A Special Letter From Norman Freeman
I’d like to take a moment to share something special with you guys. I just got a wonderful open letter emailed to me today from a good friend of mine named Norman Freeman, who I met in 2007. In it, he talks about his life as an Internet Marketer and some of the hardships and triumphs he has had over the years. I just wanted to share his success story with all of you as he has told it to me.
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Open letter from Norman Freeman (http://www.viralinviter.com) about my life with Mike Filsaime ;)
My name is Norman Freeman, and I am a passionate Shortcut-Software-Developer and Usability fan.
Trying to minimize noise in my business, life, and in my software – for my customers.
I am a family father (one daughter), DJ and a kung-fu philosopher.
In my past life (until about 5 years ago) I was traveling the world as a Techno/Trance Music DJ and had a small record company (yes, with VINYL!), a dance club and a publishing company. (If you want to listen to some of my stuff, read on)
I am located near Berlin, Germany and besides DJing graduated from university as a software engineer/project manager.
In 2006 I came across Butterfly Marketing while teaching at a university in China.
It was the first “U.S. internet marketing” product I ever bought. I had it shipped to China and went through it in record time. I was so enthusiastic and was ready to get my ideas out.
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I DECIDED TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE BUSINESS!
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So I thought about what my first product should be. Some topic I indeed knew a lot about was DJing, so I started to create an ebook (written by ME, no ghostwriting! in just 30 days!) accompanied by 12 international star-DJ interviews – directly shot in those guys’ production studios or homes. It was a perfect product. I had viral report, teaser trailers, videos, and all that stuff in place. Even a comic and a specially developed illustrated character.
I spent about 10k on the development – web-membership site, graphics, videos, new camera, photos, interview-travel, etc. – my months of work not included!
But I DID IT. I just followed through and finally got it to launch.
You might think I was lucky, but it was hard work, I tell you!
I ended up having EVERYTHING (and more) prepared to…
MISERABLY FAIL!
Yes. That’s what I did. Months of hard work and a lot of money invested resulted in exactly 25 (!!!) sales of a $77 offer on launch day.
Wow, I’VE HAD IT!
…
Hell, I was so pumped up. I SO MUCH believed in this product. Frankly, I still think it’s one of the best things I ever created! Go to www.kingofdjs.com, subscribe and you get sent a preview chapter of the book to your email.
This day that was supposed to be my finest hour had become the worst in years. However, it quickly turned into one of the most important days in the “wind of change” that started to rule my life to become successful online.
For some reason, I knew I did not really fail.
I can’t explain it, but I still believed in the SYSTEM of selling stuff online (besides – it was the only way to reach my lifestyle-dream anyway…).
I just instantly knew I had to turn away from the DJ scene and sell solutions TO PEOPLE THAT ALREADY WANT WHAT I OFFER!
And I KNEW what I created there within just 4-5 months, I could do again.
This was one of the biggest A-HAs in my past 2 years.
So I turned around, actively looking for a product idea I could create that would help as many people as possible to save them time, effort or money. Or all of the above. :)
The idea to create Viralinviter (http://www.viralinviter.com) was born.
But this time, before creating the next product that’s ready to fail, I wanted to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that this is a smart way to go, so I made the
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SECOND DECISION (enforced by a very small thingy..)
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Before creating products for the online marketing community, I wanted to MEET those guru-people. In person. Face to face!
To check if they are all a bunch of scammers, you know..?
So I planned to attended Mike Filsaime’s 7figurebusiness workshop in January 2007.
But on January 3rd… SQUEEEEEEEZE. Plans crossed!
Unexpectedly – I swear! – On January 3rd, 2007, it came to my attention that I was actually GOING TO BE A DAD in late 2007!
Heck, YEAH! A great moment… :)
But wait….
Wasn’t the plan to be able to really fully support a family and to have enough time to enjoy with my kids BEFORE I am actually going to MAKE THEM?
Yeah, that WAS the plan!
So along came the time to make the
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THIRD DECISION
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I actually had a choice. I believe you always have one – even if they sometimes play hide and seek…
1. Go back to 9-5. I was pretty good a consultant for SEO in a multimedia agency I worked for before and I knew they would take me back. However, it would ruin my dream life from the start. I would actually STEP BACK FROM THE COURAGE TO CREATE MY OWN LIFE! And I could forget about the idea to spend as much time with my kids as possible right there…
2. I jump right on to what most of my friends called the “insecure” way: Build my own online business (and destiny, as a side-effect).
I knew I would never forgive myself if I wouldn’t even have TRIED to make my ideal life come true.
In fact, thinking about it I saw not one reason to not at least try it before I fall back to 9-5.
So, together with my wife…
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I made a decision on January 4th, 2007:
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I am going to New York to attend this event. And if I find the sales letters to be true, I am going to make my way there and be able to fully support my family AND work less within 24 months.
Side note about the 24 months: I expected my daughter to fully realize my presence and me being around her by the age of two, so I set this as the deadline to make a living online. I had no idea babies realize you are there FROM THE START!
However, decision made!
I flew from Berlin to New York on January 24th and on that weekend got to know Mike, Steven Pierce, Mr.X, Brad Fallon, Gary Ambrose, Keith Wellman, “The Rich Jerk”, Sterling Valentine, Michael Cheney, Jeff Walker, Rich Shefren and many more personally.
They all were actually very kind people I was able to make sure they were really making the money their sales letters claimed.
This was the day I gave myself permission to GO.
Lesson: Never seek anyone else’s permission – but make sure you get YOURS!!!
-> Side note: I also made 2nd place in the Foosball tournament held at the motel amongst all marketers who attended – defeated only by Diedrichs – He’s a machine!)
4 endless months later
Viralinviter was coded and ready to launch. But I was over-perfectionizing it. I wanted to build in more and more features and never thought it was really ready.
I could have stayed in that loop forever and my motivation would have continued to go down the drain.
On top of that, the calendar said the baby would be there in just 5 months, so I really needed…
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YET ANOTHER DECISION:
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GET IT OUT and make it a low-price beta version to get REAL MARKET FEEDBACK!
> Which was what I completely missed with “KingOfDJS.com”, my DJ-eBook!
I threw some ads up on Adwords on the “tell a friend” topic and was blown away. I wasn’t a millionaire in 24 hours, BUT I MADE SALES!
I actually spent about $10 in ads per $77 sale, which was AWESOME!
Also, it gave me the opportunity to grow my customer base slowly and stay in close personal communication with them to fix bugs and assist customers and improve my support system.
We released about 10 updates in only 4 weeks (yes, we were busy!) and after 6 weeks finally got to a state where we knew it was fair to release it stable.
And guess who was one of my very first customers and after that helped me tremendously to improve Viralinviter to the next stable version – from a usability and marketing point of view?
You guessed it… Mike Filsaime!
He did not get a beta copy from me. He just bought it and we got in touch.
He was supporting me and my team for weeks to improve the software. He was also the first one putting it really to the test in big projects like several of his big launches.
Mike even promoted Viralinviter – but didn’t let me know in advance.
So of course, his promotion crashed my server. Lesson learned! :)
Through Mike’s support, the word spread.
To date, I had Mike, Frank Kern, Mark Joyner, Russell Brunson, Harris Fellman, Sterling valentine, The Mindmovie-Crew and MANY more use Viralinviter.
We continuously improved it and are now close to the next major upgrade with extended functionality – The PRO version.
As always, our existing customers will get a great deal on the upgrade! (In case you read this, guys!)
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WAY more important though:
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Much faster than expected, I was able to spend a LOT of time with my family in the following months. I was able to pick up my daughter from daycare, be the only dad on kindergarten’s Easter egg event and be there if a cold caught my two girls.
It’s been quite an adventure. And I didn’t even start yet… :)
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I want to close my monologue here with a humongous THANK YOU to Mike!
He became a real friend and I learn new stuff from him every day.
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I am a pretty normal guy who just DECIDED to achieve something.
I won’t tell you it all went well. And I definitely won’t lie to you saying it was all easy.
But after just one year in this business, I can already feed my family well, move to a bigger penthouse apartment, enjoy more time off and got a couple steps closer to my dream-life.
Was it worth it? Heck YES!
…
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As a personal note
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I want to express my biggest takeaway of 1.5 years in the online-business world through my most favourite quote ever:
“There’s a fundamental truth that is far more important than getting a number 1 record or not. That truth is: If you want to do something… REALLY want to do something… Don’t wait to be asked! Don’t seek permission! Don’t put off until you’ve passed the right exams, or paid or saved up enough money!
But be prepared to risk complete failure. Don’t give a s–t about whatever your mates, or girlfriend or your boyfriend says.
Whatever is, start NOW, TODAY.
Tomorrow is always too late.”
- Bill Drummond, Formerly one half of the group KLF who kamikaze’d pop-music business with their dance-music tracks in the late 80s.
THANK YOU, Mike! :)
Norman
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However, Norman didn’t just stop there. He also added a video as well that showcases his wonderful office in Germany and tells even more of his story.
Till next time,
Mike Filsaime