Coach Mark Davis - Education programmes, Training and Coaching

The Art of Giving (Hosting)

coachmarkdavis — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:26:15 +0000

One happy couch!

Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise (George Whitman)

The day I become a CouchSurfer was probably the most soul-fulfilling day of my life. I was after all, a rather social person and enjoy meeting people from all walks of life. I have travelled a lot over the last 20 years, to train and to give talks in various parts of the world. And prior to being a Cser, I was merely staying in hotels and had post-workshop drinks with participants who attended my talks.

Over drinks, I would discuss the latest marketing trends or techniques of persuasion and presentation skills with them. Those who felt more comfortable opening up about their personal lives always tell me about their family and their job struggles. But as far as the sharing of ideas and cultures go, that’s as good as it got.

I’ve been to Romania, Slovakia, Austria, the US, Canada, Hungary, the Netherlands, Mexico and throughout SE Asia, yet I’d never really understood what makes people tick in these countries.

I flew in, delivered my talk, made friends then left for my next destination. Those people that i met briefly made it to my Facebook friends, or to part of a Youtube video or a picture together, but I never really got to understand their cultural nuances… the environment that they live in… the challenges that they face.

It was all too brief and ‘surface-level’ as circumstances would have it, to afford any genuine and long-lasting connection and sharing.

Then, I found out about CouchSurfing. Instead of staying in hotels like I always would, I was staying in the homes of the most generous and kindest souls in the world. The accommodation didn’t matter-whether my sleeping arrangements involved a bed or just a couch in wherever the host’s flat or mansion might be, I was almost guaranteed the most interesting and enlightening time of my life.

It wasn’t about the roof over my head, it was about the people that I’d meet. I can spend a night watching CNN on a Hotel TV and eating a club sandwich and drinking one beer from a mini-bar, but being with real people makes the experience real.

Beer poured by a local in a pub with smoke-filled mirrors, ageing permanent fixtures who have been drinking there for 50 years. Wines dragged out of the cellar to celebrate the arrival of an international guest – that one bottle that has been waiting for just the right special occasion.

Living with local people just for a few days teaches me so much more than watching a National Geographic documentary or reading a Lonely Planet guidebook would ever will.

I have spent time this year with an artist in her studio in Kuala Lumpur and a trapeze-flying acrobat in Sydney, eaten satay and having beers with a Malaysian cruise ship crew trainer who declare no country home, got lost in Chinatown in Bangkok with a Psychologist, and sat on the balcony in Mt Coolum drinking white wine as mosquitoes ate me alive, while I heard about travelling on trains in China.

My world in the last 5 years has grown immensely richer and my travelling experiences have begun to gain depth. I am suddenly graduating from the real Crash Course in Culture with flying colours.

Surfing and Hosting are the two sides of the CS project.

Nothing beats the experience that I’m having now.

2 weeks ago, I moved to a new place in Port Melbourne. It is a small apartment in a low-rise block about 10 minutes walk from the beach. At last, I finally have a more permanent space to provide a roof for travellers and sure enough, requests began to trickle in, and then flood in when I changed the option from ‘Sorry, travelling’ to ‘YES, I have a couch!’

I had Spanish and Venezualan adventurers, English hitchhikers, Lithuanian Students, Italian lovers, an American Market Researcher and an Austrian hard trance/dance Biochemists and I know soon … another diverse mix of nationalities.When you have 6 people in your house, plus you, taking up every square cm of space… humming, talking over each other in different accents, laughing, singing, cooking, and at the end of the night- sleeping, the dynamics of the house changes.

You realize that you are a part of a big wide world.

As a host, the commitment to provide a bed, a blanket, local information and just your presence is extremely rewarding. The overwhelming sense of selfless contribution – providing for and nurturing strangers who are in need at this stage of their journey around the country, or around the world.

You may not believe it, but there is a ten-fold return of investment. In return, you get to learn about these travellers, guests, new friends, their secrets and their lives from far flung lands, their cultural idiosyncrasies, their local delicacies (especially when they cook for you – something I insist on) and live vicariously through their adventures. If you can’t get out into the world, bring the world to your doorstep. It is better than watching a movie – because it’s a present-time biography of a life or lives of people sitting in front of you.

Little things make a big difference. I’m not giving away huge chunks of money to every charity or investing time to volunteer in high need communities in Africa. I am, however, helping and making a difference to each and every person who has come to sleep on my couch or the mattress on the floor by simply being of service to them: providing a roof, a meal, a shower, and some space for them to return to being themselves in a welcoming home for a few days or for a week. I open my house to these travellers, providing them a home away from their home. They usually go to their next destination, energized and rejuvenated.

And we both benefit from the interaction at an emotional and metaphysical level.

Being a Couch Surfing host may perhaps be a small act in the grand scheme of giving but that alone is still immensely gratifying and rich with intensely profound experiences from day to day.

Never Give Up

coachmarkdavis — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:17:03 +0000

People have given too many reasons, too many times, illustrating how easy it is to
give up on themselves. It’s not just their dreams and goals, but very often it is is giving up on themselves as worthy citizens in society.Consider this for one moment.

What would it take for you to be truly willing to give up if you were in the following situation…
Imagine that you are in the living room of your house, and your son or daughter is on the other side of the room. Terrorists are holding him or her hostage on the far side of the room, and they have determined that the fate of your son or daughter is in your hands. You have only to complete one task to have them safe and comfortable in your embrace
again.

Cross the room.Easy, right? You wouldn’t give up on such an easy task – plus, the reward is substantial, some would even say priceless.

Picture this scene again, but atop a 25 story building. You are on the roof of a building 20 metres away, with a 4 x 2 beam of solid steel between the buildings, 25 stories up in the air.
The Terrorists are certain that you will not complete the task, so simply do they challenge you with it. Cross the 20 metres and he/she is safe. Fail, and they die.

How much motivation do you need?
How many books do you need to read?
Where do you need to go for practice?

Right. None of that matters.
You cross the beam because you are going towards something of immense value for you. And you know that should you not attempt the journey, you could never forgive yourself as long as you live.

Every day people give up, with just a short journey left to get them to what they most
love. They stop a few days short of a 100-day goal plan.

They quit a diet 2 pounds short of their goal, and then resume their original weight almost overnight. That’s because they give themselves the option of quitting.

If it’s never an option, you cannot quit.
Nothing will get in your way.

Blind tasting life

coachmarkdavis — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:15:52 +0000

Blind Tasting

The bubbles tickle as I swipe the glass under my nose before taking a sip. As the fizzy liquid goes down, my palate tastes a perfect dry bite. Yum, I think to myself.

The empty glass is then taken away from me while I am presented another with another, this time filled with another sheer amount of sparkling wine.

The second tasting turns out to be unimpressive. Too sweet. No dry finish. Not enough bubbles. Had to be $7.99 cheap bottle to show the first bottle’s class.

The sales attendant of Vintage Cellars, John, then reveals the two brands that I tasted earlier. The first sparkling is a humble french champagne worth about $20 a bottle where I raise my eyebrows in appreciation and think about purchasing it for a nice evening in.

The second sparkling is a Chandon-an Australian Classic that respects its French heritage whilst embracing the spirit of Australia. It is also our country’s #1 favourite and bestseller, retailing about $30 a bottle.

My mind blanks. I am shattered.

I am tasting wine, albeit blindly at Vintage Cellars along the main road of Port Melbourne. Pairs of wine have been designed to give the local wine connoisseur a chance to test your taste buds and compare them to the price the retailer had on them. The bottles are wrapped in paper bags until both have been tested and the results of your taste buds confirmed before you judge with your eyes. Since it is a lovely afternoon day out with my youngest son, Jeremy, I’ve accepted the challenge without thinking that I’d be proven wrong.

Dead wrong. My taste buds have just confirmed a shocking insight which I was ignorant to before:

Who knows how many other food and drink combinations I have approved/judged/rejected based on the
label/sign/name/physical exterior before really tasting them?

If you don’t know what you’re tasting, who you’re flying with, where you’re going, you have no reason to have pre-conceived ideas – which means you can’t be disappointed in advance.

Life becomes an adventure when you’re blind.

In everyday life, we do exactly the same thing without even knowing. We judge public transport as being slow, crowded and expensive, or we judge traffic that we drive in as jammed, noisy and wasting time. What if we closed our eyes at the beginning of a journey, and then opened them when we arrived. Would it have mattered so much how we got there?

And if we met someone new for the first time, and didn’t have any of our regular questions to ask about their background, their past relationships, their likes and dislikes… We wouldn’t be judging them.

Instead we could take people randomly and focus on just being ourselves.

Freedom of not knowing. Tasting the experience as we embrace them completely in the present moment instead of being distracted by intellectual concepts and ideas which we had taken from our surroundings, prior to the real, honest experience. At least you could be honest to yourself and accept whatever you feel as you’re feeling it instead of how you should feel and then after, creating a conflict between an obligation or a judgment and your true self.

Treat life like a blind tasting – you’ll never know what will surprise you.

The Greatest Performance in the World

coachmarkdavis — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 01:47:37 +0000

Subscribe to my newsletter and get a free book that would revolutionise your speaking skills!

Some people are pure performers when they go on stage to talk. They would wow, mesmerise, inspire and before you know it, you’ve bought whatever message that he or she is selling. The speech was pure magic and you were sold. If you look back in hindsight, did you think that the speaker was simply blessed with such charisma and energy so did the speaker actually learn to wield the art of public speaking?

If you’d like to find out more, why don’t you subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll be rewarded with a free e-book called The Greatest Performance in the World. In that e-book, you’ll find everything you need to know about making a killer speech, even if you’re as shy as a mouse normally. Not just that, I’m also going to hit you right between the eyes with the hardest truth of public speaking and presentations.

Enjoy!

Google™ Superman! (7 Steps to Making Money Online with No Website, Product or Knowledge of how the Internet works!)

coachmarkdavis — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:43:50 +0000

A quick test to start you off…

Google™ Ad #1: Certificate IV Workplace

Trainer and Assessor Qualification

Certificate IV Trainers Make Money

www.CertificateIV.com

Google™ Ad #2: Certificate IV Trainer

Workplace Trainer and Assessor

Certificate IV Trainers Make Money

www.CertificateIV.com

1. See the difference between Ad #1 and Ad #2?

2. Which ad is better? Google™ Ad #1 or Google™ Ad #2?

Write down your choice before we go on:

Now, let me tell you about these two ads. One ad pulls 12 times the traffic!

If you don’t know which ad it is . . . you are a loser! And some competitor is going to eat you alive and Google™ will happily eat up all you advertising money . . . and you’ll think Google™ AdWords doesn’t work.

If you know which ad is the winner . . . you rule! Your cost per click will be lower than your competitors, your ad will rank higher, your leads will cost 12 times less than your competitors, and you will happily pour money into Google™ AdWords while you’re making a fortune from the new leads and business to your site.

So . . . which ad is the winner? Which ad is 12 times better?

Well, read on.

Let me cover a few basics that you need to know about your campaign, and then we’ll find out the winning ad. How often do you find yourself saying.. “I wish I could make money on the internet without having to be a GEEK?” If you would like to discover what it takes to create a never-ending stream of qualified leads into your email inbox… then read on.

If you’re reading this post, it’s probably because you’re interested in the most common lead-generating tool that Google™™ creates.

It’s called Google™ Adwords™, and for the last few years it’s been a great revenue source for Google™.

Because people like you and me show up, set up an account, spend a few hundred dollars not knowing what to do, then cancel it vowing never to do it again. It shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s like anything. If you could write good ads, do relevant statistical testing, think creatively and design irresistible marketing campaigns, you’d be working at Vogue, Cleo, Vanity Fair or Women’s Weekly – in their marketing department.

But if you’d prefer to skip the 4 year marketing degree, and working for 10 years in a PR or Advertising firm, we’ll see if we can work with Google™™ Adwords and make you some money, starting now.

There are 7 steps that I see as being vital in creating success online, and we’ll go through them one by one in this post.

1. Market Research.

Before you start selling things online, creating websites and Google™ Adwords™ campaigns, and collecting truckloads of cash from the customers you create… you need to know who is searching, and what they’re searching for.

For example:

If you’re searching for a restaurant in Brisbane, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Perth or New York City because you’re in town on business, you’re probably going togo over to your favourite search engine page:

Google™’s home page in whatever city you’re in. It might be google™.com, google™.com.sg, google™.com.au, google™.co.uk etc. and enter something like: restaurant in Brisbane. Then you’ll see what results come up. Hopefully you’ll get something that gives you a few hints. If it’s not specific enough, you’ll probably go back in and type in: Chinese restaurant queen street Brisbane. And these results will be more specific. You can click on these links and get what you want.

(For people who are observant, you’ll see that with these searching keywords, only 1 Google™ Adwords Ad appears on the right hand side of the search screen)

From here you’ll follow the links and get your dinner organized.

So the key to step 1, is Do Your Market Research To Find Out What People Want

If you don’t do your market research, you’ll end up with a website that looks like…

www.iflbfood.biz/44569 – (don’t visit it… It’ll just be an error)

And wonder why people never visit.

• People like to go to websites whose names make sense.

• People trust websites that sound like real businesses

• People remember names that are…. Rememberable (is that even a word?)

• People search to find names that they think will give them what they want.

So what that means, is if your domain name sounds like what people are searching for, they’re more likely to click on it.

For example:

I searched for the most common training courses in Australia, and I found that the highest non-university course was Certificate IV (4).

So I registered a domain name www.CertificateIV.com . It gets a lot of hits – when I run my Google™ Adwords ads, I get about 300-400 hits per day.Because that’s what people are searching for, and my Google™ Adwords appear in the top positions in the advertising links. There’s a few different ways to search for what people are looking for. If you were looking to find the most popular book right now, you just go to www.Amazon.com and look at their top ten.

That would show you a trend. If you wanted to find out if anyone on the internet was searching for nutrition, you might go to http://inventory.overture.com and see how many people searched for that term in the last month, as well as the varieties on that theme. As you can see, there were 201,431 searches for nutrition, and specifically there were 37466 for searches with the words sport and nutrition, 20,264 for food and nutrition, and so on.

So if you had a website that had the words Sport and Nutrition in a website, it might be likely that people would click on it.

It’s about relevance, and knowing what people search for.

There are more scientific and complex ways to find out what people search for, but more on that later.

2. Own your Own Domain Name that is COOL!

I don’t believe in paying a lot of money for website names. That way you can owna lot of them, test which ones people like, and dump the rest. Back in 1998 when I registered my name as a website, www.markdavis.com.au, it cost me $220 for two years minimum.

Now… with Google™SupermanDomains you can register a domain name for as low as $9.63. That’s progress for you! With every new client I take on, I encourage them to register at least 3 or 4 domain names. After all the research they’ve done, they have a general idea of what will be popular – but STILL, you need a few variations so that you can test.

Test, test, test, test, test.

You are not a psychic mindreader. If you were, you’d have the perfect product already, and be wading in swimming pool full of $100 bills. I also tell clients to register the domain names THEMSELVES… so that they own them. I don’t need the extra domain names, I’d rather have you in control of your own destiny… and you can always sell the domain name if it doesn’t work.

For $9.63… you can probably try just about any combination.

When you go to Google™SupermanDomains, you’ll type in a name you’d like for your website, and it’ll tell you if it’s available first, then it’ll give you other variations.

For example, let’s look at a hypothetical domain name…

FantasticDomainName.com

Sometimes the variations make more sense than your original search. I like MyFantasticDomainNamecom, so I check the box, then click continue. That gives me two.

The next page is pretty interesting…If you’re really keen on a domain, lock up the extras versions… like .net, .biz, .info.

Great! Step 2 is done.

3. Get a website active that captures people’s details. The problem with most websites is that they’re like Billboards. Great, flashy, musical, entertaining even.

But the purpose of a website for you is to create a place for people to make contact with you, so you can in turn respond and make contact with them, to provide them with the solutions they came to your site for in the first place, based on your ads, your promotions, your marketing and your unique selling proposition.

I used to think having a lot of stuff on my website was great but not now. Simplicity is king, I say.

How many problems does your site have right now with getting people to leave their details? Is the contact information easy to find? Is there somewhere they can fill in a form for more information, be specific in their needs?

If not, you may just be taking up web space, and your “dreams”of making money on the internet may just remain that. Dreams.

Time to look at your website with new eyes … the eyes of a prospect searching for solutions.

Take the website on the next page – 20% of the people who come to this site fill in their details.

And each lead that comes -If you could get 20% of your visitors filling in their details, encouraging you to contact them personally to solve their problems,would you take the time to add a simple form to your website?

In case you were wondering, I didn’t design this page. But I did have input after seeing the first draft. We added the word “online” into the heading so that people didn’t think this report was for people doing regular ads in the paper or direct mail.

And yes, I did design Google™SupermanDomains, www.CertificateIV.com and

www.MarkDavisTraining.com, with many more on the way.

Oh, I forgot… they only take a few hours each to do.

Life’s too short to wait for a 6 week turnaround on a website development that won’t work. Let’s make it happen for you… now!

4. Get your email address at your new domain name.

Again I want you to think of the psychology here. When people see joesmith1985@hotmail.com – there’s a fair chance they don’t think you’re in any sort of serious business. Disposable email addresses are just that. Valued as something disposable, pretty much worthless. I recommend getting your email at your domain name.That’s why I’m

Mark@MarkDavis.com.au

Sales@CertificateIV.com

and of course, who can forget: Superman@Google™Superman.com

And so on.

So for less than $20 you’ve got a domain name and you’ve got an email address that is cool, like: CoolDude@FantasticDomainName.com

And you will be taken a bit more seriously than joesmith1985@hotmail.com. Plus, it looks better on business cards, your website contact information and for brand recognition and recall.

5. Google™ Adwords.

The cheapest, targeted, simple advertising tool online for people with a website. Let me tell you about a case study of a recent client. They had been running a campaign on Google™ Adwords for a few months. They set it to run worldwide, over 100 countries.

They set it with 5 keywords. Just 5! And they were averaging 1 or 2 clicks per day. I rewrote the campaign and he was getting 8-10 clicks per day… from just 4 countries! And added another campaign, where he got another 3 or 4 clicks per day.

And another…

There are a few things I’ve discovered about Google™ Adwords that you should know. With this knowledge, you can create an unlimited number of campaigns, advertisements, keyword lists and bring in all the traffic you want. First you need to set up a Google™ Adwords Account. But it doesn’t make sense to do that without an existing webpage, a good domain name, email access, and an idea of what people are searching for with your keywords, and a short ad already created. You also need to be prepared with how much you are willing to invest in your advertising campaign.

These things you must know before you open your account. Or you’ll open the account, put up a terrible ad, sending them to a horrible domain name like http://www.mybadwebsite.net/shocking44578.pghksjoohtml

That won’t get you a lot of customers.

So I’ll assume you’ve done the previous steps 1,2 and 3 already. Now you have your Google™ Campaign, here’s the secret to success. Set a daily limit of around $20.00 per campaign. You’ll never hit it – if you do, you’ll have more customers than you can deal with.For every domain name you register, run two ads. Then you’ll know if they’re any good. For every set of keywords, run two ads. You might find one ad pulls better than the other, so you can delete the bad one and run another.

For every type of product, run two ads. The product will be highlighted if it’s in the search keywords. For every popular set of keywords, run another two ads. Your list will be more focused, and you’ll get a better result. For the most popular products you have, run another two ads. The keywords will focus on the product, and you’ll mention the product in the ads. The ads will be cheaper and you’ll get a higher ranking on the list of ads on the right.

For the most expensive keywords, run another two ads, featuring those keywords. They’ll get cheaper as your ads will be more relevant. Now… if that hasn’t scared you off Google™ Adwords… good.

Remember. Most people set 15-20 keywords, run one ad, waste $100 and quit. The secret is in volume, variety and WATCHING IT LIKE A HAWK.

I monitor all my campaigns, and my clients campaigns, daily. I don’t want a cent wasted, and I love killing off bad advertising, and replacing it with something better. If you don’t have the time or the skill to do that… we’ll talk about that later. For now, realize that it’s a science. Not just a simple, easy way to make money.

It’s a GREAT way… just not simple…till you work out some of the rules.

I’ve got a lot more tricks up my sleeve, but until your first 8 or so ads are running for a few days, there’s no point going into them.

Let me tell you a story about one of my campaigns, and how the importance of testing and monitoring can make all the difference.

I have one ad that works pretty well for www.CertificateIV.com ads.

It’s below.

Certificate IV Courses

Training On Site Monthly

Retail, Sales, Warehouse and more

www.CertificateIV.com

207 Clicks | 1.0% CTR | $0.33 CPC Served – 71.6%

Certificate IV Training

Upskill To Escape The Rat Race

Retail, Sales, Warehouse and more

www.CertificateIV.com

68 Clicks | 0.8% CTR | $0.32 CPC Served – 28.4%

The top ad ran for two weeks, and is my #1 ad. This is the 20th ad I’ve tried to compete with it. Nothing seems to beat it. Drives me crazy. As you can see, only one word is different in the top line, and the second line is totally different. I’m trying to beat the #1 ad… and I keep trying. Because every 0.1% increase in performance is another lead that fills out the form on www.CertificateIV.com/info.html and gives me a chance to sell them training.

Because I monitor it daily, that’s how I know what’s working, what’s not, and stop wasting money on the ads that don’t work.

Here’s my favourite example though:

Certificate IV Workplace

Trainer and Assessor Qualification

Certificate IV Trainers Make Money

www.CertificateIV.com

53 Clicks | 8.1% CTR | $0.36 CPC

Served – 60.1%

Certificate IV Trainer

Workplace Trainer and Assessor

Certificate IV Trainers Make Money

www.CertificateIV.com

3 Clicks | 5.0% CTR | $0.25 CPC

Served – 5.4%

95% of the ad is the same. Ad 1 gets 53 clicks, Ad 2 gets 3. How would you know if you didn’t test? This is where I make you money because I save you money.( How did you go with your guess on the front page of this report? )

Anyway, enough about my sites. You’re probably thinking… what else is there to learn? Lots. If we’re going to look at success online, we need to look after our income as well as our expenses.

6. Google™ Adsense.

Once you’ve got your Google™ Adwords Account, you can also get Google™ Adsense code to use on your website.

These are the little blocks of 2, 3 or 4 ads that show up on the side of websites. Again, www.CertificateIV.com is a good place to see what I mean. A portion of the revenue that the advertiser pays to Google™ to run their ads goes to the people who host those ads on their websites.

So you should get amongst it. Your website has to comply with Google™’s terms and conditions, and they will look at the site, monitor it and make sure it’s legitimate, with the space to represent their ads well. But it’s as simple to apply as going to the page and getting started. (The signup process takes less than 5 minutes, although I often do that on behalf of my clients)

You can take the tour if you like. Here’s the thing. You’ll make much more money from the products and services you sell doing Google™ Adwords, but if you get an extra $1 per day or even an extra $10 per day from your website through Google™ Adsense… I’m sure you won’t complain.

7. Use Newsletters and Autoresponders to keep in touch

Once you’ve got all these hard-earned customers, prospects and people who want you to help them, I have always found that regular communication keeps most people active. When I had 15,000 clients on a direct mail database… that cost a lot of postage. And printing. And time. These days, with email you can send out communication any time, day or night and have it read by people in the comfort of the nearest Starbucks or online at home or work.

Wherever they get their email. With Google™SupermanDomains, you get a free autoresponder program made available with your domain name registrations, as well as the ability to make web pages and other great things. You can even host it with them for as little as 5 bucks a month. I use 6 different autoresponder lists to target my communications. I have different autoresponders for affiliates. I have autoresponders for people in my database that aren’t my clients, but email lists I manage on behalf of others… and only they get the email I send because I select them.

The time to set up these manually would be a drag. For me it’s about 4 minutes. Upload the emails, type up a name for the Autoresponder or newsletter, and on its way it goes. It’s about speed.

IN case you’re wondering who I use to broadcast my emails, manage my autoresponders and process all my online sales, it’s a Shopping Cart, autoresponder, broadcast emailer all in one.

There’s a link on the www.markdavis.com.au website that gives you a $3.95 trial of the software. I’ve been using it more than 4 years, and it’s used by many of the professional web-based entrepreneurs today all around the world. As far as processing the actual money, from all around the world, I use Paypal.com, because they are an eBay company, which people trust. And they’ve always paid the money they process to me within a few days of my request. In closing…I’d like to think that this gave you a few special tips that can provide a shortcut towards some success online for you.

The truth is, you’ll spend at least 3 or 4 months learning what you need to do it you do it alone.

P.S If you skipped right to the answer for the winning ad, and were really excited that you picked the right ad in that first page example, you’ve got an equal chance of picking the winner of the Melbourne Cup, Kentucky Derby, Grand National Steeplechase or who will win the World Series. It’s luck. The only way that you learn what ads your PROSPECTS want to click on, is to test two ads in your campaigns.. Then you’re on your way. So, either take the time to test yourself, or let me do it for you.

All the very best of luck and good wishes either way.

Inspired to lead-My story

coachmarkdavis — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 05:13:31 +0000

: picture by Kolorkube

It’s a proven fact Experience rises above all other methods of learning. And you really can’t teach anything you haven’t had experience in, and have experienced both the highs and the lows. Most people don’t want to listen to someone who hasn’t lived what they are teaching. A lot of people talk about fancy ideals, and tell you a lot about how you need to change your life, yet they are very transparent and have no real substance themselves. They won’t even follow their own advice.

The classic example of this was when I spoke for a company who was launching their Australian operation. A health company with lots of good nutritional products, the corporate staff finished promoting how important it was to be healthy, then ordered a cheesy pizza, cokes, and smoked a cigarette at the meal that followed the meeting. There’s another word to describe this sort of behaviour… hypocritical and ridiculous(well a few words, not just one).

How can you expect anyone to follow your advice, as well-meaning as it may be… if you haven’t lived what you are talking about.What arrogance!

Well, that was me, about 10 years ago.

I had spent the best part of 6 months becoming expert at telling people what to do. (Some people will say I’ve been willing to do that since I was very young.) I was working at the Top Gun Sales Academy,run by Wayne Berry (wayneberry.com.au) and Wendy McCrum. I had attended this 9-week sales training course, that really refined my sales skills, and helped me discover what I really loved to do. Talk to people and help them uncover their true potential, to create the life of their dreams.I trained and trained to be a public speaker at Top Gun, and more than anything I wanted to be standing up in front of crowds of people, just like Og Mandino, Bob Proctor, Denis Waitley, and Jim Rohn.

This seemed like a great place to start. I volunteered my time, working during the day, selling the course to companies, small business owners, and learning about direct mail.I worked the evenings helping put out the handouts for the seminar, working in logistics teams, cleaning up the flip charts, vacuuming the floor, cleaning the toilets… anything to hang around this positive, uplifting environment, where people set goals, got in touch with their dreams, and became more skilful at crafting their future.

I auditioned to be the presenter of the first hour of each Top Gun session (6hrs from 6pm tomidnight). I dressed up my suit, bought a new tie, was loaned money to buy new shoes!

I got the spot! And for 6 months I gained experience in the day-to-day running of a seminar company. I learned to speak, learned to work in teams, and learned to motivate and inspire people to work together, to co-operate and synergise, to expand their thinking and design their life.

One problem.

I was doing all this for free. I couldn’t even feed my dog. So one day it happened. I had just met my wife a month earlier, and was busy impressing her with my front-of-the-room public speaking skills. She picked me up one afternoon to drive me home, and my mobile phone rang.

It was Wendy. The conversation and the moments after it were pretty surreal, but I do remember the following words…

“Mark, we don’t want you to work at Top Gun any more until you’ve gone out and created some success of your own. We feel that this is the best way we can support you, and we know you’ll do great. Come back when you’ve got some experience.”

My world came crashing down.

40,50 hours per week – my entire working week – inside the four walls of that seminar room, all that time invested now had gone up in smoke.

A big roadblock in the avenue of pursuing my dreams, my goal of being an inspiring motivational speaker. Not even any chance to sell the training programme that I loved. Michelle was listening in the car as I hung up the phone, and she spent the next 20 minutes telling me how this was the best thing that could have happened to me. How Wayne and Wendy loved and cared about me so much they were willing to let go of their protege, their young star,and push me out of the nest to go grow some wings.

And you know what…. as proven many times since then, in our 8 years of marriage so far…Michelle was right.

I don’t know what I would have done without her belief in me, right then. It was a defining moment, and it was only 6 months later that I found work in this industry, selling once more. 18 months after that I began the business I now run today, a multi-million dollar company doing exactly what I had set out to do 10 years ago.

And I have Wayne and Wendy to thank. (Which I have already, but do again here.)

You see my entire world was within the four walls of that training seminar. I didn’t know any other way, I only saw the part of the world that came in those doors, only listened to what went on in that room.

I didn’t attend any other seminars, read any books, listen to other people’s material, because I was convinced that my world was now and would forever be the world of Top Gun. When I look back over some of the goals I set back then, they were all inward-looking, on me, and my narrow vision of the future led me to set small, easily achievable goals that would keep me exactly that… small and easily achievable.

No real challenges, no stresses, no risks, and no real rewards either.

So what did I learn in the ensuing 10 years?

Lots! And that’s why I thought it was time to start this blog, to treat it as a bit of a time of reflection on what I’ve learned to date, and take a look to the future and what I’m going to need to learn and do differently to achieve the goals I’ve set for the next 5, 10, 20, 50 years.

My commitment to you on this website is honesty, and presenting the knowledge I’ve gathered over my life in the most user-friendly way.

When I tell a story about my own life, it’s going to be open and honest, so you see I’m not trying to paint a false, artificial view on success or happiness.

This website will also be of stories of people I’ve been blessed to meet, learn from and be mentored by…

I hope you learn one or two new things that will change your life.