This was explained in Seth Godin's book, Unleashing The Ideavirus, but I don't think that most people understand the difference between making your product viral, and making your idea spread.

Getting your product to go viral is a way to create a product that people would want to share. Viral marketing is about creating products that are so amazing, people want to talk about them, and share them with their friends and families. The ideavirus helps these evangelists spread the idea faster.

The ideavirus helps people spread the idea more by doing something that makes it easier for people to spread the idea around. The iPod does this by using white headphones. The white headphones is now almost the trademark of music. If you're on an airplane, and you see white headphones, you can almost bet your life that the person listening to the sound is using an iPod. This spreads the idea of the iPod faster, and makes people see what the iPod is about. The white headphones spread Apple's iPod ideavirus.

The ideavirus helps the viral product move along through communities. Creating an ideavirus can be as easy as putting a mark on your products that no one else has, or by placing an "E-mail this to a friend" link at the end of all of your articles.

Ideaviruses make products speed through communities at a faster rate, and make people see what's so unique about the viral product, this is the reason why you can't blame people for not knowing the difference between and ideavirus and a viral product.

Viral products and ideaviruses go hand in hand. If you're product is remarkable enough to use the ideavirus to spread, than it isn't going to spread through communities. You must create a product that's so amazing and remarkable, that people will want to help spread the product, which starts the ideavirus. It starts when people want to spread your product to their friends, and you can thus help them spread it by unleashing your ideavirus. Here's a list of ways that you can make it easier to spread the news about your product:

1. Put a mark on your product to make it easy to recognize (like the white iPod headphones)

2. Help the idea spread by encouraging your customers to unleash the ideavirus

3. Give incentives to the people who do spread your virus to encourage them to spread the product to more people

4. Create slogans that are easy to remember, and catchy enough to make people spread the germs

5. Distribute incentives to people that got the virus to spread the virus

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In Seth Godin's book, Purple Cow, Godin refers to people who spread the news about your products sneezers. These are the people that you want to get the attention of. They are the frequent Digg users who digg things frequently, they're the StumbleUpon users that stumble and vote on things on a regular basis, they're the bloggers that mention other blogs in their market, they're people who get the word out about your blog. They're evangelists. They're viral marketers. They should be the people that you're trying to impress.

So instead of trying to reach the masses that aren't listening, try to reach the sneezers of your market in order for them to tell the masses about you. Think of it like this. Let's say that you have such an amazing product, Yaro Starak mentions the product on his blog. His blog has more than 32,000 subscribers, which means that more than 32,000 people can potentially hear about your product. And since these subscribers trust in Yaro's advice they're more than likely to check out your product. But it doesn't end there. There could be other bloggers that will do the same thing. It's an epidemic that you want to happen!

I'm sneezing as I write this post, and now you're reading it. I'm spreading the word about Seth Godin and his book Purple Cow, and you just heard about it. I almost always tell people about Godin's products and so I sneeze about him regularly. That's the power of having your business become viral. In order to become viral and attract more sneezers to your blog, here's some tips on how to become noticed online, and reach the masses.

1. Make your product amazing, wonderful, different, and remarkable.

2. Don't try to outdo your competition. Instead, create a product that your competition would have never thought of before.

3. Create your own niche in your market.

4. Make a product for a niche that doesn't exist.

5. Keep making products that are new, different, and remarkable.

6. Be an extremist.

7. Treat the customers that buy your products differently. Make them feel special.

8. Do something no one else is doing

9. Make your products more amazing, and jack up the prices.

10. Make your products only available to specific people. Be exclusive.

In a world where the general public isn't paying attention to your million dollar ads, and 30 second commercials, marketers need to create products that make a buzz in the community, and get people to talk about their business. Marketers need to attract more sneezers to their community.

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If you've ever been in the internet marketing niche, than you've probably heard of the MLM business The Reversed Funneling System created by Ty Coughlin. If you've never heard of it before, it's just a network marketing program where when you join up, Coughlin gives you a business, and all you have to do is drive people to it using his ad's, and what not. This system gives the words "Reversed Funnel" a bad name.

This MLM business has marketing all wrong. The system is based on getting a crap load of people to your business, and then using automation in order to generate sales. This is not a reversed funnel. This is just the original funnel dressed up with words. It's just a regular funnel, misleading people in to believing what a reversed funnel isn't.

Ty Coughlin gives a bad name to marketing, and I dare any one who believes in the Reversed Funneling System to prove me wrong, and tell me that the MLM program accurately describes what a reversed funnel really is. I dare you!

Coughlin's system is dependent on getting more people to your business in order to make a continual profit. But the reversed funnel is about using the people who are already at your business, and creating a relationship that's so impacting that the people at your business will purchase more of your products.

Coughlin's system works like this:

Insert one thousand people to your business, exit out one hundred dollars.

The real reversed funnel works like this:

Insert one hundred people to your business, exit out one thousand dollars.

The real reversed funnel uses what it's got and makes the best out of it. Coughlin's reversed funnel ignores what it's got, and tries to get more traffic to the business. While this business is wasting time trying to get more traffic coming their company, and wasting their money to get more buy even more attention, the real reversed funnel is working smart, and is using it's time to create a stronger relationship with it's traffic, and making sure that the business is being as remarkable as it can possibly be.

Coughlin has been known to say that the system works, it's just people that fail. I would like to say that that's pure bull. The system is a script that people read. The system is static. When a telemarketers calls, you can automatically tell that they're reading a script. When you see someone talking through a system online, you can tell. Prospects don't want to be talked to through scripts. They want to communicate and build their relationship. They don't want to talk to static sales pages, and articles. These turn prospects off.

And if you think that the MLM program is correct I dare you to stand up for it and tell me in a post. Otherwise I'm sticking to the belief that Ty Coughlin gives a bad name to The Reversed Funnel.

If you've ever read an e-book before, than I'm more than sure that you know that there are a lot of e-books that are simply restating the words of other books. I've done it before with my book, MyBlogLog Marketing, but my friend Bill Masson helped me see the error of my ways.

The point is that we live in an age where there are more than millions of individual businesses out there, trying to build up said business. And in a world with more than millions of bloggers, the internet helps make it happen. The world has more entrepreneurs now than there ever was before, and a lot of them are very successful.

But since more businesses are busting through the internet, e-books have begun re-writing information that we already know about (There are more than millions of books for "making money online!"). Where's the new information? Where's the remarkable?

This is what the entrepreneurs of today are struggling with. It's not that their e-books are bad, most of them are really well written. What's wrong is that entrepreneurs aren't creating new products that will get them more recognition. Instead, these business people try to make books in a niche that's already over-populated and think that they're going to make it if they get enough people to their blog or website to purchase their book. They begin doing google adwords, and buying traffic and link exchanging. This doesn't work. But what does work is a remarkable e-book on an entirely new niche, or that redefine's the entire market. Now that's an e-book that I'd want to buy.

I enjoy watching Comedy Central, and today, while I was watching, in thirty minutes, I came across more than twenty commercials trying to tell me about their products. In an hour, the number doubled to forty-four commercials in total. But here’s the sad part, I don’t remember a single one.

I vaguely remember seeing the same commercial more than five times, but yet, this channel of reaching me hasn’t inserted me in to that marketers funnel. There is just so many marketers trying to get my attention, I now ignore it. I usually never pay attention to commercials, and when I do pay attention, it doesn’t make me want to buy the product.

Believe it or not, this is how a majority of the world’s population feels like. They don’t care about what marketers are trying to advertise to them about, because they have learned to ignore it.

Go online, and read up on the blog’s that you enjoy going to. When was the last time that you purposely clicked on the Google AdSense links on that blog? When was the last time that you purposely clicked on that blog’s affiliate icons?

Time has passed so much from when the funnel was first created that the top has become too large. The marketing arena is now saturated with advertisements from every marketer trying to increase his websites channel of reach.

Myspace.com was made in 1996, and when you do a search on marketing, 500 unique pages show up with profiles dedicated to marketing, and getting people to their website.

Go to Digg.com - 2000 - and do a search on “Marketing.” You’ll find 121 pages that relate to that subject.

Do the same search at NewsVine.com - 2005 - and you come up with 10 pages related to the subject, and still growing.

All three websites are wonderful places to get more people to your homepage, but it doesn’t matter if you’re the first one at the website or not. Every one of these websites is becoming over-run by more and more marketers, trying to get in to more channels to build their spider-web advertising method. Marketers keep trying to increase the top of their funnels.

This is the spider web method:

Spider Web Method

The more channels that you create that point back to your website, the more publicity your website gets, and the more of a chance you’ve got to get people to your website.

But if everyone is doing the same spider method, and are connecting to the same websites that you’re trying to connect to, how are you supposed to make your website get the upper hand? And when people are ignoring these spider web methods, how do you expect to get these people to go down your funnel, even when you do get the upper hand on your competition?

You can’t. The funnel has been around so long, that it’s become obsolete, and doesn’t work anymore. We must now re-think the funnel in its entirety, and make it better, and more successful. In other words, we need to re-think our marketing methods, and strategies.

This has been a preview of my new upcoming book, The Reversed Funnel. If you enjoyed this information, please join my Reversed Funnel Newsletter, in order to get more information like this, and about the book.

One day when I was browsing around my local Barnes & Noble, I decided to take a look at my favorite section, Marketing. So I went to the shelf and looked at all the books regarding marketing and other entrepreneurial books. There were some that caught my eye due to it’s binding, look, and feel, but I quickly put it back when I realized that I already knew most of the information presented in the book, and besides, it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Moving downward, downward, and further downward, I finally caught my eye on the books that I was looking for, books by Seth Godin. These were the books that I knew I could count on teaching me something. The books that I trusted to teach me something that I want to learn. I trust Seth Godin.

I trust that this author’s book is going to help my life in some way. I trust that this author’s book is going to help me with my marketing. I trust that this author is going to teach me something completely new and amazing. I trust Seth Goin, and because of that, Seth Godin wins a profit. No doubt, I purchased his book.

The simplicity of trust is powerful. To have your readers actually trust that you know what you’re doing is something that commercials, ads, or digg can’t help you with. To truly trust is powerful to the business.

We live in a low-trust world. So many things have happened in the last few years that it’s become almost impossible to trust someone. We tell our children to not talk to the mailman because he might be a bad person. We look at our caller id before we answer the phone because we’re afraid that it might be a telemarketer. We look through the peep hole of our door to check who it is before we answer it. We’re afraid. We don’t trust people. At times, we don’t even trust our friends or families. Not even our spouses. It’s a world where people live under the same roof, but still aren’t able to fully trust each other. It’s sad, but it’s the truth.

But we do trust businesses. We trust Starbucks to be open every day at 6:00PM. We trust that the 99¢ store down the street will be selling tape for a much cheaper price than Home Depot. We trust that Best Buy has the best in electronics. We trust Wal-Mart to have the stuff that we need. We trust Target to have cool appliances, and new things. We trust McDonalds to always be ready to make a BigMac for us. We trust White Lime to have a fun atmosphere. We trust businesses, and when that trust is cut, profits are cut.

I trust that Seth Godin will keep coming out with amazing books that I’ll enjoy reading, and if that trust is broken, I’ll no longer look at his books the same way. If that trust is broken, Godin loses the chance of making a sale.

But since Seth has my trust, I’m a valued prospect. I get pushed farther down the funnel because I trusted that the product that I was holding is something that will teach me something that's totally new and amazing, because that's what Seth Godin does. He creates books and products that are totally new and amazing. But the very moment that Godin creates a product that breaks that trust, my reversed funnel alters. I can no longer trust Seth to create products that are truly amazing and new, and because of that, I might not look at his books in awe the same way that I used to.

Robert Kiyosaki created the Rich Dad, Poor Dad chain of books, and I trusted that each book created would be completely different and new. Holding new information about entrepreneurship and business, but after reading about four books in the franchise, I realized that the same information was being repeated over, and over again. I don't trust Robert's books now. I don't buy his books anymore. He recently came out with the new book, Why We Want You To Be Rich, and I haven't even looked at it yet. However, when Seth comes out with a new book, I'm going straight to my local Barnes & Noble to get my hands on it.

This has been an exert out of my new upcoming book, The Reversed Funnel. If you enjoyed this information, please join my Reversed Funnel Newsletter, and get a discount off the book when it's released, plus the first to get the sneak peaks and previews about the book.

Learn how to use MyBlogLog correctly by reading my book, MyBlogLog Marketing now.

When Ray Kroc invented the franchising business with his restaurant McDonalds, his venture succeeded, but with a new marketing age, franchises might not be such a wonderful idea. When a company hits a franchise, the business wants to get more people to come to their store in order to make more sales, but when a business decides to franchise, they've begun to lose the relationship between their customer. And in a day of age where relationships run the more profitable businesses, this can be a problem.

The idea of franchising is an original funnel way of creating a business. To get as much people as you can to get to your store to make higher profits. In other words, as time goes by, the more amount of advertising you do for your business. Whether it's through commercials, or setting up another store.



The smaller each layer becomes, the less amount of emphasis you need to put in to it. As time passes, the wider the top of the funnel becomes (more emphasis), trying to get more and more people to their store. But as the top of the funnel gets wider, the bottom of the funnel gets thinner (less emphasis).



When was the last time you went to a McDonalds and had a wonderful visit, and created a strong relationship with the workers? When was the last time you went to a McDonalds and saw the workers happier than they ever were? Not likely. The relationship with the customers at McDonalds has faded away. It's like a restaurant of depression.

This is the very same reason why Starbucks has been closing a lot of it's stores down. They've gotten too carried away with their publicity, that they completely forgot about the relationship between the customer, and the business. When was the last time you went to a Starbucks and had a unique experience that you couldn't have again with the Starbucks right next to the one you just exited from?

Here's a 3-year graph of Starbucks's stocks:



Relationship matters to people, not how easily they can find the products they want. Prospects actually care about the relationship they have with a business, and how fun, and unique their visit to the store was. Businesses think that by mass producing their products, they'll create more profits. In retrospect, you do. But when you become too greedy, and start trying to get even more people to your stores, it could turn out to be something horrible.

Franchises need to re-prioritize their business. Stop letting any average Joe invest in to a franchise. Be selective, and only choose the few that are die hard fans of the business.

Learn how to use MyBlogLog correctly by reading my book, MyBlogLog Marketing now.

Well, not really. It's more like you've been given information that hasn't been correct. In other words, the "Internet Marketing Guru's" have been giving you the wrong information.

This information regards the funnel marketing method. Funnel marketing has been around for a long time now, and almost every marketer knows about it. This is the basic function of the funnel:

1. Create lot's of channels in which people can reach your website
2. Make a profit

If you kept up to date with this funnel, you would have probably seen a graph that looks somewhat like this:


You're supposed to insert people in to the funnel, than pop them out the other end resulting in profits, and as time goes by, the profit keeps coming in by newsletters and auto-responder services, selling your customer even more of your products.

It's very simple, and it's very easy to do...if you can get the masses to go in to your funnel. In order for the funnel to work, you first need to get people to your website. You could easily do this by increasing the reach of your blog. In other words, go to more websites that connect to your blog, like Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, and other websites that will give your website more publicity.

But that's what the problem is. In the graph, it said that as time passes, your sales will continue to grow. This is where the "Guru's" have been giving you some wrong information. They didn't tell you about the time relevancy to the top of your funnel:



As time progresses, the wider your funnel becomes. In simpler words, the more websites that you need to connect with your website. You might have put your website on to Digg, but a few days later, you then put your website on Spurl, and then on NewsVine, and so on, and so on. You keep doing it because you're trying to get more people to your website, but at the same time, your competition is doing the same thing. They're also increasing their range of websites that connect back to their website.

This is why it's become so hard for people to market their website nowadays. There's just so much competition trying to increase their websites reach, that it's almost impossible to keep up. And now, the people that you're trying to get to your blog are ignoring you. The Guru's have told everyone information that has become the downfall of our marketing ways!

How many books have you read that were written by Robert Kiyosaki? If you've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, than you've probably bought more of the series, such as Cashflow Quandrant, and Guide To Investing. Maybe you've even read more, such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad For Teens, and Prophecy. If you've ever been to any of his seminars, or read his books, than no doubt, you began buying things that just had his name on it, such as Why We Want You To Be Rich, and Cashflow 101.

But have you ever wondered why you buy all of these products made by Kiyosaki? Have you ever stopped and really thought about how much of an amazing marketer Robert is?

The reality is that you've been sucked in to his Reversed Funnel. Between the time that you've started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and ended it, somehow, in those few days, Robert successful established a committed relationship with you. In those few days, Robert converted you in to a Reversed Funnel Customer. You now buy, read, and/or tell your friends about almost all of the products with his name on it.

In my last post, I quickly informed you about the Reverse Funnel, and how it applies more to us now, than the Original Funnel did. In this post, I would like to further this knowledge about the Reversed Funnel, and describe the four different layers of it, and go more in depth about the new funneling system.

Basically, there are four layers to the funnel:

1. Connection
2. Trust
3. Relationship
4. Commitment

It is also important to note that the funnel runs downward, following the path of time. As time grows longer, the funnel widens more at the bottom.


The graph above describes the process of the Reverse Funneling System. First, a connection is made between you and your blog reader. Next, a trust is formed between the two. A relationship is soon established and worked upon. Then, a commitment is made between the author and the reader. As time passes, the layers grow, and thus, the profit exerted grows as well.

In simple terms, as time goes by, the more emphasis needs to be put in the layers. As time passes, there needs to be more emphasis on the connection, the trust, the relationship, and the commitment. By making the layers more solid and powerful, followed are more exerted profits.

This is what Robert does. First, he took you, the individual who read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and established all four layers in just one book. The author connected with you by telling you something that you were interested in, so you listened and were open to what the author was saying. As you read in to the book more, you began to trust Kiyosaki, and believe in what he was saying. Soon, a relationship is grown, and you begin to enjoy reading every chapter. And finally, a commitment is likely to be made by the end of the book. A commitment where you full heartedly believe in all of his products, and is the reason why you buy more of his books, and games.

Robert's an excellent reversed funnel marketer, and if you've read his book's, agree with what he says, and have boughten more books by him, than you have fallen for his marketing deeds.

You've heard of the funneling method. Everyone who's ever studied marketing knows about the funneling method.

This is the initial definition:

1. Bring people to your website
2. Make a profit

We've all heard of this tactic before. We've all heard of "guru's" making money from this tactic. These Guru's are stupid.

The funneling method isn't worth it anymore. It doesn't compliment the new internet era. In other words, it's outdated. The funneling method doesn't work. Here's the graph that we've all learned to know and love:


The funneling method doesn't work as well as it should anymore. The method has stopped working ever since the online prospects started ignoring internet ad's and videos.

Now, you can't rely on the equation:

Product + More Traffic = Huge Profits $$$
The amount of traffic that you have, no longer compliments how many sales you make. The funnel is flipped. We can't buy in to the lie of, "Funneling more people to your website will make you more money." It doesn't work out like that.

Millions of Digg users can go to your website and not make a single purchase. Thinking that if you move on over to StumbleUpon isn't going to help you either. Millions of StumbleUpon users frequently go to people's websites, and not make a single purchase as well.

The hard truth is this: More channels for people to come to your website doesn't necessarily result in more sales.

In simpler terms, conversation rates mean nothing. High search engine rankings mean nothing. What does matter, are the readers of your blog right now. They're the one's who are listening. Looking for more of them isn't going to solve your profit problems. But focusing on the readers you have right now, and finding out why they're not purchasing your products will.

Now, the funnel has flipped. You need to focus more on the readers of your blog in order to make a profit. You need to focus on individuals now, and strengthen your communication with them in order to make a profit. Numbers can only go so far.

This is the new graph that we must understand:


Instead of focusing on how you can get more people to your blog, you need to be focusing on, why your readers aren't buying more of your products. Why your readers aren't telling more people about your products or your blog. You need to start focusing on your readers right now. You need to be focusing on how your readers can be making you more money.

The funnel is flipped. We must now embrace the Reverse Funnel.