Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

thanks to Elvis for providing today’s headline (although Mark James actually wrote the song!)

A few days working nose to the grindstone have resulted in lots of progress with various projects. One of the projects has given me some headaches though – as my intentions were called into question, very unnecessarily in my opinion.

Previous readers will know about my research project into Internet Marketing, where I’m asking people to submit their single biggest question about Internet Marketing at Ask Rob Bell

This is an important project to me, one I’ve already invested over 1 hundred hours in, so I was a little put out, as you might imagine, when it was suggested to me that it was a transparent trick to harvest email addresses – I mean, what the heck?!?!

I have several ways to increase my subscribers and get people onto my lists, several of which are working very very well, but the ‘Ask Rob Bell’ project is not one of them. I simply want to find out and understand what people in Internet Marketing actually want to know – and asked for email addresses so I could send a copy of the upcoming book to the people with the best questions.

So to allow people who don’t want to leave any contact details to submit their questions, I’ve started a version of the page that only requires the question – no other details needed. Anyone who uses this form won’t be able to get a copy of the book as I’ll have no email address to send it to, but it should make paranoid people feel safer about submitting their best question!

I’m aware of general themes and sub-niches within the industry, but I’m not a psychic – I wouldn’t ever presume to know what other people want to know without asking them first. It seems rather arrogant to think I know so much that I can tell people what they want to know without asking them – am I able to read minds or something?!?!?! Well actually… that’s a tale for another time!

A cornerstone of any successful marketing project has to involve research – without which, how can anyone hope to understand their market fully?

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after” is a quote from J.R.R.Tolkien – author of the Hobbit and epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Thank heavens for The Ability to Ask Questions – after previously struggling to commit to sustained action for some time, I couldn’t really begin to get a clear Internet Marketing plan together, outline my strategies, or find the ‘eye of the tiger’ within, so to speak. My goals weren’t clear, so my route towards them was similarly unclear.

A week of training, effort like I can’t recall, a new determination, some great applications, and the simple application of some marketing science and I’m now gathering the information that will help me to understand the real needs of my market, so I’ll then really be able to help them better – to all our advantage.

I decided to make my first product in the Internet Marketing space because:

a. I’m an Internet Geek (that happens when your mobility is impaired, although the healthy me was also a real Net Nerd, so that’s just a bs excuse on my part!)

b. I was a Marketing Manager in my ‘old life’ before my accident, so I’ve years of experience to fall back on – and piles of books to enhance my knowledge and skills.

c. I’m very techy for a non-tech – even qualified to Cisco Cert Network Admin 1/2 level, so I can understand and use technologies yet still explain them to someone who maybe isn’t technically minded. I’ve even got a 70 year old friend I taught to write and publish his own website (patience, lots of patience my boy!), which now has some 4500 pages to it.

d. I find it a fascinating subject, something I am happy to obsess about – I think this is key, for without obsession comes no masterpiece.

How much easier life gets when you get access to the tools that can really help i.e. The ASK Database- only 21 days to make it pay for itself though, as I’ve spent $1 on the 3 week trial, so it’s head down all the way to make revenue to pay for the monthly subscription at the end of Oct. I can’t afford to take on additional expenses at present – 4 years injured can cause quite a strain on the old finances, so anything I use has to have a really fast ROI. I already had a few hosting plans and domains – but they finally have real purpose, and I’ve bought some others, including AskRobBell.com!

This whole contest is certainly giving me real motivation, something I’ve lacked altogether since my father’s passing away in June of this year, although my Get-Up-And-Go got-up-and-went right after my 2nd broken back incident (see earlier blog!).

I feel like I’ve finally turned a corner, and the light at the end of the tunnel is only round the corner.This contest has been a bit of a revelation for me – although I don’t have hundreds of referrals, it’s given me a whole new lease of life – don’t know if it’s all for the better though – I’ve not even been to bed on 3 occasions in the past week – preferring to stay on the PC throughout the night and next day too!!!

Dentist in the morning at 8.55am though, and I didn’t sleep last night, so I’m definitely scheduled for an early(ish) night – it’s already gone 10pm! Having a ‘power haircut’ tomorrow too, as further evidence of the transformation from Cripple to Guru taking place in front of my keyboard!

Have got a storyline and some clips ready for the video contest, but I suffer from an annoying ‘mind-blanking’ whenever I’m looking at a video camera – getting over that will be an achievement in itself!

Rob

I’m in the process of writing a new book, and I’d like to get some feedback from my readers -

What would you MOST like to know about Internet Marketing?

It’s obviously a very wide-ranging subject, and I want to be sure I’m providing my readers with the right subject matter, so there’s no better way than to ask all you fine, intelligent readers myself.

Visit my Ask Rob Bell page and submit your question, and I’ll give free copies of my book to the people who ask the best questions because you’re helping me to help you.

Don’t delay – Ask Away!

Your friend,

Rob Bell

10 years ago I was a very successful Marketing Manager, after studying Business Management at University then getting my Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing – I’d discovered the joys of marketing in my first year at Uni, and I knew it was something I wanted to pursue as a career – I had a very clear vision at this stage. After graduating I went on to work for some of the world’s top companies, marketing mainly technology products. I loved my work, and loved my play too – I was keen on sports, playing rugby league, rugby union and field hockey. I also found great pleasure in extreme sports – and could often be found performing aerial craziness.

Then, my life took a very unexpected turn when I destroyed 78% of my T8 vertebra in a fall on a BMX track. During the course of treatment I also discovered I had osteoporosis – quite unusual in a 29 year old male! As if this wasn’t enough, some time after I’d rehabilitated from the injury I took another bad fall – breaking my back again, also damaging my hip, rupturing my sacro-iliac joint and subsequently suffering sciatica, chronic back pain and a loss of mobility.

In probably the worst month of my life, I broke my back, got made redundant, lost my company car, my wife left me to go live back in New Zealand, I got evicted by my landlord from my cottage on the edge of a lake as her daughter wanted to move in, I had to give my beloved Old English, Mogul, away and I soon got into debt after losing my rather good salary. And oh, I had to move into a bedroom in my parents’ flat – not having lived them for some 12 years.

Losing my mobility was a very tough, bitter pill to swallow. Suddenly I could no longer play sports, and even simple walking became a struggle. I could get relief laid on my back, or sometimes that could be the most painful thing. For 3 years or so I became a virtual recluse, hardly leaving my flat at all, and eschewing any form of social life. I couldn’t sit in a chair for long periods of time, meaning I couldn’t work in an office, and manual work was not a realistic alternative due to my disability.

About 12 months ago, my obsession with computers branched out in a new direction – that of Internet Marketing, via a personal development programme that enabled me to finally break free of the shackles of depression.

As a Marketer, to discover I could earn a living from the comfort of my home with my existing skills, no matter how my physical handicap might restrict the things I can do was a true revelation – although I still to this day don’t understand why it took me so long to discover it, having been a computer addict since the age of 8 (my computer was a Sinclair ZX80, that’s all you could get back in 1980!). I could set my own hours, even work from bed if I needed to.

Even with my years of experience in Marketing, my beginning with IM was a very steep learning curve – there’s a world of difference between marketing with corporation budgets and marketing with virtually no finances at all, as I soon found out.

I took a 6 month hiatus earlier this year after the death of my Father, but am now back with a plan and a glint in my eye, keen to develop my online businesses to a whole new level. How I ended up doing the $100 Million Challenge is because of a well-timed call from one of Russell Brunson’s staff – although at the time I wasn’t ready to get back to the computer, it set the wheels in motion for my return – now I’m back, more determined than ever, and ready to excel – it’s about time, to be honest!

Best of luck to everyone else taking the $100 Million Challenge

Rob

Well, it had to happen eventually – After a long lie in this morning to catch up on the lack of sleep yesterday, this evening I got my first experience of Wii Rock Band, – the game where you either sing, play guitar/bass, or drum to a number of well-known and some not so well-known songs. It’s serious fun – especially when there’s a group of you. 5 of us took it in turns to sing badly, ‘strum’ tunelessly, and mostly miss the beat through artists like Black Sabbath, Weezer, Faith No More, The Beastie Boys and even Die Toten Hosen – a german punk band I first encountered last year in Ibiza courtesy of mein host at a bar I often visited, Tom – a former East German punk.

One of my friends used to drum in bands so he put us to shame once he’s stopped drumming twice as many notes as were on screen, but I discovered my left hand to right foot (kick pedal foot) co-ordination was severely lacking – it soon improved though. Funny how throughout my teens we were told how computer games were making us all unfit, then the advent of the Wii has meant that games can be quite a physical challenge – Wii Boxing is exhausting, one round and I’m drenched with sweat! Heck if Wii’s had been around when we were kids, you might have had more chance of seeing me in the Olympics – the ZX Spectrum was hardly a workout, although typing in the games out of computer magazines certainly improved my typing – anyone else remember spending hours typing in line after line of Hexadecimal code only to discover on completing it that it didn’t work because somewhere in the machine code you’d made a mistake? The only way of solving it was to go through it digit by digit comparing your input to the magazine – many was the time the Spectrum got switched off in disgust after this happening! Ah to have games on tape that took 20 minutes to load, and a thermal printer with shiny silver paper again!

I’ve been busying myself today getting into the $100 Million Challenge – starting the video courses and getting on to my first assignment. So far, I’m really impressed at how well the course is delivered – it’s very easy to get into, and Russell Brunson appears to be way ahead of the curve when it comes to presenting his product – the whole package is very polished.

Although I’ve studied and worked in Marketing since I was 18, I love learning and adding to my knowledge at any opportunity – you never know when one of those things may subsequently skyrocket your achievements and earnings.

Online learning was a lifesaver for me when I was immobilised with a broken back – it helped me get over what was a very difficult time in my life – going from being very sporty to being completely immobile was a sudden and very frustrating change I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through. Still, I had a fantastic time doing the sports that eventually crippled me and I wouldn’t change anything – except for the 2 specific landings that did the most damage – one in 1999, the latter in 2004!

Just done some Traffic Exchange surfing for the first time in ages, it’s a great way of seeing what people are promoting at the moment, and 10 seconds is a very short time to make someone interested in your product/service so you have to be good to do it well – there are lots of great people in the TE community who are always prepared to help people make money for themselves. I often attend Saturday training at Affiliate Funnel where I’ve learned so much about list building, developing splash pages, landing pages and the world of traffic exchanges from fantastic teachers like Jon Olson, Mike Paetzold and Paul Kinder.

Rob

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