See..Jim Henson was totally right, puppets aren’t just for kids.

I got a kick out of this parody of Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins. If you know them it will make you smile with the accuracy. Clearly an inside job… Got the blond hair, inside phrases and everything.

And it was done by an insider..at least partly. It’s Mike Koenigs’s team who is also based in San Diego.

Xraying this, I want you to take away from this video other than it’s funny. Funny is serious business.

1) Look and copy at the format in your own videos: Opening Branding animated element, clearly visible and readable logo in the top form a subtle call to action to click over to the site and find out more. Engaging content that is likely to be passed around. This *IS* an ad, but this is all under the radar because it’s been wrapped up in entainment.

To be honest, puppetry is probably much easier to shoot than live video outdoors and requires no makeup. You don’t have to look good on camera and you don’t even have to wear clothes. You can use any puppets you like.

2) Video quality and video scripting counts. Entertain + Inform and that takes having people who live and breathe this stuff. If you don’t do it, get someone who can. You don’t have to have fulltime people you should start thinking how to outsource this work on an as needed basis.

3) production values in the IM space are rapidly starting to approach that of TV. Just think 5 years go, video was nowhere, now it’s replaced most serious sales letters. At home hardly anybody watches normal TV on old “Tube” sets, I know because when I walk around my neighborhood in LA I see these old TV’s sitting on the curb right next to the flat screen box ready to be garbage collected. I hope your sales pages are in there too.

4) production needs teams of people, like that video was brought to you by Mike Koenigs’s “new” company which has at least 7 people to do the writing shooting, creative etc. How many people do you have in your team?

P.s. If you like adult puppets check out the ADULT improv + telepuppetry called Puppet Up. Puppets + Alcohol + No Holds Barred

P.P.S. If you like puppets you might also like a cartoon of Frank my team created. with Kung FU Surfing Action

I got asked today by Christian (aka PPCNinja) about what I thought of the Magic Bullet Conference in San Diego this last weekend.

It’s been so busy this week that I haven’t really had time to think about it.  This video (shown in the opening part) does convey the feel of it. Well polished, with So Cal hip hop flare.

Overview of the Magic Bullet Seminar San Deigo

It was my first major affiliate conference so had nothing to compare it to.

These sorts of events have a lot of elements to it.  The content presented, the world class speakers with their various niches, the various gurus who show up to see them. The people of like minds who have spent $2k to use the software, live and breathe this stuff,

Personally It was a very worthwhile event.  I enjoyed most all of it, except got about 13 hours of sleep over the days, and had to use an alarm clock, not used to that…  but totally worth it

There could have been no talks and it still would have been worthwhile. I met SOO many people which I doubt I could ever meet on the web.  The material I learned gave a good balance of stuff I can use right now and more importantly where some of the brightest minds see the industry -and us with it- are going.

The Magic Bullet Seminar Speakers and Material

The seminar covered the arc of from the very basics, to stuff so advanced you needed an NDA to hear about it.  There were no punches really held back on some black hat sort of material that become necessary evils in parts of the game to succeed.

Mindset Matters

They started with a heaping of mindset, which bordered on new agey at times..clearly the Mind Movies are working.  I found this interesting becuase it was not money focused, and also because for the  creative and techy types I normally hang with,  there is an intrinsic force mindset is almost never the issue.   Quite the opposite, creative types, have no problem with drive it’s the pragmatics of doing the work which isn’t creative and fun.

Part of the intial arguments was just being “present” moment by moment.  Here I also had a disconnect. I’m rarely present. I’d rather be thinking of where I’m going next, the possibilities, and my goals. Especially when I’m driving for 3hours stuck in traffic with 3 hours of sleep.

Here’s a good story and a snapshot into my life.

The Magic Bullet Seminar started on a Friday early, and went late Saturday (Party!).  I live in Los Angeles and had planned on getting down to San Diego the night before as the hostel I stay at was a block away from the Hard Rock cafe.  I like hostels as they are cheap, and I meet interesting people there. I don’t really understand spending $200/night at these sorts of events, if you’re not planning on being in the room at all.

Late night and bad morning

Anyway, I have been trying to start up 2 new businesses in the last couple weeks, one the Local Business on Web, and I had promised a demo video and proposition to my first prospect.  The video was well done given I started on it finished it in about 3 hours all the way from script,. slides, image research and voice over.  I got done with that about 2am.

My other business is focused on amazon affiliate stuff and I have been in an excellent course from by SEO “free traffic” Keith Baxter who is one of my most favorite gurus.  He was gave a presentation at the Magic Bullet seminar and gave a preview that afternoon on “stealth traffic system” or “self contained traffic system”  finally understanding the power of his approach involving Wordpress MU, I had a hard time not imagining the possibilities.  I gave him some notes on his preview and he really seemed to like the changes I suggested.

3 hours came quickly.   My roommate as cool and as absolutely brilliant as he is,  is also crazy (as in institutionalized 2 times), and as I was trying to get out the door, asked if he could use my video camera and lighting gear..perfect timing. Grrr.

Getting to my car I find a parking ticket and then my car wouldn’t start initially and I was near out of gas.

I finally get on the road and about midway through Orange County I hit the sea of red lights of morning rush hour.

Amazingly none of that registered on my radar!

precisely as I wasn’t present.  I was buoyed by the  excited about the Seminar and meeting some people live I have grown to like, the mental freedom from completed many major milestones with a free slate the next few days and the euphoria of learning a powerful traffic source that I could use in any of my businesses. There was a whirlwind of what I wanted, being replayed over an over again blinding me.

During the open mic, they got a question about this from a guy who has the goal of making 50K a month and can’t really stay present.

I understood completely, and I gave him my approach,

A head full of info so much that you can’t decide isn’t always a bad thing.

I can’t tell you how many times that i’ve done something counter intuitive only to get there and find what something I wasn’t intending to do but needed to do in the first place

so often I trust my intuition.

In the end as long as you are moving forward to your goals, at a reasonable rate, then you win sooner or later!

I think of it like so, if you’re willing to sacrifice a few months or years to get freedom for the rest of your life, it’s okay if you don’t fully remember every waking moment of every day.

Affiliate Mindset

basically the first part was put by Amish eloquently:  “Live it,  breath it, see it, smell it, taste it, shit it“, to be get ahead of the average you have to be obsessed about this stuff.

They also pointed out that the best things happen offline. So get off your ass and go to live events. Networking and in particular the Media Buying is largely a negotiation game.  The sales staff wants money, if they don’t know you they’ll charge you sucker tax/retail. If they like you the will charge wholesale…or even give you free.

I admit that negotiation isn’t what I consider fun.  I was raised in a small family where bickering and bartering wasn’t a part of the culture.  As an engineer I don’t think that way as  Engineering frequently involves hard costs and hard constraints (e.g. budget bridges don’t stand up long) isn’t negotiable.

Business Mindset

Business Mindset was next,  primarily setting Smart goals

• S = specific (e.g. having a campaign of $25/day each week, test 3 new offers each day, setup one campaign  on TrafficVance and Yahoo every day)
• M = measurable
• A = achievable  (obviously if your not signed up for TrafficVance that’s not possible)
• R = realistic (no pink unicorns)
• T = time for completion (e.g. when will you be done)

Here again I found myself disagreeing.  Realistic? Fuck that. You need to have compelling goals to get you past all the shit that life can and will throw in your way.  Entrepreneurs in particular have to deal with moving mountains and occasionally having them fall on top on you.   It’s only after the price for freedom has been paid that a second life begins, one of immense possibility.

I’ve often remarked that being in business feels alot like a video game.  Just when I think I’ve won the level, I was tired at step 8 of 10, and wasted at step 9, and I make it to step 10, some other big boss comes up on the horizon and I have to dig in even deeper to go to step 11. It’s only because I know that a few years in this game can fundamentally reshape every aspect of my life.  Realistically what other options do you have to make such massive passive income and time, location freedom as net connected jobs?

Frank Kern – “Bad Muthafucker ” but retiring from IM.

This was a fun presentation.  Frank could easily be a cult leader or a televangelist.  Wouldn’t be surprised to see him on TV in the near future, if I actually owned a TV.

He said he was given the options of talking on 1) weed ‘n bitches 2) fancy cars 3) launches, but instead he decided to come clean and kinda say good bye to the IM world.

Some of his advice

“Thou Shalt Not Fuck Around”

“Don’t be  Pussy”  – e.g. if Adwords bans you get another account.

Setup your life so that you must succeed…if you fail you’re fucked.  Which is exactly what happened to Frank quitting his credit card business, and when moving to La Jolla,  having a $30K/mo morgage payment!

That was just part one of day 1 and my hands are getting tired so I’m going to wrap it up for now with a post I created earlier.

To summarize the affiliate side there was TONS of useful information. Lots of stuff I haven’t been exposed to, e.g. main stream double dipping, different pages for google bot and users. Going anonymous.

Matt’s Hayward and Matt Hill’s  presentations were worth the price of admission.  They are actually closer to the wavelength I operate on.

Networking Galore.

I feel like I’m name dropping, but really it was a small event 500 people of high quality people (think they had to spend $2K at the minimum to get in)

Many of the gurus live in San Diego and Jay and Amish are well connected to them. It started over bagels at breakfast on Friday and then went to the day after the late night party on Saturday night. It’s hard to throw a stick and NOT hit somebody important.

Here’s a list of some of the people I got to talk with.

Hosts: Amish and Jay again (I originally met them at Jeff Johnson’s mastermind).

Frank Kern – this was quite fun.  I was trying to get Amish and Jay to play a funny cartoon of Frank Surfing , but failed.
http://www.troynotes.com/1124/my-prank-of-frank-kern-and-surfing-kern-with-kung-fu-surfing-action/

Jason Moffatt – he was only there to see Frank as far as I know. We’re talking about getting him a surfing animation for himself.

Trey Smith (totally wanted to hear about the  latest pranks planned…especially on John Reese)

Andy Jenkins (I got in on Video Boss and ran into him in the hall to tell him about some of the results I’ve gotten with Video Boss) and then later impromptu speaking lessons for talking to fast.

Keith Baxter - he’s one of my favorite “Gurus”, and first time meeting him live. I got a total kick out of him almost copying verbatim the suggestions I made on his presentation, and him even thanking me.  I still can’t believe he used some of the gags I put in, intending to be goofy e.g. “the only thing I’ll be pitching here is baseballs”..  I’m actually working right now on getting his MU network in place, creating some blog builder tools to automate the process, of keyword ->silo-> blog network .very very excited.

Now I’m seeing if he wants to try out some of the landing page experiments.   Like my belcher button with roll over and sound effects.
http://www.troynotes.com/the-ubb-ultimate-belcher-button-wizard/

Some of the the Mind Movies crew,

Matt Trainer – he and I have similar backgrounds, and connected about me possibly helping him get his “Oh Shit” project scalable on the web.

John Jonas. – he and I disagree on several areas in outsourcing (I run a team of 7 for years and have had poor luck with my philopino fulltimers) but he gave a very rallying presentation and more people need to know about the option, outsourcing is key to my success.   From talking to him now, I at least know more about why we disagree, and it could be that out of the 9 million philipinos, the 4 that I’ve hired and the 3 that I’ve fired  doing my damndest just were bad apples.  What’s odd is that I have so much outsourcing experience and such good rapport and productivity with my other teams I have had a hard time understanding what went wrong.

Jonathan Van Clute – he and I met over a year ago at Perry and Ryan’s conference. He’s a fun techy, even if he overcomplicates tracking pixels   Sitting next to Jon,  at the hard rock party, I ended up meeting Ricky the CTO of keyword country and ended up geeking out about high end web scalability.  Not often I run into software architects.

Eric (E2) on the MBS, very smart kid! and what an amazing position he is in to be have so much at so young, I really am looking forward to getting his presentation on video as he went so fast I couldn’t keep up with my meticulous notetaking, and also seeing what he does.

Also what impressed me is he actually sought me out after the event, gave me personal email to apology from the Magic Bullet crew about the multiple Andy Jenkins interruptions when I asked that question during the speaker Q+A.  I got a similar sentiment from Matt Trainer. While ‘inconsiderate” I didn’t realize people felt so strongly about it.

Royce – the guy running the cameras crew.  Been looking ahead at putting together an event in the next year, and turns out he’s in LA not far from me.  FYI his crew created that cool opening MTV’esque video of Jay and Amish.  I would have sworn that Frank’s video guy did it.

One of  3 or 10 or so affilates on CJ and Yahoo(?).  I didn’t get his name as we were both  pretty buzzed   Thankfully I wasn’t so buzzed that when he left and I discovered his iphone on the bench I was able to run after him (through the crowd, jumping over security lines which got me scolded by security) and get it back to him, as I never got his full name so wouldn’t be able to find him and without his phone he might be hard to call.

Plus about a dozen other  from all over the world. 2 From London, one from Germany. Australia, several in the US.

I have several of these people email addresses, I wonder if that would have happened if I hadn’t gone.

What’s possibly even  amazing is I’m pretty introverted I rarely talk to anybody but close friends. I really had to go out of my comfort zone to talk so much.  But isn’t that always where success lives? outside the comfort zone?

Well attempted prank.

Frank has pulled some classic pranks over the years, like convincing John Reese that black helicopters were stalking him,  This epic prank on John Reese was caught on video tape at Frank’s “insane” cousin Trey Smith’s blog. It’s hella funny and the production value is staggering for IM.

Since pranks can be fun, if this is the culture, I figured, Why not do something similar to him?

The idea came  to me when at my first internet marketing conference the Mass Control 2.0 seminar in April. I was so clueless about what to talk about.  IPranks abounded, especially on unexpecting speakers, who while watching their slides had “cock” flash on them, frequently causing them to break into laughter.

Seemed fun and easy to pull off.  I have had several years in improv comedy brightening all sorts of audiences lives with no real preparation.  But way more can be done with preparation.  I have friends in video and animation, and games there are tons of options with them in the mix.   It’s quite fun hobby, thinking up evuhl schemes to delight and entertain especially by someone who least expects it.

My first idea was a video that demonstrates Frank’s legendary surfing ability.   He has claimed to be the 11th worst surfer in Southern california, this up from 9th worst 2 years ago.  I storyboarded it and got a favor from my  brilliant animator Ramior Olmos friend and very talented Music designer Ralph Carter get it their time between major gigs, to get a more affordable rate. You can watch the awesome results here (provided you’re not on an ipad that is)

I’ve had a few questions if people can get their own like this, and they answer is, yes, maybe, depends.

The bigger goal was to get that as the preloader to some videos made by friends or a video game that let people surf as Frank.  With the goal of working on the inside, and to get it showed when he was presenting.   I did my best over the year worked inward to the cool people that could make this happen, and this funny animation helped open doors.   But I ran out of time, and it might not have worked out that well.  He’s such a BadAss  that and he doesn’t use slides or notes,…. ever.

On Saturday at the Magic Bullet Seminar was probably my last chance . Frank made an awesome  no holds barred presentation where he used the word “Bad Muthafucker” within the first 30 second, and other colorful words as liberally as table salt.

He said there was no reason to hold back. He’s burning bridges as he is retiring from the IM community for good.  That he has a schedule already of only 3 more live appearances, and that the torch would be passed to someone else. *insert drum roll* you’re guess is as good as mine as to who that will be.

His sights are on new ideas for the offline local business world, probably TV, and to break past the $5 million year cap that all internet marketers apparently seem to hit.

I had my doubts (and still do) but talking to his cousin Trey in the hall confirmed that Frank was “fully out”., even Trey seemed a little surprised.

Recognizing my defeat, I settled for catching Frank in the hall (fighting the crowd) and showing the video on my laptop..just barely before he was wisked away to the safety of the speaker room. I also got a copy through back channels.

If it’s true that Frank is leaving the IM I will be sad to see him go.   He’s one of the gurus I most like watching and reading, so much to learn from.   If nothing else he’s entertaining enough that I have gone through more of his material than other courses.

Amazingly all the material I’ve learned from Frank (he is a genius), such as Results in Advance that he’s presented on multiple times including the Magic Bullet Seminar, was still largely unknown to this crowd of largely affilaties and very powerful tool.  I know he’s remarked in previous presentation with exasperation “how many times can I sell you the same thing over and over again?. Apparently forever, like the olympic flame there needs to be a perpetual Frank Kern.

Hey it’s 2010, maybe we can make an animatronic like Disneyland!

Big thanks to Frank for all you’ve taught me. Core Influence was overly long egocentric, and probably impossible for others to replicate… but it really did completely reshape and potentially save my life.

Troy.

This video interview between Frank Kern and John Reese has been floating around twitter lately, it’s good stuff. and popular:  282 Comments at the time I viewed it. You do need to opt-in to watch it, and I don’t make anything off the opt-in, so if necessary setup a disposable email address and watch it, it’s worthwhile.

John Reese (paraphrased), "My $1Million dollar day, totally beats your $440Million day Tony"

Several Remarkable things happened on the video.

• Frank Kern and John Reese are mostly quiet for once
• John Reese gets to sit on Tony Robbins lap, well the offer was at least made.
• Showdown between John $1Million day vs Tony’s $400Million day.

Frank and John open with the important question,

why do most people fail?

This is like asking why average is so…average.  But it’s a fair question, given that most people eventually learn to walk, to read and basic math. Why is it that people will buy every Internet Marketing product out there, yet not get any results.   Why aren’t there more success stories?

Tony replies: Why is it 70% of people who are diagnosed with lung cancer still continue to smoke? or people disgusted with themselves being overweight reach for the chocolate cake.

Why is it that it takes complete failure before many people discover the right mindset to make it? while people surrounded by tons of resources, surrounded by the right books, the right time, the right people don’t do achieve what it is they desire?

My Take

I’ve been studying this for awhile, interested like the average reasons why people fail to help avoid that as much as possible when I teach as well as to avoid the pitfalls myself (challenging!)

• We live in a remarkable age, and that is part of the problem. Escapism, pleasure or at least complacency is ubiquitous and cheap.   Why work when the evening news or a great movie is on?  Why save/wait when the credit card isn’t maxed out.        I’m no different, like this eve instead of working on the billion things that would make more sense to do, I overslept and watched Harry Potter in the 2nd run theater. It was fun, at least more than imagining a gun to my head as John and Frank suggest as a motivational tool. It’s not the right path, but it’s a easy seductive path.
• Change is impossible,  not quite true but any rapid change tends to bounce right back.  There is a built in momentum in our lives.   The invisible habit fence that surrounds our comfort zone. This is why if you want to change you have to break the daily routine.  Like going on a trip, cutting out things (e.g. no internet, TV, cell for a week). Try it, it’s amazing.
• Attention is the most precious substance in the universe. It’s just not very prioritized well, there are so many things that FEEL important that just aren’t when given space.  This is why batching things is so critical,  only then is the trivial many is given perspective when standing next important few. Try batching your time today like only checking twitter once and email 2 times a day.

There are darker reasons to why people fail online.

• Most gurus know a lot, but … not how to teach. Frank in his videos even admits he doesn’t know what he’s doing consciously most the time, which makes it hard to follow.
• Most courses aren’t replicateable. For a variety of reasons.  I know as I have a hard time learning, things must make sense or I just won’t do them.   Some are simple, the instructions are filled with holes, it’s not possible to do them.   Other times the info has changed, what worked yesterday doesn’t.  If chapter 1 didn’t work it’s hard to justify getting into chapter 3. At the far end, some of the work is too advanced. Kern is a marketing genius, and has a lifetime of experience and routines, every guru I’ve met is a collection of almost superhuman daily habits, that are impossible to follow more than a few steps.
• The material is beyond reach .  In a fantasy world anybody who is 5′ can be an olympian basketball champion, in reality we all have different strengths that don’t always match with what’s required.   Might be we don’t have the emotional chops to empathize with the audience to connect with them. Might be not having the prowess to either manage or build on the internet.  People will still try driving with these blindspots.
• The IM industry is filled with bullshit .  Filled with hype, false promises, and people will fall for it at first. It’s almost necessary, as IM products in order to sell crank up the pitch as he who shouts louder seems to win. Anyway when a product fails to live up the hype, people drop the product, but rarely ask for a refund in.  It could be that the product has 2-3 amazing tidbits but if people can’t get past the dissapointment of the hype it doesn’t matter.
• Overload. Starting from ground zero, there is at least a 3-6 month road to walk daily in order to master just the basics, in addition to actually getting things done.  I know despite making time for it i haven’t finished courses I bought 3 months ago! and now the gurus have already relaunched them with updates…it never seems to end, so it’s impossible if you’re trying to master everything to get started.
• Most courses aren’t replicatible. I know as I have a hard time learning, things must make sense or I just won’t do them.

Tony Robbins caught Frank Kern telling a story THIS big

The Steps to make it

You really you should watch the video to find this out. I simply can’t do it justice in words the passion Tony pours into the message.   Here are some of the first ones mentioned:

• Why it is important but it has to be why you are doing it, and that will depend greatly on where you are presently at. From desparation at Rock bottom to desire to change the world of multi millionaire, everybody has their own reasons for taking the next step. Why is it important for you to do it right now?
• Daily ritual and Peak state practice: getting one into a peak state is critical, rather than relying upon the few ounces willpower. Getting that peak state is the momentum of a bowling ball, knocking down whatever in your way…to the point you don’t even notice hitting them. It’s a skill that must be practiced. Like I have a sound track and youtube playlist that ‘gets my mojo going’, it’s the same 3 songs, but I never grow tired of them.
• Raising standards, Tony talks about how happy he was with his castle until he hung out with a billionaire and used that for comparison. How might you raise your standards?
• Immersion. hanging out with hungry and positive people (seriously how I get my latest product going so quickly…if no other reasons than peer pressure!).

If you enjoyed this you should check out The 5 Guiding Stars to a Dramatically Better Life.

Fast facts:

Frank Kern caught in the act of using his voodoo powers of persuasion on you..that or he want to give you a head massage.

Name: Frank Kern

Age: Unknown

Started In Internet Marketing: 2000

Time to Make it: 2 years?

Worth: several-millions

Estimated Yearly Income: 2-5 million*

List Size: 400K in 2008 (non IM)

Location: La Jolla, California

Dogs or Cats: guessing dogs.

Fun Facts

• 9th worst surfer in Southern California
• Call of Duty is the equivalent of kryptonite to him
• Has an arch Nemisis named Spandanko
• once lost everything to a flood, and later again to the Feds, yet has recovered it all.
• Is incapable of hearing people unless they wear viking hats.
• has a production studio named “PEN ISland”.  Ahem.
• dislikes Ferraris and work.

Products

• Mass Control 1.0 2007
• Mass Control 2.0 2009
• Underachiever method
• Untra Underachiever 2006
• Serializer 2005-2006 $1Million
• Infomillionaire
• Pipeline Profits (?)

Ninja Skills

• Strategist and Scheming
• Creating multimillion dollar campaigns as easy as  most people breathe.
• Creating pitchfests that are still fun.
• Can if so provoked be persuasive enough to get people to tattoo penis on their forehead.

Team size

~8*,  2 customer service, 1 bookkeeper, 1 video dude.  NO telemarketers

Official Site

• mass control blog
• unofficial fan site

Note: none of this is official or endorsed by the real Frank Kern

* estimated

Click to see the other GuruCards

Part 3 of 5 of from the great interview between Eben Pagan and Frank Kern up on Kern’s blog

Your probably missing  70-80% of your potential sales.

4 Learning Styles is the most powerful of the 10 frameworks taught in Eben’s latest course on info product development, and his most powerful communication technique that can be used in any medium: live or email. Using it can help you dramatically communicate with 100% of your audience, rather than being poorly understood.

The 4 Learning Styles originates from David Kolb (often misheard as David Cole) a Harvard Psychologist, who in studying the way people learn, discovered 4 distinct learning styles, that tended not to overlap.

The four learning styles are:

1. Why
2. What
   
3. How
4. What If

They need to be presented in that order, else you will lose people.

Think of them almost like different color blindness. One person is color blind in red, the other in blue, the other color blind in green.  So to reach them all we need to broadcast in all the colors.

The order is VERY important, and can be used anywhere, copy, teleseminars, content, you name it.

Most people You may not realize it but the way you learn is also usually the only way you teach which means you’ll only be reaching the learning styles you use.   This means you’ll only reach 20-30% percent of your audience. Wasting 70% to 80% of your market (and your money).

Also notice that this overlaps with the classic marketing AIDA formula:  Attraction, Interest, Decision, Call to Action, which is great for doing PPC ads, which gives you 4 lines exactly.

Connect with 100% of your audience, just follow these steps:

For this example we’ll say we’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a lunch

1. Ask Why: First ask yourself why they should pay attention to you, right now.  What are the emotional motive drivers of the information?  Write these down first.

• And what terrible pains will they avoid? (E.g. starving horribly while all the other people eat, spending all the money on outrageously priced , or running out of time to each waiting for your meal to arrive)
• What benefit they will get? (E.g. You’ll be happier, have an easier life, happier family,be more attractive, and save time +money, with this portable, tasty, filling, and inexpensive power combo).

2. Ask What for: What is it?  What purpose is following you for?What is  the vital essense, the history, the key concepts and the underlying theory.  How this is better, faster, cheaper than alternatives. These people need to see the whole the process.  Write these down second.

• In a single sentence, what is it that they are going to learn?
• Where did it come from?  (peanut butter was invented in 950 B.C.!)
• What are the key concepts?  (Fat + sugar give immediate and lasting energy)
• Is there an underlying rule or theory, that helps unify all the information? (p+b sandwiches could end all wars)

3. Ask How: The how people— they need action steps, specific procedure.  They want to get inside, how it produces results. They’ll put up with the previous two, as long as they get this. Write these down third.

• What will the goal look like when it’s finished? (Picture of person eating the sandwich)
• What are the prerequisites to start? (E.g. must go to the store and get peanut butter, jelly and bread, and something to spread it with)
• What is the first thing they must do, be specific (open the jars).
• What is the next thing they must do?  (Spread peanut butter on both sides)
• …repeat   (do the same thing with jelly)
• What is the last step, how will they know it’s finished?
• What are the possible trouble spots and solutions? (Natural peanut butter must be stirred first; peanut butter on both sides of the bread will keep it from getting soggy with the jam)

4. Ask What If:  What if I use this product to… These people are action oriented— they don’t really need to know why, or how, just the to “Just do it!“  Write these last.

• How could they use this in other than the obvious way (what if you filled a whole bag of sliced bread, you’d have lunches for the kids for a week, what if you experimented with different types of jellys and nut butters)

• What are the immediate results they will get? (tasty filling quick easy and cheap! What if you did it started right now)
• What if you did this everyday for 30, 60, 90 days, a year, a decade? how would you benefit?

Call to Action, What to do right now.

• What’s the immediate specific action the user needs to do RIGHT NOW?
• Write it: “Go do this one thing right now”.    (go to the store and get the peanut butter right now!)

Eben notes he uses these everywhere: his seminars, info products, and with his 80+ employees, constantly cycles through these patterns all the time, to keep the entire audience’s attention.  He has found dramatic increase in his team’s comprehension and appreciation of what’s being done.   He challenges people to steal those 4 steps (Why, What, How and What If) even title that in their own emails, and sales campaign. I’m trying it right now, it seems to be helping organize the writing faster. Neat.

Another great article on this is from master Alex Mandossian, if you enjoyed this, go read this on how he uses this framework to make super successful teleseminars..upto 12K of them,  it’s a quick read

Note: the real information on David Kolbe’s work can be found at his website “Learning From Experience” and is also called “experiential learning theory” or ELT.  It is much more academically focused and worded the four basic groups are named very differently (but more accurately).  In reality I believe we all embody all 4 aspects at differnet times.

There is a good short 5 min video from Mike Koenig covering more of the Kolbe, it interesting varies signficantly from what Eben covered in a way that can’t quite be matched up. Watch that great 5 min video here.

• The Sales personality: persuaders and motivators, ask “Why?”,  35% of the population
• The Scholastics: objectives and outcomes, “What For?” 18% of the population
• The Technicals: operations and processes, “How?”  25% of the population
• The Advocates and Marketers: creatives and marketer, focusing on opportunities “What If?”, 20% of the population.

You can find more by doing a search on “Kolb Learning Style Inventory” which returns some great pages like this great one,

Mike (and possibly Eben) originally heard it from Alex Mondossian

For part 2 of the interview go here for part 4 of the interview go here

For more tips on how to use these sorts of frameworks to make better products and other cool tips, opt-in in the above right.

Part 5 of 5 from The Great Interview between Eben Pagan and Frank Kern up on Kern’s blog (about 50 minutes in)

This is paraphrased:

Eben Asks Frank: “given we have the Launch in just a few days, what should we do between them?”

Frank says: “Stack the Cool massively and use the Death Grip (If you know Mass Control, you already know this) to get server blowing traffic and complete sell outs.”

Example: “Say you are selling Honda cars, if they buy it, they also get a Lamborghini FREE, and then a day later… Wow, not only a Lamborghini but ALSO a FREE airplane, then later they see a surprise 0% financing, then UH- OH, the Honda users group of 1 Million just found out and will be storming the car office starting at 6am…you better get it now, because it will definitely sell out.”

Eben says: “…yeah but we are already close to blowing up our server right now. Thinking of scaling back already..”

Frank says: “Do it the Buddhist way, expect the server to blow up and use it in your dialog with your audience (as a pressure stacker+ social proof). I don’t know of a single launch that hasn’t blown up a server (except maybe Jeff Walkers latest).”

See Also Part 1

Part 1 of 5 of the notes from the great interview between Eben Pagan and Frank Kern up on Kern’s blog.

It’s about an hour. Why should you listen?  If you’re not familiar with him- Eben Pagan, he is one of the more sophisticated and detailed marketers I’m aware of.  A solid strategist with an eye for detail and solid results; and a gift for teaching.  His day job is helping men become better men.  Solid results you probably want to replicate:  Eben Pagan has 80 employees, made $20 Million last year , is now up to $25 Million a year..of course he doesn’t get to keep all of that all from info-products and related seminars.  Frank Kern is a marketing genius and frequently entertaining.  But if you don’t have time, this is an outline of the key points.

Key Insights from the first half of the talk:

• 3 killer impactful things outweigh 12-15 sort of valuable things.
• Give away your best stuff for free…as even if you give it away, it won’t hurt.

PRELAUNCH STRATEGY: Give away the BEST of the BEST….for FREE

RESULTS: 30K opt-ins first week, in the midst of about 6 major launches.

RECIPE of Virals a.k.a. Magnets:

• 1 video of the very best stuff, worth $50-$100 …FREE.
• 1 downloadable report with 2 most valuable ideas.
• 1 teleseminar answering market objections and in a conversation

WHY?

• Hits buyers from multiple modalities, and shows you in different mindsets
• Helps get partners to email their lists as the value is undeniable.
• Helps generate reciprocity and positive expectancy for future.
• Cracks the social firewall for people not familiar.

If you like more info on the Give your Best stuff away for free, you should see my post “A Tale of Two Cakes”

For part 2 of the notes go here

This is my first post/review on the MC#2 Seminar last weekend down in SD.

I’ve got to say I was pretty blown away,

and am still reeling. Oh my frigging head

Could be bad limes in the coronas inducing LSD like hallucinations, could be  what happens after you’ve seen the Spandanko video (http://www.masscontrolsite.com/d1.html, http://www.masscontrolsite.com/d2.html) about 20 zillion times, could be seeing Boy Shakira dressed like Britney spears (which is soo wrong…)

Alright, time for public humiliation..

Warning: Profanity Ahead

*Cock*While I’m used to conferences and even giving presentations.  This was my first one in the internet marketing space… it was very different, in some ways it felt like high school graduation rehearsal. I kept expecting the inflatable beach ball and inflatable nude lady to be bouncing around.  *Cock*  Beers were on stage more than once, at one point there was tiff on who had more to drink, (Frank score: 6).   Pranks abounded: Speakers got spanked while presenting, “cock” flashed on the monitors trying to throw off speakers sometimes at the interval I’m using them here… As an attendee you weren’t allowed to ask questions unless you’re wearing a viking helmet, with blond braids.

Many colors, one voice…the godfathers of Internet Marketing

Frank Kern, Eben Pagan, Jeff Walker, Perry Belcher, Ed Dale hanging at the secret crib...yes I was there the fly on the wall.

Since the common thread is marketing, the seminar attracted a diverse range of people.  Complete newbies to real estate, stock trading;  Those who make $1M per launch easily; and those dissatisfied with 80K months.   Almost all of the publicly known gurus of Internet Marketing we there, it was like the coachella of Internet Marketing.

It does strike me how lucky I am to be in LA, near SD, so much happens with the few hour drive, many attendees came from far away. One guy came all the way from London! I met someone at the hostel who didn’t even open the course or attend the sessions, his goal was just to see and meet his 2 favorite speakers (one didn’t even show up!). I almost forgot that such conferences are 90% networking focused— there are lots of successful people who garnered deals from places like this.

You’ll love my nut..notes…

Seriously 3 Days… 300Kb of notes.  The original phrase came from a video they ran early on. Over and over and over again. Very funny it’s on youtube.

During these conferences, most people retain just 1-3% of information presented so it was a surprise to see just a few people (that includes me!) taking down notes, even when the speakers were discussing relevant points.  I was indeed a newbie— maybe, those who don’t take down notes don’t really need the information. There were a few I talked to who’d been in it for years- a decade or so. They weren’t there for the information, they came to build their network.

Like a summer blockbuster, many presentation were great fun, but most weren’t something I’d want to see again… Especially since rewatching the videos, listening to the audios, they add up to 3days of presentations I’d rather be doing something.   Plus who knows when they will be posted, how much they will cost, and even if the info is still relevant given how fast the marketing community moves.

Looking around during the session it was also interesting to see when people were and weren’t taking notes and responding indicating where people have mastered or need.  Like on the 3rd day one of the presentation went into modelling business in spreadsheets and how such small changes can make the difference between hobbie (2K mo) and 1.5M business are.   Another earlier showed how small15% increases in 5 core areas could double the net profits.   I was kinda surprised at the reaction as spreadsheets are my first plan of attack when doing business viability.  Given how little the differences are the actual numbers,  I wonder if this is why so many are struggling.

I have links to those spreadsheets, in It may take me a few days to get the notes in a point that can be shared…stay tuned.

Upcoming:
Day 1:  Notes + Review
Day 2:  Notes + Review
Day 3:  Notes + Review
Wrap-up

If you want to help me out, post any particular questions you want me to focus on.

If you went to the conference, you should also join the super exclusive private forum: http://masscontrolprivate.ning.com/

First Paris Hilton, now Frank Kern caught in the act on tape….  a sordid tangle with big guns, David Hasselhoff, …buff Carrottop?!

For the protection of all, please help get the word out:

http://frankkernsextape.com/