What separates guys like Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and Felix Dennis from the rest of us?

It’s not their IQ levels. Each are ridiculously intelligent in their own right, but not one of these guys are rocket scientists by trade.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to focus his efforts on a budding software company called Microsoft.

Felix Dennis got booted from one university and dropped out of another before building a publishing powerhouse off the success of magazines like PC World and Maxim.

Dropping out of college? Getting kicked out? Not exactly a-typical genius behavior.

So if these none of these guys are intellectuals (at least not by traditional measures), what is it that sets them apart from 98% of the population?

In a word: Mindset.

Determination. Chutzpah. Never say die. Call it what you will, but guys like Dennis and Gates refuse to give up on their passions–no matter how many stones are placed in their way.

Developing the right mindset for business ownership is a topic Donald Trump has written about extensively. And for good reason, it might be the most important character trait you need to get rich.

Starting any type business won’t be easy and you shouldn’t do it just for money. You must love what you’re doing. Because it’s this love—or passion–that will get you through the hard times in your business.

In Think Big, by Donald Trump and Bill Zanker, they outline three components of a successful business mindset within the first two chapters. Use this checklist to ensure you’re starting a business you can see through the hard times.

Passion: Owning a business is tough. If you’re not 100% into what you’re doing, you probably won’t see the project through. You’ve really got to believe in what you’re doing.

Doer: A lot of people have good ideas. But without the courage to take action on them, they won’t do you a lick of good.

Kick Ass:  Do you have the energy to kick ass in your business long term? Through thick and through thin? If not, reconsider going into business for yourself.

If you can answer yes to these three questions, you’re on your way to developing a million-dollar mindset that can help you dominate any market. Get out there and crush it.

I’m in the process of setting up the sales page for my upcoming Enterprise SEO information product. (You can check out the latest version of the page here.)

It’s the first time putting together a sales page and it’s been more of a challenge to put together than I had hoped.

But that’s internet marketing.

Learning, testing and adapting until you get it right–even though following through sucks sometimes.

Designing a Sales Page is Hard.

I’ve always liked the way my sales page looked above the fold: the video element, headline, the bullet points. They rock.

After that, everything pretty much sucked.

I decided to submit my page for review on the Warrior Forum and Digital Point to get a few pointers from people who’ve been there.

Be Careful When You Ask For Honesty in a Forum

The feedback was ugly, but honest. One fellow on the Warrior Forum said out of a possible score of 1 – 10, my page was a – 5.

Sick burn.

I think my fellow warriors analysis was a bit harsh, but I’ll let you be the judge in the screen capture below. Let me know what you think of my first at bat in the comments.

Click Here To See The Original Sales Page

Sometimes the truth hurts. But I took the advice to heart and began to trudge through a number of the recommendations.

A Few of the Changes

1.) I made my ad copy more concise. Some people are good at covering every possible objection that could possibly come to mind, but that’s not my forte.

I decided to cut out 50% of the cud content. What’s left was almost entirely rewritten. I’ll be condensing this even further before this process is over.

2.) To paraphrase Cartman from the hit TV series South Park, I needed people to respect my authority when they hit my sales page. They must understand I’m not trying to turn a quick buck with this product and that I’m delivering a product they can use to build a real business that could change their life.

The solution, I’ve added numerous logos from some authoritative websites I’ve been published on. After the initial launch of my product, I’ll be able to add some real testimonials of people that have used my product.

3.) Other smallish changes include:

• Added some bold and italicized text to make the content more dynamic.
• Switched up my buy now button–made it bigger more descriptive, not a stock E-Junkie button.
• Added a 30-day money back guarantee.

I could tell you a lot more about the trials and tribulations of designing my first real sales page, but I’d rather hear what you have to say. What would you change about my sales page?

I encourage you to be honest and unforgiving. It will only make my sales page stronger.

I’m no expert when it comes to outsourcing. I’ve paid my dues fumbling and bumbling among various web designers, content writers, and virtual assistants struggling to find help that’s cost effective and competent.

But I’ve had a number of emails land in my inbox this week asking how I find and hire superstar “virtual” employees so I figured I would share my techniques for locating and hiring talent.

First, there are plenty of locations for hire competent outsourced employees online like BestJobs.ph. But personally, I start my search at good ol’ Craigslist Manilla.

There are a few reasons I begin my search in the Phillpines: the workforce is abundant, talented, affordable and easy to communicate with. I use Craiglist because its free. I can get into some of the reasons I choose the Phillipines in a future post, but from personal experience I’ve been a lot happier outsourcing there than India.

This is the process I’ve developed for finding and hiring outsourced employees.  It’s process that’s still a work in progress, but I’ve found some respectable talent applying these steps if you’re willing to kiss a few toads along the way.

1.) The first step is all on you. When you post a job listing on Craigslist Manila be as complete and accurate with the job description as possible to attract the right pool of applicants. An inbox of .Net programmers won’t do you a lot of good when you’re looking for a graphic designer so don’t make your description too broad.

2.) Instruct the applicants to use a unique title when applying for the position. Try something creative like “I’m a WordPress Ninja” to make you appear more personable and fun to work with.

Instructions like this will ensure the applicant has actually read your job post and can follow a simple instruction, but it will help to easily organize applicants in your email account. Anyone with an incorrect title won’t be considered for the position. You can swiftly chop through a quarter of the applicants this way.

3.) After submitting the job opportunity I like to wait 3 – 4 days to capture a decent pool of nibblers. Knowing the nature of Craiglist Manila and the lack of decent paying jobs in the Phillipines right now (sound familiar?), you’ll find more than enough qualified applicants in this time frame.

4.) Once you’ve located three or four potential candidates that match your specifications, start reaching out to them. This is where the real work begins. You can begin by asking some preliminary questions like work availability, what kind turn arounds for work should be expected, etc.

But where you’ll really be find be able to out whether or not the applicant would be a worthwhile employee is in these next the next few emails and a small test assignment. And I’ll tell you all about in my next post.

Is PPC the right advertising medium for your SEO/SEM business?

First of all, there are virtually no markets that people like you have NOT been able to make a profit in using Google AdWords, including an SEO business.

But you’ve got to do your homework first to make it work.

I started out learning PPC from Perry Marshall’s Definative Guide to Google Adwords. Here, I learned the basics and a some advanced PPC strategies that would have taken me months of trial, error, and wasted money to figure out.

Nearly every imaginable business out there – including search-engine marketing – has potential customers going on line right this minute looking for SEO solutions … solutions just like you offer.

Wouldn’t you like to get your name in front of them and start bringing those clicks to your site, instead of a competitors?

You can sign up for Perry’s course, “5 Days to Success with Google AdWords,” right now. It’s free to download and the same way I got started with pay-per click marketing:

5 Days to Success with Google Adwords

Enjoy the course!