No matter if you like his style or not, Donald Trump is a businessman extraordinarre. Personally, I like the Donald, even if he has singularly the worst hair in existence! I certainly don’t agree with everything he says, especially in the political realm, but that’s neither here nor there.
Donald is a visionary and I don’t think he’s nearly as arrogant as he comes across. That’s largely a persona. How do I know? Because I usually like to take people at their word–until proven otherwise.

And Donald stated in one of his books that he’s actually a rather humble person. He realizes that in the world of business things can go wrong–sometimes awfully wrong. After all, he was almost on the verge of insolvency back in the early 1990’s after being on top of the world in the eighties.

He went on to reveal that he has a picture of the Universe somewhere in his office or where he lives. He likes to look at it when he’s facing a seemingly intractable problem. It reminds him, no matter how we big we think our problems are, in reality, they are merely a speck in relation to the cosmic scale of events. Inconsequential.

Business, in his view, is a game. Ultimately, it doesn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things, the Donald says.

I personally like that view. It may seem frightening to some, or make others feel that what they do in this world is irrelevant. And, in a sense, it is. But in another sense, what we do is the ONLY that matters since the time we are given is finite.

Each of our lives represents our “infinity” on Earth.

OK, enough philosophy.

The point of my post is momentum.

My second favorite Donald book, after his all-time classic “The Art of the Deal,” is one called “Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and In Life.”

I know the title is super cheesy. I’m just the messenger.

But the book is very good. Indeed, it’s one of my favorite business books of all time, perhaps.

There’s a chapter in the book that Donald dedicates to the topic of Momentum. He remarks that of all the business books he’s ever read, he’s never come across one where the importance of momentum is a central theme.

The Donald drives the importance of momentum home using a poignant story. I no longer have the book as I lent it to someone, so I’m writing from memory.

In this chapter, Donald speaks about momentum’s role in his own business life, but then recounts a story about the man who literally invented the idea of the suburbs. This man, needless to say, became very wealthy and eventually was bought out by a significant concern.

As part of the buy out he signed an agreement that he would not get back into the real estate business for a certain amount of years. Either 10 or 15 years. It was quite a length of time.

Seeing as he was financially set, he basically just lived it up. Sailed on yachts, surrounded himself with beautiful women, the whole cliched lifestyle you might expect to hear about from a man who made an enormous amount of money and contractually could not even enter the game anymore for a set period of time.
Eventually, like all true entrepreneurs, the man who invented suburbia grew tired of sailing around expensive yachts and yearned to get back into “the game.”

When enough time had elapsed, he did in fact re-enter “the game.” He took risks, and, to make a long story short, lost a tremendous amount of money and went broke.

Donald recounts being invited to a high end party, I believe it was in the mid 90’s or thereabouts, after he was back on his feet. Other people in the room were high level players and Donald described the scene as one where these players were striking deals and networking and basically having a grand ole’ time.

Then he spied the man who created suburbia (who was now an old man). The man was sitting in a corner by himself, looking sullen and dejected.

Donald had always respected this man for his accomplishments and went over to talk to him. After saying hello, Donald asked how he was doing.

The man responded “Not good, Donald, not good.”

Donald asked what was the matter. Then man who created suburbia told Donald of all of his troubles and eventual downfall.

Donald then asked him a pointed question: “What happened?”

The man’s answer was one that Donald Trump never forgot. The elderly man said, “I lost my momentum, Donald.”

Shortly after that meeting, the man who created suburbia passed away.

Donald said he carries that lesson with him to this day and dedicated a chapter in his book about just this very topic.

I bring up this lesson because momentum is vital when it comes to the game of article marketing. Some people spurt out of the gate, only to peter out quickly. Some are very slow and plodding and never seem to ever gain momentum.

Others, however, can strike the balance between steady volume and maintaining it over the long haul.

If there’s one mistake I made in my online “career” it’s that I took almost the entire year of 2005 off because my passive income was so significant at the point. In retrospect, it was not a truly fulfilling year for me.

I think being productive and working on goals is important for us as human beings. This is also why I think people who retire often die shortly thereafter. They lose their sense of purpose and importance in life.

In a purely business sense, having momentum is vital because your competition is always nipping at your heels and the marketplace changes rapidly.

If you try to defend the status quo and refuse to change, another company that remains flexible and adapts quickly is going to eat your lunch.

No business–just like no article marketer–will ever experience enduring success resting on his or her laurels.

Yes, you can build up significant streams of recurring or passive income. And taking breaks that you deserve to recharge and renew yourself is important.

But don’t ever put yourself into a situation where you lose your momentum to the point where it is exceedingly hard to reclaim.

Do you agree with this post? Please share your thoughts.

Internet marketing product launches. You must be sick of them by now.

If you’re an internet marketer of any variety and are on several newsletters, you get beat over the head everytime a big “guru” launches a product. They get all of their pals to blast their lists with it. Ad nauseam.

The formula looks pretty much the same now. The particular list owner will try to entice you to buy it through their link by giving you a better bonus than the next guy.

Maybe you’re so sick of some of these launches, you’ve unsubscribed from a bunch of the newsletters. That’s fine. So have I sometimes.

But what you should never do is get mad about these product launches or the people promoting them.

If I’m to be very objective, I would say that most of these products are probably very good. Many of these “gurus” got to where they are because they know what they are doing and earned their status and influence.

Now, this doesn’t mean you’re wrong to unsubscribe from some of these newsletters. And it certainly doesn’t mean you should buy most, or even any of these products.

Sticking To Your Plan

You need to stay focused on your own goals, but admittedly, seeing all of these new “bright, shiny objects” can certainly be tempting.

I know I’ve heard their siren song myself more than once.

But, let’s back up a minute. Why shouldn’t you be mad? Maybe you’re thinking: “Dan, have you lost your marbles?” All these guys do is “pimp out” any and all big product launches to make a few more bucks.

In some cases, I think that’s true.

But in many cases, I don’t. In many, I think the person promoting it to their list genuinely believes it’s a good product.

Moreover, I don’t have a problem per se with each JV partner trying to one up the other with more and more bonuses. That’s just the competitive nature of the marketplace. It’s an inherently good thing.

But, let’s get more to the point of why I don’t think you should get mad or irritated. Then we’ll move to a short discussion of how I view personally view these launches.

Jealousy Pangs, Abundance & Scarcity Thinking

If you get mad hearing about these product launches — and you’re honest with yourself — maybe there’s a pang of jealousy deep down (or maybe not so deep down).

That’s OK. It’s normal to feel jealous. We all do.

But you have to keep it in check. I’m not a really big “The Secret” type guy, but I am a big believer in cause and effect.

And, I am a big believer that the beliefs you hold in your mind — whether that of scarcity or abundance — will play a large role in your eventual success or not.  This is just cause and effect.

When I trained myself to think in abundance, I began to think “Good for them” when someone launched a new product, even if I got blasted with it from 10 different JV partners.

Jay Stockwell, Allan Gardyne’s partner, of AssociatePrograms.com said it best in a recent newsletter when he stated something to the effect of: “Would you feel the same way if it was YOUR product all of those people were pushing out/launching?”

I’m paraphrasing.

But that’s a great point.

Most of us, I think, would be elated if it WAS our product. But if it’s not, we get jealous and sometimes angry at seeing so many affiliate marketing product launches.

The moral of the story here is: try to think in terms of abundance and do your best to conjure up feelings of good will to these people succeeding.

Not for their sake, but for your own. Really. It will benefit you because you’ll train your mind to become an abundance thinker, not a scarcity laden one.

Again, this doesn’t mean you should stay subscribed to every newsletter blasting your inbox. If you’ve realized you’ve subscribed to too many and they are sucking up 2 hours of your day going through them, it’s time to unsubscribe to most of them.

Having said all of this, how do I view these product launches?

My Take

1) I like to study them to see how they’re being marketed. I like to look at the salesletter, the process, from first point of contact, right up till the point where I’m supposed to take out my credit card. I get a real education just going thru the process. And it’s free.

2) Other than studying the process/steps of the launch itself, I ask myself: “Would this product provide a benefit to how I’m already marketing online?” If the answer is no, I ignore it. Because the no tells me it’s a “bright, shiny object” that I’m going to be chasing after and leaving behind what works for me.

However, if the answer is YES, it may augment or add to what I am currently doing, then I may very well be interested in purchasing it.

Eventually, some of these products/tactics/and techniques I learn from these launches will be incorporated into AffiliateArticleWriters.com to benefit all of you.

But ONLY if I think it’s relevant to the way the service works and is set up.

I ignore any and all launches dealing with PPC, because we don’t teach that and never will.

I ignore any and all offers on product launches that teach you how to make gobs of money with CPA offers because we stick to lifetime income programs.

I ignore any and all product launches on how to create your own products, because we are affiliate marketers.

See where I’m going with this? It’s not that those products weren’t good for the right people. It’s just that I know next week there will be another “bright, shiny object” to chase.

So I have disciplined myself to review them quickly, and then ignore them if they are not relevant to what we are doing.

I actually saw a relatively new product launch that may be very relevant to what we do here in this service, and without saying more, we are going to test it in the background.

It may help radically improve our service for all of the member’s benefits and if it does, it will be a great example of a “bright, shiny object” worth chasing because it was highly relevant and potentially beneficial to what it is we do and how we make our money in this service.

So, there you have it. My take on all of those endless product launches. What’s your take?

Regards,

Dan Ho