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Mike: This is probably one of the most informative interviews I’ve ever done. I’ve done it with a buddy of mine named Luis Aruz. I’ve been talking to him for about a year, but I’ve finally gotten inside his head, or more specifically, I’ve gotten inside his computer. He bookmarked about 12 of his most used, favorite websites. This guy is a genius when it comes to research. We will go over these websites in this next audio interview. If you were to pay me $5000 just for this information alone, which I’m going to give to you for nothing, you would thank me upside and down. It’s absolutely one of the best, most informative, information audio interviews I’ve ever done. Get ready, hold on to your hat, stay in your seat, and get ready for a great, information-packed talk with Luis.

Mike: We’re talking to Luis Aruz. Luis, like I’ve said before we’ve been talking for about a year and I think this is going to be a great talk because you are a guy who has an incredible wealth of knowledge.

Luis: Thank you.

Mike: Anyone who’s listening to this, and may be a neophyte when it comes to the computer, I think you would agree, I would stress that the computer and the Internet is almost like having an office full of employees. The Internet and its ability to gather and organize information, especially for people who are interested and developing and creating information products, is an incredible tool.

Luis: It is.

Mike: You sent me a list of some of your favorite websites. I’ve always said if could meet you, sit in front of your computer and look at your favorite bookmarks, the places and websites you’ve bookmarked for reasons we’ll come back to, I’d be a lot more knowledgeable than I am today. I wanted to go through some of your favorite websites.

Luis: I agree. I’ve compiled some of the best bookmarks that I have on my site that would actually be perfect for your clients and people who come visit your website. Most of the bookmarks and websites I’m going to show you all deal with either business or marketing in general.

Mike: Okay.

Luis: Let’s go to the first one. One of the best ways to go through the Internet is through search engines. The number one search engine right now is Google.

Mike: It hasn’t always been the number one, has it?

Luis: It hasn’t always been the number one. The reason is because all the other search engines used to work by linking names, keyword searches, and metatags. That meant that the more keywords you had on your web pages, the older search engines used to think, “Oh! Since he has so many keywords he must be super important.” But that is not always the case. People were just pasting thousands of the same keywords on there and you would rank really high.

Mike: They would try and trick the search engine.

Luis: Exactly. It’s always changing, but right now Google is at the top. What it does is link by how many other pages link to your site. So let’s take www.hardtofindseminars.com . If you have 500 other web pages where they think what you do is fantastic, and they all link their pages to your site, you rank higher than someone who has only 50 sites connected to theirs. Google says you’re more relevant because more people are interested in you.

Mike: Is Google the only one doing this?

Luis: Basically, because all the other major search engines that are out there – Yahoo, Netscape, and AltaVista – they all link to Google. You notice when you go to their pages they say “powered by Google.”

Mike: Oh really? Did Google buy them all out?

Luis: No, they didn’t buy them out. All the other technologies realized how powerful Google is and they said, “Hey, why should we do all the work?” They kind of joint ventured, you might say, and said, “Let’s partner up with Google.”

Mike: It seems kind of unfair. I think I’ve got a great website, but I have very few people linking to my website, for whatever reasons. I guess my only other option, which I have exercised, is to buy keyword placement on Google.

Luis: That is another way, yes.

Mike: And that’s pretty darned effective, too. If anyone’s out there on Google – would it also work on the other websites, since AltaVista and Yahoo are linking to Google - if I have bought a keyword position? If you type ‘Jay Abraham”, I come up there on the right side under Google. Does that influence my searches on these other linking sites that link to Google?

Luis: It does many times, because I’ve also noticed how the links on the right-hand side will be even more focused for the things that I want. Google’s just going by algorithms. The people who see the stuff on the right-hand side of the page, they know this is specifically that they’re looking for.

Mike: Okay, let’s do this then. Anyone who is listening and wants to follow along, I’m going to www.google.com or you can click on the link right in the description under this audio clip that you’re listening to online. If you’re listening on CD and you’re not in front of your computer, later you can go to www.google.com .

Luis: Okay, it looks really simple and you say, “What’s this? It doesn’t look all that impressive.”

Mike: Right.

Luis: However, don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t judge a website by its front page. This is the main search engine page. You can type any search term in there and click Google Search, and it will pop up whatever website you want. People know generally what a search engine does and how it works.

Mike: Right.

Luis: This isn’t what I really want to show you. What I want to show you is all the other cool stuff that Google does. Let’s try the advanced search option. Go down to where it says Services and Tools.

Mike: Okay.

Luis: Now this is where Google really shines. They’ve come out with all these other programs and applications for their site that you can use to search in so many different ways. You have Google Answers. That’s fantastic. If you need a question answered, you can just go there, ask a question and offer $2 or a little bit more depending on desperately you want the answer, and real experts will answer your question and give you back all the information you need.

Mike: Any question you can think of?

Luis: Any question you can think of.

Mike: Internet related, research related….

Luis: Marketing related, history related, it doesn’t matter.

Mike: You can go to this Google Answers and just type in the question. Do I have to sign up before I use the service?

Luis: No.

Mike: Okay, so I can ask my question. Do I have to pay somebody for the answer?

Luis: You have to pay as little as $2.50. You have to log in to create your free Google account, and pay your $2.50, and within 24 hours they give you back the answer, satisfaction totally guaranteed.

Mike: This is literally like having a research team on your side.

Luis: Yes. For as little as $2.50.

Mike: That’s unbelievable.

Luis: You can do Arts and Entertainment, business and money, computers, family and home, science, sports, miscellaneous, anything!

Mike: Who are the people answering the questions?

Luis: These are experts that Google sets up. You have to apply to be an expert and they check out your background, to see that you are the person that you are and how good you are. And then, boom, you’re hired.

Mike: That’s excellent. Do you remember the story about, I think it was in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich,” maybe you can repeat it for those listening - the one about Henry Ford when they were trying to discredit him?

Luis: Yes, the story goes that Henry Ford was accused of being an ignorant man. So they brought him in front of a trial judge and a jury.

Mike: Was this after his success at building Fords?

Luis: Yes, this was after his big success.

Mike: Why were they trying to prove he was ignorant?

Luis: Because they wanted to knock him down and take over his business. They wanted to prove how incompetent he was and prove that he couldn’t run the business. You know how people always want to criticize you, especially if you’re doing well.

Mike: Right.

Luis: So they came down and they said, “Henry Ford, you’re an ignorant man.” And they proceeded to ask him trivia questions. I’m not that good at Trivial Pursuit, I don’t know about you.

Mike: No.

Luis: There are a whole bunch of questions in there I couldn’t answer. So, they tried to ask him different things, like “How many soldiers died in World War II?” And he said, ‘I don’t know,” and “I don’t know,” and ‘I don’t know.” And they said, “Ah! Proof! See? This gentleman is ignorant.” So he said, “Now hold on a second. I have a row of push buttons on my desk. I can push any one of those buttons and have a man come in and answer any one of the silly questions you’re giving me. Why should I fill my head with such silly nonsense when I can use my mind for other things that are more important?”

Mike: Exactly. This reminds me of that story because when we talk about marketing, and when I talk about creating information products and marketing, it’s all about leverage. That’s exactly what Google is and the Internet, but especially Google because they’ve refined such incredible tools. This Google Answers, and the next couple of things we’re going to talk about shortly, are absolutely leverage. That’s why I say you’re one guy, and being able to find the answers to anything is like having a team of research scientists working for you, all for pennies.

Luis: Exactly. One of my favorite slogans is “brain on tap, not on top.” Turn the spigot on and your brain comes out.

Mike: Have you used Google Answers yourself?

Luis: Yes, I’ve used Google Answers. Surprisingly enough, I haven’t had to pay yet because they also list the answers to questions that other people have already asked, and I go through there and I find the stuff I was already looking for.

Mike: That makes me think. Let’s say you wanted to develop an information product. Google is going to list all the questions that people have already asked… that is a great way to build an outline for a product. Because when you’re selling a product, you want to answer people’s questions, and you can go in there and search for business or marketing, list all the questions that people have asked, and use that as an outline for creating an information product. And actually copy all the answers, too.

Luis: Basically, and in a little while I’m going to show you another little website that you’ll be able to do even more of that with.

Mike: Let’s move on because we don’t have a lot of time. This blew my mind when you showed me this yesterday. Let’s talk about Google Catalogues. What is it?

Luis: Google Catalogues. You have every single catalogue that’s available out in the world as far as businesses go.

Mike: And this is the actual full-color catalogue?

Luis: The full-color catalogue.

Mike: With pictures and everything?

Luis: With pictures and everything. Fully searchable. You can look at it as if it was right in your hand.

Mike: So Google has compiled and scanned every single page of every single catalogue that is signed up with them – and it’s a lot of them.

Luis: Correct. The address is www.catalogues.google.com .

Mike: Under Google Services and Tools, there’s a link right in there also.

Luis: Exactly. So you have everything – apparel, computers, consumer electronics – it doesn’t matter. It’s all in there.

Mike: J. Crew, L.L. Bean, Land’s End, Dell, PC Connection, Radio Shack catalogue, Discount School Supplies.

Luis: All you have to do is either search and browse your favorite catalogues, or type “televisions” or “ID pens”, and it will pop up every single catalogue that is related to that subject. You can see them right then and there, and match prices that other people have. Also, you have the copy that people use in their catalogues, and you can get great ideas for your own copy.

Mike: Unbelievable. Remember in direct marketing, you want to keep a tickler file or a file drawer full of great examples of copy. Google has done that for you already.

Luis: Yes.

Mike: Let’s say, as a marketing project, I went to any catalogue - I can literally take one product that I’m excited about in that catalogue and create a direct mail campaign just off that one product. I can basically steal the copy right there, or have a good outline of copy that’s already been written by a professional copywriter. That’s unbelievable.

Luis: It’s so powerful, it’s amazing. Ten or twenty years ago, none of this was around.

Mike: Right.

Luis: The next one is Google News. This one has 4000 continuously updated news sources. With this site, you will always be in the know. Every 15 minutes or so it goes in search of every news source out there and pulls back all the articles - so you know exactly what’s going on. If you want to know what’s up-to-the-minute in business, just click on Business and you’ll see everything that’s going on.

Mike: Do you think this news comes out before you hear it on TV or CNN?

Luis: Before CNN, probably. A lot of these are also connected to the AP Wire and different source like that. Even from other countries, so you’ll be able to get it even before they get it in the United States. You’re able to get things from other countries and learn what our own news organizations don’t necessarily have access to or share with us.

Mike: Right. There is another one that I want to talk about. I’ve used this in a lot of different instances, one called Google Images.

Luis: Oh yeah, that’s another great one.

Mike: Go ahead and explain what Google Images is.

Luis: Google Images… you just type the search term in there and it goes in search of every picture related to that subject. Let’s say the kids wanted a Harry Potter, or a Harry Potter for a product you have coming out. Type in that and every single image of Harry Potter is going to pop up on your screen.

Mike: It says here it has over 390 million images. Instead of searching search terms, you’re searching images and it will pull the pictures off the websites that may be related. The way I’ve used this the most is I’ve used it to teach my child, Joseph. I’ll say, “What do you want to see?”, and he’ll say, “Let’s see a tree processor,” which is forestry equipment machinery. I’ll type in “processor” - and there’s a picture of a processor. If he wants to see ladybugs, I’ll type in “ladybugs” and there’s a ladybug. It’s a great teaching tool for your young child. But I use it specifically if I’m looking for something that I can’t find in the regular search engine. Sometimes by typing it in and searching under the images it will pull up an image that will lead me to the website that I’m looking for. So, for instance, my invisible ink pen, if I type “in invisible ink pen.” I can find out all the companies who are marketing my invisible ink pen, and because the original pictures came from me, I can see who’s selling my invisible ink pen or what media sources have picked up on a story and downloaded a photo from my www.idpen.com website.

Luis: That’s exactly the way to use it.

Mike: Okay.

Luis: Now go to the next one we have there, Google Press Center.

Mike: Okay, what’s Google Press Center?

Luis: This is amazing. What this site does is, it actually shows you the search patterns, trends, and different things that people are searching for on Google in virtually every country and the United States. It gives you the top 10 in each different area. If you go through it, you can see the top things people were looking for in October. It also shows the declining things people were looking for.

Mike: What is declining?

Luis: That’s if it’s dropped off the list - what people aren’t searching for this as much as they were a month before. And if you scroll down you can see which web browser is being used. That’s neat, because if you’re designing a web page you want to make sure your web page is compatible with the one people are using the most. Let’s say you want to develop a product for the United Kingdom alone – you can see all the topics that are going on there and create new products. Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Japan, Italy… you can do it with all of them.

Mike: So, it’s giving me the top search terms for United Kingdom, and the top search terms for Canada, Japan, Germany, Spain, and France.

Luis: Yes. Things that we have never even heard of, people are looking for in other countries. You have two ways to go from here. You can either bring that product here and advertise it, or you can do it backwards, and advertise something here that they don’t know about over there.

Mike: Wow, that is wild.

Luis: It’s so powerful. Another one is Google Fight. It’s kind of funny little games, where you put in one keyword and then another then press the Make a Fight button, and it tells you which one ranks higher than the other. But this is useful because you can find out if you have two different products that you’re considering marketing, you’ll want to find out which one is more important,. Which one more people are interested in, and which one more people know about. You can put those two words together and find out which one comes out on top. It helps you make decisions.

Mike: When I typed in “idpen,” all one word, and then I typed in “police idpen,” “idpen” had 36 results, and “police idpen” had 46,000 results. The winner is “police idpen.” What does that tell me?

Luis: It tells you that “police idpen” might be a new keyword you might add in to your website, since more people are going to look for that. You could also make it so those are the people you’re going to focus in on. Actually for me, idpen came out with 500,000 results.

Mike: Did you put a space in it?

Luis: Yes.

Mike: I didn’t put a space in it.

Luis: That works as well, because you know which different keywords they’re going to pull up.

Mike: What are these numbers? For instance, police idpen, 46,000 results. What does that 46,000 results tell me?

Luis: How many web pages have those search terms on them?

Mike: If I put parentheses around “police idpen,” will that tell me that the whole phrase “police idpen” is in one section rather than broken up?

Luis: Correct.

Mike: So that makes a difference.

Luis: What you could do with that is you could find other websites you should be linking to because they are related to your product. You could also do joint ventures with them as well.

Mike: Right.

Luis: So, let’s go to our next one, Internet Archives, the “Wayback Machine.” The Internet is always changing. Let’s say that you went to a site and there was something on there that you wanted. You enjoyed it so much, but you went away for a while. When you came back a couple of months later, it’s gone.

Mike: So this Internet Archive has nothing to do with Google?

Luis: Nothing to do with Google.

Mike: So we’re finished with Google, even though there’s more there. This Internet Archive, www.archive.org , what is it?

Luis: This is like a whole archive of the Internet, you might say. They went to every single web page out there, collected all the web pages, and put it on their computers. I can go and look at what the first page of www.hardtofindseminars.com looked like.

Mike: Wow. How about www.michaelsenoff.com ? It was one of my websites, but it no longer exists. I wonder if that would be in there. www.michaelsenoff.com , let’s see what happens here. This would be a great tool for the government to use, wouldn’t it?

Luis: Oh yeah.

Mike: I’m sure they do. So how have you used this service?

Luis: I’ve used this service to be able to find articles that people got rid of, things that people aren’t using anymore. I can take them and use them myself. I can put them on my website. I can find programs that people had on there, but they got rid of them.

Mike: Would the programs, the downloads, still be on the archive?

Luis: Sometimes, yes.

Mike: You’re kidding.

Luis: No. Many times, yes.

Mike: Here we go. It pulled up searches for www.michaelsenoff.com , a website I had back in 2001, and then I changed it to www.hardtofindseminars.com . It listed three pages. One from July 5 th, July 21 st, and September 23 rd. There it is – that is wild.

Luis: Isn’t that crazy?

Mike: There’s my web page, my very first one. They’ve saved it for me. I can copy and paste some of this stuff onto a new site. If someone loses their website or it crashes, they can go to this site and pull it back up. Luis, that’s just incredible.

Luis: I’ve used it many times. People say, “Oh I can’t find that anymore. Where can I get that?” I go right here, I pull it up, and I show them. ”Where did you find that?” they ask. I tell them, “Oh, trade secret.” Now you have me revealing all my little secrets.

Mike: Well, that’s what I told you. I wanted to access your brain. This is a good one.

Luis: It’s very nice.

Mike: How else can someone use this?

Luis: If you wanted to see the old concepts and old ideas that people had from the past.

Mike: How far back do you think it goes?

Luis: It goes back as far as 1996. You want something fun? Type in “Yahoo.”

Mike: Okay.

Luis: Have you ever seen the original Yahoo page?

Mike: No. Do I type in www.yahoo.com or just “Yahoo”?

Luis: www.yahoo.com .

Mike: Does it start deleting after a certain amount of time or do you think it really archives it for long-term?

Luis: It goes back as far as 1996. Everything you see on there that has a little star - that’s when someone actually made a change to the web page. If you click on the first Yahoo page….

Mike: Whoa, look at that. October 17, 1996. Now are these links active?

Luis: Not for the search engine. But for a regular web page yes. Go to the first Jay Abraham web page.

Mike: I was just going to do that. Was it www.abraham.com ?

Luis: Yes, www.abraham.com . I’ve gone there and I’ve found stuff he doesn’t have on anymore on his new site.

Mike: There’s www.abraham.com , 1998, January. Oh, look how terrible that is.

Luis: You can start from there. You can go through there and find stuff on there that he doesn’t have anymore. You can find articles, different topics that he had on there, and different downloads. It’s just amazing the stuff you can find on there.

Mike: So it will actually save everything on the website. It’s different from just a snapshot of the page.

Luis: Yes. It gets everything.

Mike: Everyone should just be spending time on these sites, learning about it and reading more, because there’s so much more than what we’re talking about within these sites.

Luis: Yes, there is. Let’s get out of this one and go to the next one.

Mike: Okay.

Luis: The next one is AdFlip.

Mike: www.adflip.com . What is AdFlip?

Luis: This one is every single advertising and marketing done from as far back as 1940.

Mike: Oh, you didn’t tell me about this!

Luis: The magician doesn’t tell all the secrets.

Mike: When did this site start?

Luis: I don’t know exactly when it started, but we can find out using archive.org.

Mike: What is AdFlip again?

Luis: Every single large classic print ad that was done in a magazine or newspaper. It goes as far back as the 1940s. What’s amazing is “Today’s Top 10,” You can go through different publications – Car, Car and Driver, Cosmo, everything. You can also do a regular search. You can search by year if you want, and the Top 25 of any year. It’s just amazing. You can search by category – automotive, business, computers – anything.

Mike: All right, let’s search for something. What would be cool to look for? Something old. I’ve got an idea. You know who Joe Kaufman is, right?

Luis: Right.

Mike: C. Joseph Kaufman. How about ant farm?

Luis: Click on the Sammy Davis, Jr. picture.

Mike: Here’s a Charles Atlas ad. Luis, this is unbelievable. Can you zoom in on it? Oh yes, “click to enlarge ad.” Oh my! “Let me prove I can make you a new man….” For direct marketers and people who do copywriting this is a gold mine.

Luis: It is.

Mike: This is unreal.

Luis: We can also search by electronics. Click on where it says categories, or actually, do you want to see Bill Gates, back in the day? Click on computers and then go to retailers.

Mike: Where are you looking? Under “categories”?

Luis: Yes.

Mike: Computers and then retailers.

Luis: Click that last one, “Tandy.”

Mike: That’s Bill Gates, whoa. This is from the ‘80s.

Luis: You get to see, right there, the whole article of the Radio Shack ad that he had.

Mike: I wonder how much it is to be a member of this.

Luis: $102 per year.

Mike: That’s nothing. Look, you can buy 7 days for $14.

Luis: If you just need to pull a couple of ads off, then that’s all you need. There’s so much stuff here - I never even look under “subscriptions,” because there’s so much.

Mike: How did you find out about this?

Luis: Just going through Google.

Mike: Who started this, I wonder? This is awesome. You just have to take time to research this. I’m going to come back here and look at how many publications they archive. This has got to be owned, or partly owned, by one of the clipping services, I bet.

Luis: Another one is “Who’s Mailing What.” This is one is you showed me.

Mike: Okay, let’s go to “Who’s Mailing What.” This was started by a guy named Dennison Hatch. You go ahead and tell us what it is.

Luis: This one is similar to the other one, but instead of all the articles and ads that were inside magazines, this one is direct mailing pieces that were sent out. It works the same way. You sign up for an account here, it’s a free account, I believe, for the most part. If you want to actually have them send you a copy of the actual article, then you have to pay for it. You can search and find out what people were mailing back whenever when. Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Phil Myers – you can see all the ads these people have created.

Mike: Not only ads. If you’re doing direct mail, selling through the mail, this guy archives more than 150,000 mailings in more than 180 categories. Let’s say I want to create and market a boot camp. What I can do is steal ideas from Jay Abraham, or whoever is in the boot camp marketing arena. I can go to Who’s Mailing What, type in Jay Abraham, and for $50 they will send me the entire direct mail promotion, for the entire mastermind marketing direct mail promotion that Jay sent out to his list. This guy gets on every single mailing list and just collects it and archives it, and resells it as a research service. This is for your direct mail. The AdFlip is for when you’re creating or researching print advertising, mainly in magazines. It’s an incredible research tool.

All right, let’s move on.

Luis: www.freelunch.com .

Mike: What is www.freelunch.com ?

Luis: www.freelunch.com is part of www.economy.com . This is the largest data library.

Mike: What does that mean?

Luis: Demographics for everything you can think of: industry, population, gross domestic product, income earnings, labor market...

Mike: www.freelunch.com is a website with the largest collection of demographics.

Luis: If you wanted to know the flow of household funds in a certain state or certain country, you can go right here and find out. If you want to know the best product that’s being imported or exported, you can find out here. If you want to know real estate stats, and how much sales are going for in a certain area, this is where you go.

Okay, next is www.bizstats.com .

Mike: www.bizstats.com – free and instant business statistics. All right, tell me about it.

Luis: There are a couple of things you can do. You can either benchmark your business, put in the amount of money you have going on in your business, and you can compare it nationally with everyone else. You can see how well your business is doing compared to everyone else.

Mike: You enter your gross sales?

Luis: Yes. Enter your business total revenues. But the real fun part is to go down to “National Business Statistics.” Here you can learn the average sales for a store location. With the size of the U.S. market by industry, you can learn the most popular small businesses that are out there, and the safest and the riskiest small businesses.

Mike: Is this a private company compiling all this?

Luis: That I don’t know. Looks like Patrick O’Rourke, a CPA out of Washington, D.C. It’s just amazing – inventory turnovers by industry, return on equity by industry, debt, how many S-Corporations are profitable – an amazing amount of information you can find on here. This is great for finding out what kind of a product you want to create, what kind of area you want to market in, and what else is out there that people are doing and are interested in.

Mike: This stuff is so important. It may seem dry and a lot of number crunching, but marketing is a business of mathematics. It’s also a business of research and understanding your marketplace. Before you market anything, whether it’s an information product or a widget, you have to understand your market and your customers. The better you understand them, the better you get inside their heads. And the better you understand how many of them out there are legitimate potential prospects. Not just assuming it, but by doing the research, the higher your chances of success are going to be. It’s about homework, homework, homework, research, research, research. It’s the same with copywriting. If you can nail your market, your chances are incredibly improved.

Luis: If you go down a little bit further, talking about improving and learning, you have the small business industry. So the first part was for bigger industries, and the second part is for smaller industries. You can find it even more directed toward the things you’re interested in.

Mike: I’m going to click on “dentist”. Then “Size and composition of industry.”

Luis: That tells you how many proprietors are out there, how many corporations, or partnerships.

Mike: There are 110,000 proprietors. These dentists aren’t even incorporated. That’s stupid, isn’t it? You’ve got these dentists making a lot of money, and the first thing that popped into my head is these guys need to be incorporated. “Dear Dentist: I just found out through research on the Internet that you’re not incorporated. Do you realize how at risk your company is?” You send a direct mail letter. You just tell them the truth – I did research on www.bizstats.com and found out that you and 2000 other dentists aren’t even protected by incorporation.

Luis: If you go down a little bit further you can also find out how their net income operating expenses are disbursed in their business. Find out how much they’re spending in advertising - .8% of their income goes to advertising.

Mike: Okay, I’m looking. “Net income and operating expenses as percent of revenue - .8% in advertising.” That shows you they’re not chasing money, are they?

Luis: No, they’re not, but they spend a lot on insurance at 1.7%. Depreciation of their business is shown. The most they spend is on salaries and wages. If you have a sales technique, you can show them how to improve their sales so they can pay their people better. That number, percentage-wise, will go down. They’ll see benefits.

Mike: Exactly.

Luis: There’s so much stuff in here you can learn.

Mike: You can see what they’re spending the most money on. Since most of them are sole proprietors, they know where their biggest expense is, and it’s in salaries and wages. What if you sold them an information product on how to cut salaries and wages in half? 19.3%, when compared to everything else, is two to three times higher than any other expense in the business. You know that hurts. Okay, what else is on here?

Luis: You’ve got direct mail marketing methods and how people in retail get their stuff out. It’s an amazing amount of information. Okay, let’s go to the next one. This is for people who need money.

Mike: Catalog of Domestic Federal Assistance?

Luis: Yes. This is every single grant or loan that the government gives out. You can go here and apply for your own grant or loan for your company or business or project or invention. Whatever it is, to start your own business, you can go here, find out where to submit your grant proposal, and you get money. It’s a government website.

Mike: So this is where you see all those classified ads on how to get a loan from the government. They’re selling an information product which is probably very similar to the information right here. Have you used this at all?

Luis: I haven’t used it at all because I know a lot of other techniques that you can use to make money without having spending extra money. But many people I’ve met have used these for bigger products that they want to bring out quickly, or they’re doing real estate investing. This is the place where I send them and they say, “This is amazing. I didn’t know this was here.”

Mike: That’s wonderful.

Luis: The next one I want to show you I didn’t put on the list. www.pueblo.gsa.gov .

Mike: I know what this is without you even telling me because I remember the commercials on TV. This is the government information center.

Luis: These are all the little booklets and manuals that the government puts out. They’re written by experts. They put these out and you can order them to be sent to your house, or you can read them online.

Mike: You can read the whole thing online?

Luis: The whole thing online for free.

Mike: You can copy and paste it?

Luis: Sure you can copy and paste it.

Mike: Isn’t there something about government publications?

Luis: They have no copyright on them.

Mike: No copyright. So anyone who wants to design an information product can access all the paid writers that the government has hired for millions and millions of dollars. Everything is edited, spelled correctly, formatted, and we just go in and copy and paste it and have the rights to sell it?

Luis: You got it. Go to “Small business” on the left-hand side. You want to do a small booklet on how to avoid business scams? You either pay 50 cents or you hit the little html icon and there you go. There’s the entire thing.

Mike: This is unbiased information. The government is trying to protect you and me.

Luis: Exactly.

Mike: This is wonderful.

Luis: You want to do a product for information on cars? Click on cars at the top there. If you have another product, and you want to add a special report, you can use this material. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is that when you create a product, you put your whole heart into that product. Many times, I want to add a special report, and I put everything in there.

Mike: You could do “How to Buy a New Car.” All PDF. I knew about this, but I didn’t know the website and I see the commercials. I’ve been meaning to find it. I didn’t know they had it all digitized. “How to Buy a New Car.” As a matter of fact I’m looking for a new car and we’re looking for a van. Unbelievable. Have you used this to create some of your information products?

Luis: Actually I have. I’ve created some of them from here. I get some different ideas and just put them all in there.

Mike: We’re talk about leverage again. In marketing, the most important thing is not putting enough time and energy into creating your own product. It’s been done, and here it is, copyright-free for you.

Luis: It’s all right there.

Mike: It’s been written. You just add to it or take away, or mold it or change it to your market, but the main part of it has been done. You’re real efforts should be in buying and investing in marketing education materials.

Luis: I’m going to save all your listeners right now some money. Click on the “Money” section. Scroll down to where it says “Credit.” These are the exact places where those things you see on TV, or ads you get in the mail, that say “we’ll teach you how to improve your credit.” It’s right here.

Mike: But they are charging you for it on T.V.

Luis: They’re charging you $30-40-50 for this Special Report. It’s right here. This is where they get it.

Mike: Some of these things are pretty long, too.

Luis: It’s not like a pamphlet or anything. Some of these are really good reports. So, if you want to build better credit, protect your credit, credit laws, credit matters, credit reports …

Mike: “ID Theft: When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name”

Luis: If you go down a little bit further it talks about investing.

Mike: “How to Not Get Scammed.” “66 Ways to Save Money.” “Build Wealth Not Debt.” “Building Financial Freedom.” “Certificates of Deposit.” “Tips for Investors.” “Consumers Almanac.” You know, Joseph Kaufman did a whole book on this. He did a whole book on how to access free government information.

Luis: That’s right.

Mike: This is great. “Retirement Planning.” “Annuities.” And this is all unbiased information, so there’s never a little man in your head saying, “What do these guys want?” You can’t totally trust someone who has a reason to sell you something.

Luis: There was a recent scam that I heard about where they told people that they had won $500,000. In order for them to get the $500,000 they had to send $1000 to release the money. They sent the money, and then they were waiting for the money. They tried calling back, but the phone was disconnected. They were gone. If anyone ever tells you that you have to send money in order to get money, that’s a scam.

Mike: Here’s something. I’m looking under “Bankruptcy” If you want to find your credit report, they list the three different credit reporting companies – Experion, Tran-Union, and Equifax – and they have the 800 numbers and links to where you can get a free credit report. So you can look and see what your credit is like right now.

Luis: Isn’t that powerful?

Mike: This is great.

Luis: The next one is “Free Legal Advice.” Who needs a lawyer anymore? All the information you need is right here. You need a lawyer if you’re going to go to court. But if you need a quick question answered, here is where you can get it answered. If you need business law, click on “Business Law.” “What are the common types of business organizations?” “What is a business?” “Do I need a taxpayer identification number?” “Do I need any licenses or permits?” “Do I need a fictitious business name?” Everything is in here. There is so much information you can find on here. Go to www.freeadvice.com . That’s the website. This has everything you need to be your own personal lawyer.

Mike: Okay, Luis, that’s a good one there, too.

Luis: The next one is searchsystems.net. This is the public records locator for every state and the U.S. territories as well.

Mike: What is a public systems locator?

Luis: You’re in California, aren’t you?

Mike: Yes. This is how to find out information on anyone?

Luis: Anyone. Adoption lawyers, alcohol beverage control, alumni database. You can find anything and everything about people, and about industries, right here.

Mike: Is this free?

Luis: Yes, except for the green links, which there is a fee for. Everything else in blue is free.

Mike: “Dental licenses.” So, it a search engine and won’t give me the list?

Luis: Correct.

Mike: I’m going to search for my wife’s dentist. His last name is Levine. Let’s see if I can match him up. Yes, there he is. Robert Levine.

Luis: Now you know if the guy is legit.

Mike: This is great.

Luis: You can do this for so many people. These are all connected to the actual databases that have the actual records of the people, so if a guy passes his test or gets his licenses, this is where it goes. If you need to get information about limited liability companies, or limited partnerships, that’s here, too. If you need to find out information about lobbyists or missing children, you’ve got it in here.

Mike: I’m going to add one of my favorites to this list. It’s called Merlin Information Systems. This is a service that’s used by private investigators. If you wanted to do a search on somebody, your name, or my name or anyone’s name, and it will pull up all the public records on that name. It’s a little different than this one. Here you’re searching a database but you can’t type in a name and search everything, but with www.merlindata.com you can search a name and it will give you all kinds of public information listed under that name for free. If you want to dive into it a little bit more, you can pay per search. You’ve got to sign up and open an account with them. I’ve used it many times to check backgrounds of people and making sure they’re legitimate. But this one is wonderful, too.

I’m telling you this has been one of the most informative, detailed, useful information recordings I’ve ever done.

Luis: I appreciate it.

Mike: If anyone wants to get in touch with Luis and pick his brain, please email me and I’ll hook you up. I’m sure we’re going to do a sequel to this, Luis.

Luis: Great.

Mike: Thank you again for listening, this is Michael Senoff with www.hardtofindseminars.com . If you want to get in touch with any of the people in the interviews, please email me .