Todays blog entry has something “special” going for it…

It’s something unique, different, unusual… it’s also kinda weird, odd and somewhat disturbing…

Why?

Well, look at the title of this entry again… see the headline? — it says “AM Au Naturale”…

Focus on the words “Au Naturale”… it has meaning… in more ways than one… makes you go “hmmm, what is this guy leading up to?”

Think…

Think….

Think…..

Okay, give up?

Here it is… I’m writing this blog today in a very natural state… a god-given state… a state each and every one of us has been in at one time or another…

You see, I’m writing this entry completely, absolutely, undeniably in the nude…

Yes, I am completely naked while writing this entry… stark raving naked… in my birthday suit, naughty bits and all!…

Okay, I’m actually wearing a pair of socks - the floor under my desk is a bit chilly… but that’s all… honest…

Now I won’t be posting photo’s of my nude blogging escapade here…. those will be available for sale later on from my Angry Marketer porn site for $24.95, along with other AM trinkets you might want to acquire…

So why am I doing this?… why am I as naked as the day I was born?

It’s a metaphor… a visual (okay, mentally visual) example for what I really want to talk about…

And that’s transparency and openness… in our lives, in our business, in our affairs…

Especially in business…

Too many people hide or obfuscate the facts about their business, their success, their actual standings…

They don’t give you contact information, they don’t tell you when they’ve failed or they don’t tell you the real truth about how successful they are or they aren’t…

I see it all the time and it’s quite frustrating, annoying and puzzling… I see it in Internet marketers, offline marketers, business people, friends, family, politicians (especially them), celebrities, etc…

Now, I’m not talking about revealing every nasty little bit about your life or business to the entire world - to do that would be seriously stupid, damaging in many cases and outrageously scandalous (although we do live in a society that cherishes… no… loves, scandal)… what I’m talking about is providing the information to confirm to others that you aren’t hiding from them for nefarious reasons or aren’t clouding what you’ve done to make yourself look better…

When I make an offer to my list or board I make sure that the readers know where I stand about a product or service or idea or anything else… my endorsement means a lot to some people and I believe I owe them clarity in what I promote or talk about… I let them know what they are going to get, what is in it for them and in return what is in it for me… I let them know if I promote something (or write about it on this blog or my board) that I’m a partner or affiliate and that I make a commission from my recommendaion, etc.

Just a few days ago I launched what has turned out to be a very successful promotion… I’ve been giving away a free 74-page report that answers the top 10+ questions most online entrepreneurs have… in order to get the report I set up a squeezepage to obviously build a marketing list…

I made sure on the squeezepage to let others know that 1) I didn’t write the report, it comes from a PLR package that I’m promoting… 2) that I’m promoting said package… 3) that when they register for the free report that they’ll be put on my marketing list and then I go into detail as to what will happen with their name, how often they’ll get mailed, etc…

Clarity…

What’s nice about what I did is that I’ve not only gotten a ton of people to register and join my list (trust me, the response has been phenomenal) but I’ve gotten many very nice emails letting me know that it was refreshing to see that I was upfront about the report, product and the outcome…

Nakedness… transparency… clarity… openness… words to run a business by… words to think about… and idea that can boost your success, your standings and your loyalty…

Okay… time for me to put my clothes back on… it’s getting a little nippy in here… nippy, not nipply…

Besides, my bird Houdini is beginning to look at me kinda funny…

PS: The part about the Angry Marketer porn site… it was a joke… then again… LOL!

• Mike Sigers is hosting the “Carnival Of Marketing” this week of at his “Simplenomics” blog… he links to several articles worth checking out…

• Debbi Bressler takes on territorial marketers (and I use the term “marketer” loosely here) and the BS they sometimes cause over at her “Home Business Review” blog in an entry she titles: ” Shoot Out At the 1StepSystem Corral“…

• Here’s your chance to get your hands on the first of 5 excerpts from Blair Warren’s “Forbidden Keys To Persuasion“… but you better hurry, when he posts excerpt #2 the first one will disappear!…

• ProBlogger Darren Rowse has started a series called “Blogging For Beginners” which is worth checking out… Darren knows what he’s talking about and gives you the scoop on how to blog, make it a success and profit from it…

One of the things that ticks me off the most about the Internet marketing world is the large amount of liars that are in this niche (yes, I said “liar” — I know it’s a hard and harsh word, but hey, it’s the reality)… they’re out there in droves telling tales about how much money they make, how great they are, what fast cars they drive, etc… and then there are those that use “hype” to the max, making things look like they are better than things are…

My friend Jay Jennings just posted a great entry on his blog… he calls it “Does Liar = Marketer?“… in the post he talks about 4 situations that make you go hmmmm… it’s a good read (and his previous entry titled “Content Is King” is just as good)… worth checking out and discussing…

So, do you need to be a liar to be a success in the IM marketplace?… some people feel you do… some feel it’s necessary in order to stick out in the morass that is in this arena…

Then again there are others like Jay and myself who believe that being real, honest and upfront are the way to go… we look at our visitors, customers, clients and friends as much more than idiots to be trolled and “pied-pipered” toward our own ultimate destiny… we see them as intelligent people that should be treated as such (and that includes respect)…

“internet marketers, used car salesmen, and mimes” indeed… Let the throwdown begin…

Because of the advances in at-home video editing and the tools that are both readily and affordably available we’ll be seeing more and more video being streamed on the net… with sites such as Google Video, You Tube, vSocial and Dailymotion available for the hosting, the streaming and sharing of home-made videos will soon be exploding (not to mention the ability to stream video through blogs too)…

One of the latest hot “trends” is taking existing movies and re-editing them into funny (or scary) trailers… this has been done with the movie “Big” and “The Shining” along with a very scary trailer for the movie “Sleepless In Seattle”… it’s one of the fun things that people are doing with home video editing (outside of editing and streaming video of their ugly kids birthday party and the dog eating its own poop)…

Here is an example of a home-edited funny trailer spoof of “Brokeback Mountain”… I’ll add more examples to the blog soon…

Enjoy!…

This has nothing to do with marketing (well, maybe a little with business & success though)…

Sometimes you see things that absolutely, incredibly, totally amaze you… a website I found on the net and a guy named Bryan Berg has done that to me… what he does is beautiful, amazing, awe inspiring…

And what he’s built around what started as fun and a hobby has become a business that he loves (they often say to do what you love and the money will follow)…

I’m not going to tell you upfront what Bryan does… I want you to discover that for yourself so you too can be awed by his “artwork”… let’s just say that the pic in this post is a small clue…

Check out Bryan’s site at www.cardstacker.com…

Now… where are my Bicycle 808’s?…

A Day In The Life Of The “Angry Marketer”…

Before you get your panties in a twist and start wagging your race-baiting, PC covered, liberal-indoctrinated finger in my face I want to state something emphatically… this post is NOT based on racism, it is a rant plain and simple… what appears below is not meant to be a swipe on an entire population but on a specific group of people, period… you’ll see what I mean when you read what I have to say…

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This is a rant… a very strong, vehement, angry rant… a red-faced scream it out rant…You see… I hate cockroaches… disgusting creatures those… these vermin are carriers of disease and pestilence… they reside in the deep, dark, dank areas of our homes and cities, laying their eggs and carrying germs and microbes wherever they go… cockroaches have been around since the dinosaur age and rumor has it that they’ll still be here when the last man on earth expires (word is that if you cut the head of a cockroach off it will continue to live for some time, only dying from dehydration)…

I hate a different type of cockroach… these are the human kind… the kind that go by such names as “ji ji,” ” QUANZHONG LI,” “shirley xue,” ZHIZHI LU,” “Ken Chao,” “liping zeng,” ” cary hua,” “Vincent Chao,” and the ubiquitous “Mr. Zhang Zhang”…What kind of cockroaches are these?… they’re “Cantonese Cockroaches”… well, that’s what I like to call them…You see these cockroaches are Chinese spammers… disgusting creatures that carry disease and infestation to discussion boards all over the net…

As you probably know, I run a very popular marketing and entrepreneurial discussion board… we get over 6.5 million visitors a month from all over the world… it’s always busy and a place lots of people call “home”…It’s also a major attractant to “Cantonese Cockroaches” who love to go to the board and lay their “eggs” (spam) all over it… tons of it, literally dozens and dozens of messages each day…

The big problem is that it’s almost impossible to stop… these bastards multiply faster than rabbits in heat… and they’ll get around any board’s security even if you have to register to post… it’s absolutely ridiculous!…

And what do these morons, assholes and idiots post?… well, my board is based around entrepreneurism, online & offline marketing, success, etc…. it is not a marketplace for selling wholesale retail and industrial goods…

Here is some of the crap those Cockroaches post:

• Optical Components,Coatings, Gratings, Lenses, Mirrors, Window &; Prisms, etc (ji ji posted this one)…
• suzhou double embroidery (posted shirley xue, I understand she’s the absolute queen of Chinese suzhou double embroidery… she sucks at triple embroidery or craft store needlepoint)…
• Umbrella & Golf Umbrella (this one posted by the infamous liping zeng)…
• We can produce and supply all styles and color of famous brand hats, like Roxy,Qick Silver,Abercrombie &; Fitch,USA,Zero,G-unit LA, Supreme, Von Dutch, Billa Bong, Astros, NY.Sox, Gucci,Adidas,VonDucth,Nike TN, Lacoste, and many other branded hats PLUS We can produce and supply all styles and color of famous brand jeans,like Red Monkey, ARMANI, LEE, LEVI’S, EVISU, DISEL, D&;G, CK, Cocobongo, MISS SIXTY, ONLY, SEVEN, True, Religion Rock Republic, Antik, Abercrombie, Cocolulu, Von Dutch, REPLY,etc (these two long sack-of-shit offers by cary hua — verbose bastard ain’t he?)…
• DATA AUTOMATED STORAGE SERIAL PRODUCTS (from the talented bi-lingual cockroach-like fingertips of QUANZHONG LI)
• And my all time favorite type of Cockroach post - ÏÃÃÅЭ˳´ï¹¤Ã³ÓÐÏÞ¹«Ë (that really is the title of one of the spam posts by the indomitable Mr. Zhang Zhang — I don’t know what the hell he’s trying to say but I bet we could probably find it stocked at Wal-Mart!)…

Now why do I call these spamming SOB’s “Cockroaches”?… it’s simple… just like cockroaches, when you kill one (or a few of them) and think you’ve taken care of the problem more of them appear… literal armies of cockroaches appear… in this case “Cantonese Cockroaches!”…

It used to be that we got hammered by Indian and Pakistani spam… we’d get maybe 5 or 10 a night, which was an annoyance but quickly taken care of… you could stop the posting from them by simply entering their IP number in the .htaccess file in the main board directory which would block then from being able to access the board (they’d get a “forbidden” error message)… 2 or 3 days later they’d be back but it wasn’t as bad… these guys mostly posted crappy “get-rich-quick” ads from American companies/biz-oppers/scumbags who hired them because they’re cheap… and most touted funny lines telling us how we could earn 20 to 100 rupees a week posting ads or getting a typing job or being an Internet curry-er (okay, I added the last one )…

The Indian & Pakistani spam basically stopped (we still get one or two from time to time but not very often) when they realized that their ads were getting nuked and they weren’t getting any traffic from their spam (thus no rupee profits)… but the numbers from the I&P spam is nothing compared to the dozens I get each night from the Cantonese Cockroaches… it’s absolutely incredible…

99% of the Cockroach spam posts appearing are posted using automatic posting software… they simply load the software with what they want to spew, fill it with the boards they want to post to and unleash the verminized volleyn (a few of them are hand posted though)… and they release a lot of it… in the time that I’ve taken to write this entry I’ve nuked 27 Cockroach spam posts from my board (mostly from my buddies QUANZHONG LI and cary hua)…

Yes, I know what you’re going to say “well, dude… if this is such a big prob why not use a different type of board?”… and you’re partly right, some of this spam (especially the Indian/Pakistani kind) are hand-posted so those boards that require registration are not immune either… and frankly, why should I have to change the board that I and so many of my visitors have become accustomed to because relentless, scumbag vermin board-spamming Cantonese Cockroaches don’t get the hint that my board isn’t for their use and they’re not welcome…

They say that China is fast becoming an economic powerhouse, an “emerging” nation that’s finding it’s capitalist way… unfortunately some of their “entrepreneurs” resort to crap like this to build their business…

Someday I’m going to get really fed up… and that’s when they’re going to need to watch out for the Angry Marketer… cause when I finally, absolutely, positively, resolutely blow my top it’s not gonna be a pretty sight… I might just have to go all Tiananmen Square on their ass… it ain’t gonna be pretty…

I need to stop ranting now… I have to run… my good friend Mr. Zhang Zhang just showed up and he’s got a great bargain on Ð˭ëÃÏŤ ó´ï¹Þ³ÓÐÏ¹Þ — oh, boy!… I can’t wait!

Not a lot of people know this, but I’ve been a heart patient all my life… you see, I was born with congenital heart defects that afflicted me until they were corrected at age 10 (as well as another correction later at age 19)… I had what is known as “blue baby syndrome” and a hole in my heart (the technical term for my defects is Tetrology Of Fallot)…Because of what I was born with and have gone through (I am perfectly healthy now… my sanity is another thing completely ) I have always had a soft spot in my heart (pun intended) for children who are currently going through life with heart defects themselves…

Enter Dr. Mani (Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian), a cardiac surgeon in India that has started a wonderful program to help raise money to get children in India the heart surgeries they need…

Each year, on Valentines Day, he holds a one-day fundraising and Congenital Heart Awarness event he calls “A Day For Hearts”… on this day he blogs continuously for 24-hours and raises money from donors all over the world who donate to his cause…

Valentines Day is quickly coming upon us and it’s time once again to help Dr. Mani help the children of India afflicted with heart defects… India as you may know is a poor country and corrective heart surgeries are very expensive (a corrective surgery in India runs around $2,500 — which is much less than in the US but still a great deal of money in India), but on this day he can raise enough money to help quite a few children…

Here’s your opportunity to help by donating just a few dollars to this extremely worthy cause… Click on the banner below and donate as much as you can… each day 2500 children die from heart defects… Here’s your chance to help…

Seth Godin has written a short new ebook that he’s giving away… he calls it “Flipping The Funnel” and it talks about a few of the new Web 2.0 tools (flickr, del.icio.us, squidoo, blogs, etc.)…

He’s made the ebook available in 3 versions, each an 18-page pdf: Flipping The Funnel For Corporations & Marketers, Flipping The Funnel For Politicians and Flipping The Funnel For Non-Profits

Seth even has a good article on Funnel Marketing & Adwords you might want to check out…

Either way, download his new FREE ebook and put some of his info to use!