Do you know this story?

A scorpion needs to cross the river. He asks a friendly-looking frog to carry him across.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” asks the frog. “You’re a scorpion. You’ll sting and kill me.”

“No I won’t,” says the scorpion. “That would be completely against my self interest. If I sting you, I’ll fall in the river and drown.”

The frog sees the sense in this and agrees to carry the scorpion across the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings him.

“Why did you do that?” asks the dying frog.

“I’m a scorpion,” answers the drowning scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

Who are you asking to take you across the river?

This painful little story illustrates something we’ve all seen, but sometimes forget.

Lie down with dogs and you’ll get fleas. Do business with scorpions, and you’ll get stung.

For some reason, until recently, most practical information about how to succeed in online business has come from scorpions.

People who see prospective customers as prey to be hunted. People who teach unethical shortcuts. People who preach games and systems, not value and relationships.

Some of the scorpions have interesting things to say. Some of them are even brilliant. And many of them can teach you good techniques.

But they’re scorpions. And you don’t want to find yourself at their mercy when you’re halfway across the river.

Things are changing . . . fast

Have you noticed? Something fascinating is happening in the world of Internet marketing.

Maybe it’s the widespread adoption of social media that’s made the difference. When everyone can Facebook, Twitter, and blog, all of a sudden it’s very hard for the scorpions to pretend to be good guys. The shortcuts get revealed. The light gets turned on to show the little (and large) deceptions.

The flip side is, now it’s easier than ever for great stuff to get found. If you’re glorious, people start talking about you. Word of mouth becomes “word of click.” And the good guys start finishing first.

Copyblogger was an outlier from the beginning. Brian taught his readers how to combine direct response marketing (a tool that was too good to leave to the scorpions) with content and social media to deliver amazing value to potential customers.

And there were certainly others. Chris Brogan devoting himself to his audience for 11 years to create his “overnight success,” built on integrity and connection. Darren Rowse, unofficial Nicest Fellow in the Blogosphere, showing up tirelessly to create value for his readers and help them become “probloggers” in their own right.

The ranks started to swell. We’ve been lucky enough to have many of them write for us in the past year or two. Naomi Dunford. Dave Navarro. Chris Garrett. Johnny B. Truant. Laura Roeder. James Chartrand.

These are people who don’t choose to be (or hang out with) scorpions. People who went back to just offering real solutions, developing fantastic relationships with their customers, and building solid businesses around that.

The Third Tribe is coming

Almost a year ago, this “new” (actually old) way of doing business started to be known as the Third Tribe. We had no use for the scorpions, but we didn’t want to be the clueless frog, either. We wanted to make a good living and be decent people. And we rejected (ok, I’ll be honest, mocked) anyone who tried to tell us we couldn’t.

We knew better. We were doing it. And it was working.

Brian and I instantly saw that this intersection was the future of Copyblogger. And, in fact, that it was the future for the smartest online entrepreneurs — the ones who wanted to build the most interesting, most profitable businesses.

So for the past few months, Brian and I, along with some clever co-conspirators, have been building something for you. A place for the Third Tribe to come together. To share ideas and inspiration. To educate ourselves about marketing and business techniques — effective techniques that respect our audiences and preserve our relationships. To grow farther and faster than any of us could alone.

If you’re already subscribed to the free Copyblogger newsletter, Internet Marketing for Smart People, you can relax. You’re going to be getting all of the details in the next few days.

If not, you may want to fix that now. Our newsletter readers will be the very first to hear about the new project, and have a chance to take advantage of a ludicrous sweet offer.

If you’re curious about it (or frankly, if you’d just like to take advantage of a free 20-lesson course on what smart Internet marketers are doing in 2010), click here to sign up for the newsletter. It’s free, it’s got good stuff, and it’s where you’ll be able to find out all about the new Third Tribe project.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and a co-founder of Inside the Third Tribe.

So I’ve created something brand new, and it occurred to me it would be pretty silly if I didn’t let you know about it.

I put it together in response to a lot of frustration I was hearing about overwhelm. We’ve got hundreds of great resources. All kinds of good advice about this big, complicated problem of marketing.

But it’s like trying to drink from a firehose. There’s too much, it’s coming too fast, and it can be impossible to get your bearings so you can actually take action and move forward.

I thought it would be useful to put together my own take on a marketing blueprint, a step-by-step process on how to do “our kind” of marketing. (That’s marketing that rests on delivering exceptional value, communicating total respect for our customers, and creating remarkable relationships.)

It’s not just for bloggers, but bloggers find the tools particularly easy to adopt.

If that sounds like something you might find valuable, I hope you’ll check out the details for the Remarkable Marketing Blueprint.

The blueprint is a step-by-step marketing course, and it’s available at an extremely attractive price, but only until 5 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Monday, December 7, when I’m planning on closing the course to new students. When we re-open in 2010, the price will be bumped up to something more reasonable.

Click here to check it out before the charter pricing goes away.

Hi there, my name is Scott Tousignant, friend of Lynn Terry and your guest blogger here at Clicknewz for the next five days. I’ll be helping you adopt a new healthy approach to Internet Marketing and guiding you along the way of transforming your business, fitness, and life.

To encourage you to participate in this process I am going to randomly select a winner from the comments shared on my posts this week. The winner will receive my Fat Loss Quickie home office fitness program and all the bonuses that come with it. So don’t be shy with your comments

During the journey of bringing your online business ideas from start to profit it can become all too easy to focus exclusively on business while putting your fitness and life on hold. Have you caught yourself thinking, “Once I complete this project and get some money rolling in I’ll have more time to spend with my family and begin a fitness program.”

How has this way of thinking affected your health and relationships with your family members? Have you gained a bit of weight? Is your partner beginning to feel distant from you? Are your kids upset that they only get to see the back of your head while you sit at the computer?

Focusing solely on your business can cause a great deal of stress on you mentally and physically, doing more harm than good toward your online success.

Astonishing as it may sound, your level of fitness plays a much bigger role in your business than you ever imagined. Your health truly is the #1 asset in your online business. You can’t afford not to take care of it.

Internet Marketers are a unique breed and as an Internet Marketer you deserve a unique fitness approach that suits your lifestyle. Today I’m going to show you how easy it is to incorporate fitness into your workday starting with these simple desk exercises that you can perform as often as possible throughout your workday.

Home Office Fitness Tips

Did you have to go into the attic, closet, or kids play area to pull out the stability ball you purchased ages ago and swore that you were going to use? If you don’t already have a stability ball I highly recommend that you get yourself one. They are inexpensive and incredibly versatile in what you can do with them. You can pick one up at WalMart for just over $10 or find one at Amazon as well.

You may still be thinking to yourself, “What exactly does fitness have to do with business?” To answer this question all that you have to do is take a look at what BIG business and corporations are doing. Pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch your local news and chances are that you’ll hear about the measures corporations are taking to improve the health of their workforce. Everyday my Google Alerts are filled with articles about corporations placing more focus on workplace fitness.

It would be nice to think that they are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts and that they truly care about your well-being, (Some corporations may feel this way.) But the bottom line is… it’s all about PROFIT!

Corporations are looking to do everything that they can to lower their expenses and increase revenue. Adopting a workplace fitness program is one of the few things that can do both. The #1 reason that many corporations are taking great initiative to get their employees more active is to reduce their health care costs, which is a huge expense. Other reasons are; reducing absenteeism, sick days, stress, and lost productivity.

The great news is that a significant number of corporations have been reporting positive feedback about the impact that workplace fitness having on reducing their expenses.

Workplace fitness can have an even greater impact on increasing the revenue of these businesses through increased productivity, focus, energy, improving quality of work, time management, mood, and creativity, just to name a few.

When you have a workforce that can get more done in less time, rarely call in sick and are happy, confident, and proud… your business is going to succeed.

Even in these tough economic times corporations have been pouring more money into workplace fitness because they are recognizing the impact that it has on their business and profits.

But you are a home business and don’t have any employees, what does this have to do with you?

Everything! You are the president, CEO, manager, and employee of your business. If you’re sick, depressed, have low energy levels, can’t focus and easily get distracted, you are costing your online business money. Yet if you make simple changes to embrace home office fitness and incorporate it into your workday you can expect to see the same positive impacts that corporations see in increased revenue and profits.

This isn’t a huge monumental task. You don’t need to spend hours at the gym each week and you don’t need to starve yourself or follow some crazy diet plan. Like I said, as an Internet Marketer you are incredible and unique and you deserve an approach that suits your lifestyle and is easier to stick with for the long term.

Over the course of the next 5 days I’ll be demonstrating some fast and fun ways for you to incorporate home office fitness into your workday. I challenge you to follow along and report the impact that it has on your online business. I know that you can do it, especially with the support of the amazing community that Lynn has built here.

With this being Thanksgiving week and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season here, there is no better time to adopt a more active and healthy lifestyle. Take charge of your health and create the quality of life that you deserve. This isn’t something that you want to put off until tomorrow. Start today!

You ROCK!

Scott Tousignant

PS Lack of time is no excuse for putting off your health. During the next 5 days you’ll discover how home office fitness will actually give you more time in your day so you can do the things that you enjoy most in life.

Last month I published The FTC Update – In Plain English, but even with that in-depth post I still get questions about the FTC guides on a daily basis. I thought we’d take a moment to clear a few things up, and put your mind at ease a bit.

There’s a lot of hype surrounding this topic, some alarmist type talk – things like “10’s of thousands of dollars in fines” or “expect letters from the FTC starting Dec 1st” or “The FTC will freeze all of your accounts while they investigate claims”.

Some of it is a little over the top (in my opinion). Most of this is coming from people who have new products they are promoting to help you become ‘FTC Compliant’…

The FTC has gone out of their way to address the blogging community. They have reached out to address our concerns through videos, interviews, Q&A series and detailed examples. I’ll share those with you here as well…

What’s new about the Endorsement Guides?

Why did the FTC update the Endorsement Guides?

What do the Endorsement Guides mean for bloggers?

How do bloggers follow the Endorsement Guides?

Is the FTC planning to sue bloggers?

Where to go for more information…

One of the biggest questions I hear is: Where should I put the disclosure? Do I need to make a statement beside every single link?

As for where disclosure about relationships should go, whether that be affiliates or sponsored mentions, Fast Company interviewed Richard Cleland – the assistant director of the division of advertising at the FTC, in a post titled FTC Responds to Blogger Fears: “That $11,000 Fine Is Not True”, and he said:

“Disclosures can be made in different ways, whether you make it outside of the text but in proximity to blog, or incorporate it into the blog discussion itself–those are the issues that bloggers will have discretion about.”

He went on to clarify that the government is not out to slap 5-figure fines on violating bloggers, but rather that they may receive a warning and an opportunity to comply. He states there will be no monetary penalty on the first violation.

To quote Mary Engle of the FTC:
“We just want to bring some transparency to the process.”

I’ve done a sponsored blog post (link) and a product review (link) in the last month, both of which stand as good examples of simple compliance. I qualified my atypical results in the product review, and I stated right in the sponsored post that it was an advertisement and opened the floor for discussion on the service.

When doing book reviews, I simply need to disclose if I received a press copy. If I bought the book myself at a local book store or on Amazon.com, I can shout my opinion from my blog all I like – without any sort of statement.

But there’s nothing wrong with writing a blog post about a press copy of a book you receive in the mail, or a free product a company sends you, as long as you mention that in your blog post or review.

I highly recommend you go back and read my original FTC post and the links included, which will give you facts and examples – and real answers.

I hope this helps calm some of the alarm and fear over the new FTC guides.

Best,

p.s. Another common concern is the use of endorsements and testimonials, and specifically “atypical results”. I’ll address that in my next post, along with a creative new idea you’ll love! You can subscribe below to get notification by email:

You know that “inner child” we hear so much about — the one that’s supposedly deep inside of all of us?

Well, I live with it. As a matter of fact, I call him “Austin.”

In the five years I’ve been a parent, I’ve realized that the notion of the inner child is more than just a neat psychological construct. It’s very nearly a literal thing. As we grow up, we don’t change so much as drape layer after complicated layer of adult emotion on top of that inner child. The child doesn’t vanish; he just gets obscured and filtered.

You don’t get an evolved, new mature being. You get Austin with fifteen blankets over his head.

Because that kid always remains at our core (and if you’ve ever caught yourself playing kids’ games with genuine enjoyment, you know that it does), our base motivations remain as well. They just get a little harder to see.

Kids ask for love; adults have complicated passive-aggressive relationships. Kids eat what tastes good; adults want the cupcake, but worry about it going straight to their thighs.

So you want to learn about marketing? Well, despite the complicated models and terminology that some of the gurus use, it’s actually quite simple. To see what works and why, all you have to do is look to my boy.

Make the customer “want that”

When the TV is on in our house, there are sometimes twelve sequential minutes of relative quiet. Then, as the commercials come on, we get a loud play-by-play as Austin begins talking loudly to nobody:

“I want that.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I want that. That last thing. Not that; the thing before.”

It’s easy to dismiss this as incredibly annoying, but if you think about it, it’s actually really revealing.

(OK, it’s incredibly annoying too.)

Without all of those complex adult filters, kids are a conduit to something we don’t normally allow in the adult world: pure desire. There are none of the shoulds and should nots, no rationalizations and thoughts of what is proper or responsible.

That kid is still inside everyone. So the dead-simple lesson is this: Every sale starts with pure desire. Customers either “want that” or they don’t. The rest is just mental gymnastics to justify that core emotion.

Know what your customer really wants

Recently, Austin stormed through a six pack of kids’ yogurt so that we’d buy more, because each six pack had a tiny, ridiculous comic book inside. Yoplait could have filled those containers with shredded paper and they still would have gotten our dollars if Austin had his way.

Did he want the yogurt? Not so much. He wanted the comic book.

Similarly, we sometimes go to McDonald’s because of the dumb little toys they stick in Happy Meals. Or because of the giant playlands they have everywhere.

I have this experiment I keep meaning to try: I want to tell Austin that McDonald’s serves food, because I think he may be surprised to learn it. We don’t go to McDonald’s for the food. We go for the Batmobile that fires a small plastic stick at the back of my head while I’m driving.

Now . . . Wendy’s? We don’t go to Wendy’s. Their kids’ meal prizes are audiobooks on CD. Bleh. Same basic food, but none of what the boy really wants.

Interestingly, as I write this, I’m sitting at a Borders book store. There’s also a Barnes & Noble in town, but they don’t have as many big poofy chairs to sit in, and their ambient music is too loud. Apparently both stores have the same books, but I wouldn’t know that because I just come here to buy a latte and work in a comfortable chair.

Don’t lie to your customers

Cheers to McDonald’s for recognizing that small toys will get kids in the door. But jeers to our local managers for failing the “implied contract with the customer” test.

Recently, my wife and I were assaulted by a barrage of McDonald’s requests because the current pieces of plastic junk that the clerks were dropping into Happy Meals were Bakugan figures, which are Japanese balls that transform into things. (Don’t ask.)

My wife took Austin once and he returned angry, showing me a nondescript plastic Pancho Villa-like figure with a spinning sombrero. Later, I took him and despite the display for Bakugan, we again walked away with a bogus replacement — a miniature stuffed monkey.

Twice burned, Austin’s McDonald’s lust backed off significantly. And, seeing as our son had been lied to twice, my wife and I instituted a temporary boycott.

Associative conditioning works

We often buy SpongeBob SquarePants macaroni and cheese. It’s terrible. For some reason, a complicated spongelike lattice doesn’t present cheese and pasta in a pleasing ratio. And yet Austin eats it and requests it again and again because SpongeBob is on the box.

I tested the limits of this adoration yesterday over dinner. Austin hates lettuce more than anything in the world, so I asked him if he would eat lettuce that had SpongeBob printed on the leaves and came with a free coloring book. He was all over it.

Then he got mad at me when I told him that such lettuce didn’t exist.

Of course, this only works on small children. Only kids are dumb enough to fall for such a simple trick, right?

Um, not quite. Most advertising is based around associative conditioning, which is taking something that you already like and pairing it with something that they want you to like. Or with someone you already like, in the form of a celebrity (or sponge) endorsement.

You may not buy terrible macaroni because a cartoon tells you to, but you buy Nikes because LeBron James endorses them. Or you buy a phone you can’t actually talk on because it’s white with a silver Apple on it. And if you don’t do those things, then I’ll bet you were buying Pepsi because of Michael Jackson back before they lit his hair on fire.

You may be standing up and denying angrily that you do any of those things, but billions of advertiser dollars say either that you’re quite unique or that you’re mistaken. Maybe you don’t come out and say, “Ooh, Tiger Woods. I want that!” but it happens anyway — deep down, at the inner child level.

Like so many things, marketing can appear way more complicated than it is. But marketing is simple — not always easy, but simple. In fact, it’s so simple that you may be overlooking the reasons it works when it does, and why it doesn’t work when it fails.

If you have kids, look to them. See what they like, and why they like it. See what pushes their buttons, because it’ll tell you a ton. Kids aren’t dumb. They’re just adults without all of those complicated outer layers.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is giving a free teleclass called Attract Clients, Lose the Stress, and Do What You Love tomorrow (November 12, 2009) with his marketing veteran mother. She knows Johnny’s inner child better than he does, because she lived with it for eighteen years.

Murray Newlands is an internet marketing veteran, a “green affiliate”, he runs his own affiliate network… and he is also known for conducting some of the best interviews on the net at his (new’ish) blog.

He recently published an interview with me, and I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions as well.

You may recognize Murray as a speaker at IzeaFest, or you may have seen him at any number of recent industry events. In this post, I’ll give you more of an inside look into Murray Newlands, and his history with marketing on the web…

Reading your bio, I saw that you were a lawyer up until the late 90’s when you transitioned into a full-time internet marketer.

Can you tell us what precipitated that transition, and why you chose such a dramatic career shift?

Well when you are 17 you choose what you are going to study at university in the UK you really do not know much about the other end. I qualified as a lawyer and I was on the National Committee for your solicitors and doing well but I did not like it.

I knew I wanted a change. My girlfriend at the time was a designer with a full time job and doing some freelance work. I took some time off work sold some design work and before you know it we had an agency.

How did this change your lifestyle? Dramatically, I imagine – for example, I noticed that you travel the world…

Well it has been quite a ride but a few years ago now I was lucky enough to work for the UK office of a US company and they kept bringing me to the US so that when I move on I kept my business contacts and things have developed from there.

You have a wide range of online business experience, and currently run your own affiliate network. Give us an inside look at what you do online, and what you offer.

For me online marketing is all about the people. From people flow great advertsing offers and great relationships with affiliates. Good advertisers and affiliates have a choose as to who they work with and they only work with people they want to. Most of what I do is finding out how to help people and then doing it. Who wants what leads or sale and who has traffic and needs offers.

I noticed that you just started blogging this year. In another interview you mentioned that you wish you had started blogging earlier.

Given this is your first year as a “blogger”, what would you advise others who are just now setting up their first blog?

Yup I started my Marketing Blog this year. Finding some good bloggers to give you advice and learn from them about how to succeed. The things I have learned the hard way that could have got my blog going so much faster but you live and learn.

Do learn about SEO and do get some blogging buddies.

Your blog content is great, by the way! Has blogging become a big part of your online marketing & exposure strategy?

My blog has become a big part of my online and offline exposure. I interview people on my blog and it has been a great way for me to reach out and connect with people who I would otherwise have never meat, both online and offline. I am running my first offline Blogging event in New York next week and I am very excited about that.

Prior to starting your blog, how did you market yourself online? What were/are your favorite marketing strategies?

Prior to blogging I used more forums and facebook a bit but looking back I did not really get online marketing in the same way. The thing I love about having my own blog is that I can make it what I want.

I’ve been around since the late 90’s as well, with a variety of online business models. I’d love to hear your take on how Social Media has changed the internet marketing space…

Social Media has brought consumers a voice which they did not have in the same way before and they have learned to use it to vocalize and mobilize discontent as well as delight. Social Media has in Obama’s case changed governments. If it can do that what can it do for your sales?

Marketers have learned that there are social media influencers many of whom are bloggers that can lead this conversation and blogger outreach programs are increasingly popular.

In a recent presentation at Izeafest, you shared a message on the current landscape titled “Content is Dead, Conversation is King”.

What top 3 ways would you recommend that people engage with their target market, or get involved in the conversations in their niche?

Top 3 hum…

-SEO is still a great way to engage people in your niche, by writing about topics your audience are searching for and having your good content found you can engage.

-Going to events and meeting people face to face and ask them about your niche and get their opinions, people like to be in a conversation where they talk.

-I have to say the T word Twitter, search for conversations on your chosen topics and engage in those conversations.

-I would also have to add blogging outreach. Find blogs in your niche and make constructive comments.

Networking seems to be key for you. I like how you seek out relationships, and look for opportunities to get fully engaged.

For those that cannot travel, what would you recommend as the best ways to meet and network online with others in their industry?

Simple. Find the people who do travel connect, and influence others and connect with them. Find their blogs and comment, friend them on facebook and comment on their status and twitter with them, converse online. It does take longer but I have many friends I converse with online. If you know people who do travel to events and connect online ask for introductions.

If you were consulting with an aspiring affiliate marketer, what advice would you give them for the start-up phase?

People thing then they are starting a business they will make money from the start, if often takes money and time to get going. Think about all those things you are good at and how much you have learned to get you there.

Find someone good to teach you and listen to them. It takes time and hard work, keep going. At the same time you have to bring your own thing to it to make it unique special different and successful.

- – – – – – – – – –

Thanks, Murray – it was a pleasure getting to know you!

Visit Murray on the web at www.MurrayNewlands.com

Best,