Everyday I'm reminded of how truly amazing
the Internet is.
For example, today...
I have pair of leather boots made by a company
called Blundstone in Australia.
I bought them when I moved back from San Francisco
to upstate New York ten years ago. (There's a lot
of mud in upstate New York sometimes!)
Ten years later, after being worn constantly, they
still look brand new.
I'm in awe of whoever put these things together.
The material...the workmanship...it's off the
hook.
The catch is the heels...After all this time,
they are really worn down.
These boots are as comfortable as slippers,
yet they wear like iron, so I hate the idea of
trashing them. Where ever I travel, I always
drop in on shoemakers to see if they can resole
them.
(The boots are put together in such a way that
it's not easy to remove the soles and attach
new ones.)
The answers I've received...in New York...in Toronto
...in London...in Milan...have ranged from "Sorry"
to "No way" to an annoyed "It's impossible!"
This morning I went to Google and searched
"repair Blundstone boots" and BANG! up comes
a company in Salem, Orgeon...
They've been successfully performing this tricky
operation via mail order for nearly fourteen years.
Needless to say they got my business instantly.
*** The Internet is the safe port in the storm
The global economy may be going to hell in a
hand basket, but the INTERNET economy?
The Internet keeps rolling along...
Why?
Because people are always buying no matter
what the economy is doing...they just buy a
whole lot smarter in down times.
And more and more people know the Internet is
the smart place to buy...not only for price
and variety...but also to find things you simply
can't find anywhere else.
The proof...
This year overall sales at traditional
"bricks and mortar" retail stores are down
5.5% to 8%.
That's catastrophic when you've got rent and utilities
and a large staff to pay.
In contrast, across the board online store sales
are only down only 2.3%...and many Internet companies
- Amazon for example - are reporting *better* sales
figures this year than last.
With a little toning up, most well conceived
Internet-based businesses are going to ride
through the current storm just fine.
But where do you go to "tone up" your business
these days?
Sadly, many of the best known names in
entrepreneurial education have given up
any pretense of educating people.
Seminar after seminar has degenerated into
"all pitch, all the time."
Maybe this worked in the go-go era leading
up to the credit crunch...
But I don't know...It always seemed like a bad
policy to me.
At the System we're going to keep doing
things the way we've always done them:
You pay for a seminar. You get a seminar...
Not a three day live infomercial.
We're also going to continue giving away
tons of valuable free Internet marketing
training online, but with a twist...
To celebrate our 15th year of offering
hard core, real world Internet marketing
training, we're raising the bar yet again.
Seven years ago, when I launched our new
seminar - the System Seminar - we were the
first to give away full-fledged Internet
marketing training online free.
Now everyone does it (or a weak version of it)
This year, I'm going through the archives
of past System Seminars and pulling out
the very best stuff for you.
That's right...until now, you had to be
an insider to even get a shot at buying
recordings of Systems Seminars, now you're
going to have a chance to listen in on
some of the very best sessions we've
ever done.
Like this one...
The day Google's guy in charge of testing
tools came to the System and revealed the EXACT
tools and techniques that Google uses to
test its pages...along with Google's own
testing results.
You can search until you're blue in the face
and you'll never find another example of
Google directly sharing this information
at any of the "guru" infomercial seminars.
But attendees at System 2008 got it...
and now you're doing to get it too.
This is a SERIES of videos...eight in
all...make sure you have a pen and
paper handy and you take notes.
Check it out:
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/2009/
Ken
P.S. There are EIGHT videos here.
Make sure you see all of them.
They're short and each one contains
one BIG idea you can apply to your
business right away.
One of the things our guest expert
from Google does in this talk is demolish
some of the popular guru-spread myths
about Internet marketing like...
* Where should you put your opt-in
box?
* The value of surveying your customers...
is there really any?
* Does putting a call-in graphic on
your site help or hurt sales?
You might be surprised by the answers.
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/2009/
Ken McCarthy
The System Seminar
---------------------------------------------------------
* The System Seminar March 27 - 29, 2009
The annual gathering of *serious* Internet entrepreneurs
http://www.TheSystemSeminar.com
* Home study solutions for Internet entrepreneurs
http://www.KensCatalog.com
* Serious marketing books for serious marketers
http://www.RealMarketingBooks.com
The System
Education for Internet Entrepreneurs
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Tivoli, NY 12583
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