by Cynthia Kiteley Lee
Brad Weinman is an entrepreneur, artist, author and entomologist--among other things. A complex, passionate and engagingly eccentric man with a wide range of talents and interests, Brad is a true American individualist who marches to his own drummer. At age 40 he has achieved the American dream but, typically, has done so on his own terms.
In addition to being wealthy, enjoying excellent health, a happy marriage and a beautiful home, Brad has created a life of leisure that allows him ample time to travel extensively, write, paint, collect bugs (that’s what entomologists do) and tinker around on his 1968 Pontiac Firebird muscle car. He says "it’s like I’m on vacation all the time, only I’m making money all the time too."
"When your income becomes effortless, it’s just numbers; kind of like a report card. When wealth becomes a familiar, well established reality in your life, you get less excited and intense about making money and just start having fun with all the time and resources that are available to you. I pop out of bed like a piece of toast in the mornings. I haven’t used an alarm clock in 15 years. The line between work and play has become totally blurred for me."
It was Brad’s extraordinary professional and financial success using what he calls "attraction marketing" strategies that made it possible for him to create this "dream come true" lifestyle. After just a little over 10 years as an online marketer, Brad has worked his way to the top of the marketing mountain in terms of his achievements and recognition from other top Internet marketers.
Brad explains attraction marketing this way: "....take care of your prospects, and they'll take care of you. And that's the primary foundation for what attraction marketing is all about. It's a radically honest approach to marketing based on integrity and common sense that only a small percentage of online entrepreneurs fully understand."
You can get the deep scoop on Brad’s attraction marketing strategies in his recently published e-book, "The Attraction Marketing Blueprint – How To ‘Brand’ Yourself And Attract An Endless Stream Of Prospects." There are no secrets, no under the radar strategies and no fluff in his 165-page book, just straight shooting, common sense and clear step-by-step guidance.
Branding is a term used by professional marketers to describe the distinctive identity, claim to fame and/or unique benefits of a business, product or person.
Attraction marketing techniques produce prospects that chase after you--instead of you chasing after prospects. You become hunted instead of being the hunter. Most of us would far prefer to be eagerly sought after than to desperately chase after prospects and endure endless rejection.
Passion Fuels Action
A lifelong resident of southern California, Brad thought it was perfectly natural to find ways to make money when he was still a kid. After all, his father owned an auto parts store and was self-employed. Then too, there was the call of the arcade.
Brad fondly recalls that "Saturday was my big day for hanging out at the arcades. It wasn’t unusual for me to go up and knock on doors to generate income for the arcades. I knew what I wanted; I wanted to be able to support my gaming habit. I started using my dad’s lawn mower to mow lawns. At first I did it at home to help earn my allowance; then I rounded up some buddies and we drummed up business mowing lawns in the neighborhood. I earned enough to buy a lot of bubble gum and feed a lot of coins into slot machines."
In high school he discovered a passion and talent for drawing and painting and decided to become a professional illustrator. More precisely, Brad made a commitment to become a self-employed freelance illustrator and focused on this goal with great intensity for five and a half years at the Art Center College of Design of Pasadena. "That’s where I learned my discipline," says Brad. "It was a very intense experience, like boot camp."
Brad states that his "core desire was to master my craft and become a successful artist. I always knew exactly what I wanted and that made it easier for me to figure out what to do to achieve it. Those first few years after I graduated were pretty lean, but that was also the time I met, fell in love with and married a beautiful Italian woman, Chiara. Marrying her was one of the greatest blessings of my life. She has been there for me through thick and thin."
"There are only two mistakes you should ever worry about making: 1) not taking action; 2) making the mistake of thinking that you’re right all the time and that you can never go back and improve on things that you’ve done or learned in the past. Everything else is basically just a learning experience."
Hard Work and Clear Goals Are Not Enough
Although Brad had agents representing him, did drawings of celebrities and was offered many kinds of painting and drawing jobs, his talent, effort and self-discipline were not enough to ensure that he had a regular or substantial income. He remembers that his "cash flow was always up and down and I couldn’t even think of taking a vacation unless I had a big cushion of extra funds in the bank. Sometimes I had to work seven days a week. Mostly I was just scraping by, keeping the bills paid and surviving instead of thriving financially." Note that getting a 9-to-5 day job working for someone else was never even a concept for Brad.
Brad’s financially frustrating lifestyle started to change for the better in 1998, when a friend introduced him to multi-level marketing, the concept of residual income and profit leveraging strategies. He stresses that "before I connected with that MLM home income opportunity, my dreams were like a pilot light; after that, they turned into an inferno."
Rediscover Your Dreams
Brad says:"Discovering the existence and potential of network marketing helped me to dream again. Most people let their dreams stay where their income is. As we grow older and get into the ‘real world’ and have to make a living, our dreams often tumble down to our income levels. Network marketing helped me to confront and overcome the inner junk that gets in the way of success. I realized that I needed to grow and stretch as a person if I was going to grow and stretch my income".
Having a good mindset is key. Sure, learning how to market is important, but having a proper mindset is 75% of the game."
Like many if not most of MLM newcomers, Brad struggled and stumbled around and, after 11 months, was so burned out on organizing, hosting and attending MLM opportunity meetings in homes and hotels that he was almost ready to throw in the towel. Then he discovered a program that offered members pre-qualified leads, generic training in Internet marketing and an affiliate opportunity. He was delighted by the realization that he could run his MLM business with just a computer and a phone and not have to use hotels anymore.
Communication Is Key
"The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work." – Robert T. Kiyosaki
The quote above is one that Brad often shares with others and agrees with wholeheartedly. He points out that simply being willing to make a consistent, serious effort to communicate with people online and on the phone will inevitably create a network for you.
. According to the widely used Meyers Briggs personality test, Brad is "a recovering introvert with outgoing tendencies." He claims that he is "really a shy and private person, so I had to push myself to ‘reach out and touch somebody’–over and over again. I was much happier, and did much better, using the phone and email to communicate with my downline members and prospects instead of meetings."
Over time, Brad expanded his multi-level marketing empire. He joined two other programs, built very large downlines in them and started earning a six figure income. He also tried his hand at direct sales. After almost eight years of MLM empire building, Brad was getting burned out.
He "was working 6-10 hours a day on the phone, doing lots of three-way calls, and just wasn’t having fun anymore." About two and a half years ago, Brad left the world of conventional multi-level marketing for the little known but highly profitable passive income programs arena. His large network of friends and associates proved to be an invaluable resource in his new career as an investor, webmaster and newsletter publisher.
"The people who make the most money have the biggest circles of influence, not the biggest lists. When you focus on building relationships instead of building your list or building your downline, you become a person of influence, whom others trust, like and appreciate."
Passive Income Profits
One of Brad’s network marketing friends discovered online passive income programs and ended up being able to totally phase out his network marketing activities because it was so much easier to make money with passive income investments. Passive income programs allowed Brad to "get my life back and get my precious time back."
Brad was electrified by the realization that he could make lots of money without having to recruit a single solitary soul. He was also amazed by having stumbled across a "whole new industry; it was like a subculture that I never even guessed existed."
.After spending a few months researching this exotic industry, Brad concluded thatt 90 percent of the opportunities were just scams and ponzis. He did find some golden sheaves of wheat in among all the chaff, however, and this small number of legitimate programs became the "niche market" that Brad proceeded to specialize in.
Brad learned the hard way that passive income programs can be quite volatile and short-lived. He "got burned a few times" and admits to having lost more one year than most people make in a year. His old multi-level marketing buddies were very interested in learning more about the programs that were working for Brad, and also wanted him to let them know which ones to avoid.
Writer & Publisher
It got tedious and time consuming to reply to all the requests for information on passive income programs individually, so Brad put together a one-page document that provided some basic background info and some of his own affiliate program links that he sent out instead. Brad’s "info sheet" evolved into a sizeable newsletter that now goes out every month to over 3,500 subscribers. Brad even created his own affiliate program at one point.
The transformation of his career and lifestyle was rapid and dramatic. In less than three years, he first doubled and then tripled the high income he had made as a multi-level marketer, drastically slashed the number of hours he had to work to create and maintain his income and discovered how good it felt to introduce people to programs that let them make a profit easily, without struggle, and without having to sell or recruit..
A very significant chunk of Brad’s earnings in passive income programs comes from commissions and bonuses that he earns from recruits, however. Many people got to know, like and trust Brad while he was an MLM marketer, so he had a strong network and "following" when he made the switch from multi-level marketing to passive income opportunities. To sign up for his newsletter visit this link: http://www.whoisbradweinman.com/
First Give, Then Get
Brad stresses that you need to "give first to get. If you’re truly committed to helping your fellow human beings and if you’re an authentic, caring person, people will be attracted to you. If you are just looking out for number one, you won’t be successful."
He recommends that, in addition to networking and relationship building, marketers "become an expert; give people great information. Have a "front end" program where you give great information and you get paid for it. When people purchase that great information, they are also, in effect, paying you for the privilege of being added to your list and joining your circle of influence
"Over time, as they get more great information from you through your newsletters or other emails,.they develop an appreciation for what you give them and a greater willingness to respond to your recommendations and give you some money. None of this is rocket science; it’s just that everybody is in too big of a hurry to get and not focused enough on giving and building quality relationships."
Serving others is a core commitment for Brad. He says that he "finds it incredibly fulfilling to help others experience the thrill of making money without all the struggles and setbacks most people have experienced in connection with recruiting."
Brad carefully researches and evaluates all the passive income programs and other resources that are featured in his newsletter, but he also makes it clear to his subscribers that there are no guarantees against losing money and that they should use only "discretionary" income that, if lost, would not cause financial setbacks for them. Quite a few of Brad’s recommended passive income programs cost a few hundred or thousand dollars to join, but there are programs that are modest in cost as well.
It’s All About Relationships
The Internet is being inundated with new entrepreneurs hungry for solid information and trustworthy guides to help them avoid the perils and master the challenges of doing business online and successfully establishing a home-based business.
Brad notes that: "It’s an exciting time. More and more people are starting to wake up to the idea that their job is not going to give them what they want and that they are renting a lifestyle unless they can create some personal wealth.
"Success on the Internet is not about finding the right program, or the right product, or the right position under the right super-marketer sponsor who gives you the right amount of spillover signups. The most successful marketers online are those who brand themselves, give high value information and support to their people and build a responsive network of people who know, like and trust them. Relationships are your equity. In the end, it’s all about relationships."
Brad Weinman has penetrated the depths of marketing psychology and scaled the heights of marketing achievement. His strategies require time and sustained effort to work well, but his own success is an inspiring example of just how powerful and effective attraction marketing can be.
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Written by Cynthia Kiteley Lee (Copyright 2007 - all rights reserved). Lee is the founder of http://www.lifemoreabundantclub.com a group dedicated to "Combining Faith, Friends, Fun & Freebies With Making Money On the Internet." A free Club newsletter is available at http://www.lifemoreabundantclub.com/freenewsletter.html . If you would like Lee to write a profile-interview for you, you can contact her at: abundantlife@cox.net .
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