Online and Offline Business Success is About One Thing

The Client!

Zig Ziglar was one of the first real sales trainers and motivational speakers I heard speak live…and it transformed my thinking and my life!

Zig Ziglar said something all those years ago that has stayed with me throughout my business life and has been the basis of every entrepreneurial endeavor:

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

I’ve always thought of it as pushing others up. I’ve heard other describe it as pushing people forward.

Regardless of how you phrase it, one thing is certain, if you push enough other people up, you can’t help but ascend the ladder along with them. In fact, if you help others succeed, they will generally bend over backwards to make sure you do too.

Some of the skeptics out there may disagree with that last statement…but I have found it to be true over and over again.

People are wonderful!

And, like you and I, all most people want is a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

If someone owns a business, they want to make sure their family, friends, and employees are taken care of and that they have built up a successful enough business to either sell it when the time is right, thus providing for themselves and their loved ones; or, they want to pass it along to the kids, other relatives, and/or loyal employees when the time comes.

The Life Lesson My Grandfather Taught Me

My grandfather was an incredible force in my life, an example of the type of person I have just described and have always aspired to become!

In the early 1980s, Chevrolet decided they were no longer going to have what they call a point, that means a dealership presence in a given area, in downtown Detroit. Detroit had weathered the riots a few years before and GM was moving most of its dealerships to the suburbs.

So, after almost 50 years in business my grandfather was closing his doors. Trumbull Chevrolet was the first dealership in downtown Detroit and an institution for decades. They were a casualty of the times; and, of urban blight and suburban flight.

The thing that amazed me, and has stayed with me for the last 28 years, not unlike the Zig Ziglar quote above, was that prior to closing his doors, my grandfather made sure every person working for him had a job.

That’s right!

In the midst of the worst economy since The Great Depression, my grandfather got 73 of his 74 employees jobs before he closed his doors once and for all.

The 74th person was the real lesson!

The 74th person was a man I knew only as “Little Joe.”

Little Joe had started with my grandfather many years before. By the 1980s, Little Joe was too old and too well-paid for him to be placed anywhere. Consequently, Little Joe was the one person my grandfather couldn’t find adequate employment for. In corporate America, Little Joe would have been out of luck!

Not so with my grandfather!

My grandfather, having no other option that would sit well with who he was as a man who loved and cared for his employees, hired Little Joe to help my grandmother around the house, drive her to the store, basically help her with whatever she needed help with.

Joe was probably the highest paid helper/companion in Detroit at the time. My grandmother was showing the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease and needed a companion more than anything. Little Joe needed a job.

It was a marriage (or a job) made in heaven!

Little Joe could barely help himself most days, but that didn’t matter, my grandfather was faithful to Little Joe and Little Joe loved my grandfather and my grandmother.

A Business and a Life Lesson Learned from the Detroit Riots

In fact, during the 1968 Detroit riots, my grandfather’s dealership, a block away from Tiger (Briggs) Stadium in downtown Detroit, was not touched. During that entire summer of upheaval and rioting? Not a window was broken not a single car was vandalized.

While National Guard tanks rolled up and down the city streets and into the suburbs, Little Joe sat with my grandfather, so he would be safe…and they protected “the store,” together.

My grandfather came to find out later that many of his employees, people who lived in the neighborhood, had more or less let it be known that Trumbull Chevrolet was not to be touched. My grandfather had made it a point to hire his neighbors, and his employees became his second family.

When he needed them, his second family took care of him…and their business.

So, while Detroit burned, my grandfather and Little Joe sat and watched from the dealership’s showroom windows. And his employees, who also loved him, made sure he was OK and that the dealership, and the office building that had held the Detroit Lions offices, also owned by my grandfather, were not touched.

He had made it his mission to help the people of Detroit and they returned the favor…and then some.

Like I said, people are wonderful!

People deserve to be treated with integrity and honesty. If you treat people according to the way you want to be treated and help them get what they want…you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

And, you’ll be able to sleep at night!

In sales and marketing, and particularly in Internet marketing, I see things that, even after all these years in sales and marketing, I do not understand. Seth Godin says much of it has to do with Little Lies…or at least that’s how it begins.

I agree!

But I also believe it speaks to who we are as individuals!

It is so easy to succeed in business, any business, if you help enough other people get what they want. Forget about the shortcuts, forget about the “fast and easy,” and forget about the secrets to success.

There is only one secret to success:

The Golden Rule!

Who among us wouldn’t help someone who has helped us get to where we want to be in life? Who wouldn’t treat us as we wish to be treated…if we’ve treated them well?

It’s about pushing people up!

The “secret to success”? Push enough people up or forward and treat them as you would like to be treated.

It really is that simple!

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-712-7004

Making Money on the Internet is Something You Must Excel At…To Be Any Good At!

I read an interesting quote a long time ago, it was actually a line from a book I was reading entitled Hearts in Atlantis. The book was eventually made into a movie, as all Stephen King books are. Interestingly, unlike most Stephen King books converted to movies, this was a good one with a stellar cast. Anthony Hopkins was masterful, as usual, and a young Anton Yelchin, later to emerge in Terminator Salvation with Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, was amazing…perhaps the role of his life.

The quote:

“…and wishing doesn’t make it so! ”

This quote is so common, at least in the sense that it has been around forever, as to be almost cliche.

Almost…if it weren’t so true!

Interestingly, the quote has carryover power into almost any milieu and in virtually all walks of life.

There is another quote, a bit cruder, that pretty much carries the same message, albeit to a little different crowd and in a much different way.

The quote:

“If you wish in one hand and sh*t in the other…you can be certain of one thing…sh*t!

I warned you! It’s all in the delivery.

Ultimately, the messages are the same:

“Success takes effort…no amount of wishing will make it so!”

We are told daily to attract this and envision that.

Yes, visualization is crucial. But visualization and goal setting without follow-through is worthless. This hoo-haa (technical term) being peddled of late is garbage. You’ve heard the stuff (two technical terms in a row!), it’s being pitched everywhere.

Unfortunately, it is like baking a cake without adding heat…it ain’t gonna happen!

Success takes effort. Success takes real, concentrated, long term effort. Success takes getting through what Seth Godin refers to as The Dip. Very often, success takes getting through and beyond several Dips!

Success takes balls!

There, I said it!

That’s about as crude as I have ever been online or offline, at least since the Army (1972-73), but it is true and someone needs to say it.

If you can’t “grow a pair, you’re destined to fail!

Success is tough.

Success is often dirty.

Success is frustrating, tiring, and humiliating!

Success is wonderful!

Success takes concentrated effort and it is never easy.

Not real success, the kind of success that lasts, the kind of success that is meaningful, that you can share…that you want to share!

Beware of the following quote:

The Easy Path to Riches!

Do you know how many results you get when you type in that keyword phrase?

Over 1,000,000!

Many people are caught by the Siren’s Call:

“The Easy Path to Riches!”

Short term thinking will lead to long term failure. Don’t fall into the trap! It takes more than setting up a website and tweeting all day on Twitter to succeed. If that were the case, we’d have witnessed hundreds of thousands of “success stories” by now.

And that ain’t happening!

It takes more than a few articles and dozens of videos to succeed online. I takes more than creating a Facebook page and a LinkedIn profile.

It takes learning, applying, tweaking, throwing most of it out, and beginning again.

Success is never easy…but it is always worth it!

Ultimately, success means different things to different people and what you thought would define your success when you started out will be nothing like the success you end up with.

Guaranteed!

Success is indeed the journey. But more than that, success is a process, a growth process that never ends…until we do.

So, how do we succeed online? By growing, by learning, by sharing, and by growing some more. In the end, your success will be defined by your effort and by what you put into your endeavor.

Finally, I believe success has little to do with making money, money is just a measure, and not a very meaningful one. The success you achieve will define you as much as you are defined by it. So stick with it, apply yourself, ask for help, and be flexible.

Because, as stated above, the success you end up with will be very different from the success you set out to achieve.

And wishing doesn’t make it so!

Contact me anytime!

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
Skype: johnzajaros1
216-712-7004 (bus)
440-821-7018 (cell)

How to Succeed at Internet Marketing: The Learning Curve!

“If it sounds too good to be true…”

Spend any amount of time looking for ways to make money on the Internet, and you will come across many people happy to help you out – out of your money, that is!

Maybe you weren’t even actively looking for an online business opportunity…but a savvy Internet marketing guru with a clever email subject line popped into your inbox!

So, you decided, “What the heck, I’ll check it out!”

Usually it begins with a promise. Yes, in just a few short hours per week you are going to make loads of money, millions even! And they have already done most of the work for you!

While they worked on rebuilding, and selling, the Brooklyn Bridge!

Easy, right?

Plugin and play! Set it and forget it!

Just like those chicken roasters they sell on TV infomercials! [Now, just off to the side let's have an idiot card telling everyone to say "Ooooh-aaaah!" and then clap!]

Yup! They know precisely what buttons to push and when; and, it’s all scripted to one end, to gain access to your wallet.

They are very good at it, too!

Hopefully, somewhere in the back of your mind, you hear your parent’s or grandparent’s voice echoing off in the distance:

“If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is.”

Folks, I don’t mean to sound cynical, mocking or facetious here. Well, maybe a little!?

The fact of the matter is…there are no “get rich quick” formulas in Internet marketing!

The whole notion of getting rich in a matter of days, weeks, or even months in Internet marketing is one of the late great snake oil sales campaigns!

BTW, I also have swamp land on the North Face of the South Slope of the Grand Canyon…and you too can own this beach front property just a few paces from the Caribbean…or was it the Pacific! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Next to the British Army gun emplacements next to the Belize National Airport!

Sure, there are instances in which a person has accomplished a great deal and done quite well in a matter of a few months. That individual usually has a history in sales, marketing, management, and/or entrepreneurial endeavors…but it certainly did not happen overnight!

In fact, most overnight success, and Hollywood and the music industries are great for building up this mythology, takes years. Years to gain overnight stardom, overnight riches, overnight success.

Years!

I have been a student of marketing for over 30 years. A student! I have built businesses and worked in sales, marketing, and management for some amazing companies, including my own, and for some amazingly successful entrepreneurs.

I have been blessed to see some of the best sales, marketing (in Internet marketing and also traditional brick and mortar marketers), self-improvement, and personal development gurus in the world speak, in person.

While we hear of the tremendous financial success many of these “gurus” have now, each and every one of them went through a learning curve…and it was hard work.

Eben Pagan of Altitude speaks of living in a tiny trailer, writing his first ebook in his “next-to-nothings.” Close your eyes you can see him sitting in front of his computer monitor in his skivvies writing all night.

Eben picturing what he was going to become.

Frank Kern of Mass Control 2.0 speaks of going to door to door in a black suit, in the middle of a Macon, Georgia summer, selling credit card vending machines…and that’s after burying a dog collar containment business he ran out of the back of a used car office!

Yet, Frank had this belief he could be something more, he knew it!

Tellman Knudson of The List Building Club, a man currently running across the country barefoot for homeless children, had already overcome significant medical issues as a child, tried a few other business ventures, including hypnosis, and failed. Tellman found himself at the end of his rope without enough money to buy lunch one day. Humiliated, he wrote an IOU to the diner for the cost of his lunch while the eyes of the people he saw every day were upon him. The dreaded double beep, he called it…rejection and humiliation!

In spite of the terrible humiliation…or because of it…he made it! Tellman envisioned something better, something great!

Jeff Herring, The Article Guy, was once homeless on Christmas Eve. Living in a hotel lobby, Jeff had nowhere to go and, seemingly, nowhere to turn.

Even while homeless, Jeff had a belief he could and would be something more, something greater!

Mike Geary, of The Truth About Abs, was “not in a good place financially,” working a regular 9-5 job as a scientist in the environmental field, trained people every evening and then went home to work on the computer until 4 in the morning…day after day, month after month, for several years before he made it…”overnight!”

True to his nature as an athlete, and as a scientist, Mike Geary knew he could achieve something great, he had the formula, it just took a concerted effort and belief!

Tony Robbins was a 20 year old kid with a beat up car, some stories have him living in it for a time, barely a penny to his name, going from appointment to appointment, speaking to business people with more experience and more money.

Yet instead of saying I can’t, it’s too hard or I don’t have the experience, Tony Robbins made it work!

I can go on…but you get the idea…I hope!

Every one of the above mentioned individuals had one quality. Every one of them believed above all else in their ability and that all things are indeed possible to those who believe!

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve!” Napoleon Hill

The greatest service I can do for you is dispel the myth of overnight riches! The 4-Hour Workweek is probably the most misunderstood and misinterpreted work of the past few decades. Misunderstood, because the title has morphed into the entire message! The 80/20 Principle has also caused the same sort of issues, being widely misquoted and misunderstood!

Significantly, both of these books are one writer’s OPINION!

Interestingly, people often read a work and, because it is in print, has been published, and has achieved a certain amount of notoriety, it is considered fact. It has always amazed me how the written word can on one hand be relegated to the back burner by an entire generation, the video generation, and yet still hold immense power and authority.

Truly a paradox…a conundrum!

To have true and lasting success as an internet marketer, you have to become a student of the craft. To succeed online you must become comfortable with the sales process, marketing (both offline and Internet marketing), and with business building. After all, that’s what we are doing…right? We are building a business as entrepreneurs…as Internet marketing entrepreneurs.

Who do you believe and believe in? Are there reputable programs available for someone interested in making money online?

Yes, there are reputable programs out there, a few by the individuals noted above. Interestingly, the better programs available aren’t going to do all the work for you. And, the best Internet marketing programs aren’t going to do much of anything at all for you!

Why?

Well, there’s something to be said and much to be gained by taking the time to do it yourself! If you are serious about making money online, whether in the Internet marketing niche itself or in any one of the myriad of other niche marketing possibilities available to you, willing to take all the necessary steps, and don’t try to take shortcuts around the learning curve…you will prosper!

Take time to learn the real behind the scenes stories of how some of the successful internet marketers got to where they are today. They will inspire you!

Then, once you understand some of what it takes, it is time for implementation!

We will cover implementation in the next article! It is in combining education and implemetation that will lead you to prosperity in Internet marketing!

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
866-835-2913 (toll free)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com

PS, For more on the subject of success online and in life, just click this link and go to The John Zajaros Blog!

I just thought I would share a moment with you. The sun was setting, it is mid-October and the clouds were beautiful, purple and billowing. I live not too far from the spot where the video I shot (below) was taken and I love walking there.

After overcoming a life-threatening and life-altering illness, one that put me in the hospital for months from December of 2004 until April/May of 2008, it is as if my eyes are seeing things for the first time, that I am once again experiencing life.

I am beginning to see the possibilities in life again, the things that make my heart beat a bit faster, and the things that don’t necessarily mean success as much as they simply make life a bit more fun. I have experienced all the trappings of success, have been known as a “success” for much of my life. To have had it all vanish, all the trappings, while fighting for my life was disconcerting but I always knew, if I could just get through to the other side, I would have it all again.

Interestingly, having made it through catastrophic illness, having beat back the most dreaded of diseases and lived to start again, my perspective has been forever altered. The “things” I once thought important are no longer so and the “trappings” of success are now viewed for what they are, impermanent and easily replaceable. The things of value, the things that really matter, friends, family, my faith in people, my faith in Something Greater have all been restored, renewed, or significantly strengthened.

Success no longer has the same meaning…but success still has the same definition!

Figure that one out for yourself….

By definition, success is a progression, an improvement in your overall quality of life on daily basis. Tony Robbins talks about CANI! CANI! is “consistent and never ending improvement.” Tony Robbins talks about the improvement in the quality of your life on a daily basis, incrementally, continually, and consistently. Early Nightingale and Napoleon Hill talk about progression toward a worthwhile goal or ideal. Interestingly, every great thinker has equated success with progress, a progression, a journey that includes never ending improvement.

If that is the definition of success…I am a success!

Every day of my life has become a success, a mural of sorts, and I thought I would share just a moment of it…me and my little dog, TuffGuy…my Higher Power is the painter, my life the canvas!

The video below will be up around the web, on my personal blog, The John Zajaros Blog, and elsewhere. It’s just a moment, a glimpse, and Martin Scorsese has nothing to worry about.

I challenge you to find your own personal place or places, your space if you will, that spot or those spots you can retreat to, that inspire you, not only your entrepreneurial spirit, if you have that sort of wish for your life, but personally and spiritually. Because those personal places are the best places to take a step back and renew, recharge, and refresh the Spirit before facing the ups and the downs life invariably throws at us daily…on our journey, our progression, our never ending quest!

This has just been a moment of personal reflection:

The Quest Revealed!

As stated, the most significant and meaningful trappings of success are no longer the same for me. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t get excited about a new Hunter sailboat, almost purchased a while back, or a comfortable houseboat for Connie and I to retire on. TuffGuy, Bart, kids, and whomever else wants to come along with us, as well! Well, maybe? But the landscape has changed, the Master Gardener has done a real job on me, I no longer yield the same produce and life on the other side of H#ll is indeed Heaven!

We are tested throughout our lives but one thing I know with absolute certainty…Tony Robbins is right! CANI! is the real “secret” to success. Only through constant, consistent, and never ending improvement, never quitting no matter what the odds, will you prevail.

Not only will you prevail, life will be amazing!

But you must demonstrate:

Faith– in yourself, your loved ones, your friends, your Higher Power (in what ever form you see it) and, most importantly, your Self!
Hope– above all, hope! Without hope, when things are their blackest, you will falter! You must have HOPE!
Determination– there were times when the only thing that kept me going was determination, that refusal to quit regardless of what everyone and everything was saying!
Persistence– just a bit different from determination, a one-two punch of sorts. Determination is the mindset, persistence is the implementation!
Goals– It is not enough to want something, you must have concrete goals and a plan of action. Without goals you are truly a ship without a rudder, blowing this way and that!
Burning Desire– this may also be called “The One Thing!” It is not enough to have goals, it isn’t even enough to have a plan of action, you must want it, whatever “it” is, with all your heart! You must want it in the pit of your stomach, it must burn within you like nothing else…it must make your soul ache!

IF you are able to define, clearly and concisely, what your “One Thing” is, write it out, burn it into the very fabric of your being, and then have complete faith in the reality that it will be yours, put the plan into action and improve upon it in some way each and every day, constantly and consistently, you will prevail!

In the words of one of the greatest statesmen to ever walk the Earth, “Never, Never, Never, Never Quit!” And you will prevail!

John Zajaros
216-712-6526 (home/business)
866-835-2913 (toll free)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com