OK. So first of all, I have to admit that the idea of “making it” is total bunk. Though it’s a worthy goal if you happen to be a character in Grease, people in my reality understand that nobody ever truly “arrives” anywhere. Despite our small victories, life is generally made up of banal, unsexy life-stuff. And that’s cool.

With that caveat, I’m still happy to consider myself a success and be counted among that elusive ~1% of people who somehow manage to make the transition from learning about online business to actually making a pretty good living online.

Let’s Define Our Terms

Of course, ye olde Internet is a great place to anonymously claim just about anything you want. Just visit any popular forum, and you’ll meet plenty of poseurs who will jump at the chance to give you unsolicited advice, yet have very little to show for their hot air. You probably want to see something more tangible before you’ll trust me.

That’s cool. Let’s talk metrics for a minute or two.

Online Activity / Posting Frequency

With regard to the my dig on keyboard cowboys above, I’ll first mention that my forum usage, blog posting, and YouTube commenting over the past three months or so have been scant at best. These are activities in which most online type people engage regularly, and they can all be used for business development in one form or another.

I like connecting with people on YouTube (I’ve gotten to help several people fulfill their dreams of living and working in Japan there) and on forums. If I spent more time updating this site and posting about web development and small business instead of beer, I could probably have a thriving WordPress tweaking enterprise going. I love building websites, but I love beer more. Besides that, I get more referrals for WordPress work than I can handle anyway.

No, social networking isn’t a strategy for me. It’s just something I do to kill time, and I kill much less of it now than I used to.

So that’s metric number one: I haven’t been visibly active in many of the places I normally would have been. Not convincing? Let’s look at metric number two.

Prasara Primer

My first major project release, the Prasara Yoga Primer, grossed $25k in sales in its first week on the market. Did I get to keep all of that? Hell no. I have two partners, and we had a lot of help from some awesome affiliates. But I did deposit a very large (by my standards) check into my account last week, and we’re still selling more every day.

Of course, of course, of course, that week of awesome sales required about six weeks of hard work to set up and pull off effectively. Still, it was probably the most profitable six weeks of work I’ve ever done, and the lessons it taught me are going to be priceless as I correct many of the simple mistakes I made next time.

I can’t prove to you that I made this money, but if you’re so inclined, you can check the Primer’s stats out on ClickBank, where we became the best-selling yoga product in our debut month. While you’re at it, tell your fitness-obsessed friends about it and make a nice commission in the process.

A Small Empire

Metric number three is that I took my friend’s business from a solitary yoga studio that was barely breaking even to a successful online venture with products and courses at a variety of price points in just a little over six months. Our list grew by over 1000%, and our income has exceeded all expectation.

We have a “staff” of people with varying levels of involvement making varying levels of income from our combined efforts. It’s like a cottage industry we’ve build together, and I really love being part of a creative family working as a team.

“Overnight Success”

We’ve all heard before that it takes years of planning and practice to become an overnight success. In my case, it was just a little over a year.

It was April of 2009 when I found out the hard way that I was no longer employed. No notice. No job. No anything really.

I did some random part time gigs to pay the bills, but I also found this great course by Clay Collins called Project Mojave that promised to teach me how to create a “freedom business” in a few months. I lucked out and snagged a lifetime membership to Mojave for about $100 before most people really found out about it. What can I say? It felt right. And it was. It was one of the best investments I’ve ever made, and I wouldn’t be here without it.

Project Mojave might not open again, but Clay’s just about to release his new course, called the Interactive Offer, and I’m going to be taking advantage of all he has to teach. If you click that link, you’ll get to see Clay explain how he structures his launches to make a respectable profit before he even creates his product.

My First Business Venture

Back to Project Mojave (which was, by the way, an example of the Interactive Offer in action)… I watched the videos, took notes, did the homework, and even talked to Clay on the phone a couple of times. I chose a niche and got to work.

Then a few little things came up. I got married. I had to help plan the Taido World Championships. I got sidetracked and took forever to finish my first product.

That product, an ebook on finding work and moving to Japan, was not successful. Not because Clay’s advice was bad, but because I was way too scattered about my implementation. More recently, I seriously considered reviving the How to Get a Job in Japan project. I know it could bring me at least a few hundred dollars a month in totally passive income if I put in a few days of solid work up front. But instead, I decided to let it die because I’m having too much fun with my other projects right now and don’t need the distraction.

So I let the website expire and made the information available in hard copy at Amazon. If you’re interested, you can check it out here.

My Second Business Venture

Did I leave the ebook world and jump immediately into my current jet-setting lifestyle? Nope. Even that took some time and work.

CST101 began as an experiment. I was working out at my friend’s studio, and we were talking about wanting more out of our lives. Typical conversation for married guys in their 30s to have. His second child had just been born not long before, and he wanted to try reaching a broader audience online. It just so happened that he’s an incredibly gifted teacher and trainer.

So we created a distance fitness course together and promoted it pretty quietly through our existing networks. We had a not-bad turnout – enough to make it worth the effort for us. I taught myself how to make membership sites. He practiced making videos. We screwed up. We got better. We connected with our people and started building a posse.

When it came time to do it all again, we rebuilt the thing from the ground up with a sturdier system and a more efficient program. We got referrals. We added a Level Two course. We kicked ass as sold out our second course with 25 members.

We continue offering these courses and love interacting with our students. Sometimes, the enrollment is higher than others, but honestly there’s no way we can lose with this set-up. The courses are made. The lessons are set. The videos are shot. The forums are active, and we have a team of people that helps us manage them. People pay us, work hard, and come away feeling stronger and freer in their bodies. Wins all around.

The Tipping Point, or “Authenticity”

These online training courses are something I’m very proud of. If we hadn’t taken that leap and tried to put the first incarnation together from scratch, we would never have learned what we did, and we would never have had the success we currently enjoy. The mistakes turned out to be priceless, but even more valuable, as it turned out, was our total willingness to screw up in front of others and be genuine and real about that.

“Authenticity” is a huge buzzword in internet marketing circles. The premise is that, if you can make people believe that you are genuinely interested in them, they are more likely to give you money.

I don’t really like discussing authenticity as a marketing tactic because it can quickly cross over into con territory: creating the appearance of reality in order to sell an empty promise. That’s just plain dirty. Yet, I can’t ignore the topic because I’ve always been pretty much who I am (my mother always told me I needed to filter myself for public consumption) – to hell with anyone who doesn’t like it. In fact, I used to be a bit of an asshole about my personal right to do and think whatever the fucking hell I happened to please at any given moment.

Don’t like it? Fuck off.

Though I’m a little nicer now (is it my age showing?), I’m still just me, which means that I’m authentic. And if that makes people want to buy from me, I’m not complaining.

Back to the point though, Ryan and I made a lot of mistakes on our first course. The second one too. But for every mistake we made, we admitted it and fixed it. We told our clients things like “Yeah, sorry about that. We don’t know how that happened either – it’s the first time for everyone here, so let’s talk about how to make it better now.”

In 99% of cases that we approached our mistakes that way, our clients were totally cool and actually helped us find viable solutions. How can you beat that?

Doing What You Love

It sounds so trite to tell people to follow their passions. It’s cheesy. The thing is: cheese is delicious.

After we started making headway with our courses, we started thinking about other products. Ryan had co-produced an ebook on Prasara Yoga a few years prior with another coach named Jarlo. It was called the Prasara Primer, and I actually bought it for about $25 when it first came out.

It was fantastic, and it totally changed the way I thought about yoga and training.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t marketed with nearly the passion that went into it’s creation. So I tossed the idea out to Ryan about re-releasing it. He thought it couldn’t hurt and we began hammering out a marketing plan.

Along the way, we decided to change the layout a bit and modernize the ebook. While we were at it, we made some changes to the way the information was presented. Then we decided to include videos of the yoga flows to make it easier for people for follow along. We made sixty videos. Next came the training guide that showed people how to integrate yoga into their existing routines.

By the time we were done, we realized that we had created a whole new product using the same basic information. The Prasara Primer 2.0 was born.

Then what? Well, we did the things you usually do to sell a digital product. None of it was original or new. We created a sales page. Built a list using a sample from the actual product. We got the word out to our lists and got some help from friends with lists. We answered questions and made a launch offer.

• The cool part: we still made mistakes.
• The really cool part: we still made money.

Now That I’m a Successful Online Entrepreneur…

…I sit on the beach and drink margaritas while my third world VA haggles on my behalf for extra frequent flier miles.

Yeah, so that’s total bullshit.

As much as I love beaches and margaritas, I love getting my hands dirty building new things even more. I’ve discovered that the real reason my ebook on working in Japan wasn’t a big hit had nothing to do with the market or the information (which is still golden). It was all about my level of enthusiasm for various tasks associated with selling a product. I can’t stand doing a lot of the stuff you have to do to have an ebook consistently bring in more than a trickle. I hate article marketing and PPC campaigning. Even worse, I can’t stand outsourcing those things to people I have to manage.

That’s OK though, because I’ve discovered that I absolutely love the process of creating a product, figuring out how to get it in people’s hands, and building the systems around making it sustain itself.

So I’m doing that. Ryan and Jarlo and I are working on a new strength training product using gymnastic rings that we hope to release in early July. We’re also continuing to run courses on CST101, and I’ve got some ideas for new classes in the near future. The Prasara Primer has created a demand for us to give seminars in various countries. We’ll probably shoot a seminar DVD.

I’m also branching out in other directions. I’m talking with a few other people now about helping them create digital products and courses in their own niches. I’m collaborating with Carl Nelson, Jonathan Mead, and a few others on a new magazine site called MovementGeeks, which we’ll be launching this summer.

I’m also getting ready to move to Hawaii, where I plan to drink a few margaritas. There’s so much excitement, I can hardly stand it.

How You Can Join the Cool Winners’ Club

Not that you’re asking, but if I were to give advice on the whole online business thing, I would say it’s really just a four-step process:

1. Find a mentor and study what they do – modeling success is a terrific shortcut
2. Adapt those principles to what you’re personally great at – because, if you hate what you’re doing, you’ll stop
3. Make something and get it in people’s hands – free or paid doesn’t really even matter at first
4. When you make mistakes, be cool about it – they’re awesome opportunities to learn

And that’s it. It’s what I did, and what others I know have done.

Yes, it’s easier said than done, and no, there are no guarantees. There again, what was the last easy, guaranteed thing you did that you actually thought was worth a shit when it was over?

That’s what I thought.

P.S. – It’s a rule that, when you’re trying to show internet marketing people how cool you are, you have to include an ironic PS. This let’s the audience know that you know that they’re in on the joke, while still getting one last chance to slide in that all-important call to action.

P.P.S. – Another ironic device is the anti-call-to-action, and it looks something like this: “Whatever you do, don’t click on my services link to see how I can help you quickly find efficient, high-leverage solutions to your online business issues for as little as $20.”

I decided to interview my friend, Marc Quinn, after he started doing some very interesting work in the area of personal development. If you check out his website, you’ll see someone who is branding himself as a fallible human being on a mission to help others find their own personal mission amidst a sea of quick fixes and “I can’t do that” anxieties. Marc is here to talk about his own personal journey to find his desired market, and offer some insights to everyone who is still struggling where to put their energies online. Marc’s unique 9-week coaching program The Clearing can be found at theclearing.co

Marc Quinn is a self-proclaimed “pain in the ass”. After passing through an addiction to pornography, he made some big decisions to get his life going the way he wanted it to. As well as helping people deal with porn addiction, he offers a new take on personal development on his coaching program The Clearing by helping other self-proclaimed lunatics clear space in life for their own flavor of awesomeness.

A few weeks ago, I was walking down the street when the most stunning woman was walking by me. She wore lots of things that jingled, her hair was done in some funky way, and she walked in a way that told me that she knew who she was. Men turned to look at her as she passed. Each of us along this 50 foot stretch of road were completely mesmerized. As I walked up to her, I just let myself enjoy how attracted I was to her. The smile I gave her as we passed said “You look stunning.” One of the mesmerized men on my side of the street was a young Brazilian guy in his 20s. I felt compelled to share the moment and so I walked right up to him and said “Man, she is fucking gorgeous, eh?” He was startled and blinked repeatedly as he came out of his trance to meekly acknowledge me. “Yes, yes,” he muttered with an embarrassed smile, and I carried on walking.

I realized in that moment that I had learned to become an author to incredible moments that all my old insecurities would not have allowed.

You know, things like “I must hide my natural attraction to beautiful women enough to appear cool but not enough so that people think I’m gay,” and my personal favorite “I must show her how much of a nice guy I am.”

Up to about 18 months ago, this would not have even been possible. I would simply have been too embarrassed.

When I was 15, my Dad won a competition on Virgin Radio here in the UK. His prize? £120 of electronics vouchers. He bought a modem. The conversation went: “No Dad, I PROMISE I won’t download porn when we get the internet. No, really, I think it’s lame. I won’t do it”. I never did ask my parents how much of a model child they thought I was, but the very idea that my parents would think that I had any sort of sexual impulse would have been horrifying to me. I did everything in my power to convince them I had none. No, I was a nice boy.

Within three years, I was visiting hardcore porn sites about 3 times a week and got far too skilled with the collection and disposal of paper tissues. Concepts like “will power” and “self-determination” were useless in the face of this addiction. I was completely dominated by porn, and for years I told nobody. I was convinced that I was tainted in some way – psychologically imbalanced or completely perverted. I wanted to be free, but I simply did not have a clue where to start. And so, this thing that some people say is “completely normal,” and others say is “completely wrong” sparked this journey to figure out how to handle my emotions around porn. I did not like the idea of rubbing off every time I had so much as an ITCH in my crotch. And honestly, I was pretty sure that women I was interacting with KNEW that I was chest-watching whenever they’d turn away.

One day last year, on one of the darkest and most depressing nights I had had in years, I decided to do something about it.

I sat down and wrote out every single thing that had EVER turned me on, and detailed my reaction to every hardcore image I had ever seen. By the end, I felt like I had exhausted my entire week’s supply of tears. I was balling for about two hours. Funnily enough, at the end of that experience, I felt completely clear. A strange thing happened after that night, I got the sense of having the most incredibly clear headspace I had had in YEARS. It took only a couple more weeks to finally get to a place where porn was the last thing I wanted to be doing.

The next day, I went out feeling a little tender, but I felt as though the emotions of every single person around me were coursing through my own body. Every smile had me giggle, every unhappy person broke my heart, and every tree I walked by I wanted to touch. I communicated with every person that day as though they were the most precious person alive. I had, what I now call A Clearing: an incredible opportunity to re-write my response to every situation and interaction I regularly had out in the world.

Funnily enough, as if by some strange coincidence, I had been on a communications course at that time to help me complete my inauthentic ways of being that had caused tension in every relationship I had. Funny, because I had the same experience of a Clearing after I had dealt with these relationships, too. Several months later, I joined Project Mojave. I went through my several weeks of aimless keyword research looking for my “market” (haven’t we all done it?). Then one day Clay asked: “What is the silver bullet for the problem that only you know how to fix?”

My head immediately dropped into my hands. My mouth dropped open, my eyes became wide in a “Oh, look, a train!” kind of way. Oh no, me? Really? But, can’t someone else do that job? I pleaded with God to give me ANOTHER silver bullet. Puh-LEAZE! Porn Addiction? No no no, but I’m a nice guy. Immediate thoughts came into my mind of going on video to tell people about my experiences and positioning myself as a leader who would face this problem head on with them.

VIDEO?! You have to be frickin’ KIDDING ME! Stop thinking, la la la laaaa!

On that day, My Porn Addiction Story was born. My next biggest challenge: how on earth was I going to explain this to my mother? Turns out, mum was unsurprised that I had looked at porn. Being “the Porn guy for every porn addict out there”…I think that’ll take her a little longer to get used to.

So many people look at their flaws, and the shameful things they did in their past and they see them as things to keep buried in the closet. In dealing with my addiction, I learned a lot about how to clear my headspace, and actually give myself enough space to find what I cared about – as well as being able to create incredibly fun moments of light-heartedness on-the-street/on-the-fly with complete strangers. If it wasn’t for my porn addiction, I never would have worked out how to actually deal with life with more fun than I could imagine. And so, this week I am launching my own coaching program The Clearing because I realized that you don’t need to have to beat off to porn every night for years, like I did, to have a fun kickass life (wait, that came out wrong!).

Later this week Clay is interviewing me on this blog, and has promised to ask me enough embarrassing questions about porn to make me blush right there.

If you are easily embarrassed, you may want to avoid that interview, but you will probably miss out a shedload of cool advice on how to grow yourself your very own personal set of cajones and give up screwing around on Market Samurai like it was the “Fountain of All Sacred Knowledge.”

I am not running this program to help porn addicts (although if you have that addiction, we would definitely work on it), I am running it because I truly believe that if you actually want to make it in whatever niche you have chosen, you’ve gotta be prepared to be a leader – not just a marketer – and for that you will need a big enough Clearing to really stand for the people you are wanting to help. The kind of leader who will create moments with people on the street as successfully and boldly as he will put their ass on the line for their “market.”

I am looking for people who are willing to start a load of fires in every area of their life and see how much trouble we can cause in the 9 weeks of the program. Come back on Thursday and I promise to make you blush, and maybe even have your own “head in your hands” moment, where you stop at nothing to make it as a leader in your niche. Seriously, why would you bother otherwise?

Marc Quinn is a complete pain in the ass. Getting far too good at job interviews, he decided to refuse all full-time work and help porn addicts instead using what he learned in Project Mojave. He loves to make people who work at Starbucks laugh, and actually coached a girl who worked at the unemployment office to leave her job and follow her passion whilst he was unemployed himself. He is launching The Clearing Coaching Program this week, which is better than any other personal development program out there in that it doesn’t suck, and he will not use too many sketchy personal development words – unless initially forewarned.

If you’ve ever bought anything from me, or if you ready my blog with ANY regularity, then you probably know Tracy.

Anyway, Tracy and I have an unlikely friendship . . . she lives with her husband and dog in a log cabin in Vermont. And I live in Minneapolis.

What people KNOW about Tracy is that she’s the reason why we have the best customer support, hands down, in the internet marketing industry.

And that she makes everything in our business tick so that I can focus on my stuff.

What they don’t know about her is that she’s one of my very best friends, that I’ve NEVER worked with anyone better, that she’s one of the most brilliant spirits you’ll ever meet, that she has a
heart of pure gold, and that she’s smarter than you and I put together.

What they don’t know is that even though it’s my face you see on the blog and videos . . . that Tracy is working just as hard as me during this launch.

I often go on and ON (to my friends) about how amazing it is to work with Tracy, and I’ll sometimes get comments like “wow I need to get my own Tracy.”

What they don’t know is that, as a business owner, you really can’t really choose to work with someone like Tracy. Someone like Tracy chooses you (because they have so many options it’s
ridiculous).

Anyway, today is Tracy’s birthday . . .

. . . so if you’ve ever received customer support from us (or worked with her on any level) and you’d like wish her a good day, then just leave a comment below (she approves the comments, so she’ll be sure to see them).

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Tracy.

–Clay