The Triumph of the Stupid

The Triumph of the Stupid How your intelligence and creativity are keeping you from the online success you deserve. By Mark Widawer (No, that's not m...
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The Triumph of the Stupid How your intelligence and creativity are keeping you from the online success you deserve.

By Mark Widawer (No, that's not me in the photo.) Trafficswarm Coaching Club

If Someone Gave You This Ebook If someone gave you this ebook, this message is for you. You're about to discover why you do what you do, why you are the way you are, and why you have what you have. It's a presumptuous assertion that I know these things about you, but chances are I'll hit at least a few of those nails on the head. Maybe more. That's because I've been there where you are now … just a short time ago. Here's one thing I learned along the way: "Shortcuts aren't." This ebook is a small example of the content that Trafficswarm Coaching Club members have access to every single month. Every month members receive new ebooks, participate in four educational webinars, listen to industry expert interview sessions, read new articles, receive one-on-one coaching, and much more. If you would like to have more information like this ebook, we have your link to sign up below or at the end of this book. Heck, we’ll let you try it for only a buck for 14 days – if you don’t like it you are only out the buck and get to keep all kinds of great content. So after you read through this book, gather some change out of your couch cushions and try out the coaching club…..what do you really have to lose (except for a measly dollar). To Your Success, --Mark Widawer

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Foreword This book is about the key to becoming successful online, and that’s by getting traffic. It's about why some people can get the lion's share of traffic, while your website gets nothing. You can thank Darwin for that. Some sites are more fit than others to get traffic, just as some people are more fit to run an online business than others. I read a book recently called "Linked" (author: Laszlo Barabasi) -- all about biological, computer, and social networks. Fascinating book. And once it got past the "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon" part, they made a very good case for there being two separate and different "World Wide Webs." The first Web is the one that is all linked together. It's the web where everyone is linked to everyone else. It's where Amazon and Google and Ebay live. That's the web we all think we're a part of. But the truth of the matter is that most of us are a part of another Web…one that shouldn't be called a Web at all. It's just a mass of unlinked, unconnected, nearly invisible and totally unreachable websites. The Black Holes of the Internet. This book, more than anything else, and despite all of the seemingly insulting discussion about the "Smart" people and the "Stupid" people, is about moving your site from the vast and solitary web to the linked and populated web. It is possible. And you can do it. You should know something, though. When I use the word "stupid," I am not talking about people with diminished mental capacity. No. I'm really talking about the humble. About the committed. About the focused. And about the driven. And perhaps most importantly, I'm talking about the unlearned, the naïve and the ignorant. None of this has to do with mental capacity. It has entirely to do with experience. If you come across anyone with those qualities who is working on an important task, and you bring a distraction of some sort, they'll stare up at you with a blank face, wondering why you're bothering them with such meaningless information. And you'll wonder "What's wrong with them?" The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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Nothing is wrong with them. They're just not interested in the sitcom you're watching, or the funny video on Youtube you wanted to show them, or the latest MLM opportunity that "everyone is doing." You might think they're rude. You might think they don't understand you. You might think they're truly clueless. They might LOOK stupid. But they're none of those. Nope. They're successful. And you can be successful, too. All you have to do is dumb yourself down a bit. And I'm about to show you how. Now…if you'll bear with me, we'll move on to the "Triumph of the Stupid." To your Success, --Mark Widawer West Hills, California September, 2008

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Table of Contents If Someone Gave You This Ebook .................................................................................. 2 Foreword ......................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ 5 The Triumph of the Stupid .............................................................................................. 6 The Trouble With Smart People Like You ....................................................................... 8 Problem 1: Being Everything to Everybody..................................................................... 9 A Helpful Tale........................................................................................................... 10 My Stupid Advice to You: Find Your Crowd............................................................. 10 Problem 2: Simple Things Become Complicated ........................................................... 12 My Stupid Advice to You: Keep It Simple ................................................................. 12 Problem 3: Doing Too Many Things At Once................................................................ 14 My Stupid Advice to You: One At A Time ................................................................ 15 Problem 4: Always Doing Something Different ............................................................. 17 My Stupid Advice to You: "This Is How We Do It Here" .......................................... 18 Problem 5: Knowing is the Same as Doing .................................................................... 20 My Stupid Advice to You: Get Your First One Done ................................................. 22 Getting Your First One Done ......................................................................................... 24

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The Triumph of the Stupid You are WAY TOO SMART to be successful online. It's true. You're too clever, too creative, too smart, too capable and too experienced to have much luck here. You may as well pack up your laptop and shut it all down now, because it's not going to happen. Thousands of domain names expire every day because they were not renewed by the people who owned them. Lots of those sites were never built. Many more were built but failed. And so they go into the Internet's recycle bin to be resurrected as something new some day. And still more sites fail every day, despite a valiant effort. They fail because they have no traffic. No business. No customers. Your site will end up as one of those. Before you start writing me hate mail, hear me out. There are tens of thousands of people making millions of dollars online -- every month. Some of them are well known. Most of them (99 out of 100, at least) you've never ever heard of. And you never will. What's the one thing they have that you don't? Traffic. And these people, they're very quiet, in front of their computers day after day, doing what they do, and watching the traffic flow to their sites, and the money flow into their bank accounts -- automatically, without even having to leave their home office to deposit a check. And they have no intention of telling anyone else how they do it. But that's not going to happen for you. You're built wrong. You're not inclined to do the things that make successful people successful. To get the traffic you need. Surprise, surprise. It's not the smart people who become really successful. It's the stupid. The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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And my friend, you are way too smart. And if you don't believe me, then what can I tell you? You know better than I do. You're smarter than I am. Way smarter. So stop reading now. The rest of you -- that might include you if you think there's maybe a tiny bit of merit to what I'm saying here -- you can keep reading. You're about to learn the reason why the Stupid become Successful (and why you probably won't.)

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The Trouble With Smart People Like You One of my favorite movies of all time was Forrest Gump. If you don't recall the story, I'll nutshell it for you here (though my explanation won't do justice to the movie): Forrest Gump was born with bad legs and a slow brain. Throughout his whole life, the very simple Forrest finds himself in new situations, and does what he's told, repeating the mantras his mother taught him, and the lessons he's learned so far. So Forrest, simply by remembering his objectives and following his instructions, becomes very successful at whatever he does. He influences Elvis Presley, wins football games, runs further and longer than anyone, ends segregation, writes music, and on and on. Forrest wins medals in Vietnam by saving his buddy's life. He becomes a championship Table Tennis player. He keeps a promise with a war buddy to buy a shrimp boat and becomes a multi-millionaire. Some people say that Forrest becomes successful "accidentally" but I disagree. Forrest accomplished everything because he approached life simply. You can argue that he approached life simply because he wasn't smart. Or you can argue that he was smart enough to approach life simply. The main point remains the same. The habits you have as a smart person are getting in the way of getting traffic to your site, running your business properly, and to your ultimate success. Here, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with you. Smart people try to be everything to everybody. Smart people make simple things far too complicated. Smart people try to do far too many things at once. Smart people are always inventing something new. Smart people think that knowing something is the same as doing something. So how does someone as smart as you deal with these problems? The best advice I can give you -- if you're willing to accept it -- is to do what the simple people do. Let's go through these problems one by one and see how we can fix them.

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Problem 1: Being Everything to Everybody Smart people are very creative. That's really at the root of most of the problems that they have. And part of that problem is that they really want to help. Not just a few people, but everybody. And I promise you, there's no more certain path to failure than trying to be everything to everybody. Peter Montoya is the author of "The Brand Called You." I met him once at a marketing meeting where he outlined something that has stuck with me to this day. Take a look at this set of images. The top edge of each of the shapes represents the product or service that you sell. The bottom edge represents the target market you are serving. Most people -- the smart ones in particular -- try to be too much to too many, and that is what figure A represents. Since everyone is familiar with what a Doctor does, let's use doctors as an example. We'll say that Doctor A is a general practitioner for an entire area. Doctor B, then, would represent a doctor who specializes in a particular kind of medicine. How about cardiology as an example? Doctor C would represent a doctor who works with a particular type of patient. We can use women as an example. Or how about we really sharpen that tip, and say postmenopausal diabetic women. I promise you that the cardiologist, Doctor B, makes far more money and is in much more demand than Doctor A. And I'll bet you that Doctor C is also well off, and in demand, and is doing much better than Doctor A. So who's the winner here? It's Doctor D, the Cardiologist who specializes in treating the special cardiac issues of post-menopausal, diabetic women -- SHE's the one who's really going to be in the highest demand, and make the most money. The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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Her target market NEEDS her. Let me emphasize that differently. Her target market needs HER! SHE is the one. The obvious choice. The one person who they know who can solve the problems that they have. Is she trying to be everything to everybody? No. She's trying to be something VERY SPECIFIC to VERY FEW.

A Helpful Tale The late Gary Halbert (legendary direct marketer and copywriter) used to ask his students, "If you and I were both opening up restaurants, what advantage would you want to have so that your restaurant would do better than mine?" His students would answer good signage, a great location, a delicious menu, courteous wait staff, and great prices. But, Gary told them, they were all wrong. With one advantage, Gary could beat them all. What Gary would want is a starving crowd. Think about it for a moment. Wouldn't you? How well does the concession stand at your local ballpark do? Do people quibble over the price, or do they pay $6 for the same amount of soda that they'd pay 50 cents for at the local supermarket, and $7 for a hot dog that you could get for 99 cents at Wienerschitzel? Stupid people think simple toughts. They use their eyes to go to where the people and the money are (the hungry crowds), and then set up shop. Smart people think too much. They become very creative to devise intricate businesses that satisfy the projected needs of imaginary people. Be stupid. Find a starving crowd. Then focus.

My Stupid Advice to You: Find Your Crowd So here is my advice to you: Stop trying to be everything to everybody. There's not a chance in the world you're going to rank high for "t-shirts" or "cars" or "lawyers." It's just too hard to get enough links to beat out the current high ranking pages for those topics. It's not that it can't be done. It's just that it would take too many of your resources (time and money) for you to try. The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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You've got to make two decisions before you decide to try to attract traffic. First, you've got to decide who you are trying to serve. Then, decide what you are trying to serve those people with. Or, put another way: Find a starving crowd, then ask them what they want to eat. You'll end up with some very niche-y keywords that are far less competitive than the broad ones, but still full of eager buyers looking for EXACTLY what you have. And that is when you start working on optimizing your web pages (the first part of Search Engine Optimization, "SEO") and getting inbound links (the second part of SEO).

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Problem 2: Simple Things Become Complicated Smart people like to make things more complicated than they need to be. Look, there are just two parts to ranking high on a search engine. Here they are: 1) Make it VERY clear to the search engines what your page is all about (these are the keywords you chose when you niched yourself). Google looks for certain things on your pages -- title tags, page names, headers, link text -- and if they find your keywords in those spots, and in the text, they'll know what your page is about. 2) Get links pointing to your site from other sites relevant to your topic. LOTS of them. That's it. That's all of Search Engine Optimization in a nutshell. Yes there are details, and Yes, those details change over time. But the problem is that a Smart person will just not believe that it's this simple. Well it is. And the practice of getting traffic is all about consistently and systematically getting more and more links to your site from other sites and pages that matter for your topic. That's what the stupid people will do. They do what their teachers tell them to do because they have faith that it will work. They work hard because they know they have to. They work hard because they have no choice. They don't have any connections or private consultants or shortcuts. They just have the advice of someone they trust, and their own time. And they put their head down and get the work done.

My Stupid Advice to You: Keep It Simple Don't make things more complicated than they need to be. Most things -- even online -- can be reduced to simple concepts. For example, almost all of HTML (HTML is the language that web pages are written in) can be reduced to two words: START and STOP.

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When you make a paragraph, you start it with and end it with . Start paragraph and Stop paragraph. Everything between those two codes IS the paragraph. Want to boldface a word or phrase? Then start it with a and end with a . Start Bold and Stop Bold. Everything between the two is boldfaced. I'm not trying to teach you HTML here, but it'd be hard not to realize how simple it is. Search Engine Optimization is as simple, if you want it to be. You just need to know a few simple things. For example, the "title tag" of your page is EXTREMELY important to search engines (if you want them to find you). The title tag is what makes the words show up in the blue bar in your browser window (or in the tabs of a tabbed browser, like IE7 or Firefox). Take a look at the image to the right. Do you see the word "home" in the blue bar and on the tab? That word "home" comes from inside the HTML tags for the Title of the page. You can find the title tag in your HTML code by looking for the text between the Start and End tags for the title. For this example, it looks like this: Home Start title, and end title. Inside is the word "Home." If you change this title tag to something more meaningful -- something that includes your keywords -- then you'll be well ahead of the thousands of other sites that have never bothered to update the tags on their own sites. Just change the word "Home" to your keyword. The rest of your on-page search engine optimization is just as easy. Pick your keywords, and put them where they belong.

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Problem 3: Doing Too Many Things At Once Henry David Thoreau (author and philosopher) is famously quoted as saying "Simplify, simplify, simplify." Ironically, had he taken his own advice, he'd have written the word only once. But you should take his advice anyway. One of the biggest problems we smart people have is that we try to multi-task. We do it because we're smart enough, and we think we can handle it. The truth of the matter is, multi-tasking while starting an online business is difficult to do, and impossible to do without consequences. My friend, Internet Marketer Mike Filsaime, talks about this a lot, too. He explains it this way: Let's say you've got two projects that will each take a month to complete. If you try to multi-task and run both projects at the same time, the overhead of switching from one project to the other -- stopping one project, ramping up the other, doing some work, and then back again -- is significant. That's what the triangles represent -- effort spent on the projects is inside the triangles, and effort spent on the overhead of multitasking is outside of the triangles. Well, here's the real bad news: (and don't let my crude drawings get in the way of the significance of this -- and your own acknowledgement that you've SEEN THIS happen to you, too.) The cost of multi-tasking is far, far higher than you think it is. Q: What do you have after one month, if all you do is work on one project at a time? A: You've got a completed project. And… Q: What do you have after one month if you've multi-tasked?

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A: Two projects just fractionally done. See the difference? One completed project versus two incomplete projects. More questions: Q: What do you have after two months if all you do is one project at a time? A: You've got two projects completed. YES! Q: And what do you have after two months if you've tried to multi-task? A: Still, two projects fractionally done. Not good. Now let me ask you a question (because it gets worse). Have you ever started a project all gung-ho and excited about it…only to lose some enthusiasm later on, after the project has gone on for a very long time without good results? That's right. You have. And you know what happens in that case? You quit. So let me ask you…are you working on your current web project -- the important one -only to quit later? Are you betting on the success of your project, or on the failure of your project?

My Stupid Advice to You: One At A Time When trying to get web traffic, the difference between 30 articles and 100 articles is huge. The difference between 50 inbound links and 300 inbound links is huge. The difference between one press release a month and four press releases a month is huge! Search engines don't work in a linear way. It's exponential. And search engines reward consistent and diligent effort. Which bring us to the result of all of your traffic work. So let me ask you… What is the difference between your site showing up in the search results on page 3 or 4 versus being on page 1 of Google? The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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The difference is EVERYTHING. Why risk it? Devote all your time, thinking and energy on one project, not several. Pick one project. Get the first one done. Then move on to the next one. And when it comes to getting traffic -- there are so many different ways. And each one is promoted as the one best way of getting traffic. That's never the case. If you depend on one kind of traffic (it doesn't matter what the source of the traffic is) you are vulnerable. One day, without warning, the rules and conditions and assumptions for that traffic source will change, and the traffic will stop. I promise you. It happens with organic Search Engine rankings all the time (It's called a "Google Dance" when Google changes its formulas and re-ranks ALL of its natural search engine listings). It happens with Adwords (The "Google Slap" happened several times, when Google changed how it re-ranked, and RE-PRICED all of the paid search engine listings). It happens with Articles and blogs and web2 and press releases and banner ads and link exchanges and every other traffic source. So you can't have just one source of traffic. You need as many as you can get. But just like multi-tasking your projects is a bad thing, multi-tasking your traffic can be dangerous, too, if you're trying to learn them all at once. With Projects, my advice is to get one done and working before you move on to the next one. With traffic source, my advice is get each one under your belt before you move onto the next one. Make sure you've got your first one done, and your second one, and your third one, until it's easy and fairly automatic. Get good at the work you need to do to get each different kind of traffic. Make sure you know now how to get the job done. You'll know you're ready to move on when you look back and realize that you took what was originally an all-day project (your first article) and turned it into a 20 minute task (your third or fourth article). What was hard is now easy. And now you're ready to move onto the next traffic source.

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Problem 4: Always Doing Something Different It's the curse of the smart: We think too much, and we're way too creative. We're always looking for new ways to do things, or new things to do. Well, we already talked about the harm in doing too many things at one time. And what we forget is the value of repetition. Of systems. Of "cheating" FOR ourselves so it's easier to win, and so you have fewer ways to lose. One of the best books I ever read -- actually it's the book that has had the single greatest impact on me and how I work -- is the "E-Myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. I read the book at a time when I was running my own small web hosting company. I was taking care of fewer than 100 hosting clients, but making a living at it. I'd be doing programming and hosting and database work and all sorts of other things my clients needed. But I didn't have a procedure for my work, and so every thing I did was created from scratch. I didn't have a system. Or rules. Or a limit to what I'd do for a customer. Or even a list of "Here's what you do when the server goes down." Nope. I had nothing. In fact, I was so overwhelmed in my day to day activities, I felt so trapped, I was so exhausted, exasperated and constantly under pressure, that when I came to the part of the book when the hero of the book is explaining to Sarah, the overworked bakery owner that "there IS a solution," and that "She CAN get out from under her business"…I cried. I remember distinctly sitting outside the Starbucks in Sherman Oaks on Ventura Boulevard and reading those words and starting to weep. Like an idiot, I thought. How pathetic. Crying while reading a business book. Who ever heard of such a thing? But it was important for me. It saved my business. It saved me. And it can save you. The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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My Stupid Advice to You: "This Is How We Do It Here" What you do NOT want to do is build a business based around people. That sounds crazy, but it's true. If you've got a business that depends on people, then you have to hire highly skilled people to do the work. You need a professional writer to write your articles for you, because HE has the knowledge. You need a Google Adwords Qualified Professional to manage your Adwords campaign, because SHE has the knowledge. You need a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert to optimize each of your pages, because you don't know how (the info is stuck in his brain). Well, I've got news for you. Highly skilled people are expensive. And if you think they're expensive when they're working for you, just wait till they leave. Once they leave, they're worth ten times what you were paying them, because now NOTHING is getting done. And now, your business fails. And by the way, if you think I was just referring to people that you hire, you're wrong. I'm referring to you, too. If you are doing the work, and depending on all of the knowledge being in your head, where only YOU have access to it (and where it magically changes from day to day), then how are you ever going to go on vacation? What happens when you get sick? What happens if -- by some horrible tragedy -- you can't work any more? So what you want to do…actually, what you NEED to do…is do what the stupid people do. You write stuff down. You take notes. You make lists. And at the top, it says "This is how we do it here." You want to build a business based on systems and procedures. You want it all written down so that it's easy to follow.

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You want to have systems and procedures so that, rather than having to hire the most highly skilled people you can find, you can hire the lowest-skilled people you can find -and put out a superior product. And you give these people your procedures. And you say "This is how we do it here. Follow these instructions." And they do. And more importantly -- at least for now -- when you have systems and procedures written down for yourself, you don't have to retrain yourself because you took a long lunch break and no longer remember what you were doing before you left. With a system, you just pick up where you left off, except now you've got a belly full of sushi.

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Problem 5: Knowing is the Same as Doing We smart people are too smart for our own good. It's plain to see. We're so smart, we think, that simply knowing what to do is a reasonable substitute for actually having done the work. Ask yourself: How many ebooks, courses and teleseminars do you have that you've never completed? I've seen this time and time again. In fact, I've had it happen in my workshop. Member: "Mark, I'm not making any sales on my page. This web stuff doesn’t work!" Me: Well, what are your test results telling you? Member: I'm not running any tests. Me: Why not? Member: I don't know how. Me: But we covered that last month in the workshop. I showed you how! Member: Well, I didn't watch the video yet. But I'm telling you, it's not working! Funny, isn't it? And frustrating. And, at the very same time, it's very, very sad. For some reason, we tend to think that because we've purchased a book on basket weaving, just because it's sitting on the shelf, we know how to weave baskets. Or maybe we get around to actually reading the book. Every single page. Does that mean you now know how to weave baskets? No, it doesn't. You've got to do the work. You need the experience. You have to feel the weaver in your hands, and understand what it feels like to route the weaver up and down and up and down, through the stakes. And to how to finish the base. And curve the weavers up to build the sides. And that special way to weave a handle so that it's strong enough to lift the basket, but doesn't look out of place. You need the experience. The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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You've got to come up against obstacles ("Argh! These stakes are too short and the weavers are too wide!") and find ways to deal with those obstacles, to truly understand what it takes to weave a basket. The same goes for traffic as for weaving baskets. You need the experience of writing an article. You need the experience of actually typing in a list of keywords into your Adwords campaign, and writing an ad, and feeling the immense satisfaction of seeing traffic actually flowing to your site because of the work YOU did. THAT is where the true knowledge comes from. In Spanish, there are two very different words for "to know." The first one is "conocer" (koh-noh-saer), which means to have knowledge of something. For example, you might know a phone number, or some facts, or something about swimming or skiing. The other Spanish "to know" verb is "saber," (sah-bare) which has a much deeper meaning. For you to "saber" skiing, you'd know how to ski. I could drop you off at the top of a lift and you'd ski down. When you "conocer" something, you're familiar with it. You've heard about it. You have read about it. But when you "saber" something, you have experience of that thing. You know HOW to do it because you've done it. Reading about skiing is very different than knowing how to ski. Hearing a lecture about skiing -- although important to the learning process -- is not the same as having an instructor take you down the slope. Maybe that's why one of the sayings that Spanish-speaking children learn is "Del dicho al hecho, hay un gran trecho," which means "From the saying to the doing, there's a big gap." So how does this relate to traffic? Well, there are two ways that are very clear to me. First, as I noted at the beginning of this chapter, far too many people invest in education, only to leave the books, ebooks, CDs and DVDs on the shelf, collecting dust. And so they buy a program, do nothing, and see zero results. That's a tragedy. They'd be better off had they never invested in the program in the first place. And quite honestly, the person who created the program would have been better off without the The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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sale. (As teachers, we spend our careers trying to build our batting average of customer success stories. When someone doesn't do well with a program, that's a strike against us.) The other way that this relates to traffic has more to do with HOW we learn best. There are some people -- relatively few -- who learn well when lectured to. Tell them what to do, and they'll follow the instructions. Far more people would rather see something being done than just hear about it -especially if the process is not simple. Seeing the process fills in the gaps and helps prevent those nuanced bits of instruction that otherwise go unsaid. Seeing is believing. Seeing is proof. And a picture is worth a thousand words. But better than seeing is doing. When you actually do the work, you learn in a way that words and pictures can never approach. When you have a multi-step process, the steps get locked into your memory as you practice. There's no substitute for doing. I like all three methods of instruction when I'm on the receiving end of a lesson. I want to hear what we're doing and why. Then I want to see it done. Then I want to do it…NOW. And it's even better if my teacher is with me while I'm doing the work the first time, just to make sure I get it right, and to answer the questions that are sure to come up.

My Stupid Advice to You: Get Your First One Done Go to your bookshelf, or that spot on your hard drive where you download your ebooks and other internet marketing courses. Go find one -- a small one. Look at it for a moment. And remember…why did you quit? What made you stop doing what you promised yourself you'd do? •

Was it because it was too hard to understand? Maybe the text was written for someone with more technical knowledge than you had.



Was it too hard to do? Maybe the instructions weren't clear enough, even if they were otherwise correct.



Was it not what you needed? Sometimes the description of a product doesn't exactly match what gets delivered.



Did it take too long to do? It's easy to lose faith in something if it takes too long to produce results -- especially if you were promised a "magic pill."

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Page 22 of 26 Copyright © 2008 Mark Widawer, All Rights Reserved

I'm not sure what your problem was with that program, but I hope you are honest enough with yourself to realize what it was. There's a good chance that the problem wasn't your fault. Unfortunately, not all teachers can remember what it was like to be a student. Now…think for a moment about the reason you invested in the program (the one collecting dust) in the first place. Was it to generate traffic? Was it to help you build your site? Was it to help you create your product? What was the story you told yourself about how things would be if and when you were successful with this program? Was life going to be different? Was your business going to finally be successful? Were you finally going to be able to relax a little, both financially and emotionally? Dwell on that for a moment. What was your reason? Now think… Are those goals big enough to overcome the problems you had with the program? If they're not, then put the program away. Forget you have it. It's a "sunk cost" -- an accounting term that means a cost that cannot be recovered, and should not be considered when making future decisions. It's just gone. If the goals ARE big enough to overcome the problems, I want to encourage you to crack it open again and do the work. Make the program pay off for you. Read or listen so you get to "conocer." Then do the work so you can "saber." Practice on something small, but meaningful. But make sure you get your first one done.

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Page 23 of 26 Copyright © 2008 Mark Widawer, All Rights Reserved

Getting Your First One Done Just three nights ago, my wife Marlene and I were in the car together heading over to an event for our oldest son's school. She's got a small business where she makes invitations for weddings, showers, Bar Mitzvahs, and the like. All hand made. All custom work. All beautiful. She's busy all the time, meeting with clients. Taking phone calls. Assembling 250 threelayer wedding invitations…or 50 baby shower invitations…and on and on. So even with all that, she says to me, "I really want to find a way to grow my business, but I don't know how." (It's as though the constant word-of-mouth weren't enough to keep her busy.) But growing a business -- especially online -- is something I know a bit about, so I replied, "I think it's time we put up a blog for you, honey. With a blog, you'll write a few times a week on the projects you're working on, and you’ll digg and twitter and comment and post and the search engines will eventually rank you for your keywords. Then when people search for 'hand-made wedding invitations', or 'custom wedding invitations' they'll find you." Of course, it'd also be a good place for her to send potential word-of-mouth referrals to see her past work, and to say "I want MY invitation to be like THAT one!" Now, I'd mentioned this to her before, but she said that she didn't know where to start. She didn't know what to write. She didn't know how to write it. She didn't know what voice or tone to use. She didn't know how long or short it should be. She didn't know how to post an image of an invitation. She didn't know what problems she'd run up against. In short, she didn't know ANYTHING about blogging. I knew this. So I wasn't surprised when she turned to me in her seat and repeated her lack of understanding. Of knowing. Of experience. She said, "What I want, honey, is for you to show me how to do it. Help me get my first one done. Then I can repeat what you showed me over and over again. That is how I learn. I'm a visual, hands-on kind of person. I can't learn by people just telling me what to do." And I smiled.

The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

Page 24 of 26 Copyright © 2008 Mark Widawer, All Rights Reserved

I smiled because I've been working on this idea -- helping people like YOU get YOUR first one done -- for a long time. And it's finally here. There are a number of training products as part of the Trafficswarm Coaching Club. For example November 2009’s topic is knowing your customer in order to get the needed traffic to your site..and money in your pocket. The purpose of the Club is to help you build your online business -- and specifically to help you build traffic to your site. Go ahead, take an inventory of what you want a coaching club to help you accomplish. Figure out where your business is now, and where you want it to be. And if what you learn in the club matches what you want to get out of the coaching, I hope you'll join me, and hundreds of other people just like you. In the mean time, I'd very much like to hear your comments on "The Triumph of the Stupid." Please visit our blog at http://blog.trafficswarm.com and let me know what you think. There's a good chance I insulted you. On the other hand, there's a better chance that I've inspired you…and that you now realize that getting traffic to your website is not as hard as most people make it out to be. After all, if the Stupid can do it, certainly someone as smart as YOU can do it, too. It's pretty darn easy, actually. All you've got to do is learn a few very basic tactics, get rid of a few bad habits, and have someone help you get your first one done. After that, it's lather-rinse-repeat. Stick to it. Git 'er done. Never quit. Keep going. And then it becomes fun, because you'll become good at it. And one day you'll wake up and realize how far you’ve come, and how much darn traffic you've got. And how many sales you’re making. And how successful you are. And on that day, I hope you remember THIS day…TODAY…when you read the Triumph of the Stupid. To Your Success, --Mark Widawer

P.S. If you've enjoyed this book, or received any value from it at all, then I have a couple of small favors to ask of you.

The Triumph of the Stupid v1.05 http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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First, by going to the blog and sharing your comments, you'll help others understand why they also should read this ebook. Please go to http://blog.traficswarm.com and leave your insights for others to discover. Second, if you've got a friend, relative or business associate who would benefit from reading this ebook, please send them to the blog as well, so they can request their own copy. Thank You! -Mark Widawer and The Trafficswarm Coaching Club

Sign up now for a buck! http://mmc.trafficswarm.com

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