial success via the Internet.
Defining your niche market before you embark on your Internet marketing strategy is important for the following 5 reasons.
You have the ability to maximize your marketing budget by targeting your defined niche market. You'll know exactly where to advertise. You'll know where to look to find ezines and related sites that are catering to your market. This gives you a starting point.
Your site can then be optimized for search engines so that your niche market can find you easily.
You are able to cater your site to your niche market.You can develop your site to guide your viewers and help them find solutions or products that you offer that are specific to the problems that your niche market encounters.
A defined niche market makes it easier to develop ideas for new products or services that inherently appeal to your specific niche.
You have an upper-hand in establishing yourself as a leader in your industry.
Do you now see the importance of having a niche market? Are you struggling with who your niche market is? If you answered yes spend some time asking yourself the following questions:
What is it that my current clients have in common?
How do I set myself apart from the competition?
What is different about services or products that I offer?
What are the "extras" that I bring to the market?
The best way to answer these questions is without analyzing them too much. Just write down what it is that first comes to mind. Once you've completed them analyze the answer and it will be easy to define your niche market
Rabu, 12 Maret 2008
A Crazy new way to increase sales from zero..
In my new book, "Zero Limits," I talk about the unusual therapist who helped heal an entire hospital ward of mentally ill criminals -- without seeing any of them.
I've since learned his method for healing, which involves "cleaning" yourself of all negativity in order to see change in others.
It seems bizarre, but when you take care of your own issues, they disappear in other people.
The whole idea is to love the problems away. You do it by saying "I love you," and a few other statements, non-stop. I've been doing it for two years now and my life is astonishing. I live in an almost moment-by-moment state of bliss.
Once I learned this method, I started to use it on other things besides illness. Since I'm a practical metaphysician and an entrepreneur, I wanted to see if this wild method would work on sales and other bottom line results.
Whenever I would write an article -- much like this one -- I would send love into it.
Whenever I would write another book -- like my new one, "Zero Limits" -- I would keep saying "I love you" in my mind.
What I noticed is my emails and articles would get read and distributed to *millions* of people.
And my book, "Zero Limits," became an Amazon bestseller -- six months *before* it was published.
But I didn't stop there in my testing.
Because I want to be sure this method works for others and not just me, I taught it to my close friends.
Bill Hibbler, coauthor with me of the book "Meet and Grow Rich," was skeptical. But he borrowed a pre-publication copy of my book, "Zero Limits," read it, and started loving his products and his list of subscribers. Here's what he said:
"Sales for Jan 1-4 were 41.39% higher than Dec 1-4. During the four day period in January, I didn't mail my list or launch any new promotion during that time. All I did was clean while reading your book and throughout the day."
Bill went on to tell me he saw sales increase from sites like create-ultimate-ebooks.com -- which he wasn't promoting *at all*.
How is this possible?
How can "cleaning" yourself with a mantra like "I love you" make a difference in your sales?
It appears that there is nothing "out there." The entire world is a projection of what you feel inside.
So, if you feel love, you will attract love. Because love contains gratitude, you attract more things to be grateful for. This is the essence of my book, "The Attractor Factor," and of course of the movie, "The Secret."
You get what you feel.
That's it.
At heart I think you (I) just want love. Well, so does everyone else. When you say "I love you" inside yourself, you cleanse yourself and you radiate an energy that others feel.
The result: more sales.
Still skeptical?
Look at it this way:
Even if this whole method seems totally crazy to you, what harm can come from you saying "I love you" in your mind as you make calls, write emails, deliver pitches, and go about your day?
If nothing else, you'll have better feeling days.
Try it and see.
By the way, "I love you".
I've since learned his method for healing, which involves "cleaning" yourself of all negativity in order to see change in others.
It seems bizarre, but when you take care of your own issues, they disappear in other people.
The whole idea is to love the problems away. You do it by saying "I love you," and a few other statements, non-stop. I've been doing it for two years now and my life is astonishing. I live in an almost moment-by-moment state of bliss.
Once I learned this method, I started to use it on other things besides illness. Since I'm a practical metaphysician and an entrepreneur, I wanted to see if this wild method would work on sales and other bottom line results.
Whenever I would write an article -- much like this one -- I would send love into it.
Whenever I would write another book -- like my new one, "Zero Limits" -- I would keep saying "I love you" in my mind.
What I noticed is my emails and articles would get read and distributed to *millions* of people.
And my book, "Zero Limits," became an Amazon bestseller -- six months *before* it was published.
But I didn't stop there in my testing.
Because I want to be sure this method works for others and not just me, I taught it to my close friends.
Bill Hibbler, coauthor with me of the book "Meet and Grow Rich," was skeptical. But he borrowed a pre-publication copy of my book, "Zero Limits," read it, and started loving his products and his list of subscribers. Here's what he said:
"Sales for Jan 1-4 were 41.39% higher than Dec 1-4. During the four day period in January, I didn't mail my list or launch any new promotion during that time. All I did was clean while reading your book and throughout the day."
Bill went on to tell me he saw sales increase from sites like create-ultimate-ebooks.com -- which he wasn't promoting *at all*.
How is this possible?
How can "cleaning" yourself with a mantra like "I love you" make a difference in your sales?
It appears that there is nothing "out there." The entire world is a projection of what you feel inside.
So, if you feel love, you will attract love. Because love contains gratitude, you attract more things to be grateful for. This is the essence of my book, "The Attractor Factor," and of course of the movie, "The Secret."
You get what you feel.
That's it.
At heart I think you (I) just want love. Well, so does everyone else. When you say "I love you" inside yourself, you cleanse yourself and you radiate an energy that others feel.
The result: more sales.
Still skeptical?
Look at it this way:
Even if this whole method seems totally crazy to you, what harm can come from you saying "I love you" in your mind as you make calls, write emails, deliver pitches, and go about your day?
If nothing else, you'll have better feeling days.
Try it and see.
By the way, "I love you".
Thresholds: Is it serving or selling?
by Dr. Joe Vitale
Most people complain that they don't have enough money.
They look at their bills, they look at their wants and needs, they look at their checkbook, and then they look terrified.
How will they pay their bills?
How will they feed their family?
How will they attract more money?
I'm sure you know the feeling. We've all been there. You may be there right now.
Now what's really curious to me is this:
The movie The Secret and many of the teachers in it offer proven ways to attract money and other material things. This obviously works, given the thousands of testimonials from people who now have money when previously they couldn't find it in a bank with the vault door open.
But some people are complaining that the focus of the movie is only on money or material things. They say it's self-serving. They say it's egotistic.
Do you hear the cultural programming at work?
"Money is bad."
"Taking care of yourself is bad."
"Material things are not spiritual."
Please note the discrepancy: when you want money and at the same time say focusing on it is bad or selfish, you are pushing it away.
Even the fans of the movie are doing this.
Some of the very people who use the Law of Attraction to get out of debt or attract a new car, at a later point only attract so much money before they begin to think they are being selfish. At that point they unconsciously turn off the flow and wonder what happened. They then begin to criticize the movie, too.
It's a strange thing to see.
First, people scramble to find money and worry and fret about it.
Then, they actually learn how to attract it, get some, and begin to complain that money isn't spiritual.
Wait a minute.
Weren't these the same people who wanted money in the first place?
Why was money good when they didn't have it and bad when they finally got it?
All of this is because of people's beliefs.
They hit their threshold of deservingness.
My father plays the lottery. But when the lotto gets to a hundred million dollars, he quits playing. He says that amount is "too much" and "that much money will ruin you."
Winning ninety-nine million is OK but one hundred million isn't?
Again, we're dealing with beliefs.
We're dealing with thresholds of deservingness.
I was at an event once when a fellow called his wife and handed me the phone. He wanted a star of The Secret to surprise her.
I took the call, said my name, and heard her scream.
She was talking to a celebrity. She was giddy with excitement.
But then she started asking me what I was doing to save the world.
This woman had gone from being a fan of The Secret and using what she learned to manifest a few things, to hitting her comfort zone and now not wanting anything else.
What happened?
Another example is this: many of the teachers in the movie The Secret create products and services to help you achieve your goals. When your mindset is open, you thank them for their services. When your mindset is closed, you say they are just "selling."
Well, are they selling or serving?
It's both and it's neither. It depends on your beliefs.
It depends on your threshold of deservingness.
If you think they are taking advantage of you, you call it selling (because you think selling is bad).
If you think they are helping you, you call it serving (because you know serving is good).
Again, it's all about beliefs, and particularly your belief about what you feel you deserve.
That belief creates a threshold that you won't get past without some work.
It reminds me of a question a therapist used to ask patients:
"How good can you stand it?"
Most of us can't stand it really good.
"What will the neighbors think?"
"What will my family think?"
"If it's too good, surely something bad will happen."
"I don't deserve it too good."
"If it's too good, it won't last and I'll be miserable again."
"If I'm happy, I won't do anything to save the planet."
Those are all limiting beliefs.
Your life can be fantastic. Truly amazing. But very often we hit a comfort level and won't go past it. Why? Because of our self-imposed limits.
Because of our threshold of deservingness.
You can deceive yourself with rationalizations and criticisms about The Secret, me, others, the world, etc; but the end result is, you limit your own good.
I keep reminding people that once you get clear, there's not much you can't have, do, or be.
Your goal should always be happiness, what I call spiritual awakening, but the only limits along the way are your own.
How good can you stand it, anyway?
Most people complain that they don't have enough money.
They look at their bills, they look at their wants and needs, they look at their checkbook, and then they look terrified.
How will they pay their bills?
How will they feed their family?
How will they attract more money?
I'm sure you know the feeling. We've all been there. You may be there right now.
Now what's really curious to me is this:
The movie The Secret and many of the teachers in it offer proven ways to attract money and other material things. This obviously works, given the thousands of testimonials from people who now have money when previously they couldn't find it in a bank with the vault door open.
But some people are complaining that the focus of the movie is only on money or material things. They say it's self-serving. They say it's egotistic.
Do you hear the cultural programming at work?
"Money is bad."
"Taking care of yourself is bad."
"Material things are not spiritual."
Please note the discrepancy: when you want money and at the same time say focusing on it is bad or selfish, you are pushing it away.
Even the fans of the movie are doing this.
Some of the very people who use the Law of Attraction to get out of debt or attract a new car, at a later point only attract so much money before they begin to think they are being selfish. At that point they unconsciously turn off the flow and wonder what happened. They then begin to criticize the movie, too.
It's a strange thing to see.
First, people scramble to find money and worry and fret about it.
Then, they actually learn how to attract it, get some, and begin to complain that money isn't spiritual.
Wait a minute.
Weren't these the same people who wanted money in the first place?
Why was money good when they didn't have it and bad when they finally got it?
All of this is because of people's beliefs.
They hit their threshold of deservingness.
My father plays the lottery. But when the lotto gets to a hundred million dollars, he quits playing. He says that amount is "too much" and "that much money will ruin you."
Winning ninety-nine million is OK but one hundred million isn't?
Again, we're dealing with beliefs.
We're dealing with thresholds of deservingness.
I was at an event once when a fellow called his wife and handed me the phone. He wanted a star of The Secret to surprise her.
I took the call, said my name, and heard her scream.
She was talking to a celebrity. She was giddy with excitement.
But then she started asking me what I was doing to save the world.
This woman had gone from being a fan of The Secret and using what she learned to manifest a few things, to hitting her comfort zone and now not wanting anything else.
What happened?
Another example is this: many of the teachers in the movie The Secret create products and services to help you achieve your goals. When your mindset is open, you thank them for their services. When your mindset is closed, you say they are just "selling."
Well, are they selling or serving?
It's both and it's neither. It depends on your beliefs.
It depends on your threshold of deservingness.
If you think they are taking advantage of you, you call it selling (because you think selling is bad).
If you think they are helping you, you call it serving (because you know serving is good).
Again, it's all about beliefs, and particularly your belief about what you feel you deserve.
That belief creates a threshold that you won't get past without some work.
It reminds me of a question a therapist used to ask patients:
"How good can you stand it?"
Most of us can't stand it really good.
"What will the neighbors think?"
"What will my family think?"
"If it's too good, surely something bad will happen."
"I don't deserve it too good."
"If it's too good, it won't last and I'll be miserable again."
"If I'm happy, I won't do anything to save the planet."
Those are all limiting beliefs.
Your life can be fantastic. Truly amazing. But very often we hit a comfort level and won't go past it. Why? Because of our self-imposed limits.
Because of our threshold of deservingness.
You can deceive yourself with rationalizations and criticisms about The Secret, me, others, the world, etc; but the end result is, you limit your own good.
I keep reminding people that once you get clear, there's not much you can't have, do, or be.
Your goal should always be happiness, what I call spiritual awakening, but the only limits along the way are your own.
How good can you stand it, anyway?
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)