Raven: Hi, this is Raven Blair Davis and I've teamed up with Michael Senoff's hard to find seminars.com the Stephen Pierce is here. For many years, Stephen's name has been synonymous with success. Recognized as one of the world's leading Internet marketers and business optimization strategists, Stephen wears several hats when it comes to his business. Not only is he the CEO of Stephen Pierce International Inc. And the mastermind behind BTA Alpha, he is a coach, facilitator and a certified accelerated innovation trainer. He is also considered one of today's top authorities of creating rapid wealth using the Internet, which we'll be talking about today. Stephen says creating wealth is not just in what you do, it's in how you do it. We're going to talk to him about that. You know, whether Stephen is one on one coaching or speaking to a room of hundreds, he knows his stuff and he's serious about it. He wants to help the everyday person get out of the rut. Whether he's coaching for a motor company or training a first time Internet entrepreneur, he's going to give it all he's got. Either way, Stephen is instinctively capable of devoting his efforts to design an optimized plan that will chart a path to success. You know what Stephen, I gotta go back to what your quote was. You said creating wealth is not just in what you do, it's on how you do it. Let's talk about that a little bit, Share your thoughts on that.

Stephen: Well, it's about not just doing the right things, but it's about doing the right things the right way. And sometimes you can get caught up in doing the right things, but if you're not necessarily doing them the right way and you leave out something like for example, if you're in the kitchen, you're baking a cake and you put the flour, the eggs, the sugar, the vanilla, whatever it is, everything in there, but you leave out the baking soda, you don't have a problem. We can get creative and maybe call it a big cookie or something, but your cake is not what you got. And it wasn't because you weren't passionate, it wasn't because you weren't serious, it wasn't because you had bad intentions, you left something out. So you did the right things, but you were doing them the wrong way. It kind of goes along the of people always ask you what do you think? Instead of asking you how do you think? And what we think is constantly rotating and how we think, the different structures that navigate our thinking. So I think it's important that we don't just focus on what it is we're doing, but we also focus on how it is we're doing it because that's an unbelievable amount of success.

Raven: I know you've had all this success and everything, but you really have a true rags to riches storytelling. That's incredible. Would you share just a portion of your story with our listeners?

Stephen: You know, everybody, you know in their life, they have the story of their life. They have that backstory and their struggles and their trials and their tribulations. And many times we tend to think that it's only happening to us. And that's not necessarily true. Everybody has that path that they travel down and whether tested, and they're either going to become weakened by the situation or they're going to be strengthened by the situation. And myself, you know, I didn't come from a broken home. My mom and dad were still together. And if anything, people probably said I broke the home, you know, but you know, I was young. I didn't have a sense of my own identity at the time. I had a weak personality and I had a low self esteem. And I would just follow the person that seemed to have the strongest personality and the strongest self esteem and became a menace. While I was in school, I got kicked out, Left with a 10th grade education and running the streets, I ended up running around with the wrong people and I would end up in Greensboro, North Carolina, where I ended up getting shot. And I still remember that time and I was in the Mosig H. Cohen Hospital. And you know, I had all these thoughts racing through my head. But the interesting thing was is I blamed the entire world. It wasn't my fault. It was. Look at what they'd done to me. In other words, I was playing the victim. I gave all my power over to everybody else. And I didn't want to take ownership of my life and take responsibility for what it was I was doing. And it was like all these things were happening to me. But then I had to mature. And that's important. Before we reach mastery, we have to reach maturity. So I had to reach the point of maturity and say, you know what? This is my fault that I'm here not as a victim of my circumstances, but a creator of my circumstances by the virtue of the choices that I made. But the upside to that was just as I created a series of bad choices that put me there, I can reverse that and create a series of better choices, good choices, higher choices, and put myself into a better place. And that's what I did. And I've learned an incredible lesson. I learned that just because you decide in a moment to change your life and do something right or to walk the straight and narrow, doesn't mean in an instant, everything materially, as far as what you see visually, is going to change. So one of my biggest lessons was success happens gradually, then suddenly, you know, and that success happens over time, not overnight like we would like for it to be. And where I learned that when I decided to turn my life around and walk the straight narrow, reading my Bible like crazy, and I started reading all these books to renew my mind, it was at that point that I ended up filing bankruptcy, and I ended up being homeless. So it got worse before it got better. But I didn't give up on that. I kept pressing forward. And eventually I got introduced to the Internet and using somebody else's computer and somebody else's Internet connection. My first year on the Internet, I did over $500,000 in business. And at that point in time, I put my head back on. After it was blown off by the results, I started to go full forward on this thing and not just create wealth for ourselves, but travel around the world and share what's possible for other people. You know, I believe that all of us are committed. The question is, what are you committed to? You're either committed to doing and following through, or you're committed to not doing it and following through. But either way, we're committed. So we just need to check our commitments every single day to make sure that we're not committed to constantly being comfortable, but we're committed to being great. And regardless of what it is you're looking to achieve, you know, if you want to go in the gym and you want to get buffed and you want to get into shape, you can't just think about it. Buy a bunch of magazines and books and supplements and a diet plan. You have to get into the gym. That means lifting weights. You're going to sweat. It's going to be a little bit painful, but you want to get stronger. You're going to grow, and you're going to reach the objective. You have to be proactive and go out there and get it.

Raven: I've often heard people say, especially when you first start your business, you have to work it like you're working the job.

Stephen: Well, yeah, because it's this curve that I think all of us are on, and it starts with probably when we just initially think about it, is what I call less sweat, less equity, because we're not necessarily doing much. So we're not making much. And then we kind of go through this curve where there's more sweat, less equity. You start to do it, but you seem to be working harder, but not necessarily making the kind of money that you were expecting or getting the kind of results that you were expecting. And this is the point where most people bail out. It's like, gosh, I'm putting in all this work, but I'm not necessarily getting the results. So despite the evidence that they're making progress, they tend to bail out. But for those that hang in there, and instead of getting depressed and bailing out, they remain determined and persistent, and they just make the modifications to keep moving forward. They've reached a point where there's more sweat and more equity, which means they're still kind of working hard, but now they're making more money or getting more of the results that they wanted. And now they get to this point where they have this momentum, and then they swing up to the point that we all want to be at, which is less sweat, more equity. And it's at that point where you're not working nearly as hard, but you're making tremendous amounts of money.

Raven: Hi, this is Raven Blair Davis reporting for Michael Senoff's HardtoFindSeminars.com. Let's jump into the questions that the listeners have sent in. What do you contribute your success to?

Stephen: Probably a lot of factors. Kind of like a chef making a dish. You have all these different spices and recipes in the recipe, and it just comes out to be this one great dish. But if I were to narrow it down to some very specific things, I would say that it's being focused, being consistent, and being patient. And focus, I think, has three different dimensions to it, is what to focus on, when to focus, and where to focus. Because many of us, we can know what to focus on, but sometimes we put ourselves into an environment where, while we know what to focus on, it becomes hard to focus because of all the distractions in the environment. So when you break a man's focus, you pretty much break his life. So we have to know what to focus on, when to focus and where to focus. And we have to be consistent and what it is we're doing. Because through consistency, we get the power of cumulative effects. It's not what we do one time or sporadically or erratically or when we feel like it. But certainly success or building anything extraordinary is not about the feeling. It's about the commitment. And we have to be consistent with that commitment. And it's something that we renew every day. We don't make the commitment on January 1st at one point in time where we're excited. It's a commitment that we renew every single day by choice, not by feeling. And then we have to be patient. And I think that's one of the key to the process, being patient, to allow the process to work its thing. Just like when a woman gets pregnant, it's a nine month process. Regardless of how advanced our society has become, it's still nine months. It's not like an instant baby. Even if you put popcorn in the microwave, you have like 30 seconds or so when the bag is spinning around and nothing's popping. So while you may get it out in like three, three and a half minutes, it's still the process. Plant a garden, it's the process. So what we have to do is we have to have an understanding of what the process looks like and the area that we want to succeed and be patient so that the investment that it is we're making, we can look to get that return on it. So I think at the heart of it, those intangibles are the things that have contributed a lot to my success. Being focused, consistent and patient. Passion is that fuel. It's kind of like if you have an expensive automobile but there's no gas in the tank, it's not going to do much for you. It's going to look good, it's going to be a sexy looking car there, but it's just not going to move. And passion is that fuel in all of our tanks. So regardless of the vehicle you pick, regardless of your business, regardless of what it is you want to accomplish in life, if the passion isn't there, then you're not going to have that fuel that carries you every single day. And I think that how we generate that passion is not because somebody gives it to us, because you heard some motivational speaker or you read some book. It's when we really connect with our life purpose, our mission, our meaning in life, why we're here, what it is we're here to contribute. The impact that we're looking to have on other people and ourselves, the value that we want to contribute to people and what that's going to ultimately mean. And we connect with that on an ongoing basis. Many of us, we get so trapped and lost in the past with all these different regrets of the past, or we get lost and trapped with all these worries in the future, or maybe we're in the present, but we're overwhelmed with all the different things that we're supposed to be doing, that we're too busy and distracted mentally to even live our life or even to be passionate about something. So it's a continuous process of paralysis where nothing is being done and frustration seems to be multiplied. What we have to do is we have to understand that we can't change the past. We have to kind of let that be. And we can't control the future. We can influence it, but we can't control it. And how we influence the future is what we decide to do here and now. So it's not about the regrets of the past. It's not about the worst of the future. It's about what we choose to do and be in this moment. And I think when we choose something, it's not as much about what we're going to do as it is of a reflection of who we are and who we believe we can become. And when we get in touch with that meaning in life, we have that passion. We're no longer living based on the ideas or egos of other people. It's about what we want to become. It's about what we feel as if we're here to do. At that point in time, nothing stands in our way. So persistence becomes automatic. Here's the thing. Neither you, myself, or anybody else in this world, you can pick the person that may be your mentor up close or from a distance. It can be the Oprah Winfrey's of the world, the Will Smiths of the world, the Donald Trump's, the Bill Gates, the Steve Jobs or the Steve Peers. It could be whomever it is, none of us are more deserving of success than the next person. And anybody that's listening to this or that's not listening to this, you're no more deserving of success than we are. But the kicker is that life doesn't give us what we deserve. Life gives us what we go claim. And claiming is a proactive daily process. So we can't sit back and be passively thinking about and wishing about what it is we want. We have to be out there proactively going to claim it, not deceive ourselves and con ourselves with this preparation process that kind of turns into procrastination. What we have to do is we have to take action. Because it's not as much about, you know, knowing everything before we start. It's really about starting with what it is we already know, because action is our biggest teacher. Nobody, no book, no video, no seminar, no coach, no mentor, nothing is Going to teach you more than action itself. And you'll be surprised how much you begin to know when you start to take action.

Raven: Why do you feel so many of us procrastinate? Is it the fear of success? Fear of failure? Fear of both?

Stephen: Well, it's the fear, I believe, of losing. I think people probably fear failing more than they fear success itself. But the interesting thing is that I think we're all born losers. And I don't say that as a negative. I say that as a positive. And everybody needs to listen closely. Either you lose the fear to live your life or you lose the freedom because of the fear. Either way, you're going to lose something. So choose what it is you want to lose. And this whole thing about fearing the risk, there's always something at risk. Always. Every single time. There's no such thing as, oh, well, you don't want to take the risk. Because the moment you don't take the risk to do something to make your life better, to be able to contribute at a higher level, or to pursue something that's going to make a better contribution to this world and to your family, or investing, improve the quality of life for you and your family, whatever, the moment you don't take that risk, then you risk not living the life that you ultimately want to live. There's really no neutral ground. There's really no straddling defense with all this. So what we have to do is choose and pick our risk wisely and choose what it is we're going to lose. If we don't choose to lose to fear, then by default we're going to lose the freedom to live our lives.

Raven: I know you talked many times and you have said, you know, you don't necessarily have to have a website to get going. And you kind of shared a little bit that in your story. Tell us more about that.

Stephen: Right. When it comes to making money on the Internet, or when it comes to making money with anything, the power of making the money is in the ability to market the products. And that ability is all about skill. And let's get one thing really clear. This whole thing about success, regardless of the level or the extent that you're thinking about achieving it. But let's just focus financially for now, regardless of whatever that number is. It's not about talent. It's not about gifts. Well, this person has a special talent or this person has a special gift. Let me tell you something. Every single person that achieves any level of financial success with their own two hands or assembling the Right, team. It comes down to two specific things, attitude and skill. And attitude is something that we all can control and practice every single day, and skill is something that we can develop. So it's not about, oh, they're more gifted than you. Maybe they deliberately practice and drill and build their skills more than you. So if we know that we can control our attitude and we know that we can identify the skills that we currently have or the skill set are required to do something and we can build those skills, there's no more excuse. It doesn't become what your potential or what your capabilities are or your capacity is. It comes down to what are you going to do to actually make it happen. So I just want to make sure that we get that clear. I think if you understand that this whole game is really about being resourceful more so than it is about what resources you have available to you. And by that what I mean is your success in going forward is not really dependent on, oh, you don't have enough money or you don't have enough time, you have what it is you have, and all we have is what we have, and that's where we start. So what we have to do is stop waiting for more resources to come in if this happens or if that happens, and start being resourceful with what it is we have. For example, without a website, you can pick stuff around your house that you're not even using anymore and put it on ebay and sell it. And at that instant you're on the Internet and you're selling products and you're bringing in money. Some people do that just to bring in extra cash and then they end up turning it into a whole business. You can get rid of your junk on ebay, then you can go get rid of some of your family's junk and then some of your friends junk, and then you can just start going to yard sales and garage sales and flea markets, buying up all this other stuff dirt cheap and then selling it on the Internet. Now why does this work though, regardless of the economy? Because everybody's going to always be spending their money regardless whether economy is in a recession, a depression, or experiencing a growth period. People will continue to spend their money. Because the moment people stop spending their money collectively around this entire world, the entire world will become bankrupt. They may be more selective, but they want to go ahead and continue to spend their money. And with the Internet and with technology, we're no longer restricted and limited to local area codes or zip codes or geography. We're now more so than like A US Economy. It's an Internet economy because it allows us to tap into Australia, Asia, Canada, the uk, all these places around the world. So now your market becomes global in an instant. The moment you connect your computer to the Internet and you start selling stuff, the entire world of the relevant people that would buy that become your market. So without a website, you could put stuff on ebay as a starter. Everybody has junk around their house that they're not using. My wife took 14 pairs of tennis shoes that I had that I wasn't wearing. They were a bunch of Nike. Some were in better condition than the other and sold every single pair on ebay. She took old video games. I mean, video games that you would think nobody would want because they're nowhere near the newest games for the newest consoles. But she sold all of those on ebay. I could run down an entire list of the crazy things that we have sold that we've seen people sell on ebay. So with that, there's no excuse. Get rid of the stuff that you have in your house, in your garage that you're not using, lose the attachment, put it on ebay, and you will instantly start bringing in some money. Go to your family and friends, get their junk that they're not using, Maybe you cut a deal with them. It's like, listen, whatever it is I sell, I give you 10 or 20% of that. Now you got a deal. Then from that, take a little bit of that money. Go to pawn shops, go to antique stores, go to, like I was saying, garage sales and yard sales and flea markets. All these places where you can get stuff for pennies on the dollar and then put those things on ebay. And before you know it, without a website of your own, you're starting to pull in money.

Raven: Absolutely. Wow. You gave the listeners some fantastic ideas. I know at the beginning there had to be many challenges. What are some of the biggest challenges you face and that you feel a lot of the listeners may face, and what's the best way to get through them?

Stephen: Well, there's a disadvantage and there's an advantage. The disadvantage that I had was there was no mentors. There were no models out there that I could follow at that time. So I was really learning through trial and error and feeling my way through. So I think one of the biggest hurdles I had is that I had no freaking idea what to do. It's just that I knew I wanted to do this, but I wasn't going to let my ignorance of the process be an excuse for me not doing anything. So I was feeling my way through and just stumbled my way through. And I matured and I grew, and I figured a whole bunch of things out along the way. Now, everybody that's listening to this, hey, they can take that route if they want to, not suggest it, or they can follow models and blueprints that are already working and shortcut the process, eliminate a lot of the pain, the heartache and the wasted time and costly mistakes that myself and other people have made, and go right to the winning ideas and strategies and tactics and tools that are being used right now to help people to make money on the Internet. So don't allow yourself to go through unnecessary struggle, because there's now people like myself out here that strongly advocate using the Internet to build wealth that can give you blueprints to make a much faster and more painless process for yourself if there's any pain at all. But not knowing can be painful. If you have people that work hard and you can talk to them all day, they're not necessarily producing the results, but they're working hard, they're tired. It's like they're trying. They're trying, they're trying. But I like to say, have you ever seen somebody dribbling a basketball really fast that doesn't know how to dribble? If you see them, they are trying really hard, it's pathetic and hilarious at the same time. And the reason it looks so bad is because they're trying to do something fast that they haven't learned how to do slow well. So they haven't built the skills, but they want to build speed. So it's one thing to be effective, it's another thing to be efficient. If you want to be both, learn how to do it right and then pick up the speed. I say it's better to work smart first and then work hard. The reason why. Who wants to work hard doing a bunch of dumb stuff? So understand how to execute it, and then once you know how to do it, then you can pick up the pace, then you can pick up the speed. But to work hard doing stuff the wrong way is idiotic to me. So just relax, slow down, take your time, learn how to do it right. Because many people, they miss opportunities not because the opportunity didn't work, but because, again, remember we talked about focus, consistency, and patience. They didn't have the patience to learn how to do it correctly and then execute it correctly and allow it to work.

Raven: Stephen, go ahead and give out your website for those people that want to pull it up and be Browsing it while they're listening to the show.

Stephen: Right now you can go over to makerealmoneyontheinternet.com that's www.makerealmoneyontheinternet.com. in fact, if you go over there, you can get a copy of my 133 page book called Make Real Money on the Internet Internet, which is under five bucks. And literally, if you go through those 133 pages, you would know precisely what to do to start making money on the Internet before you even finish reading the book.

Raven: How can someone get started with minimum investment and minimum risk? Because people are holding on to what they got. Stephen

Stephen: That's interesting. We talked a little bit about risk. What I would challenge people to do is to change their focus. And the reason why is because I will put people in two specific categories when it comes down to the level of achievement and those that are underachievers. And by underachievers I mean it's not that they can't really achieve at the highest level. It's that by virtue of their choices and their filters and their criteria, they put themselves in a position where they don't achieve much. And what I mean by that is that the criteria that they use before they decide to do something really throws them off. And they use three things mostly. Is it easy, is it convenient, and is it affordable? If it's not going to be easy, convenient or affordable, chances are they're not going to want to do it. Now, I'm not saying those aren't important, but they're certainly not the first things you should be asking yourself. Because if you look at anybody that's achieved, heck, forget about achieving at the highest level. Achieving at some level, it's never really easy. It's certainly not convenient. And for many people it's not even affordable. But the question we need to really ask ourselves is, is it worth it? The moment we understand something is worth it. Easy, convenient, affordable is not something that we're considering because we're going to find a way to make it happen because we understand it's worth it. Now all of a sudden it comes down to the meaning, the motivation, the mission, why we're doing this. And when we know something's important, we're going to find a way. So as far as minimum investment and minimum risk, you get out of something what it is you put into it for the most part. And what you may not put into it with financial equity, you may have to put into it with what's called sweat equity, which Means, you know, your own personal labor. But whatever it is, you have to be willing to let something go. So I believe that success and moving to that next level in life is not so much what you're willing to do as much as it is what you're willing to give up. Because everybody has 24 hours in a day. Everybody has a certain amount of money that it is they're making and they want to grow, that they want to expand that they want to expand. The impact of that, well, you're going to have to trade something that you have in your life right now to move you to a place in life that you haven't been to before. So what you have to figure out is what hours are you willing to trade, what money are you willing to trade? If you're not willing to make the trade, then life isn't going to give it to you. That's just how it works. I don't make up these rules. That's just how it works. So you have to decide if you want minimum investment of money and time, minimum at risk, they look for minimum return. If you want to go for it, then let's not look at how we can minimize the investment of our time and our money and our risk. Let's look at what it is we ultimately want. It's called being unreasonable. And what I mean by that is that many people are too reasonable in life in the sense that they tend to go for what it is they think they can get as opposed to what they want. So forget about what you think you can get. What do you really, really, really, really want? What is that ideal lifestyle looking like? And, and ask yourself what level of commitment do you need to have in every year of your life to make that happen? And then you have to be willing to make a choice to do that and commit to that consistently. And when you do that, whatever it is you want in this life is going to be available to you.

Raven: Do you feel, Stephen, I mean, really feel that now is the time for the listeners to start their home business even though we're in a recession?

Stephen: Well, absolutely. Interesting enough, if you look at history and the Great Depression, many probably are familiar with the brand Estee Lauder. Estee Lauder was started in the 1930s in the heart of the Great Depression. You have companies like Federal Express and Microsoft and Ahab and Hyatt and tons of companies that were starting either during the oil prices or the Eisenhower recession, or companies that rose up out of the ashes of the dot com busting like Amazon and Dell. Computers and ebay. So it's in these times right now that some of our greatest opportunities financially start to emerg. It's really about perspective. What it is you're focusing on, you can look at right now, you and the economy and the country is drowning in the sea of debt. Or you can say, wait a second, we're drowning in a sea of opportunity. Let me go ahead and grab an opportunity, latch onto that thing and maximize it for all it's worth. And I think it's important that we understand that the one thing that we have total and absolute control over is our own minds and our own attitudes and our focus. So it's not so much what's happening to us as it is what we're going to do about what's happening to us. So we need to make sure that we're focusing our energies in the areas that we can control and give you an example of that. When I think about change, it reminds me of a story of a little girl that was 16 years old. She was growing up and she started to experience all these changes in her life and her body and school. And she went to her dad, who was a chef, and was asking her dad about what can she do about these changes. He didn't know how to respond. But what he did was he put three pots of water on the stove, and he brought them to a boil. And he put eggs in one, and he put carrots in another one. And then he put coffee beans in the other one. He let them boil for a little bit, turned them off, and he poured each one into a bowl. And then he looked at his daughter and he said, what happened? And she was like, I don't know what you mean. He said, have a look and tell me what happened. He said, oh, wait a second. Now I get it. The eggs used to be soft on the inside. Now they're hard. The carrots used to be hard, now they're soft. And the coffee beans, they turned the water into coffee. Well, the moral of the story is that. But we can't really do anything about the changes that happen in our environment. But we can control our responses. So you can become hardened by it and stiff and feel paralyzed, or you can become softened by it and become weak and fragile and feel as if there's nothing you can do, or you can use change of raw material to create the life that it is you want to create and the life that it is you want to live. That's all a choice. We may not be able to choose all the things that happen to us. But we certainly can choose our responses and what we're going to do about it. So the thing that we have to understand is that with all these things that are happening, what's the opportunity? Let's not just focus on the opposition. Because once it was once said, you know, no matter how thinly you slice it, there's always two sides. So fine, there's all these different things that are happening in the environment. Let's put the coin over and look at what's the opportunity there that we can all leverage and take advantage of to be able to make ourselves even better. So that when all of this happens and cycles out, which it will, because it will get better, we are significantly better off when things turn up than where we are right now.

Raven: You know in your book Make Real Money on the Internet, you talk about the ultimate hands free business. You said all you have to do is deposit the checks and tell us more about that, because that sounds good. People are looking to deposit some serious checks. Stephen.

Stephen: It's about custom of technology in the Internet, the way they conversion each other. You're allowed to set up automated systems for making money where once you put the systems in place and you're generating traffic, different offers, even without having your own website, you have all these different companies online. They process their payments, they fulfill the orders and they just send you checks every two weeks or every month. So what you do is you just understand what market you want to get into, identify the people that you want to sell to find something that you can sell them. And there are tens of thousands of things on there to sell them, start generating traffic, meaning bring the people together with the offer. And when people start buying the stuff, you start getting paid. That's it. And there's even ways to get paid when people aren't buying things called paid per click programs like Google's AdSense program where you can get a free website, like a free blog, put free content on there, which is articles written by other people, put this free code on there that Google gives you. And when people visit your website and they click on an ad, all they do is click. They don't even have to buy anything when they click on the ad, you get paid a percentage of what that advertiser has paid. Nobody's bought anything, at least not as far as you know. But every time they click on your ad, you make money. So just imagine a world where you can use a free website, free content with free code and a free program that will give you money on autopilot you sit back and Google send you the check. So like I said, there's a world of opportunities out there.

Raven: What's the number one thing you feel we need to offer people on our our website?

Stephen: Value. Yeah, we don't create wealth, we create value. Value is a wealth magnet. And the moment we understand that, we'll stop chasing the money and we'll start chasing the value and the wealth will take care of itself. So what we need to do is understand what would be a great value proposition. What would be an over the top blow their mind off, keep them shaking and shivering and can't sleep. And if they sleep they get up early, or if they sleep, they go to bed late. I just can't believe I got this type of value. And when you do that, you just can't stop the money from coming.

Raven: Can you give us an example, just real quickly, a one or two liner of good value versus not good value?

Stephen: Let's look at it in terms that everybody can understand. I'm going to give you two different terms of value. One is like hindsight is 20 20, so it's like it's easy to see after the fact and then one that we can all kind of use going forward. So without question we know that we can hit value on the mark. The first one is I look at value with anything a person would take an action to get or anything a person would take action to keep. So if a person is willing to take an action to get something to them is valuable because they're taking the action to get it. If they already possess something and they're taking actions to make sure that they keep it, then that's something that they find valuable. But that's kind of like hindsight. We saw what it is they did to get it, we saw what they did did to keep it. But how do we actually engage them beforehand? I believe that value evolves around two specific things, increasing and decreasing. At the end of the day, if you think about what somebody wants, it's always going to be on the column of something they want to increase. They want to increase the amount of time they can spend with their family and people they love. They want to increase their energy, they want to increase how much money they make or they want to increase how much money they keep. They want to increase their sex appeal. All these particular things. What do you think makeup is and diet programs is and Red Bull energy drinks, all those things that people are buying now on the other side decrease. People want to decrease body fat, they want to decrease Depression, they want to decrease certain things. So if you think in those particular terms, it becomes easy to define value. But if you want to take it a step further, ask yourself, what is that going to get them? For example, if a person buys a product from you that gives them energy, are they buying that product? Are they buying their energy? Are they buying what the energy is going to make available to them? I would argue that they're not buying the product, they're not even buying the energy. They're buying that new life or that more life that they're going to be able to experience in abundance that the energy is going to make available to them. The moment we come in contact with that, it becomes extraordinarily easy to give value to people. Now how you can make it clear to them that it's valuable is to use contrast. For example, if your selling something to somebody that costs $97, what is it really worth? If it's worth, say $997, show them, because they're getting a $997 value for 10% of the price. So when you create that contrast and you demonstrate that this is $997 worth of goods that they're getting for only $97, that contrast helps them to further define for them how valuable this is in addition to the impact of the product or service. And if you want to see this in action big time, tune into stations like QVC or the Home Shopping Network or infomercials. You'll see how they crank up the value. They create the contrast. They use testimonials, they define what it's going to increase, they define what it's going to decrease and all those particular things. And then look at the ticker on there with them showing the number of units that are flying off the door, which is social proof. They're like, wow, people are liking this. People are buying it. I want to get into. So now you have that herd effect that's in deployment, but next thing you know, in 15 minutes they sold a ton of those things.

Raven: For more interviews like this, go to HardtoFindSeminars.com what's putting your business on autopilot?

Stephen: Well, you build the things up front and then after you build those things up front, they start to take care of themselves. Like an autoresponder which sends auto responses to people's requests. So if somebody subscribes to a newsletter, you can have seven weeks or seven days or seven months worth of emails and messages and offers already stacked into the autoresponder that are sent out to them automatically, you know, for whatever period of time you define them. They're already pre written, so you wrote them one time, you loaded them up, you don't have to go back and touch them again. And they go out automatically. When people come to your website, if they want to make a purchase, you have these automated processors and takes their credit card information and charges their card and delivers the product to them. You're not doing anything by collecting the. So there's all kinds of different ways to automate the business. You set them up up front, but the moment you get them set up and you get them in place, it tends to become a hands free business.

Raven: Let's talk about niche market, because that's another thing a lot of people that's just getting into Internet or any type of home business because niche marketing is important no matter what business. Can you share your thoughts on that?

Stephen: Niche marketing is a way to get into a market. Niche marketing is taking a broad market and then finding one specific area that you can get into. Just take makeup for example. Maybe you sell makeup in one of the network marketing programs or whatever. You just sell makeup. Well, most people just sell a ton of makeup. You know, lips and face and cheeks and blush and, you know, all kinds of different things. They haven't really specialized in anything. Even if you're selling all this stuff, pick one thing. For example, if I were doing it, maybe I would pick the eyes. And my whole thing is I can help turn your eyes into a hypnotic magnet or something. You would stop people in their tracks. They would come under your spell. They would be completely hypnotized by your eyes. After you use this particular program, I'll show you how to apply them to your eyes. I'll show you how to do all these. The only thing I'm focused on are the eyes. So you get the point. I'm like, listen, you can have sexy ears, sexy face, sexy smile and all that, but hey, nothing gets the guys like the eye. That's all I'm focusing on. Because that's what it is. I'm just like, listen, it doesn't matter how great your lips are, how great your cheeks are, if your eyes don't pull and you know, you know, saying, eyes are the windows of the soul, pull them in with your eyes, you know what I mean? So it's like I use that. But the moment that I get them in and they start to buy stuff for their eyes and they'll be like, well, you can't forget about your cheeks and your lips and all this other stuff, then they're saying, hey, you know what, you're right. You know, I gotta focus on my eyes. But if I'm focusing on the lips, I'm like, hey, it doesn't matter how great your eyes are when they look at your lips, if they don't look seductive and compelling, then you can forget about it, you know, if you got a raggedy smile. Because, see, I'm focusing on the thing that it is I want to pull them in on. So that's finding that one small area. Or maybe I'm into dog obedience instead of being general dog obedience. Maybe I'm, you know, training your min pin or training your greyhound or training your Doberman pinscher or your pit bull or your whatever dog it is. So now I'm picking a specific dog, or maybe it's dog trick. So maybe it's how to make gourmet dog food. I find that one particular thing, you know, that there's all these other needs the market is going to have, but you're pulling them in as the expert on one specific thing. And then as you get them hooked from there, and they'd love the experience of doing business with you, they then allow you to start to service all their needs, wants, wishes and desires and aspirations. It reminds me of a story. There was a son and his dad walking with a donkey. And they were walking with the donkey and the son was riding the donkey. And they went through this one village and the village people were angry. They just couldn't believe it. They were angry, but the family didn't know what they were angry about. They were just cursing and yelling at them and they couldn't believe it. So they took. They said, well, maybe they don't like us having the kid or the donkey. So they took the kid off of the donkey and they kept on walking. And then they went to the other village and people yelling at them again. And it's like they didn't understand why the people were yelling at them. They said, well, maybe they think it's wrong for us to have the donkey plucking this far in the heat. So both of them picked up the donkey and they were walking and walking and walking. They crossed this ridge and they lost their balance and all of a sudden the donkey went flying over the bridge. They lost the donkey and the donkey went splat. And the moral of the story was, if you try to please everybody, you're going to lose your ass. The bottom line is, if you want to get rich, target a niche, if you want to go Broke market to all the folks, what are some of.

Raven: The different ways, Stephen, we can reach our niche and target market? Let's talk about that once we discover and we really know where we're going.

Stephen: Well, understand that the Internet primarily is driven by three forces. Communities, conversations, and content. It's about a bunch of people in a community that are holding these conversations around different content. Once you know what the nature of your market is, what we want to do is we want to find out where are those communities at? Are they on Facebook, are they on Squadoo? Are they on MySpace, where are they online, what blogs are they going to, what forums are they going to? We want to find out where the communities are. And now we want to find out what's the nature of their conversation, what's going on, what's the voice, what are the issues and what's the content that's driving the issues? Is it breaking news, Is it political? Is it green, is it. If it's environmental, if it changes, whatever the content is, the moment you understand where these communities are, what the nature of the conversations is, and what the content is that they desire, you can then infiltrate that, if you will, and become a part of that. And that is the absolute best and fastest way to start targeting your niche. Become a part of that community, become a leader of some sort in that community, contribute to that community, and then you'll become a voice that they listen to and they'll start to take you up on your recommendations, on other people's stuff or on your. Your stuff, and you can start making the money.

Raven: A lot of people are probably saying, okay, now I understand the niche market and I understand how to go get it. But Stephen, what's the real secret once I find the right people to attract the buyers?

Stephen: Well, I think the easiest thing to do is first of all find people that are already buying. If you think about politics, politicians look at voters as those that are harsh to poor. Soft support, neutral, soft opposition and hard opposition. The closer they are to hard opposition to soft opposition, the much more resources you'll have to spend to get them. And it's not likely you're going to get them. It's more expensive to get somebody that's at neutral than there is to get somebody that's hard support. They already support you. Now take that idea and put that to market. There's one thing to have people that are interested. There's another thing that have people that could interested. People are searching, they're looking, they're researching, and at some point they may buy the question is, how much convincing do you have to do and how much is that going to cost you? And resources, time, money, energy, etc. Now there's another group of people that are committed. That means they're already spending their money with other people. The question is, what does it take for you to get them to start spending money with you? Most people default to the wrong position, as far as I'm concerned, and they become competitors. They look at somebody that's like, oh, I can make something like that and maybe make it better, faster or cheaper, and they start to try to go for it, but they find that it's expensive. Because one of the things we want to do is we want to have positions that allow people that are already in the market to support, not resist. So you don't want to come out there with a competing product. It's better to take up the position of somebody that complements, enhances, or enables people that are already buying certain things. They get greater utility out of it. So the bottom line is, find people that are already buying and give them something that's going to enhance what it is they're already looking at. Get the path of least resistance. The fastest way to start making money, they're already buying. You don't have to convince them that there's value there. They already know that there's value there. They're already spending their money. Now what you're doing is you're showing them how they can enhance what it is they're already doing. They're already cutting checks and swiping credit cards. So they're already committed. Here's how to get greater utility or to multiply the impact of the results that you're looking to get by adding this on. Many times when people buy products, you can find them on blogs, you can find them in forums, you can find them all over the. Let's just say there's a popular product that people are buying, and let's just say it costs. I don't know, let's just say it's 100 bucks. I'll get the $100 product and I'll create an action guide. I'll create something that the product's missing that I know based on buying this product. If they had this, they'll be able to get greater utility and even get more significant value out of that product. So now I'm able to go to them and be like, listen, guys and girls, I know you guys already bought this, but you really want to get true value out of this. You want to get this action guide and stuff that I use in to really help you to be able to implement or understand blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This particular product, and here's what it is, you know, we're selling that you can check it out. And it also makes it easier for me to go to the person of the original product and get them on board as a partner to endorse it, because it helps people to get greater utility out of what it is they're already selling. I'm not even competing, I'm enhancing.

Raven: Okay, so in form of that joint venture, are you giving them a pretty good size percentage off of that for him to want to promote to his list?

Stephen: Well, it depends on what you have to do to make the deal, though. I mean, if you can do it at 50, 50 slight, that's great. But if you have to take 20% and they get 80%, listen, it's just one deal that's going to establish you out there pulling your own customer base and allow you to multiply that up. You know, go for it. It's going to give you credibility, it's going to give you sales, you're going to start building a list, you're going to be building customers, you're going to be generating revenue, and you can use that as a huge leverage point and multiply that extremely fast. So whatever it takes to do the deal and to make it happen, but just be thinking several moves ahead. Don't just be stuck on that one product. And what I think is, if somebody comes to you that can make you a ton of money, and they're like, hey, but you got to give me 80%. And you're saying no, you're just thinking about that one product you haven't thought about. Hey, these are the next two, three, four, five things I'm going to sell to the people that get this. So at that point it's like, listen, I'll give you 100% if I have to, because I'm going to make a ton of money off of the people that come in now.

Raven: Okay, so you were talking about the example of making an action guide, you know, from someone that may have a. How would you go about finding the people that are buying it? You mentioned? And we're going to fall right into the next question forms. Would that be the different social networking groups?

Stephen: The Internet is a lively place where people are buying products and you put the names of those products into search engines. You can do nothing but find all the places people are talking about that product. For example, Evelyn woods has a speed reading program. I have mental and training programs that build your mental speed, your intelligence, your iq, your focus, your concentration. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's a perfect fit for people that are looking to do speed reading or meditation or self hypnosis or all kinds of things. So I find people whose products are complementary of mine and show them how our product will help them. So if I do a search for Evelyn Wood speed reading, I'm going to find a ton of places of people talking about Evelyn Wood speed reading and people that have it. And then I just simply go in and talk about, you know, how mental can help you to read faster and have better comprehension. So whatever results you're getting from the Evelyn Wisp program will be multiplied by a factor of 10 using mental entrainment. So hey, it's like, listen, you want to read fast, of course you do. You bought this program. Now you can read much faster because you have this.

Raven: I know a lot of these social networking, they don't want you promoting yourself.

Stephen: Not just what you do is how you do it. See if a person goes to me and be like, hey, all of you, speed reading course buyers buy this. Now see, that's the problem. But if you go in as a part of the community and be like you said, I was getting some great results, but I've doubled my reading speed with Evelyn Woods. But you want me to say something? I tripled it after I started doing mental entrainment and you know, I tested three different products, but this product right here was the absolute best. I just couldn't believe how much faster I was reading and how much more I was retaining. It was just like my speed reading was on steroids. So I mean, I don't know how it would work for you. Your have to try it out for yourself and see if you like the results. But for anybody in here that's really serious about boosting your speed reading, I highly recommend that you add some mental entrainment to it. You will be glad that you did. Here's the prize that I recommend. But for you, I mean, just try different ones. This is the one that's worked for me. Now that's much different.

Raven: In your opinion, Stephen, what steps do we need to take to start out on the right track in order to ensure from the get go that we're going to have a successful business?

Stephen: Well, I think the first thing I have to do is assess our situation so we can become aware of where we are really, you know, where are we emotionally, where are we financially? Where are we with our commitment? And acknowledge that, you know, if we have certain fears, you know, guys, you know, you're afraid of doing this because something hasn't worked in the past and it's making you fearful. Just acknowledge that. Don't beat yourself up. Don't condemn yourself. Just acknowledge that. In other words, allow yourself to be okay with whatever feelings it is you're having right now. But it's really important that the first thing that we do is we just assess our situation so we can be fully aware what we're feeling and what we're thinking. Not minimize it, not maximize it, not blow it out of proportion, not beat ourselves up, not try to live in those feelings. Just acknowledge them and, you know, make sure that we all know that it's okay. But then after we do that, we have to start making a choice. What do we choose to do that's going to make us great? So start making new choices and create a positive. You can create a plan of your own, or you can follow somebody else's plan. And I think one of the easiest plans to make is to plan, or what I call momentum objectives. And those aren't the biggest things you can do that's going to have the biggest impact. It's the things you can do that are going to get you going. So they're small impact things, but they're the easiest things you can do. So you can move from inertia and start moving forward. And then once you do that, you choose to move forward. You choose what it is you want to do and you create that point. You have to trust yourself. You have to trust yourself that everything that's in you, all the resources inside of you, are going to show up. You're going to have to trust yourself that you can make this thing happen, that there's not anybody in this world is big or better than you. We were all born with pretty much the same resources and how we use those resources. Trust that the intelligence that is latent and hidden inside of you is going to show up when you need it. You know that is all there. It's going to show. And then you have to take action. And take action consistently, not sporadically haphazardly or erratically. Take it consistently even when you don't feel like it. Because this thing is not about the feeling. It's about the commitment to what's going to make us great, what's going to make us outstanding, and what's going to make us extraordinary.

Raven: And with that in mind, talking about taking action a lot of people when they first get going in their business, and even some that's been in their business for a while, they wake up and they don't even know how to begin their day. And before you know it, it's an afternoon and they've been on the Internet, they've made a couple personal calls, and they haven't even brought in any income or attempted that way. Can you kind of share a little bit about how you start your day and maybe give some tips in that area?

Stephen: This comes to the whole awareness issue. Understand? What do you need to start to bayonet for? For me, when I wake up, I pray, I read my Bible, I'll have my workouts, I'll sit in the sauna, I'll feed the dogs, the cats. And there's just a certain ritual that I have and there's certain things like I do. And listen, if I don't do certain things in the morning, I know I'm going to feel it. I just know there's certain things I may be irritated about, certain things I may be off, I may not have the rhythm. So what we want to do, and I think that's probably the key word there, is what's going to get us into a rhythm, what's going to get us into that flow. Let's not have it happen by accident, let's have it happen by design. And by design, I mean deliberately designing it to happen. Where you need to be thinking, what do you need to be feeling, what do you need to be focusing on, what do you need to be saying, what do you need to be believing? Every single morning when you wake up, it's going to just have you just absolutely on fire and moving forward, we have a choice. We can choose those particular things. In any given moment, whenever you're feeling negative, I can guarantee you what you're believing, what you're feeling, what you're focusing on, what you're saying, and all the those things are firing off in negative alignment. However, when you're feeling good and positive and empowered about something, what it is you're seeing in your mind's eye what it is you're seeing, what it is you're feeling, what it is you're believing, or what it is you're focusing on firing off in positive alignment. And those are things that we all can control because they're all about our psychology. So ask yourself, what do you need to be doing? What's the recipe for the morning that you need to have, the script that you need to be running every single Morning to fire you all out, out of that thing like a rocket, so that your day is extraordinary. Don't wait for it to happen. If you just stay in reactionary mode, it's going to be a pitiful place to be. Go proactive into every single day and it's going to be different for everybody. It may be having green drinks for some people, having fresh juice, or getting on a treadmill, going for a run, reading, praying, meditating, screaming affirmations while they're doing certain things. You know, playing with the dogs, the family, the kids. Whatever it is, reading a book, whatever it is, you have to know what it is that's going to set you on fire, commit to it and do it, and all of a sudden you'll find out that you do have the ability to control your day. It's not like, you know, a running back playing football. I mean, they know what the play is, but if the players can run up the middle, but he sees the middle collapsing, he has to change up the play. Well, you don't just run up the middle. I mean, that's where they get those bigger paychecks from. Because when a play is not panning out because the defense outplayed them on that play, their running back or whoever is, is. It's able to, on their own, adapt and adjust to the changing environment and gain the yard. I think you should plan your day the evening before and review it in the morning. And it doesn't have to be really rigid or strict planning, just the general ideas of what it is you would like to create for that day. So at the end of the day, instead of asking yourself, what do I need to do tomorrow? Ask yourself, what do I want to create? Do I want to create happiness? Do I want to create energy? Do I want to create more revenue? What is it I want to create? And then what are the things I need to do to contribute to that creation? You then can identify what it is you can be committed to. If we constantly think about the creation process and not the reactionary process, it becomes more fun. If we feel like we're in more control. If there's always reaction, reaction, reaction, then you're responding to everybody else and you're under everybody else's control. Instead of proactively creating what it is you want, instead of responding to everything, it's like, what do we want to create? And then let's just walk there and create that instead of thinking about everything else that's happening to us or around us.

Raven: Final question.

Stephen: Yes.

Raven: For the people that have had their business for a while, and they find themselves spending 80% of their time doing other stuff, 20% of their time making an income. But they're struggling with making the income. What do you have to say to them? How can you assist them?

Stephen: Well, if you're struggling, you're doing something wrong. And I think all of us as leaders have to come to this realization. If there's a problem, I'm the problem. It's easy for us to blame partners, outsourcers, employees, the economy, competitors, and all this other kind of stuff. But you gotta understand, anybody can lead, regardless of the economy, as long as you build those right leadership. You have to look at what's going on in your business. Some people are so married and committed to what's old, they miss what's new. They're trying to keep the status quo of what was that. They get buried by what is. So what we have to do is we have to make sure that while we're planning, we are still strategically flexible so we can adapt and adjust to what's going on in our environment. And understand that just because you may have taken one small loss doesn't mean the entire game is over. You know, people have turnovers and they have fouls and they commit interceptions to our game. You know, this is par for the course. People hit balls and sand traps, whatever, but doesn't mean you don't win. It's how you respond to those moments of despair, or not necessarily the ideal situation. So if you're struggling, I would review what it is you're doing, review everything, review your markets, review your marketing, review your management, which are three core things. The markets you're targeting, the marketing you're executing, and the management you're using to measure and monitor it all.

Raven: And you know what, Stephen? I know you offer so much. I mean, we've been talking about make real money on the Internet. But you also do coaching and seminars. As we close out the show, can you share a little bit with the listeners that may not know you? This is their first introduction to you, some of the things you do and how you can assist them moving forward.

Stephen: I helped, fortunately, create many multimillionaires and many multimillion dollar companies. And I consider myself to be the world's number one Internet wealth advocate. I advocate for everybody to start using the Internet in one form or another, to start creating wealth, because there's so much wealth that's available and how the Internet has just made so much wealth more accessible to all of us. And I traveled around the world. I mean, I've been to so many different places. I speak to tens of thousands of people. Like this year, my. Because it has over 41 different confirmed dates on it that take me across all of Asia, Australia, the uk, the United States. And I do that because I want to give more life to more people to create new possibilities for others while I'm creating new possibilities for myself. So what I do is I like to master the fundamentals and then help people understand. How do you strategically execute these things in your business to get the greater reward, not just to, but the greater rewards for the future? Because all of us have two companies that we're running and managing. The company of today and the company of the future. It's kind of a balancing act or a juggle, if you will. And what I do is I help people to do that. I do it up close and personal with people on a personal level. And then I do it in groups, I do it in big groups, I do it in small groups. I do it in different ways. So if somebody wants to contact us and find out about those programs, I would suggest though, start off with our 133 pages book so they can just have a very fundamental understanding of what the seven key steps are to making real money on the Internet. And that is what they'll find out in the book that's on makerealmoneyontheinternet.com it's 133 pages of pure meat. What to do, how to do it. You would literally, before you even finish reading the book, have a full comprehension understanding of the fundamentals and what it takes to make real money on the Internet.

Raven: You have done a fantastic job and we appreciate.

Stephen: Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me on and I appreciate everybody's time for taking the time to listen to us. I know time is valuable and hopefully they learned their life.

Raven: Hi, this is Raven Blair Davis interviewing for Michael Senoff's HardtoFindSeminars.com