Quick Start ChallengeI signed myself up to Dean Holland’s Quick Start Challenge when he offered it as a WSO a couple of weeks back and I thought I’d report back on progress so far.

Dean is a guy who I feel I should know already….but I don’t. I’m pretty sure he was at Lee McIntyre’s event back in 2009 that was the first real IM event I attended and I’ve seen him at a couple of other do’s along the way, but have never really had the chance to chat.

What I have been able to do, is to watch his progress as a marketer in the UK (and globally) and his rise and rise is a trajectory that I think we’d all like to follow.

Anyway, now he is running this training, I’ll be up there with him before you can say “blimey, what was that?!!” Hmm, we’ll see.

Week 1 of the challenge was a scene setter with Dean covering aspects of mindset and setting some ground rules for what is to come. Most interesting to me was his comment about “success being so close, I’ve bought all the courses, it’s just round the corner”. Interesting, because I’m sure I’ve said those exact words in the past. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some small successes in my affiliate marketing, so I feel like it’s not an unjustified thing to say, but it was funny to hear that echo!

What is different about this course, is that Dean is setting weekly homework along the way. My feeling about almost all coaching courses out there, is that they often rely too heavily on individual  commitment to blaze through a lot of vague material to find the right path. Many such programs demand nothing from their customers between sessions and many folk fall by the wayside as a result. (Here’s a commitment – if I ever run a high-ticket program, I promise to be a bully about your results LOL!)

If you hadn’t guessed, this post IS the homework. I guess I was lucky to already have the blog running, but it’s good to have targets.

More to come in the following weeks, obviously I can’t give you the material, but I will update my views of Dean’s style and content as we go along……for now, I’d say he’s one to put on your radar for the next opportunity.

Warrior Gathering LondonDay 2 of the London Warrior Gathering kicked off in beautiful sunshine, so like all good internet marketers we headed back down into the basement away from all that nasty brightness. Sometimes I wonder if IM is another name for vampirism – maybe not an analogy I should pursue!

Oz

We started the day in the hands of Oz,  a warrior who is rapidly growing his presence on the forum and who released a really nice WSO the other day on stock option trading. If you missed it, you should check out Ant Handshake – it’s a great intro to the subject and a refreshing look at another stream of income.

I have to say, that yesterday, I thought he seemed a bit out of his depth. His talk was primarily around being an affiliate for a continuity program. Nothing wrong with that, but it felt as if he was just coming into that knowledge himself, so it wasn’t delivered from a position of strength. I came away with the realisation that I really have made some progress over the years, if this subject, delivered by a well-known warrior felt a bit basic. LOL.

From this point on, the sessions went into overdrive.

Peter Garety

Peter Garety was next up and spoke about the way he approaches everyone on his lists(s) in such a way as to deliver them the most value. His primary focus is to take every customer through a 12 month journey, during which they should grown into money-making experts – and so be able to pay him bigger and bigger sums for stuff he does to help them.

This was an excellent overview of a really well-thought out system, implemented to make sure everyone benefits. Summary: Customers first, Money second.

Mark Thompson

Following on from Peter, Mark Thompson gave us a perspective on moving away from the Warrior forum to a sustainable long-term business model. My chief takeaway from this was to sort out a core product for myself. Mark uses this model and points everything he does back to the core, no matter what kind of link or product, there’s always a link back to his core system: WP Goldmine.

Mark was obviously nervous on stage – isn’t it funny how we force folk into different roles, like public speaking, just because they have had success in other areas. Maybe we need an IM expert speaker training course. Despite all that, he spoke with great clarity and real humanity about what he was doing with his system. Impressive enough for me to consider buying into his $19 a month program.

Steve Benn

Changing the focus slightly, Steve Benn talked through the ins and outs of successful copywriting, an area we all know we should know more about. He made it clear that there are times when we treat our prospects in ways that are never going to get them to buy anything and that we should always bear in mind that folks buy stuff to get somewhere. It’s not “the product” that is important, it’s what it does to help you get what you wanted in the first place.

Obviously, his Instant Copywriting Expert (another great course) goes into this in more detail, but he repeated something I’ve heard before, which is to write out examples of good copy by hand (not typed) so that you get the flow and phrases into some kind of copywriting “muscle memory”.

Alex Jeffreys

Our final speaker for the day was Alex Jeffreys, who walked through his own ideas and system for building a funnel of lifetime vale for his customers. It’s difficult to add much here to the kind of reputation Alex already has, but it was a clear breakdown of all that we should all be thinking about as a way to build a business, not just a hobby.

Alex actually made us a WSO for his coaching program, possibly a little steep for a lot of people there, but great value nonetheless. If I hadn’t already been paying for other mentoring, I may have been a customer at that point. I have no idea if he would extend the offer, but £3,000 seemed like a good deal if you were looking for a mentor. Tell him Martin sent ya’ (no affiliate link) 🙂

Summary

Overall then, a great 2 day event, with a lot of thought-provoking content and without the constant pitch-fest of most of these affairs. I know that Paul and Justin were recording the whole thing, so expect a WSO release in the near future, which will be worth every penny.

If you’re on my list already, I am thinking of putting all this down in more detail in a quick pdf, so if you want actual content details, grab my outsourcing webinar and that will ensure you see all my updates.