Who the Heck is Frank Bauer anyway?

Hi,

The following I just posted on Sterling Valentine’s blog at www.jvformula.com/blog/ … enjoy.

BTW… I absolutely recommend to listen to the recording Sterling did with Mike Filsaime.

Hi Sterling,

Wow…. great call and great content. Loved it and learned a lot.

I have to make a confession… I have been a bad boy! No… not what you think. But I have done big mistakes when it comes to JV’s.

Some of them being e.g. to do last minute approaches, handing out business cards during the World Internet Summit without connecting first to the people I gave them to, I even approached speakers with my JV offer without warming them up much… oooops!

One person that took me up by my offer anyway was Mike Filsaime, I assume because I unknowingly did it right with him… he knew me from before as I promoted many of his sites, gave him testimonials for his great membership sites and bought his Butterfly Marketing package.

It’s kind of funny… (or sad?) I started online a long time before him and when he was just getting started, I was way ahead of the game… well, that was back then. He overtook me like a rocket and now I am looking up to him and try to learn from him as much as I can.

That’s the reason why I also joined his i5Gold mentoring program… he is for me now a person of great example, I admire his success story and can proudly say that he is now my mentor and coach.

If anybody asks me who they should choose as a mentor… I highly recommend Mike’s i5Gold program to them.

Let me share a little story of connected events that lead to where I am now and to what I am now grateful for.

It all starts back then when I was about 15-16 years old… almost 20 years ago.

If I wouldn’t have watched that German 4 part series about some German families and their adventures while being on vacation in the USA, that was shown on TV around Christmas season back when I was about 16, I wouldn’t have had the wish in my head of one day going to the USA for a 4 weeks+ vacation myself.

If I wouldn’t have went to the USA when I was 22 years old and worked 2 1/2 years there in an operating center of a German military base near Washington, D.C. (German Armed Forced Command USA & Canada in Reston, Virginia), I wouldn’t have meet my wife Luisa.

If I wouldn’t have went my wife Luisa, we wouldn’t have our son Nico, that we both love and adore, together and she wouldn’t have given me the idea and persistence to move to Australia.

If I wouldn’t have moved to Australia, I wouldn’t have met Mike in person during the World Internet Summit seminar.

If I wouldn’t have met Mike in person, I wouldn’t have joined the i5Gold program… and I would be writing this now.

I am so grateful for that simple TV show that placed that idea into my head, that lead me to the USA, that made me meet & marry my wife, that brought us our son and moved us to Australia where I finally met Mike in person and join the i5 group.

If anybody asks me now… what helps me the most to get forward in your online business, I would definitly say it is JV’s and attending offline events.

I just wish I would have attended offline events a lot earlier. Last March, the WIS here in Sydney Australia was the very first I ever attended.

When I left the US back in March 1996 (after living in Virigina for 2 1/2 years), I was getting started online… and I didn’t even know that there is such a think as this seminars.

When I was living in Germany… my excuse was always that traveling to the US to attend those events was outside my budget.

Now that I moved to Sydney, Australia… I finally was able to attend one (I run out of excuses)… and it was simply GREAT!

This is the time where I have to give a BIG thank you to a very good online buddy of mine, for many years already, that gave me the greatest gift of all last Christmas.

Bruce Gibson from Queensland, Australia, owner of many web sites like www.NicheScripts.com gave me the the very best Christmas present I could think of. He contacted me shortly before Christmas… and invited me to the WIS (World Internet Summit).

At first I was speachless… felt like I couldn’t accept such a gift, but luckily he had been the second best JV partner / affiliate during the firesale I had shortly before and earned big big commission check… which made it a lot easier for me to accept that gift.

One day in the future… I WILL also attend JVLive, the BIG Seminar and all the other great events in the US. Hey… maybe they even come to Australia one day (hint, hint Ken & Armand).

Three last words…

1. Ken, thank you for your great feedback to my silly mistake when I send a JV offer through JVAlert a couple of weeks ago.

2. Sterling, thank you for this great inspirational (spelling?) blog that you provided.

3. Mike, thank you for being my mentor and coach… I owe you a lot! Just let me know how ever, when ever I can help you.

‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.’
Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

To your success,

Frank Bauer

PS: Who ever finds a spelling mistake can keep it free of charge. Mike… your typos always made me feel good… thank you.

Hi,

I want to quickly share with you an online marketing lesson that I was reminded of today offline…

Normally I do weekly data backups onto my external FireWire Iomega Rev drive. But not yet this week as my drives power supply was busted. BTW… this is the second power supply of an Iomega drive that I know of that broke… the same happened to my brother (www.Batronix.com … hi Andre’, if you read this, say hello to Gabi and the kids).

Still… I do like that drive for backups, I just wish their power supply would be as good as the drive.

Since I bought my drive through eBay (no warranty), I drove to Powerhouse in Parramatta today to quickly pick up a new one… 5 Volt & 1 Ampere, how hard can that be.

Well… they didn’t have it in stock and recommended another store to me to get it. I have to admit I was listening not very closely, anyway… by the time I arrived at the intersection they told me to drive to, I had forgotten the name of the store. I looked around, saw a bike store, a car parts store and yes… there was a computer store.

I entered the tiny computer store and asked the mate inside for the power supply. Nope… he doesn’t sell power supplies like that he replied. Hmmm… I told him somebody in Powerhouse told me to check in his store and he replied: “Did you check in Jaycar?”

Hmmm… Jaycar? The car parts store? I didn’t think they would have power supplies, but thanked the computer store employee and left for Jaycar. On the way there I kept wondering why a car parts store would have power supplies… but since it was recommended, I went there.

When I entered Jaycar… I was completely surprised! That wasn’t a car parts store at all, but an electronics store. Hey… and they had the right power supply for “only” Au $29.95!

When I told the mate at the register about my misunderstand, he nodded and explained to me how the name of the store came from the name of the original owner of the store.

I told him that their store name is misleading and they should at least place a sub header under their store name on the outside (yes, silly me used the term sub header). He said they do… and when I left I saw that electronics where mentioned in smaller letters under the store name.

What can we learn from this? If their store name would had at least said “Jaycar Electronics” or similar, I would have went straight there. I am pretty sure they are loosing business this way.

And the same is true for our online web businesses, if our URL, product or service name and web page headlines are not telling the visitor exactly what they can expect from us and what we are delivering to them.

What do you think about this?

‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.’
Napoleon Hill, Think & Grow Rich

To your success,

Frank Bauer

Hi,

Again, this weekend I attended the Internet Millionaire’s Protege Bootcamp here in the Telstra Stadion in Sydney, Australia.

The following 30 day action plan has been provided by Scott Patom, the Dean of Blogonomics and Podology at his Sydney Internet Millionaire’s Protege Bootcamp…

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Derek Gehl gave you a 30 day action plan. Here it is:Step One – PLAN
1. List 5 hobbies, interests or areas of expertise.
2. Brainstorm a list of keywords and phrases related to those hobbies and interests.
3. Research those keywords in Wordtracker to locate problem statements that have high search results and low competition.
4. Research those problem statements further to determine if you can develop a product to solve the problem stated.
5. Find or create a product to sell based on your research.
6. Write a long-copy salesletter for that product.
7. Register a domain and set up a hosting account.
8. Register for a merchant account (to set up quickly, use PayPal… www.PayPal.com)
9. Set up a simple web site using an automatic site builder or pay to have someone set it up for you.

Step Two – PREPARE
10. Set up an opt-in form on your web site to collect e-mail addresses.
11. Build an extensive keyword list based on the initial list of keywords you developed.
12. Submit those keywords to Overture and FindWhat to start driving traffic to your site right away.
13. Optimize and submit your web site to organic search engines (Google, Altavista, etc.).
14. Continue to test and tweak your web site until it meets your target conversion rate.
15. Set up an affiliate program on your web site.
16. Approach complementary web sites to sign up as affiliates to promote your product.
17. Start publishing a monthly newsletter.
18. Submit articles to related newsletters and e-zines on a regular basis.

Step Three – PROMOTE
19. Continue developing a content-rich web site to further increase search engine rankings.
20. Once keywords have been tested in Overture, roll out in Google AdWords.
21. Roll out tested keyword list in other major PPCs.
22. Create a viral eBook to generate more leads.
23. Have an expert review and critique your web site.
24. Survey your existing customers to find out what other products or services they are looking for.
25. Create or find backend products and market them through your e-mail list.
26. Continue to test and tweak your web site and offers.
27. Repeat process to create “Multiple Streams of Income.”

Keep Blogging and Podcasting!

Scott Paton
Dean of Blogonomics and Podology

P.S. 4 Steps to Online Success…

A) Find a large and easy-to-reach target market
Find a product or service the market wants
C) Have a GREAT sales process
D) Backend, backend, and then backend again

Hi,

This weekend I attended the Internet Millionaire’s Protege Bootcamp here in the Telstra Stadion in Sydney, Australia.

The following GREAT tips to make 100% sure YOUR emails reach ALL the receiver have been provided by Scott Patom, the Dean of Blogonomics and Podology at his Sydney Internet Millionaire’s Protege Bootcamp…

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G’Day!

Here are the whitelisting sites Derek Gehl mentioned today:

AOL: postmaster.info.aol.com/tools/whitelist_guides.html

Hotmail: www.bondedsender.com/register

Disclaimer: Resemblances to your self or other characters in this story are merely coincidental. If this sounds like you don’t worry. You are not unique.

Does this sound familiar:

Hi my name is Neophyte Newbie.

I have been trying to make money on the internet for 6 months now and my goal was to make 1 million dollars.

The problem I am having is that to date I have spent hundreds (really thousands but I am too embarrassed to say it) and am making no money. I quit my job so I could work full time on my “Internet Business” and I need $3000 in the next two weeks because the ponzi scheme I joined did not pay out what they claimed they would when I invested my last $12.

My wife and kids are getting tired of eating government issue peanut butter, raisins, cheese, and stale bread from the food bank and the prospect of living in a car for the rest of the winter is freaking me out.

I am trying to start this fire sale but so far I have no jv partners and the ebook I wrote about “how to make money on the internet” is not selling.

I only have $500 left on my last credit card (the rest are maxed out and the bill collectors are calling every day) and was wondering if I should purchase the new Nuclear Portal Maker software because they say that if I don’t they are locking the doors for ever and only those who purchase it will have the secret of push button money printing?

I have every resale right software, source code sale, and ebook known to man but I have not read any of the ebooks, used the software, or glanced at the source code since I purchased them. Does anyone have some ideas on how I can turn them into money?

I put up 200 adsense sites last week but so far I have only earned $10 in adsense and spent $500 on adwords just to get the traffic to my adsense sites to click on the ads.

I hear niche sites are the way to go and that you can earn $10,000 a month easily with them and that if you do Google sends an armored truck to your door to deliver your check in the form of solid gold bricks.

Can anyone tell me a good niche to target?

It seems like people are making a lot of money in the “make money on the internet” niche but there is so much competition that my ebook about how to make $10,000 a month while lying in bed is not doing as good as I expected.

I hear the Mesothelioma niche pays $1,000,000 a click. Does anyone have a good template or pre-made site I can put up?

How about press releases do those work? I saw this package for $500 that looked really good. What should I write about when I do my press releases?

Has anyone tried e-currency trading does it really work? I am desperate and need to make money fast. I tried putting up a special offer in the warrior s0ecial o&fer for5m about my fire sale but it kee`s getting deleted… can you tell me why?

I have purchased efery joint venture course, google adsense book, and niche marketing course I can find but I still am not making any money.

I still have not done my Christmas shopping and things are going pbetty rough righ4 now.

Any su’gestions?

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1. Get a Job

2. Keep a Job

3. Stop cash bleeding. You will not fail (or succeed for that matter) based on whether or no4 you have the l!test so&tware or course.

4. Niche sides and !dsense 0ortals are not the end all solution. Just like dhe “How to JV” course explosion the “niche marketing” topic is just the new catch phrase that has been pushed hard for the last year an$ so eve2yone is in a frenzy trying to jemp on board before they miss the boat.

Relax. Don’t buy into the hype. If yoe have overspent your budget and sacrificed food, rent, and telephone bills just to get the latest course you have probably already missed the s(ip and jumped off the dock into the freezing water ignorantly.

If yo5 do not have a business foundation to build on then maxing out your last credit card to get the latest course is not going to make an ounce of difference in your success and will only ultimat%ly add 4o your financial stress and misery.

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Caveat: this may sound strange coming from an optimist like my self but I have experienced sleeping on the cement in the middle of winter and not finding food for days a a time. I h!ve even felt a little like Hans Christian Andercen’s “little ma4ch stic+ girl” !s I tri%d to wabm my self with the smallest fire. I have been penniless on many occasion forced to work fast to raise rent.

I have also learned from those experiences many 9ears ag/ and al4hough t(e underctanding I have gained is priceless I do not intend to put my self in that position gain.

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Most entrepreneurs get started either with a small amount of seed capital (hard for most to save), a loan from a family member, friend, or college, or by borrowing, mortgaging, and maxing out credit #ards.

In facd many get started by borrowing from anyone and everyone they can.

However, those that succeed have a business plan. They are not borrowing to purchase the latest co5rse or 3oftware.

Thei might borrow to purchase integral components of a production pbocess ob some other instrument that will assist them in creating a marketable good or service.

Most college students borrow to get their education. But how &oolish )s the student who borrogs and then parties the entire t)me, or plays vi$eo game3, or watches tv instead of cracking the books…

Then how disappointed is the student who failed to study, crammed for every exam, and never once applied in real wo2ld experience w(at was ,earned.

When they enter the marketpl!ce they find they lack the expebience, skill, and knowledge to succeed.

They are faced with the choice to change or flip burgers.

If you are like the student who paid the tuition semester after semeste2, marke4ing course and ebook after cource, and never cr!cked the books to apply them in real buciness then I invite you to change.

I invite you to succeed.

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Caveat: A majority of authors publishing about “niche marketing” in the -ake money on the internet niche have only made a few hundred to a few t(ousand dollars a month and are not really qualified to teach.

Niche sites and adsense can make people a lot of money. However, those who are most successful have an extensi6e technical kno7ledge, 3eo expertise, and excepdional besiness -anagement skills. So do those who are selling the courses with a knowledge that 90% of the people who buy them will do the same thing they do every day… NOTHING.

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Here is a #ourse of action that can be adapted to fit the needs of many desperate .ewbies /r would be internet marketers who never got off the ground and now find themselves floating on an ice shelf which is quickly melting:

1. Cancel every subscription and membership that is not making you money.

Stop it! Stop your stupid worrying about the fact that you will “never” get that membership back to the fancy script building wiz bang that will line your pockets in the future with cash if you only get around to getting your site up and integrating it.

I have news for you. You are not going to make any money with it now or in the future. The truth is that you need to go through a personal transformation before any such membership will be of any value. Otherwise month after month you will continue to pay your fee always “intending” to use it and lying to your self that in the very near future you will be ready.

I call what you are doing “cash bleeding.” It is a form of self deception.

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Caveat: I know you are hyperventilating. Your mind is beginning to spin. You are probably feeling hot flashes and feel like punching someone… I am on the other side of this screen but punching me will only hurt your hand. Just grab a small paper bag and breath into it for a while.

Your sanity will return and once you begin to progress in your rehabilitation and you will see that I am telling you what your own continence has been telling you the entire time. You would not be in this position if you had only listened to your continence in the first place…

The truth is that those sales letters are designed to psychologically entice you to ignore your continence and BUY! BUY! BUY!

I mean really think about it. How much money have you spent on the next big thing when you were not even looking for it and do not even know how to apply it to your business? Did you purchase it because it was on a shopping list you designed based on your business plan?

Do you actually think that is how successful businesses are built?

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2. Get a job. If you plan on working in direct sales on the internet I suggest you get a direct sales job. Dan Kennedy suggested the same thing to an acquaintance of mine who asked him what was the number one skill he should obtain to become successful online. If you are successful in sales and business management offline you will find learning and applying online business skills so much easier.

I believe that most people who suck at selling offline will suck at selling online. In fact if you suck at selling online and offline your only other options are to either become an SEO expert or hire people work for you who excel at selling.

If you suck at selling, lack the commitment to become great through study AND APPLICATION, and you suck at SEO and lack the commitment to study and APPLY until you master it I suggest you…

GET A JOB.

If for no other reason get and keep a job so that you can afford to live while you learn about starting a business.

Also one of my greatest secrets is that I worked in commission based sales and marketing management for other companies and as a consultant to dozens of brick and mortar businesses and by so doing was able to observe without risk and learn from their mistakes and operational weaknesses and strengths.

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Caveat: Are you finding your self hopping from mlm to mlm, randomizer to randomizer, ponzi scheme to ponzi scheme?

Well boy have I got an opportunity for you…

GET A JOB!

Stop making your family suffer. Stop lying to your self. You probably lack dedication and commitment or you simply have been brainwashed to believe the lies.

There is no free lunch. You are not going to magically sponsor the worlds greatest network marketer in your downline who is going to build your business for you while you sit in bed brain dead counting money.

Joining the latest ground floor opportunity is not going to magically change your life.

More fail in such opportunities than succeed and the probability that you will magically become a star with no previous experience by recruiting thousands to buy into your fantasy is all part of the lie.
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3. Read and apply the books and courses you already have.

Besides, you probably purchased the best info available on any given subject and the last 3 books you purchased on that subject are probably written by people who read the course you had and decided to write a book about the same subject regurgitating the same info with less quality.

Oh, and don’t forget this one important thing:

Read and apply the books and courses you already have.

4. Create a plan and execute it. If it fails refine your plan and execute it again. If you fail to plan you plan to fail. Succeeding on accident is the rarest form of success. Don’t plan on succeeding on accident or you may have an accident and fail. Plan to succeed on purpose.

That means you need to get off your duff and work!

5. Don’t purchase anything else besides a hosting account, phone line, internet connection, and necessary tools to execute your plan.

Also, remember that much of the information and even much of the software, and scripts you might be interested in purchasing can easily be found online for free or supplemented with low cost, free, and open source solutions. Later after you are generating revenue you can upgrade to the tools that are necessary to help your business progress.

Ebay is a discount software buyers best friend.

6. Budget.

Self explanatory.

7. Approach potential JV partners and affiliates in the same way you would like to be approached. Don’t hype them. Don’t write some sales letter in an email. Talk to them like a real person in a personal way.

8. Differentiate but do not be anal about it. I hear a lot of pitches for ideas that if they were not filled with so much excess useless functions that serve no functional purpose they just might succeed. The problem is that when the person pitching the idea gets some feedback telling them to dump the stupid stuff and simplify they are so stuck on the extra baggage that they can never get over it and ultimately fail.

9. Action massive action. I don’t mean to be rude but I get question after question from people who at one time were going in the right direction but instead of taking action they kept asking questions and got lost along the way.

The way to success is taking action. I have learned more through my own trial and error than all the courses in the world.

10. Don’t be afraid to fail.

If you don’t take the chance of failure you will never have the opportunity to succeed.

Michael Jordan once said:

“I can accept failure but I cannot accept not trying.”

11. Get off you butt and go to work. Don’t spend another penny until you do.

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Caveat: 90% of the people who see this will probably still not take any action. Do your self a favor. Join the 10%.

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I do not care if there are detractors to this post. You are entitled to your opinions but it makes no difference to me. I only posted it to help and possibly shed a little humor on real problems the majority of would be “internet marketers” experience.

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Josh Anderson is president and CEO of Internet Business Ideas Inc. He is creator of the best selling Website Jukebox – software. See some of Josh’s creations, free tutorials, and pick up a copy of his free video postcard creator at www.TotalWebAudio.com

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Note: Frank here… this is sooooo true Josh! And I have to admit… I fell in some of the traps myself Thanks for the wake up call.