My RSS Feed is a personal finance voice for today. Ramit Sethi posted this on his blog:

I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me talk this month, so today I want to turn it over to 3 of my students.

Watch how they hustled — and got paid for it.

1) Ben D.: Marketing/business development
“I approached the owner of a restaurant/pub that I frequent. I simply walked in and asked to speak to the owner. I talked to him for a few minutes, put together a quote, and got a $90 check (after material costs) for about 1.5 hours of work after our conversation. Amazingly simple process – I was sort of stunned afterward thinking, ‘Did that really just happen?Ҕ

2) Daniel C.: Advanced sailing instructor
Daniel started teaching advanced sailing instruction and he wasn’t sure how to get leads for his business.

Over the past month he used Earn1K scripts to pitch the most prestigious yacht brokerage in his area. He struck a deal with them to co-host classes with him — taking all the risk. Not only that, they’re paying him for the classes! In exchange, he’s getting access to their customer base.

He now has more leads than he can handle.

3) João G.: Web developer
“My first client was a friend of mine that is a Director on a big company that needed to develop a website using Drupal. I sent a proposal to develop the website, but the company decided to do it with a Canadian firm (much bigger then I). When I didn’t got the job I wasn’t upset. Actually I helped my friend to ask the right questions and I kept checking how I could help him. When the site was done he called me and hired me as a retainer to maintain the site. This contract was small, but this led me do other projects that I could charge 14K+ and I could also met other Drupal developers that hired me to do more jobs!”

What do you notice about these examples?

1. They’re all hustling…and getting paid to do it
2. Each of them are Earn1k students

Now that you’ve learned some of the fundamentals of hustling — like focusing on disproportionate results, negotiating, and building your own network — you can apply them to earning money on the side.

It’s not just theoretical. Those examples above are just a few of hundreds of people now earning money on the side. They invested in themselves, took action, and now are continuing to hustle — but earning thousands on the side each month.

This is precisely what I teach in my Earn1k course on earning money on the side. After this free 30-day hustling course completes tomorrow, I’m giving away an additional week of free, never-before-released case studies, examples, and even a live webcast on earning money on the side.

But to get it, you have to be on the Earn1k Insider’s List.

I hope you sign up before I close it down.

TODAY: To do

This week’s challenge was to convince a friend to save $500 using my material. This is a test rife with psychological implications and ramifications, since (1) money is taboo, (2) your friends — and most people — are skeptical of anything relating to money, and (3) most people find applied persuasion very difficult.

Because the challenge is so difficult, I offered airfare to SXSW and 3 tickets to a sold-out party — or 30 minutes of strategy discussion with me.

Unfortunately, all of the results this week sucked. Sorry, but nobody wins.

It’s incredibly difficult to change behavior, so I expected this challenge to be harder than before. Indeed, some of the responses showed promise, like this one:
“Told another friend that I was helping this friend save a few hundred. Lesson that I learned? A few hundred is too vague and/or too little. Next time I’m going to test two responses: $500 and $1000 to see if they bite”

Very good insight on future testing. But ultimately, I care about results. And none stood out for pure hustle and notable outcomes.

FORTUNATELY, I’m offering a second chance at the prize.

Here’s how: Leave a comment here by Friday at 12pm PST describing the results you got with this 30-day hustling course. Not your friends — just your own results this month reading IWT.

(Hint: Winners will use SPECIFIC numbers and measures to describe the results they got, not just “I feel confident now!”) Tell me what you tried. Tell me what worked and what failed. Tell me why you weren’t doing it before, what clicked to change your behavior, and what you’re doing next.

If you win, you’ll be able to choose between…

1) Airfare for the SXSW conference on March 11-20 in Austin TX from wherever you are in the continental United States. You’ll also get 3 tickets to Andrew Warner (of Mixergy fame)’s sold-out SXSW party with awesome people. That’s 1 for you, and 2 for anyone you want to take (to provide value FIRST).

-or-

2) A 30-minute conference call with me and 3 of your friends to talk about whatever topics interest you the most, like the psychology of persuasion, negotiation, time management, etc.

Leave a comment below by Friday, 2/4 at 12pm Pacific with your results from this month. Looking forward to choosing a winner.

(Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.)

By the way, I just released a new case study: “From $0 to $1,500/month of side income in 2 weeks.” Sign up above to get it. Only available for the next 24 hours.

Join
2000
the free 30-day course to hustle your way to the top

Here’s a sample of what I’ll be sending out:

– A invite to my private webcast with Tim Ferriss – where you’ll learn his top time-management techniques, how to create your first muse, and how he hustled 2 books onto the NYT #1 seller list when 26 publishers turned him down.
- A full recording of my private webcast with Tim Ferriss – in case you can’t make it…
- Earn1 Bonus Case Study – Unlocking side income: From $0 to $1,500/month in 2 weeks

Become a top performer now

click here to read more from and support Ramit Sethi

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An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots – each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. Each day, she would venture down to the stream, fill the pots and trek back to her home to use the water for her household chores. While the two pots appeared identical, [...]

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My RSS Feed is a top resource on mobile marketing. Mobile Marketing Watch bloggers posted this:

The long wait for Verizon customers is almost at an end.

Beginning at 3:00 a.m. EST Thursday morning, pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone will officially commence.

And just in case one or two people on the planet are yet to hear that Apple’s groundbreaking touchscreen smaprtphone is coming to the Verizon network, the marketing muscle in Cupertino, California is making one final push Wednesday to hype an arrival that, for many, comes three years too late.

Apple issued a press release on Wednesday morning reminding current and prospective customers that the CDMA version of the iPhone 4 will go on sale overnight through the Apple online store in addition to Verizon’s digital storefront.

With expectations riding high on the eve of the launch, Apple is reiterating Verizon’s earlier warning and reminding potential buyers that Verizon iPhone orders will be processed on a first come, first served basis.

Many see Apple’s cautious use of promotional language as a likely buffer against a possible server crash or product shortage in the wake of what could potentially be an overwhelming rush of online traffic despite the middle of the night launch.

Beginning at 7 a.m. local time on Thursday, February 10, the Verizon iPhone 4 will be available to all qualified customers at Apple’s retail stores and more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communication Stores across the US.

click here to read more from and support Mobile Marketing Watch

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Julian Daily, director of valuation discusses how placing a value on brands has evolved since its beginnings as a niche …


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Have you ever gone to sign up on a website with your typical username, only to find that it’s been taken already? As someone who cares about their online brand, it’s probably important to you to claim your username on several sites across the Web to ensure you can connect with individuals on various platforms. [...]

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My RSS Feed is a top resource on mobile marketing. Mobile Marketing Watch bloggers posted this:

2011 was predicted to be the year of the tablet computer. So far – at least from Samsung’s perspective – 2011 has been the year of tablet returns.

According to the findings of a new survey from ITG Investment Research, the Samsung Galaxy Tab return rate is substantial, and vastly outpaces the rate at which Apple customers return their iPad.
ITG Investment Research tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the U.S. from the Galaxy Tab’s November debut through Jan. 15 and found the device to have an unusually high return rate.

Digital Daily reports that 16% of Galaxy Tab buyers have returned their tablet. Conversely, only 2% of iPad buyers have done the same.

In December 2010, the return rate for the Galaxy Tab was roughly 13%. That rate jumped above 15% by early January.

In response to the Galaxy Tab’s return rate, the New York Post blasted Samsung’s answer to the iPad, pejoratively suggesting that it should be called the “boomerang” in light of how frequently it returns to the store from which it was purchased.

In Samsung’s defense, however, the tablet return rate is indicative of larger problems with Android, not just Samsung. Rhoda Alexander, an iSuppli analyst agrees, saying “There are a lot of issues with Android tablets, not just Samsung.”

Many Wall Street analysts still maintain that 2011 will be the year when Android tablets finally “make a dent in the iPad’s dominance.”

click here to read more from and support Mobile Marketing Watch

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My RSS Feed is a personal finance voice for today. Ramit Sethi posted this on his blog:

In the last 12 months, I’ve turned down around $200,000 of business from people I didn’t feel were right for my programs.

I’ve also doubled the guarantee period of my Earn1k program for no good reason. I just thought it was the right thing to do.

And I’ve made some decisions about the upcoming launch of Earn1k 2.0.

Each of these moves are unusual — but they’re extremely unusual for people in the information product world (e.g., ebooks, online courses, etc), who typically try to make as much money as quickly as they can.

We’ve been talking about hustling this month — or working extraordinarily hard to get disproportionate results. That means if you work on the right things, you can make 2x, 4x, or even 100x as much as average people.

And it’s not just money. You can hit your goals faster, worry less, and accomplish more by working harder, and working on the right things.

Today, some behind-the-scenes examples from the field (my business) — and a twisted challenge for you at the end of the post. I love it!

Follow along and see you how you can use these same techniques for your own goals.

* ***** *****

Turning down $200,000 in 12 months

I give away most of my material free — 99% of it. To generate revenue, I sell information products as well as a New York Times best-selling book. Occasionally, I charge to speak at companies or conferences.

Now, I could make a pretty respectable living by doing nothing and letting my business run itself automatically. But I find it intellectually challenging to run this business as a laboratory, constantly tweaking, testing, and tinkering to see what results I can get. As I’ve always said, testing is critical.

But I exist in an extremely odd market: information products, which is largely a weird combination of circus freaks, scammers, and a very few highly credible people selling top-quality products.

How do I distinguish myself from all the nutcases?

How can you stand out from the other 50,000 people trying to do what you’re doing? Let’s take some examples.

Results matter more than anything. I never call myself an expert. Only you can do that — once my material gets you concrete results.

I focus obsessively on getting my readers’ results…and I track everything.

For example, here’s an email I got THIS MORNING from an Earn1k student, Pam M.:
“Anyway, just from the first lesson of “get inside your customer’s head” I was able to get a freelance writing assignment that gets me an extra $300-$500 per month.”

Here’s another one from IWT reader Martin, who recently left this insightful comment:
“I think anyone who’s been paying attention (and listened to the webcast with BJ Fogg) knows exactly what you’re doing:

Baby steps.

How much more likely are any of us to sign up for Earn1k 2.0 now? Only a few months ago I wouldn’t have, and now I’m seriously considering it. By digesting your free material, we’re all taking baby steps towards paying for your material.

You’re applying the exact techniques you’re teaching all of us. Baller…This has all been incredibly useful information for me.”

Precisely. Once you use my free material to see that you can actually get a meeting with a VIP, negotiate your rent or cellphone or cable, set up automatic transfers in 3 days, create a plan to pay off debt, or even earn $500/month…you know it’s real.

How this applies to you: Anyone can talk a big game about what they’re going to do. DO IT FIRST — FREE — and watch your business skyrocket. When someone emails me promising me the world for PPC, or SEO, or whatever, I just laugh. I get 50 of those emails/week. Do it first, send over a completed result, and we’ll talk. And remember, this is true of virtually every hiring manager. You can make yourself irresistible by doing the work first. And track everything.

Make ridiculously over-the-top offers.

A 30-day free course on hustling.

Earn1k, which costs more than virtually any other product in the market, but gets you more results than anything else you could get for free — or pay for.

Scrooge Strategy, perhaps the only information product on saving money that costs nearly $50/month — and saves you more than 2x (usually 10x) that amount each month.

How do I charge so much for my material — and get thousands of customers who are delighted to pay — when most people give away free material and mop up the leftover ad revenue?

People pay attention when your material is the best, you know it, and you offer crazy proof of how good it is.

Let me give you an example.

I recently doubled the guarantee period of Earn1k for no good reason. You see, virtually every person in the information-product business offers generous guarantees and has to live up to their product’s hype…or they go out of business. This is an extremely competitive area.

That means previo
2000
usly, you could take half my 8-week Earn1k course and ask for a full refund. After doubling the guarantee period, it means you can take the full course and ask for a refund if you don’t love it. *I even eat the credit-card processing costs.

Why?

Because in a world of scammy info-products, I want to go ridiculously over-the-top to show you how valuable my material is.

That’s why I give away 99% of my free material – which I believe is better than most paid products.

That’s why I give money-back guarantees for my products. (And by the way, I carefully tracked certain metrics once I doubled the guarantee period. Don’t just make crazy offers. Track everything.)

That’s why instead of launching product after product, I do a few key products each year, spending heavily to build the best — and then charging accordingly for results.

How this applies to you: Be careful about doing what everyone else is doing. Do you think running a blog for ad revenue will be highly profitable? Probably not. Do you think you should target EVERYONE for your freelance business? No. Do you think you should be sending out 100 resumes to get your next job? If you’re sending out 100 resumes, you’re doing it wrong.

Quality is extraordinarily rare

.bbpBox{background:url(http://a0.twimg.com/profile_backgrou…ental-Blue.png) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;}Turned down several thousand dollars of potential Earn1k students cuz they had CC debt. I only want people who are on top of their financesFri Nov 19 04:52:56 via webRamit Sethi
ramit

In this world of people making a quick buck, quality is rare.

I study customer service obsessively. I read biographies and histories of companies like Leica, The Four Seasons, and Apple.

I’m obsessed with quality. And every day, I have to make the decision of long-term quality or short-term revenue.

For example, I could actually make a lot more money launching 20 products per year. Or doing shady affiliate deals. Or trading my email subscribers’ to less scrupulous people. The amount of money being left on the table? Millions.

But I want your success. Because once my students see that my material works, they stick with me forever. It’s funny — this happens a lot. People pick up my book, think it’s a scam, and try the first chapter (negotiation scripts). Once they do that, they’re IWT students forever.

Because there’s nothing like results.

And that’s how you get disproportionate rewards.

Another example: I send out weekly emails to Earn1k students who’ve already paid and graduated. I get nothing out of it. I don’t charge anything for it. But if it takes me 1-2 hours per week and my students stay happy — if these show them I’m in it for the long term — then that further distinguishes me as someone who cares about THEM, not someone who’s just in it to make a quick buck.

That’s why I don’t accept Earn1k students who have credit card debt. They need to fix their debt first, not invest in more courses. That cost me over $100k last year. But it’s the right thing to do.

That’s why I recently shut down a highly profitable program because it wasn’t providing disproportionate results to my students. Here’s the actual email I sent that cost me $75,000.

That’s why I turned down $100k of revenue in my first Earn1k launch just so we could maintain an extraordinary level of personalized quality for my top-tier students.

All of this sounds expensive. But I actually think it’s expensive to focus on short-term results.

When my students — or even free readers — see how day after day, I focus on giving you the best material out there, you start to say, “Hey, this guy is actually giving me pretty good stuff.”

And our relationship becomes far less like some dude trying to sell you on his expensive products. It becomes about being your advisor, someone who cares about the results you get — whether in your career, or personal finances, or even health and fitness.

How many people do you know who focus obsessively on your results? Who track and respond to thousands of emails every week without charging a cent?

Notice how frequently I keep mentioning results. That’s because when people lob skepticism at you, you can argue back…or you can simply point to insane results on it. How can anyone argue with that?
“My rate increased by 55% and I paid off $7k CC debit last year.” – Angelo

“Used some of the techniques to negotiate a $6k higher salary at the new job I started. Freelancing has suffered as a result, but the new job is worth it.” – Steve G

“I fired the custumers that were not the right ones and just kept the right ones. This made me go from R$ 50/hr to R$ 70/hr.” – João G

“Turned freelancing into a 50% higher base salary.” – Eva

“I almost doubled my rate from $35/hr to $50/hr. I would not have had the confidence to do that, if it wasn’t for E1K.” – Kaushlesh B

“I went from $0 per month to $2600 per month.” – Owen O

“I got my first completely new paying client (no friend, or friend of a friend) within 4 weeks of the course and made $1700 with that deal.”- Christina

“Increased my salary by 20k and made 1k a month on the side.” – Uy T

That kind of obsession lets me deeply understand exactly what the problems are when I go write my next blog post…or create my next product. It’s also what also allows me to run a business where I can create the *best products on the market — and make disproportionate revenues from them — because I use all this research to craft the perfect product for you.

(I’m now working on several new products…some to launch in months, some as far out as a year from now.)

How this applies to you: TRACK RESULTS LIKE A MAD MAN. The next time you apply for a job, use my Briefcase Technique to whip out a 10-page, single-spaced document of results you’ve gotten. What are they going to say? “Oh my dear god. How much do you want to make? Name a price. I’ll pay you anything.” That’s when you spit your watermelon seed onto their desk, put your fedora hat on, and as you’re walking through their office door, look back and — calmly — say, “I’ll take $150k. $500/month in monthly training, no questions asked. And I want a frappuccino on my desk every morning.”

YOU CAN’T LOSE.

Look, it’s easy to be average. It’s the default position. But when you can invest in others — when you can get them SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE results before asking for anything — you will get disproportionate returns easily. Think about this with your co-workers. Think about this with your partner. Invest in others before
2000
expecting something back. But when you get something back…it will blow you away.

Separate the winners from the losers.

Last year, during the first Earn1k launch, I made 80% of my revenues from a small list of a few thousand.

This year, I’ve decided to only launch Earn1k to the people on my Earn1k Insider list. Earn1k will not be launched through this blog. It will only be available if you’re on the list.

That’s because I’m constantly looking for ways to speak more to the people who have already taken action, instead of trying to convince people to take action in the first place.

This month, during the course on hustling, every post has had an easy opt-in form. I’ve offered incentives, bonuses, free interviews, and all kinds of exclusive material to join (free). For those who have taken the trivial action of entering their name and email, they’ll get a week of free material on hustling, psychology, and earning more after this Friday. Those who didn’t, won’t.

(If earning money on the side isn’t for you, that’s no problem. I hope to have other material that’s better for you. But my motto is — if you trust someone, why not try it out?)

“But Ramit,” you might say, “why don’t you just give away the free material and launch Earn1k publicly? Not everyone wants to sign up for your stupid list.”

Good question, hypothetical question-asker. I do this because when I invest in you by giving away free material and exclusive interviews, I expect people to invest in themselves — by taking action — and to invest in me. I don’t ask much, but joining a free list is the bare minimum I ask for giving away even more information. If you don’t want to buy one of my courses, that’s cool. But I don’t just give away free material for nothing. I expect my readers to take action.

How this applies to you: Don’t try to serve everyone. Have you ever had the experience of trying to convince a lame friend to go out night after night? There’s ALWAYS an excuse. Instead, spend your time on friends who already want to go out…and making new friends. Same for business: Focus on people who already get it — or have the potential to get it — instead of everyone.

This week’s challenge:

This week, I put together a twisted challenge for you.

You know how I keep saying, “Skepticism is not a strategy?” That’s because so many people are skeptical in this world. “There’s no way that can work!” “I could find all that stuff for free.” “That sounds scammy.”

It’s funny — at the beginning of this month, there were a few skeptical comments from people. Most of them have faded away. It’s hard to stay skeptical when everyone else is passing you by getting results.

So here’s the challenge: Help 1 friend save $500 using IWT material by this Wednesday.

It sounds simple, but you are about to experience the FASCINATING psychological phenomenon of skepticism. Get ready for people to say things like:
“This book sounds scammy”
“There’s no way that could work”
“Yeah yeah…I’ll do it later”
Why this challenge? First, because when you teach something, you get better at it yourself. Second, because we’ve been largely internally focused this month. But third, and most importantly, when you see how skeptical other people are, it will shock you — and make you question yourself. Are you that skeptical about other things?

There’s no better way to do that than trying to show your FRIENDS how to do something and *watching them be extraordinarily skeptical/disbelieving. For example, I LOVE mixergy.com, Andrew Warner’s site where he interviews entrepreneurs in extreme detail. But when I’ve recommended it, THREE people were skeptical. “What’s the catch?” one asked. “Yeah, I should really watch that…” another said. This site, which has literally changed the way I think about my business.

This exercise is very revealing because it will show you how skeptical many of you are about things. Even when you patiently explain that no, you did this yourself and it ACTUALLY WORKED, many people will not believe you. *But it will be your job to find a way to get friends to save $500 in the next 48 hours using my material.

You’ll be applying your best persuasion learning’s from the interview with Stanford psychologist and persuasion expert, BJ Fogg and all the other material I’ve put together.

And in exchange, I’ll award a terrific prize to the best result.

To do this week:

Leave your results of the challenge in the comments section of this post with the heading “WEEK 4 RESULTS” by Wednesday at 11:59pm PST.

Note: Be respectful when you talk to your friends about this. Remember how hard it was for you to take action during this course? *Nobody wants a know-it-all.

The person who gets the best results from their friends this week can choose between…

1) *Airfare for the SXSW conference on March 11-20 in Austin TX *from wherever you are in the continental United States. You’ll also get 3 tickets to Andrew Warner (of Mixergy fame)’s sold-out SXSW party with awesome people. That’s 1 for you, and 2 for anyone you want to take (to provide value FIRST).

-or-

2) A 30-minute conference call with me and 3 of your friends to talk about whatever topics interest you the most, like the psychology of persuasion, negotiation, time management, etc.

Note: This week, since the awards are so large, you must be a member of my private Earn1k Insider list to be eligible.

What’s coming the rest of the week

This is the final week of my free 30-day course on hustling. This week, we’re covering the difference between the best and the rest.
Monday: The top 2 things that separate the winners and the those left behind
Tuesday: Earn1K case studies on Hustling –> Getting people to pay YOU to hustle.
Wednesday: Special webcast with Tim Ferriss (details to come tomorrow)
Thursday: Winner of “Take Action” award for this week + details on the bonus 5th week on earning more
Friday: The 30-day course ends… and the private bonus week on getting paid to hustle begins
Enter your info below to sign up to be eligible for this week’s prize and get access to all the bonus material I’ve released during this 30-day course – which is available to you in the private insiders’ area of earn1k.com.

(Can’t see the above form? Click here to sign up.)

Join the free 30-day course to hustle your way to the top

Here’s a sample of what I’ll be sending out:

- A invite to my private webcast with Tim Ferriss – where you’ll learn his top time-management techniques, how to create your first muse, and how he hustled 2 books onto the NYT #1 seller list when 26 publishers turned him down.
- A full recording of my private webcast with Tim Ferriss – in case you can’t make it…
- Earn1 Bonus Case Study – Unlocking side income: From $0 to $1,500/month in 2 weeks

Become a top performer now

click here to read more from and support Ramit Sethi

Read more…