It was the spring of 2007.

The real estate industry was self-imploding, and you could smell the fear.

My mortgage business of twenty years was dying on the vine.

I got involved in Internet marketing as a way to supplement my income - and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting the results that I was expecting.

The results I should have been getting.

I mean, I was doing everything right. Exactly like the “gurus” told me.

Stuff like...

... reading the recommended books like Action Selling and The Ultimate Sales Letter.

... forcing myself to check my emails only twice a day.

... tweeting and posting Facebook [...]

How do you justify the expense of attending professional conferences?

Event ticket, travel, hotel, food expenses – they all add up.

How do you begin to measure ROI?

If you’re like the majority of us... at the very least you total up all your receipts and hand them over to your accountant as a tax write-off.

And you toss the conference swag bag (now a cluttered pile of business cards, speaker/session notes, and vendor booth free goodies) in a closet or a corner in your office.  You tell yourself you’ll get to them as soon as you catch up on all the stuff that [...]

“But if I give my best stuff away, no one will pay for my expertise.”

This is a common concern I hear all the time.

So let’s cut to the chase and clear up this myth.

Early on when Cheryl and I started seriously studying Internet marketing, we learned the concept of “moving the free line.”

Successful marketer Eben Pagan coined this term when he demonstrated how he used it on his Double Your Dating business under the pseudonym of David DeAngelo.

The idea is that you give away free value up front to convince people that you are worth listening to…and [...]

Me and Batman. Every Tuesday and Thursday night at 7:30.

I never missed a single show!

Batman and Robin kept the Joker in line and rid Gotham City of the bad guys.

You’re an entrepreneur and a superhero by default. It’s your calling, and the world needs you.

Every day you toss on your cape and battle your competitors. You battle those who doubt you can make a go of your dreams. And you protect your customers.

You feel the weight on your shoulders – payroll to make for your employees, results to achieve for [...]

I’d rather have a colonoscopy than watch reality tv, but there’s one show I never miss.

ABC’s Shark Tank.

Premiering in 2009 and still going strong, it’s the most-watched program on Friday nights.

Hopeful entrepreneurs go on the program and present their business idea to a panel of self-made millionaire investors (Sharks) with a goal of convincing at least one Shark to invest in their concept in exchange for a stake in their company.

First comes the pitch… portable urinals that look like a golf club, remote-controlled bird feeders that allow you to “zap” pesky squirrels, and man candles designed to freshen your house but [...]

Leave it to a small Canadian airline carrier to show up like no one else!

WestJet, a budget carrier founded in 1996 that services flights to only 85 destinations, scored BIG in a holiday marketing campaign that went viral after posting their video on YouTube.

Here’s how their outrageously successful campaign unfolded:

As passengers boarded their flights in Toronto and Ontario, a Santa appeared on a large screen and asked the travelers what they’d like for Christmas… with wishes ranging from socks and underwear to a flight home for the holidays to a big screen tv!

Behind the screens, employees were furiously taking notes. [...]

Before playing “Doc” Brown in Back to the Future and Uncle Fester in The Addams Family...

Christopher Lloyd rose to fame portraying Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski in the ‘70’s television series Taxi.

In one episode, his eccentric but lovable character decides he’s going to be the most perfect cabbie in the world.

He surprises his patrons by treating them to a level of service they’ve never experienced before. He serves them sandwiches and drinks in the cab. He takes them on guided tours all over Manhattan. He even sings Frank Sinatra tunes while he drives.

Iggy’s customers are so thrilled with the experience of [...]

It's not often that an order confirmation email catches my attention - beyond making sure that the amount they charged to my credit card is correct.

I mean, what can you possibly do to make transactional emails anything other than sufficiently boring?

So when I found myself going back and re-reading what is normally a run-of-the-mill order confirmation email, I wanted to yell "Hallelujah! Someone actually gets what great marketing is all about!"

Moosejaw Mountaineering, whose Facebook tagline is "The Most Fun Outdoor Retailer on the Planet," knows how to put the fun back in marketing.

How about this for a company overview posted [...]

Alyssa Milano (star of TV’s Who’s the Boss? and Charmed) was watching a baseball game in Dodger Stadium several years ago – and was freezing cold.

“It was the beginning of the season, before the poop smell sets in.

I went into the store to get something warm to wear. And I was offended. The only color available in women’s clothing was pink. Their answer for female sports apparel back then was ‘pink it and shrink it.’ It was either that or buy something from the kids’ section. Which I did. I got a kid’s hoodie. In Dodger blue.”

It bothered Milano enough [...]

I'll never forget attending a conference in Jamaica during our long-gone network marketing days.

The biz opp shall remain nameless, but the founder was doing an impressive job at getting the audience all riled up.

Music was blaring, people were on their feet clapping - all because of one question that he challenged us to answer:

"What are you passionate about?"

The reaction he was shooting for in his choreographed frenzy was, of course, for everyone in the room to yell out in unison that their single bliss in life was to sell more biz opps to unsuspecting wantrepreneurs.

At that moment, I thought...