Most people quit doing anything fairly quickly. People have a very low tolerance for frustration.

In Seth Godin’s book, “The Dip” he talks about illustrates the importance of sticking with things. Seth discusses how when you first start doing anything you do it pretty poorly. The time from when you first attempt doing something to the point where you do it fairly well he calls THE DIP.

Most people aren’t willing to “endure” the DIP. People want to get things FAST and with little if any work. For most people, this just isn’t going to happen. Every once in a while you’ll find someone who seems to pick up something with little or no effort. But that’s the EXCEPTION and NOT the RULE!

On a coaching session with a client the other day, I asked him this question: What area would you concentrate on if you had $10 million in the bank but still had to work at SOMETHING to get access to it. He answered the question almost instantly. That response helped me to coach him into THAT field.

Why?

Unless you LOVE what you’re doing, it’s going to be virtually impossible to stick with it over time. When things get difficult, you’ll want to quit. Not true if you’re pursuing your TRUE passion. Things will get in your way, but you’ll find a way around them.

The biggest problem here is making sure that whatever you’re pursuing is truly YOUR goal. Not your parents or someone else’s.

Let’s say you’ve figured out what you want to do in your life. You’re 1000% sure it’s what YOU want. Now what?

Then do everything you can, with every fiber of your being to get it!

Will there be obstacles that present themselves? Absolutely? Will people call you CRAZY for doing THAT? Sure. But who cares? It’s what YOU want.

What if what you really want doesn’t pay that well? Tough. If it’s what you REALLY want to do with your life, you’ll be a lot happier than making a lot more money doing something you DON’T like!

Conclusion

I hope that this e-book has been helpful to you. If it has, please let me know. If it hasn’t, I’m sorry. I realize I can’t please everyone and if you’re one of them, I’m sorry.

I’m convinced that if you take the ideas in this book and put them to use, they will help you to help you achieve success.

If it gets you just 1% closer as a result, my job has been done!

I grew up in the Philippines. Compared to the United States, it’s a very poor country. For a good majority of the time growing up, my Dad refused to have us live in the “American” section. Instead, we lived in a much more “modest” area.

It wasn’t the slums, but it wasn’t fancy. Right over the wall from one of my places was a community of squatters. They didn’t own the land, but they put up simple structures and lived there rent free.

There are always people that have it WORSE than you do. I don’t care who you are. Even if you’re Stephen Hawking! Compared to people who are DEAD, he’s not doing that bad. Sure, he has a tough life, but he seems to be making the best of it.

My “THEME SONG” for life (everyone should have one) is by a 60′s group called RARE EARTH. One of their bigger hits was a song called: “I Just Want to Celebrate”. The first line goes: “I just want to celebrate another day of living”.

Every day when I wake up I think about how lucky I am to be “visiting” the planet. No one guaranteed me I’d have this many years on earth. If things aren’t going so well, I always think to myself: Would I rather be here with these problems or be dead? I’ve never wanted to be dead MORE. It just didn’t seem nearly as fun.

Chances are you’ll have some really CRAPPY days (or weeks or months) while you’re alive. Welcome to the human race. No one seems to have everything work perfectly in their life every single day. Even celebrities have tough times. It’s part of being human.

But, no matter how bad it’s ever gotten for me I’ve always preferred to be alive rather than dead. Not everyone feels that way. I had a good friend who tried to commit suicide more than once. This person had, at that time, concluded it was better to be dead than alive. Luckily this individual is still around and NOW enjoying life.

This illustrates an important point. When you wake up and don’t feel like living, it usually isn’t a permanent condition. Things change. Things get better. And the reverse is true. Just when you feel like you’re on top of the world, something will happen to make you think that death wouldn’t be a bad alternative.

I’m grateful for everything I have. I often tell my wife that if I lost every material thing I had, it would kind of suck, BUT, it still wouldn’t be THAT bad. I would still be alive. In fact, I think that in some ways, if it ever happened to me AGAIN, I would just look at it like a board game. You just have to start a new game.

When you hear the term “staying in shape” people are usually referring to PHYSICAL fitness. This is certainly one component of being in shape, but it is ONLY one component.

In my view, there are also two other categories where you need to stay in shape: Financial and Spiritual. Don’t worry! I’m not here to give you a lecture about God or what you should believe. But, I will cover the concept of spiritual beliefs a bit later on.

In this piece, I don’t have time to go into incredible detail on any of the topics, but I think each are critically important. Additionally, I  am NOT the definitive expert on any of these topics. I suggest you search out more information on each area for further study.

Physical

On the physical side of staying in shape, I think you have multiple components here as well. Diet, exercise, sleep and meditation.

In the category of exercise you have three areas to concern yourself with. Aerobics, strength and flexibility.

You should be doing a few sessions of aerobic exercise every week. Recent research seems to point to the fact that aerobic results can be achieved in a lot shorter times with BURSTS of high energy exercise.

Strength training is a critical component of your physical fitness as well. You don’t have to become a body builder, but doing some sort of regular weight bearing exercise is necessary component of physical health.

Flexibility is an area often ignored. Even by people who do a lot of other kinds of exercise. Don’t be one of them. Whether it’s simple stretching or a more formal Yoga routine, make sure to include flexibility as part of your routine.

It’s no secret that diet is important to staying in good shape physically. The amount of controversy on this topic is enormous. I don’t intend to give you a specific regimen to follow here.

BUT, I do think you need to look into the various different diets out there and with careful consideration, choose one that makes sense to you.

Most people don’t even think of sleep as part of their overall health plan. Bad idea. Your body will tell you how much sleep you should be getting. Listen to it. Don’t cut down sleep in order to get more done. In the long run, it’s a very bad idea and can be physically harmful.

Meditation or prayer is one area that is seldom spoken about in the field of physical health. Whether you’re using the Relaxation Response system or praying to the God of your choice (if you have those beliefs), it is a big help.

It has been for me and I suggest you start if you aren’t already doing so.

Financial

If you operate a business, or in just “running your life” I suggest you keep your overhead low. Buying a house that’s bigger than you need or driving a car you really can’t afford will NOT help you achieve success.

Keeping my overhead low has allowed me to do (and NOT do) things that I choose. Other friends of mine drive super fancy cars, I drive a Honda.

The basic bottom line for success in the financial area can be summed up by: LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS!

Spiritual

In the Spiritual area, it’s critically important that you come to some understanding of what happens when you die. I’m not saying how or what you should believe, but coming to terms with this issue is critical to your success.

Once you’ve come to terms with that issue, living life becomes a lot easier.

If you think there is NOTHING that comes after this life, your thinking will be dramatically different than if you DO believe in an afterlife.

And, believing in an afterlife, you’ll want to adjust your thoughts, feelings and behavior in THIS life in order to achieve “success”.

Unless you figure out how to deal with your family and friends on personal issues, success will be pretty tough!

You may have family members or friends who are one of the main reasons why success is eluding you.

I break down personal relationships into 4 categories.

First, your relationship with your significant other. Second the relationship you have with your parents, if they are still around. Third is how you relate to your friends. Fourth is how you relate to your business associates.

Your Significant Other: Selection is the KEY to Success

Your life partner/mate is a critical relationship. A good one will help you succeed. A bad one will almost always impede your success.

Have you ever heard anyone say: “relationships are a lot of work”? I don’t buy that statement. Instead, I would say: “Bad relationships are a lot of work, good relationships CAN be work . . .  at times”.

I have a lot of experience in the area of mates and mate selection. I’ve been married more than once!

Even if I had worked REALLY hard on certain of my “love” relationships, I don’t think I could have made them work long term. Why? Because I had not made the right choice UP FRONT.

I honestly think that more than half the battle comes from CHOOSING the right person. Get this part of the equation right and things will be a LOT easier!

In my case, I relied on a computer algorithm to choose my “final” wife. It did a MUCH better job than I had done in any of my previous attempts.

In my case, I used E-Harmony. I’m not endorsing them, but it worked for me and a number of people that I know.

Selecting a mate is so important that I wanted to have a COLD, NON EMOTIONAL computer help me make the choice. I’m amazed how good a job the “machine” did.

As a result of my experience, I suggest everyone use a service like this to find a mate. OR, if you’ve met someone in a more “traditional” way, I suggest you use personality tests to see if you are truly well matched.

Make sure you do this as early on in the relationship as you possibly can. The longer you wait to figure out how good your match is, the tougher it will be to get out of it  if things aren’t right.

Parents/Family Members: You can’t choose them

Family members are often a major cause of problems for people. They are often a huge obstacle to success.

Just because someone is a “blood relative” does not give them the right to treat you poorly. This is true whether we’re talking about a parent, a sibling, or a more distant relative like a cousin, aunt or uncle.

You owe certain family members respect because of who they are. BUT, if they start to behave “badly” you have an obligation to yourself to stay away from them.

I have a close friend who was physically abused by her father growing up. When she got older she confronted him about the abuse. He refused to acknowledge fault in the matter.

She doesn’t talk or communicate with him any more. This is too bad, but, in my opinion, it’s the right thing to do.

Just because someone is your parent, it does not mean they are a good person. If they PROVE to you through their actions that they are not, STAY AWAY from them.

Parents and other close relatives must behave well to stay a part of your life. If they don’t, you have MY permission to dismiss them.

Friends: You CAN choose them

Friends are a great part of life AND success. Good friends that is. Friends that are supportive and helpful.

Not long ago I heard a friend of mine talking about a childhood friend of theirs. They described some behavior that wasn’t very “friend-like”. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but the childhood friend had behaved poorly.

When I asked a couple more questions, I got an interesting response:

“John is one of my earliest childhood friends so I cut him a lot of slack. He always does things like that.”

WOW!

Just because someone has been a friend from childhood does NOT give them the right to treat you like crap now. If a “friend” starts to treat your poorly, you need to let them know you don’t want any of that kind of behavior. If they continue, you need to DROP them as a friend.

You should not have anyone in your life who isn’t supportive of you and your goals. The occasional screw up can always happen, but someone who regularly and consistently behaves like an ASS, needs to be DROPPED from you friend roster.

Don’t hang out with people who don’t treat you right. PERIOD!

Business Associates: You CAN choose them

Business associates are a group you can CHOOSE. They aren’t like parents, siblings or other family members.

This being the case, I suggest you choose them CAREFULLY!

Making bad choices in this area will make it more difficult for you to succeed.

Much like a spouse, different people need different things in a business relationship. A person who would be ideal for me to work with in business would drive YOU nuts! And possibly the reverse would be true.

Before getting into any business relationship with someone you have to establish what works for YOU. I suggest you start by writing down all the traits that you feel you’d want in an ideal business partner.

If you’ve never done any business partnerships before, this will be a tough list to put together. Try your best. The more of them you’ve had, the easier this exercise will be.

Make a list that is composed to two sets of traits. One that are WANTED and ones that are NON-NEGOTIABLE. I’d like it if my business partners all owned 200 foot yachts. But, this is not a non-negotiable item to me.

A non-negotiable for me would be someone who I could trust with my retirement money. Someone who I would NEVER have to worry about pulling some crazy financial shenanigan.

Once you come up with your list. Stick to your guns.

The tough part is knowing whether the person you’re thinking of working it simply LOOKS like they possess a given trait or traits or ACTUALLY has them.

A good way to check yourself on this one is to introduce the potential business partner to your trusted friends and see what THEY think.

In the long run, you may get fooled, but at least you did your darndest to avoid that happening.

No matter what you decide to do in your life you’ll need to be able to control your emotions to be successful.  In my own life, I had some significant anger issues when I was younger. I used to get a lot angrier than I “should” have. I used to get super mad over stupid stuff.

Once again, Dr. Ellis, the guy I spoke about earlier, was instrumental in helping me correct this problem.

No one is perfect. Nor should you try to be. We all get angry. The PROBLEM occurs when our anger (or any other emotion – positive or negative) is out of proportion to the situation at hand.

The best way to explain this is to use the trusty old 1 to 10 scale. When something happens, ask yourself how important something is it . . . REALLY?

Something that is a life or death situation is a 10. Something that is of NO importance would be a 1.

In my case, something would happen that was about a 2 on the 1-10 scale. My response to the incident was often at a 5 or 6 level. Fully 3 or 4 full points higher than what the situation called for.

My emotional thermostat was OUT OF WHACK!

My goal for you is to get your reactions to things more in line with the actual severity or importance of the incident. To get to the point that when something happens that’s a 3 on the scale, that you react at ABOUT a 3 level.

Will this change overnight? Absolutely not. It will take time, effort and energy to make the changes.

I know that in my own case, it DID change. It took a few years to see significant change, but it happened.

Do I still over-react sometimes. OF COURSE! I’m a human being. So are you. So don’t expect to ever get to be perfect. It’s just not possible.

If you want to read more about this concept, I HIGHLY recommend you pick up a copy of Albert Ellis’ book: “A New Guide to Rational Living”.

What would you do if you had a million dollars in the bank but you were still required to work to access the money? This is the way I’ve always determined whether or not I was on the right track with what I was doing work-wise.

Would you be doing what you’re doing right now if they didn’t pay you? If the answer to that question is NO, then you haven’t found your PASSION. Your TRUE passion.

If your’e in a job or doing something right now you don’t LOVE, then try and think about what you would be willing to do for NO money. Thinking about that will get you going in the right direction.

Once you find what you love doing, then do it with GUSTO! Work will no longer feel like work. You’ll feel like you WANT to do something. It will feel effortless.

I know this sounds pretty simplistic, but it’s true.

There are a lot of books on the subject of success. This one is mine. How is it different? It’s MY perspective on the topic. And, my hope is that it will strike a cord in YOU. It’s my specific take on how to help YOU succeed at anything. Faster!

Definition of Success

When you use the word SUCCESS, the first thing you NEED to do is define the term. There are as many definitions of success as there are people trying to achieve it.

Mine is this: Getting what YOU want out of YOUR life. There are many definitions out there. NONE are as important as YOURS. No on else can tell you what success means for you.

The problem is you may not know what success means to you at this point. You’ve been told by a variety of sources what you SHOULD think or feel.

Most often your parents, but possibly by others as well.

Those suggestions may not have been helpful. The only thing that matters is what YOU want.

Starting from that point, let me give you seven things I think will help you to succeed in getting what YOU want out of life. Let’s begin.

1. Letting Go: Your Past is Your PAST

For many years I worked for a seminar company called CareerTrack. One of the programs I taught was based on the work of Dr. Albert Ellis. If you haven’t heard the name, he’s the “father” of a school of Psychology called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. R.E.B.T. for short.

In the early 1990s I became a big fan of Dr. Ellis and his work. He had an institute in New York City where I lived at the time. After discovering his work, I also discovered that he did weekly workshops every Friday night. After going to the first one, I was hooked.

This is the same Friday night workshop that the well known author Wayne Dyer sat in on (regularly) years earlier.

At one of my seminars I was doing one day in Iowa, a lady approached me at the lunch break. She related to me a harrowing story about how she had been molested as a child. Like all stories similar to this one, it was painful to hear. It was also clear that those events were still affecting her many years later as an adult.

After she finished I asked her if she was aware of what Oprah Winfrey had gone through as a child. According to her own accounts, Oprah had to endure similar horrendous treatment by a family member when she was growing up.

I was hoping to use Oprah as an example of someone who had been through a similar situation and had been able to overcome it. The lady in my seminar listened but wasn’t convinced. She told me “You don’t understand . . . MY situation is different.”

After she again finished telling me how she would NEVER be able to recover, I said this:

Here’s how I see it. Picture your sexual abuse as a large boulder that you are carrying around in your arms. It’s pretty big and heavy so you need both arms to carry it. And it weighs a LOT. It’s painful and emotional to be reminded of it every day as you carry it around.

Aren’t you getting kind of tired carrying that huge thing around day in and day out?

What would happen if you CHOSE to put the boulder down and not let it have any more power over you? What if you just walked away and left it somewhere? What if you never came back and never picked it up again?

I got a very perplexed look. She clearly wasn’t buying what I was saying.

Here is what I believe. As long as YOU carry around YOUR boulder, WHATEVER IT IS, you’ll always be able to give yourself an “excuse” for failure. It can never be YOUR fault when you don’t succeed. After all, YOU have to carry around a huge boulder every day.

But . . . what if you were to put the boulder down? Now you have NO excuse for not succeeding. There’s no boulder to point to. Now, your lack of success is YOUR issue alone.

Kinda scary! But TRUE!

As long as you walk around carrying a boulder you can always point to it to show people why you never got what you wanted in life. Put it down and you now have NO excuse. No reason to fail.

As scary as it might seem, I suggest you put down whatever boulder you’re carrying. It will be scary, but it will be worth it.

Leave the PAST in the PAST.

Good, prolific songwriters make a lot of money. Why? Because every time their music gets played, they get paid. Not a lot, but if they write a great song, it will get played a LOT of times. It will obviously get played a lot MORE when the song first comes out, but if it’s a good one, you’ll keep hearing it get played, year after year.

Information marketers are in a position to do something every similar. Every piece of digital content that you produce and make available for sale, COULD earn you a LOT of money. If you produce great, timeless content, then like a song, people will want to buy what you offer, year after year.

A great song is different than most digital content that info product marketers produce. Songs have universal appeal and they are often times timeless in their messages.

Some producers of digital products who market and sell information fall into this category. At this point, regrettably, much of what I write and sell is pretty timely. NOT timeless. I’m starting to change that now.

A good example, that I use all the time when I do a speaking engagement or hold a seminar is this one. Virtually everyone on the planet is familiar with the book “Think and Grow Rich”. It’s a timeless work. IF YOU can produce a work that is similarly timeless (in digital form) it will continue to sell forever. Much like a song.

Songwriters do have it a bit easier in this regard. Usually, when you have a GREAT song, it is by definition, timeless. Just look at Frank Sinatra!

Info products are a bit tougher to make timeless. But, it’s worth shooting for.

Most of the products I produce are timely because they involve some online marketing components. Given the speed that things change online, it would be impossible to create timeless products related to marketing online.

So, I’m using a dual track approach. An approach I suggest you try to use as well. In addition to the majority of my product production which is timely, I’m starting to produce and create items that will have some “staying power”. That will be around for a long time. That’s the goal.

I would suggest you understand and exploit the similarities of songwriters as an info marketer. The VAST majority of songs if they are hits are off the charts again in a matter of weeks. A very SMALL percentage will become classic, timeless songs.

Produce a LOT of content. TRY and shoot for some timeless content. BUT, don’t turn down being a one hit wonder (every once is a while). Remember, even my namesake Right Said Fred still gets paid every time you hear: “I’m too sexy”!

Let me make one thing 100% clear right off the top. Everyone has a different profile of their ideal client. My ideal client might be someone that you think is a jerk. It’s like most things in life, different people like and are attracted to different types.

This being the case, the first thing you need to figure out is what kind of client would be ideal for YOU.

When you’re just starting out trying to get clients in any field, there is a tendency to be VERY non-discriminatory. You want to make money and you’ll basically take anyone on who is willing to give you cash. The sooner your change your approach on this one, the better off you’ll be.

Working with people who are difficult or obnoxious just isn’t worth the money. I can see your head nodding in approval right now. It’s true. No one wants to work with people where there’s not a good fit.

The first step to figuring out who your ideal client would be is to look at your current business and professional relationships. Make a quick list of the people you do business with. In addition to those folks, make a list of your personal friends. The ones you get along with best.

When you finish making that list, your next task is to make another list. Now list the five primary traits that these folks possess that you find appealing.

What you’re developing is a PROFILE of the kind of people you tend to get along with. You want to make sure that you ONLY work with people you like. If not, it’s just not worth it.

This isn’t to say that you ONLY work with people you like and don’t give a darn about the financial side. But, that will come later.

Imagine if ALL of your CLIENTS were people you’d want to have over to your house for dinner. I want the work you do with clients to be AS fun as having friends over for a meal. I am pretty sure that’s NOT what it’s like for you now. We’re going to change that with this approach.

Let me give you an example. I have a client I’ll call Bill. Bill is the client I have the easiest time working with. Here are the five traits that Bill has that I really like.

1. Bill takes direction really well. He’s coachable.

2. Bill is always polite and respectful to me.

3. Bill never makes excuses for his actions or behavior.

4. Bill doesn’t have to feel like he’s the boss.

5. Bill is 100% honest.

These are the top five traits I could think of about Bill. There are others, but these are pretty much the top five reasons that I enjoy working with him. When I list the top 5 traits of my other clients that I really enjoy working with, I find many of the same traits in them.

Bingo!

I now know which traits are SUPER important to me in a client.

Additionally, I have found a number of other traits that are also important to me. I’d consider these secondary, but they are still very important. They include:

* Letting me be “in charge” of the process

* Always being willing to do the work and not leaving it to me

* Sending me my share of the $$ on time without prompting

* Responding quickly to my emails and phone calls

* Sending me status updates on our work regularly

I would suggest that in addition to your top 5 traits you come up with some secondary traits like I’ve just done here as well. This list of 10 items will give you a VERY clear picture of what’s important to you in a potential client.

Don’t worry if you feel ODD or WEIRD about things that you put down on your list. It’s what’s important to YOU. Don’t worry about what people might THINK of your choices. It’s none of their business. This is about YOU and finding YOUR ideal client.

For example, I put down: “Letting me be in charge . . .”. Some might think that I’m some kind of a control freak and somehow that’s “bad”. Don’t worry about that. Just figure out what works for you. This one happens to be important to ME.

You might be thinking: “The list I’m making is a list of traits I like in my friends, NOT just my clients”. You would be 100% right. My idea is to make it so the traits you like in your friends will ALSO be present in your business clients.

WHERE Do You FIND Your Clients?

Once you know the type of client you want, now you have to find them. The problem is that ACTIVELY looking for clients is often the WORST way to get the RIGHT clients.

When you go out looking for people, the ones you find are often NOT the ones you really need to create a successful business.

Instead, the idea is to attract the right people to you. The key difference is to set up a system that ATTRACTS people to you.

Set up YOUR Websites

You’ll need to set up a few different websites to make this system work. Don’t worry, these will be easy to set up. I’ll give you examples of each that you can copy.

It’s my suggestion that you set up a website and drive potential clients to that site to find and attract clients. I’ll call this site your authority site. From that site, you’ll have a couple of other websites that will accomplish very specific tasks.

I’ve found this to be the simplest and most cost effective way to attract new clients.

Your “AUTHORITY” Site

The goal of your authority site is two-fold. First, to get people to find you online. Second, once they get to the site to establish YOU as the expert in your field.

Once they get to your authority site, they may NOT be the “right” type of people for you. We’ll figure that one out a bit later.

In my case, my authority site is FredGleeck.com. It’s set up to attract potential clients and establish me as an expert in the field of information marketing. That’s MY specialty.

Check out my site to see what I mean here. In fact, feel free to COPY any or all of the elements and concepts I use on the site. They are working pretty well for me!

One of the first things you’ll notice on my site is the tag line. I put it in red and it says: “Resources to help YOU Build an Ethical Information Marketing Business!” This line makes it clear that I have no interest in doing business with anyone who is doing SHADY stuff.

You need to do the same. Come up with a TAG LINE that you put somewhere near the top of your site. This should let your visitors know the kind of client you’re trying to attract as well as the kind of person you are.

Getting People Visit YOUR Authority Site

In order for people to find YOU, they’ll have to find your authority site. How do you make that happen? There are a number of different ways. Some of them paid and some of them free.

Let’s talk here JUST about one of the free methods. For me, it’s been the most effective. Blogging. On my authority site, FredGleeck.com, I do a lot of blogging about my topic. I suggest you do the same for yours.

I do both written and video blogs. The way that I write and the videos I create tend to attract the “right” potential clients for me. I want you to do the same. Over time you will!

The “trick” is to title your blog posts with titles that contain the KEYWORDS that you’re trying to target. Words that the RIGHT potential clients of yours would use when searching.

Don’t spend your time trying to get traffic to your other sites we’ll talk about later. Spend all of your time generating traffic to your authority site. From there, give potential clients links to your other sites we’ll talk about.

Doing this will keep your efforts concentrated. Trying to generate traffic to ALL of these sites would dilute your efforts. Don’t do it.

Your OTHER Sites

Once you’ve established that you are indeed an expert in your field with your authority site, you’ll need a number of additional sites that will serve other purposes.

AGAIN, don’t think this is a big deal. You can COPY all of my sites and have them up very quickly!

I’ll call the next site your CONSULT site. My example for this one is the site, ConsultWithFred.com.

On this site I offer people a 20 minute consultation for $100. They can only use this option ONCE. And, they can also apply the $100 towards certain other products that I offer.

Take a look at that site NOW.

A few years ago, I had this site set up so that people had to pay me $500 for 90 minutes of my time. I made the change to my current model for a couple of reasons.

First, the $500 price tag seemed a bit high for an entry point for my services. Second, when the economy tanked, the price was a bit steep for someone who was working with me for the first time.

Whenever someone finds me, either through my authority site or through any other means, I use this site to see if they are REAL. Whenever I get a call or an email from someone asking to “talk” to me about my services I direct them to this site.

Coaching and consulting I do for money. I chat with my friends. I don’t want YOU to fall into the trap of doing free consultations. This is a bad idea. Your CONSULT site will make it easy for you to avoid this trap.

This site will do one primary thing for you.

It will help you screen out the lookey-loos. These are the people who CLAIM they may eventually give you money but they never do. It’s not worth your time and effort to spend time with these folks.

Don’t give away your services for FREE. Bad idea. It RARELY results in REAL business. People who aren’t willing to pay a little bit up front will seldom turn out to be real.

The next site I’d like you to look at I’ll call your TESTIMONIAL site.

If you can, get some of your existing clients to record videos about you and your services. In my case, I picked 3 of my Joint Venture partners to use. For an example, go to JVwithFred.com. Again, feel free to copy exactly what I’ve done on this site.

I set up Skype interviews with these 3 guys. We spoke for around 10 minutes or so in each case. I asked them how it was to work with me. I got them to give me some honest feedback about how it was to work with me.

Anyone who watches these videos will get a good idea about how it would be to work with me. This site is instrumental to helping me find and secure my ideal clients. Once again, I suggest you do something very similar. In fact, just COPY what I’ve done to save you time.

The final site I’d like you to consider to attract your idea client is your ONGOING REVENUE site.

Set up this kind of site to find a way to get people to pay you money on a regular (usually monthly) basis. Once they start to work with you monthly, you can then trade them up to more in-depth and expensive client relationships.

I’ll give you two examples to look at here: BootcampByPhone.com and FredCoaching.com.

Both of these sites have been set up to get people into short term, monthly coaching deals with me.

I suggest you either pick one or both of these to copy.

These are simple sites that try and get people to commit to working with you on a monthly basis with no long term contract. This is good for both you and them. It allows you to figure out whether they are your TYPE of client.

If they aren’t, they can be gone in a month. If they are the right kind of client for you, you may be able to trade them up into a long term, ongoing relationship.

The Process

So let me summarize the process for you. First, provide them with a lot of valuable free information in your field using your authority site.

Then, provide people with a lower priced option to SAMPLE you and your work.

Then, trade people up to more expensive, sometimes ongoing paid relationships with you.

Finally, convert those clients into long term, high paying clients.

At each step of the way, you’ll get a feel for what the people are like. Often times, I’ll be able to tell from the first 20 minute phone call if I’d want to do work with people again.

I’m sure YOU will get similar feelings.

If at any point you get the feeling like this person is not YOUR KIND OF PERSON . . . . STOP! Do not continue working with them. Remember that you established your list of primary and secondary traits of people you want to work with.

Check at each step of the process whether the people you work with are those kind of people. If they are NOT, then do NOT continue to work with them.

It will take a while, but soon, you’ll be working with your IDEAL clients.