John Chow dot Com

Get Your Questions Answered by the Six-Figure Masters

written by John Chow on July 23, 2014

At the upcoming Affiliate Summit East in New York next month, I will be moderating a panel entitled Six-Figure Mastery: The Cure for the Common Blog.

This session will break down what it takes to go from an average blogger to building yourself up as an authority and trusted brand. Also covering affiliate marketing, building brands and monetization. The panel is made up of:

John Chow, Titles Are For Wimps, John Chow dot Com – Moderator
Syed Balkhi, Founder, WPBeginner
Zac Johnson, President, MoneyReign Inc
John Rampton, President, Adogy

The session starts on August 10 from 12:30pm to 1:30pm at the Astor Ballroom, and I invited all my readers to come to it.

As the moderator, I will be asking questions from the panel. This is where I could use your help. I have a list of questions, but I want to help you guys as much as possible. Therefore, it would really be great if you can post your blogging and Internet marketing questions in the comments, and I will get as many of them answered during the session.

This is your chance to have a group of six-figure earners answer your question. If I use your questions, I will also give you a shout-out during the panel, so ask away. See you at Affiliate Summit East in New York!

Get Your Questions Answered by the Six-Figure Masters! Ask In The Comments!

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IXCC Battery Case for iPhone 5/5S Review

written by John Chow on July 22, 2014

I’ve been in the tech industry for over a decade now, and in that time, I’ve gotten to know most of the insiders. If you were to name a product, odds are I can tell you who makes it for them. For example, pretty much everyone knows that Foxconn makes the iPhone for Apple. But how about something less well known. Like a battery case.

That was the case (pun intended) when a reader asked me about an iPhone battery case made by Maxboost. It normally sells for $99.95, but Maxboost has it for sale at their website for only $69.95. Sounds like a great deal when compared to all the other $99.95 battery cases on the market.

However, a few Skype chats with my contact in the industry unearthed where in China the case was made. A little more digging showed that same case is sold under other brand names. And that is how I ended up with the IXCC battery case for the iPhone 5 and iPhone 56. It is exactly the same case as the name-brand case, but you can buy at Amazon for only $34.90!

2400mAh built-in battery can effectively provide 120% additional battery life(12hrs talk time and 15hrs web surfing time)to your iPhone 5/5S
A fully protective hardshell case with the minimum added bulk, maintaining the slim form factor of your iPhone 5 / 5S.
MicroUSB input port and lightning output port, the case has data and power pass-through enabled. Your iPhone 5/5S can be charged and synced while encased via the included MicroUSB cable.
Charging switch, LED battery level indicator, charge and sync through the case, headphone jack cutout, function button cutouts and hands-free kickstand.
One year warranty available, plesae contact seller for details

For a 2400mAh battery, the IXCC case maintains an extremely slim profile. It’s barely bigger than a non battery case. Assembling the case is pretty easy. Just slide your iPhone onto the battery, and then snap on the frame. The unit doesn’t add much bulk to the iPhone and it’s still small enough to fit in your shirt pocket.

One of the best feature of the IXCC case is the repositioning of the iPhone speakers. The speakers on the iPhone fires down at your feat, or away from you. The IXCC case takes that sound and bends it 45 degrees so it fires at your face. This increases the iPhone volume and makes it sound a lot better.

On the back of the case is a kickstand and battery status indicator. The battery status has four LEDs that lights up at the push of a button to tell you how much juice you have left. With 2400mAh power, you can expect eight hours of talk time and over a week of standby time. The kickstand only works in the horizontal position.

If you’re looking for a battery case for your iPhone 5 or 5S, and you don’t want to pay the premium for the name brand case, then the IXCC battery case is the way to to go. It’s really a no brainer. Why would you pay almost $100 for a case, when you can get the exactly same case for only $34.90? OK, you don’t get the Maxboost logo printed on the back of the case, but is that worth more than double the price? I don’t think so.

Click Here To Get The IXCC Battery Case for iPhone 5/5S

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The Best Blogging Advice I Received From Richard Branson (That Changed My Life)

written by Michael Chibuzor on July 21, 2014

You know him. Richard Branson.

I respect him a lot.

He’s my mentor and I love to carry out his instructions because they’re guaranteed to produce results. There are few billionaires who appreciate the ability and skills of others – Branson is one of them. Now this post is a very informative one.

You might be asking where I met Mr. Branson?

Well, I actually met him – not in person but by what he said. His words (quote). Every man on the face of the earth is a product of his words. From the moment I read that quote of his, my entire blogging career and business turned around. It’s been success since I imbibed that advice into my life.

Here’s the quote. But to me, I call it an advice:

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials. Richard Branson

Did you read in-between the lines or you just glance at it?

The truth is if you’re a blogger and wants to achieve tremendous success, I want you to read below as I analyze the quote and how you can put it to work. You see, the problem with most people is that they read famous quotes and get excited but never act on it.

So let’s start off with the first keyword from him.

1. Business isn’t about wearing suits and pleasing stockholders

Yes, this is so true but I didn’t know about this when I worked a 9-5 job. If you work a day job, then, wearing tucked suits and trying to please your employer is the ultimate. If you fail to do that, there would be problem and you’ll not be happy with your work.

That’s why blogging is quite different. Of course, running a blog also means you’re into real business but this time around, you’re using your blog as a tool to reach your target audience and solve their pressing problems.

You shouldn’t try to please anyone. Because no matter how excellent your posts are, some people will still hate you while others will praise you. But all of that doesn’t even matter to your success.

The only key ingredient to building a profitable online business is when your readers, visitors, traffic, prospects and fans act on what you said or recommended. So, it’s not about wearing suits and pleasing stockholders (readers or buyers). It’s about persuading them to act on what you said and get great results. Because if they are satisfied, you’ll smile to the bank. Period!

2. Be true to yourself and your ideas

How powerful this line is – I’m sure you’re already interested to know more. You’re eager to know how you can be true to yourself and your ideas.

Let’s go:

A wordpress blog is powerful enough to help you express who you are and what you believe in.

Take this from me, not Branson: what you think of yourself is how others will perceive and address you. For instance, the moment you start referring to yourself as a writer, even if you’ve not authored a book yet, people will call you by that name. Not because you’re trying to fake it till you become it, but simply because you’re expressing what is on your inside.

If you’re a blogger, you’ve WHAT it takes to change your OWN world. You’re not some sort of a beggar who just lost his daring job and needs a refuge. You’ve a great idea and only you can express it.

Be true to yourself and your ideas. Don’t conclude you’ve nothing spectacular to deliver to your target audience. You do and I encourage you to act on that idea.

3. Focus on the essentials

The major setback for most bloggers is that they’re trying to do everything at the same time. If you want success, then you must filter the chaff out of the wheat in your online business. You can’t spend 4 hours on Facebook, chatting with friends and family and expect to achieve result with your blog.

It’s not going to happen that way.

There is a better way.

Branson advises that you ‘focus on the essentials.’ Spend time creating videos if your target audience prefers to watch rather than read. If your readers enjoy step by step tutorials, then don’t cast your egg on twitter or article writing on those directories.

Write more tutorials. When you do this, you’re focusing on the essential aspects of your blogging business and soonest, you’re going to start generating income from your efforts.

4. Get results

When I say results, I mean MONEY, FAME and COMMUNITY. These are the 3 essential achievements for any blogger out there and until you achieve those, you should not relent or abandon your blog.

A special thank you to Richard Branson for inspiring me, and making me realise I’ve the best idea, best strategy and the right people to actualize my BIG goals in life. I’m sure you now have a deeper focus and a changed mindset for your blogging business?

What is the best blogging advice you’ve ever received and from who? Leave a comment and let’s enjoy the conversation. Meet me at the top!

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All Your Online Marketing Needs with Wishpond

written by Michael Kwan on July 20, 2014

London Drugs. YYoga. Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto Sports Bar and Restaurant. What do all of these businesses have in common? They all use Wishpond to power some aspect of their online marketing efforts. Whether you need to build up a new landing page from scratch to sell your new e-book, perform some A/B split testing to see which landing page has the best conversion rates, or you want to launch a fun giveaway to build up your Facebook fan base, Wishpond has an app for you. Today’s review will take a look at some of the key features and tools that Wishpond brings to the table.

Your All-in-One Marketing Solution

As you make your way around the Wishpond product tour, you’ll quickly discover that it really is the Swiss Army knife of the online marketing world. There are several web-based tools that are easily accessible from the main dashboard, once you log into your account.

You may have encountered some of the different website builder providers on the web. The browser-based wizard in Wishpond works in much the same way for designing your own custom landing pages. You start with one of their many templates and then you can adapt it to suit your particular purpose. If you’re reasonably comfortable with a word processor or with something like WordPress, then you should have no trouble using this visual editor.

From there, you can split off and create an alternate landing page, right from the same tool without leaving that screen. In fact, you can create as many alternate landing pages that you’d like for your A/B split testing, all of which is managed by Wishpond itself. You can do the same thing for your various online forms, including those you might embed on your Facebook page. Wishpond can also handle your ad campaigns, your email marketing list and more.

Powering Your Social Contests

One way how you can use Wishpond to empower your online marketing efforts is online contests and promotions. Running a great giveaway on your website, Twitter, Facebook or wherever else can really help to grow your brand awareness and develop that online fan base.

The Wishpond visual wizard was really easy to follow. I simply populated each of the different fields in the editor, providing the title, contest details, fine print and primary image. Basic formatting for the text is supported here too, so you can use bold, bullets, alignments and so on. Wishpond will automatically optimize the content to be viewed both on desktops and mobile devices.

When you’re ready to go live with your contest, Wishpond provides you with the simple Javascript to paste onto your website or blog. Alternatively, your giveaway can be hosted on Wishpond itself, or posted via Twitter or Facebook. You also get a number of options for the entry method, like asking for a Captcha or getting users to upload the photo from Instagram or their computer. The wizard walks you through the whole thing and your contest can be up and running instantly.

Landing Pages, Ad Management, Leads Database…

It would be impossible for me to go over all of the different apps and tools that Wishpond offers. Even if we look only at the possible contests, Wishpond can also power a photo contest, a Pinterest contest, a referral promotion, a video contest, a photo caption contest, and much more.

Do you want to amp up your advertising by offering a coupon code? Wishpond can do that too. It can also be used to power a group offer. Want to have a slick pop-up to encourage people to join your mailing list? That utility is built into Wishpond too. And yes, there’s also the tools for handling your email list, as well as the leads database for all the leads you generate through your landing pages and contests.

Pricing Plans

Wishpond comes in four different pricing plans, including a white label solution.

All of the plans comie with unlimited campaigns, dedicated customer support and online ads, and they all have a 14-day free trial. You will need to upgrade to the Plus plan to get like-to-see fan-gating; the Pro plan ads the leads database, email marketing, and advanced options like custom entry forms and CSS.

If you like how Wishpond is working for you and your company, you can help spread the word to other companies and make quite a few bucks doing it through the affiliate program. It pays out a 30% lifetime commission, so if someone signs up for the $69/month Pro plan, you earn a recurring monthly commission of $20.70 from just that one referral.

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How To Become An Authority In Your Niche

written by John Chow on July 19, 2014

On this edition of the Dot Com Lunch, we decided to mix things up a bit.

Instead of showing the normal video with food and stuff, Oscar and I decided to use the episode to discuss current topics and answer a reader’s question.

The question was how do I become an authority in my niche? In other words, how do I become the expert that everyone goes to? It’s a great question, and I have an equally great answer.

In addition to telling you how to become the authority, we debate a new study that says once you make $100,000 a year, making more will not make you happier. I call BS on that.

Also, Sally wants to play Mindcraft.