In search of a jealous chipmunk


You won’t find one, so don’t waste your time.

Chipmunks, wolves and other wild animals rarely get jealous. The number one emotion among wild animals isn’t vanity or happiness: it’s fear.

Fear is everywhere in the animal kingdom, because fear is a great way to stay alive. Fear is hard-wired into successful species… it doesn’t need to be taught.

You guessed it, we’re wild animals too, a lot of the time. Marketing that preys on fear (buy duct tape!) has the shortest path to follow to success, because the public can’t wait to get scared. An entire portion of our brain (the same brain the lizard has) is dedicated to fear. And it can’t wait to spring into action.

If your fear keeps you alive, embrace it. The rest of the time, the best strategy for success is figuring out how to ignore it, befriend it or use it as a compass to find what matters.

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Breaking news


I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there seems to be a lot more breaking news than there used to be.

The thing is, there’s no more news, just more breaking.

If news is stuff I need to know, want to know, stuff that will help me make better decisions or generally keep me informed, then, no, I’m not noticing more of it.

If breaking is stuff that interrupts a TV interview, flashes across a website, breaks into a radio show or just shows up on Twitter, then yep, there’s a lot more breaking going on.

You can turn your reddit posts or your press releases or your Facebook updates or blog posts into urgent announcements that demand attention. And in the short run, it might work. But then you’ll exhaust your readers. We don’t want any more urgent emails from you.

… like the boy who cried wolf, the villagers aren’t going to come.

Does knowing about something ten seconds or ten minutes faster really matter? Is it worth the adrenalin?

Sorry, wake me up in the morning, not in the middle of the night. Unless it’s actually news.

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How to Become a Recognized Authority


Michel Fortin speaking at Brave The WaveNext month (in mid-April), I’ll be speaking at Armand Morin’s Authority Event in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is part of the Brave The Wave series of specialized events.

(And yes, that website was designed and the copy written by yours truly. And yes, those are my affiliate links.) ;)

Of course, Armand will be speaking mostly, covering topics like branding, positioning, public speaking, and a lot more. Watch this video to see what he’ll be revealing at the event.

I’m accompanying three other guest speakers, including Brendon Burchard who will speak on how to become a highly paid expert, Jim Howard on how to become a successful author, and Rick Frishman on how to attract massive publicity.

So what will my topic be?

Not copywriting. Not web design. And not positioning. In fact, this will be the first time I will be speaking on this topic. I’ll share things I’ve never revealed before. And that’s…

… Blogging and social media.

Now, hold your horses. Before you go off telling the world I’m claiming to be a social media expert, I’m doing no such thing. I’m far from being a social media expert.

(So many claim to be “experts” when they know less than my teenager daughter!)

However, having a blog with close to 80,000 subscribers without any paid advertising, and social media sites with maxed out friend limits without any kind of autofollowing or friend-scraping software, I guess you can say that I know a thing or two.

I don’t know what the other speakers have planned (although I have a pretty good idea), but here’s what I’ll be revealing at the event. It’s one of my most requested topics, too.

First, I’ll share how I attract close to 80,000 subscribers to my blog, and how my blog makes a decent four-figure monthly passive income without any heavy lifting, and without regular, frequent, or (what most would consider) “pro” blogging.

In fact, I’ll dive deeper into my content repurposing process that drives close to 70,000 visitors to my blog each month without any external marketing. Plus, I’ll be going through my plugins and personal, hand-coded tweaks I use to accomplish this and more.

In other words, I will be pulling back the curtains and reveal the backend administration on my blog. But more important, I will explain how I use my blog for expanding my reach — such as reprinting and distributing articles, and writing and posting blog posts.

Also, I’ll share my social media strategy on how I interconnect several platforms so they all work seamlessly, in tandem, which only takes me a few minutes a day.

Social media can be a huge distraction. It’s the web’s water cooler, so it’s easy to deviate from doing more productive activities. I’ll share with you how to avoid getting distracted or pulled into the social media madness, and how to use it less but more effectively.

I’ll reveal which platforms have provided the best results, and how I build, connect with, and engage my friends, followers, and fans on these networks.

(It’s more than just sharing affiliate links or tweeting what I had for lunch.)

Now, I’m going to do something a little unorthodox.

I do plan on delivering over an hour of solid content you can walk away with and start using after the seminar. At the end of my talk, I will be inviting you to join one of my programs if you’re interested, which you can purchase at the back of the room.

Regardless if you buy anything I offer or not, I promise to deliver great, usable content.

But here’s what I mean by doing something unconventional. I say “unconventional” because I’ve never done this before, and I haven’t seen other speakers do this. In the interest of being a bit more transparent, let me share with you what I will be offering.

(I may change my mind, although if I do it will be to make this program even better.)

It’s going to be a series of in-depth webinars on blogging and social media. I envision about 4–6 webinars (or as many as it takes to deliver the content I have planned). Each webinar will last a couple of hours, delivered weekly, and will consist of three major parts.

The first part will be training. I will go into greater depth on the topic of blogging and social media, reveal a few tips and tricks, and even dissect some of my other blogs.

The second part is the best. For each and every person who joins my program at the back of the room at the event, I will spend time on the webinar series to critique their blog, blogging strategy, or social media strategy. Whichever they feel is most pressing.

Want me to go over your plugins? Your design? Your list-building process? Your copy? No problem! Everyone who joins my program will get a critique. Plus, this will be done on the webinar so that other students get to watch, learn, and even pick my brains.

Speaking of which, this leads me to the third part…

I will be offering a question-and-answer session during the webinar series. I will answer any questions, or cover anything about blogging or social media you want.

Incidentally, I will be including a few cool bonuses. I don’t want to reveal those here, not because it’s some “secret” but because I’m still figuring out what I will be throwing in.

Finally, a couple of things to keep in mind. I don’t personally offer these critique consultations to the public anymore. I only offer them to established clients. And when I do, I still charge a hefty minimum fee per critique consultation.

I will only offer this program at Brave The Wave: Authority. This is the first time I will be offering this program. Unless I speak at future events, it will likely be the only time, too.

So if you want to learn how to become famous as a recognized authority and do in less time; if you want to learn my blogging and social media strategies; and if you’re at all interested in the program I am offering at the event; then I invite you to come join us.

This seminar is a full, three-day intensive training event unlike anything Armand Morin has ever given before. I’m really excited about it, and I hope to see you there.

Admission is only $497, and you can bring a guest (i.e., it comes out to less than $250 per person). This is pretty reasonable when you consider other high-priced seminars.

(To be clear, this does not include my program, which I will offer at the end of my talk. And my presentation is not some disguised, hour-long “pitch,” either. You will walk away with a lot of great, usable information, whether you decide to join my program or not.)

Click here to get more information about the event.

Other Related Posts

How to Become a Recognized Authority originally appeared on The Michel Fortin Blog. Please visit to subscribe to it, or Tweet This.


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Let’s spend a (very leveraged) week together


For a year, people have been asking for a sequel to the free alternative MBA program I ran in early 2009. Here it is. Like the last one, it is also free, but it’s different, so please read on for the details.

I’m planning on inviting eleven people to an intensive five-day session in New York. This program is designed exclusively for people who:

  • Already have a job
  • Want to do more in that job
  • Can spend five days at my office with their boss’s blessing
  • Take initiative as a matter of course
  • Are willing to work really hard and read a lot too
  • Do work that makes the world a better place

You have to have all six, without exception. If you think you would benefit from a rigorous re-thinking of what it means to contribute at work, if you want to take your strong connections and intuition and amplify that, I hope you will consider this program.

Call it the leveraged-nano-MBA for lack of a better name yet. Every day will be spent around my desk, either learning from me, going over case studies, discussing real life situations or working on a project of your choice. The only benefit I get is helping eleven very cool people leverage their jobs doing good. All the details and the application can be found right here.

I’m limiting the program to people at non-profits doing important work (or for-profits that leave a significantly positive impact on their communities). I know this is subjective, but I’ve found that people who are doing work that they’re proud of have already made an important choice.

Applications are open from now until March 31st at noon EST. Late applications will be deleted unread.

For those of you that can’t get to New York or want a digital version, I’m afraid that there won’t be one. Most of my work is digitally available, but this is an intimate exchange of learning and ideas.

Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it will be easy, and just because it’s short doesn’t mean the lessons won’t last. I truly want to help people who are doing work that matters, and this feels like a good way to do that. If this is for you, I hope you’ll apply. If you can run a program like this, I hope you will. And if neither is possible, I hope you’ll find some books and blog posts that help you achieve your goals.

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Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers


Viralgrowth Many brands and idea promoters are in a hurry to rack up as many Facebook fans and Twitter followers as they possibly can. Hundreds of thousands if possible.

A lot of these fans and followers are faux. Sunny day friends. In one experiment I did, 200,000 followers led to 25 clickthroughs. Ouch.

Check out the graph on the left. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That’s yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.

On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn’t take long before you overtake the other plan.  (the green). That’s not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.

But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That’s the purple (of course.)

A slightly better idea defeats a much bigger but disconnected user base every time.

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

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